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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 088 047 927 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088047927 
 
Henry Hallam 
 
 The Middle Ages, Vol. I 
 
 The World's Great Books 
 
 Committee of Selection 
 
 Thomas B. Reed 
 
 Speaker of the House 
 of Representatives 
 
 Edward Everett Hale 
 
 Author of The Man 
 Without a Country 
 
 William R. Harper 
 
 President of the 
 University of Chicago 
 
 Ainsworth R. SpofFord 
 
 Of the Congressional 
 Library 
 
 Rossiter Johnson 
 
 Editor of Little Classics and Editor-in-Chief of this Series 
 
 Aldine Edition 
 
 Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 
 
Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 
 
HENRY H ALLAN. : 
 
 Photogravure from a painting by Thomas Phillips,. 
 
View of the State of Europe 
 During the Middle Ages 
 
 By 
 
 Henry Hallam 
 
 With a Critical and Biographical Introduction 
 by George Lincoln Burr 
 
 Illustrated 
 Volume I 
 
 New York 
 D. Appleton and Company 
 
 1899 
 
A.3o577f 
 
 Copyright, 1899, 
 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
HALLAM'S "MIDDLE AGES" 
 
 * ♦ ♦ 
 
 IN 1818 the press of John Murray, in London, gave to the 
 world, in two quarto volumes, Henry Hallam's " View of the 
 State of Europe during the Middle Ages." This was its 
 author's earliest book; but its author was no unknown man. 
 
 Born in 1777, of that old Lincolnshire family which in the 
 fifteenth century gave to the see of Salisbury the prelate who 
 stood so manfully for reform at Pisa and at Constance, Henry 
 Hallam was already in ripe manhood, and the eyes of the leaders 
 of thought had long been upon him. His father, Dr. John 
 Hallam, Canon of Windsor and Dean of Bristol, a man dis- 
 tinguished both by learning and by character, and possessed 
 of ample fortune, had given his only son the best education 
 England could ofifer. To his mother he owed a strain of west- 
 country blood and a rare refinement and delicacy of soul ; and 
 it must have meant much to the beginnings of young Hallam's 
 career that her brother, Dr. Roberts, a clerical verse writer of 
 some repute and a lover of society, was Provost of Eton at the 
 boy's advent there in 1790. The lad showed at school the same 
 precocity which at home had made him a devourer of books 
 at four and a sonnet writer at ten. He led his fellows in the 
 class-room, and his Latin verse won a place in the Musse Eton- 
 enses. At Oxford, to which he passed in 1794, his talent was 
 not less marked. Here, a student at Christ Church, he gave 
 especial thought to history. In 1799, taking his degree, he 
 entered on his studies for the bar. These completed, he was 
 for a few years a practising advocate in the Oxford circuit. But 
 not his singular love of jurisprudence, nor that judicial insight 
 and temper which seemed to insure him a lofty place upon the 
 
 ill 
 
iv HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 bench, had power to wean him from historical studies. Already 
 in 1801 he had become a member of the Society of Antiquaries. 
 His appointment to a commissionership of stamps, an office of 
 large salary and light duties, soon gave him a home in London 
 and the leisure needed for the scholar's life. He turned forever 
 from the active practice of the law, though never to lose the 
 tastes and habits of mind it had bred in him. 
 
 Hallam's friendship with Francis Horner brought him into 
 early connection with that brilliant band of young scholars who, 
 in 1802, had launched the " Edinburgh Review," and his first 
 contribution (a review of a now forgotten history of France) not 
 only dispelled the doubts Horner had uttered to Jeffrey as to 
 how Hallam could write, but strikingly foreshadowed the direc- 
 tion to be taken by his studies. " Man, so studious to record 
 his crimes and his miseries, casts a careless eye," wrote the young 
 critic, ** upon the laws which protect, the arts which adorn, and 
 the commerce which enriches him. It was not indeed till lately 
 that the great and leading uses of historical knowledge seem to 
 have been well understood, or that philosophy, with Montesquieu 
 as her high priest, taught us to consider the progress of the spe- 
 cies as of more importance than the pedigree of kings, and com- 
 missioned those painful though sometimes refractory drudges, 
 the antiquarians, to labour as her pioneers in the collection of 
 facts, which her more favoured sons must afterwards combine 
 and generalize." Such a pen the Edinburgh Reviewers did not 
 leave idle, nor could they long hide its identity; and with them 
 he was pilloried by the indignant Byron as 
 
 " Classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek" 
 
 — the charge being that Hallam had scored Payne Knight for 
 Greek verses which were really Pindar's. That Hallam wrote 
 the review is clear, not only from its style, but from his published 
 correspondence with Horner ; but De Morgan long ago pointed 
 out that Hallam was wholly right, since the only line actually 
 borrowed from Pindar is so garbled as to be precisely what Hal- 
 lam called it — " nonsense." 
 
 In January, 1807, Hallam took a wife — Julia, daughter of 
 Sir Abraham Elton, a Somersetshire magnate. In 181 2 his father 
 
HALLAM^S MIDDLE AGES V 
 
 died, leaving him a landed competence, which still more com- 
 pletely lifted him above sordid cares. He had now entered upon 
 the researches which fruited in his " Middle Ages," and its first 
 chapter, with much of the second, was already penned; but he 
 did not let these exacting studies cost him his touch with the 
 literary world. George Ticknor tells us how, in 1815, when he 
 first visited London, he was taken by Gifford " to a handsome 
 room over Murray's bookstore, which he has fitted up as a sort 
 of literary lounge, where authors resort to read newspapers and 
 talk literary gossip." There Ticknor found, with others, " Lord 
 Byron's ' Classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek,' now as 
 famous for being one of his lordship's friends." Thus, doubt- 
 less, arose the acquaintance which made Mr. Murray, early in 
 1818, the publisher of Hallam's book. 
 
 The middle ages were no new theme for a British historian. 
 Twice before, within a half century, they had furnished material 
 for a masterpiece. In 1769 Robertson had published, as an in- 
 troduction to his " History of Charles the Fifth," that eloquent 
 " View of the State of Society in Europe," which is still perhaps 
 the best-known survey of the mediaeval centuries; and from 1776 
 to 1788 Gibbon had held a fascinated world in suspense by the 
 successive volumes of his " Decline and Fall." Hallam was, of 
 course, profoundly familiar with both; in his attitude, his mat- 
 ter, his method, his style, their influence is plain, and the debt 
 is frankly confessed. Nor was he, more than they, a child of 
 that romantic reaction which in his day rewrote so much of 
 mediaeval history. Yet his book and its aim were his own. Rob- 
 ertson had sketched in glowing chapters the progress of civiliza- 
 tion and liberty ; Gibbon had mournfully " described the triumph 
 of barbarism and religion." Hallam held no brief for either faith 
 or doubt, progress or regress. A decade before Ranke's work 
 began he had grasped the thought that history needs only to 
 teach " wie es eigentlich gewesen ist," and it was in the spirit of 
 the judge on the bench that he would review its evidence. Yet, 
 even more than its predecessors, his book is a " philosophic his- 
 tory " — its narrative but a thread for criticism and inference. 
 
 The reception of Hallam's work, both by the public and by 
 scholars, was cordial, even flattering. Mr. Murray had bought 
 
vi HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 outright the first three editions for a handsome sum (ii,40o), 
 and he had no reason to regret his bargain. The book was 
 speedily translated into French, and both at home and over 
 Channel its author at once took rank among the foremost his- 
 torians of his time. 
 
 But success did not divert him from his ardour as a student. 
 Vast as was the scope of his " Middle Ages/* he never had meant 
 it for more than a vestibule to a vaster structure. " It had been 
 my first intention," he tells us, '' to have prosecuted that under- 
 taking to a general continuation " — to write, that is, the modern 
 history of Europe — " and when experience taught me to abandon 
 a scheme projected early in life with very inadequate views of its 
 magnitude, I still determined to carry forward the constitutional 
 history of my own country/' In 1827, less than a decade after 
 the issue of his " Middle Ages," he gave to the world his " Con- 
 stitutional History of England." 
 
 Turning then to another topic scarcely less " congenial to his 
 studies and habits of mind," and grasping again far back, he 
 brought to completion, in i837-'39, after another decade of 
 arduous labour, his " Introduction to the Literature of Europe 
 in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries " — a con- 
 tinuation of the ninth chapter of his " Middle Ages," as the 
 " Constitutional History " had been a continuation of the eighth. 
 
 But his first book had not meanwhile been forgotten. Its 
 successive editions showed enrichment in text and notes; and, 
 the "Literature of Europe" once off his hands, he set about 
 a more thorough revision of the " Middle Ages," producing in 
 1848 a volume of supplemental notes, which aimed, to bring 
 his work nearer the level of later research, and in the tenth 
 edition of the book (1853)— the last prepared under the au- 
 thor's eye— these supplemental notes were incorporated with the 
 text. 
 
 The qualities which to his contemporaries marked Hallam's 
 greatness as a historian nobody has better stated than his friend 
 and rival Macaulay : " He has great industry and great acute- 
 ness. His knowledge is extensive, various, and profound. His 
 mind is equally distinguished by the amplitude of its grasp and 
 by the delicacy of its tact. His speculations have none of that 
 
HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES vii 
 
 vagueness which is the common fault of political philosophy. . . . 
 The language, even where most faulty, is weighty and massive, 
 and indicates strong sense in every line. It often rises to an 
 eloquence, not florid or impassioned, but high, grave, and sober, 
 such as would become a state paper or a judgment delivered by 
 a great magistrate, a Somers or a D'Aguesseau. In this respect 
 the character of Mr. Hallam's mind corresponds strikingly with 
 that of his style. His work is eminently judicial. Its whole 
 spirit is that of the bench, not that of the bar. He sums up with 
 a calm, steady impartiality, turning neither to the right nor to 
 the left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, while the 
 advocates on both sides are alternately biting their lips to hear 
 their conflicting misstatements and sophisms exposed." 
 
 But there were defects also to which his own time was not 
 blind : his want of the sympathetic imagination ; the Latinity, the 
 frequent stiffness, the occasional harshness of his style ; his dog- 
 matic and oracular temper ; the almost pedantic obtrusion of his 
 learning ; his impatience of enthusiasm, in himself or in others — 
 he declares it " little else than superstition put in motion " ; in 
 fine, that " extreme austerity " which forced even from Macaulay 
 the admission that Hallam, though a judge, is " a hanging judge." 
 To the modern student still other blemishes begin to appear. 
 Not even the philosophic historian may longer take his research 
 so largely at second hand. Hallam usually, indeed, verified his 
 references, and is not often caught in such a misquotation as that 
 famous one from St. Eligius, which he admits borrowing through 
 Robertson from a faulty translation of Mosheim. He dipped 
 freely and fruitfully into the sources for himself. Yet it is safe 
 to say that all his work would have been the better could he but 
 for a single chapter have been willing to become one of those 
 " painful drudges " who '* labour in the collection of facts," and 
 so have mastered the criticism of sources as well as of conclu- 
 sions. His very dogmatism savours of the dilettante : with all 
 his learning he is the educated gentleman, not the trained 
 scholar. 
 
 But it was the Germans who were to teach us thorough- 
 ness ; and Hallam, alas ! knew next to nothing of the Germans. 
 Of their tongue he late in life gained a smattering. So much 
 
viii HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 one may not doubt, since Sir George Lewis knew the governess 
 who taught him, though with Sir George one may well believe 
 the smattering slight. Their history, though it was that of 
 the mediaeval empire, interested him so little that even in his 
 latest edition he gave it less than fifty pages — a seventh as much 
 as to France — and in this chapter, the weakest in his book, he 
 cites no German work save two or three of the last century, 
 and these only in translation. A footnote in his latest edition 
 does, indeed, mention Ranke ; but it is only Ranke's " History 
 of the Reformation,'' which Mrs. Austin's translation had made 
 familiar to English readers. Of the still more pertinent un- 
 translated works of that master, or of those studies of his pupils 
 which have revolutionized our knowledge of the mediaeval em- 
 pire and of the earlier middle ages, and which, in the words of 
 Lord Acton, laid " the foundation for what has been for so long 
 incomparably the first school of history in the world," Hallam 
 knows naught. Even that great work by which, for a decade 
 before Hallam laid down his pen, Georg Waitz was pouring new 
 light upon the early institutions of all the Germanic races, seems 
 as little to have caught his eye as the earlier books of Eichhorn 
 or of Hiillmann. When he speaks of bringing his volumes 
 " nearer to the boundaries of the historic domain, as it has been 
 enlarged within our own age," it is of Sismondi, of Michelet, of 
 Guizot, that he thinks. Nor, familiar though he is with Mura- 
 tori and the great French collections, does he appear to know 
 aught of the *' Monumenta Germaniae " or of the " Regesta " of 
 Bohmer. 
 
 To the present generation, now giving such thought to Byzan- 
 tine studies, his treatment of the Greek Empire may seem not 
 less stepfatherly ; and many are his other lapses from what we 
 should count proportion. But it would be rash to suppose that 
 Hallam himself did not know and intend these inequalities. His 
 book was written for British readers, and he knew well what 
 they then cared to learn and he to teach. It needed no apology 
 if his Europe stopped at the Rhine, if he gave to the period of 
 the Hundred Years' War the larger half of his long chapter on 
 France, or if he halted his story for a three-page discussion of 
 a point in the Treaty of Bretigny. However broad his toler- 
 
HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES ix 
 
 ance or impartial his judgments, he was himself, everywhere and 
 frankly, a Briton, an Anglican, and a Whig. 
 
 That the historian of mediaeval institutions who wrote before 
 Waitz and Brunner, Stubbs and Lea and Maitland, Fustel de 
 Coulanges and Luchaire, is now out of date, goes without saying. 
 But Hallam's " Middle Ages " belongs to the history of thought. 
 Without it none can understand what the mediaeval centuries 
 meant to men of English speech in the first half of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 Besides his three books and an occasional review, the his- 
 torian published little. But these labours of the closet were by 
 no means all his activity. In 1824 he had become the permanent 
 Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries, and, though refus- 
 ing its presidency, the busiest promoter of its enterprises. He 
 was one of the founders of the Statistical Society, and became 
 its treasurer. He was an energetic trustee of the British Museum. 
 Nor was he indifferent to contemporary politics. He took a 
 hearty interest in the abolition of the slave-trade, and in all move- 
 ments for social or constitutional progress. Yet he steadfastly 
 declined to enter political life, even after his retirement from 
 the stamp office made possible his acceptance of a seat in Par- 
 liament. Sir Henry Holland tells us that he even refused a 
 baronetcy pressed upon him by Peel ; and probably no man 
 whose name was known so well was so little known by face and 
 figure to the British public. 
 
 But that face and figure were no strangers in the best liter- 
 ary and political circles of England. One meets him everywhere 
 in the memoirs of the time — now hobnobbing with Tom Moore, 
 now breakfasting at Rogers^s or dining at Wordsworth's, now 
 joining Mackintosh at his " King of Clubs," or taking a hand 
 with Davy and Faraday, Scott and Croker, in the founding of 
 the Athenaeum (whose great library is much his debtor), now 
 revelling in high debate with Whewell or Milman or Macaulay 
 at that still more famous club which once had heard Johnson 
 storm and Burke descant. At Holland House and at Bowood 
 no guest was more frequent or more welcome. In his own home, 
 too, that " dark house in the long unlovely street " of which 
 Tennyson sings in " In Memoriam," he ministered a generous 
 
X HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 hospitality to scholars of every land. There Gladstone remem- 
 bered first meeting Sydney Smith. There Irving and Ticknor 
 and Prescott and Everett crossed wits with Campbell or Rogers, 
 Macaulay or Lord Mahon. 
 
 " All that he was," says the French historian Mignet, who 
 had met Hallam more than once, "his person itself bespoke. 
 Large and of fine figure, the refined purity of his life, the sus- 
 tained dignity of his character, the keen insight of a robust 
 mind, the untroubled equity of a superior judgment, his affability, 
 gracious and firm at once, his quiet modesty, his unvarying up- 
 rightness, depicted themselves in his noble face." Yet it was 
 not precisely in this role of the stately scholar that " the judicious 
 Hallam" was best known among his friends. "The stranger 
 would find him," writes Harriet Martineau, who knew him long 
 and well, " the most rapid talker in company, quick in his move- 
 ments, genial in his feelings, earnest in narrative, rather full of 
 dissent from what everybody said, innocently surprised when 
 he found himself agreeing with anybody, and pretty sure to blurt 
 out something awkward before the day was done." " Never," 
 wrote Lord Carlisle in his journal after a breakfast with him, 
 " were such torrents of good talk as burst and sputtered over 
 from Macaulay and Hallam." 
 
 His passion for setting others right was a special temptation 
 to the wit of his close friend Sydney Smith. Fanny Kemble 
 relates how, " a party having been made to go and see the boa 
 constrictor soon after its first arrival at the Zoological Gardens, 
 Sydney Smith, who was to have been there, failed to come, and, 
 questioned at dinner why he had not done so, said, ' Because I 
 was detained by the Bore Contradictor — Hallam.' " Still more 
 amusing is the great wit's picture of Hallam kept awake by a 
 cold : " And poor Hallam was tossing and tumbling in his bed 
 when the watchman came by and called, * Twelve o'clock, and 
 a starlight night ! ' Here was an opportunity for controversy 
 when it seemed most out of the question ! Up jumped Hallam 
 with * I question that, I question that ! Starlight ! I see a star, 
 I admit, but I doubt whether that constitutes starlight.' Hours 
 more of tossing and tumbling, and then comes the watchman 
 again, ' Past two o'clock, and a cloudy morning ! ' 'I question. 
 
HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES xi 
 
 I question that ! * says Hallam. And he rushes to the window 
 and throws up the sash, influenza notwithstanding. * Watchman, 
 do you mean to call this a cloudy morning? I see a star. And 
 I question its being past two o'clock; I question it, I ques- 
 tion it ! ' '' 
 
 Yet this love of contradiction meant no lack of kindliness. 
 " He is such a man," wrote Ticknor in 1838, *' as I should have 
 desired to find him ; a little sensitive and nervous, perhaps, but 
 dignified, quiet, and wishing to please." " Mr. Hallam is, I sup- 
 pose," adds Ticknor, " about sixty, gray-headed, hesitates a little 
 in his speech, is lame, and has a shy manner, which makes him 
 blush, frequently, when he expresses as decided an opinion as 
 his temperament constantly leads him to entertain. Except his 
 lameness, he has a fine, dignified person, and talked pleasantly, 
 with that air of kindness which is always so welcome to a 
 stranger." 
 
 His lameness, the result of a fall at the Lakes of Killarney, 
 crippled him during all the later years of his life. It was but 
 the least of many blows dealt him by fortune. All the world 
 knows the brilliant promise and the untimely death of that son 
 Arthur to whose memory the sweetest of English poets has 
 chanted the noblest of all elegies. Henry Hallam was his son's 
 companion on that sad last journey, and was with him at the 
 end. And when " those whose eyes must long be dim with 
 tears," as the stricken father wrote to Tennyson, had " brought 
 him to rest among his kindred and in his own country," he was 
 not long to rest alone. Only four years later, in 1837, his sister 
 Ellen passed as suddenly from life to death. In 1846, with like 
 suddenness, died their mother, the historian's beloved wife ; and 
 in 1850 a younger son, Henry, scarcely less brilliant and admired 
 than Arthur, fell like him at the very opening of manhood. Of 
 the historian's eleven children few grew to maturity, and only 
 one daughter survived him. These griefs, so bitter to a man 
 whose domestic affections were singularly warm, were borne 
 with a touching gentleness and dignity. His powers were 
 unbroken almost to the last. Motley, who met him first in 
 the summer before his death, and had a half-hour's talk with 
 him, found him, though paralyzed in leg, arm, and tongue, 
 
xii HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 bright of mind and light of spirit, with " nothing senile in his 
 aspect." 
 
 On January 21, 1859, but a few months before his old friend 
 Macaulay, he sank to rest, more than an octogenarian. He sleeps 
 beside his sons — 
 
 " by the pleasant shore, 
 And in the hearing of the wave. 
 
 " There twice a day the Severn fills; 
 The salt sea-water passes by, 
 And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
 And makes a silence in the hills " — 
 
 his fitting monument the austerely simple tablet inscribed by 
 Tennyson to '' Henry Hallam the historian." 
 
 George Lincoln Burr. 
 
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THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 * ♦ ♦ ■» 
 
 IT IS the object of the present work to exhibit, in a series of 
 historical dissertations, a comprehensive survey of the chief 
 circumstances that can interest a philosophical inquirer during 
 the period usually denominated the middle ages. Such an under- 
 taking must necessarily fall under the class of historical abridg- 
 ments : yet there will perhaps be found enough to distinguish it 
 from such as have already appeared. Many considerable portions 
 of time, especially before the twelfth century, may justly be 
 deemed so barren of events worthy of remembrance that a single 
 sentence or paragraph is often sufificient to give the character of 
 entire generations and of long dynasties of obscure kings. 
 
 " Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa." 
 
 And even in the more pleasing and instructive parts of this 
 middle period it has been my object to avoid the dry composi- 
 tion of annals, and aiming, with what spirit and freedom I could, 
 at a just outline rather than a miniature, to suppress all events 
 that did not appear essentially concatenated with others, or illus- 
 trative of important conclusions. But as the modes of govern- 
 ment and constitutional laws which prevailed in various countries 
 of Europe, and especially in England, seemed to have been less 
 fully dwelt upon in former works of this description than mili- 
 tary or civil transactions, while they were deserving of far more 
 attention, I have taken pains to give a true representation of 
 them, and in every instance to point out the sources from which 
 the reader may derive more complete and original information. 
 Nothing can be further from my wishes than that the follow- 
 
 • • • 
 XIU 
 
xiv HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ing pages should be judged according to the critical laws of his- 
 torical composition. Tried in such a balance they would be 
 eminently defective. The limited extent of this work, compared 
 with the subjects it embraces, as well as its partaking more of 
 the character of political dissertation than of narrative, must 
 necessarily preclude that circumstantial delineation of events and 
 of characters upon which the beauty as well as usefulness of a 
 regular history so mainly depends. Nor can I venture to assert 
 that it will be found altogether perspicuous to those who are des- 
 titute of any previous acquaintance with the period to which it 
 relates ; though I have only presupposed, strictly speaking, a 
 knowledge of the common facts of English history, and have 
 endeavoured to avoid, in treating of other countries, those allusive 
 references which imply more information in the reader than the 
 author designs to communicate. But the arrangement which I 
 have adopted has sometimes rendered it necessary to anticipate 
 both names and facts which are to find a more definite place in a 
 subsequent part of the work. 
 
 This arrangement is probably different from that of any for- 
 mer historical retrospect. Every chapter of the following volumes 
 completes its particular subject, and may be considered in some 
 degree as independent of the rest. The order consequently in 
 which they are read will not be very material, though, of course, 
 I should rather prefer that in which they are at present disposed. 
 A solicitude to avoid continual transitions, and to give free scope 
 to the natural association of connected facts, has dictated this 
 arrangement, to which I confess myself partial. And I have found 
 its inconveniences so trifling in composition that I can not be- 
 lieve they will occasion much trouble to the reader. 
 
 The first chapter comprises the history of France from the 
 invasion of Clovis to the expedition, exclusively, of Charles VIII 
 against Naples.' It is not possible to fix accurate limits to the 
 middle ages ; but though the ten centuries from the fifth to the 
 fifteenth seem, in a general point of view, to constitute that period, 
 a less arbitrary division was necessary to render the commence- 
 ment and conclusion of a historical narrative satisfactory. The 
 continuous chain of transactions on the stage of human society 
 is ill divided by mere lines of chronological demarcation. But 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE xv 
 
 as the subversion of the Western Empire is manifestly the natural 
 termination of ancient history, so the estabUshment of the Franks 
 in Gaul appears the most convenient epoch for the commence- 
 ment of a new period. Less difficulty occurred in finding the 
 other limit. The invasion of Naples by Charles VIII was the 
 event that first engaged the principal states of Europe in relations 
 of alliance or hostility which may be deduced to the present day, 
 and is the point at which every man who traces backward its 
 political history will be obliged to pause. It furnishes a deter- 
 minate epoch in the annals of Italy and France, and nearly coin- 
 cides with events which naturally terminate the history of the 
 middle ages in other countries. 
 
 The feudal system is treated in the second chapter, which I 
 have subjoined to the history of France, with which it has a near 
 connection. Inquiries into the antiquities of that jurisprudence 
 occupied more attention in the last age than the present, and their 
 dryness may prove repulsive to many readers. But there is no 
 royal road to the knowledge of law ; nor can any man render 
 an obscure and intricate disquisition either perspicuous or enter- 
 taining. That the feudal system is an important branch of his- 
 torical knowledge will not be disputed when we consider not only 
 its influence upon our own constitution, but that one of the parties 
 which at present divide a neighbouring kingdom professes to 
 appeal to the original principles of its monarchy, as they subsisted 
 before the subversion of that polity. 
 
 The four succeeding chapters contain a sketch, more or less 
 rapid and general, of the histories of Italy, of Spain, of Germany, 
 and of the Greek and Saracenic Empires. In the seventh I have 
 endeavoured to develop the progress of ecclesiastical power — a 
 subject eminently distinguishing the middle ages, and of which 
 a concise and impartial delineation has long been desirable. 
 
 The English constitution furnishes materials for the eighth 
 chapter. I can not hope to have done sufficient justice to this 
 theme, which has cost me considerable labour; but it is worthy 
 of remark that since the treatise of Nathaniel Bacon, itself open 
 to much exception, there has been no historical development of 
 our constitution, founded upon extensive researches, or calcu- 
 lated to give a just notion of its character. For those parts of 
 
 B 
 
xvi HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Henry's history which profess to trace the progress of govern- 
 ment are still more jejune than the rest of his volumes; and the 
 work of Professor Millar, of Glasgow, however pleasing from its 
 liberal spirit, displays a fault too common among the philosophers 
 of his country — that of theorizing upon an imperfect induction, 
 and very often upon a total misapprehension of particular facts. 
 
 The ninth and last chapter relates to the general state of soci- 
 ety in Europe during the middle ages, and comprehends the his- 
 tory of commerce, of manners, and of literature. None, however, 
 of these are treated in detail, and the whole chapter is chiefly 
 designed as supplemental to the rest, in order to vary the rela- 
 tions under which events may be viewed, and to give a more 
 adequate sense of the spirit and character of the middle ages. 
 
 In the execution of a plan far more comprehensive than what 
 with a due consideration either of my abilities or opportunities 
 I ought to have undertaken, it would be strangely presumptuous 
 to hope that I can have rendered myself invulnerable to criticism. 
 Even if flagrant errors should not be frequently detected, yet I 
 am aware that a desire of conciseness has prevented the sense of 
 some passages from appearing sufficiently distinct ; and though 
 I can not hold myself generally responsible for omissions in a 
 work which could only be brought within a reasonable compass 
 by the severe retrenchment of superfluous matter, it is highly 
 probable that defective information, forgetfulness, or too great 
 a regard for brevity, have caused me to pass over many things 
 which would have materially illustrated the various subjects of 
 these inquiries. 
 
 I dare not, therefore, appeal with confidence to the tribunal 
 of those superior judges who, having bestowed a more undivided 
 attention on the particular objects that have interested them, 
 may justly deem such general sketches imperfect and superficial ; 
 but my labours will not have proved fruitless if they shall con- 
 duce to stimulate the reflection, to guide the researches, to cor- 
 rect the prejudices, or to animate the liberal and virtuous senti- 
 ments of inquisitive youth : 
 
 " Mi satis ampla 
 Merces, et mihi grande decus, sim ignotus in aevum 
 Turn licet, externo penitusque inglorius orbi," 
 
 April, 1818. 
 
THE AUTHOR^S PREFACE 
 
 TO THE SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES ^ PUBLISHED IN 1848 
 
 - ♦ » ■» 
 
 THIRTY years have elapsed since the publication of the 
 work to which the following notes relate, and almost forty 
 since the first chapter and part of the second were written. 
 The occupations of that time rendered it impossible for me to 
 bestow such undivided attention as so laborious and difficult an 
 undertaking demanded ; and at the outset I had very little inten- 
 tion of prosecuting my researches, even to that degree of exact- 
 ness which a growing interest in the ascertainment of precise 
 truth, and a sense of its difficulty, led me afterward in some parts 
 to seek, though nowhere equal to what with a fuller command 
 of time I should have desired to attain. A measure of public 
 approbation accorded to me far beyond my hopes has not blinded 
 my discernment to the deficiencies of my own performance ; and 
 as successive editions have been called for, I have continually felt 
 that there was more to correct or to elucidate than the insertion 
 of a few foot-notes would supply, while I was always reluctant 
 to make such alterations as would leave to the purchasers of for- 
 mer editions a right to complain. From an author whose science 
 is continually progressive, such as chemistry or geology, this is 
 unavoidably expected ; but I thought the case not quite the same 
 with a mediaeval historian. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the long period of the middle ages 
 had been investigated by many of my distinguished contempora- 
 ries with signal success, and I have been anxious to bring my 
 own volumes nearer to the boundaries of the historic domain as 
 
 1 In this edition the Supplemental pages, partly at the end of the second 
 Notes have been incorporated with the volume. — Editor. 
 original work, partly at the foot of the 
 
 xvii 
 
xviii HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 it has been enlarged within our own age. My object has been, 
 accordingly, to reconsider those portions of the work which relate 
 to subjects discussed by eminent writers since its publication, 
 to illustrate and enlarge some passages which had been imper- 
 fectly or obscurely treated, and to acknowledge with freedom my 
 own errors. It appeared most convenient to adopt a form of 
 pubHcation by which the possessors of any edition may have 
 the advantage of these Supplemental Notes, which will not much 
 affect the value of their copy. 
 
 The first two chapters, on the history of France and on the 
 feudal system, have been found to require a good deal of improve- 
 ment. As a history, indeed, of the briefest kind, the first pages 
 are insufficient for those who have little previous knowledge, and 
 this I have, of course, not been able well to cure. The second 
 chapter embraces subjects which have peculiarly drawn the atten- 
 tion of continental writers for the last thirty years. The whole 
 history of France — civil, constitutional, and social — has been more 
 philosophically examined, and yet with a more copious erudition, 
 by which philosophy must always be guided, than in any former 
 age. Two writers of high name have given the world a regular 
 history of that country — one for modern as well as mediaeval 
 times, the other for these alone. The great historian of the Ital- 
 ian republics, my guide and companion in that portion of the 
 ^' History of the Middle Ages," published in 1821 the first vol- 
 umes of his " History of the French " ; it is well known that this 
 labour of twenty years was very nearly terminated when he was 
 removed from the world. The two histories of Sismondi will, in 
 all likelihood, never to be superseded ; if in the latter we sometimes 
 miss, and yet we do not always miss, the glowing and vivid pencil, 
 guided by the ardour of youth and the distinct remembrance of 
 scenery, we find no inferiority in justness of thought, in copious- 
 ness of narration, and especially in love of virtue and indignation 
 at wrong. It seems, indeed, as if the progress of years had 
 heightened the stern sentiments of republicanism with which he 
 set out, and to which the whole course of his later work must 
 have afiforded no gratification, except that of scorn and severity. 
 Measuring not only their actions but characters by a rigid stand- 
 ard, he sometimes demands from the men of past times more 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE xix 
 
 than human frailty and ignorance could have given ; and his his- 
 tory would leave but a painful impression from the gloominess 
 of the picture were not this constantly relieved by the peculiar 
 softness and easy grace of his style. It can not be said that 
 Sismondi is very diligent in probing obscurities or in weigh- 
 ing evidence; his general views, with which most of his chap- 
 ters begin, afe luminous and valuable to the ordinary reader, 
 but sometimes sketched too loosely for the critical investigator 
 of history. 
 
 Less full than Sismondi in the general details, but seizing 
 particular events or epochs with greater minuteness and accu- 
 racy — not emulating his full and flowing periods, but in a style 
 concise, rapid, and emphatic, sparkling with new and brilliant 
 analogies — picturesque in description, spirited in sentiment, a 
 poet in all but his fidelity to truth — M. Michelet has placed his 
 own " History of France " by the side of that of Sismondi. His 
 quotations are more numerous, for Sismondi commonly gives 
 only references, and when interwoven with the text, as they 
 often are, though not quite according to the strict laws of com- 
 position, not only bear with them the proof which an histori- 
 cal assertion may fail to command, but exhibit a more vivid 
 picture. 
 
 In praising M. Michelet we are not to forget his defects. His 
 pencil, always spirited, does not always fill the canvas. The con- 
 secutive history of France will not be so well learned from his 
 pages as from those of Sismondi ; and we should protest against 
 his peculiar bitterness toward England were it not ridiculous in 
 itself by its frequency and exaggeration. 
 
 I turn with more respect to a great name in historical litera- 
 ture, and which is only less great in that sense than it might have 
 been, because it belongs also to the groundwork of all future 
 history — the whole series of events which have been developed 
 on the scene of Europe for twenty years now past. No envy 
 of faction, no caprice of fortune, can tear from M. Guizot the 
 trophy which time has bestowed — that he for nearly eight years, 
 past and irrevocable, held in his firm grasp a power s6 fleeting 
 before, and fell only with the monarchy which he had sustained, 
 in the convulsive throes of his country. 
 
XX HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 " Cras vel atra 
 Nube polum Pater occupato, 
 Vel sole puro : non tamen irritum, 
 Quodcunque retro est, eflSciet." 
 
 It has remained for my distinguished friend to manifest that high 
 attribute of a great man's mind — a constant and unsubdued spirit 
 in adversity, and to turn once more to those tranquil pursuits of 
 earHer days which bestow a more unmingled enjoyment and a 
 more unenvied glory than the favour of kings or the applause of 
 
 senates. 
 
 The " Essais sur THistoire de France," by M. Guizot, ap- 
 peared in 1820; the "Collection de Memoires relatives a THis- 
 toire de France " (a translation generally from the Latin, under 
 his superintendence and with notes by him), if I mistake not, 
 in 1825 ; the lectures on the civilization of Europe, and on that 
 of France, are of different dates, some of the latter in 1829. These 
 form, by the confession of all, a sort of epoch in mediaeval history 
 by their philosophical acuteness, the judicious choice of their 
 subjects, and the general solidity and truth of the views which 
 they present. 
 
 I am almost unwilling to mention several other eminent names, 
 lest it should seem invidious to omit any. It will sufBciently 
 appear by these notes to whom I have been most indebted. Yet 
 the writings of Thierry, Fauriel, Raynouard, and not less valu- 
 able, though in time almost the latest, Lehuerou, ought not to 
 be passed in silence. I shall not attempt to characterize these emi- 
 nent men ; but the gratitude of every inquirer into the mediaeval 
 history of France is especially due to the Ministry of Public In- 
 struction under the late government for the numerous volumes 
 of *' Documens Inedits," illustrating that history, which have 
 appeared under its superintendence and at the public expense, 
 within the last twelve years. It is difficult not to feel, at the pres- 
 ent juncture, the greatest apprehension that this valuable publica- 
 tion will at least be suspended. 
 
 Several chapters which follow the second in my volumes have 
 furnished no great store of additions, but that which relates to 
 the English constitution has appeared to require more illustra- 
 tion. Many subjects of no trifling importance in the history of 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxi 
 
 our ancient institutions had drawn the attention of men very 
 conversant with its best sources ; and it was naturally my desire 
 to impart in some measure the substance of their researches to 
 my readers. In not many instances have I seen ground for mate- 
 rially altering my own views ; and I have not, of course, hesi- 
 tated to differ from those whom I often quote with much respect. 
 The publications of the Record Commission — the celebrated 
 " Report of the Lords' Committee on the Dignity of a Peer " — 
 the work of my learned and gifted friend, Sir Francis Palgrave, 
 " On the Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth," re- 
 plete with omnifarious reading and fearless spirit, though not 
 always commanding the assent of more sceptical tempers — the 
 approved and valuable contributions to constitutional learning by 
 Allen, Kemble, Spence, Starkie, Nicolas, Wright, and many others 
 — are full of important facts and enlightened theories. Yet I 
 fear that I shall be found to have overlooked much, especially 
 in that periodical literature which is too apt to escape our observa- 
 tion or our memory ; and can only hope that these notes, imper- 
 fect as they must be, will serve to extend the knowledge of my 
 readers and guide them to the sources of historic truth. They 
 claim only to be supplemental, and can be of no service to those 
 who do not already possess the '' History of the Middle Ages." 
 
 June, 1848. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 History of France, from its Conquest by Clovis to the 
 Invasion of Naples by Charles VHI i 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 The Feudal System, especially in France . . . . 8o 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 History of Italy, from the Extinction of the Carlo- 
 viNGiAN Emperors to the Invasion of Naples by 
 Charles VIII i8i 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 History of Spain to the Conquest of Granada . . .302 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 History of Germany to the Diet of Worms in 1495 • • 3S° 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Greeks and Saracens 387 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Ecclesiastical Power during the Middle Ages . . . 407 
 
 xxiii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Henry HALLAM Frontispiece 
 
 Photogravure from a painting by Thomas Phillips 
 My Lady's Table xii 
 
 Miniature from a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Library of 
 the Arsenal at Paris, showing costumes of the period 
 
 Baptism of Witiktnd 8 
 
 Photogravure from a painting by Paul Thumann 
 
 Louis IX Opening the Jails 24 
 
 Photogravure from a painting by Luc Olivier Merson 
 
 The Day after the Victory 304 
 
 Photogravure from a painting by Benjamin Constant 
 
 Return of Victorious Germans 352 
 
 Photogravure from a painting by Paul Thumann 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa at the Feet of the Pope . . . 450 
 Photogravure from a painting by Albert Maignan 
 
 XXV 
 
VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE 
 DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 > ♦ ♦ ^ 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HISTORY OF FRANCE, FROM ITS CONQUEST BY CLOVIS TO THE 
 INVASION OF NAPLES BY CHARLES VIII 
 
 Fall of the Roman Empire — Invasion of Clovis — First race of French kings — Acces- 
 sion of Pepin — State of Italy — Charlemagne — His reign and character^L,ouis the 
 Debonair — His successors — Calamitous state of the empire in the ninth and tenth 
 centuries — Accession of Hugh Capet — His first successors — Louis VII — Philip 
 Augustus — Conquest of Normandv — War in Languedoc — Louis IX — His character 
 — Digression upon the crusades — Philip III — Philip IV — Aggrandizement of French 
 monarchy under his reign — Reigns of his children — Question of Salic law — Claim 
 of Edward III — War of Edward III in France — Causes of his success — Civil dis- 
 turbances of France — Peace of Bretigni — Its interpretation considered — Charles V — 
 Renewal of the war — Charles VI — His minority and insanity — Civil dissensions of 
 the parties of Orleans and Burgundy — Assassination of both these princes — In- 
 trigues of their parties with England under Henry IV — Henry V invades France 
 — Treaty of Troye= — State of France in the first years of Charles VII — Progress 
 and subsequent decline of the English arms — Their expulsion from France — Change 
 in the political constitution — Louis XI — His character — Leagues formed against 
 him— Charles, Duke of Burgundy— His prosperity and fall— Louis obtains posses- 
 sion of Burgundy — His death — Charles VlII — Acquisition of Brittany. 
 
 BEFORE the conclusion of the fifth century the mighty 
 fabric of empire which valour and policy had founded upon 
 the seven hills of Rome was finally overthrown in all the 
 west of Europe by the barbarous nations from the north, 
 whose martial energy and whose numbers were irresistible. A 
 race of men, formerly unknown or despised, had not only dis- 
 membered that proud sovereignty, but permanently settled them- 
 selves in its fairest provinces, and imposed their yoke upon the 
 ancient possessors. The Vandals were masters of Africa; the 
 Suevi held part of Spain; the Visigoths possessed the remainder, 
 with a large portion of Gaul; the Burgundians occupied the prov- 
 inces watered by the Rhone and Saone; the Ostrogoths almost 
 all Italy. The northwest of Gaul, between the Seine and the 
 
HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [486-511 
 
 Loire, some writers have filled with an Armorican republic;^ 
 while the remainder was still nominally subject to the Roman 
 Empire, and governed by a certain Syagrius, rather with an m- 
 dependent than a deputed authority. 
 
 At this time Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, a tribe of 
 Germans long connected with Rome, and originally settled upon 
 the right bank of the Rhine,^ but who had latterly penetrated 
 as far as Tournay and Cambray,^ invaded Gaul, and defeated 
 Syagrius at Soissons. The resuh of this victory was the subjuga- 
 tion of those provinces which had previously been considered 
 as Roman. But as their allegiance had not been very strict, so 
 their loss was not very severely felt, since the Emperors of Con- 
 stantinople were not too proud to confer upon Clovis the titles 
 of consul and patrician, which he was too prudent to refuse.* 
 
 Some years after this Clovis defeated the Allemanni, or Swa- 
 bians, in a great battle at Zulpich, near Cologne. In consequence 
 of a vow, as it is said, made during this engagement,^ and at the 
 instigation of his wife Clotilda, a princess of Burgundy, he be- 
 came a convert to Christianity. It would be a fruitless inquiry 
 whether he was sincere in this change; but it is certain, at least, 
 that no policy could have been more successful. The Arian sect, 
 which had been early introduced among the barbarous nations. 
 
 ^ It is impossible not to speak scep- 
 tically as to this republic, or rather con- 
 federation of independent cities under the 
 rule of their respective bishops, which 
 Dubos has with great ingenuity raised 
 upon a passage of Zosimus, but in defi- 
 ance of the silence of Gregory, whose see 
 of Tours bordered upon their supposed 
 territory. Yet his hypothesis is not to 
 be absolutely rejected, because it is by 
 no means deficient in internal probabil- 
 ity, and the early part of Gregory's his- 
 tory is brief and negligent. Dubos, 
 " Hist. Critique de I'Etablissement des 
 Frangais dans les Gaules," tome i, p. 
 253. Gibbon, c. 38, after following Dubos 
 in his text, whispers as usual his sus- 
 picions in a note. [Note I.] 
 
 2 [Note II.] 
 
 ' The system of Pere Daniel, who de- 
 nies any permanent settlement of the 
 Franks on the left bank of the Rhine 
 before Clovis, seems incapable of being 
 supported. It is difficult to resist the 
 presumption that arises from the dis- 
 covery of the tomb and skeleton of Chil- 
 deric, father of Clovis, at Tournay, in 
 1653. See Montfaucon, " Monumens de 
 la Monarchic Frangaise," tome i, p. 10. 
 
 * The theory of Dubos, who considers 
 Clovis as a sort of lieutenant of the em- 
 perors, and as governing the Roman part 
 of his subjects by no other title, has 
 justly seemed extravagant to later crit- 
 ical inquirers into the history of France. 
 But it may nevertheless be true that the 
 connection between him and the empire, 
 and the emblems of Roman magistracy 
 
 which he bore, reconciled the conquered 
 to their new masters. This is judiciously 
 stated by the Duke de Nivernois, " Mem. 
 de I'Acad. des Inscrip.," tome xx, p. 174. 
 [Note III.] In the sixth century, how- 
 ever, the Greeks appear to have been 
 nearly ignorant of Clovis's countrymen. 
 Nothing can be made out of a passage 
 in Procopius, where he seems to men- 
 tion the Armoricans under the name 
 *Apj3opvxot ; and Agathias gives a strange- 
 ly romantic account of the Franks, whom 
 he extols for their conformity to Roman 
 laws, TToAtTcia (oc Ttt TToAAa XpiavTai 'P<i>/u.atKp, 
 Koi vofiois Tolf avTOi?, KOi TO. aWa 6/xoi(t>9 aix^i 
 T€ Ta trv/a/36A.aia kol ydfLOV^ Kal ttjv tou 6eiov 
 depdneiav vo/ui^ovcrt .... e)u.ot' ye SoKOv<ri 
 o-4>oSpa elvai Koap-Loi re koI atrTeioTaTOt. ovSeV 
 re e\€iv rh SioAAaTTOi'. rj ^lovov to Pap^dpt' 
 Kov Tr)<; tTToA^s, xaX to ttjv <f>u}vri^ iSia^ov. 
 He goes on to commend their mutual 
 union, and observes particularly that, in 
 partitions of the kingdom, which had 
 frequently been made, they had never 
 taken up arms against each other, nor 
 polluted the land with civil bloodshed. 
 One would almost believe him ironical. 
 The history of Agathias comes down to 
 A. D. 559. At this time many of the sav- 
 age murders and other crimes which fill 
 the pages of Gregory of Tours, a writer 
 somewhat more likely to know the truth 
 than a Byzantine rhetorician, had taken 
 place. 
 
 ^ Gregory of Tours makes a very rhe- 
 torical story of this famous vow, which, 
 though we can not disprove, it may be 
 permitted to suspect. — L. ii, c. 30. 
 
486-51 1] 
 
 CLOVIS 
 
 3 
 
 was predominant, though apparently without intolerance,^ in the 
 Burgundian and Visigoth courts; but the clergy of Gaul were 
 strenuously attached to the Catholic side, and, even before his 
 conversion, had favoured the arms of Clovis. They now be- 
 came his most zealous supporters, and were rewarded by him with 
 artful gratitude, and by his descendants with lavish munificence. 
 Upon the pretence of religion, he attacked Alaric, King of the 
 Visigoths, and, by one great victory near Poitiers overthrowing 
 their empire in Gaul, reduced them to the maritime province of 
 Septimania, a narrow strip of coast between the Rhone and the 
 Pyrenees. The last exploits of Clovis were the reduction of cer- 
 tain independent chiefs of his own tribe and family, who were set- 
 tled in the neighbourhood of the Rhine.'^ All these he put to 
 death by force or treachery; for he was cast in the true mould of 
 conquerors, and may justly be ranked among the first of his class, 
 both for the splendour and the guiltiness of his ambition.^ 
 
 * " Hist, de Languedoc, par Vich et 
 Vaissette," tome i, p. 238; Gibbon, c. 37. 
 A specious objection might be drawn 
 from the history of the Gothic monar- 
 chies in Italy, as well as Gaul and Spain, 
 to the great principles of religious tolera- 
 tion. These Arian sovereigns treated 
 their Catholic subjects, it may be said, 
 with tenderness, leaving them in pos- 
 session of every civil privilege, and were 
 rewarded for it by their defection or se- 
 dition. But in answer to this it may be 
 observed: i. That the system of perse- 
 cution adopted by the Vandals in Africa 
 succeeded no better, the Catholics of 
 that province having risen against them 
 upon the landing of Belisarius. 2. That 
 we do not know what insults and dis- 
 couragements the Catholics of Gaul and 
 Italy may have endured, especially from 
 the Arian bishops, in that age of bigotry; 
 although the administrations of Alaric 
 and Theodoric were liberal and tolerant. 
 3. That the distinction of Arian and 
 Catholic was intimately connected with 
 that of Goth and Roman, of conqueror 
 and conquered; so that it is difficult to 
 separate the effects of national from 
 those of sectarian animosity. 
 
 The tolerance of the Visigoth sover- 
 eigns must not be praised without 
 making an exception for Euric, predeces- 
 sor of Alaric. He was a prince of some 
 eminent qualities, but so zealous in his 
 religion as to bear hardly on his Cath- 
 olic subjects. Sidonius Apollinaris loud- 
 ly complains that no bishoprics were 
 permitted to be filled, that the churches 
 went to ruin, and that Arianism made a 
 
 great progress. (Fauriel, " Hist, de la 
 aule Meridionale," vol. i, p. 578.) Under 
 Alaric himself, however, as well as 
 under the earlier kings of the Visigothic 
 dynasty, a more liberal spirit prevailed. 
 Salvian, about the middle of the fifth 
 century, extols the Visigothic govern- 
 ment, in comparison with that of the 
 empire, whose vices and despotism had 
 met with a deserved termination. Eu- 
 
 chenus speaks of the Burgundians in the 
 same manner. (Id. ibid., and vol. ii, p. 
 28.) Yet it must have been in itself 
 mortifymg to live in subjection to bar- 
 barians and heretics; not to mention the 
 hospitality, as it was called, which the 
 natives were obliged to exercise toward 
 the invaders, by ceding two thirds of 
 their lands. What, then, must the West- 
 erri Empire have been, when such a con- 
 dition was comparatively enviable! But 
 it is more than probable that the Gaulish 
 bishops subject to the Visigoths hailed 
 the invasion of the Franks with sanguine 
 hope, and were undoubtedly great gain- 
 ers by the exchange. 
 
 ' Modern historians, in enumerating 
 these reguli, call one of them King of 
 Mans. But it is difficult to understand 
 how a chieftain, independent of Clovis, 
 could have been settled in that part of 
 France. In fact, Gregory of Tours, our 
 only authority, does not say that this 
 prince, Regnomeris, was King of Mans, 
 but that he was put to death in that 
 city: apud Cenomannis civitatem jussu 
 Chlodovechi interfectus est. 
 
 The late French writers, as far as I 
 have observed, continue to place a king- 
 dom at Mans. It is certain, neverthe- 
 less, that Gregory of Tours, and they 
 have no other evidence, does not assert 
 this; and his expressions rather lead to 
 the contrary; since, if Regnomeris were 
 King of Mans, why should we not have 
 been informed of it? It is, indeed, im- 
 possible to determine such a point nega- 
 tively from our scanty materials; but if 
 a Frank kingdom had been formed at 
 Mans before the battle of Soissons, this 
 must considerably alter the received no- 
 tions of the history of Gaul in the fifth 
 century; and it seems difficult to under- 
 stand how it could have sprung up after- 
 ward during the reign of Clovis. 
 
 8 The reader will be gratified by an admi- 
 rable memoir, by the Duke de Nivernois, 
 on the policy of Clovis, in the twentieth 
 volume of the Academy of Inscriptions. 
 
HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [511-752 
 
 Clovis left four sons; one illegitimate, or at least born be- 
 fore his conversion ; and three by his queen Clotilda. These four 
 made, it is said, an equal partition of his dominions, which com- 
 prehended not only France, but the western and central parts of 
 Germany, besides Bavaria, and perhaps Swabia, which were gov- 
 erned by their own dependent, but hereditary, chiefs. Thierry, 
 the eldest, had what was called Austrasia, the eastern or German 
 division, and fixed his capital at Metz; Clodomir, at Orleans; 
 Childebert, at Paris; and Clotaire, at Soissons.^ During their 
 reigns the monarchy was aggrandized by the conquest of Bur- 
 gundy. Clotaire, the youngest brother, ultimately reunited all 
 the kingdoms; but upon his death they were again divided among 
 his four sons, and brought together a second time by another Clo- 
 taire, the grandson to the first. It is a weary and unprofitable 
 task to follow these changes in detail, through scenes of tumult 
 and bloodshed, in which the eye meets with no sunshine, nor 
 can rest upon any interesting spot. It would be difficult, as Gib- 
 bon has justly observed, to find anywhere more vice or less 
 virtue. The names of two queens are distinguished even in 
 that age for the magnitude of their crimes : Fredegonde, the 
 wife of Chilperic, of whose atrocities none have doubted; and 
 Brunehaut, Queen of Austrasia, who has met with advocates in 
 modern times, less, perhaps, from any fair presumptions of 
 
 * Quatuor filii regnum accipiunt, et 
 inter se aequa lance dividunt. — Greg. 
 Tur., 1. iii, c. i. It would rather perplex 
 a geographer to make an equal division 
 of Clovis 9 empire into portions, of which 
 Paris, Orleans, Metz, and Soissons should 
 be the respective capitals. I apprehend, 
 in fact, that Gregory's expression is not 
 very precise. The kingdom of Soissons 
 seems to have been the least of the four, 
 and that of Austrasia the greatest. But 
 the partitions made by these^ princes 
 were exceedingly complex ; insulated 
 fragments of territory, and even undi- 
 vided shares of cities, being allotted to 
 the worse-provided brothers, by way of 
 compensation, out of the larger king- 
 doms. It would be very difficult to as- 
 certain the limits of these minor mon- 
 archies. But the French Empire was al- 
 ways considered as one, whatever might 
 be the number of its inheritors; and 
 from accidental circumstances it was so 
 frequently reunited as fully to keep up 
 this notion. 
 
 M. Fauriel endeavours to show the 
 equality of this partition (" Hist, de la 
 Gaule M^ridionale," vol. ii, p. 92). But 
 he is obliged to suppose that Germany 
 beyond the Rhine, part of which owned 
 the dominion of Clovis, was counted as 
 nothing, not being inhabited by Franks. 
 It was something, nevertheless, in the 
 scale of power; since from this fertile 
 source the Austrasian kings continually 
 recruited their armies. Aquitainc — that is, 
 the provinces south of the Loire — was 
 
 divided into three, or rather perhaps two 
 portions. For though Thierry and Childe- 
 bert had considerable territories, it seems 
 not certain that Clodomir took any share, 
 and improbable that Clotaire had one. 
 
 Thierry, therefore, King of Austrasia, 
 may be reckoned the best provided of the 
 brethren. It will be obvious from the 
 map that the four capitals, Metz, Sois- 
 sons, Paris, and Orleans, are situated at 
 no great distance from each other, rela- 
 tively to the whole of France. They 
 were, therefore, in the centre of force; 
 and the brothers might have lent assist- 
 ance to each other in case of a national 
 revolt. 
 
 The cause of this complexity in the 
 partition of France among the sons of 
 Clovis has been conjectured by Dubos, 
 with whom Sismondi (vol. i, p. 242) 
 agrees, to have been their desire of own- 
 ing as subjects an equal number of 
 Franks. This is supported by a passage 
 in Agathias, quoted by the former, " Hist, 
 de I'Etablissement, vol. ii, p. 413. Others 
 have fancied that Aquitame was reck- 
 oned too delicious a morsel to be enjoyed 
 by only one brother. In the second great 
 partition, that of 567 (for that of 561 did 
 not last long), when Si^ebert, Gontran, 
 and Chilperic took the kmgdoms of Aus- 
 trasia, Burgundy, and what was after- 
 ward called Neustria, the southern prov- 
 inces were again equally divided. Thus 
 Marseilles fell to the King of Paris, or 
 Neustria, while Aix and Avignon were 
 in the lot of Burgundy, 
 
511-752] 
 
 MAYORS OF THE PALACE 
 
 5 
 
 her innocence than from compassion for the cruel death which 
 she underwent. ^^ 
 
 But after Dagobert, son of Clotaire II, the Kings of France 
 dwindled into personal insignificance, and are generally treated 
 by later historians as insensati, or idiots. ^^ The whole power of 
 the kingdom devolved upon the mayors of the palace, originally 
 ofificers of the household, through whom petitions or representa- 
 tions were laid before the king.^^ The weakness of sovereigns 
 rendered this ofifice important, and still greater weakness suffered 
 it to become elective ; men of energetic talents and ambition 
 united it with military command; and the history of France for 
 half a century presents no names more conspicuous than those of 
 Ebroin and Grimoald, mayors of Neustria and Austrasia, the 
 western and eastern divisions of the French monarchy.^^ These, 
 however, met with violent ends ; but a more successful usurper of 
 the royal authority was Pepin Heristal, first mayor, and afterward 
 duke, of Austrasia; who united with almost an avowed sover- 
 eignty over that division a paramount command over the French 
 or Neustrian provinces, where nominal kings of the Merovingian 
 family were still permitted to exist. ^* This authority he trans- 
 mitted to a more renowned hero, his son, Charles Martel, who, 
 after some less important exploits, was called upon to encounter 
 
 1° Every history will give a sufficient 
 epitome of the Merovingian dynasty. 
 The facts of these times are of little other 
 importance than as they impress on the 
 mind a thorough notion of the extreme 
 wickedness of almost every person con- 
 cerned in them, and consequently of 
 the state to which society was reduced. 
 But there is no advantage in crowding 
 the memory with barbarian wars and as- 
 sassinations. [Note IV.] 
 
 For the question about Brunehaut s 
 character, who has had partisans almost 
 as enthusiastic as those of Mary of Scot- 
 land, the reader may consult Pasquier, 
 " Recherches de la France," 1. viii, or 
 Velly, " Hist, de France," tome i, on one 
 side, and a dissertation by Gaillard, in 
 the " Memoirs of the Academy of In- 
 scriptions," tome XXX, on the other. The 
 last is unfavourable to Brunehaut, and 
 perfectly satisfactory to my judgment. 
 
 Brunehaut was no unimportant per- 
 sonage in this history. She had become 
 hateful to the Austrasian aristocracy by 
 her Gothic blood, and still more by her 
 Roman principles of government. There 
 was eviciently a combmation to throw of? 
 the yoke of civilized tyranny. It was a 
 great conflict, which ended in the virtual 
 dethronement of the house of Clovis. 
 Much, therefore, may have been exag- 
 gerated by Fredegarius, a Burgundian by 
 birth, in relating the crimes of Brune- 
 haut. But, unhappily, the antecedent 
 presumption, in' the history of that age, 
 is always on the worse side. She was un- 
 questionably endowed with a masculine 
 
 energy of mind, and very superior to 
 such a mere imp of audacious wickedness 
 as Fredegonde. Brunehaut left a great 
 and almost fabulous name; public cause- 
 ways, towers, castles, in different parts 
 of France, are popularly ascribed to her. 
 It has even been suspected by some that 
 she suggested the appellation of Brune- 
 child in the " Nibelungen Lied." That 
 there is no resemblance in the story, or 
 in the character, courage excepted, of the 
 two heroines, can not be thought an ob- 
 jection. 
 
 1^ An ingenious attempt is made by the 
 Abbe Vertot, " Mem. de I'Academie," 
 tome vi, to rescue these monarchs from 
 this long-established imputation. But the 
 leading fact is irresistible, that all the 
 royal authority was lost during their 
 reigns. However, the best apology seems 
 to be that, after the victories of Pepin 
 Heristal, the Merovingian kings were, in 
 effect, conquered, and their inefficiency 
 was a matter of necessary submission to 
 a master. 
 
 '= [Note v.] 
 
 ^^ The original kingdoms of Soissons, 
 Paris, and Orleans were consolidated into 
 that denominated Neustria, to which Bur- 
 gundy was generally appendant, though 
 distinctly governed by a mayor of its 
 own election. But Aquitaine, the exact 
 bounds of which I do not know, was, 
 from the time of Dagobert I, separated 
 from the rest of the monarchy, under a 
 ducal dynasty, sprung from Aribert, 
 brother of that monarch. [Note VI.] 
 
 " [Note VII.] 
 
HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [752-800 
 
 a new and terrible enemy. The Saracens, after subjugating 
 Spain, had penetrated into the very heart of France. Charles 
 Martel gained a complete victory over them between Tours and 
 Poitiers,^^ in which three hundred thousand Mohammedans are 
 hyperbolically asserted to have fallen. The reward of this vic- 
 tory was the province of Septimania, which the Saracens had con- 
 quered from the Visigoths. ^^ 
 
 Such powerful subjects were not likely to remain long con- 
 tented without the crown ; but the circumstances under which 
 it was transferred from the race of Clovis are connected with 
 one of the most important revolutions in the history of Europe. 
 The mayor Pepin, inheriting his father Charles Martel's tal- 
 ents and ambition, made, in the name and with the consent of 
 the nation, a solemn reference to the Pope Zacharias as to the 
 deposition of Childeric III, under whose nominal authority 
 he himself was reigning. The decision was favourable; that 
 he who possessed the power should also bear the title of 
 king. The unfortunate Merovingian was dismissed into a con- 
 vent, and the Franks, with one consent, raised Pepin to the 
 throne, the founder of a more illustrious dynasty. ^^ In order 
 to judge of the importance of this revolution to the see of Rome, 
 as well as to France, we must turn our eyes upon the affairs 
 of Italy. 
 
 The dominion of the Ostrogoths was annihilated by the arms 
 of Belisarius and Narses in the sixth century, and that nation 
 appears no more in history. But not long afterward the Lom- 
 bards, a people for some time settled in Pannonia, not only sub- 
 dued that northern part of Italy which has retained their name, but, 
 extending themselves southward, formed the powerful duchies 
 of Spoleto and Benevento. The residence of their kings was in 
 Pavia; but the hereditary vassals, who held those two duchies, 
 
 *^ Tours is above seventy miles distant 
 from Poitiers; but I do not find that any 
 French antiquary has been able to ascer- 
 tain the place of this great battle with 
 more precision ; which is remarkable, 
 since, after so immense a slaughter, we 
 should expect the testimony of ** grandia 
 eflFossis ossa sepulcris." It is now, how- 
 ever, believed that the slaughter at the 
 battle near Poitiers was by no means 
 immense, and even that the Saracens 
 retired without a decisive action. (Sis- 
 mondi, ii, 132; Michelet, ii, 13.) There 
 can be no doubt that the battle was 
 fought much nearer to Poitiers than to 
 Tours. 
 
 The victory of Charles Martel has im- 
 mortalized his name, and may justly be 
 reckoned among those few battles of 
 which a contrary event would have es- 
 sentially varied the drama of the world 
 in all its subsequent scenes: with Mara- 
 thon, Arbela, the Metaurus, Chalons, and 
 
 Leipsic. Yet do we not judge a little 
 too much by the event, and follow, as 
 usual, in the wake of fortune? Has not 
 more frequent experience condemned 
 those who set the fate of empires upon a 
 single cast, and risk a general battle with 
 invaders, whose greater peril is in delay? 
 Was not this the fatal error by which 
 Roderic had lost his kingdom? Was it 
 possible that the Saracens could have 
 retained any permanent possession of 
 France, except by means of a victory? 
 And did not the contest upon the broad 
 champaign of Poitou afford them a consid- 
 erable prospect of success, which a more 
 cautious policy would have withheld? 
 
 " This conmaest was completed bv 
 Pepin in 759. The inhabitants preservei 
 their liberties by treaty; and Vaissette 
 deduces from this solemn assurance the 
 
 Erivileges of Languedoc— " Hist de 
 ,ang., ' tome i, p. 412. 
 "[Note VIII.] 
 
752-800] 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE 
 
 might be deemed almost independent sovereigns.^® The rest of 
 Italy was governed by exarchs, deputed by the Greek emperors, 
 and fixed at Ravenna. In Rome itself neither the people nor the 
 bishops, who had already conceived in part their schemes of am- 
 bition, were much inclined to endure the superiority of Con- 
 stantinople; yet their disaffection was counterbalanced by the 
 inveterate hatred, as well as jealousy, with which they regarded 
 the Lombards. But an impolitic and intemperate persecution, 
 carried on by two or three Greek emperors against a favourite 
 superstition, the worship of images, excited commotions through- 
 out Italy, of which the Lombards took advantage, and easily 
 wrested the exarchate of Ravenna from the Eastern Empire. It 
 was far from the design of the popes to see their nearest enemies 
 so much aggrandized ; and any effectual assistance from the Em- 
 peror Constantine Copronymus would have kept Rome still faith- 
 ful. But having no hope from his arms, and provoked by his 
 obstinate intolerance, the pontiffs had recourse to France; ^® and 
 the service they had rendered to Pepin led to reciprocal obliga- 
 tions of the greatest magnitude. At the request of Stephen II 
 the new King of France descended from the Alps, drove the Lom- 
 bards from their recent conquests, and conferred them upon the 
 Pope. This memorable donation nearly comprised the modern 
 provinces of Romagna and the March of Ancona.^® 
 
 The state of Italy, which had undergone no change for nearly 
 two centuries, was now rapidly verging to a great revolution. 
 Under the shadow of a mighty name the Greek Empire had con- 
 cealed the extent of its decline. That charm was now broken: 
 and the Lombard kingdom, which had hitherto appeared the only 
 competitor in the lists, proved to have lost its own energy in 
 awaiting the occasion for its display. France was far more than 
 a match for the power of Italy, even if she had not been guided 
 by the towering ambition and restless activity of the son of Pepin. 
 It was almost the first exploit of Charlemagne, after the death 
 of his brother Carloman had reunited the Prankish Empire under 
 his dominion, ^^ to subjugate the kingdom of Lombardy. Neither 
 Pavia nor Verona, its most considerable cities, interposed any 
 material delay to his arms: and the chief resistance he encoun- 
 
 1* The history, character, and policy of 
 the Lombards are well treated by Gib- 
 bon, c. 45. See, too, the fourth and fifth 
 books of Giannone, and some papers by 
 Gaillard in the ''Memoirs of the Academy 
 of Inscriptions," tome xxxii, xxxv, xlv. 
 
 ^' There had been some previous over- 
 tures to Charles Martel as well as to 
 Pepin himself; the habitual sagacity of 
 the court of Rome perceiving the growth 
 of a new western monarchy, which would 
 be, in faith and arms, their surest ally. 
 (Muratori, " Ann. d'ltal.," a. d. 741.) 
 
 2** Giannone, 1. v, c. 2. 
 
 " Carloman, younger brother of 
 Charles, took the Austrasian or German 
 provinces of the empire. The custom of 
 partition was so fully established that 
 those wise and ambitious princes, Charles 
 Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne himself, 
 did not venture to thwart the public 
 opinion by introducing primogeniture. 
 Carloman would not long have stood 
 against his brother; who, after his death, 
 usurped the inheritance of his two infant 
 children. 
 
8 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [752-800 
 
 tered was from the Dukes of Friuli and Benevento, the latter 
 of whom could never be brought into thorough subjection to the 
 conqueror. Italy, however, be the cause what it might, seems to 
 have tempted Charlemagne far less than the dark forests of Ger- 
 many. For neither the southern provinces, nor Sicily, could have 
 withstood his power if it had been steadily directed against them. 
 Even Spain hardly drew so much of his attention as the splendour 
 of the prize might naturally have excited. He gained, however, 
 a very important accession to his empire by conquering from the 
 Saracens the territory contained between the Pyrenees and the 
 Ebro. This was formed into the Spanish March, governed by 
 the Count of Barcelona, part of which at least must be considered 
 as appertaining to France till the twelfth century.^^ 
 
 But the most tedious and difficult achievement of Charle- 
 magne was the reduction of the Saxons. The wars with this na- 
 tion, who occupied nearly the modern circles of Westphalia and 
 Lower Saxony, lasted for thirty years. Whenever the conqueror 
 withdrew his armies, or even his person, the Saxons broke into 
 fresh rebellion, which his unparalleled rapidity of movement seldom 
 failed to crush without delay. From such perseverance on either 
 side destruction of the weaker could alone result. A large colony 
 of Saxons were finally transplanted into Flanders and Brabant, 
 countries hitherto ill peopled, in which their descendants pre- 
 served the same unconquerable spirit of resistance to oppression. 
 Many fled to the kingdoms of Scandinavia, and, mingling with 
 the Northmen, who were just preparing to run their memorable 
 career, revenged upon the children and subjects of Charlemagne 
 the devastation of Saxony. The remnant embraced Christianity, 
 their aversion to which had been the chief cause of their rebel- 
 lions, and acknowledged the sovereignty of Charlemagne — a sub- 
 mission which even Witikind, the second Arminius of Germany, 
 after such irresistible conviction of her destiny, did not disdain 
 to make. But they retained, in the main, their own laws; they 
 were governed by a duke of their own nation, if not of their own 
 election, and for many ages they were distinguished by their 
 original character among the nations of Germany.^^ 
 
 The successes of Charlemagne on the eastern frontier of his 
 empire against the Slavonians of Bohemia and Huns or Avars 
 of Pannonia, though obtained with less cost, were hardly less 
 eminent. In all his wars the newly conquered nations, or those 
 
 "The Counts of Barcelona always ac- mark of dependence, the separation of 
 knowledRed the feudal superiority of the the principality may be referred to that 
 Kings of France till some time after their year. But the rights of the French 
 
 own title had been merged in that of crown over it were finally ceded by 
 
 Kings of Aragon. In 1180 legal instru- Louis IX in 1258. De Marca " Marca 
 
 JH^f^i'i^''^.?"*^'^ '" 9^.u^T'-^ ""^^l^i ^"^ ^^ Hispanica," p. 514; "Art de verifier les 
 
 dated by the year of the King of France; Dates." tome ii. p. 291 
 and as there certainly remained no other " [Note IX.] 
 
752-800] 
 
 CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE 
 
 whom fear had made dependent alHes, were employed to subju- 
 gate their neighbours, and the incessant waste of fatigue and the 
 sword was suppHed by a fresh population that swelled the ex- 
 panding circle of dominion. I do not know that the limits of 
 the new Western Empire are very exactly defined by contempo- 
 rary writers, nor would it be easy to appreciate the degree of 
 subjection in which the Slavonian tribes were held. As an or- 
 ganized mass of provinces, regularly governed by imperial offi- 
 cers, it seems to have been nearly bounded, in Germany, by the 
 Elbe, the Saale, the Bohemian mountains, and a line drawn from 
 thence crossing the Danube above Vienna, and prolonged to 
 the Gulf of Istria. Part of Dalmatia was comprised in the duchy 
 of Friuli. In Italy the empire extended not much beyond the 
 modern frontier of Naples, if we exclude, as was the fact, the 
 duchy of Benevento from anything more than a titular subjec- 
 tion. The Spanish boundary, as has been said already, was the 
 Ebro.2* 
 
 A seal was put to the glory of Charlemagne when Leo III, 
 in the name of the Roman people, placed upon his head the 
 imperial crown. His father, Pepin, had borne the title of patri- 
 cian, and he had himself exercised, with that title, a regular 
 sovereignty over Rome.^^ Money was coined in his name, and 
 an oath of fidelity was taken by the clergy and people. But the 
 appellation of emperor seemed to place his authority over all his 
 subjects on a new footing. It was full of high and indefinite pre- 
 tension, tending to overshadow the free election of the Franks 
 by a fictitious descent from Augustus. A fresh oath of fidelity 
 to him as emperor was demanded from his subjects. His own 
 discretion, however, prevented him from affecting those more 
 despotic prerogatives which the imperial name might still be 
 supposed to convey.^® 
 
 24 I follow in this the map of Koch, in 
 his " Tableau des Revolutions de I'Eu- 
 rope," tome i. That of Vaugondy, Pans, 
 1752, includes the dependent Slavonic 
 tribes, and carries the limit of the empire 
 to the Oder and frontiers of Poland. 
 The authors of " L'Art de verifier les 
 Dates " extend it to the Raab. It would 
 require a long examination to give a pre- 
 cise statement. 
 
 25 The Patricians of the lower empire 
 were governors sent from Constantinople 
 to the provinces. Rome had long been 
 accustomed to their name and power. 
 The subjection of the Romans, both 
 clergy and laity, to Charlemagne, as well 
 before as after he bore the imjperial 
 name, seems to be established. See ^ Dis- 
 sertation Historique, par le Blanc," sub- 
 joined to his " Traite de Monnoyes de 
 France," p. 18; and St. Marc, " Abrege 
 Chronologique de I'Histoire de I'ltalie, 
 tome i. The first of these writers does 
 not allow that Pepin exercised any au- 
 
 thority at Rome. A good deal of obscu- 
 rity rests over its internal government for 
 near fifty years; but there is some reason 
 to believe that the nominal sovereignty 
 of the Greek emperors was not entirely 
 abrogated. Muratori, " Annali d'ltalia, 
 ad. ann. p2; St. Marc, tome i, pp. 356, 372. 
 A mosaic, still extant in the Lateran 
 palace, represents our Saviour giving the 
 keys to St. Peter with one hand, and 
 with the other a standard to a crowned 
 prince, bearing the inscription Constan- 
 tine V. But Constantine V did not 
 begin to reign till 780; and if this piece 
 of workmanship was made under Leo 
 III, as the authors of " L'Art de verifier 
 les Dates " imagine, it could not be ear- 
 lier than 795. Tome i, p. 262; Muratori 
 ad ann. 798. However this may be, there 
 can be no question that a considerable 
 share of jurisdiction and authority was 
 practically exercised by the popes during 
 this period. Vid. Murat. ad ann. 789. 
 " [Note X.] 
 
10 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [800-987 
 
 In analyzing the characters of heroes it is hardly possible to 
 separate altogether the share of fortune from their own. ihe 
 epoch made by Charlemagne in the history of the world the illus- 
 trious families which prided themselves in him as their pro- 
 genitor, the very legends of romance, which are full of his fabu- 
 lous exploits, have cast a lustre around his head, and testify the 
 greatness that has embodied itself in his name. None, indeed, 
 of Charlemagne's wars can be compared with the Saracenic vic- 
 tory of Charles Martel; but that was a contest for freedom, his 
 for conquest and fame is more partial to successful aggression 
 than to patriotic resistance. As a scholar, his acquisitions were 
 probably little superior to those of his unrespected son; and in 
 several points of view the glory of Charlemagne might be ex- 
 tenuated by an analytical dissection.^^ But rejecting a mode of 
 judging equally uncandid and fallacious, we shall find that he 
 possessed in everything that grandeur of conception which dis- 
 tinguishes extraordinary minds. Like Alexander, he seemed 
 born for universal innovation: in a life restlessly active, we see 
 him reforming the coinage and estabHshing the legal divisions 
 of money; gathering about him the learned of every country; 
 founding schools and collecting libraries; interfering, but with 
 the tone of a king, in religious controversies; aiming, though 
 prematurely, at the formation of a naval force; attempting, for 
 the sake of commerce, the magnificent enterprise of uniting the 
 Rhine and Danube ; ^^ and meditating to mould the discordant 
 codes of Roman and barbarian laws into a uniform system. 
 
 The great qualities of Charlemagne were, indeed, alloyed by 
 the vices of a barbarian and a conqueror. Nine wives, whom he 
 divorced with very little ceremony, attest the license of his pri- 
 vate life, which his temperance and frugality can hardly be said 
 to redeem. Unsparing of blood, though not constitutionally 
 cruel, and wholly indifferent to the means which his ambition 
 prescribed, he beheaded in one day four thousand Saxons — an 
 act of atrocious butchery, after which his persecuting edicts, pro- 
 nouncing the pain of death against those who refused baptism, 
 or even who ate flesh during Lent, seem scarcely worthy of 
 notice. This union of barbarous ferocity with elevated views of 
 national improvement might suggest the parallel of Peter the 
 Great. But the degrading habits and brute violence of the Mus- 
 covite place him at an immense distance from the restorer of the 
 empire. 
 
 " Eginhard attests his ready eloquence, 
 his perfect mastery of Latin, his knowl- 
 edge of Greek so far as to read it, his 
 acquisitions in logic, grammar, rhetoric, 
 and astronomy. But the anonymous au- 
 thor of the life of Louis the Debonair 
 attributes most of these accomplishments 
 to that unfortunate prince. 
 
 *^ See an essay upon this project in the 
 " Memoirs of the Academy of Inscrip- 
 tions," tome xviii. The rivers which were 
 designed to form the links of this junction 
 were the Altmuhl, the Regnitz, and the 
 Main; but their want of depth, and the 
 sponginess of the soil, appear to present 
 insuperable impediments to its completion. 
 
800-987] 
 
 LOUIS THE DEBONAIR 
 
 II 
 
 A strong sympathy for intellectual excellence was the lead- 
 ing characteristic of Charlemagne, and this undoubtedly biassed 
 him in the chief political error of his conduct — that of encour- 
 aging the power and pretensions of the hierarchy. But, perhaps, 
 his greatest eulogy is written in the disgraces of succeeding times 
 and the miseries of Europe. He stands alone, like a beacon upon 
 a waste, or a rock in the broad ocean. His sceptre was the bow 
 of Ulysses, which could not be drawn by any weaker hand. In 
 the dark ages of European history the reign of Charlemagne 
 affords a solitary resting place between two long periods of turbu- 
 lence and ignominy, deriving the advantages of contrast both 
 from that of the preceding dynasty and of a posterity for whom 
 he had formed an empire which they were unworthy and unequal 
 to maintain.^^ 
 
 Pepin, the eldest son of Charlemagne, died before him, leav- 
 ing a natural son, named Bernard.^^ Even if he had been legiti- 
 mate, the right of representation was not at all established dur- 
 ing these ages; indeed, the general prejudice seems to have 
 inclined against it. Bernard, therefore, kept only the kingdom 
 of Italy, which had been transferred to his father; while Louis, 
 the younger son of Charlemagne, inherited the empire.^^ But, 
 in a short time, Bernard, having attempted a rebellion against 
 his uncle, was sentenced to lose his eyes, which occasioned his 
 death — a cruelty more agreeable to the prevailing tone of man- 
 ners than to the character of Louis, who bitterly reproached him- 
 self for the severity he had been persuaded to use. 
 
 Under this prince, called by the Italians the Pious, and by 
 the French the Debonair, or Good-natured,^^ the mighty struc- 
 
 20 The " Life of Charlemagne," by 
 Gaillard, without being made perhaps so 
 interesting as it ought to have been, pre- 
 sents an adequate view both of his ac- 
 tions and character. Schmidt, " Hist, des 
 Allemands," tome ii, appears to me a 
 superior writer. 
 
 An exception to the general suffrage 
 of historians in favour of Charlemagne is 
 made by Sismondi. He seems to con- 
 sider him as having produced no perma- 
 nent eflfect, the empire, within half a 
 century, having been dismembered, and 
 relapsing into the merest weakness : 
 " Tenement la grandeur acquise par les 
 armes est trompeuse, quand elle ne se 
 donne pour appui aucune institution 
 bienfaisante; et tellement le regne d'un 
 grand roi demeure sterile, quand il ne 
 fonde pas la liberte de ses concitoyens " 
 (vol. iii, p. 97). But certainly some of 
 Charlemagne's institutions were likely to 
 prove beneficial if they could have been 
 maintained, such as the Scabini and the 
 Missi Dominici. And when Sismondi 
 hints that Charlemagne ought to have 
 given a charte constitutionnelle, it is dif- 
 ficult not to smile at such a proof of his 
 inclination to judge past times by a 
 
 standard borrowed from the theories of 
 his own. M. Guizot asks whether the 
 nation was left in the same state in which 
 the emperor found it. Nothing fell with 
 him, he remarks, but the central gov- 
 ernment, which could only have been 
 preserved by a series of men like him- 
 self. (" Essais sur I'Hist. de France," 
 pp. 276-294; " Hist, de la Civilisation en 
 France," legon ii, p. 39.) Some, indeed, 
 of his institutions can not be said to have 
 long survived him; but this again must 
 be chiefly attributed to the weakness of 
 his successors. No one man of more than 
 common ability arose in the Carlovingian 
 dynasty after himself, a fact very disad- 
 vantageous to the permanence of his pol- 
 icy, and perhaps rather surprising ; 
 though it is a theory of Sismondi that 
 royal families naturally dwindle into im- 
 becility, especially in a semi-barbarous 
 condition of society. 
 
 ^^ A contemporary author, Thegan, ap. 
 Muratori, A. D. 810, asserts that ]3ernard 
 was born of a concubine. I do not know 
 why modern historians represent it other- 
 wise. 
 
 81 [Note XI.] 
 
 5' These names, as a French writer ob- 
 
12 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [800-987 
 
 ture of his father's power began rapidly to decay. I do not know 
 that Louis deserves so much contempt as he has undergone; 
 but historians have in general more indulgence for splendid 
 crimes than for the weaknesses of virtue. There was no defect 
 in Louis's understanding or courage; he was accomplished in 
 martial exercises, and in all the learning which an education, 
 excellent for that age, could supply. No one was ever more 
 anxious to reform the abuses of administration; and whoever 
 compares his capitularies with those of Charlemagne will per- 
 ceive that, as a legislator, he was even superior to his father. 
 The fault lay entirely in his heart; and this fault was nothing 
 but a temper too soft and a conscience too strict. ^^ It is not 
 wonderful that the empire should have been speedily dissolved; 
 a succession of such men as Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charle- 
 magne could alone have preserved its integrity, but the mis- 
 fortunes of Louis and his people were immediately owing to the 
 following errors of his conduct. 
 
 Soon after his accession Louis thought fit to associate his 
 eldest son, Lothaire, to the empire, and to confer the provinces 
 of Bavaria and Aquitaine, as subordinate kingdoms, upon the 
 two younger, Louis and Pepin. The step was, in appearance, 
 conformable to his father's policy, who had acted toward himself 
 in a similar manner. But such measures are not subject to gen- 
 eral rules, and exact a careful regard to characters and circum- 
 stances. The principle, however, which regulated this division 
 was learned from Charlemagne, and could alone, if strictly pur- 
 sued, have given unity and permanence to the empire. The elder 
 brother was to preserve his superiority over the others, so that 
 they should neither make peace nor war, nor even give answer 
 to ambassadors, without his consent. Upon the death of either 
 no further partition was to be made; but whichever of his chil- 
 dren might become the popular choice was to inherit the whole 
 kingdom, under the same superiority of the head of the family.^* 
 This compact was from the beginning disliked by the younger 
 brothers, and an event, upon which Louis does not seem to have 
 calculated, soon disgusted his colleague Lothaire. Judith of 
 Bavaria, the emperor's second wife, an ambitious woman, bore 
 him a son, by name Charles, whom both parents were naturally 
 anxious to place on an equal footing with his brothers. But 
 
 serves, meant the same thing. Pius had, 
 even in good Latin, the sense of mitis, 
 meek, forbearing, or what the French 
 call debonnaire. " Synonymes de Rou- 
 band," tome i, p. 257. Our English word 
 debonair is hardly used in the same 
 sense, if indeed it can be called an Eng- 
 lish word; but I have not altered Lou- 
 is's appellation, by which he is so well 
 known. 
 
 " Schmidt, " Hist, des Allemands," 
 tome ii, has done more justice than other 
 historians to Louis's character. Vais- 
 sette attests the goodness of his govern- 
 ment in Aquitaine, which he held as a sub- 
 ordinate kingdom during his father's life. 
 It extended from the Loire to the Ebro, 
 so that the trust was not contemptible. — 
 " Hist, de Languedoc," tome i, p. 476. 
 
 " " Baluzii Capitularia," tome 1, p. 575- 
 
800-987] 
 
 PARTITION OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 13 
 
 this could only be done at the expense of Lothaire, who was ill 
 disposed to see his empire still further dismembered for this child 
 of a second bed. Louis passed his life in a struggle with three 
 undutiful sons, who abused his paternal kindness by constant 
 rebellions. 
 
 These were rendered more formidable by the concurrence 
 of a different class of enemies, whom it had been another error 
 of the emperor to provoke. Charlemagne had assumed a thor- 
 ough control and supremacy over the clergy; and his son was 
 perhaps still more vigilant in chastising their irregularities and 
 reforming their rules of discipline. But to this, which they had 
 been compelled to bear at the hands of the first, it was not equally 
 easy for the second to obtain their submission. Louis therefore 
 drew on himself the inveterate enmity of men who united with 
 the turbulence of martial nobles a skill in managing those en- 
 gines of offence which were peculiar to their order, and to which 
 the implicit devotion of his character laid him very open. Yet, 
 after many vicissitudes of fortune, and many days of ignominy, 
 his wishes were eventually accomplished. Charles, his youngest 
 son, surnamed the Bald, obtained, upon his death, most of France, 
 while Germany fell to the share of Louis, and the rest of the 
 imperial dominions, with the title, to the eldest, Lothaire. This 
 partition was the result of a sanguinary, though short, contest; 
 and it gave a fatal blow to the empire of the Franks. For the 
 Treaty of Verdun, in 843, abrogated the sovereignty that had 
 been attached to the eldest brother and to the imperial name in 
 former partitions: each held his respective kingdom as an in- 
 dependent right.^^ This is the epoch of a final separation be- 
 tween the French and German members of the empire. Its mil- 
 lenary was celebrated by some of the latter nation in 1843.^® 
 
 The subsequent partitions made among the children of these 
 brothers are of too rapid succession to be here related. In about 
 
 " " Baluzii Capitularia," tome ii, p. 42; 
 Velly, tome ii, p. 75. The expressions 
 of this treaty are perhaps equivocal; but 
 the subsequent conduct of the brothers 
 and their families justifies the construc- 
 tion of Velly, which I have followed. 
 
 ^* The partition, which the Treaty of 
 Verdun confirmed, had been made by 
 commissioners specially appointed in the 
 preceding year. " Le nombre total des 
 commissaires fut porte a trois cents; ils 
 se distribuerent toute la surface de I'em- 
 pire, qu'ils s'engagerent a parcourir avant 
 le mois d' aout de I'annee suivante: cet 
 immense travail etoit en efifet alors neces- 
 saire pour se procurer les connoissances 
 qu'on obtient aujourd'hui en un instant, 
 par I'inspection d'une carte geograph- 
 ique: malheureusement on ecrivoit a 
 cette epoque aussi peu qu'on lisoit. Le 
 rapport des commissaires ne fut point 
 
 mis par ecrit, ou point depose dans les 
 archives. S'il nous avoit ete conserve, 
 ce seroit le plus curieux de tous les mon- 
 umens sur I'etat de I'Europe au moyen 
 age." (Sismondi, " Hist, des Frang.," iii, 
 76.) For this he quotes Nithard, a con- 
 temporary historian. 
 
 In the division made on this occasion 
 the kingdom of France, which fell to 
 Charles the Bald, had for its eastern 
 boundary the Meuse, the Saone, and the 
 Rhone; which, nevertheless, can only be 
 understood of the Upper Meuse, since 
 Brabant was certainly not comprised in it, 
 Lothaire, the elder brother, besides Italy, 
 had a kingdom called Lorraine, from his 
 name (Lotharingia), extending from the 
 mouth of the Rhine to Provence, bounded 
 by that river on one frontier, by France on 
 the other. Louis took all beyond the Rhine, 
 and was usually styled The Germanic. 
 
14 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [800-987 
 
 forty years the empire was nearly reunited under Charles the 
 Fat, son of Louis of Germany, but his short and inglorious reign 
 ended in his deposition. From this time the possession of Italy 
 was contested among her native princes; Germany fell at first to 
 an illegitimate descendant of Charlemagne, and in a short time 
 was entirely lost by his family; two kingdoms, afterward united, 
 were formed by usurpers out of what was then called Burgundy, 
 and comprised the provinces between the Rhone and the Alps, 
 with Franche Comte, and a great part of Switzerland.^^ In France 
 the Carlovingian kings continued for another century; but their 
 line was interrupted two or three times by the election or usurpa- 
 tion of a powerful family, the Counts of Paris and Orleans, who 
 ended, like the old mayors of the palace, in dispersing the phan- 
 toms of royalty they had professed to serve.^® Hugh Capet, the 
 representative of this house upon the death of Louis V, placed 
 himself upon the throne, thus founding the third and most perma- 
 nent race of French sovereigns. Before this happened the de- 
 scendants of Charlemagne had sunk into insignificance, and re- 
 tained little more of France than the city of Laon. The rest of 
 the kingdom had been seized by the powerful nobles, who, with 
 the nominal fidelity of the feudal system, maintained its practical 
 independence and rebellious spirit.^^ 
 
 These were times of great misery to the people, and the 
 worst, perhaps, that Europe has ever known. Even under Charle- 
 magne we have abundant proofs of the calamities which the peo- 
 ple suffered. The light which shone around him was that of a 
 consuming fire. The free proprietors, who had once considered 
 themselves as only called upon to resist foreign invasion, were 
 harassed by endless expeditions, and dragged away to the Baltic 
 Sea or the banks of the Drave. Many of them, as we learn from 
 his capitularies, became ecclesiastics to avoid military conscrip- 
 tion.*^ But far worse must have been their state under the lax 
 
 ^■^ These kingdoms were denominated 
 Provence and Transjurane Burgundy. 
 The latter was very small, comprising 
 only part of Switzerland; but its second 
 sovereign, Rodolph II, acquired by treaty 
 almost the whole of the former; and the 
 two united were called the kingdom of 
 Aries. This lasted from 933 to 1032, when 
 Rodolph III bequeathed his dominions to 
 the Emperor Conrad II. — '* Art de verifier 
 les Dates," tome ii, p. 427-432. 
 
 '^ The family of Capet is generally ad- 
 mitted to possess the most ancient pedi- 
 gree of any sovereign line in Europe. Its 
 succession through males is unequivo- 
 cally deduced from Robert the Brave, 
 made governor of Anjou in 864, and 
 father of Eudes, King of France, and of 
 Robert, who was chosen by a party in 
 922, though, as Charles the Simple was 
 still acknowledged in some provinces, it 
 is uncertain whether he ought to be 
 
 counted in the royal list. It is, more- 
 over, highly probable that Robert the 
 Brave was descended, equally through 
 males, from St, Arnoul, who died in 640, 
 and consequently nearly allied to the 
 Carlovingian family, who derive their 
 pedigree from the same head. See 
 •Preuves de la Genealogie de Hughes 
 Capet," in " L'Art de verifier les Dates," 
 tome i, p. 566. 
 
 3» [Note XII.] 
 
 At the close of the ninth century there 
 were twenty-nine hereditary fiefs of the 
 crown. At the accession of Hugh Capet, 
 in 987, they had increased to fifty-iive. 
 (Guizot, " Civilis en France," Le^on 24.) 
 Thierry maintains that those between the 
 Loire and the Pyrenees were strictly in- 
 dependent and bound by no feudal tie. 
 (" Lettres sur I'Hist. de France," lettre 
 
 IX.) 
 
 *» " Capitularia," a. d. 805. Whoever 
 
800-987] 
 
 THE SARACENS 
 
 15 
 
 government of succeeding times, when the dukes and counts, 
 no longer checked by the vigorous administration of Charle- 
 magne, were at liberty to play the tyrants in their several terri- 
 tories, of which they now became almost the sovereigns. The 
 poorer landholders accordingly were forced to bow their necks 
 to the yoke, and, either by compulsion or through hope of being 
 better protected, submitted their independent patrimonies to the 
 feudal tenure. 
 
 But evils still more terrible than these political abuses were 
 the lot of those nations who had been subject to Charlemagne. 
 They, indeed, may appear to us little better than ferocious bar- 
 barians; but they were exposed to the assaults of tribes, in com- 
 parison of whom they must be deemed humane and polished. 
 Each frontier of the empire had to dread the attack of an enemy. 
 The coasts of Italy were continually alarmed by the Saracens of 
 Africa, who possessed themselves of Sicily and Sardinia, and 
 became masters of the Mediterranean Sea.*^ Though the Greek 
 dominions in the south of Italy were chiefly exposed to them, 
 they twice insulted and ravaged the territory of Rome; nor was 
 there any security even in the neighbourhood of the maritime 
 Alps, where, early in the tenth century, they settled a piratical 
 colony.*^ 
 
 Much more formidable were the foes by whom Germany was 
 assailed. The Slavonians, a widely extended people, whose 
 language is still spoken upon half the surface of Europe, had 
 occupied the countries of Bohemia, Poland, and Pannonia,*^ on 
 the eastern confines of the empire, and from the time of Charle- 
 magne acknowledged its superiority. But at the end of the ninth 
 century a Tartarian tribe, the Hungarians, overspreading that 
 country which since has borne their name, and moving forward 
 like a vast wave, brought a dreadful reverse upon Germany. 
 
 possessed three mansi of allodial prop- 
 erty was called upon for personal serv- 
 ice, or at least to furnish a substitute. 
 Nigellus, author of a poetical life of Louis 
 I, seems to implicate Charlemagne him- 
 self in some of the oppressions of his 
 reign. It was the first care of the former 
 to redress those who had been injured 
 in his father's time.—" Recueil des His- 
 toriens," tome vi. N. B.— I quote by this 
 title the great collection of French his- 
 torians, charters, and other documents 
 illustrative of the middle ages, more com- 
 monly known by the name of its first ed- 
 itor, the " Benedictine Bouquet." But as 
 several learned men of that order were suc- 
 cessively concerned in this work, not one 
 half of which has yet been published, it 
 seemed better to follow its own title-page. 
 *i These African Saracens belonged to 
 the Aglabites, a dynasty that reigned at 
 Tunis for the whole of the ninth century, 
 after throwing off the yoke of the Abbas- 
 
 site Khalifs. They were overthrown 
 themselves in the next age by the Fati- 
 mites. Sicily was first invaded in 827: 
 but the city of Syracuse was only re- 
 duced in 878. 
 
 *- Muratori, " Annali d'ltalia," ad. ann. 
 906, et alibi. These Saracens of Frassi- 
 neto, supposed to be between Nice and 
 Monaco, were extirpated by a Count of 
 Provence in 972. But they had estab- 
 lished themselves more inland than Fras- 
 sineto. Creeping up the line of the Alps, 
 they took possession of St. Maurice, in 
 the Valais, from which the feeble kings 
 of Transjurane Burgundy could not dis- 
 lodge them. 
 
 •*^ I am sensible of the awkward effect 
 of introducing this name from a more 
 ancient geography, but it saves a circum- 
 locution still more awkward. Austria 
 would convey an imperfect idea, and the 
 Austrian dominions could not be named 
 without a tremendous anachronism. 
 
i6 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [800-987 
 
 Their numbers were great, their ferocity untamed. They fought 
 with light cavalry and light armour, trusting to their showers 
 of arrows, against which the swords and lances of the European 
 armies could not avail. The memory of Attila was renewed in 
 the devastations of these savages, who, if they were not his com- 
 patriots, resembled them both in their countenances and customs. 
 All Italy, all Germany, and the south of France felt this scourge; ** 
 till Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great drove them back by 
 successive victories within their own limits, where, in a short time, 
 they learned peaceful arts, adopted the religion and followed the 
 policy of Christendom. 
 
 If any enemies could be more destructive than these Hun- 
 garians, they were the pirates of the north, known commonly by 
 the name of Normans. The love of a predatory life seems to 
 have attracted adventurers of different nations to the Scandi- 
 navian seas, from whence they infested, not only by maritime 
 piracy, but continual invasions, the northern coasts both of 
 France and Germany. The causes of their sudden appearance 
 are inexplicable, or at least could only be sought in the ancient 
 traditions of Scandinavia. For, undoubtedly, the coasts of France 
 and England were as little protected from depredations under 
 the Merovingian kings, and those of the Heptarchy, as in sub- 
 sequent times. Yet only one instance of an attack from this 
 side is recorded, and that before the middle of the sixth cen- 
 tury,'^^ till the age of Charlemagne. In 787 the Danes, as we 
 call those northern plunderers, began to infest England, which 
 lay most immediately open to their incursions. Soon afterward 
 they ravaged the coasts of France. Charlemagne repulsed them 
 by means of his fleets; yet they pillaged a few places during 
 his reign. It is said that, perceiving one day from a port in the 
 Mediterranean some Norman vessels which had penetrated into 
 that sea, he shed tears in anticipation of the miseries which 
 awaited his empire.*® In Louis's reign their depredations upon 
 the coast were more incessant,*^ but they did not penetrate into 
 
 ** In 924 they overran Languedoc. 
 Raymond-Pons, Count of Toulouse, cut 
 their army to pieces; but they had pre- 
 viously committed such ravages that the 
 bishops of that province, writing soon 
 afterward to Pope John X, assert that 
 scarcely any eminent ecclesiastics, out 
 of a great number, were left alive. — 
 " Hist, de Languedoc," tome ii, p. 60. 
 They penetrated into Guienne, as late as 
 951- — Flodoardi Chronicon, in " Recueil 
 des Historiens," tome viii. In Italy they 
 inspired such terror that a mass was com- 
 posed expressly deprecating this calam- 
 ity: Ab Ungarorum nos defendas jaculisl 
 In 937 they ravaged the country as far 
 as Benevento and Capua.— Muratori, 
 " Ann. d'ltalia." 
 
 « " Greg. Turon.," 1. iii, c. 3. 
 
 " In the ninth century the Norman 
 
 firates not only ravaged the Balearic 
 sles and nearer coasts of the Mediter- 
 ranean, but even Greece,— De Marca, 
 " Marca Hispanica," p. 2>27. 
 
 *^ Nigellus, the poetical biographer of 
 Louis, gives the following description of 
 the Normans: 
 
 " Nort quoque Francisco dicuntur no- 
 mine manni. 
 Veloces, agiles. armigerique nimis: 
 Ipse quidem populus late pernotus ha- 
 betur, 
 Lintre dapes quserit, incolitatque mare. 
 Pulcher adest facie, vultuque statuque 
 
 decorus." — L. iv. 
 He goes on to tell us that they wor- 
 shipped Neptune. Was it a similarity of 
 name or of attributes that deceived him? 
 
80CK9S7] ACCESSION OF HUGH CAPET 17 
 
 the inland country till that of Charles the Bald. The wars be- 
 tween that prince and his family, which exhausted France of her 
 noblest blood, the insubordination of the provincial governors, 
 even the instigation of some of Charles's enemies, laid all open 
 to their inroads. They adopted a uniform plan of warfare both 
 in France and England; sailing up navigable rivers in their ves- 
 sels of small burden, and fortifying the islands which they occa- 
 sionally found, they made these intrenchments at once an asylum 
 for their women and children, a repository for their plunder, and 
 a place of retreat from superior force. After pillaging a town, 
 they retired to these strongholds or to their ships; and it was 
 not till 872 that they ventured to keep possession of Angers, 
 which, however, they were compelled to evacuate. Sixteen years 
 afterward they laid siege to Paris, and committed the most ruin- 
 ous devastations on the neighbouring country. As these Nor- 
 mans were unchecked by religious awe, the rich monasteries, 
 which had stood harmless amid the havoc of Christian war, were 
 overwhelmed in the storm. Perhaps they may have endured 
 some irrecoverable losses of ancient learning; but their com- 
 plaints are of monuments disfigured, bones of saints and kings 
 dispersed, treasures carried away. St. Denis redeemed its abbot 
 from captivity with six hundred and eighty-five pounds of gold. 
 All the chief abbeys were stripped about the same time, either 
 by the enemy or for contributions to the public necessity. So 
 impoverished was the kingdom that, in 860, Charles the Bald 
 had great difficulty in collecting three thousand pounds of silver 
 to subsidize a body of Normans against their countrymen. The 
 Kings of France, too feeble to prevent or repel these invaders, 
 had recourse to the palliative of buying peace at their hands or 
 rather precarious armistices, to which reviving thirst of plunder 
 soon put an end. At length Charles the Simple, in 918, ceded 
 a great province, which they had already partly occupied, partly 
 rendered desolate, and which has derived from them the name 
 of Normandy. Ignominious as this appears, it proved no im- 
 politic step. Rollo, the Norman chief, with all his subjects, be- 
 came Christians and Frenchmen; and the kingdom was at once 
 relieved from a terrible enemy, and strengthened by a race of 
 hardy colonists.*® 
 
 The accession of Hugh Capet had not the immediate effect of 
 restoring the royal authority over France. His own very ex- 
 tensive fief was now, indeed, united to the crown; but a few great 
 vassals occupied the remainder of the kingdom. Six of these 
 obtained, at a subsequent time, the exclusive appellation of peers 
 
 *8 An exceedingly good sketch of these Bonamy, " Mem. de I'Acad. des In- 
 Norman incursions, and of the political script.," tomes xv and xvii. These I have 
 situation of France during that period, chiefly followed in the text. [Note XIII.] 
 may be found in two memoirs by M. 
 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [987-1226 
 
 of France — the Count of Flanders, whose fief stretched from 
 the Scheldt to the Somme; the Count of Champagne; the Duke 
 of Normandy, to whom Brittany did homage; the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, on whom the Count of Nivernois seems to have depended; 
 the Duke of Aquitaine, whose territory, though less than the an- 
 cient kingdom of that name, comprehended Poitou, Limousin, 
 and most of Guienne, with the feudal superiority over the Angou- 
 mois, and some other central districts; and, lastly, the Count of 
 Toulouse, who possessed Languedoc, with the small countries 
 of Quercy and Rouergue, and the superiority over Auvergne.** 
 Besides these six, the Duke of Gascony, not long afterward united 
 with Aquitaine, the Counts of Anjou, Ponthieu, and Verman- 
 dois, the Viscount of Bourges, the lords of Bourbon and Coucy, 
 with one or two other vassals, held immediately of the last Carlo- . 
 vingian kings.^^ This was the aristocracy, of which Hugh Capet 
 usurped the direction; for the suffrage of no general assembly 
 gave a sanction to his title. On the death of Louis V he took 
 advantage of the absence of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, who, 
 as the deceased king's uncle, was nearest heir, and procured his 
 own consecration at Rheims. At first he was by no means ac- 
 knowledged in the kingdom; but his contest with Charles prov- 
 ing successful, the chief vassals ultimately gave at least a tacit 
 consent to the usurpation, and permitted the royal name to de- 
 scend undisputed upon his posterity.'^^ But this was almost the 
 sole attribute of sovereignty which the first kings of the third 
 dynasty enjoyed. For a long period before and after the acces- 
 sion of that family France has, properly speaking, no national 
 history. The character or fortune of those who were called its 
 kings was little more important to the majority of the nation 
 than those of foreign princes. Undoubtedly the degree of influ- 
 ence which they exercised with respect to the vassals of the crown 
 varied according to their power and their proximity. Over Gui- 
 
 4* Auvergne changed its feudal supe- 
 rior twice. It had been subject to the 
 Duke of Aquitaine till about the middle 
 of the tenth century. The Counts of Tou- 
 louse then got possession of it; but early 
 in the twelfth century the Counts of Au- 
 vergne again did homage to Guienne. It 
 is very difficult to follow the history of 
 these fiefs. 
 
 ^0 The immediacy of vassals in times 
 so ancient is open to much controversy. 
 I have followed the authority of those 
 industrious Benedictines, the editors of 
 " L'Art de verifier les Dates." 
 
 '^ The south of France not only took 
 no part in Hugh's elevation, but long 
 refused to pay him any obedience, or 
 rather to acknowledge his title, for obe- 
 dience was wholly out of the question. 
 The style of charters ran, instead of the 
 king's name, Deo regnante, rege expec- 
 
 tante, or absente rege terrene. He forced 
 Guienne to submit about 990. But in 
 Limousin thejr continued to acknowledge 
 the sons of Charles of Lorraine till 1009. 
 — Vaissette, " Hist, de Lang.," tome ii. 
 pp. 120, 150. Before this Toulouse had 
 refused to recognise Eudes and Raoul, 
 two Kings of France who were not of the 
 Carlovingian family, and even hesitated 
 about Louis IV and Lothaire, who had 
 an hereditary right.— Idem. 
 
 These proofs of Hugh Capet's usurpa- 
 tion seem not to be materially invalidated 
 by a dissertation in the fiftieth volume of 
 the " Academy of Inscriptions," p. 553- 
 It is not, of course, to be denied that 
 the northern parts of France acquiesced 
 in his assumption of the royal title, if 
 they did not give an express consent 
 to it. 
 
687-1226] 
 
 LOUIS VI 
 
 19 
 
 enne and Toulouse the first four Capets had very Httle authority; 
 nor do they seem to have ever received assistance from them in 
 either civil or national wars.^^ With provinces nearer to their 
 own domains, such as Normandy and Flanders, they were fre- 
 quently engaged in alliance or hostility; but each seemed rather 
 to proceed from the policy of independent states than from the 
 relation of a sovereign toward his subjects.^^ 
 
 It should be remembered that, when the fiefs of Paris and 
 Orleans are said to have been reunited by Hugh Capet to the 
 crown little more is understood than the feudal superiority over 
 the vassals of these provinces. As the kingdom of Charlemagne's 
 posterity was split into a number of great fiefs, so each of these 
 contained many barons, possessing exclusive immunities within 
 their own territories, waging war at their pleasure, administer- 
 ing justice to their military tenants and other subjects, and free 
 from all control beyond the conditions of the feudal compact.*^* 
 At the accession of Louis VI in 1108 the cities of Paris, Orleans, 
 and Bourges, with the immediately adjacent districts, formed 
 the most considerable portion of the royal domain. A number 
 of petty barons, with their fortified castles, intercepted the com- 
 munication between these, and waged war against the king 
 almost under the walls of his capital. It cost Louis a great deal 
 of trouble to reduce the lords of Montlhery and other places with- 
 in a few miles of Paris. Under this prince, however, who had 
 more activity than his predecessors, the royal authority consid- 
 
 "- 1 have not found any authority for 
 supposing that the provinces south of the 
 Loire contributed their assistance to the 
 king in war, unless the following passage 
 of Gulielmus Pictaviensis be considered 
 as matter of fact, and not rather as a 
 rhetorical flourish. He tells us that a 
 vast army was collected by Henry I 
 against the Duke of Normandy: Bur- 
 gundium, Arverniam, atque Vasconiam 
 properare videres horribiles ferro; immo 
 vires tanti regni quantum in climata 
 
 3uatuor mundi patent cunctas. — " Recueil 
 es Historiens, tome xi, p. 83. But we 
 have the roll of the army wnich Louis VI 
 led against the Emperor Henry V, A. D. 
 1 120, in a national war: and it was entire- 
 ly composed of troops from Champagne, 
 the Isle of France, the Orleannois, and 
 other provinces north of the Loire. — 
 Velly, tome iii, p. 62. Yet this was a 
 sort of convocation of the ban; Rex ut 
 eum tota Francia sequatur, invitat. Even 
 so late as the reign of Philip Augustus, 
 in a list of the knights bannerets of 
 France, though those of Brittany, Flan- 
 ders, Champagne, and Burgundy, besides 
 the royal domains, are enumerated, no 
 mention is made of the provinces beyond 
 the Loire. — Du Chesne, " Script. Rerum 
 Gallicarum," tome v, p. 262. 
 " [Note XIV.] 
 " In a subsequent chapter I shall il- 
 
 lustrate at much greater length the cir- 
 cumstances of the French monarchy with 
 respect to its feudal vassals. It would be 
 inconvenient to anticipate the subject at 
 present, which is rather of a legal than 
 narrative character. 
 
 Sismondi has given a relative scale of 
 the great fiefs, according to the number 
 of modern departments which they con- 
 tained. At the accession of Louis VI the 
 crown possessed about five departments; 
 the Count of Flanders held four; the 
 Count of Vermandois, two; the Count of 
 Boulogne, one; the Count of Champagne, 
 six; the Duke of Burgundy, three; of 
 Normandy, five; of Brittany, five; the 
 Count of Anjou, three. Thirty-three de- 
 partments south of the Loire he considers 
 as hardly connected with the crown; and 
 twenty-one were at that time dependent 
 on the empire. (Vol. v, p. 7.) it is to 
 be understood, of course, that these di- 
 visions are not rigorously exact; and 
 also that, in every instance, owners of 
 fiefs with civil and criminal jurisdiction 
 had the full possession of their own terri- 
 tories, subject more or less to their im- 
 mediate lord, whether it were the king or 
 another. The real domain of Louis VI 
 was almost confined to the five towns — 
 Paris, Orleans, Estampes, Melun, and 
 Compiegne (Id., p. 86); and to estates, 
 probably large, in their neighbourhood. 
 
20 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [987-1226 
 
 erably revived. From his reign we may date the systematic 
 rivalry of the French and EngHsh monarchies. HostiHties had 
 several times occurred between Philip I and the two WiUiams; 
 but the wars that began under Louis VI lasted, with no long 
 interruption, for three centuries and a half, and form, indeed, the 
 most leading feature of French history during the middle ages.^*^ 
 Of all the royal vassals, the Dukes of Normandy were the proud- 
 est and most powerful. Though they had submitted to do hom- 
 age, they could not forget that they came in originally by force, 
 and that in real strength they were fully equal to their sover- 
 eign. Nor had the conquest of England any tendency to dimin- 
 ish their pretensions.^^ 
 
 Louis VII ascended the throne with better prospects than his 
 father. He had married Eleanor, heiress of the great duchy of 
 Guienne. But this union, which promised an immense accession 
 of strength to the crown, was rendered unhappy by the levities 
 of that princess. Repudiated by Louis, who felt rather as a hus- 
 band than a king, Eleanor immediately married Henry II of Eng- 
 land, who, already inheriting Normandy from his mother and 
 Anjou from his father, became possessed of more than one half 
 of France, and an overmatch for Louis, even if the great vassals 
 of the crown had been always ready to maintain its supremacy. 
 One might venture, perhaps, to conjecture that the sceptre of 
 France would eventually have passed from the Capets to the 
 Plantagenets, if the vexatious quarrel with Becket at one time, 
 and the successive rebellions fomented by Louis at a later period, 
 had not embarrassed the great talents and ambitious spirit of 
 Henry. 
 
 But the scene quite changed when Philip Augustus, son of 
 Louis VII, came upon the stage. No prince comparable to him 
 in systematic ambition and military enterprise had reigned in 
 France since Charlemagne. From his reign the French mon- 
 archy dates the recovery of its lustre. He wrested from the Count 
 of Flanders the Vermandois (that part of Picardy which borders 
 on the Isle of France and Champagne ^'^), and subsequently the 
 county of Artois. But the most important conquests of Philip 
 were obtained against the Kings of England. Even Richard I, 
 with all his prowess, lost ground in struggling against an adver- 
 sary not less active and more politic than himself. But when 
 
 BB Velly, tome iii, p. 40. 
 
 °* The Norman historians maintain that 
 their dukes did not owe any service to 
 the King of France, but only simple hom- 
 age, or, as it was called, per paragium. 
 — " Recueil des Historiens," tome xi, 
 pref., p. 161. They certainly acted upon 
 this principle; and the manner in which 
 they first came into the country is not 
 very consistent with dependence. 
 
 " The original Counts of Vermandois 
 were descended from Bernard, King of 
 Italy, grandson of Charlemagne : but 
 their fief passed by the donation of Isa- 
 bel, the last countess, to her husband, 
 the Earl of Flanders, after her death in 
 1183. The principal towns of the Ver- 
 mandois are St. Quentin and Peronne.— 
 " Art de verifier Tes Dates," tome ii, p. 
 700. 
 
987-1226] PHILIP AUGUSTUS— LOUIS VIII 21 
 
 John not only took possession of his brother's dominions, but 
 confirmed his usurpation by the murder, as was very probably 
 surmised, of the heir, Philip, artfully taking advantage of the 
 general indignation, summoned him as his vassal to the court 
 of his peers. John demanded a safe-conduct. Willingly, said 
 Philip; let him come unmolested. And return? inquired the 
 English envoy. If the judgment of his peers permit him, re- 
 plied the king. By all the saints of France, he exclaimed, when 
 further pressed, he shall not return unless acquitted. The 
 Bishop of Ely still remonstrated that the Duke of Normandy 
 could not come without the King of England ; nor would the 
 barons of that country permit their sovereign to run the risk 
 of death or imprisonment. What of that, my lord bishop ? cried 
 Philip. It is well known that my vassal the Duke of Nor- 
 mandy acquired England by force. But if a subject obtains any 
 accession of dignity, shall his paramount lord therefore lose his 
 rights ? ^® 
 
 It may be doubted whether, in thus citing John before his 
 court, the King of France did not stretch his feudal sovereignty 
 beyond its acknowledged limits. Arthur was certainly no im- 
 mediate vassal of the crown for Brittany; and, though he had 
 done homage to Philip for Anjou and Maine, yet a subsequent 
 treaty had abrogated his investiture, and confirmed his uncle in 
 the possession of those provinces.^® But the vigour of Philip, 
 and the meanness of his adversary, cast a shade over all that 
 might be novel or irregular in these proceedings. John, not ap- 
 pearing at his summons, was declared guilty of felony, and his 
 fiefs confiscated. The execution of this sentence was not intrusted 
 to a dilatory army. Philip poured his troops into Normandy, 
 and took town after town, while the King of England, infatuated 
 by his own wickedness and cowardice, made hardly an attempt 
 at defence. In two years Normandy, Maine, and Anjou were 
 irrecoverably lost. Poitou and Guienne resisted longer; but the 
 conquest of the first was completed by Louis VIII, successor of 
 Philip, and the subjection of the second seemed drawing near, 
 when the arms of Louis were diverted to different but scarcely 
 less advantageous objects. 
 
 The country of Languedoc, subject to the Counts of Tou- 
 louse, had been unconnected, beyond any other part of France, 
 with the kings of the house of Capet. Louis VII, having married 
 his sister to the reigning count, and travelled himself through the 
 country, began to exei;cise some degree of authority, chiefly in 
 confirming the rights of ecclesiastical bodies, who were vain, per- 
 haps, of this additional sanction to the privileges which they 
 
 "58 Mat. Paris, p. 238, edit. 1684. is well argued by Mably, " Observations 
 
 " The illegality of Philip's proceedings sur I'Histoire de France," 1. iii, c. 6. 
 
22 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [987-1226 
 
 already possessed.^^ But the remoteness of their situation, with 
 a difference in language and legal usages, still kept the people 
 of this province apart from those of the north of France. 
 
 About the middle of the twelfth century certain religious opin- 
 ions, which it is not easy nor, for our present purpose, material 
 to define, but, upon every supposition, exceedingly adverse to 
 those of the Church,^^ began to spread over Langiiedoc. Those 
 who imbibed them have borne the name of Albigeois, though 
 they were in no degree peculiar to the district of Albi. In despite 
 of much preaching and some persecution, these errors made a 
 continual progress, till Innocent III, in 1198, despatched com- 
 missaries, the seed of the Inquisition, with ample powers both to 
 investigate and to chastise. Raymond YI, Count of Toulouse, 
 whether inclined toward the innovators, as was then the theme 
 of reproach, or, as is more probable, disgusted with the insolent 
 interference of the Pope and his missionaries, provoked them to 
 pronounce a sentence of excommunication against him. Though 
 this was taken off, he was still suspected ; and upon the assassina- 
 tion of one of the inquisitors, in which Raymond had no concern, 
 Innocent published a crusade against both the count and his 
 subjects, calling upon the King of France and the nobility of that 
 kingdom to take up the cross, with all the indulgences usually 
 held out as allurements to religious warfare. Though Philip 
 would not interfere, a prodigious number of knights undertook 
 this enterprise, led partly by ecclesiastics, and partly by some 
 of the first barons in France. It was prosecuted with every atro- 
 cious barbarity which superstition, the mother of crimes, could 
 inspire. Languedoc, a country, for that age, flourishing and 
 civilized, was laid waste by these desolators; her cities burned; 
 her inhabitants swept away by fire and the sword. And this was 
 to punish a fanaticism ten thousand times more innocent than 
 their own, and errors which, according to the worst imputations, 
 left the laws of humanity and the peace of social life unimpaired.®^ 
 
 ^* According to the Benedictine his- 
 torians Vich and Vaissette, there is no 
 trace of any act of sovereignty exercised 
 by the Kings of France in Languedoc 
 from 955, when Lothaire confirmed a 
 charter of his predecessor Raoul in favour 
 of the Bishop of Puy, till the reign of 
 Louis VIL (" Hist, de Languedoc," 
 tome iii, p. 88.) They have published, 
 however, an instrument of Louis VI in 
 favour of the same church, confirming 
 those of former princes. (Appendix, p. 
 473') Neither the Counts oi Toulouse, 
 nor any lord of the province, were pres- 
 ent in a very numerous national assem- 
 bly at the coronation of Philip I. (Id., 
 p. 200.) I do not recollect to have ever 
 met with the name of the Count of Tou- 
 louse as a subscribing witness to the 
 charters of the first Capetian kings in 
 
 the " Recueil des Historiens," where 
 many are published, though that of tlie 
 Duke of Guienne sometimes occurs. 
 
 ^] For the real tenets of the Langue- 
 docian sectaries I refer to the last chap- 
 ter of the present work, where the sub- 
 ject^ will be taken up again. 
 
 °2 The Albigensian war commenced 
 with the storming of Beziers, and a mas- 
 sacre wherein fifteen thousand persons, 
 or, according to some narrations, sixty 
 thousand, were put to the sword. Not a 
 living soul escaped, as witnesses assure 
 us. It was here that a Cistercian monk, 
 who led on the crusaders, answered the 
 inquiry, how the Catholics were to be 
 distinguished from heretics: Kill them 
 all! God will know his own. Besides 
 Vaissette, see Sismondi, " Litt^rature du 
 Midi," tome i, p. 201. 
 
987-1226] CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGEOIS 
 
 23 
 
 The crusaders were commanded by Simon de Montfort, a 
 man, like Cromwell, whose intrepidity, hypocrisy, and ambition 
 marked him for the hero of a holy war. The energy of such a 
 mind, at the head of an army of enthusiastic warriors, may well 
 account for successes which then appeared miraculous. But 
 Montfort was cut off before he could realize his ultimate object, 
 an independent principality; and Raymond was able to bequeath 
 the inheritance of his ancestors to his son. Rome, however, was 
 not yet appeased; upon some new pretence she raised up a still 
 more formidable enemy against the younger Raymond. Louis 
 VIII suffered himself to be diverted from the conquests of Gui- 
 enne to take the cross against the supposed patron of heresy. 
 After a short and successful war, Louis, dying prematurely, left 
 the crown of France to a son only twelve years old. But the 
 Count of Toulouse was still pursued, till, hopeless of safety in so 
 unequal a struggle, he concluded a treaty upon very hard terms. 
 By this he ceded the greater part of Languedoc; and, giving 
 his daughter in marriage to Alphonso, brother of Louis IX, con- 
 firmed to them, and to the king in failure of their descendants, 
 the reversion of the rest, in exclusion of any other children whom 
 he might have. Thus fell the ancient house of Toulouse, through 
 one of those strange combinations of fortune which thwart the 
 natural course of human prosperity, and disappoint the plans of 
 wise policy and beneficent government.®^ 
 
 The rapid progress of royal power under Philip Augustus and 
 his son had scarcely given the great vassals time to reflect upon 
 the change which it produced in their situation. The crown, with 
 which some might singly have measured their forces, was now 
 an equipoise to their united weight. And such a union w^as 
 hard to be accomplished among men not always very sagacious 
 in policy, and divided by separate interests and animosities. They 
 were not, however, insensible to the crisis of their feudal liber- 
 ties; and the minority of Louis IX, guided only by his mother, 
 the regent, Blanche of Castile, seemed to offer a favourable oppor- 
 
 «3 The best account of this crusade 
 against the Albigeois is to be found in 
 the third volume of Vaissette's " History 
 of Languedoc"; the Benedictine spirit of 
 mildness and veracity tolerably counter- 
 balancing the prejudices of orthodoxy. 
 Velly, " Hist, de France," tome iii, has 
 abridged this work. 
 
 M. Fauriel edited for the " Collection 
 des Documens Inedits," in 1837, a metri- 
 cal history of the Albigensian crusade, by 
 a contemporary calling himself William 
 of Tudela, which seems to be an imagi- 
 nary name. It contains 9,578 verses. The 
 author begins as a vehement enemy of 
 the heretics and favourer of the crusade; 
 but becomes, before his poem is half com- 
 pleted, equally adverse to Montfort, Fol- 
 
 quet, and the other chiefs of the persecu- 
 tion, though never adopting heretical 
 opinions. ^ 
 
 Sismondi says — bitterly, but not un- 
 truly — of Simon de Montfort: " Habile 
 guerrier, austere dans ses moeurs, fana- 
 tique dans sa religion, inflexible, cruel, 
 et perfide, il r^unissait toutes les qualites 
 qui pouvaient plaire a un moine." (Vol. 
 vi, p. 297.) The Albigensian sectaries had 
 insulted the clergy and hissed St. Ber- 
 nard; which, of course, exasperated that 
 irritable body and aggravated their re- 
 venge. (Michelet, iii, 306.) But the 
 atrocities of that war have hardly been 
 equalled, and Sismondi was not the man 
 to conceal them. 
 
24 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1226-1270 
 
 tunity for recovering their former situation. Some of the most 
 considerable barons, the Counts of Brittany, Champagne, and La 
 Marche, had, during the time of Louis VIII, shown an unwilling- 
 ness to push the Count of Toulouse too far, if they did not even 
 keep up a secret understanding with him. They now broke out 
 into open rebellion; but the address of Blanche detached some 
 from the league, and her firmness subdued the rest. For the first 
 fifteen years of Louis's reign the struggle was frequently renewed, 
 till repeated humiliations convinced the refractory that the throne 
 was no longer to be shaken. A prince so feeble as Henry III 
 was unable to afford them that aid from England which, if his 
 grandfather or son had then reigned, might probably have length- 
 ened these civil wars. 
 
 But Louis IX had methods of preserving his ascendency very 
 different from military prowess. That excellent prince was per- 
 haps the most eminent pattern of unswerving probity and Chris- 
 tian strictness of conscience that ever held the sceptre in any 
 country. There is a peculiar beauty in the reign of St. Louis, be- 
 cause it shows the inestimable benefit which a virtuous king may 
 confer on his people, without possessing any distinguished genius. 
 For nearly half a century that he governed France there is not 
 the smallest want of moderation or disinterestedness in his actions, 
 and yet he raised the influence of the monarchy to a much higher 
 point than the most ambitious of his predecessors. To the sur- 
 prise of his own and later times, he restored a great part of his 
 conquests to Henry III, whom he might naturally hoped to have 
 expelled from France. It would indeed have been a tedious work 
 to conquer Guienne, which was full of strong places; and the 
 subjugation of such a province might have alarmed the other 
 vassals of his crown. But it is the privilege only of virtuous 
 minds to perceive that wisdom resides in moderate counsels: no 
 sagacity ever taught a selfish and ambitious sovereign to forego 
 the sweetness of immediate power. An ordinary king, in the cir- 
 cumstances of the French monarchy, would have fomented, or, 
 at least, have rejoiced in, the dissensions which broke out among 
 the principal vassals ; Louis constantly employed himself to recon- 
 cile them. In this, too, his benevolence had all the effects of far- 
 sighted policy. It had been the practice of his last three prede- 
 cessors to interpose their mediation in behalf of the less powerful 
 classes, the clergy, the inferior nobility, and the inhabitants of 
 chartered towns. Thus the supremacy of the crown became a 
 familiar idea; but the perfect integrity of St. Louis wore away 
 all distrust, and accustomed even the most jealous feudatories to 
 look upon him as their judge and legislator. And as the royal 
 authority was hitherto shown only in its most amiable preroga- 
 tives, the dispensation of favour and the redress of wrong, few 
 
LOUIS IX OPENING THE J AILS> 
 
 Photogravure from a painting by Luc Olivier Merson. 
 
Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 
 
1226-1270] LOUIS IX 25 
 
 were watchful enough to remark the transition of the French 
 constitution from a feudal league to an absolute monarchy. 
 
 It was perhaps fortunate for the display of St. Louis's virtues 
 that the throne had already been strengthened by the less inno- 
 cent exertions of Philip Augustus and Louis VIII. A century 
 earlier his mild and scrupulous character, unsustained by great 
 actual power, might not have inspired sufficient awe. But the 
 crown was now grown so formidable, and Louis was so eminent 
 for his firmness and bravery — qualities without which every other 
 virtue would have been ineffectual — that no one thought it safe 
 to run wantonly into rebellion, while his disinterested administra- 
 tion gave no one a pretext for it. Hence the latter part of his 
 reign was altogether tranquil, and employed in watching over the 
 public peace and the security of travellers; administering justice 
 personally or by the best counsellors; and compiling that code 
 of feudal customs called the " Establishments of St. Louis," which 
 is the first monument of legislation after the accession of the 
 house of Capet. Not satisfied with the justice of his own con- 
 duct, Louis aimed at that act of virtue which is rarely practised 
 by private men, and had perhaps no example among kings — 
 restitution. Commissaries were appointed to inquire what pos- 
 sessions had been unjustly annexed to the royal domain during 
 the last two reigns. These were restored to the proprietors, or, 
 where length of time had made it difficult to ascertain the claim- 
 ant, their value was distributed among the poor.®* 
 
 It has been hinted already that all this excellence of heart 
 in Louis IX was not attended with that strength of understand- 
 ing, which is necessary, we must allow, to complete the useful- 
 ness of a sovereign. During his minority Blanche of Castile, his 
 mother, had filled the office of regent with great courage and 
 firmness. But after he grew up to manhood, her influence seems 
 to have passed the limit which gratitude and piety would have 
 assigned to it ; and, as her temper was not very meek or popular, 
 exposed the king to some degree of contempt. He submitted 
 even to be restrained from the society of his wife Margaret, daugh- 
 ter of Raymond, Count of Provence, a princess of great virtue 
 and conjugal affection. Joinville relates a curious story, charac- 
 teristic of Blanche's arbitrary conduct, and sufficiently deroga- 
 tory to Louis.®^ 
 
 But the principal weakness of this king, which almost effaced 
 all the good effects of his virtues, was superstition. It would 
 be idle to sneer at those habits of abstemiousness and mortifica- 
 
 '* Velly, tome v, p. 150. This historian not to rely.—" Collection des Memoires 
 
 has very properly dwelt for almost a vol- relatifs a I'Histoire de France," tome ii, 
 
 ume on St. Louis's internal administra- pp. 140-156. 
 
 tion; it is one of the most valuable parts "' " Collection des Memoires," tome ii, 
 
 of his work. Joinville is a real witness, p. 241. 
 on whom, when we listen, it is impossible 
 
26 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [i 226-1 270 
 
 tion which were part of the rehgion of his age, and, at the worst, 
 were only injurious to his own comfort. But he had other preju- 
 dices, which, though they may be forgiven, must never be de- 
 fended. No man was ever more impressed than St. Louis with 
 a beUef in the duty of exterminating all enemies to his own faith. 
 With these he thought no layman ought to risk himself in the 
 perilous ways of reasoning, but to make answer with his sword 
 as stoutly as a strong arm and a fiery zeal could carry that argu- 
 ment.^^ Though, fortunately for his fame, the persecution against 
 the Albigeois, which had been the disgrace of his father's short 
 reign, was at an end before he reached manhood, he suffered a 
 hypocritical monk to establish a tribunal at Paris for the sup- 
 pression of heresy, where many innocent persons suffered 
 death. 
 
 But no events in Louis's life were more memorable than his 
 two crusades, which lead us to look back on the nature and cir- 
 cumstances of that most singular phenomenon in European his- 
 tory. Though the crusades involved all the western nations of 
 Europe, without belonging particularly to any one, yet, as France 
 was more distinguished than the rest in most of those enterprises, 
 I shall introduce the subject as a sort of digression from the main 
 course of French history. 
 
 Even before the violation of Palestine by the Saracen arms 
 it had been a prevailing custom among the Christians of Europe 
 to visit those scenes rendered interesting by religion, partly 
 through delight in the effects of local association, partly in obedi- 
 ence to the prejudices or commands of superstition. These pil- 
 grimages became more frequent in later times, in spite, perhaps 
 in consequence, of the danger and hardships which attended them. 
 For a while the Mohammedan possessors of Jerusalem permitted, 
 or even encouraged, a devotion which they found lucrative; but 
 this was interrupted whenever the ferocious insolence with which 
 they regarded all infidels got the better of their rapacity. During 
 the eleventh century, when, from increasing superstition and some 
 particular fancies, the pilgrims were more numerous than ever, 
 a change took place in the government of Palestine, which was 
 overrun by the Turkish hordes from the north. These barbarians 
 treated the visitors of Jerusalem with still greater contumely, min- 
 gling with their Mohammedan bigotry a consciousness of strength 
 
 ®® Aussi vous dis-je, me dist le roy, que 
 nul, si n'est grant clerc, et theologien 
 parfait, ne doit disputer aux Juifs: mais 
 doit rhomme lay, quant il oit mesdire de 
 la foy Chretienne, defendre la chose, non 
 pas seulement des paroles, mais a bonne 
 espee tranchant, et en frapper les medi- 
 sans et mescreans a travers le corps tant 
 qu'elle y pourra entrer. — Joinville, in 
 " Collection des Memoires," tome i, p. 23. 
 
 This passage, which shows a tolerable 
 degree of bigotry, did not require to be 
 strained further still by Mosheim, vol. iii, 
 p. 273 (edit. 1803). I may observe, by 
 the way, that this writer, who sees noth- 
 ing in Louis IX except his intolerance, 
 ought not to have charged him with is- 
 suing an edict in favour of the Inquisi- 
 tion in 1229, when he had not assumed 
 the government. 
 
1226-1270] THE CRUSADES 27 
 
 and courage, and a scorn of the Christians, whom they knew 
 only by the debased natives of Greece and Syria, or by these hum- 
 ble and defenceless palmers. When such insults became known 
 throughout Europe, they excited a keen sensation of resentment 
 among nations equally courageous and devout, which, though 
 wanting as yet any definite means of satisfying itself, was ripe 
 for whatever favourable conjuncture might arise. 
 
 Twenty years before the first crusade Gregory VII had pro- 
 jected the scheme of embodying Europe in arms against Asia 
 — a scheme worthy of his daring mind, and which, perhaps, was 
 never forgotten by Urban II, who in everything loved to imitate 
 his great predecessor.®^ This design of Gregory was founded 
 upon the supplication of the Greek Emperor Michael, which was 
 renewed by Alexus Comnenus to Urban with increased impor- 
 tunity. The Turks had now taken Nice, and threatened, from the 
 opposite shore, the very walls of Constantinople. Every one 
 knows whose hand held the torch to that inflammable mass of 
 enthusiasm that pervaded Europe; the hermit of Picardy, who, 
 roused by witnessed wrongs and imagined visions, journeyed from 
 land to land, the apostle of a holy war. The preaching of Peter 
 was powerfully seconded by Urban. In the councils of Piacenza 
 and of Clermont the deliverance of Jerusalem was eloquently 
 recommended and exultingly undertaken. " It is the will of 
 God!" was the tumultuous cry that broke from the heart and 
 lips of the assembly at Clermont; and these words afiford at once 
 the most obvious and most certain explanation of the leading 
 principle of the crusades. Later writers, incapable of sympa- 
 thizing with the blind fervour of zeal, or anxious to find a pretext 
 for its effect somewhat more congenial to the spirit of our times, 
 have sought political reasons for that which resulted only from 
 predominant affections. No suggestion of these will, I believe, 
 be found in contemporary historians. To rescue the Greek Em- 
 pire from its imminent peril, and thus to secure Christendom 
 from enemies who professed toward it eternal hostility, might 
 have been a legitimate and magnanimous ground of interference; 
 but it operated scarcely, or not at all, upon those who took the 
 cross. It argues, indeed, strange ignorance of the eleventh cen- 
 tury to ascribe such refinements of later times even to the princes 
 of that age. The Turks were no doubt repelled from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Constantinople by the crusaders; but this was a col- 
 lateral effect of their enterprise. Nor had they any disposition to 
 serve the interest of the Greeks, whom they soon came to hate, 
 
 0^ Gregory addressed, in 1074, a sort of walls of Constantinople. No mention of 
 
 encyclic letter to all who would defend Palestine is made in this letter. Labbe, 
 
 the Christian faith, enforcing upon them " Concilia," tome x, p. 44. St. Marc, 
 
 the duty of taking up arms against the " Abrege Chron. de I'Hist. de I'ltalie," 
 
 Saracens, who had almost come up to the tome iii, p. 614. 
 
28 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1226-1270 
 
 and not entirely without provocation, with almost as much ani- 
 mosity as the Moslems themselves. 
 
 Every means was used to excite an epidemical frenzy: the 
 remission of penance, the dispensation from those practices of 
 self-denial which superstition imposed or suspended at pleasure, 
 the absolution of all sins, and the assurance of eternal felicity. 
 None doubted that such as perished in the war received immedi- 
 ately the reward of martyrdom.®® False miracles and fanatical 
 prophecies, which were never so frequent, wrought up the enthu- 
 siasm to a still higher pitch. And these devotional feelings, which 
 are usually thwarted and balanced by other passions, fell in with 
 every motive that could influence the men of that time; with curi- 
 osity, restlessness, the love of license, thirst for war, emulation, 
 ambition. Of the princes who assumed the cross, some probably 
 from the beginning speculated upon forming independent estab- 
 lishments in the East. In later periods the temporal benefits of 
 undertaking a crusade undoubtedly blended themselves with less 
 selfish considerations. Men resorted to Palestine, as in modern 
 times they have done to the colonies, in order to redeem their 
 fame or repair their fortune. Thus Gui de Lusignan, after flying 
 from France for murder, was ultimately raised to the throne of 
 Jerusalem. To the more vulgar class were held out inducements 
 which, though absorbed in the overruling fanaticism of the first 
 crusade, might be exceedingly efficacious when it began rather 
 to flag. During the time that a crusader bore the cross he was 
 free from suit for his debts, and the interest of them was entirely 
 abolished; he was exempted, in some instances at least, from 
 taxes, and placed under the protection of the Church, so that he 
 could not be impleaded in any civil court, except on criminal 
 charges or disputes relating to land.®® 
 
 None of the sovereigns of Europe took a part in the first 
 crusade; but many of their chief vassals, great part of the infe- 
 rior nobility, and a countless multitude of the common people. 
 The priests left their parishes and the monks their cells; and 
 though the peasantry were then in general bound to the soil, we 
 find no check given to their emigration for this cause. Numbers 
 of women and children swelled the crowd; it appeared a sort of 
 sacrilege to repel any one from a work which was considered as 
 the manifest design of Providence. But if it were lawful to inter- 
 pret the will of Providence by events, few undertakings have been 
 more branded by its disapprobation than the crusades. So many 
 
 "»^ Nam qui pro Christi nomine decer- serted a bull of Eugenius III in 1146, 
 
 tantes, in acie fidelium et Christiana containing some of these privileges, 
 
 militia dicuntur, occumbere, non solum Others are granted h>y Philip Augustus 
 
 infamise, verum et peccaminum et delic- in 1214. " Ordonnances des Roi de 
 
 torum omnimodam credimus abolitionem France," tome i. See also Du Cange, 
 
 promereri.— Will. Tyr.. 1. x, c. 20. voc. " Crucis Privilegia." 
 
 ** Otho of Frisengen, c. 35, has in- 
 
1 226-1 270] 
 
 THE FIRST CRUSADE 
 
 29 
 
 crimes and so much misery have seldom been accumulated in 
 so short a space as in the three years of the first expedition. We 
 should be warranted by contemporary writers in stating the loss 
 of the Christians alone during this period at nearly a million, but 
 at the least computation it must have exceeded half that number,"^^ 
 To engage in the crusade and to perish in it were almost synony- 
 mous. Few of those myriads who were mustered in the plains of 
 Nice returned to gladden their friends in Europe with the story 
 of their triumph at Jerusalem. Besieging alternately and besieged 
 in Antioch, they drained to the lees the cup of misery : three hun- 
 dred thousand sat down before that place; next year there re- 
 mained but a sixth part to pursue the enterprise. But their losses 
 were least in the field of battle; the intrinsic superiority of Euro- 
 pean prowess was constantly displayed; the angel of Asia, to 
 apply the bold language of our poet, high and unmatchable, where 
 her rival was not, became a fear; and the Christian lances bore 
 all before them in their shock from Nice to Antioch, Edessa, and 
 Jerusalem. It was here, where their triumph was consummated, 
 that it was stained with the most atrocious massacre; not limited 
 to the hour of resistance, but renewed deliberately even after that 
 famous penitential procession to the holy sepulchre, which might 
 have calmed their ferocious dispositions if, through the misguided 
 enthusiasm of the enterprise, it had not been rather calculated to 
 excite them."^^ 
 
 The conquests obtained at such a price by the first crusade 
 were chiefly comprised in the maritime parts of Syria. Except 
 the state of Edessa beyond the Euphrates, ^^ which, in its best 
 days, extended over great part of Mesopotamia, the Latin pos- 
 sessions never reached more than a few leagues from the sea. 
 Within the barrier of Mount Libanus their arms might be feared, 
 but their power was never estabHshed; and the Prophet was still 
 invoked in the mosques of Aleppo and Damascus. The princi- 
 pality of Antioch to the north, the kingdom of Jerusalem, with 
 its feudal dependencies of Tripoli and Tiberias to the south, were 
 assigned, the one to Boemond, a brother of Robert Guiscard, 
 Count of Apulia, the other to Godfrey of Boulogne,^^ whose ex- 
 
 '0 William of Tyre says that at the 
 review before Nice there were found 
 600,000 of both sexes, exclusive of 100,000 
 cavalry armed in mail. (L. ii, c. 23.) But 
 Fulk of Chartres reckons the same num- 
 ber, besides women, children, and priests. 
 An immense slaughter had previously 
 been made in Hungary of the rabble 
 under Gaultier Sans-Avoir. 
 
 " The work of Mailly, entitled " L'Es- 
 prit des Croisades," is deserving of con- 
 siderable praise for its diligence and im- 
 partiality. It carries the history, however, 
 no further than the first expedition. Gib- 
 bon's two chapters on the crusades, 
 though not without inaccuracies, are a 
 
 brilliant portion of his great work. The 
 original writers are chiefly collected in 
 two folio volumes, entitled " Gesta Dei 
 per Francos," Hanover, 1611. 
 
 ■^2 Edessa was a little Christian princi- 
 pality, surrounded by and tributary to 
 the Turks. The inhabitants invited Bald- 
 win, on his progress in the first crusade, 
 and he made no great scruple of sup- 
 planting the reigning prince, who indeed 
 IS represented as a tyrant and usurper. 
 (" Esprit des Croisades," tome iv, p. 62; 
 De Guignes, " Hist, des Hun," tome ii, 
 pp. 135-162.) 
 
 " Godfrey never took the title of King 
 of Jerusalem, not choosing, he said, to 
 
30 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1226-1270 
 
 traordinary merit had justly raised him to a degree of influence 
 with the chief crusaders that has been sometimes confounded 
 with a legitimate authority.^^ In the course of a few years Tyre, 
 Ascalon, and the other cities upon the sea-coast were subjected 
 by the successors of Godfrey on the throne of Jerusalem. But 
 as their enemies had been stunned, not killed, by the western 
 storm, the Latins were constantly molested by the Mohammedans 
 of Egypt and Syria. They were exposed as the outposts of Chris- 
 tendom, with no respite and few resources. A second crusade, 
 in which the Emperor Conrad II and Louis VII of France were 
 engaged, each with seventy thousand cavalry, made scarce any 
 diversion, and that vast army wasted away in the passage of 
 Natolia.'^^ 
 
 The decline of the Christian establishments in the East is 
 ascribed by William of Tyre to the extreme viciousness of their 
 manners, to the adoption of European arms by the Orientals, 
 and to the union of the Mohammedan principalities under a single 
 chief."^® Without denying the operation of these causes, and 
 especially the last, it is easy to perceive one more radical than 
 all the three, the inadequacy of their means of self-defence. The 
 kingdom of Jerusalem was guarded only, exclusive of European 
 volunteers, by the feudal service of eight hundred and sixty-six 
 knights, attended each by four archers on horseback, by a militia 
 of five thousand and seventy-five burghers, and by a conscription, 
 in great exigencies, of the remaining population. "^^ William of 
 Tyre mentions an army of thirteen hundred horse and fifteen 
 
 wear a crown of gold in that city where 
 his Saviour had been crowned with 
 thorns. Baldwin, Godfrey's brother, who 
 succeeded him within two years, entitles 
 himself Rex Hierusalem, Latinorum pri- 
 mus.— Will. Tyr., 1. ii, c. 12. 
 
 " The heroes of the crusade are just 
 like those of romance. Godfrey is not 
 only the wisest but the strongest man in 
 the army. Perhaps Tasso has lost some 
 part of this physical superiority for the 
 sake of contrasting him with the imagi- 
 nary Rinaldo. He cleaves a Turk in 
 twain, from the shoulder to the haunch. 
 A noble Arab, after the taking of Jeru- 
 salem, requests him to try his sword upon 
 a camel, when Godfrey, with ease, cuts 
 off the head. The Arab, suspecting there 
 might be something peculiar in the blade, 
 desires him to do the same with his 
 sword; and the hero obliges him by de- 
 molishing a second camel.— Will. Tyr., 1. 
 ix c. 22. 
 
 '"Vertot puts the destruction in the 
 second crusade at two hundred thousand 
 men ("Hist, de Malthe," p. 129) ; and 
 from William of Tyre's language there 
 seems no reason to consider this an ex- 
 aggeration. (L. xvi, c. 19.) 
 
 ■"> L. xxi, c. 7. John of Vitrv also 
 mentions the change of weapons by the 
 
 Saracens, in imitation of the Latins, using 
 the lances and coat of mail instead of 
 bows and arrows, c. 92. But, according 
 to a more ancient writer, part of Soli- 
 man's (the Kilidge Arslan of De Guignes) 
 army in the first crusade was in armour, 
 loricis et galeis et clypeis aureis valde 
 armati. (Albertus Aquensis, 1. ii, c. 27.) 
 I may add to this a testimony of another 
 kind, not less decisive. In the Abbey 
 of St. Denis there were ten pictures, in 
 stained glass, representing sieges and 
 battles in the first crusade. These were 
 made by order of Suger, the minister of 
 Louis VI, and consequently in the early 
 part of the twelfth century. In many of 
 them the Turks are painted in coats of 
 mail, sometimes even in a plated cuirass. 
 In others they are quite unarmed, and 
 in flowing robes. (Montfaucon, " Monu- 
 mens de la Monarchic Frangaise," tome 
 i, pi. 50.) 
 
 ''"' Gibbon, c. 29, note 125. Jerusalem 
 itself was very thinly inhabited. For all 
 the heathens, says William of Tyre, had 
 perished in the massacre when the city 
 was taken; or, if any escaped, they were 
 not allowed to return; no heathen being 
 thought fit to dwell in the holy city. 
 Baldwin invited some Arabian Christians 
 to settle in it. 
 
1226-1270] 
 
 SECOND AND THIRD CRUSADES 
 
 31 
 
 thousand foot as the greatest which had ever been collected, and 
 predicts the utmost success from it if wisely conducted."^^ This 
 was a little before the irruption of Saladin. In the last fatal battle 
 Lusignan seems to have had a somewhat larger force. '^'^ Noth- 
 ing can more strikingly evince the ascendency of Europe than 
 the resistance of these Prankish acquisitions in Syria during nearly 
 two hundred years. Several of their victories over the Moslems 
 were obtained against such disparity of numbers that they may 
 be compared with whatever is most illustrious in history or 
 romance.®^ These perhaps were less due to the descendants of 
 the first crusaders, settled in the Holy Land,®^ than to those vol- 
 unteers from Europe whom martial ardour and religious zeal im- 
 pelled to the service. It was the penance commonly imposed 
 upon men of rank for the most heinous crimes to serve a number 
 of years under the banner of the cross. Thus a perpetual supply 
 of warriors was poured in from Europe; and in this sense the 
 crusades may be said to have lasted without intermission during 
 the whole period of the Latin settlements. Of these defenders, 
 the most renowned were the military orders of the Knights of 
 the Temple and of the Hospital of St. John ; ®^ instituted, the one 
 in 1 124, the other in 11 18, for the sole purpose of protecting the 
 Holy Land. The Teutonic order, estabUshed in 1190, when the 
 kingdom of Jerusalem was falling, soon diverted its schemes of 
 holy warfare to a very different quarter of the world. Large 
 estates, as well in Palestine as throughout Europe, enriched the 
 two former institutions; but the pride, rapaciousness, and mis- 
 conduct of both, especially of the Templars, seem to have bal- 
 anced the advantages derived from their valour.®^ At length the 
 famous Saladin, usurping the throne of a feeble dynasty which 
 had reigned in Egypt, broke in upon the Christians of Jerusalem; 
 the king and the kingdom fell into his hands; nothing remained 
 but a few strong towns upon the sea-coast. 
 
 These misfortunes roused once more the princes of Europe, 
 and the third crusade was undertaken by three of her sovereigns, 
 
 '8 L. xxii, c. 27, 
 
 " A primo introitu Latinorum in ter- 
 rain sanctam, says John de Vitry, nostri 
 tot milites in uno prcelio congregare 
 nequiverunt. Erant enim mille ducenti 
 milites loricati ; peditum autem cum 
 armis, arcubus et balistis circiter viginti 
 millia, infaustae expeditioni interfuisse 
 dicuntur. (" Gesta dei per Francos," p. 
 1118.) 
 
 ^ A brief summary of these victories is 
 given by John of Vitry, c. 93. 
 
 8^ Many of these were of a mongrel ex- 
 traction, descended from a Frank parent 
 on one side and Syrian on the other. 
 These were called Poulains, Fullani, and 
 were looked upon as a mean, degenerate 
 race. (Du Cange; Gloss, v. Pullani, and 
 
 " Observations sur Joinville," in " Col- 
 lection des Memoires relatifs a I'Histoire 
 de France," tome ii, p. 190.) 
 
 *^ The St. John of Jerusalem was nei- 
 ther the Evangelist nor yet the Baptist, 
 but a certain Cypriot, surnamed the Char- 
 itable, who had been patriarch of Alex- 
 andria. 
 
 *' See a curious instance of the mis- 
 conduct and insolence of the Templars, 
 in William of Tyre, 1. xx, c. 32. The 
 Templars possessed nine thousand man- 
 ors, and tne Knights of St. John nine- 
 teen thousand, in Europe. The latter 
 were almost as much reproached as the 
 Templars for their pride and avarice. (L. 
 xviii, c. 6.) 
 
32 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1226-1270 
 
 the greatest in personal estimation as well as dignity — by the 
 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus of France, and 
 our own Richard Coeur de Lion. But this, like the preceding 
 enterprise, failed of permanent effect; and those feats of romantic 
 prowess which made the name of Richard so famous both in 
 Europe and Asia ^* proved only the total inefificacy of all exer- 
 tions in an attempt so impracticable; Palestine was never the 
 scene of another crusade. One great armament was diverted to 
 the siege of Constantinople, and another wasted in fruitless at- 
 tempts upon Egypt. The Emperor Frederick II afterward pro- 
 cured the restoration of Jerusalem by the Saracens; but the Chris- 
 tian princes of Syria were unable to defend it, and their posses- 
 sions were gradually reduced to the maritime towns. Acre, the 
 last of these, was finally taken by storm in 1291 ; and its ruin 
 closes the history of the Latin dominion in Syria, which Europe 
 had already ceased to protect. 
 
 The last two crusades were undertaken by St. Louis. In the 
 first he was attended by twenty-eight hundred knights and fifty 
 thousand ordinary troops.®^ He landed at Damietta, in Egypt, 
 for that country was now deemed the key of the Holy Land, 
 and easily made himself master of the city. But advancing up 
 the country, he found natural impediments as well as enemies in 
 his way; the Turks assailed him with Greek fire, an instrument 
 of warfare almost as surprising and terrible as gunpowder; he 
 lost his brother, the Count of Artois, with many knights, at Mas- 
 soura, near Cairo, and began too late a retreat toward Damietta. 
 Such calamities now fell upon this devoted army as have scarcely 
 ever been surpassed: hunger and want of every kind, aggravated 
 by an unsparing pestilence. At length the king was made pris- 
 oner, and very few of the army escaped the Turkish scimetar in 
 battle or in captivity. Four hundred thousand livres were paid 
 as a ransom for Louis. He returned to France, and passed near 
 twenty years in the exercise of those virtues which are his best 
 title to canonization. But the fatal illusions of superstition were 
 still always at his heart; nor did it fail to be painfully observed 
 by his subjects that he still kept the cross upon his garment. His 
 last expedition was originally designed for Jerusalem. But he 
 had received some intimation that the King of Tunis was desirous 
 of embracing Christianity. That these intentions might be car- 
 ried into effect, he sailed out of his way to the coast of Africa, 
 
 ^* When a Turk's horse started at a But I greatly prefer the authority of 
 
 bush, he would chide him, Joinville says, Joinville, who has twice mentioned the 
 
 with, " Cuides-tu qu'y soit le roi Rich- number of knights in the text. On Gib- 
 
 ard? " Women kept their children quiet bon's authority, I put the main body at 
 
 with the threat of bringing Richard to 50,000; but, if Joinville has stated this, 
 
 them. I have missed the passage. Their vassals 
 
 ^* The Arabian writers give him 9,500 amounted to 1800. 
 knights and 130,000 common soldiers. 
 
I 270-1285] 
 
 PHILIP III— PHILIP IV 
 
 33 
 
 and laid siege to that city. A fever here put an end to his life, 
 sacrificed to that ruling passion which never would have forsaken 
 him. But he had survived the spirit of the crusades; the dis- 
 astrous expedition to Egypt had cured his subjects, though not 
 himself, of their folly; ^® his son, after making terms with Tunis, 
 returned to France; the Christians were suffered to lose what 
 they still retained in the Holy Land; and though many princes in 
 subsequent ages talked loudly of renewing the war, the promise, 
 if it were ever sincere, was never accomplished. 
 
 Louis IX had increased the royal domain by the annexation 
 of several counties and other less important fiefs; but soon after 
 the accession of Philip III (surnamed the Bold) it received a far 
 more considerable augmentation. Alfonso, the late king's brother, 
 had been invested with the county of Poitou, ceded by Henry III, 
 together with part of Auvergne and of Saintonge and held also, 
 as has been said before, the remains of the great fief of Toulouse, 
 in right of his wife Jane, heiress of Raymond VII. Upon his 
 death, and that of his countess, which happened about the same 
 time, the king entered into possession of all these territories. This 
 acquisition brought the sovereigns of France into contact with 
 new neighbours, the Kings of Aragon and the powers of Italy. 
 The first great and lasting foreign war which they carried on was 
 that of Philip III and Philip IV against the former kingdom, 
 excited by the insurrection of Sicily. Though effecting no change 
 in the boundaries of their dominions, this war may be deemed 
 a sort of epoch in the history of France and Spain, as well as in 
 that of Italy, to which it more peculiarly belongs. 
 
 There still remained five great and ancient fiefs of the French 
 crown — Champagne, Guienne, Flanders, Burgundy, and Brit- 
 tany. But Philip IV, usually called the Fair, married the heiress 
 of the first, a little before his father's death; and although he 
 governed that county in her name without pretending to reunite 
 it to the royal domain, it was, at least in a political sense, no longer 
 a part of the feudal body. With some of his other vassals Philip 
 used more violent methods. A parallel might be drawn between 
 
 8« The refusal of Joinville to accompany 
 the king in this second crusade is very 
 memorable, and gives us an insight into 
 the bad effects of both expeditions. Le 
 Roy de France et le Roy de Navarre me 
 pressoient fort de me croiser, et entre- 
 prendre le chemin du pelerinage de la 
 croix. Mais je leur respondi, que tendis 
 que j'avoie este oultre-mer au service de 
 Dieu, que les gens et officers du Roy de 
 France avoient trop greve et foulle mes 
 subjets, tant qu'ils en estoient apovris; 
 tenement que james il ne seroit que eulx 
 et moy ne nous en sortissons. Et yeoie 
 clerement, si je me mectoie au pelerinage 
 de la croix, que ce seroit la totale de- 
 struction de mesdiz povres subjets. De- 
 
 3 
 
 puis ouy-je dire a plusieurs, que ceux 
 qui luy conseillerent I'enterprinse de la 
 croix firent un trez grant mal, et peche- 
 rent mortellement. Car tandis qu'il fust 
 au royaume de France, tout son royaume 
 vivoit en paix, et regnoit justice. Et in- 
 continent qu'il en fust ors, tout com- 
 menga a decliner et a empirer. (Tome ii, 
 
 p. 158.) 
 
 In the Fabliaux of Le Grand d'Aussy 
 we have a neat poem by Rutuboeuf, 
 a writer of St. Louis's age, in a dialogue 
 between a crusader and a non-crusader, 
 wherein, though he gives the last word 
 to the former, it is plain that he designed 
 the opposite scale to preponderate. 
 (Tome ii, p. 163.) 
 
34 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1285-1314 
 
 this prince and Philip Augustus. But while in ambition, violence 
 of temper, and unprincipled rapacity, as well as in the success 
 of their attempts to establish an absolute authority, they may be 
 considered as nearly equal, we may remark this difference, that 
 Philip the Fair, who was destitute of military talents, gained those 
 ends by dissimulation which his predecessor had reached by force. 
 
 The duchy of Guienne, though somewhat abridged of its origi- 
 nal extent, was still by far the most considerable of the French 
 fiefs, even independently of its connection with England.^"^ Philip, 
 by dint of perfidy, and by the egregious incapacity of Edmund, 
 brother of Edward I, contrived to obtain and to keep for several 
 years the possession of this great province. A quarrel among 
 some French and English sailors having provoked retaliation, 
 till a sort of piratical war commenced between the two countries, 
 Edward, as Duke of Guienne, was summoned into the king's court 
 to answer for the trespass of his subjects. Upon this he de- 
 spatched his brother to settle terms of reconciliation, with fuller 
 powers than should have been intrusted to so credulous a negoti- 
 ator. Philip so outwitted this prince, through a fictitious treaty, 
 as to procure from him the surrender of all the fortresses in Gui- 
 enne. He then threw off the mask, and, after again summoning 
 Edward to appear, pronounced the confiscation of his fief.^® This 
 business is the greatest blemish in the political character of Ed- 
 ward. But his eagerness about the acquisition of Scotland ren- 
 dered him less sensible to the danger of a possession in many 
 respects more valuable; and the spirit of resistance among the 
 English nobility, which his arbitrary measures had provoked, 
 broke out very opportunely for Philip to thwart every effort for 
 the recovery of Guienne by arms. But after repeated suspensions 
 of hostilities a treaty was finally concluded, by which Philip re- 
 stored the province, on the agreement of a marriage between his 
 daughter Isabel and the heir of England. 
 
 To this restitution he was chiefly induced by the ill success 
 that attended his arms in Flanders, another of the great fiefs which 
 this ambitious monarch had endeavoured to confiscate. We have 
 not, perhaps, as clear evidence of the original injustice of his 
 proceedings toward the Count of Flanders as in the case of Gui- 
 
 *^ Philip was highly offended that in- 
 struments made in Guienne should be 
 dated by the year of Edward's reign, and 
 not of his own. This almost sole badj?e 
 of sovereignty had been preserved by the 
 Kings of France during all the feudal 
 ages. A struggle took place about it, 
 which is recorded in a curious letter from 
 John de Greilli to Edward. The French 
 court at last consented to let dates be 
 thus expressed: Actum fuit, regnante 
 P. rege Franciae, E. rege Anglise tenente 
 ducatum AquitanijE. Several precedents 
 were shown by the English where the 
 
 Counts of Toulouse had used the form, 
 Regnante A. Comite Tolosae. (Rymer, 
 tome ii, p, 1083.) As this is the first time 
 that I quote Rymer, it may be proper to 
 observe that my references are to the 
 London edition, the paging of which is 
 preserved on the margin of that printed 
 at the Hague. 
 
 ^^ In the view I have taken of this 
 transaction I have been guided by several 
 instruments in Rymer, which leave no 
 doubt on my mind. Vellv, of course, 
 represents the matter more favourably for 
 Philip. 
 
1285-1314] AGGRANDIZEMENT OF FRANCE 35 
 
 enne ; but he certainly twice detained his person, once after draw- 
 ing him on some pretext to his court, and again in violation of 
 the faith pledged by his generals. The Flemings made, however, 
 so vigorous a resistance that Philip was unable to reduce that 
 small country ; and in one famous battle at Courtray they discom- 
 fited a powerful army with that utter loss and ignominy to which 
 the undisciplined impetuosity of the French nobles was pre-emi- 
 nently exposed.®^ 
 
 Two other acquisitions of Philip the Fair deserve notice: that 
 of the counties of Angouleme and La Marche, upon a sentence 
 of forfeiture (and, as it seems, a very harsh one) passed against 
 the reigning count; and that of the city of Lyons and its adjacent 
 territory, which had not even feudally been subject to the crown 
 of France for more than three hundred years. Lyons was the 
 dowry of Matilda, daughter of Louis IV, on her marriage with 
 Conrad, King of Burgundy, and was bequeathed with the rest 
 of that kingdom by Rodolph, in 1032, to the empire. Frederick 
 Barbarossa conferred upon the Archbishop of Lyons all regalian 
 rights over the city, with the title of imperial vicar. France 
 seems to have had no concern with it, till St. Louis was called in 
 as a mediator in disputes between the chapter and the city, during 
 a vacancy of the see, and took the exercise of jurisdiction upon 
 himself for the time. Philip III, having been chosen arbitrator 
 in similar circumstances, insisted, before he would restore the 
 jurisdiction, upon an oath of fealty from the new archbishop. 
 This oath, which could be demanded, it seems, by no right but 
 that of force, continued to be taken till, in 1310, an archbishop 
 resisting what he had thought a usurpation, the city was be- 
 sieged by Philip IV, and, the inhabitants not being unwilling 
 to submit, was finally united to the French crown.®^ 
 
 Philip the Fair left three sons, who successively reigned in 
 France: Louis, surnamed Hutin, Philip the Long, and Charles 
 the Fair; with a daughter, Isabel, married to Edward II of Eng- 
 land,^^ Louis, the eldest, survived his father little more than a 
 year, leaving one daughter, and his queen pregnant. The cir- 
 cumstances that ensued require to be accurately stated. Louis 
 had possessed, in right of his mother, the kingdom of Navarre, 
 with the counties of Champagne and Brie. Upon his death, 
 Philip, his next brother, assumed the regency both of France 
 and Navarre; and not long afterward entered into a treaty with 
 Eudes, Duke of Burgundy, uncle of the Princess Jane, Louis's 
 daughter, by which her eventual rights to the succession were 
 
 ^* The Flemings took at Courtray 4,000 "•> Velly, tome vii, p. 404. For a more 
 pair of gilt spurs, which were only worn precise account of the political depend- 
 by knights. These Velly, happily enough, ence of Lyons and its district, see " L'Art 
 compares to Hannibal's three bushels of de verifier les Dates," tome ii, p. 469. 
 gold rings at Cannae. " [Note XV.] 
 
36 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1314-1322 
 
 to be regulated. It was agreed that, in case the queen should be 
 delivered of a daughter, these two princesses, or the survivor of 
 them, should take the grandmother's inheritance, Navarre and 
 Champagne, on releasing all claim to the throne of France. But 
 this was not to take place till their age of consent, when, if they 
 should refuse to make such renunciation, their claim was to re- 
 main, and right to be done to them therein; but, in return, the 
 release made by Philip of Navarre and Champagne was to be null. 
 In the meantime he was to hold the government of France, Na- 
 varre, and Champagne, receiving homage of vassals in all these 
 countries as governor; saving the right of a male heir to the late 
 king, in the event of whose birth the treaty was not to take effect.^^ 
 This convention was made on the 17th of July, 13 16; and on 
 the 15th of November the queen brought into the world a son, 
 John I (as some called him), who died in four days.®^ The con- 
 ditional treaty was now become absolute — in spirit, at least, if 
 any cavil might be raised about the expression; and Philip was, 
 by his own agreement, precluded from taking any other title thati 
 that of regent or governor until the Princess Jane should attain 
 the age to concur in or disclaim the provisional contract of her 
 uncle. Instead of this, however, he procured himself to be conse- 
 crated at Rheims; though, on account of the avowed opposition 
 of the Duke of Burgundy, and even of his own brother Charles, 
 it was thought prudent to shut the gates during the ceremony, 
 and to dispose guards throughout the town. Upon his return to 
 Paris, an assembly composed of prelates, barons, and burgesses 
 of that city was convened, who acknowledged him as their lawful 
 sovereign, and, if we may believe a historian, expressly declared 
 that a woman was incapable of succeeding to the crown of 
 France.^* The Duke of Burgundy, however, made a show of 
 supporting his niece's interests, till, tempted by the prospect of 
 a marriage with the daughter of Philip, he shamefully betrayed 
 her cause, and gave up in her name, for an inconsiderable pen- 
 sion, not only her disputed claim to the whole monarchy, but 
 her unquestionable right to Navarre and Champagne.^^ I have 
 been rather minute in stating these details, because the transac- 
 tion is misrepresented by every historian, not excepting those 
 
 "••Hist, de Charles le Mauvais," par 
 Secousse, vol. ii, p. 2. 
 
 ^^ Ancient writers, Sismondi tells us 
 (ix, 344), do not call this infant any- 
 thing but the child who was to be king; 
 the maxim of later times, " Le roi ne 
 meurt pas," was unknown. I suspect, 
 nevertheless, that the strict hereditary 
 succession was better recognised before 
 this time than Sismondi here admits; 
 compare what he says afterward of a 
 period very little later, vol. xi, 6. 
 
 "** Tunc etiam declaratum fuit, quod in 
 regno Franciae mulier non succedit. Con- 
 
 tin. Gul. Nangis, in " Spicilegio d'Ache- 
 ry," tome iii. This monk, without tal- 
 ents, and probably without private in- 
 formation, is the sole contemporary 
 historian of this important period. He 
 describes the assembly which confirmed 
 Philip's possession of the crown — quam- 
 plures prqceres et regni nobiles ac mag- 
 nates una cum plerisque praelatis et 
 burgensibus Parisiensis civitatis. 
 
 «"^ " Hist, de Charles le Mauvais," tome 
 ii, p. 6. Jane and her husband, the Count 
 of Evreux, recovered Navarre, after the 
 death of Charles the Fair. 
 
I3I4-I322] 
 
 PHILIP V 
 
 37 
 
 who have written since the publication of the documents which 
 illustrate it.^« 
 
 In this contest, every way memorable, but especially on ac- 
 count of that which sprang out of it, the exclusion of females from 
 the throne of France was first publicly discussed. The French 
 writers almost unanimously concur in asserting that such an ex- 
 clusion was built upon a fundamental maxim of their govern- 
 ment. No written law, nor even, as far as I know, the direct 
 testimony of any ancient writer, has been brought forward to 
 confirm this position. For as to the text of the SaHc law, which 
 was frequently quoted, and has indeed given a name to this ex- 
 clusion of females, it can only by a doubtful and refined analogy 
 be considered as bearing any relation to the succession of the 
 crown. It is certain, nevertheless, that from the time of Clovis 
 no woman had ever reigned in France; and, although not an in- 
 stance of a sole heiress had occurred before, yet some of the 
 Merovingian kings left daughters, who might, if not rendered 
 incapable by their sex, have shared with their brothers in parti- 
 tions then commonly made.^'^ But, on the other hand, these times 
 were gone quite out of memory, and France had much in the 
 analogy of her existing usages to reconcile her to a female reign. 
 The crown resembled a great fief, and the great fiefs might uni- 
 versally descend to women. Even at the consecration of Philip 
 himself, Maud, Countess of Artois, held the crown over his head 
 among the other peers.^® And it was scarcely beyond the recol- 
 lection of persons living that Blanche had been legitimate regent 
 of France during the minority of St. Louis. 
 
 For these reasons, and much more from the provisional treaty 
 concluded between Philip and the Duke of Burgundy, it may be 
 fairly inferred that the Salic law, as it was called, was not so fixed 
 a principle at that time as has been contended. But however 
 this may be, it received at the accession of Philip the Long a sanc- 
 
 '^ Velly, who gives several proofs of 
 disingenuousness in this part of history, 
 mutilates the treaty of the 17th of July, 
 1316, in order to conceal Philip the Long's 
 breach of faith toward his niece. 
 
 "The Treaty of Andely, in 587, will 
 be found to afford a very strong presump- 
 tion that females were at that time ex- 
 cluded from reigning in France. (Greg. 
 Turon., 1. ix.) 
 
 ^8 The continuator of Nangis says in- 
 deed of this, de quo aliqui indignati 
 fuerunt. But these were probably the 
 partisans of her nephew Robert, who 
 had been excluded by a judicial sentence 
 of Philip IV, on the ground that the 
 right of representation did not take place 
 in Artois; a decision considered by many 
 as unjust. Robert subsequently renewed 
 his appeal to the court of Philip of Va- 
 lois; but, unhappily for himself, yielded 
 
 to the temptation of forging documents 
 in support of a claim which seems to 
 have been at least plausible without such 
 aid. This unwise dishonesty, which is 
 not without parallel in more private 
 causes, not only ruined his pretensions 
 to the county of Artois, but produced a 
 sentence of forfeiture, and even of capi- 
 tal punishment, against himself. See a 
 pretty good account of Robert's process 
 in Velly, tome viii, p. 262. 
 
 Sismondi (x, 44) does not seem to be 
 convinced that Robert of Artois was 
 guilty of forgery; but perhaps he is led 
 away by his animosity against kings, 
 especially those of the house of Valois. 
 M. Michelet informs us (v, 30) that the 
 deeds produced by the demoiselle Divi- 
 on, on which Robert founded his claims, 
 are in the " Tresor des Chartes," and 
 palpable forgeries. 
 
38 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [ I 322-1 360 
 
 tion which subsequent events more thoroughly confirmed. Phihp 
 himself leaving only three daughters, his brother Charles mounted 
 the throne; and upon his death the rule was so unquestionably 
 established that his only daughter was excluded by the Count 
 of Valois, grandson of Philip the Bold. This prince first took 
 the regency, the queen dowager being pregnant, and, upon her 
 giving birth to a daughter, was crowned king. No competitor 
 or opponent appeared in France; but one more formidable than 
 any whom France could have produced was awaiting the occa- 
 sion to prosecute his imagined right with all the resources of 
 valour and genius, and to carry desolation over that great king- 
 dom with as little scruple as if he was preferring a suit before a 
 civil tribunal. 
 
 From the moment of Charles IV's death Edward III of Eng- 
 land buoyed himself up with a notion of his title to the crown 
 of France, in right of his mother Isabel, sister to the last three 
 kings. We can have no hesitation in condemning the injustice 
 of this pretension. Whether the Salic law were or were not valid, 
 no advantage could be gained by Edward. Even if he could 
 forget the express or tacit decision of all France, there stood in 
 his way Jane, the daughter of Louis X, three of Philip the Long, 
 and one of Charles the Fair. Aware of this, Edward set up a dis- 
 tinction that, although females were excluded from succession, 
 the same rule did not apply to their male issue; and thus, though 
 his mother Isabel could not herself become Queen of France, 
 she might transmit a title to him. But this was contrary to the 
 commonest rules of inheritance; and if it could have been re- 
 garded at all, Jane had a son, afterward the famous King of Na- 
 varre, who stood one degree nearer to the crown than Edward. 
 
 It is asserted in some French authorities that Edward pre- 
 ferred a claim to the regency immediately after the decease of 
 Charles the Fair, and that the States-General, or at least the 
 peers of France, adjudged that dignity to Philip de Valois. 
 Whether this be true or not, it is clear that he entertained projects 
 of recovering his right as early, though his youth and the em- 
 barrassed circumstances of his government threw insuperable 
 obstacles in the way of their execution."^ He did liege homage, 
 
 »" Letter of Edward III addressed to 
 certain nobles and towns in the south of 
 France, dated March 28, 1328, four days 
 before the birth of Charles IV's posthu- 
 mous daughter, intimates this resolution. 
 (Rymer, vol. iv, p. 344 et seq.) But an 
 instrument, dated at Northampton on 
 the i6th of May, is decisive. This is a 
 procuration to the Bishops of Worcester 
 and Litchfield, to demand and take pos- 
 session of the kingdom of France, " in 
 our name, which kingdom has devolved 
 and appertains to us as to the right heir " 
 
 (V- 354)- To this mission Archbishop 
 Stratford refers, in his vindication of 
 himself from Edward's accusation of 
 treason in 1340; and informs us that the 
 two bishops actually proceeded to France, 
 though without mentioning any further 
 particulars. Novit enim qui nihil ignorat, 
 quod cum qua;stio de regno Francise post 
 mortem regis Caroli, fratris serenissimre 
 matris vestrae, in parliamento tunc apud 
 Northampton celebrato, tractata discus- 
 saque fuisset ; quodque idem regnum 
 Francias ad vos haereditario jure extite- 
 
1322-1360] WAR OF EDWARD III IN FRANCE 
 
 39 
 
 therefore, to Philip for Guienne, and for several years, while the 
 affairs of Scotland engrossed his attention, gave no sign of medi- 
 tating a more magnificent enterprise. As he advanced in man- 
 hood, and felt the consciousness of his strength, his early designs 
 grew mature, and produced a series of the most important and 
 interesting revolutions in the fortunes of France. These will 
 form the subject of the ensuing pages. 
 
 No war had broken out in Europe, since the fall of the Roman 
 Empire, so memorable as that of Edward III and his successors 
 against France, whether we consider its duration, its object, or 
 the magnitude and variety of its events. It was a struggle of 
 one hundred and twenty years, interrupted but once by a regular 
 pacification, where the most ancient and extensive dominion in 
 the civilized world was the prize, twice lost and twice recovered, 
 in the conflict, while individual courage was wrought up to that 
 high pitch which it can seldom display since the regularity of 
 modern tactics has chastised its enthusiasm and levelled its dis- 
 tinctions. There can be no occasion to dwell upon the events 
 of this war, which are familiar to almost every reader: it is rather 
 my aim to develop and arrange those circumstances which, when 
 rightly understood, give the clew to its various changes of fortune. 
 
 France was, even in the fourteenth century, a kingdom of 
 such extent and compactness of figure, such population and re- 
 sources, and filled with so spirited a nobility, that the very idea 
 of subjugating it by a foreign force must have seemed the most 
 extravagant dream of ambition.^*^*^ Yet, in the course of about 
 
 rat legitime devolutum; et super hoc 
 fuit ordinatum, quod duo episcopi, Wig- 
 orniensis tunc, nunc autem Wintoniensis, 
 ac Coventriensis et Lichfeldensis in Fran- 
 ciam dirigerent gressus suos, nomineque 
 vestro regnum Franciae vindicarent et 
 praedicti Philippi de Valesio coronationem 
 pro viribus impedirent; qui juxta ordi- 
 nationem praedictam legationem iis in- 
 junctam tunc assumentes, gressus suos 
 versus Franciam direxerunt; quae qui- 
 dem legatio maximam guerrs praesentis 
 materiam ministravit. (Wilkins, " Con- 
 cilia," tome i, p. 664.) ^ 
 
 There is no evidence in Rymer s Foe- 
 dera " to corroborate Edward's supposed 
 claim to the regency of France upon the 
 death of Charles IV; and it is certainly 
 suspicious that no appointment of am- 
 bassadors or procurators for this purpose 
 should appear in so complete a collection 
 of documents. The French historians 
 generally assert this, upon the authority 
 of the continuator of William of Nangis, 
 a nearly contemporary, but not always 
 well-informed, writer. It is curious to 
 compare the four chief English historians. 
 Rapin affirms both the claim to the re- 
 gency on Charles IV's death, and that 
 to the kingdom after the birth of his 
 daughter. Carte, the most exact his- 
 torian we have, mentions the latter, and 
 
 is silent as to the former. Hume passes 
 oyer both, and intimates that Edward 
 did not take any steps in support of his 
 pretensions in 1328. Henry gives the 
 supposed trial of Edward's claim to the 
 regency before the States-General at great 
 length, and makes no allusion to the 
 other, so indisputably authenticated in 
 Rymer. It is, I think, most probable 
 that the two bishops never made the 
 formal demand of the throne as they were 
 directed by their instructions. Strat- 
 ford's expressions seem to imply that 
 they did not. 
 
 Sismondi does not mention the claim 
 of Edward to the regency after the death 
 of Charles IV, though he supposes his 
 pretensions to have been taken into con- 
 sideration by the lords and doctors of 
 law, whom he asserts, following the con- 
 tinuator of William of Nangis, to have 
 consulted together, before Philip of Va- 
 lois took the title of regent. (Vol. x, 
 p. 10.) Michelet, more studious of effect 
 than minute in details, makes no allu- 
 sion to the subject. 
 
 100 The Pope (Benedict XII) wrote a 
 strong letter to Edward (March^, 1340), 
 dissuading him from taking the title and 
 arms of France, and pointing out the 
 impossibility of his ever succeeding. I 
 have no doubt that this was the com- 
 
40 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1322-1360 
 
 twenty years of war, this mighty nation was reduced to the low- 
 est state of exhaustion, and dismembered of considerable prov- 
 inces by an ignominious peace. What was the combination of 
 political causes which brought about so strange a revolution, and, 
 though not reaHzing Edward's hopes to their extent, redeemed 
 them from the imputation of rashness in the judgment of his own 
 and succeeding ages? 
 
 The first advantage which Edward III possessed in this con- 
 test was derived from the splendour of his personal character 
 and from the still more eminent virtues of his son. Besides pru- 
 dence and military skill, these great princes were endowed with 
 qualities peculiarly fitted for the times in which they lived. Chiv- 
 alry was then in its zenith; and in all the virtues which adorned 
 the knightly character, in courtesy, munificence, gallantry, in all 
 delicate and magnanimous feelings, none were so conspicuous as 
 Edward III and the Black Prince. As later princes have boasted 
 of being the best gentlemen, they might claim to be the prowest 
 knights in Europe — a character not quite dissimilar, yet of more 
 high pretension. Their court was, as it were, the sun of that 
 system which embraced the valour and nobility of the Christian 
 world; and the respect which was felt for their excellences, while 
 it drew many to their side, mitigated in all the rancour and fero- 
 ciousness of hostility. This war was like a great tournament, 
 where the combatants fought indeed a outrance, but with all the 
 courtesy and fair play of such an entertainment, and almost as 
 much for the honour of their ladies. In the school of the Edwards 
 were formed men not inferior in any nobleness of disposition 
 to their masters — Manni and the Captal de Buch, Knollys and 
 Calverley, Chandos and Lancaster. On the French side, espe- 
 cially after Du Guesclin came on the stage, these had rivals almost 
 equally deserving of renown. If we could forget, what never 
 should be forgotten, the wretchedness and devastation that fell 
 upon a great kingdom, too dear a price for the display of any 
 heroism, we might count these English wars in France among 
 the brightest periods in history. 
 
 Philip of Valois and John, his son, showed but poorly in 
 comparison with their illustrious enemies. Yet they both had 
 considerable virtues; they were brave,^^! just, liberal, and the 
 
 mon opinion. But the Avignon popes 
 were very subservient to France. Clem- 
 ent VI, as well as his predecessor, Ben- 
 edict XII, threatened Edward with spir- 
 itual arms. (Rymer, tome v, pp. 88 and 
 465.) It required Edward's spirit and 
 steadiness to despise these menaces. But 
 the time when they were terrible to 
 princes was rather passed by; and the 
 Holy See never ventured to provoke the 
 king, who treated the Church, through- 
 
 out his reign, with admirable firmness 
 and temper. 
 
 ^"1 The bravery of Philip is not ques- 
 tioned. But a French historian, in order, 
 1 suppose, to enhance this quality, has 
 presumed to violate truth in an extraor- 
 dinary manner. The challenge sent by 
 h-dward, offering to decide his claim to 
 the kingdom by single combat, is well 
 known. Certainly it conveys no imputa- 
 tion on the King of France to have de- 
 
1322-1360] WAR OF EDWARD III IN FRANCE 
 
 41 
 
 latter, in particular, of unshaken fidelity to his word. But nei- 
 ther was beloved by his subjects; the misgovernment and extor- 
 tion of their predecessors during half a century had alienated the 
 public mind, and rendered their own taxes and debasement of 
 the coin intolerable. Philip was made by misfortune, John by 
 nature, suspicious and austere; and although their most violent 
 acts seem never to have wanted absolute justice, yet they were 
 so ill conducted and of so arbitrary a complexion that they greatly 
 impaired the reputation, as well as interests, of these monarchs. 
 In the execution of Clisson under Philip, in that of the Connetable 
 d'Eu under John, and still more in that of Harcourt, even in the 
 imprisonment of the King of Navarre, though every one of these 
 might have been guilty of treasons, there were circumstances 
 enough to exasperate the disaffected, and to strengthen the party 
 of so politic a competitor as Edward. 
 
 Next to the personal qualities of the King of England, his 
 resources in this war must be taken into the account. It was 
 after long hesitation that he assumed the title and arms of France, 
 from which, unless upon the best terms, he could not recede with- 
 out loss of honour.^^^ In the meantime he strengthened himself 
 by alliances with the emperor, with the cities of Flanders, and 
 with most of the princes in the Netherlands and on the Rhine. 
 Yet I do not know that he profited much by these conventions, 
 since he met with no success till the scene of the war was changed 
 from the Flemish frontier to Normandy and Poitou. The troops 
 of Hainault alone were constantly distinguished in his service.^^^ 
 
 clined this unfair proposal. But Velly 
 has represented him as accepting it, on 
 condition that Edward would stake the 
 crown of England against that of France; 
 an interpolation which may be truly 
 called audacious, since not a word of this 
 is in Philip's letter, preserved in Rymer, 
 which the historian had before his eyes, 
 and actually quotes upon the occasion. 
 (" Hist, de France," tome viii, p. 382.) 
 
 102 The first instrument in which Ed- 
 ward disallows the title of Philip is his 
 convention with the Emperor Louis of 
 Bavaria, wherein he calls him nunc pro 
 rege Francorum se gerentem. The date 
 of this is August 26, 1337, yet on the 
 28th of the same month another instru- 
 ment gives him the title of king; and 
 the same occurs in subsequent instances. 
 At length we have an instrument of pro- 
 curation to the Duke of Brabant. Oc- 
 tober 7, 1337, empowering him to take 
 possession of the crown of France in the 
 name of Edward; attendentes inclitum 
 regnum Franciae ad nos fore jure succes- 
 sionis legitime devolutum. Another of 
 the same date appoints the said duke his 
 vigar-general and lieutenant of France. 
 The king assumed in this commission 
 the title Rex Francise et Anglise ; in 
 other instruments he calls himself Rex 
 Angliae et Franciae. It was necessary to 
 
 obviate the jealousy of the English, who 
 did not, in that age, admit the precedence 
 of France. Accordingly, Edward had 
 two great seals on which the two king- 
 doms were named in a different order. 
 But, in the royal arms, those of France 
 were always in the first quarter, as they 
 continued to be until the accession of 
 the house of Brunswick. 
 
 Probably Edward III would not have 
 entered into the war merely on account 
 of his claim to the crown. He had dis- 
 putes with Philip about Guienne; and 
 that prince haa, rather unjustifiably, 
 abetted Robert Bruce in Scotland. I am 
 not inclined to lay any material stress 
 upon the instigation of Robert of Artois. 
 
 ^"^ Michelet dwells on the advantage 
 which Edward gained by the commerce 
 of England with Flanders: " Le secret 
 des batailles de Crecy, de Poitiers, est 
 aux comptoirs des marchands de Lon- 
 dres, de Bordeaux, et de Bourges " (vol. 
 v, p. 6). France had no internal trade; 
 the roads were dangerous on account of 
 robbers, and heavy tolls were to be paid; 
 fiscal officers had replaced the feudal 
 lords. The value of money was per- 
 petually varying far more than in Eng- 
 land. (Id., p. 12.) Certainly the com- 
 parative prosperity of the latter country 
 supplied Edward with the sinews of war. 
 
42 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [I 322- I 360 
 
 But his intrinsic strength was at home. England had been 
 growing in riches since the wise government of his grandfather, 
 Edward I, and through the market opened for her wool with the 
 manufacturing towns of Flanders. She was tranquil within; and 
 her northern enemy, the Scotch, had been defeated and quelled. 
 The Parliament, after some slight precautions against a very- 
 probable effect of Edward's conquest of France, the reduction 
 of their own island into a province, entered as warmly as im- 
 providently into his quarrel. The people made it their own, 
 and grew so intoxicated with the victories of this war that for 
 some centuries the injustice and folly of the enterprise do not 
 seem to have struck the gravest of our countrymen. 
 
 There is, indeed, ample room for national exultation at the 
 names of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. So great was the dis- 
 parity of numbers upon those famous days that we can not, with 
 the French historians, attribute the discomfiture of their hosts 
 merely to mistaken tactics and too impetuous valour. They 
 yielded rather to that intrepid steadiness in danger which had 
 already become the characteristic of our English soldiers, and 
 which during five centuries has insured their superiority when- 
 ever ignorance or infatuation has not led them into the field. But 
 these victories, and the qualities that secured them, must chiefly 
 be ascribed to the freedom of our constitution and to the superior 
 condition of the people. Not the nobility of England, not the 
 feudal tenants, won the battles of Crecy and Poitiers, for these 
 were fully matched in the ranks of France; but the yeomen who 
 drew the bow with strong and steady arms, accustomed to use 
 it in their native fields, and rendered fearless by personal com- 
 petence and civil freedom. It is well known that each of the 
 three great victories was due to our archers, who were chiefly 
 of the middle class, and attached, according to the system of that 
 age, to the knights and squires who fought in heavy armour with 
 the lance. Even at the battle of Poitiers, of which our country 
 seems to have the least right to boast, since the greater part of 
 the Black Prince's small army was composed of Gascons, the 
 merit of the English bowmen is strongly attested by Froissart.^ 
 
 104 
 
 France could not afford to maintain a 
 well-appointed infantry. 
 
 " Une tactique nouvelle," M. Michelet 
 afterward very well observes (p. 81), 
 " sortait de Tetat nouveau de la societe; 
 ce n'etait pas un oeuvre de ^enie, ni de 
 reflexion. Edouard III n'etait ni un 
 Gustave Adolphe ni un Frederic II. II 
 avait employe les fantassins faute de 
 cavaliers. . . . La bataille de Crecy 
 reveilla un secret dont personne ne se 
 doutait, I'impuissance militaire de ce 
 monde feodal, qui s'etait cru le seul 
 monde militaire. Courtray might have 
 given some suspicion of this; but Cour- 
 
 tray was much less of a " bataille. 
 rangee " than Cr6cy. 
 
 ^"* Au vray dire, les archres d'Angle- 
 terre faisoient a leurs gens grant avan- 
 tage. Car ils tiroyent tant espessement, 
 que ^ les FranQois ne sgavoyent dequel 
 coste entendre, qu'ils ne fussent con- 
 suyvis de trayt; et s'avangoyent tous- 
 jours ces Anglois, et petit a petit enque- 
 royent terre. (Part 1, c. 162.) 
 
 It is by an odd oversight that Sismondi 
 has said (x, 295), " Les Anglais etaient 
 accoutumes a se servir sans cesse de I'ar- 
 balete." The cross-bow was looked upon 
 as a weapon unworthy of a brave man; 
 
I 322-1360] 
 
 CONDITION OF FRANCE 
 
 43 
 
 Yet the glorious termination to which Edward was enabled, 
 at least for a time, to bring the contest, was rather the work of 
 fortune than of valour and prudence. Until the battle of Poitiers 
 he had made no progress toward the conquest of France. That 
 country was too vast and his army too small for such a revolu- 
 tion. The victory of Crecy gave him nothing but Calais; a post 
 of considerable importance in war and peace, but rather adapted 
 to annoy than to subjugate the kingdom. But at Poitiers he ob- 
 tained the greatest of prizes, by taking prisoner the King of 
 France. Not only the love of freedom tempted that prince to 
 ransom himself by the utmost sacrifices, but his captivity left 
 France defenceless, and seemed to annihilate the monarchy itself. 
 The government was already odious; a spirit was awakened in 
 the people which might seem hardly to belong to the fourteenth 
 century, and the convulsions of our own time are sometimes 
 strongly paralleled by those which succeeded the battle of Poi- 
 tiers. Already the States-General had established a fundamental 
 principle that no resolution could be passed as the opinion of 
 the whole unless each of the three orders concurred in its adop- 
 tion.^^^ The right of levying and of regulating the collection of 
 taxes was recognised. But that assembly, which met at Paris 
 immediately after the battle, went far greater lengths in the re- 
 form and control of government. From the time of Philip the 
 Fair the abuses natural to arbitrary power had harassed the peo- 
 ple. There now seemed an opportunity of redress; and however 
 seditious, or even treasonable, may have been the motives of 
 those who guided this assembly of the States, especially the famous 
 Marcel, it is clear that many of their reformations tended to lib- 
 erty and the public good.^^^ But the tumultuous scenes which 
 passed in the capital, sometimes heightened into civil war, neces- 
 sarily distracted men from the common defence against Edward. 
 These tumults were excited and the distraction increased by 
 Charles, King of Navarre, surnamed the Bad, to whom the French 
 writers have, not perhaps unjustly, attributed a character of un- 
 mixed and inveterate malignity. He was grandson of Louis 
 Hutin, by his daughter Jane, and, if Edward's pretence of claim- 
 ing through females could be admitted, was a nearer heir to the 
 crown; the consciousness of which seems to have suggested itself 
 
 a prejudice which afterward prevailed 
 with respect to firearms. A romancer 
 praises the Emperor Conrad: 
 
 " Par un effort de lance et d'ecu, 
 
 Conquerant tous ses ennemis, 
 
 Y a arbalestreis ni fu mis"; 
 
 quoted by Boucher in his translation of 
 
 II Consolato del Mare," p. 518. Even 
 
 the long-bow might incur this censure; 
 
 or any weapon in which the combatants 
 
 fought eminus. But if we look at the 
 
 plate armour of the fifteenth century, it 
 
 may seem that a knight had not much 
 to boast of the danger to which he ex- 
 posed himself, especially when encoun- 
 tering infantry. 
 
 ^*" " Ordonnances des Rois de France," 
 tome ii. 
 
 ^"8 I must refer the reader onward to 
 the next chapter for more information 
 on this subject. This separation is in- 
 convenient, but it arose indispensably out 
 of my arrangement and prevented great- 
 er inconveniences. 
 
44 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 322-1 360 
 
 to his depraved mind as an excuse for his treacheries, though 
 he could entertain very Httle prospect of asserting the claim 
 against either contending party. John had bestowed his daughter 
 in marriage on the King of Navarre; but he very soon gave a 
 proof of his character by procuring the assassination of the king's 
 favourite, Charles de la Cerda. An irreconcilable enmity was 
 the natural result of this crime. Charles became aware that he 
 had offended beyond the possibility of forgiveness, and that no 
 letters of pardon nor pretended reconciliation could secure him 
 from the king's resentment. Thus, impelled by guilt into deeper 
 guilt, he entered into alliances with Edward, and fomented the 
 seditious spirit of Paris. Eloquent and insinuating, he was the 
 fa/ourite of the people, whose grievances he affected to pity, and 
 with whose leaders he intrigued. As his paternal inheritance, 
 he possessed the county of Evreux in Normandy. The proximity 
 of this to Paris created a formidable diversion in favour of Ed- 
 ward III, and connected the English garrisons of the north with 
 those of Poitou and Guienne. 
 
 There is no affliction which did not fall upon France during 
 this miserable period. A foreign enemy was in the heart of the 
 kingdom, the king a prisoner, the capital in sedition, a treacher- 
 ous prince of the blood in arms against the sovereign authority. 
 Famine, the sure and terrible companion of war, for several years 
 desolated the country. In 1348 a pestilence, the most extensive 
 and unsparing of which we have any memorial, visited France, 
 as well as the rest of Europe, and consummated the work of 
 hunger and the sword. ^^^ The companies of adventure, mer- 
 cenary troops in the service of John or Edward, finding no im- 
 mediate occupation after the truce of 1357, scattered themselves 
 over the country in search of pillage. No force existed sufficiently 
 powerful to check these robbers in their career. Undismayed 
 by superstition, they compelled the Pope to redeem himself in 
 
 *" A full account of the ravages made 
 by this memorable plague may oe found 
 in Matteo Villani, the second of that 
 family who wrote the history of Florence. 
 His brother and predecessor, John Vil- 
 lani, was himself a victim to it. The 
 disease began in the Levant about 1346; 
 from whence Italian traders brought it 
 to Sicily, Pisa, and Genoa. In 1348 it 
 passed the Alps and spread over France 
 and Spain; in the next year it reached 
 Britain, and in 1350 laid waste Germany 
 and other northern states, lasting gen- 
 erally about five months in each country. 
 At Florence more than three out of five 
 died. (Muratori, " Script. Rerum Italica- 
 rum," tome xiv, p. 12.) The stories of Boc- 
 caccio's Decamerone, as is well known, 
 are supposed to be related by a society of 
 Florentine ladies and gentlemen retired 
 to the country during this pestilence. 
 
 Another pestilence, only less destruc- 
 tive than the former, wasted both France 
 and England in 1361. Sismondi bitterly 
 remarks (x, 342) that between four and 
 five millions who died of the former 
 plague in France merely diminished the 
 number of the oppressed, producing no 
 perceptible effect. But this is exagger- 
 ated. The plague caused a truce of 
 several months. The war was, in fact, 
 carried on with less vigour for some years. 
 It is, however, by no means unlikely 
 that the number of deaths has been over- 
 rated. Nothing can be more loose than 
 the statistical evidence of mediaeval 
 writers. Thus 30,000 are said to have 
 died at Narbonne. (Michelet, v, 94.) 
 But had Narbonne so many to lose? At 
 least, would not the depopulation have 
 been out of all proportion to other cities? 
 
1 322-1360] 
 
 PEACE OF BRETIGNI 
 
 45 
 
 Avignon by the payment of forty thousand crowns.^®^ France 
 was the passive victim of their hcense, even after the pacification 
 concluded with England, till some were diverted into Italy and 
 others led by Du Guesclin to the war of Castile. Impatient of 
 this wretchedness, and stung by the insolence and luxury of their 
 lords, the peasantry of several districts broke out into a dreadful 
 insurrection. This was called the Jacquerie, from the cant phrase 
 Jacques Bonhomme, applied to men of that class, and was marked 
 by all the circumstances of horror incident to the rising of an 
 exasperated and unenlightened populace. ^^^ 
 
 Subdued by these misfortunes, though Edward had made but 
 slight progress toward the conquest of the country, the regent 
 of France, afterward Charles V, submitted to the Peace of Bre- 
 tigni. By this treaty, not to mention less important articles, all 
 Guienne, Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, the Limousin, and the 
 Angoumois, as well as Calais and the county of Ponthieu, were 
 ceded in full sovereignty to Edward; a price abundantly com- 
 pensating his renunciation of the title of France, which was the 
 sole concession stipulated in return. Every care seems to have 
 been taken to make the cession of these provinces complete. The 
 first six articles of the treaty expressly surrender them to the 
 King of England. By the seventh John and his son engaged to 
 convey within a year from the ensuing Michaelmas all their rights 
 
 108 Froissart, p. 187. This troop of ban- 
 ditti was commanded by Arnaud de Cer- 
 vole, surnamed I'Archipretre, from a ben- 
 efice which, although a layman, he pos- 
 sessed, according to the irregularity of 
 those ages. See a memoir on the life of 
 Arnaud de Cervole, in the twenty-fifth 
 volume of the " Academy of Inscrip- 
 
 1°^ The second contmuator of JNangis, 
 a monk of no great abilities, but entitled 
 to notice as our most contemporary his- 
 torian, charges the nobility with spend- 
 ing the money raised upon the people by 
 oppressive taxes, in playing at dice, " et 
 alios indecentes jocos." (D'Achery, 
 " Spicilegium," tome iii, p. 114; folio edi- 
 tion.) All the miseries that followed the 
 battle of Poitiers he ascribes to bad gov- 
 ernment and neglect of the commonweal: 
 but especially to the pride and luxury 
 of the nobles. I am aware that this 
 writer is biassed in favour of the King 
 of Navarre; but he was an eye-witness 
 of the people's misery, and perhaps a 
 less exceptional authority than Froissart, 
 whose love of pageantry and habits of 
 feasting in the castles of the great seem 
 to have produced some insensibility to- 
 ward the sufferings of the lower classes. 
 It is a painful circumstance, which Frois- 
 sart and the continuator of Nangis at- 
 test, that the citizens of Calais, more in- 
 teresting than the common heroes of his- 
 tory, were unrewarded, and begged their 
 bread in misery throughout France. Vil- 
 
 laret contradicts this, on the authority 
 of an ordinance which he has seen in 
 their favour. But that was not a time 
 when ordinances were very sure of exe- 
 cution. (Vill., tome ix, p. 470.) I must 
 add that the celebrated story of the six 
 citizens of Calais, which has of late been 
 called in question, receives strong con- 
 firmation from John Villani, who died 
 very soon afterward. (L. xii, c. 96.) Frois- 
 sart, of course, wrought up the circum- 
 stances after this manner. In all the 
 colouring of his history he is as great a 
 master as Livy, and as little observant 
 of particular truth. M. de Brequigny, 
 almost the latest of those excellent an- 
 tiquaries whose memoirs so much illus- 
 trate the French Academy of Inscrip- 
 tions, has discussed the history of Calais, 
 and particularly this remarkable portion 
 of it. (" Mem. de I'Academie des Inscrip- 
 tions," tome i.) 
 
 Petrarch has drawn a lamentable pic- 
 ture of the state of France in 1360, when 
 he paid a visit to Paris. " I could not 
 believe," he says, " that this was the same 
 kingdom which I had once seen so rich 
 and flourishing. Nothing presented itself 
 to my eyes but a fearful solitude, an ex- 
 treme poverty, lands uncultivated, houses 
 in ruins. Even the neighbourhood of 
 Paris manifested everywhere marks of 
 destruction and conflagration. The streets 
 are deserted; the roads overgrown with 
 weeds: the whole is a vast solitude." 
 (" Mem. de Petrarque," tome iii, p. 541.) 
 
46 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1360-1368 
 
 over them, and especially those of sovereignty and feudal appeal. 
 The same words are repeated still more emphatically m the elev- 
 enth and some other articles. The twelfth stipulates the exchange 
 of mutual renunciations: by John, of all right over the ceded 
 countries ; by Edward, of his claim to the throne of France. At 
 Calais the Treaty of Bretigni was renewed by John, who, as a 
 prisoner, had been no party to the former compact, with the 
 omission only of the twelfth article, respecting the exchange of 
 renunciations. But that.it was not intended to waive them by 
 this omission is abundantly manifest by instruments of both the 
 kings, in which reference is made to their future interchanges at 
 Bruges, on the feast of St. Andrew, 1361. And, until that time 
 should arrive, Edward promises to lay aside the title and arms 
 of France (an engagement which he strictly kept ^^^), and John 
 to act in no respect as king or suzerain over the ceded provinces. 
 Finally, on November 15, 1361, two commissioners are appointed 
 by Edward to receive the renunciations of the King of France 
 at Bruges on the ensuing feast of St. Andrew,^^^ and to do what- 
 ever might be mutually required by virtue of the treaty. These, 
 however, seem to have been withheld, and the twelfth article of 
 the Treaty of Bretigni was never expressly completed. By mutual 
 instruments, executed at Calais, October 24th, it had been de- 
 clared that the sovereignty of the ceded provinces, as well as 
 Edward's right to the crown of France, should remain as before, 
 although suspended as to its exercise, until the exchange of re- 
 nunciations, notwithstanding any words of present conveyance 
 or release in the Treaties of Bretigni and Calais. And another 
 pair of letters-patent, dated October 26th, contains the form of 
 renunciations, which, it is mutually declared, should have effect 
 by virtue of the present letters, in case one party should be ready 
 to exchange such renunciations at the time and place appointed, 
 and the other should make default therein. These instruments 
 executed at Calais are so prolix, and so studiously enveloped, as 
 it seems, in the obscurity of technical language, that it is difficult 
 to extract their precise intention. It appears, nevertheless, that 
 whichever party was prepared to perform what was required of 
 him at Bruges on November 30, 1361, the other then and there 
 making default, would acquire not only what our lawyers might 
 call an equitable title, but an actual vested right, by virtue of the 
 provision in the letters-patent of October 26, 1360. The appoint- 
 ment above mentioned of Edward's commissioners on November 
 15, 1361, seems to throw upon the French the burden of prov- 
 ing that John sent his envoys with equally full powers to the place 
 
 ^^'* Edward gives John the title of King vi, p, 217.) The treaty was signed Octo- 
 of France in an instrument bearing date ber 24. (Id., p. 219.) 
 at Calais, October 22, 1360. (Rymer, tome ^^^ Rym., tome vi, p. 339. 
 
I 360-1 368] 
 
 PEACE OF BRETIGNI 
 
 47 
 
 of meeting, and that the non-interchange of renunciations was 
 owing to the EngHsh Government. But though a historian, sixty 
 years later (Juvenal des Ursins), asserts that the French com- 
 missioners attended at Bruges, and that those of Edward made 
 default, this is certainly rendered improbable by the actual ap- 
 pointment of commissioners made by the King of England on 
 the 15th of November, by the silence of Charles V after the re- 
 commencement of hostilities, who would have rejoiced in so good 
 a ground of excuse, and by the language of some English instru- 
 ments, complaining that the French renunciations were with- 
 held.^^^ It is suggested by the French authors that Edward 
 was unwilling to execute a formal renunciation of his claim to 
 the crown. But we can hardly suppose that, in order to evade 
 this condition, which he had voluntarily imposed upon himself 
 by the Treaties of Bretigni and Calais, he would have left his title 
 to the provinces ceded by those conventions imperfect. He cer- 
 tainly deemed it indefeasible, and acted, without any complaint 
 from the French court, as the perfect master of those countries. 
 He created his son Prince of Aquitaine, with the fullest powers 
 over that new principaHty, holding it in fief of the crown of Eng- 
 land by the yearly rent of an ounce of gold.^^^ And the court 
 of that great prince was kept for several years at Bordeaux. 
 I have gone something more than usual into detail as to 
 
 "-It appears that, among other al- 
 leged infractions of the treaty, the King 
 of France had received appeals from Ar- 
 magnac, Albret, and other nobles of 
 Aquitaine not long after the peace. For, 
 in February, 1362, a French envoy, the 
 Count de Tancarville, being in England, 
 the privy council presented to Edward 
 their bill of remonstrances against this 
 conduct of France; et semble au conseil 
 le roy d'Angleterre que considere la 
 fourme de la ditte paix, que tant estoit 
 honourable et profhtable au royaume de 
 France et a toute chretiente, que la re- 
 ception desdittes appellacions n'a mie 
 este bien faite, ne passee si ordenement, 
 ne a si bon affection et amour, comme il 
 droit avoir este fait de raison parmi I'ef- 
 fet et I'intention de la paix et ailHances 
 aflfermees et entr'eux semble estre moult 
 prejudiciables et contraires a I'onneur et 
 a I'estat du roy et de son fils le prince et 
 de toute la maison d'Angleterre, et pour- 
 ra estre evidente matiere de rebellion des 
 subgiez, et aussi donner tres-grant oc- 
 casion d'enfraindre la paix, si bon re- 
 mede sur ce n'y soit mis plus hastive- 
 ment. Upon the whole, they conclude 
 that if the King of France would repair 
 this trespass, and send his renunciation 
 of sovereignty, the king should send his 
 of the title of France. (Martenne, " Thes. 
 Anec," tome i, p. 1487.) 
 
 Four princes of the blood, or, as they 
 are termed, Seigneurs des Fleurdelys, 
 were detained as hostages for the due ex- 
 
 ecution of the Treaty of Bretigni, which, 
 from whatever pretence, was delayed for 
 a considerable time. Anxious to obtain 
 their liberty, they signed a treaty at 
 London in November, 1362, by which, 
 among other provisions, it was stipulated 
 that the King of France should send 
 fresh letters, under his seal, conveying 
 and releasing the territories ceded by the 
 peace, without the clause contained in 
 the former letters, retaining the ressort: 
 Et que en ycelles lettres soit expresse- 
 ment compris transport de la souver- 
 ainete et du ressort, etc. Et le roi 
 d'Angleterre et ses enfans ferront sem- 
 blablement autiels renonciations, sur ce 
 q'il doit faire de sa partie. (Rymer, tome 
 vi, p. 396.) This Treaty of London was 
 never ratified by the French Government; 
 but I use it as a proof that Edward im- 
 puted the want of mutual renunciations 
 to France, and was himself ready to per- 
 form his part of the treaty. 
 
 *^3 Rym., tome vi, pp. 385-389. One 
 clause is remarkable: Edward reserves to 
 himself the right of erecting the province 
 of Aquitaine into a kingdom. So high 
 were the notions of this great monarch 
 in an age when the privilege of creating 
 new kingdoms was deemed to belong 
 only to the Pope and the emperor. Etiam 
 si per nos hujusmodi provinciae ad regalis 
 honoris titulum et fastigium imposterum 
 sublimentur; quam erectionem faciendam 
 per nos ex tunc specialiter reservamus. 
 
48 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [I 360-1 368 
 
 these circumstances, because a very specious account is given 
 by some French historians and antiquaries which tends to throw 
 the blame of the rupture in 1368 upon Edward IIL^^* Unfounded 
 as was his pretension to the crown of France, and actuated as 
 we must consider him by the most ruinous ambition, his char- 
 acter was unblemished by ill faith. There is no apparent cause 
 to impute the ravages made in France by soldiers formerly in 
 the English service to his instigation, nor any proof of a con- 
 nection with the King of Navarre subsequently to the Peace of 
 Bretigni. But a good lesson may be drawn by conquerors from 
 the change of fortune that befell Edward III. A long warfare 
 and unexampled success had procured for him some of the rich- 
 est provinces of France. Within a short time he was entirely 
 stripped of them, less through any particular misconduct than 
 in consequence of the intrinsic difficulty of preserving such acqui- 
 sitions. The French were already knit together as one people; and 
 even those whose feudal duties sometimes led them into the field 
 against their sovereign could not endure the feeling of dismember- 
 ment from the monarchy. When the Peace of Bretigni was to be 
 carried into effect, the nobility of the south remonstrated against 
 the loss of the king's sovereignty, and showed, it is said, in their 
 charters granted by Charlemagne, a promise never to transfer 
 the right of protecting them to another. The citizens of Rochelle 
 implored the king not to desert them, and protested their readi- 
 ness to pay half their estates in taxes rather than fall under the 
 power of England. John with heaviness of heart persuaded these 
 faithful people to comply with that destiny which he had not been 
 able to surmount. At length they sullenly submitted: we will 
 obey, they said, the English with our lips, but our hearts shall 
 never forget their allegiance.^^^ Such unwilling subjects might 
 perhaps have been won by a prudent government ; but the temper 
 of the Prince of Wales, which was rather stern and arbitrary, 
 did not conciliate their hearts to his cause.^^® After the expedi- 
 
 ^^■* Besides Villaret and other histori- 
 ans, the reader who feels any curiosity 
 on this subject may consult three mem- 
 oirs in the fifteenth volume of the 
 " Academy of Inscriptions," by MM. Se- 
 cousse, Salier, and Bonamy. These dis- 
 tinguished antiquaries unite, but the third 
 with much less confidence and passion 
 than the other two, in charging the omis- 
 sion upon Edward. The observations in 
 the text will serve, I hope, to repel their 
 arguments, which, I may be permitted 
 to observe, no English writer has hither- 
 to undertaken to answer. This is not said 
 in order to assume any praise to my- 
 self; in fact, I have been guided, in a 
 great degree, by one of the adverse coun- 
 sel, M. Bonamy, whose statement of facts 
 is very fair, and makes me suspect a little 
 that he saw the weakness of his own cause. 
 
 The authority of Christine de Pisan, 
 a contemporary panegyrist of the French 
 king, is not, perhaps, very material in 
 such a question; but she seems wholly 
 ignorant of this supposed omission on 
 Edward's side, and puts the justice of 
 Charles V's war on a very different basis; 
 namely, that treaties not conducive to 
 the public interest ought not to be kept. 
 " Collection des Memoires," tome v, p. 
 137.) A principle more often acted upon 
 than avowed! 
 
 "" Froissart, part i, c. 214. 
 
 ^^® See an anecdote of his difference 
 with the Seigneur d'Albret, one of the 
 principal barons in Gascony, to which 
 Froissart, who was then at Bordeaux, as- 
 cribes the alienation of the southern no- 
 bility, chap. 244. Edward III, soon after 
 the Peace of Bretigni, revoked all his 
 
1 368-1380] RUPTURE OF THE PEACE 49 
 
 tion into Castile, a most injudicious and fatal enterprise, he at- 
 tempted to impose a heavy tax upon Guienne. This was extended 
 to the lands of the nobility, who claimed an immunity from all 
 impositions. Many of the chief lords in Guienne and Gascony 
 carried their complaints to the throne of Charles V, who had 
 succeeded his father in 1364, appeaHng to him as the prince's 
 sovereign and judge. After a year's delay the king ventured to 
 summon the Black Prince to answer these charges before the 
 peers of France, and the war immediately recommenced between 
 the two countries.^^^ 
 
 Though it is impossible to reconcile the conduct of Charles 
 upon this occasion to the stern principles of rectitude which ought 
 always to be obeyed, yet the exceeding injustice of Edward in 
 the former war, and the miseries which he inflicted upon an un- 
 offending people in the prosecution of his claim, will go far 
 toward extenuating this breach of the Treaty of Bretigni. It is 
 observed, indeed, with some truth by Rapin, that we judge of 
 Charles's prudence by the event ; and that, if he had been unfor- 
 tunate in the war, he would have brought on himself the re- 
 proaches of all mankind, and even of those writers who are now 
 most ready to extol him. But his measures had been so sagacious- 
 ly taken that, except through that perverseness of fortune, against 
 which, especially in war, there is no security, he could hardly 
 fail of success. The elder Edward was declining through age, 
 and the younger through disease ; the ceded provinces were eager 
 to return to their native king and their garrisons, as we may infer 
 by their easy reduction, feeble and ill-supplied. France, on the 
 other hand, had recovered breath after her losses; the sons of 
 those who had fallen or fled at Poitiers were in the field ; a king, 
 not personally warlike, but eminently wise and popular, occupied 
 the throne of the rash and intemperate John. She was restored 
 by the policy of Charles V and the valour of Du Guesclin. This 
 hero, a Breton gentleman without fortune or exterior graces, was 
 the greatest ornament of France during that age. Though in- 
 ferior, as it seems, to Lord Chandos in military skill, as well as 
 in the polished virtues of chivalry, his unwearied activity, his 
 talent of inspiring confidence, his good fortune, the generosity 
 and frankness of his character, have preserved a fresh recollection 
 of his name, which has hardly been the case with our countryman. 
 
 In a few campaigns the English were deprived of almost all 
 their conquests, and even, in a great degree, of their original 
 possessions in Guienne. They were still formidable enemies, not 
 
 grants in Guienne. (Rymer, tome vi, p. wherein the latter expressly stipulates that 
 
 391.) whatever parts of Guienne or England he 
 
 ^^■^ On November 20, 1368, some time might conquer he would give up to the 
 
 before the summons of the Prince of King of France. (Rymer, tome vi, p. 
 
 Wales, a treaty was concluded between 598.) 
 Charles and Henry, King of Castile, 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1368-1380 
 
 only from their courage and alacrity in the war, but on account 
 of the keys of France which they held in their hands : Bordeaux, 
 Bayonne, and Calais, by inheritance or conquest; Brest and Cher- 
 bourg, in mortgage from their allies, the Duke of Brittany and 
 King of Navarre. But the successor of Edward III was Richard 
 II; a reign of feebleness and sedition gave no opportunity for 
 prosecuting schemes of ambition. The war, protracted with few 
 distinguished events for several years, was at length suspended 
 by repeated armistices, not, indeed, very strictly observed, and 
 which the animosity of the English would not permit to settle 
 in any regular treaty. Nothing less than the terms obtained at 
 Bretigni, emphatically called the Great Peace, would satisfy a 
 frank and courageous people, who deemed themselves cheated 
 by the manner of its infraction. The war was therefore always 
 popular in England, and the credit which an ambitious prince, 
 Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, obtained in that country, was 
 chiefly owing to the determined opposition which he showed to 
 all French connections. But the politics of Richard II were of 
 a different cast, and Henry IV was equally anxious to avoid hos- 
 tilities with France; so that, before the unhappy condition of 
 that kingdom tempted his son to revive the claims of Edward in 
 still more favourable circumstances, there had been thirty years 
 of respite, and even some intervals of friendly intercourse between 
 the two nations. Both, indeed, were weakened by internal dis- 
 cord, but France more fatally than England. But for the calami- 
 ties of Charles VI's reign, she would probably have expelled her 
 enemies from the kingdom. The strength of that fertile and popu- 
 lous country was recruited with surprising rapidity. Sir Hugh 
 Calverley, a famous captain in the wars of Edward III, while 
 serving in Flanders, laughed at the herald, who assured him that 
 the King of France's army, then entering the country, amounted 
 to twenty-six thousand lances; asserting that he had often seen 
 their largest musters, but never so much as a fourth part of the 
 number.^^^ The relapse of this great kingdom under Charles VI 
 was more painful and perilous than her first crisis, but she re- 
 covered from each through her intrinsic and inextinguishable 
 resources. 
 
 Charles V, surnamed the Wise, after a reign which, if we 
 overlook a little obliquity in the rupture of the Peace of Bretigni, 
 may be deemed one of the most honourable in French history, 
 dying prematurely, left the crown to his son, a boy of thirteen, 
 under the care of three ambitious uncles, the Dukes of Anjou, 
 Berry, and Burgundy. Charles had retrieved the glory, restored 
 the tranquility, revived the spirit of his country; the severe trials 
 which exercised his regency after the battle of Poitiers had dis- 
 
 "^ Froissart, part ii, c. 142. 
 
1380-1422] SEDITIONS IN PARIS 51 
 
 ciplined his mind; he became a sagacious statesman, an encour- 
 ager of Hterature, a beneficent lawgiver. He erred, doubtless, 
 though upon plausible grounds, in accumulating a vast treasure, 
 which the Duke of Anjou seized before he was cold in the grave. 
 But all the fruits of his wisdom were lost in the succeeding reign. 
 In a government essentially popular the youth or imbecility of 
 the sovereign creates no material derangement. In a monarchy, 
 where all the springs of the system depend upon one central 
 force, these accidents, which are sure in the course of a few gen- 
 erations to recur, can scarcely fail to dislocate the whole machine. 
 During the forty years that Charles VI bore the name of king, 
 rather than reigned in France, that country was reduced to a state 
 far more deplorable than during the captivity of John. 
 
 A great change had occurred in the political condition of 
 France during the fourteenth century. As the feudal militia be- 
 came unserviceable, the expenses of war were increased through 
 the necessity of taking troops into constant pay; and while more 
 luxurious refinements of living heightened the temptations to pro- 
 fuseness, the means of enjoying them were lessened by improvi- 
 dent alienations of the domain. Hence taxes, hitherto almost un- 
 known, were levied incessantly, and with all those circumstances 
 of oppression which are natural to the fiscal proceedings of an 
 arbitrary government. These, as has been said before, gave rise 
 to the unpopularity of the first two Valois, and were nearly lead- 
 ing to a complete revolution in the convulsions that succeeded 
 the battle of Poitiers. The confidence reposed in Charles V's 
 wisdom and economy kept everything at rest during his reign, 
 though the taxes were still very heavy. But the seizure of his 
 vast accumulations by the Duke of Anjou, and the ill faith with 
 which the new government imposed subsidies, after promising 
 their abolition, provoked the people of Paris, and sometimes of 
 other places, to repeated seditions. The States-General not only 
 compelled the government to revoke these impositions and restore 
 the nation, at least according to the language of edicts, to all their 
 liberties, but, with less wisdom, refused to make any grant of 
 money. Indeed, a remarkable spirit of democratical freedom was 
 then rising in those classes on whom the crown and nobility had 
 so long trampled. An example was held out by the Flemings, 
 who, always tenacious of their privileges, because conscious of 
 their ability to maintain them, were engaged in a furious conflict 
 with Louis, Count of Flanders.^^^ The court of France took part 
 in this war ; and, after obtaining a decisive victory over the citizens 
 
 "9 The Flemish rebellion, which origi- who equals Herodotus in simplicity, live- 
 
 nated in an attempt, suggested by bad liness, and power over the heart. I would 
 
 advisers to the count, to impose a tax advise the historical student to acquaint 
 
 upon the people of Ghent without their himself with these transactions and with 
 
 consent is related in a very interesting the corresponding tumults at Pans, 
 manner by Froissart, part ii, c. 37, etc., They are among the eternal lessons of 
 
52 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1380-1422 
 
 of Ghent, Charles VI returned to chastise those of Paris.^^® Un- 
 able to resist the royal army, the city was treated as the spoil 
 of conquest; its immunities abridged; its most active leaders put 
 to death; a fine of uncommon severity imposed; and the taxes 
 renewed by arbitrary prerogative. But the people preserved their 
 indignation for a favourable moment, and were unfortunately led 
 by it, when rendered subservient to the ambition of others, into 
 a series of crimes, and a long alienation from the interests of their 
 country. 
 
 It is difficult to name a limit beyond which taxes will not 
 be borne without impatience, when they appear to be called for 
 by necessity, and faithfully apphed; nor is it impracticable for a 
 skilful minister to deceive the people in both these respects. But 
 the sting of taxation is wastefulness. What high-spirited man 
 could see without indignation the earnings of his labour, yielded 
 ungrudgingly to the public defence, become the spoil of parasites 
 and speculators? It is this that mortifies the liberal hand of pub- 
 lic spirit; and those statesmen who deem the security of govern- 
 ment to depend not on laws and armies, but on the moral sympa- 
 thies and prejudices of the people, will vigilantly guard against 
 even the suspicion of prodigality. In the present stage of society 
 it is impossible to conceive that degree of misapplication which 
 existed in the French treasury under Charles VI, because the 
 real exigencies of the state could never again be so inconsider- 
 able. Scarcely any military force was kept up, and the produce 
 of the grievous impositions then levied was chiefly lavished upon 
 the royal household ^^^ or plundered by the officers of govern- 
 ment. This naturally resulted from the peculiar and afflicting cir- 
 cumstances of this reign. The Duke of Anjou pretended to be 
 entitled by the late king's appointment, if not by the constitution 
 of France, to exercise the government as regent during the minor- 
 
 history; for the unjust encroachments 
 of courts, the intemperate passions of 
 the multitude, the ambition of dema- 
 gogues, the cruelty of victorious factions, 
 will never cease to have their parallels 
 and their analogies; while the military 
 achievements of distant times afford in 
 general no instruction, and can hardly 
 occupy too little of our time in historical 
 studies. The prefaces to the fifth and 
 sixth volumes of the " Ordonnances des 
 Rois de France " contain more accurate 
 information as to the Parisian disturb- 
 ances than can be found in Froissart. 
 
 "0 If Charles VI had been defeated by 
 the Flemings, the insurrection of the 
 Parisians, Froissart says, would have 
 spread over France; toute gentillesse et 
 noblesse eiit ete morte et perdue en 
 France; nor would the Jacquerie have 
 ever been si grande et si horrible (c. 120). 
 To the example of the Gantois he as- 
 cribes the tumults which broke out about 
 the same time in England as well as in 
 
 France (c. 84). The Flemish insurrection 
 would probably have had more important 
 consequences if it had been cordially sup- 
 ported by the English Government, But 
 the danger of encouraging that demo- 
 cratical spirit which so strongly leavened 
 the commons of England might justly 
 be deemed by Richard II's council much 
 more than a counterbalance to the ad- 
 vantage of distressing France. When 
 too late some attempts were made, and 
 the Flemish towns acknowledged Rich- 
 ard as King of France in 1384. (Rymer, 
 tome vii, p. 448.) 
 
 "^ The expenses of the royal house- 
 hold, which under Charles V were 94,000 
 livres, amounted in 1412 to 450,000. (Vil- 
 laret, tome iii, p. 243.) Yet the king was 
 so ill supplied that his plate had been 
 pawned. When Montagu, minister of 
 the finances, was arrested in 1409, all 
 this plate was found concealed in his 
 house. 
 
I 380-1 422] 
 
 SEDITIONS IN PARIS 
 
 53 
 
 ity;^^^ but this period, which would naturally be very short, a 
 law of Charles V having fixed the age of majority at thirteen, 
 was still more abridged by consent; and after the young mon- 
 arch's coronation, he was considered as reigning with full per- 
 sonal authority. Anjou, Berry, and Burgundy, together with the 
 king's maternal uncle, the Duke of Bourbon, divided the actual 
 exercise of government. 
 
 The first of these soon undertook an expedition into Italy, 
 to possess himself of the crown of Naples, in which he perished. 
 Berry was a profuse and voluptuous man, of no great talents; 
 though his rank, and the middle position which he held between 
 struggling parties, made him rather conspicuous throughout the 
 revolutions of that age. The most respectable of the king's 
 uncles, the Duke of Bourbon, being further removed from the 
 royal stem, and of an unassuming character, took a less active 
 part than his three coadjutors. Burgundy, an ambitious and able 
 prince, maintained the ascendency until Charles, weary of a re- 
 straint which had been protracted by his uncle till he was in his 
 twenty-first year, took the reins into his own hands. The Dukes 
 of Burgundy and Berry retired from court, and the administration 
 was committed to a different set of men, at the head of whom 
 appeared the constable De Clisson, a soldier of great fame in 
 the English wars. The people rejoiced in the fall of the princes 
 by whose exactions they had been plundered; but the new min- 
 isters soon rendered themselves odious by similar conduct. The 
 fortune of Clisson, after a few years' favour, amounted to one mil- 
 lion seven hundred thousand livres, equal in weight of silver, to 
 say nothing of the depreciation of money, to ten times that sum 
 at present.^^' 
 
 "- It has always been an unsettled 
 point whether the presumptive heir is 
 entitled to the regency of France; and, 
 if he be so to the regency, whether this 
 includes the custody of the minor's per- 
 son. The particular case of the Duke of 
 Anjou is subject to a considerable appar- 
 ent difficulty. Two instruments of Charles 
 V, bearing the same date of October, 1374. 
 as published by Dupuy ('* Traite de Ma- 
 jorite des Rois," p. 161), are plainly ir- 
 reconcilable with each other; the former 
 giving the exclusive regency to the Duke 
 of Anjou, reserving the custody of the 
 minor's person to other guardians; the 
 latter conferring not only this custody, 
 but the government of the kingdom, on 
 the queen, and on the Dukes of Bur- 
 gundy and Bourbon^ without mention- 
 ing the Duke of Anjou's name. Daniel 
 calls these testaments of Charles V, 
 whereas they are in the form of letters- 
 patent; and supposes that the king had 
 suppressed both, as neither party seems 
 to have availed itself of their authority 
 in the discussions that took place after 
 the king's death, (" Hist, de France," 
 
 tome iii, p. 662, edit. 1720.) Villaret, as is 
 too much his custom, slides over the dif- 
 ficulty without notice. But M. de Bre- 
 quigni (" Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscript.," 
 tome 1, p. 533) observes that the second 
 of these instruments, as published by M. 
 Secousse, in the " Ordonnances des 
 Rois," tome vi, p. 406, differs most es- 
 sentially from that in Dupuy, and con- 
 tains no mention whatever of the gov- 
 ernment. It is, therefore, easily recon- 
 cilable with the first, that confers the 
 regency on the Duke of Anjou. As 
 Dupu^ took it from the same source 
 as Secousse — namely, the " Tresor des 
 Chartes " — a strong suspicion of wilful 
 interpolation falls upon him, or upon the 
 editor of his posthumous work, printed 
 in 1655. This date will readily suggest a 
 motive for such an interpolation to those 
 who recollect the circumstances of France 
 at that time and for some years before, 
 Anne of Austria having mamtained her- 
 self in possession of a testamentary re- 
 gency against the presumptive heir. 
 "' Froissart, part iv, c. 46. 
 
54 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1380-1422 
 
 Charles VI had reigned five years from his assumption of 
 power when he was seized with a derangement of intellect, which 
 continued, through a series of recoveries and relapses, to his death. 
 He passed thirty years in a pitiable state of suffering, neglected 
 by his family, particularly by the most infamous of women, Isabel 
 of Bavaria, his queen, to a degree which is hardly credible.^^* 
 The ministers were immediately disgraced; the princes reassumed 
 their stations. For several years the Duke of Burgundy con- 
 ducted the government. But this was in opposition to a formi- 
 dable rival, Louis, Duke of Orleans, the king's brother. It was 
 impossible that a prince so near to the throne, favoured by the 
 queen, perhaps with criminal fondness, and by the people on 
 account of his external graces, should not acquire a share of 
 power. He succeeded at length in obtaining the whole manage- 
 ment of affairs, wherein the outrageous dissoluteness of his con- 
 duct, and still more the excessive taxes imposed, rendered him 
 altogether odious. The Parisians compared his administration 
 with that of the Duke of Burgundy, and from that time ranged 
 themselves on the side of the latter and his family, throughout 
 the long distractions to which the ambition of these princes gave 
 birth. 
 
 The death of the Duke of Burgundy, in 1404, after several 
 fluctuations of success between him and the Duke of Orleans, 
 by no means left his party without a head. Equally brave and 
 ambitious, but far more audacious and unprincipled, his son John, 
 surnamed Sanspeur, sustained the same contest. A reconcilia- 
 tion had been, however, brought about with the Duke of Orleans; 
 they had sworn reciprocal friendship, and participated, as was 
 the custom, in order to render these obligations more solemn, 
 in the same communion. In the midst of this outward harmony 
 the Duke of Orleans was assassinated in the streets of Paris. 
 After a slight attempt at concealment, Burgundy avowed and 
 boasted of the crime, to which he had been instigated, it is said, 
 by somewhat more than political jealousy. ^^^ From this fatal 
 pioment the dissensions of the royal family began to assume the 
 complexion of civil war. The queen, the sons of the Duke of 
 Orleans, with the Dukes of Berry and Bourbon, united against 
 the assassin. But he possessed in addition to his own appanage 
 of Burgundy, the county of Flanders as his maternal inheritance; 
 
 1** Sismondi inclines to speak more fa- 
 vourably of this queen than most have 
 done, " Dans les temps posterieurs on 
 s'est plu a faire un monstre de Isabeau 
 de Bavi^re." He discredits the suspicion 
 of a criminal intercourse with the Duke 
 of Orleans, and represents her as merely 
 an indolent woman fond of good cheer. 
 Yet he owns that the king was so neg- 
 lected as to suffer from an excessive want 
 of cleanliness, sometimes even from hun- 
 
 ger (xii, 218, 225). Was this no imputa- 
 tion on his wife? See, too, Michelet, 
 vi, 42. 
 
 ^^"^ Orleans is said to have boasted of 
 the Duchess of Burgundy's favours. 
 (Vill., tome xii, p, 474.) Amelgard, who 
 wrote about eighty years after the time, 
 says. Vim etiam inferre attentare prae- 
 sumpsit. (" Notices des Manuscrits du 
 Roi, tome i, p. 411.) 
 
I 380-1 422] 
 
 CIVIL WAR 
 
 55 
 
 and the people of Paris, who hated the Duke of Orleans, readily 
 forgave, or rather exulted, in his murder.^^® 
 
 It is easy to estimate the weakness of the government, from 
 the terms upon which the Duke of Burgundy was permitted to 
 obtain pardon at Chartres, a year after the perpetration of the 
 crime. As soon as he entered the royal presence every one rose, 
 except the king, queen, and dauphin. The duke, approaching 
 the throne, fell on his knees; when a lord, who acted as a sort 
 of counsel for him, addressed the king: '* Sire, the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, your cousin and servant, is come before you, being in- 
 formed that he has incurred your displeasure, on account of what 
 he caused to be done to the Duke of Orleans, your brother, for 
 your good and that of your kingdom, as he is ready to prove 
 when it shall please you to hear it, and therefore requests you, 
 with all humility, to dismiss your resentment toward him, and to 
 receive him into your favour." ^^^ 
 
 This insolent apology was all the atonement that could be 
 extorted for the assassination of the first prince of the blood. It 
 is not wonderful that the Duke of Burgundy soon obtained the 
 management of affairs, and drove his adversaries from the capital. 
 The princes, headed by the father-in-law of the young Duke of 
 Orleans, the Count of Armagnac, from whom their party was 
 now denominated, raised their standard against him; and the 
 north of France was rent to pieces by a protracted civil war, in 
 which neither party scrupled any extremity of pillage or massacre. 
 Several times peace was made; but each faction, conscious of 
 their own insincerity, suspected that of their adversaries. The 
 king, of whose name both availed themselves, was only in some 
 doubtful intervals of reason capable of rendering legitimate the 
 acts of either. The dauphin, aware of the tyranny which the two 
 
 128 Michelet represents this young 
 prince as regretted and beloved; but his 
 language is full of those strange con- 
 trasts and inconsistencies which, for the 
 sake of effect, this most brilliant writer 
 sometimes employs. " II avait, dans ses 
 emportemens de jeunesse, terriblement 
 vexe le peuple; il fut maudit du peuple, 
 pleure du peuple. Viyant, il couta bien 
 de larmes; mais combien plus, mort! Si 
 vous eussiez demande a la France si ce 
 jeune homme etait bien digne de tante 
 d'amour, elle eut repondu, Je I'aimais. 
 Ce n'est pas seulement pour le bien qu'on 
 aime; qui aime, aime tout, les defauts 
 aussi. Celui-ci plut comme il etait, mele 
 de bien et de mal. (" Hist, de France," 
 vi, 6.) What is the meaning of this love 
 for one who, he has just told us, was 
 cursed by the people? And if Paris was 
 the representative of France, how did the 
 people show their affection for the Duke 
 of Orleans, when they were openly and 
 vehemently the partisans of his mur- 
 derer? On the first return of the Duke 
 
 of Burgundy to Paris after the assas- 
 sination, the citizens shouted Noel, the 
 usual cry on the entrance of the king, 
 to the great displeasure of the queen and 
 other princes. " Et pour vrai, comme 
 dit est dessus, il estoit tres fort ayme du 
 commun peuple de Paris, et avoient 
 grand esperance qu'iceluy due eust tres 
 grand affection au royaume, et a la chose 
 publicque, et avoient souvenance des 
 grans tallies qui avoient este mises sus 
 depuis la mort du Due Philippe de Bour- 
 go^ne pere d'iceluy, jusques a I'heure 
 presente, lesquelles ils entendoient que 
 feust par le moyen dudit Due d'Orleans. 
 Et pource estoit grandement encouru en 
 I'indignation d'iceluy peuple, et leur 
 sembloit que Dieu de sa grace les avoit 
 tres-grandement pour recommandez, 
 quand il avoit souffert qu'ils fussent 
 hors de sa subjection et governement, et 
 qu'ils en estoient delivrez." (Monstrelet, 
 34.) Compare this with what M. Michelet 
 has written. 
 
 ^" Monstrelet, part i, f. 112. 
 
56 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [i 380-1422 
 
 parties alternately exercised, was forced, even at the expense of 
 perpetuating a civil war, to balance one against the other, and 
 permit neither to be wholly subdued. He gave peace to the 
 Armagnacs at Auxerre, in despite of the Duke of Burgundy; 
 and, having afterward united with them against this prince, and 
 carried a successful war into Flanders, he disappointed their re- 
 venge by concluding with him a treaty at Arras. 
 
 This dauphin and his next brother died within sixteen months 
 of each other, by which the rank devolved upon Charles, young- 
 est son of the king. The Count of Armagnac, now Constable of 
 France, retained possession of the government. But his sever- 
 ity, and the weight of taxes, revived the Burgundian party in 
 Paris, which a rigid proscription had endeavoured to destroy. 
 He brought on his head the implacable hatred of the queen, whom 
 he had not only shut out from public affairs, but disgraced by the 
 detection of her gallantries. Notwithstanding her ancient enmity 
 to the Duke of Burgundy, she made overtures to him, and, being 
 delivered by his troops from confinement, declared herself openly 
 on his side. A few obscure persons stole the city keys, and ad- 
 mitted the Burgundians into Paris. The tumult which arose 
 showed in a moment the disposition of the inhabitants; but this 
 was more horribly displayed a few days afterward, when the 
 populace, rushing to the prisons, massacred the Constable dAr- 
 magnac and his partisans. Between three and four thousand per- 
 sons were murdered on this day, which has no parallel but what 
 our own age has witnessed, in the massacre perpetrated by the 
 same ferocious populace of Paris, under circumstances nearly 
 similar. Not long afterward an agreement took place between 
 the Duke of Burgundy, who had now the king's person as well 
 as the capital in his hands, and the dauphin, whose party was 
 enfeebled by the loss of almost all its leaders. This reconcilia- 
 tion, which mutual interest should have rendered permanent, 
 had lasted a very short time, when the Duke of Burgundy was 
 assassinated at an interview with Charles, in his presence, and by 
 the hands of his friends, though not, perhaps, with his previous 
 knowledge.^^^ From whomsoever the crime proceeded, it was 
 
 128 There are three suppositions con- 
 ceivable to explain this important pas- 
 sage in history, the assassination of John 
 Sanspeur. i. It was pretended by the 
 dauphin's friends at the time, and has 
 been maintained more lately (St. Foix, 
 " Essais sur Paris," tome iii, p. 209, edit. 
 1767), that he had premeditated the mur- 
 der of Charles, and that his own was an 
 act of self-defence. This is, I think, qxiite 
 improbable: the dauphin had a great army 
 near the spot, while the duke was only 
 attended by five hundred men. Villaret, 
 indeed, and St. Foix. in order to throw 
 suspicion upon the Duke of Burgundy's 
 
 motives, assert that Henry V accused 
 iT? of having made proposals to him 
 which he could not accept without of- 
 fending God; and conjecture that this 
 rnight mean the assassination of the dau- 
 phin. But the expressions of Henry do 
 not relate to any private proposals of 
 the duke, but to demands made by him 
 and the queen, as proxies for Charles VI 
 in conference for peace, which he says he 
 could not accept without offending God 
 and contravening his own letters-patent. 
 (Rymer, tome ix, p. 790.) It is not, how- 
 ever, very clear what this means. 2. 
 The next hypothesis is, that it was the de- 
 
I 380-1 422] 
 
 INTRIGUES WITH ENGLAND 
 
 57 
 
 a deed of infatuation, and plunged France afresh into a sea of 
 perils, from which the union of these factions had just afforded 
 a hope of extricating her. 
 
 It has been mentioned already that the English war had almost 
 ceased during the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV. The 
 former of these was attached by inclination, and latterly by mar- 
 riage, to the court of France; and, though the French Govern- 
 ment showed at first some disposition to revenge his dethrone- 
 ment, yet the new king's success, as well as domestic quarrels, 
 deterred it from any serious renewal of the war. A long com- 
 mercial connection had subsisted between England and Flanders, 
 which the Dukes of Burgundy, when they became sovereigns 
 of the latter country upon the death of Count Louis in 1384, were 
 studious to preserve by separate truces.^^^ They acted upon the 
 same pacific policy when their interest predominated in the coun- 
 cils of France. Henry had even a negotiation pending for the 
 marriage of his eldest son with a princess of Burgimdy,^^^ when 
 an unexpected proposal from the opposite side set more tempting 
 views before his eyes. The Armagnacs, pressed hard by the Duke 
 of Burgundy, offered, in consideration of only four thousand 
 troops, the pay of which they would themselves defray, to assist 
 him in the recovery of Guienne and Poitou. Four princes of the 
 blood — Berry, Bourbon, Orleans, and Alenqon — disgraced their 
 names by signing this treaty.^^^ Henry broke off his alliance 
 with Burgundy and sent a force into France, which found on its 
 arrival that the princes had made a separate treaty, without the 
 least concern for their English allies. After his death Henry V 
 engaged for some time in a series of negotiations with the French 
 court, where the Orleans party now prevailed, and with the Duke 
 of Burgundy. He even secretly treated at the same time for a 
 marriage with Catherine of France (which seems to have been 
 his favourite, as it was ultimately his successful project), and with 
 a daughter of the duke — a duplicity not creditable to his mem- 
 Qj-y 132 gy^ Henry's ambition, which aimed at the highest quarry, 
 was not long fettered by negotiation; and, indeed, his proposals 
 of marrying Catherine were coupled with such exorbitant demands 
 as France, notwithstanding all her weakness, could not admit, 
 
 liberate act of Charles. But his youth, 
 his feebleness of spirit, and especially 
 the consternation into which, by all tes- 
 timonies, he was thrown by the event, 
 are rather adverse to this explanation. 3. 
 It remains only to conclude that Tanegui 
 de Chastel, and other favourites of the 
 dauphin, lon^ attached to the Orleans 
 faction, who justly regarded the duke as 
 an infamous assassin, and might ques- 
 tion his sincerity or their own safety 
 if he should regain the ascendant, took 
 advantage of this opportunity to commit 
 
 an act of retaliation, less criminal, but 
 not less ruinous in its consequences, than 
 that which had provoked it. Charles, 
 however, by his subsequent conduct, rec- 
 ognised their deed, and naturally ex- 
 posed himself to the resentment of the 
 young Duke of Burgundy. 
 
 ^^^ TLymer, tome viii, p. 511; Villaret, 
 tome xii, p. 174. 
 
 ^3° Rymer, tome viii, p. 721. 
 
 1'^ Rymer, tome viii, pp. 726, 737, 738. 
 
 *^- Rymer, tome ix, p. 136. 
 
58 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1380-1422 
 
 though she would have ceded Guienne and given a vast dowry 
 with the princess/^^ He invaded Normandy, took Harfleur, and 
 won the great battle of Agincourt on his march to Calais.^^^* 
 
 The flower of French chivalry was mowed down in this fatal 
 day, but especially the chiefs of the Orleans party and the princes 
 of the royal blood met with death or captivity. Burgundy had 
 still suffered nothing; but a clandestine negotiation had secured 
 the duke's neutrality, though he seems not to have entered into a 
 regular alliance till a year after the battle of Agincourt, when, 
 by a secret treaty at Calais, he acknowledged the right of Henry 
 to the crown of France, and his own obligation to do him hom- 
 age, though its performance was to be suspended till Henry 
 should become master of a considerable part of the kingdom.^^^ 
 In a second invasion the English achieved the conquest of Nor- 
 mandy; and this, in all subsequent negotiations for peace during 
 the life of Henry, he would never consent to relinquish. After 
 several conferences, which his demands rendered abortive, the 
 French court at length consented to add Normandy to the ces- 
 sions made in the peace at Bretigni;^^^ and the treaty, though 
 labouring under some difBculties, seems to have been nearly com- 
 pleted when the Duke of Burgundy, for reasons unexplained, sud- 
 denly came to a reconciliation with the dauphin. This event, 
 which must have been intended adversely to Henry, would prob- 
 ably have broken ofif all parley on the subject of peace if it had 
 not been speedily followed by one still more surprising, the assas- 
 sination of the Duke of Burgundy at Montereau. 
 
 An act of treachery so apparently unprovoked inflamed the 
 minds of that powerful party which had looked up to the duke 
 as their leader and patron. The city of Paris especially abjured 
 at once its respect for the supposed author of the murder, though 
 the legitimate heir of the crown. A solemn oath was taken by 
 all ranks to revenge the crime; the nobility, the clergy, the 
 Parliament, vying with the populace in their' invectives against 
 Charles, whom they now styled only pretended (soi-disant) dau- 
 phin. Philip, son of the assassinated duke, who, with all the 
 popularity and much of the ability of his father, did not inherit 
 
 '^3 The terms required by Henry's am- 
 bassadors in 1415 were the crown of 
 France; or, at least, reserving Henry's 
 rights to that, Normandy, Touraine, 
 Maine, Guienne, with the homage of 
 Brittany and Flanders. The French of- 
 fered Guienne and Saintonge, and a 
 dowry of 800,000 gold crowns for Cath- 
 erine. The English demanded 2,000,000. 
 (Rymer, tome ix, p. 218.) 
 
 "■* The English army at Agincourt was 
 probably of not more that 15,000 men; 
 the French were at the least 50,000, and, 
 by some computations, much more nu- 
 merous. They lost 10,000 killed, of whom 
 9,000 were knights or gentlemen. Almost 
 
 as many were made prisoners. The Eng- 
 lish, according to Monstrelet, lost 1,600 
 men; but their own historians reduce 
 this to a very small number. It is curious 
 that the Duke of Berry, who advised the 
 French to avoid an action, had been in 
 the battle of Poitiers lifty-nine years be- 
 fore. (Vill., tome xiii, p. 355.) 
 
 "' Compare Rymer, tome ix, pp. 34» 
 y8, 304, 794. The last reference is to the 
 Treaty of Calais. 
 
 "8 Rymer, tome ix, pp. 628, 763. Noth- 
 ing can be more insolent than the tone of 
 Henry's instructions to his commission- 
 ers, p. 628. 
 
1380-1422] 
 
 TREATY OF TROYES 
 
 59 
 
 all his depravity, was instigated by a pardonable excess of filial 
 resentment to ally himself with the King of England. These 
 passions of the people and the Duke of Burgundy, concurring 
 with the imbecility of Charles VI and the rancour of Isabel toward 
 her son, led to the treaty of Troyes. This compact, signed by 
 the queen and duke, as proxies of the king, who had fallen into 
 a state of unconscious idiocy, stipulated that Henry V, upon his 
 marriage with Catherine, should become immediately regent of 
 France, and, after the death of Charles, succeed to the kingdom, 
 in exclusion not only of the dauphin, but of all the royal family.^^^ 
 It is unnecessary to remark that these flagitious provisions were 
 absolutely invalid. But they had at the time the strong sanction 
 of force; and Henry might plausibly flatter himself with a hope 
 of establishing his own usurpation as firmly in France as his 
 father's had been in England. What not even the comprehensive 
 policy of Edward III, the energy of the Black Prince, the valour 
 of their KnoUyses and Chandoses, nor his own victories could 
 attain, now seemed, by a strange vicissitude of fortune, to court 
 his ambition. During two years that Henry lived after the 
 Treaty of Troyes he governed the north of France with unlimited 
 authority in the name of Charles VI. The latter survived his 
 son-in-law but a few weeks; and the infant Henry VI was im- 
 mediately proclaimed King of France and England, under the 
 regency of his uncle, the Duke of Bedford. 
 
 Notwithstanding the disadvantage of a minority, the English 
 cause was less weakened by the death of Henry than might have 
 been expected. The Duke of Bedford partook of the same char- 
 acter, and resembled his brother in faults as well as virtues; in 
 his haughtiness and arbitrary temper as in his energy and ad- 
 dress. At the accession of Charles VII the usurper was acknowl- 
 edged by all the northern provinces of France, except a few 
 fortresses, by most of Guienne, and the dominions of Burgundy. 
 The Duke of Brittany soon afterward acceded to the Treaty of 
 Troyes, but changed his party again several times within a few 
 years. The central provinces, with Languedoc, Poitou, and 
 Dauphine, were faithful to the king. For some years the war 
 continued without any decisive result; but the balance was clearly 
 swayed in favour of England. For this it is not difficult to assign 
 several causes. The animosity of the Parisians and the Duke 
 of Burgundy against the Armagnac party still continued, min- 
 
 es'' As if through shame on account of 
 what was to follow, the first articles con- 
 tain petty stipulations about the dower 
 of Catherine. The sixth gives the king- 
 dom of France after Charles's decease to 
 Henry and his heirs. The seventh con- 
 cedes the immediate regency. Henry 
 kept Normandy by right of conquest, 
 not in virtue of any stipulation in the 
 
 treaty, which he was too proud to admit. 
 The Treaty of Troyes was confirmed by 
 the States-General, or rather by a partial 
 convention which assumed the name, in 
 December, 1420, (Rymer, tome x, p. 30-) 
 The Parliament of England did the same. 
 (Id., p. no.) It is printed at full length 
 by Villaret, tome xv, p. 84. 
 
6o HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1422-1461 
 
 gled in the former with dread of the king's return, whom they 
 judged themselves to have inexpiably offended. The war had 
 brought forward some accompHshed commanders in the English 
 army, surpassing, not indeed in valour and enterprise, but in mili- 
 tary skill, any whom France could oppose to them. Of these, the 
 most distinguished, besides the Duke of Bedford himself, were 
 Warwick, Salisbury, and Talbot. Their troops, too, were still 
 very superior to the French. But this, we must in candour allow, 
 proceeded in a great degree from the mode in which they were 
 raised. The war was so popular in England that it was easy 
 to pick the best and stoutest recruits,^^^ and their high pay 
 allured men of respectable condition to the service. We find 
 in Rymer a contract of the Earl of Salisbury to supply a body of 
 troops, receiving a shilling a day for every man at arms, and six- 
 pence for each archer.^^^ This is, perhaps, equal to fifteen times 
 the sum at our present value of money. They were bound, indeed, 
 to furnish their own equipments and horses. But France was 
 totally exhausted by her civil and foreign war, and incompetent 
 to defray the expenses even of the small force which defended the 
 wreck of the monarchy. Charles VII lived in the utmost poverty 
 at Bourges.^^^ The nobility had scarcely recovered from the fatal 
 slaughter of Agincourt and the infantry, composed of peasants 
 or burgesses, which had made their army so numerous upon that 
 day, whether from inability to compel their services or experi- 
 ence of their inefficacy, were never called into the field. It be- 
 came almost entirely a war of partisans. Every town in Picardy, 
 Champagne, Maine, or wherever the contest might be carried 
 on, was a fortress ; and in the attack or defence of these garrisons 
 the valour of both nations was called into constant exercise. 
 This mode of warfare was undoubtedly the best in the actual 
 state of France, as it gradually improved her troops and flushed 
 them with petty successes. But what principally led to its adop- 
 tion was the license and insubordination of the royalists, who, 
 receiving no pay, owned no control, and thought that, provided 
 they acted against the English and Burgundians, they were free 
 to choose their own points of attack. Nothing can more evidently 
 show the weakness of France than the high terms by which 
 Charles VII was content to purchase the assistance of some Scot- 
 tish auxiliaries. The Earl of Buchan was made constable; the 
 Earl of Douglas had the duchy of Touraine, with a new title, 
 lieutenant general of the kingdom. At a subsequent time Charles 
 
 1'^ Monstrelet, part i, f. 303, for the earl, 6s. 8d. a day; for a ban- 
 ^3® Rymer, tome x, p. 392. This con- neret, 4^. ; for a bachelor, 2s.] for every 
 tract was for 600 men-at-arms, including other man-at-arms, zs.; and for each arch- 
 six bannerets and thirty-four bachelors; er, 6d. Artillerymen were paid higher 
 and for 1,700 archers; bien et suffisam- than men-at-arms, 
 ment montez, armez, et arraiez comme ^*^ Villaret, tome xiv, p. 302. 
 a leurs estats appartient. The pay was, 
 
1422-1461] SIEGE OF ORLEANS 61 
 
 offered the province of Saintonge to James I for an aid of six 
 thousand men. These Scots fought bravely for France, though 
 unsuccessfully, at Crevant and Verneuil; but it must be owned 
 they set a sufficient value upon their service. Under all these 
 disadvantages it would be unjust to charge the French nation 
 with any inferiority of courage, even in the most unfortunate peri- 
 ods of this war. Though frequently panic-struck in the field of 
 battle, they stood sieges of their walled towns with matchless 
 spirit and endurance. Perhaps some analogy may be found be- 
 tween the character of the French commonalty during the Eng- 
 lish invasion and the Spaniards of the late peninsular war. But 
 to the exertions of those brave nobles who restored the monarchy 
 of Charles VII Spain has afforded no adequate parallel. 
 
 It was, however, in the temper of Charles VII that his enemies 
 found their chief advantage. This prince is one of the few whose 
 character has been improved by prosperity. During the calami- 
 tous morning of his reign he shrank from fronting the storm, and 
 strove to forget himself in pleasure. Though brave, he was never 
 seen in war; though intelligent, he was governed by flatterers. 
 Those who had committed the assassination at Montereau under 
 his eyes were his first favourites ; as if he had determined to avoid 
 the only measure through which he could hope for better suc- 
 cess, a reconciliation with the Duke of Burgundy. The Count 
 de Richemont, brother of the Duke of Brittany, who became after- 
 ward one of the chief pillars of his throne, consented to renounce 
 the English alliance and accept the rank of constable on condi- 
 tion that these favourites should quit the court. Two others, 
 who successively gained a similar influence over Charles, Riche- 
 mont publicly caused to be assassinated, assuring the king that it 
 was for his own and the public good. Such was the debasement 
 of morals and government which twenty years of civil war had 
 produced! Another favourite. La Tremouille, took the danger- 
 ous ofifice, and, as might be expected, employed his influence 
 against Richemont, who for some years lived on his own domains, 
 rather as an armed neutral than a friend, though he never lost 
 his attachment to the royal cause. 
 
 It can not, therefore, surprise us that with all these advantages 
 the regent Duke of Bedford had almost completed the capture 
 of the fortresses north of the Loire when he invested Orleans 
 in 1428. If this city had fallen, the central provinces, which were 
 less furnished with defensible places, would have lain open to 
 the enemy, and it is said that Charles VII in despair was about 
 to retire into Dauphine. At this time his affairs were restored 
 by one of the most marvellous revolutions in history. A country 
 girl overthrew the power of England. We can not pretend to 
 explain the surprising story of the Maid of Orleans; for, how- 
 
62 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1422-1461 
 
 ever easy it may be to suppose that a heated and enthusiastic 
 imagination produced her own visions, it is a much greater prob- 
 lem to account for the credit they obtained and for the success 
 that attended her. Nor will this be solved by the hypothesis 
 of a concerted stratagem; which, if we do not judge altogether 
 from events, must appear liable to so many chances of failure 
 that it could not have suggested itself to any rational person. 
 However, it is certain that the appearance of Joan of Arc turned 
 the tide of war, which from that moment flowed without inter- 
 ruption in Charles's favour. A superstitious awe enfeebled the 
 sinews of the English. They hung back in their own country, 
 or deserted from the army, through fear of the incantations by 
 which alone they conceived so extraordinary a person to suc- 
 ceed.^*^ As men always make sure of Providence for an ally, 
 whatever untoward fortune appeared to result from preternatural 
 causes was at once ascribed to infernal enemies; and such bigotry 
 may be pleaded as an excuse, though a very miserable one, for 
 the detestable murder of this heroine.^^^ 
 
 The spirit which Joan of Arc had roused did not subside. 
 France recovered confidence in her own strength, which had been 
 chilled by a long course of adverse fortune. The king, too, shook 
 off his indolence,^*^ and permitted Richemont to exclude his un- 
 
 ^" Rymer, tome x, pp. 458-472. This, 
 however, is conjecture; for the cause of 
 their desertion is not mentioned in these 
 proclamations, though Rymer has printed 
 it in their title. But the Duke of Bed- 
 ford speaks of the turn of success as 
 astonishing, and due only to the supersti- 
 tious fear which the English had con- 
 ceived of a female magician. (Rymer, 
 tome X, p. 408.) 
 
 ^•'^ M. de I'Averdy, to whom we owe 
 the copious account of the proceedings 
 against Joan of Arc, as well as those 
 which Charles VII instituted in order to 
 rescind the former, contained in the third 
 volume of " Notices des Manuscrits du 
 Roi," has justly made this remark, which 
 is founded on the eagerness shown by the 
 University of Paris in the prosecution, 
 and on its being conducted before an 
 inquisitor ; a circumstance exceedingly 
 remarkable in the ecclesiastical history 
 of France. But another material ob- 
 servation arises out of this. The maid 
 was pursued with peculiar bitterness by 
 her countrymen of the English, or rather 
 Burgundian, faction; a proof that in 1430 
 their animosity against Charles VII was 
 still ardent. [Note Xyi.] 
 
 ^■"' It is a current piece of history that 
 Agnes Sorel, mistress of Charles VII, 
 had the merit of dissuading him from 
 giving up the kingdom as lost at the 
 time when Orleans was besieged in 1428. 
 Mezeray, Daniel, Villaret, and, I believe, 
 every other modern historian, have men- 
 tioned this circumstance; and some of 
 them, among whom is Hume, with the 
 addition that Agnes threatened to leave 
 
 the court of Charles for that of Henry, 
 affirming that she was born to be the 
 mistress of a great king. The latter 
 part of this tale is evidently a fabrication, 
 Henry VI being at the time a child of 
 seven years old. But I have, to say the 
 least, great doubts of the main story. 
 It is not mentioned by contemporary 
 writers. On the contrary, what they say 
 of Agnes leads me to think the dates in- 
 compatible. Agnes died (in childbed, as 
 some say) in 1450, twenty-two years after 
 the siege of Orleans. Monstrelet says 
 that she had been about five years in the 
 service of the queen; and the king tak- 
 ing pleasure in her liveliness and wit, 
 common fame had spread abroad that 
 she lived in concubinage with him. She 
 certainly had a child, and was willing 
 that it should be thought the king's; but 
 he always denied it, et le pouvoit bien 
 avoir emprunte ailleurs. (Part iii, f. 25.) 
 Olivier de la Marche, another contempo- 
 rary, who lived in the court of Burgundy, 
 says, about the year 1444, le roy avoit 
 nouvellement eslev6 une pauvre demoi- 
 selle, gentifemme, nommee Agnes Sorel, 
 et mis en tel triumphe et tel pouvoir, 
 que son estat estoit 4 comparer aux 
 grandes princesses de royaume, et certes 
 c'estoit une des plus belles femmes que 
 je vey oncques, et fit en sa qualite beau- 
 coup au royaume de France. Elle avan- 
 goit devers le roy jeunes gens d'armes et 
 gentils compaignons, et aont le roy de- 
 puis fut bien servy. (La Marche, " Mem. 
 Hist.," tome viii, p. 145.) Du Clercq, 
 whose memoirs were first published in 
 the same collection, says that Agnes 
 
1422-1461] RECONCILIATION WITH THE BURGUNDIANS 6^ 
 
 worthy favourites from the court. This led to a very important 
 consequence. The Duke of Burgtmdy, whose alHance with Eng- 
 land had been only the fruit of indignation at his father's murder, 
 fell naturally, as that passion wore out, into sentiments more 
 congenial to his birth and interests. A prince of the house of 
 Capet could not willingly see the inheritance of his ancestors 
 transferred to a stranger. And he had met with provocation 
 both from the regent and the Duke of Gloucester, who, in con- 
 tempt of all policy and justice, had endeavoured, by an invalid 
 marriage with Jacqueline, Countess of Hainault and Holland, 
 to obtain provinces which Burgundy designed for himself. Yet 
 the union of his sister with Bedford, the obligations by which he 
 was bound, and, most of all, the favour shown by Charles VII 
 to the assassins of his father, kept him for many years on the 
 English side, although rendering it less and less assistance. But 
 at length he concluded a treaty at Arras, the terms of which 
 he dictated rather as a conqueror than a subject negotiating 
 with his sovereign. Charles, however, refused nothing for such 
 an end; and, in a very short time, the Burgundians were ranged 
 with the French against their old allies of England. 
 
 It was now time for the latter to abandon those magnificent 
 projects of conquering France which temporary circumstances 
 
 mourut par poison moult jeune. (lb., 
 tome viii, p. 410.) And the continuator 
 of Monstrelet, probably John Chartier, 
 speaks of the youth and beauty of Agnes, 
 which exceeded that of any other woman 
 in France, and of the favour shown her 
 by the king, which so much excited the 
 displeasure of the dauphin, on his moth- 
 er's account, and he was suspected of 
 having caused her to be poisoned (fol. 
 68). The same writer affirms of Charles 
 VII that he was, before the Peace of 
 Arras, de moult belle vie et devote; but 
 afterward enlaidit sa vie tenir malles 
 femmes en son hostel, etc. (fol. 86). 
 
 It is for the reader to judge how far 
 these passages render it improbable that 
 Agnes Sorel was the mistress of Charles 
 VII at the siege of Orleans in 1428, and, 
 consequently, whether she is entitled to 
 the praise which she has received, of be- 
 ing instrumental in the deliverance of 
 France. The tradition, however, is as an- 
 cient as Francis I, who made in her hon- 
 our a quatrain which is well known. This 
 probably may have brought the story 
 more into vogue, and led Mezeray, who 
 was not very critical, to insert it in his 
 history, from which it has passed to his 
 followers. Its origin was apparently the 
 popular character of Agnes. She was 
 the Nell Gwyn of France; and justly be- 
 loved, not only for her charity and cour- 
 tesy, but for bringing forward men of 
 merit, and turning her influence, a vir- 
 tue very rare in her class, toward the 
 public interest. From thence it was 
 natural to bestow upon her, in after- 
 
 times, a merit not ill suited to her char- 
 acter, but which an accurate observation 
 of dates seems to render impossible. But 
 whatever honour I am compelled to de- 
 tract from Agnes Sorel, I am willing to 
 transfer undiminished to a more unblem- 
 ished female, the injured Queen of Charles 
 VII, Mary of Anjou, who has hitherto 
 only shared with the usurper of her 
 rights the credit of awakenmg (Tharles 
 from his lethargy. Though 1 do not 
 know on what foundation even this rests, 
 it is not unlikely to be true, and, in def- 
 erence to the sex, let it pass undisputed. 
 
 Sismondi (vol. xiii, p. 204), where he 
 first mentions Agnes Sorel, says that 
 many of the circumstances told of her 
 influence over Charles VII are fabulous. 
 " Cependant il faut bien qu'Agnes ait 
 merite, en quelque maniere, la reconnois- 
 sance qui s'est attachee a son nom," 
 This is a loose and inconclusive way of 
 reasoning in history; many popular tra- 
 ditions have no basis at all. And in 
 p. 345 he slights the story told in Bran- 
 tome to the honour of Agnes, as well he 
 might, since it is ridiculously untrue that 
 she threatened Charles to go to the court 
 of Henry VI, knowing herself to be born 
 to be the mistress of a great king. Sis- 
 mondi afterward (pp. 497 and 604) quotes, 
 as I have done, Chartier and Jacques du 
 Clercq; but without adverting to the in- 
 congruity of their dates with the current 
 story. M. Michelet does not seem to at- 
 tach much credit to it, though he adopts 
 the earlier date for the king's attachment 
 to Agnes. 
 
64 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1422-1461 
 
 alone had seemed to render feasible. But as it is a natural effect 
 of good fortune in the game of war to render a people insensible 
 to its gradual change, the English could not persuade themselves 
 that their affairs were irretrievably declining. Hence they re- 
 jected the offer of Normandy and Guienne, subject to the feudal 
 superiority of France, which was made to them at the congress 
 of Arras; ^'^^ and some years afterward, when Paris, with the 
 adjacent provinces, had been lost, the English ambassadors, 
 though empowered by their private instructions to relax, stood 
 upon demands quite disproportionate to the actual position of 
 affairs.^*^ As foreign enemies they were odious even in that 
 part of France which had acknowledged Henry; ^"^^ and when the 
 Duke of Burgundy deserted their side, Paris and every other city 
 were impatient to throw off the yoke. A feeble monarchy and a 
 selfish council completed their ruin: the necessary subsidies were 
 raised with difficulty, and, when raised, misapplied. It is a proof 
 of the exhaustion of France that Charles was unable for several 
 years to reduce Normandy or Guienne, which were so ill provided 
 for defence. ^*^ At last he came with collected strength to the 
 contest, and, breaking an armistice upon slight pretences, within 
 two years overwhelmed the English garrisons in each of these 
 provinces. All the inheritance of Henry H and Eleanor, all the 
 conquests of Edward HI and Henry V except Calais and a small 
 adjacent district, were irrecoverably torn from the crown of Eng- 
 land. A barren title, that idle trophy of disappointed ambition, 
 was preserved with strange obstinacy to our own age. 
 
 In these second English wars we find little left of that gen- 
 erous feeling which had in general distinguished the contempo- 
 raries of Edward III. The very virtues which a state of hostility 
 promotes are not proof against its long continuance, and sink 
 at last into brutal fierceness. Revenge and fear excited the two 
 factions of Orleans and Burgundy to ail atrocious actions. The 
 troops serving under partisans on detached expeditions, accord- 
 ing to the system of the war, lived at free quarters on the people. 
 The histories of the time are full of their outrages, from which, 
 as is the common case, the unprotected peasantry most suf- 
 
 ^** Villaret says, Les plenipotentiaires 
 de Charles offrirent la cession de la Nor- 
 mandie et de la Guienne en toute pro- 
 priete sous la clause de Thommage a la 
 couronne (tome xv, p. 174). But he does 
 not quote his authority, and I do not like 
 to rely on a historian not eminent for ac- 
 curacy in fact or precision in language. 
 If his expression is correct, the French 
 must have given up the feudal appeal or 
 ressort which had been the great point 
 in dispute between Edward III and 
 Charles V, preserving only a homage 
 per paragium, as it was called, which 
 implied no actual supremacy. Monstrelet 
 says only, que per certaines conditions 
 
 luy seroient accordees les seigneuries de 
 Guienne et Normandie. 
 
 ^*^ See the instructions given to the 
 English negotiators in 1439, at length, in 
 Rymer, tome x, p. 724. 
 
 "" Villaret, tome xiv, p. 448. 
 
 ^*^ Amelgard, from whose unpublished 
 memoirs of Charles VII and Louis XI 
 some valuable extracts are made in the 
 " Notices des Manuscrits," tome i, p. 403. 
 attributes the delav in recovering Nor- 
 mandy solely to the king's slothfulness 
 and sensuality. In fact, the people of 
 that province rose upon the English and 
 almost emancipated themselves with little 
 aid from Charles. 
 
I422-I46I] 
 
 CONDITION OF FRANCE 
 
 65 
 
 fered.^^® Even those laws of war which the courteous sympathies 
 of chivalry had enjoined were disregarded by a merciless fury. 
 Garrisons surrendering after a brave defence were put to death. 
 Instances of this are very frequent. Henry V excepts Alain 
 Blanchard, a citizen who had distinguished himself during the 
 siege, from the capitulation of Rouen, and orders him to execu- 
 tion. At the taking of a town of Champagne, John of Luxem- 
 burg, the Burgimdian general, stipulates that every fourth and 
 sixth man should be at his discretion, which he exercises by 
 causing them all to be hanged. ^*^ Four hundred English from 
 Pontoise, stormed by Charles VII in 1441, are paraded in chains 
 and naked through the streets of Paris, and thrown afterward 
 into the Seine. This infamous action can not but be ascribed to 
 the king.^^*^ 
 
 At the expulsion of the English, France emerged from the 
 chaos with an altered character and new features of government. 
 The royal authority and supreme jurisdiction of the Parliament 
 were universally recognised. Yet there was a tendency toward 
 insubordination left among the great nobility, arising in part from 
 the remains of old feudal privileges, but still more from that lax 
 administration which, in the convulsive struggles of the war, 
 had been suffered to prevail. In the south were some consider- 
 able vassals, the houses of Foix, Albret, and Armagnac, who, 
 on account of their distance from the seat of empire, had always 
 maintained a very independent conduct. The Dukes of Brittany 
 and Burgundy were of a more formidable character, and might 
 rather be ranked among foreign powers than privileged subjects. 
 The princes, too, of the royal blood, who, during the late reign, 
 had learned to partake or contend for the management, were ill 
 inclined toward Charles VII, himself jealous, from old recoUec- 
 
 1*8 Monstrelet, passim. A long metri- 
 cal complaint of the people of France, 
 curious as a specimen of versification, as 
 well as a testimony to the misfortunes of 
 the time, may be found in this historian, 
 part i, fol. 321. Notwithstanding the 
 Treaty of Arras, the French and Burgun- 
 dians made continual incursions upon 
 each other's frontiers, especially about 
 Laon and in the Vermandois. So that 
 the people had no help, says Monstrelet, 
 si non de crier miserablement a Dieu 
 leur createur vengeance ; et que pis 
 estoit, quand ils obtenoient aucun sauf- 
 conduit d'aucuns capitaines, peu en estoit 
 entretenu, mesmement tout d'un parti. 
 (Part ii, fol. 139.) These pillagers were 
 called Ecorcheurs, because they stripped 
 the people of their shirts. And this name 
 superseded that of Armagnacs, by which 
 one side had hitherto been known. Even 
 Xaintrailles and La Hire, two of the 
 bravest champions of France, were dis- 
 graced by these habits of outrage. (Ibid., 
 fols. 144, 150, 175; Oliv. de la Marche, in 
 
 " Collect, des Memoires," tome viii, p. 25; 
 tome V, p. 323.) 
 
 Pour la plupart, says Villaret, se faire 
 guerrier, ou voleur de grands chemins, 
 signifioit la meme chose. 
 
 i*» Monstrelet, part ii, f. 79. This John 
 of Luxemburg, Count de Ligny, was a 
 distinguished captain on the Burgundian 
 side, and for a long time would not ac- 
 quiesce in the Treaty of Arras. He dis- 
 graced himself by giving up to the Duke 
 of Bedford his prisoner Joan of Arc for 
 10,000 francs. The famous Count of St. 
 Pol was his nephew, and inherited his 
 great possessions in the county of Ver- 
 mandois. Monstrelet relates a singular 
 proof of the good education which his 
 uncle gave him. Some prisoners having 
 been made in an engagement, si fut le 
 jeune Comte de St. Pol mis en voye de 
 guerre; car le Comte de Ligny son oncle 
 luy en feit occire aucuns, le quel y pre- 
 noit grand plaisir. (Part ii, fol. 95.) 
 
 100 YiUaret, tome xv, p. 327. 
 
66 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1422-1461 
 
 tions, of their ascendency. They saw that the constitution was 
 verging rapidly toward an absolute monarchy, from the direction 
 of which they would studiously be excluded. This apprehension 
 gave rise to several attempts at rebellion during the reign of 
 Charles VII, and to the war, commonly entitled, for the Public 
 Weal (du bien public), under Louis XL Among the pretences 
 alleged by the revolters in each of these, the injuries of the people 
 were not forgotten; ^^^ but from the people they received small 
 support. Weary of civil dissension, and anxious for a strong 
 government to secure them from depredation, the French had 
 no inducement to intrust even their real grievances to a few 
 malcontent princes, whose regard for the common good they had 
 much reason to distrust. Every circumstance favoured Charles 
 VII and his son in the attainment of arbitrary power. The coun- 
 try was pillaged by military ruffians. Some of these had been 
 led by the dauphin to a war in Germany, but the remainder still 
 infested the high roads and villages. Charles established his 
 companies of ordonnance, the basis of the French regular army, 
 in order to protect the country from such depredators. They con- 
 sisted of about nine thousand soldiers, all cavalry, of whom fifteen 
 hundred were heavy armed; a force not very considerable, but 
 the first, except mere body-guards, which had been raised in any 
 part of Europe as a national standing army.^^^ These troops were 
 paid out of the produce of a permanent tax, called the taille; an 
 innovation still more important than the former. But the pres- 
 ent benefit cheating the people, now prone to submissive habits, 
 little or no opposition was made, except in Guienne, the inhabit- 
 ants of which had speedy reason to regret the mild gqyernment 
 of England, and vainly endeavoured to return to its protection.^^^ 
 
 *" The confederacy formed at Nevers 
 in 1441 by the Dukes of Orleans and 
 Bourbon, with many other princes, made 
 a variety of demands, all relating to the 
 grievances which different classes of the 
 state, or individuals among themselves, 
 suffered under the administration of 
 Charles. These may be found at length 
 in Monstrelet, part ii, fol. 193, and are a 
 curious document of the change which 
 was then working in the French consti- 
 tution. In his answer the king claims 
 the right, in urgent cases, of levying taxes 
 without waiting for the consent of the 
 States-General. 
 
 152 Olivier de la Marche speaks very 
 much in favour of the companies of or- 
 donnance as having repressed the plun- 
 derers and restored internal police. 
 (" Collect, des Memoires," tome viii, p. 
 148.) Amelgard pronounces a vehement 
 philippic against them, but it is prob- 
 able that his observation of the abuses 
 they had fallen into was confined to the 
 rei^n of Louis XI. (" Notices des Manu- 
 scnts," ubi supra.) 
 
 ^" The insurrection of Guienne in 1452, 
 
 which for a few months restored that 
 province to the English crown, is ac- 
 counted for in the curious memoirs of 
 Amelgard, above mentioned. It pro- 
 ceeded solely from the arbitrary taxes 
 imposed by Charles VII in order to 
 defray the expenses of his regular army. 
 The people of Bordeaux complained of 
 exactions not only contrary to their an- 
 cient privileges, but to the positive con- 
 ditions of their capitulation. But the 
 king was deaf to such remonstrances. 
 The province of Guienne, he says, then 
 perceived that it was meant to subject it 
 to the same servitude as the rest of 
 France, where the leeches of the state 
 boldly maintain as a fundamental maxim 
 that the king has a right to tax all his 
 subjects how and when he pleases; which 
 is to advance that in France no man has 
 anything that he can call his own, and 
 that the king can take all at his pleasure; 
 the proper condition of slaves, whose 
 peculium enjoyed by their master's per- 
 mission belongs to him, like their per- 
 sons, and may be taken away whenever 
 he chooses. Thus situated, the people of 
 
I46I-I483] 
 
 LOUIS XI 
 
 67 
 
 It was not long before the new despotism exhibited itself 
 in its harshest character. Louis XI, son of Charles VII, who 
 during his father's reign had been connected with the discontented 
 princes, came to the throne greatly endowed with those virtues 
 and vices which conspire to the success of a king. Laborious 
 vigilance in business, contempt of pomp, affability to inferiors, 
 were his excellences; qualities especially praiseworthy in an age 
 characterized by idleness, love of pageantry, and insolence. To 
 these virtues he added a perfect knowledge of all persons eminent 
 for talents or influence in the countries with which he was con- 
 nected and a well-judged bounty, that thought no expense wasted 
 to draw them into his service or interest. In the fifteenth cen- 
 tury this political art had hardly been known, except perhaps in 
 Italy; the princes of Europe had contended with each other by 
 arms, sometimes by treachery, but never with such complicated 
 subtlety of intrigue. Of that insidious cunning, which has since 
 been brought to perfection, Louis XI may be deemed not abso- 
 lutely the inventor, but the most eminent improver; and its suc- 
 cess has led, perhaps, to too high an estimate of his abilities. 
 Like most bad men, he sometimes fell into his own snare, and 
 was betrayed by his confidential ministers, because his confidence 
 was generally reposed in the wicked. And his dissimulation 
 was so notorious, his tyranny so oppressive, that he was naturally 
 surrounded by enemies, and had occasion for all his craft to elude 
 those rebellions and confederacies which might perhaps not have 
 been raised against a more upright sovereign.^^* At one time the 
 monarchy was on the point of sinking before a combination which 
 would have ended in dismembering France. This was the league 
 denominated of the Public Weal, in which all the princes and 
 great vassals of the French crown were concerned: the Dukes 
 of Brittany, Burgundy, Alenqon, Bourbon, the Count of Dunois, 
 so renowned for his valour in the English wars, the families of 
 Foix and Armagnac; and at the head of all, Charles, Duke of 
 Berry, the king's brother and presumptive heir. So unanimous 
 a combination was not formed without a strong provocation from 
 
 Guienne, especially those of Bordeaux, 
 alarmed themselves, and, excited by some 
 of the nobility, secretly sought about for 
 means to regain their ancient freedom; 
 and having still many connections with 
 persons of rank in England, they negoti- 
 ated with them, etc. (" Notices des 
 Manuscrits," p. 433-) The same cause is 
 assigned to this revolution by Du Clercq, 
 also a contemporary writer, living in the 
 dominions of Burgundy. (" Collection 
 des Memoires," tome ix, p. 400.) Villaret 
 has not known, or not chosen to know, 
 anything of the matter. 
 
 1" Sismondi (vol. xiv, p. 312) and 
 Michelet (vol. ix, p. 347) agree in think- 
 ing Louis XI no worse than other kings 
 
 of his age; in fact, the former seems rare- 
 ly to make a distinction between one 
 king and another. Louis was just and 
 even attentive toward the lower people, 
 and spared the blood of his soldiers. 
 But he had imbibed a notion that treach- 
 ery and cruelty could not be carried too 
 far against his enemies, and especially 
 against his rebellious subjects. Louis 
 composed for his son's use, or caused to 
 be composed, a political treatise entitled 
 " Le Rosier des Guerres," which has 
 never been published. It is written in a 
 spirit of public morality very unlike his 
 practice. (Sismondi, vol. xiv, p. 616.) 
 Thus two royal anti-Machiavels have 
 satirized themselves. 
 
68 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1461-1483 
 
 the king, or at least without weighty grounds for distrusting his 
 intentions; but the more remote cause of this confederacy, as of 
 those which had been raised against Charles VII, was the critical 
 position of the feudal aristocracy from the increasing power of 
 the crown. This war of the Public Weal was, in fact, a struggle 
 to preserve their independence; and from the weak character of 
 the Duke of Berry, whom they would, if successful, have placed 
 upon the throne, it is possible that France might have been in a 
 manner partitioned among them in the event of their success, or, 
 at least, that Burgundy and Brittany would have thrown off the 
 sovereignty that galled them.^^^ 
 
 The strength of the confederates in this war much exceeded 
 that of the king, but it was not judiciously employed; and after 
 an indecisive battle at Montlhery they failed in the great object 
 of reducing Paris, which would have obliged Louis to fly from 
 his dominions. It was his policy to promise everything, in trust 
 that fortune would afford some opening to repair his losses and 
 give scope to his superior prudence. Accordingly, by the Treaty 
 of Conflans, he not only surrendered afresh the towns upon the 
 Somme, which he had lately redeemed from the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, but invested his brother with the duchy of Normandy 
 as his appanage. 
 
 The term appanage denotes the provision made for the 
 younger children of a King of France. This always consisted of 
 lands and feudal superiorities held of the crown by the tenure 
 of peerage. It is evident that this usage, as it produced a new 
 class of powerful feudatories, was hostile to the interests and 
 policy of the sovereign, and retarded the subjugation of the an- 
 cient aristocracy. But a usage coeval with the monarchy was 
 not to be abrogated, and the scarcity of money rendered it im- 
 possible to provide for the younger branches of the royal family 
 by any other means. It was restrained, however, ^s far as cir- 
 cumstances would permit. Philip IV declared that the county 
 of Poitiers, bestowed by him on his son, should revert to the 
 crown on the extinction of male heirs. But this, though an im- 
 portant precedent, was not, as has often been asserted, a general 
 law. Charles V limited the appanages of his own sons to twelve 
 thousand livres of annual value in land. By means of their ap- 
 panages, and through the operation of the Salic law, which made 
 their inheritance of the crown a less remote contingency, the 
 princes of the blood royal in France were at all times (for the 
 remark is applicable long after Louis XI) a distinct and formidable 
 
 "' Sismondi has a just observation on ete proclam6; c'est que le bien public 
 
 the League of the Public Weal. " Le doit etre le but du gouvernement; mais 
 
 nom seul du Bien Public, qui fut donne les princes qui s'associaient pour I'ob- 
 
 a cette ligue, etait un hommage au pro- tenir etaient encore bien peu en etat de 
 
 gres des lumieres; c'etait la profession connaitre sa nature " (xiv, i6i). 
 d'un principe qui n'avait point encore 
 
1461-1483] 
 
 LOUIS XI 
 
 69 
 
 class of men, whose influence was always disadvantageous to the 
 reigning monarch, and, in general, to the people. 
 
 No appanage had ever been granted to France so enormous 
 as the duchy of Normandy. One third of the whole national 
 revenue, it is declared, was derived from that rich province. Louis 
 could not, therefore, sit down under such terms as, with his usual 
 insincerity, he had accepted at Conflans. In a very short time 
 he attacked Normandy, and easily compelled his brother to take 
 refuge in Brittany; nor were his enemies ever able to procure the 
 restitution of Charles's appanage. During the rest of his reign 
 Louis had powerful coalitions to withstand; but his prudence and 
 compliance with circumstances, joined to some mixture of good 
 fortune, brought him safely through his perils. The Duke of 
 Brittany, a prince of moderate talents, was unable to make any 
 formidable impression, though generally leagued with the ene- 
 mies of the king. The less powerful vassals were successfully 
 crushed by Louis with decisive vigour; the duchy of Alengon 
 was confiscated; the Count of Armagnac was assassinated; the 
 Duke of Nemours and the Constable of St. Pol, a politician as 
 treacherous as Louis, who had long betrayed both him and the 
 Duke of Burgundy, suffered upon the scaffold. The king's broth- 
 er Charles, after disquieting him for many years, died suddenly 
 in Guienne, which had finally been granted as his appanage, with 
 strong suspicions of having been poisoned by the king's con- 
 trivance.^^^ Edward IV of England was too dissipated and too 
 indolent to be fond of war; and, though he once entered France 
 with an army more considerable than could have been expected 
 after such civil bloodshed as England had witnessed, he was in- 
 duced, by the stipulation of a large pension, to give up the enter- 
 prise.^^^ So terrible was still in France the apprehension of an 
 English war that Louis prided himself upon no part of his policy 
 so much as the warding this blow. Edward showed a desire to 
 visit Paris; but the king gave him no invitation, lest, he said, 
 his brother should find some handsome women there, who might 
 tempt him to return in a different manner. Hastings, Howard, 
 and others of Edward's ministers were secured by bribes in the 
 interest of Louis, which the first of these did not scruple to receive 
 at the same time from the Duke of Burgundy.^^ 
 
 L58 
 
 iBo Sismondi, however, and Michelet 
 do not believe that the Duke of Guienne 
 was poisoned by his brother; he had been 
 ill for several months. 
 
 1" The army of Edward consisted of 
 1,500 men at arms and 14,000 archers, the 
 whole very well appointed. (Comines, 
 tome xi, p. 238.) There seems to have 
 been a great expectation of what the 
 English would do, and great fears enter- 
 tained by Louis, who grudged no ex- 
 pense to get rid of them. 
 
 ^"^ Comines, 1. vi. c. 2. Hastings had 
 the mean cunning to refuse to give his 
 receipt for the pension he took from 
 Louis XI. " This present," he said to 
 the king's agent, " comes from your 
 master's good pleasure, and not at my 
 request; and if you mean I should re- 
 ceive it, you may put it here into my 
 sleeve, but you shall have no discharge 
 from me; for I will not have it said that 
 the Great Chamberlain of E-^gland is a 
 pensioner of the King of France, nor 
 
70 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1461-1483 
 
 This was the most powerful enemy whom the craft of Louis 
 had to counteract. In the last days of the feudal system, when 
 the house of Capet had almost achieved the subjugation of those 
 proud vassals among whom it had been originally numbered, a 
 new antagonist sprang up to dispute the field against the crown. 
 John, King of France, granted the duchy of Burgundy, by way 
 of appanage, to his third son, Philip. By his marriage with 
 Margaret, heiress of Louis, Count of Flanders, Philip acquired 
 that province, Artois, the county of Burgundy (or Franche- 
 comte), and the Nivernois. Philip the Good, his grandson, who 
 carried the prosperity of this family to its height, possessed him- 
 self, by various titles, of the several other provinces which com- 
 posed the Netherlands. These were fiefs of the empire, but lat- 
 terly not much dependent upon it, and alienated by their owners 
 without its consent. At the Peace of Arras the districts of Macon 
 and Auxerre were absolutely ceded to Philip, and great part of 
 Picardy conditionally made over to him, redeemable on the pay- 
 ment of four hundred thousand crowns. ^^^ These extensive 
 though not compact dominions were abundant in population and 
 wealth, fertile in corn, wine, and salt, and full of commercial activ- 
 ity. Thirty years of peace which followed the Treaty of Arras, 
 with a mild and free government, raised the subjects of Burgundy 
 to a degree of prosperity quite unparalleled in these times of dis- 
 order, and this was displayed in general sumptuousness of dress 
 and feasting. The court of Philip and of his son Charles was 
 distinguished for its pomp and riches, for pageants and tourna- 
 ments, the trappings of chivalry, perhaps without its spirit; for 
 the military character of Burgundy had been impaired by long 
 tranquility.^®^ 
 
 During the lives of Philip and Charles VII each understood 
 the other's rank, and their amity was little interrupted. But their 
 
 have my name appear in the books of the 
 Chambres des Comptes." (Ibid.) 
 
 ^^'° The Duke of Burgundy was person- 
 ally excused from all homage and service 
 to Charles VII; but, if either died, it 
 ■was to be paid by the heir, or to the 
 heir. Accordingly, on Charles's death 
 Philip did homage to Louis. This ex- 
 emption can hardly, therefore, have been 
 inserted to gratify the pride of Philip, as 
 historians suppose. Is it not probable 
 that, during his resentment against 
 Charles, he might have made some vow 
 never to do him homage, which this 
 reservation in the treaty was intended to 
 preserve? 
 
 It is remarkable that Villaret says the 
 Duke of Burgundy was positively ex- 
 cused by the twenty-fifth article of the 
 Peace of Arras from doing homage to 
 Charles, or his successors Kings of 
 France (tome xvi, p. 404). For this as- 
 sertion, too, he seems to quote the 
 " Tresor des Chartes," where, probably, 
 
 the original treaty is preserved. Never- 
 theless, it appears otherwise, as published 
 by Monstrelet at full length, who could 
 have no motive to falsify it; and Philip's 
 conduct in doing homage to Louis is 
 hardly compatible with Villaret's asser- 
 tion. Daniel copies Monstrelet without 
 any observation. In the same treaty 
 Philip is entitled duke by the grace of 
 God, which was reckoned a mark of in- 
 dependence, and not usually permitted 
 to a vassal. 
 
 ^"•^ P. de Comines, 1. i, c. 2 and 3; 1. v, 
 c. ^ 9. Du Clercq, in " Collection des 
 Mem.oires," tome ix, p. 389. In the in- 
 vestiture granted by John to the first 
 Philip of Burgundy a reservation is made 
 that the royal taxes shall be levied 
 throughout that appanage. But during 
 the long hostility between the kingdom 
 and duchy this could not have been en- 
 forced, and by the Treaty of Arras 
 Charles surrendered all right to tax the 
 duke's dominions. (Monstrelet, fol. 114.) 
 
I46I-I483] 
 
 THE HOUSE OF BURGUNDY 
 
 71 
 
 successors, the most opposite of human kind in character, had 
 , one common quaUty — ambition — to render their antipathy more 
 ' powerful. Louis was eminently timid and suspicious in policy; 
 Charles intrepid beyond all men, and blindly presumptuous: Louis 
 stooped to any humiliation to reach his aim; Charles was too 
 haughty to seek the fairest means of strengthening his party. 
 An alliance of his daughter with the Duke of Guienne, brother of 
 Louis, was what the malcontent French princes most desired 
 and the king most dreaded; but Charles, either averse to any 
 French connection, or willing to keep his daughter's suitors in 
 dependence, would never directly accede to that or any other 
 proposition for her marriage. On Philip's death, in 1467, he 
 inherited a great treasure, which he soon wasted in the prosecu- 
 tion of his schemes. These were so numerous and vast that he 
 had not time to live, says Comines, to complete them, nor would 
 one half of Europe have contented him. It was his intention to 
 assume the title of king; and the Emperor Frederick III was at 
 one time actually on his road to confer this dignity, when some 
 suspicion caused him to retire, and the project was never re- 
 newed.^^^ It is evident that, if Charles's capacity had borne any 
 proportion to his pride and courage, or if a prince less politic than 
 Louis XI had been his contemporary in France, the province 
 of Burgundy must have been lost to the monarchy. For several 
 years these great rivals were engaged, sometimes in open hos- 
 tility, sometimes in endeavours to overreach each other; but 
 Charles, though not much more scrupulous, was far less an adept 
 in these mysteries of politics than the king. 
 
 Notwithstanding the power of Burgundy, there were some 
 disadvantages in its situation. It presented (I speak of all 
 Charles's dominions under the common name Burgundy) a very 
 exposed frontier on the side of Germany and Switzerland, as well 
 as France; and Louis exerted a considerable influence over the 
 adjacent princes of the empire as well as the United Cantons. 
 The people of Liege, a very populous city, had for a long time 
 been continually rebelling against their bishops, who were the 
 allies of Burgundy; Louis was, of course, not backward to foment 
 their insurrections, which sometimes gave the dukes a good deal 
 
 ^" Gamier, tome xviii, p. 62. It is ob- 
 servable that Comines says not a word 
 of this; for which Gamier seems to quote 
 Belcarius, a writer of the sixteenth age. 
 But even Philip, when Morvilliers, Lou- 
 is's chancellor, uses menaces toward him, 
 interrupted the orator with these words, 
 Je veux que chacun seache que, si j'eusse 
 voulu, je fusse roi. (Villaret, tome xvii, 
 p. 44.) 
 
 Charles had a vague notion of history, 
 and confounded the province or duchy 
 of Burgundy, which had always apper- 
 
 tained to the French crown, with Franche- 
 comte and other countries which had 
 belonged to the kingdom of Burgundy. 
 Hence he talked at Dijon, in 1473, to the 
 estates of the former, about the kingdom 
 of Burgundy, " que ceux de France ont 
 longtems usurpe et d'icelui fait duch6; 
 que tous les sujets doivent bien avoir a 
 regret, et dit qu'il avait en soi des choses 
 qu'il n'appartenait de savoir a nul qu'a 
 dui." Michelet (ix, 162) is the first who 
 has published this. 
 
72 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1461-1483 
 
 of trouble. The Flemings, and especially the people of Ghent, 
 had been during a century noted for their republican spirit and 
 contumacious defiance of their sovereign. Liberty never wore 
 a more unamiable countenance than among these burghers, who 
 abused the strength she gave them by cruelty and insolence. 
 Ghent, when Froissart wrote, about the year 1400, was one of 
 the strongest cities in Europe, and would have required, he says, 
 an army of two hundred thousand men to besiege it on every side, 
 so as to shut up all access by the Lys and Scheldt. It contained 
 eighty thousand men of age to bear arms; ^^^ a calculation which, 
 although, as I presume, much exaggerated, is evidence of great 
 actual populousness. Such a city was absolutely impregnable 
 at a time when artillery was very imperfect both in its construc- 
 tion and management. Hence, though the citizens of Ghent were 
 generally beaten in the field with great slaughter, they obtained 
 tolerable terms from their masters, who knew the danger of 
 forcing them to a desperate defence. 
 
 No taxes were raised in Flanders, or, indeed, throughout the 
 dominions of Burgundy, without consent of the three estates. 
 In the time of Philip not a great deal of money was levied upon 
 the people; but Charles obtained every year a pretty large sub- 
 sidy, which he expended in the hire of Italian and English mer- 
 cenaries.^^^ An almost uninterrupted success had attended his 
 enterprises for a length of time, and rendered his disposition still 
 more overweening. His first failure was before Neuss, a little 
 town near Cologne, the possession of which would have made 
 him nearly master of the whole course of the Rhine, for he had 
 already obtained the landgraviate of Alsace. Though compelled 
 to raise the siege, he succeeded in occupying next year the duchy 
 of Lorraine. But his overthrow was reserved for an enemy whom 
 he despised, and whom none could have thought equal to the 
 contest. The Swiss had given him some slight provocation, for 
 which they were ready to atone; but Charles was unused to for- 
 
 "2 Froissart, part ii, c. (»t. 
 
 *"' Comines, 1. iv, c. 13. It was very 
 reluctantly that the Flemings granted any 
 money. Philip once begged for a tax 
 on salt, promising never to ask anything 
 more; but the people of Ghent, and, in 
 imitation of them, the whole county, re- 
 fused it. (Du Clercq, p. 389.) Upon his 
 pretence of taking the cross, they granted 
 him a subsidy, though less than he had 
 requested, on condition that it should 
 not be levied if the crusade did not take 
 place, which put an end to the attempt. 
 The states knew well that the duke would 
 employ any money they gave him in keep- 
 ing up a body of gens-d'armes, like his 
 neighbour, the King of France ; and 
 though the want of such a force exposed 
 their country to pillage, they were too 
 good patriots to place the means of en- 
 
 slaving it in the hands of their sover- 
 eign. Grand doute faisoient les sujets, 
 et pour plusieurs raisons, de se mettre 
 en cette sujetion ou ils voyoient le roy- 
 aume de France, a cause de ses gens- 
 d'armes. A la verite, leur grand doute 
 n'estoit pas sans cause; car quand il se 
 trouva^ cinq cens hommes d'armes, la 
 volonte luy vint d'en avoir plus, et de 
 plus hardiment entreprendre contre tous 
 ses voisins. (Comines, 1. iii, c. 4, 9.) 
 
 Du Clercq, a contemporary writer of 
 very good authority, mentioning the 
 story of a certain widow who had re- 
 married the day after her husband's 
 death, says that she was in some degree 
 excusable, because it was the practice of 
 the duke and his officers to force rich 
 widows into marrying their soldiers or 
 other servants (tome ix, p. 418). 
 
I46I-I483] 
 
 CLAIM OF LOUIS XI 
 
 73 
 
 bear; and perhaps Switzerland came within his projects of con- 
 quest. At Granson, in the Pays de Vaud, he was entirely routed, 
 with more disgrace than slaughter.^*^* But having reassembled 
 his troops, and met the confederate army of Swiss and Germans 
 at Morat, near Friburg, he was again defeated with vast loss. 
 On this day the power of Burgundy was dissipated: deserted by 
 his allies, betrayed by his mercenaries, he set his life upon an- 
 other cast at Nancy, desperately giving battle to the Duke of 
 Lorraine with a small dispirited army, and perished in the en- 
 gagement. 
 
 Now was the moment when Louis, who had held back while 
 his enemy was breaking his force against the rocks of Switzer- 
 land, came to gather a harvest which his labour had not reaped. 
 Charles left an only daughter, undoubted heiress of Flanders and 
 Artois, as well as of his dominions out of France, but whose right 
 of succession to the duchy of Burgundy was more questionable. 
 Originally the great fiefs of the crown descended to females, and 
 this was the case with respect to the two first mentioned. But 
 John had granted Burgundy to his son Philip by way of appa- 
 nage, and it was contended that the appanages reverted to the 
 crown in default of male heirs. In the form of Philip's investiture, 
 the duchy was granted to him and his lawful heirs, without desig- 
 nation of sex. The construction, therefore, must be left to the 
 established course of law. This, however, was by no means ac- 
 knowledged by Mary, Charles's daughter, who maintained both 
 that no general law restricted appanages to male heirs, and that 
 Burgundy had always been considered as a feminine fief, John 
 himself having possessed it, not by reversion as king (for de- 
 scendants of the first dukes were then living), but by inheritance 
 derived through females.^^^ Such was this question of succession 
 between Louis XI and Mary of Burgundy, upon the merits of 
 whose pretensions I will not pretend altogether to decide, but 
 shall only observe that, if Charles had conceived his daughter 
 to be excluded from this part of his inheritance, he would prob- 
 ably, at Conflans or Peronne, where he treated upon the vantage 
 
 "* A famous diamond, belonging to 
 Charles of Burgundy, was taken in the 
 plunder of his tent by the Swiss at Gran- 
 son. After several changes of owners, 
 most of whom were ignorant of its value, 
 it became the first jewel in the French 
 crown. (Garnier, tome xviii, p. 361.) 
 
 i^'' It is advanced with too much confi- 
 dence by several French historians, either 
 that the ordinances of Philip IV and 
 Charles V constituted a general law 
 against the descent of appanages to fe- 
 male heirs, or that this was a fundament- 
 al law of the monarchy. (Du Clos, " Hist, 
 de Louis XI," tome ii, p. 252; Garnier, 
 " Hist, de France," tome xviii, p. 258.) 
 The latter position is refuted by frequent 
 
 instances of female succession; thus Ar- 
 tois had passed, by a daughter of Louis 
 le Male, into the house of Burgundy. As 
 to the above-mentioned ordinances, the 
 first applies only to the county of Poi- 
 tiers; the second does not contain a 
 syllable that relates to succession. (" Or- 
 donnances des Rois," tome vi, p. 54.) 
 The doctrine of excluding female heirs 
 was more consonant to the pretended 
 Salic law, and the recent principles as 
 to inalienability of domain than to the 
 analogy of feudal rules and precedents. 
 M. Gaillard, in his " Observations sur 
 I'Histoire de Velly, Villaret, et Garnier," 
 has a judicious note on this subject (tome 
 iii, p. 304). 
 
74 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1461-1483 
 
 ground, have attempted at least to obtain a renunciation of Louis's 
 
 claim. 
 
 There was one obvious mode of preventing all further con- 
 test and of aggrandizing the French monarchy far more than 
 by the reunion of Burgundy. This was the marriage of Mary 
 with the dauphin, which was ardently wished for in France. 
 Whatever obstacles might occur to this connection, it was natu- 
 ral to expect on the opposite side — from Mary's repugnance to 
 an infant husband, or from the jealousy which her subjects were 
 likely to entertain of being incorporated with a country worse 
 governed than their own. The arts of Louis would have been 
 well employed in smoothing these impediments.^^® But he chose 
 to seize upon as many towns as, in those critical circumstances, 
 lay exposed to him, and stripped the young duchess of Artois 
 and Franche-comte. Expectations of the marriage he sometimes 
 held out, but, as it seems, without sincerity.' Indeed, he con- 
 trived irreconcilably to alienate Mary by a shameful perfidy, be- 
 traying the ministers whom she had intrusted upon a secret mis- 
 sion to the people of Ghent, who put them to the torture, and 
 afterward to death, in the presence and amid the tears and sup- 
 plications of their mistress. Thus the French alliance becoming 
 odious in France, this princess married Maximilian of Austria, 
 son of the Emperor Frederick — a connection which Louis strove 
 to prevent, though it was impossible then to foresee that it was 
 ordained to retard the growth of France and to bias the fate of 
 Europe during three hundred years. This war lasted till after 
 the death of Mary, who left one son, Philip, and one daughter, 
 Margaret. By a treaty of peace concluded at Arras, in 1482, it 
 was agreed that this daughter should become the dauphin's 
 wife, with Franche-comte and Artois, which Louis held already, 
 for her dowry, to be restored in case the marriage should not 
 take effect. The homage of Flanders was reserved to the 
 crown. 
 
 Meanwhile Louis was lingering in disease and torments of 
 mind, the retribution of fraud and tyranny. Two years before 
 his death he was struck with an apoplexy, from which he never 
 wholly recovered. As he felt his disorder increasing, he shut 
 himself up in a palace near Tours, to hide from the world the 
 knowledge of his decline.^®^ His solitude was like that of Tiberius 
 
 ^*"' Robertson, as well as some other 
 moderns, have maintained, on the author- 
 ity of Comines, that Louis XI ought in 
 policy to have married the young princess 
 to the Count of Angouleme, father of 
 Francis I, a connection which she would 
 not have disliked. But certainly nothing 
 could have been more adverse to the in- 
 terests of the French monarchy than 
 such a marriage, which would have put 
 a new house of Burgundy at the head 
 
 of those princes whose confederacies had 
 so often endangered the crown. Comines 
 is one of the most judicious of historians; 
 but his sincerity may be rather doubtful 
 in the opinion above mentioned, for he 
 wrote in the reign of Charles VIII, when 
 the Count of Angouleme was engaged in 
 the same faction as himself. 
 
 '"^ For Louis's illness and death see 
 Comines, I. vi, c. 7-12, and Gamier, tome 
 xix, p. 112, etc. Plessis, his last resi- 
 
1461-1483] SICKNESS AND DEATH OF LOUIS XI 
 
 75 
 
 at Caprese, full of terror and suspicion, and deep consciousness 
 of universal hatred. All ranks, he well knew, had their several 
 injuries to remember: the clergy, whose liberties he had sacri- 
 ficed to the see of Rome, by revoking the Pragmatic Sanction 
 of Charles VII; the princes, whose blood he had poured upon 
 the scaffold; the Parliament, whose course of justice he had 
 tLU^ned aside; the commons, who groaned under his extortion, 
 and were plundered by his soldiery.^^^ The palace, fenced with 
 portcullises and spikes of iron, was guarded by archers and cross- 
 bow men, who shot at any that approached by night. Few en- 
 tered this den; but to them he showed himself in magnificent 
 apparel, contrary to his former custom, hoping thus to disguise 
 the change of his meagre body. He distrusted his friends and 
 kindred, his daughter and his son, the last of whom he had not 
 suffered even to read or write lest he should too soon become 
 his rival. No man ever so much feared death, to avert which 
 he stooped to every meanness and sought every remedy. His 
 physician had sworn that if he were dismissed the king would 
 not survive a week; and Louis, enfeebled by sickness and terror, 
 bore the rudest usage from this man, and endeavoured to secure 
 his services by vast rewards. Always credulous in relics, though 
 seldom restrained by superstition from any crime,^^^ he eagerly 
 bought up treasures of this sort, and even procured a Calabrian 
 hermit, of noted sanctity, to journey as far as Tours in order to 
 restore his health. Philip de Comines, who attended him during 
 his infirmity, draws a parallel between the torments he then en- 
 dured and those he had formerly inflicted on others. Indeed, 
 the whole of his life was vexation of spirit. '* I have known him," 
 says Comines, " and been his servant in the flower of his age, 
 and in the time of his greatest prosperity; but never did I see 
 him without uneasiness and care. Of all amusements, he loved 
 only the chase, and hawking in its season. And in this he had 
 almost as much uneasiness as pleasure: for he rode hard and 
 got up early, and sometimes went a great way, and regarded no 
 weather; so that he used to return very weary, and almost ever 
 
 dence, about an Eng-lish mile from Tours, 
 is now a dilapidated farmhouse, and can 
 never have been a very large building. 
 The vestiges of royalty about it are few, 
 but the principal apartments have been 
 destroyed, either in the course of ages 
 or at the revolution. 
 
 i'^ See a remarkable chapter in Philip 
 de Comines, 1. iv, c. 19, wherein he tells 
 us that Charles VIT had never raised 
 more than 1,800,000 francs a year in taxes; 
 but Louis XI, at the time of his death, 
 raised 4,700,000, exclusive of some mili- 
 tary impositions ; et surement c'estoit 
 compassion de voir et scavoir la pauvrete 
 du peuple. In this chapter he declares 
 his opinion that no king can justly levy 
 
 money on his subjects without their con- 
 sent, and repels all common arguments 
 to the contrary. 
 
 ^"^ An exception to this was when he 
 swore by the cross of St. Lo, after which 
 he feared to violate his oath. The con- 
 stable of St. Pol, whom Louis invited 
 with many assurances to court, bethought 
 himself of requiring this oath before he 
 trusted his promises, which the king re- 
 fused, and St, Pol prudently stayed away. 
 (Garn., tome xviii, p. ^2.') Some report 
 that he had a similar respect for a leaden 
 image of the Virgin, which he wore in his 
 hat, as alluded to by Pope: 
 ** A perjured prince a leaden saint re- 
 vere." 
 
76 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1483-1492 
 
 in wrath with some one. I think that from his childhood he 
 never had any respite of labour and trouble to his death. And 
 I am certain 'that if all the happy days of his life, in which he 
 had more enjoyment than uneasiness, were numbered, they would 
 be found very few; and at least that they would be twenty of 
 sorrow for every one of pleasure. ^^"^ 
 
 Charles VIII was about thirteen years old when he succeeded 
 his father Louis. Though the law of France fixed the majority 
 of her kings at that age, yet it seems not to have been strictly 
 regarded on this occasion, and at least Charles was a minor by 
 nature, if not by law. A contest arose, therefore, for the regency, 
 which Louis had intrusted to his daughter Anne, wife of the lord 
 De Beaujeu, one of the Bourbon family. The Duke of Orleans, 
 afterward Louis XII, claimed it as presumptive heir of the 
 crown, and was seconded by most of the princes. Anne, how- 
 ever, maintained her ground, and ruled France for several 
 years in her brother's name with singular spirit and address, 
 in spite of the rebellions which the Orleans party raised up 
 against her. These were supported by the Duke of Brittany, 
 the last of the great vassals of the crown, whose daughter, as 
 he had no male issue, was the object of as many suitors as Mary 
 of Burgundy. 
 
 The duchy of Brittany was peculiarly circumstanced. The 
 inhabitants, whether spnmg from the ancient republicans of 
 Armorica, or, as some have thought, from an emigration of 
 Britons during the Saxon invasion, had not originally belonged 
 to the body of the French monarchy. They were governed by 
 their own princes and laws, though tributary, perhaps, as the 
 weaker to the stronger, to the Merovingian kings. ^^^ In the ninth 
 century the Dukes of Brittany did homage to Charles the Bald, 
 the right of which was transferred afterward to the Dukes of 
 Normandy. This formality, at that time no token of real sub- 
 jection, led to consequences beyond the views of either party. 
 For when the feudal chains that had hung so loosely upon the 
 shoulders of the great vassals began to be straightened by the 
 dexterity of the court, Brittany found itself drawn among the 
 rest to the same centre. The old privileges of independence 
 
 "" Comines, 1. vi, c. 13. 
 
 "^ Gregory of Tours says that the 
 Bretons were subject to France from the 
 death of Clovis, and that their chiefs 
 were styled counts, not kings (1. iv, c. 4). 
 Charlemagne subdued the whole of Brit- 
 tany. Yet it seems clear from Nijjrellus, 
 author of a metrical life of Louis the 
 Debonair, that they were again almost 
 independent. There was even a march 
 of the Britannic frontier, which sepa- 
 rated it from France. Tn the ensuing 
 reign of Charles the Bald, Hincmar tells 
 us, regnum undique a Paganis, et falsis 
 
 Christianis, scilicet Britonibus circum- 
 scriptum est. (" Epist.," c. 8. See, too, 
 " Capitularia Car. Calvi," a. d. 877, tit. 
 23.) At this time a certain Nomenoc 
 had assumed the crown of Brittany, and 
 some others in succession bore the name 
 of king. They seem, however, to have 
 been feudally subject to France. Charles 
 the Simple ceded to the Normans what- 
 ever right he possessed over Brittany; 
 and the dukes of that country (the name 
 of king was now dropped) alwavs did 
 homage to Normandy. See Daru, '' Hist 
 de Bretagne." 
 
1483-1492] MARRIAGE OF CHARLES VIII 77 
 
 were treated as usurpation; the dukes were menaced with con- 
 fiscation of their fief, their right of coining money disputed, their 
 jurisdiction impaired by appeals to the ParHament of Paris. How- 
 ever, they stood boldly upon their right, and always refused to 
 pay liege homage, which implied an obligation of service to the 
 lord, in contradistinction to simple homage, which was a mere 
 symbol of feudal dependence. ^^^ 
 
 About the time that Edward III made pretension to the crown 
 of France a controversy somewhat resembling it arose in the 
 duchy of Brittany, between the families of Blois and Montfort. 
 This led to a long and obstinate war, connected all along, as a 
 sort of underplot, with the great drama of France and England. 
 At last Montfort, Edward's ally, by the defeat and death of his 
 antagonist, obtained the duchy, of which Charles V soon after 
 gave him the investiture. This prince and his family were gen- 
 erally inclined to English connections, but the Bretons would 
 seldom permit them to be effectual. Two cardinal feelings guided 
 the conduct of this brave and faithful people; the one, an at- 
 tachment to the French nation and monarchy in opposition to 
 foreign enemies; the other, a zeal for their own privileges and 
 the family of Montfort, in opposition to the encroachments of 
 the crown. In Francis II, the present duke, the male line of that 
 family was about to be extinguished. His daughter Anne was 
 naturally the object of many suitors, among whom were particu- 
 larly distinguished the Duke of Orleans, who seems to have been 
 preferred by herself ; the Lord of Albret, a member of the Gascon 
 family of Foix, favoured by the Breton nobility, as most likely 
 to preserve the peace and liberties of their country, but whose 
 age rendered him not very acceptable to a youthful princess; 
 and Maximilian, King of the Romans. Brittany was rent by fac- 
 tions and overrun by the armies of the regent of France, who 
 did not lose this opportunity of interfering with its domestic 
 troubles and of persecuting her private enemy, the Duke of Or- 
 leans. Anne of Brittany, upon her father's death, finding no other 
 means of escaping the addresses of Albret, was married by proxy 
 to Maximilian. This, however, aggravated the evils of the coun- 
 try, since France was resolved at all events to break off so dan- 
 gerous a connection. And as Maximilian himself was unable, 
 or took not sufficient pains, to relieve his betrothed wife from 
 her embarrassments, she was ultimately compelled to accept the 
 hand of Charles VIII. ^^^ He had long been engaged by the 
 Treaty of Arras to marry the daughter of Maximilian, and that 
 
 ^"Villaret, tome xii, p. 82; tome xv, p. least that they could not be dissolved 
 
 199- . without papal dispensation. This was 
 
 "^ This IS one of the coolest violations obtained, but it bears date eight days 
 
 of ecclesiastical law in comparatively after the ceremony between Charles and 
 
 modern times. Both contracts, especially Anne. (Sismondi, xv, 106.) 
 that of Anne, were obligatory, so far at 
 
78 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1483-1492 
 
 princess was educated at the French court. But this engagement 
 had not prevented several years of hostilities, and continual in- 
 trigues with the towns of Flanders against Maximilian. The 
 double injury which the latter sustained in the marriage of Charles 
 with the heiress of Brittany seemed likely to excite a protracted 
 contest; but the King of France, who had other objects in view, 
 and perhaps was conscious that he had not acted a fair part, 
 soon came to an accommodation, by which he restored Artois 
 and Franche-comte. Both these provinces had revolted to Maxi- 
 milian, so that Charles must have continued the war at some 
 disadvantage.^'* 
 
 France was now consolidated into a great kingdom : the feudal 
 system was at an end. The vigour of Philip AugListus, the pa- 
 ternal wisdom of St. Louis, the policy of Philip the Fair, had laid 
 the foundations of a powerful monarchy, which neither the arms 
 of England, nor seditions of Paris, nor rebellions of the princes, 
 were able to shake. Besides the original fiefs of the French 
 crown, it had acquired two countries beyond the Rhone, which 
 properly depended only upon the empire, Dauphine, under Philip 
 of Valois, by the bequest of Humbert, the last of its princes; and 
 Provence, under Louis XI, by that of Charles of Anjou.^^^ Thus 
 having conquered herself, if I may use the phrase, and no longer 
 apprehensive of any foreign enemy, France was prepared, under 
 a monarch flushed with sanguine ambition, to carry her arms into 
 
 "* Sismondi, xv, 135. 
 
 1" The country now called Dauphine 
 formed part of the kingdom of Aries or 
 Provence, bequeathed by Rodolph III to 
 the Emperor Conrad II. But the domin- 
 ion of the empire over these new acquisi- 
 tions being little more than nominal, a 
 few of the chief nobility converted tbeir 
 respective fiefs into independent princi- 
 palities. One of these was the lord or 
 Dauphin of Vienne, whose family became 
 ultimately masters of the whole province. 
 Humbert, the last of these, rnade John, 
 son of Philip of Valois, his heir, on con- 
 dition that Dauphine should be constant- 
 ly preserved as a separate possession, not 
 incorporated with the kingdom of France. 
 This request was confirmed by the Em- 
 peror Charles IV, whose supremacy over 
 the province was thus recognised by the 
 Kings of France, though it soon came to 
 be altogether disregarded. Sismondi (xiv, 
 3) dates the reunion of Dauphine to the 
 crown from 1457, before which time it 
 was governed by the dauphin for the 
 time being as a foreign sovereignty. 
 
 Provence, like Dauphine, was changed 
 from a feudal dependency to a sover- 
 eignty, in the weakness and dissolution 
 of the kingdom of Aries, about the early 
 part of the eleventh century. By the 
 marriage of Douce, heiress of the first line 
 of sovereign counts, with Raymond Be- 
 
 renger. Count of Barcelona, in 1112, it 
 passed into that distinguished family. 
 In 1167 it was occupied or usurped by 
 Alfonso II, King of Aragon, a relation, 
 but not heir, of the house of Berenger. 
 Alfonso bequeathed Provence to his 
 second son, of the same name, from whom 
 it descended to Raymond Berenger IV. 
 This count dying without male issue in 
 1245, his youngest daughter Beatrice 
 took possession oy virtue of her father's 
 testament. But this succession being dis- 
 puted by other claimants, and especially 
 by Louis IX, who had married her eldest 
 sister, she compromised differences by 
 marrying Charles of Anjou, the king's 
 brother. The family of Anjou reigned in 
 Provence, as well as in Naples, till the 
 death of Joan in 1382, who, having no 
 children, adopted Louis, Duke of Anjou, 
 brother of Charles V, as her successor. 
 This second Angevine line ended in 1481 
 by the death of Charles III; though 
 Regnier, Duke of Lorraine, who was de- 
 scended through a female, had a claim 
 which it does not seem easy to repel by 
 argument. It was very easy, however, 
 for Louis XI, to whom Charles III had 
 bequeathed his rights, to repel it by 
 force, and accordingly he took possession 
 of Provence, which was permanently 
 united to the crown by letters-patent of 
 Charles VIII in i486.* 
 
 Art de verifier les Dates," tome ii, p. 445; Gamier, tome xix, pp. 57, 474. 
 
I483-I492] 
 
 THE FRENCH MONARCHY 
 
 79 
 
 other countries, and to contest the prize of glory and power upon 
 the ample theatre of Europe.^^*^ 
 
 ^""^ The principal authority, exclusive of 
 original writers, on which I have relied 
 for this chapter, is the " History of 
 France," by Velly, Villaret, and Gamier; 
 a work which, notwithstanding several 
 defects, has absolutely superseded those 
 of Mezeray and Daniel. The part of the 
 Abbe Velly comes down to the middle 
 of the eighth volume (lamo edition), and 
 of the reign of Philip de Valois. His 
 continuator, Villaret, was interrupted by 
 death in the seventeenth volume, and in 
 the reign of Louis XI. In my references 
 to this history, which for common facts 
 I have not thought it necessary to make, 
 I have merely named the author of the 
 
 Particular volume which I quote. This 
 as made the above explanation con- 
 venient, as the reader might imagine 
 that I refer to three distinct works. 
 Of these three historians, Garnier, the 
 last, is the most judicious, and, I believe, 
 the most accurate. His prolixity, though 
 a material defect, and one which has oc- 
 casioned the work itself to become an 
 immeasurable undertaking, which could 
 never be completed on the same scale, is 
 chiefly occasioned by too great a regard 
 to details, and is more tolerable than a 
 similar fault in Villaret, proceeding from 
 a love of idle declamation and sentiment. 
 Villaret, however, is not without merits. 
 He embraces, perhaps more fully than 
 his predecessor Velly, those collateral 
 branches of history which an enlightened 
 reader requires almost in preference to 
 civil transactions, the laws, manners, lit- 
 
 erature, and in general the whole domes- 
 tic records of a nation. These subjects 
 are not always well treated ; but the 
 book itself, to which there is a remark- 
 ably full index, forms, upon the whole, a 
 great repository of useful knowledge. 
 Villaret had the advantage of official 
 access to the French archives, by which 
 he has no doubt enriched his history; 
 but his references are indistinct, and his 
 composition breathes an air of rapidity 
 and want of exactness. Velly's charac- 
 teristics are not very dissimilar. The 
 style of both is exceedingly bad, as has 
 been severely noticed, along with their 
 other defects, by Gaillard, in " Observa- 
 tions sur I'Histoire de Velly, Villaret, et 
 Garnier " (4 vols., i2mo, Paris, 1806). 
 
 [This history is now but slightly es- 
 teemed in France, especially the volumes 
 written by the Abbe Velly. The writers 
 were too much imbued with the spirit of 
 the old monarchy (though no adulators 
 of kings, and rather liberal according to 
 the standard of their own a^e) for those 
 who have taken the sovereignty of the 
 people for their creed. Nor are they 
 critical and exact enough for the present 
 state of historical knowledge. Sismondi 
 and Michelet, especially the former, are 
 doubtless superior; but the reader will 
 not find in the latter as regular a narra- 
 tion of facts as in Velly and Villaret. 
 Sismondi has as many prejudices on 
 one side as they have on the opposite. 
 (1848.)] 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FEUDAL SYSTEM, ESPECIALLY IN FRANCE 
 
 State of ancient Germany— Effects of the conquest of Gaul by the Franks— Tenures of 
 land— Distinction of laws— Constitution of the ancient Frank monarchy— Gradual 
 establishment of feudal tenures — Principles of a feudal relation — Ceremonies of 
 homage and investiture— Military service — Feudal incidents of relief, aid, wardship, 
 etc.— DiflFerent species of fiefs— Feudal law-books — Analysis of the feudal system- 
 Its local extent— View of the different orders of society during the feudal ages- 
 Nobility — Their ranks and privileges — Clergy — Freemen — Serfs or villains — Compara- 
 tive state of France and Germany — Privileges enjoyed by the French vassals — 
 Right of coining money, and of private war — Immunity from taxation — Hisrorical 
 view of the royal revenue in France — Methods adopted to augment it by deprecia- 
 tion of the coin, etc. — Legislative power — Its state under the Merovingian kings 
 and Charlemagne — His councils — Suspension of any general legislative authority 
 during the prevalence of feudal principles— The king's council — Means adopted to 
 supply the want of a national assembly — Gradual progress of the king's legislative 
 power — Philip IV assembles the States-General — Their powers limited to taxation 
 — States under the sons of Philip IV — States of 1355 and 1356 — They nearly effect 
 an entire revolution — The crown recovers its vigour — States of 1380, under Charles 
 VI — Subsequent assemblies under Charles VI and Charles VII — The crown be- 
 comes more and more absolute — Louis XI — States of Tours in 1484 — Historical 
 view of jurisdiction in France — ^^Its earliest stage under the first race of kings and 
 Charlemagne — Territorial jurisdiction — Feudal courts of justice — Trial by combat — 
 Code of St. Louis— The territorial jurisdictions give way — Progress of the judicial 
 power of the crown — Parliament of Paris — Peers of France — Increased authority 
 of the Parliament — Registration of edicts — Causes of the decline of the feudal sys- 
 tem — Acquisitions of domain by the crown — Charters of incorporation granted to 
 towns — Their previous condition^First charters in the twelfth century — Privileges 
 contained in them — Military service of feudal tenants commuted for money — Hired 
 troops— Change in the military system of Europe— General view of the advantages 
 and disadvantages attending the feudal system. 
 
 GERMANY, in the age of Tacitus, was divided among a 
 number of independent tribes, differing greatly in popu- 
 lation and importance. Their country, overspread with 
 forests and morasses, afforded no large proportion of 
 arable land. Nor did they ever occupy the same land two years 
 in succession, if what Caesar tells us may be believed, that fresh 
 allotments were annually made by the magistrates.^ But this 
 could not have been an absolute abandonment of land once culti- 
 vated, which Horace ascribes to the migratory Scythians. The 
 Germans had fixed though not contiguous dwellings; and the 
 inhabitants of the Gau or township must have continued to till 
 
 . 1 Magistrates ac principes in annos que anno post alio transire cogunt. Cx- 
 
 singulos gentibus cognationibusque ho- sar, 1. vi. Tacitus confirms this- Arva 
 
 minum qui una coierunt, quantum iis, per annos mutant. (" De Mor Germ " 
 
 et quo loco visum est, attribuunt agri, at- c. 26.) ' ' 
 
 80 
 
PARTITION OF CONQUERED LANDS 
 
 8l 
 
 the same fields, though it might be with varying rights of sepa- 
 rate property.^ They had kings elected out of particular families ; 
 and other chiefs, both for war and administration of justice, whom 
 merit alone recommended to the public choice. But the power 
 of each was greatly limited; and the decision of all leading ques- 
 tions, though subject to the previous deliberation of the chief- 
 tains, sprang from the free voice of a popular assembly.^ The 
 principal men, however, of a German tribe fully partook of that 
 estimation which is always the reward of valour and commonly 
 of birth. They were surrounded by a cluster of youths, the most 
 gallant and ambitious of the nation, their pride at home, their 
 protection in the field ; whose ambition was flattered, or gratitude 
 conciliated, by such presents as a leader of barbarians could con- 
 fer. These were the institutions of the people who overthrew the 
 empire of Rome, congenial to the spirit of infant societies, and 
 such as travellers have found among nations in the same stage 
 of manners throughout the world. And although, in the lapse 
 of four centuries between the ages of Tacitus and Clovis, some 
 change was wrought by long intercourse with the Romans, yet 
 the foundations of their political system were unshaken. If the 
 Salic laws were in the main drawn up before the occupation of 
 Gaul by the Franks, as seems the better opinion, it is manifest 
 that lands were held by them in determinate several possession; 
 and in other respects it is impossible that the manners described 
 by Tacitus should not have undergone some alteration.* 
 
 When these tribes from Germany and the neighbouring coun- 
 tries poured down upon the empire, and began to form perma- 
 nent settlements, they made a partition of the lands in the con- 
 quered provinces between themselves and the original possessors. 
 The Burgundians and Visigoths took two thirds of their respect- 
 ive conquests, leaving the remainder to the Roman proprietor. 
 Each Burgundian was quartered, under the gentle name of guest, 
 upon one of the former tenants, whose reluctant hospitality con- 
 fined him to the smaller portion of his estate.^ The Vandals in 
 
 2 Caesar has not written, probably, with 
 accurate knowledge when he says: Vita 
 omnis in venationibus et studiis rei mili- 
 taris consistit. . . . Agriculturae non stu- 
 dent, nee quisquam agri modum certum 
 aut fines proprios habet. (" De Bello 
 Gallico," 1. vi.) These expressions may 
 be taken so as not to contradict Tacitus. 
 But Luden, who had examined the an- 
 cient history of his country with the 
 most persevering diligence, observes that 
 Caesar knew notning of the Germans, ex- 
 cept what he had collected concerning 
 the Suevi or the Marcomanni. (" Ge- 
 schichte der Deutschen Volker," i, 481.) 
 
 ' De minoribus rebus principes consul- 
 tant, de majoribus omnes; ita tamen, ut 
 ca quoque, quorum penes plebem arbi- 
 trium est, apud principes pertractentur. 
 
 (" Tac. de Mor. Germ.," c. xi.) Acidalius 
 and Grotius contend for praetractentur: 
 which would be neater, but the same 
 sense appears to be conveyed by the 
 common reading. 
 
 * [Note I.] 
 
 » " Leg. Burgund.," c. S4, 55- Sir F. 
 Palgrave has produced a passage from 
 the Theodosian code, vii, 8, 5, which illus- 
 trates this use of the word hospes. It 
 was given to the military quartered upon 
 the inhabitants anywhere in the empire, 
 and thus transferred by analogy to the 
 barbarian occupants. It was needless, 
 I should think, for him to prove that 
 these acquisitions. " better considered as 
 allodial laws," did not contain the germ 
 of feudality. " There is no Gothic feu- 
 dality unless the parties be connected by 
 
82 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Africa, a more furious race of plunderers, seized all the best 
 lands.^ The Lombards of Italy took a third part of the produce. 
 We can not discover any mention of a similar arrangement in 
 the laws or history of the Franks. It is, however, clear that they 
 occupied, by public allotment or individual pillage, a great por- 
 tion of the lands of France."^ 
 
 The estates possessed by the Franks as their property were 
 termed allodial ; a word which is sometimes restricted to such 
 as had descended by inheritance.^ These were subject to no 
 burden except that of public defence. They passed to all the chil- 
 dren equally, or, in their failure, to the nearest kindred.® But 
 of these allodial possessions there was a particular species, de- 
 nominated Salic, from which females were expressly excluded. 
 What these lands were, and what was the cause of the exclusion, 
 has been much disputed. No solution seems more probable than 
 that the ancient lawgivers of the Salian Franks prohibited females 
 from inheriting the lands assigned to the nation upon its conquest 
 of Gaul, both in compliance with their ancient usages and in order 
 to secure the military service of every proprietor. But lands sub- 
 sequently acquired by purchase or other means, though equally 
 bound to the public defence, were relieved from the severity of 
 this rule, and presumed not to belong to the class of Salic.^^ 
 
 the mutual bond of vassalage and seign- 
 iory." (" Eng. Commonw.," i, 500.) • 
 
 « " Procopius de Bello Vandal.," I. i, 
 c. 5. 
 
 T [Note II.] 
 
 8 Allodial lands are commonly opposed 
 to beneficiary or feudal; the former being 
 strictly proprietary, while the latter de- 
 pended upon a superior. In this sense 
 the word is of continual recurrence in 
 ancient histories, laws, and instruments. 
 It sometimes, however, bears the sense 
 of inheritance, and this seems to be its 
 meaning in the famous sixty-second chap- 
 ter of the Salic law; de Alodis. Alodium 
 interdum opponitur comparato, says Du 
 Cange, in formulis veteribus. Hence, 
 in the charters of the eleventh century, 
 hereditary fiefs are frequently termed 
 alodia. (" Recueil des Historiens de 
 France," tome xi, preface. Vaissette, 
 " Hist, de Languedoc," tome ii, p. 109.) 
 
 Alodium has by many been derived 
 from All and odh, property. (Du Cange, 
 et alii.) But M. Guizot, with some posi- 
 tiveness, brings it from loos, lot; thus 
 confining the word to lands acquired by 
 lot on the conquest. But in the first 
 place this assumes a regular partition to 
 have been made by the Franks, which 
 he, in another place, as has been seen, 
 does not acknowledge ; and, secondly, 
 Alodium, or, in its earlier form, Alodis, 
 is used for all hereditary lands. (See 
 Grimm, " Deutsche Rechts Alterthiimer," 
 p. 492.) In the Orkneys, where feudal 
 tenures were not introduced, the allodial 
 proprietor is called an udaller, thus lend- 
 
 ing probability to the former derivation 
 of alod; since it is only an inversion of 
 the words all and odhj but it seems also 
 to corroborate the notion of Luden, as it 
 had been of Leibnitz, that the word adel 
 or ethel, applied to designate the nobler 
 class of Germans, had originally the same 
 sense; it distinguished absolute or allo- 
 dial property from that which, though 
 belonging to freemen, was subject to 
 some conditions of dependency. ( Gesch. 
 des Deutschen Volkes," vol. i, p. 719.) 
 
 The word sors, which seems to have 
 misled several writers, when applied to 
 land means only an integral patrimony, 
 as it means capital opposed to interest 
 when applied to money. It is common 
 in the civil law, and is no more than the 
 Greek xA^po? ; but it had been peculiarly 
 applied to the lands assignea by the 
 Romans to the soldiery after a conquest, 
 which some suppose, I know not on what 
 evidence, to have been by lot. (Du 
 Cange, voc. Sors.) And hence this term 
 was most probably adopted by the bar- 
 barians, or rather those who rendered 
 their laws into Latin. If the Teutonic 
 word loos was sometimes used for a 
 mansus or manor, as M. Guizot informs 
 us, it seems most probable that this was 
 a literal translation of sors, bearing with 
 it the secondary sense. 
 
 « " Leg. Salic^," c. 62. 
 
 ^** By the German customs, women, 
 though treated with much respect and 
 delicacy, were not endowed at their mar- 
 riage. Dotem non uxor marito, sed 
 maritus uxori confert. (Tacitus, c. 18.) 
 
ALLODIAL AND SALIC LANDS 
 
 83 
 
 Hence, in the Ripuary law, the code of a tribe of Franks settled 
 upon the banks of the Rhine, and differing rather in words than 
 in substance from the Salic law, which it serves to illustrate, it 
 is said that a woman can not inherit her grandfather's estate 
 (hsereditas aviatica), distinguishing such family property from 
 what the father might have acquired.^^ And Marculfus uses ex- 
 pressions to the same effect. There existed, however, a right of 
 setting aside the law, and admitting females to succession by 
 testament. It is rather probable, from some passages in the Bur- 
 gundian code, that even the lands of partition (sortes Burgun- 
 dionum) were not restricted to male heirs.^^ And the Visigoths 
 admitted women on equal terms to the whole inheritance.^^ 
 
 A controversy has been maintained in France as to the con- 
 dition of the Romans, or rather the provincial inhabitants of 
 Gaul, after the invasion of Clovis. But neither those who have 
 considered the Franks as barbarian conquerors, enslaving the 
 former possessors, nor the Abbe Dubos, in whose theory they 
 appear as allies and friendly inmates, are warranted by historical 
 
 A similar principle might debar them of 
 inheritance in fixed possessions. Certain 
 it is that the exclusion of females was 
 not infrequent among the Teutonic 
 nations. We find it in the laws of the 
 Thuringians and of the Saxons ; both 
 ancient codes, though not free from in- 
 terpolation. (Leibnitz, " Scriptores Re- 
 rum Brunswicensium," tome i, pp. 81 and 
 83.) But this usage was repugnant to 
 the principles of Roman law, which the 
 Franks found prevailing in their new 
 country, and to the natural feeline which 
 leads a man to prefer his own descend- 
 ants to collateral heirs. One of the prece- 
 dents in Marculfus (1. ii, form. 12) calls 
 the exclusion of females, diuturna et 
 impia consuetudo. In another a father 
 addresses his daughter : Omnibus non 
 habetur incognitum, quod, sicut lex 
 Salica continet, de rebus meis, quod mihi 
 ex alode parentum meorum obvenit, apud 
 germanos tuos filios meos minime in hae- 
 reditate succedere poteras. (Formulae 
 Marculfo adjectae, 49.) These precedents 
 are supposed to have been compiled 
 about the latter end of the seventh cen- 
 tury. 
 
 The opinion expressed in the text, that 
 the terra Salica, which females could not 
 inherit, was the land acquired by the 
 barbarians on their first conquest, is con- 
 firmed by Sismondi (i, 196) and by Gui- 
 zot (" Essais sur I'Hist. de France," p. 
 94). M. Guerard, however, the learned 
 editor of the chartulary of Chartres 
 ('* Documens Inedits," 1840, p. 22), is 
 persuaded that Salic land was that of the 
 domain, from sala, the hall or principal 
 residence, as opposed to the portion of 
 the estate which was occupied by tenants, 
 beneficiary or servile. This, he says, he 
 has proved in another work, which I have 
 not seen. Till I have done so, much 
 doubt remains to me as to this explana- 
 tion. Montesquieu had already started 
 
 the same theory, which Guizot justly, as 
 it seems, calls " incomplete et hypothe- 
 tique." Besides other objections, it seems 
 not to explain the manifest identity be- 
 tween the terra Salica and the haereditas 
 aviatica of the Ripuarian law, or the alo- 
 dis parentum of Marculfus. I ought, 
 however, to mention a remark of Grimm, 
 that throughout the Frank domination 
 German countries made use of the words 
 terra Salica. In them it could not mean 
 lands of partition or assignment, but mere 
 alodia. And he thinks that it may, in 
 most cases, be interpreted of the terra 
 dominicalis. (" Deutsche Rechts Alter- 
 thumer," p. 493.) 
 
 M. Fauriel maintains (" Hist, de la 
 Gaule Meridion.," ii, 18) that the Salic 
 lands were beneficiary, as opposed to the 
 allodial. But the " haereditas aviatica " 
 is repugnant to this. Marculfus distinct- 
 ly opposes alodia to comparata, and lim- 
 its the exclusion of daughters to the for- 
 mer. According to one of the most recent 
 inquirers, " terra Salica " was all the land 
 held by a Salian Frank. (Lehuerou, i, 
 86.) But the same objections apply to 
 this solution; in addition to which it may 
 be said that the whole Salic law relates 
 to that people, while "terra Salica" is 
 plainly descriptive of a peculiar charac- 
 ter of lands. 
 
 " C. 56. 
 
 *^ I had in former editions asserted the 
 contrary of this, on the authority of 
 " Leg. Burgund.," c. 78, which seemed to 
 limit the succession of estates, called 
 sortes, to male heirs. But the expres- 
 sions are too obscure to warrant this in- 
 ference; and M. Guizot (" Essais sur 
 I'Hist. de France," vol. i, p. 95) refers 
 to the fourteenth chapter of the same 
 code for the opposite proposition. But 
 this, too, is not absolutely clear, as a 
 general rule. 
 
 » [Note III.] 
 
84 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 facts, though more approximation to the truth may be found in 
 the latter hypothesis. On the one hand, we find the Romans 
 not only possessed of property, and governed by their own laws, 
 but admitted to the royal favour and the highest offices ; ^* while 
 the bishops and clergy, who were generally of that nation, ^^ grew 
 up continually in popular estimation, in riches, and in temporal 
 sway. Yet it is undeniable that a marked line was drawn at the 
 outset between the conquerors and the conquered. Though one 
 class of Romans retained estates of their own, yet there was an- 
 other, called tributary, who seem to have cultivated those of the 
 Franks, and were scarcely raised above the condition of predial 
 servitude. But no distinction can be more unequivocal than that 
 which was established between the two nations, in the weregild, 
 or composition for homicide. Capital punishment for murder 
 was contrary to the spirit of the Franks, who, like most barbar- 
 ous nations, would have thought the loss of one citizen ill repaired 
 by that of another. The weregild was paid to the relations of 
 the slain, according to a legal rate. This was fixed by the Salic 
 law at six hundred soHdi for an Antrustion of the king; at three 
 hundred for a Roman conviva regis (meaning a man of sufficient 
 rank to be admitted to the royal table) ; ^^ at two hundred for a 
 
 ^* Daniel conjectures that Clotaire I 
 was the first who admitted Romans into 
 the army, which had previously been 
 composed of Franks. From this time we 
 find many in high military command. 
 (" Hist, de la Milice Frangoise," tome i, 
 p. II.) It seems by a passage in Gregory 
 of Tours, quoted by Dubos (tome iii, p. 
 547), that some Romans affected the bar- 
 barian character by letting their hair 
 grow. If this were generally permitted, 
 it would be a stronger evidence of ap- 
 proximation between the two races than 
 any that Dubos has adduced. Montes- 
 quieu certainly takes it for granted that 
 a Roman might change his law, and thus 
 become to all material intents a Frank. 
 (" Esprit des Loix," 1. xxviii, c. 4.) But 
 the passage on which he relies is read 
 differently in the manuscripts. [Note 
 IV.] 
 
 1'' The barbarians by degrees got hold 
 of bishoprics. In a list of thirty-four 
 bishops or priests present at a council 
 in 506, says M. Fauriel (iii, 459), the 
 names are all Roman or Greek. This 
 was at Agde, in the dominion of the Visi- 
 goths. In 511 a council at Orleans ex- 
 hibits one German name. But at the 
 fifth Council of Paris, in 577, where forty- 
 five bishops attended, the Romans are 
 indeed much the more numerous, but 
 mingled with barbaric names, six of 
 whom M. Thierry mentions. (" Recits 
 des Temps Merovingiens," vol. ii, p. 183.) 
 In 58s, at Macon, out of sixty-three names 
 but six are German. Fauriel asserts 
 that, in a diploma of Clovis II dated 
 653, there arc but five Roman names out 
 of forty-five witnesses; and hence he in- 
 
 fers that by this time the Franks had 
 seized on the Church as their spoil, fill- 
 ing it with barbarian prelates. But on 
 reference to " Rec. des Hist." (iv, 636), I 
 find but four of the witnesses to this in- 
 strument qualified as episcopus: and of 
 these two have Roman names. The ma- 
 jority may have been laymen for any evi- 
 dence which the diploma presents. In 
 one, however, of Clovis III, dated 693 
 (id., p. ty2), I find, among twelve bishops, 
 only three names which appear Roman. 
 We can not always judge by the modern- 
 ization of a proper name. St. Leger 
 sounds well enough; but in his life we 
 find a " Beatus Leodegarius ex progenie 
 celsa Francorum ac nobilissima exortus." 
 Greek names are exceedingly common 
 arnong the bishops, but these can not 
 mislead an attentive reader. 
 
 This inroad of Franks into the Church 
 probably accelerated the utter prostration 
 of intellectual power, at least in its liter- 
 ary manifestation, which throws so dark 
 a shade over the seventh century. And 
 it still more unquestionably tended to 
 the secular, the irregular, the warlike 
 character of the higher clergy in France 
 and Germany for many following cen- 
 turies. Some of these bishops, accord- 
 ing to Gregory of Tours, were profligate 
 barbarians. 
 
 1** This phrase was borrowed from the 
 Romans. The Theodosian code speaks of 
 those qui divinis epulis adhibentur, et 
 adorandi principes tacultatem antiquitus 
 meruerunt. (Gamier, " Origine du Gou- 
 vernement Frangais," in Leber's " Col- 
 lection des Meilleures Dissertations rela- 
 tives a I'Histoire de France," 1838, vol. v, 
 
DISTINCTION OF LAWS 
 
 85 
 
 common Frank ; at one hundred for a Roman possessor of lands ; 
 and at forty-five for a tributary, or cultivator of another's prop- 
 erty. In Burgundy, where religion and length of settlement had 
 introduced different ideas, murder was punished with death. But 
 other personal injuries were compensated, as among the Franks, 
 by a fine, graduated according to the rank and nation of the ag- 
 grieved party/^ 
 
 The barbarous conquerors of Gaul and Italy were guided 
 by notions very different from those of Rome, who had imposed 
 her own laws upon all the subjects of her empire. Adhering in 
 general to their ancient customs, without desire of improvement, 
 they left the former habitations in unmolested enjoyment of their 
 civil institutions. The Frank was judged by the Salic or the 
 Ripuary code; the Gaul followed that of Theodosius.^^ This 
 grand distinction of Roman and barbarian, according to the law 
 which each followed, was common to the Frank, Burgundian, 
 and Lombard kingdoms. But the Ostrogoths, whose settlement 
 in the empire and advance in civility of manners were earlier, 
 inclined to desert their old usages, and adopt the Roman juris- 
 prudence.^^ The laws of the Visigoths, too, were compiled by 
 bishops upon a Roman foundation, and designed as a uniform 
 code, by which both nations should be governed.^^ The name 
 of Gaul or Roman was not entirely lost in that of Frenchman, 
 nor had the separation of their laws ceased, even in the provinces 
 north of the Loire, till after the time of Charlemagne.-^ Ulti- 
 mately, however, the feudal customs of succession, which de- 
 pended upon principles quite remote from those of the civil law, 
 and the rights of territorial justice which the barons came to 
 
 p. 187.) This memoir by Gamier, which 
 obtained a prize from the Academy of In- 
 scriptions in 1761, is a learned disquisi- 
 tion on the relation between the Frank 
 monarchy and the usages of the Roman 
 Empire, inclining considerably to the 
 school of Dubos. I only read it in 1851: 
 it puts some things in a just light; yet 
 the impression which it leaves is that of 
 one-sidedness. The author does not ac- 
 count for the continued distinction be- 
 tween the Franks and Romans, testified 
 by the language of history and of law. 
 Garnier never once alludes to the most 
 striking circumstance, the inequality of 
 composition for homicide. 
 
 To return to the words conviva regis, 
 it seems not probable that they should 
 be limited to those who actually had 
 feasted at the royal table; they naturally 
 include the senatorial families, one of 
 whom would receive that honour if he 
 should present himself at court. 
 
 " " Leges Salicae," c. 47; " Leges Bur- 
 gundionum," tit. 2. Murder and robbery 
 were made capital by Childebert, King of 
 Paris; but Francus was to be sent for 
 trial in the royal court, debilior persona 
 in loco pendatur. (Baluz, tome i, p. 17O 
 
 I am inclined to think that the word 
 Francus does not absolutely refer to the 
 nation of the party, but rather to his 
 rank, as opposed to debilior persona; 
 and, consequently, that it had already ac- 
 quired the sense of freeman or freeborn 
 (ingenuus), which is perhaps its strict 
 meaning. Du Cange, voc. Francus, quotes 
 the passage in this sense. [Note IV.] 
 
 ^* Inter Romanes negotia causarum 
 Romanis Legibus praecipimus terminari. 
 Edict. Clotair. i. circ. 560. (" Baluz. Ca- 
 pitul.," tome i, p. 7.) 
 
 ^* Giannone, 1. iii, c. 2. 
 
 20 " Hist, de Languedoc," tome i, p. 
 242. Heineccius, " Hist. Juris German.," 
 
 ^' 21 Suger, in his " Life of Louis VI," 
 uses the expression, lex Salica (" Recueil 
 des Historians," tome xii, p. 24) ; and I 
 have some recollection of having met with 
 the like words in other writings of as 
 modern a date. But I am not convinced 
 that the original Salic code was meant by 
 this phrase, which may have been applied 
 to the local feudal customs. The capitu- 
 laries of Charlemagne are frequently 
 termed lex Salica. Many of these are 
 copied from the Theodosian code. 
 
86 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 possess, contributed to extirpate the Roman jurisprudence in 
 that part of France. But in the south, from whatever cause, it 
 survived the revolutions of the middle ages, and thus arose a 
 leading division of that kingdom into pays coutumiers and pays 
 du droit ecrit; the former regulated by a vast variety of ancient 
 usages, the latter by the civil law.^^ 
 
 The kingdom of Clovis was divided into a number of districts, 
 each under the government of a count, a name familiar to Roman 
 subjects, by which they rendered the Graf of the Germans.^^ 
 The authority of this officer extended over all the inhabitants, 
 as well Franks as natives. It was his duty to administer justice, 
 to preserve tranquility, to collect the royal revenues, and to lead, 
 when required, the free proprietors into the field.^* The title 
 of a duke implied a higher dignity, and commonly gave authority 
 over several counties.^^ These offices were originally conferred 
 
 " This division is very ancient, being 
 found in the edict of Pistes, under 
 Charles the Bald, in 864; where we read, 
 in illis regionibus. quje legem Romanam 
 sequuntur. (" Recueil des Historiens," 
 tome vii, p. 664.) Montesquieu thinks 
 that the Roman law fell into disuse in the 
 north of France on account of the supe- 
 rior advantages, particularly in point of 
 composition for offences, annexed to the 
 Salic law; while that of the Visigoths 
 being more equal, the Romans under 
 their government had no inducement to 
 quit their own code. (" Esprit des Loix," 
 1. xxvii, c. 4.) But it does not appear that 
 the Visigoths had any peculiar code of 
 laws till after their expulsion from the 
 kingdom of Toulouse. They then re- 
 tained only a small strip of territory in 
 France, about Narbonne and Montpellier. 
 
 However, the distinction of men ac- 
 cording to their laws was preserved for 
 many centuries, both in France and 
 Italy. A judicial proceeding of the year 
 918, published by the historians of Lan- 
 guedoc (tome ii, appendix, p. 56), proves 
 that the Roman, Gothic, and Salic codes 
 were then kept perfectly separate, and 
 that there were distinct judges for the 
 three nations. The Gothic law is referred 
 to as an existing authority in a charter 
 of 1070. (Idem, tome iii, p. 274; De 
 Marca, " Marca Hispanica,' p. 1159.) 
 Women in Italy upon marriage usually 
 changed their law and adopted that of 
 their husbands, returning to their own in 
 widowhood; but to this there are excep- 
 tions. Charters are found as late as the 
 twelfth century with the expression, qui 
 professus sum lege Longobardica [aut] 
 lege Salica [aut] lege Alemannorum vi- 
 vere. But soon afterward the distinc- 
 tions were entirely lost, partly through 
 the prevalence of the Roman law, and 
 partly through the multitude of local 
 statutes in the Italian cities. (Muratori, 
 " Antiquitates Italise Dissertat.." 22\ Du 
 Cange, v. Lex. Heineccius, " Historia Ju- 
 ris Germanici," c. ii, s. 51. [Note V.] 
 
 -' The word graf was not always equiv- 
 
 alent to comes; it took in some coun- 
 tries, as in England, the form gerefa, and 
 stood for the vicecomes or sheriff, the 
 count or alderman's deputy. Some have 
 derived it from grau, on the hypothesis 
 that the elders presided in the German 
 assemblies. 
 
 2* *' Marcum Formulae," 1. i, p. 32. 
 
 2' Houard, the learned translator of 
 Littleton (" Anciens Loix des Frangois," 
 tome i, p. 6), supposes these titles to have 
 been applied indifferently. But the con- 
 trary is easily proved, and especially by 
 a line of Fortunatus, quoted by Du 
 Cange and others: 
 " Qui modo dat Comitis, det tibi jura 
 
 Ducis." 
 The cause of M. Houard's error may per- 
 haps be worth noticing. In the above- 
 cited form of Marculfus, a precedent (in 
 law language) is given for the appoint- 
 ment of a duke, count, or patrician. 
 The material part being the same, it was 
 only necessary to fill up the blanks, as 
 we should call it, by inserting the proper 
 designation of office. It is expressed, 
 therefore, actionem comitatus, ducatus, 
 aut patriciatus, in pago illo, quam ante- 
 cessor tuus ille usque nunc visus est 
 egisse, tibi agendum regendumque com- 
 missimus. Montesquieu has fallen into 
 a similar mistake (1. xxx, c. 16), forget- 
 ting for a moment, like Houard, that 
 these instruments in Marculfus were not 
 records of real transactions, but general 
 forms for future occasion. 
 
 The office of patrician is rather more 
 obscure. It seems to have nearly cor- 
 responded with what was afterward called 
 mayor of the palace, and to have im- 
 plied the command of all the royal forces. 
 Such at least were Celsus and his suc- 
 cessor Mummolus under Gontran. This 
 is probable, too, from analogy. The 
 patrician was the highest officer in the 
 Roman Empire from the time of Constan- 
 tine, and we know how much the Franks 
 themselves, and still more their Gaulish 
 subjects, affected to imitate the style of 
 the imperial court. 
 
THE FRENCH SUCCESSION 
 
 87 
 
 during pleasure; but the claim of a son to succeed his father 
 would often be found too plausible or too formidable to be re- 
 jected, and it is highly probable that, even under the Merovin- 
 gian kings, these provincial governors had laid the foundations 
 of that independence which was destined to change the counte- 
 nance of Europe.^® The Lombard dukes, those especially of 
 Spoleto and Benevento, acquired very early an hereditary right 
 of governing their provinces, and that kingdom became a sort 
 of federal aristocracy.^^ 
 
 The throne of France was always filled by the royal house 
 of Meroveus. However complete we may imagine the elective 
 rights of the Franks, it is clear that a fundamental law restrained 
 them to this family. Such, indeed, had been the monarchy of 
 their ancestors the Germans; such long continued to be those 
 of Spain, of England, and perhaps of all European nations. The 
 reigning family was immutable; but at every vacancy the heir 
 awaited the confirmation of a popular election, whether that were 
 a substantial privilege or a mere ceremony. Exceptions, how- 
 ever, to the lineal succession are rare in the history of any coun- 
 try, unless where an infant heir was thought unfit to rule a nation 
 of freemen. But, in fact, it is vain to expect a system of consti- 
 tutional laws rigidly observed in ages of anarchy and ignorance. 
 Those antiquaries who have maintained the most opposite theo- 
 ries upon such points are seldom in want of particular instances 
 to support their respective conclusions.^® 
 
 This office was, as far as I recollect, 
 confined to the kingdom of Burgundy; 
 but the Franks of this kingdom may 
 have borrowed it from the Burgundians, 
 as the latter did from the empire. Mar- 
 culfus gives a form for the grant of the 
 office of patrician, which seems to have 
 differed only in local extent of authority 
 from that of a duke or a count, which 
 was the least of the three, as the same 
 formula expressing their functions is suf- 
 ficient for all. 
 
 20 That the offices of count and duke 
 were originally but temporary may be 
 inferred from several passages in Gregory 
 of Tours; as 1. v, c. Z7\ 1- viii, c. 18. 
 But it seems by the laws of the Aleman- 
 ni, c. 35, that the hereditary succession 
 of their dukes was tolerably established 
 at the beginning of the seventh century, 
 when their code was promulgated. The 
 Bavarians chose their own dukes out of 
 one family, as is declared in their laws 
 (tit. ii, c. I, and c, 20). (Lindebrog, " Co- 
 dex Legum Antiquarum.") This the Em- 
 peror Henry II confirms: Nonne scitis 
 (he says), Bajuarios ab initio ducem eli- 
 gendi liberam habere potestatem? (Dit- 
 mar, apud Schmidt, " Hist, des Alle- 
 mands, tome ii, p. 404.) Indeed, the 
 consent of these German provincial na- 
 tions, if I may use the expression, seems 
 to have been always required, as in an 
 independent monarchy. Ditmar, a chroni- 
 
 cler of the tenth century, says that 
 Eckard was made Duke of Thoringia to- 
 tius populi consensu. (PfeiTel, " Abr^ge 
 Chronologique," tome i, p. 184.) With 
 respect to France, properly so called, or 
 the kingdoms of Neustria and Burgundy, 
 it may be less easy to prove the exist- 
 ence of hereditary offices under the Mero- 
 vingians. But the feebleness of their 
 government makes it probable that so 
 natural a system of disorganization had 
 not failed to ensue. The Helvetian counts 
 appear to have been nearly independent 
 as early as this period. (Planta's " Hist, 
 of the Helvetic Confederacy," chap, i.) 
 2^ Giannone, 1. iv. [Note VI.] 
 28 Hottoman (" Frauco-Gallia," c. vi) 
 and Boulainvilliers (" Etat de la France ") 
 seem to consider the crown as absolutely 
 elective. The Abbe Vertot (" Memoires 
 de I'Acad. des Inscriptions," tome iv) 
 maintains a limited right of election with- 
 in the reigning family. M. de Fonce- 
 magne (tome i and tome viii of the same 
 collection) asserts a strict hereditary de- 
 scent. Neither perhaps sufficiently dis- 
 tinguishes acts of violence from those of 
 right, nor observes the changes in the 
 French constitution between Clovis and 
 Childeric III. 
 
 It would now be admitted by the 
 majority of French antiquaries that the 
 nearest heir would not have a strict right 
 to the throne; but if he were of full 
 
88 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Clovis was a leader of barbarians, who respected his valour 
 and the rank which they had given him, but were incapable of 
 servile feelings, and jealous of their common as well as individual 
 rights. In order to appreciate the power which he possessed, it 
 has been customary with French writers to bring forward the 
 well-known story of the vase of Soissons. When the plunder 
 taken in Clovis's invasion of Gaul was set out in this place for 
 distribution, he begged for himself a precious vessel belonging 
 to the Church of Rheims. The army having expressed their 
 willingness to consent, '* You shall have nothing here," exclaimed 
 a soldier, striking it with his battle-axe, " but what falls to your 
 share by lot." Clovis took the vessel without marking any re- 
 sentment, but found an opportunity next year of revenging him- 
 self by the death of the soldier. The whole behaviour of Clovis 
 appears to be that of a barbarian chief, not daring to withdraw 
 anything from the rapacity or to chastise the rudeness of his 
 followers. 
 
 But if such was the liberty of the Franks when they first 
 became conquerors of Gaul, we have good reason to believe that 
 they did not long preserve it. A people not very numerous spread 
 over the spacious provinces of Gaul, wherever lands were as- 
 signed to or seized by them. It became a burden to attend those 
 general assemblies of the nation which were annually convened 
 in the month of March, to deliberate upon public business, as 
 well as to exhibit a muster of military strength. After some time 
 it appears that these meetings drew together only the bishops 
 and those invested with civil offices. -^ The ancient inhabitants 
 of Gaul, having little notion of political liberty, were unlikely 
 to resist the most tyrannical conduct. Many of them became 
 officers of state and advisers of the sovereign, whose ino-enuitv 
 might teach maxims of despotism unknown in the forests of 
 Germany. We shall scarcely wrong the bishops by suspecting 
 
 age and in lineal descent, his expectation 
 would be such as to constitute a moral 
 claim never to be defeated or contested, 
 provided no impediment, such as his mi- 
 nority or weakness of mind, stood in the 
 way. After the middle of the seventh 
 century the mayors of the palace selected 
 whom they would. As it is still clearer 
 from history that the Carlovingian kings 
 did not assume the crown without an 
 election, we may more probably suppose 
 this to have been the ancient constitution. 
 The passages in Gregory of Tours which 
 look like a mere hereditary succession 
 such as Quatuor filii regnum accipiunt et 
 inter se jequa lance dividunt, do not ex- 
 clude a popular election, which he would 
 consider a mere formality, and which in 
 that case must have been little more. 
 
 I must admit, however, that M. Guizot, 
 whose authority is deservedly so high, 
 gives more weight to lineal inheritance 
 
 than many others have done; and con- 
 sequently treats the phrases of historians 
 seeming to imply a choice by the people 
 as merely recognitions of a legal right. 
 The principle of hereditary right," he 
 says, " must have been deeply implanted 
 when Pepin was forced to obtain the 
 Pope's sanction before he ventured to 
 depose the Merovingian prince, obscure 
 and despised as he was." (" Essais sur 
 I Hist, de France," p. 298.) But surely 
 this is not to the point. Childeric III 
 was a reigning king; and, besides this, 
 the question is by no means as to the 
 right of the Merovingian family to the 
 throne, which no one disputes, but as to 
 that of the nearest heir. The case was 
 the same with the second dynasty. The 
 Franks bound themselves to the family 
 
 4^J?'"' "o^ to any one heir within it. 
 
 =^» Dubos. tome iii, p. 327; Mably. " Ob- 
 serv. sur I'Histoire de France," 1. i, c. 3. 
 
POWER OF THE KINGS 
 
 89 
 
 them of more pliable courtliness than was natural to the long- 
 haired warriors of Clovis.^^ Yet it is probable that some of the 
 Franks were themselves instrumental in this change of their 
 government. The court of the Merovingian kings was crowded 
 with followers, who have been plausibly derived from those of 
 the German chiefs described by Tacitus; men forming a distinct 
 and elevated class in the state, and known by the titles of Fideles, 
 Leudes, and Antrustiones. They took an oath of fidelity to the 
 king, upon their admission into that rank, and were commonly 
 remunerated with gifts of land. Under different appellations 
 we find, as some antiquaries think, this class of courtiers in the 
 early records of Lombardy and England. The general name of 
 vassals (from Gwas, a Celtic word for a servant) is applied to 
 them in every country,^^ By the assistance of these faithful sup- 
 porters, it has been thought that the regal authority of Clovis's 
 successors was insured.^- However this may be, the annals of his 
 more immediate descendants exhibit a course of oppression, not 
 merely displayed, as will often happen among uncivilized people, 
 though free, in acts of private injustice, but in such general 
 tyranny as is incompatible with the existence of any real checks 
 upon the sovereign.^^ 
 
 But before the middle of the seventh century the kings of 
 this line had fallen into that contemptible state which has been 
 described in the last chapter. The mayors of the palace, who 
 from mere officers of the court had now become masters of the 
 kingdom, were elected by the Franks, not indeed the whole body 
 of that nation, but the provincial governors and considerable 
 proprietors of land.^* Some inequality there probably existed 
 
 "* Gregory of Tours throughout his his- 
 tory talks of the royal power in the tone 
 of Louis XIV's court. If we were obliged 
 to believe all we read, even the vase of 
 Soissons would bear witness to the obedi- 
 ence of the Franks. 
 
 31 The Gasindi of Italy and the Anglo- 
 Saxon royal Thane appear to correspond, 
 more or less, to the Antrustions of 
 France. The word Thane, however, as 
 will be seen in another chapter, was used 
 in a very extensive sense, and compre- 
 hended all free proprietors of land. That 
 of Leudes seems to imply only subjec- 
 tion, and is frequently applied to the 
 whole body of a nation, as well as, in a 
 stricter sense, to the king's personal vas- 
 sals. This name thejr did not acquire, 
 originally, by possessing benefices; but 
 rather, by being vassals or servants, be- 
 came the object of beneficiary donations. 
 In one of Marculfus's precedents (1. i, 
 f. 18) we have the form by which an 
 Antrustion was created. See Du Cange, 
 under these several words, and Mura- 
 tori's thirteenth dissertation on Italian 
 antiquities. The Gardingi sometimes 
 mentioned in the laws of the Visigoths do 
 not appear to be of the same description. 
 
 '^ Boantus . . . vallatus in domo sua, 
 ab hominibus regis interfectus est. (Greg. 
 Tur., 1, viii, c. 11.) A few spirited re- 
 tainers were sufficient to execute the 
 mandates of arbitrary power among a 
 barbarous disunited people. 
 
 ^' This is more fully discussed in Note 
 
 ^* The revolution which ruined Brune- 
 haut was brought about by the defection 
 of her chief nobles, especially Warnachar, 
 Mayor of Austrasia. Upon Clotaire II's 
 victory over her, he was compelled to re- 
 ward these adherents at the expense of 
 the monarchy. Warnachar was made 
 Mayor of Burgundy, with an oath from 
 the king never to dispossess him. (Frede- 
 garius, c. 42.) In 626 the nobility of 
 Burgundy declined to elect a mayor, 
 which seems to have been considered as 
 their right. From this time nothing was 
 done without the consent of the aristoc- 
 racy. Unless we ascribe all to the dif- 
 ferent ways of thinking in Gregory and 
 Fredegarius, the one a Roman bishop, 
 the other a Frank or Burgundian, the 
 government was altogether changed. 
 
 It might even be surmised that the 
 crown was considered as more elective 
 
90 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 from the beginning in the partition of estates, and this had been 
 greatly increased by the common changes of property, by the 
 rapine of those savage times, and by royal munificence. Thus 
 arose that landed aristocracy which became the most striking 
 feature in the political system of Europe during many centuries, 
 and is, in fact, its great distinction, both from the despotism of 
 Asia and the equality of repubUcan governments. 
 
 There has been some dispute about the origin of nobility in 
 France, which might perhaps be settled, or at least better under- 
 stood, by fixing our conception of the term. In our modern 
 acceptation it is usually taken to imply certain distinctive privi- 
 leges in the political order, inherent in the blood of the possessor, 
 and consequently not transferable like those which property con- 
 fers. Limited to this sense, nobility, I conceive, was unknown 
 to the conquerors of Gaul till long after the downfall of the Roman 
 Empire. They felt, no doubt, the common prejudice of man- 
 kind in favour of those whose ancestry is conspicuous, when 
 compared with persons of obscure birth. This is the primary 
 meaning of nobility, and perfectly distinguishable from the pos- 
 session of exclusive civil rights. Those who are acquainted with 
 the constitution of the Roman Republic will recollect an instance 
 of the difference between these two species of hereditary distinc- 
 tion in the patricii and the nobiles. Though I do not think that 
 the tribes of German origin paid so much regard to genealogy 
 as some Scandinavian and Celtic nations (else the beginnings 
 of the greatest houses would not have been so enveloped in doubt 
 as we find them), there are abundant traces of the respect in which 
 families of known antiquity were held among them.^^ 
 
 But the essential distinction of ranks in France, perhaps also 
 in Spain and Lombardy, was founded upon the possession of 
 land or upon civil employment. The aristocracy of wealth pre- 
 ceded that of birth, which, indeed, is still chiefly dependent upon 
 the other for its importance. A Frank of large estate was styled 
 
 than before. The author of " Gesta Re- 
 
 f;um Francorum," an old chronicler who 
 ived in those times, changes his form 
 of expressing a king's accession from 
 that of Clotaire II. Of the earlier kings 
 he says only, regnum recepit. But of 
 Clotaire, Franci quoque prsedictum Clo- 
 tairium regem parvulum supra se in reg- 
 num statuerunt. Again, of the accession 
 of Dagobert I : Austrasii Franci superi- 
 ores, congregati in unum, Dagobertum 
 supra se in regnum statuunt. In another 
 place, Decedente prasfato rege Clodoveo, 
 Franci Clotairium seniorem puerum ex 
 tribus sibi regem statuerunt. Several 
 other instances might be quoted. 
 
 ^^ The antiquity of French nobility is 
 maintained temperately by Schmidt, 
 " Hist, des Allemands, ' tome i, p. 361, 
 and with acrimony by Montesquieu, 
 
 " Esprit des Loix," 1. xxx, c. 25. Neither 
 of them proves any more than I have 
 admitted. The expression of Ludovicus 
 Pius to his freedman, Rex fecit te libe- 
 rum, non nobilem; quod impossibile est 
 post libertatem, is very intelligible, with- 
 out imagining a privileged class. Of the 
 practical regard paid to birth, indeed, 
 there are many proofs. It seems to have 
 been a recommendation in the choice of 
 bishops. (" Marculfi Formulae," I. i, c. 4. 
 cum notis Bignonii, in Baluzii ** Capitu- 
 laribus.") It was probably much con- 
 sidered in conferring dignities. Frede- 
 garius says of Protadius, mayor of the 
 palace to Brunehaut, Quoscunque genere 
 nobiles reperiebat, totos humiliare cona- 
 batur, ut nullus reperiretur, qui gradum, 
 quern arripuerat, potuisset assumere. 
 [Note VIIL] 
 
THE NOBILITY 
 
 91 
 
 a noble; if he wasted or was despoiled of his wealth, his descend- 
 ants fell into the mass of the people, and the new possessor be- 
 came noble in his stead. Families were noble by descent, because 
 they were rich by the same means. Wealth gave them power, 
 and power gave them pre-eminence. But no distinction was 
 made by the Salic or Lombard codes in the composition for 
 homicide, the great test of political station, except in favour of 
 the king's vassals. It seems, however, by some of the barbaric 
 codes — those, namely, of the Burgundians, Visigoths, Saxons, 
 and the English colony of the latter nation ^^ — that the free men 
 were ranged by them into two or three classes, and a difference 
 made in the price at which their lives were valued : so that there 
 certainly existed the elements of aristocratic privileges, if we 
 can not in strictness admit their completion at so early a period. 
 The Antrustions of the Kings of the Franks were also noble, and 
 a composition was paid for their murder treble of that for an 
 ordinary citizen; but this was a personal, not an hereditary, dis- 
 tinction. A link was wanting to connect their eminent privileges 
 with their posterity, and this link was to be supplied by hereditary 
 benefices. 
 
 Besides the lands distributed among the nation, others were 
 reserved to the crown, partly for the support of its dignity, and 
 partly for the exercise of its munificence. These are called fiscal 
 lands; they were dispersed over different parts of the kingdom, 
 and formed the most regular source of revenue.^^ But the greater 
 portion of them were granted out to favoured subjects, under 
 the name of benefices, the nature of which is one of the most 
 important points in the policy of these ages. Benefices were, it 
 is probable, most frequently bestowed upon the professed cour- 
 tiers, the Antrustiones or Leudes, and upon the provincial gov- 
 ernors. It by no means appears that any conditions of military 
 service were expressly annexed to these grants : but it may justly 
 be presumed that such favours were not conferred without an 
 expectation of some return ; and we read both in law and history 
 that beneficiary tenants were more closely connected with the 
 crown than mere allodial proprietors. Whoever possessed a bene- 
 fice was expected to serve his sovereign in the field. But of 
 allodial proprietors only the owner of three mansi was called 
 upon for personal service. Where there were three possessors 
 of single mansi, one went to the army, and the others contributed 
 to his equipment.^® Such, at least, were the regulations of Charle- 
 
 " " Leg. Burgund.," tit. 26; " Leg. ent parts of their dominions, took up 
 
 Visigoth, 1. ii, tome 2, c. 4 (in Linde- their abode in them. Charlemagne is 
 
 brog.); Du Cange, voc. Adalingus, no- very full in his directions as to their 
 
 bilis; Wilkins, " Leg. Ang. Sax.," passim. management. (" Capitularia," A. D. 797, 
 
 ''' The demesne lands of the crown are et alibi.) 
 continually mentioned in the early writ- ^^ " Capitul. Car. Mag.," ann. 807 and 
 
 ers; the kings, in journeying to differ- 812. I can not define the precise area of 
 
92 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 magne, whom I can not believe, with Mably, to have relaxed 
 the obligations of military attendance. After the Peace of Cob- 
 lentz, in 860, Charles the Bald restored all allodial property 
 belonging to his subjects, who had taken part against him, but 
 not his own beneficiary grants, which they were considered as 
 having forfeited. 
 
 Most of those who have written upon the feudal system lay 
 it down that benefices were originally precarious and revoked 
 at pleasure by the sovereign; that they were afterward granted 
 for life; and at a subsequent period became hereditary. No satis- 
 factory proof, however, appears to have been brought of the 
 first stage in this progress.^^ At least, I am not convinced that 
 beneficiary grants were ever considered as resumable at pleas- 
 ure, unless where some delinquency could be imputed to the 
 vassal. It is possible, though I am not aware of any documents 
 which prove it, that benefices may in some instances have been 
 granted for a term of years, since even fiefs in much later times 
 were occasionally of no greater extent. Their ordinary duration, 
 however, was at least the life of the possessor, after which they 
 reverted to the fisc.*^ Nor can I agree with those who deny the 
 existence of hereditary benefices under the first race of French 
 kings. The codes of the Burgundians and of the Visigoths, 
 which advert to them, are, by analogy, witnesses to the contrary.*^ 
 The precedents given in the forms of Marculfus (about 660) for 
 the grant of a benefice, contain very full terms, extending it 
 to the heirs of the beneficiary.*^ And Mably has plausibly in- 
 ferred the perpetuity of benefices, at least in some instances, from 
 the language of the treaty at Andely in 587, and of an edict of 
 Clotaire II some years later.*^ We can hardly doubt at least 
 
 a mansus. It consisted, according to Du 
 Cange, of twelve jugcra; but what he 
 meant by a juger I know not. The an- 
 cient Roman juger was about five eighths 
 of an acre; the Parisian arpent was a 
 fourth more than one. This would make 
 a difference as two to one. 
 
 39 [Note IX.] 
 
 *" The following passage from Gregory 
 of Tours seems to prove that, although 
 sons were occasionally permitted to suc- 
 ceed their fathers, an indulgence which 
 easily grew up into a right, the crown 
 had, in his time, an unquestionable re- 
 version after the death of its original 
 beneficiary : Hoc tempore et Wande- 
 linus, nutritor Childeberti regis obiit; sed 
 in locum ejus nullus est subrogatus, eo 
 quod regina mater curam velit propriam 
 habere de filio. Qujecunque de fisco 
 meruit, fisci juribus sunt relata. Obiit 
 his diebus Bodegesilus dux plenus die- 
 rum; sed nihil de facultate ejus filiis mi- 
 nutum est (1. viii, c. 22). Gregorv's work, 
 however, does not go farther tha'n 595. 
 
 .. T*^ " ^^/.?^. Burgundiorum," tit. i : 
 Leges Visigoth.,'^ 1. v, tit. 2. 
 
 *- Marculf. Form.," xii and xiv, 1. i. 
 Ihis precedent was in use down to the 
 eleventh century; its expressions recur 
 in almost every charter. The earliest 
 instance I have seen of an actual grant 
 to a private person is of Charlemagne to 
 one John, in 795. (" Baluzii Capitularia," 
 tome II, p. idoo.) 
 
 '''Quicquid antefati reges ecclesiis aut 
 fidelibus suis contulerunt, aut adhuc 
 conferre cum justitia Deo propitiante 
 voluerint, stabiliter conservetur; et quic- 
 quid unicuique fidclium in utriusque 
 regno per legem et justitiam redhibctur, 
 nullum ei prejudicium ponatur, sed 
 iiceat res debitas possidere atque reci- 
 pere. Et si aliquid unicuique per in- 
 terregna sine culpa sublatum est, audi- 
 entia habita restauretur. Et de eo quod 
 per munificentias pr^ecedentium regum 
 unusquisque usque ad transitum glorios?e 
 memorial domini Chlothacharii regis pos- 
 sedit. cum securitate possideat; et quod 
 exinde fidelibus per<;onis ablatum est. de 
 prrescnti recipiat. (Fcedus Andeliacum. in 
 Gregor. Turon.," 1. ix, c. 20.) 
 
SUBINFEUDATION 
 
 93 
 
 that children would put in a very strong claim to what their 
 father had enjoyed; and the weakness of the crown in the seventh 
 century must have rendered it difficult to reclaim its property. 
 
 A natural consequence of hereditary benefices was that those 
 who possessed them carved out portions to be held of themselves 
 by a similar tenure. Abundant proofs of this custom, best known 
 by the name of subinfeudation, occur even in the capitularies 
 of Pepin and Charlemagne. At a later period it became universal; 
 and what had begun perhaps through ambition or pride was 
 at last dictated by necessity. In that dissolution of all law which 
 ensued after the death of Charlemagne, the powerful leaders, 
 constantly engaged in domestic warfare, placed their chief de- 
 pendency upon men whom they attached by gratitude and bound 
 by strong conditions. The oath of fidelity which they had taken, 
 the homage which they had paid to the sovereign, they exacted 
 from their own vassals. To render military service became the 
 essential obligation which the tenant of a benefice undertook; 
 and out of those ancient grants, now become for the most part 
 hereditary, there grew up in the tenth century, both in name and 
 reality, the system of feudal tenures.** 
 
 This revolution was accompanied by another still more im- 
 portant. The provincial governors, the dukes and counts, to 
 whom we may add the marquises or margraves intrusted with 
 the custody of the frontiers, had taken the lead in all public meas- 
 ures after the decline of the Merovingian kings. Charlemagne, 
 duly jealous of their ascendency, checked it by suffering the 
 duchies to expire without renewal, by granting very few counties 
 hereditarily, by removing the administration of justice from the 
 hands of the counts into those of his own itinerant judges, and, 
 if we are not deceived in his policy, by elevating the ecclesias- 
 tical order as a counterpoise to that of the nobility. Even in his 
 time the faults of the counts are the constant theme of the capitu- 
 laries; their dissipation and neglect of duty, their oppression of 
 the poorer proprietors, and their artful attempts to appropriate 
 the crown lands situated within their territory.*^ If Charlemagne 
 was unable to redress those evils, how much must they have in- 
 creased under his posterity! That great prince seldom gave more 
 than one county to the same person; and as they were generally 
 of moderate size, coextensive with episcopal dioceses, there was 
 less danger, if this poHcy had been followed, of their becoming 
 independent.*® But Louis the Debonair, and, in a still greater 
 
 Quaecunque ecclesise vel clericis vel ** [Note X.] 
 
 quibuslibet personis a gloriosae memoriae « «« Capitularia Car. Mag. et Lud. Pit.,*' 
 
 praefatis principibus munificentiae largi- passim; Schmidt, " Hist, des Allemands," 
 
 tate collatae sunt, omni firmitate per- tome ii, p. 158; Gaillard, " Vie de Char- 
 
 durent. Edict. Chlotachar I. et potius lem.," tome iii, p. 118. 
 IT in " Recueil des Historiens," tome iv, '♦'' Vaissette, " Hist, de Languedoc," 
 
 p. 116. tome i, pp. 587, 700, and note 87. 
 
94 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 degree, Charles the Bald, allowed several counties to be enjoyed 
 by the same person. The possessors constantly aimed at ac- 
 quiring private estates within the limits of their charge, and thus 
 both rendered themselves formidable, and assumed a kind of 
 patrimonial right to their dignities. By a capitulary of Charles 
 the Bald, a. d. 877, the succession of a son to the father's county 
 appears to be recognised as a known usage.*^ In the next cen- 
 tury there followed an entire prostration of the royal authority, 
 and the counts usurped their governments as little sovereignties, 
 with the domains and all regalian rights, subject only to the 
 feudal superiority of the king.*^ They now added the name of 
 the county to their own, and their wives took the appellation of 
 countess.^® In Italy the independence of the dukes was still more 
 complete; and although Otho the Great and his descendants 
 kept a stricter rein over those of Germany, yet we find the great 
 fiefs of their empire, throughout the tenth century, granted almost 
 invariably to the male and even female heirs of the last possessor. 
 Meanwhile, the allodial proprietors, who had hitherto formed 
 the strength of the state, fell into a much worse condition. They 
 were exposed to the rapacity of the counts, who, whether as mag- 
 istrates and governors, or as overbearing lords, had it always in 
 their power to harass them. Every district was exposed to con- 
 tinual hostilities; sometimes from a foreign enemy, more often 
 from the owners of castles and fastnesses, which, in the tenth 
 century, under pretence of resisting the Normans and Hun- 
 garians, served the purposes of private war. Against such a sys- 
 tem of rapine the military compact of lord and vassal was the 
 only effectual shield; its essence was the reciprocity of service 
 and protection. But an insulated allodialist had no support ; his 
 fortunes were strangely changed since he claimed, at least in 
 right, a share in the legislation of his country, and could com- 
 pare with pride his patrimonial fields with the temporary bene- 
 fices of the crown. Without law to redress his injuries, without 
 the royal power to support his right, he had no course left but 
 to compromise with oppression, and subject himself, in return 
 for protection, to a feudal lord. During the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries it appears that allodial lands in France had chiefly be- 
 come feudal: that is, they had been surrendered by their pro- 
 prietors, and received back again upon the feudal conditions; 
 or more frequently, perhaps, the owner had been compelled to 
 
 *'' " Baluzii Capitularia," tome ii, pp. 
 263, 269. This is a questionable point, 
 and most French antiquaries consider 
 this famous capitulary as the foundation 
 of an hereditary right in counties, I am 
 inclined to think that there was at least a 
 practice of succession which is implied and 
 guaranteed by this provision. [Note VI.] 
 
 *^ It appears, by the record of a process 
 
 in 918, that the Counts of Toulouse had 
 already so far usurped the rights of their 
 sovereign as to claim an estate on the 
 ground of its being a royal benefice. 
 (" Hist, de Languedoc," tome ii, appen., 
 p. 56.) 
 
 *» Vaissette, " Hist, de Languedoc," 
 tome i. p. 588, and infra; tome ii. pp. 38, 
 109, and appendix, p. 56. 
 
PERSONAL COMMENDATION 
 
 95 
 
 acknowledge himself the man or vassal of a suzerain, and thus 
 to confess an original grant which had never existed.^^ Changes 
 of the same nature, though not perhaps so extensive or so dis- 
 tinctly to be traced, took place in Italy and Germany. Yet it 
 would be inaccurate to assert that the prevalence of the feudal 
 system has been unlimited; in a great part of France allodial 
 tenures always subsisted, and many estates in the empire were 
 of the same description.^^ 
 
 There are, however, vestiges of a very universal custom dis- 
 tinguishable from the feudal tenure of land, though so analogous 
 to it that it seems to have nearly escaped the notice of antiquaries. 
 From this silence of other writers, and the great obscurity of 
 the subject, I am almost afraid to notice what several passages 
 in ancient laws and instruments concur to prove, that, besides 
 the relation established between lord and vassal by beneficiary 
 grants, there was another species more personal and more closely 
 resembling that of patron and client in the Roman Republic. This 
 was usually called commendation; and appears to have been 
 founded on two very general principles, both of which the dis- 
 tracted state of society inculcated. The weak needed the pro- 
 tection of the powerful, and the government needed some security 
 for public order. Even before the invasion of the Franks, Sal- 
 vian, a writer of the fifth century, mentions the custom of ob- 
 taining the protection of the great by money, and blames their 
 rapacity, though he allows the natural reasonableness of the 
 practice.^^ The disadvantageous condition of the less powerful 
 freemen, which ended in the servitude of one part, and in the 
 feudal vassalage of another, led such as fortunately still preserved 
 their allodial property to insure its defence by a stipulated pay- 
 ment of money. Such payments, called Salvamenta, may be 
 traced in extant charters, chiefly, indeed, of monasteries.^^ In 
 
 ''** " Hist, de Languedoc," tome ii, p. 
 109. It must be confessed that there do 
 not occur so many specific instances of 
 this conversion of allodial tenure into 
 feudal as might be expected, in order to 
 warrant the supposition in the text. Sev- 
 eral records, however, are quoted by 
 Robertson, "Hist. Charles V," note 8; 
 and others may be found in diplomatic 
 collections. A precedent for surrendering 
 allodial property to the king, and receiv- 
 ing it back as his benefice, appears even 
 in Marculfus, 1. i, form 13. The county 
 of Cominges, between the Pyrenees, Tou- 
 louse, and Bigorre, was allodial till 1244, 
 when it was put under the feudal protec- 
 tion of the Count of Toulouse. It de- 
 volved by escheat to the crown in 1443. 
 (Villaret, tome xv, p. 346.) 
 
 In many early charters the king con- 
 firms the possession even of allodial prop- 
 erty for greater security in lawless times; 
 and, on the other hand, in those of the 
 
 tenth and eleventh centuries, the word 
 allodium is continually used for a feud, or 
 hereditary benefice, which renders this 
 subject still more obscure. 
 
 '^ The maxim, Nulle terre sans seig- 
 neur, was so far from being universally 
 received in France that in almost all 
 southern provinces, or pays du droit 
 ecrit, lands were presumed to be allodial, 
 unless the contrary was shown, or, as it 
 was called, franc-aleux sans titre. The 
 parliaments, however, seem latterly to 
 have inclined against this presumption, 
 and have thrown the burden of proof 
 on the party claiming allodiality. For this 
 see Denisart, " Dictionnaire des Deci- 
 sions," art. Franc-aleu. [Note XI.] 
 
 In Germany, according to Du Cange, 
 voc. Baro, there was a distinction be- 
 tween Barones and Semper-Barones; the 
 latter holding their lands allodially. 
 
 "2 Du Cange, v. Salvamentum. 
 
 " Ibid. 
 
96 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 the case of private persons it may be presumed that this volun- 
 tary contract was frequently changed by the stronger party into 
 a perfect feudal dependence. From this, however, as I imagine, 
 it probably differed, in being capable of dissolution at the infe- 
 rior's pleasure, without incurring a forfeiture, as well as in having 
 no relation to land. Homage, however, seems to have been in- 
 cident to commendation, as well as to vassalage. Military service 
 was sometimes the condition of this engagement. It was the 
 law of France, so late, at least, as the commencement of the third 
 race of kings, that no man could take a part in private wars, 
 except in defence of his own lord. This we learn from a historian 
 about the end of the tenth century, who relates that one Ermin- 
 frid, having been released from his homage to Count Burchard, 
 on ceding the fief he had held of him to a monastery, renewed 
 the ceremony on a war breaking out between Burchard and an- 
 other nobleman, wherein he was desirous to give assistance; since, 
 the author observes, it is not, nor has been, the practice in France 
 for any man to be concerned in war except in the presence or by 
 the command of his lord.^* Indeed, there is reason to infer, from 
 the capitularies of Charles the Bald, that every man was bound 
 to attach himself to some lord, though it was the privilege of a 
 freeman to choose his own superior.^^ And this is strongly sup- 
 ported by the analogy of our Anglo-Saxon laws, where it is fre- 
 quently repeated that no man should continue without a lord. 
 There are, too, as it seems to me, a great number of passages in 
 Doomsday-book which confirm this distinction between per- 
 sonal commendation and the beneficiary tenure of land. Per- 
 haps I may be thought to dwell too prolixly on this obscure 
 custom ; but as it tends to illustrate those mutual relations of lord 
 and vassal which supplied the place of regular government in the 
 polity of Europe, and has seldom or never been explicitly no- 
 ticed, its introduction seemed not improper. 
 
 " " Recueil des Historiens," tome x, 
 
 P- 35S- 
 
 ''^ Unusquisque liber homo post mor- 
 tem domini sui, licentiam habeat se com- 
 mendandi inter haec tria regna ad quem- 
 cunque voluerit. Similiter et ille qui 
 nondum alicui commendatus est. (" Ba- 
 luzii Capitularia," tome i, p. 443, A. d. 
 806.) Volumus etiam ut unusquisque liber 
 homo in nostro regno seniorem qualem 
 voluerit in nobis et in nostris fidelibus 
 recipiat. (" Capit. Car. Calvi," a. d. 877.) 
 Et volumus ut cujuscunque nostrum 
 homo, in cujuscunque regno sit, cum 
 seniore suo in hostem, vel aliis suis utili- 
 tatibus pergat. (Ibid. See, too, Baluze, 
 tome i, pp. 536, 537.) 
 
 By the Establishments of St. Louis, 
 c. 87, every stranger coming to settle 
 within a barony was to acknowledge the 
 baron as lord within a year and a day, or 
 
 pay a fine. In some places he even be- 
 came the serf or villein of the lord, 
 (" Ordonnances des Rois," p. 187.) Upon 
 this jealousy of unknown settlers, which 
 pervades the policy of the middle ages, 
 was founded the droit d'aubaine, or right 
 to their movables after their decease. See 
 preface to " Ordonnances des Rois," tome 
 1, P- 15- 
 
 The article Commendatio in Du 
 Cange's " Glossary " furnishes some hints 
 upon this subject, which, however, that 
 author does not seem to have fully ap- 
 prehended. Carpentier, in his " Supple- 
 ment to the Glossary," under the word 
 yassaticum, gives the clearest notice of 
 It that I have anywhere found. Since 
 writing the above pages I have found 
 the subject touched by M. de Montlosier, 
 " Hist, de la Monarchic Francaise," tome 
 i, p. 854. [Note XI.] 
 
EDICT OF CONRAD THE SALIC 
 
 97 
 
 It has been sometimes said that feuds were first rendered 
 hereditary in Germany by Conrad II, surnamed the SaUc. This 
 opinion is perhaps erroneous. But there is a famous edict of that 
 emperor at Milan, in the year 1037, which, though immediately 
 relating only to Lombardy, marks the full maturity of the sys- 
 tem and the last stage of its progress.*^® I have remarked already 
 the custom of subinfeudation, or grants of lands by vassals to be 
 held of themselves, which had grown up with the growth of these 
 tenures. There had occurred, however, some disagreement, for 
 want of settled usage, between these inferior vassals and their 
 immediate lords, which this edict was expressly designed to re- 
 move. Four regulations of great importance are established 
 therein: that no man should be deprived of his fief, whether 
 held of the emperor or a mesne lord, but by the laws of the 
 empire and the judgment of his peers; ®^ that from such judg- 
 ment an immediate vassal might appeal to his sovereign; that 
 fiefs should be inherited by sons and their children, or, in their 
 failure, by brothers, provided they were feuda paterna, such as 
 had descended from the father ; ^® and that the lord should not 
 alienate the fief of his vassal without his consent.^^ 
 
 Such was the progress of these feudal tenures, which deter- 
 mined the political character of every European monarchy where 
 they prevailed, as well as formed the foundations of its juris- 
 prudence. It is certainly inaccurate to refer this system, as is 
 frequently done, to the destruction of the Roman Empire by the 
 northern nations, though in the beneficiary grants of those con- 
 querors we trace its beginning. Four or five centuries, however, 
 elapsed before the allodial tenures, which had become incom- 
 parably the more general, gave way, and before the reciprocal 
 contract of the feud attained its maturity. It is now time to de- 
 scribe the legal qualities and effects of this relation, so far only 
 as may be requisite to understand its influence upon the political 
 system. 
 
 5» Spelman tells us, in his " Treatise of 
 Feuds," chap, ii, that Conradus Salicus, 
 a French emperor, but of German de- 
 scent [what can this mean?], went to 
 Rome about 915 to fetch his crown from 
 Pope John X when, according to him, 
 the succession of a son to his father's 
 fief was first conceded. An almost iin- 
 paralleled blunder in so learned a writer! 
 Conrad the Salic was elected at Worms 
 in 1024, crowned at Rome by John XIX 
 in 1027, and made this edict at Milan in 
 
 1037- 
 
 57 Nisi secundum constitutionem ante- 
 cessorum nostrorum, et judicium parium 
 suorum; the very expressions of Magna 
 Charta. 
 
 68 " Gerardus noteth," says Sir H. 
 Spelman, " that this law settled not the 
 feud upon the eldest son, or any other 
 son of the feudatory particularly; but left 
 
 it in the lord's election to please him- 
 self with which he would. But the 
 phrase of the edict runs, filios ejus bene- 
 ficium tenere: which, when nothing more 
 is said, can only mean a partition among 
 the sons. 
 
 ^^ The last provision may seem strange 
 at so advanced a period of the system; 
 yet, according to Giannone, feuds were 
 still revocable by the lord in some parts 
 of Lombardy. (" Istoria di Napoli," 1. 
 xiii, c. 3.) It seems, however, no more 
 than had been already enacted by the 
 first clause of this edict. Another inter- 
 pretation is possible; namely, that the 
 lord should not alienate his own seigniory 
 without his vassal's consent, which was 
 agreeable to the feudal tenures. This, 
 indeed, would be putting rather a forced 
 construction on the words ne domino 
 feudum militis alienare liceat. 
 
98 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The essential principle of a fief was a mutual contract of sup- 
 port and fidelity. Whatever obligations it laid upon the vassal 
 of service to his lord, corresponding duties of protection were 
 imposed by it on the lord toward his vassal.^^ If these were trans- 
 gressed on either side, the one forfeited his land, the other his 
 seigniory or rights over it. Nor were motives of interest left 
 alone to operate in securing the feudal connection. The associa- 
 tions founded upon ancient custom and friendly attachment, the 
 impulses of gratitude and honour, the dread of infamy, the sanc- 
 tions of religion, were all employed to strengthen these ties, and 
 to render them equally powerful with the relations of Nature, 
 and far more so than those of political society. It is a question 
 agitated among feudal lawyers whether a vassal is bound to fol- 
 low the standard of his lord against his own kindred.®^ It was 
 one more important whether he must do so against the king. 
 In the works of those who wrote when the feudal system was 
 declining, or who were anxious to maintain the royal authority, 
 this is commonly decided in the negative. Littleton gives a form 
 of homage, with a reservation of the allegiance due to the sover- 
 eign; ^'^ and the same prevailed in Normandy and some other 
 countries.®^ A law of Frederick Barbarossa enjoins that in every 
 oath of fealty to an inferior lord the vassal's duty to the emperor 
 should be expressly reserved. But it was not so during the height 
 of the feudal system in France. The vassals of Henry II and 
 Richard I never hesitated to adhere to them against the sover- 
 eign, nor do they appear to have incurred any blame on that 
 account. Even so late as the age of St. Louis, it is laid down in 
 his " Establishments " that, if justice is refused by the king to 
 one of his vassals, he might summon his own tenants, under 
 penalty of forfeiting their fiefs, to assist him in obtaining 'redress 
 by arms.«* The Count of Brittany, Pierre de Dreux, had prac- 
 
 '"Crag., "Tus Feudale," 1. ii, tit. ii; 
 Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvoisis," 
 c. Ixi, p. 311; "Ass. de Jerus.," c. 217; 
 " Lib. Feud./' 1. ii, tit. 26, 47. 
 
 Upon the mutual obligation of the lord 
 toward his vassal seems to be founded 
 the law of warranty, which compelled 
 him to make indemnification where the 
 tenant was evicted of his land. This 
 obligation, however unreasonable it may 
 appear to us, extended, according to the 
 feudal lawyers, to cases of mere dona- 
 tion. (Crag., 1. ii, tit. 4; Butler's " Notes 
 on Co. Litt.," p. 365.) 
 
 "1 Crag., 1. ii, tit. 4. 
 
 *- Sect. Ixxxv. 
 
 «» Houard, " Anc. Loix des Frangois," 
 p. 114. See, too, an instance of this reser- 
 vation in " Recueil des Historiens," tome 
 XI, p. 447. , 
 
 ^^ Si le sire dit a son homme lige, 
 Venez vous en avec moi, je veux guer- 
 royer mon seigneur, qui me denie le 
 jugement de so cour^ le vassal doit re- 
 
 pondre, J'irai scavoir s'il est ainsi que 
 vous me dites. Alors il doit aller trou- 
 ver le superieur, et luy dire, sire, le 
 gentilhomme de qui je tiens mon fief se 
 plaint que vous lui refusez justice; je 
 viens pour en scavoir la verite; car je 
 suis semonce de marcher en guerre cen- 
 tre vous. Si la reponse est que volon- 
 tiers il fera droit en sa cour, I'homme 
 n est pomt oblige de deferer a la requisi- 
 tion du sire; mais il doit, ou le suivre, 
 ou le resoudre a perdre son fief, si le chef 
 seigneur persiste dans son refus. (" fita- 
 bhssemens de St. Louis," c. 49.) I have 
 copied this from Velly, tome vi, p. 213, 
 who has modernized the orthography, 
 which is almost unintelligible in the "^Or- 
 donnances des Rois." One manuscript 
 gives the reading Roi instead of Seigneur. 
 And the law certainly applies to the king 
 exclusively; for, in case of denial of jus- 
 tice by a mesne lord, there was an appeal 
 to the king's court, but from his injury 
 there could be no appeal but to the 
 sword. 
 
FEUDAL PRINCIPLES AND CEREMONIES 
 
 99 
 
 tically asserted this feudal right during the minority of St. Louis. 
 In a pubHc instrument he announced to the world that, having 
 met with repeated injuries from the regent and denial of justice, 
 he had let the king know that he no longer considered himself as 
 his vassal, but renounced his homage and defied him.®^ 
 
 The ceremonies used in conferring a fief were principally three 
 — homage, fealty, and investiture, i. The first was designed as 
 a significant expression of the submission and devotedness of 
 the vassal toward his lord. In performing homage, his head 
 was uncovered, his belt ungirt, his sword and spurs removed; 
 he placed his hands, kneeling, between those of the lord, and 
 promised to become his man from thenceforward ; to serve him 
 with life and limb and worldly honour, faithfully and loyally, 
 in consideration of the lands which he held under him. None 
 but the lord in person could accept homage, which was com- 
 monly concluded by a kiss.®* 2. An oath of fealty was indis- 
 pensable in every fief; but the ceremony was less peculiar than 
 that of homage, and it might be received by proxy. It was taken 
 by ecclesiastics, but not by minors ; and in language differed little 
 from the form of homage.®^ 3. Investiture, or the actual con- 
 veyance of feudal lands, was of two kinds : proper and improper. 
 The first was an actual putting in possession upon the ground, 
 either by the lord or his deputy; which is called, in our law, 
 livery of seisin. The second was symbolical, and consisted in the 
 delivery of a turf, a stone, a wand, a branch, or whatever else 
 might have been made usual by the caprice of local custom. Du 
 Cange enumerates not less than ninety-eight varieties of investi- 
 tures.*® 
 
 Upon investiture, the duties of the vassal commenced. These 
 it is impossible to define or enumerate; because the services of 
 military tenure, which is chiefly to be considered, were in their 
 nature uncertain, and distinguished as such from those incident 
 to feuds of an inferior description. It was a breach of faith to 
 divulge the lord's counsel, to conceal from him the machinations 
 of others, to injure his person or fortune, or to violate the sanctity 
 
 " Du Cange, Observations sur Join- 
 ville, in "Collection des Memoires," tome 
 i, p. 196. It was always necessary for a 
 vassal to renounce his homage before 
 he made war on his lord if he would 
 avoid the shame and penalty of feudal 
 treason. After a reconciliation the hom- 
 age was renewed. And in this no distinc- 
 tion was made between the king and an- 
 other superior. Thus Henry II did hom- 
 age to the King of France in 1188, having 
 renounced his former obligation to him 
 at the commencement of the preceding 
 war. (" Mat. Paris," p. 126.) 
 
 °* Du Can|^e, " Hominium," and Car- 
 pentier's " Supplement," id., voc. Lit- 
 tleton, s. 85; "Assises de Jerusalem," c. 
 
 204; Crag., 1, i, tit. 11; " Recueil des His- 
 toriens," tome ii, preface, p. 174. Ho- 
 magium per paragium was unaccompa- 
 nied by any feudal obligation, and dis- 
 tinguished from homagium ligeum, which 
 carried with it an obligation of fidelity. 
 The Dukes of Normandy rendered only 
 homage per paragium to the Kings of 
 France, and received the like from the 
 Dukes of Brittany. In liege homage it 
 was usual to make reservations of alle- 
 giance to the king, or any other lord 
 whom the homager had previously ac- 
 knowledged. 
 
 "Littl., s. 91; Du Cange, voc. Fideli- 
 tas. 
 
 '8 Du Cange, voc. Investitura. 
 
lOO 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 of his roof and the honour of his family.®® In battle he was bound 
 to lend his horse to his lord when dismounted, to adhere to his 
 side while fightmg, and to go into captivity as a hostage for him 
 when taken. His attendance was due to the lord's courts, some- 
 times to witness, and sometimes to bear a part in the administra- 
 tion of justice.*^^ 
 
 The measure, however, of military service was generally set- 
 tled by some usage. Forty days was the usual term during which 
 the tenant of a knight's fee was bound to be in the field at his 
 own expense."^^ This was extended by St. Louis to sixty days, 
 except when the charter of infeudation expressed a shorter period. 
 But the length of service diminished with the quantity of land. 
 For half a knight's fee but twenty days were due; for an eighth 
 part, but five; and when this was commuted for an escuage or 
 pecuniary assessment, the same proportion was observed."^^ Men 
 turned of sixty, public magistrates, and, of course, women, were 
 free from personal service, but obliged to send their substitutes. 
 A failure in this primary duty incurred perhaps strictly a forfeit- 
 ure of the fief. But it was usual for the lord to inflict an amerce- 
 
 '" " Assises de Jerusalem," c. 265. 
 Home ne doit a la feme de son seigneur, 
 ne a sa fille requerre vilainie de son cors, 
 ne a sa soeur tant com elle est demoiselle 
 en son hostel. I mention this part of 
 feudal duty on account of the light it 
 throws on the statute of treasons, 25 E. 
 III. One of the treasons therein speci- 
 fied is, si omne violast la compaigne le 
 roy, ou leigne file le roy nient marie ou 
 la compaigne leigne fitz et heire le roy. 
 Those who, like Sir E. Coke and the 
 modern lawyers in general, explain this 
 
 ftrovision by the political danger of con- 
 using the royal blood, do not apprehend 
 its spirit. It would be absurd, upon such 
 grounds, to render the violation of the 
 king's eldest daughter treasonable, so 
 long only as she remains unmarried, 
 when, as is obvious, the danger of a 
 spurious issue inheriting could not arise. 
 I consider this provision, therefore, as 
 entirely founded upon the feudal prin- 
 ciples, which make it a breach of faith 
 (that is, in the primary sense of the 
 word, a treason) to sully the honour of 
 the lord in that of the near relations who 
 were immediately protected by residence 
 in his house. If it is asked why this 
 should be restricted by the statute to 
 the person of the eldest daughter, I can 
 only answer that this, which is not more 
 reasonable according to the common po- 
 litical interpretation, is analogous to 
 many feudal customs in our own and 
 other countries, which attribute a sort 
 of superiority in dignity to the eldest 
 daughter. 
 
 It may be objected that in the reign of 
 Edward III there was little left of the 
 feudal principle in any part of Europe, 
 and least of all in England. But the 
 statute of treasons is a declaration of the 
 
 ancient law, and comprehends, undoubt- 
 edly, what the judges who drew it could 
 find in records now perished, or in legal 
 traditions of remote antiquity. Similar 
 causes of forfeiture are enumerated in 
 the " Libri Feudorum," 1. i, tit. 5, and 
 1. ii, tit, 24. In the " Establishments of 
 St. Louis," c. 51, 52, it is said that a lord 
 seducing his vassal's daughter intrusted 
 to his custody lost his seigniory; a vassal 
 guilty of the same crime toward the fam- 
 ily of his suzerain forfeited his land. A 
 proof of the tendency which the feudal 
 law had to purify public morals, and to 
 create that sense of indignation and re- 
 sentment with which we now regard such 
 breaches of honour. 
 
 '" " Assises de Jerusalem," c. 222. A 
 vassal, at least in many places, was bound 
 to reside upon his fief, or not to quit it 
 without the lord's consent. (Du (Jange, 
 voc. Reseantia, Remanentia, " Recueil des 
 Historiens," tome xi, preface, p. 172.) 
 
 "^^ In the kingdom of Jerusalem feudal 
 service extended to a year. (" Assises de 
 Jerusalem," c. 230.) It is obvious that 
 this was founded on the peculiar circum- 
 stances of that state. Service of castle 
 guard, which was common in the north 
 of England, was performed without lim- 
 itation of time. (Littelton's " Henry II," 
 vol. ii, p. 184.) 
 
 ''- Du CangCj voc. Feudum militis ; 
 Membrum Lorice. Stuart's " View of 
 Society," p. 382. This division by 
 knight's fees is perfectly familiar in the 
 feudal law of England. But I must con- 
 fess my inability to adduce decisive evi- 
 dence of it in that of France, with the 
 usual exception of Normandy. Accord- 
 ing to the natural principle of fiefs, it 
 might seem that the same personal serv- 
 ice would be required from the tenant, 
 
MILITARY SERVICE 
 
 lOI 
 
 ment, known in England by the name of escuageJ^ Thus, in 
 Philip Ill's expedition against the Count de Foix in 1274, barons 
 were assessed for their default of attendance at a hundred sous 
 a day for the expenses which they had saved, and fifty sous as 
 a fine to the king; bannerets, at twenty sous for expenses, and 
 ten as a fine; knights and squires in the same proportion. But 
 barons and bannerets were bound to pay an additional assess- 
 ment for every knight and squire of their vassals whom they 
 ought to have brought with them into the field.'^* The regula- 
 tions as to the place of service were less uniform than those which 
 regarded time. In some places the vassal was not bound to go 
 beyond the lord's territory,*^^ or only so far as that he might re- 
 turn the same day. Other customs compelled him to follow his 
 chief upon all his expeditions."^^ These inconvenient and vary- 
 ing usages betrayed the origin of the feudal obligations, not 
 founded upon any national policy, but springing from the chaos 
 of anarchy and intestine war, which they were well calculated 
 to perpetuate. For the public defence their machinery was totally 
 unserviceable, until such changes were wrought as destroyed the 
 character of the fabric. 
 
 Independently of the obligations of fealty and service, which 
 the nature of the contract created, other advantages were derived 
 from it by the lord, which have been called feudal incidents; 
 these were: i. Relief. 2. Fines upon alienation. 3. Escheats. 
 4. Aids; to which may be added, though not generally estab- 
 lished, 5. Wardship; and 6. Marriage. 
 
 I. Some writers have accounted for reliefs in the following 
 manner: Benefices, whether depending upon the crown or its 
 vassals, were not originally granted by way of absolute inherit- 
 
 whatever were the extent of his land. 
 William the Conqueror, it is said, dis- 
 tributed this kingdom into about 60,000 
 parcels of nearly equal value, from each 
 of which the service of a solaier was due. 
 He may possibly have been the inventor 
 of this politic arrangement. Some rule 
 must, however, have been observed in 
 all countries in fixing the amercement 
 for absence, which could only be equi- 
 table if it bore a just proportion to the 
 value of the fief. And the principle of 
 the knight's fee was so convenient and 
 reasonable that it is likely to have been 
 adopted in imitation of England by other 
 feudal countries. In the roll of Philip 
 Ill's expedition, as will appear by a note 
 immediately below, there are, I think, 
 several presumptive evidences of it; and 
 though this is rather a late authority 
 to establish a feudal principle, yet I have 
 ventured to assume it in the text. 
 
 The knight's fee was fixed in England 
 at the annual value of twenty pounds. 
 Every estate supposed to be of this value, 
 and entered as such in the rolls of the 
 exchequer, was bound to contribute the 
 
 service of a soldier, or to pay an escuage 
 to the amount assessed upon knights' 
 fee. 
 
 "Littleton, I. ii, c. 3; Wright's "Ten- 
 ures," p. 121. 
 
 '* Du Chesne, " Script. Rerum Galli- 
 carum," tome v, p. 553; Daniel, " His- 
 toire de la Milice Frangoise," p. 72. The 
 following extracts from the muster-roll of 
 this expedition will illustrate the varie- 
 ties of feudal obligations: Johannes d'Or- 
 moy debet servitium per quatuor dies. 
 Johannes Malet debet servitium per vi- 
 ginti dies, pro quo servitio misit Richar- 
 dum Tichet. Guido de Laval debet 
 servitium duorum militum et dimidii. 
 Dominus Sabrandus dictus Chabot dicit 
 quod non debet servitium domino regi, 
 nisi in comitatu Pictaviensi, et ad sump- 
 tus regis, tamen venit ad preces regis 
 cum tribus militibus et duodecim scuti- 
 feris. Guido de Lusigniaco Dom. de 
 Pierac dicit, quod non debet aliquid regi 
 prseter homagium. 
 
 ""^ This was the custom of Beauvoisis. 
 (Beaumanoir, c. 2.) 
 
 " Du Cange, et Carpentier, voc. Hostis. 
 
I02 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ance, but renewed from time to time upon the death of the pos- 
 sessor, till long custom grew up into right. Hence a sum of 
 money, something between a price and a gratuity, would natu- 
 rally be offered by the heir on receiving a fresh investiture of 
 the fief; and length of time might as legitimately turn this pres- 
 ent into a due of the lord, as it rendered the inheritance of the 
 tenant indefeasible. This is a very specious account of the matter. 
 But those who consider the antiquity to which hereditary bene- 
 fices may be traced, and the unreserved expressions of those in- 
 struments by which they were created, as well as the undoubted 
 fact that a large proportion of fiefs had been absolute allodial 
 inheritances, never really granted by the superior, will perhaps 
 be led rather to look for the origin of reliefs in that rapacity with 
 which the powerful are ever ready to oppress the feeble. When 
 a feudal tenant died, the lord, taking advantage of his own 
 strength and the confusion of the family, would seize the estate 
 into his hands, either by the right of force or under some litigious 
 pretext. Against this violence the heir could in general have 
 no resource but a compromise; and we know how readily acts 
 of successful injustice change their name and move demurely, 
 like the wolf in the fable, under the clothing of law. Reliefs and 
 other feudal incidents are said to have been established in 
 France "^^ about the latter part of the tenth century, and they 
 certainly appear in the famous edict of Conrad the Salic, in 1037, 
 which recognises the usage of presenting horses and arms to the 
 lord upon a change of tenancy."^^ But this also subsisted under 
 the name of heriot, in England, as early as the reign of Canute. 
 A relief was a sum of money (unless where charter or custom 
 introduced a different tribute) due from every one of full age, 
 taking a fief by descent. This was in some countries arbitrary, 
 or ad misericordiam, and the exactions practised under this pre- 
 tence both upon superior and inferior vassals ranked among the 
 greatest abuses of the feudal policy. Henry I of England prom- 
 ises in his charter that they shall in future be just and reasonable; 
 but the rate does not appear to have been finally settled till it 
 was laid down in Magna Charta at about a fourth of the annual 
 value of the fief. We find also fixed reliefs among the old cus- 
 toms of Normandy and Beauvoisis. By a law of St. Louis, in 
 1245,'^^ the lord was entitled to enter upon the lands, if the heir 
 could not pay the relief, and possess them for a year. This right 
 existed unconditionally in England under the name of primer 
 seisin, but was confined to the king.®*' 
 
 " " Ordonnances des Rois de France," me to doubt the received opinion that 
 *°"^^J' preface, p. lo. Italian fiefs were not hereditary before 
 
 " Servato usu valvassorum majorum the promulgation of this edict. 
 
 in tradendis armis equisque suis seniori- ^o " Qrdonnances des Rois," p. 55 
 
 bus. This, among other reasons, leads ^o j)^ Cange, v. Placitum, Relev 
 
 evium, 
 
FEUDAL INCIDENTS 
 
 103 
 
 2. Closely connected with reliefs were the fines paid to the 
 lord upon the alienation of his vassal's feud, and, indeed, we fre- 
 quently find them called by the same name. The spirit of feudal 
 tenure established so intimate a connection between the two 
 parties that it could be dissolved by neither without requiring 
 the other's consent. If the lord transferred his seigniory, the 
 tenant was to testify his concurrence; and this ceremony was long 
 kept up in England under the name of attornment. The assent 
 of the lord to his vassal's alienation was still more essential, and 
 more difficult to be attained. He had received his fief, it was 
 supposed, for reasons peculiar to himself or to his family; at least 
 his heart and arm were bound to his superior, and his service 
 was not to be exchanged for that of a stranger, who might be 
 unable or unwilling to render it. A law of Lothaire II in Italy 
 forbids the alienation of fiefs without the lord's consent.®^ This 
 prohibition is repeated in one of Frederick I, and a similar en- 
 actment was made by Roger, King of Sicily.^^ By the law of 
 France the lord was entitled, upon every alienation made by his 
 tenant, either to redeem the fief by paying the purchase money 
 or to claim a certain part of the value, by way of fine, upon the 
 change of tenancy.®^ In England even the practice of subinfeuda- 
 tion, which was more conformable to the law of fiefs and the 
 military genius of the system, but injurious to the suzerains, who 
 lost thereby their escheats and other advantages of seigniory, 
 was checked by Magna Charta,^* and forbidden by the statute 
 
 Sporla. By many customs a relief was 
 due on every change of the lord, as well 
 as of the vassal, but this was not the 
 case in England. Beaumont speaks of 
 reliefs as due only on collateral succes- 
 sion. (" Coutumes de Beauvoisis, c. 
 27.) And this, according to Du Cange, 
 was the general rule in the customary 
 law of France. In Anjou and Mame 
 they were not even due upon succession 
 between brothers. (" Ordonnances des 
 Rois," tome i, p. 58.) And M. de Pas- 
 toret, in his valuable preface to the six- 
 teenth volume of that collection, says it 
 was a rule that the king had nothing 
 upon lineal succession of a fief, whether 
 in the ascending or descending line, but 
 la bouche et les mains— i. e., homage and 
 fealty (p. 20). 
 
 81 " Lib. Feudorum," 1. ii, tit. 9 and 
 52. This was principally levelled at the 
 practice of alienating feudal property in 
 favour of the Church, which was called 
 pro anima iudicare. (Radevicus in " Ges- 
 tis Frederick I," 1. iv, c. 7; "Lib. Feud.," 
 
 1. i, tit. 7, 16; 1. ii, tit. ID.) 
 
 82 Giannone, 1. ii, c. 5. 
 
 83 Du Cange, v. Reaccapitum, Placitum, 
 Rachatum. Pastoret, preface au seizieme 
 tome des " Ordonnances," p. 20; Houard, 
 " Diet, du Droit Normand," art. Fief Ar- 
 gou; "Inst, du Droit Frangois," 1. ii, c. 
 
 2. In Beaumanoir's age and district, at 
 least, subinfeudation without the lord's 
 
 license incurred a forfeiture of the land; 
 and his reason extends, of course, more 
 strongly to alienation. ('' Coiitumes de 
 Beauvoisis," c. 2; Velly, tome vi, p. 187.) 
 But, by the general law of feuds, the 
 former was strictly regular, while the 
 tenant forfeited his land by the latter. 
 Craig mentions this distinction as one 
 for which he is perplexed to account. 
 (" Jus Feudale," 1. iii, tit. 3, p. 632.) It 
 is, however, perfectly intelligible upon 
 the original principles of feudal tenure. 
 
 8* Dalrymple seems to suppose that the 
 thirty-second chapter of Magna Charta 
 relates to alienation and not to subin- 
 feudation. (" Essay on Feudal Proper- 
 ty," edit. 1758, p. 83. See Sir E. Coke, 
 2 Inst., pp. 65, 501 ; and Wright on " Ten- 
 ures," contra.) Mr. Hargrave observes 
 that " the history of our law with respect 
 to the powers of alienation before the 
 statute of Quia Emptores terrarum is very 
 much involved in obscurity." (" Notes 
 on Co. Lit,," 43, a.) In Glanville's time 
 apparently a man could only alienate 
 (to hold of himself) rationabilem partem 
 de terra sua (1. vii, c. i). But this may 
 have been in favour of the kindred as 
 much as of the lord. (Dalrymple's " Es- 
 say," ubi supra.) 
 
 It is probable that Coke is mistaken in 
 supposing that " at the common law the 
 tenant might have made a feoffment of the 
 whole tenancy to be holden of the lord." 
 
104 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 i8 Edward I, called Quia Emptores, which at the same time gave 
 the. liberty of alienating lands, to be holden of the grantor's im- 
 mediate lord. The tenants of the crown were not included in this 
 act; but that of i Edward III, c. 12, enabled them to alienate, 
 upon the payment of a composition into chancery, which was 
 fixed at one third of the annual value of the lands.^^ 
 
 These restraints, placed for the lord's advantage upon the 
 transfer of feudal property, are not to be confounded with those 
 designed for the protection of heirs and preservation of famiHes. 
 Such were the jus protimeseos in the books of the fiefs,®^ and 
 retrait lignager of the French law, which gave to the relations 
 of the vendor a pre-emption upon the sale of any fief, and a right 
 of subsequent redemption. Such was the positive prohibition 
 of alienating a fief held by descent from the father (feudum 
 paternum), without the consent of the kindred on that line." 
 Such, too, were the still more rigorous fetters imposed by the 
 English statute of entails, which precluded all lawful alienation, 
 till, after two centuries, it was overthrown by the fictitious process 
 of a common recovery. Though these partake in some measure 
 of the feudal spirit, and would form an important head in the 
 legal history of that system, it will be sufficient to allude to them 
 in a sketch which is confined to the development of its political 
 influence. 
 
 A custom very similar in effect to subinfeudation was the 
 tenure by frerage, which prevailed in many parts of France. 
 Primogeniture, in that extreme which our common law has estab- 
 lished, was unknown, I believe, in every country upon the conti- 
 nent. The customs of France found means to preserve the dignity 
 of families and the indivisibility of a feudal homage without ex- 
 posing the younger sons of a gentleman to absolute beggary 
 or dependence. Baronies, indeed, were not divided; but the 
 eldest son was bound to make a provision in money, by way 
 of appanage, for the other children, in proportion to his circum- 
 stances and their birth.^® As to inferior iiefs, in many places 
 an equal partition was made; in others, the eldest took the chief 
 portion, generally two thirds, and received the homage of his 
 brothers for the remaining part, which they divided. To the 
 lord of whom the fief was held, himself did homage for the 
 whole.«» In the early times of the feudal policy, when military 
 service was the great object of the relation between lord and 
 
 85 
 
 Com- 
 
 2 Inst., p. 66; Blackstone's 
 mentaries," vol. ii, c. 5. 
 
 8« " Lib. Feud.," 1. v, tome xiii. There 
 were analogies to this jus TrpoTi/mTfo-ews in 
 the Roman law, and, still more closely, 
 in the constitutions of the latter Byzan- 
 tine emperors. 
 
 ^' Alienatio feudi paterni non valet 
 etiam domini voluntate, nisi agnatis con- 
 
 sentientibus. (" Lib. Feud." apud Wright 
 
 Uu Cange, v. Apanamentum, Bare. 
 J5aronie ne depart mie entre freres se 
 leur pere ne leur a fait partie; mes li 
 amsnez doit faire avenant bienfet au 
 puisne, et si doit les filles marier. (" Eta- 
 bhssem. de St. Louis," c. 24.) 
 
 ^ This was also the law of Flanders 
 
FEUDAL INCIDENTS I05 
 
 vassal, this, like all other subinfeudation, was rather advanta- 
 geous to the former, for when the homage of a fief was divided, 
 the service was diminished in proportion. Suppose, for exam- 
 ple, the obligation of military attendance for an entire manor 
 to have been forty days; if that came to be equally split among 
 two, each would owe but a service of twenty. But if, instead 
 of being homagers to the same suzerain, one tenant held im- 
 mediately of the other, as every feudatory might summon the 
 aid of his own vassals, the superior lord would, in fact, obtain 
 the service of both. Whatever opposition, therefore, was made 
 to the rights of subinfeudation or frerage would indicate a decay 
 in the military character, the living principle of feudal tenure. 
 Accordingly, in the reign of Philip Augustus, when the fabric 
 was beginning to shake, we find a confederate agreement of 
 some principal nobles sanctioned by the king, to abrogate the 
 mesne tenure of younger brothers, and establish an immediate 
 dependence of each upon the superior lord.*^*^ This, however, was 
 not universally adopted, and the original frerage subsisted to the 
 last in some of the customs of France.^^ 
 
 3. As fiefs descended but to the posterity of the first taker, 
 or at the utmost to his kindred, they necessarily became some- 
 times vacant for want of heirs, especially where, as in England, 
 there was no power of devising them by will. In this case it was 
 obvious that they ought to revert to the lord, from whose prop- 
 erty they had been derived. These reversions became more fre- 
 quent through the forfeitures occasioned by the vassal's delin- 
 quency, either toward his superior lord or the state. Various 
 cases are laid down in the *' Assises de Jerusalem," where the 
 vassal forfeits his land for a year, for his life, or forever.^- But 
 under rapacious kings, such as the Norman line in England, 
 absolute forfeitures came to prevail, and a new doctrine was in- 
 troduced, the corruption of blood, by which the heir was effect- 
 ually excluded from deducing his title at any distant time through 
 an attainted ancestor. 
 
 4. Reliefs, fines upon alienation, and escheats seem to be 
 natural reservations in the lord's bounty to his vassal. He had 
 rights of another class which principally arose out of fealty and 
 intimate attachment. Such were the aids which he was entitled 
 to call for in certain prescribed circumstances. These depended 
 a great deal upon local custom, and were often extorted unreason- 
 
 and Hainault. (Martenne, *' Thesaurus work it is said that primogeniture was 
 
 Anecdotor," tome i, p. 1092.) The cus- introduced by the Normans from Scandi- 
 
 toms as to succession were exceedingly navia. 
 
 various, as indeed they continued to be °<> " Ordonnances des Rois," tome i, 
 
 until the late generalization of French p. 29. 
 
 law. (" Recueil des Histor.," tome ii, °^ Du Cange, " Dissert. III. sur Join- 
 preface, p. 108; "Hist, de Languedoc," ville"; Beauman., c. 47. 
 tome ii, pp. iii, 511.) In the former "^ C. 200, 201. 
 
io6 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ably. Du Cange mentions several as having existed in France; 
 such as an aid for the lord's expedition to the Holy Land, for 
 marrying his sister or eldest son, and for paying a relief to his 
 suzerain on taking possession of his land.®^ Of these, the last 
 appears to have been the most usual in England. But this and 
 other aids occasionally exacted by the lords were felt as a severe 
 grievance; and by Magna Charta three only are retained: to 
 make the lord's eldest son a knight, to marry his eldest daughter, 
 and to redeem his person from prison. They were restricted 
 to nearly the same description by a law of William I of Sicily 
 and by the customs of France.^* These feudal aids are deserving 
 of our attention, as the beginnings of taxation, of which for a 
 long time they in a great measure answered the purpose, till 
 the craving necessities and covetous policy of kings substituted 
 for them more durable and onerous burdens. 
 
 I might here, perhaps, close the enumeration of feudal inci- 
 dents, but that the two remaining, wardship and marriage, though 
 only partial customs, were those of our own country, and tend 
 to illustrate the rapacious character of a feudal aristocracy. 
 
 5. In England and in Normandy, which either led the way 
 to, or adopted, all these English institutions, the lord had the 
 wardship of his tenant during minority.^^ By virtue of this 
 right he had both the care of his person and received to his own 
 use the profits of the estate. There is something in this custom 
 very conformable to the feudal spirit, since none was so fit as 
 the lord to train up his vassal to arms, and none could put in so 
 good a claim to enjoy the fief, while the military service for which 
 it had been granted was suspended. This privilege of guardian- 
 ship seems to have been enjoyed by the lord in some parts of 
 Germany;®^ but in the law of France the custody of the land 
 was intrusted to the next heir, and that of the person, as in socage 
 tenures among us, to the nearest kindred of that blood which 
 could not inherit.^^ By a gross abuse of this custom in England, 
 the right of guardianship in chivalry, or temporary possession 
 
 ^3 Du Cange, voc. Auxilium. 
 
 »* Giannone, I. xii, c. s; Velly, tome 
 vi, p. 200; " Ordonnances des Rois," tome 
 i, p. 138; tome xvi, preface. 
 
 ^^ " Recueil des Historiens," tome xi, 
 preface, p. 162; Argou, " Inst, au Droit 
 Frangois," 1. i, c. 6; Houard, " Anciennes 
 Loix des FranQois," tome i, p. 147. 
 
 »" Schilter, " Institutiones Juris Feu- 
 dalist' p. 85. 
 
 ^^ Du Cange, v. Custodia; "Assises de 
 Jerusalem," c. 178; " Etablissemens de 
 St. Louis," c. 17: Beaumanoir, c. 15; Ar- 
 gou, 1. i, c. 6. The second' of these uses 
 nearly the same expression as Sir John 
 Fortescue in accounting for the exclusion 
 of the next heir from guardianship of the 
 person; that mauvaise convoitise li fairoit 
 faire la garde du loup. 
 
 T know not any mistake more usual in 
 English writers who have treated of the 
 feudal law than that of supposing that 
 guardianship in chivalry was a univer- 
 sal custom. A charter of 1198, in Rymer, 
 tome i, p. 105, seems indeed to imply that 
 the incidents of garde noble and of mar- 
 riage existed in the isle of Oleron. But 
 Eleanor, by a later instrument, grants 
 that the inhabitants of that island should 
 have the wardship and marriage of their 
 heirs without any interposition, and ex- 
 pressly abrogates all the evil customs 
 that her husband had introduced (p. 112). 
 From hence I should infer that Henry II 
 had endeavoured to impose these feudal 
 burdens (which perhaps were then new 
 even in England) upon his continental 
 dominions. Radulphus de Diceto tells us 
 
FEUDAL INCIDENTS 
 
 107 
 
 of the lands, was assigned over to strangers. This was one of 
 the most vexatious parts of our feudal tenures, and was never, 
 perhaps, more sorely felt than in their last stage under the Tudor 
 and Stuart families. 
 
 6. Another right given to the lord by the Norman and Eng- 
 lish laws was that of marriage, or of tendering a husband to his 
 female wards while under age, whom they could not reject with- 
 out forfeiting the value of the marriage ; that is, as much as 
 any one would give to the guardian for such an alliance. This 
 was afterward extended to male wards, and became a very lucra- 
 tive source of extortion to the crown, as well as to mesne lords. 
 This custom seems to have had the same extent as that of ward- 
 ships. It is found in the ancient books of Germany, but not 
 of France.®® The kings, however, and even inferior lords, of 
 that country, required their consent to be solicited for the mar- 
 riage of their vassals' daughters. Several proofs of this occur in 
 the history as well as in the laws of France; and the same pre- 
 rogative existed in Germany, Sicily, and England.^® A still more 
 remarkable law prevailed in the kingdom of Jerusalem. The 
 lord might summon any female vassal to accept one of three 
 whom he should propose as her husband. No other condition 
 seems to have been imposed on him in selecting these suitors 
 than that they should be of equal rank with herself. Neither 
 the maiden's coyness nor the widow's affliction, neither aversion 
 to the proffered candidates nor love to one more favoured, seem 
 to have passed as legitimate excuses. One, only one plea, could 
 come from the lady's mouth who was resolute to hold her land 
 in single blessedness. It was, that she was past sixty years of 
 age; and after this unwelcome confession it is justly argued by 
 the author of the law-book which I quote, that the lord could 
 not decently press her into matrimony.^^^ However outrageous 
 
 ever, observed (" Hist, de la Civilisation 
 en France," Legon 39) that the feudal 
 incidents of guardianship in chivalry by 
 marriage were more frequent than I seem 
 to suppose. The customary law was so 
 variable that it is dangerous to rely on 
 particular instances, or to found a gen- 
 eral negative on their absence. 1848.] 
 
 ^^ " Ordonnances des Rois," tome i, p. 
 iSS; "Assises de Jerus.," c. 180, and 
 Thaumassiere's note; Du Cange, ubi 
 supra; Glanvil., 1. vii, c. 12; Giannone, 
 1. xi, c. 5 ; Wright on "Tenures," p. 
 94. St. Louis in return declared that he 
 would not marry his own daughter with- 
 out the consent of his barons. (Joinville, 
 tome ii, p. 140.) Henry I of England 
 had promised the same. The guardian of 
 a female minor was obliged to give se- 
 curity to her lord not to marry her with- 
 out his consent. (" Etablissemens de St. 
 Louis," c. 63.) 
 
 100 "Ass. de Jerus.," c. 224. I must 
 observe that Lauriere says this usage pre- 
 
 of a claim made by him to the wardship 
 of Chateauroux in Berry, which could 
 not legally have been subject to that 
 custom. (" Twysden. X Scriptores," p. 
 599.) And he set up pretensions to the 
 custody of the duchy of Brittany after 
 the death of his son Geoffrey. This 
 might perhaps be justified by the law 
 of Normandy, on which Brittany depend- 
 ed. But Philip Augustus made a similar 
 claim. In fact, these political assertions 
 of right, prompted by ambition and sup- 
 ported by force, are bad precedents to 
 establish rules of jurisprudence. Both 
 Philip and Henry were abundantly dis- 
 posed to realize so convenient a preroga- 
 tive as that of guardianship in chivalry 
 over the fiefs of their vassals. (Little- 
 ton's " Henry II," vol. iii, p. 441.) 
 
 ®8 Schilter, ubi supra. Du Cange, voc. 
 Disparagare, seems to admit this feudal 
 right in France; but the passages he 
 quotes do not support it. See also the 
 word Maritagium. [M. Guizot has, how- 
 
io8 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 such a usage may appear to our ideas, it is to be recollected 
 that the peculiar circumstances of that little state rendered it in- 
 dispensable to possess in every fief a proper vassal to fulfil the 
 duties of war. 
 
 These feudal servitudes distinguish the maturity of the sys- 
 tem. No trace of them appears in the capitularies of Charle- 
 magne and his family, nor in the instruments by which benefices 
 were granted. I believe that they did not make part of the regu- 
 lar feudal law before the eleventh, or, perhaps, the twelfth cen- 
 tury, though doubtless partial usages of this kind had grown 
 up antecedently to either of those periods. If I am not mis- 
 taken, no allusion occurs to the lucrative rights of seigniory in the 
 " Assises de Jerusalem," which are a monument of French usages 
 in the eleventh century. Indeed, that very general commutation of 
 allodial property into tenure which took place between the middle 
 of the ninth and eleventh centuries would hardly have been ef- 
 fected if fiefs had then been liable to such burdens and so much 
 extortion. In half-barbarous ages the strong are constantly en- 
 croaching upon the weak ; a truth which, if it needed illustration, 
 might find it in the progress of the feudal system. 
 
 We have thus far confined our inquiry to fiefs holden on terms 
 of military service; since those are the most ancient and regular, 
 as well as the most consonant to the spirit of the system. They 
 alone were called proper feuds, and all were presumed to be 
 of this description until the contrary was proved by the charter 
 of investiture. A proper feud was bestowed without price, with- 
 out fixed stipulation, upon a vassal capable of serving personally 
 in the field. But gradually, with the help of a little legal inge- 
 nuity, improper fiefs of the most various kinds were introduced, 
 retaining little of the characteristics, and less of the spirit, which 
 distinguished the original tenures. Women, if indeed that were 
 an innovation, were admitted to inherit them ; ^^^ they were 
 granted for a price, and without reference to military service. 
 The language of the feudal law was applied by a kind of meta- 
 phor to almost every transfer of property. Hence pensions of 
 money and allowances of provisions, however remote from right 
 notions of a fief, were sometimes granted under that name; and 
 even where land was the subject of the donation, its conditions 
 were often lucrative, often honorary, and sometimes ludicrous.^^^ 
 
 vailed en plusieurs lieux, though he 
 quotes no authority. (" Ordonnances des 
 Kois," p. 155.) 
 
 101 Women did not inherit fiefs in the 
 German Empire, Whether they were 
 ever excluded from succession in France 
 I know not; the genius of a military 
 tenure, and the old Teutonic customs, 
 preserved in the Salic law, seem adverse 
 to their possession of feudal lands; yet the 
 
 practice, at least from the eleventh century 
 downward, does not support the theory. 
 102 Crag., " Jus Feudale," 1. i, tit. lo; 
 Du Cange, voc. Feudum de Camera, etc. 
 In the treaty between Henry I of Eng- 
 land and Robert, Count of Flanders, 
 A. D. iioi, the king stipulates to pay an- 
 nually 400 marks of silver, in feodo, for 
 the military service of his ally. (Rymer, 
 " Foedera,'' tome i, p. 2.) 
 
FIEFS OF OFFICE 
 
 109 
 
 There is one extensive species of feudal tenure which may 
 be distinctly noticed. The pride of wealth in the middle ages 
 was principally exhibited in a multitude of dependents. The 
 court of Charlemagne was crowded with officers of every rank, 
 some of the most eminent of whom exercised functions about 
 the royal person which would have been thought fit only for 
 slaves in the palace of Augustus or Antonine. The freeborn 
 Franks saw nothing menial in the titles of cup-bearer, steward, 
 marshal, and master of the horse, which are still borne by the 
 noblest families in many parts of Europe, and, till lately, by 
 sovereign princes in the empire. ^^^ From the court of the king 
 this favourite piece of magnificence descended to those of the 
 prelates and barons, who surrounded themselves with household 
 officers called ministerial, a name equally applied to those of a 
 servile and of a liberal description. ^^"^ The latter of these were 
 rewarded with grants of lands, which they held under a feudal 
 tenure by the condition of performing some domestic service 
 to the lord. What was called in our law grand sergeanty affords 
 an instance of this species of fief.^°^ It is, however, an instance 
 of the noblest kind; but Muratori has given abundance of proofs 
 that the commonest mechanical arts were carried on in the 
 houses of the great by persons receiving lands upon those condi- 
 tions.^^® 
 
 These imperfect feuds, however, belong more properly to 
 the history of law, and are chiefly noticed in the present sketch 
 because they attest the partiality manifested during the middle 
 ages to the name and form of a feudal tenure. In the regular 
 military fief we see the real principle of the system, which might 
 originally have been defined an alliance of free landholders ar- 
 ranged in degrees of subordination, according to their respective 
 capacities of affording mutual support. 
 
 The peculiar and varied attributes of feudal tenures naturally 
 gave rise to a new jurisprudence, regulating territorial rights in 
 those parts of Europe which had adopted the system. For a 
 
 ^"^ The Count of Anjou, under Louis 
 VI, claimed the office of Great Seneschal 
 of France; that is, to carry dishes to the 
 king's table on state days. (Sismondi, 
 V, I3S-) Thus the feudal notions of 
 grand sergeanty prepared the way for the 
 restoration of royal supremacy, as the 
 military tenures had impaired it. The 
 wound and the remedy came from the 
 same lance. If the feudal system was 
 incompatible with despotism, and even, 
 while in its full vigour, with legitimate 
 authority, it kept alive the sense of a 
 supreme chief, of a superiority of rank, 
 of a certain subjection to an hereditary 
 sovereign, not yet testified by unlimited 
 obedience, but by homage and loyalty. 
 
 "* Schmidt, " Hist, des Allemands," 
 
 tome iii, p. 92; Du Cange, v. Familia, 
 Ministeriales. 
 
 105 " This tenure," says Littleton, " is 
 where a man holds his lands or tene- 
 ments of our sovereign lord the king by 
 such services as he ought to do in his 
 proper person to the king, as to carry 
 the banner of the king, or his lance, or 
 to lead his array, or to be his marshal, 
 or to carry his sword before him at his 
 coronation, or to be his sewer at his cor- 
 onation, or his carver, or his butler, or 
 to be one of his chamberlains at the re- 
 ceipt of his exchequer, or to do other 
 like services." (Sect, 153.) 
 
 io«"Antiq. Ital. Dissert.," 11, ad 
 finem. 
 
no 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 length of time this rested in traditionary customs, observed in 
 the domains of each prince or lord, without much regard to those 
 of his neighbours. Laws were made occasionally by the em- 
 peror in Germany and Italy, which tended to fix the usages of 
 those countries. About the year 1170, Girard and Obertus, two 
 Milanese lawyers, published two books of the law of fiefs, which 
 obtained a great authority, and have been regarded as the ground- 
 work of that jurisprudence.^^^ A number of subsequent com- 
 mentators swelled this code with their glosses and opinions to 
 enlighten or obscure the judgment of the imperial tribunals. 
 These were chiefly civilians or canonists, who brought to the 
 interpretation of old barbaric customs the principles of a very 
 different school. Hence a manifest change was wrought in the 
 law of feudal tenure, which they assimilated to the usufruct or 
 the emphyteusis of the Roman code; modes of property some- 
 what analogous in appearance, but totally distinct in principle, 
 from the legitimate fief. These Lombard lawyers propagated a 
 doctrine which has been too readily received, that the feudal 
 system originated in their country; and some writers upon juris- 
 prudence, such as Duck and Sir James Craig, incline to give 
 a preponderating authority to their code. But whatever weight 
 it may have possessed within the limits of the empire, a different 
 guide must be followed in the ancient customs of France and 
 England.^^^ These were fresh from the fountain of that curious 
 polity with which the stream of Roman law had never mingled 
 its waters. In England we know that the Norman system estab- 
 lished between the conquest and the reign of Henry II was 
 restrained by regular legislation, by paramount courts of justice, 
 and by learned writings, from breaking into discordant local 
 usages, except in a comparatively small number of places, and has 
 become the principal source of our common law. But the inde- 
 pendence of the French nobles produced a much greater vari- 
 ety of customs. The whole number collected and reduced to cer- 
 tainty in the sixteenth century amounted to two hundred and 
 eighty-five, or, omitting those inconsiderable for extent or pecul- 
 iarity, to sixty. The earliest written customary in France is that 
 of Beam, which is said to have been confirmed by Viscount 
 Gaston IV in 1088.^^^ Many others were written in the two sub- 
 sequent ages, of which the customs of Beauvoisis, compiled by 
 
 1" Giannone, " 1st. di Napoli," 1. xiii, 
 c. 3. The " Libri Feudorum " are print- 
 ed in most editions of the " Corpus Juris 
 Civilis." 
 
 !<** Giannone explicitly contrasts the 
 French and Lombard laws respecting 
 fiefs. The latter was the foundation of 
 the " Libri Feudorum," and formed the 
 common law of Italy. The former was 
 introduced by Roger Guiscard into his 
 
 dominions, in three books of constitu- 
 tions, printed in Lindebrog's collection. 
 There were several material differences, 
 which Giannone enumerates, especially 
 the Norman custom of primogeniture. 
 (" 1st. di Nap.." 1. xi, c. 5.) 
 
 ^'^ There are two editions of this curi- 
 ous old code: one at Pau, in 1552, repub- 
 lished with a fresh title-page and per- 
 mission of Henry IV in 1602; the other 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 
 
 III 
 
 Beaumanoir under Philip III, are the most celebrated, and con- 
 tain a mass of information on the feudal constitution and man- 
 ners. Under Charles VII an ordinance was made for the forma- 
 tion of a general code of customary law, by ascertaining forever 
 in a written collection those of each district; but the work was 
 not completed till the reign of Charles IX. This was what may 
 be called the common law of the pays coutumiers, or northern 
 division of France, and the rule of all their tribunals, unless where 
 controlled by royal edicts. 
 
 The advocates of a Roman origin for most of the institutions 
 which we find in the kingdoms erected on the ruins of the em- 
 pire are naturally prone to magnify the analogies to feudal tenure 
 which Rome presents to us, and even to deduce it either from 
 the ancient relation of patron and client, and that of personal 
 commendation, which was its representative in a later age, or 
 from the frontier lands granted in the third century to the Lseti, 
 or barbarian soldiers, who held them, doubtless, subject to a con- 
 xiition of military service. The use of commendation especially, 
 so frequent in the fifth century, before the conquest of Gaul, as 
 well as afterward, does certainly bear a strong analogy to vassal- 
 age, and I have already pointed it out as one of its sources. It 
 wanted, however, that definite relation to the tenure of land which 
 distinguished the latter. The royal Antrustio (whether the word 
 commendatus were applied to him or not) stood bound by grati- 
 tude and loyalty to his sovereign, and in a very different degree 
 from a common subject; but he was not perhaps strictly a vassal 
 till he had received a territorial benefice. ^^^ The complexity of 
 subinfeudation could have no analogy in commendation. The 
 grants to veterans and to the Lseti are so far only analogous 
 to fiefs, that they established the principle of holding lands on a 
 condition of military service. But this service was no more than 
 what, both under Charlemagne and in England, if not in other 
 times and places, the allodial freeholder was bound to render for 
 the defence of the realm; it was more commonly required, be- 
 cause the lands were on a barbarian frontier; but the duty was 
 not even very analogous to that of a feudal tenant.^^^ The es- 
 
 at Lescars, in 1633. These laws, as we 
 read them, are subsequent to a revision 
 made in the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, in which they were more or less 
 corrected. The basis, however, is un- 
 questionably very ancient. We even find 
 the composition for homicide preserved 
 in them, so that murder was not a capital 
 offence in Beam, though robberv was 
 such. (" Rubrica de Homicidis, art, 
 xxxi; see, too, " Rubrica de Poenis," art. 
 i and ii.) 
 
 no This word " vassal _" is used very 
 indefinitely; it means, in its original 
 sense, only a servant or dependent. But 
 
 m the continental records of histories 
 we commonly find it applied to feudal 
 tenants. 
 
 ^^^ If Gothofred is right in his con- 
 struction of the tenure of these Lseti, 
 they were not even generally liable to 
 this part of our trinoda necessitas, but 
 only to conscription for the legions. Et 
 ea tamen conditione terras illis excolen- 
 das Laeti consequebantur, ut delectibus 
 quoque obnoxii essent et legionibus in- 
 sererentur. (" Not. ad Cod. Theod.," 1. 
 vii, tit. 20, c. 12.) Sir Francis Palgrave, 
 however, says, " The duty of bearing 
 arms was inseparably connected with the 
 
112 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 sence of a fief seems to be that its tenant owed fealty to a lord, 
 and not to the state or the sovereign; the lord might be the latter, 
 but it was not, feudally speaking, as a sovereign that he was 
 obeyed. This is, therefore, sufficient to warrant us in tracing 
 the real theory of feuds no higher than the Merovingian history 
 in France; their full establishment, as has been seen, is consid- 
 erably later. But the preparatory steps in the constitutions of 
 the declining empire are of considerable importance, not merely 
 as analogies, but as predisposing circumstances, and even germs 
 to be subsequently developed. The beneficiary tenure of lands 
 could not well be brought by the conquerors from Germany; but 
 the donatives of arms or precious metals bestowed by the chiefs 
 on their followers were also analogous to fiefs ; and, as the Roman 
 institutions were one source of the law of tenure, so these were 
 another. 
 
 It is of great importance to be on our guard against seeming 
 analogies which vanish away when they are closely observed. 
 We should speak inaccurately if we were to use the word feudal 
 for the service of the Irish or Highland clans to their chieftain; 
 their tie was that of imagined kindred and respect for birth, not 
 the spontaneous compact of vassalage. Much less can we ex- 
 tend the name of feud, though it is sometimes strangely mis- 
 applied, to the polity of Poland and Russia. All the Polish 
 nobles were equal in rights, and independent of each other; all 
 who were less than noble were in servitude. No government 
 can be more opposite to the long gradations and mutual duties 
 of the feudal system. ^^^ 
 
 The regular machinery and systematic establishment of feuds, 
 in fact, may be considered as almost confined to the dominions 
 of Charlemagne, and to those countries which afterward derived 
 it from thence. In England it can hardly be thought to have 
 existed in a complete state before the conquest. Scotland, it is 
 supposed, borrowed it soon after from her neighbour. The Lom- 
 bards of Benevento had introduced feudal customs into the Nea- 
 politan provinces, which the Norman conquerors afterward per- 
 fected. Feudal tenures were so general in the kingdom of 
 Aragon that I reckon it among the monarchies which were 
 founded upon that basis. ^^^ Charlemagne's empire, it must be 
 
 property." (" English Commonwealth," 
 i. 354-) This is too equivocal; but he cer- 
 tainly means more than Gothofred; he 
 supposes a permanent universal obliga- 
 tion to render service in all public war- 
 fare. 
 
 ^^2 In civil history many instances 
 might be found of feudal ceremonies in 
 countries not regulated by the feudal law. 
 Thus Selden has published an infeuda- 
 tion of a vayvod of Moldavia by the 
 King of Poland, A. D. 1485, in the regu- 
 
 lar forms, vol. iii, p. 514. But these po- 
 litical fiefs have hardly any connection 
 with the general system, and merely de- 
 note the subordination of one prince or 
 people to another. 
 
 "3 It is probable that feudal tenure 
 was as ancient in the north of Spain as 
 in the contiguous provinces of France. 
 But it seems to have chiefly prevailed 
 in Aragon about the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth centuries, when the Moors south 
 of the Ebro were subdued by the enter- 
 
EXTENT OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 
 
 113 
 
 remembered, extended as far as the Ebro. But in Castile ^^* 
 and Portugal they were very rare, and certainly could produce 
 no political effect. Benefices for life were sometimes granted 
 in the kingdoms of Denmark and Bohemia.^^^ Neither of these, 
 however, nor Sweden, nor Hungary, come under the description 
 of countries influenced by the feudal system. ^^® That system, 
 however, after all these limitations, was so extensively diffused 
 that it might produce confusion as well as prolixity to pursue 
 collateral branches of its history in all the countries where it 
 prevailed. But this embarrassment may be avoided without any 
 loss, I trust, of important information. The English constitu- 
 tion will find its place in another portion of these volumes; and 
 the political condition of Italy, after the eleventh century, was 
 not much affected, except in the kingdom of Naples, by the laws 
 of feudal tenure. I shall confine myself, therefore, chiefly to 
 France and Germany, and far more to the former than the latter 
 country. But it may be expedient first to contemplate the state 
 of society in its various classes during the prevalence of feudal 
 principles before we trace their influence upon the national gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 prise of private nobles, who, after con- 
 quering estates for themselves, did hom- 
 age for them to the king. James I, upon 
 the reduction of Valencia, granted lands 
 by way of fief, on condition of defend- 
 ing that kingdom against the Moors, 
 and residing personally upon the estate. 
 Many did not perform this engagement, 
 and were deprived of the lands in conse- 
 quence. It appears by the testament of 
 this monarch that feudal tenures sub- 
 sisted in every part of his dominions. 
 (Martenne, " Thesaurus Anecdotorum," 
 tome i, pp. 1141. 1155) An edict of Peter 
 II in 1210 prohibits the alienation of em- 
 phyteuses without the lord's consent. It 
 is hard to say whether regular fiefs are 
 meant by this word. (De Marca, " Marca 
 Hispanica," p. 1396.) This author says 
 that there were no arriere fiefs in Cata- 
 lonia. 
 
 The Aragonese fiefs appear, however, 
 to have differed from those of other 
 countries in some respects. Zurita nien- 
 tions fiefs according to the custom of* 
 Italy, which he explains to be such as 
 were liable to the usual feudal aids for 
 marrying the lord's daughter, and other 
 occasions. We may infer, therefore, that 
 these prestations were not customary in 
 Aragon. (" Annals de Aragon," tome 
 ii, p. 62.) 
 
 114 What is said of vassalage in Alfonzo 
 X's code. Las siete partidas, is short 
 and obscure: nor am I certain that it 
 meant anything more than voluntary 
 commendation, the custom mentioned in 
 the former part of this chapter, from 
 which the vassal might depart at pleas- 
 ure. See, however, Du Cange, v. Hon- 
 our, where authorities are given for the 
 
 8 
 
 existence of Castilian fiefs; and I have 
 met with occasional mention of them in 
 history. I believe that tenures of this 
 kind were introduced in the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, but not to any 
 great extent. (Marina, " Teoria de las 
 Cortes," tome iii, p. 14.) 
 
 Tenures of a feudal nature, as I col- 
 lect from " Freirii Institut. Juris Lusi- 
 tani," tome ii, tit i and 3, existed in 
 Portugal, though the jealousy of the 
 crown prevented the system from being 
 established. There were even territorial 
 jurisdictions in that kingdom, though 
 not, at least originally, in Castile, 
 
 ^^° Daniae regni politicus status. El- 
 zevir, 1629. Stransky, Respublica Bo- 
 hemica, ib. In one of the oldest Dan- 
 ish historians, Sweno, I have noticed this 
 expression: Waldemarus, patris tunc po- 
 titus feodo. (Langebek, ' Scrip. Rerum 
 Danic," tome i, p. 62.) By this he 
 means the duchy of Sleswick, not a fief, 
 but an honour or government possessed 
 by Waldemar. Saxo Grammaticus calls 
 it, more classically, paternae praefecturae 
 dignitas. Sleswick was, in later times, 
 sometimes held as a fief; but this does 
 not in the least imply that lands in Den- 
 mark proper were feudal, of which I 
 find no evidence. 
 
 ^^^ Though there were no feudal ten- 
 ures in Sweden, yet the nobility and 
 others were exempt from taxes on condi- 
 tion of serving the king with a horse 
 and arms at their own expense; and a 
 distinction was taken between liber and 
 tributarius. But any one of the latter 
 might become of the former class, or 
 vice versa. — Sueciae descriptio. Elzevir, 
 163 I, p. 92. 
 
114 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 It has been laid down already as most probable that no 
 proper aristocracy, except that of wealth, was known under the 
 early kings of France; and it was hinted that hereditary bene- 
 fices — or, in other words, fiefs — might supply the link that was 
 wanting between personal privileges and those of descent. The 
 possessors of beneficiary estates were usually the richest and 
 most conspicuous individuals in the estate. They were immedi- 
 ately connected with the crown, and partakers in the exercise of 
 justice and royal counsels. Their sons now came to inherit 
 this eminence; and, as fiefs were either inalienable, or at least 
 not very frequently alienated, rich families were kept long in 
 sight; and, whether engaged in public affairs, or living with 
 magnificence and hospitality at home, naturally drew to them- 
 selves popular estimation. The dukes and counts, who had 
 changed their quality of governors into that of lords over the 
 provinces intrusted to them, were at the head of this noble class. 
 And in imitation of them their own vassals, as well as those of 
 the crown, and even rich allodialists, assumed titles from their 
 towns or castles, and thus arose a number of petty counts, barons, 
 and viscounts. This distinct class of nobility became coextensive 
 with the feudal tenures.^^^ For the military tenant, however poor, 
 was subject to no tribute; no prestation, but service in the field; 
 he was the companion of his lord in the sports and feasting of 
 his castle, the peer of his court; he fought on horseback, he was 
 clad in the coat of mail, while the commonalty, if summoned at 
 all to war, came on foot, and with no armour of defence. As 
 everything in the habits of society conspired with that prejudice 
 which, in spite of moral philosophers, will constantly raise the 
 profession of arms above all others, it was a natural consequence 
 that a new species of aristocracy, founded upon the mixed con- 
 siderations of birth, tenure, and occupation, sprang out of the 
 feudal system. Every possessor of a fief was a gentleman, though 
 he owned but a few acres of land and furnished his slender con- 
 tribution toward the equipment of a knight. In the " Libri 
 Feudorum," indeed, those who were three degrees removed from 
 the emperor in order of tenancy are considered as ignoble; ^^^ 
 but this is restrained to modern investitures, and in France, where 
 subinfeudation was carried the farthest, no such distinction has 
 met my observation. ^^° 
 
 '^^ M. Guerard observes that in the 
 Chartulary of Chartres, exhibiting the 
 usages of the eleventh and beginning 
 of the twelfth centuries, " La noblesse 
 s'y montre completement constitutee; 
 c'est a dire, privilegiee et hereditaire. 
 Elle peut etre divisee en haute, moyenne, 
 et basse." By the first he understands 
 those who held immediately of the crown; 
 the .middle nobility were mediate vassals. 
 
 but had rights of jurisdiction, which the 
 lower had not. (" Prolegomenes a la 
 Cartulaire de Chartres," p. 30.) 
 
 ^^8 L. ii, tit. 10. 
 
 ^^^ The nobility of an allodial posses- 
 sion, in France, depended upon its right 
 to territorial jurisdiction. Hence there 
 were franc-aleux nobles and franc-aleux 
 roturiers; the latter of which were sub- 
 ject to the jurisdiction of the neighbour- 
 
THE NOBILITY 
 
 115 
 
 There still, however, wanted something to ascertain gentility 
 of blood where it was not marked by the actual tenure of land. 
 This was supplied by two innovations devised in the eleventh 
 and twelfth centuries — the adoption of surnames and of armorial 
 bearings. The first are commonly referred to the former age, 
 when the nobility began to add the names of their estates to their 
 own, or, having any way acquired a distinctive appellation, trans- 
 mitted it to their posterity.^-^ As to armorial bearings, there 
 is no doubt that emblems somewhat similar have been imme- 
 morially used both in war and peace. The shields of ancient 
 warriors and devices upon coins or seals bear no distant resem- 
 blance to modern blazonry. But the general introduction of such 
 bearings as hereditary distinctions has been sometimes attributed 
 to tournaments, wherein the champions were distinguished by 
 fanciful devices; sometimes to the crusades, where a multitude 
 of all nations and languages stood in need of some visible token 
 to denote the banners of their respective chiefs. In fact, the 
 peculiar symbols of heraldry point to both these sources, and 
 have been borrowed in part from each.^-^ Hereditary arms were 
 perhaps scarcely used by private families before the beginning 
 of the thirteenth century.^-^ From that time, however, they be- 
 came very general, and have contributed to elucidate that branch 
 of history which regards the descent of illustrious families. 
 
 When the privileges of birth had thus been rendered capable 
 of legitimate proof, they were enhanced in a great degree, and 
 a line drawn between the high-born and ignoble classes, almost 
 as broad as that which separated liberty from servitude. All 
 offices of trust and power were conferred on the former; those 
 excepted which appertain to the legal profession. A plebeian 
 
 ing lord. (Loiseau, " Traite des Seig- 
 neuries," p. "](>; Denisart, " Dictionnaire 
 des Decisions," art. Franc-aleu.) 
 
 120 Mabillon, " Traite de Diploma- 
 tique," 1. ii, c. 7. The authors of the 
 " Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique," 
 tome ii, p. 563, trace the use of surnames 
 in a few instances even to the begin- 
 ning of the tenth century; but they did , 
 not become general, according to them, 
 till the thirteenth. 
 
 M. Guerard finds a few hereditary sur- 
 names in the eleventh century and many 
 that were personal. (" Cartulaire de 
 Chartres," p. 93.) The latter are not 
 surnames at all, in our usual sense. A 
 good many may be found in " Doomsday," 
 as that of Burdet in Leicestershire, Malet 
 in Suffolk, Corbet in Shropshire, Col- 
 ville in Yorkshire, besides those with de, 
 which, of course, is a local designation, 
 but became hereditary. 
 
 121 " Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscrip- 
 tions," tome XX, p. 579. 
 
 ^-- 1 should be unwilling to make a 
 negative assertion peremptorily in a mat- 
 ter of mere antiquarian research, but I 
 
 am not aware of any decisive evidence 
 that hereditary arms were borne in the 
 twelfth century, except by a very few 
 royal or almost royal families. (Mabil- 
 lon, •' Traite de Diplomatique," 1. ii, c. 
 18.) Those of Geoitrey the Fair, Count 
 of Anjou,_ who died in 1150, are extant 
 on his shield; azure, four lions rampant 
 or. (" Hist. Litteraire de la France," 
 tome ix, p. 165.) If arms had been con- 
 sidered as hereditary at that time, this 
 should be the bearing of England, which, 
 as we all know, diflfers considerably. 
 Louis VII sprinkled his seal and coin 
 with fieurs-de-lis, a very ancient device, 
 or rather ornament, and the same as 
 what are sometimes called bees. The 
 golden ornaments found in the tomb of 
 Childeric I at Tournay, which may be 
 seen in the Library of Paris, may pass 
 either for fleurs-de-lis or bees. Charles 
 V reduced the number to three, and thus 
 fixed the arms of France. The Counts 
 of Toulouse used their cross in the twelfth 
 age; but no other arms, Vaissette tells us, 
 can be traced in Languedoc so far back. 
 (T. iii, p. 514.) 
 
ii6 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 could not possess a fief.^^^ Such at least was the original strict- 
 ness: but as the aristocratic principle grew weaker, an indul- 
 gence was extended to heirs, and afterward to purchasers.^^* 
 They were even permitted to become noble by the acquisition, 
 or at least by its possession for three generations.^^^ But not- 
 withstanding this ennobling quality of the land, which seems 
 rather of an equivocal description, it became an established right 
 of the crown to take every twenty years, and on every change 
 of the vassal, a fine, known by the name of franc-fief, from ple- 
 beians in possession of land held by a noble tenure.^^^ A gentle- 
 man in France or Germany could not exercise any trade with- 
 out derogating — that is, losing the advantages of — his rank. A 
 few exceptions were made, at least in the former country, in 
 favour of some liberal arts and of foreign commerce. ^^^ But in 
 nothing does the feudal haughtiness of birth more show itself 
 than in the disgrace which attended unequal marriages. No 
 children could inherit a territory held immediately of the em- 
 pire unless both their parents belonged to the higher class of 
 nobility. In France the offspring of a gentleman by a plebeian 
 mother were reputed noble for the purposes of inheritance and 
 of exemption from tribute.^^® But they could not be received 
 
 Armorial bearings were in use among 
 the Saracens during the latter crusades, 
 as appears by a passage in Joinville, tome 
 i, p. 88 (" Collect, des Memoires "), and 
 Du Cange's note upon it. Perhaps, how- 
 ever, they may have been adopted in 
 imitation of the Franks, like the cere- 
 monies of knighthood. Villaret ingen- 
 iously conjectures that the separation of 
 different branches of the same family by 
 their settlements in Palestine led to the 
 use of hereditary arms, in order to pre- 
 serve the connection. (T. xi, p. 113.) 
 
 M. Sismondi, I observe, seems to en- 
 tertain no doubt that the noble families 
 of Pisa, including that whose name he 
 bears, had their armorial distinctions in 
 the beginning of the twelfth century. 
 (" Hist, des Repub. Ital.," tome i, p. 
 373.) It is at least probable that the 
 heraldic devices were as ancient in Italy 
 as in any part of Europe. And the au- 
 thors of " Nouveau Traite de Diploma- 
 tique," tome iv, p. 388, incline to refer 
 hereditary arms even in France to the 
 beginning of the twelfth century, though 
 without producing any evidence for this. 
 
 123 We have no English word that con- 
 veys the full sense of roturier. How 
 glorious is this deficiency in our political 
 language, and how different are the ideas 
 suggested by commoner! Roturier, ac- 
 cording to Du Cange, is derived from 
 rupturarius, a peasant, ab agrum rum- 
 pendo. 
 
 12* The " Establishments of St. Louis " 
 forbid this innovation, but Beaumanoir 
 contends that the prohibition does not 
 extend to descent or marriage (c. 48). 
 The roturier who acquired a fief, if he 
 
 challenged any one, fought with ignoble 
 arms, but in all other respects was treated 
 as a gentleman. (Ibid.) Yet a knight 
 was not obliged to do homage to the 
 roturier who became his superior by the 
 acquisition of a fief on which he depend- 
 ed. (Carpentier, Supplement, ad Du 
 Cange, voc. Homagium.) 
 
 1" " Etablissemens de St. Louis," c. 
 143. and note, in " Ordonnances des 
 Rois," tome i. See also preface to the 
 same volume, p. xii. According to Mab- 
 ly, the possession of a fief did not cease 
 to confer nobility (analogous to our 
 barony by tenure) till the " Ordonnances 
 des Blois " in 1579. (" Observations sur 
 I'Hist. de France," 1. iii, c. i. note 6.) 
 But Lauriere, author of the preface above 
 cited, refers to Bouteiller, a writer of the 
 fourteenth century, to prove that no one 
 could become noble without the king's 
 authority. The contradiction will not 
 much perplex us when we reflect on the 
 disposition of lawyers to ascribe all pre- 
 rogatives to the crown, at the expense 
 of territorial proprietors and of ancient 
 customary law. 
 
 120 'pj^g right, originally perhaps usur- 
 ation, called franc fief, began under 
 hilip the Fair. (" Ordonnances des 
 Rois," tome i, p. 324; Denisart, art. 
 Franc-fief.) 
 
 "^ Houard, " Diet, du Droit Normand. 
 Encyclopedic," art. Noblesse; Argou, 1. 
 ii, c. 2.) 
 
 ^^* Nobility, to a certain degree, was 
 communicated through the mother alone, 
 not only by the custom of Champagne, 
 but in all parts of France; that is, the 
 issue were ** gentilhommes du fait de 
 
 g 
 
THE NOBILITY II7 
 
 into any order of chivalry, though capable of simple knight- 
 hood; nor were they considered as any better than a bastard 
 class deeply tainted with the alloy of their maternal extraction. 
 Many instances occur where letters of nobility have been granted 
 to reinstate them in their rank.^^® For several purposes it was 
 necessary to prove four, eight, sixteen, or a greater number of 
 quarters — that is, of coats borne by paternal and maternal an- 
 cestors — and the same practice still subsists in Germany.^^^ 
 
 It appears, therefore, that the original nobility of the Conti- 
 nent were what we may call self-created, and did not derive their 
 rank from any such concessions of their respective sovereigns 
 as have been necessary in subsequent ages. In England the 
 baronies by tenure might belong to the same class if the lands 
 upon which they depended had not been granted by the crown. 
 But the Kings of France, before the end of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, began to assume a privilege of creating nobles by their 
 own authority, and without regard to the tenure of land. Philip 
 the Hardy, in 1271, was the first French king who granted let- 
 ters of nobility; under the reigns of Philip the Fair and his chil- 
 dren they gradually became frequent.^^^ This effected a change 
 in the character of nobility, and had as obvious a moral as other 
 events of the same age had a political influence in diminishing 
 the power and independence of the territorial aristocracy. The 
 privileges originally connected with ancient lineage and exten- 
 sive domains became common to the low-born creatures of a 
 court, and lost consequently part of their title to respect. The 
 lawyers, as I have observed above, pretended that nobility could 
 not exist without a royal concession. They acquired themselves, 
 in return for their exaltation of prerogative, an official nobility 
 by the exercise of magistracy. The institutions of chivalry again 
 gave rise to a vast increase of gentlemen, knighthood, on whom- 
 soever conferred by the sovereign, being a sufficient passport to 
 noble privileges. It was usual, perhaps, to grant previous letters 
 of nobility to a plebeian for whom the honour of knighthood was 
 designed. 
 
 In this noble or gentle class there were several gradations. 
 All those in France who held lands immediately depending upon 
 the crown, whatever titles they might bear, were comprised in 
 the order of barons. These were originally the peers of the king's 
 court; they possessed the higher territorial jurisdiction, and had 
 
 leur corps," and could possess fiefs; but, ^^^ Beaumanoir, c. 45; Du Cange, Dis- 
 
 says Beaumanoir, "la gentilesse par la- sert. lo, sur Joinville; Carpentier, voc. 
 
 quelle on devient chevalier doit venir de Nobilitatio. 
 
 par le pere " (c. 45). There was a pro- ^^^ [Note XII.] 
 
 verbial maxim in French law, rather em- "^ Velly, tome vi, p. 432; Du Cange 
 
 phatic than decent,^ to express the deri- and Carpentier, voc. Nobilitaire, etc.; 
 
 vation of gentility from the father, and of Boulainvilliers, " Hist, de I'Ancien Gou- 
 
 freedom from the mother. vernement de France," tome i, p. 317. 
 
ii8 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 the right of carrying their own banner into the field.^^^ Xq these 
 corresponded the Valvassores majores and Capitanei of the em- 
 pire. In a subordinate class were the vassals of this high nobil- 
 ity, who, upon the Continent, were usually termed Vavassors— 
 an' appellation not unknown, though rare, in England.^^^ The 
 Chatelains belonged to the order of Vavassors, as they held only 
 arriere fiefs; but, having fortified houses, from which they de- 
 rived their name (a distinction very important in those times), 
 and possessing ampler rights of territorial justice, they rose above 
 the level of their fellows in the scale of tenure.^^* But after the 
 personal nobility of chivalry became the object of pride, the 
 Vavassors who obtained knighthood were commonly styled 
 bachelors; those who had not received that honour fell into the 
 class of squires,^^^ or damoiseaux. 
 
 132 Beaumanoir, c. 34; Du Cange, y. 
 Baro; " jfetablissemens de St. Louis," 1. i, 
 c. 24; 1. ii, c. 36. The vassals of inferior 
 lords were, however, called, improperly, 
 barons, both in France and England. 
 (*' Recueil des Historiens," tome xi, p. 
 300; Madox, " Baronia Anglica," p. 133-) 
 In perfect strictness, those only whose 
 immediate tenure of the crown was older 
 than the accession of Hugh Capet were 
 barons of France; namely, Bourbon, 
 Coucy, and Beaujeu, or Beaujolois. It 
 appears, however, by a register in the 
 reign of Philip Augustus, that fifty-nine 
 were reckoned in that class; the feuda- 
 tories of the Capetian fiefs, Paris and 
 Orleans being confounded with the origi- 
 nal vassals of the crown, (Du Cange, 
 voc. Baro.) 
 
 "3 Du Cange, voc. Vavassor; Velly, 
 tome vi, p. 151; Madox, "Baronia An- 
 glica," p. 135. There is, perhaps, hardly 
 any word more loosely used than vavas- 
 sor. Bracton says. Sunt etiam Vavas- 
 sores, magnse dignitatis viri. In France 
 and Germany they are sometimes named 
 with much less honour. Je suis un 
 chevalier ne de c'est part, de vavasseurs 
 et de basse gent, says a romance. This 
 is to be explained by the poverty to 
 which the subdivision of fiefs reduced idle 
 gentlemen. 
 
 Chaucer concludes his picturesque de- 
 scription of the Franklin, in the prologue 
 to the " Canterbury Tales," thus: 
 
 " Was never such a worthy vavassor." 
 This has perplexed some of our com- 
 mentators, who, not knowing well what 
 was meant by a franklin or by a vavassor, 
 fancied the latter to be of much higher 
 quality than the former. The poet, how- 
 ever, was strictly correct; his acquaint- 
 ance with French manners showed him 
 that the country squire, for his franklin 
 is no other, precisely corresponded to the 
 vavassor in France. Those who, having 
 been deceived, by comparatively modern 
 law-books, into a notion that the word 
 franklin denoted but a stout yeoman, in 
 spite of the wealth and rank which 
 Chaucer assigns to him, and believing 
 also, on the authority of the loose phrase 
 
 in Bracton, that all vavassors were 
 " magnai dignitatis viri," might well be 
 puzzled at seeing the words employed as 
 synonyms. See Todd's " Illustrations of 
 Gower and Chaucer " for an instance. 
 
 134 Du Cange, voc. Castellanus; " Cou- 
 tumes de Poitou," tit. iii ; Loiseau, 
 " Traite des Seigneuries," p. 160. Who- 
 ever had a right to a castle had la haute 
 justice, this being so incident to the cas- 
 tle that it was transferred along with it. 
 There might, however, be a seigneur 
 haut-justicier below the chatelain; and a 
 ridiculous distinction was made as to the 
 number of posts by which their gallows 
 might be supported. A baron's instru- 
 ment of execution stood on four posts; a 
 chatelain's on three; while the inferior 
 lord who happened to possess la haute 
 justice was forced to hang his subjects 
 on a two-legged machine. (" Coiatumes 
 de Poitou "; Du Cange, voc. Furca.) 
 
 Lauriere quotes from an old manu- 
 script the following short scale of ranks: 
 Due est la premiere dig^nite, puis comtes, 
 puis viscomtes, et puis baron, et puis 
 chatelain, et puis vavasseur, et puis 
 citaen, et puis villain. (" Ordonnances 
 des Rois," tome i, p. 2'jj.') 
 
 135 Tj^g sons of knights, and gentlemen 
 not yet knighted, took the appellation of 
 squires in the twelfth century. (Vais- 
 sette, " Hist, de Lang.," tome ii, p. 513-) 
 That of Damoiseau came into use in the 
 thirteenth. (Id., tome iii, p. 529.) The 
 latter was, I think, more usual in France. 
 Du Cange gives little information as to 
 the word squire (Scutifer). " Apud An- 
 glos," he says, " penultima est nobilitatis 
 descriptio, inter Equitem et Generosum. 
 Quod et alibi in usu fuit." Squire was 
 not used as a title of distinction in Eng- 
 land till the reign of Edward III. and 
 then but sparingly. Though by Henry 
 VI's time it was grown more common, 
 yet none assumed it but the sons and 
 heirs of knights and some military men; 
 except officers in courts of justice, who, 
 by patent or prescription, had obtained 
 that addition. (Spelman's Posthumous 
 Works, p. 234.) 
 
THE CLERGY 
 
 119 
 
 It will be needless to dwell upon the condition of the inferior 
 clergy, whether secular or professed, as it bears little upon the 
 general scheme of polity. The prelates and abbots, however, 
 it must be understood, were completely feudal nobles. They 
 swore fealty for their lands to the king or other superior, received 
 the homage of their vassals, enjoyed the same immunities, ex- 
 ercised the same jurisdiction, maintained the same authority as 
 the lay lords among whom they dwelt. Military service does 
 not appear to have been reserved in the beneficiary grants made 
 to cathedrals and monasteries. But when other vassals of the 
 crown were called upon to repay the bounty of their sovereign 
 by personal attendance in war, the ecclesiastical tenants were 
 supposed to fall within the scope of this feudal duty, which men 
 little less uneducated and violent than their compatriots were 
 not reluctant to fulfil. Charlemagne exempted, or rather pro- 
 hibited, them from personal service by several capitularies.^^® 
 The practice, however, as every one who has some knowledge 
 of history will be aware, prevailed in succeeding ages. Both in 
 national and private warfare we find very frequent mention of 
 martial prelates.^^^ But, contrary as this actual service might 
 be to the civil as well as ecclesiastical laws, the clergy who held 
 military fiefs were of course bound to fulfil the chief obligation 
 of that tenure and send their vassals into the field. We have 
 many instances of their accompanying the army, though not 
 mixing in the conflict; and even the parish priests headed the 
 militia of their villages. ^^® The prelates, however, sometimes con- 
 trived to avoid this military service, and the payments intro- 
 duced in commutation for it, by holding lands in frank-almoigne, 
 a tenure which exempted them from every species of obligation 
 except that of saying masses for the benefit of the grantor's fam- 
 jly 139 g^^^ notwithstanding the warlike disposition of some eccle- 
 siastics, their more usual inability to protect the estates of their 
 churches against rapacious neighbours suggested a new species 
 of feudal relation and tenure. The rich abbeys elected an advo- 
 cate, whose business it was to defend their interests both in secu- 
 lar courts and, if necessary, in the field. Pepin and Charlemagne 
 are styled advocates of the Roman Church. This, indeed, was 
 on a magnificent scale; but in ordinary practice the advocate 
 of a monastery was some neighbouring lord, who, in return for 
 
 "8 Mably, 1. i, c. 5; Baluze, tome i, 
 pp. 410, 932, 987. Any bishop, priest, 
 deacon, or subdeacon bearing arms was 
 to be degraded and not even admitted 
 to lay communion, (Id., p. 932.) 
 
 137 One of the latest instances prob- 
 ably of a fighting bishop is Jean Mon- 
 taigu, Archbishop of Sens, who was killed 
 at Agincourt. Monstrelet says that he 
 was " non pas en estat pontifical, car 
 
 au lieu de mitre il portoit une bacinet, 
 pour dalmatique portoit un haubergeon, 
 pour chasuble la piece d'acier; et au lieu 
 de crosse, portoit une hache." (Fol. 132,) 
 
 "8 Daniel, " Hist, de la Milice Fran- 
 Qoise," tome i, p. 88. 
 
 '•■'^ Du Cange, " Eleemosyna Libera "; 
 Madox, " Baronia Angl.," p. 115; Coke 
 on Littleton, and other English law- 
 books. 
 
I20 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 his protection, possessed many lucrative privileges, and very 
 frequently considerable estates by way of fief from his ecclesi- 
 astical clients. Some of these advocates are reproached with 
 violating their obligation, and becoming the plunderers of those 
 whom they had been retained to defend/"*^ 
 
 The classes below the gentry may be divided into freemen 
 and villains. Of the first were the inhabitants of chartered towns, 
 the citizens and burghers, of whom more will be said presently. 
 As to those who dwelt in the country, we can have no difficulty 
 in recognising, so far as England is concerned, the socagers, 
 whose tenure was free, though not so noble as knight's service, 
 and a numerous body of tenants for term of life, who formed 
 that ancient basis of our strength, the English yeomanry. But 
 the mere freemen are not at first sight so distinguishable in other 
 countries. In French records and law-books of feudal times, all 
 besides the gentry are usually confounded under the names of 
 villains or hommes de pooste (gens potestatis).^*^ This proves 
 the slight estimation in which all persons of ignoble birth were 
 considered. For undoubtedly there existed a great many pro- 
 , prietors of land and others, as free, though not as privileged, as 
 the nobility. In the south of France, and especially Provence, 
 the number of freemen is remarked to have been greater than in 
 the parts on the right bank of the Loire, where the feudal tenures 
 were almost universal.^^^ I shall quote part of a passage in 
 Beaumanoir, which points out this distinction of ranks pretty 
 fully. " It should be known," he says,^"*^ " that there are three 
 conditions of men in this world: the first is that of gentlemen; 
 and the second is that of such as are naturally free, being born 
 of a free mother. All who have a right to be called gentlemen 
 are free, but all who are free are not gentlemen. Gentility comes 
 by the father, and not by the mother; but freedom is derived 
 from the mother only; and whoever is born of a free mother is 
 himself free, and has free power to do anything that is lawful." ^** 
 
 In every age and country until times comparatively recent, 
 personal servitude appears to have been the lot of a large, per- 
 haps the greater, portion of mankind. We lose a good deal of 
 our sympathy with the spirit of freedom in Greece and Rome, 
 when the importunate recollection occurs to us of the tasks which 
 
 ^^^ Du Cange, voc. Advocatus; a full 
 and useful article. " Recueil des His- 
 toriens," tome xi, preface, p. 184. 
 
 1" Homo potestatis, non nobilis — Tta 
 nuncupantur, quod in potestate domini 
 sunt — Opponuntur viris nobilibus; apud 
 Butilerium Consuetudinarii vocantur, 
 Coustumiers, prestationibus scilicet ob- 
 noxii et operis. (Du Cange, voc. Po- 
 testas.) As all these freemen were 
 obliged, by the ancient laws of France, 
 to live under the protection of some par- 
 
 ticular lord, and found great difficulty in 
 choosing a new place of residence, as 
 they were subject to many tributes and 
 oppressive claims on the part of their 
 territorial superiors, we can not be sur- 
 prised that they are confounded, at this 
 distance, with men in actual servitude. 
 
 "2 Heeren, " Essai sur les Croisades," 
 p. 122. 
 
 ^" " Coutumes de Beauvoisis," c. 45. 
 p. 256. 
 
 ^*^[Note XIII.] 
 
SERFS OR VILLEINS 
 
 121 
 
 might be enjoined, and the punishments which might be inflicted, 
 without control either of law or opinion, by the keenest patriot 
 of the Comitia, or the Council of Five Thousand. A similar, 
 though less powerful, feeling will often force itself on the mind 
 when we read the history of the middle ages. The Germans, 
 in their primitive settlements, were accustomed to the notion 
 of slavery, incurred not only by captivity, but by crimes, by debt, 
 and especially by loss in gaming. When they invaded the Roman 
 Empire they found the same condition established in all its prov- 
 inces. Hence, from the beginning of the era now under review, 
 servitude, under somewhat different modes, was extremely com- 
 mon. There is some difficulty in ascertaining its varieties and 
 stages. In the Salic laws, and in the capitularies, we read not 
 only of Servi, but of Tributarii, Lidi, and Coloni, who were culti- 
 vators of the earth and subject to residence upon their lord's 
 estate, though not destitute of property or civil rights. ^*^ Those 
 who appertained to the demesne lands of the crown were called 
 Fiscalini. The composition for the murder of one of these was 
 much less than that for a freeman. ^*^ The number of these servile 
 cultivators was undoubtedly great, yet in those early times, I 
 should conceive, much less than it afterward became. Prop- 
 erty was for the most part in small divisions, and a Frank who 
 could hardly support his family upon a petty allodial patrimony 
 was not likely to encumber himself with many servants. But 
 the accumulation of overgrown private wealth had a natural 
 tendency to make slavery more frequent. Where the small pro- 
 prietors lost their lands by mere rapine, we may believe that 
 their liberty was hardly less endangered.^*^ Even where this was 
 not the case, yet, as the labour either of artisans or of free hus- 
 bandmen was but sparingly in demand, they were often compelled 
 to exchange their liberty for bread. ^*® In seasons also of famine, 
 and they were not infrequent, many freemen sold themselves to 
 slavery. A capitulary of Charles the Bald in 864 permits their 
 redemption at an equitable price.^*^ Others became slaves, as 
 
 1*5 These passages are too numerous 
 for reference. In a very early charter in 
 Martenne's " Thesaurus Anecdotorum," 
 tome i, p. 20, lands are granted, cum 
 hominibus ibidem permanentibus, quos 
 colonario ordine vivere constituimus. 
 Men of this class were called, in Italy, 
 Aldiones. A Lombard capitulary of 
 Charlemagne says, Aldiones ea lege 
 vivunt in Italia sub servitute dominorum 
 suorum, qua Fiscalini, vel Lidi vivunt in 
 Francia. (Muratori, Dissert. 14.) [Note 
 XIV.] 
 
 146 Originally it was but 45 solidi 
 (" Leges Salicae," c. 43), but Charlemagne 
 raised it to 100. (" Baluzii Capitularia," 
 p. 402.) There are several provisions in 
 the laws of this great and wise monarch 
 
 in favour of liberty. If a lord claimed 
 any one either as his villein or slave 
 Ccolonus sive servus), who had escaped 
 beyond his territory, he was not to be 
 given up till strict inquiry had been made 
 in the place to which he was asserted 
 to belong, as to his condition and that 
 of his family (p. 400). And if the villein 
 showed a charter of enfranchisement, the 
 proof of its forgery was to lie upon the 
 lord. No man's liberty could be ques- 
 tioned in the Hundred^court. 
 
 "^ Montesquieu ascribes the increase 
 of personal servitude in France to the 
 continued revolts and commotions under 
 the first two dynasties (I. xxx, c. 11). 
 
 "^ Du Cange, voc. Obnoxatio. 
 
 "» " Baluzii Capitularia." The Greek 
 
122 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 more fortunate men became vassals, to a powerful lord, for the 
 sake of his protection. Many were reduced into this state through 
 inability to pay those pecuniary compositions for offences which 
 were numerous and sometimes heavy in the barbarian codes of 
 law; and many more by neglect of attendance on military ex- 
 peditions of the king, the penalty of which was a fine called Heri- 
 bann, with the alternative of perpetual servitude.^^^ A source 
 of loss of liberty which may strike us as more extraordinary was 
 superstition; men were infatuated enough to surrender them- 
 selves, as well as their properties, to churches and monasteries, 
 in return for such benefits as they might reap by the prayers of 
 their new masters. ^^^ 
 
 The characteristic distinction of a villein was his obligation 
 to remain upon his lord's estate. He was not only precluded 
 from selling the lands upon which he dwelt, but his person was 
 bound, and the lord might reclaim him at any time, by suit in a 
 court of justice, if he ventured to stray. But, equally liable to 
 this confinement, there were two classes of villeins, whose con- 
 dition was exceedingly different. In England, at least from the 
 reign of Henry H, one only, and that the inferior species, existed; 
 incapable of property, and destitute of redress, except against the 
 most outrageous injuries. ^^^ The lord could seize whatever they 
 acquired or inherited, or convey them, apart from the land, to a 
 stranger. ^ Their tenure bound them to what were called villein 
 services, ignoble in their nature and indeterminate in their de- 
 gree; the felling of timber, the carrying of manure, the repairing 
 of roads for their lord, who seems to have possessed an equally 
 unbounded right over their labour and its fruits. But by the 
 customs of France and Germany, persons in this abject state 
 seem to have been called serfs, and distinguished from villeins, 
 who were only bound to fixed payments and duties in respect 
 of their lord, though, as it seems, without any legal redress if 
 injured by him.^^^ ^^ -phe third estate of men," says Beaumanoir, 
 m the passage above quoted, '' is that of such as are not free; 
 
 a itaiia, ad. 7»5J Much more would n'as mie p eniero Doeste «;nr tnn viinm 
 henbannum was 60 solid,, but il was come robierres Et ce au'on dit Toules 
 
 a,K,ui^strG,invn),^i„"vn,e^^^o''p'<^! l.';uT..lTr.-rLtl Sl^'e".' Z%iZ 
 
 us ^^s'z^J^^;!,. t"S! Es'-e? Srieirs ~s^, "„ f Eti 
 
 dlr„"'sii'";r'^c"'^; "" ■" ""'"'^'^ r"' 'T '°u" la «m'n,une."This"'seems 
 
 '°"3 Thi^ ?s "eleaVl?- expressed in a ISeore.t/al "^ ^"'■""'°" ""'= ™°^= "'^'' 
 French law-book of the thirteenth cen- 
 
ABOLITION OF VILLENAGE 
 
 123 
 
 and these are not all of one condition/ for some are so subject 
 to their lord that he may take all they have, alive or dead, and 
 imprison them, whenever he pleases, being accountable to none 
 but God; while others are treated more gently, from whom the 
 lord can take nothing but customary payments, though at their 
 death all they have escheats to him." ^^* 
 
 Under every denomination of servitude the children fol- 
 lowed their mothers condition; except in England, where the 
 father's state determined that of the children, on which account 
 bastards of female villeins were born free, the law presuming 
 the liberty of their father.^^^ The proportion of freemen, there- 
 fore, would have been miserably diminished if there had been 
 no reflux of the tide which ran so strongly toward slavery. But 
 the usage of manumission made a sort of circulation between 
 these two states of mankind. This, as is well known, was an ex- 
 ceedingly common practice with the Romans, and is mentioned, 
 with certain ceremonies prescribed, in the Prankish and other 
 early laws. The clergy, and especially several popes, enforced 
 it as a duty upon laymen, and inveighed against the scandal of 
 keeping Christians in bondage.^^** As society advanced in Eu- 
 rope, the manumission of slaves grew more frequent.^^'^ By the 
 indulgence of custom in some places, or perhaps by original con- 
 vention, villeins might possess property, and thus purchase their 
 own redemption. Even where they had no legal title to property, 
 it was accounted inhuman to divest them of their little posses- 
 sion (the peculium of Roman law), nor was their poverty, per- 
 
 "4 Beaumanoir, c. 45; Du Cange. Vil- 
 lanus, Servus, and several other articles; 
 Schmidt, " Hist, des Allemands," tome 
 ii, pp. 171, 435. By a law of the Lom- 
 bards, a free woman who married a slave 
 might be killed by her relations or sold; 
 if they neglected to do so, the fisc might 
 claim her as its own. (Muratori, Dis- 
 sert. 14.) In France also she was liable 
 to be treated as a slave. (" Marculfi 
 Formulas," 1. li, p. 29.) Even in the 
 twelfth century it was the law of Flan- 
 ders that whoever married a villein be- 
 came one himself after he had lived with 
 her a twelvemonth. (" Recueil des His- 
 toriens," tome xiii, p. 350.) And, by a 
 capitulary of Pepin, if a man married a 
 villein believing her to be free, he might 
 repudiate her and marry another. (Ba- 
 luze, p. 181.) 
 
 Villeins themselves could not marry 
 without the lord's license, under penalty 
 of forfeiting their goods, or at least of a 
 mulct. (Du Cange, voc. Forismaritagi- 
 um.) This seems to be the true origin 
 of the famous mercheta mulierum, which 
 has been ascribed to a very different cus- 
 tom. (Du Cange, voc. Mercheta Muli- 
 erum; Dalrymple's "Annals of Scot- 
 land," vol. i, p. 312; " Archaeologia," vol. 
 xii, p. 31.) 
 
 "5 Littleton, s. 188. Bracton, indeed, 
 holds that the spurious issue of a neif, 
 though by a free father, should be a vil- 
 lem, quia sequitur conditionem matris, 
 quasi vulgo conceptus (1. i, c. 6). But 
 the laws under the name of Henry I 
 declare that a son should follow his 
 father's condition, so that this peculiar- 
 ity is very ancient in our law. (" Leges 
 Hen. I," c. 75 and tj.) 
 
 "^^^ Enfranchisements by testament are 
 very common. Thus in the will of Se- 
 niofred. Count of Barcelona, in 966, we 
 find the following piece of corrupt Latin: 
 De ipsos servos meos et ancillas, illi qui 
 traditi fuerunt faciatis illos libros propter 
 remedium animae mea; et alii qui fuerunt 
 de parentorum meorum remaneant ad fra- 
 tres meos. (" Marca Hispanica," p. 887.) 
 
 157 ]sJq Qj^g could enfranchise his villein 
 without the superior lord's consent; for 
 this was to diminish the value of his 
 land, ^peticer le fief. (Beaumanoir, c. 
 15; " Etablissemens de St. Louis," c. 34.) 
 It was necessary, therefore, for the villein 
 to obtain the suzerain's confirmation; 
 otherwise he only changed masters and 
 escheated, as it were, to the superior; 
 for the lord who had granted the charter 
 of franchise was estopped from claiming 
 him again. 
 
124 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 haps, less tolerable, upon the whole, than that of the modern 
 peasantry in most countries of Europe. It was only in respect 
 of his lord, it must be remembered, that the villein, at least in 
 England, was without rights; ^^^ he might inherit, purchase, sue 
 in the courts of law; though, as defendant in a real action or 
 suit wherein land was claimed, he might shelter himself under 
 the plea of villenage. The peasants of this condition were some- 
 times made use of in war, and rewarded with enfranchisement; 
 especially in Italy, where the cities and petty states had often 
 occasion to defend themselves with their own population, and in 
 peace the industry of free labourers must have been found more 
 productive and better directed. Hence the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries saw the number of slaves in Italy begin to decrease ; early 
 in the fifteenth a writer quoted by Muratori speaks of them as 
 no longer existing.^^^ The greater part of the peasants in some 
 countries of Germany had acquired their liberty before the end 
 of the thirteenth century; in other parts, as well as in all the 
 northern and eastern regions of Europe, they remained in a sort 
 of villenage till the present age. Some very few instances of 
 predial servitude have been discovered in England so late as the 
 time of Elizabeth,^^*^ and perhaps they might be traced still lower. 
 Louis Hutin, in France, after innumerable particular instances 
 of manumission had taken place, by a general edict in 13 15, re- 
 citing that his kingdom is denominated the kingdom of the 
 Franks, that he would have the fact to correspond with the name, 
 emancipates all persons in the royal domains upon paying a just 
 composition, as an example for other lords possessing villeins 
 to follow.^®^ Philip the Lord renewed the same edict three years 
 afterward; a proof that it had not been carried into execution.^^- 
 Indeed, there are letters of the former prince, wherein, consider- 
 ing that many of his subjects are not apprised of the extent of 
 the benefit conferred upon them, he directs his officers to tax 
 them as high as their fortunes can well bear.^^^ 
 
 *°f Littleton, s. 189. Perhaps this is not 
 applicable to other countries. Villeins 
 were incapable of being received as wit- 
 nesses against freemen. (" Recueil des 
 Historiens," tome xiv, preface, p. 65.) 
 There are some charters of Kin^s of 
 France admitting the serfs of particular 
 monasteries to give evidence, or to en- 
 gage in the judicial combat, against free- 
 men. (" Ordonnances des Rois," tome i, 
 p. 3.) But I do not know that their testi- 
 mony, except against their lord, was ever 
 refused in England; their state of servi- 
 tude not being absolute, like that of ne- 
 groes in the West Indies, but particular 
 and relative, as that of an apprentice 
 or hired servant. This subject, however, 
 is not devoid of obscurity. 
 
 "" Dissert. 14. 
 
 ^*"' Barrington's " Observations on the 
 Ancient Statutes," p. 274. 
 
 "^ " Ordonnances des Rois," tome i, 
 p. 583. 
 
 ''' Id., p. 653. 
 
 loi Velly, tome viii, p. 38. Philip the 
 Pair had emancipated the villeins in the 
 royal domains throughout Languedoc, re- 
 taining only an annual rent for their 
 lands, which thus became censives, or 
 emphyteuses. It does not appear by the 
 charter that he sold this enfranchisement, 
 though there can be little doubt about it. 
 He permitted his vassals to follow the 
 exarnple. (Vaissette, " Hist, de Langue- 
 doc," tome iv; appendix, pp. 3, 12.) 
 
 It is not generally known, I think, 
 that predial servitude was not abolished 
 in all parts of France till the revolution. 
 In some places, says Pasquier, the peas- 
 ants are taillables a volonte— that is, their 
 contribution is not permanent, but as- 
 sessed by the lord with the advice of 
 
TENURES OF LANDS 
 
 125 
 
 It is deserving of notice that a distinction existed from very 
 early times in the nature of lands, collateral, as it were, to that 
 of persons. Thus we find mansi ingenui and mansi serviles in the 
 oldest charters, corresponding, as we may not unreasonably con- 
 jecture, to the liberum tenementum and villenagium, or freehold 
 and copyhold of our own law. In France, all lands held in roture 
 appear to be considered as villein tenements, and are so termed 
 in Latin, though many of them rather answer to our socage free- 
 holds. But although originally this servile quality of lands was 
 founded on the state of their occupiers, yet there was this par- 
 ticularity, that lands never changed their character along with 
 that of the possessor; so that a nobleman might, and often did, 
 hold estates in roture, as well as a roturier acquire a fief. Thus 
 in England the terre tenants in villenage, who occur in our old 
 books, were not villeins, but freemen holding lands which had 
 been from time immemorial of a villein quality. 
 
 At the final separation of the French from the German side 
 of Charlemagne's empire by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, there 
 was perhaps hardly any difference in the constitution of the two 
 kingdoms. If any might be conjectured to have existed, it would 
 be a greater independence and fuller rights of election in the no- 
 bility and people of Germany. But in the lapse of another cen- 
 tury France had lost all her political unity, and her kings all 
 their authority, while the Germanic Empire was entirely unbroken 
 under an effectual, though not absolute, control of its sovereign. 
 No comparison can be made between the power of Charles the 
 Simple and Conrad I, though the former had the shadow 
 of an hereditary right, and the latter was chosen from among 
 his equals. A long succession of feeble princes or usurpers, and 
 
 prud' hommes, resseants sur les lieux, 
 according to the peasant's ability. Others 
 pay a fixed sum. Some are called serfs 
 de poursuite, who can not leave their 
 habitations, but may be followed by the 
 lord into any part of France for the taille 
 upon their goods. This was the case in 
 part of Champagne and the Nivernois, 
 Nor could these serfs, or gens de main- 
 morte, as they were sometimes called, 
 be manumitted without letters-patent of 
 the king, purchased by a fine. (" Re- 
 cherches de la France," 1. iv, c. 5.) Du- 
 bos informs us that, in 1615, the Tiers 
 Etat prayed the king to cause all serfs 
 (hommes de pooste) to be enfranchised 
 on paying a composition; but this was 
 not complied with, and they existed in 
 many parts when he wrote. (" Histoire, 
 Critique," tome iii, p. 298.) Argou, in his 
 " Institutions du Droit Frangois," con- 
 firms this, and refers to the customaries 
 of Nivernois and Vitry (1. i, c. i). And 
 M. de Brequigny, in his preface to the 
 twelfth volume of the collection of " Or- 
 donnances," p. 22, says that throughout 
 almost the whole jurisdiction of the Par- 
 
 liament of Besangon the peasants were 
 attached to the soil, not bemg capable of 
 leaving it without the lord's consent; 
 and that in some places he even inher- 
 ited their goods in exclusion of the kin- 
 dred. I recollect to have read in some 
 part of Voltaire's correspondence an 
 anecdote of his interference, with that 
 zeal against oppression which is the shin- 
 ing side of his moral character, in behalf 
 of some of these wretched slaves of 
 Franche-comte. 
 
 About the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, some Catalonian serfs who had es- 
 caped into France being claimed by their 
 lords, the Parliament of Toulouse de- 
 clared that every man who entered the 
 kingdom en criant France should be- 
 come free. The liberty of our kingdom 
 is such, says Mezeray, that its air com- 
 municates freedom to those who breathe 
 it, and our kings are too august to reign 
 over any but freemen. (Villaret, tome 
 XV, p. 348.) How miich pretence Meze- 
 ray had for such a flourish may be de- 
 cided by the former part of this note. 
 
126 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 destructive incursions of the Normans, reduced France almost 
 to a dissolution of society; while Germany, under Conrad, Henry, 
 and the Othos, found their arms not less prompt and successful 
 against revolted vassals than external enemies. The high digni- 
 ties were less completely hereditary than they had become in 
 France; they were granted, indeed, pretty regularly, but they 
 were solicited as well as granted ; while the chief vassals of the 
 French crown assumed them as patrimonial sovereignties, to 
 which a royal investiture gave more of ornament than sanction. 
 
 In the eleventh century these imperial prerogatives began 
 to lose part of their lustre. The long struggles of the princes and 
 clergy against Henry IV and his son, the revival of more efifect- 
 ive rights of election on the extinction of the house of Fran- 
 conia, the exhausting contests of the Swabian emperors in Italy, 
 the intrinsic weakness produced by a law of the empire, accord- 
 ing to which the reigning sovereign could not retain an imperial 
 fief more than a year in his hands, gradually prepared that in- 
 dependence of the German aristocracy which reached its height 
 about the middle of the thirteenth century. During this period 
 the French crown had been insensibly gaining strength; and as 
 one monarch degenerated into the mere head of a confederacy, 
 the other acquired unlimited power over a solid kingdom. 
 
 It would be tedious, and not very instructive, to follow the 
 details of German public law during the middle ages; nor are 
 the more important parts of it easily separable from civil history. 
 In this relation they will find a place in a subsequent chapter 
 of the present work. France demands a more minute attention; 
 and in tracing the character of the feudal system in that country, 
 we shall find ourselves developing the progress of a very different 
 polity. 
 
 To understand in what degree the peers and barons of France, 
 during the prevalence of feudal principles, were independent of 
 the crown, we must look at their leading privileges. These 
 may be reckoned: i. The right of coining money; 2. That of 
 waging private war; 3. The exemption from all public tributes, 
 except the feudal aids; 4. The freedom from legislative control; 
 and 5. The exclusive exercise of original judicature in their do- 
 minions. Privileges so enormous, and so contrary to all prin- 
 ciples of sovereignty, might lead us, in strictness, to account 
 France rather a collection of states, partially allied to each other, 
 than a single monarchy. 
 
 I. Silver and gold were not very scarce in the first ages of 
 the French monarchy, but they passed more by weight than by 
 tale. A lax and ignorant government, which had not learned the 
 lucrative mysteries of a royal mint, was not particularly solicitous 
 to give its subjects the security of a known stamp in their ex- 
 
RIGHT TO COIN MONEY 
 
 127 
 
 changes. ^^* In some cities of France money appears to have 
 been coined by private authority before the time of Charlemagne; 
 at least one of his capitularies forbids the circulation of any that 
 had not been stamped in the royal mint. His successors indulged 
 some of their vassals with the privilege of coining money for the 
 use of their own territories, but not without the royal stamp. 
 About the beginning of the tenth century, however, the lords, 
 among their other assumptions of independence, issued money 
 with no marks but their own.^^^ At the accession of Hugh Capet 
 as many as a hundred and fifty are said to have exercised this 
 power. Even under St. Louis it was possessed by about eighty, 
 who, excluding as far as possible the royal coin from circulation, 
 enriched themselves at their subjects' expense by high duties 
 (seigniorages), which they imposed upon every new coinage, as 
 well as by debasing its standard.^^^ In 1185 Philip Augustus 
 requests the Abbot of Corvey, who had desisted from using his 
 own mint, to let the royal money of Paris circulate through his 
 territories, promising that, when it should please the abbot to 
 coin money afresh for himself, the king would not oppose its 
 circulation.^®^ 
 
 Several regulations were made by Louis IX to limit, as far 
 as lay in his power, the exercise of this baronial privilege, and, 
 in particular, by enacting that the royal money should circulate 
 in the domains of those barons who had mints, concurrently with 
 their own, and exclusively within the territories of those who did 
 not enjoy that right. Philip the Fair established royal officers 
 of inspection in every private mint. It was asserted in his reign, 
 as a general truth, that no subject might coin silver money.^®^ 
 In fact, the adulteration practised in those baronial mints had 
 reduced their pretended silver to a sort of black metal, as it was 
 called (moneta nigra), into which little entered but copper. Sil- 
 
 "* The practice of keeping fine gold 
 and silver uncoined prevailed among pri- 
 vate persons, as well as in the treasury, 
 down to the time of Philip the Fair. 
 Nothing is more common than to find, 
 in the instruments of earlier time, pay- 
 ments or fines stipiilated by weight of 
 gold or silver. Le Blanc therefore thinks 
 that little money was coined in France, 
 and that only for small payments. 
 (" Traite des Monnoyes.") It is curious 
 that, though there are many gold coins 
 extant of the first race of kings, yet few 
 or none are preserved of the second or 
 third before the reign of Philip the Fair. 
 (Du Cange, voc. Moneta.) 
 
 "5 Vaissette, " Hist, de Languedoc," 
 tome ii, p. no; " Rec. des Historiens," 
 tome xi, preface, p. i8o; Du Cange, voc. 
 Moneta. 
 
 "« Le Blanc, " Traite des Monnoyes," 
 p. 91. 
 
 "■^ Du Cange, voc. Moneta ; Velly, 
 
 "Hist, de France," tome ii, p. 93; Vil- 
 laret, tome xiv, p. 200. 
 
 "8 Du Cange, voc. Moneta. The right 
 of debasing the coin was also claimed by 
 this prince as a choice flower of his 
 crown. Item, abaisser et amenuser la 
 monnoye est privilege especial au roy de 
 son droit royal, si que a luy appartient, 
 et a non autre, et encore en un seul cas, 
 c'est a scavoir en necessite, et lors ne 
 vient pas les ganeg, ne convertit en son 
 profit especial, mais en profit et en la 
 defence du commun. This was in a pro- 
 cess commenced by the king's procureur- 
 general against the Comte de Nevers, for 
 defacing his coin, (Le Blanc, " Traite 
 des Monnoyes," p. 92.) In many places 
 the lord took a sum from his tenants 
 every three years, under the name of 
 monetagium or focagium, in lieu of de- 
 basing his money. This was finally abol- 
 ished in 1830. (Du Cange, voc. Mone- 
 tagium.) 
 
128 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ver, however, and even gold, were coined by the Dukes of Brit- 
 tany so long as that fief continued to exist. No subjects ever 
 enjoyed the right of coining silver in England without the royal 
 stamp and superintendence ^^^ — a remarkable proof of the re- 
 straint in which the feudal aristocracy was always held in this 
 country. 
 
 2. The passion of revenge, always among the most ungov- 
 ernable in human nature, acts with such violence upon barbarians 
 that it is utterly beyond the control of their imperfect arrange- 
 ments of polity. It seems to them no part of the social compact 
 to sacrifice the privilege which Nature has placed in the arm 
 of valour. Gradually, however, these fiercer feelings are blunted, 
 and another passion, hardly less powerful than resentment, is 
 brought to play in a contrary direction. The earlier object, ac- 
 cordingly, of jurisprudence is to establish a fixed atonement for 
 injuries, as much for the preservation of tranquility as the pre- 
 vention of crime. Such were the weregilds of the barbaric codes, 
 which, for a different purpose, I have already mentioned. ^^^ But 
 whether it were that the kindred did not always accept, or the 
 criminal offer, the legal composition, or that other causes of quar- 
 rel occurred, private feuds (faida) were perpetually breaking out, 
 and many of Charlemagne's capitularies are directed against 
 them. After his time all hope of restraining so inveterate a prac- 
 tice was at an end ; and every «ian who owned a castle to shelter 
 him in case of defeat, and a sufficient number of dependents 
 to take the field, was at liberty to retaliate upon his neighbours 
 whenever he thought himself injured. It must be kept in mind 
 that there was frequently either no jurisdiction to which he could 
 appeal, or no power to enforce its awards; so that we may con- 
 sider the higher nobility of France as in a state of Nature with 
 respect to each other, and entitled to avail themselves of all legiti- 
 mate grounds of hostility. The right of waging private war was 
 moderated by Louis IX, checked by Philip IV, suppressed by 
 Charles VI, but a few vestiges of its practice may be found still 
 later.i^^ 
 
 ""> I do not extend this to the fact, 
 for in the anarchy of Stephen's reign both 
 bishops and barons coined money for 
 themselves. (Hoveden, p. 490.) 
 
 ^^^ The antiquity of compositions for 
 murder is illustrated by Iliad xviii, 498, 
 where, in the description of the shield of 
 Achilles, two ^isputants are represented 
 wrangling before the judge for the were- 
 gild or price of blood; tlvexa iroti/^y dvfipb? 
 airocfyOiixevov. 
 
 "^ The subject of private warfare is 
 treated so exactly and perspicuously by 
 Robertson that I should only waste the 
 reader's time by dwelling so long upon it 
 as its extent and importance would other- 
 wise demand. (See " Hist, of Charles 
 V," vol. i, note 21.) Few leading pas- 
 
 sages in the monuments of the middle 
 ages relative to this subject have es- 
 caped the penetrating eye of that his- 
 torian, and they are arranged so well as 
 to form a comprehensive treatfse in small 
 compass. I know not that I could add 
 any much worthy of notice, unless it be 
 tlie following: In the treaty between 
 Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de 
 Lion (1194), the latter refused to admit 
 the insertion of an article that none of 
 the barons of either party should molest • 
 the other; lest he should infringe the 
 custorns of Poitou and his other domin- 
 i9ns, in quibus consuetum erat ab an- 
 tiquo, ut magnates causas proprias in- 
 vicem gladiis allegarent. (Hoveden, p. 
 741, in Saville, " Script. Anglic") 
 
REVENUES OF FRANCE 
 
 129 
 
 3. In the modern condition of governments, taxation is a 
 chief engine of the well-compacted machinery which regulates 
 the system. The payments, the prohibitions, the licenses, the 
 watchfulness of collection, the evasions of fraud, the penalties 
 and forfeitures, that attend a fiscal code of laws, present contin- 
 ually to the mind of the most remote and humble individual the 
 notion of a supreme, vigilant, and coercive authority. But the 
 early European kingdoms knew neither the necessities nor the 
 ingenuity of modern finance. From their demesne lands the 
 Kings of France and Lombardy supplied the common expenses 
 of a barbarous court. Even Charlemagne regulated the econ- 
 omy of his farms with the minuteness of a steward, and a large 
 portion of his capitularies are directed to this object. Their 
 actual revenue was chiefly derived from free gifts, made, accord- 
 ing to an ancient German custom, at the annual assemblies ^"^^ 
 of the nation, from amercements paid by allodial proprietors for 
 default of military service, and from the freda, or fines, accruing 
 to the judge out of compositions for murder.^^^ These amounted 
 to one third of the whole weregild; one third of this was paid 
 over by the count to the royal exchequer. After the feudal gov- 
 ernment prevailed in France, and neither the heribannum nor 
 the weregild continued in use, there seems to have been hardly 
 any source of regular revenue besides the domanial estates of 
 the crown ; unless we may reckon as such that during a journey 
 the king had a prescriptive right to be supplied with necessaries 
 by the towns and abbeys through which he passed, commuted 
 sometimes into petty regular payments, called droits de gist et 
 de chevauche.^^* Hugh Capet was nearly indigent as King of 
 France, though as Count of Paris and Orleans he might take 
 the feudal aids and reliefs of his vassals. Several other small 
 emoluments of himself and his successors, whatever they may 
 since have been considered, were in that age rather seigniorial 
 than royal. The rights of toll, of customs, of alienage (aubaine), 
 generally even the regale or enjoyment of the temporalities of 
 vacant episcopal sees and other ecclesiastical benefices,^^^ were 
 possessed within their own domains by the great feudatories of 
 the crown. They, I apprehend, contributed nothing to their 
 sovereign, not even those aids which the feudal customs en- 
 joined.^^* 
 
 ^" Du Cange, Dissertation quatrieme fifteenth and sixteenth volumes of the 
 
 sur Joinville. " Ordonnances des Rois." 
 
 "3 Mably, 1. i, c. 2, note 3; Du Cange, ^""^ The Duke of Burgundy and Count 
 
 voc. Heribannum, Fredum. of Champagne did not possess the regale. 
 
 ^''*VeUy, tome ii, p. 329; Villaret. tome But it was enjoyed by all the other 
 
 xiv, pp. 174-195; " Recueil des Histori- peers; by the Dukes of Normandy, Gui- 
 
 ens," tome xiv, preface, p. 37. The last enne, and Brittany; the Counts of Tou- 
 
 is a perspicuous account of the royal louse, Poitou, and Flanders. (Mably, 
 
 revenue in the twelfth century. But far 1. iii, c. 4; " Recueil des Historiens," 
 
 the most luminous view of that svibject, tome ij, p. 229, and tome xiv, p. 53; *' Or- 
 
 for the next three ages, is displayed by donnances des Rois," tome i, p. 621.) 
 M. de Pastoret in his prefaces to the ^^° I have never met with any instance 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The history of the royal revenue in France is, however, too 
 important to be slightly passed over. As the necessities of gov- 
 ernment increased, partly through the love of magnificence and 
 pageantry introduced by the crusades and the temper of chivalry, 
 partly in consequence of employing hired troops instead of the 
 feudal militia, it became impossible to defray its expenses by the 
 ordinary means. Several devices, therefore, were tried, in order 
 to replenish the exchequer. One of these was by extorting 
 money from the Jews. It is almost incredible to what a length 
 this was carried. Usury, forbidden by law and superstition to 
 Christians, was confined to this industrious and covetous peo- 
 ple. ^^^ It is now no secret that all regulations interfering with 
 the interest of money render its terms more rigorous and bur- 
 densome. The children of Israel grew rich in despite of insult 
 and oppression, and retaliated upon their Christian debtors. If 
 a historian of Philip Augustus may be believed, they possessed 
 almost one half of Paris. Unquestionably they must have had 
 support both at the court and in the halls of justice. The policy 
 of the Kings of France was to employ them as a sponge to suck 
 their subjects' money, which they might afterward express with 
 less odium than direct taxation would incur. Philip Augustus 
 released all Christians in his dominions from their debts to the 
 Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself.^'^^ He afterward expelled 
 the whole nation from France. But they appear to have returned 
 again — whether by stealth, or, as is more probable, by purchas- 
 ing permission. St. Louis twice banished and twice recalled 
 the Jews. A series of alternate persecution and tolerance was 
 borne by this extraordinary people with an invincible persever- 
 ance, and a talent of accumulating riches which kept pace with 
 their plunderers ; till new schemes of finance supplying the turn, 
 they were finally expelled under Charles VI, and never after- 
 ward obtained any legal establishment in France.^^^ 
 
 A much more extensive plan of rapine was carried on by 
 lowering the standard of coin. Originally the pound, a money 
 of account, was equivalent to twelve ounces of silver ; ^^® and 
 divided into twenty pieces of coin (sous), each equal consequently 
 
 of a relief, aid, or other feudal contribu- 
 tion paid by the vassals of the French 
 crown; but in this negative proposition 
 it is possible that I may be deceived. 
 
 ^'^'^ The Jews were celebrated for usury 
 as early as the sixth century. (" Greg. 
 Turon.," 1. iv, c. 12, and 1. vii, c. 23.) 
 
 "8 Rigord, in Du Chesne, " Hist. 
 Franc. Script.," tome iii, p. 8. 
 
 170 YiUaret, tome ix, p. 433. Metz con- 
 tained, and I suppose still contains, a 
 great many Jews; but Metz was not part 
 of the ancient kingdom. 
 
 ^^^ In every edition of this work, till 
 that of 1846, a strange misprint has ap- 
 peared of twenty instead of twelve ounces, 
 
 as the division of the pound of silver. 
 Most readers will correct this for them- 
 selves; but it is more material to observe 
 that, according to what we find in the 
 " Memoires de I'Acad. des Inscriptions " 
 (Nouvelle Serie), vol. xiv, p, 234, the 
 pound in the time of Charlemagne was 
 not of 12 ounces, but of 13^-. We must, 
 therefore, add one ninth to the value of 
 the sol, so long as this continued to be 
 the case. I do not know the proofs upon 
 which this assertion rests; but the fact 
 seems not to have been much observed 
 by those who had previously written 
 upon the subject. 
 
REVENUES OF FRANCE 
 
 131 
 
 to nearly three shillings and fourpence of our new English 
 money.^^^ At the revolution the money of France had been 
 depreciated in the proportion of seventy-three to one, and the 
 sol was about equal to an English halfpenny. This was the 
 effect of a long continuance of fraudulent and arbitrary gov- 
 ernment. The abuse began under Philip I in 1103, who alloyed 
 his silver coin with a third of copper. So good an example was 
 not lost upon subsequent princes ; till, under St. Louis, the mark- 
 weight of silver, or eight ounces, was equivalent to fifty sous 
 of the debased coin. Nevertheless, these changes seem hitherto 
 to have produced no discontent; whether it were that a people 
 neither commercial nor enlightened did not readily perceive their 
 tendency, or, as has been ingeniously conjectured, that these 
 successive diminutions of the standard were nearly counterbal- 
 anced by an augmentation in the value of silver, occasioned by 
 the drain of money during the crusades, with which they were 
 about contemporaneous.^®^ But the rapacity of Philip the Fair 
 kept no measures with the public, and the mark in his reign 
 had become equal to eight livres, or a hundred and sixty sous 
 of money. Dissatisfaction, and even tumults, arose in conse- 
 quence, and he was compelled to restore the coin to its standard 
 under St. Louis. ^^^ His successors practised the same arts of 
 enriching their treasury; under Philip of Valois the mark was 
 again worth eight livres. But the film had now dropped from 
 the eyes of the people; and these adulterations of money, ren- 
 dered more vexatious by continued recoinages of the current 
 pieces, upon which a fee was extorted by the moneyers, showed 
 in their true light as mingled fraud and robbery.^®* 
 
 These resources of government, however, by no means super- 
 
 ^^ Besides this silver coin, there was a 
 golden sol, worth forty pence. Le Blanc 
 thinks the solidi of the Salic law and 
 capitularies mean the latter piece of 
 money. The denarius, or penny, was 
 worth two sous six deniers of modern 
 French coin. 
 
 182 Villaret, tome xiv, p. 198. The price 
 of commodities, he asserts, did not rise 
 till the time of St. Louis, If this be said 
 on good authority, it is a remarkable 
 fact; but in England we know very little 
 of prices before that period, and I doubt 
 if their history has been better traced in 
 France. 
 
 ^^^ It is curious, and not perhaps unim- 
 portant, to learn the course pursued in 
 adjusting payments upon the restora- 
 tion of good coin, which happened pretty 
 frequently in the fourteenth century, 
 when the States-General, or popular 
 clamour, forced the court to retract its 
 fraudulent policy. Le Blanc has pub- 
 lished several ordinances nearly to the 
 same effect. One of Charles VI explains 
 the method adopted rather more fully 
 than the rest. All debts incurred since 
 
 the depreciated coin began to circulate 
 were to be paid in that coin, or according 
 to its value. Those incurred previously 
 to its commencement were to be paid ac- 
 cording to the value of the money cir- 
 culating at the time of the contract. 
 Item, que tous les vrais emprunts faits 
 en deniers sans fraude se payeront en 
 telle monnoye comme Ton aura em- 
 prunte, si elle a plein cours au temps 
 du payement, et smon, ills payeront en 
 monnoye coursable, lors selon la valeur 
 et le prix du marc d'or ou d'argent (p. 
 32-) 
 
 "4 " Continuator Gul. de Nangis in 
 Spicilegio," tome iii. For the successive 
 changes in the value of French coins the 
 reader may consult Le Blanc's treatise, 
 or the " Ordonnances des Rois"; also a 
 dissertation by Bonamy in the " Mem, 
 de I'Acad. des Inscriptions," tome xxxii; 
 or he may find a summary view of them 
 in Du Cange, voc. Moneta. The bad 
 consequences of these innovations are 
 well treated by M. de Pastoret in his 
 elaborate preface to the sixteenth volume 
 of the " Ordonnances des Rois," p. 40. 
 
132 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 seded the necessity of more direct taxation. The Kings of France 
 exacted money from the roturiers, and particularly the inhabit- 
 ants of towns, within their domains. In this they only acted 
 as proprietors, or suzerains ; and the barons took the same course 
 in their own lands. Philip Augustus first ventured upon a stretch 
 of prerogative, which, in the words of his biographer, disturbed 
 all France. He deprived by force, says Rigord, both his own 
 vassals, who had been accustomed to boast of their immunities, 
 and their feudal tenants, of a third part of their goods.^^^ Such 
 arbitrary taxation of the nobility, who deemed that their military 
 service discharged them from all pecuniary burdens, France was 
 far too aristocratical a country to bear. It seems not to have 
 been repeated, and his successors generally pursued more legiti- 
 mate courses. Upon obtaining any contribution, it was usual 
 to grant letters-patent, declaring that it had been freely given, 
 and should not be turned into precedent in time to come. Sev- 
 eral of these letters-patent of Philip the Fair are extant, and pub- 
 lished in the general collection of ordinances.^^^ But in the reign 
 of this monarch a great innovation took place in the French 
 constitution, which, though it principally affected the method of 
 levying money, may seem to fall more naturally under the next 
 head of consideration. 
 
 4. There is no part of the French feudal policy so remark- 
 able as the entire absence of all supreme legislation. We find 
 it difiicult to conceive the existence of a political society, nomi- 
 nally one kingdom and under one head, in which, for more than 
 three hundred years, there was wanting the most essential attri- 
 bute of government. It will be requisite, however, to take this 
 up a little higher, and inquire what was the original legislature 
 of the French monarchy. 
 
 Arbitrary rule, at least in theory, was uncongenial to the char- 
 acter of the northern nations. Neither the power of making 
 laws, nor that of applying them to the circumstances of particu- 
 lar cases, was left at the discretion of the sovereign. The Lom- 
 bard kings held assemblies every year at Pavia, where the chief 
 officers of the crown and proprietors of lands deliberated upon 
 all legislative measures, in the presence, and nominally, at least, 
 with the consent, of the multitude.^^^ Frequent mention is made 
 of similar public meetings in France by the historians of the 
 
 ^*^ Du Chesne, tome v, p. 43. 
 
 ^^* Fasons scavoir et recognoissons que 
 la derniere subvention que ils nous ont 
 faite (les barons, vassaux, et nobles d'Au- 
 vergne) de pure grace sans ce que ils y 
 fussent tenus que de grace: et voulons et 
 leur octroyones que les autres subven- 
 tions que ils nous ont faites ne leur facent 
 nul prejudice, es choses esquelles ils n'e- 
 toient tenus, ne par ce nul nouveau droit 
 ne nous soit acquis ne amenuisi6 (Or- 
 
 donnance de 1304, apud Mably, 1. iv, c. 
 3, note 5. See other authorities in the 
 same place.) 
 
 ^^'^ Liutprand, King of the Lombards, 
 says that his laws sibi placuisse una cum 
 omnibus judicibus de Austriae et Neus- 
 trise partious, et de Tusciae finibus, cum 
 reliquis fidelibus meis Langobardis, et 
 omni populo assistente. (Muratori, Dis- 
 sert. 22.) 
 
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES 
 
 133 
 
 Merovingian kings, and still more unequivocally by their stat- 
 utes.^®® These assemblies have been called Parliaments of the 
 Champ de Mars, having originally been held in the month of 
 March. But they are supposed by many to have gone much into 
 disuse under the later Merovingian kings. That of 615, the most 
 important of which any traces remain, was at the close of the 
 great revolution which punished Brunehaut for aspiring to des- 
 potic power. Whether these assemblies were composed of any 
 except prelates, great landholders, or what we may call nobles, 
 and the Antrustions of the king, is still an unsettled point. Some 
 have even supposed, since bishops are only mentioned by name 
 in the great statute of Clotaire II in 615, that they were then 
 present for the first time ; and Sismondi, forgetting this fact, has 
 gone so far as to think that Pepin first admitted the prelates to 
 national councils. ^®^ But the constitutions of the Merovingian 
 kings frequently bear upon ecclesiastical regulations, and must 
 have been prompted at least by the advice of the bishops. Their 
 influence was immense ; and though the Romans generally are 
 not supposed to have been admitted by right of territorial prop- 
 erty to the national assemblies, there can be no improbability 
 in presuming that the chiefs of the Church, especially when some 
 of them were barbarians, stood in a different position. We know 
 this was so at least in 615, and nothing leads to a conclusion that 
 it was for the first time. 
 
 It is far more difficult to determine the participation of the 
 Frank people, the allodialists or Rachimburgii, in these assemblies 
 of the Field of March. They could not, it is said, easily have 
 repaired thither from all parts of France. But while the mon- 
 archy was divided, and all the left bank of the Loire, in conse- 
 quence of the paucity of Franks settled there, was hardly con- 
 nected politically with any section of it, there does not seem 
 an improbability that the subjects of a King of Paris or Soissons 
 might have been numerously present in those capitals. It is 
 generally allowed that they attended with annual gifts to their 
 
 "8 Mably, 1. i, c. i, note i; Lindebrog., 
 " Codex Legum Antiquarum," pp. 363, 
 369. The following passage, quoted by 
 Mably (c. 2, note 6), from the preamble 
 of the revised Salic law under Clotaire 
 II, is explicit: Temporibus Clotairii regis 
 una cum principibus suis, id est 33 epis- 
 copis et 34 ducibus et 79 comitibus, vel 
 caetero populo constituta est. A remark- 
 able instance of the use of vel instead 
 of et, which was not uncommon, and is 
 noticed by Du Cange, under the word 
 Vel. Another proof oi it occurs in the 
 very next quotation of Mably from the 
 edict of 615: cum pontificibus, vel cum 
 magnis viris optimatibus. 
 
 i8» Voltaire (" Essai sur I'Histoire Uni- 
 verselle ") ascribes this to the elder Pe- 
 
 pin, surnamed Heristal, and quotes the 
 Annals of Metz " for 692; but neither 
 under that year nor any other do I find 
 a word to the purpose. Yet he pompous- 
 ly announces this as " an epoch not re- 
 garded by historians, but that of the tem- 
 poral power of the Church in France and 
 Germany," Voltaire knew but super- 
 ficially the early French history, and 
 amused himself by questioning the most 
 public as well as probable facts, such as 
 the death of Brunehaut. The compli- 
 ment which Robertson has paid to Vol- 
 taire's historical knowledge is much ex- 
 aggerated relatively to the mediaeval pe- 
 riod; the latter history of his country 
 he possessed very well. 
 
134 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 sovereign; though perhaps these were chiefly brought by the 
 beneficiary tenants and wealthy allodiaHsts. We certainly find 
 expressions, some of which I have quoted, indicating a popular 
 assent to the resolutions taken or laws enacted in the ^leld ot 
 March Perhaps the most probable hypothesis may be that 
 the presence of the nation was traditionally required m conform- 
 ity to the ancient German usage, which had not been formal y 
 abolished ; while the difficulty of prevailing on a dispersed people 
 to meet every year, as well as the enhanced influence of the king 
 through his armed Antrustions, soon reduced the freemen to 
 little more than spectators from the neighbouring districts. We 
 find, indeed, that it was with reluctance, and by means of co- 
 ercive fines, that they were induced to attend the mallus of their 
 count for judicial purposes.^®^ . . 
 
 Although no legislative proceedings of the Merovingian line 
 are extant after 615, it is intimated by early writers that Pepin 
 Heristal and his son, Charles Martel, restored the national coun- 
 cil after some interruption ; and if the language of certain his- 
 torians be correct, they rendered it considerably popular.^^^ 
 
 Pepin the younger, after his accession to the throne, changed 
 the month of this annual assembly from March to May, and we 
 have some traces of what took place at eight sessions during 
 his- reign.^*^^ Of his capitularies, however, one only is said to 
 be made in generali populi conventu ; the rest are enacted in 
 synods of bishops, and all without exception relate merely to 
 ecclesiastical affairs. ^^^ And it must be owned that, as in those 
 of the first dynasty, we find generally mention of the optimates 
 who met in these conventions, but rarely any word that can be 
 construed of ordinary freemen. 
 
 Such, indeed, is the impression conveyed by a remarkable 
 passage of Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, during the time 
 of Charles the Bald, who has preserved, on the authority of a 
 writer contemporary with Charlemagne, a sketch of the Prank- 
 ish government under that great prince. Two assemblies (pla- 
 
 ^^ Mably generally strives to make the 
 most of any vestige of popular govern- 
 ment, and Sismondi is not exempt from 
 a similar bias. He overrates the liberties 
 of the Franks. " Leurs dues et leurs 
 comtes etaient electifs: leurs generaux 
 etaient choisis par les soldats, leurs 
 grands juges ou maires par les hommes 
 libres " (vol. ii, p. 87). But no part of 
 these privileges can be inferred from the 
 existing histories or other documents. 
 The dukes and counts were, as we find 
 by Marculfus and other evidence, solely 
 appointed by the crown. A great deal 
 of personal liberty may have been pre- 
 served by means of the local assemblies 
 of the Franks; but we find in the general 
 government only the preponderance of 
 
 the kings during one period, and that of 
 the aristocracy during another. 
 
 ^^^ The first of these Austrasian dukes, 
 says the " Annals of Metz," " Singulis 
 annis in Kalendis Martii generale cum 
 omnibus Francis, secundum priscorum 
 consuetudinem, concilium a^ebat." The 
 second, according to the biographer of 
 St. Salvian — " jussit campum magnum 
 parari, sicut mos erat Francorum. Vene- 
 runt autem optimates et magistratus, om- 
 nisque populus." See the quotations in 
 Guizot. ( Essai sur I'Hist. de France," 
 p. 321.) 
 
 i»= " Essais sur I'Hist. de France," p. 
 
 i" " Rec. des Hist.," v, 637. 
 
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES 
 
 135 
 
 cita) were annually held. In the first, all regulations of impor- 
 tance to the public weal for the ensuing year were enacted ; and 
 to this, he says, the whole body of clergy and laity repaired ; the 
 greater, to deliberate upon what was fitting to be done ; and the 
 less, to confirm by their voluntary assent, not through defer- 
 ence to power, or sometimes even to discuss, the resolutions of 
 their superiors.^^* In the second annual assembly the chief men 
 and officers of state were alone admitted, to consult upon the 
 most urgent affairs of government. They debated, in each of 
 these, upon certain capitularies, or short proposals, laid before 
 them by the king. The clergy and nobles met in separate cham- 
 bers, though sometimes united for the purposes of deliberation. 
 In these assemblies, principally, I presume, in the more numer- 
 ous of the two annually summoned, that extensive body of laws, 
 the capitularies of Charlemagne, were enacted. And though it 
 would contradict the testimony just adduced from Hincmar to 
 suppose that the lesser freeholders took a very effective share 
 in public counsels, yet their presence, and the usage of requiring 
 their assent, indicate the liberal principles upon which the sys- 
 tem of Charlemagne was founded. It is continually expressed 
 in his capitularies and those of his family that they were enacted 
 by general consent. ^®^ In one of Louis the Debonair we even 
 trace the first germ of representative legislation. Every count 
 is directed to bring with him to the general assembly twelve 
 Scabini, if there should be so many in his county ; or, if not, 
 should fill up the number out of the most respectable persons 
 resident.^®® These Scabini were judicial assessors of the count, 
 chosen by the allodial proprietors, in the county court, or mallus, 
 though generally on his nomination. ^^"^ 
 
 ^^■* Consuetude tunc temporis talis erat, 
 ut non ssepius, sed bis in anno placita 
 duo tenerentur. Unum, quando ordina- 
 batur status totius regni ad anni ver- 
 tentis spatium; quod ordinatum nullus 
 eventus rerum, nisi summa necessitas, 
 quae similiter toti regno incumbebat, 
 mutabat. In quo placito generalitas 
 universorum majorum, tarn clericorum 
 quam laicorum, conveniebat ; seniores 
 propter consilium ordinandum; minores, 
 propter idem consilium suscipiendum, 
 et interdum pariter tractandum, et non 
 ex potestate, sed ex proprio mentis in- 
 tellectu vel sententia, confirmandum. 
 Hincmar, Epist. 5, de ordine palatii. I 
 have not translated the word majorum 
 in the above quotation, not apprehending 
 its sense. [Note XVI.] 
 
 ^•"^ Capitula quae praeterito anno legi 
 Salicae cum omnium consensu addenda 
 esse censuimus. (a. d. 801.) Ut populus 
 interrogetur de capitulis quae in lege no- 
 viter addita sunt, et postquam omnes con- 
 senserint, subscriptiones et manufirma- 
 tiones suas in ipsis capitulis faciant. (a. d. 
 513.) Capitularia patris nostri quae Franci 
 
 pro lege tenenda judicaverunt. (a. d. 837.) 
 I have borrowed these quotations from 
 Mably, who remarks that the word populus 
 is never used in the earlier laws. See, too, 
 Du Cange, vv. Lex, Mallum, Pactum. 
 
 108 Vult dominus Imperator ut in tale 
 placitum quale ille nunc jusserit, veniat 
 unusquisque comes, et adducat secum 
 duodecim scabinos si tanti fuerint; sin 
 autem, de melioribus hominibus illius 
 comitatus suppleat numerum duodena- 
 rium. (Mably, 1. ii, c. 2.) 
 
 1^'' This seems to be sufficiently proved 
 by Savigny (vol. i, pp. 192, 217, et post). 
 His opinion is adopted by Meyer, Guizot, 
 Grimm, and Troja. The last of these has 
 found Scabini mentioned in Lombardy as 
 early as 724, though Savigny had rejected 
 all documents in which they are named 
 anterior to Charlemagne. 
 
 The Scabini are not to be confounded, 
 as sometimes has been the case, with the 
 Rachimburgii, who were not chosen by 
 the allodial proprietors, but were them- 
 selves such, or sometimes, perhaps, bene- 
 ficiaries, summoned by the court as 
 jurors were in England. They answered to 
 
136 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The circumstances, however, of the French Empire for sev- 
 eral subsequent ages were exceedingly adverse to such enlarged 
 schemes of polity. The nobles contemned the imbecile descend- 
 ants of Charlemagne; and the people, or lesser freeholders, if 
 they escaped absolute villenage, lost their immediate relation to 
 the supreme government in the subordination to their lord estab- 
 lished by the feudal law. Yet we may trace the shadow of an- 
 cient popular rights in one constitutional function of high impor- 
 tance, the choice of a sovereign. Historians who relate the elec- 
 tion of an Emperor or King of France seldom omit to specify the 
 consent of the multitude, as well as of the temporal and spiritual 
 aristocracy, and even in solemn instruments that record such 
 transactions we find a sort of importance attached to the popular 
 suffrage. ^^® It is surely less probable that a recognition of this 
 elective right should have been introduced as a mere ceremony 
 
 the prud' hommes, boni homines, of later 
 times; they formed the county or the 
 hundred court, for the determination of 
 civil and criminal causes. [Note XVI.] 
 
 ^^^ It has been intimated in another 
 place (p. 156) that the French monarchy 
 seems not to have been strictly hereditary 
 under the later kings of the Merovingian 
 race: at least expressions indicating a 
 formal election are frequently employed 
 by historians, Pepin, of course, came in 
 by the choice of the nation. At his death 
 he requested the consent of the counts 
 and prelates to the succession of his sons 
 (" Baluzii Capitularia," p. 187), though 
 they had bound themselves by oath at his 
 consecration never to elect a king out of 
 another family. Ut nunquam de alteri- 
 us lumbis regem eligere prsesumant. 
 (Formula Consecrationis Pippini in " Re- 
 cueil des Historiens/' tome v.) In the 
 instrument of partition by Charlemagne 
 among his descendants he provides for 
 their immediate succession in absolute 
 terms, without any mention of consent. 
 But in the event of the decease of one 
 of his sons leaving a child, whom the 
 people shall choose, the other princes 
 were to permit him to reign. (Baluze, 
 p. 440.) This is repeated more perspicu- 
 ously in the partition made by Louis I 
 in 817. Si quis eorum decedens legitimos 
 filios reliquerit, non inter eos potestas 
 ipsa dividatur, sed potius populus pariter 
 conveniens, unum ex iis, quem dominus 
 voluerit, eligat, et hunc senior frater in 
 loco fratris et filii recipiat. (Baluze, p. 
 577.) Proofs of popular consent given to 
 the succession of kings during the next 
 two centuries are frequent, but of less 
 importance on account of the irregular 
 condition of government. Even after 
 Hugh Capet's accession, hereditary right 
 was far from being established. The first 
 six kin^s of this dynasty procured the 
 co-optation of their sons by having them 
 crowned during their own lives. And 
 this was not done without the consent 
 of the chief vassals. (" Recueil des 
 Hist," tome xi, p. 133.) In the reign 
 
 of Robert it was a great question whether 
 the elder son should be thus designated 
 as heir in preference to his younger 
 brother, whom the queen, Constance, was 
 anxious to place upon the throne. Odol- 
 ric, Bishop of Orleans, writes to Fulbert, 
 Bishop of Chartres, in terms which lead 
 one to think that neither hereditary suc- 
 cession nor primogeniture was settled on 
 any fixed principle. (Id., tome x, p. 504.) 
 And a writer in the same collection, 
 about the year 1000, expresses himself in 
 the following manner: Melius est electioni 
 principis non subscribere, quam post 
 subscriptionem electum contemnere; in 
 altero enim libertatis amor laudatur, in 
 altero servilis contumacia probro datur. 
 Tres namque generales electiones novi- 
 mus; quarum una est regis vel impera- 
 toris, altera pontificis, altera abbatis. Et 
 primam quidem facit concordia totius 
 regni; secundam vero unanimitas civium 
 et cleri; tertiam sanius consilium coeno- 
 biticae congregationis. (Id., p. 626.) At 
 the coronation of Philip I, in 1059, the 
 nobility and people (milites et populi tarn 
 majores quam minores) testified their 
 consent by crying, Laudamus, volumus, 
 fiat (tome xi, p. 33). I suppose, if search 
 were made, that similar testimonies might 
 be found still later: and perhaps heredi- 
 tary succession can not be considered as 
 a fundamental law till the reign of Phil- 
 ip Augustus, the era of many changes 
 in the French constitution. 
 
 Sismondi has gone a great deal further 
 down, and observes that, though John 
 assumed the royal power immediately on 
 the death of his father, in 1350, he did 
 not take the name of king, nor any seal 
 but that of Duke of Normandy, till his 
 coronation. He says, however, " notre 
 royaume " in his instruments (x, 37s). 
 Even Charles V called himself, or was 
 called by some, Duke of Normandy until 
 his coronation; but all the lawyers called 
 him king (xi, 6). The lawyers had estab- 
 lished their maxim that the king never 
 dies, which, however, was unknown while 
 any traces of elective monarchy remained. 
 
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLIES 
 
 137 
 
 than that the form should have survived after length of time 
 and revolutions of government had almost obliterated the recol- 
 lection of its meaning. 
 
 It must, however, be impossible to ascertain even the theo- 
 retical privileges of the subjects of Charlemagne, much more 
 to decide how far they were substantial or illusory. We can only 
 assert in general that there continued to be some mixture of de- 
 mocracy in the French constitution during the reigns of Charle- 
 magne and his first successors. The primeval German institu- 
 tions were not eradicated. In the capitularies the consent of 
 the people is frequently expressed. Fifty years after Charle- 
 magne his grandson, Charles the Bald, succinctly expresses the 
 theory of legislative power. A law, he says, is made by the peo- 
 ple's consent and the king's enactment. ^^^ It would hardly be 
 warranted by analogy or precedent to interpret the word people 
 so very narrowly as to exclude any allodial proprietors, among 
 whom, however unequal in opulence, no legal inequality of rank 
 is supposed to have yet arisen. 
 
 But by whatever authority laws were enacted, whoever were 
 the constituent members of national assemblies, they ceased to 
 be held in about seventy years from the death of Charlemagne. 
 The latest capitularies are of Carloman in 882.-'^^ From this 
 time there ensues a long blank in the history of French legisla- 
 tion. The kingdom was as a great fief, or rather as a bundle 
 of fiefs, and the king little more than one of a number of feudal 
 nobles, differing rather in dignity than in power from some of 
 the rest. The royal council was composed only of barons, or 
 tenants in chief, prelates, and household officers. These now 
 probably deliberated in private, as we hear no more of the con- 
 senting multitude. Political functions were not in that age so 
 clearly separated as we are taught to fancy they should be ; this 
 council advised the king in matters of government, confirmed 
 and consented to his grants, and judged in all civil and criminal 
 cases where any peers of their court were concerned. ^*^^ The 
 great vassals of the crown acted for themselves in their own 
 territories, with the assistance of councils similar to that of the 
 
 199 
 
 Lex consensu populi fit, constitu- 
 tione regis. (" Recueil des Hist.," tome 
 vii, p. 656.) 
 
 ^°'' It is generally said that the capitu- 
 laries cease with Charles the Simple, 
 Avho died in 921. But Baluze has pub- 
 lished only two under the name of that 
 prince: the first, a declaration of his 
 queen's jointure; the second, an arbitra- 
 tion of disputes in the Church of Ton- 
 gres; neither, surely, deserving the ap- 
 pellation of a law. 
 
 ^"^ Regali potentia in nullo abuti vo- 
 lentes, says Hugh Capet, omnia negotia 
 reipublicae in consultatione et sententia 
 fidelium nostrorum disponimus. (" Re- 
 
 cueil des Hist.," tome x, p. 392.) The 
 subscriptions of these royal councillors 
 were necessary for the confirmation, or, 
 at least, the authentication of charters, 
 as was also the case in England, Spain, 
 and Italy. This practice continued in 
 England till the reign of John. 
 
 The Curia regis seems to have differed 
 only in name from the Concilium regium. 
 It is also called Curia parium, from the 
 equality of the barons who composed it, 
 standing in the same feudal degree of re- 
 lation to the sovereign. But we are not 
 yet arrived at the subject of jurisdiction, 
 which it is very difficult to keep distinct 
 from what is immediately before us. 
 
138 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 king. Such, indeed, was the symmetry of feudal customs that 
 the manorial court of every vavassor represented in miniature 
 
 that of his sovereign. -^^ 
 
 But, notwithstanding the want of any permanent legislation 
 during so long a period, instances occur in which the Kings of 
 France appear to have acted with the concurrence of an assem- 
 bly more numerous and more particularly summoned than the 
 royal council. At such a congress held in 1146 the crusade of 
 Louis VII was undertaken.^^^ We find also an ordinance of the 
 same prince in some collections, reciting that he had convoked 
 a general assembly at Soissons, where many prelates and barons 
 then present had consented and requested that private wars might 
 cease for the term of ten years. ^"^^ The famous Saladine tithe 
 was imposed upon lay as well as ecclesiastical revenues by a 
 similar convention in 1188.^^^ And when Innocent IV, during 
 his contest with the Emperor Frederick, requested an asylum 
 in France, St. Louis, though much inclined to favour him, ven- 
 tured only to give a conditional permission, provided it were 
 agreeable to his barons, whom, he said, a King of France was 
 bound to consult in such circumstances. Accordingly, he assem- 
 bled the French barons, who unanimously refused their con- 
 sent.-<^« 
 
 It was the ancient custom of the Kings of France, as well as 
 of England, and, indeed, of all those vassals who affected a kind 
 of sovereignty, to hold general meetings of their barons, called 
 Cours Plenieres, or Parliaments, at the great festivals of the year. 
 These assemblies were principally intended to make a display of 
 magnificence, and to keep the feudal tenants in good humour; 
 nor is it easy to discover that they passed in anything but 
 pageantry. ^^^ Some respectable antiquaries have, however, been 
 of opinion that affairs of state were occasionally discussed in 
 them ; and this is certainly by no means inconsistent with prob- 
 ability, though not sufficiently established by evidence.^^® 
 
 Excepting a few instances, most of which have been men- 
 
 202 " Recueil des Hist.," tome xi. p. 
 300, and preface, p. 179; Vaissette, " Hist, 
 de Languedoc," tome ii, p. 508. 
 
 203 Yeiiy^ tome iii, p. 119. This, he ob- 
 serves, is the first instance in which the 
 word Parliament is used for a delibera- 
 tive assembly. 
 
 ^"^ Ego Ludovicus Dei gratia Franco- 
 rum rex, ad reprimendum fervorem 
 malignantium, et compescendum violcn- 
 tas prasdorum manus, postulationibus 
 cleri et assensu baronise, toti regno 
 pacem constituimus. Ea causa, anno In- 
 carnati Verbi 1155, iv, idus Jun. Sues- 
 sionense concilium celebre adunavimus, 
 et effuerunt archiepiscopi Remensis, 
 Senonensis et eorum sufFraganei; item 
 barones, comes Flandrensis, Trecensis, et 
 Nivernensis et quamplures alii, et dux 
 
 Burgundise. Ex quorum beneplacito or- 
 dinavimus a veniente Pascha ad decom 
 annos, ut omnes ecclesise regni et omnes 
 agricolae, etc pacem habeant et securita- 
 tem. — In pacem istam juraverunt dux 
 
 Burgundiae, comes FJandriae, et reliqui 
 
 barones qui aderant. 
 
 This ordinance is published in Du 
 Chesne, " Script. Rerum Gallicarum," 
 tome iv, and in *' Recueil des Histor.," 
 tome xiv, p. 387; but not in the general 
 collection. 
 
 205 Velly, tome iii, p. 315. 
 
 206 Vellv, tome iv, p. 306. 
 
 20" Du "Cange, Dissert. 5, sur Joinville. 
 
 208 " Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscript," 
 tome xli; " Recueil des Hist.," tome xi, 
 preface, p. 155. 
 
LIMITATION OF LEGISLATIVE POWER 
 
 139 
 
 tioned, it does not appear that the kings of the house of Capet 
 acted according to the advice and deHberation of any national 
 assembly, such as assisted the Norman sovereigns of England : 
 nor was any consent required for the validity of their edicts, 
 except that of the ordinary council, chiefly formed of their house- 
 hold officers and less powerful vassals. This is at first sight very 
 remarkable. For there can be no doubt that the government 
 of Henry I or Henry H was incomparably stronger than that 
 of Louis VI or Louis VH. But this apparent absoluteness of 
 the latter was the result of their real weakness and the disorgan- 
 ization of the monarchy. The peers of France were infrequent 
 in their attendance upon the king's council, because they denied 
 its coercive authority. It was a fundamental principle that every 
 feudal tenant was so far sovereign within the limits of his fief that 
 he could not be bound by any law without his consent. The king, 
 says St. Louis in his '' Establishments,'' can not make proclama- 
 tion — that is, declare any new law — in the territory of a baron, 
 without his consent, nor can the baron do so in that of a vavas- 
 sor.^^^ Thus, if legislative power be essential to sovereignty, we 
 can not in strictness assert the King of France to have been sov- 
 ereign beyond the extent of his domanial territory. Nothing can 
 more strikingly illustrate the dissimilitude of the French and 
 English constitutions of government than the sentence above 
 cited from the code of St. Louis. 
 
 Upon occasions when the necessity of common deliberation, 
 or of giving to new provisions more extensive scope than the 
 limits of a single fief, was too glaring to be overlooked, con- 
 gresses of neighbouring lords met in order to agree upon resolu- 
 tions which each of them undertook to execute within his own 
 domains. The king was sometimes a contracting party, but with- 
 out any coercive authority over the rest. Thus we have what 
 is called an ordinance, but, in reality, an agreement, between 
 the king (Philip Augustus), the Countess of Troyes or Cham- 
 pagne, and the Lord of Dampierre,^^^ relating to the Jews in 
 their domains ; which agreement or ordinance, it is said, should 
 endure " until ourselves, and the Countess of Troyes, and Guy 
 de Dampierre, who make this contract, shall dissolve it with the 
 consent of such of our barons as we shall summon for that pur- 
 pose." 211 
 
 2°' Ne H rois ne puet mettre ban en la 
 terre au baron sans son assentment, ne li 
 bers [baron] ne puet mettre ban en la 
 terre au vavasor. (" Ordonnances des 
 Rois," tome i, p. 126.) 
 
 2^° In former editions I have called the 
 Lord of Dampierre Count of Flanders. 
 But it has been suggested to me that 
 the Lord of Dampierre was never Count 
 of Flanders; his second brother married 
 
 the younger sister of the heiress of that 
 fief, who, after his death, inherited it 
 from the elder. The ordinance related to 
 the domains of Dampierre, in the Niver- 
 nois. This, however, makes the instance 
 stronger against the legislative authority 
 of the crown than as I had stated it. 
 
 2" Quosque nos. et comitissa Trecen- 
 sis, et Guido de Domna petra, qui hoc 
 facimus, per nos, et illos de baronibus 
 
140 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Ecclesiastical councils were another substitute for a regular 
 legislature; and this defect in the political constitution rendered 
 their encroachments less obnoxious, and almost unavoidable. 
 That of Troyes in 878, composed perhaps in part of laymen, im- 
 posed a fine upon the invaders of church property.^^^ And the 
 Council of Toulouse, in 1229, prohibited the erection of any new 
 fortresses, or the entering into any leagues, except against the 
 enemies of religion, and ordained that judges should administer 
 justice gratuitously and publish the decrees of the council four 
 times in the year.^^^ 
 
 The first unequivocal attempt, for it was nothing more, at 
 general legislation, was under Louis VIII in 1223, in an ordi- 
 nace which, like several of that age, relates to the condition and 
 usurious dealings of the Jews. It is declared in the preamble to 
 have been enacted per assensum archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, 
 comitum, baronum, et militum regni Franciae, qui Judaeos habent, 
 et qui Judseos non habent. This recital is probably untrue, and 
 intended to cloak the bold innovation contained in the last clause 
 of the following provision : Sciendum, quod nos et barones nostri 
 statuimus et ordinavimus de statu Judaeorum quod nullus nos- 
 trum alterius Judseos recipere potest vel retinere; et hoc intelli- 
 gendum est tam de his qui stabilimentum juraverint, quam de 
 illis qui non juraverint.^^* This was renewed with some altera- 
 tion in 1230, de communi consilio baronum nostrorum.^^^ 
 
 But whatever obedience the vassals of the crown might pay 
 to this ordinance, their original exemption from legislative con- 
 trol remained, as we have seen, unimpaired at the date of the 
 '' Establishments " of St. Louis, about 1269; and their ill-judged 
 confidence in this feudal privilege still led them to absent them- 
 selves from the royal council. It seems impossible to doubt that 
 the barons of France might have asserted the same right which 
 those of England had obtained, that of being duly summoned 
 by special writ, and thus have rendered their consent necessary 
 to every measure of legislation. But the fortunes of France were 
 different. ^^ The ''Establishments" of St. Louis are declared to 
 be made " par grand conseil de sages hommes et de bons clers," 
 but no mention is made of any consent given by the barons ; nor 
 does it often, if ever, occur in subsequent ordinances of the 
 French kings. 
 
 The nobility did not long continue safe in their immunity 
 from the king's legislative power. In the ensuing reign of Philip 
 the Bold, Beaumanoir lays it down, though in very moderate and 
 
 /;f;fi"'H-ff'^"°' ^'^ ^?.^r7°/^^^ volumus, 212 yaissette, "Hist, de Languedoc." 
 
 illud diffaciamus. (" Ordonnances des tome ii p 6 v, « s^^^^^> 
 
 Rois," tome i, p. 2p.) This ordinance 213 v'elly, tome iv p n2 
 
 bears no date, but it was probably be- 214 •• Ordonnances' Hps Voi= " tomp i 
 
 tween 1218 and 1223, the year of Philip's p. 47 ^^*='°""^"c« des Rois, tome 1, 
 
 ^e^th. 216 Id., p. 53. 
 
INCREASE OF ROYAL POWER 
 
 141 
 
 doubtful terms, that " when the king makes any ordinance spe- 
 cially for his own domains, the barons do not cease to act in 
 their territories according to the ancient usage ; but when the 
 ordinance is general, it ought to run through the whole king- 
 dom, and we ought to believe that it is made with good advice, 
 and for the common benefit." ^^° In another place he says, 
 with more positiveness, that '' the king is sovereign above all, 
 and has of right the general custody of the realm, for which 
 cause he may make what ordinances he pleases for the com- 
 mon good, and what he ordains ought to be observed; nor is 
 there any one so great but may be drawn into the king's court 
 for default of right or for false judgment, or in matters that 
 affect the sovereign." ^^^ These latter words give us a clew to 
 the solution of the problem by what means an absolute monarchy 
 was established in France. For though the barons would have 
 been little influenced by the authority of a lawyer like Beau- 
 manoir, they were much less able to resist the coercive logic 
 of a judicial tribunal. It was in yain for them to deny the obliga- 
 tion of royal ordinances within their own domains when they 
 were compelled to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris, which took a very different view of their privi- 
 leges. This progress of the royal jurisdiction will fall under the 
 next topic of inquiry, and is only now hinted at as the probable 
 means of confirming the absolute legislative power of the French 
 crown. 
 
 The ultimate source, however, of this increased authority will 
 be found in the commanding attitude assumed by the Kings of 
 France from the reign of Philip Augustus, and particularly in 
 the annexation of the two great fiefs of Normandy and Tou- 
 louse. Though the chatelains and vavassors who had depended 
 upon those fiefs before their reunion were, agreeably to the text 
 of St. Louis's ordinance, fully sovereign, in respect of legisla- 
 tion, within their territories, yet they were little competent, and 
 perhaps little disposed, to offer any opposition to the royal edicts ; 
 and the same relative superiority of force, which had given the 
 first kings of the house of Capet a tolerably effective control 
 over the vassals dependent on Paris and Orleans, while they 
 hardly pretended to any over Normandy and Toulouse, was now 
 extended to the greater part of the kingdom. St. Louis, in his 
 scrupulous moderation, forbore to avail himself of all the advan- 
 tages presented by the circumstances of his reign ; and his " Es- 
 tablishments " bear testimony to a state of political society which, 
 
 "" " Coutumes de Beauvoisis," c. 48. service, so that he may enforce them 
 
 ^^"^ C. 34. Beaumanoir uses in one again; "for what it pleases him to do 
 
 place still stronger language about the ought to be held as law " (c. 35), This I 
 
 royal authority. The king, he says, may owe to the new edition of the " Cou- 
 
 annul the releases of debcs made by any tumes de Beaumanoir," by M. Beugnot, 
 
 one who accompanies him in military 1842. 
 
142 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 even at the moment of their promulgation, was passing away. 
 The next thirty years after his death, with no marked crisis, and 
 with Httle disturbance, silently demolished the feudal system, 
 such as had been established in France during the dark con- 
 fusion of the tenth century. Philip the Fair, by help of his law- 
 yers and his financiers, found himself, at the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century, the real master of his subjects.^^^ 
 
 There was, however, one essential privilege which he could 
 not hope to overturn by force, the immunity from taxation en- 
 joyed by his barons. This, it will be remembered, embraced 
 the whole extent of their fiefs, and their tenantry of every de- 
 scription, the king having no more right to impose a tallage 
 upon the demesne towns of his vassals than upon themselves. 
 Thus his resources, in point of taxation, were limited to his own 
 domains ; including certainly, under Philip the Fair, many of the 
 noblest cities in France, but by no means sufificient to meet his 
 increasing necessities. We have seen already the expedients 
 employed by this rapacious monarch — a shameless depreciation 
 of the coin, and, what was much more justifiable, the levying 
 taxes within the territories of his vassals by their consent. Of 
 these measures, the first was odious, the second slow and imper- 
 fect. Confiding in his sovereign authority — though recently, yet 
 almost completely, established — and little apprehensive of the 
 feudal principles, already grown obsolete and discountenanced, 
 he was bold enough to make an extraordinary innovation in the 
 French constitution. This was the convocation of the States- 
 General, a representative body, composed of the three orders of 
 the nation.^^^ They were first convened in 1302, in order to give 
 
 218 The reign of Philip the Fair has 
 been very well discussed by Mably, Sis- 
 mondi, and Guizot. " He changed," says 
 the last, " monarchy into despotism; but 
 he was not one of those despots who 
 employ their absolute power for the pub- 
 lic good." " On ne rencontre dans tout 
 le cours de son regne aucune idee gene- 
 rale, et qui s'y rapporte au bien de ses 
 sujets; c est un despote egoiste, devoue 
 a lui-meme qui regne pour lui seul." 
 (Legon 45.) The royal authority gained 
 so much ascendency in his reign that, 
 while we have only 50 ordonnances of St. 
 Louis in forty-two years, we have 334 
 of Philip IV in about thirty. 
 
 21^ It is almost unanimously agreed 
 among French writers that Philip the 
 Fair first introduced a representation of 
 the towns into his national assembly of 
 States-General. Nevertheless, the " Chron- 
 icles of St. Denis," and other historians 
 of rather a late date, assert that the depu- 
 ties of towns were present at a Parlia- 
 ment in 1241, to advise the king what 
 should be done in consequence of the 
 Count of Angouleme's refusal of homage. 
 (Boulainvilliers, " Hist, de I'Ancien Gou- 
 vernement de France," tome ii, p. 20; 
 
 Villaret, tome ix, p. 125.) The latter pre- 
 tends even that they may be traced a 
 century further back; on voit deja les 
 gens de bonnes villes assister aux etats 
 de 1145. (Ibid.) But he quotes no au- 
 thority for this; and his vague language 
 does not justify us in supposing that any 
 representation of the three estates, prop- 
 erly so understood, did, or indeed could, 
 take place in 1145, while the power of the 
 aristocracy was unbroken, and very few 
 towns had been incorporated. If it be 
 true that the deputies of some royal 
 towns were summoned to the Parliament 
 of i2di, the conclusion must not be in- 
 ferred that they possessed any consent- 
 ing voice, nor perhaps that they formed, 
 strictly speaking, an integrant portion of 
 the assembly. There is reason to believe 
 that deputies from the royal burghs of 
 Scotland occasionally appeared at the bar 
 of Parliament long before they had any 
 deliberative voice. (Pinkerton's " Hist, 
 of Scotland," vol. i, p. 37I-) 
 
 An ordinance of St. Louis, quoted in 
 a very respectable book, Vaissette's 
 " History of Languedoc," tome iii, p. 480, 
 but not published in the " Recueil des 
 Ordonnances," not only shows the exist- 
 
STATES-GENERAL 
 
 143 
 
 more weight to the king's cause in his great quarrel with Boni- 
 face VIII, but their earliest grant of a subsidy is in 1314. Thus 
 the nobility surrendered to the crown their last privilege of ter- 
 ritorial independence ; and, having first submitted to its appel- 
 lant jurisdiction over their tribunals, next to its legislative su- 
 premacy, now suffered their own dependents to become, as it 
 were, immediate, and a third estate to rise up almost co-ordinate 
 with themselves, endowed with new franchises, and bearing a 
 new relation to the monarchy. 
 
 It is impossible not to perceive the motives of Philip in em- 
 bodying the deputies of towns as a separate estate in the national 
 representation. He might, no question, have convoked a parlia- 
 ment of his barons, and obtained a pecuniary contribution, which 
 they would have levied upon their burgesses and other tenants. 
 But, besides the ulterior policy of diminishing the control of the 
 barons over their dependents, he had good reason to expect more 
 liberal aid from the immediate representatives of the people than 
 through the concession of a dissatisfied aristocracy. " He must 
 be blind, indeed," says Pasquier, *' who does not see that the 
 roturier was expressly summoned to this assembly, contrary to 
 the ancient institutions of France, for no other reason than that, 
 inasmuch as the burden was intended to fall principally upon 
 him, he might engage himself so far by promise, that he could 
 not afterward murmur or become refractory." ^20 j^^j. ^ould 
 I deny the influence of more generous principles ; the example 
 
 ence, in one instance, of a provincial 
 legislative assembly, but is the earliest 
 proof perhaps of the tiers etat appearing 
 as a constituent part of it. This relates 
 to the seneschaussee, or county, of Beau- 
 caire in Languedoc, and bears date in 
 1254. It provides that, if the seneschal 
 shall think fit to prohibit the export of 
 merchandise, he snail summon some of 
 the prelates, barons, knights, and inhabit- 
 ants of the chief towns, by whose advice 
 he shall issue such prohibition, and not 
 recall it, when made, without like advice. 
 But though it is interesting to see the 
 progressive importance of the citizens of 
 towns, yet this temporary and insulated 
 ordinance is not of itself sufficient to 
 establish a constitutional right. Neither 
 do we find therein any evidence of rep- 
 resentation; it rather appears that the 
 persons assisting in this assembly were 
 notables, selected by the seneschal. 
 
 I am not aware of any instance of 
 regular provincial estates being sum- 
 moned with such full powers, although 
 it was very common in the fourteenth 
 century to ask their consent to grants of 
 money, when the court was unwilling to 
 convoke the States-General. Yet there 
 is a passage in a book of considerable 
 credit, the " Grand Customary," or 
 ** Somme Rurale " of Bouteiller, which 
 seems to render general the particular 
 case of the seneschaussee of Beaucaire. 
 
 Bouteiller wrote about the end of the 
 fourteenth century. The great courts 
 summoned from time to time by the 
 baillis and seneschals were called assises. 
 Their usual function was to administer 
 justice, especially by way of appeal, and 
 perhaps to redress abuses of inferior of- 
 ficers. But he seems to give them a 
 more extended authority. En assise, he 
 says, appelles, lee sages et seigneurs du 
 pais, peuvent estre mises sus nouvelles 
 constitutions, et ordonnances sur le pais 
 et destruites autre que seront grevables, 
 et en autre temps non, et doivent etre 
 publiees safin que nul ne les pueust ig- 
 norer, et lors ne les peut ne doit jamais 
 nul redarguer. (" Mem. de I'Acad. des 
 Inscriptions," tome xxx, p. 606. 
 
 The taille was assessed by respectable 
 persons chosen by the advice of the par- 
 ish priests and others, which gave the 
 people a sort of share in the repartition, 
 to use a French term, of public burdens; 
 a matter of no small importance where a 
 tax is levied on visible property. (" Or- 
 donnances des Rois," p. 291; Beaumanoir, 
 p. 269.) This, however, continued, I be- 
 lieve, to be the practice in later times; 
 I know it is so in the present system of 
 France, and is perfectly distinguishable 
 from a popular consent to taxation. 
 
 "0 " Recherches de la France," 1. ii, 
 0. 7- 
 
144 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 of neighbouring countries, the respect due to the progressive 
 civilization and opulence of the towns, and the application of 
 that ancient maxim of the northern monarchies, that whoever 
 was elevated to the perfect dignity of a freeman acquired a claim 
 to participate in the imposition of public tributes. 
 
 It is very difficult to ascertain the constitutional rights of the 
 States-General, claimed or admitted, during forty years after 
 their first convocation. If, indeed, we could implicitly confide 
 in a historian of the sixteenth century, who asserts that Louis 
 Hutin bound himself and his successors not to levy any tax 
 without the consent of the three estates, the problem would find 
 its solution.^^^ This ample charter does not appear in the French 
 archives ; and, though by no means to be rejected on that ac- 
 count, when we consider the strong motives for its destruction, 
 can not fairly be adduced as an authentic fact. Nor can we alto- 
 gether infer, perhaps, from the collection of ordinances, that 
 the crown had ever intentionally divested itself of the right to 
 impose tallages on its domanial tenants. All others, however, 
 were certainly exempted from that prerogative ; and there seems 
 to have been a general sentiment that no tax whatever could 
 be levied without free consent of the estates.^^^ Louis Hutin, 
 in a charter granted to the nobles and burgesses of Picardy, 
 promises to abolish the unjust taxes (maltotes) imposed by his 
 father ; ^^^ and in another instrument, called the charter of Nor- 
 mandy, declares that he renounces for himself and his succes- 
 sors all undue tallages and exactions, except in case of evident 
 utility.-^* This exception is doubtless of perilous ambiguity; 
 yet, as the charter was literally wrested from the king by an 
 insurrectionary league, it might be expected that the same spirit 
 would rebel against his royal interpretation of state necessity. 
 His successor, Philip the Long, tried the experiment of a gabelle, 
 or excise upon salt. But it produced so much discontent that 
 he was compelled to assemble the States-General, and to pub- 
 lish an ordinance, declaring that the impost was not designed 
 to be perpetual, and that, if a sufficient supply for the existing 
 war could be found elsewhere, it should instantly determine.^^^ 
 Whether this was done I do not discover ; nor do I conceive that 
 any of the sons of Philip the Fair, inheriting much of his rapacity 
 and ambition, abstained from extorting money without consent. 
 
 "^ Roulainvilliers (" Hist, de I'Anc. believe that the kings in general did not 
 
 Gouvernement," tome ii, p. 128) refers for claim that prerogative absolutely, what- 
 
 this to Nicholas Gilles, a chronicler of no ever pretexts they might set up for coca- 
 
 great repute. sional stretches of power. 
 
 =-2 Mably (" Observat. sur I'Hist. de 223 «« Qrdonnances des Rois," tome i, 
 
 France," 1. v, c. i) is positive against the p. 566. 
 
 right of Philip the Fair and his successors ^^* " Qrdonnances des Rois," tome i, 
 
 to impose taxes. Montlosier (" Mon- p. 679. 
 
 archie FranQaise," tome i, p. 202) is of the ^^e Idem, tome i, p. 589. 
 
 same opinion. In fact, there is reason to 
 
STATES-GENERAL 
 
 MS 
 
 Philip of Valois renewed and augmented the duties on salt by 
 his own prerogative, nor had the abuse of debasing the cur- 
 rent coin been ever carried to such a height as during his reign 
 and the first years of his successor. These exactions, aggra- 
 vated by the smart of a hostile invasion, produced a very remark- 
 able concussion in the government of France. 
 
 I have been obliged to advert, in another place, to the mem- 
 ' ' orable resistance made by the States-General of 1355 and 1356 
 to the royal authority, on account of its inseparable connection 
 with the civil history of France.^^^ In the present chapter the 
 assumption of political influence by those assemblies deserves 
 particular notice. Not that they pretended to restore the ancient 
 constitution of the northern nations, still flourishing in Spain 
 and England, the participation of legislative power with the 
 crown. Five hundred years of anarchy and ignorance had swept 
 away all remembrance of those general Diets in which the capitu- 
 laries of the Carlovingian dynasty had been established by com- 
 mon consent. Charlemagne himself was hardly known to the 
 French of the fourteenth century, except as the hero of some 
 sillv romance or ballad. The States-General remonstrated, in- 
 deed, against abuses, and especially the most flagrant of all, the 
 adulteration of money ; but the ordinance granting redress ema- 
 nated altogether from the king, and without the least reference 
 to their consent, which sometimes appears to be studiously 
 omitted."^'' But the privilege upon which the States under John 
 solely relied for securing the redress of grievances was that 
 of granting money and of regulating its collection. The latter, 
 indeed, though for convenience it may be devolved upon the 
 executive government, appears to be incident to every assem- 
 bly in which the right of taxation resides. That, accordingly, 
 which met in 1355 nominated a committee chosen out of the 
 three orders, which was to sit after their separation, and which 
 the king bound himself to consult, not only as to the internal 
 arrangements of his administration, but upon every proposi- 
 tion of peace or armistice with England. Deputies were de- 
 spatched into each district to superintend the collection and 
 receive the produce of the subsidy granted by the States.^^^ These 
 
 ^^' Chap, i, p. 43. '' 
 
 ^2'' The proceedings of States-General 
 held under Philip IV and his sons have 
 left no trace in the French statute-book. 
 Two ordonnances alone, out of sorne 
 hundred enacted by Philip of Valois, 
 appear to have been founded upon their 
 suggestions. 
 
 It is absolutely certain that the States- 
 General of France had at no period, and 
 in no instance, a co-ordinate legislative 
 authority with the crown, or even a con- 
 senting voice. Mably, Boulainvilliers, 
 
 10 
 
 and Montlosier are as decisive on this 
 subject as the most courtly writers of 
 that country. It follows as a just con- 
 sequence that France never possessed a 
 free constitution; nor had the monarchy 
 any limitations in respect of enacting 
 laws, save those which, until the reign 
 of Philip the Fair, the feudal principles 
 had imposed. 
 
 228 " Ordannances des Rois," tome iii, 
 p. 21, and preface, p. 42. This preface by 
 M. Secousse, the editor, gives a very clear 
 view of the general and provincial assem- 
 
146 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 assumptions of power would not long, we may be certam, have 
 left the sole authority of legislation in the king, and might, per- 
 haps, be censured as usurpation if the peculiar emergency in 
 which France was then placed did not furnish their defence. 
 But, if it be true that the kingdom was reduced to the utmost 
 danger and exhaustion, as much by malversation of its govern- 
 ment as by the armies of Edward III, who shall deny to its repre- 
 sentatives the right of ultimate sovereignty, and of suspending 
 at least the royal prerogatives, by the abuse of which they were 
 falling into destruction ? ^^^ I confess that it is exceedingly diffi- 
 cult, or perhaps impracticable, with such information as we pos- 
 sess, to decide upon the motives and conduct of the States-Gen- 
 eral in their several meetings before and after the battle of Poi- 
 tiers. Arbitrary power prevailed ; and its opponents becarne, of 
 course, the theme of obloquy with modern historians. Froissart, 
 however, does not seem to impute any fault to these famous 
 assemblies of the States-General ; and still less a more contempo- 
 rary historian, the anonymous continuator of Nangis. Their 
 notices, however, are very slight; and our chief knowledge of 
 the parliamentary history of France, if I may employ the expres- 
 sion, must be collected from the royal ordinances made upon 
 these occasions, or from unpublished accounts of their transac- 
 tions. Some of these, which are quoted by the later historians, 
 are, of course, inaccessible to a writer in this country. But a 
 manuscript in the British Museum, containing the early pro- 
 ceedings of that assembly which met in October, 1356, immedi- 
 ately after the battle of Poitiers, by no means leads to an un- 
 favourable estimate of its intentions. ^^^ The tone of their repre- 
 sentations to the Duke of Normandy (Charles V, not then called 
 dauphin) is full of loyal respect ; their complaints of bad admin- 
 istration, though bold and pointed, not outrageous ; their offers 
 of subsidy liberal. The necessity of restoring the coin is strongly 
 
 blies held in the reign of John. Bou- 
 lainvilliers, " Hist, de I'Ancien Gouverne- 
 ment de France," tome ii, or Villaret, 
 tome ix, may be perused with advantage. 
 
 "^ The second continuator of Nangis 
 in the Spicilegium dwells on the heavy 
 taxes, diminution of money, and general 
 oppressiveness of government in this age 
 (tome iii, p. io8). 
 
 230 Cotton MSS. Titus, tome xii, fol. 
 58-74. This manuscript is noticed, as an 
 important document, in the preface to 
 the third volume of " Ordonnances," p. 
 48, by M. Secousse, who had found it 
 mentioned in the " Bibliotheque His- 
 torique of Le Long," No. 11,242. No 
 French antiquary appears, at least before 
 that time, to have seen it; but Boulain- 
 villiers conjectured that it related to the 
 assembly of states in February, 1356 
 (1357). and M. Secousse supposed it 
 
 rather to be the original journal of the 
 preceding meeting in October, 1356, from 
 which a copy, found among the manu- 
 scripts of Dupuy, and frequently referred 
 to by Secousse himself in his preface, 
 had been taken. M. Secousse was per- 
 fectly ri^ht in supposing the manuscript 
 in question to relate to the proceedings 
 of October, and not of February; but it 
 is not an original instrument. It forms 
 part of a small volume written on vel- 
 lum, and containing several other trea- 
 tises. It seems, however, as far as I 
 can judge, to be another copy of the ac- 
 count which Dupuy possessed, and which 
 Secousse so often quotes, under the name 
 of Proces-verbal. 
 
 It is singular that Sismondi says (x, 
 479), with Secousse before his eyes, that 
 the proces-verbaux of the States-General, 
 in 1356, are not extant. 
 
TROUBLES IN PARIS 
 
 147 
 
 represented as the grand condition upon which they consented 
 to tax the people, who had been long defrauded by the base 
 money of Philip the Fair and his successors. ^^^ 
 
 But whatever opportunity might now be afforded for estab- 
 lishing a just and free constitution in France was entirely lost. 
 Charles, inexperienced and surrounded by evil counsellors, 
 thought the States-General inclined to encroach upon his rights, 
 of which, in the best part of his life, he was always abundantly 
 careful. He dismissed, therefore, the assembly, and had recourse 
 to the easy but ruinous expedient of debasing the coin. This 
 led to seditions at Paris, by which his authority, and even his life, 
 were endangered. In February, 1357, three months after the last 
 meeting had been dissolved, he was obliged to convoke the States 
 again, and to enact an ordinance conformable to the petitions 
 tendered by the former assembly.^^^ This contained many ex- 
 cellent provisions, both for the redress of abuses and the vigor- 
 ous prosecution of the war against Edward; and it is difficult 
 to conceive that men who advised measures so conducive to the 
 public weal could have been the blind instruments of the King 
 of Navarre. But this, as I have already observed, is a problem 
 in history that we can not hope to resolve. It appears, however, 
 that, in a few weeks after the promulgation of this ordinance, the 
 proceedings of the reformers fell into discredit, and their com- 
 mission of thirty-six, to whom the collection of the new subsidy, 
 the redress of grievances, and, in fact, the whole administration 
 of government had been intrusted, became unpopular. The sub- 
 sidy produced much less than they had led the people to expect : 
 briefly, the usual consequence of democratical emotions in a mon- 
 archy took place. Disappointed by the failure of hopes unrea- 
 sonably entertained and improvidently encouraged, and dis- 
 gusted by the excesses of the violent demagogues, the nation, 
 especially its privileged classes, who seem to have concurred 
 in the original proceedings of the States-General, attached them- 
 selves to the party of Charles, and enabled him to quell opposi- 
 
 J^^ Et estoit et est I'entente de ceulx 
 qui a la ditte convocation estoient, que 
 quelconque ottroy ou ayde qu'ils feis- 
 sent, ils eussent bonne monnoye et esta- 
 ble selon I'advis des trois estata; et que 
 les chartres et lettres faites pour les 
 reformations du royaume par le roy 
 Philippe le Bel, et toutes celles qui 
 furent faites par le roy notre seigneur 
 qui est a present, fussent confirmees, 
 enterinees, tenues, et gardees de point 
 en point ; et toutes les aides quel- 
 conques qui faites soient fussent recues 
 et distribuees par ceulx qui soient a ce 
 commis par les trois estats, et autori- 
 sees par M. le Due, et sur certaines au- 
 tres conditions et modifications justes et 
 raissonables prouffitables, et semble que 
 ceste aide eust ete moult grant et moult 
 
 prouffitable, et trop plus que aides de 
 fait de monnoye. Car elle se feroit de 
 volonte du peuple et consentement com- 
 mun selon Dieu et selon cox»8cience: Et 
 le prouffit que on prent et veult on pren- 
 dre sur le fait de la monnoye duquel on 
 veult faire le fait de la guerre, et ce soit 
 a la destruction, et a este au temps 
 passe, du roy et du royaume et des sub- 
 jets; Et si se destruit le billon tant par 
 fontures et blanchis comme autrement, 
 ne le fait ne peust durer longuement 
 qu'il ne vienne a destruction si on con- 
 tinue longuement; Et si est tout certain 
 que les gens d'armes ne vouldroient 
 estre contens de leurs gaiges par foible 
 monnoye, etc. 
 
 232 " Ordonnances des Rois," tome iii, 
 p. 121. 
 
148 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 tion by force.^^^ Marcel, provost of the traders, a municipal 
 magistrate of Paris, detected in the overt execution of a traitor- 
 ous conspiracy with the King of Navarre, was put to death by 
 a private hand. Whatever there had been of real patriotism in 
 the States-General, artfully confounded, according to the prac- 
 tice of courts, with these schemes of disaffected men, shared in 
 the common obloquy ; whatever substantial reforms had been pro- 
 jected the government threw aside as seditious innovations. 
 Charles, who had assumed the title of regent, found in the States- 
 General assembled at Paris, in 1359, a very different disposition 
 from that which their predecessors had displayed, and publicly 
 restored all counsellors whom in the former troubles he had 
 been compelled to discard. Thus the monarchy resettled itself 
 on its ancient basis, or, more properly, acquired additional 
 stability.234 
 
 Both John, after the Peace of Bretigni, and Charles V im- 
 posed taxes without consent of the States-General. ^^^ The lat- 
 ter, indeed, hardly ever convoked that assembly. Upon his death 
 the contention between the crown and representative body was 
 renewed ; and, in the first meeting held after the accession of 
 Charles VI, the government was compelled to revoke all taxes 
 illegally imposed since the reign of Philip IV. This is the most 
 remedial ordinance, perhaps, in the history of French legisla- 
 tion. '' We will, ordain, and grant," says the king, " that the 
 aids, subsidies, and impositions, of whatever kind and however 
 imposed, that have had course in the realm since the reign of 
 our predecessor, Philip the Fair, shall be repealed and abolished; 
 and we will and decree that, by the course which the said im- 
 positions have had, we or our successors shall not have acquired 
 any right, nor shall any prejudice be wrought to our people, 
 nor to their privileges and liberties, which shall be re-established 
 in as full a manner as they enjoyed them in the reign of Philip 
 the Fair or at any time since; and we will and decree that, if 
 anything has been done contrary to them since that time to the 
 present hour, neither we nor our successors shall take any ad- 
 vantage therefrom." ^36 jf circumstances had turned out fa- 
 vourably for the cause of liberty, this ordinance might have 
 l^een t^jte basis of a free constitution, in respect, at least, of im- 
 munity from arbitrary taxation. But the coercive measures ol 
 
 283 Discordia mota, illi tres status ab 
 incepto proposito cessaverunt. Ex tunc 
 enim regni negotia male ire, etc. (Con- 
 tinuator Gul. de Nangis in Spicilegio, 
 tome iii, p. 115.) 
 
 234 ^ very full account of these trans- 
 actions is given bv Secousse in his " His- 
 tory of Charles the Bad." p. 107, and in 
 his preface to the third volume of the 
 " Ordonnances des Rois." The reader 
 must make allowance for the usual par- 
 
 Le coercive measures of 
 
 tialities of a French historian, where an 
 opposition to the reigning prince is his 
 subject. A contrary bias is manifested 
 by Boulainvilliers and Mably, whom, 
 however, it is well worth while to hear. 
 "''Mably, 1. V, c. 5, note s- 
 2^" " Ordonnances des Rois," tome yi, 
 p. 564. The ordinance is long, contain- 
 mg frequent repetitions, and a great re- 
 dundance of words, intended to give 
 more force, or at least solemnity. 
 
STATES-GENERAL UNDER CHARLES VII 149 
 
 the court and tumultuous spirit of the Parisians produced an 
 open quarrel, in which the popular party met with a decisive 
 failure. 
 
 It seems, indeed, impossible that a number of deputies, elected 
 merely for the purpose of granting money, can possess that 
 weight, or be invested in the eyes of their constituents with that 
 awfulness of station, which is required to withstand the royal 
 authority. The States-General had no right of redressing abuses, 
 except by petition ; no share in the exercise of sovereignty, which 
 is inseparable from the legislative power. Hence, even in their 
 proper department of imposing taxes, they were supposed in- 
 capable of binding their constituents without their special assent. 
 Whether it were the timidity of the deputies, or false notions of 
 freedom, which produced this doctrine, it was evidently repug- 
 nant to the stability and dignity of a representative assembly. 
 Nor was it less ruinous in practice than mistaken in theory. For 
 as the necessary subsidies, after being provisionally granted by 
 the States, were often rejected by their electors, the king found 
 a reasonable pretence for dispensing with the concurrence of his 
 subjects when he levied contributions upon them. 
 
 The States-General were convoked but rarely under Charles 
 VI and VII, both of whom levied money without their concur- 
 rence. Yet there are remarkable testimonies under the latter 
 of these princes that the sanction of national representatives was 
 still esteemed strictly requisite to any ordinance imposing a gen- 
 eral tax, however the emergency of circumstances might excuse 
 a more arbitrary procedure. Thus Charles VII, in 1436, declares 
 that he has set up again the aids which had been previously 
 abolished by the consent of the three estates. ^^^ And in the im- 
 portant edict establishing the companies of ordonnance, which 
 is recited to be done by the advice and counsel of the States- 
 General assembled at Orleans, the forty-first section appears to 
 bear a necessary construction that no tallage could lawfully be 
 imposed without such consent. ^^^ It is maintained, indeed, by 
 some writers, that the perpetual taille established about the same 
 time was actually granted by these States of 1439, though it does 
 not so appear upon the face of any ordinance. ^^^ And certainly 
 this is consonant to the real and recognised constitution of 
 that age. 
 
 But the crafty advisers of courts in the fifteenth century, en- 
 lightened by experience of past dangers, were averse to encounter- 
 ing these great political masses, from which there were, even in 
 peaceful times, some disquieting interferences, some testimonies of 
 
 237 " Ordonnances des Rois," tome 239 Brequigny, preface au treizieme 
 
 xiii, p. 211. tome des " Ordonnances." (Boulainvil- 
 
 -^^Ibid., p. 312. BoulainvilHers mentions Hers, tome iii, p. 108.) 
 other instances where the states granted 
 money during this reign (tome iii, p. 70). 
 
ISO 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 public spirit, and recollections of liberty to apprehend. The Kings 
 of France, indeed, had a resource, which generally enabled them 
 to avoid a convocation of the States-General, without violating 
 the national franchises. From provincial assemblies, composed 
 of the three orders, they usually obtained more money than they 
 could have extracted from the common representatives of the 
 nation, and heard less of remonstrance and demand.^*^^ Langue- 
 doc in particular had her own assembly of States, and was rarely 
 called upon to send deputies to the general body, or representa- 
 tives of what was called the Languedoil. But Auvergne, Nor- 
 mandy, and other provinces belonging to the latter division, 
 had frequent convocations of their respective estates during the 
 intervals of the States-General — intervals which by this means 
 were protracted far beyond that duration to which the exigen- 
 cies of the crown would otherwise have confined them.^*^ This 
 was one of the essential differences between the constitutions 
 of France and England, and arose out of the original disease 
 of the former monarchy — the distraction and want of unity con- 
 sequent upon the decline of Charlemagne's family, which sepa- 
 rated the different provinces, in respect of their interests and 
 domestic government, from each other. 
 
 But the formality of consent, whether by general or provin- 
 cial States, now ceased to be reckoned indispensable. The lawyers 
 had rarely seconded any efforts to restrain arbitrary power: in 
 their hatred of feudal principles, especially those of territorial 
 jurisdiction, every generous sentiment of freedom was proscribed ; 
 or, if they admitted that absolute prerogative might require some 
 checks, it was such only as themselves, not the national repre- 
 sentatives, should impose. Charles VII levied money by his 
 own authority. Louis XI carried this encroachment to the high- 
 est pitch of exaction. It was the boast of courtiers that he first 
 released the Kings of France from dependence (hors de page); 
 or, in other words, that he effectually demolished those barriers 
 which, however imperfect and ill placed, had imposed some im- 
 pediment to the establishment of despotism.^" 
 
 The exactions of Louis, however, though borne with patience, 
 did not pass for legal with those upon whom they pressed. Men 
 still remembered their ancient privileges, which they might see 
 with mortification well preserved in England. " There is no 
 
 "•> Villaret, tome xi, p. 270. 
 
 241 " Ordonnances des Rois," tome iii, 
 preface. 
 
 2" The preface to the sixteenth vol- 
 ume of " Ordonnances," before quoted, 
 displays a lamentable picture of the in- 
 ternal situation of France in consequence 
 of excessive taxation and other abuses. 
 These evils, in a less aggravated degree, 
 continued ever since to retard the im- 
 provement and diminish the intrinsic 
 
 prosperity of a country so extraordinari- 
 ly endowed with natural advantages. 
 Philip de Comines was forcibly struck 
 with the different situation of England 
 and the Netherlands. And Sir John 
 Fortescue has a remarkable passage on 
 the poverty and servitude of the French 
 commons, contrasted with English free- 
 men. (" Difference of Limited and Ab- 
 solute Monarchy," p. 17.) 
 
STATES-GENERAL OF TOURS 
 
 151 
 
 monarch or lord upon earth " (says Philip de Comines, himself 
 bred in courts) " who can raise a farthing upon his subjects, 
 beyond his own domains, without their free concession, except 
 through tyranny and violence. It may be objected that in some 
 cases there may not be time to assemble them, and that war 
 will bear no delay; but I reply " (he proceeds) '' that such haste 
 ought not to be made, and there will be time enough ; and I 
 tell you that princes are more powerful, and more dreaded by 
 their enemies, when they undertake anything with the consent 
 of their subjects/' ^** 
 
 The States-General met but twice during the reign of Louis 
 XI, and on neither occasion for the purpose of granting money. 
 But an assembly in the first year of Charles VIII, the states of 
 Tours in 1484, is too important to be overlooked, as it marks 
 the last struggle of the French nation by its legal representatives 
 for immunity from arbitrary taxation. 
 
 A warm contention arose for the regency upon the accession 
 of Charles VIII between his aunt, Anne de Beaujeu, whom the 
 late king had appointed by testament, and the princes of the 
 blood, at the head of whom stood the Duke of Orleans, after- 
 ward Louis XII. The latter combined to demand a convocation 
 of the States-General, which accordingly took place. The king's 
 minority and the factions at court seemed no unfavourable omens 
 for liberty. But a scheme was artfully contrived which had the 
 most direct tendency to break the force of a popular assembly. 
 The deputies were classed in six nations, who debated in sepa- 
 rate chambers, and consulted each other only upon the result 
 of their respective deliberations. It was easy for the court to 
 foment the jealousies natural to such a partition. Two nations, 
 the Norman and Burgundian, asserted that the right of provid- 
 ing for the regency devolved, in the king's minority, upon the 
 States-General ; a claim of great boldness, and certainly not much 
 founded upon precedents. In virtue of this, they proposed to 
 form a council, not only of the princes, but of certain deputies 
 to be elected by the six nations who composed the States. But 
 the other four, those of Paris, Aquitaine, Languedoc, and Lan- 
 guedoil (which last comprised the central provinces), rejected 
 this plan, from which the two former ultimately desisted, and 
 the choice of councillors was left to the princes. 
 
 A firmer and more unanimous spirit was displayed upon the 
 subject of public reformation. The tyranny of Louis XI had 
 been so unbounded that all ranks agreed in calling for redress, 
 and the new governors were desirous, at least by punishing his 
 favourites, to show their inclination toward a change of system. 
 They were very far, however, from approving the propositions 
 
 2*3 " Mem. de Comines," 1. iv, c. 19. 
 
152 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 of the States-General. These went to points which no court 
 can bear to feel touched, though there is seldom any other mode 
 of redressing public abuses: the profuse expense of the royal 
 household, the number of pensions and improvident grants, the 
 excessive establishment of troops. The States explicitly de- 
 manded that the taille and all other arbitrary imposts should 
 be abolished, and that from thenceforward, " according to the 
 natural liberty of France/' no tax should be levied in the king- 
 dom without the consent of the States. It was with great diffi- 
 culty, and through the skilful management of the court, that 
 they consented to the collection of the taxes payable in the time 
 of Charles VII, with the addition of one fourth as a gift to the 
 king upon his accession. This subsidy they declare to be granted 
 " by way of gift and concession, and not otherwise, and so as 
 no one should from thenceforward call it a tax, but a gift and 
 concession." And this was only to be in force for two years, 
 after which they stipulated that another meeting should be con- 
 voked. But it was little likely that the government would en- 
 counter such a risk ; and the princes, whose factious views thie 
 States had by no means seconded, felt no temptations to urgfe 
 again their convocation. No assembly in the annals of France 
 seems, notwithstanding some party selfishness arising out of the 
 division into nations, to have conducted itself with so much 
 public spirit and moderation, nor had that country perhaps ever 
 so fair a prospect of establishing a legitimate constitution.^'** 
 
 5. The right of jurisdiction has undergone changes in France 
 and in the adjacent countries still more remarkable than those 
 of the legislative power; and passed through three very distinct 
 stages, as the popular, aristocratic, or regal influence predomi- 
 nated in the political system. The Franks, Lombards, and 
 Saxons seem alike to have been jealous of judicial authority, 
 and averse to surrendering what concerned every man*s private 
 right out of the hands of his neighbours and his equals. Every 
 ten families are supposed to have had a magistrate of their own 
 election : the tithingman of England, the decanus of France and 
 Lombardy.^*^ Next in order was the Centenarius or Hundred- 
 ary, whose name expresses the extent of his jurisdiction, and 
 who, like the Decanus, was chosen by those subject to it.^" 
 
 *** I am altogether indebted to Gar- 
 nier for the proceedings of the states 
 of Tours. His account (" Hist, de 
 France," tome xviii, pp. 154-348) is ex- 
 tremely copious, and derived from a 
 manuscript journal. Comines alludes to 
 them sometimes, but with little particu- 
 larity. The above-mentioned manuscript 
 was published in 183s, among the " Docu- 
 mens Inedits sur I'Histoire de France." 
 
 2*3 The Decanus is mentioned by a 
 writer of the ninth age as the lowest 
 
 species of judge, immediately under the 
 Centenarius. The latter is compared to 
 the Plebanus, or priest, of a church where 
 baptism was performed, and the former 
 to an inferior presbyter. (Du Can^e, 
 voc. Decanus; and Muratori, " Antiq. 
 Ital.," Dissert. 10.) 
 
 ^*° It is evident from the capitularies 
 of Charlemagne (Baluze, tome i, pp. 426. 
 466) that the Centenarii were elected by 
 the people; that is, I suppose, the free- 
 holders. 
 
SCHEME OF JURISDICTION 
 
 153 
 
 But the authority of these petty magistrates was gradually con- 
 fined to the less important subjects of legal inquiry. No man, 
 by a capitulary of Charlemagne, could be impleaded for his life, 
 or liberty, or lands, or servants, in the hundred court.^"*^ In 
 such weighty matters, or by way of appeal from the lower juris- 
 dictions, the count of the district was judge. He, indeed, was 
 appointed by the sovereign ; but his power was checked by as- 
 sessors, called Scabini, who held their ofhce by the election, or 
 at least the concurrence, of the people.^^^ An ultimate appeal 
 seems to have lain to the Count Palatine, an officer of the royal 
 household, and sometimes causes were decided by the sover- 
 eign himself.-^^ Such was the original model of judicature; but 
 as complaints of injustice and neglect were frequently made 
 against the counts, Charlemagne, desirous on every account to 
 control them, appointed special judges, called Missi Regii, who 
 held assizes from place to place, inquired into abuses and mal- 
 administration of justice, enforced its execution, and expelled 
 inferior judges from their offices for misconduct.^^^ 
 
 This judicial system was gradually superseded by one founded 
 upon totally opposite principles, those of feudal privilege. It is 
 difficult to ascertain the progress of territorial jurisdiction. In 
 many early charters of the French kings, beginning with one of 
 Dagobert I in 630, we find inserted in their grants of land an 
 immunity from the entrance of the ordinary judges, either to 
 hear causes or to exact certain dues accruing to the king and 
 to themselves.^^^ These charters, indeed, relate to church lands, 
 
 -" Ut nullus homo in placito cente- 
 narii neque ad mortem, neque ad liber- 
 tatem suam amittendam, aut ad res red- 
 dendas vel mancipia judicetur. Sed ista 
 aut in presentia comitis vel missorum 
 nostrorum judicentur. (Capit. a. d. 812; 
 Baluz., p. 497.) 
 
 248 " Baluzii Capitularia," p. 466; Mura- 
 tori, Dissert. 10; Du Cange, voc. Sca- 
 bini. _ These Scabini may be traced by 
 the light of charters down to the eleventh 
 century. (" Recueil des Historiens," 
 tome vi, preface, p. 186.) There is, in 
 particular, a decisive proof of their ex- 
 istence in 918, in a record which I have 
 already had occasion to quote. (Vais- 
 sette, " Hist, de Languedoc," tome ii, 
 appendix, p. 56.) Du Cange, Baluze, 
 and other antiquaries have confounded 
 the Scabini with the Rachimburgii, of 
 whom we read in the oldest laws. But 
 Savigny and Guizot have proved the lat- 
 ter were land-owners, acting in the coun- 
 ty courts as judges under the presidency 
 of the count, but wholly independent of 
 him. The Scabini in Charlemagne's age 
 superseded them. (" Essais sur I'His- 
 toire de France," pp. 259, 272.) 
 
 249 j)y Cange, Dissertation 14, sur 
 Joinville; and Glossary, v. Comites Pala- 
 tmi; "Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscript.," 
 
 tome XXX, p. 590. Louis the Debonair 
 gave one day in every week for hearing 
 causes; but his subjects were required 
 not to have recourse to him unless where 
 the Missi or the counts had not done 
 justice. (Baluze, tome i, p. 668.) Charles 
 the Bald expressly reserves an appeal to 
 himself from the inferior tribunals. (Ca- 
 pit., 869, tome ii, p. 215.) In his reign 
 there was at least a claim to sovereignty 
 preserved. 
 
 ^'^'^ For the jurisdiction of the Missi 
 Regii, besides the capitularies them- 
 selves, see Muratori's eighth Disserta- 
 tion. They went their circuits four times 
 a year. (Capit. a. d. 812; a. d. 823.) A 
 vestige of this institution long continued 
 in the province of Auvergne, under the 
 name of Grands Jours d'Auvergne: which 
 Louis XI revived in 1479. (Gamier, 
 " Hist, de France," tome xviii, p. 458.) 
 
 2!*i If a charter of Clovis to a monas- 
 tery called Reomaense, dated 496, is gen- 
 uine, the same words of exemption oc- 
 curring in it, we must refer territorial 
 jurisdiction to the very infancy of the 
 French monarchy. And M. Lehuerou 
 (" Inst. Caroling.," p. 225 et post) has 
 strongly contended for the right of lords 
 to exercise jurisdiction in virtue of their 
 ownership of the soil, and without re- 
 
154 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 which, as it seems impHed by a law of Charlemagne, universally 
 possessed an exemption from ordinary jurisdiction. A prece- 
 dent, however, in Marculfus leads us to infer a similar immunity 
 to have been usual in gifts to private persons.^^^ These rights 
 of justice in the beneficiary tenants of the crown are attested 
 in several passages of the capitularies. And a charter of Louis 
 I to a private individual contains a full and exclusive concession 
 of jurisdiction over all persons resident within the territory, 
 though subject to the appellant control of the royal tribunals.^^^ 
 It is obvious, indeed, that an exemption from the regular judicial 
 authorities implied or naturally led to a right of administering 
 justice in their place. But this could at first hardly extend beyond 
 the tributaries or villeins who cultivated their master's soil, or, 
 at most, to free persons without property, resident in the terri- 
 tory. To determine their quarrels or chastise their offences was 
 no very illustrious privilege. An allodial freeholder could own 
 no jurisdiction but that of the king. It was the general preva- 
 lence of subinfeudation which gave importance to the territorial 
 jurisdictions of the nobility. For now the military tenants, in- 
 stead of repairing to the county court, sought justice in that of 
 their immediate lord ; or rather the count himself, become the 
 suzerain instead of the governor of his district, altered the form 
 of his tribunal upon the feudal model. ^^* A system of procedure 
 so congenial to the spirit of the age spread universally over 
 France and Germany. The tribunals of the king were forgotten 
 like his laws ; the one retaining as little authority to correct, 
 as the other to regulate, the decisions of a territorial judge. The 
 rules of evidence were superseded by that monstrous birth of 
 ferocity and superstition, the judicial combat, and the maxims 
 of law reduced to a few capricious customs, which varied in 
 almost every barony. 
 
 gard to the personal law of those com- 
 ing within its scope by residence. This 
 territorial right he deduces from the ear- 
 liest times; it was an enlargement of the 
 ancient mundium, or protection, among 
 the Germans; which must have been 
 solely personal before the establishment 
 of separate property in land, but be- 
 came local after the settlement in Gaul, 
 to which that great civil revolution was 
 due. The authority of M. Lehuerou is 
 entitled to much respect; yet his theory 
 seems to involve a more extensive de- 
 velopment of the feudal system in the 
 Merovingian period than we generally 
 admit. 
 
 ^''^ " Marcum Formulae," 1. t, c. 17. 
 
 2°^ Et nullus comes, nee vicarius, nee 
 juniores eorum, nee illus judex publi- 
 cus illorum, homines qui super illorum 
 aprisione habitant, aut in illorum pro- 
 prio, distringere nee judicare prsesumant; 
 sed Johannes et filii sui, et posteritas il- 
 lorum, illi eos judicent et distringant. 
 
 Et quicquid per legem judicaverint, sta- 
 bills permaneat. Et si extra legem fece- 
 rint, per legem emendent. (" Baluzii 
 Capitularia," tome ii, p. 1405.) 
 
 This appellant control was preserved 
 by the capitulary of Charles the Bald, 
 quoted already, over the territorial as 
 well as royal tribunals. Si aliquis epis- 
 copus, vel comes ac vassus noster sue 
 homini contra rectum et justitiam fece- 
 rit, et si inde ad nos reclamaverit, sciat 
 quia, sicut ratio ct lex est, hoc emendare 
 laciemus. 
 
 254 \Yg jjjgy perhaps infer, from a ca- 
 pitulary of Charlemagne in 809, that the 
 feudal tenants were already employed as 
 assessors in the administration of justice, 
 concurrently with the Scabini mentioned 
 above. Ut nullus ad placitum venire 
 cogatur, nisi qui causam habet ad qu^- 
 rendum, exceptis scabinis et vassallis 
 comitum. (" JBaluzii Capitularia," tome 
 1, p. 465.) 
 
TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION 
 
 155 
 
 These rights of administering justice were possessed by the 
 owners of fiefs in very different degrees ; and, in France, were 
 divided into the high, the middle, and the low jurisdiction. ^^^ 
 The first species alone (la haute justice) conveyed the power of 
 life and death ; it was inherent in the baron and the chatelain, 
 and sometimes enjoyed by the simple vavassor. The lower juris- 
 dictions were not competent to judge in capital cases, and con- 
 sequently forced to send such criminals to the court of the supe- 
 rior. But in some places a thief taken in the fact might be pun- 
 ished with death by a lord who had only the low jurisdiction. In 
 England this privilege was known by the uncouth terms of In- 
 fangthef and Outfangthef. The high jurisdiction, however, was 
 not very common in this country, except in the chartered 
 towns.^^^ 
 
 Several customs rendered these rights of jurisdiction far less 
 instrumental to tyranny than we might infer from their extent. 
 While the counts were yet officers of the crown, they frequently 
 appointed a deputy or viscount to administer justice. Ecclesi- 
 astical lords, who were prohibited by the canons from inflicting 
 capital punishment, and supposed to be unacquainted with the 
 law followed in civil courts, or unable to enforce it, had an officer 
 by name of advocate, or vidame, whose tenure was often feudal 
 and hereditary. The viguiers (vicarii), bailiffs, provosts, and 
 seneschals of lay lords were similar ministers, though not in gen- 
 eral of so permanent a right in their offices, or of such eminent 
 station, as the advocates of monasteries. It seems to have been 
 an established maxim, at least in later times, that the lord could 
 not sit personally in judgment, but must intrust that function 
 to his bailiff and vassals. ^^^ According to the feudal rules, the 
 lord's vassals or peers of his court were to assist at all its pro- 
 ceedings. " There are some places," says Beaumanoir, *' where 
 the bailiff decides in judgment, and others where the vassals of 
 the lord decide. But even where the bailiff is the judge, he 
 ought to advise with the most prudent, and determine by their 
 advice; since thus he shall be most secure if an appeal is made 
 
 ="Velly, tome vi, p. 131; Denisart, 
 Houard, and other law-books. 
 
 -°" A strangely cruel privilege was pos- 
 sessed in Aragon by the lords who had 
 not the higher jurisdiction, and conse- 
 quently could not publicly execute a 
 criminal: that of starving him to death 
 in prison. This was established by law 
 in 1247. Si vassallus domini non ha- 
 bentis merum nee mixtum imperium, in 
 loco occideret vassallum, dominus loci 
 potest eum occidere fame, frigore et siti. 
 Et quilibet dominus loci habet hanc ju- 
 risdictionum necandi fame, frigore et siti 
 in suo loco, licet nullam aliam jurisdic- 
 tionem criminalem habeat. (Du Cange, 
 voc. Fame necare.) 
 
 It is remarkable that the Neapolitan 
 barons had no criminal jurisdiction, at 
 least of the higher kind, till the reign 
 of Alfonso, in 1443, who sold this de- 
 structive privilege, at a time when it 
 was almost abolished in other king- 
 doms. (Giannone, 1. xxii, c. 5, and 1. 
 xxvi c. 6.) 
 
 2" BoutilHer, in his " Somme Rurale," 
 written near the end of the fourteenth 
 century, asserts this positively. II con- 
 vient quilz facent jugier par aultre que 
 par eulx, cest a savoir par leurs hornmes 
 feudaulx a leur semonce et conjure [?] 
 ou de leur bailiff ou lieutenant, et ont 
 ressort a leur souverain. (Fol. 3.) * 
 
156 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 from his judgment." ^^^ And indeed the presence of these as- 
 sessors was so essential to all territorial jurisdiction that no lord, 
 to whatever rights of justice his fief might entitle him, was quali- 
 fied to exercise them, unless he had at least two vassals to sit as 
 peers in his court. ^^^ 
 
 These courts of a feudal barony or manor required neither 
 the knowledge of positive law nor the dictates of natural sagacity. 
 In all doubtful cases, and especially where a crime not capable 
 of notorious proof was charged, the combat was awarded ; and 
 God, as they deemed, was the judge. ^^^' The nobleman fought on 
 horseback, with all his arms of attack and defence; the plebeian 
 on foot, with his club and target. The same were the weapons 
 of the champions to whom women and ecclesiastics were per- 
 mitted to intrust their rights. ^^^ If the combat was intended to 
 ascertain a civil right, the vanquished party, of course, forfeited 
 his claim and paid a fine. If he fought by proxy, the champion 
 was liable to have his hand struck off; a regulation necessary, 
 perhaps, to obviate the corruption of these hired defenders. In 
 criminal cases the appellant suffered, in the event of defeat, the 
 same punishment which the law awarded to the offence of which 
 he accused his adversary. ^^^ Even where the cause was more 
 peaceably tried, and brought to a regular adjudication by the 
 court, an appeal for false judgment might indeed be made to 
 the suzerain, but it could only be tried by battle.^^^ And in this 
 the appellant, if he would impeach the concurrent judgment of 
 the court below, was compelled to meet successively in combat 
 every one of its members; unless he should vanquish them all 
 within the day, his life, if he escaped from so many hazards, 
 was forfeited to the law. If fortune or miracle should make him 
 
 2^' " Coutumes de Beauvoisis," p. ii. 
 
 259 It was lawful, in such case, to bor- 
 row the vassals of the superior lord. 
 (" Thaumassiere sur Beaumanoir," p. 375. 
 See Du Canpc voc. Pares, an excellent 
 article; and Blacitum.) 
 
 In England a manor is extinguished, 
 at least as to jurisdiction, when there are 
 not two freeholders subject to escheat 
 left as suitors to the court-baron. Their 
 tenancy must therefore have been created 
 before the statute of Quia Emptores, 
 18 Edw. I (i2po), since which no new 
 estate in fee simple can be held of the 
 lord, nor consequently be liable to es- 
 cheat to him. 
 
 -•'<* Trial by combat does not seem to 
 have established itself completely in 
 France till ordeals went into disuse, 
 which Charlemagne rather encouraged, 
 and which, in his age, the clergy for the 
 most part approved. The former species 
 of decision may, however, be met with 
 under the first Merovingian kings (Greg. 
 Turon., 1. vii, c. 19; 1. x, c. 10), and seems 
 to have prevailed in Burgundy. It is 
 established by the laws of the Alemanai 
 
 or Swabians. (Baluz., tome i, p. 80.) It 
 was always popular in Lombardy. Liut- 
 prand. King of the Lombards, says in 
 one of his laws, Incerti sumus de ju- 
 dicio Dei, et quosdam audivimus per 
 pugnam sine justa causa suam causam 
 perdere. Sed propter consuetudinem 
 gentis nostrae Langobardorum legem 
 impiam vetare non possumus. (Muratori, 
 ' Script. Rerum Italicarum," tome ii, p. 
 65.) Otho II established it in all dis- 
 putes concerning real property; and 
 there is a famous case where the right 
 of representation, or preference of the 
 son of a deceased elder child to his uncle 
 in succession to his grandfather's estate, 
 was settled by this test. 
 
 ^"^ For the ceremonies of trial by com- 
 bat, see Houard, " Anciennes Loix 
 Frangoises," tome i, p. 264; Velly, tome 
 VI, p. ro6; " Recueil des Historiens," 
 tome XI, preface, p. 189; Du Cange, voc. 
 Duellum. The great original authorities 
 are the " Assises de Jerusalem," c. 104, 
 and Beaumanoir, c. 31. 
 
 •"^ Beaumanoir, p. 315. 
 
 2«3 Id., c 61. In England the appeal 
 
TRIAL BY COMBAT 
 
 157 
 
 conqueror in every contest, the judges were equally subject to 
 death, and their court forfeited their jurisdiction forever. A 
 less perilous mode of appeal was to call the first judge who pro- 
 nounced a hostile sentence into the field. If the appellant came 
 off victorious in this challenge, the decision was reversed, but 
 the court was not impeached.^^* But for denial of justice — that 
 is, for a refusal to try his suit — the plaintiff repaired to the court 
 of the next superior lord, and supported his appeal by testi- 
 mony. ^^^ Yet even here the witnesses might be defied, and the 
 pure stream of justice turned at once into the torrent of barbar- 
 ous contest.^^^ 
 
 Such was the judicial system of France when St. Louis en- 
 acted that great code which bears the name of his ** Establish- 
 ments." The rules of civil and criminal procedure, as well as the 
 principles of legal decisions, are there laid down with much de- 
 tail. But that incomparable prince, unable to overthrow the 
 judicial combat, confined himself to discourage it by the ex- 
 ample of a wiser jurisprudence. It was abolished throughout 
 the royal domains. The bailiffs and seneschals who rendered 
 justice to the king's immediate subjects were bound to follow 
 his own laws. He not only received appeals from their sentences 
 in his own court of peers, but listened to all complaints with a 
 kind of patriarchal simplicity. *' Many times," says Joinville, 
 " I have seen the good saint, after hearing mass, in the summer 
 season, lay himself at the foot of an oak in the wood of Vin- 
 cennes, and make us all sit round him ; when those who would, 
 
 for false judgment to the king's court 
 was not tried by battle. (Glanvil, 1. xii, 
 c. 7.) 
 
 =«;JId., c. 61. 
 
 ^^'^ Id., p. 315. The practice was to 
 challenge the second witness, since the 
 testimony of one was insufficient. But 
 this must be done before he completes 
 his oath, says Beaumanoir, for after he 
 has been sworn he must be heard and 
 believed (p. 316). No one was bound, 
 as we may well believe, to be a wit- 
 ness for another, in cases where such 
 an appeal might be made from his testi- 
 mony. 
 
 2C0 Mably is certainly mistaken in his 
 opinion that appeals for denial of justice 
 were not older than the reign of Philip 
 Augustus. (" Observations sur I'Hist. 
 de France," 1. Hi, c. 3.) Before this time 
 the vassal's remedy, he thinks, was to 
 make war upon his lord. And this may 
 probably have been frequently practised. 
 Indeed, it is permitted, as we have seen 
 by the code of St. Louis. But those 
 who were not strong enough to adopt 
 this dangerous means of redress would 
 surely avail themselves of the assistance 
 of the suzerain, which in general would 
 be readily afforded. We find several in- 
 stances of the king's interference for the 
 redress of injuries in Suger's " Life of 
 
 Louis VI." That active and spirited 
 prince, with the assistance of his enlight- 
 ened biographer, recovered a great part 
 of the royal authority, which had been 
 reduced to the lowest ebb in the long 
 and slothful reign of his father, Philip 
 I. One passage especially contains a 
 clear evidence of the appeal for denial 
 of justice, and consequently refutes 
 Mably's opinion. In 1105 the inhabitants 
 of St. Severe, in Berri, complain of their 
 Lord riumbald, and request the king 
 aut ad exequendam justitiam cogere, aut 
 jure pro injuria castrum lege Salica 
 amittere. I quote from the preface to 
 the fourteenth volume of the " Recueil 
 des Historiens," p. 44. It may be no- 
 ticed, by the way, that lex Salica is here 
 used for the feudal customs; in which 
 sense I believe it not unfrequently o«' 
 curs. Many proofs might be brought 
 of the interposition of both Louis VI 
 and VII in the diputes between their 
 barons and arriere vassals. Thus the 
 war between the latter and Henry II 
 of England in 1166 was occasioned by 
 his entertaining a complaint from the 
 Count of Auvergne, without waiting for 
 the decision of Henry, as Duke of Gui- 
 enne. (Velly, tome ii, p. 190; Littleton's 
 " Henry II," vol. ii, p. 448; " Recueil 
 des Historiens," ubi supra, p. 49. 
 
158 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 came and spake to him without let of any officer, and he would 
 ask aloud if there were any present who had suits ; and when 
 they appeared, would bid two of his bailiffs determine their cause 
 upon the spot/' ^^^ 
 
 The influence of this new jurisprudence established by St. 
 Louis, combined with the great enhancements of the royal pre- 
 rogatives in every other respect, produced a rapid change in the 
 legal administration of France. Though trial by combat occu- 
 pies a considerable space in the work of Beaumanoir, written 
 under Philip the Bold, it was already much limited. Appeals 
 for false judgment might sometimes be tried, as he expresses 
 it, par erremens de plait ; that is, I presume, where the alleged 
 error of the court below was in matter of law. P'or wager of 
 battle was chiefly intended to ascertain controverted facts.'^^® 
 So where the suzerain saw clearly that the judgment of the in- 
 ferior court was right, he ought not to permit the combat. Or 
 if the plaintiff, even in the first instance, could produce a record 
 or a written obligation, or if the fact before the court was notori- 
 ous, there was no room for battle. ^^^ It would be a hard thing, 
 says Beaumanoir, that if one had killed my near relation in open 
 day before many credible persons, I should be compelled to 
 fight in order to prove his death. This reflection is the dictate 
 of common sense, and shows that the prejudice in favour of 
 judicial combat was dying away. In the '' Assises de Jerusalem," 
 a monument of customs two hundred years earlier than the age 
 of Beaumanoir, we find little mention of any other mode of 
 decision. The compiler of that book thinks it would be very 
 injurious if no wager of battle were to be allowed against wit- 
 nesses in causes affecting succession ; since otherwise every right 
 heir might be disinherited, as it would be easy to find two persons 
 who would perjure themselves for money if they had no fear 
 of being challenged for their testimony. ^^^ This passage indi- 
 cates the real cause of preserving the judicial combat, systematic 
 perjury in witnesses, and want of legal discrimination in judges. 
 
 It was, in all civil suits, at the discretion of the litigant parties 
 to adopt the law of the '' Establishments," instead of resorting 
 to combat. ^^^ As gentler manners prevailed, especially among 
 those who did not make arms their profession, the wisdom and 
 equity of the new code were naturally preferred. The supersti- 
 tion which had originally led to the latter lost its weight through 
 experience and the uniform opposition of the clergy. The same 
 
 =" " Collection des Memoires," tome xxviii, 37, 38.) I do not know that any 
 
 i. p. 25. Montesquieu supposes that the later inquirers have adopted this hy- 
 
 ** Establishments of St. Louis " are not pothesis. 
 the original constitutions of that prince, ^os Beaumanoir, p. 22. 
 
 but a work founded on them — a com- 2™ Id., p. 314. 
 
 pilation of the old customs blended with 270 q jg^ 
 
 his new provisions. (" Esprit des Loix," ^ti Beaumanoir, p. 309. 
 
ROYAL TRIBUNALS 
 
 159 
 
 superiority of just and settled rules over fortune and violence, 
 which had forwarded the encroachments of the ecclesiastical 
 courts, was now manifested in those of the king. Philip Augus- 
 tus, by a famous ordinance in 11 90, first established royal courts 
 of justice, held by the officers called bailiffs or seneschals, who 
 acted as the king's lieutenants in his domains.^^^ Every barony, 
 as it became reunited to the crown, was subjected to the juris- 
 diction of one of these officers, and took the name of a bailliage 
 or seneschaussee ; the former name prevailing most in the north- 
 ern, the latter in the southern, provinces. The vassals whose 
 lands depended upon, or, in feudal language, moved, from the 
 superiority of this fief, were obliged to submit to the ressort or 
 supreme appellant jurisdiction of the royal court established in 
 it.^^^ This began rapidly to encroach upon the feudal rights of 
 justice. In a variety of cases, termed royal, the territorial court 
 was pronounced incompetent; they were reserved for the judges 
 of the crown ; and, in every case, unless the defendant excepted 
 to the jurisdiction, the royal court might take cognizance of a 
 suit, and decide it in exclusion of the feudal judicature.^^* The 
 nature of cases reserved under the name of royal was kept in 
 studied ambiguity, under cover of which the judges of the crown 
 perpetually strove to multiply them. Louis X, when requested 
 by the barons of Champagne to explain what was meant by royal 
 causes, gave this mysterious definition : Everything which by 
 right or custom ought exclusively to come under the cognizance 
 of a sovereign prince. ^^^ Vassals were permitted to complain 
 in the first instance to the king's court, of injuries committed 
 by their lords. These rapid and violent encroachments left the 
 nobility no alternative but armed combinations to support their 
 remonstrances. Philip the Fair bequeathed to his successor the 
 task of appeasing the storm which his own administration had 
 excited. Leagues were formed in most of the northern provinces 
 for the redress of grievances, in which the third estate, oppressed 
 by taxation, united with the vassals, whose feudal privileges had 
 been infringed. Separate charters were granted to each of these 
 confederacies by Louis Hutin, which contain many remedial 
 provisions against the grosser violations of ancient rights, though 
 the crown persisted in restraining territorial jurisdiction.^^^ Ap- 
 
 "^ " Ordonnances des Rois." tome i, 
 p. 18. 
 
 "^ Du Cange, voc. Balivi. " Mem. de 
 I'Acad. des Inscriptions," tome xxx, p. 
 603. Mably, 1. iv, c. 4. Boulainvilliers, 
 tome ii, p. 2.2. 
 
 "< Mably, Boulainvilliers, Montlosier, 
 tome i, p. 104. 
 
 ^" " Ordonnances des Rois," p. 606. 
 
 "® Hoc perpetuo prohibemus edicto, 
 ne subditi, seu justiciabiles praelatorum 
 aut baronum nostrorum, aut aiiorum sub- 
 
 jectorum nostrorum, trahantur in causam 
 coram nostris officialibus, nee eorum 
 causae, nisi in casu ressorti, in nostris 
 curiis audiantur, vel in alio casu ad nos 
 pertinenti. (" Ordonnances des Rois," 
 torne i, p. 362.) This ordinance is of 
 Philip the Fair, in 1302; but those passed 
 under Louis Hutin are to the same ef- 
 fect. They may be read at length in the 
 " Ordonnances des Rois," or abridged 
 by Boulainvilliers, tome ii, p. 94. 
 
i6o 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 peals became more common for false judgment, as well as denial 
 of right ; and in neither was the combat permitted. It was still, 
 however, preserved in accusations of heinous crimes, unsup- 
 ported by any testimony but that of the prosecutor, and was 
 never abolished by any positive law, either in France or England. 
 But instances of its occurrence are not frequent even in the four- 
 teenth century; and one of these, rather remarkable in its cir- 
 cumstances, must have had a tendency to explode the remaining 
 superstition which had preserved this mode of decision. ^^^ 
 
 The supreme council, or court of peers, to whose deliberate 
 functions I have already adverted, was also the great judicial 
 tribunal of the French crown from the accession of Hugh 
 Capet.^^® By this alone the barons of France, or tenants in chief 
 of the king, could be judged. To this court appeals for denials 
 of justice were referred. It was originally composed, as has been 
 observed, of the feudal vassals, coequals of those who were to 
 be tried by it ; and also of the household officers, whose right 
 of concurrence, however anomalous, was extremely ancient. But 
 after the business of the court came to , increase through the 
 multiplicity of appeals, especially from the bailiffs established 
 by Philip Augustus in the royal domains, the barons found nei- 
 ther leisure nor capacity for the ordinary administration of jus- 
 tice, and reserved their attendance for occasions where some 
 of their own orders were implicated in a criminal process. St. 
 Louis, anxious for regularity and enlightened decisions, made 
 a considerable alteration by introducing some councillors of in- 
 ferior rank, chiefly ecclesiastics, as advisers of the court, though, 
 as is supposed, without any decisive suffrage. The court now 
 became known by the name of Parliament. Registers of its pro- 
 ceedings were kept, of which the earliest extant are of the year 
 1254. It was still, perhaps, in some degree ambulatory; but by 
 far the greater part of its sessions in the thirteenth century were 
 at Paris. The councillors nominated by the king, some of them 
 clerks, others of noble rank, but not peers of the ancient baron- 
 age, acquired insensibly a right of suffrage. '^^ 
 
 An ordinance of Philip the Fair, in 1302, is generally sup- 
 posed to have fixed the seat of Parliament at Paris, as well as 
 akered its constituent parts. ^^° Perhaps a series of progressive 
 
 2" Philip IV restricted trial by com- 
 bat to cases where four conditions were 
 united. The crime must be capital; its 
 commission certain; the accused greatly 
 suspected; and no proof to be obtained 
 by witnesses. Under these limitations, 
 or at least some of them, for it appears 
 that they were not all regarded, instances 
 occur for some centuries. 
 
 See the singular story of Carouges 
 and Le Gris, to which I allude in the 
 text. (Villaret, tome xi, p. 412.) Trial 
 
 by combat was allowed in Scotland ex- 
 actly under the same conditions as in 
 France. (Pinkerton's " Hist of Scot- 
 land." vol. i, p. 66.) 
 
 "« [Note XVII.] 
 
 ^"^^ Boulainvilliers, tome ii, pp. 29, 441 
 Mably, 1. iv, c. 2; Encyclopedic, art. Par- 
 lement; " Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscript.," 
 tome XXX, p. 603. The great difficulty I 
 have found in this investigation will 
 plead my excuse if errors are detected. 
 
 2«o Pasquier (" Recherches de la 
 
PARLIAMENT OF PARIS l6l 
 
 changes has been referred to a single epoch. But whether by 
 virtue of this ordinance, or of more gradual events, the char- 
 acter of the whole feudal court was nearly obliterated in that 
 of the Parhament of Paris. A systematic tribunal took the place 
 of a loose aristocratic assembly. It was to hold two sittings in 
 the year, each of two months' duration ; it was composed of two 
 prelates, two counts, thirteen clerks, and as many laymen. Great 
 changes were made afterward in this constitution. The nobility, 
 who originally sat there, grew weary of an attendance which 
 detained them from war and from their favourite pursuits at 
 home. The bishops were dismissed to their necessary residence 
 upon their sees.^^^ As they withdrew, a class of regular lawyers, 
 originally employed, as it appears, in the preparatory business, 
 without any decisive voice, came forward to the higher places, 
 and established a complicated and tedious system of procedure, 
 which was always characteristic of French jurisprudence. 
 
 They introduced at the same time a new theory of absolute 
 power and unlimited obedience. All feudal privileges were 
 treated as encroachments on the imprescriptible rights of mon- 
 archy. With the natural bias of lawyers in favour of preroga- 
 tive conspired that of the clergy, who fled to the king for refuge 
 against the tyranny of the barons. In the civil and canon laws 
 a system of political maxims was found very uncongenial to the 
 feudal customs. The French lawyers of the fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries frequently give their king the title of emperor, 
 and treat disobedience to him as sacrilege.^^^ 
 
 But among these lawyers, although the general tenants of 
 the crown by barony ceased to appear, there still continued to 
 sit a more eminent body, the lay and spiritual peers of France, 
 representatives, as it were, of that ancient baronial aristocracy. 
 It is a very controverted question at what time this exclusive 
 dignity of peerage, a word obviously applicable by the feudal 
 law to all persons coequal in degree of tenure, was reserved to 
 twelve vassals. At the coronation of Philip Augustus, in 1179, 
 we first perceive the six great feudatories, Dukes of Burgundy, 
 Normandy, Guienne, Counts of Toulouse, Flanders, Champagne, 
 distinguished by the ofifices they performed in that ceremony. 
 It was natural, indeed, that by their princely splendour and im- 
 portance they should eclipse such petty lords as Bourbon and 
 Coucy, however equal in quality of tenure. During the reign 
 
 France," 1. ii, c. 3) published this ordi- p. 303, and Encyclopedic, art. Parlement, 
 
 nance, which, indeeci, as the editor of are the best authorities I have found. 
 
 " Ordonnances des Rois," tome i, p. 547, There may very possibly be superior 
 
 observes, is no ordinance, but a regula- works on this branch of the French 
 
 tion for the execution of one previously constitution which have not fallen into 
 
 made; nor does it establish the residence my hands. 
 
 of the Parliament in Paris. ^sa Mably, 1. iv, c. 2, note 10. 
 
 281 Velly, " Hist, de France," tome vii, 
 II 
 
l62 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 of Philip Augustus six ecclesiastical peers, the Duke-Bishops of 
 Rheims, Laon, and Langres, the Count-Bishops of Beauvais, 
 Chalons, and Noyon, were added as a sort of parallel or counter- 
 poise.-^^ Their precedence does not, however, appear to have 
 carried with it any other privilege, at least in judicature, than 
 other barons enjoyed. But their pre-eminence being fully con- 
 firmed, Philip the Fair set the precedent of augmenting their 
 original number by conferring the dignity of peerage on the 
 Duke of Brittany and the Count of Artois.^®* Other creations 
 took place subsequently ; but these were confined, during the 
 period comprised in this work, to princes of the royal blood. 
 The peers were constant members of the Parliament, from which 
 other vassals holding in chief were never, perhaps, excluded by 
 law, but their attendance was rare in the fourteenth century, and 
 soon afterward ceased altogether.^®^ 
 
 A judicial body, composed of the greatest nobles in France, 
 as well as of learned and eminent lawyers, must naturally have 
 soon become politically important. Notwithstanding their dis- 
 position to enhance every royal prerogative, as opposed to feudal 
 privileges, the Parliament was not disinclined to see its own 
 protection invoked by the subject. It appears by an ordinance 
 of Charles V, in 1371, that the nobility of Languedoc had ap- 
 pealed to the Parliament of Paris against a tax imposed by the 
 king's authority; and this, at a time when the French consti- 
 tution did not recognise the levying of money without consent 
 of the States-General, must have been a just ground of appeal, 
 though the present ordinance annuls and overturns it.^^^ Dur- 
 ing the tempests of Charles VI's unhappy reign the Parliament 
 acquired a more decided authority, and held, in some degree, 
 the balance between the contending factions of Orleans and 
 Burgundy, This influence was partly owing to one remarkable 
 function attributed to the Parliament, which raised it much above 
 the level of a merely political tribunal, and has at various times 
 wrought striking effects in the French monarchy. 
 
 The few ordinances enacted by Kings of France in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries were generally by the advice of their 
 royal council, in which probably they were solemnly declared as 
 well as agreed upon. But after the gradual revolution of gov- 
 ernment, which took away from the feudal aristocracy all con- 
 trol over the king's edicts, and substituted a new magistracy 
 for the ancient baronial court, these legislative ordinances were 
 commonly drawn up by the interior council, or what we may 
 call the ministry. They were in some instances promulgated by 
 
 283VeIly, tome ii, p. 287; tome iii, p. =^5 Encyclopedic, art. Parlement, p. 6. 
 
 221; tome IV. p. 41. "«Mably, 1. v, c. 5, note 5- 
 
 -^* Id., tome vii, p. 97. 
 
REGISTRATION OF ROYAL EDICTS 163 
 
 the king in Parliament. Others were sent thither for registration 
 or entry upon their records. This formaHty was by degrees, if 
 not from the beginning, deemed essential to render them au- 
 thentic and notorious, and therefore indirectly gave them the 
 sanction and validity of a law.^®*^ Such, at least, appears to have 
 been the received doctrine before the end of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. It has been contended by Mably, among other writers, 
 that at so early an epoch the Parliament of Paris did not enjoy, 
 nor even claim to itself, that anomalous right of judging the 
 expediency of edicts proceeding from the king, which afterward 
 so remarkably modified the absoluteness of his power. In the 
 fifteenth century, however, it certainly manifested pretensions of 
 this nature : first, by registering ordinances in such a manner 
 as to testify its own unwillingness and disapprobation, of which 
 one instance occurs as early as 1418, and another in 1443 ; and, 
 afterward, by remonstrating against and delaying the registra- 
 tion of laws which it deemed inimical to the public interest. A 
 conspicuous proof of this spirit was given in their opposition to 
 Louis XI when repealing the Pragmatic Sanction of his father — 
 an ordinance essential, in their opinion, to the liberties of the 
 Galilean Church. In this instance they ultimately yielded ; but 
 at another time they persisted in a refusal to enregister letters 
 containing an alienation of the royal domain. ^^^ 
 
 The counsellors of Parliament were originally appointed by 
 the king, and they were even changed according to circum- 
 stances. Charles V made the first alteration, by permitting them 
 to fill up vacancies by election, which usage continued during 
 the next reign. Charles VII resumed the nomination of fresh 
 members upon vacancies. Louis XI even displaced actual coun- 
 sellors. But in 1468, from whatever motive, he published a most 
 important ordinance, declaring the presidents and counsellors 
 of Parliament immovable, except in case of legal forfeiture.^^® 
 This extraordinary measure of conferring independence on a 
 body which had already displayed a consciousness of its emi- 
 nent privilege by opposing the registration of his edicts, is per- 
 haps to be deemed a proof of that shortsightedness as to points 
 of substantial interest so usually found in crafty men. But, be 
 this as it may, there was formed in the Parliament of Paris an in- 
 dependent power not emanating from the royal will, nor liable, 
 except through force, to be destroyed by it; which, in later times, 
 became almost the sole depositary, if not of what we should 
 call the love of freedom, yet of public spirit and attachment to 
 justice. France, so fertile of great men in the sixteenth and 
 
 2" Encyclopedic, art. Parlement. ^89 yi]]ai.et, tome xiv, p. 231; Encyclo- 
 
 2^8 Mably, 1. vi, c. 5, notes 19 and 21; pedie, art. Parlement. 
 Gamier, " Hist, de France," xvii, 219-380. 
 
164 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 seventeenth centuries, might better spare, perhaps, from her 
 annals any class and description of them than her lawyers. 
 Doubtless the Parliament of Paris, with its prejudices and nar- 
 row views, its high notions of loyal obedience so strangely mixed 
 up with remonstrances and resistance, its anomalous privilege 
 of objecting to edicts, hardly approved by the nation who did 
 not participate in it, and overturned with facility by the king 
 whenever he thought fit to exert the sinews of his prerogative, 
 was but an inadequate substitute for that co-ordinate sover- 
 eignty, that equal concurrence of national representatives in legis- 
 lation, which has long been the exclusive pride of our govern- 
 ment, and to which the States-General of France, in their best 
 days, had never aspired. No man of sane understanding would 
 desire to revive institutions both uncongenial to modern opin- 
 ions and to the natural order of society. Yet the name of the 
 Parliament of Paris must ever be respectable. It exhibited upon 
 various occasions virtues from which human esteem is as insepa- 
 rable as the shadow from the substance — a severe adherence to 
 principles, an unaccommodating sincerity, individual disinter- 
 estedness and consistency. Whether, indeed, these qualities have 
 been so generally characteristic of the French people as to afford 
 no peculiar commendation to the Parliament of Paris, it is rather 
 for the observer of the present day than the historian of past times 
 to decide. ^^*^ 
 
 The principal causes that operated in subverting the feudal 
 system may be comprehended under three distinct heads — the 
 increasing power of the crown, the elevation of the lower ranks, 
 and the decay of the feudal principle. 
 
 200 f\iQ province of Languedoc, with 
 its dependencies of Quercy and Rou- 
 ergue, having belonged almost in full 
 sovereignty to the Counts of Toulouse, 
 was not perhaps subject to the feudal 
 resort or appellant jurisdiction of any 
 tribunal at Paris. Philip the Bold, after 
 its reunion to the crown, established the 
 Parliament of Toulouse, a tribunal with- 
 out appeal, in 1280. This was, however, 
 suspended from 1291 to 1443, during 
 which interval the Parliament of Paris 
 exercised an appellant jurisdiction over 
 Languedoc. (Vaissette, " Hist. de 
 Lang.," tome iv, pp. 60, 71, 524.) Sover- 
 eign courts or Parliaments were estab- 
 lished by Charles VII at Grenoble for 
 Dauphine, and by Louis XI at Bor- 
 deaux and Dijon for Guienne and I3ur- 
 gundy. The Parliament of Rouen is not 
 so ancient. These institutions rather di- 
 minished the resort of the Parliament 
 of Paris, which had extended over Bur- 
 gundy, and, in time of peace, over Gui- 
 enne. 
 
 A work has appeared within a few 
 years which throws an abundant light on 
 the judicial system, and indeed on the 
 
 whole civil polity of France, as well as 
 other countries, during the middle ages. 
 I allude to " L'Esprit, Origine, et Pro- 
 gres des Institutions judiciaires des 
 pnncipaux Pays de I'Europe," by M. 
 Meyer, of Amsterdam, especially the first 
 and third volumes. It would have been 
 fortunate had its publication preceded 
 that of the first edition of the present 
 work, as I might have rendered this 
 chapter on the feudal system in many 
 respects more perspicuous and correct. 
 As it is, without availing myself of M, 
 Meyer's learning and acuteness to il- 
 lustrate the obscurity of these researches, 
 or discussing the few questions upon 
 which I might venture, with deference, 
 to adhere to another opinion, neither 
 of which could conveniently be done on 
 the present occasion, I shall content my- 
 self with this general reference to a per- 
 formance of singular diligence and abil- 
 ity, which no student of these antiquities 
 should neglect. In all essential points I 
 am happy to perceive that M. Meyer's 
 views of the middle ages are not far dif- 
 ferent from my own. (Note to the fourth 
 edition.) 
 
DECLINE OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 
 
 165 
 
 It has been my object in the last pages to point out the acqui- 
 sitions of power by the crown of France in respect of legislative 
 and judicial authority. The principal augmentations of its do- 
 main have been historically mentioned in the last chapter, but 
 the subject may here require further notice. The French kings 
 naturally acted upon a system, in order to recover those pos- 
 sessions which the improvidence or necessities of the Carlovin- 
 gian race had suffered almost to fall away from the monarchy. 
 This course, pursued with tolerable steadiness for two or three 
 centuries, restored their effective power. By escheat or for- 
 feiture, by bequest or purchase, by marriage or succession, a 
 number of fiefs were merged in their increasing domain. ^^^ It 
 was part of their policy to obtain possession of arriere-fiefs, and 
 thus to become tenants of their own barons. In such cases 
 the king was obliged by the feudal duties to perform homage, 
 by proxy, to his subjects, and engage himself to the service 
 of his fief. But, for every political purpose, it is evident that 
 the lord could have no command over so formidable a vas- 
 sal.2«2 
 
 The reunion of so many fiefs was attempted to be secured 
 by a legal principle, that the domain was inalienable and impre- 
 scriptible. This became at length a fundamental maxim in 
 the law of France. But it does not seem to be much older than 
 the reign of Philip V, who, in 13 18, revoked the alienations of 
 his predecessors, nor was it thoroughly established, even in the- 
 
 291 The word domain is calculated, by 
 a seeming ambiguity, to perplex the 
 reader of French history. In its pri- 
 mary sense, the domain or demesne 
 (dominicum) of any proprietor was con- 
 fined to the lands in his immediate oc- 
 cupation; excluding those of which his 
 tenants, whether in fief or villenage, 
 whether for a certain estate or at will, 
 had an actual possession, or, in our law 
 language, pernancy of the profits. Thus 
 the compilers of Doomsday-Book " dis- 
 tinguish, in every manor, the lands held 
 by the lord in demesne from those oc- 
 cupied by his villeins or other tenants. 
 And in England the word, if not tech- 
 nically, yet in use, is still confined to 
 this sense. But in a secondary accepta- 
 tion, more usual in France, the domain 
 comprehended all lands for which rent 
 was paid (censives), and which contrib- 
 uted to the regular annual revenue of 
 the proprietor. The great distinction 
 was between lands in demesne and those 
 in fief. A grant of territory, whether by 
 the king or another lord, comprising 
 as well domanial estates and tributary 
 towns as feudal superiorities, was ex- 
 pressed to convey in dominico quod 
 est in dominico, et in feodo quod est 
 in feodo." Since, therefore, fiefs, even 
 those of the vavassors or inferior ten- 
 antry, were not part of the lord's do- 
 main, there is, as I said, an apparent 
 
 ambiguity in the language of historians 
 who speak of the reunion of provinces to 
 the royal domain. This ambiguity, how- 
 ever, is rather apparent than real. When 
 the duchy of Normandy, for example, is 
 said to have been united by Philip Au- 
 gustus to his domain, we are not, of 
 course, to suppose that the soil of that 
 province became the private estate of 
 the crown. It continued, as before, in 
 the possession of the Norman barons and 
 their sub-vassals, who had held their es- 
 tates of the dukes. But it is meant only 
 that the King of France stood exactly 
 in the place of the Duke of Normandy, 
 with the same rights of possession over 
 lands absolutely in demesne, of rents and 
 customary payments from the burgesses 
 of towns and tenants in roture or villen- 
 age, and of feudal services from the mili- 
 tary vassals. The immediate superiori- 
 ty, and the immediate resort, or juris- 
 diction, over these devolved to the 
 crown; and thus the duchy of Nor- 
 mandy, considered as a fief, was re- 
 united, or, more properly, merged in the 
 royal domain, though a very small part 
 of the territory might become truly do- 
 manial. 
 
 2^^ See a memorial on the acquisition 
 of arriere fiefs by the Kings of France, 
 in " Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscript., 
 tome i, by M. Dacier. 
 
l66 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ory, till the fifteenth century.^^^ Alienations, however, were cer- 
 tainly very repugnant to the policy of Philip Augustus and St. 
 Louis. But there was one species of infeudation so consonant 
 to ancient usage and prejudice that it could not be avoided upon 
 any suggestions of policy; this was the investiture of younger 
 princes of the blood with considerable territorial appanages. It 
 is remarkable that the epoch of appanages on so great a scale 
 was the reign of St. Louis, whose efforts were constantly directed 
 against feudal independence. Yet he invested his brothers with 
 the counties of Poitou, Anjou, and Artois, and his sons with 
 those of Clermont and Alengon. This practice, in later times, 
 produced very mischievous consequences. 
 
 Under a second class of events that contributed to destroy 
 the spirit of the feudal system we may reckon the abolition of 
 villenage, the increase of commerce and consequent opulence 
 of merchants and artisans, and especially the institutions of free 
 cities and boroughs. This is one of the most important and 
 interesting steps in the progress of society during the middle 
 ages, and deserves particular consideration. 
 
 The provincial cities under the Roman Empire .enjoyed, as 
 is well known, a municipal magistracy and the right of internal 
 regulation. Nor was it repugnant to the spirit of the Frank 
 or Gothic conquerors to leave them in possession of these privi- 
 leges. It was long believed, however, that little, if any, satis- 
 factory proof of their preservation, either in France or Italy, 
 could be found; or, at least, if they had ever existed, that they 
 were wholly swept away in the former country during the con- 
 fusion of the ninth century, which ended in the establishment 
 of the feudal system. 
 
 Every town, except within the royal domains, was subject 
 to some lord. In episcopal cities the bishop possessed a con- 
 siderable authority, and in many there was a class of resident 
 nobility. But this subject has been better elucidated of late 
 years ; and it has been made to appear that instances of mu- 
 nicipal government were at least not rare, especially in the south 
 of France, throughout the long period between the fall of the 
 Western Empire and the beginning of the twelfth century,^®* 
 though becoming far more common in its latter part. 
 
 The earliest charters of community granted to towns in France 
 have been commonly referred to the time of Louis VI. Noyon, 
 St. Quentin, Laon, and Amiens appear to have been the first 
 that received emancipation at the hands of this prince.^^^ The 
 chief towns in the royal domains were successively admitted to 
 
 293 Preface au isme tome des " Ordon- 2" " Ordonnances des Rois," ubi su- 
 
 nances," par M. Pastoret. pra. p. 7. These charters are as old as 
 
 2"** [Note XVIII.] mo, but the precise date is unknown. 
 
DECLINE OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 167 
 
 the same privileges during the reigns of Louis VI, Louis VII, 
 and Philip Augustus. This example was gradually followed by 
 the peers and other barons ; so that by the end of the thirteenth 
 century the custom had prevailed over all France. It has been 
 sometimes imagined that the crusades had a material influence 
 in promoting the erection of communities. Those expeditions 
 would have repaid Europe for the prodigality of crimes and 
 miseries which attended them if this notion were founded in 
 reality. But I confess that in this, as in most other respects, 
 their beneficial consequences appear to me very much exag- 
 gerated. The cities of Italy obtained their internal liberties by 
 gradual encroachments, and by the concessions of the Fran- 
 conian emperors. Those upon the Rhine owed many of their 
 privileges to the same monarchs, whose cause they had espoused 
 in the rebellions of Germany. In France the charters granted 
 by Louis the Fat could hardly be connected with the first cru- 
 sade, in which the crown had taken no part, and were long prior 
 to the second. It was not till fifty years afterward that the barons 
 seem to have trod in his steps by granting charters to their 
 vassals, and these do not appear to have been particularly re- 
 lated in time to any of the crusades. Still less can the corpora- 
 tions erected by Henry II in England be ascribed to these holy 
 wars, in which our country had hitherto taken no considerable 
 .share. 
 
 The establishment of chartered towns in France has also been 
 ascribed to deliberate policy. '' Louis the Gross," says Robert- 
 son, " in order to create some power that might counterbalance 
 those potent vassals who controlled or gave law to the crown, 
 first adopted the plan of conferring new privileges on the towns 
 situated within his own domain." Yet one does not immedi- 
 ately perceive what strength the king could acquire by granting 
 these extensive privileges within his own domains, if the great 
 vassals were only weakened, as he asserts afterward, by follow- 
 ing his example. In what sense, besides, can it be meant that 
 Noyon or Amiens, by obtaining certain franchises, became a 
 power that could counterbalance the Duke of Normandy or Count 
 of Champagne ? It is more natural to impute this measure, both 
 in the king and his barons, to their pecuniary exigencies ; for 
 we could hardly doubt that their concessions were sold at the 
 highest price, even if the existing charters did not exhibit the 
 fullest proof of it.^^® It is obvious, however, that the coarser 
 methods of rapine must have grown obsolete, and the rights of 
 the inhabitants of towns to property established, before they 
 could enter into any compact with their lord for the purchase of 
 liberty. Guibert, Abbot of St. Nogent, near Laon, relates the 
 
 2»8 " Ordonnances des Rois," tome xi, preface, pp. 18 et 50. 
 
l68 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 establishment of a community in that city with circumstances 
 that, in the main, might probably occur in any other place. Con- 
 tinual acts of violence and robbery having been committed, which 
 there was no police adequate to prevent, the clergy and prin- 
 cipal inhabitants agreed to enfranchise the populace for a sum 
 of money, and to bind the whole society by regulations for gen- 
 eral security. These conditions were gladly accepted ; the money 
 was paid, and the leading men swore to maintain the privileges 
 of the inferior freemen. The Bishop of Laon, who happened 
 to be absent, at first opposed this new institution, but was ulti- 
 mately induced, by money, to take a similar oath, and the com- 
 munity was confirmed by the king. Unluckily for himself, the 
 bishop afterward annulled the charter; when the inhabitants, 
 in despair at seeing themselves reduced to servitude, rose and 
 murdered him. This was in 1112; and Guibert's narrative cer- 
 tainly does not support the opinion that charters of community 
 proceeded from the policy of government. He seems to have 
 looked upon them with the jealousy of a feudal abbot, and blames 
 the Bishop of Amiens for consenting to such an establishment 
 in his city, from which, according to Guibert, many evils re- 
 sulted. In his sermons, we are told, this abbot used to descant 
 on " those execrable communities, where serfs, against law and 
 justice, withdraw themselves from the power of their lords." ^®^ 
 
 In some cases they were indebted for success to their own 
 courage and love of liberty. Oppressed by the exactions of 
 their superiors, they had recourse to arms, and united them- 
 selves in a common league, confirmed by oath, for the sake of 
 redress. One of these associations took place at Mans as early 
 as 1067, and, though it did not produce any charter of privileges, 
 is a proof of the spirit to which ultimately the superior classes 
 were obliged to submit.^®^ Several charters bear witness that 
 this spirit of resistance was justified by oppression. Louis VII 
 frequently declares the tyranny exercised over the towns to be 
 his motive for enfranchising them. Thus the charter of Mantes, 
 in 1 1 50, is said to be given '' pro nimia oppressione pauperum ": 
 that of Compiegne, in 1153, "propter enormitates clericorum": 
 that of Dourlens, granted by the Count of Ponthieu in 1202, 
 *' propter injurias et molestias a potentibus terrse burgensibus 
 frequenter illatas." ^^^ 
 
 The privileges which these towns of France derived from their 
 charters were surprisingly extensive, especially if we do not 
 suspect some of them to be merely in confirmation of previous 
 usages. They were made capable of possessing common prop- 
 
 2" " Hist. Litteraire de la France," ^os «« Recueil des Historiens," tome xiv, 
 
 tome X, p. 448; Du Cange, voc. Com- preface, p. 66. 
 
 munia. 2»o " Ordonnances des Rois," tome xi, 
 
 preface, p. 17. 
 
DECLINE OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 
 
 169 
 
 erty, and authorized to use a common seal as the symbol of their 
 incorporation. The more oppressive and ignominious tokens 
 of subjection, such as the fine paid to the lord for permission 
 to marry their children, were abolished. Their payments of rent 
 or tribute were limited both in amount and as to the occasions 
 when they might be demanded : and these were levied by as- 
 sessors of their own electing. Some obtained an exemption from 
 assisting their lord in war; others were only bound to follow 
 him when he personally commanded ; and almost all limited their 
 service to one, or, at the utmost, very few days. If they were 
 persuaded to extend its duration, it was, like that of feudal ten- 
 ants, at the cost of their superior. Their customs, as to succes- 
 sion and other matters of private right, were reduced to certainty, 
 and, for the most part, laid down in the charter of incorporation. 
 And the observation of these was secured by the most valuable 
 privilege which the chartered towns obtained — that of exemp- 
 tion from the jurisdiction, as well of the royal as the territorial 
 judges. They were subject only to that of magistrates, either 
 wholly elected by themselves or, in some places, with a greater 
 or less participation of choice in the lord. They were empowered 
 to make special rules, or, as we call them, by-laws, so as not to 
 contravene the provisions of their charter or the ordinances of 
 the king.3«° 
 
 It was undoubtedly far from the intention of those barons 
 who conferred such immunities upon their subjects to relin- 
 quish their own superiority and rights not expressly conceded. 
 But a remarkable change took place in the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, which afifected, in a high degree, the feudal 
 constitution of France. Towns, distrustful of their lord's fidel- 
 ity, sometimes called in the king as guarantee of his engage- 
 ments. The first stage of royal interference led to a more ex- 
 tensive measure. Philip Augustus granted letters of safeguard 
 to communities dependent upon the barons, assuring to them 
 his own protection and patronage.^^^ And this was followed 
 up so quickly by the court, if we believe some writers, that in 
 the next reign Louis VIII pretended to the immediate sover- 
 eignty over all chartered towns, in exclusion of their original 
 lords.^*'^ Nothing, perhaps, had so decisive an effect in sub- 
 verting the feudal aristocracy. The barons perceived too late 
 
 '*" " Ordonnances des Rois," prefaces 
 aux tomes xi et xii; Du Cange, voc. 
 Communia, Hostis; Carpentier. Suppl. 
 ad Du Cange, voc. Hostis; Mably, " Ob- 
 servations sur I'Hist. de France," 1. iii, 
 c. 7. 
 
 '»]; Mably "Observations sur I'Hist. 
 de France," 1. iii, c. 7. 
 
 '"2 Reputabat civitates omnes suas 
 esse, in quibus communiae essent. I 
 mention this in deference to Du Cange, 
 
 Mably, and others, w^ho assume the fact 
 as incontrovertible; but the passage is 
 only in a monkish chronicler, whose au- 
 thority, were it even more explicit, would 
 not weigh much in a matter of law. 
 Beaumanoir, however, sixty years after- 
 ward, lays it down that no one can erect 
 a commune without the king's consent 
 (c. 50, p. 268). And this was an unques- 
 tionable maxim in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. C* Ordonnances," tome xi, p. 29.) 
 
170 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 that, for a price long since lavished in prodigal magnificence 
 or useless warfare, they had suffered the source of their wealth 
 to be diverted and the nerves of their strength to be severed. 
 The government prudently respected the privileges secured by 
 charter. Philip the Long established an officer in all large towns 
 to preserve peace by an armed police; but though subject to 
 the orders of the crown, he was elected by the burgesses, and 
 they took a mutual oath of fidelity to each other. Thus shielded 
 under the king's mantle, they ventured to encroach upon the 
 neighbouring lords, and to retaliate for the long oppression of 
 the commonalty.^*^^ Every citizen was bound by oath to stand 
 by the common cause against all aggressors, and this obligation 
 was abundantly fulfilled. In order to swell their numbers, it 
 became the practice to admit all who came to reside within their 
 walls to the rights of burghership, even though they were villeins 
 appurtenant to the soil of a master from whom they had es- 
 caped.^^* Others, having obtained the same privileges, contin- 
 ued to dwell in the country ; but, upon any dispute with their 
 lords, called in the assistance of their community. Philip the 
 Fair, erecting certain communes in Languedoc, gave to any who 
 would declare on oath that he was aggrieved by the lord or 
 his officers the right of being admitted a burgess of the next 
 town, upon paying one mark of silver to the king, and purchas- 
 ing a tenement of a definite value. But the neglect of this con- 
 dition and several other abuses are enumerated in an instrument 
 of Charles V, containing the complaints made by the nobility and 
 rich ecclesiastics of the neighbourhood. ^•^^ In his reign the feudal 
 independence had so completely yielded that the court began 
 
 "03 In the charter of Philip Augustus 
 to the town of Roye in Picardy, we read, 
 If any stranger, whether noble or villein, 
 commits a wrong against the town, the 
 mayor shall summon him to answer for 
 it, and if he does not obey the summons 
 the mayor and inhabitants may go and 
 destroy his house, in which we (the 
 king) will lend them our assistance, if 
 the house be too strong for the burgesses 
 to pull down: except the case of one 
 of our vassals, whose house shall not 
 be destroyed; but he shall not be allowed 
 to enter the town till he has made 
 amends at the discretion of the mayor 
 and jurats. (" Ordonnances des Rois," 
 tome xi, p. 228.) This summary process 
 could only, as I conceive, be employed 
 if the house was situated within the juris- 
 diction of the commune. (See Charter 
 of Crespy, id., p. 253.) In other cases 
 the application for redress was to be 
 made in the first instance to the lord of 
 the territory wherein the delinquent re- 
 sided. But upon his failing to enforce 
 satisfaction, the mayor and jurats might 
 satisfy themselves; liceat justitiam quae- 
 rere, prout poterunt; that is, might pull 
 down his house provided they could. 
 
 Mably positively maintains the com- 
 munes to have had the right of levying 
 war (1, iii, c. 7). And Brequigny seems 
 to coincide with him. (" Ordonnances," 
 preface, p. 46; see also " Hist de Lan- 
 guedoc," tome iii, p. 115.) The territory 
 of a commune was called Pax (p. 185); 
 an expressive word. 
 
 ^"^ One of the most remarkable privi- 
 leges of chartered towns was that of con- 
 ferring freedom on runaway serfs, if they 
 were not reclaimed by their masters 
 within a certain time. This was a jjretty 
 general law. Si quis nativus quiete per 
 unum annum et unum diem in aliqua 
 villa privilegiata manserit, ita quod in 
 eorum communem gyldam tanquam civis 
 receptus fuerit, eo ipso a villenagio libe- 
 rabitur. (Glanvil, 1. v, c. 5.) The cities 
 of Languedoc had the same privilege. 
 (Vaissette, tome iii, pp. 528, 530.) And 
 the editor of the *' Ordonnances" speaks 
 of it as general (p. 44). A similar cus- 
 tom was established in Germany; but the 
 term of prescription was, in some places 
 at least, much longer than a year and a 
 day. (Pfeffcl, tome i, p. 294.) 
 
 3^° Martenne, " Thesaur. Anecd.," 
 tome i, p. 1515. 
 
DECLINE OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 171 
 
 to give in to a new policy, which was ever after pursued : that 
 of maintaining the dignity and privileges of the noble class 
 against those attacks which wealth and liberty encouraged the 
 plebeians to make upon them. 
 
 The maritime towns of the south of France entered into sepa- 
 rate alliances with foreign states ; as Narbonne with Genoa in 
 1 166, and Montpellier in the next century. At the death of 
 Raymond VII, Avignon, Aries, and Marseilles affected to set 
 up republican governments, but they were soon brought into 
 subjection.^^*^ The independent character of maritime towns was 
 not peculiar to those of the southern provinces. Edward II and 
 Edward III negotiated and entered into alliances with the towns 
 of Flanders, to which neither their count nor the King of France 
 were parties.^"^ Even so late as the reign of Louis XI the Duke 
 of Burgundy did not hesitate to address the citizens of Rouen, 
 in consequence of the capture of some ships, as if they had 
 formed an independent state.^*^^ This evidently arose out of the 
 ancient customs of private warfare, which, long after they were 
 repressed by a stricter police at home, continued with lawless 
 violence on the ocean, and gave a character of piracy to the com- 
 mercial enterprise of the middle ages. 
 
 Notwithstanding the forces which in opposite directions as- 
 sailed the feudal system from the enhancement of royal preroga- 
 tive, and the elevation of the chartered towns, its resistance would 
 have been much longer but for an intrinsic decay. No political 
 institution can endure which does not rivet itself to the hearts 
 of men by ancient prejudice or acknowledged interest. The 
 feudal compact had originally much of this character. Its prin- 
 ciple of vitality was warm and active. In fulfilling the obliga- 
 tions of mutual assistance and fidelity by military service, the 
 energies of friendship were awakened, and the ties of moral sym- 
 pathy superadded to those of positive compact. While private 
 wars were at their height, the connection of lord and vassal grew 
 close and cordial, in proportion to the keenness of their enmity 
 toward others. It was not the object of a baron to disgust and 
 impoverish his vavassors by enhancing the profits of seigniory, 
 for there was no rent of such price as blood, nor any labour so 
 serviceable as that of the sword. 
 
 But the nature of feudal obligation was far better adapted 
 to the partial quarrels of neighbouring lords than to the wars of 
 kingdoms. Customs, founded upon the poverty of the smaller 
 gentry, had limited their martial duties to a period never ex- 
 ceeding forty days, and diminished according to the subdivisions 
 of the fief. They could undertake an expedition, but not a cam- 
 
 soBVelly, tome iv, p. 446; tome v, p. 97- sos Gamier, tome xvii, p. 396. 
 
 ^^"^ Rymer, tome iv, passim. 
 
1/2 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 paign; they could burn an open town, but had seldom leisure 
 to besiege a fortress. Hence, when the Kings of France and 
 England were engaged in wars which, on our side at least, might 
 be termed national, the inefficiency of the feudal militia became 
 evident. It was not easy to employ the military tenants of Eng- 
 land upon the frontiers of Normandy and the Isle of France, 
 within the limits of their term of service. When, under Henry 
 II and Richard I, the scene of war was frequently transferred 
 to the Garonne or the Charente, this was still more impracticable. 
 The first remedy to which sovereigns had recourse was to keep 
 their vassals in service after the expiration of their forty days 
 at a stipulated rate of pay.^^^ But this was frequently neither 
 convenient to the tenant, anxious to return back to his house- 
 hold, nor to the king, who could not readily defray the charges 
 of an army.^^^ Something was to be devised more adequate to 
 the exigency, though less suitable to the feudal spirit. By the 
 feudal law the fief was, in strictness, forfeited by neglect of at- 
 tendance upon the lord's expedition. A milder usage introduced 
 a fine, which, however, was generally rather heavy, and assessed 
 at discretion. An instance of this kind has been noticed in an 
 earlier part of the present chapter, from the muster-roll of Philip 
 the Bold's expedition against the Count de Foix. The first Nor- 
 man Kings of England made these amercements very oppressive. 
 But when a pecuniary payment became the regular course of 
 redeeming personal service, which, under the name of escuage, 
 may be referred to the reign of Henry II, it was essential to 
 liberty that the military tenant should not lie at the mercy of 
 the crown.2" Accordingly, one of the most important provisions 
 contained in the Magna Charta of John secures the assessment 
 of escuage in Parliament. This is not renewed in the charter 
 of Henry III, but the practice during his reign was conformable 
 to its spirit. 
 
 The feudal military tenures had superseded that earlier sys- 
 tem of public defence which called upon every man, and espe- 
 cially every landholder, to protect his country.^^^ 'p^g relations 
 
 ^''^ Du Cange, et Carpentier, voc. 
 Hostis. 
 
 ^^^ There are several instances where 
 arrnies broke up, at the expiration of 
 their limited term of service, in conse- 
 quence of disagreement with the sover- 
 eign. Thus, at the siege of Avignon in 
 1226, Theobald, Count of Champagne, re- 
 tired with his troops, that he might not 
 promote the king's designs upon Lan- 
 guedoc. At that of Angers, in 1230, 
 nearly the same thing occurred. (M. 
 Paris, p. 308.) 
 
 8" Madox, " Hist, of Exchequer," c. 
 16, conceives that escuage may have been 
 levied by Henry I; the earliest mention 
 of it, however, in a record, is under 
 
 Henry II in 1159. (Littleton's "Hist, of 
 Henry II," vol. iv, p. 13.) 
 
 312 Every citizen, however extensive 
 may be his privileges, is naturally bound 
 to repel invasion. A common rising of 
 the people m arms, though not always 
 the most convenient mode of resistance, 
 is one to which all governments have a 
 lu\> *i°i ^^so'"*- Volumus, says Charles 
 the Bald, ut cujuscunque nostrum homo, 
 in cujuscunque regno sit, cum seniore 
 suo in hostem, vel aliis suis utilitatibus 
 pergat; nisi talis regni invasio, quam 
 l^antwen dicunt (quod absit), accident 
 ut omnis populus illius regni ad earn re- 
 pellendam communiter pergat. (" Ba- 
 luzu Capitularia," tome ii, p. 44.) This 
 
DECLINE OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 
 
 173 
 
 of a vassal came in place of those of a subject and a citizen. This 
 was the revolution of the ninth century. In the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth another innovation rather more gradually prevailed, and 
 marks the third period in the military history of Europe. Mer- 
 cenary troops were substituted for the feudal militia. Undoubt- 
 edly there could never have been a time when valour was not 
 to be purchased with money ; nor could any employment of sur- 
 plus wealth be more natural either to the ambitious or the weak. 
 But we can not expect to find numerous testimonies of facts of 
 this description.^^^ In public national history I am aware of 
 no instance of what may be called a regular army more ancient 
 than the body-guards, or huscarles, of Canute the Great. These 
 select troops amounted to six thousand men, on whom he prob- 
 ably relied to insure the subjection of England. A code of mar- 
 tial law compiled for their regulation is extant in substance ; and 
 they are reported to have displayed a military spirit of mutual 
 union, of which their master stood in awe.^^* Harold II is also 
 
 very ancient mention of the Landwehr, 
 or insurrectional militia, so signally 
 called forth in the present age, will strike 
 the reader. 
 
 The obligation of bearing arms in de- 
 fensive warfare was peculiarly incumbent 
 on the freeholder or allodialist. It made 
 part of the trinoda necessitas, in Eng- 
 land, erroneously confounded by some 
 writers with a feudal military tenure. 
 But when these latter tenures became 
 nearly universal, the original principles 
 of public defence were almost obliterated, 
 and I know not how far allodial proprie- 
 tors, where they existed, were called upon 
 for service. Kings did not, however, al- 
 ways dispense with such aid as the lower 
 people could supply. Louis the Fat 
 called out the militia of towns and par- 
 ishes under their priests, who marched 
 at their head, though they did not ac- 
 tually command them in battle. In the 
 charters of incorporation which towns re- 
 ceived the number of troops required 
 was usually expressed. These formed 
 the infantry of the French arrnies, per- 
 haps more numerous than formidable to 
 an enemy. In the war of the same 
 prince with the Emperor Henry V all 
 the population of the frontier provinces 
 was called out, for the militia of the 
 counties of Rheims and Chalons is said 
 to have amounted to sixty thousand men. 
 Philip IV summoned one foot soldier 
 for every twenty hearths to take the 
 field after the battle of Courtrai. (Dan- 
 iel, '* Hist, de la Milice Frangaise "; 
 Velly, tome iii, p. 62; tome vii, p. 287.) 
 Commissions of array, either to call out 
 the whole population, or, as was more 
 common, to select the most serviceable 
 by forced impressment, occur in English 
 records from the reign of Edward I 
 (Stuart's " View of Society," p. 400) ; and 
 there are even several writs directed to 
 the bishops, enjoining them to cause all 
 ecclesiastical persons to be arrayed and 
 
 armed on account of an expected in- 
 vasion. (Rymer, tome vi, p. 726 [46 E. 
 Ill]; tome vii, p. 162 [i R. II]; and 
 tome viii, p. 270 [3 H. IV].) 
 
 3" The preface to the eleventh volume 
 of " Recueil des Historiens," p. 232, no- 
 tices the word solidarii, for hired sol- 
 diers, as early as 1030. It was probably 
 unusual at that time; though in Roger 
 Hoveden, " Ordericus Vitalis," and other 
 writers of_ the twelfth century, it occurs 
 not very infrequently. We may perhaps 
 conjecture the abbots, as both the rich- 
 est and the most defenceless, to have 
 been the first who availed themselves of 
 mercenary valour. 
 
 3^* For these facts, of which I remem- 
 ber no mention in English history, I am 
 indebted to the Danish collection of 
 Langebek, " Scriptores Rerum Danica- 
 rum Medii ^vi." Though the " Leges 
 Castrensis Canuti Magni," published by 
 him (tome iii, p. 141), are not in their 
 original statutory form, they proceed 
 from the pen of Sweno, the earliest Dan- 
 ish historian, who lived under Walde- 
 mar I, less than a century and a half 
 after Canute. I apply the word huscarle, 
 familiar in Anglo-Saxon documents, to 
 these military retainers, on the authority 
 of Langebek, in another place (tome ii, 
 p. 454). The object of Canute's institu- 
 tions was to produce a uniformity of dis- 
 cipline and conduct among his soldiers, 
 and thus to separate them more decided- 
 ly from the people. They were distin- 
 guished by their dress and golden or- 
 naments. Their manners toward each 
 other were regulated ; quarrels and abu- 
 sive words subjected to a penalty. All 
 disputes, even respecting lands, were set- 
 tled among themselves at their general 
 Parliament. A singular story is told, 
 which, if false, may still illustrate the 
 traditionary character of these guards: 
 that, Canute having killed one of their 
 body in a fit of anger, it was debated 
 
174 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 said to have had Danish soldiers in pay. But the most eminent 
 example of a mercenary army is that by whose assistance Wil- 
 liam achieved the conquest of England. Historians concur in 
 representing this force to have consisted of sixty thousand men. 
 He afterward hired soldiers from various regions to resist an 
 invasion from Norway. William Rufus pursued the same course. 
 Hired troops did not, however, in general form a considerable 
 portion of armies till the wars of Henry II and Philip Augus- 
 tus. Each of these monarchs took into pay large bodies of mer- 
 cenaries, chiefly, as we may infer from their appellation of Bra- 
 banqons, enlisted from the Netherlands. These were always dis- 
 banded on cessation of hostilities ; and, unfit for any habits but 
 of idleness and license, oppressed the peasantry and ravaged the 
 country without control. But their soldier-like principles of in- 
 discriminate obedience, still more than their courage and field 
 discipline, rendered them dear to kings, who dreaded the free 
 spirit of a feudal army. It was by such a foreign force that John 
 saw himself on the point of abrogating the Great Charter, and 
 reduced his barons to the necessity of tendering his kingdom 
 to a prince of France. ^^^ 
 
 It now became manifest that the probabilities of war inclined 
 to the party who could take the field with selected and experi- 
 enced soldiers. The command of money was the command of 
 armed hirelings, more sure and steady in battle, as we must con- 
 fess with shame, than the patriot citizen. Though the nobility 
 still composed in a great degree the strength of an army, yet 
 they served in a new character ; their animating spirit was that 
 of chivalry rather than of feudal tenure; their connection with 
 a superior was personal rather than territorial. The crusades 
 had probably a material tendency to effectuate this revolution 
 by substituting, what was inevitable in those expeditions, a vol- 
 untary stipendiary service for one of absolute obligation. ^^® It 
 is the opinion of Daniel that in the thirteenth century all feudal 
 tenants received pay, even during their prescribed term of serv- 
 ice. ^^^ This does not appear consonant to the law of fiefs; yet 
 their poverty may often have rendered it impossible to defray 
 the cost of equipment on distant expeditions. A large propor- 
 
 whether the king should incur the legal 
 penalty of death; and this was only 
 compromised by his kneeling on a cush- 
 ion before the assembly and awaiting 
 their permission to rise (tome iii, p. 150). 
 
 315 Matt. Paris. 
 
 ^^^ Joinville, in several passages, inti- 
 mates that most of the knights serving 
 in St. Louis's crusade received _ pay, 
 either from their superior lord, if he 
 were on the expedition, or from some 
 other, into whose service they entered 
 for the time. He set out himself with 
 
 ten knights, whom he afterward found 
 it difficult enough to maintain. ('* Col- 
 lection des Memoires," tome i, p. 49, and 
 tome ii, p. 53.) 
 
 3" " Hist, de la Milice Frangaise," p. 
 84. The use of mercenary troops pre- 
 vailed much in Germany during the thir- 
 teenth century. (Schmidt, tome iv, p. 
 89.) In Italy it was also very common, 
 though its general adoption is to be re- 
 ferred to the commencement of the suc- 
 ceeding age. 
 
DECLINE OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 
 
 175 
 
 tion of the expense must in all cases have fallen upon the lord, 
 and hence that perpetually increasing taxation, the effects where- 
 of we have lately been investigating. 
 
 A feudal army, however, composed of all tenants in chief and 
 their vassals, still presented a formidable array. It is very long 
 before the paradox is generally admitted that numbers do not 
 necessarily contribute to the intrinsic efficiency of armies. Philip 
 IV assembled a great force by publishing the arriere-ban, or 
 feudal summons, for his unhappy expedition against the Flem- 
 ings. A small and more disciplined body of troops would not, 
 probably, have met with the discomfiture of Courtray. Edward 
 I and Edward II frequently called upon those who owed mili- 
 tary service in their invasions of Scotland. ^^® But in the French 
 wars of Edward III the whole, I think, of his army served for 
 pay, and was raised by contract with men of rank and influ- 
 ence, who received wages for every soldier according to his 
 station and the arms he bore. The rate of pay was so remark- 
 ably high that, unless we imagine a vast profit to have been 
 intended for the contractors, the private lancers and even archers 
 must have been chiefly taken from the middling classes, the 
 smaller gentry, or rich yeomanry of England.^^^ This part of 
 Edward's military system was probably a leading cause of his 
 superiority over the French, among whom the feudal tenantry 
 were called into the field, and swelled their unwieldy armies at 
 Crecy and Poitiers. Both parties, however, in this war employed 
 mercenary troops. Philip had fifteen thousand Italian cross- 
 bow-men at Crecy. It had for some time before become the 
 trade of soldiers of fortune to enlist under leaders of the same 
 description as themselves in companies of adventure, passing 
 from one service to another, unconcerned as to the cause in 
 which they were retained. These military adventurers played a 
 more remarkable part in Italy than in France, though not a little 
 troublesome to the latter country. The feudal tenures had at 
 least furnished a loyal native militia, whose duties, though much 
 limited in the extent, were defined by usage and enforced by 
 principle. They gave place, in an evil hour for the people and 
 eventually for sovereigns, to contracts with mutinous hirelings, 
 generally strangers, whose valour in the day of battle inadequately 
 redeemed their bad faith and vexatious rapacity. France, in her 
 
 ^" Rymer, tome iii, pp. 173, 189, 199, 
 et alibi saepius. 
 
 ^^* Many proofs of this may be ad- 
 duced from Kymer's collection. The fol- 
 lowing is from Brady's " History of Eng- 
 land,' vol. ii, appendix, p. 86: The wages 
 allowed by contract in 1346 were: For 
 an earl, 6s. Sd. per day; for barons and 
 bannerets, 4s.; for knights, 25.; for 
 squires, 15.; for archers and hobelers 
 
 (light cavalry), 6d.; for archers on foot, 
 3d.; ior Welshmen, 2d. These sums mul- 
 tiplied by about 24, to bring them on 
 a level with the present value of money 
 [1818], will show the pay to have been 
 extremely high. The cavalry, of course, 
 furnished themselves with horses and 
 equipments, as well as arms, which were 
 very expensive. (See, too, chap, i, p. 
 51, of this volume.) 
 
176 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 calamitous period under Charles VI and Charles VII, experi- 
 enced the full effects of military licentiousness. At the expul- 
 sion of the English, robbery and disorder were substituted for 
 the more specious plundering of war. Perhaps few measures 
 have ever been more popular, as few certainly have been more 
 politic, than the establishment of regular companies of troops 
 by an ordinance of Charles VII in 1444.^^^ These may justly 
 pass for the earliest institution of a standing army in Europe, 
 though some Italian princes had retained troops constantly in 
 their pay, but prospectively to hostilities, which were seldom 
 long intermitted. Fifteen companies were composed each of a 
 hundred men at arms, or lancers ; and, in the language of that 
 age, the whole body was one thousand five hundred lances. But 
 each, lancer had three archers, a coutiller, or soldier armed with 
 a knife, and a page or valet attached to him, all serving on horse- 
 back — so that the fifteen companies amounted to nine thousand 
 cavalry. ^^^ From these small beginnings, as they must appear 
 in modern times, arose the regular army of France, which every 
 succeeding king was solicitous to augment. The ban was some- 
 times convoked — that is, the possessors of fiefs were called upon 
 for military service in subsequent ages — but with more of osten- 
 tation than real efificiency. 
 
 The feudal compact, thus deprived of its original efficacy, 
 soon lost the respect and attachment which had attended it. 
 Homage and investiture became unmeaning ceremonies ; the in- 
 cidents of relief and aid were felt as burdensome exactions. And, 
 indeed, the rapacity with which these were levied, especially by 
 our Norman sovereigns and their barons, was of itself sufficient 
 to extinguish all the generous feelings of vassalage. Thus galled, 
 as it were, by the armour which he was compelled to wear, but 
 not to use, the military tenant of England looked no longer with 
 contempt upon the owner of lands in socage, who held his estate 
 with almost the immunities of an allodial proprietor. But the 
 profits which the crown reaped from wardships, and perhaps the 
 prejudices of lawyers, prevented the abolition of military tenures 
 till the restoration of Charles II. In France the fiefs of noble- 
 men were very unjustly exempted from all territorial taxation, 
 though the tailles of later times had, strictly speaking, only su- 
 perseded the aids to which they had been always liable. The 
 distinction, it is well known, was not annihilated till that 
 
 ^2" The estates at Orleans in 1439 had 
 advised this measure, as is recited in the 
 preamble of the ordinance. (" Ordon- 
 nances des Rois," tome xii, p. 312.) Sis- 
 mondi observes (vol. xiii, p. 352) that 
 very little is to be found in historians 
 about the establishment of these com- 
 pagnies d'ordonnance, though the most 
 important event in the reign of Charles 
 
 yil. The old soldiers of fortune who 
 pillaged the country either entered into 
 these companies or were disbanded, and 
 after their dispersion were readily made 
 amenable to the law. This writer is ex- 
 ceedingly full on the subject. 
 
 »2i Daniel. " Hist, de la Milice Fran- 
 gaise, p. 266; Villaret, " Hist, de France," 
 tome XV, p. 394. 
 
ADVANTAGES AND EVILS OF THE SYSTEM 
 
 177 
 
 event which annihilated all distinctions, the French Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 It is remarkable that, although the feudal system established 
 in England upon the conquest broke in very much upon our 
 ancient Saxon liberties — though it was attended with harsher 
 servitudes than in any other country, particularly those two in- 
 tolerable burdens, wardship and marriage — yet it has in general 
 been treated with more favour by English than French writers. 
 The hardiness with which the ancient barons resisted their sover- 
 eign, and the noble struggles which they made for civil liberty, 
 especially in that Great Charter, the baesment at least, if not the 
 foundation, of our free constitution, have met with a kindred 
 sympathy in the bosoms of Englishmen ; while, from an opposite 
 feeling, the French have been shocked at that aristocratic inde- 
 pendence which cramped the prerogatives and obscured the lustre 
 of their crown. Yet it is precisely to this feudal policy that 
 France is indebted for that which is ever dearest to her children, 
 their national splendour and power. That kingdom would have 
 been irretrievably dismembered in the tenth century if the laws 
 of feudal dependence had not preserved its integrity. Empires 
 of unwieldy bulk, like that of Charlemagne, have several times 
 been dissolved by the usurpation of provincial governors, as is 
 recorded both in ancient history and in that of the Mohammedan 
 dynasties in the East. What question can there be that the 
 powerful Dukes of Guienne or Counts of Toulouse would have 
 thrown off all connection with the crown of France, when 
 usurped by one of their equals, if the slight dependence of vas- 
 salage had not been substituted for legitimate subjection to a 
 sovereign ? 
 
 It is the previous state of society, under the grandchildren 
 of Charlemagne, which we must always keep in mind if we would 
 appreciate the effects of the feudal system upon the welfare of 
 mankind. The institutions of the eleventh century must be com- 
 pared with those of the ninth, not with the advanced civilization 
 of modern times. If the view that I have taken of those dark 
 ages is correct, the state of anarchy which we usually term feudal 
 was the natural result of a vast and barbarous empire feebly 
 administered, and the cause rather than effect of the general 
 establishment of feudal tenures. These, by preserving the mutual 
 relations of the whole, kept alive the feeling of a common coun- 
 try and common duties, and settled, after the lapse of ages, into 
 the free constitution of England, the firm monarchy of France, 
 and the federal union of Germany. 
 
 The utility of any form of polity may be estimated by its 
 effect upon national greatness and security, upon civil liberty 
 and private rights, upon the tranquility and order of society, 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 upon the increase and diffusion of wealth, or upon the general 
 tone of moral sentiment and energy. The feudal constitution 
 was certainly, as has been observed already, little adapted for the 
 defence of a mighty kingdom, far less for schemes of conquest. 
 But as it prevailed alike in several adjacent countries, none had 
 anything to fear from the military superiority of its neighbours. 
 It was this inefficiency of the feudal militia, perhaps, that saved 
 Europe during the middle ages from the danger of universal 
 monarchy. In times when princes had little notion of confed- 
 eracies for mutual protection, it is hard to say what might not 
 have been the successes of an Otho the Great, a Frederick Bar- 
 barossa, or a Philip Augustus, if they could have wielded the 
 whole force of their subjects whenever their ambition required. 
 If an empire equally extensive with that of Charlemagne, and 
 supported by military despotism, had been formed about the 
 twelfth or thirteenth century, the seeds of commerce and lib- 
 erty, just then beginning to shoot, would have perished, and 
 Europe, reduced to a barbarous servitude, might have fallen 
 before the free barbarians of Tartary. 
 
 If we look at the feudal polity as a scheme of civil freedom, 
 it bears a noble countenance. To the feudal law it is owing that 
 the very names of right and privilege were not swept away, as 
 in Asia, by the desolating hand of power. The tyranny which, 
 on every favourable moment, was breaking through all barriers, 
 would have rioted without control if, when the people were poor 
 and disunited, the nobility had not been brave and free. So 
 far as the sphere of feudality extended, it diffused the spirit of 
 liberty and the notions of private right. Every one, I think, will 
 acknowledge this who considers the limitations of the services 
 of vassalage, so cautiously marked in those law-books which 
 are the records of customs, the reciprocity of obligation be- 
 tween the lord and his tenant, the consent required in every 
 measure of a legislative or a general nature, the security, above 
 all, which every vassal found in the administration of justice 
 by his peers, and even (we may in this sense say) in the trial 
 by combat. The bulk of the people, it is true, were degraded 
 by servitude; but this had no connection with the feudal 
 tenures. 
 
 The peace and good order of society were not promoted by 
 this system. Though private wars did not originate in the feudal 
 customs, it is impossible to doubt that they were perpetuated 
 by so convenient an institution, which, indeed, owed its universal 
 establishment to no other cause. And as predominant habits 
 of warfare are totally irreconcilable with those of industry, not 
 merely by the immediate works of destruction which render its 
 efforts unavailing, but through that contempt of peaceful occu- 
 
ADVANTAGES AND EVILS OF THE SYSTEM 
 
 179 
 
 pations which they produce, the feudal system must have been 
 intrinsically adverse to the accumulation of wealth and the im- 
 provement of those arts which mitigate the evils or abridge the 
 labours of mankind. 
 
 But as a school of moral discipline the feudal institutions were 
 perhaps most to be valued. Society had sunk, for several cen- 
 turies after the dissolution of the Roman Empire, into a condi- 
 tion of utter depravity, where, if any vices could be selected as 
 more eminently characteristic than others, they were falsehood, 
 treachery, and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of 
 this extreme corruption, the feudal spirit exerted its ameliorating 
 influence. Violation of faith stood first in the catalogue of crimes, 
 most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, most 
 severely and promptly avenged, most branded by general in- 
 famy. The feudal law-books breathe throughout a spirit of hon- 
 ourable obligation. The feudal course of jurisdiction promoted, 
 what trial by peers is peculiarly calculated to promote, a keener 
 feeling and readier perception of moral as well as of legal dis- 
 tinctions. And as the judgment and sympathy of mankind are 
 seldom mistaken, in these great points of veracity and justice, 
 except through the temporary success of crimes, or the want of 
 a definite standard of right, they gradually recovered themselves 
 when law precluded the one and supplied the other. In the re- 
 ciprocal services of lord and vassal there was ample scope for 
 every magnanimous and disinterested energy. The heart of man, 
 when placed in circumstances which have a tendency to excite 
 them, will seldom be deficient in such sentiments. No occa- 
 sions could be more favourable than the protection of a faithful 
 supporter, or the defence of a beneficent suzerain, against such 
 powerful aggression as left little prospect except of sharing in 
 his ruin. 
 
 From these feelings engendered by the feudal relation has 
 sprung up the peculiar sentiment of personal reverence and at- 
 tachment toward a sovereign which we denominate loyalty ; alike 
 distinguishable from the stupid devotion of Eastern slaves, and 
 from the abstract respect with which free citizens regard their 
 chief magistrate. Men who had been used to swear fealty, to 
 profess subjection, to follow, at home and in the field, a feudal 
 superior and his family, easily transferred the same allegiance 
 to the monarch. It was a very powerful feeling which could 
 make the bravest men put up with slights and ill treatment at 
 the hands of their sovereign ; or call forth all the energies of 
 disinterested exertion for one whom they never saw, and in whose 
 character there was nothing to esteem. In ages when the rights 
 of the community were unfelt this sentiment was one great pre- 
 servative of society; and, though collateral or even subservient 
 
l8o HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 to more enlarged principles, it is still indispensable to the tran- 
 quility and permanence of every monarchy. In a moral view 
 loyalty has scarcely perhaps less tendency to refine and elevate 
 the heart than patriotism itself; and holds a middle place in the 
 scale of human motives, as they ascend from the grosser induce- 
 ments of self-interest to the furtherance of general happiness and 
 conformity to the purposes of Infinite Wisdom. 
 
CHAPTER III^ 
 
 HISTORY OF ITALY, FROM THE EXTINCTION OF THE CARLOVINGIAN 
 EMPERORS TO THE INVASION OF NAPLES BY CHARLES VIII 
 
 State of Italy after the death of Charles the Fat — Coronation of Otho^the Great — State 
 of Rojne — Conrad II — Union of the kingdom of Italy with the empire — Establish- 
 ment of the Normans in Naples and Sicily — Roger Guiscard — Rise of the Lombard 
 cities — ^They gradually b^ome more independent of the empire — Their internal 
 wars — Frederick Barbarossa — Destruction of Milan — Lombard league — Battle of 
 Legnano — Peace of Constance — Temporal principality of the popes — Guelf and 
 Ghibelin factions — Otho^IV — Frederick- II — Arrangement of the Italian republics — 
 Second Lombard war — Extinction of the house of Swabia — Causes of the success 
 of Lombard republics — Their prosperity and forms of government — Contentions 
 between the nobility and people — Civil wars — Story of Giovanni di Vicenza — State 
 of Italy after the extinction of the house of Swabia — Conquest of Naples by Charles 
 of Anjou — The Lombard republics become severally subject to princes or usurpers 
 —The Visconti of Milan— Their aggrandizement — Decline of the imperial authority 
 over Italy — Internal state of Rome — Rienzi — Florence — Her forms of government 
 historically traced to the end of the fourteenth century— Conquest of Pisa— Pisa — 
 Its commerce, naval wars with Genoa, and decay — Genoa — Her contentions with 
 Venice — War of Chioggio — Government of Genoa — Venice — Her origin and pros- 
 perity—Venetian government— Its vices— Territorial conquests of Venice — Military 
 system of Italy — Companies of adventure — i, foreign; Guarnieri, Hawkwood — and 2, 
 native; Braccio, Sforza — Improvements in military service — Arms, offensive and de- 
 fensive — Invention of gunpowder — Naples — First line of Anjou — ^Joanna I — Ladislaus 
 — Joanna II — Francis Sforza becomes Duke of Milan — Alfonzo, King of Naples — 
 State of Italy during the fifteenth century — Florence — Rise of the Medici and ruin 
 of their adversaries — Pretensions of Charles VIII to Naples. 
 
 AT the death of Charles the Fat in 888, that part of Italy 
 which acknowledged the supremacy of the Western Em- 
 ^ pire was divided, like France and Germany, among a 
 few powerful vassals, hereditary governors of provinces. 
 The principal of these were the Dukes of Spoleto and Tuscany, 
 the Marquises of Ivrea, Susa, and Friuli. The great Lombard 
 duchy of Benevento, which had stood against the arms of Charle- 
 magne, and comprised more than half the present kingdom of 
 Naples, had now fallen into decay, and was straitened by the 
 Greeks in Apulia, and by the principalities of Capua and Salerno, 
 which had been severed from its own territory, on the opposite 
 
 'The authorities upon which this chap- history from the beginning of the Chris- 
 
 ter is founded, and which do not always tian era to the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 appear at the foot of the page, are chiefly The volumes relating to the middle a^es, 
 
 T 1 ^°J^°wing: I. Muratori's " Annals of into which he has digested the original 
 
 Italy " (twelve volumes in 4to or eighteen writers contained in his great collection, 
 
 m 8vo) comprehend a summary of its " Scriptores Rerum Italicarum," are by 
 
 i8i 
 
l82 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [888-1250 
 
 coast.2 Though princes of the Carlovingian line continued to 
 reign in France, their character was too Httle distinguished to 
 challenge the obedience of Italy, already separated by family 
 partitions from the transalpine nations ; and the only contest 
 was among her native chiefs. One of these, Berenger, originally 
 Marquis of Friuli, or the March of Treviso, reigned for thirty- 
 six years, but with continually disputed pretensions ; and after 
 
 much the best; and of these, the part 
 which extends from the seventh or eighth 
 to the end of the twelfth century is the 
 fullest and most useful. Muratori's accu- 
 racy is in general almost implicitly to be 
 trusted, and his plain integrity speaks in 
 all his writings; but his mind was not 
 philosophical enough to discriminate the 
 wheat from the chaff, and his habits of 
 life induced him to annex an imaginary 
 importance to the dates of diplomas and 
 other inconsiderable matters. His nar- 
 rative presents a mere skeleton devoid 
 of juices; and besides its intolerable arid- 
 ity, it labours under that confusion which 
 a merely chronological arrangement of 
 concurrent and independent 'events rnust 
 always produce. 2. The *' Dissertations 
 on Italian Antiquities," by the same 
 writer, may be considered either as one 
 or two works. In Latin they form six 
 volumes in folio, enriched with a great 
 number of original documents. In Ital- 
 ian they are freely translated by Mura- 
 tori himself, abridged, no doubt, and 
 without most of the original instruments, 
 but well furnished with quotations, and 
 abundantly sufficient for most purposes. 
 They form three volumes in quarto. I 
 have in general quoted only the number 
 of the dissertation, on account of the vari- 
 ance between the Latin and Italian 
 works: in cases where the page is re- 
 ferred to, I have indicated by the title 
 which of the two I intend to vouch. 3. 
 St. Marc, a learned and laborious French- 
 man, has written a chronological abridg- 
 ment of Italian history, somewhat in the 
 manner of Renault, but so strangely di- 
 vided by several parallel columns in every 
 page that I could hardly name a book 
 more inconvenient to the reader. His 
 knowledge, like Muratori's, lay a good 
 deal in points of minute inquiry; and he 
 is chiefly to be valued in ecclesiastical 
 history. The work descends only to the 
 thirteenth century. 4. Denina's " Rivo- 
 luzioni d'ltalia," originally published in 
 1769, is a perspicuous and lively book, in 
 which the principal circumstances are 
 well selected. It is not perhaps free 
 from errors in fact, and still less from 
 those of opinion: but, till lately, I do 
 not know from what source a general 
 acquaintance with the history of Italy 
 could have been so easily derived. 5. 
 The publication of M. Sismondi's " His- 
 toire des Republiques Italiennes " has 
 thrown a blaze of light around the most 
 interesting, at least in many respects, of 
 European countries during the middle 
 ages. I am happy to bear witness, so 
 far as my own studies have enabled me, 
 
 to the learning and diligence of this 
 writer — qualities which the world is some- 
 times apt not to suppose where they per- 
 ceive so much eloquence and philosophy. 
 I can not express my opinion of M. Sis- 
 mondi in this respect more strongly than 
 by saying that his work has almost super- 
 seded the " Annals " of Muratori; I mean 
 from the twelfth century, before which 
 period his labour hardly begins. Though 
 doubtless not more accurate than Mura- 
 tori, he has consulted a much more ex- 
 tensive list of authors; and, considered 
 as a register of facts alone, hjs history 
 is incomparably more useful. These are 
 combined in so skilful a manner as to 
 diminish, in a great degree, that inevi- 
 table confusion which arises from fre- 
 quency of transition and want of general 
 unity. It is much to be regretted that, 
 from two redundant details of unneces- 
 sary circumstances, and sometimes, if I 
 may take the liberty of saying so, from 
 unnecessary reflections, M. Sismondi has 
 run into a prolixity which will probably 
 intimidate the languid students of our 
 age. It is the more to be regretted, be- 
 cause the " History of Italian Republics " 
 is calculated to produce a good far more 
 important than storing the memory with 
 historical facts, that of communicating 
 to the reader's bosom some sparks of 
 the dignified philosophy, the love for 
 truth and virtue, which lives along its 
 eloquent pa^es. 6. To Muratori's collec- 
 tion of origmal writers, the " Scriptores 
 Rerum Italicarum," in twenty-four vol- 
 umes in folio, I have paid considerable 
 attention; perhaps there is no volume of 
 it which I have not more or less con- 
 sulted. But, after the " Annals " of the 
 same writer, and the work of M. Sis- 
 mondi, I have not thought myself bound 
 to repeat a laborious search into all the 
 authorities upon which those writers 
 depend. The utility, for the most part, 
 of perusing original and contemporary 
 authors consists less in ascertaining mere 
 facts than in acquiring that insight into 
 the spirit and temper of their times which 
 it is utterly impracticable for any com- 
 oiler to impart. It would be impossible 
 or me to distinguish what information I 
 lave derived from these higher sources; 
 in cases, therefore, where no particular 
 authority is named, I would refer to the 
 writings of Muratori and Sismondi, espe- 
 cially the latter, as the substratum of the 
 following chapter. 
 
 ^ Giannone, " Istoria Civile di Napoli," 
 1. vii; Sismondi, "Hist, des Republiques 
 Italiennes," tome i, p. 244. 
 
888-1250] 
 
 OTHO THE GREAT 
 
 183 
 
 his death the calamities of Italy were sometimes aggravated by 
 tyranny, and sometimes by intestine war.^ The Hungarians deso- 
 lated Lombardy ; the southern coasts were infested by the Sara- 
 cens, now masters of Sicily. Plunged in an abyss, from which 
 she saw no other means* of extricating herself, Italy lost sight 
 of her favourite independence, and called in the assistance of 
 Otho I, King of Germany. Little opposition was made to 
 this powerful monarch. Berenger II, the reigning sovereign 
 of Italy, submitted to hold the kingdom of him as a fief.* But 
 some years afterward, new disturbances arising, Otho descended 
 from the Alps a second time, deposed Berenger, and received 
 at the hands of Pope John XII the imperial dignity, which had 
 been suspended for nearly forty years. 
 
 Every ancient prejudice, every recollection, whether of Augus- 
 tus or of Charlemagne, had led the Italians to annex the notion 
 of sovereignty to the name of Roman emperor ; nor were Otho, 
 or his two immediate descendants, by any means inclined to 
 waive these supposed prerogatives, which they were well able 
 to enforce. Most of the Lombard princes acquiesced without 
 apparent repugnance in the new German government, which 
 was conducted by Otho the Great with much prudence and vig- 
 our, and occasionally with severity. The citizens of Lombardy 
 were still better satisfied with a change that insured a more tran- 
 quil and regular administration than they had experienced under 
 the preceding kings. But in one, and that the chief of Italian 
 cities, very different sentiments were prevalent. We find, in- 
 deed, a considerable obscurity spread over the internal history 
 of Rome during the long period from the recovery of Italy by 
 Belisarius to the end of the eleventh century. The popes appear 
 to have possessed some measure of temporal power, even while 
 the city was professedly governed by the exarchs of Ravenna, in 
 the name of the Eastern Empire. This power became more 
 extensive after her separation from Constantinople. It was, how- 
 ever, subordinate to the undeniable sovereignty of the new im- 
 perial family, who were supposed to enter upon all the rights 
 of their predecessors. There was always an imperial officer, 
 or prefect, in that city, to render criminal justice; an oath of 
 
 ' Berenger, being grandson, by a 
 daughter, of Louis the Debonair, rnay 
 be reckoned of the Carlovingian family. 
 He was a Frank by law, according to 
 Troja, who denies to him and his son, 
 Berenger II, the name of Italians. It 
 was Otho I that put an end to the Frank 
 dominion. (" Storia d' Italia," v. 357.) 
 
 " Or gia tutto all' apparir degli Ottoni 
 si cangia da capo in Italia, nel modo 
 stesso che tutto erasi cangiato alia venuta 
 de' Franchi. Le citta Longobarde pren- 
 dono altra faccia, la possanza de' vescovi 
 s' aumenta, i patti fra il sacerdozio e V 
 
 imperio guardano a piu vasto scopo ed i 
 pontifici Romano sono dalla forza delle 
 cose chiamati a tenere il freno intellet- 
 tuale della civita de' popoli di tutta Eu- 
 ropa." Troja deduces the Italian com- 
 munes " dopo il mille " from a German 
 rather than a Roman origin. " La sono 
 veramente i comuni dov' e la spada per 
 difendergli; rna nel regno Longobardico 
 da lunga stagione la spada piu non pen- 
 deva dal fianco del Romano " (p. 368). 
 * Muratori, A. D. 951; Denina, " Rivo- 
 luzioni d' Italia," 1. ix, c. 6. 
 
1 84 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 allegiance to the emperor was taken by the people ; and upon 
 any irregular election of a pope, a circumstance by no means 
 unusual, the emperors held themselves entitled to interpose. But 
 the spirit and even the institutions of the Romans were repub- 
 lican. Amid the darkness of the tenth century, which no con- 
 temporary historian dissipates, we faintly distinguish the awful 
 names of senate, consuls, and tribunes, the domestic magistracy 
 of Rome. These shadows of past glory strike us at first with 
 surprise; yet there is no improbability in the supposition that 
 a city so renowned and populous, and so happily sheltered from 
 the usurpation of the Lombards, might have preserved, or might 
 afterward establish, a kind of municipal government, which it 
 would be natural to dignify with those august titles of antiquity.^ 
 During that anarchy which ensued upon the fall of the Carlo- 
 vingian dynasty, the Romans acquired an independence which 
 they did not deserve. The city became a prey to the most ter- 
 rible disorders ; the papal chair was sought for at best by bribery 
 or controlling influence, often by violence and assassination; 
 it was filled by such men as naturally rise by such means, whose 
 sway was precarious, and generally ended either in their murder 
 or degradation. For many years the supreme pontiffs were 
 forced upon the Church by two women of high rank but in- 
 famous reputation, Theodora and her daughter Marozia. The 
 Kings of Italy, whose election in a Diet of Lombard princes 
 and bishops at Roncaglia was not conceived to convey any pre- 
 tensions to the sovereignty of Rome, could never obtain any 
 decided influence in papal elections, which were the object of 
 struggling factions among the resident nobility. In this temper 
 of the Romans, they were ill disposed to resume habits of obedi- 
 ence to a foreign sovereign. The next year after Otho's corona- 
 tion they rebelled, the Pope at their head, but were, of course, 
 subdued without difficulty. The same republican spirit broke out 
 whenever the emperors were absent in Germany, especially during 
 the minority of Otho III, and directed itself against the temporal 
 superiority of the Pope. But when that emperor attained man- 
 hood he besieged and took the city, crushing all resistance 
 by measures of severity ; and especially by the execution of the 
 Consul Crescentius, a leader of the popular faction, to whose 
 instigation the tumultuous license of Rome was principally 
 ascribed.^ 
 
 At the death of Otho III without children, in 1002, the com- 
 pact between Italy and the emperors of the house of Saxony 
 was determined. Her engagement of fidelity was certainly not 
 
 / Muratori, A. D. 967, 987. 1015, 1087; know so little of the man or the times 
 
 bismondi, tome i, p. 155. that it seems better to follow the com- 
 
 '• Sismondi, tome i, p. 164, makes a mon tenor of history, without vouching 
 
 patriot hero of Crescentius. But we for the accuracy of its representations. 
 
888-I250] HENRY II— ARDOIN— CONRAD II 185 
 
 applicable to every sovereign whom the princes of Germany 
 might raise to their throne. Accordingly, Ardoin, Marquis of 
 Ivrea, was elected King of Italy. But a German party existed 
 among the Lombard princes and bishops, to which his insolent 
 demeanour soon gave a pretext for inviting Henry II, the new 
 King of Germany, collaterally related to their late sovereign. 
 Ardoin was deserted by most of the Italians, but retained his 
 former subjects in Piedmont, and disputed the crown for many 
 years with Henry, who passed very little time in Italy. During 
 this period there was hardly any recognised government ; and 
 the Lombards became more and more accustomed, through 
 necessity, to protect themselves, and to provide for their own 
 internal police. Meanwhile the German nation had become odi- 
 ous to the Italians. The rude soldiery, insolent and addicted 
 to intoxication, were engaged in frequent disputes with the citi- 
 zens, wherein the latter, as is usual in similar cases, were exposed 
 first to the summary vengeance of the troops, and afterward to 
 penal chastisement for sedition."^ In one of these tumults, at 
 the entry of Henry II in 1004, the city of Pavia was burned to 
 the ground, which inspired its inhabitants with a constant ani- 
 mosity against that emperor. Upon his death in 1024, the Ital- 
 ians were disposed to break once more their connection with 
 Germany, which had elected as sovereign Conrad, Duke of Fran- 
 conia. They offered their crown to Robert, King of France, 
 and to William, Duke of Guienne ; but neither of them was im- 
 prudent enough to involve himself in the difficult and faithless 
 politics of Italy. It may surprise us that no candidate appeared 
 from among her native princes. But it had been the dexterous 
 policy of the Othos to weaken the great Italian fiefs, which were 
 still rather considered as hereditary governments than as abso- 
 lute patrimonies, by separating districts from their jurisdiction, 
 under inferior marquises and rural counts.^ The bishops were 
 incapable of becoming competitors, and generally attached to 
 the German party. The cities already possessed material in- 
 fluence, but were disunited by mutual jealousies. Since ancient 
 prejudices, therefore, precluded a federate league of independ- 
 ent principalities and republics, for which perhaps the actual 
 condition of Italy unfitted her, Eribert, Archbishop of Milan, 
 accompanied by some other chief men of Lombardy, repaired 
 to Constance, and tendered the crown to Conrad, which he was 
 already disposed to claim as a sort of dependency upon Germany. 
 It does not appear that either Conrad or his successors were 
 ever regularly elected to reign over Italy ; ^ but whether this 
 
 ' Muratori, a. d. 1027, 1037. • Muratori, A. d. 1026. It is said after- 
 
 * Denina, 1. ix, c. 11; Muratori, "An- ward (p. 367) that he was a Romanis ad 
 
 tiq. Ital.," Dissert. 8; " Annali d' Italia," Imperatorem electus. The people of 
 
 A. D. 989. Rome, therefore, preserved their nominal 
 
1 86 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [888-1250 
 
 ceremony took place or not, we may certainly date from that 
 time the subjection of Italy to the Germanic body. It became 
 an unquestionable maxim that the votes of a few German princes 
 conferred a right to the sovereignty of a country which had 
 never been conquered, and which had never formally recognised 
 this superiority/^ But it was an equally fundamental rule that 
 the elected King of Germany could not assume the title of Roman 
 emperor until his coronation by the Pope. The middle appella- 
 tion of King of the Romans was invented as a sort of approxi- 
 mation to the imperial dignity. But it was not till the reign of 
 Maximilian that the actual coronation at Rome was dispensed 
 with, and the title of emperor taken immediately after the election. 
 
 The period between Conrad of Franconia and Frederick 
 Barbarossa, or from about the middle of the eleventh to that of 
 the twelfth century, is marked by three great events in Italian 
 history: the struggle between the empire and the papacy for 
 ecclesiastical investitures, the establishment of the Norman king- 
 dom in Naples, and the formation of distinct and nearly inde- 
 pendent republics among the cities of Lombardy. The first of 
 these will find a more appropriate place in a subsequent chapter, 
 where I shall trace the progress of ecclesiastical power. But 
 it produced a long and almost incessant state of disturbance in 
 Italy, and should be mentioned at present as one of the main 
 causes which excited in that country a systematic opposition 
 to the imperial authority. 
 
 The southern provinces of Italy, in the beginning of the 
 eleventh century, were chiefly subject to the Greek Empire, 
 which had latterly recovered part of its losses, and exhibited 
 some ambition and enterprise, though without any intrinsic 
 vigour. They were governed by a lieutenant, styled Catapan,^^ 
 who resided at Bari, in Apulia. On the Mediterranean coast 
 three duchies, or rather republics, of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi, 
 had for several ages preserved their connection with the Greek 
 Empire, and acknowledged its nominal sovereignty. The Lom- 
 bard principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua had much 
 declined from their ancient splendour. The Greeks were, how- 
 ever, not likely to attempt any further conquests : the court of 
 
 right of concurring in the election of an 
 emperor. Muratori, in another place 
 (a, d. 1040), supposes that Henry ITI was 
 chosen King of Italy, though he allows 
 that no proof of it exists; and there 
 seems no reason for the supposition. 
 
 ^^ Gunther, the poet of Frederick Bar- 
 barossa, expresses this not inelegantly: 
 " Romani gloria regni 
 Nos penes est; quemcunque sibi Germa- 
 
 nia regem 
 Pra^ficit, hunc dives submisso vertice 
 
 Roma 
 
 Accipit, et verso Tiberim regit ordine 
 
 Rhenus." 
 (Gunther, " Ligurinus ap. Struvium Cor- 
 pus Hist. German.," p. 266.) Yet it ap- 
 pears from Otho of Frisingen, an unques- 
 tionable authority, that some Italian no- 
 bles concurred, or at least were present 
 and assisting, in the election of Frederick 
 himself (1. li, c. i). 
 
 ^^ Catapanus, from kSltSl wav, one em- 
 ployed in the general administration of 
 affairs. 
 
888-I250] AVERSA— ROBERT GUISCARD 1 87 
 
 Constantinople had relapsed into its usual indolence; nor had 
 they much right to boast of successes rather due to the Saracen 
 auxiliaries whom they hired from Sicily. No momentous revo- 
 lution apparently threatened the south of Italy, and least of all 
 could it be anticipated from what quarter the storm was about 
 
 to gather. 
 
 The followers of Rollo, who rested from plunder and piracy 
 in the quiet possession of Normandy, became devout professors 
 of the Christian faith, and particularly addicted to the custom 
 of pilgrimage, which gratified their curiosity and spirit of ad- 
 venture. In small bodies, well armed on account of the lawless 
 character of the countries through which they passed, the Nor- 
 man pilgrims visited the shrines of Italy and even the Holy Land. 
 Some of these, very early in the eleventh century, were engaged 
 by a Lombard prince of Salerno against the Saracens, who had 
 invaded his territory; and through that superiority of valour, 
 and perhaps of corporal strength, which this singular people 
 seem to have possessed above all other Europeans, they made 
 surprising havoc among the enemy.^^ This exploit led to fresh 
 engagements, and these engagements drew new adventurers from 
 Normandy; they founded the little city of Aversa, near Capua, 
 and were employed by the Greeks against the Saracens of Sicily. 
 But, though performing splendid services in this war, they were 
 ill repaid by their ungrateful employers, and, being by no means 
 of a temper to bear with injury, they revenged themselves by 
 a sudden invasion of Apulia. This province was speedily sub- 
 dued, and divided among twelve Norman counts ; but soon after- 
 ward Robert Guiscard, one of twelve brothers, many of whom 
 were renowned in these Italian wars, acquired the sovereignty ; 
 and, adding Calabria to his conquests, put an end to the long 
 dominion of the Eastern emperors in Italy. ^^ He reduced the 
 principalities of Salerno and Benevento, in the latter instance 
 sharing the spoil with the Pope, who took the city to himself, 
 while Robert retained the territory. His conquests in Greece, 
 which he invaded with the magnificent design of overthrowing 
 the Eastern Empire, were at least equally splendid, though less 
 durable. Roger, his younger brother, undertook meanwhile the 
 romantic enterprise, as it appeared, of conquering the island of 
 Sicily with a small body of Norman volunteers. But the Sara- 
 cens were broken into petty states, and discouraged by the bad 
 success of their brethren in Spain and Sardinia. After many 
 years of war, Robert became sole master of Sicily, and took, the 
 
 " Giannone, tome ii, p. 7 [edit. 1753]. ^^ The final blow was given to the 
 I should observe that St. Marc, a more Greek domination over Italy by the cap- 
 critical writer in examination of facts ture of Bari in 1071, after a siege of four 
 than Giannone, treats this first adven- years. It had for some time been con- 
 ture of^ the Normans as unauthenticated. fined to this single city. (Muratori, St 
 ( Abrege Chronologique," p. 990.) Marc.) 
 
1 88 H ALLAH'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 title of count. The son of this prince, upon the extinction of 
 Robert Guiscard's posterity, united the two Norman sovereign- 
 ties, and, subjugating the free republics of Naples and Amalfi, 
 and the principality of Capua, established a boundary which has 
 hardly been changed since his time.^* 
 
 The first successes of these Norman leaders were viewed un- 
 favourably by the popes. Leo IX marched in person against 
 Robert Guiscard with an army of German mercenaries, but was 
 beaten and made prisoner in this unwise enterprise, the scandal 
 of which nothing but good fortune could have lightened. He 
 fell, however, into the hands of a devout people, who implored 
 his absolution for the crime of defending themselves; and, 
 whether through gratitude or as the price of his liberation, in- 
 vested them with their recent conquests in Apulia, as fiefs of 
 the Holy See. This investiture was repeated and enlarged as 
 the popes, especially in their contention with Henry IV and 
 Henry V, found the advantage of using the Normans as faithful 
 auxiliaries. Finally, Innocent II, in 11 39, conferred upon Roger 
 the title of King of Sicily. It is difficult to understand by what 
 pretence these countries could be claimed by the see of Rome 
 in sovereignty, unless by virtue of the pretended donation of 
 Constantine or that of Louis the Debonair, which is hardly less 
 suspicious ; ^^ and least of all how Innocent II could surrender 
 the liberties of the city of Naples, whether that was considered 
 as an independent republic or as a portion of the Greek Empire. 
 But the Normans, who had no title but their swords, were natu- 
 rally glad to give an appearance of legitimacy to their conquest; 
 and the kingdom of Naples, even in the hands of the most power- 
 ful princes in Europe, never ceased to pay a feudal acknowledg- 
 ment to the chair of St. Peter. 
 
 The revolutions which time brought forth on the opposite 
 side of Italy were still more interesting. Under the Lombard 
 and French princes every city with its adjacent district was sub- 
 ject to the government and jurisdiction of a count, who was him- 
 self subordinate to the duke or marquis of the province. From 
 these counties it was the practice of the first German emperors 
 to dismember particular towns or tracts of country, granting 
 them upon a feudal tenure to rural lords, by many of whom 
 also the same title was assumed. Thus by degrees the authority 
 of the original officers was confined almost to the walls of their 
 
 ^* M. Sismondi has excelled himself in the interpolated, if not spurious, grants 
 describing the conquest of Amalfi and of Louis the Debonair. Otho I, and 
 Naples by Roger Guiscard (tome i, c. 4), Henry II to the see of Rome were pro- 
 v^arming his imagination with visions of mulgated about the time of the first con- 
 liberty and virtue in those obscure re- cessions to the Normans, in order to give 
 publics, which no real history survives the popes a colourable pretext to dispose 
 to dispel. of the southern provinces of Italy, (a. d. 
 
 ^^ Muratori presumes to suppose that 1059.) 
 
888-I250] PROGRESS OF THE LOMBARD CITIES 189 
 
 own cities ; and in many cases the bishops obtained a grant of 
 the temporal government, and exercised the functions which had 
 belonged to the count.^® 
 
 It is impossible to ascertain the time at which the cities of 
 Lombardy began to assume a republican form of government, 
 or to trace with precision the gradations of their progress. The 
 last historian of Italy asserts that Otho the First erected them 
 into municipal communities, and permitted the election of their 
 magistrates ; but of this he produces no evidence ; and Mura- 
 tori, from whose authority it is rash to depart without strong 
 reasons, is not only silent about any charters, but discovers no 
 express unequivocal testimonies of a popular government for 
 the whole eleventh century. ^^ The first appearance of the citi- 
 zens acting for themselves is in a tumult at Milan in 991, when 
 the archbishop was expelled from the city.^^ But this was a 
 transitory ebullition, and we must descend lower for more spe- 
 cific proofs. It is possible that the disputed succession of Ardoin 
 and Henry, at the beginning of the eleventh age, and the kind 
 of interregnum which then took place, gave the inhabitants an 
 opportunity of choosing magistrates and of sharing in public 
 deliberations. A similar relaxation, indeed, of government in 
 France had exposed the people to greater servitude, and estab- 
 lished a feudal aristocracy. But the feudal tenures seem not to 
 have produced in Italy that systematic and regular subordina- 
 tion which existed in France during the same period ; nor were 
 the mutual duties of the relation between lord and vassal so well 
 understood or observed. Hence we find not only disputes, but 
 actual civil war, between the lesser gentry, or vavassors, and 
 the higher nobility, their immediate superiors. These differ- 
 ences were adjusted by Conrad the Salic, who published a re- 
 markable edict in 1037, by which the feudal law of Italy was 
 reduced to more certainty.^^ From this disunion among the 
 members of the feudal confederacy, it was more easy for the 
 citizens to render themselves secure against its dominion. The 
 cities, too, of Lombardy were far more populous and better de- 
 fended than those of France ; they had learned to stand sieges 
 in the Hungarian invasions of the tenth century, and had ac- 
 quired the right of protecting themselves by strong fortifica- 
 tions. Those which had been placed under the temporal gov- 
 ernment of their bishops had peculiar advantages in struggling 
 for emancipation.^^ This circumstance in the state of Lombardy 
 
 " Muratori, " Antiquit. Italiae," Dis- ^o fhe bishops seem to have become 
 
 sert. 8; " Annali d' Italia," a. d. 989; counts, or temporal governors, of their 
 
 " Antichita Estensi," p. 26. sees, about the end of the tenth or be- 
 
 ^^ Sismondi, tome i, pp. 97, 384; Mura- fore the middle of the eleventh century, 
 
 tori, Dissert. 49. {Muratori, Dissert. 8; Denina, 1. ix, c. 11; 
 
 " Muratori, " Annali d' Italia." St. Marc. a. d. 1041, 1047, 1070.) In Ar- 
 
 i« Muratori, "Annali d' Italia"; St. nulf's " History of Milan," written before 
 Marc. 
 
190 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [888-1250 
 
 I consider as highly important toward explaining the subsequent 
 revolution. Notwithstanding several exceptions, a churchman 
 was less likely to be bold and active in command than a soldier; 
 and the sort of election which was always necessary, and some- 
 times more than nominal, on a vacancy of the see, kept up among 
 the citizens a notion that the authority of their bishop and chief 
 magistrate emanated in some degree from themselves. In many 
 instances, especially in the Church of Milan, the earliest per- 
 haps, and certainly the most famous of Lombard republics, there 
 occurred a disputed election; two, or even three, competitors 
 claimed the archiepiscopal functions, and were compelled, in the 
 absence of the emperors, to obtain the exercise of them by means 
 of their own faction among the citizens. ^^ 
 
 These were the general causes which, operating at various 
 times during the eleventh century, seem gradually to have pro- 
 duced a republican form of government in the Italian cities. But 
 this part of history is very obscure. The archives of all cities 
 before the reign of Frederick Barbarossa have perished. For 
 many years there is a great deficiency of contemporary Lom- 
 bard historians; and those of a later age, who endeavoured to 
 search into the antiquities of their country, have found only 
 some barren and insulated events to record. We perceive, how- 
 ever, throughout the eleventh century that the cities were con- 
 tinually in warfare with each other. This, indeed, was accord- 
 ing to the manners of that age, and no inference can absolutely 
 be drawn from it as to their internal freedom. But it is observ- 
 able that their chronicles speak, in recording these transactions, 
 of the people, and not of their leaders, which is the true repub- 
 hcan tone of history. Thus, in the " Annals of Pisa," we read, 
 
 the close of the latter age, we have a con- 
 temporary evidence. And from the peru- 
 sal of that work I should infer that the 
 archbishop was, in the middle of the 
 eleventh century, the chief magistrate of 
 the citv. But, at the same time, it ap- 
 pears highly probable that an assembly 
 of the citizens, or at least a part of the 
 citizens, partook in the administration of 
 public affairs. (Muratori, " Scriptores 
 Rerum Italicarum," tome iv, pp. 16, 22, 
 23, and particularly the last.) In most 
 cities to the eastward of the Tesino, the 
 bishops lost their temporal authority in 
 the twelfth century, though the Arch- 
 bishop of Milan had no small preroga- 
 tives while that city was governed as a 
 republic. But in Piedmont they contin- 
 ued longer in the enjoyment of power. 
 Vercelli, and even Turin, were almost 
 subject to their respective prelates till 
 the thirteenth century. For this reason, 
 among others, the Piedmontese cities are 
 hardly to be reckoned among the repub- 
 lics of Lombardy. (Denina, " Istoria deli' 
 Itaha Occidentale," tome i, p. 191.) 
 
 2^ Muratori, A. n. 1345. Sometimes the 
 inhabitants of a city refused to acknowl- 
 edge a bishop named by the emperor, as 
 happened at Pavia and Asti about 1057. 
 (Arnulf, p. 22.) This was, in other words, 
 setting up themselves as republics. But 
 the most remarkable instance of this kind 
 occurred in 1070, when the Milanese ab- 
 solutely rejected Godfrey, appointed by 
 Henry IV, and, after a resistance of sev- 
 eral years, obliged the emperor to fix 
 upon another person. The city had been 
 previously involved in long and violent 
 tumults, which, though rather belonging 
 to ecclesiastical than civil history, as they 
 arose out of the endeavours made to re- 
 form the conduct and enforce the celibacy 
 of the clergy, had a considerable tend- 
 ency to diminish the archbishop's au- 
 thority, and to give a republican char- 
 acter to the inhabitants. These proceed- 
 ings are told at great length by St. Marc, 
 tome iii, a. d. 1056-1077. Arnulf and Lan- 
 dulf are the original sources. 
 
888-1250] 
 
 LOMBARD ACQUISITIONS 
 
 191 
 
 under the years 1002 and 1004, of victories gained by the Pisans 
 over the people of Lucca; in 1006, that the Pisans and Genoese 
 conquered Sardinia.^^ These annals, indeed, are not by a con- 
 temporary writer, nor perhaps of much authority. But we have 
 an original account of a war that broke out in 1057, between 
 Pavia and Milan, in which the citizens are said to have raised 
 armies, made alliances, hired foreign troops, and in every re- 
 spect acted like independent states. ^^ There was, in fact, no 
 power left in the empire to control them. The two Henrys IV 
 and V were so much embarrassed during the quarrel concern- 
 ing investitures, and the continual troubles of Germany, that 
 they were less likely to interfere with the rising freedom of the 
 Italian cities than to purchase their assistance by large conces- 
 sions. Henry IV granted a charter to Pisa in 1081, full of the 
 most important privileges, promising even not to name any Mar- 
 quis of Tuscany without the people's consent ; ^* and it is pos- 
 sible that, although the instruments have perished, other places 
 might obtain similar advantages. However this may be, it is 
 certain that before the death of Henry V, in 1125, almost all 
 the cities of Lombardy, and many among those of Tuscany, were 
 accustomed to elect their own magistrates, and to act as inde- 
 pendent communities in waging war and in domestic govern- 
 ment.^^ 
 
 The territory subjected originally to the count or bishop of 
 these cities had been reduced, as I mentioned above, by numer- 
 ous concessions to the rural nobility. But the new republics, 
 deeming themselves entitled to all which their former governors 
 had once possessed, began to attack their nearest neighbours, 
 and to recover the sovereignty of all their ancient territory. They 
 besieged the castles of the rural counts, and successively reduced 
 them into subjection. They suppressed some minor communi- 
 ties, which had been formed in imitation of themselves by little 
 towns belonging to their district. Sometimes they purchased 
 feudal superiorities or territorial jurisdictions, and, according 
 to a policy not unusual with the stronger party, converted the 
 rights of property into those of government.^^ Hence, at the 
 
 ^ 22 Murat., Dissert. 45. Arnulfus, the 
 historian of Milan, makes no mention of 
 any temporal counts, which seems to be 
 a proof that there were none in any 
 authority. He speaks always of Mediola- 
 nenses, Papienses, Ravenates, etc. This 
 history was written about 1085, but re- 
 lates to the earlier part of that century. 
 That of Landulphus corroborates this 
 supposition, which, indeed, is capable of 
 proof as to Milan and several other cities 
 in which the temporal government had 
 been legally vested in the bishops. 
 
 23 Murat., Dissert. 45; Arriulf., "Hist. 
 Mediolan.," p. 22. 
 
 2* Murat., Dissert. 45. 
 
 2!5 Murat., " Annali d' Ital.,"^ A. D. 1107. 
 
 2° II dominio utile delle citta e de' vil- 
 laggi era talvolta diviso fra due o piu pa- 
 droni, ossia che s' assegnassero a ciascuno 
 diversi quartieri, o si dividessoro i pro- 
 venti della gabelle, ovvero che I'uno sig- 
 nore godesse d'una spezie della giurisdi- 
 zione, e V altro d' un' altra. (Denina, 1. 
 xii, c. 3.) This produced a vast intricacy 
 of titles, which was, of course, advanta- 
 geous to those who wanted a pretext for 
 robbing their neighbours. 
 
ig2 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 middle of the twelfth century, we are assured by a contemporary 
 writer that hardly any nobleman could be found, except the Mar- 
 quis of Montferrat, who had not submitted to some city.^^ We 
 may except, also, I should presume, the families of Este and 
 Malaspina, as well as that of Savoy. Muratori produces many 
 charters of mutual compact between the nobles and the neigh- 
 bouring cities ; whereof one invariable article is, that the former 
 should reside within the walls a certain number of months in the 
 year.^^ The rural nobility, thus deprived oL the independence 
 which had endeared their castles, imbibed a new ambition of 
 directing the municipal government of the cities, which conse- 
 quently, during this period of the republic, fell chiefly into the 
 hands of the superior families. It was the sagacious policy of 
 the Lombards to invite settlers by throwing open to them the 
 privileges of citizenship, and sometimes they even bestowed them 
 by compulsion. Sometimes a city, imitating the wisdom of an- 
 cient Rome, granted these privileges to all the inhabitants of 
 another.^® Thus the principal cities, and especially Milan, 
 reached, before the middle of the twelfth century, a degree of 
 population very far beyond that of the capitals of the great king- 
 doms. Within their strong walls and deep trenches, and in the 
 midst of their well-peopled streets, the industrious dwelt secure 
 from the license. of armed pillagers and the oppression of feudal 
 tyrants. Artisans, whom the military landholders contemned, 
 acquired and deserved the right of bearing arms for their own 
 and the public defence.^® Their occupations became liberal, be- 
 cause they were the foundation of their political franchises; the 
 citizens were classed in companies according to their respective 
 crafts, each of which had its tribune or standard-bearer (gonfalo- 
 nier), at whose command, when any tumult arose or enemy threat- 
 ened, they rushed in arms to muster in the market-place. 
 
 But, unhappily, we can not extend the sympathy which insti- 
 tutions so full of liberty create to the national conduct of these 
 little republics. Their love of freedom was alloyed by that rest- 
 less spirit, from which a democracy is seldom exempt, of tyran- 
 nizing over weaker neighbours. They played over again the 
 tragedy of ancient Greece, with all its circumstances of inveterate 
 hatred, unjust ambition, and atrocious retaliation, though with 
 less consummate actors upon the scene. Among all the Lom- 
 bard cities, Milan was the most conspicuous, as well for power 
 
 2^ " Otho Frisingens.," 1. ii, c. 13. artium opifices, quos caeterae gentes ab 
 29 Murat., Dissert. 49. honestioribus et liberioribus studiis tari- 
 ff' Murat., Dissert. 49. quam pestem propellunt, ad militiae cin- 
 3" Otho Frisingensis ap. Murat., " Scr. gulum, vel dignitatum gradus assumere 
 Rer. Ital.," tome vi, p. 708. Ut etiam ad non dedignantur. Ex quo factum est, 
 comprimendos vicinos materia non care- ut caeteris orbis civitatibus, divitiis et 
 ant, infer! oris ordinis juvenes, vel quosli- potentia praeemineant. 
 bet contemptibilium etiam mechanicanim 
 
888-I250] FREDERICK BARBAROSSA I93 
 
 and population as for the abuse of those resources by arbitrary 
 and ambitious conduct. Thus, in 11 11, they razed the town of 
 Lodi to the ground, distributing the inhabitants among six vil- 
 lao-es, and subjecting them to an unrelenting despotism.^^ Thus, 
 in 1 1 18, they commenced a war of ten years' duration with the 
 little city of Como ; but the surprising perseverance of its in- 
 habitants procured for them better terms of capitulation, though 
 they lost their original independence. The Cremonese treated 
 so harshly the town of Crema that it revolted from them, and 
 put itself under the protection of Milan. Cities of more equal 
 forces carried on interminable hostilities by wasting each other's 
 territory, destroying the harvests, and burning the villages. 
 
 The sovereignty of the emperors, meanwhile, though not very 
 effective, was in theory always admitted. Their name was used 
 in public acts, and appeared upon the coin. When they came 
 into Italy they had certain customary supplies of provisions, 
 called fodrum regale, at the expense of the city where they re- 
 sided; during their presence all inferior magistracies were sus- 
 pended, and the right of jurisdiction devolved upon them alone. 
 But such was the jealousy of the Lombards that they built the 
 royal palaces outside their gates ; a precaution to which the em- 
 perors were compelled to submit. This was at a very early time 
 a subject of contention between the inhabitants of Pavia and 
 Conrad II, whose palace, seated in the heart of the city, they 
 had demolished in a sedition, and were unwilling to rebuild in 
 that situation.^^ 
 
 Such was the condition of Italy when Frederick Barbarossa, 
 Duke of Swabia, and nephew of the last emperor, Conrad III, 
 ascended the throne of Germany. His accession forms the com- 
 mencement of a new period, the duration of which is about one 
 hundred years, and which is terminated by the death of Conrad 
 IV, the last emperor of the house of Swabia. It is characterized, 
 like the former, by three distinguishing features in Italian his- 
 tory: the victorious struggle of the Lombard and other cities 
 for independence, the final establishment of a temporal sover- 
 eignty over the middle provinces by the popes, and the union 
 of the kingdom of Naples to the dominions of the house of' 
 Swabia. 
 
 ■ In Frederick Barbarossa the Italians found a very different 
 sovereign from the last two emperors, Lothaire and Conrad III, 
 
 '* The animosity between Milan and they were related at length. (" Scriptores 
 
 Lodi -was of very old standing. It origi- Rerum Italic," tome iv, p. 16.) And this 
 
 tiated, according to Arnulf, in the resist- is the testimony of a writer who did not 
 
 ance made by the inhabitants of the latter live beyond 1085. Seventy years more 
 
 city to an attempt made by Archbishop either of hostility or servitude elapsed 
 
 Eribert to force a bishop of his own before Lodi was permitted to respire. 
 nomination upon them. The bloodshed, 82 " Qtho Frisingens.," p. 710; Mura-. 
 
 plunder, and conflagrations which had ton, A. D. 1027. 
 ensued, would, he says, fill a volume if 
 
 13 
 
194 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 who had seldom appeared in Italy, and with forces quite inade- 
 quate to control such insubordinate subjects. The distinguished 
 valour and ability of this prince rendered a severe and arbitrary 
 temper and a haughty conceit of his imperial rights more formi- 
 dable. He believed, or professed to believe, the magnificent 
 absurdity that, as successor of Augustus, he inherited the king- 
 doms of the world. In the same right, he more powerfully, if 
 not more rationally, laid claim to the entire prerogatives of the 
 Roman emperors over their own subjects ; and in this the pro- 
 fessors of the civil law, which was now diligently studied, lent 
 him their aid with the utmost servility. To such a disposition 
 the self-government of the Lombard cities appeared mere rebel- 
 lion. Milan especially, the most renowned of them all, drew 
 down upon herself his inveterate resentment. He found, un- 
 fortunately, too good a pretence in her behaviour toward Lodi. 
 Two natives of that ruined city threw themselves at the em- 
 peror's feet, imploring him, as the ultimate source of justice, 
 to redress the wrongs of their country. It is a striking proof 
 of the terror inspired by Milan that the consuls of Lodi dis- 
 avowed the complaints of their countrymen, and the inhabitants 
 trembled at the danger of provoking a summary vengeance, 
 against which the imperial arms seemed no protection. ^^ The 
 Milanese, however, abstained from attacking the people of Lodi, 
 though they treated with contempt the emperor's order to leave 
 them at liberty. Frederick meanwhile came into Italy and held 
 a Diet at Roncaglia, where complaints poured in from many 
 quarters against the Milanese. Pavia and Cremona, their an- 
 cient enemies, were impatient to renew hostilities under the im- 
 perial auspices. Brescia, Tortona, and Crema were allies, or 
 rather dependents, of Milan. Frederick soon took occasion to 
 attack the latter confederacy. Tortona was compelled to sur- 
 render and levelled to the ground. But a feudal army was soon 
 dissolved ; the emperor had much to demand his attention at 
 Rome, where he was on ill terms with Adrian IV ; and when the 
 imperial troops were withdrawn from Lombardy, the Milanese 
 rebuilt Tortona, and expelled the citizens of Lodi from their 
 dwellings. Frederick assembled a fresh army, to which almost 
 every city of Lombardy, willingly or by force, contributed its 
 militia. It is said to have exceeded a hundred thousand men. 
 The Milanese shut themselves up within their walls ; and perhaps 
 might have defied the imperial forces if their immense popula- 
 tion, which gave them confidence in arms, had not exposed them 
 
 " See an interesting account of these tiality toward Frederick in the Milanese 
 
 circumstances in the narrative of Otho war, should have remembered the provo- 
 
 Morena, a citizen of Lodi. (" Script. cations of Lodi. (" Hist, des Repub. 
 
 Rer. Ital.." tome vi, p. 966.) M. Sis- Ital.," tome ii, p. 102.) 
 mondi, who reproaches Morena for par- 
 
888-I250] CAPTURE OF MILAN I95 
 
 to a dififerent enemy. Milan was obliged by hunger to capitu- 
 late, upon conditions not very severe, if a vanquished people 
 could ever safely rely upon the convention that testifies their 
 submission." 
 
 Frederick, after the surrender of Milan, held a Diet at Ron- 
 cagHa, where the effect of his victories was fatally perceived. 
 The bishops, the higher nobility, the lawyers, vied with one 
 another in exalting his prerogatives. He defined the regalian 
 rights, as they were called, in such a manner as to exclude the 
 cities and private proprietors from coining money, and from 
 tolls or territorial dues, which they had for many years pos- 
 sessed. These, however, he permitted them to retain for a pecuni- 
 ary stipulation. A more important innovation was the appoint- 
 ment of magistrates, with the title of podesta, to administer jus- 
 tice concurrently with the consuls ; but he soon proceeded to 
 abolish the latter office in many cities, and to throw the whole 
 government into the hands of his own magistrates. He pro- 
 hibited the cities from levying war against each other. It may 
 be presumed that he showed no favour to Milan. The capitula- 
 tion was set at naught in its most express provisions ; a podesta 
 was sent to supersede the consuls, and part of the territory taken 
 away. Whatever might be the risk of resistance, and the Milan- 
 ese had experience enough not to undervalue it, they were de- 
 termined rather to see their liberties at once overthrown than 
 gradually destroyed by a faithless tyrant. They availed them- 
 selves of the absence of his army to renew the war. Its issue 
 was more calamitous than that of the last. Almost all Lom- 
 bardy lay patient under subjection. The small town of Crema, 
 always the faithful ally of Milan, stood a memorable siege against 
 the imperial army ; but the inhabitants were ultimately compelled 
 to capitulate for their lives, and the vindictive Cremonese razed 
 their dwellings to the ground.^* But all smaller calamities were 
 forgotten when the great city of Milan, worn out by famine rather 
 than subdued by force, was reduced to surrender at discretion. 
 Lombardy stood in anxious suspense to know the determination 
 of Frederick respecting this ancient metropolis, the seat of the 
 early Christian emperors, and second only to Rome in the hier- 
 archy of the Latin Church. A delay of three weeks excited fal- 
 lacious hopes ; but at the end of that time an order was given 
 to the Milanese to evacuate their habitations. The deserted 
 streets were instantly occupied by the imperial army ; the people 
 of Pavia and Cremona, of Lodi and Como, were commissioned 
 
 1 '* u^f s^^S^ o^ Crema is told at great count of the methods used in the attack 
 
 length by Otto Morena; it is interesting, and defence of fortified places before the 
 
 not only as a display of extraordinary, introduction of artillery. (" Scrip. Rer. 
 
 though unsuccessful, perseverance and Ital.," tome vi, pp. 1032-1052.) 
 intrepidity, but as the most detailed ac- 
 
196 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 to revenge themselves on the respective quarters of the city as- 
 signed to them, and in a few days the pillaged churches stood 
 alone amid the ruins of what had been Milan. 
 
 There was now little left of that freedom to which Lom- 
 bardy had aspired: it was gone like a pleasant dream, and she 
 awoke to the fears and miseries of servitude. Frederick obeyed 
 the dictates of his vindictive temper, and of the policy usual 
 among statesmen. He abrogated the consular regimen in some 
 even of the cities which had supported him, and established 
 his podesta in their place. This magistrate was always a stranger, 
 frequently not even an Italian ; and he came to his office with 
 all those prejudices against the people he was to govern which 
 cut off every hope of justice and humanity. The citizens of Lom- 
 bardy, especially the Milanese, who had been dispersed in the 
 villages adjoining their ruined capital, were unable to meet the 
 perpetual demands of tribute. In some parts, it is said, two thirds 
 of the produce of their lands, the only wealth that remained, 
 were extorted from them by the imperial officers. It was in vain 
 that they prostrated themselves at the feet of Frederick. He 
 gave at the best only vague promises of redress ; they were 
 in his eyes rebels ; his delegates had acted as faithful officers, 
 whom, even if they had gone a little beyond his intentions, he 
 could not be expected to punish. 
 
 But there still remained at the heart of Lombardy the strong 
 principle of national liberty, imperishable among the perishing 
 armies of her patriots, inconsumable in the conflagration of her 
 cities. ^^ Those whom private animosities had led to assist the 
 German conqueror blushed at the degradation of their country, 
 and at the share they had taken in it. A league was secretly 
 formed, in which Cremona, one of the chief cities on the imperial 
 side, took a prominent part. Those beyond the Adige, hitherto 
 not much engaged in the disputes of central Lombardy, had 
 already formed a separate confederacy to secure themselves from 
 encroachments, which appeared the more unjust as they had 
 never borne arms against the emperor. Their first successes 
 corresponded to the justice of their cause ; Frederick was re- 
 pulsed from the territory of Verona, a fortunate augury for the 
 rest of Lombardy. These two clusters of cities on the east and 
 west of the Adige now united themselves into the famous Lom- 
 bard league, the terms of which were settled in a general Diet, 
 Their alliance was to last twenty years, during which they pledged 
 themselves to mutual assistance against any one who should 
 exact more from them than they had been used to perform from 
 the time of Henry to the first coming of Frederick into Italy; 
 
 ^^ " Quae neque Dardaniis campis poluere perire. 
 
 Nee cum capta capi, nee cum combusta cremari." — Ennius. 
 
888-1250] 
 
 LEAGUE OF LOMBARDY 
 
 197 
 
 implying in this the recovery of their elective magistracies, their 
 rights of war and peace, and those lucrative privileges which, 
 under the name of regalian, had been wrested from them in the 
 Diet of Roncaglia.^^ 
 
 This union of the Lombard cities was formed at a very fa- 
 vourable juncture. Frederick had almost ever since his accession 
 been engaged in open hostility with the see of Rome, and was 
 pursuing the fruitless policy of Henry IV, who had endeavoured 
 to substitute an antipope of his own faction for the legitimate 
 pontiff. In the prosecution of this scheme he had besieged 
 Rome with a great army, which, the citizens resisting longer 
 than he expected, fell a prey to the autumnal pestilence which 
 visits the neighbourhood of that capital. The flower of German 
 nobility was cut off by this calamity, and the emperor recrossed 
 the Alps, entirely unable for the present to withstand the Lom- 
 bard confederacy. Their first overt act of insurrection was the 
 rebuilding of Milan ; the confederate troops all joined in this 
 undertaking, and the Milanese, still numerous, though dispersed 
 and persecuted, revived as a powerful republic. Lodi was com- 
 pelled to enter into the league; Pavia alone continued on the 
 imperial side. As a check to Pavia and to the Marquis of Mont- 
 ferrat, the most potent of the independent nobility, the Lom- 
 bards planned the erection of a new city between the confines 
 of these two enemies, in a rich plain to the south of the Po, and 
 bestowed upon it, in compliment to the Pope, Alexander III, 
 the name of Alessandria. Though, from its hasty construction, 
 Alessandria was even in that age deemed rude in appearance, 
 it rapidly became a thriving and populous city.^^ The intrinsic 
 energy and resources of Lombardy were now made manifest. 
 Frederick, who had triumphed by their disunion, was unequal 
 to contend against their league. After several years of inde- 
 cisive war the emperor invaded the Milanese territory; but the 
 confederates gave him battle, and gained a complete victory at 
 Legnano. Frederick escaped alone and disguised from the field, 
 with little hope of raising a fresh army, though still reluctant 
 from shame to acquiesce in the freedom of Lombardy. He was 
 at length persuaded, through the mediation of the republic of 
 
 For the nature and conditions of the 
 Lombard league, besides the usual au- 
 thorities, see Muratori's forty-eighth dis- 
 sertation. The words, a tempore Hen- 
 nci Regis usque ad introitum impera- 
 *oris Frederici, leave it ambiguous which 
 of the Henrys was intended. Muratori 
 thinks it was Henry IV, because the 
 cities then began to be independent. It 
 seems, however, natural, when a king is 
 mentioned without any numerical desig- 
 nation, to interpret it of the last bearing 
 IJ.^t name; as we say King William for 
 William III. And certainly the liberties 
 
 of Lombardy were more perfect under 
 Henry V than his father; besides which, 
 the one reign might still be remembered, 
 and the other rested in tradition. The 
 question, however, is of little moment. 
 
 3^ Alessandria was surnamed, in deri- 
 sion, della paglia, from the thatch with 
 which the houses were covered. Frederick 
 was very desirous to change its name to 
 Cscsarea, as it is actually called in the 
 Peace of Constance, being at that time 
 on the imperial side. But it soon recov- 
 ered its former appellation. 
 
198 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 Venice, to consent to a truce of six years, the provisional terms 
 of which were all favourable to the league. It was weakened, 
 however, by the defection of some of its own members; Cre- 
 mona, which had never cordially united with her ancient ene- 
 mies, made separate conditions with Frederick, and suffered her- 
 self to be named among the cities on the imperial side in the 
 armistice. Tortona and even Alessandria followed the same 
 course during the six years of its duration ; a fatal testimony of 
 unsubdued animosities, and omen of the calamities of Italy. At 
 the expiration of the truce, Frederick's anxiety to secure the crown 
 for his son overcame his pride, and the famous Peace of Con- 
 stance established the Lombard republics in real independence. 
 
 By the Treaty of Constance the cities were maintained in 
 the enjoyment of all the regalian rights, whether within their 
 walls or in their district, which they could claim by usage. Those 
 of levying war, of erecting fortifications, and of administering 
 civil and criminal justice were specially mentioned. The nomi- 
 nation of their consuls or other magistrates was left absolutely 
 to the citizens ; but they were to receive the investiture of their 
 office from an imperial legate. The customary tributes of pro- 
 vision during the emperor's residence in Italy were preserved, 
 and he was authorized to appoint in every city a judge of appeal 
 in civil causes. The Lombard league was confirmed, and the 
 cities were permitted to renew it at their own discretion, but 
 they were to take every ten years an oath of fidelity to the em- 
 peror. This just compact preserved, along with every security 
 for the liberties and welfare of the cities, as much of the imperial 
 prerogatives as could be exercised by a foreign sovereign con- 
 sistently with the people's happiness. ^^ 
 
 The successful insurrection of Lombardy is a memorable 
 refutation of that system of policy to which its advocates give 
 the appellation of vigorous, and which they perpetually hold 
 forth as the only means through which a disaffected people are 
 to be restrained. By a certain class of statesmen, and by all men 
 of harsh and violent disposition, measures of conciliation, ad- 
 herence to the spirit of treaties, regard to ancient privileges, or 
 to those rules of moral justice which are paramount to all posi- 
 tive right, are always treated with derision. Terror is their only 
 specific, and the physical inability to rebel their only security 
 for allegiance. But if the razing of cities, the abrogation of 
 privileges, the impoverishment and oppression of a nation could 
 assure its constant submission, Frederick Barbarossa would never 
 have seen the militia of Lombardy arrayed against him at Leg- 
 nano. Whatever may be the pressure upon a conquered people, 
 there will come a moment of their recoil. Nor is it material 
 
 38 Muratori, " Antiquitates Italiae," Dissert. 50. 
 
888-1250] 
 
 PEACE OF CONSTANCE 
 
 199 
 
 to allege, in answer to the present instance, that the accidental 
 destruction of Frederick's army by disease enabled the cities 
 of Lombardy to succeed in their resistance. The fact may well 
 be disputed, since Lombardy, when united, appears to have been 
 more than equal to a contest with any German force that could 
 have been brought against her ; but even if we admit the effect 
 of this circumstance, it only exhibits the precariousness of a 
 policy which collateral events are always liable to disturb. Provi- 
 dence reserves to itself various means by which the bonds of 
 the oppressor may be broken ; and it is not for human sagacity 
 to anticipate whether the army of a conqueror shall moulder 
 in the unwholesome marshes of Rome or stiffen with frost in 
 a Russian winter. 
 
 The Peace of Constance presented a noble opportunity to 
 the Lombards of establishing a permanent federal union of small 
 republics ; a form of government congenial from the earliest ages 
 to Italy, and that, perhaps, under which she is again destined 
 one day to flourish. They were entitled by the provisions of 
 that treaty to preserve their league, the basis of a more perfect 
 confederacy, which the course of events would have emancipated 
 from every kind of subjection to Germany.^® But dark, long- 
 cherished hatreds, and that implacable vindictiveness which, at 
 least in former ages, distinguished the private manners of Italy, 
 deformed her national character, which can only be the aggre- 
 gate of individual passions. For revenge she threw away the 
 pearl of great price, and sacrificed even the recollection of that 
 liberty which had stalked like a majestic spirit among the ruins 
 of Milan.*® It passed away, that high disdain of absolute power, 
 that steadiness and self-devotion, which raised the half-civilized 
 Lombards of the twelfth century to the level of those ancient 
 republics from whose history our first notions of freedom and 
 virtue are derived. The victim by turns of selfish and sangui- 
 nary factions, of petty tyrants, and of foreign invaders, Italy has 
 fallen like a star from its place in heaven ; she has seen her har- 
 vests trodden down by the horses of the stranger, and the blood 
 of her children wasted in quarrels not their own : Conquering 
 or conquered, in the indignant language of her poet, still alike 
 a slave,*^ a long retribution for the tyranny of Rome. 
 
 2^ Though there was no permanent Diet 
 of the Lombard league, the consuls and 
 podestas of the respective cities compos- 
 ing it occasionally met in congress to de- 
 liberate upon measures of general safety. 
 Thus assembled, they were called Recto- 
 res Societatis Lombardise. It is evident 
 that, if Lombardy had continued in any 
 degree to preserve the spirit of union, 
 this congress might readily have become 
 a permanent body, like the Helvetic Diet, 
 with as extensive powers as are necessary 
 
 in a federal constitution. (Muratori, 
 " Antichita Italiane," tome iii, p. 126; 
 Dissert, 50; Sismondi, tome ii, p. 189.) 
 *^ " Anzi girar la liberta mirai, 
 
 E baciar lieta ogni ruina, e dire, 
 Ruine si, ma servitu non mai." 
 (Gaetana Passerini [ossia piutosto Gio- 
 van Battista Pastorini] in Mathias, " Com- 
 ponimenti Lirici," vol. iii, p. 331.) 
 
 *^ Per servir sempre, o vincitrice O 
 vinta. (Filicaja.) 
 
200 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 Frederick did not attempt to molest the cities of Lombardy 
 in the enjoyment of those privileges conceded by the Treaty 
 of Constance. His ambition was diverted to a new scheme for 
 aggrandizing the house of Swabia by the marriage of his eldest 
 son, Henry, with Constance, the aunt and heiress of William 
 n, King of Sicily. That kingdom, which the first monarch 
 Roger had elevated to a high pitch of renown and power, fell 
 into decay through the misconduct of his son William, surnamed 
 the Bad, and did not recover much of its lustre under the second 
 William, though styled the Good. His death without issue was 
 apparently no remote event, and Constance was the sole legiti- 
 mate survivor of the royal family. It is a curious circumstance 
 that no hereditary kingdom appears absolutely to have excluded 
 females from its throne, except that which from its magnitude 
 was of all the most secure from falling into the condition of a 
 province. The Sicilians felt too late the defect of their consti- 
 tution, which permitted an independent people to be transferred, 
 as the dowry of a woman, to a foreign prince, by whose minis- 
 ters they might justly expect to be insulted and oppressed. 
 Henry, whose marriage with Constance took place in 1186, and 
 who succeeded in her right to the throne of Sicily three years 
 afterward, was exasperated by a courageous but unsuccessful 
 effort of the Norman barons to preserve the crown for an ille- 
 gitimate branch of the royal family, and his reign is disgraced 
 by a series of atrocious cruelties. The power of the house of 
 Swabia was now at its zenith on each side of the Alps ; Henry 
 received the imperial crown the year after his father's death in 
 the third crusade, and even prevailed upon the princes of Ger- 
 many to elect his infant son Frederick as his successor. But his 
 own premature decease clouded the prospects of his family : Con- 
 stance survived him but a year; and a child of four years old 
 was left with the inheritance of a kingdom which his father's 
 severity had rendered disaffected, and which the leaders of Ger- 
 man mercenaries in his service desolated and disputed. 
 
 During the minority of Frederick H, from 1198 to 1216, 
 the papal chair was filled by Innocent III, a name second only, 
 and hardly second, to that of Gregory VII. Young, noble, and 
 intrepid, he united with the accustomed spirit of ecclesiastical 
 usurpation, which no one had ever carried to so high a point, 
 the more worldly ambition of consolidating a separate princi- 
 pality for the Holy See in the centre of Italy. The real or spuri- 
 ous donations of Constantine, Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis 
 had given rise to a perpetual claim, on the part of the popes, to 
 very extensive dominions; but little of this had been effectuated, 
 and in Rome itself they were thwarted by the prefect, an officer 
 who swore fidelity to the emperor, and by the insubordinate 
 
888-1250] 
 
 BEQUEST OF COUNTESS MATILDA 
 
 201 
 
 Spirit of the people. In the very neighbourhood the small cities 
 owned no subjection to the capital, and were probably as much 
 self-governed as those of Lombardy. One is transported back 
 to the earliest times of the republic in reading of the desperate 
 wars between Rome and Tibur or Tusculum ; neither of which 
 was subjugated till the latter part of the twelfth century. At 
 a farther distance were the duchy of Spoleto, the march of 
 Ancona, and what had been the exarchate of Ravenna, to all 
 of which the popes had more or less grounded pretensions. 
 Early in the last-mentioned age the famous Countess Matilda, 
 to whose zealous protection Gregory VII had been eminently 
 indebted during his long dispute with the emperor, granted the 
 reversion of all her possessions to the Holy See, first in the life- 
 time of Gregory, and again under the pontificate of Paschal III. 
 These were very extensive, and held by different titles. Of her 
 vast imperial fiefs, Mantua, Modena, and Tuscany, she certainly 
 could not dispose. The duchy of Spoleto and march of Ancona 
 were supposed to rest upon a different footing. I confess myself 
 not distinctly to comprehend the nature of this part of her suc- 
 cession. These had been formerly among the great fiefs of the 
 kingdom of Italy. But if I understand it rightly, they had tacitly 
 ceased to be subject to the emperors some years before they were 
 seized by Godfrey of Lorraine, father-in-law and stepfather of 
 Matilda. To his son, her husband, she succeeded in the posses- 
 sion of those countries. They are commonly considered as her 
 allodial or patrimonial property ; yet it is not easy to see how, 
 being herself a subject of the empire, she could transfer even 
 her allodial estates from its sovereignty. Nor, on the other hand, 
 can it apparently be maintained that she was lawful sovereign 
 of countries which had not long since been imperial fiefs, and 
 the suzerainty over which had never been renounced. The origi- 
 nal title of the Holy See, therefore, does not seem incontestable 
 even as to this part of Matilda's donation. But I state with 
 hesitation a dillficulty to which the authors I have consulted do 
 not advert.*^ It is certain, however, that the emperors kept pos- 
 session of the whole during the twelfth century, and treated 
 both Spoleto and Ancona as parts of the empire, notwithstand- 
 ing continual remonstrances from the Roman pontiffs. Fred- 
 erick Barbarossa, at the negotiations of Venice in 1177, prom- 
 ised to restore the patrimony of Matilda in fifteen years ; but 
 
 '*^ It is almost hopeless to look for ex- 
 plicit information upon the rights and 
 pretensions of the Roman See in Italian 
 •writers even of the eighteenth century. 
 Muratori, the most learned, and upon 
 the whole the fairest of them all, moves 
 cautiously over this ground; except when 
 the claims of Rome happen to clash with 
 
 those of the house of Este. But I have 
 not been able to satisfy myself by the 
 perusal of some dry and tedious disserta- 
 tions in St. Marc (" Abrege Chronolo- 
 gique de I'Hist. de I'ltalie," tome iv), 
 who, with learning scarcely inferior to 
 that of Muratori, possessed more oppor- 
 tunity and inclination to speak ovit. 
 
202 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 at the close of that period Henry VI was not disposed to execute 
 this arrangement, and granted the county in fief to some of 
 his German followers. Upon his death the circumstances were 
 favourable to Innocent III. The infant King of Sicily had been 
 intrusted by Constance to his guardianship. A double election 
 of Philip, brother of Henry VI, and of Otho, Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, engaged the princes of Germany, who had entirely over- 
 looked the claims of young Frederick, in a doubtful civil war. 
 Neither party was in a condition to enter Italy ; and the imperial 
 dignity was vacant for several years, till, the death of Philip 
 removing one competitor, Otho IV, whom the Pope had con- 
 stantly favoured, was crowned emperor. During this interval 
 the Italians had no superior; and Innocent availed himself of it 
 to maintain the pretensions of the see. These he backed by the 
 production of rather a questionable document, the will of Henry 
 VI, said to have been found among the baggage of Marquard, 
 one of the German soldiers who had been invested with fiefs 
 by the late emperor. The cities of what we now call the eccle- 
 siastical state had in the twelfth century their own municipal 
 government like those of Lombardy, but they were far less able 
 to assert a complete independence. They gladly, therefore, put 
 themselves under the protection of the Holy See, which held 
 out some prospect of securing them from Marquard and other 
 rapacious partisans, without disturbing their internal regula- 
 tions. Thus the duchy of Spoleto and march of Ancona sub- 
 mitted to Innocent III ; but he was not strong enough to keep 
 constant possession of such extensive territories, and some years 
 afterward adopted the prudent course of granting Ancona in fief 
 to the Marquis of Este. He did not, as <may be supposed, neg- 
 lect his authority at home ; the Prefect of Rome was now com- 
 pelled to swear allegiance to the Pope, which put an end to 
 the regular imperial supremacy over that city, and the privileges 
 of the citizens were abridged. This is the proper era of that 
 temporal sovereignty which the bishops of Rome possess over 
 their own city, though still prevented by various causes for nearly 
 three centuries from becoming iniquestioned and unlimited. 
 
 The policy of Rome was now more clearly defined than ever. 
 In order to preserve what she had thus suddenly gained rather 
 by opportunity than strength, it was her interest to enfeeble the 
 imperial power, and consequently to maintain the freedom of 
 the Italian republics. Tuscany had hitherto been ruled by a 
 marquis of the emperor's appointment, though her cities were 
 flourishing and, within themselves, independent. In imitation 
 of the Lombard confederacy, and impelled by Innocent III, they 
 now (with the exception of Pisa, which was always strongly at- 
 tached to the empire) formed a similar league for the preserva- 
 
888-I250] GUELFS AND "GHIBELINS 203 
 
 tion of their rights. In this league the influence of the Pope 
 was far more strongly manifested than in that of Lombardy. 
 Although the latter had been in alliance with Alexander III, and 
 was formed during the height of his dispute with Frederick, this 
 ecclesiastical quarrel mingled so little in their struggle for lib- 
 erty that no allusion to it is found in the act of their confed- 
 eracy. But the Tuscan union was expressly established ** for 
 the honour and aggrandizement of the apostolic see." The mem- 
 bers bound themselves to defend the possessions and rights of 
 the Church, and not to acknowledge any king or emperor with- 
 out the approbation of the supreme pontiff.*^ The Tuscans, 
 accordingly, were more thoroughly attached to the Church party 
 than the Lombards, whose principle was animosity toward the 
 house of Swabia. Hence, when Innocent III, some time after, 
 supported Frederick II against the Emperor Otho IV, the Mi- 
 lanese and their allies were arranged on the imperial side, but 
 the Tuscans continued to adhere to the Pope. 
 
 In the wars of Frederick Barbarossa against Milan and its 
 allies, we have seen the cities of Lombardy divided, and a con- 
 siderable number of them firmly attached to the imperial in- 
 terest. It does not appear, I believe, from history, though it is 
 by no means improbable, that the citizens were at so early a 
 time divided among themselves, as to their line of public policy, 
 and that the adherence of a particular city to the emperor, or to 
 the Lombard league, was only, as proved afterward the case, 
 that one faction or another acquired an ascendency in its coun- 
 cils. But jealousies long existing between the different classes, 
 and only suspended by the national struggle which terminated 
 at Constance, gave rise to new modifications of interests, and 
 new relations toward the empire. About the year 1200, or per- 
 haps a little later, the two leading parties which divided the cities 
 of Lombardy, and whose mutual animosity, having no general 
 subject of contention, required the association of a name to direct 
 as well as invigorate its prejudices, became distinguished by the 
 celebrated appellations of Guelfs and Ghibelins, the former ad- 
 hering to the papal side, the latter to that of the emperor. These 
 names were derived from Germany, and had been the rallying 
 word of faction for more than half a century in that country 
 before they were transported to a still more favourable soil. The 
 Guelfs took their name from a very illustrious family, several of 
 whom had successively been Dukes of Bavaria in the tenth and 
 eleventh centuries. The heiress of the last of these intermarried 
 with a younger son of the house of Este, a noble family settled 
 
 *^ Quod possessiones et jura sacrosanc- reciperent, nisi quem Romanus pontifex 
 tae ecclesise bona fide defenderent; et approbaret. (Muratori, Dissert. 48; Latin, 
 quod nullum in regem aut imperatorem tome iv, p. 320; Italian, tome iii, p. 112.) 
 
204 H ALLAH'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 near Padua, and possessed of great estates on each bank of the 
 lower Po. They gave birth to a second line of Guelfs, from 
 whom the royal house of Brunswick is descended. The name 
 of Ghibelin is derived from a village in Franconia, whence Con- 
 rad the Salic came, the progenitor, through females, of the 
 Swabian emperors. At the election of Lothaire in 1125, the 
 Swabian family were disappointed of what they considered almost 
 an hereditary possession ; and at this time a hostility appears 
 to have commenced between them and the house of Guelf, who 
 were nearly related to Lothaire. Henry the Proud and his son, 
 Henry the Lion, representatives of the latter family, were fre- 
 quently persecuted by the Swabian emperors, but their fortunes 
 belong to the history of Germany.*^ Meanwhile the elder branch, 
 though not reserved for such glorious destinies as the Guelfs, 
 continued to flourish in Italy ; the Marquises of Este were by 
 far the most powerful nobles in eastern Lombardy, and about 
 the end of the twelfth century began to be considered as the 
 heads of the Church party in their neighbourhood. They were 
 frequently chosen to the office of podesta, or chief magistrate, 
 by the cities of Romagna; and in 1208 the people of Ferrara set 
 the fatal example of sacrificing their freedom for tranquility by 
 electing Azzo VH, Marquis of Este, as their lord or sovereign."*^ 
 Otho IV was son of Henry the Lion, and consequently head 
 of the Guelfs. On his obtaining the imperial crown, the preju- 
 dices of Italian factions were diverted out of their usual chan- 
 nel. He was soon engaged in a quarrel with thj Pope, whose 
 hostility to the empire was certain, into whatever hands it might 
 fall. In Milan, however, and generally in the cities which had 
 belonged to the Lombard league against Frederick I, hatred 
 of the house of Swabia prevailed more than jealousy of the im- 
 perial prerogatives; they adhered to names rather than to prin- 
 ciples, and supported a Guelf emperor even against the Pope. 
 Terms of this description, having no definite relation to prin- 
 ciples which it might be troublesome to learn and defend, are 
 always acceptable to mankind, and have the peculiar advantage 
 of precluding altogether that spirit of compromise and accom- 
 modation by which it is sometimes endeavoured to obstruct 
 their tendency to hate and injure each other. From this time 
 every city, and almost every citizen, gloried in one of these bar- 
 barous denominations. In several cities the imperial party pre- 
 dominated through hatred of their neighbours, who espoused 
 that of the Church. Thus the inveterate feuds between Pisa 
 and Florence, Modena and Bologna, Cremona and Milan, threw 
 
 ** The German origin of these cele- nomination transferred to Italy (Struvi- 
 
 brated factions is clearly proved by a us, " Corpus Hist. German.," p. 378, and 
 
 passage in Otho of Frisingen, who lived Muratori, a. D. 1152) 
 half a century before we find the de- " Sismondi, tome ii, p. 329. 
 
888-1250] 
 
 FREDERICK II 
 
 205 
 
 them into opposite factions. But there was in every one of these 
 a strong party against that which prevailed, and consequently 
 a Guelf city frequently became Ghibelin, or conversely, accord- 
 ing to the fluctuations of the time.*^ 
 
 The change to which we have adverted in the politics of the 
 Guelf party lasted only during the reign of Otho IV. When the 
 heir of the house of Swabia grew up to manhood, Innocent, who, 
 though his guardian, had taken little care of his interests, as 
 long as he flattered himself with the hope of finding a Guelf 
 emperor obedient, placed the young Frederick at the head of 
 an opposition, composed of cities always attached to his family, 
 and of such as implicitly followed the see of Rome. He met with 
 considerable success both in Italy and Germany, and after the 
 death of Otho received the imperial crown. But he had no 
 longer to expect any assistance from the Pope who conferred 
 it. Innocent was dead, and Honorius III, his successor, could 
 not behold without apprehension the vast power of Frederick, 
 supported in Lombardy by a faction which balanced that of the 
 Church, and menacing the ecclesiastical territories on the other 
 side by the possession of Naples and Sicily. This kingdom, 
 feudatory to Rome, and long her firmest ally, was now, by a fatal 
 connection which she had not been able to prevent, thrown into 
 the scale of her most dangerous enemy. Hence the temporal 
 dominion which Innocent III had taken so much pains to estab- 
 lish became a very precarious possession, exposed on each side 
 to the attacks of a power that had legitimate pretensions to almost 
 every province composing it. The life of Frederick II was wasted 
 in an unceasing contention with the Church and with his Ital- 
 ian subjects, whom she excited to rebellions against him. With- 
 out inveighing, like the popish writers, against this prince, cer- 
 tainly an encourager of letters, and endowed with many eminent 
 qualities, we may lay to his charge a good deal of dissimulation ; 
 I will not add ambition, because I am not aware of any period 
 in the reign of Frederick when he was not obliged to act on his 
 
 **• For the Guelf and Ghibelin factions, 
 besides the historians, the fifty-first dis- 
 sertation of Muratori should be read. 
 There is some degree of inaccuracy in 
 his language, where he speaks of these 
 distractions expiring at the beginning 
 of the fifteenth century. Quel secolo, e 
 vero, abbondo anch' esso di molte guerre, 
 ma nulla si opero sotto nome o pre- 
 testo delle fazioni suddette. Solamente 
 ritennero esse piede in alcume private 
 famiglie. (" Antichita Italiane," tome iii, 
 p. 148.) But certainly the names of Guelf 
 and Ghibelin, as party distinctions, may 
 be traced all through the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. The former faction showed itself 
 distinctly in the insurrection of the cities 
 subject to Milan, upon the death of Gian 
 Galeazzo Visconti in 1404. It appeared 
 
 again in the attempt of the Milanese to 
 re-establish their republic in 1447. (Sis- 
 mondi, tome ix, p. 334.) So, in 1477, 
 Ludovico Sforza made use of Ghibelin 
 prejudices to exclude the regent Bonne 
 of Savoy as a Guelf. fSismondi, tome xi, 
 p. 79.) In the ecclesiastical state the 
 same distinctions appear to have been 
 preserved still later. Stefano Infessura, 
 in 1487, speaks familiarly of them. 
 (" Script. Rer. Ital.," tome iii, p. 1221.) 
 And even in the conquest of Milan by 
 Louis XII, in 1500, the Guelfs of that 
 city are represented as attached to the 
 French party, while the Ghibelins abetted 
 Ludovico Sforza and Maximilian. (Guic- 
 ciardini, p. 399.) Other passages in the 
 same historian show these factions to 
 have been alive in various parts of Italy. 
 
205 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [888-1250 
 
 defence against the aggression of others. But if he had been 
 a model of virtues, such men as Honorms III, Gregory IX, and 
 Innocent IV, the popes with whom he had successively to con- 
 tend, would not have given him respite while he remained master 
 of Naples, as well as the empire.^^ 
 
 It was the custom of every Pope to urge princes into a cru- 
 sade, which the condition of Palestine rendered indispensable, 
 or, more properly, desperate. But this great piece of super- 
 erogatory devotion had never yet been raised into an absolute 
 duty of their station, nor had even private persons been ever 
 required to take up the cross by compulsion. Honorius III, 
 however, exacted a vow from Frederick, before he conferred 
 upon him the imperial crown, that he would undertake a crusade 
 for the deliverance of Jerusalem. Frederick submitted to this 
 engagement, which perhaps he never designed to keep, and cer- 
 tainly endeavoured afterward to evade. Though he became by 
 marriage nominal King of Jerusalem,''^ his excellent understand- 
 ing was not captivated with so barren a prospect, and at length 
 his delays in the performance of his vow provoked Gregory IX 
 to issue against him a sentence of excommunication. Such a 
 thunderbolt was not to be lightly regarded ; and Frederick sailed 
 the next year for Palestine. But having disdained to solicit ab- 
 solution for what he considered as no crime, the court of Rome 
 was excited to still fiercer indignation against this profanation 
 of a crusade by an excommunicated sovereign. Upon his arrival 
 in Palestine, he received intelligence that the papal troops had 
 broken into the kingdom of Naples. No one could rationally 
 have blamed Frederick if he had quitted the Holy Land as he 
 found it ; but he made a treaty with the Saracens, which, though 
 by no means so disadvantageous as under all the circumstances 
 
 *''' The rancour of bigoted Catholics 
 against Frederick has hardly subsided at 
 the present day. A very moderate com- 
 mendation of him in " Tiraboschi," vol. 
 iv, t. 7, was not suffered to pass uncon- 
 tradicted by the Roman editor. And 
 though Muratori shows quite enough 
 prejudice against that emperor's charac- 
 ter, a fierce Roman bigot, whose animad- 
 versions are printed in the seventeenth 
 volume of his " Annals " (8vo edition), 
 flies into paroxysms of fury at every 
 syllable that looks like moderation. It 
 is well known that, although the public 
 policy of Rome has long displayed the 
 pacific temper of weakness, the ther- 
 mometer of ecclesiastical sentiment in 
 that city stands very nearly as high as in 
 the thirteenth century [1810]. Giannone, 
 who suffered for his boldness, has drawn 
 Frederick II very favourably, perhaps too 
 favourably, in the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth books of the " Istoria Civile di 
 Napoli." 
 
 ** The second wife of Frederick was 
 lolante, or Violante, daughter of John, 
 
 Count of Brienne, by Maria, eldest daugh- 
 ter and heiress of Isabella, wife of Con- 
 rad, Marquis of Montferrat. This Isa- 
 bella was the youngest daughter of Al- 
 maric or Amaury, King of Jerusalem, and 
 by the deaths of her brother, Baldwin 
 IV, of her eldest sister Sibilla, wife of 
 Guy de Lusignan, and that sister's child, 
 Baldwin V, succeeded to a claim upon 
 Jerusalem, which, since the victories of 
 Saladin, was not very profitable. It is 
 said that the Kings of Naples deduce 
 their title to that sounding inheritance 
 from this marriage of Frederick (Gian- 
 none, 1. xvi, c. 2); but the extinction of 
 Frederick's posterity must have, strictly 
 speaking, put an end to any right derived 
 from him; and Giannone himself indi- 
 cates a better title by the cession of 
 Maria, a princess of Antioch, and legiti- 
 mate heiress of Jerusalem, to Charles of 
 Anjou in 1272. How far, indeed, this 
 may have been regularly transmitted to 
 the present King of Naples I do not 
 know, and am sure that it is not worth 
 while to inquire. 
 
888-1250] FREDERICK II 20/ 
 
 might have been expected, served as a pretext for new calumnies 
 against him in Europe. The charge of irreligion, eagerly and 
 successfully propagated, he repelled by persecuting edicts against 
 heresy that do no great honour to his memory, and availed him 
 little at the time. Over his Neapolitan dominions he exercised 
 a rigorous government, rendered perhaps necessary by the levity 
 and insubordination characteristic of the inhabitants, but which 
 tended, through the artful representations of Honorius and Greg- 
 ory, to alarm and alienate the Italian republics. 
 
 A new generation had risen up in Lombardy since the Peace 
 of Constance, and the prerogatives reserved by that treaty to 
 the empire were so seldom called into action that few cities were 
 disposed to recollect their existence. They denominated them- 
 selves Guelfs or Ghibelins, according to habit, and out of their 
 mutual opposition, but without much reference to the empire. 
 Those, however, of the former party, and especially Milan, re- 
 tained their antipathy to the house of Swabia. Though Fred- 
 erick II was entitled, as far as established usage can create a 
 right, to the sovereignty of Italy, the Milanese would never ac- 
 knowledge him, nor permit his coronation at Monza, according 
 to ancient ceremony, with the iron crown of the Lombard kings. 
 The Pope fomented to the utmost of his power this disaffected 
 spirit, and encouraged the Lombard cities to renew their former 
 league. This, although conformable to a provision in the Treaty 
 of Constance, was manifestly hostile to Frederick, and may be 
 considered as the commencement of a second contest between 
 the republican cities of Lombardy and the empire. But there 
 was a striking difference between this and the former confed- 
 eracy against Frederick Barbarossa. In the league of 1 167 almost 
 every city, forgetting all smaller animosities in the great cause 
 of defending the national privileges, contributed its share of 
 exertion to sustain that perilous conflict ; and this transient 
 unanimity in a people so distracted by internal faction as the 
 Lombards is the surest witness to the justice of their under- 
 taking. Sixty years afterward, their war against the second 
 Frederick had less of provocation and less of public spirit. It 
 was, in fact, a party struggle of Guelf and Ghibelin cities, to 
 which the names of the Church and the empire gave more of 
 dignity and consistence. 
 
 The republics of Italy in the thirteenth century were so nu- 
 merous and independent, and their revolutions so frequent, that 
 it is a difficult matter to avoid confusion in following their his- 
 tory. It will give more arrangement to our ideas, and at the 
 same time illustrate the changes that took place in these little 
 states, if we consider them as divided into four clusters or con- 
 stellations, not, indeed, unconnected one with another, yet each 
 
208 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [888-1256 
 
 having its own centre of motion and its own boundaries. The 
 first of these we may suppose formed of the cities in central 
 Lombardy, between the Sessia and the Adige, the Alps and the 
 Ligurian Mountains ; it comprehends Milan, Cremona, Pavia, 
 Brescia, Bergamo, Parma, Piacenza, Mantua, Lodi, Alessan- 
 dria, and several others less distinguished. These were the origi- 
 nal seats of Italian liberty, the great movers in the wars of the 
 elder Frederick. Milan was at the head of this cluster of cities, 
 and her influence gave an ascendency to the Guelf party ; she 
 had, since the Treaty of Constance, rendered Lodi and Pavia 
 almost her subjects, and was in strict union with Brescia and 
 Piacenza. Parma, however, and Cremona, were unshaken de- 
 fenders of the empire. In the second class we may place the 
 cities of the march of Verona, between the Adige and the fron- 
 tiers of Germany. Of these, there were but four worth men- 
 tioning: Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso. The citizens of 
 all the four were inclined to the Guelf interests ; but a powerful 
 body of rural nobility, who had never been compelled, like those 
 upon the upper Po, to quit their fortresses in the hilly country, 
 or reside within the walls, attached themselves to the opposite 
 denomination.*® Some of them obtained very great authority 
 in the civil feuds of these four republics ; and especially two 
 brothers, Eccelin and Alberic da Romano, of a rich and distin- 
 guished family, known for its devotion to the empire. By ex- 
 traordinary vigour and decision of character, by dissimulation 
 and breach of oaths, by the intimidating effects of almost un- 
 paralleled cruelty, Eccelin da Romano became after some years 
 the absolute master of three cities, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza ; 
 and the Guelf party, in consequence, was entirely subverted be- 
 yond the Adige during the continuance of his tyranny.^® An- 
 other cluster was composed of the cities in Romagna — Bologna, 
 Imola, Faenza, Ferrara, and several others. Of these, Bologna 
 was far the most powerful, and, as no city was more steadily 
 for the interests of the Church, the Guelfs usually predominated 
 in this class, to which also the influence of the house of Este 
 not a little contributed. Modena, though not geographically 
 within the limits of this division, may be classed along with it 
 from her constant wars with Bologna. A fourth class will com- 
 prehend the whole of Tuscany, separated almost entirely from 
 
 *^ Sismondi, tome ii, p. 222. 
 
 ''<* The cruelties of Eccelin excited uni- 
 versal horror in an age when inhumanity 
 toward enemies was as common as fear 
 and revenge could make it. It was a 
 usual trick of beggars, all over Italy, to 
 pretend that they had been deprived of 
 their eyes or limbs by the Veronese 
 tyrant. There is hardly an instance in 
 European history of so sanguinary a 
 
 government subsisting for more than 
 twenty years. The crimes of Eccelin are 
 remarkably well authenticated by the 
 testimony of several contemporary writ- 
 ers, who enter into great details. Most 
 of these are found in the seventh volume 
 of " Scriptores Rerum Italicarum." Sis- 
 mondi, tome iii, pp. 33, in, 203, is more 
 full than any of the moderns. 
 
888-1250] WAR WITH THE LOMBARD CITIES 
 
 209 
 
 the politics of Lombardy and Romagna. Florence headed the 
 Guelf cities in this province, Pisa the Ghibelin. The Tuscan 
 union was formed, as has been said above, by Innocent III, and 
 was strongly inclined to the popes ; but gradually the Ghibelin 
 party acquired its share of influence, and the cities of Siena, 
 Arezzo, and Lucca shifted their policy, according to external 
 circumstances or the fluctuations of their internal factions. The 
 petty cities in the region of Spoleto and Ancona hardly perhaps 
 deserve the name of republics ; and Genoa does not readily fall 
 into any of our four classes, unless her wars with Pisa may be 
 thought to connect her with Tuscany.^^ 
 
 After several years of transient hostility and precarious truce, 
 the Guelf cities of Lombardy engaged in a regular and pro- 
 tracted war with Frederick II, or, more properly, with their 
 Ghibelin adversaries. Few events of this contest deserve par- 
 ticular notice. Neither party ever obtained such decisive advan- 
 tages as had alternately belonged to Frederick Barbarossa and 
 the Lombard confederacy, during the war of the preceding cen- 
 tury. A defeat of the Milanese by the emperor at Corte Nuova, 
 in 1237, was balanced by his unsuccessful siege at Brescia the 
 next year. The Pisans assisted Frederick to gain a great naval 
 victory over the Genoese fleet in 1241, but he was obliged to 
 rise from the blockade of Parma, which had left the standard 
 of Ghibelinism, in 1248. Ultimately, however, the strength of 
 the house of Swabia was exhausted by so tedious a struggle ; 
 the Ghibelins of Italy had their vicissitudes of success, but their 
 country, and even themselves, lost more and more of the ancient 
 connection with Germany. 
 
 In this resistance to Frederick II the Lombards were much 
 indebted to the constant support of Gregory IX and his suc- 
 cessor. Innocent IV; and the Guelf, or the Church party, were 
 used as synonymous terms. These pontiffs bore an unquench- 
 able hatred to the house of Swabia. No concessions mitigated 
 their animosity; no reconciliation was sincere. Whatever faults 
 may be imputed to Frederick, it is impossible for any one not 
 blindly devoted to the court of Rome to deny that he was iniqui- 
 tously proscribed by her unprincipled ambition. His real crime 
 was the inheritance of his ancestors, and the name of the house 
 of Swabia. In 1239 he was excommunicated by Gregory IX- 
 
 " I have taken no notice of Piedmont 
 in this division. The history of that 
 country seems to be less elucidated by 
 ancient or modern writers than that of 
 other parts of Italy. It was at this time 
 divided between the Counts of Savoy 
 and Marquises of Montferrat. But Asti, 
 Chieri, and Turin, especially the two 
 former, appear to have had a republican 
 form of government. They were, how- 
 ever, not absolutely independent. The 
 
 14 
 
 only Piedmontese city that can properly 
 be considered as a separate state, in the 
 thirteenth century, was Vercelli; and even 
 there the bishop seems to have possessed 
 a sort of temporal sovereignty. Denina, 
 author of the Rivoluzioni d' Italia," first 
 printed in 1769, lived to publish in his 
 old age a history of western Italy, or 
 Piedmont, from which I have gleaned a 
 few facts. (" Istoria dell' Italia Occi- 
 dentale," Torino, 1809, 6 vols., 8vo.) 
 
210 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 To this he was tolerably accustomed by former experience ; but 
 the sentence was attended by an absolution of his subjects from 
 their allegiance, and a formal deposition. These sentences were 
 not very effective upon men of vigorous minds, or upon those 
 whose passions were engaged in their cause ; but they influenced 
 both those who feared the threatenings of the clergy and those 
 who wavered already as to their Hne of political conduct. In 
 the fluctuating state of Lombardy the excommunication of Fred- 
 erick undermined his interests even in cities like Parma, that 
 had been friendly, and seemed to identify the cause of his ene- 
 mies with that of religion — a prejudice artfully fomented by 
 means of calumnies propagated against himself, and which the 
 conduct of such leading Ghibelins as Eccelin, who lived in an 
 open defiance of God and man, did not contribute to lessen. In 
 1240 Gregory proceeded to publish a crusade against Frederick, 
 as if he had been an open enemy to religion ; which he revenged 
 by putting to death all the prisoners he made who wore the 
 cross. There was one thing wanting to make the expulsion of 
 the emperor from the Christian commonwealth more complete. 
 Gregory IX accordingly projected, and Innocent IV carried 
 into effect, the convocation of a general council. This was held 
 at Lyons, an imperial city, but over which Frederick could no 
 longer retain his supremacy. In this assembly, where one hun- 
 dred and forty prelates appeared, the question whether Fred- 
 erick ought to be deposed was solemnly discussed ; he submit- 
 ted to defend himself by his advocates : and the Pope in the 
 presence, though without formally collecting the suffrages of 
 the council, pronounced a sentence, by which Frederick's ex- 
 communication was renewed, the empire and all his kingdoms 
 taken away, and his subjects absolved from their fidelity. This 
 is the most pompous act of usurpation in all the records of 
 the Church of Rome ; and the tacit approbation of a general 
 council seemed to incorporate the pretended right of deposing 
 kings, which might have passed as a mad vaunt of Gregory 
 VII and his successors, with the established faith of Chris- 
 tendom. 
 
 Upon the death of Frederick II in 1250, he left to his son 
 Conrad a contest to maintain for every part of his inheritance, 
 as well as for the imperial crown. But the vigour of the house 
 of Swabia was gone ; Conrad was reduced to fight for the king- 
 dom of Naples, the only succession which he could hope to secure 
 against the troops of Innocent IV, who still pursued his family 
 with implacable hatred, and claimed that kingdom as forfeited 
 to its feudal superior, the Holy See. After Conrad's premature 
 death, which happened in 1254, the throne was filled by his ille- 
 gitimate brother Manfred, who retained it by his bravery and 
 
888-1250] THE LOMBARD CITIES 211 
 
 address, in despite of the popes, till they were compelled to call 
 in the assistance of a more powerful arm. 
 
 The death of Conrad brings to a termination that period in 
 Italian history which we have described as nearly coextensive 
 with the greatness of the house of Swabia. It is perhaps, upon 
 the whole, the most honourable to Italy ; that in which she dis- 
 played the most of national energy and patriotism. A Floren- 
 tine or Venetian may dwell with pleasure upon later times, but 
 a Lombard will cast back his eye across the desert of centuries 
 till it reposes on the field of Legnano. Great changes followed 
 in the foreign and internal policy, in the moral and military char- 
 acter of Italy. But before we descend to the next period, it will 
 be necessary to remark some material circumstances in that which 
 has just passed under our review. 
 
 The successful resistance of the Lombard cities to such princes 
 as both the Fredericks must astonish a reader who brings to 
 the story of these middle ages notions derived from modern 
 times. But when we consider not only the ineffectual control 
 which could be exerted over a feudal army, bound only to a short 
 term of service, and reluctantly kept in the field at its own cost, 
 but the peculiar distrust and disaffection with which many Ger- 
 man princes regarded the house of Swabia, less reason will appear 
 for surprise. Nor did the kingdom of Naples, almost always in 
 agitation, yield any material aid to the second Frederick. The 
 main cause, however, of that triumph which attended Lombardy 
 was the intrinsic energy of a free government. From the eleventh 
 century, when the cities became virtually republican, they put 
 out those vigorous shoots which are the growth of freedom alone. 
 Their domestic feuds, their mutual wars, the fierce assaults of 
 their national enemies, checked not their strength, their wealth, 
 or their population ; but rather as the limbs are nerved by labour 
 and hardship, the republic of Italy grew in vigour and courage 
 through the conflicts they sustained. If we but remember what 
 savage Hcense prevailed during the ages that preceded their rise, 
 the rapine of public robbers, or of feudal nobles httle differing 
 from robbers, the contempt of industrious arts, the inadequacy 
 of penal laws and the impossibility of carrying them into effect, 
 we shall form some notion of the change which was wrought in 
 the condition of Italy by the growth of its cities. In compari- 
 son with the blessings of industry protected, injustice controlled, 
 emulation awakened, the disorders which ruffled their surface 
 appear slight and momentary. I speak only of this first stage 
 of their independence, and chiefly of the twelfth century, before 
 those civil dissensions had reached their height, by which the 
 glory and prosperity of Lombardy were soon to be subverted. 
 
 We have few authentic testimonies as to the domestic im- 
 
212 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [888-1250 
 
 provement of the free Italian cities, while they still deserve the 
 name. But we may perceive by history that their power and 
 population, according to their extent of territory, were almost 
 incredible. In Galvaneus Flamma, a Milanese writer, we find 
 a curious statistical account of that city in 1288, which, though 
 of a date about thirty years after its liberties had been overthrown 
 by usurpation, must be considered as implying a high degree 
 of previous advancement, even if we make allowance, as prob- 
 ably we should, for some exaggeration. The inhabitants are 
 reckoned at two hundred thousand ; the private houses, thirteen 
 thousand ; the nobility alone dwelt in sixty streets ; eight thou- 
 sand gentlemen or heavy cavalry (milites) might be mustered 
 from the city and its district, and two hundred and forty thou- 
 sand men capable of arms : a force sufficient, the writer observes, 
 to crush all the Saracens. There were in Milan six hundred 
 notaries, two hundred physicians, eighty schoolmasters, and fifty 
 transcribers of manuscripts. In the district were one hundred 
 and fifty castles with adjoining villages. Such was the state 
 of Milan, Flamma concludes, in 1288; it is not for me to say 
 whether it has gained or lost ground since that time.^^ At this 
 period the territory of Milan was not perhaps more extensive 
 than the county of Surrey ; it was bounded at a little distance, 
 on almost every side, by Lodi, or Pavia, or Bergamo, or Como. 
 It is possible, however, that Flamma may have meant to include 
 some of these as dependencies of Milan, though not strictly united 
 with it. How flourishing must the state of cultivation have been 
 in such a country, which not only drew no supplies from any 
 foreign land, but exported part of her own produce! It was 
 in the best age of their liberties, immediately after the battle of 
 Legnano, that the Milanese commenced the great canal which 
 conducts the waters of the Tesino to their capital, a work very 
 extraordinary for that time. During the same period the cities 
 gave proofs of internal prosperity that in many instances have 
 descended to our own observation in the solidity and magnifi- 
 cence of their architecture. Ecclesiastical structures were per- 
 haps more splendid in France and England ; but neither country 
 could pretend to match the palaces and public buildings, the 
 streets flagged with stone, the bridges of the same material, or 
 the commodious private houses of Italy. ^^ 
 
 of Azzo, asserts therein that he had 
 greatly improved the beauty and con- 
 venience of the city, though Brescia, Cre- 
 mona, and other places had declined. 
 Azarius. too, a writer of the same age, 
 makes a similar representation. (" Script 
 Rcr. Ital.," tome xvi, pp. 314, 317-) Of 
 Luchino Visconti he says, Statum Madio- 
 lani reintcgravit in tantum, quod non 
 civitas, sed provincia videbatur. 
 
 '^^ Sismondi, tome iv, p. 176; Tirabos- 
 
 '^^ Muratori, " Script. Rerum Italic," 
 tome xi. This expression of Flamma 
 may seem to intimate that Milan had 
 declined in his time, which was about 
 1340. Yet as she had been continually 
 advancing in power, and had not yet 
 experienced any tyrannical government, 
 I can not imagine this to have been the 
 case; and the same Flamma, who is a 
 great flatterer of the Visconti. and has 
 dedicated a particular work to the praises 
 
888-1250] THE LOMBARD CITIES 21 3 
 
 The courage of these cities was wrought sometimes to a tone 
 of insolent defiance through the security inspired by their means 
 of defence. From the time of the Romans to that when the use 
 of gunpowder came to prevail little change was made, or perhaps 
 could be made, in that part of military science which relates to 
 the attack and defence of fortified places. We find precisely the 
 same engines of offence : the cumbrous towers, from which 
 arrows were shot at the besieged, the machines from which stones 
 were discharged, the battering-rams which assailed the walls, and 
 the basket-work covering (the vinea or testudo of the ancients, 
 and the gattus or chat-chateil of the middle ages) under which 
 those who pushed the battering engines were protected from the 
 enemy. On the other hand, a city was fortified with a strong 
 wall of brick or marble, with towers raised upon it at intervals, 
 and a deep moat in front. Sometimes the antemural or barbacan 
 was added ; a rampart of less height, which impeded the ap- 
 proach of the hostile engines. The gates were guarded with a 
 portcullis ; an invention which, as well as the barbacan, was 
 borrowed from the Saracens.^* With such advantages for de- 
 fence, a numerous and intrepid body of burghers might not un- 
 reasonably stand at bay against a powerful army ; and as the 
 consequences of capture were most terrible, while resistance was 
 seldom hopeless, we can not wonder at the desperate bravery of 
 so many besieged towns. Indeed, it seldom happened that one 
 of considerable size was taken except by famine or treachery. 
 Tortona did not submit to Frederick Barbarossa till the besieg- 
 ers had corrupted with sulphur the only fountain that supplied 
 the citizens ; nor Crema till her walls were overtopped by the 
 battering engines. Ancona held out a noble example of sustain- 
 ing the pressure of extreme famine. Brescia tried all the re- 
 sources of a skilful engineer against the second Frederick ; and 
 swerved not from her steadiness when that prince, imitating an 
 atrocious precedent of his grandfather at the siege of Crema, 
 exposed his prisoners upon his battering engines to the stones 
 that were hurled by their fellow-citizens upon the walls. ^^ 
 
 Of the government which existed in the republics of Italy 
 during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries no definite sketch 
 can be traced. The chroniclers of those times are few and jejune ; 
 and, as is usual with contemporaries, rather intimate than de- 
 scribe the civil polity of their respective countries. It would, 
 indeed, be a weary task, if it were even possible, to delineate 
 
 chi, tome iv, p, 426. See also the ob- ** Muratori, " Antiquit. Ital.," Dis- 
 
 servations of Denina on the population sert, 26. 
 
 and agriculture of Italy (1. xiv, c. 9, 10), '^^ See these sieges in the second and 
 
 chiefly, indeed, applicable to a period third volumes of Sismondi. That 'of 
 
 rather later than that of her free re- Ancona, tome ii, pp. 145-206, is told with 
 
 publics. remarkable elegance, and several inter- 
 esting circumstances. 
 
214 H ALLAH'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 the constitutions of thirty or forty little states which were in per- 
 petual fluctuation. The magistrates elected in almost all of them, 
 when they first began to shake off the jurisdiction of their count 
 or bishop, were styled consuls ; a word very expressive to an 
 Italian ear, since in the darkest ages tradition must have pre- 
 served some acquaintance with the republican government of 
 Rome.^^ The consuls were always annual ; and their office com- 
 prehended the command of the national militia in war, as well 
 as the administration of justice and preservation of public order; 
 but their number was various — two, four, six, or even twelve. 
 In their legislative and deliberative councils the Lombards still 
 copied the Roman constitution, or perhaps fell naturally into the 
 form most calculated to unite sound discretion with the exercise 
 of popular sovereignty. A council of trust and secrecy (della 
 credenza) was composed of a small number of persons, who took 
 the management of public affairs, and may be called the min- 
 isters of the state. But the decision upon matters of general 
 importance, treaties of alliance or declarations of war, the choice 
 of consuls, or ambassadors, belonged to the general council. 
 This appears not to have been uniformly constituted in every 
 city, and according to its composition the government was more 
 or less democratical. An ultimate sovereignty, however, was re- 
 served to the mass of the people, and a parliament or general 
 assembly was held to deliberate on any change in the form of ' * ' 
 constitution.^"^ 
 
 About the end of the twelfth century a new and singular spe- 
 cies of magistracy was introduced into the Lombard cities. Dur- 
 ing the tyranny of Frederick I he had appointed officers of his 
 own, called podestas, instead of the elective consuls. It is re- 
 markable that this memorial of despotic power should not have 
 excited insuperable alarm and disgust in the free republics. But, 
 on the contrary, they almost universally, after the Peace of Con- 
 stance, revived an office which had been abrogated when they 
 first rose in rebellion against Frederick. From experience, as 
 we must presume, of the partiality which their domestic factions 
 carried into the administration of justice, it became a general 
 practice to elect, by the name of podesta, a citizen of some neigh- 
 bouring state as their general, their criminal judge, and pre- 
 server of the peace. The last duty was frequently arduous, and 
 required a vigorous as well as an upright magistrate. Offences 
 against the laws and security of the commonwealth were during 
 the middle ages as often, perhaps more often, committed by the 
 
 •*« Landulf. the younger, whose history This is, I believe, the earliest mention 
 
 of Milan extends from 1094 to 1133, calls of those magistrates. (Muratori, " An- 
 
 himself publicorum ofificiorum particeps nali d' Italia," a. d. 1107.) 
 et consulum epistolarum dictator. " Muratori. Dissert. 46 and 52; Sis- 
 
 (" Script. Rer. Ital.," tome v, p. 486.) mondi, tome i, p. 385. 
 
888-I250] THE LOMBARD CITIES 215 
 
 rich and powerful than by the inferior class of society. Rude and 
 licentious manners, family feuds and private revenge, or the mere 
 insolence of strength, rendered the execution of criminal jus- 
 tice practically and in every day's experience, what is now little 
 required, a necessary protection to the poor against oppression. 
 The sentence of a magistrate against a powerful offender was 
 not pronounced without danger of tumult; it was seldom exe- 
 cuted without force. A convicted criminal was not, as at pres- 
 ent, the stricken deer of society, whose disgrace his kindred 
 shrink from participating, and whose memory they strive to for- 
 get. Imputing his sentence to iniquity, or glorying in an act 
 which the laws of his fellow-citizens, but not their sentiments, 
 condemned, he stood upon his defence amid a circle of friends. 
 The law was to be enforced not against an individual, but a family 
 — not against a family, but a faction — not perhaps against a local 
 faction, but the whole Guelf or Ghibelin name, which might 
 become interested in the quarrel. The podesta was to arm the 
 republic against her refractory citizen ; his house was to be be- 
 sieged and razed to the ground, his defenders to be quelled by 
 violence: and thus the people, become familiar with outrage 
 and homicide under the command of their magistrates, were more 
 disposed to repeat such scenes at the instigation of their pas- 
 sions.^® 
 
 The podesta was sometimes chosen in a general assembly, 
 sometimes by a select number of citizens. His office was annual, 
 though prolonged in peculiar emergencies. He was invariably 
 a man of noble family, even in those cities which excluded their 
 own nobility from any share in the government. He received 
 a fixed salary, and was compelled to remain in the city after the 
 expiration of his office for the purpose of answering such charges 
 as might be adduced against his conduct. He could neither 
 marry a native of the city, nor have any relation resident within 
 the district, nor even, so great was their jealousy, eat or drink 
 in the house of any citizen. The authority of these foreign 
 magistrates was not by any means alike in all cities. In some he 
 seems to have superseded the consuls, and commanded the armies 
 in war. In others, as Milan and Florence, his authority was 
 merely judicial. We find in some of the old annals the years 
 headed by the names of the podestas, as by those of the consuls 
 in the history of Rome.^® 
 
 The effects of the evil spirit of discord that had so fatally 
 breathed upon the republics of Lombardy were by no means con- 
 fined to national interests, or to the grand distinction of Guelf 
 
 " Sismondi, tome iii, p. 258, from trated by Villani's history of Florence 
 whom the substance of these observations and Stella's annals of Genoa, 
 is borrowed. They may be copiously illus- ^^ Muratori, Dissert. 46. 
 
2i6 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 and Ghibelin. Dissensions glowed in the heart of every city, 
 and as the danger of foreign war became distant, these grew more 
 fierce and unappeasable. The feudal system had been established 
 upon the principle of territorial aristocracy; it maintained the 
 authority, it encouraged the pride of rank. Hence, when the 
 rural nobility were compelled to take up their residence in cities, 
 they preserved the ascendency of birth and riches. From the 
 natural respect which is shown to these advantages, all offices 
 of trust and command were shared among them ; it is not mate- 
 rial whether this were by positive right or continual usage. A 
 limited aristocracy of this description, where the inferior citizens 
 possess the right of selecting their magistrates by free suffrage 
 from a numerous body of nobles, is not among the worst forms 
 of government, and affords no contemptible security against op- 
 pression and anarchy. This regimen appears to have prevailed 
 in most of the Lombard cities during the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries ; though, in so great a deficiency of authentic mate- 
 rials, it would be too peremptory to assert this as an unequivocal 
 truth. There is one very early instance, in the year 1041, of a 
 civil war at Milan between the capitanei, or vassals of the em- 
 pire, and the plebeian burgesses, which was appeased by the 
 mediation of Henry HI. This is ascribed to the ill treatment 
 which the latter experienced — as was usual, indeed, in all parts 
 of Europe, but which was endured with inevitable submission 
 everywhere else. In this civil war, which lasted three years, the 
 nobility were obliged to leave Milan and carry on the contest 
 in the adjacent plains ; and one of their class, by name Lanzon, 
 whether moved by ambition or by virtuous indignation against 
 tyranny, put himself at the head of the people.®^ 
 
 From this time we scarcely find any mention of dissensions 
 among the two orders till after the Peace of Constance — a proof, 
 however defective the contemporary annals may be, that such 
 disturbances had neither been frequent nor serious. A schism 
 between the nobles and people is noticed to have occurred at 
 Faenza in 1185. A serious civil war of some duration broke 
 out between them at Brescia in 1200. From this time mutual 
 jealousies interrupted the domestic tranquility of other cities, 
 but it is about 1220 that they appear to have taken a decided 
 aspect of civil war ; within a few years of that epoch the ques- 
 tion of aristocratical or popular command was tried by arms in 
 Milan, Piacenza, Modena, Cremona, and Bologna.^^ 
 
 It would be in vain to enter upon the merits of these feuds, 
 which the meagre historians of the time are seldom much dis- 
 
 «o Landulfus, ''Hist. Mediolan.," in «» Sismondi, tome ii. p. 444; Muratori, 
 
 Script, Rerum Ital. tome iv P- 86; " Annali d' Italia," A. D. iisTetc. 
 Muraton, Dissert. 52; Annali d Italia, 
 A. D. 1041 ; St Marc, tome iii, p. 94. • 
 
888-1250] THE LOMBARD CITIES 21/ 
 
 posed to elucidate, and which they saw with their own prejudices. 
 A writer of the present age would show little philosophy if he 
 were to heat his passions by the reflection, as it were, of those 
 forgotten animosities, and aggravate, like a partial contempo- 
 rary, the failings of one or another faction. We have no need 
 of positive testimony to acquaint us with the general tenor of 
 their history. We know that a nobility is always insolent, that 
 a populace is always intemperate ; and may safely presume that 
 the former began, as the latter ended, by injustice and abuse of 
 power. At one time the aristocracy, not content with seeing 
 the annual magistrates selected from their body, would endeav- 
 our by usurpation to exclude the bulk of the citizens from suf- 
 frage. At another, the merchants, grown proud by riches, and 
 confident of their strength, would aim at obtaining the honours 
 of the state, which had been reserved to the nobility. This is 
 the inevitable consequence of commercial wealth, and, indeed, 
 of freedom and social order, which are the parents of wealth. 
 There is in the progress of civilization a term at which exclusive 
 privileges must be relaxed, or the possessors must perish along 
 with them. In one or two cities a temporary compromise was 
 made through the intervention of the Pope, whereby offices of 
 public trust, from the highest to the lowest, were divided, in equal 
 proportions, or otherwise, between the nobles and the people. 
 This also is no bad expedient, and proved singularly efficacious 
 in appeasing the dissensions of ancient Rome, 
 
 There is, however, a natural preponderance in the popular 
 scale, which, in a fair trial, invariably gains on that of the less 
 numerous class. The artisans, who composed the bulk of the 
 populations, were arranged in companies according to their occu- 
 pations. Sometimes, as at Milan, they formed separate associa- 
 tions, with rules for their internal government. '^^ The clubs, 
 called at Milan La Motta and La Credenza, obtained a degree 
 of weight not at all surprising to those who consider the spirit 
 of mutual attachment which belongs to such fraternities, and 
 we shall see a more striking instance of this hereafter in the re- 
 public of Florence. To so formidable and organized a democ- 
 racy the nobles opposed their numerous families, the generous 
 spirit that belongs to high birth, the influence of wealth and 
 established name. The members of each distinguished family 
 appear to have lived in the same street ; their houses were forti- 
 fied with square massive towers of commanding height, and wore 
 the semblance of castles within the walls of a city. Brancaleon, 
 the famous senator of Rome, destroyed one hundred and forty 
 of these domestic intrenchments, which were constantly serving 
 the purpose of civil broils and outrage. Expelled, as frequently 
 
 •- Muratori, Dissert. 52; Sismondi, tome iii, p. 262. 
 
21 8 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 happened, from the city, it was in the power of the nobles to 
 avail themselves of their superiority in the use of cavalry, and 
 to lay waste the district, till weariness of an unprofitable con- 
 tention reduced the citizens to terms of compromise. But when 
 all these resources were inefifectual, they were tempted or forced 
 to sacrifice the public liberty to their own welfare, and lent their 
 aid to a foreign master or a domestic usurper. 
 
 In all these scenes of turbulence, whether the contest was 
 between the nobles and people or the Guelf or Ghibelin fac- 
 tions, no mercy was shown by the conquerors. The vanquished 
 lost their homes and fortunes, and, retiring to other cities of 
 their own party, waited for the opportunity of revenge. In a 
 popular tumult the houses of the beaten side were frequently 
 levelled to the ground — not perhaps from a sort of senseless 
 fury, which Muratori inveighs against, but on account of the 
 injury which these fortified houses inflicted upon the lower citi- 
 zens. The most deadly hatred is that which men exasperated by 
 proscription and forfeiture bear to their country ; nor have we 
 need to ask any other cause for the calamities of Italy than the 
 bitterness with which an unsuccessful faction was thus pursued 
 into banishment. When the Ghibelins were returning to Flor- 
 ence, after a defeat given to the prevailing party in 1260, it was 
 proposed among them to demolish the city itself which had cast 
 them out ; and but for the persuasion of one man, Farinata degl' 
 Uberti, their revenge would have thus extinguished all patriot- 
 ism.®^ It is to this that we must ascribe their proneness to call 
 in assistance from every side, and to invite any servitude for 
 the sake of retaliating upon their adversaries. The simple love 
 of public liberty is in general, I fear, too abstract a passion to 
 glow warmly in the human breast ; and, though often invigorated 
 as well as determined by personal animosities and predilections, 
 is as frequently extinguished by the same cause. 
 
 Independently of the two leading differences which embattled 
 the citizens of an Italian state, their form of government and 
 their relation to the empire, there were others more contemptible 
 though not less mischievous. In every city the quarrels of pri- 
 vate families became the foundation of general schism, sedition, 
 and proscription. Sometimes these blended themselves with the 
 grand distinctions of Guelf and Ghibelin ; sometimes they were 
 more nakedly conspicuous. This may be illustrated by one or 
 two prominent examples. Imilda de' Lambertazzi, a noble young 
 lady at Bologna, was surprised by her brothers in a secret inter- 
 view with Boniface Gieremei, whose family had long been sepa- 
 
 «3 G. Villani, 1. vi, c. 82; Sismondi. conversation of the poet with Farinata, 
 
 I can not forgive Dante for placing this canto 10, is very fine, and illustrative of 
 
 pntriot tra 1' anime piu nere, in one of Florentine history, 
 the worst regions of his " Inferno." The 
 
888-1250] THE LOMBARD CITIES 219 
 
 rated by the most inveterate enmity from her own. She had 
 just time to escape, while the Lambertazzi despatched her lover 
 with their poisoned daggers. On her return she found his body 
 still warm, and a faint hope suggested the remedy of sucking the 
 venom from his wounds. But it only communicated itself to her 
 own veins, and they were found by her attendants stretched 
 lifeless by each other's side. So cruel an outrage wrought the 
 Gieremei to madness ; they formed alliances with some neigh- 
 bouring republics ; the Lambertazzi took the same measures ; 
 and after a fight in the streets of Bologna, of forty days' dura- 
 tion, the latter were driven out of th^e city, with all the Ghibelins, 
 their political associates. Twelve thousand citizens were con- 
 demned to banishment, their houses razed, and their estates 
 confiscated.®* Florence was at rest till, in 121 5, the assassina- 
 tion of an individual produced a mortal feud between the families 
 Buondelmonti and Uberti, in which all the city took a part. An 
 outrage committed at Pistoja in 1300 split the inhabitants into 
 the parties of Bianchi and Neri ; and these, spreading to Flor- 
 ence, created one of the most virulent divisions which annoyed 
 that republic. In one of the changes which attended this little 
 ramification of faction, Florence expelled a young citizen who 
 had borne offices of magistracy, and espoused the cause of the 
 Bianchi. Dante Alighieri retired to the courts of some Ghibelin 
 princes, where his sublime and inventive mind, in the gloom of 
 exile, completed that original combination of vast and extrava- 
 gant conceptions with keen political satire, which has given 
 immortality to his name, and even lustre to the petty contests of 
 his time.®^ 
 
 In the earlier stages of the Lombard republics their differ- 
 ences, as well mutual as domestic, had been frequently appeased 
 by the mediation of the emperors ; and the loss of this salutary 
 influence may be considered as no slight evil attached to that 
 absolute emancipation which Italy attained in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury. The popes sometimes endeavoured to interpose an au- 
 thority which, though not quite so direct, was held in greater 
 veneration ; and if their own tempers had been always pure from 
 the selfish and vindictive passions of those whom they influenced, 
 might have produced more general and permanent good. But 
 they considered the Ghibelins as their own peculiar enemies, and 
 the triumph of the opposite faction as the Church's best security. 
 Gregory X and Nicholas III, whether from benevolent motives, 
 or because their jealousy of Charles of Anjou, while at the head 
 of the Guelfs, suggested the revival of a Ghibelin party as a coun- 
 
 " Sismondi, tome iii, p. 442. This «' Dino Compagni, in " Scr, Rer. 
 
 story may suggest that of Romeo and Juli- Ital.," tome ix; Villani, " 1st. Fiorent.," 
 
 et, itself founded upon an Italian novel, 1. viii; Dante, passim, 
 and not an unnatural picture of manners. 
 
220 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [888-1250 
 
 terpoise to his power, distinguished their pontificate by enforc- 
 ing measures of reconciliation in all Italian cities ; but their suc- 
 cessors returned to the ancient policy and prejudices of Rome. 
 
 The singular history of an individual far less elevated in sta- 
 tion than popes or emperors, Fra Giovanni di Vicenza, belongs 
 to these times and to this subject. This Dominican friar began 
 his career at Bologna in 1233, preaching the cessation of war and 
 forgiveness of injuries. He repaired from thence to Padua, to 
 Verona, and the neighbouring cities. At his command men laid 
 down their instruments of war and embraced their enemies. With 
 that susceptibility of transient impulse natural to popular gov- 
 ernments, several republics implored him to reform their laws 
 and to settle their differences. A general meeting was sum- 
 moned in the plain of Paquara, upon the banks of the Adige. 
 The Lombards poured themselves forth from Romagna and the 
 cities of the March ; Guelfs and Ghibelins, nobles and burghers, 
 free citizens and tenantry of feudal lords, marshalled around their 
 carroccios, caught from the lips of the preacher the allusive prom- 
 ise of universal peace. They submitted to agreements dictated 
 by Fra Giovanni, which contain little else than a mutual amnesty ; 
 whether it were that their quarrels had been really without ob- 
 ject, or that he had dexterously avoided to determine the real 
 points of contention. But power and reputation suddenly ac- 
 quired are transitory. Not satisfied with being the legislator 
 and arbiter of Italian cities, he aimed at becoming their master, 
 and abused the enthusiasm of Vicenza and Verona to obtain a 
 .grant of absolute sovereignty. Changed from an apostle to a 
 usurper, the fate of Fra Giovanni might be predicted; and he 
 speedily gave place to those who, though they made a worse use 
 of their power, had, in the eyes of mankind, more natural pre- 
 tensions to possess it.^^ 
 
 From the death of Frederick II in 1250 to the invasion of 
 Charles VIII in 1494 a long and undistinguished period occurs, 
 which it is impossible to break into any natural divisions. It 
 is an age in many respects highly brilliant : the age of poetry 
 and letters, of art, and of continual improvement. Italy dis- 
 played an intellectual superiority in this period over the trans- 
 alpine nations which certainly had not appeared since the de- 
 struction of the Roman Empire. But her political history pre- 
 sents a labyrinth of petty facts so obscure and of so little influence 
 as not to arrest the attention, so intricate and incapable of classi- 
 fication as to leave only confusion in the memory. The general 
 events that are worthy of notice, and give a character to this 
 long period, are the establishment of small tyrannies upon the 
 
 «" Tiraboschi, " Storia della Lettera- written account) ; Sismondi, tome ii, page 
 tura, ' tome iv, page 214 (a very well- 484. 
 
1250-1494J AFFAIRS OF NAPLES 221 
 
 ruins of republican government in most of the cities, the gradual 
 rise of three considerable states — Milan. Florence, and Venice — 
 the naval and commercial rivalry between the last city and Genoa, 
 the final acquisition by the popes of their present territorial 
 sovereignty, and the revolutions in the kingdom of Naples under 
 the lines of Anjou and Aragon. 
 
 After the death of Frederick II the distinctions of Guelf and 
 Ghibelin became destitute of all rational meaning. The most 
 odious crimes were constantly perpetrated, and the utmost mis- 
 eries endured, for an echo and a shade that mocked the deluded 
 enthusiasts of faction. None of the Guelfs denied the nominal 
 but indefinite sovereignty of the empire ; and beyond a name the 
 Ghibelins themselves would have been little disposed to carry it. 
 But the virulent hatred attached to these words grew continually 
 more implacable, till ages of ignominy and tyrannical govern- 
 ment had extinguished every energetic passion in the bosoms 
 of a degraded people. 
 
 In the fall of the house of Swabia Rome appeared to have 
 consummated her triumph ; and, although the Ghibelin party 
 was for a little time able to maintain itself, and even to gain 
 ground in the north of Italy, yet two events that occurred not 
 long afterward restored the ascendency of their adversaries. The 
 first of these was the fall of Eccelin da Romano, whose rapid 
 successes in Lombardy appeared to threaten the establishment 
 of a tremendous despotism, and induced a temporary union of 
 Guelf and Ghibelin states, by which he was overthrown. The 
 next and far more important was the change of dynasty in Naples. 
 This kingdom had been occupied, after the death of Conrad, 
 by his illegitimate brother, Manfred, in the behalf, as he at 
 first pretended, of young Conradin the heir, but in fact as his 
 own acquisition. He was a prince of an active and firm mind, 
 well fitted for his difficult post, to whom the Ghibelins looked 
 up as their head and as the representative of his father. It was 
 a natural object with the popes, independently of their ill will 
 toward a son of Frederick II, to see a sovereign on whom they 
 could better rely placed upon so neighbouring a throne. Charles, 
 Count of Anjou, brother of St. Louis, was tempted by them to 
 lead a crusade (for as such all wars for the interest of Rome were 
 now considered) against the Neapolitan usurper. The chance 
 of a battle decided the fate of Naples, and had a striking influ- 
 ence upon the history of Europe for several centuries. Manfred 
 was killed in the field : but there remained the legitimate heir 
 of the Fredericks, a boy of seventeen years old, Conradin, son 
 of Conrad, who rashly, as we say at least after the event, at- 
 tempted to regain his inheritance. He fell into the hands of 
 Charles ; and the voice of those rude ages, as well as of a more 
 
222 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1250-1494 
 
 enlightened posterity, has united in branding with everlasting 
 infamy the name of that prince, who did not hesitate to purchase 
 the security of his own title by the public execution of an honour- 
 able competitor, or rather a rightful claimant of the throne he 
 had usurped. With Conradin the house of Swabia was extin- 
 guished ; but Constance, the daughter of Manfred, had trans- 
 ported his right to Sicily and Naples into the house of Aragon, 
 by her marriage with Peter III. 
 
 This success of a monarch selected by the Roman pontiffs 
 as their particular champion turned the tide of faction over all 
 Italy. He expelled the Ghibelins from Florence, of which they 
 had a few years before obtained a complete command by means 
 of their memorable victory upon the river Arbia. After the fall 
 of Conradin, that party was everywhere discouraged. Germany 
 held out small hopes of support, even when the imperial throne, 
 which had long been vacant, should be filled by one of her 
 princes. The populace were in almost every city attached to the 
 Church and to the name of Guelf; the Kings of Naples em- 
 ployed their arms, and the popes their excommunications, so 
 that for the remainder of the thirteenth century the name of 
 Ghibelin was a term of proscription in the majority of Lombard 
 and Tuscan republics. Charles was constituted by the Pope 
 vicar-general in Tuscany. This was a new pretension of the 
 Roman pontiffs, to name the lieutenants of the empire during 
 its vacancy, which, indeed, could not be completely filled up 
 without their consent. It soon, however, became evident that 
 he aimed at the sovereignty of Italy. Some of the popes them- 
 selves, Gregory X and Nicholas IV, grew jealous of their own 
 creature. At the Congress of Cremona, in 1269, it was proposed 
 to confer upon Charles the seigniory of all the Guelf cities, but 
 the greater part were prudent enough to choose him rather as a 
 friend than a master.^^ 
 
 The cities of Lombardy, however, of either denomination, 
 were no longer influenced by that generous disdain of one man's 
 will which is to republican governments what chastity is to 
 women — a conservative principle, never to be reasoned upon or 
 subjected to calculations of utility. By force, or stratagem, or 
 free consent, almost all the Lombard republics had already fallen 
 under the yoke of some leading citizen, who became the lord 
 (signore), or, in the German sense, tyrant of his country. The 
 
 " Sismondi, tome iii, p. 417. Several, 
 however, including Milan, took an oath 
 of fidelity to Charles the same year. 
 (Ibid.) In 1273 he was Lord of Alessan- 
 dria and Piacenza, and received tribute 
 from Milan, Bologna, and most Lombard 
 cities. (Muratori.) It was evidently his 
 intention to avail himself of the vacancy 
 
 of the empire, and either to acquire that 
 title himself or at least to stand in the 
 same relation as the emperors had done 
 to the Italian states; which, according to 
 the usage of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, left them in possession of every- 
 thing that we call independence, with the 
 reservation of a nominal allegiance. 
 
I2SO-I494] SUBJECTION OF THE LOMBARD CITIES 
 
 223 
 
 first instance of a voluntary delegation of sovereignty was that 
 above mentioned of Ferrara, which placed itself under the Lord 
 of Este. Eccelin made himself truly the tyrant of the cities be- 
 yond the Adige; and such experience ought naturally to have 
 inspired the Italians with more universal abhorrence of despo- 
 tism. But every danger appeared trivial in the eyes of exasper- 
 ated factions when compared with the ascendency of their adver- 
 saries. Weary of unceasing and useless contests, in which ruin 
 fell with an alternate but equal hand upon either party, Liberty 
 withdrew from a people who disgraced her name ; and the tu- 
 multuous, the brave, the intractable Lombards became eager 
 to submit themselves to a master, and patient under the heaviest 
 oppression. Or, if tyranny sometimes overstepped the limits 
 of forbearance, and a seditious rising expelled the reigning 
 prince, it was only to produce a change of hands, and transfer 
 the impotent people to a different, and perhaps a worse, des- 
 potism.®^ In many cities not a conspiracy was planned, not a 
 sigh was breathed, in favour of republican government after once 
 they had passed under the sway of a single person. The progress, 
 indeed, was [gradual, though sure, from limited to absolute, from 
 temporary to hereditary power, from a just and conciliating rule 
 to extortion and cruelty. But before the middle of the four- 
 teenth century, at the latest, all those cities which had spurned 
 at the faintest mark of submission to the emperors lost even 
 the recollection of self-government, and were bequeathed, like 
 an undoubted patrimony, among the children of their new lords. 
 Such is the progress of usurpation ; and such the vengeance that 
 Heaven reserves for those who waste in license and faction its 
 first of social blessings, liberty.®^ 
 
 The city most distinguished in both wars against the house 
 of Swabia, for an unconquerable attachment to republican insti- 
 tutions, was the first to sacrifice them in a few years after the 
 death of Frederick II. Milan had for a considerable time been 
 agitated by civil dissensions between the nobility and inferior 
 
 *^ See an instance of the manner in 
 which one tyrant was exchanged for an- 
 other in the fate of Passerine Bonaccorsi, 
 Lord of Mantua, in 1328, Luigi di Gon- 
 zaga surprised him, rode the city (corse 
 la citta) with a troop of horse, crying, 
 "Vivail popolo, emuoja Messer Passerino 
 e le sue gabelle! " killed Passerino upon 
 the spot, put his son to death in cold 
 blood, e poi si fece signore della terra. 
 Villani, 1, x, c. 99, observes, like a good 
 republican, that God had fulfilled in this 
 the words of his Gospel (query, what 
 Gospel?), I will slay my enemy by my 
 enemy — abbattendo I'uno tiranno per 
 I'altro. 
 
 °* See the observations of Sismondi, 
 tome iv, p. 212, on the conduct of the 
 
 Lombard signori (I know not of any 
 English word that characterizes them, ex- 
 cept tyrant in its primitive sense) during 
 the first period of their dominion. They 
 were generally chosen in an assembly of 
 the people, sometimes for a short term, 
 prolonged in the same manner. The 
 people was consulted upon several occa- 
 sions. At Milan there was a council of 
 900 nobles, not permanent or representa- 
 tive, but selected and convened at the 
 discretion of the government, through- 
 out the reigns of the Visconti. (Corio, 
 PP- 5i9> 583.) Thus, as Sismondi re- 
 marks, they respected the sovereignty of 
 the people, while they destroyed its lib- 
 erty. 
 
224 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 citizens. These parties were pretty equally balanced, and their 
 success was consequently alternate. Each had its own podesta, 
 as a party leader, distinct from the legitimate magistrate of the 
 city. At the head of the nobility was their archbishop, Fra Leon 
 Perego; the people chose Martin della Torre, one of a noble 
 family which had ambitiously sided with the democratic faction. 
 In consequence of the crime of a nobleman, who had murdered 
 one of his creditors, the two parties took up arms in 1257. A 
 civil war, of various success, and interrupted by several pacifica- 
 tions, which in that unhappy temper could not be durable, was 
 terminated in about two years by the entire discomfiture of the 
 aristocracy, and by the election of Martin della Torre as chief 
 and lord (capitano e signore) of the people. Though the Milan- 
 ese did not probably intend to renounce the sovereignty resi- 
 dent in their general assemblies, yet they soon lost the repub- 
 lican spirit ; five in succession of the family Della Torre might 
 be said to reign in Milan, each, indeed, by a formal election, 
 but with an implied recognition of a sort of hereditary title. 
 Twenty years afterward the Visconti, a family of opposite in- 
 terests, supplanted the Torriani at Milan, and the rivalry be- 
 tween these great houses was not at an end till the final estab- 
 lishment of Matteo Visconti in 13 13; but the people were not 
 otherwise considered than as aiding by force the one or other 
 party, and at most deciding between the pretensions of their 
 masters. 
 
 The vigour and concert infused into the Guelf party by the 
 successes of Charles of Anjou were not very durable. That prince 
 was soon involved in a protracted and unfortunate quarrel with 
 the Kings of Aragon, to whose protection his revolted subjects 
 in Italy had recurred. On the other hand, several men of ener- 
 getic character retrieved the Ghibelin interests in Lombardy, 
 and even in the Tuscan cities. The Visconti were acknowledged 
 heads of that faction. A family early established as Lords of 
 Verona, the Della Scala, maintained the credit of the same de- 
 nomination between the Adige and the Adriatic. Castruccio 
 Castrucani, an adventurer of remarkable ability, rendered himself 
 Prince of Lucca, and drew over a formidable accession to the 
 imperial side from the heart of the Church party in Tuscany, 
 though his death restored the ancient order of things. The in- 
 ferior tyrants were partly Guelf, partly Ghibelin, according to 
 local revolutions ; but, upon the whole, the latter acquired a 
 gradual ascendency. Those, indeed, who cared for the independ- 
 ence of Italy, or for their own power, had far less to fear from 
 the phantom of imperial prerogatives, long intermitted and in- 
 capable of being enforced, than from the new race of foreign 
 princes whom the Church had substituted for the house of Swabia. 
 
1250-1494] THE VISCONTI 225 
 
 The Angevin Kings of Naples were sovereigns of Provence, and 
 from thence easily encroached upon Piedmont, and threatened 
 the Milanese. Robert, the third of this line, almost openly as- 
 pired, like his grandfather, Charles I, to a real sovereignty over 
 Italy. His offers of assistance to Guelf cities in war were always 
 coupled with a demand of the sovereignty. Many yielded to his 
 ambition ; and even Florence twice bestowed upon him a tem- 
 porary dictatorship. In 13 14 he was acknowledged Lord of 
 Lucca, Florence, Pavia, Alessandria, Bergamo, and the cities 
 of Romagna. In 13 18 the Guelf s of Genoa found no other re- 
 source against the Ghibelin emigrants who were under their 
 walls than to resign their liberties to the King of Naples for the 
 term of ten years, which he procured to be renewed for six more. 
 The Avignon popes, especially John XXII, out of blind hatred 
 to the Emperor Louis of Bavaria and the Visconti family, abetted 
 all these measures of ambition. But they were rendered abor- 
 tive by Robert's death and the subsequent disturbances of his 
 kingdom. 
 
 At the latter end of the thirteenth century there were almost 
 as many princes in the north of Italy as there had been free cities 
 in the preceding age. Their equality, and the frequent domestic 
 revolutions which made their seat unsteady, kept them for a while 
 from encroaching on each other. Gradually, however, they be- 
 came less numerous : a number of obscure tyrants were swept 
 away from the smaller cities; and the people, careless or hope- 
 less of liberty, were glad to exchange the rule of despicable petty 
 usurpers for that of more distinguished and powerful families. 
 About the year 1350 the central parts of Lombardy had fallen 
 under the dominion of the Visconti. Four other houses occu- 
 pied the second rank: that of Este at Ferrara and Modena; of 
 Scala at Verona, which under Cane and Mastino della Scala had 
 seemed likely to contest with the Lords of Milan the supremacy 
 over Lombardy ; of Carrara at Padua, which later than any Lom- 
 bard city had resigned her liberty; and of Gonzaga at Mantua, 
 which, without ever obtaining any material extension of terri- 
 tory, continued, probably for that reason, to reign undisturbed 
 till the eighteenth century. But these united were hardly a 
 match, as they sometimes experienced, for the Visconti. That 
 family, the object of every league formed in Italy for more than 
 fifty years, in constant hostility to the Church, and well inured 
 to interdicts and excommunications, producing no one man of 
 miHtary talents, but fertile of tyrants detested for their perfidi- 
 ousness and cruelty, was nevertheless enabled, with almost unin- 
 terrupted success, to add city after city to the dominion of Milan 
 till it absorbed all the north of Italy. Under Gian Galeazzo, 
 whose reign began in 1385, the viper (their armorial bearing) 
 
226 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 assumed, indeed, a menacing attitude : "^^ he overturned the great 
 family of Scala, and annexed their extensive possessions to his 
 own ; no power intervened from VercelU in Piedmont to Feltre 
 and Belluno, while the free cities of Tuscany, Pisa, Siena, Perugia, 
 and even Bologna, as if by a kind of witchcraft, voluntarily called 
 in a dissembling tyrant as their master. 
 
 Powerful as the Visconti were in Italy, they were long in 
 washing out the tinge of recent usurpation which humbled them 
 before the legitimate dynasties of Europe. At the siege of Genoa, 
 in 13 18, Robert, King of Naples, rejected with contempt the 
 challenge of Marco Visconti to decide their quarrel in single 
 combat."^^ But the pride of sovereigns, like that of private men, 
 is easily set aside for their interest. Galeazzo Visconti purchased 
 with one hundred thousand florins a daughter of France for his 
 son, which the French historians mention as a deplorable humili- 
 ation for their crown. A few years afterward, Lionel, Duke of 
 Clarence, second son of Edward III, certainly not an inferior 
 match, espoused Galeazzo's daughter. Both these connections 
 were short-lived ; but the union of Valentine, daughter of Gian 
 Galeazzo, with the Duke of Orleans, in 1389, produced far more 
 important consequences, and served to transmit a claim to her 
 descendants, Louis XII and Francis I, from which the long 
 calamities of Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century were 
 chiefly derived. Not long after this marriage the Visconti were 
 tacitly admitted among the reigning princes by the erection of 
 Milan into a duchy under letters-patent of the Emperor Wen- 
 ceslaus.'^^ 
 
 The imperial authority over Italy was almost entirely sus- 
 pended after the death of Frederick II. A long interregnum 
 followed in Germany ; and when the vacancy was supplied by 
 Rodolph of Hapsburg, he was too prudent to dissipate his mod- 
 erate resources where the great house of Swabia had failed. About 
 forty years afterward the Emperor Henry of Luxemburg, a 
 prince, like Rodolph, of small hereditary possessions, but active 
 and discreet, availed himself of the ancient respect borne to the 
 imperial name and the mutual jealousies of the Italians, to re- 
 cover for a very short time a remarkable influence. But, though 
 professing neutrality and desire of union between the Guelfs and 
 Ghibelins, he could not succeed in removing the distrust of the 
 former ; his exigencies impelled him to large demands of money, 
 and the Italians, when they counted his scanty German cavalry, 
 
 '" Allusions to heraldry are very com- reckoned a misalliance, as Dante tells us, 
 
 mon in the Italian writers. All the his- in the widow of Nino di Gallura, a noble- 
 
 torians of the fourteenth century habit- man of Pisa, though a sort of prince in 
 
 ually use the viper, il biscione, as a syno- Sardinia, to marry one of the Visconti. 
 
 nym for the power of Milan. (" Purgatorio," canto viii.) 
 
 ^' Delia qual cosa il Re molto sdegno '^ Corio, p. 538. 
 ne prese. (Villani, 1. ix, c. 93.) It was 
 
1250-1494] RELATIONS OF ITALY WITH THE EMPIRE 227 
 
 perceived that obedience was altogether a matter of their own 
 choice. Henry died, however, in time to save himself from any 
 decisive reverse. His successors, Louis of Bavaria and Charles 
 IV, descended from the Alps with similar motives, but after some 
 temporary good fortune were obliged to return, not without dis- 
 credit. Yet the Italians never broke that almost invisible thread 
 which connected them with Germany ; the fallacious name of 
 Roman emperor still challenged their allegiance, though con- 
 ferred by seven Teutonic electors without their concurrence. 
 Even Florence, the most independent and high-spirited of repub- 
 lics, was induced to make a treaty with Charles IV in 1355, 
 which, while it confirmed all her actual liberties, not a little, by 
 that very confirmation, affected her sovereignty.^^ This defer- 
 ence to the supposed prerogatives of the empire, even while they 
 were least formidable, was partly owing to jealousy of French 
 or Neapolitan interference, partly by the national hatred of the 
 popes who had seceded to Avignon, and in some degree to a 
 misplaced respect for antiquity, to which the revival of letters 
 had given birth. The great civilians, and the much greater 
 poets, of the fourteenth century, taught Italy to consider her 
 emperor as a dormant sovereign, to whom her various princi- 
 palities and republics were subordinate, and during whose ab- 
 sence alone they had legitimate authority. 
 
 In one part, however, of that country the empire had, soon 
 after the commencement of this period, spontaneously renounced 
 its sovereignty. From the era of Pepin's donation, confirmed 
 and extended by many subsequent charters, the Holy See had 
 tolerably just pretensions to the province entitled Romagna, or 
 the exarchate of Ravenna. But the popes, whose menaces were 
 dreaded at the extremities of Europe, were still very weak as 
 temporal princes. Even Innocent III had never been able to 
 obtain possession of this part of St. Peter's patrimony. The 
 circumstances of Rodolph's accession inspired Nicholas III with 
 more confidence. That emperor granted a confirmation of every- 
 
 '3 The republic of Florence was at 
 this time in considerable peril from a 
 coalition of the Tuscan cities against her, 
 which rendered the protection of the em- 
 peror convenient. But it was very re- 
 luctantly that she acquiesced in even a 
 nominal submission to his authority. The 
 Florentine envoys, in their first address, 
 would only use the words, Santa Corona, 
 or Serenissimo Principe; senza ricordarlo 
 imperadore, o dimostrargli alcuna reve- 
 renza di suggezzione, domandando che 
 il commune di Firenze volea essendogli 
 ubbidiente, le cotali e le cotali fran- 
 chigie per mantenere il suo popolo nell' 
 usata libertade. (Mat. Villani, p. 274; 
 Script. Rer. Ital.," tome xiv.) This 
 style made Charles angry; and the city 
 soon atoned for it by accepting his privi- 
 
 lege. In this, it must be owned, he as- 
 sumes a decided tone of sovereignty. 
 The gonfalonier and priors are declared 
 to be his vicars. The deputies of the 
 city did homage and swore obedience. 
 Circumstances induced the principal citi- 
 zens to make this submission, which they 
 knew to be merely nominal. But the 
 high-spirited people, not so indifferent 
 about names, came into it very unwilling- 
 ly. The treaty was seven times proposed, 
 and as often rejected, in the consiglio del 
 popolo, before their feelings were sub- 
 dued. Its publication was received with 
 no marks of joy. The public buildings 
 alone were illuminated: but a sad silence 
 indicated the wounded pride of every pri- 
 vate citizen. (M. Villani, pp. 286, 290; 
 Sismondi, tome vi, p. 238.) 
 
228 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 thing included in the donations of Louis I, Otho, and his other 
 predecessors, but was still reluctant or ashamed to renounce his 
 imperial rights. Accordingly, his charter is expressed to be 
 granted without diminution of the empire (sine demembratione 
 imperii), and his chancellor received an oath of fidelity from the 
 cities of Romagna. But the Pope insisting firmly on his own 
 claim, Rodolph discreetly avoided involving himself in a fatal 
 quarrel, and in 1278 absolutely released the imperial supremacy 
 over all the dominions already granted to the Holy See."^* 
 
 This is a leading epoch in the temporal monarchy of Rome. 
 But she stood only in the place of the emperor; and her ulti- 
 mate sovereignty was compatible with the practicable independ- 
 ence of the free cities, or of the usurpers who had risen up among 
 them. Bologna, Faenza, Rimini, and Ravenna, with many others 
 less considerable, took an oath indeed to the Pope, but contin- 
 ued to regulate both their internal concerns and foreign relations 
 at their own discretion. The first of these cities was far pre- 
 eminent above the rest for population and renown, and, though 
 not without several intermissions, preserved a republican char- 
 acter till the end of the fourteenth century. The rest were soon 
 enslaved by petty tyrants, more obscure than those of Lombardy. 
 It was not easy for the pontiffs of Avignon to reinstate them- 
 selves in a dominion which they seemed to have abandoned ; but 
 they made several attempts to recover it, sometimes with spiritual 
 arms, sometimes with the more efificacious aid of mercenary 
 troops. The annals of this part of Italy are peculiarly unin- 
 teresting. 
 
 Rome itself was, throughout the middle ages, very little dis- 
 posed to acquiesce in the government of her bishop. His rights 
 were indefinite and unconfirmed by positive law ; the emperor 
 was long sovereign, the people always meant to be free. Besides 
 the common causes of insubordination and anarchy among the 
 Italians, which applied equally to the capital city, other senti- 
 ments more peculiar to Rome preserved a continual, though 
 not uniform, influence for many centuries. There still remained 
 enough in the wreck of that vast inheritance to swell the bosoms 
 of her citizens with a consciousness of their own dignity. They 
 bore the venerable name, they contemplated the monuments of 
 art and empire, and forgot, in the illusions of national pride, 
 that the tutelar gods of the building were departed forever. 
 About the middle of the twelfth century these recollections were 
 heightened by the eloquence of Arnold of Brescia, a political 
 heretic who preached against the temporal jurisdiction of the 
 hierarchy. In a temporary intoxication of fancy, they were led 
 to make a ridiculous show of self-importance toward Frederick 
 
 ''* Muratori, ad ann. 1274, 1275, 1278; Sismondi, tome iii, p. 461. 
 
I250-I494] 
 
 POLITICAL CONDITION OF ROME 
 
 229 
 
 Barbarossa when he came to receive the imperial crown ; but 
 the German sternly chided their ostentation, and chastised their 
 resistance."^^ With the popes they could deal more securely. 
 Several of them were expelled from Rome during that age by 
 the seditious citizens. Lucius II died of hurts received in a 
 tumult. The government was vested in fifty-six senators, an- 
 nually chosen by the people, through the intervention of an elec- 
 toral body, ten delegates from each of the thirteen districts of 
 the city."^® This constitution lasted not quite fifty years. In 
 1 192 Rome imitated the prevailing fashion by the appointment 
 of an annual foreign magistrate. '^'^ Except in name, the senator 
 of Rome appears to have perfectly resembled the podesta of 
 other cities. This magistrate superseded the representative sen- 
 ate, who had proved by no means adequate to control the most 
 lawless aristocracy of Italy. I shall not repeat the story of Bran- 
 caleon's rigorous and inflexible justice, which a great historian 
 has already drawn from obscurity. It illustrates not the annals 
 of Rome alone, but the general state of Italian society, the nature 
 of a podesta's duty, and the difficulties of its execution. The 
 office of senator survives after more than six hundred years ; 
 but he no longer wields the " iron flail " ^^ of Brancaleon, and 
 his nomination proceeds, of course, from the supreme pontiff, 
 not from the people. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the 
 senate, and the senator who succeeded them, exercised one dis- 
 tinguishing attribute of sovereignty, that of coining gold and 
 silver money. Some of their coins still exist, with legends in a 
 very republican tone.''® Doubtless the temporal authority of the 
 popes varied according to their personal character. Innocent III 
 had much more than his predecessors for almost a century, or 
 than some of his successors. He made the senator take an oath 
 of fealty to him, which, though not very comprehensive, must 
 have passed in those times as a recognition of his superiority.®^ 
 
 Though there was much less obedience to any legitimate power 
 at Rome than anywhere else in Italy, even during the thirteenth 
 century, yet, after the secession of the popes to Avignon, their 
 own city was left in a far worse condition than before. Dis- 
 orders of every kind, tumult, and robbery prevailed in the streets. 
 The Roman nobility were engaged in perpetual war with each 
 
 '"' The impertinent address of a Roman 
 orator to Frederick, and his answer, are 
 preserved in Otho of Frisingen, 1. ii, 
 c. 22; but so much at length that we 
 may suspect some exaggeration. Otho 
 is rather rhetorical. They may be read 
 in Gibbon, c. 69. 
 
 ''^ Sismondi, tome ii, p. 36. Besides 
 Sismondi and Muratori, I would refer 
 for the history of Rome during the mid- 
 dle ages to the last chapters of Gibbon's 
 " Decline and Fall." 
 
 " Sismondi, tome ii, p. 308. 
 
 ^^ The readers of Spenser will recol- 
 lect the iron flail of Talus, the attendant 
 of Arthegal, emblematic of the severe 
 justice of the lord deputy of Ireland, 
 Sir Arthur Grey, shadowed under that 
 allegory. 
 
 ^« Gibbon, " Decline and Fall." vol. 
 xii, p. 289; Muratori, " Antiquit. Ital,," 
 Dissert. 27. 
 
 *" Sismondi, p. 309. 
 
230 H ALLAH'S MIDDLE AGES [i 250-1494 
 
 other. Not content with their own fortified palaces, they turned 
 the sacred monuments of antiquity into strongholds, and con- 
 summated the destruction of time and conquest. At no period 
 has the city endured such irreparable injuries ; nor was the down- 
 fall of the Western Empire so fatal to its capital as the contempt- 
 ible feud of the Orsini and Colonna families. Whatever there 
 was of government, whether administered by a legate from Avi- 
 gnon or by the municipal authorities, had lost all hold on these 
 powerful barons. In the midst of this degradation and wretched- 
 ness an obscure man, Nicola di Rienzi, conceived the project 
 of restoring Rome not only to good order, but even to her an- 
 cient greatness. He had received an education beyond his birth, 
 and nourished his mind with the study of the best writers. After 
 many harangues to the people, which the nobility, blinded by 
 their self-confidence, did not attempt to repress, Rienzi suddenly 
 excited an insurrection and obtained complete success. He was 
 placed at the head of a new government, with the title of tribune, 
 and with almost unlimited power. The first effects of this revo- 
 lution were wonderful. All the nobles submitted, though with 
 great reluctance ; the roads were cleared of robbers ; tranquility 
 was restored at home ; some severe examples of justice intimi- 
 dated offenders ; and the tribune was regarded by all the people 
 as the destined restorer of Rome and Italy. Though the court 
 of Avignon could not approve of such a usurpation, it tem- 
 porized enough not directly to oppose it. Most of the Italian 
 republics, and some of the princes, sent ambassadors, and seemed 
 to recognise pretensions which were tolerably ostentatious. The 
 King of Hungary and Queen of Naples submitted their quar- 
 rel to the arbitration of Rienzi, who did not, however, undertake 
 to decide upon it. But this sudden exaltation intoxicated his 
 understanding, and exhibited failings entirely incompatible with 
 his elevated condition. If Rienzi had lived in our own age, his 
 talents, which were really great, would have found their proper 
 orbit. For his character was one not unusual among literary 
 politicians — a combination of knowledge, eloquence, and enthu- 
 siasm for ideal excellence, with vanity, inexperience of mankind, 
 unsteadiness, and physical timidity. As these latter qualities be- 
 came conspicuous, they eclipsed his virtues and caused his bene- 
 fits to be forgotten ; he was compelled to abdicate his govern- 
 ment, and retire into exile. After several years, some of which 
 he passed in the prisons of Avignon, Rienzi was brought back 
 to Rome, with the title of senator, and under the command of 
 the legate. It was supposed that the Romans, who had returned 
 to their habits of insubordination, would gladly submit to their 
 favourite tribune. And this proved the case for a few months; 
 but after that time they ceased altogether to respect a man who 
 
I 250-1494] 
 
 DEATH OF RIENZI 
 
 231 
 
 SO little respected himself in accepting a station where he could 
 no longer be free, and Rienzi was killed in a sedition.^^ 
 
 Once more, not long after the death of Rienzi, the freedom 
 of Rome seems to have revived in republican institutions, though 
 with names less calculated to inspire peculiar recollections. Mag- 
 istrates, called bannerets, chosen from the thirteen districts of 
 the city, with a militia of three thousand citizens at their com- 
 mand, were placed at the head of this commonwealth. The great 
 object of this new organization was to intimidate the Roman 
 nobility, whose outrages, in the total absence of government, 
 had grown intolerable. Several of them were hanged the first 
 year by order of the bannerets. The citizens, however, had no 
 serious intention of throwing ofi their allegiance to the popes. 
 They provided for their own security, on account of the lament- 
 able secession and neglect of those who claim allegiance while 
 they denied protection. But they were ready to acknowledge 
 and welcome back their bishop as their sovereign. Even without 
 this they surrendered their republican constitution in 1362, it does 
 not appear for what reason, and permitted the legate of Innocent 
 VI to assume the government.®^ We find, however, the institu- 
 tion of bannerets revived and in full authority some years after- 
 ward. But the internal history of Rome appears to be obscure, 
 and I have not had opportunities of examining it minutely. Some 
 degree of political freedom the city probably enjoyed during 
 the schism of the Church ; but it is not easy to discriminate the 
 assertion of legitimate privileges from the licentious tumults of 
 the barons or populace. In 1435 the Romans formally took away 
 the government from Eugenius IV, and elected seven signiors, 
 or chief magistrates, like the priors of Florence.®^ But this revo- 
 lution was not of long continuance. On the death of Eugenius 
 the citizens deliberated upon proposing a constitutional charter 
 to the future Pope. Stephen Porcaro, a man of good family and 
 inflamed by a strong spirit of liberty, was one of their principal 
 instigators. But the people did not sufficiently partake of that 
 
 ^^ Sismondi, tome v, c. 37; tome vi, p. 
 201; Gibbon, c. 70; De Sade, "Vie de 
 Petrarque," tome ii, passim; Tiraboschi, 
 tome vi, p. 339. It is difficult to resist 
 the admiration which all the romantic 
 circumstances of Rienzi's history tend to 
 excite, and to which Petrarch so blindly 
 gave way. That great man's character- 
 istic excellence was not good common 
 sense. He had imbibed two notions, of 
 which it is hard to say which was the 
 more absurd: that Rome had a legitimate 
 right to all her ancient authority over 
 the rest of the world, and that she was 
 likely to recover this authority in con- 
 sequence of the revolution produced by 
 Rienzi. Giovanni Villani, living at Flor- 
 ence, and a stanch republican, formed 
 
 a very different estimate, which weighs 
 more than the enthusiastic panegyrics of 
 Petrarch. La detta impresa del tribuno 
 era un' opera fantastica, e di poco durare 
 (1. xii, c. 90). An illustrious female 
 writer has drawn with a single stroke the 
 character of Rienzi, Crescentius, and Ar- 
 nold of Brescia, the fond restorers of 
 Roman liberty, qui ont pris les souvenirs 
 pour les esperances. (Corinne, tome i, p. 
 159- ) Could Tacitus have excelled this? 
 
 »2 Matt. Villani, pp. 576, 604, 709; Sis- 
 mondi, tome V, p. 92. He seems to have 
 overlooked the former period of govern- 
 ment by bannerets, and refers their in- 
 stitution to 1375. 
 
 83 " Script. Rerum Italic," tome iii, 
 pars 2, p. 1 128. 
 
232 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1250-1494 
 
 spirit. No measures were taken upon this occasion; and Por- 
 caro, whose ardent imagination disguised the hopelessness of his 
 enterprise, tampering in a fresh conspiracy, was put to death 
 under the pontificate of Nicholas V.®* 
 
 The province of Tuscany continued longer than Lombardy 
 under the government of an imperial lieutenant. It was not till 
 about the middle of the twelfth century that the cities of Flor- 
 ence, Lucca, Pisa, Siena, Arezzo, Pistoja, and several less con- 
 siderable, which might, perhaps, have already their own elected 
 magistrates, became independent republics. Their history is, 
 with the exception of Pisa, very scanty till the death of Frederick 
 II. The earliest fact of any importance recorded of Florence 
 occurs in 1184, when it is said that Frederick Barbarossa took 
 from her the dominion over the district or county, and restored 
 it to the rural nobility, on account of her attachment to the 
 Church.®^ This I chiefly mention to illustrate the system pur- 
 sued by the cities of bringing the territorial proprietors in their 
 neighbourhood under subjection. During the reign of Frederick 
 II Florence became, as far as she was able, an ally of the popes. 
 There was, indeed, a strong Ghibelin party, comprehending many 
 of the greatest families, which occasionally predominated through 
 the assistance of the emperor. It seems, however, to have existed 
 chiefly among the nobility; the spirit of the people was thor- 
 oughly Guelf. After several revolutions, accompanied by alter- 
 nate proscription and demolition of houses, the Guelf party, 
 through the assistance of Charles of Anjou, obtained a final 
 ascendency in 1266; and after one or two unavailing schemes 
 of accommodation, it was established as a fundamental law in 
 the Florentine constitution that no person of Ghibelin ancestry 
 could be admitted to offices of public trust which, in such a gov- 
 ernment, was in effect an exclusion from the privileges of citi- 
 zenship. 
 
 The changes of internal government and vicissitudes of suc- 
 cess among factions were so frequent at Florence for many years 
 after this time that she is compared by her great banished poet 
 to one in sickness, who, unable to rest, gives herself momentary 
 ease by continual change of posture in her bed.^® They did not 
 become much less numerous after the age of Dante. Yet the 
 revolutions of Florence should, perhaps, be considered as no 
 more than a necessary price of her liberty. It was her boast 
 and her happiness to have escaped, except for one short period, 
 that odious rule of vile usurpers, under which so many other 
 
 8^* Id., pp. 1131, 1134; Sismondi, tome 
 X, p. 18. 
 
 8^ Villani, 1. v, c. 12. 
 ^" " E se ben ti ricordi, e vedi il lume, 
 Vedrai te somigliante a quella in- 
 ferma, 
 
 Che non pu6 trovar posa in su le 
 
 piume, 
 Ma con dar volta suo dolore scher- 
 
 ma.' 
 
 (" Purgatorio," canto vi.) 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 233 
 
 free cities had been crushed. A sketch of the constitution of so 
 famous a repubHc ought not to be omitted in this place. Noth- 
 ing else in the history of Italy after Frederick II is so worthy 
 of our attention.®^ 
 
 The basis of the Florentine polity was a division of the citi- 
 zens exercising commerce into their several companies or arts. 
 These were at first twelve : seven called the greater arts, and five 
 lesser, but the latter were gradually increased to fourteen. The 
 seven greater arts were those of lawyers and notaries, of dealers 
 in foreign cloth, called sometimes calimala, of bankers or money- 
 changers, of woollen-drapers, of physicians and druggists, of 
 dealers in silk, and of furriers. The inferior arts were those of 
 retailers of cloth, butchers, smiths, shoemakers, and builders. 
 This division, so far at least as regarded the greater arts, was 
 as old as the beginning of the thirteenth century.^® But it was 
 fully established and rendered essential to the constitution in 
 1266. By the provisions made in that year, each of the seven 
 greater arts had a council of its own, a chief magistrate or con- 
 sul, who administered justice in civil causes to all members of 
 his company, and a banneret (gonfaloniere), or military officer, 
 to whose standard they repaired when any attempt was made to 
 disturb the peace of the city. 
 
 The administration of criminal justice belonged at Florence, 
 as at other cities, to a foreign podesta, or rather to two foreign 
 magistrates, the podesta and the capitano del popolo, whose 
 jurisdiction, so far as I can trace it, appears to have been con- 
 current.®^ In the first part of the thirteenth century the author- 
 ity of the podesta may have been more extensive than after- 
 ward. These offices were preserved till the innovations of the 
 Medici. The domestic magistracies underwent more changes. 
 Instead of consuls, which had been the first denomination of the 
 chief magistrates of Florence, a college of twelve or fourteen 
 persons called Anziani or Buonuomini, but varying in name 
 as well as number, according to revolutions of party, was estab- 
 lished about the middle of the thirteenth century to direct public 
 affairs.^^ This order was entirely changed in 1282, and gave 
 place to a new form of supreme magistracy, which lasted till 
 the extinction of the republic. Six priors, elected every two 
 months, one from each of the six quarters of the city, and from 
 
 ;« 7J ^^^e/o""<i considerable difficulties themselves rather inaccurately, as if they 
 
 wl,.^i,'N^^ ° ""^ task; no author with had been erected at that time, which in- 
 
 J^^w J fZ ^^^'''l^^ S^^'"^ ^ tolerable deed is the era of their political impor- 
 
 view 01 the Florentine government, ex- tance 
 
 aTways^tfifaXrv' ^^"^ '' ^'""'^^^ "''* Z'* Matteo. Villani. p 194. G. Villani 
 
 sKJ^Vof ^' . ,.-, P^^^^s the institution of the podesta in 
 
 1 J^^^m^ffc^Vi^"^ """• '^^^u* '^35. Vil- 1207; we f^nd it, however, as early as 
 
 lani intimates (1. vii, c. 13) that the arts 1184. (Ammirato.) ^ 
 
 ffi M?.i,^°"'n-^'''''^J C9mpanies before so g. Villani, 1. vi, c. 39. 
 
 1266. Machiavelh and Sismondi express 
 
234 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 each of the greater arts, except that of lawyers, constituted an 
 executive magistracy. They lived during their continuance in 
 office in a palace belonging to the city, and were maintained 
 at the public cost. The actual priors, jointly with the chiefs 
 and councils (usually called la capitudine) of the seven greater 
 arts, and with certain adjuncts (arroti) named by themselves, 
 elected by ballot their successors. Such was the practice for 
 about forty years after this government was established. But 
 an innovation, begun in 1324, and perfected four years after- 
 ward, gave a peculiar character to the constitution of Florence. 
 A lively and ambitious people, not merely jealous of their public 
 sovereignty, but deeming its exercise a matter of personal en- 
 joyment, aware at the same time that the will of the whole body 
 could neither be immediately expressed on all occasions, nor 
 even through chosen representatives, without the risk of violence 
 and partiality, fell upon the singular idea of admitting all citizens 
 not unworthy by their station or conduct to offices of magistracy 
 by rotation. Lists were separately made out by the priors, the 
 twelve buonuomini, the chiefs and councils of arts, the bannerets 
 and other respectable persons, of all citizens, Guelfs by origin, 
 turned of thirty years of age, and, in their judgment, worthy of 
 public trust. The lists thus formed were then united, and those 
 who had composed them, meeting together, in number ninety- 
 seven, proceeded to ballot upon every name. Whoever obtained 
 sixty-eight black balls was placed upon the reformed list; and 
 all the names it contained, being put on separate tickets into a 
 bag or purse (imborsati), were drawn successively as the magis- 
 tracies were renewed. As there were above fifty of these, none 
 of which could be held for more than four months, several hun- 
 dred citizens were called in rotation to bear their share in the 
 government within two years. But at the expiration of every 
 two years the scrutiny was renewed, and fresh names were min- 
 gled with those which still continued undrawn, so that accident 
 might deprive a man for life of his portion of magistracy.®^ 
 
 Four councils had been established by the constitution of 
 1266 for the decision of all propositions laid before them by 
 the executive magistrates, whether of a legislative nature or 
 relating to public policy. These were now abrogated ; and in 
 their places were substituted one of three hundred members, all 
 plebeians, called consiglio di popolo, and one of two hundred 
 and fifty, called consiglio di commune, into which the nobles 
 might enter. These were changed by the same rotation as the 
 
 "^ Villani, 1. ix, c. 2^', 1. x, c. no; 1. xi, lies, and has always continued, according 
 
 c. 105; Sismondi, tome v, p. 174. This to Sismondi, in Lucca, and in those cities 
 
 species of lottery, recommending itself by of the ecclesiastical state which preserved 
 
 an apparent fairness and incompatibil- the privilege of choosing their municipal 
 
 ity with undue influence, was speedily officers (p. 95). 
 adopted in all the neighbouring repub- 
 
I2SO-I494] GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 235 
 
 magistracies, every four months.®^ A parliament, or general as- 
 sembly of the Florentine people, was rarely convoked ; but the 
 leading principle of a democratical republic, the ultimate sover- 
 eignty of the multitude, was not forgotten. This constitution 
 of 1324 was fixed by the citizens at large in a parliament ; and 
 the same sanction was given to those temporary delegations of 
 the signiory to a prince, which occasionally took place. What 
 is technically called by their historians farsi popolo was the as- 
 sembly of a parliament, or a resolution of all derivative powers 
 into the immediate operation of the popular will. 
 
 The ancient government of this republic appears to have been 
 chiefly in the hands of its nobility. These were very numerous, 
 and possessed large estates in the district. But by the constitu- 
 tion of 1266, which was nearly coincident with the triumph of 
 the Guelf faction, the essential powers of magistracy, as well 
 as of legislation, were thrown into the scale of the commons. 
 The colleges of arts, whose functions became so eminent, were 
 .altogether commercial. Many, indeed, of the nobles enrolled 
 themselves in these companies, and were among the most con- 
 spicuous merchants of Florence. These were not excluded from 
 the executive college of the priors at its first institution in 1282. 
 It was necessary, however, to belong to one or other of the 
 greater arts in order to reach that magistracy. The majority, 
 therefore, of the ancient families saw themselves pushed aside 
 from the helm, which was intrusted to a class whom they had 
 habitually held in contempt. 
 
 It does not appear that the nobility made any overt opposi- 
 tion to these democratical institutions. Confident in a force be- 
 yond the law, they cared less for what the law might provide 
 against them. They still retained the proud spirit of personal 
 independence which had belonged to their ancestors in the fast- 
 nesses of the Apennines. Though the laws of Florence and a 
 change in Italian customs had transplanted their residence to 
 the city, it was in strong and lofty houses that they dwelt, among 
 their kindred, and among the fellows of their rank. Notwith- 
 standing the tenor of the constitution, Florence was for some 
 years after the establishment of priors incapable of resisting the 
 violence of her nobility. Her historians all attest the outrages 
 and assassinations committed by them on the inferior people. 
 It was in vain that justice was oiYered by the podesta and the 
 capitano del popolo. Witnesses dared not to appear against a 
 noble offender; or if, on a complaint, the officer of justice ar- 
 rested the accused, his family made common cause to rescue 
 their kinsman, and the populace rose in defence of the laws, till 
 the city was a scene of tumult and bloodshed. I have already 
 
 "2 Villani, 1. ix, c. 2T\ 1. x, c. no; 1. xi, c. 105; Sismondi, tome y, p. 174. 
 
236 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [125CK1494 
 
 alluded to this Insubordination of the higher classes as general 
 in the Italian republics ; but the Florentine writers, being fuller 
 than the rest, are our best specific testimonies.*^^ 
 
 The dissensions between the patrician and plebeian orders 
 ran very high when Giano della Bella, a man of ancient lineage, 
 but attached, without ambitious views, so far as appears, though 
 not without passion, to the popular side, introduced a series of 
 enactments exceedingly disadvantageous to the ancient aris- 
 tocracy. The first of these was the appointment of an executive 
 officer, the gonfalonier of justice, whose duty it was to enforce 
 the sentences of the podesta and capitano del popolo in cases 
 where the ordinary officers were insufficient. A thousand citi- 
 zens, afterward increased to four times that number, were bound 
 to obey his commands. They were distributed into companies, 
 the gonfaloniers or captains of which became a sort of corpora- 
 tion or college, and a constituent part of the government. This 
 new militia seems to have superseded that of the companies of 
 arts, which I have not observed to be mentioned at any later 
 period. The gonfalonier of justice was part of the signiory along 
 with the priors, of whom he was reckoned the president, and 
 changed, like them, every two months. He was, in fact, the 
 first magistrate of Florence.^* If Giano della Bella had trusted 
 to the efficacy of this new security for justice, his fame would 
 have been beyond reproach. But he followed it up by harsher 
 provisions. The nobility were now made absolutely ineligible 
 to the office of prior. For an offence committed by one of a 
 noble family, his relations were declared responsible in a penalty 
 of three thousand pounds. And, to obviate the difficulty arising 
 from the frequent intimidation of witnesses, it was provided that 
 common fame, attested by two credible persons, should be suffi- 
 cient for the condemnation of a nobleman. ^^ 
 
 These are the famous ordinances of justice which passed 
 at Florence for the great charter of her democracy. They have 
 been reprobated in later times as scandalously unjust, and I have 
 little inclination to defend them. The last, especially, was a vio- 
 lation of those eternal principles which forbid us, for any cal- 
 culations of advantage, to risk the sacrifice of innocent blood. 
 
 °3 Villani, 1. vii, c. 113; 1. viii, c. 8; 
 Ammirato, " Storia Fiorentina," I. iv in 
 cominciamento. 
 
 ** It is to be regretted that the ac- 
 complished biographer of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici should have taken no pains to 
 inform himself of the most ordinary par- 
 ticulars in the constitution of Florence. 
 Among many other errors, he says (vol. 
 ii, p. 51, fifth edit.) that the gonfalonier 
 of justice was subordinate to the dele- 
 gated mechanics (a bad expression), or 
 priori dell' arti, whose number, too, he 
 
 augments to ten. The proper style of 
 the republic seems to run thus: I priori 
 deir arti e gonfaloniere di giustizia, il 
 popolo e '1 comune della citta di Firenze. 
 (G. Villani, 1. xii, c. 109.) 
 
 °^ Villani, 1. viii, c. i ; Ammirato, p. 
 188, edit. 1647. A magistrate, called I' 
 esecutor della giustizia, was appointed 
 with^ authority equal to that of the po- 
 desta for the special purpose of watchmg 
 over the observation of the ordinances 01 
 justice. (Ammirato, p. 666.) 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 237 
 
 But it is impossible not to perceive that the same unjust severity 
 has sometimes, under a like pretext of necessity, been applied 
 to the weaker classes of the people, which they were in this in- 
 stance able to exercise toward their natural superiors. 
 
 The nobility were soon aware of the position in which they 
 stood. For half a century their great object was to procure the 
 relaxation of the ordinances of justice. But they had no suc- 
 cess with an elated enemy. In three years' time, indeed, Giano 
 della Bella, the author of these institutions, was driven into exile ; 
 a conspicuous, though by no means singular, proof of Floren- 
 tine ingratitude.^® The wealth and physical strength of the 
 nobles were, however, untouched, and their influence must al- 
 ways have been considerable. In the great feuds of the Bianchi 
 and Neri the ancient families were most distinguished. No man 
 plays a greater part in the annals of Florence at the beginning 
 of the fourteenth century than Corso Donati, chief of the latter 
 faction, who might pass as representative of the turbulent, in- 
 trepid, ambitious citizen-noble of an Italian republic. ^^ But the 
 laws gradually became more sure of obedience ; the sort of pro- 
 scription which attended the ancient nobles lowered their spirit ; 
 while a new aristocracy began to raise its head, the aristocracy 
 of families who, after filling the highest magistracies for two or 
 three generations, obtained an hereditary importance, which an- 
 swered the purpose of more unequivocal nobility; just as in 
 ancient Rome plebeian families, by admission to curule offices, 
 acquired the character and appellation of nobility, and were only 
 distinguishable by their genealogy from the original patricians.^® 
 Florence had her plebeian nobles (popolani grandi), as well as 
 Rome ; the Peruzzi, the Ricci, the Albizi, the Medici, correspond 
 to the Catos, the Pompeys, the Brutuses, and the Antonies. But 
 at Rome the two orders, after an equal partition of the highest 
 offices, were content to respect their mutual privileges ; at Flor- 
 ence the commoner preserved a rigorous monopoly, and the dis- 
 tinction of high birth was that it debarred men from political 
 franchises and civil justice.®^ 
 
 This second aristocracy did not obtain much more of the 
 popular afifection than that which it superseded. Public outrage 
 and violation of law became less frequent ; but the new leaders 
 of Florence are accused of continual misgovernment at home and 
 abroad, and sometimes of peculation. There was, of course, a 
 
 *^ Villani, I. viii, c. 8. e la Fiorentina nobilita. (Ammirato delle 
 
 ®^ Dino Compagni; Villani. Famiglie Florentine. Firenze, 1614, p. 
 
 ®^ La nobilita civile, se bene non in 25.) 
 
 baronaggi, e capace di grandissimi ho; °^ Quello, che all' altre citta suolo 
 
 nori, percioche esercitando i supremi recare splendore, in Firenze era dannoso, 
 
 inagistrati della sua patria, viene spesso o veramente vano e inutile, says Ammi- 
 
 a comandare a capitani d' eserciti e ella rato of nobility. (" Storia Fiorentina," 
 
 stessa per se 6 in mare, 6 in terra, molte p. 161.) 
 vota i supremi carichi adopera. E tale 
 
238 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 strong antipathy between the leading commoners and the an- 
 cient nobles ; both were disliked by the people. In order to keep 
 the nobles under more control, the governing party more than 
 once introduced a new foreign magistrate, with the title of cap- 
 tain of defence (della guardia), whom they invested with an almost 
 unbounded criminal jurisdiction. One Gabrielli of Agobbio was 
 twice fetched for this purpose; and in each case he behaved 
 in so tyrannical a manner as to occasion a tumult.^*^° His ofifice, 
 however, was of short duration, and the title at least did not 
 import a sovereign command. But very soon afterward Flor- 
 ence had to experience one taste of a cup which her neigh- 
 bours had drunk off to the dregs, and to animate her mag- 
 nanimous love of freedom by a knowledge of the calamities 
 of tyranny. 
 
 A war with Pisa, unsuccessfully if not unskilfully conducted, 
 gave rise to such dissatisfaction in the city that the leading com- 
 moners had recourse to an appointment something like that 
 of Gabrielli, and from similar motives. Walter de Brienne, Duke 
 of Athens, was descended from one of the French crusaders 
 who had dismembered the Grecian Empire in the preceding 
 century; but his father, defeated in battle, had lost the prin- 
 cipality along with his life, and the titular duke was an adven- 
 turer in the court of France. He had been, however, shghtly 
 known at Florence on a former occasion. There was a uniform 
 maxim among the Italian republics that extraordinary powers 
 should be conferred upon none but strangers. The Duke of 
 Athens was accordingly pitched upon for the military command, 
 which was united with domestic jurisdiction. This appears to 
 have been promoted by the governing party in order to curb 
 the nobility; but they were soon undeceived in their expecta- 
 tions. The first act of the Duke of Athens was to bring four 
 of the most eminent commoners to capital punishment for mili- 
 tary offences. These sentences, whether just or otherwise, gave 
 much pleasure to the nobles, who had so frequently been ex- 
 posed to similar severity, and to the populace, who are natu- 
 rally pleased with the humiliation of their superiors. Both of 
 these were caressed by the duke, and both conspired, with blind 
 passion, to second his ambitious views. It was proposed and 
 carried in a full Parliament, or assembly of the people, to bestow 
 upon him the signiory for life. The real friends of their country, 
 as well as the oligarchy, shuddered at this measure. Through- 
 out all the vicissitudes of party Florence had never yet lost sight 
 of republican institutions. Not that she had never accommo- 
 dated herself to temporary circumstances by naming a signior. 
 Charles of Anjou had been invested with that dignity for the 
 
 100 villani, 1. xi, c. 39 and 117. 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 239 
 
 term of ten years; Robert, King of Naples, for five; and his 
 son, the Duke of Calabria, was at his death signior of Florence. 
 These princes named the podesta, if not the priors ; and were 
 certainly pretty absolute in their executive powers, though bound 
 by oath not to alter the statutes of the city.^^^ But their office 
 had always been temporary. Like the dictatorship of Rome, 
 it was a confessed, unavoidable evil ; a suspension, but not ex- 
 tinguishment, of rights. Like that, too, it was a dangerous 
 precedent, through which crafty ambition and popular rashness 
 might ultimately subvert the republic. If Walter de Brienne 
 had possessed the subtle prudence of a Matteo Visconti or a 
 Cane della Scala, there appears no reason to suppose that Flor- 
 ence would have escaped the fate of other cities ; and her his- 
 tory might have become as useless a record of perfidy and assas- 
 sination as that of Mantua or Verona.^^^ 
 
 But, happily for Florence, the reign of tyranny was very 
 short. The Duke of Athens had neither judgment nor activity 
 for so difficult a station. He launched out at once into excesses 
 which it would be desirable that arbitrary power should always 
 commit at the outset. The taxes were considerably increased; 
 their produce was dissipated. The honour of the state was sacri- 
 ficed by an inglorious treaty with Pisa ; her territory was dimin- 
 ished by some towns throwing off their dependence. Severe 
 and multiplied punishments spread terror through the city. The 
 noble families, who had on the duke's election destroyed the 
 ordinances of justice, now found themselves exposed to the more 
 partial caprice of a despot. He filled the magistracies with low 
 creatures from the inferior artificers, a class which he continued 
 to flatter.^*^^ Ten months passed in this manner, when three 
 separate conspiracies, embracing most of the nobility and of 
 the great commoners, were planned for the recovery of freedom. 
 The duke was protected by a strong body of hired cavalry. 
 Revolutions in an Italian city were generally effected by sur- 
 prise. The streets were so narrow and so easily secured by bar- 
 ricades that, if a people had time to stand on its defence, no cav- 
 alry was of any avail. On the other hand, a body of lancers in 
 plate-armour might dissipate any number of a disorderly popu- 
 lace. Accordingly, if a prince or usurper would get possession 
 by surprise, he, as it was called, rode the city — that is, galloped 
 with his cavalry along the streets, so as to prevent the people 
 from collecting to erect barricades. This expression is very 
 usual with historians of the fourteenth century.^*^* The con- 
 spirators at Florence were too quick for the Duke of Athens. 
 
 "iVillani, 1. ix, c. 55, 60, 135, 328. ^o* Villani, 1. x, c. 81; Castruccio . . . 
 
 ^°^ Id., 1. xii, c. I, 2, 3. corse la citta di Pisa due volte. (Sis- 
 
 103 Viiiani, c. 8. mondi, tome v, p. 105.) 
 
240 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1250-1494 
 
 The city was barricaded in every direction, and, after a contest 
 of some duration, he consented to abdicate his signiory. 
 
 Thus Florence recovered her Hberty. Her constitutional laws 
 now seemed to revive of themselves. But the nobility, who had 
 taken a very active part in the recent liberation of their country, 
 thought it hard to be still placed under the rigorous ordinances 
 of justice. Many of the richer commoners acquiesced in an 
 equitable partition of magistracies, which was established through 
 the influence of the bishop. But the populace of Florence, with 
 its characteristic forgetfulness of benefits, was tenacious of those 
 proscriptive ordinances. The nobles, too, elated by their suc- 
 cess, began again to strike and injure the inferior citizens. A 
 new civil war in the city streets decided their quarrel; after a 
 desperate resistance many of the principal houses were pillaged 
 and burned, and the perpetual exclusion of the nobility was con- 
 firmed by fresh laws. But the people, now sure of their triumph, 
 relaxed a little upon this occasion the ordinances of justice, and, 
 to make some distinction in favour of merit or innocence, effaced 
 certain families from the list of nobility. Five hundred and thirty 
 persons were thus elevated, as we may call it, to the rank of 
 commoners. ^^^ As it was beyond the competence of the republic 
 of Florence to change a man's ancestors, this nominal alteration 
 left all the real advantages of birth as they were, and was un- 
 doubtedly an enhancement of dignity, though, in appearance, a 
 very singular one. Conversely, several unpopular commoners 
 were ennobled in order to disfranchise them. Nothing was more 
 usual in subsequent times than such an arbitrary change of rank, 
 as a penalty or a benefit. ^^^ Those nobles who were rendered 
 plebeian by favour were obliged to change their name and 
 arms.^^^ The constitution now underwent some change. From 
 six the priors were increased to eight ; and instead of being 
 chosen from each of the greater arts, they were taken from the 
 four quarters of the city, the lesser artisans, as I conceive, being 
 admissible. The gonfaloniers of companies were reduced to 
 sixteen. And these, along with the signiory, and the twelve buo- 
 nuomini, formed the college, where every proposition was dis- 
 cussed before it could be offered to the councils for their legis- 
 lative sanction. But it could only originate, strictly speaking, 
 in the signiory — that is, the gonfalonier of justice, and eight 
 
 105 Villani, 1. xii, c. 18-23. Sismondi 
 says, by a momentary oversight, cinq 
 cent trente families (tome v, p. 377). 
 There were but thirty-seven noble fami- 
 lies at Florence, as M. Sismondi himself 
 informs us (tome iv, p. 66), though Vil- 
 lani reckons the number of individuals 
 at 1,500. Nobles, or grandi as they are 
 more strictly called, were such as had 
 been inscribed, or rather proscribed, as 
 such in the ordinances of justice; at least 
 
 I do not know what other definition 
 there was. 
 
 "« Messer Antonio di Baldinaccio degli 
 Adimari, tutto che fosse de piu grandi e 
 nobili, per grazia era messo tra '1 popolo. 
 (Villani, 1. xii, c. 108.) 
 
 ^°^ Ammirato, p. 748. There were sev- 
 eral exceptions to this rule in later times. 
 The Pazzi were made popolani, plebeians, 
 by favour of Cosmo de' Medici. (Machia- 
 velli.) 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 241 
 
 priors, the rest of the college having merely the function of ad- 
 vice and assistance/^^ 
 
 Several years elapsed before any material disturbance arose 
 at Florence. Her contemporary historian complains, indeed, that 
 mean and ignorant persons obtained the office of prior, and 
 ascribes some errors in her external policy to this cause.^°® Be- 
 sides the natural effects of the established rotation, a particular 
 law, called the divieto, tended to throw the better families out 
 of public office. By this law two of the same name could not 
 be drawn for any magistracy : which, as the ancient families were 
 extremely numerous, rendered it difficult for their members to 
 succeed, especially as a ticket once drawn was not replaced in 
 the purse, so that an individual liable to the divieto was excluded 
 until the next biennial revolution.^^^ This created dissatisfac- 
 tion among the leading families. They were likewise divided 
 by a new faction, entirely founded, as far as appears, on personal 
 animosity between two prominent houses, the Albizi and the 
 Ricci. The city was, however, tranquil, when in 1357 a spring 
 was set in motion which gave quite a different character to the 
 domestic history of Florence. 
 
 At the time when the Guelfs, with the assistance of Charles 
 of Anjou, acquired an exclusive domination in the republic, the 
 estates of the Ghibelins were confiscated. One third of these 
 confiscations was allotted to the state; another went to repair 
 the losses of Guelf citizens ; but the remainder became the prop- 
 erty of a new corporate society, denominated the Guelf party 
 (parte Guelf a), with a regular internal organization. The Guelf 
 party had two councils, one of fourteen and one of sixty mem- 
 bers ; three, or afterward four, captains, elected by scrutiny every 
 two months, a treasury, and common seal ; a little republic within 
 the republic of Florence. Their primary duty was to watch 
 over the Guelf interest ; and for this purpose they had a particu- 
 lar officer for the accusation of suspected Ghibelins. ^^^ We hear 
 not much, however, of the Guelf society for nearly a century after 
 their establishment. The Ghibelins hardly ventured to show 
 themselves after the fall of the White Guelfs in 1304, with whom 
 they had been connected, and confiscation had almost annihilated 
 that unfortunate faction. But as the oligarchy of Guelf families 
 lost part of its influence through the divieto and system of lot- 
 tery, some persons of Ghibelin descent crept into public offices ; 
 and this was exaggerated by the zealots of an opposite party, 
 as if the fundamental policy of the city was put into danger. 
 
 The Guelf society had begun as early as 1346 to manifest 
 
 *°8 Nardi. " Storia di Firenze," p. 7, "" Sismondi, tome vi, p. 338. 
 
 edit. 1584; Villani, loc. cif. i" G. Villani, 1. vii, c. 16. 
 
 i<>»" Script. Rer. Italic," xiv, pp. 89, 244. 
 
 16 
 
242 H ALLAH'S MIDDLE AGES [i 250-1494 
 
 some disquietude at the foreign artisans, who, setthng at Flor- 
 ence and becoming members of some of the trading corpora- 
 tions, pretended to superior offices. They procured, accordingly, 
 a law excluding from public trust and magistracy all persons 
 not being natives of the city or its territory. Next year they 
 advanced a step further; and, with a view to prevent disorder, 
 which seemed to threaten the city, a law was passed declaring 
 every one whose ancestors at any time since 1300 had been 
 known Ghibelins, or who had not the reputation of sound Guelf 
 principles, incapable of being drawn or elected to offices. ^^^ It 
 is manifest from the language of the historian who relates these 
 circumstances, and whose testimony is more remarkable from 
 his having died several years before the politics of the Guelf cor- 
 poration more decidedly showed themselves, that the real cause 
 of their jealousy was not the increase of Ghibelinism, a merely 
 plausible pretext, but the democratical character which the gov- 
 ernment had assumed since the revolution of 1343, which raised 
 the fourteen inferior arts to the level of those which the great 
 merchants of Florence exercised. In the Guelf society the an- 
 cient nobles retained a considerable influence. The laws of 
 exclusion had never been applied to that corporation. Two of 
 the captains were always noble, two were commoners. The peo- 
 ple, in debarring the nobility from ordinary privileges, were little 
 aware of the more dangerous channel which had been left open 
 to their ambition. With the nobility some of the great com- 
 moners acted in concert, and especially the family and faction 
 of the Albizi. The introduction of obscure persons into office 
 still continued, and some measures more vigorous than the law 
 of 1347 seemed necessary to restore the influence of their aris- 
 tocracy. They proposed, and, notwithstanding the reluctance 
 of the priors, carried by violence, both in the preliminary delib- 
 erations of the signiory and in the two councils, a law by which 
 every person accepting an office who should be convicted of 
 Ghibelinism or of Ghibelin descent, upon testimony of pubHc 
 fame, became liable to punishment, capital or pecuniary, at the 
 discretion of the priors. To this law they gave a retrospective 
 effect, and, indeed, it appears to have been little more than a 
 revival of the provisions made in 1347, which had probably been 
 disregarded. Many citizens who had been magistrates within 
 a few years were cast in heavy fines on this indefinite charge. 
 But the more usual practice was to warn (ammonire) men before- 
 hand against undertaking public trust. If they neglected this 
 hint, they were sure to be treated as convicted Ghibelins. Thus 
 a very numerous class, called Ammoniti, was formed of pro- 
 scribed and discontented persons, eager to throw off the intol- 
 
 112 Q^ Villani, 1. xii, c. "jz and 79. 
 
I250-I494] 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 
 
 243 
 
 erable yoke of the Guelf society. For the imputation of Ghibelin 
 connections was generally an unfounded pretext for crushing 
 the enemies of the governing faction/^^ Men of approved Guelf 
 principles and origin were every day warned from their natural 
 privileges of sharing in magistracy. This spread a universal 
 alarm through the city ; but the great advantage of union and 
 secret confederacy rendered the Guelf society, who had also the 
 law on their side, irresistible by their opponents. Meanwhile 
 the public honour was well supported abroad ; Florence had 
 never before been so distinguished as during the prevalence of 
 this oligarchy.^^* 
 
 The Guelf society had governed with more or less absolute- 
 ness for nearly twenty years when the republic became involved, 
 through the perfidious conduct of the papal legate, in a war with 
 the Holy See. Though the Florentines were by no means super- 
 stitious, this hostility to the Church appeared almost an absurdity 
 to determined Guelfs, and shocked those prejudices about names 
 which make up the politics of vulgar minds. The Guelf society, 
 though it could not openly resist the popular indignation against 
 Gregory XI, was not heartily inclined to this war. Its manage- 
 ment fell, therefore, into the hands of eight commissioners, some 
 of them not well affected to the society, whose administration 
 was so successful and popular as to excite the utmost jealousy 
 in the Guelfs. They began to renew their warnings, and in eight 
 months excluded fourscore citizens. ^^^ 
 
 The tyranny of a court may endure for ages, but that of a 
 faction is seldom permanent. In June, 1378, the gonfalonier 
 of justice was Salvestro de^ Medici, a man of approved patriot- 
 ism, whose family had been so notoriously of Guelf principles 
 that it was impossible to warn him from office. He proposed 
 to mitigate the severity of the existing law. His proposition 
 did not succeed ; but its rejection provoked an insurrection, the 
 forerunner of still more alarming tumults. The populace of 
 Florence, like that of other cities, was terrible in the moment 
 of sedition, and a party so long dreaded shrank before the phys- 
 ical strength of the multitude. Many leaders of the Guelf society 
 had their houses destroyed, and some fled from the city. But 
 instead of annulling their acts, a middle course was adopted 
 by the committee of magistrates who had been empowered to 
 
 1" Besides the effect of ancient preju- 
 dice, Ghibelinism was considered at 
 Florence, in the fourteenth century, as 
 immediately connected with tyrannical 
 usurpation. The Guelf party, says Matteo 
 Villani, is the foundation rock of liberty 
 in Italy; so that, if any Guelf becomes a 
 tyrant, he must of necessity turn to the 
 Ghibelin side, and of this there have been 
 many instances (p. 481). So Giovanni 
 
 Villani says of Passerine, Lord of Man- 
 tua, that his ancestors had been Guelfs, 
 ma per essere signore e tiranno si fece 
 Ghibellino (1. x, c. 99). And Matteo 
 Villani of the Pepoli at Bologna; essendo 
 di natura Guelfi, per la tirannia erano 
 quasi alienati della parte (p. 69). 
 
 "* M. Villani, pp. 531, 627, 73i- Am- 
 mirato; MachiavelH; Sismondi. 
 
 "' Ammirato, p. 709. 
 
244 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [i 250-1494 
 
 reform the state ; the AmmonitI were suspended three years 
 longer from office, and the Guelf society preserved with some 
 limitations. This temporizing course did not satisfy either the 
 Ammoniti or the populace. The greater arts were generally at- 
 tached to the Guelf society. Between them and the lesser arts, 
 composed of retail and mechanical traders, there was a strong 
 jealousy. The latter were adverse to the prevailing oligarchy 
 and to the Guelf society, by whose influence it was maintained. 
 They were eager to make Florence a democracy in fact as well as 
 in name by participating in the executive government. 
 
 But every political institution appears to rest on too con- 
 fined a basis to those whose point of view is from beneath it. 
 While the lesser arts were murmuring at the exclusive privi- 
 leges of the commercial aristocracy, there was yet an inferior 
 class of citizens who thought their own claims to equal privileges 
 irrefragable. The arrangement of twenty-one trading com- 
 panies had still left several kinds of artisans unincorporated, and 
 consequently unprivileged. These had been attached to the art 
 with which their craft had most connection in a sort of depend- 
 ent relation. Thus to the company of drapers, the most wealthy 
 of all, the various occupations instrumental in the manufacture, 
 as woolcombers, dyers, and weavers, were appendant. ^^® Besides 
 the sense of political exclusion, these artisans alleged that they 
 were oppressed by their employers of the art, and that, when 
 they complained to the consul, their judge in civil matters, no 
 redress could be procured. A still lower order of the commu- 
 nity was the mere populace, who did not practise any regular 
 trade, or who only worked for daily hire. These were called 
 Ciompi, a corruption, it is said, of the French compere. 
 
 " Let no one," says Machiavel in this place, '' who begins 
 an innovation in a state expect that he shall stop it at his pleas- 
 ure or regulate it according to his intention." After about a 
 month from the first sedition another broke out, in which the 
 ciompi, or lowest populace, were alone concerned. Through the 
 surprise, or cowardice, or disaffection of the superior citizens, this 
 was suffered to get ahead, and for three days the city was in the 
 hand of a tumultuous rabble. It was vain to withstand their 
 propositions had they even been more unreasonable than they 
 were. But they only demanded the establishment of two new 
 arts for the trades hitherto dependent, and one for the lower 
 people; and that three of the priors should be chosen from the 
 greater arts, three from the fourteen lesser, and two from those 
 just created. Some delay, however, occurring to prevent the 
 sanction of these innovations by the councils, a new fury took 
 
 "« Before the year 1340, according to Villani's calculation, the woollen trade occupied 
 30,000 persons (1. xi, c. 93). 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 245 
 
 possession of the populace; the gates of the palace belonging 
 to the signiory were forced open, the priors compelled to fly, 
 and no appearance of a constitutional magistracy remained to 
 throw the veil of law over the excesses of anarchy. The republic 
 seemed to rock from its foundations ; and the circumstance to 
 which historians ascribe its salvation is not the least singular 
 in this critical epoch. One Michel di Lando, a woolcomber, half 
 dressed and without shoes, happened to hold the standard of 
 justice wrested from the proper officer when the populace burst 
 into the palace. Whether he was previously conspicuous in the 
 tumult is not recorded ; but the wild, capricious mob, who had 
 destroyed what they had no conception how to rebuild, suddenly 
 cried out that Lando should be gonfalonier or signior, and re- 
 form the city at his pleasure. 
 
 A choice, arising probably from wanton folly, could not have 
 been better made by wisdom. Lando was a man of courage, 
 moderation, and integrity. He gave immediate proofs of these 
 qualities by causing his office to be respected. The eight com- 
 missioners of the war, who, though not instigators of the sedi- 
 tion, were well pleased to see the Guelf party so entirely pros- 
 trated, now fancied themselves masters, and began to nominate 
 priors. But Lando sent a message to them that he was elected 
 by the people, and that he could dispense with their assistance. 
 He then proceeded to the choice of priors. Three were taken 
 from the greater arts, three from the lesser, and three from the 
 two new arts and the lower people. This eccentric college lost 
 no time in restoring tranquility, and compelled the populace, 
 by threat of punishment, to return to their occupations. But the 
 ciompi were not disposed to give up the pleasures of anarchy 
 so readily. They were dissatisfied at the small share allotted 
 to them in the new distribution of offices, and murmured at their 
 gonfalonier as a traitor to the popular cause. Lando was aware 
 that an insurrection was projected ; he took measures with the 
 most respectable citizens ; the insurgents, when they showed 
 themselves, were quelled by force, and the gonfalonier retired 
 from office with an approbation which all historians of Florence 
 have agreed to perpetuate. Part of this has undoubtedly been 
 founded on a consideration of the mischief which it was in his 
 power to inflict. The ciompi, once checked, were soon defeated. 
 The next gonfalonier was, like Lando, a woolcomber ; but, want- 
 ing the intrinsic merit of Lando, his mean station excited uni- 
 versal contempt. None of the arts could endure their low coad- 
 jutors ; a short struggle was made by the populace, but they were 
 entirely overpowered with considerable slaughter, and the gov- 
 ernment was divided between the seven greater and sixteen lesser 
 arts, in nearly equal proportions. 
 
246 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 The party of the lesser arts, or inferior tradesmen, which 
 had begun this confusion, were left winners when it ceased. 
 Three men of distinguished families who had instigated the revo- 
 lution became the leaders of Florence — Benedetto Alberti, To- 
 maso Strozzi, and Georgio Scali. Their government had at first 
 to contend with the ciompi, smarting under loss and disappoint- 
 ment. But a populace which is beneath the inferior mechanics 
 may with ordinary prudence be kept in subjection by a govern- 
 ment that has a well-organized militia at its command. The 
 Guelf aristocracy was far more to be dreaded. Some of them 
 had been banished, some fined, some ennobled : the usual conse- 
 quences of revolution which they had too often practised to com- 
 plain. A more iniquitous proceeding disgraces the new admin- 
 istration. Under pretence of conspiracy, the chief of the house 
 of Albizi, and several of his most eminent associates, were thrown 
 into prison. So little evidence of the charge appeared that the 
 podesta refused to condemn them ; but the people were clam- 
 orous for blood, and half with, half without the forms of justice, 
 these noble citizens were led to execution. The part he took 
 in this murder sullies the fame of Benedetto Alberti, who in his 
 general conduct had been more uniformly influenced by honest 
 principles than most of his contemporaries. Those who shared 
 with him the ascendency in the existing government, Strozzi 
 and Scali, abused their power by oppression toward their ene- 
 mies, and insolence toward all. Their popularity was, of course, 
 soon at an end. Alberti, a sincere lover of freedom, separated 
 himself from men who seemed to emulate the arbitrary govern- 
 ment they had overthrown. An outrage of Scali, in rescuing 
 a criminal from justice, brought the discontent to a crisis; he 
 was arrested, and lost his head on the scaffold, while Strozzi, his 
 colleague, fled from the city. But this event was instantly fol- 
 lowed by a reaction, which Alberti, perhaps, did not anticipate. 
 Armed men filled the streets ; the cry of " Live the Guelfs ! " was 
 heard. After a three years' depression, the aristocratical party 
 regained its ascendency. They did not revive the severity prac- 
 tised toward the Ammoniti ; but the two new arts, created for 
 the small trades, were abolished, and the lesser arts reduced to a 
 third part, instead of something more than one half, of public 
 offices. Several persons who had favoured the plebeians were 
 sent into exile ; and among these Michel di Lando, whose great 
 services in subduing anarchy ought to have secured the protec- 
 tion of every government. Benedetto Alberti, the enemy by 
 turns of every faction — because every faction was in its turn op- 
 pressive — experienced some years afterward the same fate. For 
 half a century after this time no revolution took place at Flor- 
 ence. The Guelf aristocracy, strong in opulence and antiquity, 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE 247 
 
 and rendered prudent by experience, under the guidance of the 
 Albizi family, maintained a preponderating influence without 
 much departing, the times considered, from moderation and re- 
 spect for the laws.^^^ 
 
 It is sufficiently manifest, from this sketch of the domestic 
 history of Florence, how far that famous republic was from af- 
 fording a perfect security for civil rights or general tranquility. 
 They who hate the name of free constitutions may exult in her 
 internal dissensions, as in those of Athens or Rome. But the 
 calm philosopher will not take his standard of comparison from 
 ideal excellence, nor even from that practical good which has 
 been reached in our own unequalled constitution, and in some 
 of the republics of modern Europe. The men and the institu- 
 tions of the fourteenth century are to be measured by their con- 
 temporaries. Who would not rather have been a citizen of Flor- 
 ence than a subject of the Visconti? In a superficial review of 
 history we are sometimes apt to exaggerate the vices of free 
 states, and to lose sight of those inherent in tyrannical power. 
 The bold censoriousness of republican historians, and the cau- 
 tious servility of writers under an absolute monarchy, conspire 
 to mislead us as to the relative prosperity of nations. Acts of 
 outrage and tumultuous excesses in a free state are blazoned 
 in minute detail, and descend to posterity; the deeds of tyranny 
 are studiously and perpetually suppressed. Even those historians 
 who have no particular motives for concealment turn away from 
 the monotonous and disgusting crimes of tyrants. *' Deeds of 
 cruelty," it is well observed by Matteo Villani, after relating an 
 action of Bernabo Visconti, ''are little worthy of remembrance; 
 yet let me be excused for having recounted one out of many 
 as an example of the peril to which men are exposed under the 
 yoke of an unbounded tyranny." ^^^ The reign of Bernabo 
 afforded abundant instances of a like kind. Second only to 
 Eccelin among the tyrants of Italy, he rested the security of his 
 dominion upon tortures and death, and his laws themselves 
 enact the protraction of capital punishment through forty days 
 of sufifering.^^^ His nephew, Giovanni Maria, is said, with a 
 madness like that of Nero or Commodus, to have coursed the 
 streets of Milan by night with bloodhounds, ready to chase 
 and tear any unlucky passenger.^^o j^^j. ^^^^ ^^-^^^ Italian princi- 
 palities free from similar tyrants, though none, perhaps, upon the 
 
 1" For this part of Florentine history, the office of banneret. Another contem- 
 
 besides Ammirato, Machiavel, and Sis- porary writer, Melchione de Stefani, who 
 
 mondi, 1 have read an interesting narra- seems to have furnished the materials 
 
 tiye of the sedition of the ciompi, by of the three historians above mentioned 
 
 Umo Capponi, m the eighteenth volume has not fallen in my way. 
 of Muraton's collection. It has an air "^ p ^^4 
 
 of liveliness and truth which is very "» Sismokdi, tome vi, p. 316: Corio 
 
 pleasing, but it breaks off rather too " 1st. di Milano," p. 486. 
 soon, at the instant o£ Lando's assuming "o Corio, p. 595. 
 
248 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1250-1494 
 
 whole, so odious as the Visconti. The private history of many 
 families — such, for instance, as the Scala and the Gonzaga — is 
 but a series of assassinations. The ordinary vices of mankind 
 assumed a tint of portentous guilt in the palaces of Italian princes. 
 Their revenge was fratricide, and their lust was incest. 
 
 Though fertile and populous, the proper district of Florence 
 was by no means extensive. An independent nobility occupied 
 the Tuscan Apennines with their castles. Of these, the most 
 conspicuous were the Counts of Guidi, a numerous and power- 
 ful family, who possessed a material influence in the affairs of 
 Florence and of all Tuscany till the middle of the fourteenth 
 century, and some of whom preserved their independence much 
 longer.^^^ To the south, the republics of Arezzo, Perugia, and 
 Siena ; to the west, those of Volterra, Pisa, and Lucca ; Prato 
 and Pistoja to the north, limited the Florentine territory. It was 
 late before these boundaries were removed. During the usurpa- 
 tions of Uguccione at Pisa, and of Castruccio at Lucca, the re- 
 public of Florence was always unsuccessful in the field. After 
 the death of Castruccio she began to act more vigorously, and 
 engaged in several confederacies with the powers of Lombardy, 
 especially in a league with Venice against Mastino della Scala. 
 But the republic made no acquisition of territory till 1351, when 
 she annexed the small city of Prato, not ten miles from her 
 walls. ^^^ Pistoja, though still nominally independent, received 
 a Florentine garrison about the same time. Several additions 
 were made to the district by fair purchase from the nobility 
 of the Apennines, and a few by main force. The territory was 
 still very little proportioned to the fame and power of Florence. 
 The latter was founded upon her vast commercial opulence. 
 Every Italian state employed mercenary troops, and the richest 
 was, of course, the most powerful. In the war against Mestino 
 della Scala in 1336 the revenues of Florence are reckoned by 
 Villani at three hundred thousand florins, which, as he observes, 
 is more than the King of Naples or of Aragon possesses.^-' The 
 expenditure went at that time very much beyond the receipt, and 
 was defrayed by loans from the principal mercantile firms, which 
 were secured by public funds, the earliest instance, I believe, 
 of that financial resource. ^^* Her population was computed at 
 
 "1 G. Villani, 1. v, c. zy, 41, et alibi. 
 The last of the Cotints Guidi, having un- 
 wisely embarked in a confederacy against 
 Florence, was obliged to give up his an- 
 cient patrimony in 1440. 
 
 "2 M. Villani, p. jz. This was rather a 
 measure of usurpation; but the republic had 
 some reason to apprehend that Prato might 
 fall into the hands of the Visconti. Their 
 conduct toward Pistoja was influenced by 
 the same motive; but it was still further 
 removed from absolute justice (p. 91). 
 
 ^-^ G. Villani, 1. ix, c. 90-93. These 
 chapters contain a very full and interest- 
 ing statement of the revenues, expenses, 
 population, and internal condition of 
 Florence at that time. Part of them is 
 extracted by M. Sismondi (tome v, p. 
 365). The gold florin was worth about 
 ten shillings of our money. The district 
 of Florence was not then much larger 
 than Middlesex. 
 
 ^2* G. Villani, 1. xi, c. 49. 
 
I 250-1494] 
 
 PISA 
 
 249 
 
 ninety thousand souls. Villani reckons the district at eighty 
 thousand men, I suppose those only of military age ; but this cal- 
 culation must have been too large, even though he included, as 
 we may presume, the city in his estimate.^^^ Tuscany, though 
 well cultivated and flourishing, does not contain by any means 
 so great a number of inhabitants in that space at present. 
 
 The first eminent conquest made by Florence was that of 
 Pisa, early in the fifteenth century. Pisa had been distinguished 
 as a commercial city ever since the age of the Othos. From her 
 ports, and those of Genoa, the earliest naval armaments of the 
 western nations were fitted out against the Saracen corsairs who 
 infested the Mediterranean coasts. In the eleventh century she 
 undertook, and, after a pretty long struggle, completed, the im- 
 portant, or at least the splendid, conquest of Sardinia, an island 
 long subject to a Moorish chieftain. Several noble families of 
 Pisa, who had defrayed the chief cost of this expedition, shared 
 the island in districts, which they held in fief of the republic.^^* 
 At a later period the Balearic Isles were subjected, but not long 
 retained, by Pisa. Her naval prowess was supported by her 
 commerce. A writer of the twelfth century reproaches her with 
 the Jews, the Arabians, and other " monsters of the sea," who 
 thronged in her streets.^^^ The crusades poured fresh wealth 
 into the lap of the maritime Italian cities. In some of those 
 
 *^ C. 93. Troviamo diligentemente, 
 che in questi tempi avea in Firenze circa 
 a 25 mila uomini da portare arme da 15 
 in 70 anni — Stimavasi avere in Firenze 
 da 90 mila bocche tra uomini e femine e 
 fanciulli, per 1' avviso del pane bisognava 
 al continue alia citta. These proportions 
 of 25,000 men between fifteen and sev- 
 enty, and of 90,000 souls, are as nearly 
 as possible consonant to modern calcula- 
 tion, of which Villani knew nothing, 
 which confirms his accuracy; though M. 
 Sismondi asserts (p. 369) that the city 
 contained 150,000 inhabitants, on no bet- 
 ter authority, as far as appears, than 
 that of Boccaccio, who says that 100,000 
 perished in the great plague of 1348, 
 which was generally supposed to destroy 
 two out of three. But surely two vague 
 suppositions are not to be combined, in 
 order to overthrow such a testimony as 
 that of Villani, who seems to have con- 
 sulted all registers and other authentic 
 documents in his reach. 
 
 What Villani says of the population 
 of the district may lead us to reckon it, 
 perhaps, at about 180,000 souls, allowing 
 the baptisms to be one in thirty of the 
 population. Ragionavasi in questi tempi 
 avere nel contado e distretto di Firenze 
 de 80 mila uomini. Troviamo del pio- 
 vano, che battezzava i fanciulli, impe- 
 roche per ogni maschio, che battezzava 
 in San Giovanni, per avere il novero, 
 metea una fava nera, e per ogni femina 
 una bianca, trovo, ch' erano 1' anno in 
 questi tempi dalle 5,800 in sei mila, avan- 
 
 zando le piia volte il sesso masculino da 
 300 in 500 per anno. Baptisms could 
 only be performed in one public font, at 
 Florence, Pisa, and some other cities. 
 The building that contained this font 
 was called the Baptistery. The baptis- 
 teries of Florence and Pisa still remain, 
 and are well known. (Du Cange, voc. 
 Baptisterium.) But there were fifty-seven 
 parishes and one hundred and ten 
 churches within the city. (Villani, ibid.) 
 Mr. Roscoe has published a manuscript, 
 evidently written after the taking of Pisa 
 in 1406, though, as I should guess, not 
 long after that event, containing a propo- 
 sition for an income tax of ten per cent 
 throughout the Florentine dominions. 
 Among its other calculations, the popu- 
 lation is reckoned at 400,000; assuming 
 that to be the proportion to 80,000 men 
 of military age, though certainly beyond 
 the mark. It is singular that the dis- 
 trict of Florence in 1343 is estimated by 
 Villani to contain as great a number, 
 before Pisa, Volterra, or even Prato and 
 Pistoja, had been annexed to it. (Ros- 
 coe's " Life of Lorenzo." Appendix, 
 No. 16.) 
 
 "•^ Sismondi, tome i, pp. 345, 272- 
 ^-^ " Qui pergit Pisas, videt illic mon- 
 stra marina; 
 Haec urbs, Paganis, Turchis, Liby* 
 
 cis quoque, Parthis, 
 Sordida; Chaldaei sua lustrant moe- 
 nia tetri." 
 (Donizo, Vita Comitissae Mathildis, apud 
 Muratori, Dissert, 31.) 
 
250 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 expeditions a great portion of the armament was conveyed by 
 sea to Palestine, and freighted the vessels of Pisa, Genoa, and 
 Venice. When the Christians had bought with their blood the 
 sea-coast of Syria, these republics procured the most extensive 
 privileges in the new states that were formed out of their slender 
 conquests, and became the conduits through which the produce 
 of the East flowed in upon the ruder nations of Europe. Pisa 
 maintained a large share of this commerce, as well as of maritime 
 greatness, till near the end of the thirteenth century. In 1282, 
 we are told by Villani, she was in great power, possessing Sar- 
 dinia, Corsica, and Elba, from whence the republic, as well as 
 private persons, derived large revenues, and almost ruled the 
 sea with their ships and merchandises, and beyond sea were very 
 powerful in the city of Acre, and much connected with its prin- 
 cipal citizens. ^^^ The prosperous era of Pisa is marked by her 
 public edifices. She was the first Italian city that took a pride 
 in architectural magnificence. Her cathedral is of the eleventh 
 century; the baptistery, the famous inclined tower, or belfry, 
 the arcades that surround the Campo Santo, or cemetery of Pisa, 
 are of the twelfth, or, at latest, of the thirteenth. ^^^ 
 
 It would have been no slight anomaly in the annals of Italy, 
 or, we might say, of mankind, if two neighbouring cities, com- 
 petitors in every mercantile occupation and every naval enter- 
 prise, had not been perpetual enemies to each other. One is 
 more surprised, if the fact be true, that no war broke out between 
 Pisa and Genoa till 1119.^^® From this time at least they con- 
 tinually recurred. An equality of forces and of courage kept 
 the conflict uncertain for the greater part of two centuries. Their 
 battles were numerous, and sometimes, taken separately, de- 
 cisive ; but the public spirit and resources of each city were called 
 out by defeat, and we generally find a new armament replace the 
 losses of an unsuccessful combat. In this respect the naval con- 
 test between Pisa and Genoa, though much longer protracted, 
 resembles that of Rome and Carthage in the first Punic war. 
 But Pisa was reserved for her ^gades. In one fatal battle, off 
 the little isle of Meloria, in 1284, her whole navy was destroyed. 
 Several unfortunate and expensive armaments had almost ex- 
 hausted the state, and this was the last effort, by private sacri- 
 fices, to equip one more fleet. After this defeat it was in vain 
 to contend for empire. Eleven thousand Pisans languished for 
 many years in prison ; it was a current saying that whoever 
 would see Pisa should seek her at Genoa. A treacherous chief, 
 that Count Ugolino whose guilt was so terribly avenged, is said 
 
 128 Villani, 1. vi, c. 83. 
 
 "9 Sismondi, tome iv, p. 178; Tiraboschi, tome iii, p. 406. 
 
 130 Muratori, ad ann., 11 19. 
 
1250-1494] WARS OF GENOA 25 1 
 
 to have purposely lost the battle, and prevented the ransom of 
 the captives, to secure his power: accusations that obtain easy 
 credit with an unsuccessful people. 
 
 From the epoch of the battle of Meloria, Pisa ceased to 
 be a maritime power. Forty years afterward she was stripped 
 of her ancient colony, the island of Sardinia. The four Pisan 
 families who had been invested with that conquest had been 
 apt to consider it as their absolute property; their appellation 
 of judge seemed to indicate deputed power, but they sometimes 
 assumed that of king, and several attempts had been made to 
 establish an immediate dependence on the empire, or even on 
 the Pope. A new potentate had now come forward on the stage. 
 The malcontent feudatories of Sardinia made overtures to the 
 King of Aragon, who had no scruples about attacking the indis- 
 putable possession of a declining republic. Pisa made a few un- 
 availing efforts to defend Sardinia ; but the nominal superiority 
 was hardly worth a contest, and she surrendered her rights to 
 the crown of Aragon. Her commerce now dwindled with her 
 greatness. During the fourteenth century Pisa almost renounced 
 the ocean and directed her main attention to the politics of Tus- 
 cany. Ghibelin by invariable predilection, she was in constant 
 opposition to the Guelf cities which looked up to Florence. But 
 in the fourteenth century the names of freeman and Ghibelin 
 were not easily united, and a city in that interest stood insulated 
 between the republics of an opposite faction and the tyrants of 
 her own. Pisa fell several times under the yoke of usurpers ; she 
 was included in the wide-spreading acquisitions of Gian Galeazzo 
 Visconti. At his death one of his family seized the dominion, 
 and finally the Florentines purchased for four hundred thousand 
 florins a rival and once equal city. The Pisans made a resistance 
 more according to what they had been than what they were. 
 
 The early history of Genoa, in all her foreign relations, is 
 involved in that of Pisa. As allies against the Saracens of Africa, 
 Spain, and the Mediterranean islands, as corrivals in commerce 
 with these very Saracens or with the Christians of the East, as 
 co-operators in the great expeditions under the banner of the 
 cross, or as engaged in deadly warfare with each other, the two 
 republics stand in continual parallel. From the beginning of 
 the thirteenth century Genoa was, I think, the more prominent 
 and flourishing of the two. She had conquered the island of 
 Corsica at the same time that Pisa reduced Sardinia ; and her 
 acquisition, though less considerable, was longer preserved. Her 
 territory at home, the ancient Liguria, was much more extensive, 
 and, what was most important, contained a greater range of sea- 
 coast than that of Pisa. But the commercial and maritime pros- 
 perity of Genoa may be dated from the recovery of Constantinople 
 
252 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 by the Greeks in 1261. Jealous of the Venetians, by whose arms 
 the Latin emperors had been placed, and were still maintained, 
 on their throne, the Genoese assisted Palseologus in overturning 
 that usurpation. They obtained in consequence the suburb of 
 Pera or Galata, over against Constantinople, as an exclusive 
 settlement, where their colony was ruled by a magistrate sent 
 from home, and frequently defied the Greek capital with its 
 armed galleys and intrepid seamen. From this convenient sta- 
 tion Genoa extended her commerce into the Black Sea, and 
 established her principal factory at Caffa, in the Crimean penin- 
 sula. This commercial monopoly, for such she endeavoured to 
 render it, aggravated the animosity of Venice. As Pisa retired 
 from the field of waters, a new enemy appeared upon the horizon 
 to dispute the maritime dominion of Genoa. Her first war with 
 Venice was in 1258. The second was not till after the victory of 
 Meloria had crushed her more ancient enemy. It broke out in 
 1293, and was prosecuted with determined fury and a great dis- 
 play of naval strength on both sides. One Genoese armament, 
 as we are assured by a historian, consisted of one hundred and 
 fifty-five galleys, each manned with from two hundred and twenty 
 to three hundred sailors ; ^^^ a force astonishing to those who 
 know the more slender resources of Italy in modern times, but 
 which is rendered credible by several analogous facts of good 
 authority. It was, however, beyond any other exertion. The 
 usual fleets of Genoa and Venice were of seventy to ninety 
 galleys. 
 
 Perhaps the naval exploits of these two republics may afford 
 a more interesting spectacle to some minds than any other part 
 of Italian history. Compared with military transactions of the 
 same age, they are more sanguinary, more brilliant, and exhibit 
 full as much skill and intrepidity. But maritime warfare is scanty 
 in circumstances, and the indefiniteness of its locality prevents 
 it from resting in the memory. And though the wars of Genoa 
 and Venice were not always so unconnected with territorial 
 politics as those of the former city with Pisa, yet, from the alterna- 
 tion of success and equality of forces, they did not often pro- 
 duce any decisive effect. One memorable encounter in the Sea 
 of Marmora, where the Genoese fought and conquered single- 
 handed against the Venetians, the Catalans, and the Greeks, 
 hardly belongs to Italian history. ^^^ 
 
 But the most remarkable war, and that productive of the 
 greatest consequences, was one that commenced in 1378, after 
 several acts of hostility in the Levant, wherein the Venetians 
 appear to have been the principal aggressors. Genoa did not 
 stand alone in this war. A formidable confederacy was raised 
 
 "1 Muratori, a. d. 1295. 182 Gibbon, c. 63. 
 
1250-1494] WARS OF GENOA 253 
 
 against Venice, who had given provocation to many enemies. 
 Of this Francis Carrara, Signor of Padua, and the King of 
 Hungary were the leaders. But the principal struggle was, as 
 usual, upon the waves. During the winter of 1378 a Genoese 
 fleet kept the sea, and ravaged the shores of Dalmatia. The 
 Venetian armament had been weakened by an epidemic disease, 
 and when Vittor Pisani, their admiral, gave battle to the enemy, 
 he was compelled to fight with a hasty conscription of lands- 
 men against the best sailors in the world. Entirely defeated, 
 and taking refuge at Venice with only seven galleys, Pisani was 
 cast into prison, as if his ill fortune had been his crime. Mean- 
 while the Genoese fleet, augmented by a strong re-enforcement, 
 rode before the long natural ramparts that separate the lagoons 
 of Venice from the Adriatic. Six passages intersect the islands 
 which constitute this barrier, besides the broader outlets of Bron- 
 dolo and Fossone, through which the waters of the Brenta and 
 the Adige are discharged. The lagoon itself, as is well known, 
 consists of extremely shallow water, unnavigable for any vessel 
 except along the course of artificial and intricate passages. Not- 
 withstanding the apparent difficulties of such an enterprise, 
 Pietro Doria, the Genoese admiral, determined to reduce the 
 city. His first successes gave him reason to hope. He forced 
 the passage and stormed the little town of Chioggia,^^^ built upon 
 the inside of the isle bearing that name, about twenty-five miles 
 south of Venice. Nearly four thousand prispners fell here into 
 his hands : an augury, as it seemed, of a more splendid triumph. 
 In the consternation this misfortune inspired at Venice the first 
 impulse was to ask for peace. The ambassadors carried with 
 them seven Genoese prisoners, as a sort of peace-ofYering to the 
 admiral, and were empowered to make large and humiliating 
 concessions, reserving nothing but the liberty of Venice. Francis 
 Carrara strongly urged his allies to treat for peace. But the 
 Genoese were stimulated by long hatred, and intoxicated by this 
 unexpected opportunity of revenge. Doria, calling the ambas- 
 sadors into council, thus addressed them : " Ye shall obtain no 
 peace from us, I swear to you, nor from the Lord of Padua, till 
 first we have put a curb in the mouths of those wild horses that 
 stand upon the place of St. Mark. When they are bridled you 
 shall have enough of peace. Take back with you your Genoese 
 captives, for I am coming within a few days to release both them 
 and their companions from your prisons." When this answer 
 was reported to the senate, they prepared to defend themselves 
 with the characteristic firmness of their government. Every eye 
 was turned toward a great man unjustly punished, their Admiral 
 
 "' Chiop-gia, known ?t Venice by the of the Venetian dialect, which changes 
 name of Chioza, according to the usage the g into 2. 
 
254 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 Vittor Pisani. He was called out of prison to defend his coun- 
 try amid general acclamations; but, equal in magnanimity and 
 simple republican patriotism to the noblest characters of an- 
 tiquity, Pisani repressed the favouring voices of the multitude, 
 and bade them reserve their enthusiasm for St. Mark, the sym- 
 bol and war cry of Venice. Under the vigorous command of 
 Pisani the canals were fortified or occupied by large vessels armed 
 with artillery ; thirty-four galleys were equipped ; every citizen 
 contributed according to his power; in the entire want of com- 
 mercial resources (for Venice had not a merchant ship during 
 this war) private plate was melted ; and the senate held out the 
 promise of ennobling thirty families who should be most for- 
 ward in this strife of patriotism. 
 
 The new fleet was so ill provided with seamen that for some 
 months the admiral employed them only in manoeuvring along 
 and canals. From some unaccountable supineness, or more prob- 
 ably from the insuperable difficulties of the undertaking, the 
 Genoese made no assault upon the city. They had, indeed, fair 
 grounds to hope its reduction by famine or despair. Every ac- 
 cess to the continent was cut ofif by the troops of Padua; and 
 the King of Hungary had mastered almost all the Venetian 
 towns in Istria and along the Dalmatian coast. The Doge Con- 
 tarini, taking the chief command, appeared at length with his 
 fleet near Chioggia, before the Genoese were aware. They were 
 still less aware of his secret design. He pushed one of the 
 large round vessels, then called cocche, into the narrow pas- 
 sage of Chioggia which connects the lagoon with the sea, and, 
 mooring her athwart the channel, interrupted that communica- 
 tion. Attacked with fury by the enemy, this vessel went down 
 on the spot, and the doge improved his advantage by sinking 
 loads of stones until the passage became absolutely unnavigable. 
 It was still possible for the Genoese fleet to follow the principal 
 canal of the lagoon toward Venice and the northern passages, 
 or to sail out of it by the harbour of Brondolo ; but, whether 
 from confusion or from miscalculating the dangers of their posi- 
 tion, they suffered the Venetians to close the canal upon them 
 by the same means they had used at Chioggia, and even to place 
 their fleet in the entrance of Brondolo so near to the lagoon that 
 the Genoese could not form their ships in line of battle. The 
 circumstances of the two combatants were thus entirely changed. 
 But the Genoese fleet, though besieged in Chioggia, was impreg- 
 nable, and their command of the land secured them from famine. 
 Venice, notwithstanding her unexpected success, was still very 
 far from secure ; it was difficult for the doge to keep his position 
 through the winter, and, if the enemy could appear in open sea, 
 the risks of combat were extremely hazardous. It is said that 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF GENOA 255 
 
 the senate deliberated upon transporting the seat of their liberty 
 to Candia, and that the doge had announced his intention to 
 raise the siege of Chioggia if expected succours did not arrive 
 by the ist of January, 1380. On that very day Carlo Zeno, 
 an admiral who, ignorant of the dangers of his country, had 
 been supporting the honour of her flag in the Levant and on 
 the coast of Liguria, appeared with a re-enforcement of eighteen 
 galleys and a store of provisions. From that moment the con- 
 fidence of Venice revived. The fleet, now superior in strength 
 to the enemy, began to attack them with vivacity. After sev- 
 eral months of obstinate resistance the Genoese, whom their 
 republic had ineffectually attempted to relieve by a fresh arma- 
 ment, blocked up in the town of Chioggia, and pressed by hun- 
 ger, were obliged to surrender. Nineteen galleys only out of 
 forty-eight were in good condition, and the crews were equally 
 diminished in the ten months of their occupation of Chioggia. 
 The pride of Genoa was deemed to be justly humbled ; and even 
 her own historian confesses that God would not sufifer so noble 
 a city as Venice to become the spoil of a conqueror.^^* 
 
 Each of the two republics had sufficient reason to lament 
 their mutual prejudices, and the selfish cupidity of their mer- 
 chants, which usurps in all maritime countries the name of 
 patriotism. Though the capture of Chioggia did not terminate 
 the war, both parties were exhausted and willing next year to 
 accept the mediation of the Duke of Savoy. By the Peace of 
 Turin, Venice surrendered most of her territorial possessions to 
 the King of Hungary. That prince and Francis Carrara were 
 the only gainers. Genoa obtained the isle of Tenedos, one of 
 the original subjects of dispute — a poor indemnity for her losses. 
 Though, upon a hasty view, the result of this war appears more 
 unfavourable to Venice, yet in fact it is the epoch of the decline 
 of Genoa. From this time she never commanded the ocean 
 with such navies as before; her commerce gradually went into 
 decay ; and the fifteenth century, the most splendid in the annals 
 of Venice, is, till recent times, the most ignominious in those of 
 Genoa. But this was partly owing to internal dissensions, by 
 which her liberty, as well as glory, was for a while suspended. 
 
 At Genoa, as in other cities of Lombardy, the principal 
 magistrates of the republic were originally styled consuls. A 
 chronicle drawn up under the inspection of the senate perpetu- 
 ates the names of these early magistrates. It appears that their 
 number varied from four to six, annually elected by the people 
 in their full Parliament. These consuls presided over the repub- 
 
 "* G. Stella, " Annales Genuenses"; teenth volume of Muratori's collection. 
 
 Gataro, " Istoria Padovana." Both these Sismondi's narrative is very clear and 
 
 contemporary works, of which the latter spirited.^ (" Hist, des Republ. Ital.," 
 
 gives the best relation, are in the seven- tome vii, pp. 205-232.) 
 
256 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 lie and commanded the forces by land and sea ; while another 
 class of magistrates, bearing the same title, were annually elected 
 by the several companies into which the people were divided 
 for the administration of civil justice/^^ This was the regimen 
 of the twelfth century ; but in the next Genoa fell into the fashion 
 of intrusting the executive power to a foreign podesta. The 
 podesta was assisted by a council of eight, chosen by the eight 
 companies of nobility. This institution, if indeed it were any- 
 thing more than a custom or usurpation, originated probably 
 not much later than the beginning of the thirteenth century. 
 It gave not only an aristocratic, but almost an oligarchical char- 
 acter to the constitution, since many of the nobility were not 
 members of these eight societies. Of the senate or councils we 
 hardly know more than their existence ; they are very little men- 
 tioned by historians. Everything of a general nature, everything 
 that required the expression of public will, was reserved for the 
 entire and unrepresented sovereignty of the people. In no city 
 was the Parliament so often convened : for war, for peace, for 
 alliance, for change of government.^^® These very dissonant 
 elements were not likely to harmonize. The people, sufficiently 
 accustomed to the forms of democracy to imbibe its spirit, re- 
 pined at the practical influence which was thrown into the scale 
 of the nobles. Nor did some of the latter class scruple to enter 
 that path of ambition which leads to power by flattery of the 
 populace. Two or three times within the thirteenth century a 
 high-born demagogue had nearly overturned the general lib- 
 erty, like the Torriani at Milan, through the pretence of defend- 
 ing that of individuals. ^^^ Among the nobility themselves four 
 houses were distinguished beyond all the rest — the Grimaldi, 
 the Fieschi, the Doria, the Spinola; the two former of Guelf 
 politics, the latter adherents of the empire.^^^ Perhaps their 
 equality of forces, and a jealousy which even the families of the 
 same faction entertained of each other, prevented any one from 
 usurping the signiory at Genoa. Neither the Guelf nor Ghibelin 
 party obtaining a decided preponderance, continual revolutions 
 occurred in the city. The most celebrated was the expulsion of 
 the Ghibelins under the Doria and Spinola in 13 18. They had 
 recourse to the Visconti of Milan, and their own resources were 
 not unequal to cope with their country. The Guelfs thought it 
 necessary to call in Robert, King of Naples, always ready to 
 give assistance as the price of dominion, and conferred upon him 
 the temporary sovereignty of Genoa. A siege of several years' 
 duration, if we believe a historian of that age, produced as many 
 remarkable exploits as that of Troy. They have not proved so 
 
 "•'> Sismondi, tome i, p. 353. "7 jj., tome \n, p. ijto. 
 
 "0 Id., tome i, p. 324. "^ Id., tome iii, p. 328. 
 
I250-I494] 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA 
 
 257 
 
 interesting to posterity. The Ghibelins continued for a length 
 of time excluded from the city, but in possession of the seaport 
 of Savona, whence they traded and equipped fleets, as a rival 
 republic, and even entered into a separate war with Venice. ^^® 
 Experience of the uselessness of hostility, and the loss to which 
 they exposed their common country, produced a reconciliation, 
 or rather a compromise, in 1331, when the Ghibelins returned 
 to Genoa. But the people felt that many years of misfortune 
 had been owing to the private enmities of four overbearing fami- 
 lies. An opportunity soon offered of reducing their influence 
 within very narrow bounds. 
 
 The Ghibelin faction was at the head of affairs in 1339, a 
 Doria and a Spinola being its leaders, when the discontent of 
 a large fleet in want of pay broke out in open insurrection. Sa- 
 vona and the neighbouring towns took arms avowedly against 
 the aristocratical tyranny, and the capital was itself on the point 
 of joining the insurgents. There was, by the Genoese constitu- 
 tion, a magistrate named the abbot of the people, acting as a 
 kind of tribune for their protection against the oppression of 
 the nobility. His functions are not, however, in any book I 
 have seen, very clearly defined. This office had been abolished 
 by the present government, and it was the first demand of the 
 malcontents that it should be restored. This was acceded to, 
 and twenty delegates were appointed to make the choice. While 
 they delayed, and the populace was grown weary with waiting, 
 a nameless artisan called out from an elevated station that he 
 could direct them to a fit person. When the people, in jest, 
 bade him speak on, he uttered the name of Simon Boccanegra. 
 This was a man of noble birth, and well esteemed, who was then 
 present among the crowd. The word was suddenly taken up ; 
 a cry was heard that Boccanegra should be abbot ; he was in- 
 stantly brought forward, and the sword of justice forced into his 
 hand. As soon as silence could be obtained, he modestly thanked 
 them for their favour, but declined an office which his nobility 
 disqualified him from exercising. At this a single voice out of 
 the crowd exclaimed, " Signior ! " and this title was reverberated 
 from every side. Fearful of worse consequences, the actual 
 magistrates urged him to comply with the people and accept 
 the office of abbot. But Boccanegra, addressing the assembly, 
 declared his readiness to become their abbot, signior, or what- 
 ever they would. The cry of " Signior ! " v/as now louder than 
 before; while others cried out, " Let him be duke ! " The latter 
 title was received with greater approbation ; and Boccanegra 
 was conducted to the palace, the first duke, or doge, of Genoa.^'*^ 
 
 130 Villani, 1. ix, passim. 
 17 
 
 ^-'o G. Stella. " Annal. Genuenses," in 
 " Script. Rer. Ital.," tome xvii, p, 1072. 
 
258 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 Caprice alone, or an idea of more pomp and dignity, led 
 the populace, we may conjecture, to prefer this title to that of 
 signior; but it produced important and highly beneficial con- 
 sequences. In all neighbouring cities an arbitrary government 
 had been already established under their respective signiors ; the 
 name was associated with indefinite power, while that of doge 
 had only been taken by the elective and very limited chief magis- 
 trate of another maritime republic. Neither Boccanegra nor his 
 successors ever rendered their authority unlimited or hereditary. 
 The constitution of Genoa, from an oppressive aristocracy, be- 
 came a mixture of the two other forms, with an exclusion of the 
 nobles from power. Those four great families who had domi- 
 neered alternately for almost a century lost their influence at 
 home -after the revolution of 1339. Yet, what is remarkable 
 enough, they were still selected in preference for the highest 
 of trusts ; their names are still identified with the glory of Genoa ; 
 her fleets hardly sailed but under a Doria, a Spinola, or a Gri- 
 maldi ; such confidence could the republic bestow upon their 
 patriotism, or that of those whom they commanded. Meanwhile 
 two or three new families, a plebeian oligarchy, filled their place 
 in domestic honours ; the Adorni, the Fregosi, the Montalti, 
 contended for the ascendant. From their competition ensued 
 revolutions too numerous almost for a separate history; in four 
 years, from 1390 to 1394, the doge was ten times changed — swept 
 away or brought back in the fluctuations of popular tumult. An- 
 toniotto Adorno, four times Doge of Genoa, had sought the 
 friendship of Gian Galeazzo Visconti ; but that crafty tyrant medi- 
 tated the subjugation of the republic, and played her factions 
 against one another to render her fall secure. Adorno perceived 
 that there was no hope for ultimate independence but by mak- 
 ing a temporary sacrifice of it. His own power, ambitious as he 
 had been, he voluntarily resigned, and placed the republic under 
 the protection or signiory of the King of France. Terms were 
 stipulated very favourable to her liberties ; but, with a French 
 garrison once received into the city, they were not always sure 
 of observance. ^*^ 
 
 While Genoa lost even her political independence, Venice 
 became more conspicuous and powerful than before. That 
 famous republic deduces its origin, and even its liberty, from 
 an era beyond the commencement of the middle ages. The 
 Venetians boast of a perpetual emancipation from the yoke of 
 barbarians. From that ignominious servitude some natives, or, 
 as their historians will have it, nobles, of Aquileja and neigh- 
 bouring towns,^*^ fled to the small cluster of islands that rise 
 
 "* Sismondi, tome vii, pp. 237, 367. tily, non da pastori, come ebbe Roma, 
 
 **^ Ebbe principio, says Sanuto haugh- ma da potenti, e nobili. 
 
1250-1494] VENICE 259 
 
 amid the shoals at the mouth of the Brenta, Here they built 
 the town of Rivoalto, the modern Venice, in 421 ; but their chief 
 settlement was, till the beginning of the ninth century, at Mala- 
 mocco. A living writer has, in a passage of remarkable elo- 
 quence, described the sovereign republic, immovable upon the 
 bosom of the waters from which her palaces emerge, contem- 
 plating the successive tides of continental invasion, the rise and 
 fall of empires, the change of dynasties, the whole moving scene 
 of human revolution, till, in her own turn, the last surviving 
 witness of antiquity, the common link between two periods of 
 civilization, has submitted to the destroying hand of time.^*^ 
 Some part of this renown must, on a cold-blooded scrutiny, be 
 detracted from Venice. Her independence was, at the best, the 
 fruit of her obscurity. Neglected upon their islands, a people 
 of fishermen might without molestation elect their own magis- 
 trates ; a very equivocal proof of sovereignty in cities much more 
 considerable than Venice. But both the Western and the East- 
 ern Empire alternately pretended to exercise dominion over her ; 
 she was conquered by Pepin, son of Charlemagne, and restored 
 by him, as the chronicles say, to the Greek emperor Nicephorus. 
 There is every appearance that the Venetians had always con- 
 sidered themselves as subject, in a large sense not exclusive 
 of their municipal self-government, to the Eastern Empire.^** 
 And this connection was not broken, in the early part, at least, 
 of the tenth century. But, for every essential purpose, Venice 
 might long before be deemed an independent state. Her doge 
 was not confirmed at Constantinople, she paid no tribute, and 
 lent no assistance in war. Her own navies, in the ninth century, 
 encountered the Normans, the Saracens, and the Slavonians in 
 the Adriatic Sea. Upon the coast of Dalmatia were several Greek 
 cities, which the empire had ceased to protect, and which, like 
 Venice itself, became republics for want of a master. Ragusa 
 was one of these, and, more fortunate than the rest, survived 
 as an independent city till our own age. In return for the as- 
 sistance of Venice, these little seaports put themselves under 
 her government ; the Slavonian pirates were repressed ; and after 
 acquiring, partly by consent, partly by arms, a large tract of 
 maritime territory, the doge took the title of Duke of Dalmatia, 
 which is said by Dandolo to have been confirmed at Constanti- 
 nople. Three or four centuries, however, elapsed before the re- 
 public became secure of these conquests, which were frequently 
 wrested from her by rebellions of the inhabitants, or by her pow- 
 erful neighbour, the King of Hungary. 
 
 1*4 5t^"^°"^^' tome i, p. 309. Quae in devotione imperii illibatae ste- 
 
 Nicephorus stipulates with Charle- terant. (Danduli Chronicon, in Mura- 
 
 magne for his faithful city of Venice, tori, " Script. Rer. Ital.," tome xii, p. 
 
26o 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 250-1494 
 
 A more important source of Venetian greatness was com- 
 merce. In the darkest and most barbarous period, before Genoa 
 or even Pisa had entered into mercantile pursuits, Venice carried 
 on an extensive trafific both with the Greek and Saracen regions 
 of the Levant. The crusades enriched and aggrandized Venice 
 more, perhaps, than any other city. Her splendour may, how- 
 ever, be dated from the taking of Constantinople by the Latins 
 in 1204. In this famous enterprise, which diverted a great arma- 
 ment destined for the recovery of Jerusalem, the French and 
 Venetian nations were alone engaged ; but the former only as 
 private adventurers, the latter with the whole strength of their 
 republic under its doge, Henry Dandolo. Three eighths of the 
 city of Constantinople, and an equal proportion of the provinces, 
 were allotted to them in the partition of the spoil, and the doge 
 took the singular but accurate title, duke of three eighths of 
 the Roman Empire. Their share was increased by purchases 
 from less opulent crusaders, especially one of much importance, 
 the island of Candia, which they retained till the middle of the 
 seventeenth century. These foreign acquisitions were generally 
 granted out in fief to private Venetian nobles under the suprem- 
 acy of the republic. ^'*^ It was thus that the Ionian Islands, to 
 adopt the vocabulary of our day, came under the dominion of 
 Venice, and guaranteed that sovereignty which she now began 
 to affect over the Adriatic. Those of the archipelago were lost 
 in the sixteenth century. This political greatness was sustained 
 by an increasing commerce. No Christian state preserved so 
 considerable an intercourse with the Mohammedans. While 
 Genoa kept the keys of the Black Sea by her colonies of Pera 
 and Cafifa, Venice directed her vessels to Acre and Alexandria. 
 These connections, as is the natural effect of trade, deadened the 
 sense of religious antipathy ; and the Venetians were sometimes 
 charged with obstructing all efforts toward a new crusade, or 
 even any partial attacks upon the Mohammedan nations. 
 
 The earliest form of government at Venice, as we collect from 
 an epistle of Cassiodorus in the sixth century, was by twelve 
 annual tribunes. Perhaps the union of the different islanders 
 was merely federative. However, in 697, they resolved to elect 
 a chief magistrate by name of Duke, or, in their dialect, Doge 
 
 i,'56.) In the tenth century Constanttne 
 Porphyrogenitus, in his book " De Ad- 
 ministratione Imperii," claims the Vene- 
 tians as his subjects, though he admits 
 that they had, for peace sake, paid tribute 
 to Pepin and his successors as Kings of 
 Italy (p. 71), I have not read the famous 
 " Squittinio della liberta Veneta," which 
 gave the republic so much offence in the 
 seventeenth century; but a very strong 
 case is made out against their early in- 
 dependence in Giannone's history, tome 
 
 ii, p. 283, edit. Haia, 1753. Muratori in- 
 forms us that so late as 1084 the doge 
 obtained the title of Imperialis Protose- 
 vastos from the court of Constantinople; 
 a title which he continued always to use. 
 (" Annali d' Italia," ad, ann.) But I 
 should lay no stress on this circumstance. 
 The Greek, like the German emperors in 
 modern times, had a mint of specious 
 titles, which passed for ready money over 
 Christendom. 
 
 **" Sismondi, tome ii, p. 431. 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF VENICE 261 
 
 of Venice. No councils appear to have limited his power or 
 represented the national will. The doge was general and judge ; 
 he was sometimes permitted to associate his son with him, and 
 thus to prepare the road for hereditary power; his government 
 had all the prerogatives, and, as far as in such a state of manners 
 was possible, the pomp, of a monarchy. But he acted in im- 
 portant matters with the concurrence of a general assembly, 
 though, from the want of positive restraints, his executive gov- 
 ernment might be considered as nearly absolute. Time, how- 
 ever, demonstrated to the Venetians the imperfections of such 
 a constitution. Limitations were accordingly imposed on the 
 doge in 1032 ; he was prohibited from associating a son in the 
 government, and obliged to act with the consent of two elected 
 counsellors, and, on important occasions, to call in some of the 
 principal citizens. No other change appears to have taken place 
 till 1 172, long after every other Italian city had provided for its 
 liberty by constitutional laws, more or less successful, but always 
 manifesting a good deal of contrivance and complication. Venice 
 was, however, dissatisfied with her existing institutions. Gen- 
 eral assemblies were found, in practice, inconvenient and unsatis- 
 factory. Yet some adequate safeguard against a magistrate of 
 indefinite powers was required by freemen. A representative 
 council, as in other republics, justly appeared the best innovation 
 that could be introduced. ^*^ 
 
 The great council of Venice, as established in 11 72, was to 
 consist of four hundred and eighty citizens, equally taken from 
 the six districts of the city, and annually renewed. But the elec- 
 tion was not made immediately by the people. Two electors, 
 called tribunes, from each of the six districts, appointed the 
 members of the council by separate nomination. These tribunes 
 at first were themselves chosen by the people, so that the inter- 
 vention of this electoral body did not apparently trespass upon 
 the democratical character of the constitution. But the great 
 council, principally composed of men of high birth, and invested 
 by the law with the appointment of the doge, and of all the coun- 
 cils of magistracy, seem, early in the thirteenth century, to have 
 assumed the right of naming their own constituents. Besides 
 appointing the tribunes, they took upon themselves another privi- 
 lege, that of confirming or rejecting their successors before they 
 resigned their functions. These usurpations rendered the an- 
 nual election almost nugatory; the same members were usually 
 
 "' Sismondi, tome iii, p. 287. As I accurate, historian. To avoid frequent 
 
 have never read the " Storia civile Ve- reference, the principal passages in Sis- 
 
 neta," by Vettor Sandi, in nine volumes, mondi relative to the domestic revolu- 
 
 4to, or even Laugier's " History of Yen- tions of Venice are tome i, p. 323; tome 
 
 ice," my reliance has chiefly been placed iii, pp. 287-300; tome iv, pp. 349-370. The 
 
 on M. Sismondi, who has made use of history of Daru had not been published 
 
 Sandi, the latest, and probably the most when this was written. 
 
262 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 250-1494 
 
 renewed ; and though the dignity of councillor was not yet hered- 
 itary, it remained, upon the whole, in the same families. In this 
 transitional state the Venetian government continued during the 
 thirteenth century; the people actually debarred of power, but 
 an hereditary aristocracy not completely or legally confirmed. 
 The right of electing, or rather of re-electing, the great council 
 was transferred, in 1297, from the tribunes, whose office was 
 abolished, to the council of forty ; they balloted upon the names 
 of the members who already sat ; and whoever obtained twelve 
 favouring balls out of forty retained his place. The vacancies 
 occasioned by rejection or death were filled up by a supplemental 
 list formed by three electors nominated in the great council. 
 But they were expressly prohibited, by laws of 1298 and 1300, 
 from inserting the name of any one whose paternal ancestors 
 had not enjoyed the same honour. Thus an exclusive hereditary 
 aristocracy was finally established. And the personal rights of 
 noble descent were rendered complete in 1319 by the abolition 
 of all elective forms. By the constitution of Venice as it was 
 then settled every descendant of a member of the great council, 
 on attaining twenty-five years of age, entered as of right into 
 that body, which, of course, became unlimited in its numbers.^"*^ 
 But an assembly so numerous as the great council, even 
 before it was thus thrown open to all the nobility, could never 
 have conducted the public affairs with that secrecy and steadi- 
 ness which were characteristic of Venice ; and without an inter- 
 mediary power between the doge and the patrician multitude, 
 the constitution would have gained nothing in stability to com- 
 pensate for the loss of popular freedom. The great council had 
 proceeded very soon after its institution to limit the ducal pre- 
 rogatives. That of exercising criminal justice, a trust of vast 
 importance, was transferred in 1179 to a council of forty mem- 
 bers annually chosen. The executive government itself was 
 thought too considerable for the doge without some material 
 limitations. Instead of naming his own assistants or pregadi, 
 he was only to preside in a council of sixty members, to whom 
 the care of the state in all domestic and foreign relations, and 
 the previous deliberation upon proposals submitted to the great 
 council, was confided. This council of pregadi, generally called 
 in later times the senate, was enlarged in the fourteenth century 
 
 **' These gradual changes between 1207 
 and 1319 were first made known by Sandi, 
 from whom M. Sismondi has introduced 
 the facts into his own history. I notice 
 this, because all former writers, both an- 
 cient and modern, fix the complete and 
 final establishment of the Venetian aris- 
 tocracy in 1297. 
 
 Twenty-five years complete was the 
 statutable age at which every Venetian 
 
 noble had a right to take his seat in the 
 great council. But the names of those 
 who had passed the age of twenty were 
 annually put into an urn, and one fifth 
 drawn out by lot, who were thereupon 
 admitted. On an average, therefore, the 
 age of admission was about twenty-three. 
 (Janotus de Rep. Venet. ; Contarini ; 
 Amelot de la Houssaye.) 
 
1250-1494] GOVERNMENT OF VENICE 263 
 
 by sixty additional members ; and as a great part of the magis- 
 trates had also seats in it, the whole number amounted to be- 
 tween two and three hundred. Though the legislative power, 
 properly speaking, remained with the great council, the senate 
 used to impose taxes, and had the exclusive right of making 
 peace and war. It was annually renewed, like almost all other 
 councils at Venice, by the great council. But since even this 
 body was too numerous for the preliminary discussion of busi- 
 ness, six councillors, forming, along with the doge, the signiory, 
 or visible representative of the republic, were empowered to de- 
 spatch orders, to correspond with ambassadors, to treat with 
 foreign states, to convoke and preside in the councils, and per- 
 form other duties of an administration. In part of these they 
 were obliged to act with the concurrence of what was termed the 
 college, comprising, besides themselves, certain select council- 
 lors, from different constituted authorities.^*® 
 
 It might be imagined that a dignity so shorn of its lustre as 
 that of doge would not excite an overweening ambition. But 
 the Venetians were still jealous of extinguished power ; and while 
 their constitution was yet immature, the great council planned 
 new methods of restricting their chief magistrate. An oath was 
 taken by the doge on his election, so comprehensive as to em- 
 brace every possible check upon undue influence. He was bound 
 not to correspond with foreign states, or to open their letters, 
 except in the presence of the signiory ; to acquire no property 
 beyond the Venetian dominions, and to resign what he might 
 already possess ; to interpose, directly or indirectly, in no judicial 
 process ; and not to permit any citizen to use tokens of sub- 
 jection in saluting him. As a further security, they devised a 
 remarkably complicated mode of supplying the vacancy of his 
 ofifice. Election by open suffrage is always liable to tumult or 
 corruption ; nor does the method of secret ballot, while it pre- 
 vents the one, afford in practice any adequate security against 
 the other. Election by lot incurs the risk of placing incapable 
 persons in situations of arduous trust. The Venetian scheme 
 was intended to combine the two modes without their evils, by 
 leaving the absolute choice of their doge to electors taken by 
 lot. It was presumed that, among a competent number of per- 
 sons, though taken promiscuously, good sense and right prin- 
 ciples would gain such an ascendency as to prevent any flagrantly 
 improper nomination if undue influence could be excluded. For 
 this purpose the ballot was rendered exceedingly complicated, 
 
 "8 The college of Savj consisted of six- bate. The signiory had the same privi- 
 teen persons; and it possessed the initia- lege. Thus the virtual powers even of 
 tive in all public measures that required the senate were far more limited than 
 the assent of the senate. For no single they appear at first sight; and no possi- 
 senator, much less any noble of the great bility remained of innovation in the fun- 
 council, could propose anything for de- damental principles of the constitution. 
 
264 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 that no possible ingenuity or stratagem might ascertain the elec- 
 toral body before the last moment. A single lottery, if fairly 
 conducted, is certainly sufficient for this end. At Venice as 
 many balls as there were members of the great council present 
 were placed in an urn. Thirty of these were gilt. The holders 
 of gilt balls were reduced by a second ballot to nine. The nine 
 elected forty, whom lot reduced to twelve. The twelve chose 
 twenty-five by separate nomination. ^*^ The twenty-five were re- 
 duced by lot to nine; and each of the nine chose five. These 
 forty-five were reduced to eleven as before ; the eleven elected 
 forty-one, who were the ultimate voters for a doge. This intri- 
 cacy appears useless, and consequently absurd ; but the original 
 principle of a Venetian election (for something of the same kind 
 was applied to all their councils and magistrates) may not always 
 be unworthy of imitation. In one of our best modern statutes, 
 that for regulating the trials of contested elections, we have seen 
 this mixture of chance and selection very happily introduced.^^* 
 
 An hereditary prince could never have remained quiet in 
 such trammels as were imposed upon the Doge of Venice. But 
 early prejudice accustoms men to consider restraint, even upon 
 themselves, as advantageous ; and the limitations of ducal power 
 appeared to every Venetian as fundamental as the great laws 
 of the English constitution do to ourselves. Many doges of 
 Venice, especially in the middle ages, were considerable men; 
 but they were content with the functions assigned to them, which, 
 if they could avoid the tantalizing comparison of sovereign 
 princes, were enough for the ambition of republicans. For life 
 the chief magistrates of their country, her noble citizens forever, 
 they might thank her in their own name for what she gave, and 
 in that of their posterity for what she withheld. Once only a 
 Doge of Venice was tempted to betray the freedom of the repub- 
 lic. Marin Falieri, a man far advanced in life, engaged, from 
 some petty resentment, in a wild intrigue to overturn the gov- 
 ernment. The conspiracy was soon discovered, and the doge 
 avowed his guilt. An aristocracy so firm and so severe did not 
 hesitate to order his execution in the ducal palace. 
 
 For some years after what was called the closing of the great 
 council by the law of 1296, which excluded all but the families 
 actually in possession, a good deal of discontent showed itself 
 among the commonalty. Several commotions took place about 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century, with the object of re- 
 storing a more popular regimen. Upon the suppression of the 
 
 "* Amelot de la Houssaye asserts this: reason to doubt whether grosser instances 
 
 but, according to Contarini, the method of partial or unjust, or at best erroneous, 
 
 was by ballot. determination have not taken place since 
 
 ""This was written about 1810. The a new tribunal was erected, than could 
 
 statute to which I allude grew out of be imputed to the celebrated Grenville 
 
 favour afterward. But there is too much act. [1850.] 
 
I250-I494J 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE 
 
 265 
 
 last, in 1310, the aristocracy sacrificed their own individual free- 
 dom, along with that of the people, to the preservation of an 
 imaginary privilege. They established the famous Council of 
 Ten, that most remarkable part of the Venetian constitution. 
 This council, it should be observed, consisted, in fact, of seven- 
 teen, comprising the signiory, or the doge and his six councillors, 
 as well as the ten properly so called. The Council of Ten had 
 by usage, if not by right, a controlling and dictatorial power 
 over the senate and other magistrates, rescinding their decisions, 
 and treating separately with foreign princes. Their vast influ- 
 ence strengthened the executive government, of which they 
 formed a part, and gave a vigour to its movements which the 
 jealousy of the councils would possibly have impeded. But they 
 are chiefly known as an arbitrary and inquisitorial tribunal, the 
 standing tyranny of Venice. Excluding the old Council of Forty, 
 a regular court of criminal judicature, not only from the investi- 
 gation of treasonable charges, but of several other crimes of 
 magnitude, they inquired, they judged, they punished, accord- 
 ing to what they called reason of state. The public eye never 
 penetrated the mystery of their proceedings ; the accused was 
 sometimes not heard, never confronted with witnesses ; the con- 
 demnation was secret as the inquiry, the punishment undivulged 
 like both.^'^^ The terrible and odious machinery of a police, the 
 insidious spy, the stipendiary informer, unknown to the care- 
 lessness of feudal governments, found their natural soil in the 
 republic of Venice. Tumultuous assemblies were scarcely pos- 
 sible in so peculiar a city ; and private conspiracies never failed 
 to be detected by the vigilance of the Council of Ten. Compared 
 with the Tuscan republics, the tranquility of Venice is truly strik- 
 ing. The names of Guelf and Ghibelin hardly raised any emotion 
 in her streets, though the government was considered in the first 
 part of the fourteenth century as rather inclined toward the latter 
 party.^^^ But the wildest excesses of faction are less dishonour- 
 ing than the stillness and moral degradation of servitude.^^^ 
 
 ^" Ilium etiam morem observant, ne 
 reum, cum de eo judicium laturi sunt, in 
 collegium admittant, neque cognitorem, 
 aut oratorem quempiam, qui ejus causam 
 agat. (" Contarini de Rep. Venet.") 
 
 ^" Villani several times speaks of the 
 Venetians as regular Ghibelins (1. ix, c. 
 2; 1. X, c, 89, etc.). But this is put much 
 too strongly: though their government 
 may have had a slight bias toward that 
 faction, they were in reality neutral, and 
 far enough removed from any domestic 
 feuds upon that score. 
 
 103 gy tj,g modern law of Venice a no- 
 bleman could not engage in trade with- 
 out derogating from his rank: I do not 
 find this peculiarity observed by Jannotti 
 and Contarini, the oldest writers on the 
 
 Venetian government: but Daru informs 
 us it was by a law enacted in 1400. 
 (" Hist, de Venise." 1. 589.) It is noticed 
 by Amelot de la Houssaye, who tells us 
 also, as Daru does, that the nobility 
 evaded the law by secret partnership with 
 the privileged merchants or cittadini, who 
 formed a separate class at Venice. This 
 was the custom in modern times. But 
 I have never understood the principle 
 or common sense of such a restriction, 
 especially combined with that other fun- 
 damental law which disqualified a Vene- 
 tian nobleman from possessing a landed 
 estate on the terra firma of the republic. 
 The latter, however, did not extend, as 
 I have been informed, to Dalmatia, or the 
 Ionian Islands. 
 
266 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 It was a very common theme with political writers till about 
 the beginning of the last century, when Venice fell almost into 
 oblivion, to descant upon the wisdom of this government. And, 
 indeed, if the preservation of ancient institutions be, as some 
 appear to consider it, not a means but an end, and an end for 
 which the rights of man and laws of God may at any time be 
 set aside, we must acknowledge that it was a wisely constructed 
 system. Formed to compress the two opposite forces from which 
 resistance might be expected, it kept both the doge and the peo- 
 ple in perfect subordination. Even the coalition of an execu- 
 tive magistrate with the multitude, so fatal to most aristocracies, 
 never endangered that of Venice. It is most remarkable that a 
 part of the constitution which destroyed every man's security, 
 and incurred general hatred, was still maintained by a sense of 
 its necessity. The Council of Ten, annually renewed, might an- 
 nually have been annihilated. The great council had only to 
 withhold their suffrages from the new candidates, and the tyranny 
 expired of itself. This was several times attempted (I speak 
 now of more modern ages) ; but the nobles, though detesting 
 the Council of Ten, never steadily persevered in refusing to re- 
 elect it. It was, in fact, become essential to Venice. So great 
 were the vices of her constitution that she could not endure 
 their remedies. If the Council of Ten had been abolished at any 
 time since the fifteenth century, if the removal of that jealous 
 despotism had given scope to the corruption of a poor and de- 
 based aristocracy, to the license of a people unworthy of free- 
 dom, the republic would have soon lost her territorial posses- 
 sions, if not her own independence. If, indeed, it be true, as re- 
 ported, that during the last hundred years this formidable tribunal 
 had sensibly relaxed its vigilance, if the Venetian government 
 had become less tyrannical through sloth or decline of national 
 spirit, our conjecture will have acquired the confirmation of ex- 
 perience. Experience has recently shown that a worse calamity 
 than domestic tyranny might befall the Queen of the Adriatic. 
 In the Place of St. Mark, among the monuments of extinguished 
 greatness, a traveller may regret to think that an insolent Ger- 
 man soldiery has replaced even the senators of Venice. Her 
 ancient liberty, her bright and romantic career of glory in coun- 
 tries so dear to the imagination, her magnanimous defence in 
 the war of Chioggia, a few thinly scattered names of illustrious 
 men, will rise upon his mind and mingle with his indignation 
 at the treachery which robbed her of her independence. But if 
 he has learned the true attributes of wisdom in civil policy, he 
 will not easily prostitute that word to a constitution formed 
 without reference to property or to population, that vested sov- 
 ereign power partly in a body of impoverished nobles, partly 
 
I250-I494] 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE 
 
 267 
 
 in an overruling despotism ; or to a practical system of gov- 
 ernment that made vice the ally of tyranny, and sought im- 
 punity for its own assassinations by encouraging dissoluteness 
 of private life. Perhaps, too, the wisdom so often imputed to 
 the senate in its foreign policy has been greatly exaggerated. 
 The balance of power established in Europe, and, above all, in 
 Italy, maintained for the last two centuries states of small in- 
 trinsic resources, without any efforts of their own. In the ulti- 
 mate crisis, at least, of Venetian liberty, that solemn mockery 
 of statesmanship was exhibited to contempt; too blind to avert 
 danger, too cowardly to withstand it, the most ancient govern- 
 ment of Europe made not an instant's resistance ; the peasants 
 of Underwald died upon their mountains ; the nobles of Venice 
 clung only to their lives.^^* 
 
 Until almost the middle of the fourteenth century Venice 
 had been content without any territorial possessions in Italy ; 
 unless we reckon a very narrow strip of sea-coast, bordering 
 on her lagoons, called the Dogato. Neutral in the great con- 
 tests between the Church and the empire, between the free cities 
 and their sovereigns, she was respected by both parties, while 
 neither ventured to claim her as an ally. But the rapid progress 
 of Mastino della Scala, Lord of Verona, with some particular 
 injuries, led the senate to form a league with Florence against 
 him. Villani mentions it as a singular honour for his country 
 to have become the confederate of the Venetians, " who, for their 
 great excellence and power, had never allied themselves with any 
 state or prince, except at their ancient conquest of Constanti- 
 nople and Romania." ^^^ The result of this combination was to 
 annex the district of Treviso to the Venetian dominions. But 
 they made no further conquests in that age. On the contrary, 
 they lost Treviso in the unfortunate war of Chioggia, and did 
 not regain it till 1389. Nor did they seriously attempt to with- 
 stand the progress of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who, after over- 
 throwing the family of Scala, stretched almost to the Adriatic, 
 and altogether subverted for a time the balance of power in 
 Lombardy. 
 
 ^^* The circumstances to which Venice 
 was reduced in her last agony by the 
 violence and treachery of Napoleon, and 
 the apparent impossibility of an effective 
 resistance, so fully described by Daru, 
 and still better by Botta, induce me to 
 modify the severity of this remark. In 
 former editions I have by mistake said 
 that the last Doge of Venice, Manini, is 
 buried in the Church of the Scalzi, with 
 the inscription on the stone, Manini 
 Cineres. This church was indeed built 
 by the contributions of several noble 
 families, among them the Manini, most 
 of whom are interred there; but the last 
 
 doge himself lies in that of the Jesuits. 
 The words Manini Cineres may be read 
 in both, which probably was the cause 
 of my forgetfulness. [1850.] 
 
 See in the " Edinburgh Review," vol. 
 xii, p. 379, an account of a book which is, 
 perhaps, little known, though interest- 
 ing to the history of our own age: a col- 
 lection of documents illustrating the fall 
 of the republic of Venice. The article 
 is well written, and, I presume, contains 
 a faithful account of the work, the author 
 of which, Signor Barzoni, is respected as 
 a patriotic writer in Italy. 
 
 ^^^ L. XI, c. 49. 
 
268 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 But upon the death of this prince, in 1404, a remarkable 
 crisis took place in that country. He left two sons, Giovanni 
 Maria and Filippo Maria, both young, and under the care of 
 a mother who was little fitted for her situation. Through her 
 misconduct and the selfish ambition of some military leaders, 
 who had commanded Gian Galeazzo's mercenaries, that exten- 
 sive dominion was soon broken into fragments. Bergamo, Como, 
 Lodi, Cremona, and other cities revolted, submitting themselves 
 in general to the families of their former princes, the earlier race 
 of usurpers, who had for nearly a century been crushed by the 
 Visconti. A Guelf faction revived after the name had long been 
 proscribed in Lombardy. Francesco da Carrara, Lord of Padua, 
 availed himself of this revolution to get possession of Verona, 
 and seemed likely to unite all the cities beyond the Adige. No 
 family was so odious to the Venetians as that of Carrara. Though 
 they had seemed indifferent to the more real danger in Gian 
 Galeazzo's lifetime, they took up arms against this inferior enemy. 
 Both Padua and Verona were reduced, and, the Duke of Milan 
 ceding Vicenza, the republic of Venice came suddenly into the 
 possession of an extensive territory. Francesco da Carrara, who 
 had surrendered in his capital, was put to death in prison at 
 Venice. 
 
 Notwithstanding the deranged condition of the Milanese, no 
 further attempts were made by the senate of Venice for twenty 
 years. They had not yet acquired that decided love of war and 
 conquest which soon began to influence them against all the 
 rules of their ancient policy. There were still left some wary 
 statesmen of the old school to check ambitious designs. Sanuto 
 has preserved an interesting account of the wealth and commerce 
 of Venice in those days. This is thrown into the mouth of the 
 Doge Mocenigo, whom he represents as dissuading his country, 
 with his dying words, from undertaking a war against Milan. 
 " Through peace our city has every year," he said, " ten millions 
 of ducats employed as mercantile capital in different parts of the 
 world ; the annual profit of our traders upon this sum amounts 
 to four millions. Our housing is valued at seven million ducats ; 
 its annual rental at five hundred thousand. Three thousand 
 merchant ships carry on our trade ; forty-three galleys and three 
 hundred smaller vessels, manned by nineteen thousand sailors, 
 secure our naval power. Our mint has coined one million ducats 
 within the year. From the Milanese dominions alone we draw 
 one million six hundred and fifty-four thousand ducats in coin, 
 and the value of nine hundred thousand more in cloths ; our profit 
 upon this traffic may be reckoned at six hundred thousand ducats. 
 Proceeding as you have done to acquire this wealth, you will 
 become masters of all the gold in Christendom ; but war, and 
 
I250-I494] 
 
 WARS OF MILAN AND VENICE 
 
 269 
 
 especially unjust war, will lead infallibly to ruin. Already you 
 have spent nine hundred thousand ducats in the acquisition of 
 Verona and Padua ; yet the expense of protecting these places 
 absorbs all the revenue which they yield. You have many among 
 you, men of probity and experience ; choose one of these to suc- 
 ceed me, but beware of Francesco Foscari. If he is doge, you 
 will soon have war, and war will bring poverty and loss of hon- 
 our." ^^* Mocenigo died, and Foscari became doge : the prophe- 
 cies of the former were neglected, and it can not wholly be af- 
 firmed that they were fulfilled. Yet Venice is described by a 
 writer thirty years later as somewhat impaired in opulence by 
 her long warfare with the Dukes of Milan. 
 
 The latter had recovered a great part of their dominions as 
 rapidly as they had lost them. Giovanni Maria, the elder brother, 
 a monster of guilt even among the Visconti, having been assas- 
 sinated, Filippo Maria assumed the government of Milan and 
 Pavia, almost his only possessions. But though weak and un- 
 warlike himself, he had the good fortune to employ Carmagnola, 
 one of the greatest generals of that military age. Most of the 
 revolted cities were tired of their new masters, and, their inclina- 
 tions conspiring with Carmagnola's eminent talents and activ- 
 ity, the house of Visconti reassumed its former ascendency from 
 the Sessia to the Adige. Its fortunes might have been still more 
 prosperous if Filippo Maria had not rashly as well as ungrate- 
 fully offended Carmagnola. That great captain retired to Venice, 
 and inflamed a disposition toward war which the Florentines and 
 the Duke of Savoy had already excited. The Venetians had 
 previously gained some important advantages in another quar- 
 ter by reducing the country of Friuli, with part of Istria, which 
 had for many centuries depended on the temporal authority of 
 a neighbouring prelate, the Patriarch of Aquileia. They en- 
 tered into this new alliance. No undertaking of the republic had 
 been more successful. Carmagnola led on their armies, and in 
 about two years Venice acquired Brescia and Bergamo, and 
 extended her boundary to the river Adda, which she was destined 
 never to pass. 
 
 Such conquests could only be made by a city so peculiarly 
 maritime as Venice through the help of mercenary troops. But, 
 in employing them, she merely conformed to a fashion which 
 
 "« Sanuto, " Vite di Duchi di Vene- 
 zia," in " Script. Rer. Ital.," tome xxii, 
 p. 9«;8. Mocenigo's harangue is very long 
 in Sanuto. I have endeavoured to pre- 
 serve the substance. But the calcula- 
 tions are so strange and manifestly in- 
 exact that they deserve little regard. 
 Daru has given them more at length. 
 (" Hist, de Venise," vol. ii, p. 205.) The 
 revenues of Venice, which had amounted 
 to 996,290 ducats in 1423, were but 945,- 
 
 750 in T460, notwithstanding her acquisi- 
 tion, in the meantime, of Brescia, Ber- 
 gamo, Ravenna, and Crema. (Id., ii, 
 462.) They increased considerably in the 
 next twenty years. The taxes, however, 
 were light in the Venetian dominions; 
 and Daru conceives the revenues of the 
 republic, reduced to a corn price, to have 
 not exceeded the value of 11,000,000 francs 
 at the present day (p. 542). 
 
2/0 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 250-1494 
 
 states to whom it was less indispensable had long since estab- 
 lished. A great revolution had taken place in the system of mili- 
 tary service through most parts of Europe, but especially in 
 Italy. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, whether the 
 Italian cities were engaged in their contest with the emperors 
 or in less arduous and general hostilities among each other, they 
 seem to have poured out almost their whole population as an 
 armed and loosely organized militia. A single city, with its ad- 
 jacent district, sometimes brought twenty or thirty thousand 
 men into the field. Every man, according to the trade he prac- 
 tised, or quarter of the city wherein he dwelt, knew his own 
 banner and the captain he was to obey.^^^ In battle the carroccio 
 formed one common rallying point, the pivot of every movement. 
 This was a chariot, or rather wagon, painted with vermilion, and 
 bearing the city standard elevated upon it. That of Milan re- 
 quired four pair of oxen to drag it forward.^^® To defend this 
 sacred emblem of his country, which Muratori compares to the 
 ark of the covenant among the Jews, was the constant object, 
 that, giving a sort of concentration and uniformity to the army, 
 supplied in some degree the want of more regular tactics. This 
 militia was, of course, principally composed of infantry. At the 
 famous battle of the Arbia, in 1260, the Guelf Florentines had 
 thirty thousand foot and three thousand horse ; ^^® and the usual 
 proportion was five, six, or ten to one. Gentlemen, however, 
 were always mounted ; and the superiority of a heavy cavalry 
 must have been prodigiously great over an undisciplined and 
 ill-armed populace. In the thirteenth and following centuries 
 armies seem to have been considered as formidable nearly in 
 proportion to the number of men at arms or lancers. A charge 
 of cavalry was irresistible; battles were continually won by in- 
 ferior numbers, and vast slaughter was made among the fugi- 
 tives.^«« 
 
 As the comparative inefficiency of foot soldiers became evi- 
 dent, a greater proportion of cavalry was employed, and armies, 
 though better equipped and disciplined, were less numerous. 
 This we find in the early part of the fourteenth century. The 
 main point for a state at war was to obtain a sufficient force 
 of men at arms. As few Italian cities could muster a large body 
 of cavalry from their own population, the obvious resource was 
 to hire mercenary troops. This had been practised in some in- 
 
 "T Muratori. " Antiq. Ital.," Dissert. 
 26; Denina, " Rivoluzoni d' Italia," I. xii, 
 c. 4. 
 
 ^"^^ The carroccio was invented by Eri- 
 bert, a celebrated Archbishop of Milan, 
 about 1039. (" Annali di Murat."; "An- 
 tiq. Ital.," Dissert. 26.) The carroccio 
 of Milan was taken by Frederick II in 
 1237, and sent to Rome. Parma and Cre- 
 
 mona lost their carroccios to each other, 
 and exchanged them some years after- 
 ward with great exultation. In the four- 
 teenth century this custom had gone into 
 disuse. (Id., ibid.; Denina, 1. xii, c. 4.) 
 
 ""Villani, 1. vi, c. 79. 
 
 *<"* Sismondi, tome iii, p. 263, etc., has 
 some judicious observations on this sub- 
 ject. 
 
1250-1494] EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN TROOPS 
 
 271 
 
 stances much earlier. The city of Genoa took the Count of 
 Savoy into pay with two hundred horse in 1225.^^^ Florence 
 retained five hundred French lances in 1282.^^^ But it became 
 much more general in the fourteenth century, chiefly after the 
 expedition of the Emperor Henry VII in 13 10. Many German 
 soldiers of fortune, remaining in Italy upon this occasion, en- 
 gaged in the service of Milan, Florence, or some other state. 
 The subsequent expeditions of Louis of Bavaria in 1326, and 
 of John, King of Bohemia, in 1331, brought a fresh accession 
 of adventurers from the same country. Others, again, came from 
 France, and some from Hungary. All preferred to continue in 
 the richest country and finest climate of Europe, where their 
 services were anxiously solicited and abundantly repaid. An 
 unfortunate prejudice in favour of strangers prevailed among 
 the Italians of that age. They ceded to them, one knows not 
 why, certainly without having been vanquished, the palm of mili- 
 tary skill and valour. The word transalpine (oltramontani) is 
 frequently applied to hired cavalry by the two Villani as an epi- 
 thet of excellence. 
 
 The experience of every fresh campaign now told more and 
 more against the ordinary militia. It has been usual for modern 
 writers to lament the degeneracy of martial spirit among the 
 Italians of that age. But the contest was too unequal between 
 an absolutely invulnerable body of cuirassiers and an infantry 
 of peasants or citizens. The bravest men have little appetite 
 for receiving wounds and death without the hope of inflicting 
 any in return. The parochial militia of France had proved 
 equally unserviceable; though, as the life of a French peasant 
 was of much less account in the eyes of his government than 
 that of an Italian citizen, they were still led forward like sheep 
 to the slaughter against the disciplined forces of Edward III. 
 The cavalry had about this time laid aside the hauberk, or coat 
 of mail, their ancient distinction from the unprotected populace ; 
 which, though incapable of being cut through by the sabre, af- 
 forded no defence against the pointed sword introduced in the 
 thirteenth century,^®^ nor repelled the impulse of a lance or the 
 crushing blow of a battle-axe. Plate-armour was substituted 
 in its place ; and the man at arms, cased in entire steel, the sev- 
 eral pieces firmly riveted, and proof against every stroke, his 
 charger protected on the face, chest, and shoulders, or, as it was 
 
 "^ Muratori, Dissert. 26. 
 
 "2 Ammirato, " 1st. Fiorent.," p. 159. 
 The same was done in 1297 (p. 200). A 
 lance, in the technical language of those 
 ages, included the lighter cavalry at- 
 tached to the man at arms as well as 
 himself. In France the full complement 
 of a lance (lance fournie) was five or six 
 horses; thus the 1,500 lances who com- 
 
 posed the original companies of ordon- 
 nance raised by Charles VI amounted to 
 9,000 cavalry. But in Italy the number 
 was smaller^ We read frequently of bar- 
 buti, which are defined lanze de due 
 cavalli. (Corio, p. 437.) Lances of three 
 horses were introduced about the middle 
 of the fourteenth century. (Id., p. 466.) 
 ^*3 Muratori, ad ann., 1226. 
 
2/2 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [i 250-1494 
 
 called, barded, with plates of steel, fought with a security of suc- 
 cess against enemies inferior perhaps only in these adventitious 
 sources of courage to himself.^®* 
 
 Nor was the new system of conducting hostilities less in- 
 convenient to the citizens than the tactics of a battle. Instead 
 of rapid and predatory invasions, terminated instantly by a single 
 action, and not extending more than a few days' march from the 
 soldier's home, the more skilful combinations usual in the four- 
 teenth century frequently protracted an indecisive contest for a 
 whole summer.^^^ As wealth and civilization made evident the 
 advantages of agriculture and mercantile industry, this loss of 
 productive labour could no longer be endured. Azzo Visconti, 
 who died in 1339, dispensed with the personal service of his 
 Milanese subjects. " Another of his laws," says Galvaneo Fiam- 
 ma, *' was that the people should not go to war, but remain at 
 home for their own business. For they had hitherto been kept 
 with much danger and expense every year, and especially in time 
 of harvest and vintage, when princes are wont to go to war, 
 in besieging cities, and incurred numberless losses, and chiefly 
 on account of the long time that they were so detained." ^®^ This 
 law of Azzo Visconti, taken separately, might be ascribed to the 
 usual policy of an absolute government. But we find a similar 
 innovation not long afterward at Florence. In the war carried 
 on by that republic against Giovanni Visconti in 135 1, the 
 younger Villani informs us that '* the useless and mischievous 
 personal service of the inhabitants of the district was commuted 
 into a money payment." ^"^ This change, indeed, was neces- 
 sarily accompanied by a vast increase of taxation. The Italian 
 states, republics as well as principalities, levied very heavy con- 
 tributions. Mastino della Scala had a revenue of seven hundred 
 thousand florins, more, says John Villani, than the king of any 
 European country, except France, possesses.^®® Yet this arose 
 from only nine cities of Lombardy. Considered with reference to 
 economy, almost any taxes must be a cheap commutation for 
 personal service. But economy may be regarded too exclusively, 
 and can never counterbalance that degradation of a national 
 
 164 -pjjg earliest plate-armour, engraved 
 in Montfaucon's " Monumens de la Mon- 
 archic Frangaise," tome ii, is of the reign 
 of Philip the Long, about 1315; but it 
 does not appear generally till that of 
 Philip of Valois, or even later. Before 
 the complete harness of steel was adopt- 
 ed, plated caps were sometimes worn on 
 the knees and elbows, and even greaves 
 on the legs. This is represented in a 
 statue of Charles I, King of Naples, who 
 died in 1285. Possibly the statue may 
 not be quite so ancient. (Montfaucon, 
 passim ; Daniel, " Hist, de la Milice 
 Frangaise," p. 395.) 
 
 ^"'^ This tedious warfare a la Fabius is 
 called by Villani guerra guereggiata (I. 
 viii, c. 49); at least I can annex no other 
 meaning to the expression. 
 
 "« Muratori, " Antiquit. Ital.," Dis- 
 sert. 26. 
 
 "^Matt. Villani, p. 135. 
 
 ^^ L, xi, c. 45. I can not imagine why 
 Sismondi asserts (tome iv, p. 432) that the 
 lords of cities in Lombardy did not ven- 
 ture to augment the taxes imposed while 
 they had been free. Complaints of heavy 
 taxation are certainly often made against 
 the Visconti and other tyrants in the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
1250-1494] COMPANIES OF ADVENTURERS 273 
 
 character which proceeds from intrusting the public defence to 
 foreigners. 
 
 It could hardly be expected that stipendiary troops, chiefly 
 composed of Germans, would conduct themselves without inso- 
 lence and contempt of the effeminacy which courted their serv- 
 ices. Indifferent to the cause they supported, the highest pay 
 and the richest plunder were their constant motives. As Italy 
 was generally the theatre of war in some of her numerous states, 
 a soldier of fortune, with his lance and charger for an inherit- 
 ance, passed from one service to another without regret and with- 
 out discredit. But if peace happened to be pretty universal, he 
 might be thrown out of his only occupation, and reduced to 
 a very inferior condition, in a country of which he was not a 
 native. It naturally occurred to men of their feelings that, if 
 money and honour could only be had while they retained their 
 arms, it was their own fault if they ever relinquished them. Upon 
 this principle they first acted in 1343, when the republic of Pisa 
 disbanded a large body of German cavalry which had been em- 
 ployed in a war with Florence.^^® A partisan, whom the Italians 
 call the Duke Guarnieri, engaged these dissatisfied mercenaries 
 to remain united under his command. His plan was to levy 
 contributions on all countries which he entered with his com- 
 pany, without aiming at any conquests. No Italian army, he 
 well knew, could be raised to oppose him, and he trusted that 
 other mercenaries would not be ready to fight against men who 
 had devised a scheme so advantageous to the profession. This 
 was the first of the companies of adventure which continued for 
 many years to be the scourge and disgrace of Italy. Guarnieri, 
 after some time, withdrew his troops, satiated with plunder, into 
 Germany; but he served in the invasion of Naples by Louis, 
 King of Hungary, in 1348, and, forming a new company, rav- 
 aged the ecclesiastical state. A still more formidable band of 
 discipHned robbers appeared in 1353, under the command of Fra 
 Moriale, and afterward of Conrad Lando. This was denominated 
 the Great Company, and consisted of several thousand regular 
 troops, besides a multitude of half-armed ruffians, who assisted 
 as spies, pioneers, and plunderers. The rich cities of Tuscany 
 and Romagna paid large sums that the Great Company, which 
 was perpetually in motion, might not march through their terri- 
 tory. Florence alone magnanimously resolved not to offer this 
 ignominious tribute. Upon two occasions, once in 1358, and 
 
 '^® Sismondi, tome v, p. 380. The dan- After some desperate battles the mer- 
 
 gerous aspect which these German mer- cenaries were defeated and Lodrisio 
 
 cenaries might assume had appeared four taken (tome v, p. 278). In this instance, 
 
 years before, when Lodrisio, one of the however, they acted for another; Guarni- 
 
 Visconti, having quarrelled with the Lord eri was the first who taught them to pre- 
 
 of Milan, led a large body of troops who serve the impartiality of general rob- 
 
 had just been disbanded against the city. bers. 
 18 
 
274 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 Still more conspicuously the next year, she refused either to 
 give a passage to the company or to redeem herself by money; 
 and in each instance the German robbers were compelled to 
 retire. At this time they consisted of five thousand cuirassiers, 
 and their whole body was not less than twenty thousand men; 
 a terrible proof of the evils which an erroneous system had en- 
 tailed upon Italy. Nor were they repulsed on this occasion by 
 the actual exertions of Florence. The courage of that republic 
 was in her councils, not in her arms ; the resistance made to 
 Lando's demand was a burst of national feeling, and rather 
 against the advice of the leading Florentines ; ^^^ but the army 
 employed was entirely composed of mercenary troops, and prob- 
 ably for the greater part of foreigners. 
 
 None of the foreign partisans who entered into the service 
 of Italian states acquired such renown in that career as an Eng- 
 lishman whom contemporary writers call Aucud or Agutus, but 
 to whom we may restore his national appellation of Sir John 
 Hawkwood. This very eminent man had served in the war of 
 Edward III, and obtained his knighthood from that sovereign, 
 though originally, if we may trust common fame, bred to the 
 trade of a tailor. After the Peace of Bretigni, France was rav- 
 aged by the disbanded troops, whose devastations Edward was 
 accused, perhaps unjustly, of secretly instigating. A large body 
 of these, under the name of the White Company, passed into the 
 service of the Marquis of Montferrat. They were some time 
 afterward employed by the Pisans against Florence, and during 
 this latter war Hawkwood appears as their commander. For 
 thirty years he was continually engaged in the service of the Vis- 
 conti, of the Pope, or of the Florentines, to whom he devoted 
 himself for the latter part of his life with more fidelity and steadi- 
 ness than he had shown in his first campaigns. The republic 
 testified her gratitude by a public funeral, and by a monument 
 in the Duomo, which still perpetuates his memory. 
 
 The name of Sir John Hawkwood is worthy to be remem- 
 bered as that of the first distinguished commander who had ap- 
 peared in Europe since the destruction of the Roman Empire. 
 It would be absurd to suppose that any of the constituent ele- 
 ments of military genius which Nature furnishes to energetic 
 characters were wanting to the leaders of a barbarian or feudal 
 army : untroubled perspicacity in confusion, firm decision, rapid 
 execution, providence against attack, fertiHty of resource and 
 stratagem — these are in quality as much required from the chief 
 of an Indian tribe as from the accomplished commander. But 
 we do not find them in any instance so consummated by habitual 
 skill as to challenge the name of generalship. No one at least 
 
 "0 Matt. Villani, p. 537. 
 
1250-1494] MILITARY SCIENCE 275 
 
 occurs to me, previously to the middle of the fourteenth century, 
 to whom history has unequivocally assigned that character. It 
 is very rarely that we find even the order ot battle specially 
 noticed. The monks, indeed, our only chroniclers, were poor 
 judges of martial excellence ; yet, as war is the main topic of 
 all annals, we could hardly remain ignorant of any distinguished 
 skill in its operations. This neglect of military science certainly 
 did not proceed from any predilection for the arts of peace. It 
 arose out of the general manners of society, and out of the nature 
 and composition of armies in the middle ages. The insubordi- 
 nate spirit of feudal tenants and the emulous equality of chivalry 
 were alike hostile to that gradation of rank, that punctual ob- 
 servance of irksome duties, that prompt obedience to a supreme 
 command, through which a single soul is infused into the active 
 mass, and the rays of individual merit converge to the head of the 
 general. 
 
 In the fourteenth century we begin to perceive something 
 of a more scientific character in military proceedings, and his- 
 torians for the first time discover that success does not entirely 
 depend upon intrepidity and physical prowess. The victory of 
 Miihldorf over the Austrian princes in 1322, that decided a civil 
 war in the empire, is ascribed to the ability of the Bavarian com- 
 mander.^^^ Many distinguished officers were formed in the 
 school of Edward III. Yet their excellences were perhaps rather 
 those of active partisans than of experienced generals. Their 
 successes are still due rather to daring enthusiasm than to wary 
 and calculating combination. Like inexpert chess players, they 
 surprise us by happy sallies against rule, or display their talents 
 in rescuing themselves from the consequence of their own mis- 
 takes. Thus the admirable arrangements of the Black Prince 
 at Poitiers hardly redeem the temerity which placed him in a 
 situation where the egregious folly of his adversary alone could 
 have permitted him to triumph. Hawkwood therefore appears 
 to me the first real general of modern times ; the earliest master, 
 however imperfect, in the science of Turenne and Wellington. 
 Every contemporary Italian historian speaks with admiration of 
 his skilful tactics in battle, his stratagems, his well-conducted 
 retreats. Praise of this description, as I have observed, is hardly 
 bestowed, certainly not so continually, on any former captain. 
 
 Hawkwood was not only the greatest but the last of the for- 
 eign condottieri, or captains of mercenary bands. While he was 
 yet living a new military school had been formed in Italy, which 
 not only superseded, but eclipsed, all the strangers. This im- 
 portant reform was ascribed to Alberic di Barbiano, lord of some 
 
 *" Struvius, " Corpus Hist. German.," eral, is called by a contemporary writer 
 p. 585. Schwepperman, the Bavarian gen- clarus militari scientia vir. 
 
276 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [i 250-1494 
 
 petty territories near Bologna. He formed a company altogether 
 of Italians about the year 1379. It is not to be supposed that 
 natives of Italy had before been absolutely excluded from service. 
 We find several Italians, such as the Malatesta family, Lords of 
 Rimini, and the Rossi of Parma, commanding the armies of 
 Florence much earlier. But this was the first trading company, 
 if I may borrow the analogy, the first regular body of Italian 
 mercenaries, attached only to their commander without any con- 
 sideration of party, like the Germans and English of Lando and 
 Hawkwood. Alberic di Barbiano, though himself no doubt a 
 man of military talents, is principally distinguished by the school 
 of great generals which the company of St. George under his 
 command produced, and which may be deduced, by regular 
 succession, to the sixteenth century. The first in order of time, 
 and immediate contemporaries of Barbiano, were Jacopo del 
 Verme, Facino Cane, and Ottobon Terzo. Among an intelligent 
 and educated people, little inclined to servile imitation, the mili- 
 tary art made great progress. The most eminent condottieri 
 being divided, in general, between belligerents, each of them had 
 his genius excited and kept in tension by that of a rival in glory. 
 Every resource of science as well as experience, every improve- 
 ment in tactical arrangements, and the use of arms, were required 
 to obtain an advantage over such equal enemies. In the first 
 year of the fifteenth century the Italians brought their newly 
 acquired superiority to a test. The Emperor Robert, in alliance 
 with Florence, invaded Gian Galeazzo's dominions with a con- 
 siderable army. From old reputation, which so frequently sur- 
 vives the intrinsic qualities upon which it was founded, an im- 
 pression appears to have been excited in Italy that the native 
 troops were still unequal to meet the charge of German cuiras- 
 siers. The Duke of Milan gave orders to his general, Jacopo 
 del Verme, to avoid a combat. But that able leader was aware 
 of a great relative change in the two armies. The Germans had 
 neglected to improve their discipline ; their arms were less easily 
 wielded, their horses less obedient to the bit. A single skirmish 
 was enough to open their eyes ; they found themselves decidedly 
 inferior; and having engaged in the war with the expectation 
 of easy success, were readily disheartened. ^"^^ This victory, or 
 rather this decisive proof that victory might be achieved, set 
 Italy at rest for almost a century from any apprehensions on the 
 side of her ancient masters. 
 
 Whatever evils might be derived, and they were not trifling, 
 from the employment of foreign or native mercenaries, it was 
 impossible to discontinue the system without general consent; 
 and too many states found their own advantage in it for such an 
 
 "2 Sismondi, tome vii, p. 439. 
 
I250-I494] 
 
 DEFENSIVE ARMS 
 
 277 
 
 agreement. The condottieri were indeed all notorious for con- 
 tempt of engagements. Their rapacity was equal to their bad 
 faith. Besides an enormous pay, for every private cuirassier 
 received much more in value than a subaltern offtcer at present, 
 they exacted gratifications for every success. ^^^ But everything 
 was endured by ambitious governments who wanted their aid. 
 Florence and Venice were the two states which owed most to 
 the companies of adventure. The one loved war without its 
 perils; the other could never have obtained an inch of territory 
 with a population of sailors. But they were both almost inex- 
 haustibly rich by commercial industry ; and, as the surest pay- 
 masters, were best served by those they employed. The Visconti 
 might perhaps have extended their conquest over Lombardy 
 with the militia of Milan ; but without a Jacopo del Verme or 
 a Carmagnola, the banner of St. Mark would never have floated 
 at Verona and Bergamo. 
 
 The Italian armies of the fifteenth century have been re- 
 marked for one striking peculiarity. War has never been con- 
 ducted at so little personal hazard to the soldier. Combats fre- 
 quently occur, in the annals of that age, wherein success, though 
 warmly contested, costs very few lives even to the vanquished.^^* 
 This innocence of blood, which some historians turn into ridi- 
 cule, was no doubt owing in a great degree to the rapacity of 
 the companies of adventure, who, in expectation of enriching 
 themselves by the ransom of prisoners, were anxious to save 
 their lives. Much of the humanity of modern warfare was origi- 
 nally due to this motive. But it was rendered more practicable 
 by the nature of their arms. For once, and for once only in the 
 history of mankind, the art of defence had outstripped that of 
 
 "' Paga doppia, e mese compiuto, of 
 which we frequently read, sometimes 
 granted improvidently, and more often 
 demanded unreasonably. The first speaks 
 for itself; the second was the reckoning 
 a month's service as completed when it 
 was begun, in calculating their pay. 
 (Matt. Villani, p. 62; Sismondi, tome v, 
 p, 412.) 
 
 Gian Galeazzo Visconti promised con- 
 stant half pay to the condottieri whom 
 he disbanded in 1396. This, perhaps, is 
 the first instance of half pay. (Sismondi, 
 tome vii, p. 379.) 
 
 "* Instances of this are very frequent. 
 Thus at the action of Zagonara, in 1423, 
 but three persons, according to Machia- 
 vel, lost their lives, and these by suffoca- 
 tion in the mud. (" 1st. Fiorent,," 1. iv.) 
 At that of Molinella, in 1467, he says that 
 no one was killed (I. vii). Ammirato re- 
 proves him for this, as all the authors of 
 the time represent it to have been san- 
 guinary (tome ii, p. 102), and insinuates 
 that Machiavel ridicules the inoffensive- 
 ness of those armies more than they de- 
 
 serve, schernendo, come egli suol far, 
 quella milizia. Certainly some few battles 
 of the fifteenth century were not only 
 obstinately contested, but attended with 
 considerable loss. (Sismondi, tome x, 
 pp. 126, 137.) But, in general, the slaugh- 
 ter must appear very trifling. Ammirato 
 himself says that in an action between 
 the Neapolitan and papal troops in i486, 
 which lasted all day, not only no one was 
 killed, but it is not recorded that any 
 one was wounded. (Roscoe's " Lorenzo 
 de' Medici," vol. ii, p. 37.) Guicciar- 
 dini's general testimony to the character 
 of these combats is unequivocal. He 
 speaks of the battle of Fornova, between 
 the confederates of Lombardy and the 
 army of Charles VIII returning from 
 Naples in 1495, as very remarkable on ac- 
 count of the slaughter, which amounted 
 on the Italian side to 3,000 men: perche 
 fu la prima, che da lunghissimo tempo 
 in qua si combattesse con uccisione e con 
 sangue in Italia, perche innanzi a questa 
 morivano pochissimi uomini in un fatto 
 d'arme (1. ii, p. i75)- 
 
278 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 destruction. In a charge of lancers many fell, unhorsed by the 
 shock, and might be suffocated or bruised to death by the pres- 
 sure of their own armour ; but the lance's point could not pene- 
 trate the breastplate, the sword fell harmless upon the helmet, 
 the conqueror, in the first impulse of passion, could not assail 
 any vital part of a prostrate but not exposed enemy. Still less 
 was to be dreaded from the archers or cross-bowmen, who com- 
 posed a large part of the infantry. The bow, indeed, as drawn 
 by an English foot soldier, was the most formidable of arms 
 before the invention of gunpowder. That ancient weapon, though 
 not perhaps common among the northern nations, nor for sev- 
 eral centuries after their settlement, was occasionally in use before 
 the crusades. William employed archers in the battle of Hast- 
 ings.^'^ Intercourse with the East, its natural soil, during the 
 twelfth and thirteenth ages, rendered the bow better known. 
 But the Europeans improved on the Eastern method of confin- 
 ing its use to cavalry. By employing infantry as archers, they 
 gained increased size, more steady position, and surer aim for 
 the bow. Much, however, depended on the strength and skill 
 of the archer. It was a peculiarly English weapon, and none 
 of the other principal nations adopted it so generally or so suc- 
 cessfully. The cross-bow, which brought the strong and weak 
 to a level, was more in favour upon the continent. This instru- 
 ment is said by some writers to have been introduced after the 
 first crusade in the reign of Louis the Fat.^"^® But, if we may 
 trust William of Poitou, it was employed, as well as the long- 
 bow, at the battle of Hastings. Several of the popes prohibited 
 it as a treacherous weapon ; and the restriction was so far re- 
 garded that, in the time of Philip Augustus, its use is said to 
 have been unknown in France. ^^^ By degrees it became more 
 general ; and cross-bowmen were considered as a very necessary 
 part of a well-organized army. But both the arrow and the quar- 
 rel glanced away from plate-armour, such as it became in the 
 fifteenth century, impervious in every point, except when the 
 visor was raised from the face, or some part of the body acci- 
 dentally exposed. The horse, indeed, was less completely pro- 
 tected. 
 
 Many disadvantages attended the security against wounds 
 for which this armour had been devised. The enormous weight 
 exhausted the force and crippled the limbs. It rendered the heat 
 of a southern climate insupportable. In some circumstances 
 it increased the danger of death, as in the passage of a river or 
 
 ^" Pedites in fronte locayit, sagittis ar- arc represented in tbe tapestry of Bayeux. 
 matos et balistis, item pedites in ordine ^^° Le Grand, " Vie privee des Fran- 
 
 secundo firmiores et loricatos, ultimo tur- ^ais." tome i, p. 349. 
 
 mas eqnitum. (" Gul. Pictaviensis," in ^^^ Du Cange, voc. Balista: Muratori, 
 
 Du Chesne, p. 201.) Several archers Dissert. 26, tome i, p. 462 (Ital.). 
 
1250-1494I INTRODUCTION OF GUNPOWDER 
 
 279 
 
 morass. It was impossible to compel an enemy to fight, because 
 the least intrenchment or natural obstacle could stop such un- 
 wieldy assailants. The troops might be kept in constant alarm 
 at night, and either compelled to sleep under arms or run the 
 risk of being surprised before they could rivet their plates of 
 steel. ^"^^ Neither the Italians, however, nor the transalpines, 
 would surrender a mode of defence which they ought to have 
 deemed inglorious. But in order to obviate some of its military 
 inconveniences, as well as to give a concentration in attack, which 
 lancers impetuously charging in a single line, according to the 
 practice at least of France in the middle ages, did not preserve, 
 it became usual for the cavalry to dismount, and, leaving their 
 horses at some distance, to combat on foot with the lance. This 
 practice, which must have been singularly embarrassing with the 
 plate-armour of the fifteenth century, was introduced before it 
 became so ponderous. It is mentioned by historians of the 
 twelfth century both as a German and an English custom.^'® 
 We find it in the wars of Edward III. Hawkwood, the disciple 
 of that school, introduced it into Italy.^^® And it was practised 
 by the English in their second wars with France, especially at 
 the battles of Crevant and Verneuil.^^^ 
 
 Meanwhile a discovery accidentally made, perhaps, in some 
 remote age and distant region, and whose importance was but 
 slowly perceived by Europe, had prepared the way not only for 
 a change in her military system, but for political effects still 
 more extensive. If we consider gunpowder as an instrument 
 of human destruction, incalculably more powerful than any that 
 skill had devised or accident presented before, acquiring, as ex- 
 perience shows us, a more sanguinary dominion in every suc- 
 ceeding age, and borrowing all the progressive resources of sci- 
 ence and civilization for the extermination of mankind, we shall 
 be appalled at the future prospects of the species, and feel per- 
 haps in no other instance so much difficulty in reconciling the 
 mysterious dispensation with the benevolent order of Providence. 
 As the great security for established governments, the surest 
 preservation against popular tumult, it assumes a more equivocal 
 character, depending upon the solution of a doubtful problem, 
 whether the sum of general happiness has lost more in the last 
 
 ^'^ Sismondi, tome ix, p. 158. 
 
 ^™ The Emperor Conrad's cavalry in 
 the second crusade are said by William 
 of Tyre to have dismounted on one oc- 
 casion and fought on foot, de equis de- 
 scendentes, et facti pedites; sicut mos est 
 Teutonicis in summis necessitatibus bel- 
 lica tractare negotia (1. xvii, c. 4). And 
 the same was done by the English in 
 their engagement with the Scotch near 
 North Allerton, commonly called the bat- 
 
 tle of the Standard, in 1138. (Twysden, 
 " Decem Script.," p. ^42.) 
 
 ^^'^ Sismondi, tome vi, p. 429; Azarius, 
 in " Script. Rer. Ital.," tome xvi; Matt. 
 Villani. 
 
 J^8^ Monstrelet, tome ii, fol. 7, 14, 76; 
 Villaret, tome xvii, p. 89. It was a Bur- 
 gundian as well as English fashion, En- 
 tre les Bourguignons, says Comines, lors 
 estoient les plus honorez ceux que des- 
 cendoient avec les archers (1. i, c. 3). 
 
28o 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1250-1494 
 
 three centuries through arbitrary power than it has gained 
 through regular police and suppression of disorder. 
 
 There seems little reason to doubt that gunpowder was in- 
 troduced through the means of the Saracens into Europe. Its 
 use in engines of war, though they may seem to have been rather 
 like our fireworks than artillery, is mentioned by an Arabic 
 writer in the Escurial collection about the year 1249.^^^ It was 
 known not long afterward to our philosopher, Roger Bacon, 
 though he concealed, in some degree, the secret of its composi- 
 tion. In the first part of the fourteenth century cannon, or rather 
 mortars, were invented, and the applicability of gunpowder to 
 purposes of war was understood. Edward III employed some 
 pieces of artillery with considerable effect at Crecy.^^^ But its 
 use was still not very frequent ; a circumstance which will sur- 
 prise us less when we consider the unscientific construction of 
 artillery ; the slowness with which it could be loaded ; its stone 
 balls, of uncertain aim and imperfect force, being commonly fired 
 at a considerable elevation ; and especially the difficulty of re- 
 moving it from place to place during an action. In sieges and 
 in naval engagements — as, for example, in the war of Chioggia — 
 it was more frequently employed. ^^* Gradually, however, the 
 new artifice of evil gained ground. The French made the prin- 
 cipal improvements. They cast their cannon smaller, placed 
 them on lighter carriages, and used balls of iron.^®^ They in- 
 vented portable arms for a single soldier, which, though clumsy 
 in comparison with their present state, gave an augury of a 
 
 i« Casiri, " Bibl. Arab. Hispan.," tome 
 ii, p. 7, thus renders the original descrip- 
 tion of certain missiles used by the 
 Moors: Serpunt, susurrantque scorpiones 
 circumligati ac pulvere nitrato incensi, 
 unde explosi fulgurant ac incendunt. 
 Jam videre erat manganum excussum 
 veluti nubem per aera extendi ac tonitrus 
 instar horrendum edere fragorem, ig- 
 nemque undequaque vomens, omnia di- 
 rumpere, incendere, in cineres redigere. 
 The Arabic passage is at the bottom 
 of the page; and one would be glad to 
 know whether pulvis nitratus is a fair 
 translation. But I think there can, on 
 the whole, be no doubt that gunpowder 
 is meant. Another Arabian writer seems 
 to describe the use of cannon in the years 
 1312 and 1323. (Id., ibid.) And the 
 chronicle of Alphonso XI, King of Cas- 
 tile, distinctly mentions them at the siege 
 of Algeciras in 1342. But before this they 
 were sufficiently known in France. Gun- 
 powder and cannon are both mentioned 
 in registers of accounts under 1338 (Du 
 Cange, voc. Bombarda), and in another 
 document of 1345. (" Hist, du Langue- 
 doc," tome iv, p. 204.) But the strongest 
 evidence is a passage of Petrarch, written 
 before 1344, and quoted in Muratori, 
 " Antich. ital.," Dissert. 26, p. 456, where 
 
 he speaks of the art, nuper rata, nunc 
 communis. 
 
 ^"^ G. Villani, 1. xii, c. 67. Gibbon has 
 thrown out a sort of objection to the cer- 
 tainty of this fact, on account of Frois- 
 sart's silence. But the positive testimony 
 of Villani, who died within two years 
 afterward, and had manifestly obtained 
 much information as to the great events 
 
 Eassing in France, can not be rejected. 
 [e ascribes a material effect to the can- 
 non of Edward, colpi delle bombarde, 
 which I suspect, from his strong expres- 
 sions, had not been employed before, 
 except against stone walls. It seemed, 
 he says, as if God thundered con grande 
 uccisione di genti, e sfondamento di 
 cavalli. 
 
 181 Gattaro, " 1st. Padovana," in 
 " Script. Rer. Ital.," tome xvii, p. 360. 
 Several proofs of the employment of ar- 
 tillery in French sieves during the reign 
 of Charles V occur m Villaret. See the 
 word Artillerie in the index. 
 
 Gian Galeazzo had, according to Corio, 
 thirty-four pieces of cannon, small and 
 great, in the Milanese army, about 1397. 
 
 186 Guicciardini, 1, i, p, 75, has a re- 
 markable passage on the superiority of 
 the French over the Italian artillery in 
 consequence of these improvements. 
 
1250-1494] INTRODUCTION OF GUNPOWDER 28 1 
 
 prodigious revolution in the military art. John, Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, in 141 1, had four thousand hand cannons, as they were 
 called, in his army/®^ They are found, under different names 
 and modifications of form — for which I refer the reader to pro- 
 fessed writers on tactics — in most of the wars that historians of 
 the fifteenth century record, but less in Italy than beyond the Alps. 
 The Milanese, in 1449, are said to have armed their militia with 
 twenty thousand muskets, which struck terror into the old gen- 
 erals.^®^ But these muskets, supported on a rest, and charged 
 with great delay, did less execution than our sanguinary science 
 would require; and, uncombined with the admirable invention 
 of the bayonet, could not in any degree resist a charge of cavalry. 
 The pike had a greater tendency to subvert the military system 
 of the middle ages, and to demonstrate the efficiency of disci- 
 plined infantry. Two free nations had already discomfited, by 
 the help of such infantry, those arrogant knights on whom the 
 fate of battles had depended — the Bohemians, instructed in the 
 art of war by their great master, John Zisca ; and the Swiss, who, 
 after winning their independence inch by inch from the house 
 of Austria, had lately established their renown by a splendid 
 victory over Charles of Burgundy. Louis XI took a body of 
 mercenaries from the United Cantons into pay. Maximilian had 
 recourse to the same assistance.^^^ And though the importance 
 of infantry was not perhaps decidedly established till the Milanese 
 wars of Louis XII and Francis I, in the sixteenth century, yet 
 the last years of the middle ages, according to our division, indi- 
 cated the commencement of that military revolution in the gen- 
 eral employment of pikemen and musketeers. 
 
 Soon after the beginning of the fifteenth century, to return 
 from this digression, two illustrious captains, educated under 
 Alberic di Barbiano, turned upon themselves the eyes of Italy. 
 These were Braccio di Montone, a noble Perugian, and Sforza 
 Attendolo, originally a peasant in the village of Cotignuola. 
 Nearly equal in reputation, unless perhaps Braccio may be reck- 
 oned the more consummate general, they were divided by a long 
 rivalry, which descended to the next generation, and involved 
 all the distinguished leaders of Italy. The distractions of Naples, 
 and the anarchy of the ecclesiastical state, gave scope not only 
 to their military but political ambition. Sforza was invested with 
 extensive fiefs in the kingdom of Naples, and with the office of 
 
 "* Villaret, tome xiii, page 176 and in Tuscany. (Muratori, Dissert. 26, p. 
 
 page 310. 457.) 
 
 1" Sismondi, tome ix, p. 341. He says ^^s g^g Guicciardini's character of the 
 that it required a quarter of an hour to Swiss troops (p. 192). The French, he 
 charge and fire a musket. I must confess says, had no native infantry; il regno di 
 that I very much doubt the fact of so Francia era debolissimo di fanteria pro- 
 many muskets having been collected. In pria, the nobility monopolizing all war- 
 1432 that arm was seen for the first time like occupations. (Ibid.) 
 
282 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 great constable. Braccio aimed at independent acquisitions, and 
 formed a sort of principality around Perugia. This, however, 
 was entirely dissipated at his death. When Sforza and Braccio 
 were no more, their respective parties were headed by the son 
 of the former, Francesco Sforza, and by Nicholas Piccinino, 
 who for more than twenty years fought, with few exceptions, 
 under opposite banners. Piccinino was constantly in the service 
 of Milan. Sforza, whose political talents fully equalled his mili- 
 tary skill, never lost sight of the splendid prospects that opened 
 to his ambition. From Eugenius IV he obtained the march of 
 Ancona as a fief of the Roman see. Thus rendered more inde- 
 pendent than the ordinary condottieri, he mingled as a sover- 
 eign prince in the politics of Italy. He was generally in alliance 
 with Venice and Florence, throwing his weight into their scale 
 to preserve the balance of power against Milan and Naples. But 
 his ultimate designs rested upon Milan. Filippo Maria, duke of 
 that city, the last of his family, had only a natural daughter, 
 whose hand he sometimes offered and sometimes withheld from 
 Sforza. Even after he had consented to their union, his sus- 
 picious temper was incapable of admitting such a son-in-law 
 into confidence, and he joined in a confederacy with the Pope 
 and King of Naples to strip Sforza of the march. At the death 
 of Filippo Maria, in 1447, that general had nothing left but his 
 glory and a very disputable claim to the Milanese succession. 
 This, however, was set aside by the citizens, who revived their 
 republican government. A republic in that part of Lombardy 
 might, with the help of Venice and Florence, have withstood any 
 domestic or foreign usurpation. But Venice was hostile, and 
 Florence indifferent. Sforza became the general of this new 
 state, aware that such would be the probable means of becoming 
 its master. No politician of that age scrupled any breach of faith 
 for his interest. Nothing, says Machiavel, was thought shameful 
 but to fail. Sforza, with his army, deserted to the Venetians ; and 
 the republic of Milan, being both incapable of defending itself and 
 distracted by civil dissensions, soon fell a prey to his ambition. In 
 1450 he was proclaimed duke, rather by right of election, or of 
 conquest, than in virtue of his marriage with Bianca, whose sex, 
 as well as illegitimacy, seemed to preclude her from inheriting. 
 
 I have not alluded for some time to the domestic history 
 of a kingdom which bore a considerable part, during the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries, in the general combinations of 
 Italian policy, not wishing to interrupt the reader's attention 
 by too frequent transitions. We must return again to a more 
 remote age in order to take up the history of Naples. Charles 
 of Anjou, after the deaths of Manfred and Conradin had left him 
 without a competitor, might be ranked in the first class of Euro- 
 
I250-I494] REBELLION OF SICILY 283 
 
 pean sovereigns. Master of Provence and Naples, and at the 
 head of the Guelf faction in Italy, he had already prepared a 
 formidable attack on the Greek Empire, when a memorable revo- 
 lution in Sicily brought humiliation on his latter years. John 
 of Procida, a Neapolitan, whose patrimony had been confiscated 
 for his adherence to the party of Manfred, retained during long 
 years of exile an implacable resentment against the house of 
 Anjou. From the dominions of Peter III, King of Aragon, who 
 had bestowed estates upon him in Valencia, he kept his eye 
 continually fixed on Naples and Sicily. The former held out no 
 favourable prospects ; the Ghibelin party had been entirely sub- 
 dued, and the principal barons were of French extraction or in- 
 clinations. But the island was in a very different state. Unused 
 to any strong government, it was now treated as a conquered 
 country. A large body of French soldiers garrisoned the forti- 
 fied towns, and the systematic oppression was aggravated by 
 those insults upon the honour of families which are most intol- 
 erable to an Italian temperament. John of Procida, travelling 
 in disguise through the island, animated the barons with a hope 
 of deliverance. In like disguise he repaired to the Pope, Nicolas 
 III, who was jealous of the new Neapolitan dynasty, and obtained 
 his sanction to the projected insurrection ; to the court of Con- 
 stantinople, from which he readily obtained money ; and to the 
 King of Aragon, who employed that money in fitting out an 
 armament, that hovered upon the coast of Africa, under pretext 
 of attacking the Moors. It is, however, difficult at this time to 
 distinguish the effects of preconcerted conspiracy from those 
 of casual resentment. Before the intrigues so skilfully conducted 
 had taken effect, yet after they were ripe for development, an 
 outrage committed upon a lady at Palermo, during a procession 
 on the vigil of Easter, provoked the people to that terrible mas- 
 sacre of all the French in their island, which has obtained the 
 name of Sicilian Vespers. Unpremeditated as such an ebullition 
 of popular fury must appear, it fell in, by the happiest coinci- 
 dence, with the previous conspiracy. The King of Aragon's fleet 
 was at hand ; the Sicilians soon called in his assistance ; he sailed 
 to Palermo, and accepted the crown. John of Procida is a re- 
 markable witness to a truth which the pride of governments will 
 seldom permit them to acknowledge : that an individual, obscure 
 and apparently insignificant, may sometimes, by perseverance and 
 energy, shake the foundations of established states ; while the 
 perfect concealment of his intrigues proves also, against a popu- 
 lar maxim, that a political secret may be preserved by a number 
 of persons during a considerable length of time.^^ 
 
 L89 
 
 ^™ Giannone, though he has well de- yet, as is too often his custom, or rather 
 scribed the schemes of John of Procida, that of Costanzo, whom he implicitly fol- 
 
284 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 250-1494 
 
 The long war that ensued upon this revolution involved or 
 interested the greater part of civilized Europe. Philip III of 
 France adhered to his uncle, and the King of Aragon was com- 
 pelled to fight for Sicily within his native dominions. This, in- 
 deed, was the more vulnerable point of attack. Upon the sea 
 he was lord of the ascendant. His Catalans, the most intrepid 
 of Mediterranean sailors, were led to victory by a Calabrian 
 refugee, Roger di Loria, the most illustrious and successful ad- 
 miral whom Europe produced till the age of Blake and De 
 Ruyter. In one of Loria's battles the eldest son of the King 
 of Naples was made prisoner, and the first years of his own 
 reign were spent in confinement. But notwithstanding these 
 advantages, it was found impracticable for Aragon to contend 
 against the arms of France, and latterly of Castile, sustained by 
 the rolling thunders of the Vatican. Peter III had bequeathed 
 Sicily to his second son, James ; Alfonso, the eldest, King of 
 Aragon, could not fairly be expected to ruin his inheritance for 
 his brother's cause ; nor were the barons of that free country 
 disposed to carry on a war without national objects. He made 
 peace, accordingly, in 1295, and engaged to withdraw all his 
 subjects from the Sicilian service. Upon his own death, which 
 followed very soon, James succeeded to the kingdom of Aragon, 
 and ratified the renunciation of Sicily. But the natives of that 
 island had received too deeply the spirit of independence to be 
 thus assigned over by the letter of a treaty. After solemnly ab- 
 juring, by their ambassadors, their allegiance to the King of 
 Aragon, they placed the crown upon the head of his brother 
 Frederick. They maintained the war against Charles II of 
 Naples, against James of Aragon, their former king, who had 
 bound himself to enforce their submission, and even against the 
 great Roger di Loria, who, upon some discontent with Frederick, 
 deserted their banner and entered into the Neapolitan service. 
 Peace was at length made in 1300, upon condition that Fred- 
 erick should retain during his life the kingdom, which was after- 
 ward to revert to the crown of Naples : a condition not likely to 
 be fulfilled. 
 
 Upon the death of Charles II, King of Naples, in 1305, a 
 question arose as to the succession. His eldest son, Charles 
 
 lows, drops or slides over leading facts; 
 and thus, omitting entirely, or misrepre- 
 senting, the circumstances of the Sicilian 
 Vespers, treats the whole insurrection 
 as the result of a deliberate conspiracy. 
 On the other hand, Nicolas Specialis, a 
 contemporary writer, in the seventh vol- 
 ume of Muratori's collection, represents 
 the Sicilian Vespers as proceeding entire- 
 ly from the casual outrage in the streets 
 of Palermo. The thought of calling in 
 Peter, he asserts, did not occur to the 
 
 Sicilians till Charles had actually com- 
 menced the siege of Messina. But this 
 is equally removed from the truth. 
 Gibbon has made more errors than are 
 usual with so accurate a historian in 
 his account of this revolution, such as 
 calling Constance, the queen of Peter, 
 sister instead of daughter of Manfred. 
 A good narrative of the Sicilian Vespers 
 may be found in Velly's " History of 
 France," tome vi. 
 
I250-I494] ROBERT AND JOANNA OF NAPLES 285 
 
 Martel, had been called by maternal inheritance to the throne 
 of Hungary, and had left at his decease a son, Carobert, the 
 reigning sovereign of that country. According to the laws of 
 representative succession, which were at this time tolerably set- 
 tled in private inheritance, the crown of Naples ought to have 
 regularly devolved upon that prince. But it was contested by 
 his uncle Robert, the eldest living son of Charles II, and the 
 cause was pleaded by civilians at Avignon before Pope Clement 
 V, the feudal superior of the Neapolitan kingdom. Reasons of 
 public utility, rather than of legal analogy, seem to have prevailed 
 in the decision which was made in favour of Robert.^^^ The 
 course of his reign evinced the wisdom of this determination. 
 Robert, a wise and active though not personally a martial prince, 
 maintained the ascendency of the Guelf faction, and the papal 
 influence connected with it, against the formidable combination 
 of Ghibelin usurpers in Lombardy and the two emperors, Henry 
 VII and Louis of Bavaria. No male issue survived Robert, 
 whose crown descended to his granddaughter Joanna. She had 
 been espoused, while a child, to her cousin Andrew, son of 
 Carobert, King of Hungary, who was educated with her in the 
 court of Naples. Auspiciously contrived as this union might 
 seem to silence a subsisting claim upon the kingdom, it proved 
 eventually the source of civil war and calamity for a hundred 
 and fifty years. Andrew's manners were barbarous, more worthy 
 of his native country than of that polished court wherein he had 
 been bred. He gave himself up to the society of Hungarians, 
 who taught him to believe that a matrimonial crown and deriva- 
 tive royalty were derogatory to a prince who claimed by a para- 
 mount hereditary right. In fact, he was pressing the court of 
 Avignon to permit his own coronation, which would have placed 
 in a very hazardous condition the rights of the queen, with whom 
 he was living on ill terms, when one night he was seized, stran- 
 gled, and thrown out of a window. Public rumour, in the ab- 
 sence of notorious proof, imputed the guilt of this mysterious 
 assassination to Joanna. Whether historians are authorized to 
 assume her participation in it so confidently as they have gen- 
 erally done may perhaps be doubted, though I can not venture 
 positively to rescind their sentence. The circumstances of An- 
 drew's death were undoubtedly pregnant with strong sus- 
 picions.^^^ Louis, King of Hungary, his brother, a just and stern 
 
 ^^^ Giannone, 1. xxii; Summonte, tome 
 ii, p. 370. Some of the civilians of that 
 age, however, approved the decision. 
 
 ^^^ The " Chronicle of Dominic di Gra- 
 vina " (" Script. Rer. Ital.," tome xii) 
 seems to be our best testimony for the 
 circumstances connected with Andrew's 
 death; and after reading his narrative 
 more than once, I find myself undecided 
 
 as to this perplexed and mysterious story. 
 Gravina's opinion, it should be observed, 
 is extremely hostile to the queen. 
 Nevertheless there are not wanting pre- 
 sumptions that Charles, first Duke of 
 Durazzo, who had married the sister of 
 Andrew, was concerned in his murder, 
 for which, in fact, he was afterward put 
 to death by the King of Hungary. But, 
 
286 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 250-1494 
 
 prince, invaded Naples, partly as an avenger, partly as a con- 
 queror. The queen and her second husband, Louis of Tarento, 
 fled to Provence, where her acquittal, after a solemn, if not an 
 impartial, investigation, was pronounced by Clement VI. Louis 
 meanwhile found it more difficult to retain than to acquire the 
 kingdom of Naples ; his own dominion required his presence, 
 and Joanna soon recovered her crown. She reigned for thirty 
 years more without the attack of any enemy, but not intermed- 
 dling, like her progenitors, in the general concerns of Italy. 
 Childless by four husbands, the succession of Joanna began to 
 excite ambitious speculations. Of all the male descendants of 
 Charles I, none remained but the King of Hungary and Charles, 
 Duke of Durazzo, who had married the queen's niece, and was 
 regarded by her as the presumptive heir to the crown. But, 
 offended by her marriage with Otho of Brunswick, he procured 
 the assistance of a Hungarian army to invade the kingdom, and, 
 getting the queen into his power, took possession of the throne. 
 In this enterprise he was seconded by Urban VI, against whom 
 Joanna had unfortunately declared in the great schism of the 
 Church. She was smothered with a pillow in prison by the order 
 of Charles. The name of Joan of Naples has suffered by the 
 lax repetition of calumnies. Whatever share she may have had 
 in her husband's death, and certainly under circumstances of 
 extenuation, her subsequent life was not open to any flagrant 
 reproach. The charge of dissolute manners, so frequently made, 
 is not warranted by any specific proof or contemporary testimony. 
 In the extremity of Joanna's distress she had sought assist- 
 ance from a quarter too remote to afford it in time for her relief. 
 She adopted Louis, Duke of Anjou, eldest uncle of the young 
 King of France, Charles VI, as her heir in the kingdom of Naples 
 and county of Provence. This bequest took effect without diffi- 
 culty in the latter country. Naples was entirely in the posses- 
 sion of Charles of Durazzo. Louis, however, entered Italy with 
 a very large army, consisting at least of thirty thousand cavalry, 
 and, according to some writers, more than double that num- 
 ber.^®2 He was joined by many Neapolitan barons attached to 
 the late queen. But, by a fate not unusual in so imperfect a 
 state of military science, this armament produced no adequate 
 
 if the Duke of Durazzo was guilty, it is 
 unlikely that Joanna should be so too; 
 because she was on very bad terms with 
 him, and indeed the chief proofs against 
 her are founded on the investigation 
 which Durazzo himself professed to in- 
 stitute. Confessions obtained through 
 torture are as little credible in history as 
 they ought to be in judicature; even if 
 we could be positively sure, which is not 
 the case in tnis instance, that such con- 
 fessions were ever made. However, I do 
 
 not pretend to acquit Joanna, but merely 
 to notice the uncertainty that rests over 
 her story, on account of the positiveness 
 with which all historians, except those 
 of Naples and the Abbe de Sade, whose 
 vindication (" Vie de Petrarque," tome ii, 
 notes) does her more harm than good, 
 have assumed the murder of Andrew to 
 have been her own act, as if she had or- 
 dered his execution in open day, 
 W2 Muratori; Summonte; Costanzo. 
 
1 250-1494] LADISLAUS 287 
 
 effect, and mouldered away through disease and want of provi- 
 sions. Louis himself dying not long afterward, the government 
 of Charles III appeared secure, and he was tempted to accept 
 an offer of the crown of Hungary. This enterprise, equally un- 
 just and injudicious, terminated in his assassination. Ladislaus, 
 his son, a child ten years old, succeeded to the throne of Naples, 
 under the guardianship of his mother Margaret, whose exactions 
 of money producing discontent, the party which had supported 
 the late Duke of Anjou became powerful enough to call in his 
 son. Louis II, as he was called, reigned at Naples, and possessed 
 most part of the kingdom, for several years ; the young King 
 Ladislaus, who retained some of the northern provinces, fixing 
 his residence at Gaeta. If Louis had prosecuted the war with 
 activity, it seems probable that he would have subdued his ad- 
 versary. But his character was not very energetic ; and Ladis- 
 laus, as he advanced to manhood, displaying much superior 
 qualities, gained ground by degrees, till the Angevin barons, 
 perceiving the turn of the tide, came over to his banner, and he 
 recovered his whole dominions. 
 
 The kingdom of Naples, at the close of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, was still altogether a feudal government. This had been 
 introduced by the first Norman kings, and the system had rather 
 been strengthened than impaired under the Angevin line. The 
 princes of the blood, who were at one time numerous, obtained 
 extensive domains by way of appanage. The principality of 
 Tarento was a large portion of the kingdom. ^^^ The rest was 
 occupied by some great families, whose strength, as well as pride, 
 was shown in the number of men at arms whom they could 
 muster under their banner. At the coronation of Louis II, in 
 1390, the Sanseverini appeared with eighteen hundred cavalry 
 completely equipped.^^* This illustrious house, which had filled 
 all the high offices of state, and changed kings at its pleasure, 
 was crushed by Ladislaus, whose bold and unrelenting spirit 
 well fitted him to bruise the heads of the aristocratic hydra. 
 After thoroughly establishing his government at home, this am- 
 bitious monarch directed his powerful resources toward foreign 
 conquests. The ecclesiastical territories had never been secure 
 from rebellion or usurpation, but legitimate sovereigns had 
 hitherto respected the patrimony of the head of the Church. It 
 was reserved for Ladislaus, a feudal vassal of the Holy See, 
 to seize upon Rome itself as his spoil. For several years, while 
 the disordered state of the Church, in consequence of the schism 
 
 "' It comprehended the provinces now in 1463, had 4,000 troops in arms, and the 
 
 called Terra d'Otranto and Terra di Bari, value of 1,000,000 florins in movables, 
 
 besides part of those adjoining. (Sum- (Sismondi, tome x, p. 151-) 
 monte, Istoria di Napoli," tome iii, p. **♦ Summonte, tome iii, p. 517; Gian- 
 
 537.) Orsini, Prince of Tarento, who died none, 1. xxiv, c. 4. 
 
288 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 and the means taken to extinguish it, gave him an opportunity, 
 the King of Naples occupied great part of the papal territories. 
 He was disposed to have carried his arms farther north, and at- 
 tacked the republic of Florence, if not the states of Lombardy, 
 when his death relieved Italy from the danger of this new tyranny. 
 An elder sister, Joanna II, reigned at Naples after Ladislaus. 
 Under this queen, destitute of courage and understanding, and 
 the slave of appetites which her age rendered doubly disgrace- 
 ful, the kingdom relapsed into that state of anarchy from which 
 its late sovereign had rescued it. I shall only refer the reader 
 to more enlarged histories for the first years of Joanna's reign. 
 In 142 1 the two most powerful individuals were Sforza Atten- 
 dolo, great constable, and Ser Gianni Caraccioli, the queen's 
 minion, who governed the palace with unlimited sway. Sforza, 
 aware that the favourite was contriving his ruin, and remember- 
 ing the prison in which he had lain more than once since the ac- 
 cession of Joanna, determined to anticipate his enemies by calling 
 in a pretender to the crown, another Louis of Anjou, third in 
 descent of that unsuccessful dynasty. The Angevin party, though 
 proscribed and oppressed, was not extinct, and the populace of 
 Naples in particular had always been on that side. Caraccioli's 
 influence and the queen's dishonourable weakness rendered the 
 nobility disaffected. Louis III, therefore, had no remote pros- 
 pect of success. But Caraccioli was more prudent than favour- 
 ites, selected from such motives, have usually proved. Joanna 
 was old and childless ; the reversion to her dominions was a 
 valuable object to any prince in Europe. None was so compe- 
 tent to assist her, or so likely to be influenced by the hope of 
 succession, as Alfonso, King of Aragon and Sicily. That island, 
 after the reign of its deliverer, Frederick I, had unfortunately 
 devolved upon weak or infant princes. One great family, the 
 Chiaramonti, had possessed itself of half Sicily ; not by a feudal 
 title, as in other kingdoms, but as a kind of counter-sovereignty, 
 in opposition to the crown, though affecting rather to bear arms 
 against the advisers of their kings than against themselves. The 
 marriage of Maria, Queen of Sicily, with Martin, son of the King 
 of Aragon, put an end to the national independence of her coun- 
 try. Dying without issue, she left the crown to her husband. 
 This was consonant, perhaps, to the received law of some Eu- 
 ropean kingdoms. But, upon the death of Martin, in 1409, his 
 father, also named Martin, King of Aragon, took possession 
 as heir to his son, without any election by the Sicilian Parlia- 
 ment. The Chiaramonti had been destroyed by the younger 
 Martin, and no party remained to make opposition. Thus was 
 Sicily united to the crown of Aragon. Alfonso, who now en- 
 joyed those two crowns, gladly embraced the proposals of the 
 
I 250-1494] 
 
 ALFONSO OF ARAGON 
 
 289 
 
 Queen of Naples. They were founded, indeed, on the most sub- 
 stantial basis, mutual interest. She adopted Alfonso as her son and 
 successor, while he bound himself to employ his forces in deliver- 
 ing a kingdom that was to become his own. Louis of Anjou, 
 though acknowledged in several provinces, was chiefly to depend 
 upon the army of Sforza, and an army of Italian mercenaries 
 could only be kept by means which he was not able to apply. 
 The King of Aragon, therefore, had far the better prospects in 
 the war, when one of the many revolutions of this reign de- 
 feated his immediate expectations. Whether it were that Al- 
 fonso's noble and affable nature afforded a contrast which Joanna 
 was afraid of exhibiting to the people, or that he had really 
 formed a plan to anticipate his succession to the throne, she 
 became more and more distrustful of her adopted son, till, an 
 open rupture having taken place, she entered into a treaty with 
 her hereditary competitor, Louis of Anjou, and, revoking the 
 adoption of Alfonso, substituted the French prince in his room. 
 The King of Aragon was disappointed by this unforeseen stroke, 
 which, uniting the Angevin faction with that of the reigning 
 family, made it impracticable for him to maintain his ground 
 for any length of time in the kingdom. Joanna reigned for more 
 than ten years without experiencing any inquietude from the 
 pacific spirit of Louis, who, content with his reversionary hopes, 
 lived as a sort of exile in Calabria.^^^ Upon his death, the queen, 
 who did not long survive him, settled the kingdom on his 
 brother Regnier. The Neapolitans were generally disposed to 
 execute this bequest. But Regnier was unluckily at that time 
 a prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy ; and though his wife main- 
 tained the cause with great spirit, it was difficult for her, or even 
 for himself, to contend against the King of Aragon, who imme- 
 diately laid claim to the kingdom. After a contest of several 
 years, Regnier, having experienced the treacherous and selfish 
 abandonment of his friends, yielded the game to his adversary; 
 and Alfonso founded the Aragonese line of sovereigns at Naples, 
 deriving pretensions more splendid than just from Manfred, from 
 the house of Swabia, and from Roger Guiscard.^^* 
 
 ^^^ Joanna's great favourite, CaraccioH, 
 fell a victim some time before his mis- 
 tress's death to an intrigue of the palace; 
 the Duchess of Sessia, a new favourite, 
 having prevailed on the feeble old queen 
 to permit him to be assassinated. About 
 this time Alfonso had every reason to 
 hope for the renewal of the settlement 
 in his favour. CaraccioH had himself 
 opened a negotiation with the King of 
 Aragon; and after his death the Duchess 
 of Sessia embarked in the same cause. 
 Joan even revoked secretly the adoption 
 of the Duke of Anjou, This circumstance 
 might appear doubtful : but the his- 
 
 19 
 
 torian to whom I refer has published 
 the act of revocation itself, which bears 
 date April 11, 1433. Zurita (" Annales 
 de Aragon," tome iv, p. 217) admits that 
 no other writer, either contemporary or 
 subsequent, has mentioned any part of 
 the transaction, which must have been 
 kept very secret; but his authority is so 
 respectable that I thought it worth no- 
 tice, however uninteresting these remote 
 intrigues may appear to most readers. Jo- 
 anna soon changed her mind again, and 
 took no overt steps in favour of Alfonso. 
 180 According to a treaty between Fred- 
 erick III, King of Sicily, and Joanna I 
 
290 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 250-1494 
 
 In the first year of Alfonso's Neapolitan war he was defeated 
 and taken prisoner by a fleet of the Genoese, who, as constant 
 enemies of the Catalans in all the naval warfare of the Mediter- 
 ranean, had willingly lent their aid to the Angevin party. Genoa 
 was at this time subject to Filippo Maria, Duke of Milan, and 
 her royal captive was transmitted to his court. But here the 
 brilliant graces of Alfonso's character won over his conqueror, 
 who had no reason to consider the war as his own concern. 
 The king persuaded him, on the contrary, that a strict alliance 
 with an Aragonese dynasty in Naples against the pretensions of 
 any French claimant would be the true policy and best security 
 of Milan. That city, which he had entered as a prisoner, he left 
 as a friend and ally. From this time Filippo Maria Visconti and 
 Alfonso were firmly united in their Italian politics, and formed 
 one weight of the balance which the republics of Venice and 
 Florence kept in equipoise. After the succession of Sforza to 
 the duchy of Milan the same alliance was generally preserved. 
 Sforza had still more powerful reasons than his predecessor for 
 excluding the French from Italy, his own title being contested 
 by the Duke of Orleans, who derived a claim from his mother 
 Valentine, a daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. But the two 
 republics were no longer disposed toward war. Florence had 
 spent a great deal without any advantage in her contest with 
 Filippo Maria/^^ and the new Duke of Milan had been the con- 
 stant personal friend of Cosmo de' Medici, who altogether influ- 
 enced that republic. At Venice, indeed, he had been regarded 
 with very different sentiments ; the senate had prolonged their 
 war against Milan with redoubled animosity after his elevation, 
 deeming him a not less ambitious and more formidable neigh- 
 bour than the Visconti. But they were deceived in the character 
 of Sforza. Conscious that he had reached an eminence beyond 
 his early hopes, he had no care but to secure for his family the 
 possession of Milan without disturbing the balance of Lombardy. 
 No one better knew than Sforza the faithless temper and de- 
 structive politics of the condottieri, whose interest was placed 
 in the oscillations of interminable war, and whose defection might 
 shake the stability of any government. Without peace it was 
 impossible to break that ruinous system, and accustom states 
 to rely upon their natural resources. Venice had little reason 
 
 of Naples, in 1363, the former monarch 
 was to assume the title of King of Trin- 
 acria, leaving the original style to the 
 Neapolitan line. But neither he nor his 
 successors in the island ever complied 
 with this condition, or entitled them- 
 selves otherwise than Kings of Sicily ul- 
 tra Pharum, in contradistinction to the 
 other kingdom, which they denominated 
 Sicily citra Pharum, Alfonso of Aragon, 
 
 when he united both these, was the first 
 who took the title King of the Two 
 Sicilies, which his successors have re- 
 tained ever since. (Giannone, tome iii, 
 P- 234.) 
 
 ^^^ The war ending with the Peace of 
 Ferrara, in 1428, is said to have cost the 
 republic of Florence 3,500,000 florins. 
 (Ammirato, p. 1043.) 
 
1 250-1494] FERDINAND 29 1 
 
 to expect further conquests in Lombardy; and if her ambition 
 had inspired the hope of them, she was summoned by a stronger 
 call — that of self-preservation — to defend her numerous and dis- 
 persed possessions in the Levant against the arms of Mohammed 
 II. All Italy, indeed, felt the peril that impended from that side ; 
 and these various motions occasioned a quadruple league in 1455, 
 between the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the two re- 
 publics, for the preservation of peace in Italy. One object of 
 this alliance, and the prevailing object with Alfonso, was the 
 implied guarantee of his succession in the kingdom of Naples 
 to his illegitimate son Ferdinand. He had no lawful issue, and 
 there seemed no reason why an acquisition of his own valour 
 should pass against his will to collateral heirs. The Pope, as 
 feudal superior of the kingdom, and the Neapolitan Parliament, 
 the sole competent tribunal, confirmed the inheritance of Ferdi- 
 nand.^^® Whatever may be thought of the claims subsisting 
 in the house of Anjou, there can be no question that the reign- 
 ing family of Aragon were legitimately excluded from the throne 
 of Naples, though force and treachery enabled them ultimately 
 to obtain it. 
 
 Alfonso, surnamed the Magnanimous, was by far the most 
 accomplished sovereign whom the fifteenth century produced. 
 The virtues of chivalry were combined in him with the patronage 
 of letters, and with more than their patronage, a real enthusi- 
 asm for learning, seldom found in a king, and especially in one 
 so active and ambitious. ^^^ This devotion to literature was, 
 among the Italians of that age, almost as sure a passport to 
 general admiration as his more chivalrous perfection. Magnifi- 
 cence in architecture and the pageantry of a splendid court gave 
 fresh lustre to his reign. The Neapolitans perceived with grate- 
 ful pride that he lived almost entirely among them, in preference 
 to his patrimonial kingdom, and forgave the heavy taxes which 
 faults nearly allied to his virtues, profuseness and ambition, com- 
 pelled him to impose.^^^ But they remarked a very different 
 character in his son. Ferdinand was as dark and vindictive as 
 his father was affable and generous. The barons, who had many 
 opportunities of ascertaining his disposition, began, immediately 
 upon Alfonso's death, to cabal against his succession, turning 
 their eyes first to the legitimate branch of the family, and, on 
 finding that prospect not favourable, to John, titular Duke of 
 Calabria, son of Regnier of Anjou, who survived to protest 
 against the revolution that had dethroned him. John was easily 
 prevailed upon to undertake an invasion of Naples. Notwith- 
 
 "* Giannone, 1. xxvi, c, 2. the king of an illness, (See other proofs 
 
 "* A story is told, true or false, that of his love of letters in Tiraboschi, tome 
 
 his delight in hearing Quintus Curtius vi, p. 40.) 
 read, without any other medicine, cured 200 Giannone, 1. xxvi. 
 
292 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1250-1494 
 
 standing the treaty concluded in 1455, Florence assisted him 
 with money, and Venice at least with her wishes ; but Sforza 
 remained unshaken in that alliance with Ferdinand which his 
 clear-sighted policy discerned to be the best safeguard for his 
 own dynasty. A large proportion of the Neapolitan nobility, 
 including Orsini, Prince of Tarento, the most powerful vassal 
 of the crown, raised the banner of Anjou, which was sustained 
 also by the youngest Piccinino, the last of the great condottieri, 
 under whose command the veterans of former warfare rejoiced 
 to serve. But John underwent the fate that had always attended 
 his family in their long competition for that throne. After some 
 brilliant successes, his want of resources, aggravated by the de- 
 fection of Genoa, on whose ancient enmity to the house of Ara- 
 gon he had relied, was perceived by the barons of his party, who, 
 according to the practice of their ancestors, returned one by 
 one to the allegiance of Ferdinand. 
 
 The peace of Italy was little disturbed, except by a few domes- 
 tic revolutions, for several years after this Neapolitan war.^*'^ 
 Even the most short-sighted politicians were sometimes with- 
 drawn from selfish objects by the appalling progress of the Turks, 
 though there was not energy enough in their councils to form 
 any concerted plans for their own security. Venice maintained 
 a long but ultimately an unsuccessful contest with Mohammed II 
 
 ^"i The following distribution of a tax 
 of 458,000 florins, imposed, or rather pro- 
 posed, in 1464, to defray the expense of 
 a general war against the Turks, will 
 give a notion of the relative wealth and 
 resources of the Italian powers; but it is 
 probable that the Pope rated himself 
 above his fair contingent. He was to 
 pay 100,000 florins; the Venetians, 100,000; 
 Ferdinand of Naples, 80,000; the Duke 
 of Milan, 70,000; Florence, 50,000; the 
 Duke of Modena, 20,000; Siena, 15,000; 
 the Marquis of Mantua, 10,000; Lucca, 
 8,000; the Marquis of Montferrat, 5,000. 
 (Sismondi, tome x, p. 229.) A similar 
 assessment occurs (p. 307) where the pro- 
 portions are not quite the same. 
 
 Perhaps it may be worth while to ex- 
 tract an estimate of the force of all 
 Christian powers, written about 1454, 
 from Sanuto's " Lives of the Doges of 
 Venice," p. 963. Some parts, however, 
 appear very questionable. The King of 
 France, it is said, can raise 30,000 men 
 at arms, but for any foreign enterprise 
 only 15,000. The King of England can 
 do the same. These powers are exactly 
 equal; otherwise one of the two would 
 be destroyed. The King of Scotland, 
 •' ch' e signore di grandi paesi e popoli 
 con grande poverta," can raise 10,000 
 men at arms; the King of Norway the 
 same; the King of Spain (Castile), 30,- 
 000; the King of Portugal, 6,000; the 
 Duke of Savoy, 8,000; the Duke of Milan, 
 10,000. The republic of Venice can pay 
 
 from her revenues 10,000; that of Flor- 
 ence, 4,000; the Pope, 6,000. The emperor 
 and empire can raise 60,000; the King 
 of Hungary, 80,000 (not men at arms, 
 certainly). 
 
 The King of France, in 1414, had 
 2,000,000 ducats of revenue, but now 
 only half. The King of England had 
 then as much ; now only 700,000. The 
 King of Spain's revenue also is reduced 
 by the wars from 3,000,000 to 800,000. The 
 Duke of Burgundy had 3,000,000; now 
 900,000. The Duke of Milan had sunk 
 from 1,000,000 to 500,000; Venice from 
 1,100,000, which she possessed in 1423, to 
 800,000; Florence from 400,000 to 200,000. 
 
 These statistical calculations, which 
 are not quite accurate as to Venice, and 
 probably much less so as to some other 
 states, are chiefly remarkable as they 
 manifest that comprehensive spirit of 
 treating all the powers of Europe as parts 
 of a common system which began to actu- 
 ate the Italians of the fifteenth century. 
 Of these enlarged views of policy, the 
 writings of ^neas Svlvius afford an emi- 
 nent instance. Besides the more general 
 and insensible causes, the increase of 
 navigation and revival of literature, this 
 may be ascribed to the continual danger 
 from the progress of the Ottoman arms, 
 which led the politicians of that part of 
 Europe most exposed to them into more 
 extensive views as to the resources and 
 dispositions of Christian states. 
 
I2SO-I494] CONDITION OF ITALY 293 
 
 for her maritime acquisitions in Greece and Albania ; and it was 
 not till after his death relieved Italy from its immediate terror 
 that the ambitious republic endeavoured to extend its territories 
 by encroaching on the house of Este. Nor had Milan shown 
 much disposition toward aggrandizement. Francesco Sforza had 
 been succeeded, such is the condition of despotic governments, 
 by his son Galeazzo, a tyrant more execrable than the worst of 
 the Visconti. His extreme cruelties, and the insolence of a de- 
 bauchery that gloried in the public dishonour of families, excited 
 a few daring spirits to assassinate him. The Milanese profited 
 by a tyrannicide the perpetrators of which they had not courage 
 or gratitude to protect. The regency of Bonne of Savoy, mother 
 of the infant Duke Gian Galeazzo, deserved the praise of wisdom 
 and moderation. But it was overthrown in a few years by Ludo- 
 vico Sforza, surnamed the Moor, her husband's brother, who, 
 while he proclaimed his nephew's majority and affected to treat 
 him as a sovereign, hardly disguised in his conduct toward for- 
 eign states that he had usurped for himself the sole direction 
 of government. 
 
 The annals of one of the few surviving republics, that of 
 Genoa, present to us, during the fifteenth as well as the preced- 
 ing century, an unceasing series of revolutions, the shortest enu- 
 meration of which would occupy several pages. Torn by the 
 factions of Adorni and Fregosi, equal and eternal rivals, to whom 
 the whole patrician families of Doria and Fieschi were content 
 to become secondary, sometimes sinking from weariness of civil 
 tumult into the grasp of Milan or France, and again, from im- 
 patience of foreign subjection, starting back from servitude to 
 anarchy, the Genoa of those ages exhibits a singular contrast to 
 the calm and regular aristocracy of the next three centuries. 
 The latest revolution within the compass of this work was in 
 1488, when the Duke of Milan became sovereign, and Adorno 
 holding the office of doge as his lieutenant. 
 
 Florence, the most illustrious and fortunate of Italian re- 
 publics, was now rapidly descending from her rank among free 
 commonwealths, though surrounded with more than usual lustre 
 in the eyes of Europe. We must take up the story of that city 
 from the revolution of 1382, which restored the ancient Guelf 
 aristocracy, or party of the Albizi, to the ascendency of which 
 a popular insurrection had stripped them. Fifty years elapsed 
 during which this party retained the government in its own 
 hands with few attempts at disturbance. Their principal ad- 
 versaries had been exiled, according to the invariable and perhaps 
 necessary custom of a republic; the populace and inferior arti- 
 sans were dispirited by their ill success. Compared with the 
 leaders of other factions, Maso degl' Albizi and Nicola di Uzzano, 
 
294 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [i 250-1494 
 
 who succeeded him in the management of his party, were at- 
 tached to a constitutional liberty. Yet so difficult is it for any 
 government which does not rest on a broad basis of public con- 
 sent to avoid injustice that they twice deemed it necessary to 
 violate the ancient constitution. In 1393, after a partial move- 
 ment in behalf of the vanquished faction, they assembled a Parlia- 
 ment, and established what was technically called at Florence 
 a Balia.^"^^ This was a temporary delegation of sovereignty to 
 a number, generally a considerable number, of citizens, who 
 during the period of their dictatorship named the magistrates, 
 instead of drawing them by lot, and banished suspected indi- 
 viduals. A precedent so dangerous was eventually fatal to them- 
 selves and to the freedom of their country. Besides this tem- 
 porary balia, the regular scrutinies periodically made in order 
 to replenish the bags out of which the names of all magistrates 
 were drawn by lot, according to the constitution established in 
 1328, were so managed as to exclude all persons disaffected to 
 the dominant faction. But, for still greater security, a council 
 of two hundred was formed in 141 1, out of those alone who had 
 enjoyed some of the higher offices within the last thirty years, 
 the period of the aristocratical ascendency, through which every 
 proposition was to pass before it could be submitted to the two 
 legislative councils.^*'^ These precautions indicate a government 
 conscious of public enmity; and if the Albizi had continued to 
 sway the republic of Florence, their jealousy of the people would 
 have suggested still more innovations, till the constitution had 
 acquired, in legal form as well as substance, an absolutely aris- 
 tocratical character. 
 
 But, while crushing with deliberate severity their avowed 
 adversaries, the ruling party had left one family whose prudence 
 gave no reasonable excuse for persecuting them, and whose 
 popularity as well as wealth rendered the experiment hazardous. 
 The Medici were among the most considerable of the new or 
 plebeian nobility. From the first years of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury their name not very infrequently occurs in the domestic 
 and military annals of Florence.^^* Salvestro de* Medici, who 
 had been partially implicated in the democratical revolution that 
 lasted from 1378 to 1382, escaped proscription on the revival 
 of the Guelf party, though some of his family were afterward 
 banished. Throughout the long depression of the popular fac- 
 tion the house of Medici was always regarded as their consola- 
 
 IZ t^"i"^i''ato. p. 840. Duke of Athens in j^S d- xii, c. 2). It 
 
 121^-' ?v96i.. IS singular that Mr. Roscoe should refer 
 
 20* The Medici are enumerated bv Vil- their first appearance in history, as he 
 
 lam among the chiefs of the Black fac- seems to do, to the siege of Scarperia in 
 
 tion in 1304 (1. viii, c. 71). One of that 1351. 
 
 family was beheaded by order of the 
 
I250-I494] 
 
 RISE OF THE MEDICI 
 
 295 
 
 tion and their hope. That house was now represented by Gio- 
 vanni,^^^ whose immense wealth, honourably acquired by com- 
 mercial dealings, which had already rendered the name celebrated 
 in Europe, was expended with liberality and magnificence. Of 
 a mild temper and averse to cabals, Giovanni de' Medici did 
 not attempt to set up a party, and contented himself with repress- 
 ing some fresh encroachments on the popular part of the consti- 
 tution which the Albizi were disposed to make.^^^ They, in their 
 turn, freely admitted him to that share in public councils to 
 which he was entitled by his eminence and virtues — a proof that 
 the spirit of their administration was not illiberally exclusive. 
 But, on the death of Giovanni, his son, Cosmo de' Medici, in- 
 heriting his father's riches and estimation, with more talents and 
 more ambition, thought it time to avail himself of the popularity 
 belonging to his name. By extensive connections with the most 
 eminent men in Italy, especially with Sforza, he came to be con- 
 sidered as the first citizen of Florence. The oligarchy were more 
 than ever unpopular. Their administration since 1382 had in- 
 deed been in general eminently successful ; the acquisition of 
 Pisa and of other Tuscan cities had aggrandized the republic, 
 while from the port of Leghorn her ships had begun to trade 
 with Alexandria, and sometimes to contend with the Genoese.^^^ 
 But an unprosperous war with Lucca diminished a reputation 
 which was never sustained by public affection. Cosmo and his 
 friends aggravated the errors of the government, which having 
 lost its wise and temperate leader, Nicola di Uzzano, had fallen 
 into the rasher hands of Rinaldo degl' Albizi. He incurred the 
 blame of being the first aggressor in a struggle which had be- 
 come inevitable. Cosmo was arrested by command of a gon- 
 falonier devoted to the Albizi, and condemned to banishment. 
 But the oligarchy had done too much or too little. The city was 
 full of his friends ; the honours conferred upon him in his exile 
 attested the sentiments of Italy. Next year he was recalled in tri- 
 umph to Florence, and the Albizi were completely overthrown. 
 
 It is vain to expect that a victorious faction will scruple 
 to retaliate upon its enemies a still greater measure of injustice 
 
 2'" Giovanni was not nearly related to 
 Salvestro de' Medici. Their families are 
 said per lungo tratto allontanarsi. (Am- 
 mirato, p. 992.) Nevertheless, his being 
 drawn gonfalonier in 1421 created a great 
 sensation in the city, and prepared the 
 way to the subsequent revolution. (Ibid. ; 
 Machiavelli, I, iv.) 
 
 2°« Machiavelli, " Istoria Fiorent.," 
 I. iv. 
 
 207 xhg Florentines sent their first mer- 
 chant ship to Alexandria in 1422, with 
 great and anxious hopes. Prayers were 
 ordered for the success of the republic 
 by sea, and an embassy despatched with 
 presents to conciliate the Sultan of Baby- 
 
 lon — that is, of Grand Cairo. (Ammi- 
 rato, p. 997.) Florence had never before 
 been so wealthy. The circulating money 
 was reckoned (perhaps extravagantly) at 
 4,000,000 florins. The manufactures of 
 silk and cloth .of gold had never flour- 
 ished so much. Architecture shone under 
 Brunelleschi; literature under Leonard 
 Aretin and Filelfo (p. 97?)' There is 
 some truth in M, Sisrnondi s remark that 
 the Medici have derived part of their 
 glory from their predecessors in govern- 
 ment, whom they subverted, and whom 
 they have rendered obscure. But the 
 Milanese war, breaking out in 1423, tend- 
 ed a good deal to impoverish the city. 
 
296 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 than it experienced at their hands. The vanquished have no 
 rights in the eyes of a conqueror. The sword of returning exiles, 
 flushed by victory and incensed by suffering, falls successively 
 upon their enemies, upon those whom they suspect of being 
 enemies, upon those who may hereafter become such. The 
 Albizi had in general respected the legal forms of their free re- 
 public, which good citizens, and perhaps themselves, might hope 
 one day to see more effective. The Medici made all their gov- 
 ernment conducive to hereditary monarchy. A multitude of 
 noble citizens were driven from their country ; some were even 
 put to death. A balia was appointed for ten years to exclude 
 all the Albizi from magistracy, and, for the sake of this security 
 to the ruling faction, to supersede the legitimate institutions of 
 the republic. After the expiration of this period the dictatorial 
 power was renewed on pretence of fresh danger, and this was 
 repeated six times in twenty-one years. ^^® In 1455 the constitu- 
 tional mode of drawing magistrates was permitted to revive, 
 against the wishes of some of the leading party. They had good 
 reason to be jealous of a liberty which was incompatible with 
 their usurpation. The gonfaloniers, drawn at random from 
 among respectable citizens, began to act with an independence 
 to which the new oligarchy was little accustomed. Cosmo, in- 
 deed, the acknowledged chief of the party, perceiving that some 
 who had acted in subordination to him were looking forward 
 to the opportunity of becoming themselves its leaders, was not 
 unwilling to throw upon them the unpopularity attached to a 
 usurpation by which he had maintained his influence. Without 
 his apparent participation, though not against his will, the free 
 constitution was again suspended by a balia appointed for the 
 nomination of magistrates, and the regular drawing of names 
 by lot seems never to have been restored. ^^^ Cosmo died at an 
 advanced age in 1464. His son, Piero de' Medici, though not 
 deficient in either virtues or abilities, seemed too infirm in health 
 for the administration of public affairs. At least, he could only 
 be chosen by a sort of hereditary title, which the party above 
 mentioned, some from patriotic, more from selfish motives, were 
 reluctant to admit. A strong opposition was raised to the family 
 pretensions of the Medici. Like all Florentine factions, it trusted 
 to violence, and the chance of arms was not in its favour. From 
 this revolution in 1466, when some of the most considerable citi- 
 zens were banished, we may date an acknowledged supremacy 
 in the house of Medici, the chief of which nominated the regular 
 magistrates, and drew to himself the whole conduct of the re- 
 public.=^^^ 
 
 =°8 MachiavelH, 1. v; Ammirato. "" Ammirato, p. 93; Roscoe's " Lo- 
 
 '<>• Ammirato, tome ii, pp. 82-87. renzo de' Medici," ch. 2; Machiavelli; 
 
J 250-1494] LORENZO DE' MEDICI 297 
 
 The two sons of Piero, Lorenzo and Julian, especially the 
 former, though young at their father's death, assumed, by the 
 request of their friends, the reins of government. It was im- 
 possible that, among a people who had so many recollections 
 to attach to the name of liberty, among so many citizens whom 
 their ancient constitution invited to public trust, the control of 
 a single family should excite no dissatisfaction ; and perhaps their 
 want of any positive authority heightened the appearance of 
 usurpation in their influence. But, if the people's wish to resign 
 their freedom gives a title to accept the government of a country, 
 the Medici were no usurpers. That family never lost the affec- 
 tions of the populace. The cry of " Palle, Palle ! " (their armorial 
 distinction), would at any time rouse the Florentines to defend 
 the chosen patrons of the republic. If their substantial influ- 
 ence could before be questioned, the conspiracy of the Pazzi, 
 wherein Julian perished, excited an enthusiasm for the surviv- 
 ing brother that never ceased during his life. Nor was this 
 anything unnatural, or any severe reproach to Florence. All 
 around, in Lombardy and Romagna, the lamp of liberty had long 
 since been extinguished in blood. The freedom of Siena and 
 Genoa was dearly purchased by revolutionary proscriptions ; that 
 of Venice was only a name. The republic which had preserved 
 longest, and with greatest purity, that vestal iire, had at least 
 no relative degradation to fear in surrendering herself to Lorenzo 
 de' Medici. I need not in this place expatiate upon what the 
 name instantly suggests, the patronage of science and art, and 
 the constellation of scholars and poets, of architects and painters, 
 whose reflected beams cast their radiance around his head. His 
 political reputation, though far less durable, was in his own 
 age as conspicuous as that which he acquired in the history of 
 letters. Equally active and sagacious, he held his way through 
 the varying combinations of Italian policy, always with credit, 
 and generally with success. Florence, if not enriched, was upon 
 the whole aggrandized during his administration, which was 
 exposed to some severe storms from the unscrupulous adver- 
 saries, Sixtus IV and Ferdinand of Naples, whom he was com- 
 pelled to resist. As a patriot, indeed, we never can bestow upon 
 Lorenzo de' Medici the meed of disinterested virtue. He com- 
 pleted that subversion of the Florentine republic which his two 
 immediate ancestors had so well prepared. The two councils, 
 her regular legislature, he superseded by a permanent senate 
 of seventy persons ; ^^^ while the gonfalonier and priors, become 
 a mockery and pageant to keep up the illusion of liberty, were 
 
 Sismondi. The two latter are perpetual 211 Ammirato, p. 145. Machiavel says 
 
 references in this part of history, where (1. viii) that this was done ristrin^ere il 
 no other is made. governo, e che le deliberazioni impor- 
 
298 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1250-1494 
 
 taught that in exercising a legitimate authority without the sanc- 
 tion of their prince, a name now first heard at Florence, they 
 incurred the risk of punishment for their audacity .^^^ Even the 
 total dilapidation of his commercial wealth was repaired at the 
 cost of the state, and the republic disgracefully screened the 
 bankruptcy of the Medici by her own.^^^ But compared with 
 the statesmen of his age, we can reproach Lorenzo with no hein- 
 ous crime. He had many enemies ; his descendants had many 
 more ; but no unequivocal charge of treachery or assassination 
 has been substantiated against his memory. By the side of 
 Galeazzo or Ludovico Sforza, of Ferdinand or his son, Alfonso 
 of Naples, of the Pope Sixtus IV, he shines with unspotted 
 lustre. So much was Lorenzo esteemed by his contemporaries 
 that his premature death has frequently been considered as the 
 cause of those unhappy revolutions that speedily ensued, and 
 which his foresight would, it was imagined, have been able to 
 prevent — an opinion which, whether founded in probability or 
 otherwise, attests the common sentiment about his character. 
 
 If, indeed, Lorenzo de' Medici could not have changed the 
 destinies of Italy, however premature his death may appear if 
 we consider the ordinary duration of human existence, it must 
 be admitted that for his own welfare, perhaps for his glory, he 
 had lived out the full measure of his time. An age of new and 
 uncommon revolutions was about to arise, among the earliest 
 of which the temporary downfall of his family was to be reckoned. 
 The long-contested succession of Naples was again to involve 
 
 tanti si riducessero in minore numero. 
 But though it rather appears from Am- 
 mirato's expressions that the two coun- 
 cils were now abolished, yet from M. 
 Sismondi, tome xi, p. 186, who quotes an 
 author I have not seen, and from Nardi, 
 p. 7, I should infer that they still for- 
 mally subsisted. 
 
 2^^ Cambi, a gonfalonier of justice, had, 
 in concert with the priors, admonished 
 some public officers for a breach of duty. 
 Fu giudicato questo atto molto superbo, 
 says Ammirato, che senza participazione 
 di Lorenzo de* Medici, principe del go- 
 verno, fosse seguito, che in Pisa in quel 
 tempo si ritrovava (p. 184). The gon- 
 falonier was fined for executing his con- 
 stitutional functions. This was a down- 
 right confession that the republic was at 
 an end; and all it provokes M. Sismondi 
 to say is not too much (tome xi, p. 345). 
 
 213 Since the Medici took on them- 
 selves the character of princes, they had 
 forgotten how to be merchants. But, 
 imprudently enough, they had not dis- 
 continued their commerce, which was, 
 of course, mismanaged by agents whom 
 they did not overlook. The consequence 
 was the complete dilapidation of their 
 vast fortune. The public revenues had 
 been for some years applied to make up 
 its deficiencies. But from the measures 
 
 adopted by the republic, if we may still 
 use that name, she should appear to have 
 considered herself, rather than Lorenzo, 
 as the debtor. The interest of the public 
 debt was diminished one half. Manv 
 charitable foundations were suppressed. 
 The circulating specie was taken at one 
 fifth below its nominal value in payment 
 of taxes, while the government continued 
 to issue it at its former rate. Thus was 
 Lorenzo reimbursed a part of his loss at 
 the expense of all his fellow-citizens. 
 (Sismondi, tome xi, p. 347.) It is slightly 
 alluded to by Machiavel. 
 
 The vast expenditure of the Medici for 
 the sake of political influence would of 
 itself have absorbed all their profits. 
 Cosmo is said by Guicciardini to have 
 spent 400,000 ducats in building churches, 
 monasteries, and other public works (1. 
 i, p. 91). The expenses of the family 
 between 1434 and 1471, in buildings, chan- 
 ties, and taxes alone, amounted to 663,- 
 755 florins; equal in value, according to 
 Sismondi. to 32,000.000 francs at pres- 
 ent. (" Hist, des Republ.," tome x, p. 
 173.) They seem to have advanced 
 moneys imprudently, through their agents, 
 to Edward IV, who was not the best of 
 debtors. (Comines, " Mem. de Charles 
 VIII," 1. vii, c. 6.) 
 
1250-1494] 
 
 PRETENSIONS OF FRANCE 
 
 299 
 
 Italy in war. The ambition of strangers was once more to deso- 
 late her plains. Ferdinand, King of Naples, had reigned for 
 thirty years after the discomfiture of his competitor with success 
 and ability, but with a degree of ill faith as well as tyranny toward 
 his subjects that rendered his government deservedly odious. 
 His son Alfonso, whose succession seemed now near at hand, 
 was still more marked by these vices than himself.^^* Mean- 
 while the pretensions of the house of Anjou had legally de- 
 scended, after the death of old Regnier, to Regnier, Duke of 
 Lorraine, his grandson by a daughter ; whose marriage into the 
 house of Lorraine had, however, so displeased her father that 
 he bequeathed his Neapolitan title, along with his real patri- 
 mony, the county of Provence, to a Count of Maine, by whose 
 testament they became vested in the crown of France. Louis 
 XI, while he took possession of Provence, gave himself no trou- 
 ble about Naples. But Charles VIII, inheriting his father's am- 
 bition without that cool sagacity which restrained it in general 
 from impracticable attempts, and far better circumstanced at home 
 than Louis had ever been, was ripe for an expedition to vindi- 
 cate his pretensions upon Naples, or even for more extensive 
 projects. It was now two centuries since the Kings of France 
 had begun to aim, by intervals, at conquests in Italy. Philip 
 the Fair and his successors were anxious to keep up a connection 
 with the Guelf party, and to be considered its natural heads, 
 as the German emperors were of the Ghibelins. The long Eng- 
 lish wars changed all views of the court of France to self-defence. 
 But in the fifteenth century its plans of aggrandizement beyond 
 the Alps began to revive. Several times, as I have mentioned, 
 the republic of Genoa put itself under the dominion of France, 
 The Dukes of Savoy, possessing most part of Piedmont, and 
 masters of the mountain passes, were, by birth, intermarriage, 
 and habitual policy, completely dedicated to the French inter- 
 ests.^^'* In the former wars of Ferdinand against the house of 
 Anjou, Pope Pius II, a very enlightened statesman, foresaw the 
 danger of Italy from the prevailing influence of France, and 
 deprecated the introduction of her armies. ^^^ But at that time 
 
 *** Comines, who speaks sufficiently ill 
 of the father, sums up the son's character 
 very concisely: Nul homme n'a este plus 
 cruel que lui, ne plus mauvais, ne plus 
 vicieux et plus infect, ne plus gourmand 
 que lui (1. vii, c. 13). 
 
 2" Denina, " Storia dell' Italia Occi- 
 dentale," tome ii, passim. Louis XI 
 treated Savoy as a fief of France, interfer- 
 ing in all its affairs, and even taking on 
 himself the regency after the death of 
 Philibert I, under pretence of preventing 
 disorders (p. 185). The Marquis of Sa- 
 luzzo, who possessed considerable terri- 
 tories in the south of Piedmont, had done 
 
 homage to France ever since 1353 (p. 40), 
 though to the injury of his real superior, 
 the Duke of Savoy. This gave France 
 another pretext for interference in Italy 
 (p. 187). 
 
 ^^•^ Cosmo de' Medici, in a conference 
 with Pius II at Florence, having ex- 
 pressed his surprise that the Pope should 
 support Ferdinand : Pontifex haud fe- 
 rendum fuisse ait, regem a se constitu- 
 tum, armis ejici, neque id Italiae libertati 
 conducere; Gallos, si^ regnum obtinuis- 
 sent, Senas haud dubie subacturos; Flor- 
 entinos adversus lilia nihil acturos; Bor- 
 sium Mutinae ducem Gallis galliorem 
 
300 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1250-1494 
 
 the central parts of Lombardy were held by a man equally re- 
 nowned as a soldier and a politician, Francesco Sforza. Con- 
 scious that a claim upon his own dominions subsisted in the 
 house of Orleans, he maintained a strict alliance with the Ara- 
 gonese dynasty at Naples, as having a common interest against 
 France. But after his death the connection between Milan and 
 Naples came to be weakened. In the new system of alliances 
 Milan and Florence, sometimes including Venice, were com- 
 bined against Ferdinand and Sixtus IV, an unprincipled and 
 restless pontiff. Ludovico Sforza, who had usurped the guardian- 
 ship of his nephew, the Duke of Milan, found, as that young 
 man advanced to maturity, that one crime required to be com- 
 pleted by another. To depose and murder his ward was, how- 
 ever, a scheme that prudence, though not conscience, bade him 
 hesitate to execute. He had rendered Ferdinand of Naples and 
 Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo's heir, his decided enemies. A revo- 
 lution at Milan would be the probable result of his continuing 
 in usurpation. In these circumstances Ludovico Sforza excited 
 the King of France to undertake the conquest of Naples.^^^ 
 
 So long as the three great nations of Europe were unable 
 to put forth their natural strength through internal separation 
 or foreign war, the Italians had so little dread for their inde- 
 pendence that their policy was altogether directed to regulating 
 the domestic balance of power among themselves. In the latter 
 part of the fifteenth century a more enlarged view of Europe 
 would have manifested the necessity of reconciling petty ani- 
 mosities and sacrificing petty ambition, in order to preserve the 
 nationality of their governments ; not by attempting to melt 
 down Lombards and Neapolitans, principalities and republics, 
 into a single monarchy, but by the more just and rational scheme 
 of a common federation. The politicians of Italy were abun- 
 dantly competent, as far as cool and clear understandings could 
 render them, to perceive the interests of their country. But it is 
 the will of Providence that the highest and surest wisdom, even 
 in matters of policy, should never be unconnected with virtue. 
 In relieving himself from an immediate danger, Ludovico Sforza 
 overlooked the consideration that the presumptive heir of the 
 King of France claimed by an ancient title that principality of 
 Milan which he was compassing by usurpation and murder. But 
 neither Milan nor Naples was free from other claimants than 
 France, nor was she reserved to enjoy unmolested the spoil of 
 Italy. A louder and a louder strain of warlike dissonance will 
 
 videri; Flaminiae regulos ad Francos in- Italiam. dum Ferdinandum tueretur. 
 
 clmare ; Genuam Francis subesse, et (Commentar. Pii Secundi 1 iv p 96.) 
 
 ciyitatem Astensem; si pontifex Romanus Spondamus, who led me to this passage, 
 
 ahquando Francorum amicus assumatur, is very angry; but the year 1404 proved 
 
 nihil rehqui in Itaha remanere quod non Pius II to be a wary statesman 
 transeat in Gallorum nomen; tueri se "^ Guicciardini, 1. i. 
 
I2SO-I494] PRETENSIONS OF FRANCE 301 
 
 be heard from the banks of the Danube and from the Mediter- 
 ranean Gulf. The dark and wily Ferdinand, the rash and lively 
 Maximilian, are preparing to hasten into the lists; the schemes 
 of ambition are assuming a more comprehensive aspect ; and the 
 controversy of Neapolitan succession is to expand into the long 
 rivalry between the houses of France and Austria. But here, 
 while Italy is still untouched, and before as yet the first lances 
 of France gleam along the defiles of the Alps, we close the his- 
 tory of the middle ages. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HISTORY OF SPAIN TO THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA 
 
 Kingdom of the Visigoths— Conquest of Spain by the Moors— Gradual revival of the 
 Spanish nation— Kingdoms of Leon, Aragon, Navarre, and Castile successively 
 formed— Chartered towns of Castile — Military orders— Conquest of Ferdinand III 
 and James of Aragon— Causes of the delay in expelling the Moors— History of Cas- 
 tile continued— Character of the government— Feter the Cruel— House of Trasta- 
 mare — John II — Henry IV — Constitution of Castile — National assemblies or Cortes 
 — Their constituent parts— Right of taxation— Legislation— Privy council of Castile 
 — Laws for the protection of liberty — Imperfections of the constitution — Aragon — 
 Its history in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — Disputed succession — Con- 
 stitution of Aragon — Free spirit of its aristocracy — Privilege of union — Powers of 
 the Justiza — Legal securities — Illustrations — Other constitutional laws — Valencia and 
 Catalonia — Union of two crowns by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella — Con- 
 quest of Granada. 
 
 THE history of Spain during the middle ages ought to com- 
 mence with the dynasty of the Visigoths ; a nation among 
 the first that assaulted and overthrew the Roman Empire, 
 and whose establishment preceded by nearly half a cen- 
 tury the invasion of Clovis. Vanquished by that conqueror in 
 the battle of Poitiers, the Gothic monarchs lost their extensive 
 dominions in Gaul, and transferred their residence from Tou- 
 louse to Toledo. But I will not detain the reader by naming 
 one sovereign of that obscure race. It may suffice to mention 
 that the Visigothic monarchy differed in several respects from 
 that of the Franks during the same period. The crown was less 
 hereditary, or at least the regular succession was more frequently 
 disturbed. The prelates had a still more commanding influence 
 in temporal government. The distinction of Romans and bar- 
 barians was less marked, the laws more uniform, and approach- 
 ing nearly to the imperial code. The power of the sovereign 
 was perhaps more limited by an aristocratical council than in 
 France, but it never yielded to the dangerous influence of mayors 
 of the palace. Civil wars and disputed successions were very fre- 
 quent, but the integrity of the kingdom was not violated by the 
 custom of partition. 
 
 Spain, after remaining for nearly three centuries in the pos- 
 session of the Visigoths, fell under the yoke of the Saracens in 
 
 712. The fervid and irresistible enthusiasm which distinguished 
 
 302 
 
712-914] CONQUEST BY THE SARACENS 303 
 
 the youthful period of Mohammedism might sufficiently ac- 
 count for this conquest, even if we could not assign additional 
 causes — the factions which divided the Goths, the resentment 
 of disappointed pretenders to the throne, the provocations, as 
 has been generally believed, of Count Julian, and the temerity 
 that risked the fate of an empire on the chances of a single 
 battle.^ It is more surprising that a remnant of this ancient 
 monarchy should not only have preserved its national liberty 
 and name in the northern mountains, but waged for some cen- 
 turies a successful and generally an offensive warfare against 
 the conquerors, till the balance was completely turned in its 
 favour, and the Moors were compelled to maintain almost as 
 obstinate and protracted a contest for a small portion of the 
 peninsula. But the Arabian monarchs of Cordova found in their 
 success and imagined security a pretext for indolence ; even in 
 the cultivation of science and contemplation of the magnificent 
 architecture of their mosques and palaces they forgot their poor 
 but daring enemies in the Asturias ; while, according to the na- 
 ture of despotism, the fruits of wisdom or bravery in one genera- 
 tion were lost in the follies and effeminacy of the next. Their 
 kingdom was dismembered by successful rebels, who formed 
 the states of Toledo, Huesca, Saragossa, and others less eminent ; 
 and these, in their own mutual contests, not only relaxed their 
 natural enmity toward the Christian princes, but sometimes 
 sought their alliance.^ 
 
 The last attack which seemed to endanger the reviving mon- 
 archy of Spain was that of Almanzor, the illustrious vizier of 
 Haccham II, toward the end of the tenth century, wherein the 
 city of Leon, and even the shrine of Compostella, were burned 
 to the ground. For some ages before this transient reflux, grad- 
 ual encroachments had been made upon the Saracens, and the 
 kingdom originally styled of Oviedo, the seat of which was re- 
 moved to Leon in 914, had extended its boundary to the Douro, 
 and even to the mountainous chain of the Guadarrama. The 
 province of Old Castile, thus denominated, as is generally sup- 
 posed, from the castles erected while it remained a march or fron- 
 tier against the Moors, was governed by hereditary counts, 
 elected originally by the provincial aristocracy, and virtually 
 independent, it seems probable, of the Kings of Leon, though 
 commonly serving them in war as brethren of the same faith 
 and nation.^ 
 
 * [Note.] the reign of Froila, about the year 924, 
 
 2 Cardonne, " Histoire de I'Afrique et sibi et posteris providerunt, et duos 
 
 de I'Espagne." milites non de potentioribus, sed de pru- 
 
 ' According to Roderic of Toledo, one dentioribus elegerunt, quos et judices 
 
 of the earliest Spanish historians, though statuerunt, ut dissensiones patriae et que- 
 
 not older than tne beginning of the thir- relantium causae suo judicio sopirentur 
 
 teenth century, the nobles of Castile, in (1. v, c. i). Several other passages in the 
 
304 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [914-1236 
 
 While the Kings of Leon were thus occupied in recovering 
 the western provinces, another race of Christian princes grew 
 up silently under the shadow of the Pyrenean Mountains. Noth- 
 ing can be more obscure than the beginnings of those little states 
 which were formed in Navarre and the country of Soprarbe. 
 They might perhaps be almost contemporaneous with the Moor- 
 ish conquests. On both sides of the Pyrenees dwelt an aborigi- 
 nal people, the last to undergo the yoke, and who had never 
 acquired the language, of Rome. We know little of these in- 
 trepid mountaineers in the dark period which elapsed under the 
 Gothic and Frank dynasties till we find them cutting off the rear 
 guard of Charlemagne in Roncesvalles, and maintaining at least 
 their independence, though seldom, like the Kings of Asturias, 
 waging offensive war against the Saracens. The town of Jaca, 
 situated among long, narrow valleys that intersect the southern 
 ridges of the Pyrenees, was the capital of a little free state, which 
 afterward expanded into the monarchy of Aragon.* A territory 
 rather more extensive belonged to Navarre, the kings of which 
 fixed their seat at Pampeluna. Biscay seems to have been di- 
 vided between this kingdom and that of Leon. The connection 
 of Aragon or Soprarbe and Navarre was very intimate, and they 
 were often united under a single chief. 
 
 At the beginning of the eleventh century, Sancho the Great, 
 King of Navarre and Aragon, was enabled to render his second 
 son, Ferdinand, count, or, as he assumed the title. King of 
 Castile. This effectually dismembered that province from the 
 kingdom of Leon ; but their union soon became more complete 
 than ever, though with a reversed supremacy. Bermudo III, 
 King of Leon, fell in an engagement with the new King of 
 Castile, who had married his sister ; and Ferdinand, in her right, 
 or in that of conquest, became master of the united monarchy. 
 
 same writer prove that the Counts of 
 Castile were nearly independent of Leon, 
 at least from the time 01 Ferdinand Gon- 
 salvo about the middle of the tenth cen- 
 tury. Ex quo iste suscepit suae patriae 
 comitatum, cessaverunt reges Asturiarum 
 insolescere in Castellam, et^ a flumine 
 Pisorica nihil amplius vindicarunt (1. v, 
 c. 2). Marina, in his " Ensayo Historico- 
 Critico," is disposed to controvert this 
 fact. 
 
 * The Fueros, or written laws of Jaca, 
 were perhaps more ancient than any local 
 customary in Europe. Alfonso III con- 
 firms them by name of the ancient usages 
 of Jaca. They prescribe the descent of 
 lands and movables, as well as the elec- 
 tion of municipal magistrates. The fol- 
 lowing law, which enjoins the rising in 
 arms on a sudden emergency, illustrates, 
 with a sort of romantic wildness, the 
 manners of a pastoral but warlike people, 
 and reminds us of a well-known passage 
 
 in the " Lady of the Lake": De appel- 
 litis ita statuimus. Cum homines de 
 villis, vel qui stant in montanis cum suis 
 ganatis [gregibus], audierint appellitum; 
 omnes capiant arma, et dimissis ganatis, 
 et omnibus aliis suis faziendis [ne^otiis] 
 sequantur appellitum. Et si- illi qui 
 fuerint magis remoti, invenerint in villa 
 magis proxima appellito [deest aliquid?], 
 omnes qui nondum fuerint egressi tunc 
 villam illam, quae tardius secuta est ap- 
 pellitum, pecent [solvant] unam baccam 
 [vaccam] ; et unusquisque homo ex illis 
 qui tardius secutus est appellitum, et 
 quern magis remoti praecesserint, pecet 
 tres solidos, quomodo nobis videbitur, 
 partiendos. Tamen in Jaca et in aliis 
 villis, sint aliqui nominati et certi, quos 
 elegerint cqnsules, qui remaneant ad 
 villas custodiendas et defendendas. (" Bi- 
 ancae Commentaria," in " Schotti His- 
 pania Illustrata," p. 595.) 
 
TliB: DA y AFTER THE VICTORY. 
 Phptpgravure from 3 painting by Benjamin Constant. 
 
Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 
 
914-1236J RECOVERY OF TOLEDO AND SARAGOSSA 305 
 
 This cessation of hostilities between the Christian states enabled 
 them to direct a more unremitting energy against their ancient 
 enemies, who were now sensibly weakened by the various causes 
 of decline to which I have already alluded. During the eleventh 
 century the Spaniards were almost always superior in the field ; 
 the towns which they began by pillaging they gradually pos- 
 sessed; their valour was heightened by the customs of chivalry 
 and inspired by the example of the Cid ; and before the end of 
 this age Alfonso VI recovered the ancient metropolis of the 
 monarchy, the city of Toledo. This was the severest blow which 
 the Moors had endured, and an unequivocal symptom of that 
 change in their relative strength which, from being so gradual, 
 was the more irretrievable. Calamities scarcely inferior fell upon 
 them in a different quarter. The Kings of Aragon (a title be- 
 longing originally to a little district upon the river of that name) 
 had been cooped up almost in the mountains by the small Moor- 
 ish states north of the Ebro, especially that of Huesca. About 
 the middle of the eleventh century they began to attack their 
 neighbours with success ; the Moors lost one town after another, 
 till, in 1 1 18, exposed and weakened by the reduction of all these 
 places, the city of Saragossa, in which a line of Mohammedan 
 princes had flourished for several ages, became the prize of 
 Alfonso I and the capital of his kingdom. The southern parts 
 of what is now the province of Aragon were successively reduced 
 during the twelfth century, while all new Castile and Estre- 
 madura became annexed in the same gradual manner to the 
 dominion of the descendants of Alfonso VI. 
 
 Although the feudal system can not be said to have obtained 
 in the kingdoms of Leon and Castile, their peculiar situation gave 
 the aristocracy a great deal of the same power and independence 
 which resulted in France and Germany from that institution. 
 The territory successively recovered from the Moors, like waste 
 lands reclaimed, could have no proprietor but the conquerors, 
 and the prospect of such acquisitions was a constant incitement 
 to the nobility of Spain, especially to those who had settled them- 
 selves on the Castilian frontier. In their new conquests they 
 built towns and invited Christian settlers, the Saracen inhabitants 
 being commonly expelled or voluntarily retreating to the safer 
 provinces of the south. Thus Burgos was settled by a Count 
 of Castile about 880; another fixed his seat at Osma; a third 
 at Sepulveda ; a fourth at Salamanca. These cities were not free 
 from incessant peril of a sudden attack till the union of the two 
 kingdoms under Ferdinand I, and consequently the necessity of 
 keeping in exercise a numerous and armed population gave a 
 character of personal freedom and privilege to the inferior classes 
 which they hardly possessed at so early a period in any other 
 20 
 
3o6 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [914-1236 
 
 monarchy. Villenage seems never to have been established in 
 the Hispano-Gothic kingdoms, Leon and Castile ; though I con- 
 fess it was far from being unknown in that of Aragon, which had 
 formed its institutions on a different pattern. Since nothing makes 
 us forget the arbitrary distinctions of rank so much as partici- 
 pation in any common calamity, every man who had escaped 
 the great shipwreck of liberty and religion in the mountains 
 of Asturias was invested with a personal dignity, which gave him 
 value in his own eyes and those of his country. It is probably 
 this sentiment transmitted to posterity, and gradually fixing the 
 national character, that has produced the elevation of manner 
 remarked by travellers in the Castilian peasant. But while these 
 acquisitions of the nobility promoted the grand object of win- 
 ning back the peninsula from its invaders, they by no means in- 
 vigorated the government or tended to domestic tranquility. 
 
 A more interesting method of securing the public defence 
 was by the institution of chartered towns or communities. These 
 were established at an earlier period than in France and Eng- 
 land, and were, in some degree, of a peculiar description. In- 
 stead of purchasing their immunities, and almost their personal 
 freedom, at the hands of a master, the burgesses of Castilian 
 towns were invested with civil rights and extensive property 
 on the more liberal condition of protecting their country. The 
 earliest instance of the erection of a community is in 1020, when 
 Alfonso V in the Cortes at Leon established the privileges of 
 that city with a regular code of laws, by which its magistrates 
 should be governed. The citizens of Carrion, Llanes, and other 
 towns were incorporated by the same prince. Sancho the Great 
 gave a similar constitution to Naxara. Sepulveda had its code 
 of laws in 1076 from Alfonso VI ; in the same reign Logrono 
 and Sahagun acquired their privileges, and Salamanca not long 
 afterward. The fuero, or original charter of a Spanish commu- 
 nity, was properly a compact, by which the king or lord granted 
 a town and adjacent district to the burgesses, with various privi- 
 leges, and especially that of choosing magistrates and a common 
 council, who were bound to conform themselves to the laws pre- 
 scribed by the founder. These laws, civil as well as criminal, 
 though essentially derived from the ancient code of the Visigoths, 
 which continued to be the common law of Castile till the four- 
 teenth or fifteenth century, varied from each other in particular 
 usages, which had probably grown up and been established in 
 these districts before their legal confirmation. The territory 
 held by chartered towns was frequently very extensive, far be- 
 yond any comparison with corporations in our own country or 
 in France ; including the estates of private landholders, subject 
 to the jurisdiction and control of the municipality as well as its 
 
914-1236] 
 
 CHARTERED TOWNS 
 
 307 
 
 inalienable demesnes, allotted to the maintenance of the magis- 
 trates and other public expenses. In every town the king ap- 
 pointed a governor to receive the usual tributes and watch over 
 the police and the fortified places within the district, but the 
 administration of justice was exclusively reserved to the inhabit- 
 ants and their elected judges. Even the executive power of the 
 royal ofBcer was regarded with jealousy ; he was forbidden to 
 use violence toward any one without legal process ; and, by the 
 fuero of Logrofio, if he attempted to enter forcibly into a private 
 house he might be killed with impunity. These democratical 
 customs were altered in the fourteenth century by Alfonso XI, 
 who vested the municipal administration in a small number of 
 jurats, or regidors. A pretext for this was found in some dis- 
 orders to which popular elections had led ; but the real motive, 
 of course, must have been to secure a greater influence for the 
 crown, as in similar innovations of some English kings. 
 
 In recompense for such liberal concessions the incorporated 
 towns were bound to certain money payments and to military 
 service. This was absolutely due from every inhabitant, with- 
 out dispensation or substitution, unless in case of infirmity. The 
 royal governor and the magistrates, as in the simple times of 
 primitive Rome, raised and commanded the militia; who, in a 
 service always short, and for the most part necessary, preserved 
 that delightful consciousness of freedom, under the standard of 
 their fellow-citizens and chosen leaders, which no mere soldier 
 can enjoy. Every man of a certain property was bound to serve 
 on horseback, and was exempted in return from the payment 
 of taxes. This produced a distinction between the caballeros, 
 or noble class, and the pecheros, or payers of tribute. But the 
 distinction appears to have been founded only upon wealth, as 
 in the Roman equites, and not upon hereditary rank, though it 
 most likely prepared the way for the latter. The horses of these 
 caballeros could not be seized for debt ; in some cases they were 
 exclusively eligible to magistracy, and their honour was pro- 
 tected by laws which rendered it highly penal to insult or molest 
 them. But the civil rights of rich and poor in courts of justice 
 were as equal as in England.^ 
 
 The progress of the Christian arms in Spain may in part 
 be ascribed to another remarkable feature in the constitution 
 of that country, the military orders. These had already been 
 
 ^ I am indebted for this account of 
 municipal towns in Castile to a book 
 published at Madrid in 1808, immediately 
 after the revolution, by the Doctor 
 Marina, a canon of the Church of St. 
 Isidor, entitled " Ensayo Historico- 
 Critico " sobre la antigua legislacion y 
 principales cuerpos legales de los reynos 
 
 de Lyon y Castilla, especialmente sobre 
 el codigo de D. Alonso el Sabio, conocido 
 con el nombre de las " Siete Partidas." 
 This work is perhaps not readily to be 
 procured in England; but an article in 
 the " Edinburgh Review," No. XLIII, 
 will convey a sufficient notion of its con- 
 tents. 
 
308 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES L9H-1236 
 
 tried with signal effect in Palestine, and the similar circum- 
 stances of Spain easily led to an adoption of the same policy. In 
 a very few years after the first institution of the Knights Templars, 
 they were endowed with great estates, or rather districts, won 
 from the Moors, on condition of defending their own and the 
 national territory. These lay chiefly in the parts of Aragon be- 
 yond the Ebro, the conquest of which was then recent and inse- 
 cure.^ So extraordinary was the respect for this order and that 
 of St. John, and so powerful the conviction that the hope of 
 Christendom rested upon their valour, that Alfonso I, King of 
 Aragon, dying childless, bequeathed to them his whole king- 
 dom ; an example of liberality, says Mariana, to surprise future 
 times and displease his own.^ The states of Aragon annulled, 
 as may be supposed, this strange testament; but the successor 
 of Alfonso was obliged to pacify the ambitious knights by im- 
 mense concessions of money and territory, stipulating even not 
 to make peace with the Moors against their will.® In imitation 
 of these great military orders common to all Christendom, there 
 arose three Spanish institutions of a similar kind, the orders of 
 Calatrava, Santiago, and Alcantara. The first of these was estab- 
 lished in 1 1 58; the second and most famous had its charter from 
 the Pope in 1175, though it seems to have existed previously; 
 the third branched off from that of Calatrava at a subsequent 
 time.^ These were military colleges, having their walled towns 
 in different parts of Castile, and governed by an elective grand 
 master, whose influence in the state was at least equal to that 
 of any of the nobility. In the civil dissensions of the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, the chiefs of these incorporated knights 
 were often very prominent. 
 
 The kingdoms of Leon and Castile were unwisely divided 
 anew by Alfonso VII between his sons, Sancho and Ferdinand, 
 and this produced not only a separation but a revival of the an- 
 cient jealousy, with frequent wars, for nearly a century. At 
 length, in 1238, Ferdinand III, King of Castile, reunited for- 
 ever the two branches of the Gothic monarchy. He employed 
 their joint strength against the Moors, whose dominion, though 
 it still embraced the finest provinces of the peninsula, was sink- 
 ing by internal weakness, and had never recovered a tremendous 
 defeat at Banos di Toloso, a few miles from Baylen, in 1210.^*^ 
 Ferdinand, bursting into Andalusia, took its great capital, the 
 city of Cordova, not less ennobled by the cultivation of Arabian 
 science, and by the names of Avicenna and Averroes, than by 
 
 ' Mariana, " Hist. Hispan.," 1. x, c. lo. this victory, to Pope Innocent III, puts 
 
 ' L. X, c. 15. the loss of the Moors at 180,000 men. 
 
 ^ L. X, c. 18. The Arabian historians, though without 
 
 ® L. xi, c. 6, 13; 1. xii, c. 3. specifying numbers, seem to confirm this 
 
 ^° A letter of Alfonso IX, who gained immense slaughter, which nevertheless it 
 
I236-I252] 
 
 EXPULSION OF THE MOORS 
 
 309 
 
 the splendid works of a rich and munificent dynasty." In a few 
 years more Seville was added to his conquests, and the Moors 
 lost their favourite regions on the banks of the Guadalquivir. 
 James I of Aragon, the victories of whose long reign gave him 
 the surname of Conqueror, reduced the city and kingdom of 
 Valencia, the Balearic Isles, and the kingdom of Murcia; but 
 the last was annexed, according to compact, to the crown of 
 Castile. 
 
 It could hardly have been expected about the middle of the 
 thirteenth century, when the splendid conquests of Ferdinand 
 and James had planted the Christian banner on the three prin- 
 cipal Moorish cities, that two hundred and fifty years were yet 
 to elapse before the rescue of Spain from their yoke should be 
 completed. Ambition, religious zeal, national enmity, could not 
 be supposed to pause in a career which now seemed to be ob- 
 structed by such moderate difficulties ; yet we find, on the con- 
 trary, the exertions of the Spaniards begin from this time to relax, 
 and their acquisitions of territory to become more slow. One 
 of the causes, undoubtedly, that produced this unexpected pro- 
 traction of the contest was the superior means of resistance 
 which the Moors found in retreating. Their population, spread 
 originally over the whole of Spain, was now condensed, and, if 
 I may so say, become no further compressible, in a single prov- 
 ince. It had been mingled, in the northern and central parts, 
 with the Mozarabic Christians, their subjects and tributaries, not 
 perhaps treated with much injustice, yet naturally and irremedi- 
 ably their enemies. Toledo and Saragossa, when they fell under 
 a Christian sovereign, were full of these inferior Christians, whose 
 long intercourse with their masters has infused the tones and 
 dialect of Arabia into the language of Castile. ^^ But in the 
 twelfth century the Moors, exasperated by defeat and jealous 
 of secret disaffection, began to persecute their Christian subjects, 
 till they renounced or fled for their religion, so that in the south- 
 ern provinces scarcely any professors of Christianity were left 
 at the time of Ferdinand's invasion. An equally severe policy 
 was adopted on the other side. The Moors had been permitted 
 to dwell in Saragossa as the Christians had dwelt before, sub- 
 
 is difficult to conceive before the inven- 
 tion of gunpowder, or indeed since. 
 (Cardonne, tome ii, p. 327.) 
 
 ^^ If we could rely on a Moorish aitthor 
 quoted by Cardonne (tome i, p. 337), the 
 city of Cordova contained, I know not 
 exactly in what century, 200,000 houses, 
 600 mosques, and 900 public baths. There 
 were 12,000 towns and villages on the 
 banks of the Guadalquivir. This, how- 
 ever, must be greatly exaggerated, as nu- 
 merical statements generally are. The 
 mines of gold and silver were very pro- 
 ductive. And the revenues of the khalifs 
 
 of Cordova are said to have amounted to 
 130,000,000 of French money; besides large 
 contributions that, according to the prac- 
 tice of Oriental governments, were paid 
 in the fruits of the earth. Other proofs 
 of the extraordinary opulence and splen- 
 dour of this monarchy are dispersed in 
 Cardonne's work, from which they have 
 been chiefly borrowed by later writers. 
 The splendid engravings in Murphy's 
 " Moorish Antiquities of Spain " illus- 
 trate this subject. 
 
 ^-Mariana, 1. xi, c. i; Gibbon, c. 51. 
 
3IO HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1236-1252 
 
 jects, not slaves ; but on the capture of Seville they were en- 
 tirely expelled, and new settlers invited from every part of Spain. 
 The strong fortified towns of Andalusia, such as Gibraltar, Alge- 
 ciras, Tarifa, maintained also a more formidable resistance than 
 had been experienced in Castile ; they cost tedious sieges, were 
 sometimes recovered by the enemy, and were always liable to 
 his attacks. But the great protection of the Spanish Moham- 
 medans was found in the alliance and ready aid of their kindred 
 beyond the straits. Accustomed to hear of the African Moors 
 only as pirates, we can not easily conceive the powerful dynasties, 
 the warlike chiefs, the vast armies, which for seven or eight 
 centuries illustrate the annals of that people. Their assistance 
 was always afforded to the true believers in Spain, though their 
 ambition was generally dreaded by those who stood in need of 
 their valour.^^ 
 
 Probably, however, the Kings of Granada were most in- 
 debted to the indolence which gradually became characteristic 
 of their enemies. By the cession of Murcia to Castile, the king- 
 dom of Aragon shut itself out from the possibility of extending 
 those conquests which had ennobled her earlier sovereigns ; and 
 their successors, not less ambitious and enterprising, diverted 
 their attention toward objects beyond the peninsula. The Cas- 
 tilian, patient and undesponding in bad success, loses his energy 
 as the pressure becomes less heavy, and puts no ordinary evil 
 in comparison with the exertions by which it must be removed. 
 The greater part of his country freed by his arms, he was con- 
 tent to leave the enemy in a single province rather than undergo 
 the labour of making his triumph complete. 
 
 If a similar spirit of insubordination had not been found com- 
 patible in earlier ages with the aggrandizement of the Castilian 
 monarchy, we might ascribe its want of splendid successes against 
 the Moors to the continued rebellions which disturbed that gov- 
 ernment for more than a century after the death of Ferdinand 
 III. His son, Alfonso X, might justly acquire the surname of 
 Wise for his general proficiency in learning, and especially in 
 astronomical science, if these attainments deserve praise in a 
 king who was incapable of preserving his subjects in their duty. 
 As a legislator, Alfonso, by his code of the " Siete Partidas," 
 sacrificed the ecclesiastical rights of his crown to the usurpation 
 of Rome ; ^* and his philosophy sunk below the level of ordinary 
 prudence when he permitted the phantom of an imperial crown 
 in Germany to seduce his hopes for almost twenty years. For 
 the sake of such an illusion he would even have withdrawn him- 
 self from Castile if the states had not remonstrated against an 
 
 13 Cardonne, tomes it and iii, passim. 
 
 ^* Marina, " Ensayo Historico-Critico," p. 272, etc. 
 
1252-1476] CIVIL DISTURBANCES OF CASTILE 311 
 
 expedition that would probably have cost him the kingdom. 
 In the latter years of his turbulent reign Alfonso had to contend 
 against his son. The right of representation was hitherto un- 
 known in Castile, which had borrowed little from the customs 
 of feudal nations. By the received law of succession the nearer 
 was always preferred to the more remote, the son to the grand- 
 son. Alfonso X had established the different maxim of repre- 
 sentation by his code of the '' Siete Partidas," the authority of 
 which, however, was not universally acknowledged. The ques- 
 tion soon came to an issue : on the death of his elder son, Ferdi- 
 nand, leaving two male children, Sancho, their uncle, asserted 
 his claim, founded upon the ancient Castilian right of succes- 
 sion; and this, chiefly, no doubt, through fear of arms, though 
 it did not want plausible arguments, was ratified by an assembly 
 of the Cortes, and secured, notwithstanding the king's reluctance, 
 by the courage of Sancho. But the descendants of Ferdinand, 
 generally called the infants of La Cerda, by the protection of 
 France, to whose royal family they were closely allied, and of 
 Aragon, always prompt to interfere in the disputes of a rival 
 people, continued to assert their pretensions for more than half 
 a century, and, though they were not very successful, did not 
 fail to aggravate the troubles of their country. 
 
 The annals of Sancho IV and his two immediate successors, 
 Ferdinand IV and Alfonso XI, present a series of unhappy and 
 dishonourable civil dissensions with too much rapidity to be 
 remembered or even understood. Although the Castilian nobil- 
 ity had no pretence to the original independence of the French 
 peers, or to the liberties of feudal tenure, they assumed the same 
 privilege of rebelling upon any provocation from their sovereign. 
 When such occurred, they seem to have been permitted, by 
 legal custom, to renounce their allegiance by a solemn instru- 
 ment, which exempted them from the penalties of treason. ^^ 
 A very few families composed an oligarchy, the worst and most 
 ruinous condition of political society, alternately the favourites 
 and ministers of the prince or in arms against him. If unable 
 to protect themselves in their walled towns, and by the aid of their 
 faction, these Christian patriots retired to Aragon or Granada, 
 and excited a hostile power against their country, and perhaps 
 their religion. Nothing is more common in the Castilian history 
 than instances of such defection. Mariana remarks coolly of the 
 family of Castro that they were much in the habit of revolting 
 to the Moors. ^® This house and that of Lara were at one time 
 the great rivals for power ; but from the time of Alfonso X the 
 
 " Mariana, I. xiii, c. 11. tria gens per hsec tempora ad Mauros 
 
 *• Alvarus Castrius patria aliquanto ssepe defecisse visa est. (L. xii, c. 12; see 
 antea, uti moris erat, renunciata.— Cas- also chapters 17 and 19.) 
 
312 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [i 252-1476 
 
 former seems to have declined, and the sole family that came in 
 competition with the Laras during the tempestuous period that 
 followed was that of Haro, which possessed the lordship of Bis- 
 cay by a hereditary title. The evils of a weak government were 
 aggravated by the unfortunate circumstances in which Ferdinand 
 IV and Alfonso XI ascended the throne; both minors, with a 
 disputed regency, and the interval too short to give ambitious 
 spirits leisure to subside. There is, indeed, some apology for the 
 conduct of the Laras and Haros in the character of their sover- 
 eigns, who had but one favourite method of avenging a dissem- 
 bled injury or anticipating a suspected treason. Sancho IV as- 
 sassinates Don Lope Haro in his palace at Valladolid. Alfonso 
 XI invites to court the infant Don Juan, his first cousin, and 
 commits a similar violence. Such crimes may be found in the 
 history of other countries, but they were nowhere so usual as 
 in Spain, which was far behind France, England, and even Ger- 
 many in civilization. 
 
 But whatever violence and arbitrary spirit might be imputed 
 to Sancho and Alfonso was forgotten in the unexampled tyranny 
 of Peter the Cruel. A suspicion is frequently intimated by Mari- 
 ana, which seems, in more modern times, to have gained some 
 credit, that party malevolence has at least grossly exaggerated 
 the enormities of this prince.^^ It is difficult, however, to believe 
 that a number of atrocious acts unconnected with each other, and 
 generally notorious enough in their circumstances, have been 
 ascribed to any innocent man. The history of his reign, chiefly 
 derived, it is admitted, from the pen of an inveterate enemy, Lope 
 de Ayala, charges him with the murder of his wife, Blanche of 
 Bourbon, most of his brothers and sisters, with Eleanor Gus- 
 man, their mother, many Castilian nobles, and multitudes of the 
 commonalty ; besides continual outrages of licentiousness, and 
 especially a pretended marriage with a noble lady of the Castrian 
 family. At length a rebellion was headed by his illegitimate 
 brother, Henry, Count of Trastamare, with the assistance of 
 Aragon and Portugal. This, however, would probably have 
 failed of dethroning Peter, a resolute prince, and certainly not 
 
 1' There is in general room enough for 
 scepticism as to the characters of men 
 who are only known to us through their 
 enemies. History is full of calumnies, 
 and of calumnies that can never be 
 effaced. But I really see no ground for 
 thinking charitably of Peter the Cruel. 
 Froissart (part i, c. 230) and Matteo Vil- 
 lani (in " Script. Rerum Italic," tome 
 xiv, p. 53), the latter of whom died be- 
 fore the rebellion of Henry of Trastamare, 
 speak of him much in the same terms 
 as the Spanish historians. And why 
 should Ayala be doubted, when he gives 
 a long list of murders committed in the 
 
 face of day, within the recollection of 
 many persons living when he wrote? 
 There may be a question whether Rich- 
 ard III smothered his nephews in the 
 Tower, but nobody can dispute that 
 Henry VIII cut off Anna Boleyn's head. 
 The passage from Matteo Villani above 
 mentioned is as follows: Comincio aspra- 
 mente a se far ubbidire, perche temendo 
 de' suoi baroni, trovo modo di far in- 
 famare 1' uno 1* altro, e prendendo cagi- 
 one, gli comincio ad uccidere con le sue 
 mani. E in brieve tempo ne fece morire 
 25 e tre suoi fratelli fece morire, etc. 
 
1252-1476] PETER THE CRUEL 313 
 
 destitute of many faithful supporters, if Henry had not invoked 
 the more powerful succour of Bertrand du Guesclin, and the 
 companies of adventure, who, after the pacification between 
 France and England, had lost the occupation of war, and retained 
 only that of plunder. With mercenaries so disciplined it was in 
 vain for Peter to contend ; but, abandoning Spain for a mo- 
 ment, he had recourse to a more powerful weapon from the same 
 armory. Edward, the Black Prince, then resident at Bordeaux, 
 was induced by the promise of Biscay to enter Spain as the ally 
 of Castile; and at the great battle of Navarette he continued 
 lord of the ascendant over those who had so often already been 
 foiled by his prowess. Du Guesclin was made prisoner ; Henry 
 fled to Aragon, and Peter remounted the throne. But a second 
 revolution was at hand : the Black Prince, whom he had un- 
 gratefully offended, withdrew into Guienne ; and he lost his king- 
 dom and life in a second short contest with his brother. 
 
 A more fortunate period began with the accession of Henry. 
 His own reign was hardly disturbed by any rebellion ; and 
 though his successors, John I and Henry HI, were not altogether 
 so unmolested, especially the latter, who ascended the throne in 
 his minority, yet the troubles of their time were slight in com- 
 parison with those formerly excited by the houses of Lara and 
 Haro, both of which were now happily extinct. Though Henry 
 IPs illegitimacy left him no title but popular choice, his queen 
 was sole representative of the Cerdas, the offspring, as has been 
 mentioned above, of Sancho IV's elder brother, and, by the ex- 
 tinction of the younger branch, unquestioned heiress of the royal 
 line. Some years afterward, by the marriage of Henry HI with 
 Catherine, daughter of John of Gaunt and Constance, an ille- 
 gitimate child of Peter the Cruel, her pretensions, such as they 
 were, became merged in the crown. 
 
 No kingdom could be worse prepared to meet the disorders 
 of a minority than Castile, and in none did the circumstances 
 so frequently recur. John H was but fourteen months old at 
 his accession ; and but for the disinterestedness of his uncle 
 Ferdinand, the nobility would have been inclined to avert the 
 danger by placing that prince upon the throne. In this instance, 
 however, Castile suffered less from faction during the infancy 
 of her sovereign than in his maturity. The queen dowager, at 
 first jointly with Ferdinand, and solely after his accession to the 
 crown of Aragon, administered the government with credit. 
 Fifty years had elapsed at her death in 141 8 since the elevation 
 of the house of Trastamare, who had entitled themselves to public 
 affection by conforming themselves more strictly than their 
 predecessors to the constitutional laws of Castile, which were 
 never so well established as during this period. In external affairs 
 
314 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1252-1476 
 
 their reigns were not what is considered as glorious. They were 
 generally at peace with Aragon and Granada; but one memo- 
 rable defeat by the Portuguese at Aljubarrota disgraces the 
 annals of John I, whose cause was as unjust as his arms were 
 unsuccessful. This comparatively golden period ceases at the 
 majority of John II. His reign was filled up by a series of 
 conspiracies and civil wars, headed by his cousins, John and 
 Henry, the Infants of Aragon, who enjoyed very extensive terri- 
 tories in Castile by the testament of their father Ferdinand. Their 
 brother, the King of Aragon, frequently lent the assistance of 
 his arms. John himself, the elder of these two princes, by mar- 
 riage with the heiress of the kingdom of Navarre, stood in a 
 double relation to Castile, as a neighbouring sovereign, and as 
 a member of the native oligarchy. These conspiracies were all 
 ostensibly directed against the favourite of John II, Alvaro de 
 Luna, who retained for five-and-thirty years an absolute control 
 over his feeble master. The adverse faction naturally ascribed 
 to this powerful minister every criminal intention and all public 
 mischiefs. He was certainly not more scrupulous than the gen- 
 erality of statesmen, and appears to have been rapacious in accu- 
 mulating wealth. But there was an energy and courage about 
 Alvaro de Luna which distinguishes him from the cowardly 
 sycophants who usually rise by the favour of weak princes ; and 
 Castile probably would not have been happier under the admin- 
 istration of his enemies. His fate is among the memorable 
 lessons of history. After a life of troubles endured for the sake 
 of this favourite, sometimes a fugitive, sometimes a prisoner, 
 his son heading rebellions against him, John II suddenly yielded 
 to an intrigue of the palace, and adopted sentiments of dislike 
 toward the man he had so long loved. No substantial charge 
 appears to have been brought against Alvaro de Luna, except 
 that general malversation which it was too late for the king to 
 object to him. The real cause of John's change of affection was, 
 most probably, the insupportable restraint which the weak are 
 apt to find in that spell of a commanding understanding which 
 they dare not break : the torment of living subject to the as- 
 cendant of an inferior, which has produced so many examples of 
 fickleness in sovereigns. That of John II is not the least con- 
 spicuous. Alvaro de Luna was brought to a summary trial and 
 beheaded; his estates were confiscated. He met his death with 
 the intrepidity of Strafford, to whom he seems to have borne 
 some resemblance in character. 
 
 John II did not long survive his minister, dying in 1454, 
 after a reign that may be considered as inglorious, compared 
 with any except that of his successor. If the father was not 
 respected, the son fell completely into contempt. He had been 
 
1 252-1476] HENRY IV 315 
 
 governed by Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, as implicitly as John 
 by Alvaro de Luna. This influence lasted for some time after- 
 ward. But the king inclining to transfer his confidence to the 
 Queen Joanna of Portugal, and to one Bertrand de Cueva, upon 
 whom common fame had fixed as her paramour, a powerful 
 confederacy of disaffected nobles was formed against the royal 
 authority. In what degree Henry IV's government had been 
 improvident or oppressive toward the people it is hard to deter- 
 mine. The chiefs of that rebellion, Carillo, Archbishop of To- 
 ledo, the admiral of Castile, a veteran leader of faction, and the 
 Marquis of Villena, so lately the king's favourite, were undoubt- 
 edly actuated only by selfish ambition and revenge. They de- 
 posed Henry in an assembly of their faction at Avila with a sort 
 of theatrical pageantry which has often been described. But 
 modern historians, struck by the appearance of judicial solemnity 
 in this proceeding, are sometimes apt to speak of it as a national 
 act; while, on the contrary, it seems to have been reprobated 
 by the majority of the Castilians as an audacious outrage upon 
 a sovereign who, with many defects, had not been guilty of any 
 excessive tyranny. The confederates set up Alfonso, the king's 
 brother, and a civil war of some duration ensued, in which they 
 had the support of Aragon. The Queen of Castile had at this time 
 borne a daughter, whom the enemies of Henry IV, and indeed 
 no small part of his adherents, were determined to treat as spuri- 
 ous. Accordingly, after the death of Alfonso, his sister Isabel 
 was considered as heiress of the kingdom. She might have 
 aspired, with the assistance of the confederates, to its immediate 
 possession ; but, avoiding the odium of a contest with her brother, 
 Isabel agreed to a treaty, by which the succession was abso- 
 lutely settled upon her. This arrangement was not long after- 
 ward followed by the union of that princess with Ferdinand, 
 son of the King of Aragon. This marriage was by no means 
 acceptable to a part of the Castilian oligarchy, who had pre- 
 ferred a connection with Portugal. And as Henry had never 
 lost sight of the interests of one whom he considered, or pre- 
 tended to consider, as his daughter, he took the first opportunity 
 of revoking his forced disposition of the crown and restoring 
 the direct line of succession in favour of the Princess Joanna. 
 Upon his death, in 1474, the right was to be decided by arms. 
 Joanna had on her side the common presumptions of law, the 
 testamentary disposition of the late king, the support of Alfonso, 
 King of Portugal, to whom she was betrothed, and of several 
 considerable leaders among the nobility, as the young Marquis 
 of Villena, the family of Mendoza, and the Archbishop of Toledo, 
 who, charging Ferdinand with ingratitude, had quitted a party 
 which he had above all men contributed to strengthen. For 
 
3i6 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1252-1476 
 
 Isabella were the general belief of Joanna's illegitimacy, the as- 
 sistance of Aragon, the adherence of a majority both among the 
 nobles and people, and, more than all, the reputation of ability 
 which both she and her husband had deservedly acquired. The 
 scale was, however, pretty equally balanced till, the King of 
 Portugal having been defeated at Toro in 1476, Joanna's party 
 discovered their inability to prosecute the war by themselves, 
 and successively made their submission to Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella. 
 
 The Castilians always considered themselves as subject to 
 a legal and limited monarchy. For several ages the crown was 
 elective, as in most nations of German origin, within the limits 
 of one royal family. ^^ In general, of course, the public choice 
 fell upon the nearest heir; and it became a prevailing usage to 
 elect a son during the lifetime of his father, till about the eleventh 
 century a right of hereditary succession was clearly established. 
 But the form of recognising the heir apparent's title in an assem- 
 bly of the Cortes has subsisted until our own time.^^ 
 
 In the original Gothic monarchy of Spain, civil as well as 
 ecclesiastical affairs were decided in national councils, the acts 
 of many of which are still extant, and have been published in 
 ecclesiastical collections. To these assemblies the dukes and 
 other provincial governors, and, in general, the principal indi- 
 viduals of the realm, were summoned along with spiritual per- 
 sons. This double aristocracy of Church and State continued to 
 form the great council of advice and consent in the first ages 
 of the new kingdoms of Leon and Castile. The prelates and 
 nobility, or rather some of the more distinguished nobility, appear 
 to have concurred in all general measures of legislation, as we 
 infer from the preamble of their statutes. It would be against 
 analogy, as well as without evidence, to suppose that any repre- 
 sentation of the commons had been formed in the earlier period 
 of the monarchy. In the preamble of laws passed in 1020, and 
 at several subsequent times during that and the ensuing century, 
 we find only the bishops and magnates recited as present. Ac- 
 cording to the '^ General Chronicle " of Spain, deputies from the 
 Castilian towns formed a part of the Cortes in 1169, a date not 
 to be rejected as incompatible with their absence in 1178. How- 
 ever, in 1 1 88, the first year of the reign of Alfonso IX, they are 
 
 ^* Defuncto in pace principe, primates 
 totius regni una cum sacerdotibus suc- 
 cessorum regni concilio communi con- 
 stituant. Concil. Toletan. IV,, c. 75, 
 apud Marina, " Teoria de las Cortes," 
 tome ii, p. 2. This important work, by 
 the author of the " Ensayo Historico- 
 Critico," quoted above, contains an ample 
 digest of the parliamentary law of Cas- 
 tile, drawn from original and, in a great 
 degree, unpublished records. I have been 
 
 favoured with the use of a copy, from 
 which I am the more disposed to make 
 extracts, as the book is likely, through 
 its liberal principles, to become almost 
 as scarce in Spain as in England. Ma- 
 rina's former work (the " Ensayo Hist.- 
 Crit.") furnishes a series of testimonies 
 (c. 66) to the elective character of the 
 monarchy from Pelayo downward to the 
 twelfth century. 
 
 ^^ " Teoria de las Cortes," tome ii, p. 7* 
 
I476-I493] 
 
 NATIONAL COUNCILS 
 
 317 
 
 expressly mentioned, and from that era were constant and neces- 
 sary parts of those general assemblies. ^*^ It has been seen already 
 that the corporate towns or districts of Castile had early acquired 
 considerable importance, arising less from commercial wealth, 
 to which the towns of other kingdoms were indebted for their 
 liberties, than from their utility in keeping up a military organi- 
 zation among the people. To this they probably owe their early 
 reception into the Cortes as integrant portions of the legislature, 
 since we do not read that taxes were frequently demanded, till 
 the extravagance of later kings, and their alienation of the do- 
 main, compelled them to have recourse to the national repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 Every chief town of a concejo or corporation ought perhaps, 
 by the constitution of Castile, to have received its regular writ 
 for the election of deputies to the Cortes.^^ But there does not 
 appear to have been, in the best times, any uniform practice in 
 this respect. At the Cortes of Burgos, in 13 15, we find one hun- 
 dred and ninety-two representatives from more than ninety 
 towns; at those of Madrid, in 1391, one hundred and twenty-six 
 were sent from fifty towns ; and the latter list contains names 
 of several places which do not appear in the former.-^ No depu- 
 ties were present from the kingdom of Leon in the Cortes of 
 Alcala in 1348, where, among many important enactments, the 
 code of the " Siete Partidas " first obtained a legislative recog- 
 nition. ^^ We find, in short, a good deal more irregularity than 
 during the same period in England, where the number of elect- 
 ing boroughs varied pretty considerably at every Parliament. 
 Yet the Cortes of Castile did not cease to be a numerous body 
 and a fair representation of the people till the reign of John IL 
 The first princes of the house of Trastamare had acted in all 
 points with the advice of their Cortes. But John II, and still 
 more his son Henry IV, being conscious of their own unpopu- 
 larity, did not venture to meet a full assembly of the nation. 
 Their writs were directed only to certain towns — an abuse for 
 which the looseness of preceding usage had given a pretence.^* 
 It must be owned that the people bore it in general very pa- 
 tiently. Many of the corporate towns, impoverished by civil 
 
 2<>"Ensayo Hist-Crit.," p. 'jt, " Teoria 
 de las Cortes," tome i, p. (>S. Marina 
 seems to have somewhat changed his 
 opinion since the publication of the for- 
 mer work, where he inclines to assert 
 that the commons were from the earliest 
 times admitted into the legislature. In 
 1 188, the first year of the reign of Al- 
 fonso IX, we find positive mention of 
 la muchedumbre de las cibdades e em- 
 biados de cada cibdat, 
 
 21 " Teoria de las Cortes," p. 139. 
 
 " Id., p. 148. Geddes gives a list of 
 
 one hundred and twenty-seven deputies 
 from forty-eight towns to the Cortes at 
 Madrid in 1390. (" Miscellaneous Tracts," 
 vol. iii.) 
 
 23 Id., p. 154. 
 
 2* Sepades (says John II in 1442) que 
 en el ayuntamiento que yo fice en la 
 noble villa de Valladolid . . , los pro- 
 curadores de ciertas cibdades e villas de 
 mis reynos que por mi mandado fueron 
 llamados. This language is repeated as 
 to subsequent meetings (p. 156). 
 
3i8 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1476-1493 
 
 warfare and other causes, were glad to save the cost of defray- 
 ing their deputies' expenses. Thus, by the year 1480, only seven- 
 teen cities had retained privilege of representation. A vote was 
 afterward added for Granada, and three more in later times for 
 Palencia and the provinces of Estremadura and Galicia.^^ It 
 might have been easy perhaps to redress this grievance while 
 the exclusion was yet fresh and recent. But the privileged towns, 
 with a mean and preposterous selfishness, although their zeal 
 for liberty was at its height, could not endure the only means 
 of effectually securing it, by a restoration of elective franchises 
 to their fellow-citizens. The Cortes of 1506 assert, with one of 
 those bold falsifications upon which a popular body sometimes 
 ventures, that " it is established by some laws and by imme- 
 morial usage that eighteen cities of these kingdoms have the 
 right of sending deputies to the Cortes, and no more " ; remon- 
 strating against the attempts made by some other towns to obtain 
 the same privilege, which they request may not be conceded. 
 This remonstrance is repeated in 1512.^® 
 
 From the reign of Alfonso XI, who restrained the govern- 
 ment of corporations to an oligarchy of magistrates, the right of 
 electing members of the Cortes was confined to the ruling body, 
 the bailiffs or regidores, whose number seldom exceeded twenty- 
 four, and whose succession was kept up by close election among 
 themselves." The people, therefore, had no direct share in the 
 choice of representatives. Experience proved, as several in- 
 stances in these pages will show, that even upon this narrow 
 basis the deputies of Castile were not deficient in zeal for their 
 country and its liberties. But it must be confessed that a small 
 body of electors is always liable to corrupt influence and to in- 
 timidation. John II and Henry IV often invaded the freedom 
 of election ; the latter even named some of the deputies.^® Sev- 
 eral energetic remonstrances were made in the Cortes against this 
 flagrant grievance. Laws were enacted and other precautions de- 
 vised to secure the due return of deputies. In the sixteenth cen- 
 tury the evil, of course, was aggravated. Charles and Philip 
 corrupted the members by bribery.^^ Even in 1573 the Cortes 
 are bold enough to complain that creatures of government were 
 sent thither, '' who are always held for suspected by the other 
 deputies, and cause disagreement among them." ^^ 
 
 25 The cities which retained their rep- lencia and the kingdom of Galicia, be- 
 
 resentation in the Cortes were Burgos, fore they obtained separate votes; Sala- 
 
 Toledo (there was a constant dispute for manca for most of Estremadura; Guada- 
 
 precedence between these two), Leon, laxara for Siguenza and four hundred 
 
 Granada, Cordova, Murcia, Jaen, Zamora, other towns. (*' Teoria de las Cortes," 
 
 Toro, Soria, Valladolid, Salamanca, Se- pp. i6o, 268.) 
 govia, Avila, Madrid, Guadalaxara, and 20 ide^n^ p jg^ 
 
 Cuenca. The representatives of these " Idem, pp. 86, 197. 
 
 were supposed to vote not only for their 29 idem, p. 199. 
 
 immediate constituents, but for other ^o Idem, p. 213. 
 
 adjacent towns. Thus Toro voted for Pa- ^° Idem, p. 202. 
 
I476-I493] 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE CORTES 
 
 319 
 
 There seems to be a considerable obscurity about the consti- 
 tution of the Cortes, so far as relates to the two higher estates, 
 the spiritual and temporal nobility. It is admitted that down to 
 the latter part of the thirteenth century, and especially before 
 the introduction of representatives from the commons, they were 
 summoned in considerable numbers. But the writer to whom I 
 must almost exclusively refer for the constitutional history of Cas- 
 tile contends that from the reign of Sancho IV they took much 
 less share and retained much less influence in the deliberation 
 of the Cortes.^^ There is a remarkable protest of the Archbishop 
 of Toledo, in 1295, against the acts done in the Cortes, because 
 neither he nor the other prelates had been admitted to their dis- 
 cussions, nor given any consent to their resolutions, although 
 such consent was falsely recited in the laws enacted therein.^^ 
 This protestation is at least a testimony to the constitutional 
 rights of the prelacy, which, indeed, all the early history of Cas- 
 tile, as well as the analogy of other governments, conspires to 
 demonstrate. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, 
 they were more and more excluded. None of the prelates were 
 summoned to the Cortes of 1299 and 1301 ; none either of the 
 prelates or nobles to those of 1370 and 1373, of 1480 and 1505. 
 In all the latter cases, indeed, such members of both orders as 
 happened to be present in the court attended the Cortes — a fact 
 which seems to be established by the language of the statutes.^^ 
 Other instances of a similar kind may be adduced. Neverthe- 
 less, the more usual expression in the preamble of laws reciting 
 those summoned to and present at the Cortes, though subject 
 to considerable variation, seems to imply that all the three estates 
 were, at least nominally and according to legitimate forms, con- 
 stituent members of the national assembly. And a chronicle men- 
 tions, under the year 1406, the nobility and clergy as deliberating 
 separately, and with some difference of judgment, from the depu- 
 ties of the commons.^* A theory, indeed, which should exclude the 
 
 »i " Teoria de las Cortes," p. pT- 
 ^2 Protestamos que desde aqui venimos 
 non fuemos llamados a consejo, ni a los 
 tratados score los fechos del reyno, ni 
 sobre las otras cosas que hi fueren trac- 
 tadas et fechas, et sennaladamente sobre 
 los fechos de los consejos de las her- 
 mandades et de las peticiones que fueron 
 fechas de su parte, et sobre los otorga- 
 mentos que les ficieron, et sobre los pre- 
 vilegios que por esta nazon les fueron 
 otorgados; mas ante fuemos ende apar- 
 tados et estrannados et secados expresa- 
 mente nos et los otros perlados et ricos 
 homes et los fijosdalgo; et non fue hi 
 cosa fecha con nuestro consejo. Otrosi 
 protestamos por razon de aquello que 
 dice en los previlegios que les otorgaron, 
 que fueren los perlados llamados, et que 
 eran otorgados de consentimiento et de 
 
 voluntad dellos, que non fuemos hi pre- 
 sentes ni llamados nin fue fecho con 
 nuestra voluntad, nin consentiemos, nin 
 consentimos en ellos, etc. (p. 72). 
 
 ^' " Teoria de las Cortes.* p. 74. 
 
 3* Tome ii, p. 234, Marina is influenced 
 by a prejudice in favour of the abortive 
 Spanish constitution of 1812, whicn ex- 
 cluded the temporal and spiritual aris- 
 tocracy from a place in the legislature, to 
 imagine a similar form of government in 
 ancient times. But his own work fur- 
 nishes abundant reasons, if I am not 
 mistaken, to modify this opinion very 
 essentially. A few out of many instances 
 may be adduced from the enacting words 
 of statutes, which we consider in England 
 as good evidences to establish a constitu- 
 tional theory. Sepades que yo hube 
 mio acuerdo e mio consejo con mios her- 
 
320 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476-1493 
 
 great territorial aristocracy from their place in the Cortes, would 
 expose the dignity and legislative rights of that body to unfavour- 
 able inferences. But it is manifest that the king exercised very free- 
 ly a prerogative of calling or omitting persons of both the higher 
 orders at his discretion. The bishops were numerous, and many 
 of their sees not rich ; while the same objections of inconvenience 
 applied perhaps to the ricoshombres, but far more forcibly to the 
 lower nobility, the hijosdalgo or caballeros. Castile never adopted 
 the institution of deputies from this order, as in the States-Gen- 
 eral of France and some other countries, much less that Hberal 
 system of landed representation which forms one of the most 
 admirable peculiarities in our own constitution. It will be seen 
 hereafter that spiritual and even temporal peers were summoned 
 by our kings with much irregularity, and the disordered state of 
 Castile through almost every reign was likely to prevent the 
 establishment of any fixed usage in this and most other points. 
 The primary and most essential characteristic of a limited 
 monarchy is that money can only be levied upon the people 
 through the consent of their representatives. This principle was 
 thoroughly established in Castile ; and the statutes which enforce 
 it, the remonstrances which protest against its violation, bear a 
 lively analogy to corresponding circumstances in the history 
 of our constitution. The lands of the nobility and clergy were, 
 I believe, always exempted from direct taxation — an immunity 
 which, perhaps, rendered the attendance of the members of those 
 estates in the Cortes less regular. The corporate districts or 
 concejos, which, as I have observed already, differed from the 
 communities of France and England by possessing a large ex- 
 tent of territory subordinate to the principal town, were bound 
 by their charter to a stipulated annual payment, the price of their 
 franchises, called moneda forera.^^ Beyond this sum nothing 
 
 manos e los arzobispos, e los obispos, e 
 con los ricos homes de Castella, e de 
 Leon, e con homes buenos de las villas de 
 Castella, e de Leon, que fueron conmigo 
 en Valladolit, sobre muchas cosas, etc. 
 (Alfonso X in I2<58.) Mandamos enviar 
 llama por cartas del rei e nuestras a los 
 infantes e perlados e ricos homes e in- 
 fanzones e caballeros e homes buenos de 
 las cibdades e de las villas de los reynos 
 de Castilia et de Toledo e de Leon e de 
 las Estramaduras, e de Gallicia e de las 
 Asturias e del Andalusia. (Writ of sum- 
 mons to Cortes of Burgos in 1315.) Con 
 acuerdo de los perlados e de los ricos 
 homes e procuradores de las cibdades e 
 villas e logares de los nuestros reynos. 
 (Ordinances of Toro in 1371-) Estanho 
 hi con el el infante Don Ferrando, etc., e 
 otros perlados e condes e ricos homes e 
 otros caballeros e escuderos, e los procu- 
 radores de las cibdades e villas e logares 
 de sus reynos. (Cortes of 1391.) Los 
 tres estados que deben venir a las Cortes 
 
 e ayuntamientos segunt se debe facer e es 
 de buena costumbre antigua. (Cortes 
 of I393-) This last passage is apparently 
 conclusive to prove that three estates, 
 the superior clergy, the nobility, and the 
 cornmons, were essential members of the 
 legislature in Castile, as they were in 
 France and England; and one is aston- 
 ished to read in Marina that no faltaron 
 a ninguna de las formalidades de derecho 
 los monarcas que no tuvieron por opor- 
 tuno llamar a Cortes para semejantes 
 actos ni al clero ni a la nobleza ni a las 
 personas singulares de uno y otro estado. 
 (Tome i, p. 69.) That great citizen, Jo- 
 vellanos, appears to have had much wiser 
 notions of the ancient government of his 
 country, as well as of the sort of reforma- 
 tion which she wanted, as we may infer 
 from passages in his " Memoria " a sus 
 compatriotas, Corufia, 181 1, quoted by 
 Marina for the purpose of censure. 
 
 35 Marina, " Ensayo Hist.-Crit.," cap. 
 158; " Teoria de las Cortes," tome ii, p. 
 
I476-I493] 
 
 RIGHT OF TAXATION 
 
 321 
 
 could be demanded without the consent of the Cortes. Alfonso 
 VIII, in 1 177, applied for a subsidy toward carrying on the siege 
 of Cuenca. Demands of money do not, however, seem to have 
 been very usual before the prodigal reign of Alfonso X. That 
 prince and his immediate successors were not much inclined to 
 respect the rights of their subjects ; but they encountered a steady 
 and insuperable resistance. Ferdinand IV, in 1307, promises 
 to raise no money beyond his legal and customary dues. A more 
 explicit law was enacted by Alfonso XI in 1328, who bound 
 himself not to exact from his people, or cause them to pay any 
 tax, either partial or general, not hitherto established by law, 
 without the previous grant of all the deputies convened to the 
 Cortes.^® This abolition of illegal impositions was several times 
 confirmed by the same prince. The Cortes, in 1393, having made 
 a grant to Henry III, annexed this condition, that " since they 
 had granted him enough for his present necessities, and even to 
 lay up a part for a future exigency, he should swear before one 
 of the archbishops not to take or demand any money, service, 
 or loan, or anything else, of the cities and towns, nor of indi- 
 viduals belonging to them, on any pretence of necessity, until 
 the three estates of the kingdom should first be duly summoned 
 and assembled in Cortes according to ancient usage. And if 
 any such letters requiring money have been written, that they 
 shall be obeyed and not complied with." ^^ His son, John II, 
 having violated this constitutional privilege on the allegation of 
 a pressing necessity, the Cortes, in 1420, presented a long re- 
 monstrance, couched in very respectful but equally firm language, 
 wherein they assert " the good custom, founded in reason and 
 in justice, that the cities and towns of your kingdoms shall not 
 be compelled to pay taxes or requisitions, or other new tribute, 
 unless your Highness order it by advice and with the grant of 
 the said cities and towns, and of their deputies for them." And 
 they express their apprehension lest this right should be in- 
 fringed, because, as they say, " there remains no other privilege 
 or liberty which can be profitable to subjects if this be shaken." ^^ 
 
 387. This is expressed in one of their 
 lueros, or charters: Liberi et ingenui sem- 
 per maneatis, reddendo mihi et succes- 
 soribus meis in unoquoque anno in die 
 Pentecostes de unaquaque domo 12 de- 
 narios; et, mihi cum bona voluntate vestra 
 feceritis, nullum servitium faciatis. 
 
 '^ De los con echar nin mandar pagar 
 pecho desaforado ninguno, especial nin 
 general, en toda mi tierra, sin ser llama- 
 dos primeramente a Cortes e otorgado 
 por todos los procuradores que hi veni- 
 eren (p. 388). 
 
 " Obedecidas e non cumplidas. This 
 expression occurs frequently in pro- 
 visions made against illegal acts of the 
 crown; and is characteristic of the singu- 
 
 21 
 
 lar respect with which the Spaniards 
 always thought it right to treat their 
 sovereign, while they were resisting the 
 abuses of his authority. 
 
 '' La buena costumbre e possession 
 fundada en razon e en justicia que las 
 cibdades e villas de vuestros reinos tenian 
 de no ser mandado coger monedas e pe- 
 didos nin otro tribute nuevo alguno en 
 los vuestros reinos sin que la vuestra se- 
 noria lo faga e ordene de consejo e con 
 otorgamiento de las^ cibdades e villas de 
 los vuestros reinos e de sus procuradores 
 en su nombre ... no queda otro pre- 
 vilegio ni libertad de que los subditos 
 puedan gozar ni aprovechar quebrantado 
 el sobre dicho (tome iii, p. 30), 
 
322 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476-1493 
 
 The king gave them as full satisfaction as they desired that his 
 encroachment should not be drawn into precedent. Some fresh 
 abuses during the unfortunate reign of Henry IV produced an- 
 other declaration in equally explicit language, forming part of 
 the sentence awarded by the arbitrators to whom the differences 
 between the king and his people had been referred at Medina 
 del Campo in 1465.^^ The Catholic kings, as they are eminently 
 called, Ferdinand and Isabella, never violated this part of the con- 
 stitution ; nor did even Charles I, although sometimes refused 
 money by the Cortes, attempt to exact it without their consent.*® 
 In the " Recopilacion," or code of Castilian law published by 
 Philip II, we read a positive declaration against arbitrary im- 
 position of taxes, which remained unaltered on the face of the 
 statute-book till the present age.*^ The law was indeed fre- 
 quently broken by Philip II ; but the Cortes, who retained 
 throughout the sixteenth century a degree of steadiness and cour- 
 age truly admirable when we consider their political weakness, 
 did not cease to remonstrate with that suspicious tyrant, and 
 recorded their unavailing appeal to the law of Alfonso XI, " so 
 ancient and just, and which so long time has been used and 
 observed." ^^ 
 
 The free assent of the people by their representatives to 
 grants of money was by no means a mere matter of form. It 
 was connected with other essential rights indispensable to its 
 effectual exercise, those of examining public accounts and check- 
 ing the expenditure. The Cortes, in the best times at least, were 
 careful to grant no money until they were assured that what 
 had been already levied on their constituents had been properly 
 employed.*^ They refused a subsidy in 1390 because they had 
 
 '" Declaramos e ordenamos, que el 
 dicho senor rei nin los otros reyes que 
 despues del fueren non echan nin repar- 
 ian nin pidan pedidos nin monedas en sus 
 reynos, salvo por gran necessidad, e sey- 
 endo primero accordado con los perlados 
 e grandes de sus reynos, e con los otros 
 que a la sazon residierin en su consejo, e 
 seyendo para ello llamados los procura- 
 dores de las cibdades e villas de sus rey- 
 nos, que para las tales cosas se suelen e 
 acostumbran llamar, e seyendo per los 
 dichos procuradores otorgado el dicho 
 pedimento e monedas (tome ii, p. 391). 
 
 ■*•* Marina has published two letters 
 from Charles to the city of Toledo, in 
 1542 and 1548, requesting them to instruct 
 their deputies to consent to a further 
 grant of money, which they had refused 
 to do without leave of their constituents 
 (tome iii, pp. 180, 187). 
 
 ** Tome ii, p. 393. 
 
 *^ En las Cortes de ano de 70 y en las 
 de 76 pedimos a v. m. fuese servide de no 
 poner nuevos impuestos, rentas. pechos, 
 ni derechos ni otros tributos particulares 
 ni generales sin junta del reyno en Cortes, 
 
 como esta dispuesto por lei del seiior rei 
 Don Alonso, y se significo k v. m. el 
 daiio grande que con las nuevas rentas 
 habia rescibido el reino, suplicando a v. 
 m. fuese servido de mandarle aliviar y 
 descargar, y que en lo de adelante se les 
 hiciesse merced de guardar las dichas 
 leyes reales, y que ne se impusiessen 
 nuevas rentas sin su asistencia ; pues 
 podria v, m. estar satisfecho de que el 
 reino sirve en las cosas necessarias con 
 toda lealtad y hasta ahora no se ha pro- 
 veido lo susodicho; y el reino por la 
 obligacion que tiene a pedir a v, m. 
 guarde la dicha lei, y que no solamente 
 ban cessado las necessidades de los sub- 
 ditos y naturales de v. m. pero antes 
 crecen de cada dia: vuelve a suplicar a 
 v. m. sea servido concederle lo susodicho, 
 y que las nuevas rentas pechos y dere- 
 chos se quiten, y que de aqui adelante 
 se guarde la dicha lei del senor rei Don 
 Alonso, como tan antigua y justa y que 
 tanto tiempo se uso y guardo (p. 395). 
 This petition was in 1579. 
 
 " Marina, tome ii, pp. 404, 406. 
 
1476-1493] POWER OF THE CORTES 323 
 
 already given so much, and, " not knowing how so great a sum 
 had been expended, it would be a great dishonour and mischief 
 to promise any more." In 1406 they stood out a long time, and 
 at length gave only half of what was demanded.'** Charles I 
 attempted to obtain money in 1527 from the nobility as well 
 as commons. But the former protested that " their obligation 
 was to follow the king in war, wherefore to contribute money 
 was totally against their privilege, and for that reason they could 
 not acquiesce in his Majesty's request." *^ The commons also 
 refused on this occasion. In 1538, on a similar proposition, the 
 superior and lower nobility (los grandes y caballeros) " begged 
 with all humility that they might never hear any more of that 
 matter." *« 
 
 The contributk)ns granted by the Cortes were assessed and 
 collected by respectable individuals (hombres buenos) of the sev- 
 eral towns and villages.*"^ This repartition, as the French call 
 it, of direct taxes is a matter of the highest importance in those 
 countries where they are imposed by means of a gross assess- 
 ment on a district. The produce was paid to the royal council. 
 It could not be applied to any other purpose than that to which 
 the tax had been appropriated. Thus the Cortes of Segovia, 
 in 1407, granted a subsidy for the war against Granada, on con- 
 dition that " it should not be laid out on any other service ex- 
 cept this war " ; which they requested the queen and Ferdi- 
 nand, both regents in John ITs minority, to confirm by oath. 
 Part, however, of the money remaining unexpended, Ferdinand 
 wished to apply it to his own object of procuring the crown of 
 Aragon ; but the queen first obtained not only a release from 
 her oath by the Pope, but the consent of the Cortes. They con- 
 tinued to insist upon this appropriation, though ineffectually, 
 under the reign of Charles I.*® 
 
 The Cortes did not consider it beyond the line of their duty, 
 notwithstanding the respectful manner in which they always 
 addressed the sovereign, to remonstrate against profuse expendi- 
 ture even in his own household. They told Alfonso X in 1258, 
 in the homely style of that age, that they thought it fitting that 
 the king and his wife should eat at the rate of a hundred and 
 fifty maravedis a day, and no more, and that the king should 
 order his attendants to eat more moderately than they did.*® 
 They remonstrated more forcibly against the podigality of John 
 II. Even in 1559 they spoke with an undaunted Castilian spirit 
 to Philip II : " Sir, the expenses of your royal establishment and 
 
 ** Marina, tome ii, p. 409. « Marina, tome ii, p. 411. 
 
 40 Pero que contribuir a la guerra con *'' P. 398. 
 
 ciertas sumas era totalmente opuesto a *^ P. 412. 
 
 sus previlegios, e asi que no podrian aco- *' P. 417. 
 modarse a lo que s. m. deseaba (p. 411). 
 
324 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 476- 1 493 
 
 household are much increased ; and we conceive it would much 
 redound to the good of these kingdoms that your Majesty should 
 direct them to be lowered, both as a relief to your wants and 
 that all the great men and other subjects of your Majesty may 
 take example therefrom to restrain the great disorder and excess 
 they commit in that respect." ^^ 
 
 The forms of "a Castilian Cortes were analogous to those of 
 an English Parliament in the fourteenth century. They were 
 summoned by a writ almost exactly coincident in expression with 
 that in use among us.^^ The session was opened by a speech 
 from the chancellor or other chief officer of the court. The depu- 
 ties were invited to consider certain special business, and com- 
 monly to grant money.^^ After the principal affairs were de- 
 spatched, they conferred together, and, having examined the 
 instructions of their respective constituents, drew up a schedule 
 of petitions. These were duly answered one by one ; and from 
 the petition and answer, if favourable, laws were afterward drawn 
 up where the matter required a new law, or promises of redress 
 were given if the petition related to an abuse or grievance. In 
 the struggling condition of Spanish liberty under Charles I, the 
 crown began to neglect answering the petitions of the Cortes, 
 or to use unsatisfactory generalities of expression. This gave 
 rise to many remonstrances. The deputies insisted in 1523 on 
 having answers before they granted money. They repeated the 
 same contention in 1525, and obtained a general law inserted in 
 the *' Recopilacion " enacting that the king should answer all 
 their petitions before he dissolved the assembly.^^ This, how- 
 ever, was disregarded as before; but the Cortes, whose intrepid 
 honesty under Philip II so often attracts our admiration, con- 
 tinued as late as 1586 to appeal to the written statute and lament 
 its violation.^* 
 
 According to the ancient fundamental constitution of Cas- 
 tile, the king did not legislate for his subjects without their con- 
 sent. The code of the Visigoths, called in Spain the *' Fuero 
 Jusgo," was enacted in public councils, as were also the laws 
 of the early Kings of Leon, which appears by the reciting words 
 of their preambles.^^ This consent was originally given only by 
 
 ''* Senhor, los gastos de vuestro real 
 estado y mesa son muy crescidos, y en- 
 tendemos que convernia mucho al bien 
 de estos reinos que v. m. los mandasse 
 moderar, asi para algun remedio de sus 
 necessidades, como para que de v. m. to- 
 men egemplo totos los grandes y caballe- 
 ros y otros subditos de v. m. en la gran- 
 desorden y excessos que hacen en las 
 cosas sobredichas (p, 437). 
 
 •^^ Marina, tome i, p. 175; tome iii, 
 p. 103. 
 
 °2 Tome i, p. 278. 
 
 "P. 301. 
 
 " Pp. 288-304. 
 
 ''^ Tome ii, p. 202. The acts of the 
 Cortes of Leon in 1020 run thus: Omnes 
 pontifices et abbates et optimates regni 
 Hispaniae jussu ipsius regis talia decreta 
 decrevimus quae firmiter teneantur fu- 
 turis temporibus. So those of Salamanca, 
 in 1178: Ego rex Fernandus inter caetera 
 quae cum episcopis et abbatibus regni 
 nostri et quamplurimis aliis reli§:iosis, 
 cum comitibus terrarum et principibus 
 et rectoribus provinciarum, toto posse 
 tenenda statuimus apud Salamancam. 
 
I476-I493] 
 
 LEGISLATIVE RIGHTS 
 
 325 
 
 the higher estates, who might be considered, in a large sense, 
 as representing the nation, though not chosen by it, but from 
 the end of the twelfth century by the elected deputies of the com- 
 mons in the Cortes. The laws of Alfonso X in 1258, those of the 
 same prince in 1274, and many others in subsequent times, are 
 declared to be made with the consent (con acuerdo) of the sev- 
 eral orders of the kingdom. More commonly, indeed, the pre- 
 amble of Castilian statutes only recites their advice (consejo) ; 
 but I do not know that any stress is to be laid on this circum- 
 stance. The laws of the '' Siete Partidas," compiled by Alfonso 
 X, did not obtain any direct sanction till the famous Cortes 
 of Alcala, in 1348, when they were confirmed along with several 
 others, forming altogether the basis of the statute law of Spain.^® 
 Whether they were, in fact, received before that time has been a 
 matter controverted among Spanish antiquaries, and upon the 
 question of their legal validity at the time of their promulga- 
 tion depends an important point in Castilian history, the disputed 
 right of succession between Sancho IV and the Infants of La 
 Cerda; the former claiming under the ancient customary law, 
 the latter under the new dispositions of the '' Siete Partidas." 
 If the king could not legally change the established laws with- 
 out consent of his Cortes, as seems most probable, the right of 
 representative succession did not exist in favour of his grand- 
 children, and Sancho IV can not be considered as a usurper. 
 
 It appears, upon the whole, to have been a constitutional 
 principle that laws could neither be made nor annulled except in 
 the Cortes. In 1506 this is claimed by the deputies as an estab- 
 lished right.^^ John I had long before admitted that what was 
 done by the Cortes and general assemblies could not be undone 
 by letters missive, but by such Cortes and assemblies alone.^® 
 For the Kings of Castile had adopted the English practice of 
 dispensing with statutes by a non-obstante clause in their grants. 
 But the Cortes remonstrated more steadily against this abuse 
 than our own Parliament, who suffered it to remain in a certain 
 degree till the Revolution. It was several times enacted upon 
 their petition, especially by an explicit statute of Henry II, that 
 grants and letters-patent dispensing with statutes should not 
 be obeyed.^^ Nevertheless, John II, trusting to force or the 
 
 ""Ensayo Hist.-Cnt.," p. 353; " Te- 
 oria de las Cortes," tome ii, p. 77. Ma- 
 rina seems to have changed his opinion 
 between the publication of these two 
 works, in the former of which he con- 
 tends for the previous authority of the 
 " Siete Partidas," and in favour of the 
 Infants of La Cerda. 
 
 " Los reyes establicieron que cuando 
 hubtesen de hacer leyes, para que fuesen 
 provechosas a sus reynos y cada provin- 
 cias fuesen proveidas, se llamasen Cortes 
 
 y procuradores que entendiesen en ellas, 
 y por esto se establecio lei que no se 
 hiciesen ni renovasen leyes sino en Cor- 
 tes. (" Teoria de las Cortes," tome ii, p. 
 218.) 
 
 ^^ Lo que es fecho por Cortes € por 
 ayuntamientos que non se pueda disfacer 
 por las tales cartas, salvo por ayunta- 
 mientos e Cortes. (" Teoria de las Cor- 
 tes." tome ii, p. 215.) 
 
 60 P. 215. 
 
326 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1476-1493 
 
 servility of the judges, had the assurance to dispense explicitly 
 with this very law.^*^ The Cortes of Valladolid, in 1442, obtained 
 fresh promises and enactments against such an abuse. Philip I 
 and Charles I began to legislate without asking the consent of the 
 Cortes ; this grew much worse under Philip II, and reached its 
 height under his successors, who entirely abolished all constitu- 
 tional privileges.®^ In 1555 we find a petition that laws made 
 in the Cortes should be revoked nowhere else. The reply was such 
 as became that age : *' To this we answer that we shall do what 
 best suits our government." But even in 161 9, and still after- 
 ward, the patriot representatives of Castile continued to lift an 
 unavailing voice against illegal ordinances, though in the form 
 of very humble petition ; perhaps the latest testimonies to the 
 expiring liberties of their country.®^ The denial of exclusive 
 legislative authority to the crown must, however, be understood 
 to admit the legality of particular ordinances designed to strength- 
 en the king's executive government.®^ These, no doubt, like 
 the royal proclamations in England, extended sometimes very 
 far, and subjected the people to a sort of arbitrary coercion much 
 beyond what our enlightened notions of freedom would con- 
 sider as reconcilable to it. But in the middle ages such tem- 
 porary commands and prohibitions were not reckoned strictly 
 legislative, and passed, perhaps rightly, for inevitable conse- 
 quences of a scanty code and short sessions of the national 
 council. 
 
 The kings were obliged to swear to the observance of laws 
 enacted in the Cortes, besides their general coronation oath to 
 keep the laws and preserve the liberties of their people. Of this we 
 find several instances from the middle of the thirteenth century, 
 and the practice continued till the time of John II, who, in 1433, 
 on being requested to swear to the laws then enacted, answered 
 that he intended to maintain them, and consequently no oath was 
 necessary; an evasion in which the Cortes seem unaccount- 
 ably to have acquiesced.®^ The guardians of Alfonso XI not 
 only swore to observe all that had been agreed on at Burgos 
 in 1315, but consented that, if any one of them did not keep his 
 oath, the people should no longer be obliged to regard or obey 
 him as regent.®^ 
 
 It was customary to assemble the Cortes of Castile for many 
 purposes besides those of granting money and concurring in 
 legislation. They were summoned in every reign to acknowledge 
 and confirm the succession of the heir apparent, and upon his 
 
 _ eo " Teoria de las Cortes," p. 216; tome sea por Cortes . . . y por ser de tanta 
 
 iii, p. 40. importancia vuelve el reino a suplicarlo 
 
 «^ Tome ii, p. 218. humilmente a v. m. (p. 220). 
 
 "2 Ha suplicado el reino a v. m. no se "^ P. 207. 
 
 promulguen nuevas leyes, ni en todo ni '^* Tome i, p. 306. 
 
 en parte las antiguas se alteren, sin que ^^ Tome iii, p. 62, 
 
1476-1493] OTHER RIGHTS OF THE CORTES 327 
 
 accession to swear allegiance.**® These acts were, however, little 
 more than formal, and accordingly have been preserved for the 
 sake of parade after all the real dignity of the Cortes was anni- 
 hilated. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they claimed 
 and exercised very ample powers. They assumed the right, when 
 questions of regency occurred, to limit the prerogative, as well 
 as to designate the persons who were to use it.°^ And the fre- 
 quent minorities of Castilian kings, which were unfavourable 
 enough to tranquility and subordination, served to confirm these 
 parliamentary privileges. The Cortes were usually consulted 
 upon all material business. A law of Alfonso XI in 1328, printed 
 in the " Recopilacion " or code published by Philip II, declares, 
 " Since in the arduous affairs of our kingdom the counsel of our 
 natural subjects is necessary, especially of the deputies from our 
 cities and towns, therefore we ordain and command that on such 
 great occasions the Cortes shall be assembled, and counsel shall 
 be taken of the three estates of our kingdoms, as the kings our 
 forefathers have been used to do." ®® A Cortes of John II, in 
 141 9, claimed this right of being consulted in all matters of im- 
 portance, with a warm remonstrance against the alleged viola- 
 tion of so wholesome a law by the reigning prince ; who an- 
 swered that in weighty matters he had acted, and would continue 
 to act, in conformity to it.®^ What should be intended by great 
 and weighty affairs might be not at all agreed upon by the two 
 parties, to each of whose interpretations these woids gave pretty 
 full scope. However, the current usage of the monarchy cer- 
 tainly permitted much authority in public deliberations to the 
 Cortes. Among other instances, which, indeed, will continually 
 be found in the common civil histories, the Cortes of Ocana, in 
 1469, remonstrate with Henry IV for allying himself with Eng- 
 land rather than France, and give, as the first reason of com- 
 plaint, that, *' according to the laws of your kingdom, when the 
 kings have anything of great importance in hand, they ought 
 not to undertake it without advice and knowledge of the chief 
 towns and cities of your kingdom." '^^ This privilege of general 
 interference was asserted, like other ancient rights, under Charles, 
 whom they strongly urged, in 1548, not to permit his son Philip 
 to depart out of the realm. "^^ It is hardly necessary to observe 
 that, in such times, they had little chance of being regarded. 
 
 The Kings of Leon and Castile acted, during the interval 
 of the Cortes, by the advice of a smaller council, answering, as 
 it seems, almost exactly to the king's ordinary council in Eng- 
 
 «^ Tome i, p. 33; tome ii, p. 24. alguna cosa de gran importancia, non lo 
 
 "' P. 230. deben facer sin consejo e sabiduria de las 
 
 *8 Tome i, p. 31. cibdades e villas principales de vuestros 
 
 *" P. 34. reynos. (" Teoria de las Cortes," tome 
 
 '* Porque, segunt leyes de nuestros ii, p. 241.) 
 reynos, cuando los reyes han de facer " Tome iii, p. 183. 
 
328 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1476-1493 
 
 land. In early ages, before the introduction of the commons, 
 it is sometimes difficult to distinguish this body from the general 
 council of the nation, being composed, in fact, of the same class 
 of persons, though in smaller numbers. A similar difficulty 
 applies to the English history. The nature of their proceedings 
 seems best to ascertain the distinction. All executive acts, in- 
 cluding those ordinances which may appear rather of a legislative 
 nature, all grants and charters, are declared to be with the assent 
 of the court (curia), or of the magnates of the palace, or of the 
 chiefs or nobles. "^^ This privy council was an essential part of 
 all European monarchies ; and, though the sovereign might be 
 considered as free to call in the advice of whomsoever he pleased, 
 yet, in fact, the princes of the blood and most powerful nobility 
 had anciently a constitutional right to be members of such a 
 council, so that it formed a very material check upon his personal 
 authority. 
 
 The council underwent several changes in progress of time, 
 which it is not necessary to enumerate. It was justly deemed 
 an important member of the constitution, and the Cortes showed 
 a laudable anxiety to procure its composition in such a manner 
 as to form a guarantee for the due execution of laws after their 
 own dissolution. Several times, especially in minorities, they 
 even named its members or a part of them ; and in the reigns 
 of Henry III and John II they obtained the privilege of adding 
 a permanent deputation, consisting of four persons elected out of 
 their own body, annexed, as it were, to the council, who were to 
 continue at the court during the interval of the Cortes and watch 
 over the due observance of the laws.*^* This deputation contin- 
 ued as an empty formality in the sixteenth century. In the coun- 
 cil the king was bound to sit personally three days in the week. 
 Their business, which included the whole executive government, 
 was distributed with considerable accuracy into what might be 
 despatched by the council alone, under their own seals and signa- 
 tures, and what required the royal seal.*^* The consent of this 
 body was necessary for almost every act of the crown : for pen- 
 sions or grants of money, ecclesiastical and political promotions, 
 and for charters of pardon, the easy concession of which was a 
 great encouragement to the homicides so usual in those ages, 
 and was restrained by some of our own laws."^^ But the council 
 did not exercise any judicial authority, if we may believe the 
 well-informed author from whom I have learned these particu- 
 lars ; unlike, in this, to the ordinary council of the Kings of Eng- 
 
 '* Cum assensu magnatum palatii: " " Teoria de las Cortes," tome ii. 
 
 Cum consilio curiae meae: Cum consilio et p. 346. 
 beneplacito omnium principum meorum, " P. 354. 
 
 nullo contradicente nee reclamente. "* Pp. 360, 362, 372. 
 
 (" Teoria de las Cortes," tome iii, p. 325.) 
 
1476-1493] ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 329 
 
 land. It was not until the days of Ferdinand and Isabella that 
 this, among other innovations, was introduced. "^^ 
 
 Civil and criminal justice was administered, in the first in- 
 stance, by the alcaldes, or municipal judges of towns ; elected 
 within themselves originally by the community at large, but in 
 subsequent times by the governing body. In other places a lord 
 possessed the right of jurisdiction by grant from the crown, not, 
 what we find in countries where the feudal system was more 
 thoroughly established, as incident to his own territorial supe- 
 riority. The kings, however, began in the thirteenth century 
 to appoint judges of their own, called corregidores, a name which 
 seems to express concurrent jurisdiction with the regidores, or 
 ordinary magistrates.'^^ The Cortes frequently remonstrated 
 against this encroachment. Alfonso XI consented to withdraw 
 his judges from all corporations by which he had not been re- 
 quested to appoint them.*^® Some attempts to interfere with the 
 municipal authorities of Toledo produced serious disturbances 
 under Henry III and John II.*^^ Even where the king appointed 
 magistrates at a city's request, he was bound to select them 
 from among the citizens. ^^ From this immediate jurisdiction an 
 appeal lay to the adelantado or governor of the province, and 
 thence to the tribunal of royal alcades.®^ The latter, however, 
 could not take cognizance of any cause depending before the 
 ordinary judges ; a contrast to the practice of Aragon, where the 
 justiciary's right of evocation (juris firma) was considered as a 
 principal safeguard of public liberty.®^ As a court of appeal, 
 the royal alcaldes had the supreme jurisdiction. The king could 
 only cause their sentence to be revised, but neither alter nor 
 revoke it.®^ They have continued to the present day as a criminal 
 tribunal; but civil appeals were transferred by the ordinances 
 of Toro in 1371 to a new court, styled the king's audience, which, 
 though deprived under Ferdinand and his successors of part of 
 its jurisdiction, still remains one of the principal judicatures in 
 Castile^-* 
 
 No people in a half-civilized state of society have a full prac- 
 tical security against particular acts of arbitrary power. They 
 were more common perhaps in Castile than in any other Euro- 
 pean monarchy which professed to be free. Laws, indeed, were 
 not wanting to protect men's lives and liberties, as well as their 
 properties. Ferdinand IV, in 1299, agreed to a petition that 
 
 T« Tome ii, pp. 375. 370- ^^ P. 255. 
 
 " Alfonso A says, Ningun ome sea si P. 266. 
 
 osado juzgar pleytos, se no fuere alcalde ^^ P. 260. 
 
 puesto pol el rey. (Id., fol. 27.) This ss pp ^87, 304. 
 
 seems an encroachment on the municipal »* " Teoria de las Cortes," tome ii, pp. 
 
 magistrates. ^ , ^ „ .. 292-302. The use of the present tensei 
 
 T8 " Teona de las Cortes, tome u, in this and many other passages, will 
 
 p. 251. not confuse the attentive reader. 
 
 T* P. 25s ; Mariana, I. xx, c. 13. 
 
330 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476-1493 
 
 " justice shall be executed impartially according to law and 
 right ; and that no one shall be put to death or imprisoned, or 
 deprived of his possessions, without trial, and that this be better 
 observed than heretofore." ®^ He renewed the same law in 1307. 
 Nevertheless, the most remarkable circumstance of this mon- 
 arch's history was a violation of so sacred and apparently so well- 
 established a law. Two gentlemen having been accused of mur- 
 der, Ferdinand, without waiting for any process, ordered them 
 to instant execution. They summoned him with their last words 
 to appear before the tribunal of God in thirty days ; and his death 
 within the time, which has given him the surname of the Sum- 
 moned, might, we may hope, deter succeeding sovereigns from 
 iniquity so flagrant. But from the practice of causing their ene- 
 mies to be assassinated, neither law nor conscience could with- 
 hold them. Alfonso XI was more than once guilty of this crime. 
 Yet he, too, passed an ordinance in 1325 that no warrant should 
 issue for putting any one to death, or seizing his property, till 
 he should be duly tried by course of law. Henry H repeats 
 the same law in very explicit language.®® But the civil history 
 of Spain displays several violations of it. An extraordinary pre- 
 rogative of committing murder appears to have been admitted 
 in early times by several nations who did not acknowledge un- 
 limited power in their sovereign. ^^ Before any regular police 
 was established, a powerful criminal might have been secure 
 from all punishment but for a notion, as barbarous as any which 
 it served to counteract, that he could be lawfully killed by the 
 personal mandate of the king. And the frequent attendance of 
 sovereigns in their courts of judicature might lead men not 
 accustomed to consider the indispensable necessity of legal 
 forms to confound an act of assassination with the execution of 
 justice. 
 
 Though it is very improbable that the nobility were not 
 considered as essential members of the Cortes, they certainly 
 attended in smaller numbers than we should expect to find from 
 the great legislative and deliberative authority of that assembly. 
 This arose chiefly from the lawless spirit of that martial aris- 
 tocracy which placed less confidence in the constitutional methods 
 of resisting arbitrary encroachment than in its own armed com- 
 
 *'' Que mandase facer la justicia en 
 aquelfos que la merecen comunalmente 
 con fuero e con derecho e los homes que 
 non scan muertos nin presos nin tornados 
 lo que han sin ser oidos por derecho 6 
 por fuero de aquel lo^ar do acaesciere, 
 e que sea guardado mejor que se guardo 
 fasta aqui. (Marina, " Ensayo Hist.- 
 Critico," p. 148.) 
 
 ®" Que non mandemos matar nin pren- 
 der nin lisiar nin despechar nin tomar a 
 alguno ninguna cosa de lo suyo, sin ser 
 
 ante llamado e oido e vencido por fuero 
 e por derecho, por querella nin por que- 
 rellas que a nos fuesen dadas, segunt que 
 esto esta ordenado por el rei Don Alonso 
 nuestro padre. (" Teoria de las Cortes," 
 tome ii, p. 287.) 
 
 *^ Si quis hominem per jussionem regis 
 vel ducis sui occiderit, non requiratur 
 ei, nee sit faidosus, quia jussio domini sui 
 fuitj et non potuit contradicere jussionem. 
 C' Leges Bajuvariorum," tit. 2 in " Baluz. 
 Capitularibus." 
 
1476-1493] CONFEDERACIES OF NOBILITY 331 
 
 binations.^^ Such confederacies to obtain redress of grievances 
 by force, of which there were five or six remarkable instances, 
 were called Hermandad (brotherhood or union), and, though not 
 so explicitly sanctioned as they were by the celebrated Privilege 
 of Union in Aragon, found countenance in a law of Alfonso X, 
 which can not be deemed so much to have voluntarily emanated 
 from that prince as to be a record of original rights possessed 
 by the Castilian nobility. '' The duty of subjects toward their 
 king," he says, ** enjoins them not to permit him knowingly to 
 endanger his salvation, nor to incur dishonour and inconvenience 
 in his person or family, nor to produce mischief to his kingdom. 
 And this may be fulfilled in two ways : one by good advice, 
 showing him the reason wherefore he ought not to act thus ; the 
 other by deeds, seeking means to prevent his going on to his 
 own ruin, and putting a stop to those who give him ill counsel : 
 forasmuch as his errors are of worse consequence than those 
 of other men, it is the bounden duty of subjects to prevent his 
 committing them.^^ To this law the insurgents appealed in 
 their coalition against Alvaro de Luna ; and, indeed, we must 
 confess that, however just and admirable the principles which 
 it breathes, so general a license of rebellion was not likely to 
 preserve the tranquility of a kingdom. The deputies of towns 
 in a Cortes of 1445 petitioned the king to declare that no con- 
 struction should be put on this law inconsistent with the obedi- 
 ence of subjects toward their sovereign — a request to which, of 
 course, he willingly acceded. 
 
 Castile, it will be apparent, bore a closer analogy to Eng- 
 land in its form of civil polity than France or even Aragon. 
 But the frequent disorders of its government and a barbarous 
 state of manners rendered violations of law much more continual 
 and flagrant than they were in England under the Plantagenet 
 dynasty. And, besides these practical mischiefs, there were two 
 essential defects in the constitution of Castile, through which 
 perhaps it was ultimately subverted. It wanted those two bril- 
 liants in the coronet of British liberty, the representation of free- 
 holders among the commons and trial by jury. The Cortes of 
 Castile became a congress of deputies from a few cities, public- 
 spirited, indeed, and intrepid, as we find them in bad times, to 
 an eminent degree, but too much limited in number, and too 
 unconnected with the territorial aristocracy, to maintain a just 
 balance against the crown. Yet, with every disadvantage, that 
 country possessed a liberal form of government, and was ani- 
 mated with a noble spirit for its defence. Spain, in her late 
 memorable though short resuscitation, might well have gone 
 
 88 " Teoria de las Cortes," tome ii, p. 465. 
 e» " Ensayo Hist.-Critico," p. 312. 
 
332 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1476-1493 
 
 back to her ancient institutions, and perfected a scheme of poHcy 
 which the great example of England would have shown to be 
 well adapted to the security of freedom. What she did, or rather 
 attempted, instead, I need not recall. May her next effort be 
 more wisely planned and more happily terminated ! ^° 
 
 Though the kingdom of Aragon was very inferior in extent 
 to that of Castile, yet the advantages of a better form of gov- 
 ernment and wiser sovereigns, with those of industry and com- 
 merce along a line of sea-coast, rendered it almost equal in im- 
 portance. Castile rarely intermeddled in the civil dissensions of 
 Aragon ; the Kings of Aragon frequently carried their arms into 
 the heart of Castile. During the sanguinary outrages of Peter 
 the Cruel, and the stormy revolutions which ended in establish- 
 ing the house of Trastamare, Aragon was not indeed at peace, 
 nor altogether well governed ; but her political consequence rose 
 in the eyes of Europe through the long reign of the ambitious 
 and wily Peter IV, whose sagacity and good fortune redeemed, 
 according to the common notions of mankind, the iniquity with 
 which he stripped his relation, the King of Majorca, of the Ba- 
 learic Islands, and the constant perfidiousness of his character. 
 I have mentioned in another place the Sicilian war, prosecuted 
 with so much eagerness for many years by Peter III and his 
 son, Alfonso III. After this object was relinquished, James II 
 undertook an enterprise less splendid, but not much less diffi- 
 cult — the conquest of Sardinia. That island, long accustomed 
 to independence, cost an incredible expense of blood and treasure 
 to the Kings of Aragon during the whole fourteenth century. 
 It was not fully subdued till the commencement of the next, 
 under the reign of Martin. 
 
 At the death of Martin, King of Aragon, in 1410, a mem- 
 orable question arose as to the right of succession. Though 
 Petronilla, daughter of Ramiro II, had reigned in her own right 
 from 1 137 to 1 172, an opinion seems to have gained ground 
 from the thirteenth century that females could not inherit the 
 crown of Aragon. Peter IV had excited a civil war by attempt- 
 ing to settle the succession upon his daughter, to the exclusion 
 of his next brother. The birth of a son about the same time sus- 
 pended the ultimate decision of this question ; but it was tacitly 
 understood that what is called the Salic law ought to prevail.®^ 
 Accordingly, on the death of John I in 1395, his two daughters 
 were set aside in favour of his brother Martin, though not with- 
 out opposition on the part of the elder, whose husband, the Count 
 of Foix, invaded the kingdom, and desisted from his pretension 
 
 DO 
 
 The first edition of this work was the crown in England as well as France: 
 
 published in 1818. and this analogy seems to have had 
 
 "^ Zurita, tome ii, f. 188. It was pre- some influence in determining the Ara- 
 
 tended that women were excluded from gonese to adopt a Salic law. 
 
1476-1493] DISPUTED SUCCESSION OF ARAGON 
 
 333 
 
 only through want of force. Martin's son, the King of Sicily, 
 dying in his father's lifetime, the nation was anxious that the 
 king should fix upon his successor, and would probably have 
 acquiesced in his choice. But l;)is dissolution occurring more 
 rapidly than was expected, the throne remained absolutely va- 
 cant. The Count of Urgel had obtained a grant of the lieuten- 
 ancy, which was the right of the Jieir apparent. This nobleman 
 possessed an extensive territory in Catalonia, bordering on the 
 Pyrenees. He was grandson of James, next brother to Peter 
 IV, and, according to our rules of inheritance, certainly stood 
 in the first place. The other claimants were the Duke of Gandia, 
 grandson of James II, who, though descended from a more dis- 
 tant ancestor, set up a claim founded on proximity to the royal 
 stock, which in some countries was preferred to a representative 
 title; the Duke of Calabria, son of Violante, younger daughter 
 of John I (the Countess of Foix being childless) ; Frederick, 
 Count of Luna, a natural son of the younger Martin, King of 
 Sicily, legitimated by the Pope, but with a reservation exclud- 
 ing him from royal succession ; and, finally, Ferdinand, Infant 
 of Castile, son of the late king's sister.^^ The Count of Urgel 
 was favoured in general by the Catalans, and he seemed to have 
 a powerful support in Antonio de Luna, a baron of Aragon, so 
 rich that he might go through his own estate from France to 
 Castile. But this apparent superiority frustrated his hopes. The 
 justiciary and other leading Aragonese were determined not to 
 suffer this great constitutional question to be decided by an 
 appeal to force, which might sweep away their liberties in the 
 struggle. Urgel, confident of his right, and surrounded by men 
 of ruined fortunes, was unwilling to submit his pretensions to 
 a civil tribunal. His adherent, Antonio de Luna, committed an 
 
 ^2 The subjoined pedigree will show more clearly the respective titles of the 
 competitors : 
 
 James II died 1327. 
 
 Alphonso IV d. 1336. 
 I 
 
 D. of Gandia. 
 
 Peter IV d. 1337. 
 
 Eleanor Q. of Castile. 
 
 John I d. 1395. 
 
 Henry III Ferdinand. 
 
 King of Castile. 
 
 Martin, 
 d. 1410. 
 
 James D, 0/ Gandia* 
 
 C. of Urgel. 
 
 I 
 
 Peter 
 
 C. of Urgel. 
 
 John IT 
 K. of Castile. 
 
 Martin ^- ^f ^""S^^' 
 
 I I K. of Sicily, 1409. 
 
 Joanna Violante j 
 
 Countess Q. of Naples. I 
 
 of Foix. I Frederick. 
 
 I C. 0/ Luna, 
 Louis D 0/ 
 Calabria. 
 
334 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476- I 493 
 
 extraordinary outrage, the assassination of the Archbishop of 
 Saragossa, which ahenated the minds of good citizens from his 
 cause. On the other hand, neither the Duke of Gandia, who 
 was very old,^^ nor the Count of Luna, seemed fit to succeed. 
 The party of Ferdinand, therefore, gained ground by degrees. 
 It was determined, however, to render a legal sentence. The 
 Cortes of each nation agreed upon the nomination of nine per- 
 sons, three Aragonese, three Catalans, and three Valencians, who 
 were to discuss the pretensions of the several competitors, and 
 by a plurality of six votes to adjudge the crown. Nothing could 
 be more solemn, more peaceful, nor, in appearance, more equi- 
 table than the proceedings of this tribunal. They summoned 
 the claimants before them, and heard them by counsel. One of 
 these, Frederick of Luna, being ill defended, the court took 
 charge of his interests, and named other advocates to maintain 
 them. A month was passed in hearing arguments ; a second 
 was allotted to considering them ; and at the expiration of the 
 prescribed time it was announced to the people, by the mouth of 
 St. Vincent Ferrier, that Ferdinand of Castile had ascended the 
 throne.^* 
 
 In this decision it is impossible not to suspect that the judges 
 were swayed rather by politic considerations than a strict sense 
 of hereditary right. It was, therefore, by no means universally 
 popular, especially in Catalonia, of which principality the Count 
 of Urgel was a native; and perhaps the great rebellion of the 
 Catalans fifty years afterward may be traced to the disaffection 
 which this breach, as they thought, of the lawful succession had 
 excited. Ferdinand, however, was well received in Aragon. The 
 Cortes generously recommended the Count of Urgel to his favour, 
 on account of the great expenses he had incurred in prosecut- 
 ing his claim. But Urgel did not wait the effect of this recom- 
 mendation. Unwisely attempting a rebellion with very inade- 
 quate means, he lost his estates, and was thrown for life into 
 prison. Ferdinand's successor was his son, Alfonso V, more 
 distinguished in the history of Italy than of Spain. For all the 
 
 "' This Duke of Gandia died during 
 the interregnum. His son, though not so 
 objectionable on the score of age, seemed 
 to have a worse claim; yet he became a 
 competitor. 
 
 ** " Biancse Commentaria," in"Schotti 
 Hispania Ulustrata," tome ii ; Zurita, 
 tome iii. f. 1—74. Vincent Ferrier was 
 the most distinguished churchman of his 
 time in Spain. His influence, as one of 
 the nine judges, is said to have been 
 very instrumental in procuring the crown 
 for Ferdinand. Five others voted the 
 same way; one for the Count of Urgel; 
 one doubtfully between the Count of 
 Urgel and Duke of Gandia; the ninth 
 declined to vote. (Zurita, tome iii, f. 71.) 
 
 It is curious enough that John, King 
 of Castile, was altogether disregarded, 
 though his claim was at least as plausible 
 as that of his uncle Ferdinand, Indeed, 
 upon the principles of inheritance to 
 which we are accustomed, Louis, Duke 
 of Calabria, had a prior right to Ferdi- 
 nand, admitting the rule which it was 
 necessary for both of them to establish; 
 namely, that a right of succession might 
 be transmitted through females, whtch 
 females could not personally enjoy. This, 
 as is well known, had been adfvanced in 
 the preceding age by Edward III as the 
 foundation of his claim to the crown of 
 France. 
 
1476-1493J KINGS OF ARAGON 335 
 
 latter years of his life he never quitted the kingdom that he had 
 acquired by his arms ; and, enchanted by the deHcious air of 
 Naples, intrusted the government of his patrimonial territories 
 to the care of a brother and an heir. John II, upon whom they 
 devolved by the death of Alfonso without legitimate progeny, 
 had been engaged during his youth in the turbulent revolutions 
 of Castile, as the head of a strong party that opposed the domi- 
 nation of Alvaro de Luna. By marriage with the heiress of 
 Navarre he was entitled, according to the usage of those times, 
 to assume the title of king, and administration of government, 
 during her life. But his ambitious retention of power still longer 
 produced events which are the chief stain on his memory. 
 Charles, Prince of Viana, was, by the constitution of Navarre, 
 entitled to succeed his mother. She had requested him in her 
 testament not to assume the government without his father's 
 consent. That consent was always withheld. The prince raised 
 what we ought not to call a rebellion ; but was made prisoner, 
 and remained for some time in captivity. John's ill disposition 
 toward his son was exasperated by a stepmother, who scarcely 
 disguised her intention of placing her own child on the throne 
 of Aragon at the expense of the eldest born. After a life of per- 
 petual oppression, chiefly passed in exile or captivity, the Prince 
 of Viana died in Catalonia, at a moment when that province 
 was in open insurrection upon his account. Though it hardly 
 seems that the Catalans had any more general provocations, 
 they persevered for more than ten years with inveterate obstinacy 
 in their rebellion, offering the sovereignty first to a prince of 
 Portugal, and afterward to Regnier, Duke of Anjou, who was 
 destined to pass his life in unsuccessful competition for king- 
 doms. The King of Aragon behaved with great clemency to- 
 ward these insurgents on their final submission. 
 
 It is consonant to the principle of this work to pass lightly 
 over the common details of history, in order to fix the reader's 
 attention more fully on subjects of philosophical inquiry. Per- 
 haps in no European monarchy except our own was the form 
 of government more interesting than in Aragon, as a fortunate 
 temperament of law and justice with the royal authority. So 
 far as anything can be pronounced of its earlier period before 
 the capture of Saragossa in 11 18, it was a kind of regal aristoc- 
 racy, where a small number of powerful barons elected their 
 sovereign on every vacancy, though, as usual in other countries, 
 out of one family, and considered him as little more than the 
 chief of their confederacy.®^ These were the ricoshombres or 
 
 »' Alfonso III complained that his bar- mentaria," p. 787.) The form of election 
 
 ons wanted to bring back old times, supposed to have been used by these bold 
 
 quando havia en el reyno tantos reyes barons is well known. "We, who are 
 
 como ncos hombres. (" Biancae Com- as good as you, choose you for our king 
 
33^ 
 
 HALLAMS MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476-1493 
 
 barons, the first order of the state. Among these the Kings of 
 Aragon, in subsequent times, as they extended their dominions, 
 shared the conquered territory in grants of honours on a feudal 
 tenure.^^ For this system was fully established in the kingdom 
 of Aragon. A ricohombre, as we read in Vitalis, Bishop of 
 Huesca, about the middle of the thirteenth century,'*^ must hold 
 of the king an honour or barony capable of supporting more 
 than three knights ; and this he was bound to distribute among 
 his vassals in military fiefs. Once in the year he might be sum- 
 moned with his feudatories to serve the sovereign for two months 
 (Zurita says three) ; and he was to attend the royal court, or 
 general assembly, as a counsellor, whenever called upon, assist- 
 ing in its judicial as well as deliberative business. In the towns 
 and villages of his barony he might appoint bailiffs to administer 
 justice and receive penalties ; but the higher criminal jurisdiction 
 seems to have been reserved to the crown. According to Vitalis, 
 the king could divest these ricoshombres of their honours at 
 pleasure, after which they fell into the class of mesnadaries, or 
 mere tenants in chief. But if this were constitutional in the reign 
 of James I, which Blancas denies, it was not long permitted by 
 that high-spirited aristocracy. By the General Privilege or Char- 
 ter of Peter III it is declared that no barony can be taken away 
 without a just cause and legal sentence of the justiciary and 
 council of barons.^^ And the same protection was extended to 
 the vassals of the ricoshombres. 
 
 Below these superior nobles were the mesnadaries, corre- 
 sponding to our mere tenants in chief, holding estates not baronial 
 immediately from the crown ; and the military vassals of the high 
 nobility, the knights and infanzones ; a word which may be ren- 
 dered by gentlemen. These had considerable privileges in that 
 aristocratic government; they were exempted from all taxes, 
 they could only be tried by the royal judges for any crime; and 
 offences committed against them were punished with additional 
 severity.®* The ignoble classes were, as in other countries, the 
 burgesses of towns and the villeins, or peasantry. The peasantry 
 seem to have been subject to territorial servitude, as in France 
 and England. Vitalis says that some villeins were originally so 
 
 and lord, provided that you observe our 
 laws and privileges; and if not, not." 
 But I do not much believe the authen- 
 ticity of this form of words. (See Rob- 
 ertson's " Charles V," vol. i, note 31.) It 
 is, however, sufficiently agreeable to the 
 spirit of the old government. 
 
 "*' Los ricos hombres, por los feudos 
 que tenian del rey, eran obligados de 
 seguir al rey, si yva en persona a la 
 guerra, y residir en ella tres meses en 
 cadaun ano. (Zurita, tome i, fol. 43*, 
 Saragossa, 1610.) A fief was usually called 
 
 in Aragon an honour, que en Castilla 
 llamavan tierra, y en el principado de 
 Cataluna feudo (fol. 46). 
 
 "^ I do not know whether this worlc 
 of Vitalis has been printed; but there 
 are large extracts from it in Blanca's 
 history, and also in Du Change, under 
 the words Infancia, Mesnadarius, etc. 
 Several illustrations of these military 
 tenures may be found in the " Fueros de 
 Aragon." especially lib. 7. 
 
 "* " Biancae Comm.," p. 730. 
 
 «» P. n^- 
 
I476-I493] 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF ARAGON 
 
 337 
 
 unprotected that, as he expresses it, they might be divided into 
 pieces by sword among the sons of their masters, till they were 
 provoked to an insurrection, which ended in establishing cer- 
 tain stipulations, whence they obtained the denomination of vil- 
 leins de parada, or of convention. ^^*^ 
 
 Though from the twelfth century the principle of hereditary 
 succession to the throne superseded, in Aragon as well as Cas- 
 tile, the original right of choosing a sovereign within the royal 
 family, it was still founded upon one more sacred and funda- 
 mental, that of compact. No King of Aragon was entitled to 
 assume that name until he had taken a coronation oath, admin- 
 istered by the justiciary at Saragossa, to observe the laws and 
 liberties of the realm. ^^^ Alfonso III, in 1285, being in France 
 at the time of his father's death, named himself king in address- 
 ing the states, who immediately remonstrated on this premature 
 assumption of his title, and obtained an apology.^^^ Thus, too, 
 Martin, having been called to the crown of Aragon by the Cortes 
 in 1395, was specially required not to exercise any authority 
 before his coronation.^^^ 
 
 Blancas quotes a noble passage from the acts of the Cortes in 
 145 1 : " We have always heard of old time, and it is found by 
 experience that, seeing the great barrenness of this land, and 
 the poverty of the realm, if it were not for the liberties thereof, 
 the folk would go hence to live and abide in other realms and 
 lands more fruitful." ^®* This high spirit of freedom had long 
 animated the Aragonese. After several contests with the crown 
 in the reign of James I, not to go back to earlier times, they 
 compelled Peter III in 1283 to grant a law, called the General 
 Privilege, the Magna Charta of Aragon, and perhaps a more 
 full and satisfactory basis of civil liberty than our own. It con- 
 tains a series of provisions against arbitrary tallages, spoliations 
 of property, secret process after the manner of the Inquisition 
 in criminal charges, sentences of the justiciary without assent 
 of the Cortes, appointment of foreigners or Jews to judicial 
 
 ^"^ " Biancae Comm.," p, 729. 
 
 101 Zurita, " Anales de Aragon," tome 
 i, fol. 104; tome iii, fol. 76. 
 
 "2 Biancae Comm.," p, 661. They ac- 
 knowledged, at the same time, that he 
 was their natural lord, and entitled to 
 reign as lawful heir to his father — so 
 oddly were the hereditary and elective 
 titles jumbled together. (Zurita, tome i, 
 fol. 303.) 
 
 1°' Zurita, tome ii, fol. 424. 
 
 ^"^ Siempre havemos oydo dezir antiga- 
 ment, e se troba por esperiencia, que at- 
 tendida la grand sterilidad de aquesta 
 tierra, e pobreza de aqueste regno, si 
 non fues por las libertades de aquel, se 
 yrian a bivir, y habitar las gentes a otros 
 regnos, e tierras mas frutieras (p. 571). 
 
 22 
 
 Aragon was, in fact, a poor country, 
 barren and ill peopled. The kings were 
 forced to go to Catalonia for money, and 
 indeed were little able to maintain ex- 
 pensive contests. The wars of Peter IV 
 in Sardinia^ and of^ Alfonso V with 
 Genoa and Naples, impoverished their 
 people. A hearth tax having been im- 
 posed in 1404, it was found that there 
 were 42,683 houses in Aragon, which, 
 according to most calculations, will give 
 less than 300,000 inhabitants. _ In 1429, 
 a similar tax being laid on, it is said that 
 the number of houses was diminished in 
 consequence of war. (Zurita, tome iii, 
 fol. 189.) It contains at present between 
 600,000 and 700,000 inhabitants. 
 
338 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476-1493 
 
 offices ; trials of accused persons in places beyond the kingdom, 
 the use of torture, except in charges of falsifying the coin, and 
 the bribery of judges. These are claimed as the ancient liberties 
 of their country. " Absolute power (mero imperio e mixto),'^ it 
 is declared, " never was the constitution of Aragon, nor of Valen- 
 cia, nor yet of Ribagor<;a, nor shall there be in time to come 
 any innovation made ; but only the law, custom, and privilege 
 which has been anciently used in the aforesaid kingdoms." ^^^ 
 
 The concessions extorted by our ancestors from John, Henry 
 III, and Edward I were secured by the only guarantee those 
 times could afford, the determination of the barons to enforce 
 them by armed confederacies. These, however, were formed ac- 
 cording to emergencies, and, except in the famous commission 
 of twenty-five conservators of Magna Charta, in the last year 
 of John, were certainly unwarranted by law. But the Aragonese 
 established a positive right of maintaining their liberties by arms. 
 This was contained in the Privilege of Union granted by Alfonso 
 III in 1287, after a violent conflict with his subjects ; but which 
 was afterward so completely abolished, and even eradicated from 
 the records of the kingdom, that its precise words have never 
 been recovered.^^® According to Zurita, it consisted of two arti- 
 cles : First, that in the case of the king's proceeding forcibly 
 against any member of the union without previous sentence of 
 the justiciary, the rest should be absolved from their allegiance; 
 secondly, that he should hold a Cortes every year in Saragossa.^^"^ 
 During the two subsequent reigns of James II and Alfonso IV 
 little pretence seems to have been given for the exercise of this 
 right. But dissensions breaking out under Peter IV in 1347, rather 
 on account of his attempt to settle the crown upon his daughter 
 than of any specific public grievances, the nobles had recourse 
 to the Union, that last voice, says Blancas, of an almost expiring 
 state, full of weight and dignity, to chastise the presumption of 
 kings.^^^ They assembled at Saragossa, and used a remarkable 
 seal for all their public instruments, an engraving from which 
 may be seen in the historian I have just quoted. It represents 
 the king sitting on his throne, with the confederates kneeling 
 in a suppliant attitude around, to denote their loyalty and unwill- 
 ingness to ofifend. But in the background tents and lines of 
 spears are discovered, as a hint of their ability and resolution to 
 
 105" Fueros de Aragon," fol. 9; Zurita, 
 tome i, fol. 265. 
 
 ^"^ Blancas says that he had discovered 
 a copy of the Privilege of Union " in 
 the archives of the see of Tarragona, and 
 would gladly have published it but for 
 his deference to the wisdom of former 
 ages, which had studiously endeavoured 
 to destroy all recollection of that dan- 
 gerous law (p. 662). 
 
 ^**^ Zurita, tome i, fol. 322. 
 
 108 priscam illam Unionis, quasi mo- 
 nentis reipublicse extremam vocem, auc- 
 toritatis et gravitatis plenam, regum in- 
 solentix apertum vindicem excitarunt, 
 summa ac singular! bonorum omnium 
 consensione (p. 669). It is remarkable 
 that such strong language should have 
 been tolerated under Philip II. 
 
I476-I493] 
 
 OFFICE OF JUSTICIARY 
 
 339 
 
 defend themselves. The legend is ^'Sigillum Unionis Aragonum." 
 This respectful demeanour toward a sovereign against whom 
 they were waging war reminds us of the language held out by 
 our Long Parliament before the Presbyterian party was over- 
 thrown. And although it has been lightly censured as inconsist- 
 ent and hypocritical, this tone is the safest that men can adopt, 
 who, deeming themselves under the necessity of withstanding 
 the reigning monarch, are anxious to avoid a change of dynasty 
 or subversion of their constitution. These confederates were 
 defeated by the king at Epila in 1348.^^® But his prudence and 
 the remaining strength of his opponents inducing him to pursue 
 a moderate course, there ensued a more legitimate and perma- 
 nent balance of the constitution from this victory of the royalists. 
 The Privilege of Union was abrogated, Peter himself cutting 
 to pieces with his sword the original instrument. But in return 
 many excellent laws for the security of the subject were en- 
 acted ; ^^° and their preservation was intrusted to the greatest 
 officer of the kingdom, the justiciary, whose authority and pre- 
 eminence may in a great degree be dated from this period.^^^ 
 That watchfulness over public liberty, which originally belonged 
 to the aristocracy of ricoshombres, always apt to thwart the crown 
 or to oppress the people, and which was afterward maintained 
 by the dangerous Privilege of Union, became the duty of a civil 
 magistrate, accustomed to legal rules and responsible for his 
 actions, whose office and functions are the most pleasing feature 
 in the constitutional history of Aragon. 
 
 The justiza or justiciary of Aragon has been treated by some 
 writers as a sort of anomalous magistrate, created originally as 
 an intermediate power between the king and people, to watch 
 over the exercise of royal authority. But I do not perceive that 
 his functions were, in any essential respect, different from those 
 of the Chief Justice of England, divided, from the time of Ed- 
 ward I, among the judges of the King's Bench. We should 
 undervalue our own constitution by supposing that there did 
 not reside in that court as perfect an authority to redress the 
 subject's injuries as was possessed by the Aragonese magistrate. 
 In the practical exercise, indeed, of this power there was an 
 abundant difference. Our English judges, more timid and pli- 
 ant, left to the remonstrances of Parliament that redress of griev- 
 
 ^^ Zurita observes that the battle of 
 Epila was the last fought in defence of 
 public liberty, for which it was held law- 
 ful of old to take up arms, and resist the 
 king, by virtue of the ** Privile§:es of 
 Union." For the authority of the justici- 
 ary being afterward established, the for- 
 mer contentions and wars came to an end, 
 means being found to put the weak on a 
 level with the powerful, in which consists 
 the peace and tranquility of all states; 
 
 and from thence the name of union was, 
 by common consent, proscribed (tome ii, 
 fol. 226). Blancas also remarks that noth- 
 ing could have turned out more advan- 
 tageous to the Aragonese than their ill 
 fortune at Epila. 
 
 1^" " Fueros de Aragon." De iis, quae 
 Dominus rex (fol. 14, et alibi passim). 
 
 "1 " Bianc. Comm.," pp. 671, 811; Zu- 
 rita, tome ii, fol. 229. 
 
340 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [I 476- I 493 
 
 ances which very frequently lay within the sphere of their juris- 
 diction. There is, I believe, no recorded instance of a habeas 
 corpus granted in any case of illegal imprisonment by the crown 
 or its officers during the continuance of the Plantagenet dynasty. 
 We shall speedily take notice of a very different conduct in 
 Aragon. 
 
 The office of justiciary, whatever conjectural antiquity some 
 have assigned to it, is not to be traced beyond the capture of 
 Saragossa in 11 18, when the series of magistrates commences.^^^ 
 But for a great length of time they do not appear to have been 
 particularly important; the judicial authority residing in the 
 council of ricoshombres, whose suffrages the justiciary collected, 
 in order to pronounce their sentence rather than his own. A 
 passage in Vitalis, Bishop of Huesca, whom I have already men- 
 tioned, shows this to have been the practice during the reign 
 of James I.^^^ Gradually, as notions of liberty became more 
 definite, and laws more numerous, the reverence paid to their 
 permanent interpreter grew stronger, and there was fortunately 
 a succession of prudent and just men in that high office, through 
 whom it acquired dignity and stable influence. Soon after the 
 accession of James II, on some dissensions arising between the 
 king and his barons, he called in the justiciary as a mediator 
 whose sentence, says Blancas, all obeyed. ^^* At a subsequent 
 time in the same reign the military orders, pretending that some 
 of their privileges were violated, raised a confederacy or union 
 against the king. James offered to refer the dispute to the jus- 
 ticiary, Ximenes Salanova, a man of eminent legal knowledge. 
 The knights resisted his jurisdiction, alleging the question to 
 be of spiritual cognizance. He decided it, however, against them 
 in full Cortes at Saragossa, annulled their league, and sentenced 
 the leaders to punishment. ^^^ It was adjudged also that no appeal 
 could lie to the spiritual court from a sentence of the justiciary 
 passed with assent of the Cortes. James II is said to have fre- 
 quently sued his subjects in the justiciary's court, to show his 
 regard for legal measures, and during the reign of this good 
 prince its authority became more established.^^® Yet it was not 
 
 "2 " Biancse Comment.," p. 638. 
 
 ^^3 Id., p. 772. Zurita, indeed, refers 
 the justiciary's pre-eminence to an earlier 
 date — narnely, the reign of Peter II, who 
 took away a great part of the local juris- 
 dictions of the ricoshombres (tome i, fol. 
 102). But if I do not misunderstand the 
 meaning of Vitalis, his testimony seems 
 to be beyond dispute. By the General 
 Privilege of 1283, the justiciary was to 
 advise with the ricoshombres in all cases 
 where the king was a party against any 
 of his subjects. (Zurita, fol. 281. See 
 also fol. 180.) 
 
 1" Zurita, p. 663. 
 
 1" Zunta, tome i, fol. 403; tome ii, fol. 
 34; Bian., p. 666. The assent of the Cor- 
 tes seems to render this in the nature of 
 a legislative, rather than a judicial, pro- 
 ceeding; but it is difficult to pronounce 
 anything about a transaction so remote 
 in time and in a foreign country, the 
 native historians writing rather con- 
 cisely. 
 
 ^^° Bianc, p. 663. James acquired the 
 surname of Just, el Justiciero, by his fair 
 dealings toward his subjects. (Zurita, 
 tome ii, fol. 82.) El Justiciero properly 
 denotes his exercise of civil and criminal 
 justice. 
 
1476-1493] JUSTIFIRMA AND MANIFESTATION 
 
 341 
 
 perhaps looked upon as fully equal to maintain public liberty 
 against the crown till, in the Cortes of 1348, after the Privilege 
 of Union was forever abolished, such laws were enacted, and 
 such authority given to the justiciary, as proved eventually a 
 more adequate barrier against oppression than any other country 
 could boast. All the royal as well as territorial judges were 
 bound to apply for his opinion in case of legal difficulties arising 
 in their courts, which he was to certify within eight days. By 
 subsequent statutes of the same reign it was made penal for any 
 one to obtain letters from the king impeding the execution of 
 the justiza's process, and they were declared null. Inferior courts 
 were forbidden to proceed in any business after his prohibi- 
 tion.^^^ Many other laws might be cited, corroborating the au- 
 thority of this great magistrate, but there are two parts of his 
 remedial jurisdiction which deserve special notice. 
 
 These are the processes of jurisfirma, or firma del derecho, 
 and of manifestation. The former bears some analogy to the 
 writs of pone and certiorari in England, through which the Court 
 of King's Bench exercises its right of withdrawing a suit from 
 the jurisdiction of inferior tribunals. But the Aragonese juris- 
 firma was of more extensive operation. Its object was not only 
 to bring a cause commenced in an inferior court before the jus- 
 ticiary, but to prevent or inhibit any process from issuing against 
 the person who applied for its benefit, or any molestation from 
 being ofifered to him ; so that, as Blancas expresses it, when we 
 have entered into a recognisance (firme et graviter asseveremus) 
 before the justiciary of Aragon to abide the decision of law, our 
 fortunes shall be protected, by the interposition of his prohibi- 
 tion, from the intolerable iniquity of the royal judges. ^^^ The 
 process termed manifestation afforded as ample security for per- 
 sonal liberty as that of jurisfirma did for property. *' To mani- 
 fest any one," says the writer so often quoted, " is to wrest him 
 from the hands of the royal officers, that he may not sufifer 
 any illegal violence; not that he is at liberty by this process, 
 because the merits of his case are still to be inquired into, but 
 because he is now detained publicly, instead of being, as it were, 
 concealed, and the charge against him is investigated, not sud- 
 denly or with passion, but in calmness and according to law, 
 therefore this is called manifestation." ^^* The power of this writ 
 
 117 " Fueros de Aragon ": Quod in du- 
 biis non crassis. (a. d. 1348.) Quod im- 
 petrans (1372), etc. (Zurita, tome ii, fol. 
 229; Bian., pp. 671 and 811.) 
 
 "8 p. 751. " Fueros de Aragon," f. 137. 
 
 "» Est apud nos manifestare, reum 
 subito sumere, atque e regiis manibus 
 extorquere, ne qua ipsi contra jus vis in- 
 feratur. Non quod tunc reus judicio 
 liberetur; nihilominus tamen, ut loqui- 
 mur, de meritis causae ad plenum cog- 
 
 noscitur. Sed quod deinceps manifesto 
 teneatur, quasi antea celatus extitisset; 
 necesseque deinde sit de ipsius culpa, 
 non impetu et cum furore, sed sedatis 
 prorsus animis, et juxta constitutes leges 
 judicari. Ex eo autem, quod hujusmodi 
 judicium manifesto deprehensum, omni- 
 bus jam patere debeat, Manifestationis 
 sibi nomen arripuit (p. 675). 
 
 Ipsius Manifestationis potestas tam 
 solida est et repentina, ut homini jam 
 
342 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1 476- 1 493 
 
 (if I may apply our term) was such, as he elsewhere asserts, that 
 it would rescue a man whose neck was in the halter. A particular 
 prison was allotted to those detained for trial under this process. 
 Several proofs that such admirable provisions did not remain 
 a dead letter in the law of Aragon appear in the two historians, 
 Blancas and Zurita, whose noble attachment to liberties, of 
 which they had either witnessed or might foretell the extinction, 
 continually displays itself. I can not help illustrating this subject 
 by two remarkable instances. The heir apparent of the kingdom 
 of Aragon had a constitutional right to the lieutenancy or re- 
 gency during the sovereign's absence from the realm. The title 
 and office, indeed, were permanent, though the functions must, 
 of course, have been superseded during the personal exercise of 
 royal authority. But as neither Catalonia nor Valencia, which 
 often demanded the king's presence, were considered as parts 
 of the kingdom, there were pretty frequent occasions for this 
 
 collum in laqueum inserenti subveniat. 
 Illius enim praesidio, damnatus, dum per 
 leges licet, quasi experiendi juris gratia, 
 de manibus judicum confestim extor- 
 Quetur, et in carcerem ducitur ad id aedi- 
 ficatum, ibidemque asservatur tamdiu, 
 quamdiu jurene, an injuria, quid in ea 
 causa factum fuerit, judicatur. Prop- 
 terea career hie vulgari lingua, la carcel 
 de los manifestados nuncupatur (p. 751). 
 
 " Fueros de Aragon," fol. 60. De 
 Manifestationibus personarum. Independ- 
 ently of this right of manifestation by 
 writ of the justiciary, there are several 
 statutes in the " Fueros " against illegal 
 detention, or unnecessary severity toward 
 prisoners. (" De Custodia reorum," fol. 
 163.) No judge could proceed secretly 
 in a criminal process; an indispensable 
 safeguard to public liberty, and one of 
 the most salutary, as well as most an- 
 cient provisions in our own constitution. 
 (De judiciis.) Torture was abolished, 
 except in cases of coining false money, 
 and then only in respect of vagabonds. 
 (General Privilege of 1283.) 
 
 Zurita has explained the two processes 
 of jurisfirma and manifestation so per- 
 spicuously that, as the subject is very 
 interesting, and rather out of the common 
 way, I shall both quote and translate the 
 passage: Con firmar de derecho, que es 
 dar caution a estar a justicia, se conseden 
 literas inhibitorias por el justicia de 
 Aragon, para que no puedan sur presos, 
 ni privados, ni despojados de su posses- 
 sion, hasta que judicialmente se conozca, 
 y declare sobre la pretension, y justicia de 
 las partes, y parezca por processo le^iti- 
 mo, que se deve revocar la tal inhibition. 
 Esta fue la suprema y principal autoridad 
 del Justicia de Aragond esde que este 
 magistrado tuvo origen, y lo que llama 
 manifestation; porque assi como la firma 
 de derecho por privilegio general del 
 reyno impide, que no puede ninguno ser 
 preso, 6 agraviado contra razon y jus- 
 ticia, de la misma manera la manifesta- 
 
 cion, que es otro privilegio, y remedia 
 muy principal, tiene fuerca, quando al- 
 guno es^ preso sin preceder processo le- 
 gitimo, 6 quando^ lo prenden de hecho sin 
 orden de justicia; y en estos casos solo 
 el Justicia de Aragon, quando se tiene 
 recurso al el, se interpone, manifestando 
 il preso, que es tomarlo a su mano, de 
 poder de qualquiera juez, aunque sea el 
 mas supremo; y es obligado el Justicia 
 de Aragon, y sus lugartenientes de pro- 
 veer la manifestacion en el mismo in- 
 stante, que les es pedida sin preceder 
 informacion; y basta que se pida por 
 
 aualquiere persona que se diga procura- 
 or del que quiere que lo tengan por 
 manifesto (tome ii, fol. 386). " Upon a 
 firma de derecho, which is to give se- 
 curity for abiding the decision of the law, 
 the Justiciary of Aragon issues letters 
 inhibiting all persons to arrest the party, 
 or deprive him of his possession, until 
 the matter shall be judicially inquired 
 into, and it shall appear that such inhi- 
 bition ought to be revoked. This process 
 and that which is called manifestation 
 have been the chief powers of the jus- 
 ticiary, ever since the commencement of 
 that magistracy. And as the firma de 
 derecho by the general privilege of the 
 realm secures every man from being ar- 
 rested or molested against reason and 
 justice, so the manifestation, which is 
 another principal and remedial right 
 takes place when any one is actually ar- 
 rested without lawful process; and in 
 such cases only the Justiciary of Aragon, 
 when recourse is had to him, interposes 
 by manifesting the person arrested— that 
 is, by taking him into his own hands, out 
 of the power of any judge, however high 
 in authority— and this manifestation the 
 justiciary, or his deputies in his absence, 
 are bound to issue at the same instant it 
 is demanded, without further inquiry; and 
 it may be demanded by any one as at- 
 torney of the party requiring to be mani- 
 fested." 
 
1476-1493] JUSTIFIRMA AND MANIFESTATION 343 
 
 anticipated reign of the eldest prince. Such a regulation was 
 not likely to diminish the mutual and almost inevitable jealousies 
 between kings and their heirs apparent, which have so often dis- 
 turbed the tranquility of a court and a nation. Peter IV removed 
 his eldest son, afterward John I, from the lieutenancy of the 
 kingdom. The prince entered into a firma del derecho before 
 the justiciary, Dominic de Cerda, who, pronouncing in his favour, 
 enjoined the king to replace his son in the lieutenancy as the 
 undoubted right of the eldest born. Peter obeyed, not only in 
 fact, to which, as Blancas observes, the law compelled him, but 
 with apparent cheerfulness.^^^ There are, indeed, no private per- 
 sons who have so strong an interest in maintaining a free con- 
 stitution and the civil liberties of their countrymen as the mem- 
 bers of royal families, since none are so much exposed, in abso- 
 lute governments, to the resentment and suspicion of a reigning 
 monarch. 
 
 John I, who had experienced the protection of law in his 
 weakness, had afterward occasion to find it interposed against 
 his power. This king had sent some citizens of Saragossa to 
 prison without form of law. They applied to Juan de Cerda, 
 the justiciary, for a manifestation. He issued his writ accord- 
 ingly; nor, says Blancas, could he do otherwise without being 
 subject to a heavy fine. The king, pretending that the justiciary 
 was partial, named one of his own judges, the vice-chancellor, 
 as coadjutor. This raised a constitutional question, whether, 
 on suspicion of partiality, a coadjutor to the justiciary could be 
 appointed. The king sent a private order to the justiciary not 
 to proceed to sentence upon this interlocutory point until he 
 should receive instructions in the council, to which he was di- 
 rected to repair. But he instantly pronounced sentence in favour 
 of his exclusive jurisdiction without a coadjutor. He then re- 
 paired to the palace. Here the vice-chancellor, in a long harangue, 
 enjoined him to suspend sentence till he had heard the decision 
 of the council. Juan de Cerda answered that, the case being 
 clear, he had already pronounced upon it. This produced some 
 expressions of anger from the king, who began to enter into 
 an argument on the merits of the question. But the justiciary 
 answered that, with all deference to his Majesty, he was bound 
 to defend his conduct before the Cortes, and not elsewhere. On 
 a subsequent day the king, having drawn the justiciary to his 
 country palace on pretence of hunting, renewed the conversation 
 with the assistance of his ally, the vice-chancellor; but no im- 
 pression was made on the venerable magistrate, whom John at 
 length, though much pressed by his advisers to violent courses, 
 dismissed with civility. The king was probably misled through- 
 
 ^20 Zurita, ubi supra; Blancas, p. 673. 
 
344 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476-1493 
 
 out this transaction, which I have thought fit to draw from ob- 
 scurity, not only in order to illustrate the privilege of manifesta- 
 tion, but as exhibiting an instance of judicial firmness and in- 
 tegrity, to which, in the fourteenth century, no country perhaps 
 in Europe could offer a parallel. ^^^ 
 
 Before the Cortes of 1348 it seems as if the justiciary might 
 have been displaced at the king's pleasure. From that time he 
 held his station for life. But in order to evade this law, the king 
 sometimes exacted a promise to resign upon request. Ximenes 
 Cerdan, the justiciary in 1420, having refused to fulfil this en- 
 gagement, Alfonso V gave notice to all his subjects not to obey 
 him, and, notwithstanding the alarm which this encroachment 
 created, eventually succeeded in compelling him to quit his office. 
 In 1439 Alfonso insisted with still greater severity upon the exe- 
 cution of a promise to resign made by another justiciary, detain- 
 ing him in prison until his death. But the Cortes of 1442 pro- 
 posed a law, to which the king reluctantly acceded, that the 
 justiciary should not be compelled to resign his office on account 
 of any previous engagement he might have made.^^^ 
 
 But lest these high powers, imparted for the prevention of 
 abuses, should themselves be abused, the justiciary was respon- 
 sible, in case of an unjust sentence, to the extent of the injury 
 inflicted ; ^^^ and was also subjected, by a statute of 1390, to 
 a court of inquiry, composed of four persons chosen by the king 
 out of eight named by the Cortes, whose office appears to have 
 been that of examining and reporting to the four estates in the 
 Cortes, by whom he was ultimately to be acquitted or condemned. 
 This superintendence of the Cortes, however, being thought dila- 
 tory and inconvenient, a court of seventeen persons was appointed 
 in 1461 to hear complaints against the justiciary. Some altera- 
 tions were afterward made in this tribunal. ^^4 -pj^^ justiciary 
 was always a knight, chosen from the second order of nobility, 
 the barons not being liable to personal punishment. He admin- 
 istered the coronation oath to the king; and in the Cortes of 
 Aragon the justiciary acted as a sort of royal commissioner, open- 
 ing or proroguing the assembly by the king's direction. 
 
 No laws could be enacted or repealed, nor any tax imposed, 
 without the consent of the estates duly assembled.^^*^ Even as 
 
 ^^^ " Biancse Commentar.," ubi supra. 
 Zurita relates the story, but not so fully. 
 
 122 " Fueros de Aragon," fol. 22; Zu- 
 rita, tome iii, fols. 140, 255, 2^2% " Bianc. 
 Comment.," p. 701. 
 
 123 << Fueros de Aragon," fol. 25. 
 ^-*Blancas; Zurita, tome iii, fol. 321; 
 
 tome iv, fol. 103. These regulations were 
 very acceptable to the nation. In fact, 
 the justiza of Aragon had possessed much 
 more unlimited powers than ought to be 
 intrusted to any single magistrate. The 
 
 Court of King's Bench in England, be- 
 sides Its consisting of four co-ordinate 
 judges, IS checked by the appellant juris- 
 dictions of the Exchequer Chamber and 
 House of Lords, and still more impor- 
 tantlly by the rights of juries. 
 
 12s Majores nostri. quae de omnibus 
 statuenda essent, noluerunt juberi, veta- 
 "ve posse, nisi vocatis, descriptisque 
 ordmibus, ac cunctis eorum adhibitis 
 suffragiis, re ipsa cognita et promulgata. 
 Unde perpetuum illud nobis comparatum 
 
I476-I493] 
 
 RIGHTS OF LEGISLATION 
 
 345 
 
 early as the reign of Peter II, in 1205, that prince having at- 
 tempted to impose a general tallage, the nobility and commons 
 united for the preservation of their franchises, and the tax was 
 afterward granted in part by the Cortes.^^® It may easily be sup- 
 posed that the Aragonese were not behind other nations in stat- 
 utes to secure these privileges, which, upon the whole, appear to 
 have been more respected than in any other monarchy/^^ The 
 General Privilege of 1283 formed a sort of groundwork for this 
 legislation, like the Great Charter in England. By a clause in 
 this law, Cortes were to be held every year at Saragossa. But 
 under James II their time of meeting was reduced to once in two 
 years, and the place was left to the king's discretion/^^ Nor 
 were the Cortes of Aragon less vigilant than those of Castile in 
 claiming a right to be consulted in all important deliberations 
 of the executive power, or in remonstrating against abuses of 
 government, or in superintending the proper expenditure of 
 public money/^® A variety of provisions, intended to secure 
 these parliamentary privileges and the civil liberties of the sub- 
 ject, will be found dispersed in the collection of Aragonese 
 laws,^^^ which may be favourably compared with those of our 
 own statute-book. 
 
 Four estates, or, as they were called, arms (brazos), formed 
 the Cortes of Aragon — the prelates and commanders of mili- 
 tary orders, who passed for ecclesiastics ; ^^^ the barons or 
 
 est JUS, ut communes et publicse leges 
 neque tolli, neque rogari possint, nisi 
 prius universus populus una voce comitiis 
 institutis suum ea de re liberum suffra- 
 gium ferat; idque postea ipsius regis 
 assensu comprobetur. (Biancae, p. 761.) 
 
 ^26 Zurita, tome i, fol. 92. 
 
 127 " pugros de Aragon": Quod sissae 
 in Aragonia removeantur. (a. d. 1372.) 
 De prohibitione sissarum. (1398.) De 
 conservatione patrimonii. (1461.) I have 
 only remarked two instances of arbitrary 
 taxation in Zurita's history, which is 
 singularly full of information; one, in 
 ^343f when Peter IV collected money 
 from various cities, though not without 
 opposition; and the other a remonstrance 
 of the Cortes in 1383 against heavy taxes; 
 and it is not clear that this refers to 
 general unauthorized taxation. (Zurita, 
 tome ii, fols. 168 and 382.) Blancas men- 
 tions that Alfonso V set a tallage upon 
 his towns for the marriage of his natural 
 daughters, which he might have done 
 had they been legitimate; but they ap- 
 pealed to the justiciary's tribunal, and 
 the king receded from his demand (p. 
 701). 
 
 Some instances of tyrannical conduct 
 in violation of the constitutional laws 
 occur, as will naturally be supposed, in 
 the annals of Zurita. The execution of 
 Bernard Cabrera under Peter IV (tome ii, 
 M. 336), and the severities inflicted on 
 Queen Forcia by her son-in-law, John 
 
 I, (fol. 391), are perhaps as remarkable 
 as any. 
 
 ^'^ Zurita, tome i, fol. 426. In general 
 the session lasted from four to six 
 months. One assembly was prorogued 
 from time to time, and continued six 
 years, from 1446 to 1452, which was com- 
 plained of as a violation of the law for 
 their biennial renewal (tome iv, fol. 6). 
 
 ^2» The Sicilian war of Peter III was 
 very unpopular, because it had been un- 
 dertaken without consent of the barons, 
 contrary to the practice of the kingdom; 
 porque ningun negocio arduo empren- 
 dian, sin acuerdo y consejo de sus ricos- 
 hombres. (Zurita, tome i, fol. 264.) The 
 Cortes, he tells us, were usually divided 
 into two parties, Whigs and Tories; es- 
 tava ordinariamente dividida en dos 
 partas, la una que pensava procurar el 
 beneficio del reyno, y la otra que el 
 servicio del rey (tome iii, fol. 321). 
 
 130 '« Fueros y Observancias del Reyno 
 de Aragon," 2 vols., in fol. Saragossa, 
 1667. The most important of these are 
 collected by Blancas, p. 750. 
 
 ^^^ It is said by some writers that the 
 ecclesiastical arm was not added to the 
 Cortes of Aragon till about the year 1300. 
 But I do not find mention in Zurita of 
 any such constitutional change at that 
 time; and the prelates, as we might ex- 
 pect from the analogy of other countries, 
 appear as members of the national coun- 
 cil long before. Queen Petronilla, in 1142, 
 
34^ 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1476-1493 
 
 ricoshombres ; the equestrian order or infanzones ; and the depu- 
 ties of royal towns. ^^^ The two former had a right of appearing 
 by proxy. There was no representation of the infanzones, or 
 lower nobility. But it must be remembered that they were not 
 numerous, nor was the kingdom large. Thirty-five are reckoned 
 by Zurita as present in the Cortes of 1395, and thirty-three in 
 those of 1412; and as upon both occasions an oath of fealty to 
 a new monarch was to be taken, I presume that nearly all the 
 nobility of the kingdom were present. ^^^ The ricoshombres do 
 not seem to have exceeded twelve or fourteen in number. The 
 ecclesiastical estate was not much, if at all, more numerous. A 
 few principal towns alone sent deputies to the Cortes, but their 
 representation was very full ; eight or ten, and sometimes more, 
 sat for Saragossa, and no town appears to have had less than 
 four representatives. During the interval of the Cortes a perma- 
 nent commission, varying a good deal as to numbers, but chosen 
 out of the four estates, was empowered to sit with very consider- 
 able authority, receiving and managing the public revenue, and 
 protecting the justiciary in his functions. ^^* 
 
 The kingdom of Valencia, and principality of Catalonia, hav- 
 ing been annexed to Aragon, the one by conquest, the other 
 by marriage, were always kept distinct from it in their laws 
 and government. Each had its Cortes, composed of three estates, 
 for the division of the nobility into two orders did not exist in 
 either country. The Catalans were tenacious of their ancient 
 usages, and averse to incorporation with any other people of 
 Spain. Their national character was high-spirited and independ- 
 ent ; in no part of the peninsula did the territorial aristocracy 
 retain, or at least pretend to, such extensive privileges,^^^ and 
 the citizens were justly proud of wealth acquired by industry, 
 and of renown achieved by valour. At the accession of Ferdi- 
 nand I, which they had not much desired, the Catalans obliged 
 him to swear three times successively to maintain their liberties 
 before they would take the reciprocal oath of allegiance. ^^* For 
 Valencia it seems to have been a politic design of James the 
 Conqueror to establish a constitution nearly analogous to that 
 
 summoned a los perlados, ricoshombres, 
 y cavalleros, y procuradores de las ciu- 
 dades y villas, que le juntassen a Cortes 
 generales en la ciudad de Huesca. (Zu- 
 rita, tome i, fol. 71.) So in the Cortes 
 of 1275, and on other occasions. 
 
 132 Popular representation was more 
 ancient in Aragon than in any other mon- 
 archy. The deputies of towns appear 
 in the Cortes of 1133, as Robertson has 
 remarked form Zurita. ("Hist, of Charles 
 V," note 32.) And this can not well be 
 called in question, or treated as an anom- 
 aly; for we find them mentioned in 1142 
 (the passage cited in the last note), and 
 
 again in 1164, when Zurita enumerates 
 many of their names (fol. 74). The in- 
 stitution of consejos, or corporate dis- 
 tricts under a presiding town, prevailed 
 in Aragon as it did in Castile. 
 
 133 Zurita, tome ii, fol. 490; tome iii, 
 fol. ^(). 
 
 ^2* Biancae, p. 762; Zurita, tome iii, fol. 
 •}(>, fol. 182 et alibi. 
 
 "6 Zurita, tome ii, fol. 360. The vil- 
 lenage of the peasantry in some parts of 
 Catalonia was very severe, even near the 
 end of the fifteenth centurv (tome iv, 
 fol. 327). 
 
 *2^ Zurita, tome iii, fol. 81. 
 
1476-1493] UNION OF CASTILE AND ARAGON 347 
 
 of Aragon, but with such limitations as he should impose, taking 
 care that the nobles of the two kingdoms should not acquire 
 strength by union. In the reigns of Peter III and Alfonso III, 
 one of the principal objects contended for by the barons of Ara- 
 gon was the establishment of their own laws in Valencia, to which 
 the kings never acceded. ^^^ They permitted, however, the pos- 
 sessions of the natives of Aragon in the latter kingdom to be 
 governed by the law of Aragon. ^^^ These three states — Aragon, 
 Valencia, and Catalonia — were perpetually united by a law of 
 Alfonso III, and every king on his accession was bound to swear 
 that he would never separate them.^^^ Sometimes general Cortes 
 of the kingdoms and principality were convened ; but the mem- 
 bers did not, even in this case, sit together, and were not other- 
 wise united than as they met in the same city.^*^ 
 
 I do not mean to represent the actual condition of society 
 in Aragon as equally excellent with the constitutional laws. Rela- 
 tively to other monarchies, as I have already observed, there 
 seem to have been fewer excesses of the royal prerogative in that 
 kingdom. But the licentious habits of a feudal aristocracy pre- 
 vailed very long. We find in history instances of private war 
 between the great families, so as to disturb the peace of the whole 
 nation, even near the close of the fifteenth century.^^^ The right 
 of avenging injuries by arms, and the ceremony of dififidation, 
 or solemn defiance of an enemy, are preserved by the laws. We 
 even meet with the ancient barbarous usage of paying a com- 
 position to the kindred of a murdered man.^*^ The citizens of 
 Saragossa were sometimes turbulent, and a refractory nobleman 
 sometimes defied the ministers of justice. But owing to the 
 remarkable copiousness of the principal Aragonese historian, 
 we find more frequent details of this nature than in the scantier 
 annals of some countries. The internal condition of society 
 was certainly far from peaceable in other parts of Europe. 
 
 By the marriage of Ferdinand with Isabella, and by the death 
 of John II, in 1479, the two ancient and rival kingdoms of Cas- 
 tile and Aragon were forever consolidated in the monarchy of 
 Spain. There had been some difficulty in adjusting the respective 
 rights of the husband and wife over Castile. In the middle ages 
 it was customary for the more powerful sex to exercise all the 
 rights which it derived from the weaker, as much in sovereign- 
 ties as in private possessions. But the Castilians were deter- 
 mined to maintain the positive and distinct prerogatives of their 
 queen, to which they attached the independence of their nation. 
 
 *" Zurita, tome i, fols. 281, 310, 333. "'Tome ii, fol. 91. 
 
 There was originally a justiciary in the ^<" " Biancae Comment.," p. 760; Zu- 
 
 kingdom of Valencia (fol. 281), but this, I rita, tome iii, fol. 239. 
 
 believe, did not long continue. "^ Zurita, tome iv, fol. 189. 
 
 "8 Tome ii, fol. 433. "2 «« Fueros de Aragon," fol. 1660, etc. 
 
348 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1476-1493 
 
 A compromise, therefore, was concluded, by which, though, ac- 
 cording to our notions, Ferdinand obtained more than a due 
 share, he might consider himself as more strictly limited than 
 his father had been in Navarre. The names of both were to 
 appear jointly in their style and upon the coin, the king's taking 
 the precedence in respect of his sex. But in the royal scutcheon 
 the arms of Castile were preferred on account of the kingdom's 
 dignity. Isabella had the appointment to all civil offices in Cas- 
 tile ; the nomination to spiritual benefices ran in the name of 
 both. The government was to be conducted by the two con- 
 jointly when they were together, or by either singly in the prov- 
 ince where one or other might happen to reside. ^"^^ This parti- 
 tion was well preserved throughout the life of Isabel without 
 mutual encroachments or jealousies. So rare a unanimity be- 
 tween persons thus circumstanced must be attributed to the supe- 
 rior qualities of that princess, who, while she maintained a con- 
 stant good understanding with a very ambitious husband, never 
 relaxed in the exercise of her paternal authority over the king- 
 doms of her ancestors. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella had no sooner quenched the flames 
 of civil discord in Castile than they determined to give an un- 
 equivocal proof to Europe of the vigour which the Spanish 
 monarchy was to display under their government. For many 
 years an armistice with the Moors of Granada had been uninter- 
 rupted. Neither John II nor Henry IV had been at leisure to 
 think of aggressive hostilities ; and the Moors themselves, a prey, 
 like their Christian enemies, to civil war and the feuds of their 
 royal family, were content with the unmolested enjoyment of 
 the finest province in the peninsula. If we may trust historians, 
 the sovereigns of Granada were generally usurpers and tyrants. 
 But I know not how to account for that vast populousness, that 
 grandeur and magnificence, which distinguished the Moham- 
 medan kingdom of Spain, without ascribing some measure of 
 wisdom and beneficence to their governments. These southern 
 provinces have dwindled in later times ; and, in fact, Spain itself 
 is chiefly interesting to many travellers for the monuments which 
 a foreign and odious race of conquerors have left behind them. 
 Granada was, however, disturbed by a series of revolutions about 
 the time of Ferdinand's accession, which naturally encouraged 
 his designs. The Moors, contrary to what might have been 
 expected from their relative strength, were the aggressors by 
 attacking a town in Andalusia.^'** Predatory inroads of this na- 
 ture had hitherto been only retaliated by the Christians. But 
 Ferdinand was conscious that his resources extended to the con- 
 
 1*' Zurita, tome iv, fol. 224; Mariana, 1. xxiv, c. 5. 
 ^" Zurita, tome iv, fol. 314. 
 
1476-1493] CONQUEST OF GRANADA 349 
 
 quest of Granada, the consummation of a struggle protracted 
 through nearly eight centuries. Even in the last stage of the 
 Moorish dominion, exposed on every side to invasion, enfeebled 
 by civil dissension that led one party to abet the common enemy, 
 Granada was not subdued without ten years of sanguinary and 
 unremitting contest. Fertile beyond all the rest of Spain, that 
 kingdom contained seventy walled towns ; and the capital is said, 
 almost two centuries before, to have been peopled by two hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants. ^^'^ Its resistance to such a force as 
 that of Ferdinand is perhaps the best justification of the apparent 
 negligence of earlier monarchs. But Granada was ultimately 
 to undergo the yoke. The city surrendered on the 2d of Janu- 
 ary, 1492 — an event glorious not only to Spain but to Christen- 
 dom — and which, in the political combat of the two religions, 
 seemed almost to counterbalance the loss of Constantinople. It 
 raised the name of Ferdinand and of the new monarchy which 
 he governed to high estimation throughout Europe. Spain ap- 
 peared an equal competitor with France in the lists of ambition. 
 These great kingdoms had for some time felt the jealousy natural 
 to emulous neighbours. The house of Aragon loudly complained 
 of the treacherous policy of Louis XL He had fomented the 
 troubles of Castile, and given, not, indeed, an effectual aid, but 
 all promises of support, to the Princess Joanna, the competitor 
 of Isabel. Rousillon, a province belonging to Aragon, had been 
 pledged to France by John II for a sum of money. It would 
 be tedious to relate the subsequent events, or to discuss their 
 respective claims to its possession. ^^® At the accession of Ferdi- 
 nand, Louis XI still held Rousillon, and showed little intention 
 to resign it. But Charles VIII, eager to smooth every impedi- 
 ment to his Italian expedition, restored the province to Ferdi- 
 nand in 1493. Whether by such a sacrifice he was able to lull 
 the King of Aragon into acquiescence, while he dethroned his 
 relation at Naples, and alarmed for a moment all Italy with the 
 apprehension of French dominion, it is not within the limits of 
 the present work to inquire. 
 
 "' Zurita, tome iv, fol. 314. The latter is the most impartial French 
 
 ^^o For these transactions see Gamier, writer I have ever read in matters where 
 
 " Hist, de France," or Gaillard, " Ri- his own country is concerned. 
 
 valite de France et d'Espagne," tome iii. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HISTORY OF GERMANY TO THE DIET OF WORMS IN I495 
 
 Sketch of German history under the emperors of the house of Saxony— House of Fran- 
 conia— Henry IV— House of Swabia— Frederick Barbarossa— Fall of Henry the 
 Lion— Frederick II— Extinction of house of Swabia— Changes in the Germanic con- 
 stitution—Electors—Territorial sovereignty of the prmces— Rodo ph of Hapsburg— 
 State of the empire after his time— Causes of decline of imperial power— House of 
 Luxemburg— Charles IV— Golden bull— House of Austria— Frederick III— imperial 
 cities— Provincial states— Maximilian— Diet of Worms— Abolition of private wars- 
 Imperial chamber— Aulic Council— Bohemia— Hungary— Switzerland. 
 
 AFTER the deposition of Charles the Fat in 888, which finally 
 severed the connection between France and Germany/ 
 ^ Arnulf, an illegitimate descendant of Charlemagne, ob- 
 tained the throne of the latter country, in which he was 
 succeeded by his son Louis.^ But upon the death of this prince 
 in 911, the German branch of that dynasty became extinct. 
 There remained, indeed, Charles the Simple, acknowledged as 
 king in some parts of France, but rejected in others, and pos- 
 sessing no personal claims to respect. The Germans, therefore, 
 wisely determined to choose 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 Swabians, the Bavarians, the Saxons, under which 
 name the inhabitants of Lower Saxony alone and Westphalia 
 
 ^ There can be no question about this 
 in a general sense. But several German 
 writers of the time assert that both 
 Eudes and Charles the Simple, rival 
 Kings of France, acknowledged the feu- 
 dal superiority of Arnulf. Charles, says 
 Regino, regnum quod usurpaverit ex 
 manu ejus percepit. (Struvius, " Corpus 
 Hist. German.," pp. 202, 203.) This ac- 
 knowledgment of sovereignty in Arnulf, 
 King of Germany, who did not even pre- 
 tend to be emperor, by both the claim- 
 ants of the throne of France, for such it 
 virtually was, though they do not appear 
 to have rendered homage, can not affect 
 
 the independence of the crown in that 
 age, which had been established by the 
 Treaty of Verdun in 843, but proves the 
 weakness of the competitors and their 
 vy^ant of patriotism. In Eudes it is more 
 remarkable than in Charles the Simple, 
 a man of feeble character, and a Carlo- 
 vingian by birth. 
 
 2 The German princes had some hesi- 
 tation about the choice of Louis, but 
 their partiality to the Carlovingian line 
 prevailed. Struvius, p. 208: quia reges 
 Francorum semper ex uno genere pro- 
 cedebant, says an Archbishop Hatto in 
 writing to tne Pope. 
 
 350 
 
9II-I024] 
 
 HOUSE OF SAXONY 
 
 351 
 
 were included, 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 upon Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony, an- 
 cestor of the three Othos, who followed him in direct succes- 
 sion. To Henry, and to the first Otho, Germany was more in- 
 debted than to any sovereign since Charlemagne. The conquest 
 of Italy and recovery of the imperial title are indeed the most 
 brilliant trophies of Otho the Great ; but he conferred far more 
 unequivocal benefits upon his own country by completing what 
 his father had begun, her liberation from the inroads of the Hun- 
 garians. Two marches, that of Misnia, erected by Henry the 
 Fowler, and that of Austria, by Otho, were added to the Ger- 
 manic territories by their victories.* 
 
 A lineal succession of four descents without the least opposi- 
 tion seems to show that the Germans were disposed to consider 
 their monarchy as fixed in the Saxon family. Otho H and HI 
 had been chosen each in his father's lifetime, and during legal 
 infancy. The formality of election subsisted at that time in every 
 European kingdom, and the imperfect rights of birth required 
 a ratification by public assent. If, at least, France and England 
 were hereditary monarchies in the tenth century, the same may 
 surely be said of Germany, since we find the lineal succession 
 fully as well observed in the last as in the former. But upon 
 the early and unexpected decease of Otho III a momentary 
 opposition was offered to Henry, Duke of Bavaria, a collateral 
 branch of the reigning family. He obtained the crown, however, 
 by what contemporary historians call an hereditary title,^ and 
 it was not until his death in 1024 that the house of Saxony was 
 deemed to be extinguished. 
 
 No person had now any pretensions that could interfere with 
 the unbiassed suffrages of the nation ; and, accordingly, a gen- 
 eral assembly was determined by merit to elect Conrad, surnamed 
 the Salic, a nobleman of Franconia.® From this prince sprang 
 
 * Schmidt, " Hist, des Allemands," 
 tome ii, p. 288; Struvius, " Corpus His- 
 toriae Germanicae," p. 210. The former 
 of these writers does not consider Con- 
 rad as Duke of Franconia. 
 
 * Many towns in Germany, especially 
 on the Saxon frontier, were built by 
 Henry I, who is said to have compelled 
 every ninth man to take up his residence 
 in them. This had a remarkable tend- 
 ency to promote the improvement of that 
 territory, and, combined with the dis- 
 covery of the gold and silver mines of 
 Goslar under Otho I, rendered it the rich- 
 est and most important part of the em- 
 
 pire. (Struvius, pp. 225 and 251; Schmidt, 
 tome ii, p. 322; Putter, " Historical De- 
 velopment of the German Constitution," 
 vol. i, p. 115.) 
 
 " A maxima multitudine vox una re- 
 spondit; Henricum, Christi adjutorio, et 
 jure haereditario, regnaturum. (Ditmar 
 apud Struvium, p. 273. See other pas- 
 sages cjuoted in the same place. Schmidt, 
 tome ii, p. 410.) 
 
 " Conrad was descended from a daugh- 
 ter of Otho the Great, and also from 
 Conrad I. His first cousin was Duke of 
 Franconia. (Struvius; Schmidt; Pfeflfel.) 
 
352 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1024-1125 
 
 three successive emperors, Henry III, IV, and V. Perhaps the 
 imperial prerogatives over that insubordinate confederacy never 
 reached so high a point as in the reign of Henry III, the second 
 emperor of the house of Franconia. It had been, as was natural, 
 the object of all his predecessors not only to render their throne 
 hereditary, which, in effect, the nation was willing to concede, 
 but to surround it with authority sufficient to control the lead- 
 ing vassals. These were the dukes of the four nations of Ger- 
 many, Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia, and the three 
 archbishops of the Rhenish cities, Mentz, Treves, and Cologne. 
 Originally, as has been more fully shown in another place, 
 duchies, like counties, were temporary governments, bestowed 
 at the pleasure of the crown. From this first stage they advanced 
 to hereditary offices, and finally to patrimonial fiefs. But their 
 progress was much slower in Germany than in France. Under 
 the Saxon line of emperors, it appears probable that, although 
 it was usual, and consonant to the prevailing notions of equity, 
 to confer a duchy upon the nearest heir, yet no positive rule en- 
 forced this upon the emperor, and some instances of a contrary 
 proceeding occurred.^ But, if the royal prerogative in this re- 
 spect stood higher than in France, there was a countervailing 
 principle that prohibited the emperor from uniting a fief to his 
 domain, or even retaining one which he had possessed before 
 his accession. Thus Otho the Great granted away his duchy 
 of Saxony, and Henry II that of Bavaria. Otho the Great en- 
 deavoured to counteract the effects of this custom by conferring 
 the duchies that fell into his hands upon members of his own 
 family. This policy, though apparently well conceived, proved 
 of no advantage to Otho, his son and brother having mixed 
 in several rebellions against him. It was revived, however, by 
 Conrad II and Henry III. The latter was invested by his father 
 with the two duchies of Swabia and Bavaria. Upon his own 
 accession he retained the former for six years, and even the latter 
 for a short time. The duchy of Franconia, which became vacant, 
 he did not regrant, but endeavoured to set a precedent of unit- 
 ing fiefs to the domain. At another time, after sentence of for- 
 feiture against the Duke of Bavaria, he bestowed that great prov- 
 ince on his wife, the Empress Agnes.^ He put an end altogether 
 to the form of popular concurrence, which had been usual when 
 the investiture of a duchy was conferred, and even deposed dukes 
 by the sentence of a few princes, without the consent of the 
 Diet.*^ If we combine with these proofs of authority in the do- 
 
 ■f Schmidt, tome ii, pp. 393, 403- Struvi- duchy of Bavaria to the sons of the last 
 
 us Cp. 214) supposes the hereditary rights duke, which, however, excited a reljel- 
 
 of dukes to have commenced under Con- lion (p. 23s). 
 
 rad I, but Schmidt is perhaps a better « Schmidt, tome iii, pp. 25, 37. 
 
 authority; and Struvius afterward men- • Id., p. 207. 
 
 tions the refusal of Otho I to grant the 
 
RE TURN OF WCWRIO US GEKM^Ms: 
 Photogravure from a painting By Paul Thumann. : , 
 
 f'i-. 
 
Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 
 
I024-II25] 
 
 HOUSE OF FRANCONIA 
 
 353 
 
 mestic administration of Henry III his almost unlimited control 
 over papal elections, or rather the right of nomination that he 
 acquired, we must consider him as the most absolute monarch 
 in the annals of Germany. 
 
 These ambitious measures of Henry HI prepared fifty years 
 of calamity for his son. It is easy to perceive that the misfor- 
 tunes of Henry IV were primarily occasioned by the jealousy 
 with which repeated violations of their constitutional usages had 
 inspired the nobility.^^ The mere circumstance of Henry IV*s 
 minority, under the guardianship of a woman, was enough to 
 dissipate whatever power his father had acquired. Hanno, Arch- 
 bishop of Mentz, carried the young king away by force from 
 his mother, and governed Germany in his name, till another 
 archbishop, Adalbert of Bremen, obtained greater influence over 
 him. Through the neglect of his education, Henry grew up 
 with a character not well fitted to retrieve the mischief of so 
 unprotected a minority ; brave, indeed, well-natured, and affable, 
 but dissolute beyond measure, and addicted to low and debauched 
 company. He was soon involved in a desperate war with the 
 Saxons, a nation valuing itself on its populousness and riches, 
 jealous of the house of Franconia, who wore a crown that had 
 belonged to their own dukes, and indignant at Henry's conduct 
 in erecting fortresses throughout their country. 
 
 In the progress of this war many of the chief princes evinced 
 an unwillingness to support the emperor.^^ Notwithstanding 
 this, it would probably have terminated, as other rebellions had 
 done, with no permanent loss to either party. But in the middle 
 of this contest another far more memorable broke out with the 
 Roman See, concerning ecclesiastical investitures. The motives 
 of this famous quarrel will be explained in a different chapter 
 of the present work. Its effect in Germany was ruinous to 
 Henry. A sentence, not only of excommunication, but of deposi- 
 tion, which Gregory VII pronounced against him, gave a pre- 
 tence to all his enemies, secret as well as avowed, to withdraw 
 their allegiance.^^ At the head of these was Rodolph, Duke of 
 Swabia, whom an assembly of revolted princes raised to the 
 throne. We may perceive, in the conditions of Rodolph's elec- 
 
 ^° In the "v ery first year of Henry's 
 reign, while he was but six years old, the 
 Princes of Saxony are said by Lambert 
 of Aschaffenburg to have formed a con- 
 spiracy to depose him, out of resentment 
 for the injuries they had sustained from 
 his father. (Struvius, p. 306; St. Marc, 
 tome iii, p. 248.) 
 
 "Struvius; Schmidt. 
 
 ** A party had been already formed, 
 who were meditating to dejjose Henry. 
 His excommunication came just in time 
 to confirm their resolutions. It appears 
 clearly, upon a little consideration of 
 
 23 
 
 Henry IV's reign, that the ecclesiastical 
 quarrel was only secondary in the eyes 
 of Germany. The contest against him 
 was a struggle of the aristocracy, jealous 
 of the imperial prerogatives which Con- 
 rad II and Henry III had strained to 
 the utmost. Those who were in rebellion 
 against Henry were not pleased with 
 Gregory VII. Bruno, author of a history 
 of the Saxon war, a furious invective, 
 manifests great dissatisfaction with the 
 court of Rome, which he reproaches with 
 dissimulation and venality. 
 
354 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1024-1125 
 
 tion, a symptom of the real principle that animated the German 
 aristocracy against Henry IV. It was agreed that the kingdom 
 should no longer be hereditary, not conferred on the son of a 
 reigning monarch unless his merit should challenge the popular 
 approbation.^^ The Pope strongly encouraged this plan of ren- 
 dering the empire elective, by which he hoped either eventually 
 to secure the nomination of its chief for the Holy See, or at 
 least, by sowing the seed of civil dissensions in Germany, to 
 render Italy more independent. Henry IV, however, displayed 
 greater abilities in his adversity than his early conduct had prom- 
 ised. In the last of several decisive battles, Rodolph, though 
 victorious, was mortally wounded, and no one cared to take up 
 a gauntlet which was to be won with so much trouble and uncer- 
 tainty. The Germans were sufficiently disposed to submit, but 
 Rome persevered in her unrelenting hatred. At the close of 
 Henry's long reign she excited against him his eldest son, and, 
 after more than thirty years of hostility, had the satisfaction of 
 wearing him down with misfortune, and casting out his body, 
 as excommunicated, from its sepulchre. 
 
 In the reign of his son, Henry V, there is no event worthy 
 of much attention, except the termination of the great contest 
 about investitures. At his death, in 1125, the male line of the 
 Franconian emperors was at an end. Frederick, Duke of Swabia, 
 grandson by his mother of Henry IV, had inherited their patri- 
 monial estates, and seemed to represent their dynasty. But both 
 the last emperors had so many enemies, and a disposition to 
 render the crown elective prevailed so strongly among the lead- 
 ing princes, that Lothaire, Duke of Saxony, was elevated to 
 the throne, though rather in a tumultuous and irregular man- 
 ner.^* Lothaire, who had been engaged in a revolt against Henry 
 V, and the chief of a nation that bore an inveterate hatred to the 
 house of Franconia, was the natural enemy of the new family 
 that derived its importance and pretensions from that stock. It 
 was the object of his reign, accordingly, to oppress the two 
 brothers, Frederick and Conrad, of the HohenstaufTen or Swabian 
 family. By this means he expected to secure the succession 
 of the empire for his son-in-law. Henry, surnamed the Proud, 
 
 " Hoc etiam ibi consensu communi 
 comprobatum, Romani pontificis auc- 
 toritate est corroboratum, ut regia po- 
 testas nulli per haereditatem, sicut antea 
 fuit consuetudo, cederet, sed filius regis, 
 etiamsi valde dignus esset, per electionem 
 spontaneam, non per successionis lineam, 
 rex proveniret: si vero non esset dignus 
 regis filius, vel si nollet eum populus, 
 quern regem facere vellet, haberet jn 
 potestate populus. (" Bruno de Bello 
 Saxonico," apud Struvium, p. 327.) 
 
 ^* See an account of Lothaire's election 
 by a contemporary writer in Struvius, 
 
 p. 357- See also proofs of the dissatis- 
 faction of the aristocracy at the Fran- 
 conian government. (Schmidt, tome iii, 
 p. 328.) It was evidently their determina- 
 tion to render the empire truly elective 
 (id., p. 335): and perhaps we may date 
 that fundamental principle of the Ger- 
 manic constitution from the accession of 
 Lothaire. Previously to that era, birth 
 seems to have given not only a fair title 
 to preference, but a sort of inchoate 
 right, as in France, Spain, and England. 
 Lothaire signed a capitulation at his ac- 
 cession. 
 
1125-1272] HOUSE OF SWABIA 355 
 
 who married Lothaire's only child, was fourth in descent from 
 Welf, son of Azon, Marquis of Este, by Cunegonda, heiress of 
 a distinguished family, the Welfs of Altorf, in Swabia. Her son 
 was invested with the duchy of Bavaria in 1071. His descend- 
 ant, Henry the Proud, represented also, through his mother, the 
 ancient Dukes of Saxony, surnamed Billung, from whom he 
 derived the duchy of Luneburg. The wife of Lothaire trans- 
 mitted to her daughter the patrimony of Henry the Fowler, con- 
 sisting of Hanover and Brunswick. Besides this great dowry, 
 Lothaire bestowed upon his son-in-law the duchy of Saxony in 
 addition to that of Bavaria.^^ 
 
 This amazing preponderance, however, tended to alienate the 
 princes of Germany from Lothaire's views in favour of Henry, 
 and the latter does not seem to have possessed abilities adequate 
 to his eminent station. On the death of Lothaire in 11 38, the 
 partisans of the house of Swabia made a hasty and irregular 
 election of Conrad, in which the Saxon faction found itself obliged 
 to acquiesce.^^ The new emperor availed himself of the jealousy 
 which Henry the Proud's aggrandizement had excited. Under 
 pretence that two duchies could not legally be held by the same 
 person, Henry was summoned to resign one of them ; and on 
 his refusal, the Diet pronounced that he had incurred the for- 
 feiture of both. Henry made but little resistance, and before 
 his death, which happened soon afterward, saw himself stripped 
 of all his hereditary as well as acquired possessions. Upon this 
 occasion the famous names of Guelf and Ghibelin were first 
 heard, which were destined to keep alive the flame of civil dis- 
 sension in far-distant countries, and after their meaning had been 
 forgotten. The Guelfs, or Welfs, were, as I have said, the an- 
 cestors of Henry, and the name has become a sort of patronymic 
 in his family. The word Ghibelin is derived from Wibelung, a 
 town in Franconia, whence the emperors of that line are said 
 to have sprung. The house of Swabia were considered in Ger- 
 many as representing that of Franconia ; as the Guelfs may, with- 
 out much impropriety, be deemed to represent the Saxon line.^^ 
 
 Though Conrad HI left a son, the choice of the electors fell, 
 at his own request, upon his nephew, Frederick Barbarossa.^* 
 The most conspicuous events of this great emperor's life belong 
 to the history of Italy. At home he was feared and respected; 
 the imperial prerogatives stood as high during his reign as, after 
 their previous decline, it was possible for a single man to carry 
 them.^® But the only circumstance which appears memorable 
 enough for the present sketch is the second fall of the Guelfs. 
 
 " Pfeflfel, " Abrege Chronologique de " Schmidt. 
 
 I'Histoire d'Allemagne," tome i, p. 269. " Struvius, pp. 370 and 378. 
 
 (Paris, 1777.) Gibbon's " Antiquities of " Struvius. 
 
 the House of Brunswick." " Pfeffel, p. 341. 
 
356 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1125-1272 
 
 Henry the Lion, son of Henry the Proud, had been restored by 
 Conrad HI to his father's duchy of Saxony, resigning his claim 
 to that of Bavaria, which had been conferred on the Margrave of 
 Austria. This renunciation, which indeed was only made in his 
 name during childhood, did not prevent him from urging the Em- 
 peror Frederick to restore the whole of his birthright; and Fred- 
 erick, his first cousin, whose life he had saved in a sedition at 
 Rome, was induced to comply with this request in 1 156. Far from 
 evincing that political jealousy which some writers impute to him, 
 the emperor seems to have carried his generosity beyond the 
 limits of prudence. For many years their union was apparently 
 cordial. But, whether it was that Henry took umbrage at part of 
 Frederick's conduct,^® or that mere ambition rendered him un- 
 grateful, he certainly abandoned his sovereign in a moment of 
 distress, refusing to give any assistance in that expedition into 
 Lombardy which ended in the unsuccessful battle of Legnano. 
 Frederick could not forgive this injury, and, taking advantage of 
 complaints, which Henry's power and haughtiness had produced, 
 summoned him to answer charges in a general Diet. The duke 
 refused to appear, and, being adjudged contumacious, a sentence 
 of confiscation, similar to that which ruined his father, fell upon 
 his head ; and the vast imperial fiefs that he possessed were shared 
 among some potent enemies.^^ He made an ineffectual resist- 
 ance; like his father, he appears to have owed more to fortune 
 than to nature; and, after three years' exile, was obliged to remain 
 content with the restoration of his allodial estates in Saxony. 
 These, fifty years afterward, were converted into imperial fiefs, and 
 became the two duchies of the house of Brunswick, the lineal rep- 
 resentatives of Henry the Lion, and inheritors of the name of 
 Guelf.22 
 
 Notwithstanding the prevailing spirit of the German oligarchy, 
 Frederick Barbarossa had found no difficulty in procuring the 
 election of his son Henry, even during infancy, as his successor.^^ 
 The fall of Henry the Lion had greatly weakened the ducal author- 
 ity in Saxony and Bavaria; the princes who acquired that title, 
 especially in the former country, finding that the secular and spir- 
 itual nobility of the first class had taken the opportunity to raise 
 themselves into an immediate dependence upon the empire. 
 Henry VI came, therefore, to the crown with considerable advan- 
 
 20 Frederick had obtained the succes- 
 sion of Wolf, Marquis of Tuscany, uncle 
 of Henry the Lion, who probably consid- 
 ered himself as entitled to expect it. 
 (Schmidt, p, 427.) 
 
 2^ Putter, in his " Historical Develop- 
 ment of the Constitution of the German 
 Empire," is inclined to consider Henry 
 the Lion as sacrificed to the emperor's 
 jealousy of the Guelfs, and as illegally 
 proscribed by the Diet. But the provo- 
 
 cations he had given Frederick are un- 
 deniable; and, without pretending to de- 
 cide on a question of German history, I 
 do not see that there was any precipi- 
 tancy or manifest breach of justice in 
 the course of proceedings against him. 
 Schmidt, Pfeffel, and Struvius do not 
 represent the condemnation of Henry as 
 unjust. 
 
 " Putter, p. 220. 
 
 " Struvius, p. 418. 
 
II25-I274] HOUSE OF SWABIA 357 
 
 tages in respect of prerogative; and these inspired him with the 
 bold scheme of declaring the empire hereditary. One is more 
 surprised to find that he had no contemptible prospect of success 
 in this attempt: fifty-two princes, and even what appears hardly 
 credible, the See of Rome, under Clement III, having been induced 
 to concur in it. But the Saxons made so vigorous an opposition 
 that Henry did not think it advisable to persevere.^'* He procured, 
 however, the election of his son Frederick, an infant only two 
 years old. But the emperor dying almost immediately, a powerful 
 body of princes, supported by Pope Innocent III, were desirous 
 to withdraw their consent. Philip, Duke of Swabia, the late king's 
 brother, unable to secure his nephew's succession, brought about 
 his own election by one party, while another chose Otho, of Bruns- 
 wick, younger son of Henry the Lion. This double election re- 
 newed the rivalry between the Guelfs and Ghibelins, and threw 
 Germany into confusion for several years. Philip, whose preten- 
 sions appear to be the more legitimate of the two, gained ground 
 upon his adversary, notwithstanding the opposition of the Pope, 
 till he was assassinated in consequence of a private resentment. 
 Otho IV reaped the benefit of a crime in which he did not partici- 
 pate, and became for some years undisputed sovereign. But, hav- 
 ing offended the Pope by not entirely abandoning his imperial 
 rights over Italy, he had, in the latter part of his reign, to contend 
 against Frederick, son of Henry VI, who, having grown up to 
 manhood, came into Germany as heir of the house of Swabia, and, 
 what was not very usual in his history, or that of his family, the 
 favoured candidate of the Holy See. Otho IV had been almost 
 entirely deserted except by his natural subjects when his death, in 
 1218, removed every difficulty, and left Frederick II in the peace- 
 able possession of Germany. 
 
 The eventful life of Frederick II was chiefly passed in Italy. 
 To preserve his hereditary dominions and chastise the Lombard 
 cities were the leading objects of his political and military career. 
 He paid therefore but little attention to Germany, from which it 
 was in vain for any emperor to expect effectual assistance toward 
 objects of his own. Careless of prerogatives which it seemed 
 hardly worth an effort to preserve, he sanctioned the independence 
 of the princes, which may be properly dated from his reign. In 
 return, they readily elected his son Henry King of the Romans; 
 and on his being implicated in a rebellion, deposed him with equal 
 readiness, and substituted his brother Conrad at the emperor's 
 request." But in the latter part of Frederick's reign the deadly 
 hatred of Rome penetrated beyond the Alps. After his solemn 
 
 " Struvius, p. 424. Impetravit a sub- transiret, et sic in ipso terminus esset 
 
 ditis, ut cessante pristina Palatinorum electionis, principiumque successive dig- 
 
 electione, imperium in ipsius posterita- nitatis. (" Gervas. Tilburiens., ' ibidem.) 
 tem, distincta proximorum successione, =^' Struvius, p. 457. 
 
358 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [i 125-1272 
 
 deposition in the council of Lyons, he was incapable, in ecclesias- 
 tical eyes, of holding the imperial sceptre. Innocent IV found, 
 however, some difftculty in setting up a rival emperor. Henry, 
 Landgrave of Thuringia, made an indifferent figure in this char- 
 acter. Upon his death, William, Count of Holland, was chosen 
 by the party adverse to Frederick and his son Conrad; and after 
 the emperor's death he had some success against the latter. It 
 is hard, indeed, to say that any one was actually sovereign for 
 twenty-two years that followed the death of Frederick II: a period 
 of contested title and universal anarchy, which is usually denomi- 
 nated the grand interregnum. On the decease of William of Hol- 
 land, in 1256, a schism among the electors produced the double 
 choice of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and Alfonso X, King of 
 Castile. It seems not easy to determine which of these candidates 
 had a legal majority of votes ;^® but the subsequent recognition of 
 almost all Germany, and a sort of possession evidenced by public 
 acts, which have been held valid, as well as the general consent of 
 contemporaries, may justify us in adding Richard to the imperial 
 list. The choice indeed was ridiculous, as he possessed no talents 
 which could compensate for his want of power; but the electors 
 attained their objects, to perpetuate a state of confusion by which 
 their own independence was consolidated, and to plunder without 
 scruple a man, like Didius at Rome, rich and foolish enough to 
 purchase the first place upon earth. 
 
 That place indeed was now become a mockery of greatness. 
 For more than two centuries, notwithstanding the temporary in- 
 fluence of Frederick Barbarossa and his son, the imperial authority 
 had been in a state of gradual decay. From the time of Frederick 
 II it had bordered upon absolute insignificance; and the more pru- 
 dent German princes were slow to canvass for a dignity so little 
 accompanied by respect. The changes wrought in the Germanic 
 constitution during the period of the Swabian emperors chiefly 
 consist in the establishment of an oligarchy of electors, and of the 
 territorial sovereignty of the princes. 
 
 I. At the extinction of the Franconian line by the death of 
 Henry V it was determined by the German nobility to make their 
 empire practically elective, admitting no right, or even natural 
 
 '® The election ought legally to have 
 been made at Frankfort. But the Elector 
 of Treves, having got possession of the 
 town, shut out the Archbishops of Mentz 
 and Cologne and the count palatine, on 
 pretence of apprehending violence. They 
 met under the walls, and there elected 
 Richard. Afterward Alfonso was chosen 
 by the votes of Treves, Saxony, and 
 Brandenburg. Historians differ about 
 the vote of Ottocar, King of Bohemia, 
 which would turn the scale. Some time 
 after the election it is certain that he 
 
 was on the side of Richard. Perhaps we 
 may collect from the opposite statements 
 in Struvius (p. 504) that the proxies of 
 Ottocar had voted for Alfonso, and that 
 he did not think fit to recognise their 
 act. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Richard 
 was de facto sovereign of Germany; and 
 it is singular that Struvius sh9uld assert 
 the contrary, on the authority of an in- 
 strument of Rodolph, which expressly 
 designates him king, per quondam Rich- 
 ardum regem illustrem. (Struv., p. 502.) 
 
1125-1272] THE GERMANIC CONSTITUTION 359 
 
 pretension, in the eldest son of a reigning sovereign. Their choice 
 upon former occasions had been made by free and general 
 suffrage. But it may be presumed that each nation voted unani- 
 mously, and according to the disposition of its duke. It is prob- 
 able, too, that the leaders, after discussing in previous delibera- 
 tions the merits of the several candidates, submitted their own 
 resolutions to the assembly, which would generally concur in them 
 without hesitation. At the election of Lothaire, in 11 24, we find 
 an evident instance of this previous choice, or, as it was called, 
 pretaxation, from which the electoral college of Germany has 
 been derived. The princes, it is said, trusted the choice of an em- 
 peror to ten persons, in whose judgment they promised to acqui- 
 esce.^^ This precedent was, in all likelihood, followed at all sub- 
 sequent elections. The proofs indeed are not perfectly clear. But 
 in the famous privilege of Austria, granted by Frederick I in 11 56, 
 he bestows a rank upon the newly created duke of that countr)^ 
 immediately after the electing princes (post principes electores) ; ^® 
 a strong presumption that the right of pretaxation was not only 
 established, but limited, to a few definite persons. In a letter of 
 Innocent III, concerning the double election of Philip and Otho 
 in 1 198, he asserts the latter to have had a majority in his favour of 
 those to whom the right of election chiefly belongs (ad quos prin- 
 cipaliter spectat electio).^® And a law of Otho in 1208, if it be 
 genuine, appears to fix the exclusive privilege of the seven elec- 
 tors.^^ Nevertheless, so obscure is this important part of the 
 Germanic system, that we find four ecclesiastical and two secular 
 princes concurring with the regular electors in the act, as reported 
 by a contemporary writer, that creates Conrad, son of Frederick 
 II, King of the Romans.^^ This, however, may have been an 
 irregular deviation from the principle already established. But 
 it is admitted that all the princes retained, at least during the 
 twelfth century, their consenting suffrage; like the laity in an 
 episcopal election, whose approbation continued to be necessary 
 long after the real power of choice had been withdrawn from 
 them.^^ 
 
 It is not easy to account for all the circumstances that gave to 
 seven spiritual and temporal princes this distinguished pre-emi- 
 nence. The three archbishops, Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, were 
 always indeed at the head of the German church. But the secular 
 electors should naturally have been the dukes of four nations : 
 
 " Struvius, p. 357; Schmidt, tome iii, the style of the act of election from the 
 
 p, 331. " Chronicle of Francis Pippin." 
 
 '^ Schmidt, tome iii, p. 390. ^2 This is manifest by the various pas- 
 
 '' PfefFel, p. 360. sages relating to the elections of Philip 
 
 3° Schmidt, tome iv, p. 80. and Otho, quoted by Struvius, pp. 428, 
 
 '^ This is not mentioned in Struvius or 430. See, too, Pfeffel, ubi supra; Scnmidt, 
 
 the other German writers. But Denina tome iv, p. 79. 
 (" Rivoluzioni d' Italia," 1. ix, c. 9) quotes 
 
360 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [i 125-1272 
 
 Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria. We find, however, only 
 the first of these in the undisputed exercise of a vote. It seems 
 probable that, when the electoral princes came to be distinguished 
 from the rest, their privilege was considered as peculiarly con- 
 nected with the discharge of one of the great offices in the imperial 
 court. These were attached, as early as the Diet of Mentz in 1184, 
 to the four electors, who ever afterward possessed them: the 
 Duke of Saxony having then officiated as arch-marshal, the Count 
 Palatine of the Rhine as arch-steward, the King of Bohemia as 
 arch-cupbearer, and the Margrave of Brandenburg as arch-cham- 
 berlain of the empire.^^ But it still continues a problem why the 
 three latter offices, with the electoral capacity as their incident, 
 should not rather have been granted to the Dukes of Franconia, 
 Swabia, and Bavaria. I have seen no adequate explanation of 
 this circumstance; which may perhaps lead us to presume that 
 the right of pre-election was not quite so soon confined to the 
 precise number of seven princes. The final extinction of two 
 great original duchies, Franconia and Swabia, in the thirteenth 
 century, left the electoral rights of the Count Palatine and the 
 Margrave of Brandenburg beyond dispute. But the Dukes of 
 Bavaria continued to claim a vote in opposition to the Kings of 
 Bohemia. At the election of Rodolph, in 1272, the two brothers 
 of the house of Wittelsbach voted separately, as Count Palatine 
 and Duke of Lower Bavaria. Ottocar was excluded upon this 
 occasion; and it was not till 1290 that the suffrage of Bohemia 
 was fully recognized. The Palatine and Bavarian branches, how- 
 ever, continued to enjoy their family vote conjointly, by a deter- 
 mination of Rodolph; upon which Louis of Bavaria slightly 
 innovated, by rendering the suffrage alternate. But the Golden 
 Bull of Charles IV put an end to all doubts on the rights of elec- 
 toral houses, and absolutely excluded Bavaria from voting. The 
 limitation to seven electors, first perhaps fixed by accident, came 
 to be invested with a sort of mysterious importance, and certainly 
 was considered, until times comparatively recent, as a funda- 
 mental law of the empire.^* 
 
 2. It might appear natural to expect that an oligarchy of seven 
 persons, who had thus excluded their equals from all share in the 
 election of a sovereign, would assume still greater authority, and 
 trespass further upon the less powerful vassals of the empire. ' But 
 while the electors were establishing their peculiar privilege, the 
 class immediately inferior raised itself by important acquisitions 
 of power. The German dukes, even after they became heredi- 
 tary, did not succeed in compelling the chief nobility within their 
 limits to hold their lands in fief so completely as the peers of 
 
 " ?S.t '"par ^S? 5''68r-putter. pa«= %V. ^'^"^'' ''='^" «5' ''' ^ ^truvius, page 
 
1 125-1272] THE GERMANIC CONSTITUTION 361 
 
 France had done. The nobles of Swabia refused to follow their 
 duke into the field against the Emperor Conrad 11.^^ Of this 
 aristocracy the superior class were denominated princes ; an appel- 
 lation which, after the eleventh century, distinguished them from 
 the untitled nobility, most of whom were their vassals. They were 
 constituent parts of all Diets ; and though gradually deprived of 
 their original participation in electing an emperor, possessed in 
 all other respects the same rights as the dukes or electors. Some 
 of them were fully equal to the electors in birth as well as extent 
 of dominions, such as the princely houses of Austria, Hesse, 
 Brunswick, and Misnia. By the division of Henry the Lion's 
 vast territories,^® and by the absolute extinction of the Swabian 
 family in the following century, a great many princes acquired 
 additional weight. Of the ancient duchies, only Saxony and 
 Bavaria remained, the former of which especially was so dismem- 
 bered that it was vain to attempt any renewal of the ducal juris- 
 diction. That of the emperor, formerly exercised by the counts 
 palatine, went almost equally into disuse during the contest be- 
 tween Philip and Otho IV. The princes accordingly had acted 
 with sovereign independence within their own fiefs before the 
 reign of Frederick II, but the legal recognition of their immuni- 
 ties was reserved for two edicts of that emperor; one, in 1220, re- 
 lating to ecclesiastical, and the other, in 1232, to secular princes. 
 By these he engaged neither to levy the customary imperial dues, 
 nor to permit the jurisdiction of the palatine judges, within the 
 limits of a state of the empire,^^ concessions that amounted to little 
 less than an abdication of his own sovereignty. From this epoch 
 the territorial independence of the states may be dated. 
 
 A class of titled nobility, inferior to the princes, were the 
 counts of the empire, who seem to have been separated from the 
 former in the twelfth century, and to have lost at the same time 
 their right of voting in the Diets.^^ In some parts of Germany, 
 chiefly in Franconia and upon the Rhine, there always existed a 
 very numerous body of lower nobility, untitled at least till modern 
 times, but subject to no superior except the emperor. These are 
 supposed to have become immediate after the destruction of the 
 house of Swabia, within whose duchies they had been compre- 
 hended.^® 
 
 A short interval elapsed after the death of Richard of Corn- 
 wall before the electors could be induced, by the deplorable state 
 of confusion into which Germany had fallen, to fill the imperial 
 
 " PfefFel, p. 209. election of Otho IV the princes sign 
 
 '° See the arrangements made in con- their names. Ego N. elegi et subscripsi. 
 
 sequence of Henry's forfeiture, which But the counts only as follows, Ego N. 
 
 gave quite a new face to Germany, in consensi et subscripsi. (PfeflFel, p. 360.) 
 PfeflFel. p. 234; also p. 437- ^^ Pieffel, p. 455; Putter, p. 254; Stru- 
 
 " PfeflFel, p. 384; Putter, p. 233. vius, p. 511. 
 
 *^ In the instruments relating to the 
 
362 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1272-1355 
 
 throne. Their choice was, however, the best that could have been 
 made. It fell upon Rodolph, Count of Hapsburg, a prince of 
 very ancient family and of considerable possessions as well in 
 Switzerland as upon each bank of the Upper Rhine, but not suf- 
 ficiently powerful to alarm the electoral oligarchy. Rodolph was 
 brave, active, and just, but his characteristic quality appears to 
 have been good sense, and judgment of the circumstances in 
 which he was placed. Of this he gave a signal proof in relinquish- 
 ing the favourite project of so many preceding emperors, and leav- 
 ing Italy altogether to itself. At home he manifested a vigilant 
 spirit in administering justice, and is said to have destroyed sev- 
 enty strongholds of noble robbers in Thuringia and other parts, 
 bringing many of the criminals to capital punishment.*^ But he 
 wisely avoided giving offence to the more powerful princes, and 
 during his reign there were hardly any rebellions in Germany. 
 
 It was a very reasonable object of every emperor to aggrandize 
 his family by investing his near kindred with vacant fiefs, but no 
 one was so fortunate in his opportunities as Rodolph. At his 
 accession, Austria, Styria, and Carniola were in the hands of Otto- 
 car, King of Bohemia. These extensive and fertile countries 
 had been formed into a march or margraviate, after the victories 
 of Otho the Great over the Hungarians. Frederick Barbarossa 
 erected them into a duchy, with many distinguished privileges, 
 especially that of female succession, hitherto unknown in the 
 feudal principalities of Germany.*^ Upon the extinction of the 
 house of Bamberg, which had enjoyed this duchy, it was granted 
 by Frederick II to a cousin of his own name, after whose death 
 a disputed succession gave rise to several changes, and ultimately 
 enabled Ottocar to gain possession of the country. Against this 
 King of Bohemia Rodolph waged two successful wars, and recov- 
 ered the Austrian provinces, which, as vacant fiefs, he conferred, 
 with the consent of the Diet, upon his son Albert.*^ 
 
 Notwithstanding the merit and popularity of Rodolph, the 
 electors refused to choose his son King of the Romans in his life- 
 
 ** Struvius, p. 530; Coxe's "Hist, of 
 House of Austria," p. 57. This valuable 
 work contains a full and interesting ac- 
 count of Rodolph's reign. 
 
 *^ The privileges of Austria were grant- 
 ed to the Margrave Henry in 1156, by way 
 of indemnity for his restitution of Bava- 
 ria to Henry the Lion. The territory 
 between the Inn and the Ems was sepa- 
 rated from the latter province and an- 
 nexed to Austria at this time. The 
 Dukes of Austria are declared equal in 
 rank to the palatine archdukes (archi- 
 ducibus palatinis). This expression gave 
 a hint to the Duke Rodolph IV to as- 
 sume the title of Archduke of Austria. 
 (Schmidt, tome iii, p. 390.) Frederick II 
 even created the Duke of Austria king: 
 
 a very curious fact, though neither he 
 nor his successors ever assumed the title. 
 (Struvius, p. 463.) The instrument runs 
 as follows: Ducatus Austriae et Styriae, 
 cum pertinentiis et terminis suis quot 
 hactenus habuit, ad nomen et honorem 
 regium transferentes, te hactenus duca- 
 tuum praedictorum ducem, de potestatis 
 nostrae plenitudine et magnilicentia spe- 
 cial! promovemus in regem, per liber- 
 tates et jura praedictum regnum tuum 
 praesentis epigrammatis auctoritate do- 
 nantes, quae regiam deceant dignitatem; 
 "t tarnen ex honore quern tibi libenter 
 addimus, nihil honoris et juris nostri 
 diadematis aut imperii subtrahatur, 
 "2 Struvius, p. 525; Schmidt; Coxe. 
 
1272-1355] CUSTOM OF PARTITION 363 
 
 time; and, after his death, determined to avoid the appearance 
 of hereditary succession, put Adolphus of Nassau upon the throne. 
 There is very little to attract notice in the domestic history of 
 the empire during the next two centuries. From Adolphus to 
 Sigismund every emperor had either to struggle against a com- 
 petitor claiming the majority of votes at his election or against a 
 combination of the electors to dethrone him. The imperial au- 
 thority became more and more ineffective; yet it was frequently 
 made a subject of reproach against the emperors that they did not 
 maintain a sovereignty to which no one was disposed to submit. 
 
 It may appear surprising that the Germanic confederacy under 
 the nominal supremacy of an emperor should have been preserved 
 in circumstances apparently -so calculated to dissolve it. But, be- 
 sides the natural effect of prejudice and a famous name, there 
 were sufficient reasons to induce the electors to preserve a form of 
 government in which they bore so decided a sway. Accident had 
 in a considerable degree restricted the electoral suffrages to seven 
 princes. Without the college there were houses more substan- 
 tially powerful than any within it. The duchy of Saxony had been 
 subdivided by repeated partitions among children till the electoral 
 right was vested in a prince who possessed only the small territory 
 of Wittenberg. The great families of Austria, Bavaria, and Lux- 
 emburg, though not electoral, were the real heads of the German 
 body ; and though the two former lost much of their influence for 
 a time through the pernicious custom of partition, the empire sel- 
 dom looked for its head to any other house than one of these three. 
 
 While the duchies and counties of Germany retained their 
 original character of offices or governments, they were of course, 
 even though considered as hereditary, not subject to partition 
 among children. When they acquired the nature of fiefs, it was 
 still consonant to the principles of a feudal tenure that the eldest 
 son should inherit according to the law of primogeniture, an in- 
 ferior provision or appanage, at most, being reserved for the 
 younger children. Thef law of England favoured the eldest exclu- 
 sively, that of France gave him great advantages. But in Ger- 
 many a different rule began to prevail about the thirteenth cen- 
 tury.*^ An equal partition of the inheritance, without the least 
 regard to priority of birth, was the general law of its principalities. 
 Sometimes this was effected by undivided possession, or tenancy 
 in common, the brothers residing together and reigning jointly. 
 This tended to preserve the integrity of dominion; but as it was 
 frequently incommodious, a more usual practice was to divide the 
 territory. From such partitions are derived those numerous in- 
 
 *^ Schmidt, tome iv, p. 66. Pfeffel general rule; but I find the house of 
 
 (p. 28g) maintains that partitions were not Baden divided into two branches, Baden 
 
 introduced till the latter end of the thir- and Hochber^, in 1190, with rights of 
 
 teenth century. This may be true as a mutual reversion. 
 
364 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1272-1355 
 
 dependent principalities of the same house, many of which still 
 subsist in Germany. In 1589 there were eight reigning princes 
 of the Palatine family, and fourteen, in 1675, of that of Saxony.** 
 Originally these partitions were in general absolute and without 
 reversion; but, as their effect in weakening families became evi- 
 dent, a practice was introduced of making compacts of reciprocal 
 succession, by which a fief was prevented from escheating to the 
 empire until all the male posterity of the first feudatory should be 
 extinct. Thus, while the German Empire survived, all the princes 
 of Hesse or of Saxony had reciprocal contingencies of succession, 
 or what our lawyers call cross-remainders, to each other's domin- 
 ions. A different system was gradually adopted. By the Golden 
 Bull of Charles IV the electoral territory — that is, the particular 
 district to which the electoral suffrage was inseparably attached — 
 became incapable of partition, and was to descend to the eldest 
 son. In the fifteenth century the present house of Brandenburg 
 set the first example of establishing primogeniture by law; the 
 principalities of Anspach and Bayreuth were dismembered from 
 it for the benefit of younger branches ; but it was declared that all 
 the other dominions of the family should for the future belong 
 exclusively to the reigning elector. This politic measure was 
 adopted in several other families ; but, even in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, the prejudice was not removed, and some German princes 
 denounced curses on their posterity if they should introduce the 
 impious custom of primogeniture.*'^ Notwithstanding these sub- 
 divisions, and the most remarkable of those which I have men- 
 tioned are of a date rather subsequent to the middle ages, the 
 antagonist principle of consolidation by various means of acqui- 
 sition was so actively at work that several princely houses, espe- 
 cially those of Hohenzollern or Brandenburg, of Hesse, Wiirtem- 
 berg, and the Palatinate, derive their importance from the same 
 era, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which the prejudice 
 against primogeniture was the strongest. And thus it will often 
 be found in private patrimonies ; the tendency to consolidation of 
 property works more rapidly than that to its disintegration by a 
 law of gavelkind. 
 
 Weakened by these subdivisions, the principalities of Germany 
 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries shrink to a more and more 
 diminutive size in the scale of nations. But one family, the most 
 illustrious of the former age, was less exposed to this enfeebling 
 system. Henry VII, Count of Luxemburg, a man of much more 
 personal merit than hereditary importance, was elevated to the 
 empire in 1308. Most part of his short reign he passed in Italy; 
 but he had a fortunate opportunity of obtaining the crown of Bo- 
 hemia for his son. John, King of Bohemia, did not himself wear 
 
 ** Pfeflfel, p. 289; Putter, p. 189. « PfefiFel, p. 280. 
 
1272-1355] HOUSE OF LUXEMBURG 365 
 
 the imperial crown, but three of his descendants possessed it, with 
 less interniption than could have been expected. His son Charles 
 IV succeeded Louis of Bavaria in 1347, not indeed without oppo- 
 sition, for a double election and a civil war were matters of course 
 in Germany. Charles IV has been treated with more derision by 
 his contemporaries, and consequently by later writers, than almost 
 any prince in history; yet he was remarkably successful in the 
 only objects that he seriously pursued. Deficient in personal 
 courage, insensible of humiliation, bending without shame to the 
 Pope, to the Italians, to the electors, so poor and so little rever- 
 enced as to be arrested by a butcher at Worms for want of pay- 
 ing his demand, Charles IV affords a proof that a certain dexter- 
 ity and cold-blooded perseverance may occasionally supply in a 
 sovereign the want of more respectable qualities. He has been 
 reproached with neglecting the empire. But he never designed 
 to trouble himself about the empire, except for his private ends. 
 He did not neglect the kingdom of Bohemia, to which he almost 
 seemed to render Germany a province. Bohemia had been long 
 considered as a fief of the empire, and indeed could pretend to an 
 electoral vote by no other title. Charles, however, gave the states 
 by law the right of choosing a king, on the extinction of the royal 
 family, which seems derogatory to the imperial prerogative.*® It 
 was much more material that, upon acquiring Brandenburg, part- 
 ly by conquest and partly by a compact of succession in 1373, 
 he not only invested his sons with it, which was conformable to 
 usage, but tried to annex that electorate forever to the kingdom 
 of Bohemia.*^ He constantly resided at Prague, where he founded 
 a celebrated university, and embellished the city with buildings. 
 This kingdom, augmented also during his reign by the acquisition 
 of Silesia, he bequeathed to his son Wenceslaus, for whom, by 
 pliancy toward the electors and the court of Rome, he had pro- 
 cured, against all recent example, the imperial succession.*^ 
 
 The reign of Charles IV is distinguished in the constitutional 
 history of the empire by his Golden Bull, an instrument which 
 finally ascertained the prerogatives of the electoral college. The 
 Golden Bull terminated the disputes which had arisen between 
 different members of the same house as to their right of suffrage, 
 which was declared inherent in certain definite territories. The 
 number was absolutely restrained to seven. The place of legal 
 imperial elections was fixed at Frankfort; of coronations, at Aix- 
 la-Chapelle; and the latter ceremony was to be performed by the 
 Archbishop of Cologne. These regulations, though consonant to 
 ancient usage, had not always been observed, and their neglect 
 had sometimes excited questions as to the vaHdity of elections. 
 
 *" Struvius, p. 641. 
 
 *' Pfeffel, p. 575; Schmidt, tome iv, p. 595. 
 
 *^ Struvius, p. 637. 
 
366 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1355-1495 
 
 The dignity of elector was enhanced by the Golden Bull as highly 
 as an imperial edict could carry it; they were declared equal to 
 kings, and conspiracy against their persons incurred the penalty 
 of high treason.^® Many other privileges are granted to render 
 them more completely sovereign within their dominions. It 
 seems extraordinary that Charles should have voluntarily elevated 
 an oligarchy, from whose pretensions his predecessors had fre- 
 quently suffered injury. But he had more to apprehend from the 
 two great families of Bavaria and Austria, whom he relatively 
 depressed by giving such a preponderance to the seven electors, 
 than from any members of the college. By his compact with 
 Brandenburg he had a fair prospect of adding a second vote to 
 his own ; and there was more room for intrigue and management, 
 which Charles always preferred to arms, with a small number, 
 than with the whole body of princes. 
 
 The next reign, nevertheless, evinced the danger of investing 
 the electors with such preponderating authority. Wenceslaus, a 
 supine and voluptuous man, less respected, and more negligent of 
 Germany, if possible, than his father, was regularly deposed by 
 a majority of the electoral college in 1400. This right, if it is 
 to be considered as a right, they had already used against Adol- 
 phus of Nassau in 1298, and against Louis of Bavaria in 1346. 
 They chose Robert Count Palatine instead of Wenceslaus; and 
 though the latter did not cease to have some adherents, Robert 
 has generally been counted among the lawful emperors.^** Upon 
 his death the empire returned to the house of Luxemburg, Wen- 
 ceslaus himself waiving his rights in favour of his brother Sigis- 
 mund of Hungary.^^ 
 
 The house of Austria had hitherto given but two emperors to 
 Germany — Rodolph, its founder, and his son Albert, whom a 
 successful rebellion elevated in the place of Adolphus. Upon the 
 death of Henry of Luxemburg, in 13 13, Frederick, son of Albert, 
 disputed the election of Louis, Duke of Bavaria, alleging a ma- 
 jority of genuine votes. This produced a civil war, in which the 
 Austrian party were entirely worsted. Though they advanced no 
 pretensions to the imperial dignity during the rest of the four- 
 teenth century, the princes of that line added to their possessions 
 
 *" Pfeffel, p. 565 ; Putter, p. 271 ; 
 Schmidt, tome iv, p. 566. The Golden 
 Bull not only fixed the palatine vote, in 
 absolute exclusion of Bavaria, but set- 
 tled a controversy of long standing be- 
 tween the two branches of the house of 
 Saxony, Wittenberg and Lauenburg, in 
 favour of the former. 
 
 ^'^ Many of the cities, besides some 
 princes, continued to recognise Wences- 
 laus throughout the life of Robert; and 
 the latter was so much considered as a 
 usurper by foreign states that his am- 
 
 bassadors were refused admittance at the 
 Council of Pisa. (Struvius, p. 658.) 
 
 °^ This election of Sigismund was not 
 uncontested: Josse, or Jodocus, Margrave 
 of Moravia, having been chosen, as far 
 as appears, by a le^al majority. How- 
 ever, his death within three months re- 
 moved the difficulty; and Josse, who 
 was not crowned at Frankfort, has never 
 been reckoned among the emperors, 
 though modern critics agree that his title 
 was legitimate. (Struvius, p. 684; Pfeffel, 
 p. 612.) 
 
I355-H95] 
 
 HOUSE OF AUSTRIA 
 
 367 
 
 Carinthia, Istria, and the Tyrol. As a counterbalance to these 
 acquisitions, they lost a great part of their ancient inheritance 
 by unsuccessful wars with the Swiss. According to the custom of 
 partition, so injurious to princely houses, their dominions were 
 divided among three branches : one reigning in Austria, a second 
 in Styria and the adjacent provinces, a third in the Tyrol and 
 Alsace. This had in a considerable degree eclipsed the glory of 
 the house of Hapsburg. But it was now its destiny to revive, and 
 to enter upon a career of prosperity which has never since been 
 permanently interrupted. Albert, Duke of Austria, who had mar- 
 ried Sigismund's only daughter, the Queen of Hungary and Bo- 
 hemia, was raised to the imperial throne upon the death of 
 his father-in-law in 1437. He died in two years, leaving his 
 wife pregnant with a son, Ladislaus Posthumus, who afterward 
 reigned in the two kingdoms just mentioned; and the choice of 
 the electors fell upon Frederick, Duke of Styria, second cousin 
 of the last emperor, from whose posterity it never departed, ex- 
 cept in a single instance, upon the extinction of his male line in 
 1740. 
 
 Frederick HI reigned fifty-three years, a longer period than 
 any of his predecessors ; and his personal character was more in- 
 significant. With better fortune than could be expected, consider- 
 ing both these circumstances, he escaped any overt attempt to 
 depose him, though such a project was sometimes in agitation. 
 He reigned during an interesting age, full of remarkable events, 
 and big with others of more leading importance. The destruction 
 of the Greek Empire and appearance of the victorious Crescent 
 upon the Danube gave an unhappy distinction to the earlier years 
 of his reign, and displayed his mean and pusillanimous character 
 in circumstances which demanded a hero. At a later season he 
 was drawn into contentions with France and Burgundy, which 
 ultimately produced a new and more general combination of Eu- 
 ropean poHtics. Frederick, always poor, and scarcely able to 
 protect himself in Austria from the seditions of his subjects or 
 the inroads of the King of Hungary, was yet another founder of 
 his family, and left their fortunes incomparably more prosperous 
 than at his accession.^^ The marriage of his son Maximilian 
 
 =2 Ranke has drawn the character of 
 Frederick III more favourably, on the 
 whole, than preceding historians, and 
 with a discrimination which enables us 
 to account better for his success in the 
 objects which he had at heart. " From 
 his youth he had been inured to trouble 
 and adversity. When compelled to yield, 
 he never gave up a point, and always 
 gained the mastery in the end. The 
 maintenance of his prerogatives was the 
 governing principle of all his actions, the 
 more because they acquired an ideal 
 
 value from their connection with the im- 
 perial dignity. It cost him a long and 
 severe struggle to allow his son to be 
 crowned King of the Romans; he wished 
 to take the supreme authority undivided 
 with him to the grave: in no case would 
 he grant Maximilian any independent 
 share in the administration of gover'n- 
 ment; but kept him, even after ne was 
 king, still as 'son of the house'; nor 
 would he ever give him anvthing but 
 the countship of Cilli; 'for the rest he 
 would have time enough.' His frugality 
 
368 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1355-1495 
 
 with the heiress of Burgundy began that aggrandizement of the 
 house of Austria which Frederick seems to have anticipated.^^ 
 The electors, who had lost a good deal of their former spirit, and 
 were grown sensible of the necessity of choosing a powerful sov- 
 ereign, made no opposition to Maximilian's becoming king of the 
 Romans in his father's lifetime. The Austrian provinces were 
 reunited either under Frederick or in the first years of Maximilian ; 
 so that at the close of that period which we denominate the middle 
 ages the German Empire, sustained by the patrimonial dominions 
 of its chief, became again considerable in the scale of nations, and 
 capable of preserving a balance between the ambitious mon- 
 archies of France and Spain. 
 
 The period between Rodolph and Frederick III is distin- 
 guished by no circumstance so interesting as the prosperous state 
 of the free imperial cities, which had attained their maturity about 
 the commencement of that interval. We find the cities of Ger- 
 many in the tenth century divided into such as depended imme- 
 diately upon the empire, which were usually governed by their 
 bishop as imperial vicar, and such as were included in the terri- 
 tories of the dukes and counts.^* Some of the former, lying prin- 
 cipally upon the Rhine and in Franconia, acquired a certain de- 
 gree of importance before the expiration of the eleventh century. 
 Worms and Cologne manifested a zealous attachment to Henry 
 IV, whom they supported in despite of their bishops.^^ His son 
 Henry V granted privileges of enfranchisement to the inferior 
 townsmen or artisans who had hitherto been distinguished from 
 the upper class of freemen, and particularly relieved them from 
 oppressive usages, which either gave the whole of their movable 
 
 bordered on avarice, his slowness on in- 
 ertness, his stubbornness on the most 
 determined selfishness ; yet all these 
 faults are removed from vulgarity by 
 high qualities. He had at bottom a sober 
 depth of judgment, a sedate and inflex- 
 ible honour; the aged prince, even when 
 a fugitive imploring succour, had a per- 
 sonal bearing which never allowed the 
 majesty of the empire to sink." (" Hist. 
 Reiormation," translation, vol. ii, p. 103.) 
 A character of such obstinate passive 
 resistance was well fitted for his station 
 in that age; spite of his poverty and 
 weakness, he was hereditary sovereign 
 of extensive and fertile territories; he 
 was not loved, feared, or respected, but 
 he was necessary; he was a German, and 
 therefore not to be exchanged for a king 
 of Hungary or Bohemia; he was, not as 
 Frederick of Austria, but as elected em- 
 peror, the sole hope for a more settled 
 rule, for public peace, for the maintenance 
 of a confederacy so ill held together by 
 any other tie. Hence he succeeded in 
 what seemed so difficult — in procuring the 
 election of Maximilian as King of the 
 Romans; and interested the German Diet 
 
 m maintaining the Burgundian inherit- 
 ance, the western provinces of the Neth- 
 erlands, which the latter's marriage 
 brought into the house of Austria. 
 
 ^ The famous device of Austria, A. E. 
 
 1. ^-^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^y Frederick III, 
 who adopted it on his plate, books, and 
 buildings. These initials stand for 
 Austnae Est Imperare Orbi Universe; 
 or, in German, AUes Erdreich 1st Oster- 
 reich Unterthan: a bold assumption for 
 a man who was not safe in an inch of 
 his dominions. (Struvius, p. 722.) He 
 confirmed the archiducal title of his 
 family, which might seem implied in the 
 original grant of Frederick I, and be- 
 stowed other high privileges above all 
 princes of the empire. These are enu- 
 merated in Coxe's " House of Austria/' 
 vol. 1, p. 263. 
 
 ''* Pfeffel, p. 187. The Othos adopted 
 the same policy in Germany which they 
 had introduced in Italy, conferring the 
 tennporal government of cities upon the 
 bishops; probably as a counterbalance to 
 the lay aristocracy. (Putter, p. 136 ; 
 btruvius, p. 252.) 
 
 " Schmidt, tome iii, p. 239. 
 
I355-U95] 
 
 FREE IMPERIAL CITIES 
 
 369 
 
 goods to the lord upon their decease or at least enabled him to 
 seize the best chattel as his heriot.^*^ He took away the temporal 
 authority of the bishop at least in several instances, and restored 
 the cities to a more immediate dependence upon the empire. The 
 citizens were classed in companies, according to their several occu- 
 pations, an institution which was speedily adopted in other com- 
 mercial countries. It does not appear that any German city had 
 obtained under this emperor those privileges of choosing its own 
 magistrates which were conceded about the same time, in a few 
 instances, to those of France.'*'^ Gradually, however, they began 
 to elect councils of citizens, as a sort of senate or magistracy. 
 This innovation might perhaps take place as early as the reign 
 of Frederick I ; ^® at least, it was fully established in that of his 
 grandson. They were at first only assistants to the imperial or 
 episcopal bailiff, who probably continued to administer criminal 
 justice. But in the thirteenth century the citizens, grown richer 
 and stronger, either purchased the jurisdiction or usurped it 
 through the lord*s neglect, or drove out the bailiff by force. ^^ The 
 great revolution in Franconia and Swabia, occasioned by the 
 fall of the Hohenstauffen family, completed the victory of the 
 cities. Those which had depended upon mediate lords became 
 immediately connected with the empire; and with the empire in 
 its state of feebleness, when an occasional present of money would 
 easily induce its chief to acquiesce in any claims of immunity 
 which the citizens might prefer. 
 
 It was a natural consequence of the importance which the 
 free citizens had reached, and of their immediacy, that they were 
 admitted to a place in the Diets or general meetings of the con- 
 federacy. They were tacitly acknowledged to be equally sover- 
 eign with the electors and princes. No proof exists of any law by 
 which they were adopted into the Diet. We find it said that Ro- 
 dolph of Hapsburg, in 1291, renewed his oath with the princes, 
 lords, and cities. Under the Emperor Henry VII there is un- 
 equivocal mention of the three orders composing the Diet — elec- 
 tors, princes, and deputies from cities,®*^ And in 1344 they appear 
 as a third distinct college in the Diet of Frankfort.®^ 
 
 The inhabitants of these free cities always preserved their re- 
 spect for the emperor, and gave him much less vexation than his 
 
 "Schmidt, p, 242; Pfeffel, p. 293; Du- 
 mont, '* Corps Diplomatique," tome i, 
 p. 64. 
 
 "^ Schmidt, p. 245. 
 
 '* In the charter granted by Frederick 
 I to Spire in 1182, confirming and en- 
 larging that of Henry V, though no ex- 
 press mention is made of any municipal 
 jurisdiction, yet it seems implied in the 
 following words: Causam in civitate jam 
 lite contestatam non episcopus aut alia 
 
 24 
 
 potestas extra civitatem determinari com- 
 pellet. (Dumont, p. 108.) 
 
 *'' Schmidt, tome iv, p. 96 ; PfefTel, 
 p. 441. 
 
 '" Mansit ibi rex sex hebdom adibus 
 cum principibus electoribus et aliis prin- 
 cipibus et civitatum nuntiis, de suo tran- 
 situ et de praestandis servitits in Italiam 
 disponendo. (Auctor apud Schmidt, tome 
 vi, p. 3I-) 
 
 «^ Pfeffel, p. 552. 
 
370 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [i355-i495 
 
 other subjects. He was indeed their natural friend. But the no- 
 bility and prelates were their natural enemies; and the western 
 parts of Germany were the scenes of irreconcilable warfare be- 
 tween the possessors of fortified castles and the inhabitants of 
 fortified cities. Each party was frequently the aggressor. The 
 nobles were too often mere robbers, who lived upon the plunder 
 of travellers. But the citizens were almost equally inattentive to 
 the rights of others. It was their policy to offer the privileges of 
 burghership to all strangers. The peasantry of feudal lords, flying 
 to a neighbouring town, found an asylum constantly open. A 
 multitude of aliens, thus seeking as it were sanctuary, dwelt in the 
 suburbs or liberties, between the city walls and the palisades 
 which bounded the territory. Hence they were called Pfahlbiirger, 
 or burgesses of the palisades ; and this encroachment on the rights 
 of the nobility was positively but vainly prohibited by several im- 
 perial edicts, especially the Golden Bull. Another class were the 
 Ausbiirger, or outburghers, who had been admitted to privileges 
 of citizenship, though resident at a distance, and pretended in 
 consequence to be exempted from all dues to their original feudal 
 superiors. If a lord resisted so unreasonable a claim he incurred 
 the danger of bringing down upon himself the vengeance of the 
 citizens. These outburghers are in general classed under the 
 general name of Pfahlbiirger by contemporary writers.®^ 
 
 As the towns were conscious of the hatred which the nobility 
 bore toward them, it was their interest to make a common cause, 
 and render mutual assistance. From this necessity of maintain- 
 ing by united exertions their general liberty, the German cities 
 never suffered the petty jealousies which might no doubt exist 
 among them, to ripen into such deadly feuds as sullied the glory, 
 and ultimately destroyed the freedom, of Lombardy. They with- 
 stood the bishops and barons by confederacies of their own, 
 framed expressly to secure their commerce against rapine or un- 
 just exactions of toll. More than sixty cities, with three ecclesi- 
 astical electors at their head, formed the League of the Rhine, in 
 1255, to repel the inferior nobility who, having now become im- 
 mediate, abused that independence by perpetual robberies.^^ The 
 Hanseatic Union owes its origin to no other cause, and may be 
 traced perhaps to rather a higher date. About the year 1370 a 
 league was formed which, though it did not continue so long, 
 seems to have produced more striking effects in Germany. The 
 cities of Swabia and the Rhine united themselves in a strict con- 
 federacy against the princes, and especially the families of Wiir- 
 temberg and Bavaria. It is said that the Emperor Wenceslaus 
 
 «2 Schmidt, tome iv, p. 98; tome vi, p. «» Struvius, p. 498; Schmidt, tome iv, 
 
 76; Pfeffel. p. 402; Du Cange, Gloss.. p. loi; Pfeffel, p. 416. 
 voc. Pfahlburp^er. Faubourg is derived 
 from this word. 
 
I355-U95] LEAGUES OF THE CITIES 371 
 
 secretly abetted their projects. The recent successes of the Swiss, 
 who had now almost established their republic, inspired their 
 neighbours in the empire with expectations which the event did 
 not realize ; for they were defeated in this war, and ultimately 
 compelled to relinquish their league. Counter-associations were 
 formed by the nobles, styled Society of St. George, St. William, 
 the Lion, or the Panther.^* 
 
 The spirit of political liberty was not confined to the free im- 
 mediate cities. In all the German principalities a form of limited 
 monarchy prevailed, reflecting on a reduced scale the general 
 constitution of the empire. As the emperors shared their legis- 
 lative sovereignty with the Diet, so all the princes who belonged 
 to that assembly had their own provincial states, composed of 
 their feudal vassals and of their mediate towns within their terri- 
 tory. No tax could be imposed without consent of the states, and 
 in some countries the prince was obliged to account for the proper 
 disposition of the money granted. In all matters of importance 
 affecting the principality, and especially in cases of partition, it 
 was necessary to consult them; and they sometimes decided be- 
 tween competitors in a disputed succession, though this indeed 
 more strictly belonged to the emperor. The provincial states 
 concurred with the prince in making laws, except such as were 
 enacted by the general Diet. The city of Wiirzburg, in the four- 
 teenth century, tells its bishop that, if a lord would make any new 
 ordinance, the custom is that he must consult the citizens, who 
 have always opposed his innovating upon the ancient laws without 
 their consent.^^ 
 
 The ancient imperial domain, or possessions which belonged 
 to the chief of the empire as such, had originally been very ex- 
 tensive. Besides large estates in every province, the territory 
 upon each bank of the Rhine, afterward occupied by the counts 
 palatine and ecclesiastical electors, was, until the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, an exclusive property of the emperor. This imperial domain 
 was deemed so adequate to the support of his dignity that it was 
 usual, if not obligatory, for him to grant away his patrimonial 
 domains upon his election. But the necessities of Frederick II, 
 and the long confusion that ensued upon his death, caused the 
 domain to be almost entirely dissipated. Rodolph made some 
 efforts to retrieve it, but too late ; and the poor remains of what 
 had belonged to Charlemagne and Otho were alienated by Charles 
 JY 66 This produced a necessary change in that part of the con- 
 stitution which deprived an emperor of hereditary possessions. 
 It was, however, some time before it took place. Even Albert I 
 
 '* Struvius, p. 649; Pfeffel, p. 586; "'Schmidt, tome vi, p. 8; Putter, p. 
 
 Schmidt, tome v, p. 10; tome vi, p. 78; zzS. 
 Putter, p. 293. «« Pfeffel, p. 580. 
 
372 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1355-1495 
 
 conferred the Duchy of Austria upon his son when he was chosen 
 emperor.^^ Louis of Bavaria was the first who retained his 
 hereditary dominions, and made them his residence.®^ Charles 
 IV and Wenceslaus Hved almost wholly in Bohemia, Sigismund 
 chiefly in Hungary, Frederick III in Austria. This residence in 
 their hereditary countries, while it seemed rather to lower the 
 imperial dignity and to lessen their connection with the general 
 confederacy, gave them intrinsic power and influence. If the 
 emperors of the houses of Luxemburg and Austria were not like 
 the Conrads and Fredericks, they were at least very superior in 
 importance to the Williams and Adolphuses of the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 The accession of Maximilian nearly coincides with the expe- 
 dition of Charles VIII against Naples ; and I should here close the 
 German history of the middle age were it not for the great epoch 
 which is made by the Diet of Worms in 1495. This assembly is 
 celebrated for the establishment of a perpetual public peace, and 
 of a paramount court of justice, the Imperial Chamber. 
 
 The same causes which produced continual hostilities among 
 the French nobility were not likely to operate less powerfully on 
 the Germans, equally warlike with their neighbours and rather less 
 civilized. But while the imperial government was still vigorous, 
 they were kept under some restraint. We find Henry III, the 
 most powerful of the Franconian emperors, forbidding all private 
 defiances, and establishing solemnly a general peace.®® After his 
 time the natural tendency of manners overpowered all attempts 
 to coerce it, and private war waged without limits in the empire. 
 Frederick I endeavoured to repress it by a regulation which ad- 
 mitted its legality. This was the law of defiance (jus diflidationis), 
 which required a solemn declaration of war and three days' no- 
 tice before the commencement of hostile measures. All persons 
 contravening this provision were deemed robbers and not legiti- 
 mate enemies.''^ Frederick II carried the restraint further and 
 limited the right of self-redress to cases where justice could not be 
 obtained. Unfortunately, there was, in later times, no suf^cient 
 provision for rendering justice. The German Empire indeed had 
 now assumed so peculiar a character, and the mass of states which 
 composed it were in so many respects sovereign within their own 
 territories, that wars, unless in themselves unjust, could not be 
 made a subject of reproach against them, nor considered, strictly 
 speaking, as private. It was certainly most desirable to put an 
 
 " Pfeffel, p. 494; Struvius, p. 546. the empire reversed. (Schmidt, tome v, 
 
 •* Struvius, p. 611. In the capitulation p. 44.) 
 
 of Robert it was expressly provided that «" PfefiFel, p, 212. 
 
 he should retain any escheated fief for to Schmidt, tome iv, p. 108, et infra: 
 
 the domain, instead of granting it away, PfefiFel, p. 340; Putter, p. 205. 
 so completely was the public policy of 
 
I355-H95] DIET OF WORMS 373 
 
 end to them by common agreement, and by the only means that 
 could render war unnecessary — the establishment of a supreme 
 jurisdiction. War indeed, legally undertaken, was not the only 
 nor the severest grievance. A very large proportion of the rural 
 nobility lived by robbery.'^^ Their castles, as the ruins still bear 
 witness, were erected upon inaccessible hills, and in defiles that 
 command the public road. An Archbishop of Cologne having 
 built a fortress of this kind, the governor inquired how he was to 
 maintain himself, no revenue having been assigned for that pur- 
 pose: the prelate only desired him to remark that the castle was 
 situated near the junction of four roads. "^^ As commerce increased, 
 and the example of French and Italian civilization rendered the 
 Germans more sensible to their own rudeness, the preservation of 
 public peace was loudly demanded. Every Diet under Frederick 
 III professed to occupy itself with the two great objects of domes- 
 tic reformation, peace and law. Temporary cessations, during 
 which all private hostility was illegal, were sometimes enacted; 
 and, if observed, which may well be doubted, might contribute to 
 accustom men to habits of greater tranquility. The leagues of the 
 cities were probably more efficacious checks upon the disturbers 
 of order. In i486 a ten years' peace was proclaimed, and before 
 the expiration of this period the perpetual abolition of the right 
 of defiance was happily accomplished in the Diet of Worms.*^^ 
 
 These wars, incessantly waged by the states of Germany, sel- 
 dom ended in conquest. Very few princely houses of the middle 
 ages were aggrandized by such means. That small and inde- 
 pendent nobility, the counts and knights of the empire whom the 
 revolutions of our own age have annihilated, stood through the 
 storms of centuries with little diminution of their numbers. An 
 incursion into the enemy's territory, a pitched battle, a siege, a 
 treaty, are the general circumstances of the minor wars of the 
 middle ages, as far as they appear in history. Before the invention 
 of artillery, a strongly fortified castle or walled city was hardly 
 reduced except by famine, which a besieging army, wasting im- 
 providently its means of subsistence, was full as likely to feel. 
 That invention altered the condition of society, and introduced 
 an inequality of forces that rendered war more inevitably ruinous 
 to the inferior party. Its first and most beneficial effect was to 
 bring the plundering class of the nobility into control; their cas- 
 tles were more easily taken, and it became their interest to deserve 
 
 " Germani atque Alemanni, quibus rogans, de quo castrum deberet retinere, 
 
 census patrimonii ad victum suppetit, et cum annuis careret reditibus, dicitur 
 
 hos qui procul urbibus, aut qui castelHs respondisse ; Quatuor viae sunt trans 
 
 et oppidulis dominantur, quorum mag- castrum situatse. (Auctor apud Schmidt, 
 
 na pars latrocinio deditur, nobiles cen- p. 492.) 
 
 sent. (Pet. de Andlo. apud Schmidt, " Schmidt, tome iv, p. 116; tome v, 
 
 tome V, p. 490.) pp. 33^. 37^1 tome vi, p. 34; Putter, pp. 
 
 ^2 Quem cum officiatus suus inter- 292, 348. 
 
374 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [^3SS-H9S 
 
 the protection of law. A few of these continued to follow their 
 old profession after the Diet of Worms ; but they were soon over- 
 powered by the more efficient police established under Maxi- 
 milian. 
 
 The next object of the Diet was to provide an effectual remedy 
 for private wrongs which might supersede all pretence for taking 
 up arms. The administration of justice had always been a high 
 prerogative as well as bounden duty of the emperors. It was ex- 
 ercised originally by themselves in person, or by the count pala- 
 tine, the judge who always attended their court. In the provinces 
 of Germany the dukes were intrusted with this duty; but, in order 
 to control'their influence, Otho the Great appointed provincial 
 counts palatine, whose jurisdiction was in some respects exclu- 
 sive of that still possessed by the dukes. As the latter became 
 more independent of the empire, the provincial counts palatine lost 
 the importance of their office, though their name may be traced 
 to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries."^* The ordinary adminis- 
 tration of justice by the emperors went into disuse; in cases where 
 states of the empire were concerned, it appertained to the Diet or 
 to a special court of princes. The first attempt to re-establish an 
 imperial tribunal was made by Frederick II in a Diet held at 
 Mentz in 1235. A judge of the court was appointed to sit daily, 
 with certain assessors, half nobles, half lawyers, and with juris- 
 diction over all causes where princes of the empire were not con- 
 cerned."^^ Rodolph of Hapsburg endeavoured to give efficacy to 
 this judicature; but after his reign it underwent the fate of all 
 those parts of the Germanic constitution which maintained the 
 prerogatives of the emperors. Sigismund endeavoured to revive 
 this tribunal; but as he did not render it permanent, nor fix the 
 place of its sittings, it produced little other good than as it excited 
 an earnest anxiety for a regular system. This system, delayed 
 throughout the reign of Frederick III, was reserved for the first 
 Diet of his son.'^® 
 
 The Imperial Chamber — such was the name of the new tri- 
 bunal — consisted at its original institution of a chief judge, who 
 was to be chosen among the princes or counts, and of sixteen 
 assessors, partly of noble or equestrian rank, partly professors of 
 law. They were named by the emperor with the approbation of 
 the Diet. The functions of the Imperial Chamber were chiefly 
 the two following. They exercised an appellant jurisdiction over 
 causes that had been decided by the tribunals established in states 
 of the empire. But their jurisdiction in private causes was merely 
 appellant. According to the original law of Germany, no man 
 could be sued except in the nation or province to which he be- 
 
 ■'* PfeflFel, p. t8o. 
 
 '' Idem, p. 386; Schmidt, tome iv, p. 56. 
 
 " Pfeffel, tome ii, p. 66. 
 
1355-1495] THE IMPERIAL CHAMBER 375 
 
 longed. The early emperors travelled from one part of their do- 
 minions to another in order to render justice consistently with 
 this fundamental privilege. When the Luxemburg emperors 
 fixed their residence in Bohemia, the jurisdiction of the imperial 
 court in the first instance would have ceased of itself by the opera- 
 tion of this ancient rule. It was not, however, strictly complied 
 with; and it is said that the emperors had a concurrent jurisdic- 
 tion with the provincial tribunals even in private causes. They 
 divested themselves, nevertheless, of this right by granting privi- 
 leges de non evocando; so that no subject of a state which en- 
 joyed such a privilege could be summoned into the imperial court. 
 All the electors possessed this exemption by the terms of the 
 Golden Bull ; and it was specially granted to the burgraves of 
 Nuremberg and some other princes. This matter was finally set- 
 tled at the Diet of Worms ; and the Imperial Chamber was posi- 
 tively restricted from taking cognizance of any causes in the first 
 instance, even where a state of the empire was one of the parties. 
 It was enacted, to obviate the denial of justice that appeared likely 
 to result from the regulation in the latter case, that every elector 
 and prince should establish a tribunal in his own dominions, where 
 suits against himself might be entertained."^^ 
 
 The second part of the chamber's jurisdiction related to dis- 
 putes between two states of the empire. But these two could 
 only come before it by way of appeal. During the period of an- 
 archy which preceded the establishment of its jurisdiction, a cus- 
 tom was introduced, in order to prevent the constant recurrence 
 of hostilities, of referring the quarrels of states to certain arbitra- 
 tors called Austregues, chosen among states of the same rank. 
 This conventional reference became so popular that the princes 
 would not consent to abandon it on the institution of the Imperial 
 Chamber ; but, on the contrary, it was changed into an invari- 
 able and universal law, that all disputes between different states 
 must, in the first instance, be submitted to the arbitration of 
 Austregues. "^^ 
 
 The sentences of the chamber would have been very idly pro- 
 nounced if means had not been devised to carry them into execu- 
 tion. In earlier times the want of coercive process had been more 
 felt than that of actual jurisdiction. For a few years after the 
 establishment of the chamber this deficiency was not supplied. 
 But in 1 501 an institution, originally planned under Wenceslaus, 
 and attempted by Albert II, was carried into effect. The empire, 
 with the exception of the electorates and the Austrian dominions, 
 was divided into six circles, each of which had its council of states, 
 its director whose province it was to convoke them, and its mili- 
 
 " Schmidt, tome v, p. 373; Putter, p. 372. 
 ^8 Putter, p. 361 ; Pfeffel, p. 452. 
 
376 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [i 355-1495 
 
 tary force to compel obedience. In 15 12 four more circles were 
 added, comprehending those states which had been excluded in 
 the first division. It was the business of the police of the circles 
 to enforce the execution of sentences pronounced by the Imperial 
 Chamber against refractory states of the empire."^^ 
 
 As the judges of the Imperial Chamber were appointed with 
 the consent of the Diet, and held their sittings in a free imperial 
 city, its establishment seemed rather to encroach on the ancient 
 prerogatives of the emperors. Maximilian expressly reserved 
 these in consenting to the new tribunal. And, in order to revive 
 them, he soon afterward instituted an Aulic Council at Vienna, 
 composed of judges appointed by himself, and under the political 
 control of the Austrian government. Though some German pa- 
 triots regarded this tribunal with jealousy, it continued until the 
 dissolution of the empire. The Aulic Council had, in all cases, 
 a concurrent jurisdiction with the Imperial Chamber; an exclusive 
 one in feudal and some other causes. But it was equally confined 
 to cases of appeal ; and these, by multiplied privileges de non ap- 
 pellando, granted to the electoral and superior princely houses, 
 were gradually reduced into moderate compass. ^^ 
 
 The Germanic constitution may be reckoned complete, as to 
 all its essential characteristics, in the reign of Maximilian. In 
 later times, and especially by the Treaty of Westphalia, it under- 
 went several modifications. Whatever might be its defects, and 
 many of them seem to have been susceptible of reformation with- 
 out destroying the system of government, it had one invaluable 
 excellence: it protected the rights of the weaker against the 
 stronger powers. The law of nations was first taught in Germany, 
 and grew out of the public law of the empire. To narrow, as far 
 as possible, the rights of war and of conquest, was a natural prin- 
 ciple of those who belonged to petty states, and had nothing to 
 tempt them in ambition. No revolution of our own eventful age, 
 except the fall of the ancient French system of government, has 
 been so extensive, or so likely to produce important consequences, 
 as the spontaneous dissolution of the German Empire. Whether 
 the new confederacy that has been substituted for that venerable 
 constitution will be equally favourable to peace, justice, and lib- 
 erty, is among the most interesting and difificult problems that 
 can occupy a philosophical observer.^^ 
 
 At the accession of Conrad I Germany had by no means 
 reached its present extent on the eastern frontier. Henry the 
 Fowler and the Othos made great acquisitions upon that side. 
 But tribes of Slavonian origin, generally called Venedic, or less 
 properly Vandal, occupied the northern coast from the Elbe to the 
 
 "Putter, p. 355; tome ii, p. loo. «i The first edition of this work was 
 
 8" Putter, p. 357; Pfeffel, p. 102. published early in 1818. 
 
I355-H95] BOHEMIA 377 
 
 Vistula. These were independent, and formidable both to the 
 Kings of Denmark and princes of Germany, till, in the reign of 
 Frederick Barbarossa, two of the latter, Henry the Lion, Duke of 
 Saxony, and Albert the Bear, Margrave of Brandenburg, subdued 
 Mecklenburg and Pomerania, which afterward became duchies of 
 the empire. Bohemia was undoubtedly subject, in a feudal sense, 
 to Frederick I and his successors, though its connection with 
 Germany was always slight. The emperors sometimes assumed 
 a sovereignty over Denmark, Hungary, and Poland. But what 
 they gained upon this quarter was compensated by the gradual 
 separation of the Netherlands from their dominion, and by the 
 still more complete loss of the kingdom of Aries. The house of 
 Burgundy possessed most part of the former, and paid as little 
 regard as possible to the imperial supremacy, though the German 
 Diets in the reign of Maximilian still continued to treat the Neth- 
 erlands as equally subject to their lawful control with the states 
 on the right bank of the Rhine. But the provinces between the 
 Rhone and the Alps were absolutely separated ; Switzerland had 
 completely succeeded in establishing her own independence; and 
 the Kings of France no longer sought even the ceremony of an 
 imperial investiture for Dauphine and Provence. 
 
 Bohemia, which received the Christian faith in the tenth cen- 
 tury, was elevated to the rank of a kingdom near the end of the 
 twelfth. The dukes and Kings of Bohemia were feudally de- 
 pendent upon the emperors, from whom they received investiture. 
 They possessed, in return, a suffrage among the seven electors, 
 and held one of the great offices in the imperial court. But sepa- 
 rated by a rampart of mountains, by a difference of origin and 
 language, and perhaps by national prejudices from Germany, the 
 Bohemians withdrew as far as possible from the general politics 
 of the confederacy. The kings obtained dispensations from at- 
 tending the Diets of the empire, nor were they able to reinstate 
 themselves in the privilege thus abandoned till the beginning of 
 the last century.®^ The government of this kingdom, in a very 
 slight degree partaking of the feudal character,^^ bore rather a 
 resemblance to that of Poland; but the nobility were divided into 
 two classes, the baronial and the equestrian, and the burghers 
 formed a third state in the national Diet. For the peasantry, they 
 were in a condition of servitude, or predial villenage. The royal 
 authority was restrained by a coronation oath, by a permanent 
 senate, and by frequent assemblies of the Diet, where a numerous 
 and armed nobility appeared to secure their liberties by law or 
 
 ^^ Pfeffel, tome ii, p. 497. hemian Protestant, who fled to Holland 
 
 *^ Bona ipsorum tota I5ohemia plera- after the subversion of the civil and re- 
 
 que omnia hsereditaria sunt seu alodi- ligious liberties of his country by the 
 
 alia, perpauca feudalia. (Stransky, '* Resp. fatal battle of Prague in 1621. 
 Bohemica," p. 392.) Stransky was a Bo- 
 
3;8 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1306-1424 
 
 force.®"* The sceptre passed, in ordinary times, to the nearest heir 
 of the royal blood; but the right of election was only suspended 
 and no King of Bohemia ventured to boast of it as his inherit- 
 ance.®^ This mixture of elective and hereditary monarchy was 
 common, as we have seen, to most European kingdoms in their 
 original constitution, though few continued so long to admit the 
 participation of popular suffrages. 
 
 The reigning dynasty having become extinct in 1306, by the 
 death of Wenceslaus, son of that Ottocar who, after extending 
 his conquests to the Baltic Sea, and almost to the Adriatic, had 
 lost his life in an unsuccessful contention with the Emperor Ro- 
 dolph, the Bohemians chose John of Luxemburg, son of Henry 
 VII. Under the kings of this family in the fourteenth century, 
 and especially Charles IV, whose character appeared in a far 
 more advantageous light in his native domains than in the empire, 
 Bohemia imbibed some portion of refinement and science.®^ A 
 university erected by Charles at Prague became one of the most 
 celebrated in Europe. John Huss, rector of the university, who 
 had distinguished himself by opposition to many abuses then pre- 
 vailing in the Church, repaired to the Council of Constance, under 
 a safe-conduct from the Emperor Sigismund. In violation of 
 this pledge, to the indehble infamy of that prince and of the coun- 
 cil, he was condemned to be burned; and his disciple, Jerome of 
 Prague, underwent afterward the same fate. His countrymen, 
 aroused by this atrocity, flew to arms. They found at their head 
 one of those extraordinary men whose genius, created by nature 
 and called into action by fortuitous events, appears to borrow 
 no reflected light from that of others. John Ziska had not been 
 trained in any school which could have initiated him in the science 
 of war; that indeed, except in Italy, was still rude, and nowhere 
 more so than in Bohemia. But, self-taught, he became one of the 
 greatest captains who had appeared hitherto in Europe. It ren- 
 ders his exploits more marvellous that he was totally deprived of 
 sight. Ziska has been called the inventor of the modern art of 
 fortification ; the famous mountain near Prague, fanatically called 
 Tabor, became by his skill an impregnable intrenchment. For 
 his stratagems he has been compared to Hannibal. In battle, 
 being destitute of cavalry, he disposed at intervals ramparts of 
 carriages filled with soldiers, to defend his troops from the ene- 
 my's horse. Plis own station was by the chief standard, where, 
 
 "* Dubravius, the Bohemian historian, of the civilians. They opposed, at the 
 
 relates (lib. xviii) that, the kinpdom hav- same time, the institution of a university 
 
 ing no written laws, Wenceslaus, one at Prague; which, however, took place 
 
 of the kings, about the year 1300, sent afterward under Charles IV. 
 for an Italian lawyer to compile a code. «>* Stransky, " Resp. Bohem."; Coxe's 
 
 But the nobility refused to consent to " House of Austria," p. 487. 
 this, aware, probably, of the consequences *• Schmidt; Coxe. 
 
 of letting in the prerogative doctrines 
 
1424-1527] THE HUSSITES 379 
 
 after hearing the circumstances of the situation explained, he gave 
 his orders for the disposition of the army. Ziska was never de- 
 feated; and his genius inspired the Hussites with such enthusias- 
 tic affection, that some of those who had served under him refused 
 to obey any other general, and denominated themselves Orphans 
 in commemoration of his loss. He was indeed a ferocious enemy, 
 though some of his cruelties might, perhaps, be extenuated by the 
 law of retaliation ; but to his soldiers affable and generous, di- 
 viding among them all the spoil. ^^ 
 
 Even during the lifetime of Ziska the Hussite sect was dis- 
 united, the citizens of Prague and many of the nobility contenting 
 themselves with moderate demands, while the Taborites, his pe- 
 culiar followers, were actuated by a most fanatical frenzy. The 
 former took the name of Calixtins, from their retention of the 
 sacramental cup, of which the priests had latterly thought fit to 
 debar laymen; an abuse so totally without pretence or apology 
 that nothing less than the determined obstinancy of the Romish 
 Church could have maintained it to this time. The Taborites, 
 though no longer led by Ziska, gained some remarkable victories, 
 but were at last wholly defeated, while the Catholic and Calixtin 
 parties came to an accommodation by which Sigismund was ac- 
 knowledged as King of Bohemia, which he had claimed by the 
 title of heir to his brother Wenceslaus, and a few indulgences, 
 especially the use of the sacramental cup, conceded to the mod- 
 erate Hussites. But this compact, though concluded by the 
 Council of Basle, being ill observed, through the perfidious big- 
 otry of the See of Rome, the reformers armed again to defend 
 their religious liberties, and ultimately elected a nobleman of their 
 own party, by name George Podiebrad, to the throne of Bohemia, 
 which he maintained during his life with great vigour and pru- 
 dence.®® Upon his death they chose Uladislaus, son of Casimir, 
 King of Poland, who afterward obtained also the kingdom of 
 Hungary. Both these crowns were conferred on his son Louis, 
 after whose death, in the unfortunate battle of Mohacz, Ferdinand 
 of Austria became sovereign of the two kingdoms. 
 
 The Hungarians, that terrible people who laid waste the Ital- 
 ian and German provinces of the empire in the tenth century, 
 became proselytes soon afterward to the religion of Europe, and 
 their sovereign, St. Stephen, was admitted by the Pope into the 
 list of Christian kings. Though the Hungarians were of a race 
 perfectly distinct from either the Gothic or the Slavonian tribes, 
 their system of government was in a great measure analogous. 
 None indeed could be more natural to rude nations who had but 
 recently accustomed themselves to settled possessions, than a ter- 
 
 «' Lenfant, " Hist, de la Guerre des Hussites "; Schmidt; Coxe. 
 ^^Lenfant; Schmidt; Coxe. 
 
38o 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [I 392- I 444 
 
 ritorial aristocracy, jealous of unlimited or even hereditary power 
 in their chieftain, and subjugating the inferior people to that servi- 
 tude which, in such a state of society, is the unavoidable conse- 
 quences of poverty. 
 
 The marriage of a Hungarian princess with Charles II, King 
 of Naples, eventually connected her country far more than it 
 had been with the affairs of Italy. I have mentioned in a different 
 place the circumstances which led to the invasion of Naples by 
 Louis, King of Hungary, and the wars of that powerful monarch 
 with Venice. By marrying the eldest daughter of Louis, Sigis- 
 mund, afterward emperor, acquired the crown of Hungary, which 
 upon her death without issue he retained in his own right, and was 
 even able to transmit to the child of a second marriage, and to 
 her husband Albert, Duke of Austria. From this commencement 
 is deduced the connection between Hungary and Austria. In 
 two years, however, Albert, dying, left his widow pregnant ; but 
 the states of Hungary, jealous of Austrian influence, and of the 
 intrigues of a minority, without waiting for her delivery, bestowed 
 the crown upon Uladislaus, King of Poland. The birth of Al- 
 bert's posthumous son Ladislaus produced an opposition in 
 behalf of the infant's right ; but the Austrian party turned out 
 the weaker, and Uladislaus, after a civil war of some duration, 
 became undisputed king. Meanwhile a more formidable enemy 
 drew near. The Turkish arms had subdued all Servia, and ex- 
 cited a just alarm throughout Christendom. Uladislaus led a 
 considerable force, to which the presence of the Cardinal Julian 
 gave the appearance of a cruisade, into Bulgaria, and, after sev- 
 eral successes, concluded an honourable treaty with Amurath II. 
 But this he was unhappily persuaded to violate, at the instigation 
 of the cardinal, who abhorred the impiety of keeping faith with 
 infidels.®^ Heaven judged of this otherwise, if the judgment of 
 Heaven was pronounced upon the field of Warna. In that fatal 
 battle Uladislaus was killed, and the Hungarians utterly routed. 
 The crown was now permitted to rest on the head of young 
 Ladislaus ; but the regency was allotted by the states of Hungary 
 to a native warrior, John Hunniades.^*^ This hero stood in the 
 
 ®* ^neas Sylvius lays this perfidy on 
 Pope Eugenius IV. Scripsit cardinal!, 
 nullum valere foedus, quod se inconsulto 
 cum hostibus religionis percussum eoset, 
 (p- 397)- The words in italics are slipped 
 in, to give a slight pretext for breaking 
 the treaty. 
 
 *" Hunniades v^as a Wallachian, of a 
 small family. The Poles charged him 
 with cowardice at Warna. (^Eneas Syl- 
 vius, p. 398.) And the Greeks impute 
 the same to him, or at least desertion of 
 his troops, at Cossova, where he was de- 
 feated in 144S. (Spondanus, ad ann. 
 1448.) Probably he was one of those 
 
 prudently brave men who, when victory 
 is out of their power, reserve themselves 
 to fight another day; which is the char- 
 acter of all partisans accustomed to des- 
 ultory warfare. This is the apology 
 made for him by yEneas Sylvius: for- 
 tasse rei militaris perito nulla in pugna 
 salus visa, et salvare aliquos quam omnes 
 perire maluit. Poloni acceptam eo praelio 
 cladem Hunniadis vecordise atque ignaviae 
 tradiderunt; ipse sua concilia spreta con- 
 questus est. I observe that all the writers 
 upon Hungarian aflfairs have a party bias 
 one way or other. The best and most 
 authentic account of Hunniades seems to 
 
I444-I458] 
 
 RELIEF OF BELGRADE 
 
 381 
 
 breach for twelve years against the Turkish power, frequently 
 defeated but unconquered in defeat. If the renown of Hunniades 
 may seem exaggerated by the partiality of writers who lived under 
 the reign of his son, it is confirmed by more unequivocal evidence, 
 by the dread and hatred of the Turks, whose children were taught 
 obedience by threatening them with his name, and by the defer- 
 ence of a jealous aristocracy to a man of no distinguished birth. 
 He surrendered to young Ladislaus a trust that he had exercised 
 with perfect fidelity; but his merit was too great to be forgiven, 
 and the court never treated him with cordiality. The last and 
 the most splendid service of Hunniades was the relief of Belgrade. 
 That strong city was besieged by Mohammed H three years after 
 the fall of Constantinople; its capture would have laid open all 
 Hungary. A tumultuary army, chiefly collected by the preaching 
 of a friar, was intrusted to Hunniades : he penetrated into the city, 
 and, having repulsed the Turks in a fortunate sally wherein Mo- 
 hammed was wounded, had the honour of compelling him to raise 
 the siege in confusion. The relief of Belgrade was more important 
 in its effect than in its immediate circumstances. It revived the 
 spirits of Europe, which had been appalled by the unceasing vic- 
 tories of the infidels. Mohammed himself seemed to acknowledge 
 the importance of the blow, and seldom afterward attacked the 
 Hungarians. Hunniades died soon after this achievement, and 
 was followed by the King Ladislaus.^^ The states of Hungary, al- 
 though the Emperor Frederick III had secured to himself, as he 
 thought, the reversion, were justly averse to his character, and 
 to Austrian connections. They conferred their crown on Matthias 
 Corvinus, son of their great Hunniades. This prince reigned 
 above thirty years with considerable reputation, to which his 
 patronage of learned men, who repaid his munificence with very 
 profuse eulogies, did not a little contribute.®^ Hungary, at least 
 in his time, was undoubtedly formidable to her neighbours, and 
 held a respectable rank as an independent power in the republic 
 of Europe. 
 
 The kingdom of Burgundy or Aries comprehended the whole 
 mountainous region which we now call Switzerland. It was ac- 
 
 be, still allowing for this partiality, in 
 the chronicle of John Thwrocz, who 
 lived under Matthias. Bonfinius, an 
 Italian compiler of the same age, has 
 amplified this original authority in his 
 three decades of Hungarian history. 
 
 "^ Ladislaus died at Prague, at the age 
 of twenty-two, with great suspicion of 
 poison, which fell chiefly on George 
 Podiebrad and the Bohemians, ^neas 
 Sylvius was with him at the time, and in 
 a letter written immediately after plainly 
 hints this; and his manner carries with 
 it more persuasion th^n if he had spoken 
 out (Epist. 324.) Mr. Coxe, however. 
 
 informs us that the Bohemian historians 
 have fully disproved the charge. 
 
 ^2 Spondanus frequently blames the 
 Italians, who received pensions from 
 Matthias, or wrote at his court, for ex- 
 aggerating his virtues, or dissembling 
 his misfortunes. And this was probably 
 the case. However, Spondanus has 
 rather contracted a prejudice against the 
 Corvini. A treatise of Galeotus Martius, 
 an Italian litterateur, De dictis et factis 
 Mathise, though it often notices an ordi- 
 nary saying as jocose or facete dictum, 
 gives a favourable impression of Mat- 
 thias's ability, and also of his integrity. 
 
382 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1032-1308 
 
 cordingly reunited to the Germanic Empire by the bequest of Ro- 
 dolph along with the rest of his dominions. A numerous and 
 ancient nobiHty, vassals one to another or to the empire, divided 
 the possession with ecclesiastical lords hardly less powerful than 
 themselves. Of the former we find the Counts of Zahringen, Ky- 
 burg, Hapsburg, and Tokenburg most conspicuous; of the latter, 
 the Bishop of Coire, the Abbot of St. Gall, and Abbess of Seck- 
 ingen. Every variety of feudal rights was early found and long 
 preserved in Helvetia; nor is there any country whose history 
 better illustrates that ambiguous relation, half property and half 
 dominion, in which the territorial aristocracy, under the feudal 
 system, stood with respect to their dependents. In the twelfth 
 century the Swiss towns rise into some degree of importance. 
 Zurich was eminent for commercial activity, and seems to have 
 had no lord but the emperor. Basle, though subject to its bishop, 
 possessed the usual privileges of municipal government. Berne 
 and Freiburg, founded only in that century, made a rapid progress, 
 and the latter was raised, along with Zurich, by Frederick II in 
 1218, to the rank of a free imperial city. Several changes in the 
 principal Helvetian families took place in the thirteenth century, 
 before the end of which the house of Hapsburg, under the politic 
 and enterprising Rodolph and his son Albert, became possessed 
 through various titles of a great ascendency in Switzerland.®^ 
 
 Of these titles none was more tempting to an ambitious chief 
 than that of advocate to a convent. That specious name conveyed 
 with it a kind of indefinite guardianship and right of interference 
 which frequently ended in reversing the conditions of the eccle- 
 siastical sovereign and its vassal. But during times of feudal an- 
 archy there was perhaps no other means to secure the rich abbeys 
 from absolute spoliation; and the free cities in their early stage 
 sometimes adopted the same policy. Among other advocacies, 
 Albert obtained that of some convents which had estates in the 
 valleys of Schweitz and Underwald. These sequestered regions 
 in the heart of the Alps had been for ages the habitation of a 
 pastoral race, so happily forgotten or so inaccessible in their fast- 
 nesses as to have acquired a virtual independence, regulating their 
 own affairs in their general assembly with a perfect equality, 
 though they acknowledged the sovereignty o.f the empire.^* The 
 people of Schweitz had made Rodolph their advocate. They dis- 
 trusted Albert, whose succession to his father's inheritance spread 
 alarm through Helvetia. It soon appeared that their suspicions 
 were well founded. Besides the local rights which his ecclesias- 
 tical advocacies gave him over part of the forest cantons, he pre- 
 tended, after his election to the empire, to send imperial bailiffs 
 
 »' Planta's " History of the Helvetic »* Planta's " History of the Helvetic 
 
 Confederacy," vol. i, chaps. 2-5. Confederacy," vol. i, c. 4. 
 
1308-1500] SWITZERLAND 383 
 
 into their valleys as administrators of criminal justice. Their 
 oppression of a people unused to control, whom it was plainly 
 the design of Albert to reduce into servitude, excited those gener- 
 ous emotions of resentment which a brave and simple race have 
 seldom the discretion to repress. Three men — Stauffacher of 
 Schweitz, Furst of Uri, Melchthal of Underwald — each with ten 
 chosen associates, met by night in a sequestered field, and swore 
 to assert the common cause of their liberties, without bloodshed 
 or injury to the rights of others. Their success was answerable 
 to the justice of their undertaking; the three cantons unanimously 
 took up arms, and expelled their oppressors without a contest. 
 Albert's assassination by his nephew, which followed soon after- 
 ward, fortunately gave them leisure to consolidate their union."* 
 He was succeeded in the empire by Henry VH, jealous of the 
 Austrian family, and not at all displeased at proceedings which had 
 been accompanied with so little violence or disrespect for the em- 
 pire. But Leopold, Duke of Austria, resolved to humble the peas- 
 ants who had rebelled against his father, led a considerable force 
 into their country. The Swiss, commending themselves to 
 Heaven, and determined rather to perish than undergo that yoke 
 a second time, though ignorant of regular discipline, and unpro- 
 vided with defensive armour, utterly discomfited the assailants 
 at Morgarten.^® 
 
 This great victory, the Marathon of Switzerland, confirmed the 
 independence of the three original cantons. After some years, 
 Lucerne, contiguous in situation and alike in interests, was incor- 
 porated into their confederacy. It was far more materially en- 
 larged about the middle of the fourteenth century by the accession 
 of Zurich, Claris, Zug, and Berne, all which took place within two 
 years. The first and last of these cities had already been engaged 
 in frequent wars with the Helvetian nobility, and their internal 
 polity was altogether republican."^ They acquired, not independ- 
 ence, which they already enjoyed, but additional security, by this 
 union with the Swiss, properly so called, who in deference to their 
 power and reputation ceded to them the first rank in the league. 
 The eight already enumerated are called the ancient cantons, and 
 continued, till the late reformation of the Helvetic system, to pos- 
 sess several distinctive privileges and even rights of sovereignty 
 over subject territories, in which the five cantons of Freiburg, 
 Soleure, Basle, Schaffhausen, and Appenzell did not participate. 
 From this time the united cantons, but especially those of Berne 
 and Zurich, began to extend their territories at the expense of the 
 rural nobility. The same contest between these parties, with the 
 same termination which we know generally to have taken place 
 in Lombardy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, may be 
 
 •' Planta, c. 6. «w Id., c. 7- "' Id., chaps. 8, 9. 
 
384 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1308-15CX) 
 
 traced with more minuteness in the annals of Switzerland.®® 
 Like the Lombards, too, the Helvetic cities acted with policy and 
 moderation toward the nobles whom they overcame, admittmg 
 them to the franchises of their community as co-burghers (a 
 privilege which virtually implied a defensive alliance against any 
 assailant), and uniformly respecting the legal rights of property. 
 Many feudal superiorities they obtained from the owners in a 
 more peaceable manner, through purchase or mortgage. Thus 
 the house of Austria, to which the extensive domains of the 
 Counts of Kyburg had devolved, abandoning, after repeated de- 
 feats, its hopes of subduing the forest cantons, alienated a great 
 part of its possessions to Zurich and Berne.^^ And the last rem- 
 nant of their ancient Helvetic territories in Argovia was wrested 
 in 141 7 from Frederick, Count of Tyrol, who, imprudently sup- 
 porting Pope John XXHI against the Council of Constance, had 
 been put to the ban of the empire. These conquests Berne could 
 not be induced to restore, and thus completed the independence 
 of the confederate republics.^^^ The other free cities, though not 
 yet incorporated, and the few remaining nobles, whether lay or 
 spiritual, of whom the Abbot of St. Gaul was the principal, en- 
 tered into separate leagues with different cantons. Switzerland 
 became, therefore, in the first part of the fifteenth century a free 
 country, acknowledged as such by neighbouring states, and sub- 
 ject to no external control, though still comprehended within the 
 nominal sovereignty of the empire. 
 
 The affairs of Switzerland occupy a very small space in the 
 great chart of European history. But in some respects they are 
 more interesting than the revolutions of mighty kingdoms. No- 
 where besides do we find so many titles to our sympathy, or the 
 union of so much virtue with so complete success. In the Italian 
 republics a more splendid temple may seem to have been erected 
 to liberty, but, as we approach, the serpents of faction hiss around 
 her altar, and the form of tyranny flits among the distant shadows 
 behind the shrine. Switzerland, not absolutely blameless (for what 
 republic has been so?) but comparatively exempt from turbu- 
 lence, usurpation, and injustice, has well deserved to employ the 
 native pen of a historian accounted the most eloquent of the last 
 age.^°^ Other nations displayed an insuperable resolution in the 
 
 ^^ Planta, c. 10. 
 
 «» Id., C. II. 
 
 "0 Id., vol. ii, c. I. 
 
 ^°^ I am unacquainted with Muller's 
 history in the original languag^e; but, 
 presuming the first volume of Mr. Plan- 
 ta's " History of the Helvetic Confed- 
 eracy " to be a free translation or abridg- 
 ment of it, I can well conceive that it 
 deserves the encomiums of Madame de 
 Stael and other foreis^n critics. It is very 
 
 rare to meet with such picturesque and 
 lively delineation in a modern historian of 
 distant times. But I must observe that, 
 if the authentic chronicles of Switzerland 
 have enabled Muller to embellish his nar- 
 ration with so much circumstantial de- 
 tail, he has been remarkably fortunate 
 in his authorities. No man could write 
 the annals of England or France in the 
 fourteenth century with such particu- 
 larity if he was scrupulous not to fill up 
 
1308-1500] SWITZERLAND 385 
 
 defence of walled towns; but the steadiness of the Swiss in the 
 field of battle was without a parallel, unless we recall the memory 
 of Lacedaemon. It was even established as a law, that whoever 
 returned from battle after a defeat should forfeit his life by the 
 hands of the executioner. Sixteen hundred men, who had been 
 sent to oppose a predatory invasion of the French in 1444, though 
 they might have retreated without loss, determined rather to per- 
 ish on the spot, and fell amid a far greater heap of the hostile 
 slain.^^^ At the famous battle of Sempach, in 1385, the last which 
 Austria presumed to try against the foreign cantons, the enemy's 
 knights, dismounted from their horses, presented an impregnable 
 barrier of lances, which disconcerted the Swiss, till Winkelried, a 
 gentleman of Underwald, commending his wife and children to 
 his countrymen, threw himself upon the opposite ranks, and, col- 
 lecting as many lances as he could grasp, forced a passage for his 
 followers by burying them in his bosom.^^^ 
 
 The burghers and peasants of Switzerland, ill provided with 
 cavalry, and better able to dispense with it than the natives of 
 champaign countries, may be deemed the principal restorers of 
 the Greek and Roman tactics, which place the strength of armies 
 in a steady mass of infantry. Besides their splendid victories over 
 the Dukes of Austria and their own neighbouring nobility, they 
 had repulsed, in the year 1375, one of those predatory bodies of 
 troops, the scourge of Europe in that age, and to whose licentious- 
 ness kingdoms and free states yielded alike a passive submission. 
 They gave the dauphin, afterward Louis XI, who entered their 
 country in 1444 with a similar body of rufifians called Armagnacs, 
 the disbanded mercenaries of the English war, sufficient reason 
 to desist from his invasion and to respect their valour. That able 
 prince formed indeed so high a notion of the Swiss that he sedu- 
 lously cultivated their alliance during the rest of his life. He was 
 made abundantly sensible of the wisdom of this policy when he 
 saw his greatest enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, routed at Granson 
 and Morat, and his affairs irrecoverably ruined, by these hardy 
 republicans. The ensuing age is the most conspicuous, though 
 not the most essentially glorious, in the history of Switzerland. 
 Courted for the excellence of their troops by the rival sovereigns 
 of Europe, and themselves too sensible both to ambitious schemes 
 of dominion and to the thirst of money, the united cantons came 
 to play a very prominent part in the wars of Lombardy, with great 
 military renown, but not without some impeachment of that ster- 
 ling probity which had distinguished their earlier efforts for in- 
 dependence. These events^ however, do not fall within my lim- 
 
 the meagre sketch of chroniclers from another advantage as a painter of his- 
 
 the stores of his invention. The striking tory. 
 
 scenery of Switzerland, and Miiller's ex- 1*- Planta, vol. ii, c. 2. 
 
 act acquaintance with it, have given him ^^^ Id., vol. i, c. 10. 
 
 25 
 
386 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1308-1500 
 
 its; but the last year of the fifteenth century is a leading epoch, 
 with which I shall close this sketch. Though the house of Austria 
 had ceased to menace the liberties of Helvetia, and had even been 
 for many years its ally, the Emperor Maximilian, aware of the 
 important service he might derive from the cantons in his proj- 
 ects upon Italy, as well as of the disadvantage he sustained by 
 their partiality to French interest, endeavoured to revive the 
 unextinguished supremacy of the empire. That supremacy had 
 just been restored in Germany by the establishment of the Im- 
 perial Chamber, and of a regular pecuniary contribution for its 
 support as well as for other purposes, in the Diet of Worms. The 
 Helvetic cantons were summoned to yield obedience to these im- 
 perial laws; an innovation, for such the revival of obsolete pre- 
 rogatives must be considered, exceedingly hostile to their repub- 
 lican independence, and involving consequences not less material 
 in their eyes, the abandonment of a line of policy, which tended to 
 enrich if not to aggrandize them. Their refusal to comply brought 
 on a war, wherein the Tyrolese subjects of Maximilian, and the 
 Swabian league, a confederacy of cities in that province lately 
 formed under the emperor's auspices, were principally engaged 
 against the Swiss. But the success of the latter was decisive; and 
 after a terrible devastation of the frontiers of Germany, peace was 
 concluded upon terms very honourable for Switzerland. The can- 
 tons were declared free from the jurisdiction of the Imperial 
 Chamber, and from all contributions imposed by the Diet. Their 
 right to enter into foreign alliance, even hostile to the empire, 
 if it was not expressly recognised, continued unimpaired in prac- 
 tice; nor am I aware that they were at any time afterward sup- 
 posed to incur the crime of rebellion by such proceedings. 
 Though, perhaps, in the strictest letter of public law, the Swiss 
 cantons were not absolutely released from their subjection to the 
 empire until the Treaty of Westphalia, their real sovereignty must 
 be dated by an historian from the year when every prerogative 
 which a government can exercise was finally abandoned.^*^* 
 
 !<** Planta, vol. ii, c. 4. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GREEKS AND SARACENS 
 
 Rise of Mohammedism — Causes of its success — Progress of Saracen arms — Greek Em- 
 pire — Decline of the Khalifs — The Greeks recover part of their losses — The Turks 
 — The crusades — Capture of Constantinople by the Latins — Its recovery by the 
 Greeks — The Moguls — The Ottomans — Danger at Constantinople — Timur — Capture 
 of Constantinople by Mohammed II — Alarm of Europe. 
 
 THE difficulty which occurs to us in endeavouring to fix a 
 natural commencement of modern history even in the 
 western countries of Europe is much enhanced when we 
 direct our attention to the Eastern Empire. In tracing 
 the long series of the Byzantine annals we never lose sight of 
 antiquity; the Greek language, the Roman name, the titles, the 
 laws, all the shadowy circumstance of ancient greatness, attend 
 us throughout the progress from the first to the last of the Con- 
 stantines ; and it is only when we observe the external condi- 
 tion and relations of their empire that we perceive ourselves 
 to be embarked in a new sea, and are compelled to deduce, from 
 points of bearing to the history of other nations, a line of separa- 
 tion which the domestic revolutions of Constantinople would not 
 satisfactorily afford. The appearance of Mohammed, and the 
 conquests of his disciples, present an epoch in the history of Asia 
 still more important and more definite than the subversion of 
 the Roman Empire in Europe ; and hence the boundary line 
 between the ancient and modern divisions of Byzantine history 
 will intersect the reign of Heraclius. That prince may be said 
 to have stood on the verge of both hemispheres of time, whose 
 youth was crowned with the last victories over the successors of 
 Artaxerxes, and whose age was clouded by the first calamities 
 of Mohammedan invasion. 
 
 Of all the revolutions which have had a permanent influence 
 upon the civil history of mankind, none could so little be an- 
 ticipated by human prudence as that effected by the religion of 
 Arabia. As the seeds of invisible disease grow up sometimes 
 in silence to maturity, till they manifest themselves hopeless and 
 
 387 
 
388 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [632-710 
 
 irresistible, the gradual propagation of a new faith in a barbarous 
 country beyond the limits of the empire was hardly known per- 
 haps, and certainly disregarded, in the court of Constantinople. 
 Arabia, in the age of Mohammed, was divided into many small 
 states, most of which, however, seem to have looked up to Mecca 
 as the capital of their nation and the chief seat of their religious 
 worship. The capture of that city, accordingly, and the subjuga- 
 tion of its powerful and numerous aristocracy, readily drew after 
 it the submission of the minor tribes, who transferred to the 
 conqueror the reverence they were used to show to those he 
 had subdued. If we consider Mohammed only as a military 
 usurper, there is nothing more explicable or more analogous, 
 especially to the course of Oriental history, than his success. 
 But as the author of a religious imposture, upon which, though 
 avowedly unattested by miraculous powers, and though origi- 
 nally discountenanced by the civil magistrate, he had the bold- 
 ness to found a scheme of universal dominion, which his follow- 
 ers were half enabled to realize, it is a curious speculation by what 
 means he could inspire so sincere, so ardent, so energetic, and so 
 permanent a belief. 
 
 A full explanation of the causes which contributed to the 
 progress of Mohammedism is not perhaps, at present, attain- 
 able by those most conversant with this department of litera- 
 ture.^ But we may point out several of leading importance : In 
 the first place, those just and elevated notions of the divine nature 
 and of moral duties, the gold ore that pervades the dross of the 
 Koran, which were calculated to strike a serious and reflect- 
 ing people, already perhaps disinclined, by intermixture with 
 their Jewish and Christian fellow-citizens, to the superstitions 
 of their ancient idolatry ; ^ next, the artful incorporation of tenets, 
 usages, and traditions from the various religions that existed 
 in Arabia ; ^ and, thirdly, the extensive application of the pre- 
 
 ^ We are very destitute of satisfactory 
 materials for the history of Mohammed 
 himself. Abulfeda, the most judicious 
 of his biographers, lived in the fourteenth 
 century, when it must have been mor- 
 ally impossible to discriminate the truth 
 amid the torrent of fabulous tradition. 
 Al Jannabi, whom Gagnier translated, is 
 a mere legend writer; it would be as 
 rational to rely on the "Acta Sanctorum" 
 as his romance. It is therefore difficult 
 to ascertain the real character of the 
 Prophet, except as it is deducible from 
 the Koran. 
 
 2 The very curious romance of Antar, 
 written, perhaps, before the appearance 
 of Mohammed, seems to render it prob- 
 able that, however idolatry, as we are 
 told by Sale, might prevail in some parts 
 of Arabia, yet the genuine religion of 
 the descendants of Ishmael was a belief 
 in the unity of God as strict as is laid 
 
 down in the Koran itself, and accompa- 
 nied by the same antipathy, partly re- 
 ligious, partly national, toward the fire- 
 worshippers which Mohammed inculcated. 
 This corroborates what I had said in the 
 text before the publication of that work. 
 ' I am very much disposed to believe, 
 notwithstanding what seems to be the 
 general opinion, that Mohammed had 
 never read any part of the New Testa- 
 ment. His knowledge of Christianity 
 appears to be wholly derived from the 
 apocryphal gospels and similar works. 
 He admitted the miraculous conception 
 and prophetic character of Jesus, but not 
 his divinity or pre-existence. Hence it 
 is rather surprising to read, in a popular 
 book of sermons by a living prelate, that 
 all the heresies of the Christian Church 
 (I quote the substance from memory) 
 are to be found in the Koran, but espe- 
 cially that of Arianism. No one who 
 
632-710] 
 
 RISE OF MOHAMMEDISM 
 
 389 
 
 cepts in the Koran, a book confessedly written with much ele- 
 gance and purity, to all legal transactions and all the business of 
 life. It may be expected that I should add to these what is com- 
 monly considered as a distinguishing mark of Mohammedism, 
 its indulgence to voluptuousness. But this appears to be greatly 
 exaggerated. Although the character of its founder may have 
 been tainted by sensuality as well as ferociousness, I do not think 
 that he relied upon inducements of the former kind for the dif- 
 fusion of his system. We are not to judge of this by rules of 
 Christian purity or of European practice. If polygamy was a 
 prevailing usage in Arabia, as is not questioned, its permission 
 gave no additional license to the proselytes of Mohammed, who 
 will be found rather to have narrowed the unbounded liberty 
 of Oriental manners in this respect ; while his decided condemna- 
 tion of adultery, and of incestuous connection, so frequent among 
 barbarous nations, does not argue a very lax and accommodating 
 morality. A devout Mussulman exhibits much more of the Sto- 
 ical than the Epicurean character. Nor can any one read the 
 Koran without being sensible that it breathes an austere and 
 scrupulous spirit. And, in fact, the founder of a new religion or 
 sect is little likely to obtain permanent success by indulging the 
 vices and luxuries of mankind. I should rather be disposed to 
 reckon the severity of Mohammed's discipline among the causes 
 of its influence. Precepts of ritual observance, being always 
 definite and unequivocal, are less likely to be neglected, after 
 their obligation has been acknowledged, than those of moral 
 virtue. Thus the long fasting, the pilgrimages, the regular 
 prayers and ablutions, the constant alms-giving, the abstinence 
 from stimulating liquors, enjoined by the Koran, created a visible 
 standard of practice among its followers, and preserved a con- 
 tinual recollection of their law. 
 
 But the prevalence of Islam in the lifetime of its prophet, and 
 during the first ages of its existence, was chiefly owing to the 
 spirit of martial energy that he infused into it. The religion 
 of Mohammed is as essentially a military system as the institu- 
 tion of chivalry in the west of Europe. The people of Arabia, 
 a race of strong passions and sanguinary temper, inured to habits 
 of pillage and murder, found in the law of their native prophet 
 not a license, but a command, to desolate the world, and the 
 promise of all that their glowing imaginations could anticipate 
 
 knows what Arianism is, and what Mo- 
 hammedism is, could possibly fall into so 
 strange an error. The misfortune has 
 been that the learned writer, while ac- 
 cumulating a mass of reading upon this 
 part of his subject, neglected what should 
 have been the nucelus of the whole, a pe- 
 rusal of the single book which contains 
 
 the doctrine of the Arabian impostor. 
 In this strange chimera about the Arian- 
 ism of Mohammed, he has been led away 
 by a misplaced trust in Whitaker; a 
 writer almost invariably in the wrong, 
 and whose bad reasoning upon all the 
 points of historical criticism which he at- 
 tempted to discuss is quite notorious. 
 
390 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [632-710 
 
 of paradise annexed to all in which they most delighted upon 
 earth. It is difficult for us in the calmness of our closets to con- 
 ceive that feverish intensity of excitement to which man may 
 be wrought, when the animal and intellectual energies of his 
 nature converge to a point, and the buoyancy of strength and 
 courage reciprocates the influence of moral sentiment or religious 
 hope. The effect of this union I have formerly remarked in the 
 crusades ; a phenomenon perfectly analogous to the early history 
 of the Saracens. In each, one hardly knows whether most to 
 admire the prodigious exertions of heroism or to revolt from 
 the ferocious bigotry that attended them. But the crusades were 
 a temporary effort, not thoroughly congenial to the spirit of 
 Christendom, which, even in the darkest and most superstitious 
 ages, was. not susceptible of the solitary and overruling fanaticism 
 of the Moslem. They needed no excitement from pontiffs and 
 preachers to achieve the work to which they were called; the 
 precept was in their law, the principle was in their hearts, the 
 assurance of success was in their swords. *' O Prophet ! " ex- 
 claimed Ali, when Mohammed, in the first years of his mission, 
 sought among the scanty and hesitating assembly of his friends 
 a vizier and lieutenant in command, " I am the man ; whoever 
 rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, 
 break his legs, rip up his belly. O Prophet ! I will be thy vizier 
 over them." ^ These words of Mohammed's early and illustrious 
 disciple are, as it were, a text, upon which the commentary ex- 
 pands into the whole Saracenic history. They contain the vital 
 essence of his religion, implicit faith and ferocious energy. 
 Death, slavery, tribute to unbelievers, were the glad tidings of 
 the Arabian Prophet. To the idolaters, indeed, or those who 
 acknowledged no special revelation, one alternative only was 
 proposed — conversion or the sword. The people of the book, 
 as they are termed in the Koran, or four sects of Christians, Jews, 
 Magians, and Sabians, were permitted to redeem their adher- 
 ence to their ancient law by the payment of tribute, and other 
 marks of humiliation and servitude. But the limits which Mo- 
 hammedan intolerance had prescribed to itself were seldom trans- 
 gressed; the word pledged to unbelievers was seldom forfeited; 
 and with all their insolence and oppression, the Moslem con- 
 querors were mild and liberal in comparison with those who 
 obeyed the pontiffs of Rome or Constantinople. 
 
 At the death of Mohammed, in 632, his temporal and re- 
 ligious sovereignty embraced and was limited by the Arabian 
 peninsula. The Roman and Persian Empires, engaged in tedious 
 and indecisive hostility upon the rivers of Mesopotamia and the 
 Armenian mountains, were viewed by the ambitious fanatics of 
 
 * Gibbon, vol. ix, p. 284, 
 
7IO-750] 
 
 CONQUESTS OF THE SARACENS 
 
 391 
 
 his creed as their quarry. In the very first year of Mohammed's 
 immediate successor, Abubeker, each of these mighty empires 
 was invaded. The latter opposed but a short resistance. The 
 crumbHng fabric of Eastern despotism is never secure against 
 rapid and total subversion ; a few victories, a few sieges, car- 
 ried the Arabian arms from the Tigris to the Oxus, and over- 
 threw, with the Sassanian dynasty, the ancient and famous re- 
 ligion they had professed. Seven years of active and unceasing 
 warfare sufficed to subjugate the rich province of Syria, though 
 defended by numerous armies and fortified cities ; and the Khalif 
 Omar had scarcely returned thanks for the accomplishment of 
 this conquest when Amrou, his lieutenant, announced to him 
 the entire reduction of Egypt. After some interval the Saracens 
 won their way along the coast of Africa as far as the Pillars of 
 Hercules, and a third province was irretrievably torn from the 
 Greek Empire. These Western conquests introduced them to 
 fresh enemies, and ushered in more splendid successes ; encour- 
 aged by the disunion of the Visigoths, and perhaps invited by 
 treachery, Musa, the general of a master who sat beyond the 
 opposite extremity of the Mediterranean Sea, passed over into 
 Spain, and within about two years the name of Mohammed was 
 invoked under the Pyrenees.^ 
 
 These conquests, which astonish the careless and superficial, 
 are less perplexing to a calm inquirer than their cessation ; the 
 loss of half the Roman Empire than the preservation of the rest. 
 A glance from Medina to Constantinople in the middle of the 
 seventh century would probably have induced an indifferent spec- 
 tator, if such a being may be imagined, to anticipate by eight 
 hundred years the establishment of a Mohammedan dominion 
 upon the shores of the Hellespont. The fame of Heraclius had 
 withered in the Syrian war, and his successors appeared as in- 
 capable to resist as they were unworthy to govern. Their des- 
 potism, unchecked by law, was often punished by successful 
 rebellion ; but not a whisper of civil liberty was ever heard, and 
 the vicissitudes of servitude and anarchy consummated the moral 
 degeneracy of the nation. Less ignorant than the Western bar- 
 barians, the Greeks abused their ingenuity in theological con- 
 troversies, those especially which related to the nature and incar- 
 nation of our Saviour ; wherein the disputants, as is usual, 
 became more positive and rancorous as their creed receded from 
 
 »0ckley's " History of the Saracens "; 
 Cardonne, " Revolutions de I'Afrique et 
 de I'Espagne." The former of these 
 works is well known and justly admired 
 for its simplicity and picturesque de- 
 tails. Scarcely any narrative has ever 
 excelled in beauty that of the death of 
 Hossein. But these do not tend to ren- 
 der it more deserving of confidence. On 
 
 the contrary, it may be laid down as a 
 pretty general rule that circumstantiality, 
 which enhances the credibility of a wit- 
 ness, diminishes that of a historian re- 
 mote in time or situation. And I ob- 
 serve that Reiske, in his preface to Abul- 
 feda, speaks of Wakidi, from whom Ock- 
 ley's book is but a translation, as a mere 
 fabulist. 
 
392 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [7io-75o 
 
 the possibility of human apprehension. Nor were these con- 
 fined to the clergy, who had not, in the East, obtained the pre- 
 rogative of guiding the national faith; the sovereigns sided 
 alternately with opposing factions ; Heraclius was not too brave, 
 nor Theodora too infamous, for discussions of theology ; and the 
 dissenters from an imperial decision were involved in the double 
 proscription of treason and heresy. But the persecutors of their 
 opponents at home pretended to cowardly scrupulousness in the 
 field ; nor was the Greek Church ashamed to require the lustra- 
 tion of a canonical penance from the soldier who shed the blood 
 of his enemies in a national war. 
 
 But this depraved people were preserved from destruction 
 by the vices of their enemies, still more than by some intrinsic 
 resources which they yet possessed. A rapid degeneracy en- 
 feebled the victorious Moslem in their career. That irresistible 
 enthusiasm, that earnest and disinterested zeal of the companions 
 of Mohammed, was in a great measure lost even before the first 
 generation had passed away. In the fruitful valleys of Damas- 
 cus and Bassora the Arabs of the desert forgot their abstemious 
 habits. Rich from the tributes of an enslaved people, the Moham- 
 medan sovereigns knew no employment of riches but in sensual 
 luxury, and paid the price of voluptuous indulgence in the relaxa- 
 tion of their strength and energy. Under the reign of Moawiah, 
 the fifth khalif, an hereditary succession was substituted for the 
 free choice of the faithful, by which the first representatives of 
 the Prophet had been elevated to power; and this regulation, 
 necessary as it plainly was to avert in some degree the dangers 
 of schism and civil war, exposed the kingdom to the certainty 
 of being often governed by feeble tyrants. But no regulation 
 could be more than a temporary preservative against civil war. 
 The dissensions which still separate and render hostile the fol- 
 lowers of Mohammed may be traced to the first events that en- 
 sued upon his death, to the rejection of his son-in-law AH by 
 the electors of Medina. Two reigns, those of Abubeker and 
 Omar, passed in external glory and domestic reverence; but 
 the old age of Othman was weak and imprudent, and the con- 
 spirators against him established the first among a hundred 
 precedents of rebellion and regicide. AH was now chosen; but 
 a strong faction disputed his right ; and the Saracen Empire was 
 for many years distracted with civil war, among competitors who 
 appealed in reality to no other decision than that of the sword. 
 The family of Ommiyah succeeded at last in establishing an un- 
 resisted, if not an undoubted, title. But rebellions were perpet- 
 ually afterward breaking out in that vast extent of dominion, till 
 one of these revolters acquired by success a better name than 
 rebel, and founded the dynasty of the Abbassides. 
 
750-975] 
 
 KHALIFS OF BAGDAD 
 
 393 
 
 Damascus had been the seat of empire under the Ommiades ; 
 it was removed by the succeeding family to their new city of 
 Bagdad. There are not any names in the long line of khalifs, 
 after the companions of Mohammed, more renowned in history 
 than some of the earlier sovereigns who reigned in this capital — 
 Almansor, Haroun Alraschid, and Almamun. Their splendid 
 palaces, their numerous guards, their treasures of gold and silver, 
 the populousness and wealth of their cities, formed a striking 
 contrast to the rudeness and poverty of the Western nations in 
 the same age. In their court learning, which the first Moslem 
 had despised as unwarlike or rejected as profane, was held in 
 honour.^ The Khalif Almamun especially was distinguished for 
 his patronage of letters ; the philosophical writings of Greece 
 were eagerly sought and translated ; the stars were numbered, 
 the course of the planets was measured. The Arabians improved 
 upon the science they borrowed, and returned it with abundant 
 interest to Europe in the communication of numeral figures and 
 the intellectual language of algebra.^ Yet the merit of the Ab- 
 bassides has been exaggerated by adulation or gratitude. After 
 all the vague praises of hireling poets, which have sometimes 
 been repeated in Europe, it is very rare to read the history of 
 an Eastern sovereign unstained by atrocious crimes. No Chris- 
 tian government, except, perhaps, that of Constantinople, ex- 
 hibits such a series of tyrants as the Khalifs of Bagdad ; if deeds 
 of blood, wrought through unbridled passion or jealous policy, 
 may challenge the name of tyranny. These are ill redeemed by 
 ceremonious devotion and acts of trifling, perhaps ostentatious, 
 humility, or even by the best attribute of Mohammedan princes 
 — a rigorous justice in chastising the offences of others. Anec- 
 dotes of this description give as imperfect a sketch of an Oriental 
 sovereign as monkish chroniclers sometimes draw of one in 
 Europe who founded monasteries and obeyed the clergy, though 
 it must be owned that the former are in much better taste. 
 
 Though the Abbassides have acquired more celebrity, they 
 never attained the real strength of their predecessors. Under 
 the last of the house of Ommiyah, one command was obeyed 
 almost along the whole diameter of the known world, from 
 the banks of the Sihon to the utmost promontory of Portugal. 
 But the revolution which changed the succession of khalifs pro- 
 
 " The Arabian writers date the origin 
 of their literature (except those works of 
 fiction which had always been popular) 
 from the reign of Almansor, A. d. 758. 
 (Abulpharagius, p. 160; Gibbon, c. 52.) 
 
 'Several very recent publications con- 
 tain interesting details on Saracen litera- 
 ture: Berington's " Literary History of 
 the Middle Ages," Mill's "History of 
 Mohammedanism," chap, vi. Turner's 
 History of England," vol. i. Harris's 
 
 " Philological Arrangement " is perhaps 
 a book better known; and though it has 
 since been much excelled, was one of the 
 first contributions in our own language 
 to this department, in which a great deal 
 yet remains for the Oriental scholars of 
 Europe. Casiri's admirable catalogue of 
 Arabic MSS. in the Escurial ought be- 
 fore this to have been followed up by a 
 more accurate examination of their con- 
 tents than it was possible for him to give. 
 
394 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [75^-975 
 
 duced another not less important. A fugitive of the vanquished 
 family, by name Abdalrahman, arrived in Spain, and the Moslem 
 of that country, not sharing in the prejudices which had stirred 
 up the Persians in favour of the line of Abbas, and conscious 
 that their remote situation entitled them to independence, pro- 
 claimed him Khalif of Cordova. There could be little hope of 
 reducing so distant a dependency; and the example was not 
 unlikely to be imitated. In the reign of Haroun Alraschid two 
 principalities were formed in Africa — of the Aglabites, who 
 reigned over Tunis and Tripoli ; and of the Edrisites, in the west- 
 ern parts of Barbary. These yielded in about a century to the 
 Fatimites, a more powerful dynasty, who afterward established 
 an empire in Egypt.^ 
 
 The loss, however, of Spain and Africa was the inevitable 
 effect of that immensely extended dominion, which their separa- 
 tion alone would not have enfeebled. But other revolutions 
 awaited it at home. In the history of the Abbassides of Bagdad 
 we read over again the decline of European monarchies, through 
 their various symptoms of ruin ; and find successive analogies 
 to the insults of the barbarians toward imperial Rome in the 
 fifth century, to the personal insignificance of the Merovingian 
 kings, and to the feudal usurpations that dismembered the in- 
 heritance of Charlemagne, i. Beyond the northeastern frontier 
 of the Saracen Empire dwelt a warlike and powerful nation of the 
 Tartar family, who defended the independence of Turkestan from 
 the Sea of Aral to the great central chain of mountains. In the 
 wars which the khalifs or their lieutenants waged against them 
 many of these Turks were led into captivity and dispersed over 
 the empire. Their strength and courage distinguished them 
 among a people grown effeminate by luxury ; and that jealousy 
 of disaffection among his subjects so natural to an Eastern mon- 
 arch might be an additional motive with the Khalif Motassem 
 to form bodies of guards out of these prisoners. But his policy 
 was fatally erroneous. More rude and even more ferocious than 
 the Arabs, they contemned the feebleness of the khalifate, while 
 they grasped at its riches. The son of Motassem, Motawakkel, 
 was murdered in his palace by the barbarians of the north ; and 
 his fate revealed the secret of the empire, that the choice of its 
 sovereign had passed to their slaves. Degradation and death 
 were frequently the lot of succeeding khalifs ; but in the East 
 the son leaps boldly on the throne which the blood of his father 
 has stained, and the pretorian guards of Bagdad rarely failed 
 to render a fallacious obedience to the nearest heir of the house 
 of Abbas. 2. In about one hundred years after the introduction 
 
 * For these revolutions, which it is not Cardonne. who has made as much of 
 very easy to fix in the memory, consult them as the subject would bear. 
 
750-975] DECLINE OF THE KHALIFS 395 
 
 of the Turkish soldiers the sovereigns of Bagdad sunk almost 
 into oblivion. Al Radi, who died in 940, was the last of these 
 that officiated in the mosque, that commanded the forces in 
 person, that addressed the people from the pulpit, that enjoyed 
 the pomp and splendour of royalty.® But he was the first who 
 appointed, instead of a vizier, a new officer — a mayor, as it were, 
 of the palace — with the title of Emir al Omra, commander of 
 commanders, to whom he delegated by compulsion the functions 
 of his office. This title was usually seized by active and martial 
 spirits; it was sometimes hereditary, and in effect irrevocable 
 by the khalifs, whose names hardly appear after this time in 
 Oriental annals. 3. During these revolutions of the palace every 
 province successively shook off its allegiance ; new principalities 
 were formed in Syria and Mesopotamia, as well as in Khorasan 
 and Persia, till the dominion of the Commander of the Faithful 
 was literally confined to the city of Bagdad and its adjacent ter- 
 ritory. For a time some of these princes, who had been ap- 
 pointed as governors by the khalifs, professed to respect his 
 supremacy by naming him in the public prayers and upon the 
 coin, but these tokens of dependence were gradually obliterated.^^ 
 Such is the outline of Saracenic history for three centuries 
 after Mohammed : one age of glorious conquest ; a second of 
 stationary but rather precarious greatness ; a third of rapid de- 
 cline. The Greek Empire meanwhile survived, and almost recov- 
 ered from the shock it had sustained. Besides the decline of its 
 enemies, several circumstances may be enumerated tending to its 
 preservation. The maritime province of Cilicia had been over- 
 run by the Mohammedans ; but between this and the Lesser 
 Asia Mount Taurus raises its massy buckler, spreading as a nat- 
 ural bulwark from the sea-coast of the ancient Pamphylia to the 
 hilly district of Isauria, whence it extends in an easterly direc- 
 tion, separating the Cappadocian and Cilician plains, and, after 
 throwing off considerable ridges to the north and south, con- 
 nects itself with other chains of mountains that penetrate far 
 into the Asiatic continent. Beyond this barrier the Saracens 
 formed no durable settlement, though the armies of Alraschid 
 wasted the country as far as the Hellespont, and the city of 
 Amorium, in Phrygia, was razed to the ground by Al Motassem. 
 The position of Constantinople, chosen with a sagacity to which 
 the course of events almost gave the appearance of prescience, 
 secured her from any immediate danger on the side of Asia, and 
 rendered her as little accessible to an enemy as any city which 
 
 " Abulfeda, p. 261 ; Gibbon, c. 52 ; discussed in the fifty-second chapter of 
 
 " Modern Univ. Hist.," vol. ii. Al Radi's Gibbon, which is, in itself, a complete 
 
 command of the army is only mentioned philosophical dissertation upon this part 
 
 by the last. of history. 
 
 "The decline of the Saracens is fully 
 
396 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [750-975 
 
 valour and patriotism did not protect. Yet in the days of Arabian 
 energy she was twice attacked by great naval armaments. The 
 first siege, or rather blockade, continued for seven years; the 
 second, though shorter, was more terrible, and her walls, as well 
 as her port, were actually invested by the combined forces of 
 the Khalif Waled, under his brother Moslema.^^ The final dis- 
 comfiture of these assailants showed the resisting force of the 
 empire, or rather of its capital; but perhaps the abandonment 
 of such maritime enterprises by the Saracens may be in some 
 measure ascribed to the removal of their metropolis from Damas- 
 cus to Bagdad. But the Greeks in their turn determined to dis- 
 pute the command of the sea. By possessing the secret of an 
 inextinguishable fire, they fought on superior terms ; their wealth, 
 perhaps their skill, enabled them to employ larger and better 
 appointed vessels ; and they ultimately expelled their enemies 
 from the islands of Crete and Cyprus. By land they were less 
 desirous of encountering the Moslem. The science of tactics 
 is studied by the pusillanimous, like that of medicine by the sick ; 
 and the Byzantine emperors, Leo and Constantine, have left 
 written treatises on the art of avoiding defeat, of protracting con- 
 test, of resisting attack. ^^ But this timid policy, and even the 
 purchase of armistices from the Saracens, were not ill calculated 
 for the state of both nations. While Constantinople temporized, 
 Bagdad shook to her foundations ; and the heirs of the Roman 
 name might boast the immortality of their own empire when 
 they contemplated the dissolution of that which had so rapidly 
 sprung up and perished. Amid all the crimes and revolutions 
 of the Byzantine Government — and its history is but a series of 
 crimes and revolutions — it was never dismembered by intestine 
 war. A sedition in the army, a tumult in the theatre, a conspiracy 
 in the palace, precipitated a monarch from the throne; but the 
 allegiance of Constantinople was instantly transferred to his suc- 
 cessor, and the provinces implicitly obeyed the voice of the capi- 
 tal. The custom, too, of partition, so baneful to the Latin king- 
 doms, and which was not altogether unknown to the Saracens, 
 never prevailed in the Greek Empire. It stood in the middle 
 of the tenth century, as vicious, indeed, and cowardly, but more 
 wealthy, more enlightened, and far more secure from its enemies 
 than under the first successors of Heraclius. For about one 
 hundred years preceding there had been only partial wars with 
 the Mohammedan potentates; and in these the emperors seem 
 gradually to have gained the advantage, and to have become 
 more frequently the aggressors. But the increasing distractions 
 
 12??!?°"' ^" ^^* /- . .• T, 1 *'"*y,^ ^ "^^"^ "ot ashamed to confess 
 
 Lxibbon, c. 53. Constantine Porphy- weakness and cowardice, and pleasing 
 
 rogenitus in his advice to his son as itself in petty arts to elude the rapacity 
 
 to the administration of the empire, be- or divide the power of its enemies 
 
975-1202] REVIVAL OF THE GREEK EMPIRE 397 
 
 of the East encouraged two brave usurpers, Nicephorus Phocas 
 and John Zimisces, to attempt the actual recovery of the lost 
 provinces. They carried the Roman arms (one may use the term 
 with less reluctance than usual) over Syria ; Antioch and Aleppo 
 were taken by storm ; Damascus submitted ; even the cities of 
 Mesopotamia, beyond the ancient boundary of the Euphrates, 
 were added to the trophies of Zimisces, who unwillingly spared 
 the capital of the khalifate. From such distant conquests it was 
 expedient, and indeed necessary, to withdraw ; but Cilicia and 
 Antioch were permanently restored to the empire. At the close 
 of the tenth century the Emperors of Constantinople possessed 
 the best and greatest portion of the modern kingdom of Naples, 
 a part of Sicily, the whole European dominions of the Otto- 
 mans, the province of Anatolia or Asia Minor, with some part 
 of Syria and Armenia.^^ 
 
 These successes of the Greek Empire were certainly much 
 rather due to the weakness of its enemies than to any revival 
 of national courage and vigour ; yet they would probably have 
 been more durable if the contest had been only with the khalifate, 
 or the kingdoms derived from it. But a new actor was to appear 
 on the stage of Asiatic tragedy. The same Turkish nation, the 
 slaves and captives from which had become arbiters of the sceptre 
 of Bagdad, passed their original limits of the laxartes or Sihon. 
 The Sultans of Ghazna, a dynasty whose splendid conquests were 
 of very short duration, had deemed it politic to divide the strength 
 of these formidable allies by inviting a part of them into Khora- 
 san. They covered that fertile province with their pastoral tents, 
 and beckoned their compatriots to share the riches of the south. 
 The Ghaznevides fell the earliest victims ; but Persia, violated 
 in turn by every conqueror, was a tempting and unresisting 
 prey. Togrol Bek, the founder of the Seljukian dynasty of 
 Turks, overthrew the family of Bowides, who had long reigned 
 at Ispahan, respected the pageant of Mohammedan sovereignty 
 in the Khalif of Bagdad, embraced with all his tribes the religion 
 of the vanquished, and commenced the attack upon Christen- 
 dom by an irruption into Armenia. His nephew and successor. 
 Alp Arslan, defeated and took prisoner the Emperor Romanus 
 Diogenes ; and the conquest of Asia Minor was almost com- 
 pleted by princes of the same family, the Seljukians of Riim,^* 
 who were permitted by Malek Shah, the third Sultan of the Turks, 
 to form an independent kingdom. Through their own exer- 
 tions, and the selfish impolicy of rival competitors for the throne 
 
 ^' Gibbon, chaps. 52 and 53. The lat- torically, according to the order of time, 
 
 ter of these chapters contains as lumin- but philosophically, according to their 
 
 ous a sketch of the condition of Greece relations. 
 
 as the former does of Saracenic history. ^* Rum, i. e., country of the Romans. 
 
 In each the facts are not grouped his- 
 
398 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [975-1202 
 
 of Constantinople, who bartered the strength of the empire for 
 assistance, the Turks became masters of the Asiatic cities and 
 fortified passes ; nor did there seem any obstacle to the invasion 
 of Europe.^^ 
 
 In this state of jeopardy the Greek Empire looked for aid 
 to the nations of the West, and received it in fuller measure than 
 was expected, or perhaps desired. The deliverance of Constanti- 
 nople was indeed a very secondary object with the crusaders. 
 But it was necessarily included in their scheme of operations, 
 which, though they all tended to the recovery of Jerusalem, must 
 commence with the first enemies that lay on their line of march. 
 The Turks were entirely defeated, their capital of Nice restored 
 to the empire. As the Franks passed onward, the Emperor 
 Alexius Comnenus trod on their footsteps, and secured to him- 
 self the fruits for which their enthusiasm disdained to wait. He 
 regained possession of the strong places on the ^gean shores, 
 of the defiles of Bithynia, and of the entire coast of Asia Minor, 
 both on the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas, which the Turk- 
 ish armies, composed of cavalry and unused to regular warfare, 
 could not recover/® So much must undoubtedly be ascribed 
 to the first crusade. But I think that the general effect of these 
 expeditions has been overrated by those who consider them as 
 having permanently retarded the progress of the Turkish power. 
 The Christians in Palestine and Syria were hardly in contact 
 with the Seljukian kingdom of Rum, the only enemies of the 
 empire ; and it is not easy to perceive that their small and feeble 
 principalities, engaged commonly in defending themselves against 
 the Mohammedan princes of Mesopotamia or the Fatimite khalifs 
 of Egypt, could obstruct the arms of a sovereign of Iconium 
 upon the Mseander or the Halys. Other causes are adequate to 
 explain the equipoise in which the balance of dominion in Ana- 
 tolia was kept during the twelfth century : the valour and activity 
 of the two Comneni, John and Manuel, especially the former; 
 and the frequent partitions and internal feuds, through which 
 the Seljukians of Iconium, like all other Oriental governments, 
 became incapable of foreign aggression. 
 
 But whatever obligation might be due to the first crusaders 
 from the Eastern Empire was cancelled by their descendants 
 one hundred years afterward, when the fourth in number of those 
 expeditions was turned to the subjugation of Constantinople 
 itself. One of those domestic revolutions which occur perpet- 
 ually in Byzantine history had placed a usurper on the imperial 
 throne. The lawful monarch was condemned to blindness and 
 
 ^^ Gibbon, c. 57J De Guignes, " Hist. was reannexed to the empire during the 
 
 des Huns," tome li, 1. 2. reign of Alexius or of his gallant son, 
 
 ^« It does not seem perfectly clear John Comnenus. But the doubt is hard- 
 
 whether the sea-coast, north and south, ly worth noticing. 
 
I202-I299] CONSTANTINOPLE TAKEN BY THE LATINS 399 
 
 a prison, but the heir escaped to recount his misfortunes to the 
 fleet and army of crusaders assembled in the Dalmatian port of 
 Zara. This armament had been collected for the usual purposes, 
 and through the usual motives, temporal and spiritual, of a cru- 
 sade ; the military force chiefly consisted of French nobles ; the 
 naval was supplied by the republic of Venice, whose doge com- 
 manded personally in the expedition. It was not apparently 
 consistent with the primary object of retrieving the Christian 
 affairs in Palestine to interfere in the government of a Christian 
 empire ; but the temptation of punishing a faithless people, and 
 the hope of assistance in their subsequent operations, prevailed. 
 They turned their prows up the Archipelago ; and, notwithstand- 
 ing the vast population and defensible strength of Constanti- 
 nople, compelled the usurper to fly and the citizens to surrender. 
 But animosities springing from religious schism and national 
 jealousy were not likely to be allayed by such remedies; the 
 Greeks, wounded in their pride and bigotry, regarded the legiti- 
 mate emperor as a creature of their enemies, ready to sacrifice 
 their church, a stipulated condition of his restoration, to that of 
 Rome. In a few months a new sedition and conspiracy raised 
 another usurper in defiance of the crusaders' army encamped 
 without the walls. The siege instantly recommenced, and after 
 three months the city of Constantinople was taken by storm. 
 The tale of pillage and murder is always uniform ; but the calami- 
 ties of ancient capitals, like those of the great, impress us more 
 forcibly. Even now we sympathize with the virgin majesty of 
 Constantinople, decked with the accumulated wealth of ages, 
 and resplendent with the monuments of Roman Empire and of 
 Grecian art. Her populousness is estimated beyond credibility: 
 ten, twenty, thirtyfold that of London or Paris; certainly far 
 beyond the united capitals of all European kingdoms in that 
 age.^^ In magnificence she excelled them more than in num- 
 bers; instead of the thatched roofs, the mud walls, the narrow 
 streets, the pitiful buildings of those cities, she had marble and 
 gilded palaces, churches, and monasteries, the works of skilful 
 architects, through nine centuries, gradually sliding from the 
 severity of ancient taste into the more various and brilliant com- 
 binations of Eastern fancy.^^ In the libraries of Constantinople 
 were collected the remains of Grecian learning; her forum and 
 
 " Ville Hardouin reckons the inhabit- 
 ants of Constantinople at quatre cens 
 mil nommes ou plus, by which Gibbon 
 understands him to mean men of a mili- 
 tary age. Le Beau allows a million for 
 the whole population. (Gibbon, vol. xi, 
 p. 213.) We should probably rate Lon- 
 don, in 1204, too high at 60,000 souls. 
 Paris had been enlarged by Philip Au- 
 gustus, and stood on more ground than 
 
 London. (" Delamare sur la Police," 
 tome i, p. 76.) 
 
 ^^ O quanta ci vitas, exclaims Fulk of 
 Chartres a hundred years before, nobilis 
 et decora! quot monasteria quotque pa- 
 latia sunt in ea, opere mero fabrefacta! 
 quo etiam in plateis vel in vicis opera 
 ad spectandum mirabilia! Taedium est 
 quidem magnum recitare, quanta sit ibi 
 opulentia bonorum omnium, auri et 
 
400 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [i 202-1 299 
 
 hippodrome were decorated with those of Grecian sculpture; 
 but neither would be spared by undistinguishing rapine; nor 
 were the chiefs of the crusaders more able to appreciate the loss 
 than their soldiery. Four horses, that breathe in the brass of 
 Lysippus, were removed from Constantinople to the square of 
 St. Mark at Venice, destined again to become the trophies of 
 war and to follow the alternate revolutions of conquest. But 
 we learn from a contemporary Greek to deplore the fate of many 
 other pieces of sculpture, which were destroyed in wantonness, 
 or even coined into brass money.^® 
 
 The lawful emperor and his son had perished in the rebel- 
 lion that gave occasion to this catastrophe, and there remained 
 no right to interfere with that of conquest. But the Latins were 
 a promiscuous multitude, and what their independent valour had 
 earned was not to be transferred to a single master. Though 
 the name of emperor seemed necessary for the government of 
 Constantinople, the unity of despotic power was very foreign to 
 the principles and the interests of the crusaders. In their selfish 
 schemes of aggrandizement they tore in pieces the Greek Em- 
 pire. One fourth only was allotted to the emperor, three eighths 
 were the share of the republic of Venice, and the remainder was 
 divided among the chiefs. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, obtained 
 the imperial title, with the feudal sovereignty over the minor 
 principalities. A monarchy thus dismembered had little pros- 
 pect of honour or durability. The Latin emperors of Constanti- 
 nople were more contemptible and unfortunate, not so much from 
 personal character as political weakness, than their predecessors ; 
 their vassals rebelled against sovereigns not more powerful than 
 themselves ; the Bulgarians, a nation who, after being long 
 formidable, had been subdued by the imperial arms, and only 
 recovered independence on the eve of the Latin conquest, in- 
 sulted their capital ; the Greeks viewed them with silent hatred, 
 and hailed the dawning deliverance from the Asiatic coast. On 
 that side of the Bosporus the Latin usurpation was scarcely 
 for a moment acknowledged ; Nice became the seat of a Greek 
 dynasty, who reigned with honour as far as the Mseander ; and 
 crossing into Europe, after having established their dominion 
 throughout Roumania and other provinces, expelled the last 
 Latin emperors from Constantinople in less than sixty years from 
 its capture. 
 
 During the reign of these Greeks at Nice they had fortunately 
 little to dread on the side of their former enemies, and were 
 generally on terms of friendship with the Seljukians of Iconium. 
 
 argenti palHorum Tnultiformium, sacra- " Scrip. Rerum Gallicarum," tome iv p. 
 
 rumque reliquiarum. Omni etiam tem- 822.) ' 
 
 pore, navigio frequenti cuncta hominum i» Gibbon, c. 60. 
 
 necessaria illuc afferuntur. (Du Chesne, 
 
1299-1453] THE OTTOMANS 401 
 
 That monarchy, indeed, had sufficient objects of apprehension 
 for itself. Their own example in changing the upland plains 
 of Tartary for the cultivated valleys of the south was imitated 
 in the thirteenth century by two successive hordes of northern 
 barbarians. The Karismians, whose tents had been pitched on 
 the lower Oxus and Caspian Sea, availed themselves of the de- 
 cline of the Turkish power to establish their dominion in Persia, 
 and menaced, though they did not overthrow, the kingdom of 
 Iconium. A more tremendous storm ensued in the eruption of 
 Moguls under the sons of Zingis Khan. From the farthest 
 regions of Chinese Tartary issued a race more fierce and desti- 
 tute of civilization than those who had preceded, whose num- 
 bers were told by hundreds of thousands, and whose only test 
 of victory was devastation. All Asia, from the sea of China to 
 the Euxine, wasted beneath the . locusts of the north. They 
 annihilated the phantom of authority which still lingered with 
 the name of Khalif at Bagdad. They reduced into dependence 
 and finally subverted the Seljukian dynasties of Persia, Syria, 
 and Iconium. The Turks of the latter kingdom betook them- 
 selves to the mountainous country, where they formed several 
 petty principalities, which subsisted by incursions into the terri- 
 tory of the Moguls or the Greeks. The chief of one of these, 
 named Othman, at the end of the thirteenth century, penetrated 
 into the province of Bithynia, from which his posterity were 
 never withdrawn. ^^ 
 
 The empire of Constantinople had never recovered the blow 
 it received at the hands of the Latins. Most of the islands in 
 the Archipelago, and the provinces of proper Greece from Thes- 
 saly southward, were still possessed by those invaders. The 
 wealth and naval power of the empire had passed into the hands 
 of the maritime republics ; Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Barcelona 
 were enriched by a commerce which they carried on as inde- 
 pendent states within the precincts of Constantinople, scarcely 
 deigning to solicit the permission or recognise the supremacy 
 of its master. In a great battle fought under the walls of the 
 city between the Venetian and Genoese fleets, the weight of the 
 Roman Empire, in Gibbon's expression, was scarcely felt in the 
 balance of these opulent and powerful republics. Eight galleys 
 were the contribution of the Emperor Cantacuzene to his Ve- 
 netian allies ; and upon their defeat he submitted to the ignominy 
 of excluding them forever from trading in his dominions. Mean- 
 time the remains of the empire in Asia were seized by the inde- 
 pendent Turkish dynasties, of which the most illustrious, that 
 of the Ottomans, occupied the province of Bithynia. Invited 
 by a Byzantine faction into Europe, about the middle of the four- 
 
 20 De Guignes, " Hist, des Huns," tome iii, 1. 15; Gibbon, c. 64. 
 26 
 
402 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1299-1453 
 
 teenth century, they fixed themselves in the neighbourhood of 
 the capital, and in the thirty years' reign of Amurath I subdued, 
 with little resistance, the province of Roumania and the small 
 Christian kingdoms that had been formed on the lower Danube. 
 Bajazet, the successor of Amurath, reduced the independent 
 Emirs of Anatolia to subjection, and, after long threatening Con- 
 stantinople, invested it by sea and land. The Greeks called 
 loudly upon their brethren of the West for aid against the com- 
 mon enemy of Christendom ; but the flower of French chivalry 
 had been slain or taken in the battle of Nicopolis in Bulgaria,^^ 
 where the King of Hungary, notwithstanding the heroism of 
 these volunteers, was entirely defeated by Bajazet. The Em- 
 peror Manuel left his capital with a faint hope of exciting the 
 courts of Europe to some decided efforts by personal represen- 
 tations of the danger; and during his absence Constantinople 
 was saved, not by a friend, indeed, but by a power more formi- 
 dable to her enemies than to herself. 
 
 The loose masses of mankind that, without laws, agriculture, 
 or fixed dwellings, overspread the vast central regions of Asia, 
 have, at various times, been impelled by necessity of subsistence, 
 or through the casual appearance of a commanding genius, upon 
 the domain of culture and civilization. Two principal roads 
 connect the nations of Tartary with those of the west and south : 
 the one into Europe along the sea of Azof and northern coast 
 of the Euxine ; the other across the interval between the Bu- 
 kharian mountains and the Caspian into Persia. Four times at 
 least within the period of authentic history the Scythian tribes 
 have taken the former course and poured themselves into Eu- 
 rope, but each wave was less effectual than the preceding. The 
 first of these was in the fourth and fifth centuries, for we may 
 range those rapidly successive migrations of the Goths and Huns 
 together when the Roman Empire fell to the ground, and the 
 only boundary of barbarian conquest was the Atlantic Ocean 
 upon the shores of Portugal. The second wave came on with 
 the Hungarians in the tenth century, whose ravages extended 
 as far as the southern provinces of France. A third attack was 
 sustained from the Moguls under the children of Zingis at the 
 same period as that which overwhelmed Persia. The Russian 
 monarchy was destroyed in this invasion, and for two hundred 
 
 '^ The Hungarians fled in this battle 
 and deserted their allies, according to 
 the " Memoires de Boucicaut," c. 25. 
 But Froissart, who seems a fairer au- 
 thority, imputes the defeat to the rash- 
 ness of the French. (Part iv, c. 79.) 
 The Count de Nevers (Jean Sans Peur, 
 afterward Duke of Burgundy), who com- 
 manded the French, was made prisoner 
 with others of the royal blood, and ran- 
 
 somed at a very high price. Many of 
 eminent birth and merit were put to 
 death; a fate from which Boucicaut was 
 saved by the interference of the Count 
 de Nevers, who might better himself 
 have perished witb honour on that occa- 
 sion than survived to plunge his coun- 
 try into civil war and his name into 
 infamy. 
 
1299-1453] DEFEAT OF BAJAZET 403 
 
 years that great country lay prostrate under the yoke of the 
 Tartars. As they advanced, Poland and Hungary gave little 
 opposition, and the farthest nations of Europe were appalled 
 by the tempest. But Germany was no longer as she had been 
 in the anarchy of the tenth century; the Moguls were unused 
 to resistance, and still less inclined to regular warfare; they re- 
 tired before the Emperor Frederick II, and the utmost points 
 of their western invasion were the cities of Lignitz in Silesia and 
 Neustadt in Austria. In the fourth and last aggression of the 
 Tartars their progress in Europe is hardly perceptible; the 
 Moguls of Timur's army could only boast the destruction of 
 Azof and the pillage of some Russian provinces. Timur, the 
 sovereign of these Moguls and founder of their second dynasty, 
 which has been more permanent and celebrated than that of 
 Zingis, had been the prince of a small tribe in Transoxiana, be- 
 tween the Gihon and Sirr, the doubtful frontier of settled and 
 pastoral nations. His own energy and the weakness of his neigh- 
 bours are sufficient to explain the revolution he effected. Like 
 former conquerors, Togrol Bek and Zingis, he chose the road 
 through Persia; and, meeting little resistance from the disor- 
 dered governments of Asia, extended his empire on one side 
 to the Syrian coast, while by successes still more renowned, 
 though not belonging to this place, it reached on the other to 
 the heart of Hindostan. In his old age the restlessness of am- 
 bition impelled him against the Turks of Anatolia. Bajazet 
 hastened from the siege of Constantinople to a more perilous 
 contest : his defeat and captivity in the plains of Angora clouded 
 for a time the Ottoman crescent, and preserved the wreck of 
 the Greek Empire for fifty years longer. 
 
 The Moguls did not improve their victory; in the western 
 parts of Asia, as in Hindostan, Timur was but a barbarian de- 
 stroyer, though at Samarcand a sovereign and a legislator. He 
 gave up Anatolia to the sons of Bajazet ; but the unity of their 
 power was broken ; and the Ottoman kingdom, like those which 
 had preceded, experienced the evils of partition and mutual ani- 
 mosity. For about twenty years an opportunity was given to 
 the Greeks of recovering part of their losses ; but they were in- 
 capable of making the best use of this advantage, and, though 
 they regained possession of part of Roumania, did not extirpate 
 a strong Turkish colony that held the city of Gallipoli in the 
 Chersonesus. When Amurath II, therefore, reunited under his 
 vigorous sceptre the Ottoman monarchy, Constantinople was 
 exposed to another siege and to fresh losses. Her walls, how- 
 ever, repelled the enemy, and during the reign of Amurath she 
 had leisure to repeat those signals of distress which the princes 
 of Christendom refused to observe. The situation of Europe 
 
404 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES [1299-1453 
 
 was, indeed, sufficiently inauspicious : France, the original coun- 
 try of the crusades and of chivalry, was involved in foreign and 
 domestic war; while a schism, apparently interminable, rent the 
 bosom of the Latin Church and impaired the efficiency of the 
 only power that could unite and animate its disciples in a re- 
 ligious war. Even when the Roman pontiffs were best disposed 
 to rescue Constantinople from destruction, it was rather as mas- 
 ters than as allies that they would interfere; their ungenerous 
 bigotry, or rather pride, dictated the submission of her Church 
 and the renunciation of her favourite article of distinctive faith. 
 The Greeks yielded with reluctance and insincerity in the Coun- 
 cil of Florence, but soon rescinded their treaty of union. Uge- 
 nius IV procured a short diversion on the side of Hungary ; but 
 after the unfortunate battle of Warna the Hungarians were abun- 
 dantly employed in self-defence. 
 
 The two monarchies which have successively held their seat 
 in the city of Constantine may be contrasted in the circum- 
 stances of their decline. In the present day we anticipate, with 
 an assurance that none can deem extravagant, the approaching 
 subversion of the Ottoman power; but the signs of internal 
 weakness have not yet been confirmed by the dismemberment 
 of provinces ; and the arch of dominion, that long since has 
 seemed nodding to its fall and totters at every blast of the north, 
 still rests upon the landmarks of ancient conquest, and spans 
 the ample regions from Bagdad to Belgrade. Far different 
 were the events that preceded the dissolution of the Greek Em- 
 pire. Every province was in turn subdued — every city opened 
 her gates to the conqueror: the limbs were lopped off one by 
 one; but the pulse still beat at the heart, and the majesty of the 
 Roman name was ultimately confined to the walls of Constanti- 
 nople. Before Mohammed II planted his cannon against them, 
 he had completed every smaller conquest and deprived the ex- 
 piring empire of every hope of succour or delay. It was neces- 
 sary that Constantinople should fall ; but the magnanimous resig- 
 nation of her emperor bestows an honour upon her fall which 
 her prosperity seldom earned. The long-deferred but inevitable 
 moment arrived ; and the last of the Caesars (I will not say of 
 the Palseologi) folded round him the imperial mantle, and re- 
 membered the name which he represented in the dignity of heroic 
 death. It is thus that the intellectual principle, when enfeebled 
 by disease or age, is found to rally its energies in the presence 
 of death, and pour the radiance of unclouded reason around the 
 last struggles of dissolution. 
 
 Though the fate of Constantinople had been protracted be- 
 yond all reasonable expectation, the actual intelligence operated 
 like that of sudden calamity. A sentiment of consternation, 
 
I453-I48I] 
 
 FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 405 
 
 perhaps of self-reproach, thrilled to the heart of Christendom. 
 There seemed no longer anything to divert the Ottoman armies 
 from Hungary; and if Hungary should be subdued, it was evi- 
 dent that both Italy and the German Empire were exposed to 
 invasion.^^ A general union of Christian powers was required 
 to withstand this common enemy. But the popes, who had 
 so often armed them against each other, wasted their spiritual 
 and political counsels in attempting to restore unanimity. War 
 was proclaimed against the Turks at the Diet of Frankfort, in 
 1454; but no efforts were made to carry the menace into exe- 
 cution. No prince could have sat on the imperial throne more 
 unfitted for the emergency than Frederick HI ; his mean spirit 
 and narrow capacity exposed him to the contempt of mankind — 
 his avarice and duplicity insured the hatred of Austria and Hun- 
 gary. During the papacy of Pius H, whose heart was thor- 
 oughly engaged in this legitimate crusade, a more specious at- 
 tempt was made by convening a European congress at Mantua. 
 Almost all the sovereigns attended by their envoys ; it was con- 
 cluded that fifty thousand men at arms should be raised, and a 
 tax levied for three years of one tenth from the revenues of the 
 clergy, one thirtieth from those of the laity, and one twentieth 
 from the capital of the Jews.^^ Pius engaged to head this arma- 
 ment in person ; but when he appeared next year at Ancona, 
 the appointed place of embarkation, the princes had failed in all 
 their promises of men and money, and he found only a headlong 
 crowd of adventurers, destitute of every necessary, and expect- 
 ing to be fed and paid at the Pope's expense. It was not by such 
 a body that Mohammed could be expelled from Constantinople. 
 If the Christian sovereigns had given a steady and sincere co- 
 operation, the contest would still have been arduous and uncer- 
 tain. In the early crusades the superiority of arms, of skill, and 
 even of discipline, had been uniformly on the side of Europe. 
 But the present circumstances were far from similar. An insti- 
 tution, begun by the first and perfected by the second Amurath, 
 had given to the Turkish armies what their enemies still wanted — 
 -military subordination and veteran experience. Aware, as it 
 seems, of the real superiority of Europeans in war, these sultans 
 
 . " Sive vincitur Hungaria, sive coacta 
 jungitur Turcis, neque Italia neque 
 Germania tuta erit, neque satis Rhenus 
 Gallos secures reddet. (^n. Sylv., p. 
 678.) This is part of a discourse pro- 
 nounced by ^neas Sylvius before the 
 Diet of Frankfort; which, though too 
 declamatory, like most of his writings, 
 IS an interesting illustration of the state 
 of Europe and of the impression pro- 
 duced by that calamity. Spondanus. ad 
 arm. 1454, has given large extracts from 
 this oration. 
 
 ^' Spondanus. Neither Charles VII 
 nor even Philip of Burgundy, who had 
 made the loudest professions, and pledged 
 himself in a fantastic pageant at his 
 court, soon after the capture of Constan- 
 tinople, to undertake this crusade, were 
 sincere in their promises. The former 
 pretended apprehensions of invasion from 
 England, as an excuse for sending no 
 troops; which, considering the situation 
 of England in 1459, was a bold attempt 
 upon the credulity of mankind. 
 
4o6 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 [1453-1481 
 
 selected the stoutest youths from their Bulgarian, Servian, or 
 Albanian captives, who were educated in habits of martial disci- 
 pline, and formed into a regular force, with the name of Janizaries. 
 After conquest had put an end to personal captivity, a tax of every 
 fifth male child was raised upon the Christian population for the 
 same purpose. The arm of Europe was thus turned upon her- 
 self ; and the Western nations must have contended with troops 
 of hereditary robustness and intrepidity, whose emulous enthu- 
 siasm for the country that had adopted them was controlled by 
 habitual obedience to their commanders.^* 
 
 Yet forty years after the fall of Constantinople, at the epoch 
 of Charles VIIFs expedition into Italy, the just apprehensions 
 of European statesmen might have gradually subsided. Except 
 the Morea, Negropont, and a few other unimportant conquests, 
 no real progress had been made by the Ottomans. Mohammed 
 II had been kept at bay by the Hungarians ; he had been re- 
 pulsed with some ignominy by the Knights of St. John from the 
 island of Rhodes. A petty chieftain defied this mighty conqueror 
 for twenty years in the mountains of Epirus; and the persever- 
 ing courage of his desultory warfare with such trifling resources, 
 and so little prospect of ultimate success, may justify the exag- 
 gerated admiration with which his contemporaries honoured the 
 name of Scanderbeg. Once only the crescent was displayed on 
 the Calabrian coast ; but the city of Otranto remained but a year 
 in the possession of Mohammed. On his death a disputed suc- 
 cession involved his children in civil war. Bajazet, the eldest, 
 obtained the victory ; but his rival brother Zizim fled to Rhodes, 
 from whence he was removed to France, and afterward to Rome. 
 Apprehensions of this exiled prince seem to have dictated a 
 pacific policy to the reigning Sultan, whose character did not 
 possess the usual energy of Ottoman sovereigns. 
 
 2* In the long declamation of ^neas 
 Sylvius before the Diet of Frankfort in 
 1454, he has the following contrast 
 between the European and Turkish mili- 
 tia; a good specimen of the artifice with 
 which an ingenious orator can disguise 
 the truth, while he seems to be stating 
 it most precisely^ : Conferamus nunc 
 Turcos et vos invicem; et quid speran- 
 dum sit si cum illis pugnetis, examine- 
 mus. Vos nati ad arma, illi tracti. Vos 
 armati, illi inermes; vos gladios versatis, 
 illi cultris utuntur; vos balistas tenditis, 
 illi arcus trahunt; vos loricae thoraces- 
 que protegunt, illos culcitra tegit; vos 
 equos regitis, illi ab equis reguntur; vos 
 nobiles in bellum ducitis, illi servos aut 
 artifices cogunt, etc., p. 685. This, how- 
 ever, had little effect upon the hearers, 
 who were better judges of military af- 
 fairs than the secretary of Frederick III. 
 Pius II, or ^neas Svlvius, was a lively 
 writer and a skilful intriguer. Long 
 experience had given him a considerable 
 
 insight into European politics; and his 
 views are usually clear and sensible. 
 Though not so learned as some popes, he 
 knew much better what was going for- 
 ward in his own time. But the vanity 
 of displaying his eloquence betrayed him 
 into a strange folly when he addressed a ' 
 very long letter to Mohammed II, explain- 
 ing the Catholic faith, and urging him to 
 be baptized; in which case, so far from 
 preaching a crusade against the Turks, 
 he would gladly make use of their power 
 to recover the rights of the Church. 
 Some of his inducements are curious, 
 and must, if made public, have been 
 highly gratifying to his friend Frederick 
 lit. Quippe ut arbitramur, si Christi- 
 anus fuisses, mortuo Ladislao Ungariae et 
 Bohemise rege, nemo praeter te sua regna 
 fuisset adeptus. Sperassent Ungari post 
 diuturna bellorum mala sub tuo re^imine 
 pacem, et illos Bohemi secuti fuissent; 
 sed cum esses nostrae religionis hostis, 
 elegerunt Ungari, etc. (Epist., 396.) 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL POWER DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Wealth of the clergy — Its sources — Encroachments on ecclesiastical property — Their 
 jurisdiction arbitrative, coercive — Their political power — Supremacy of the crown 
 — Charlemagne — Change after his death, and encroachments of the Church in the 
 ninth century — Primacy of the See of Rome — Its early stage — Gregory I — Council 
 of Frankfort — " False Decretals " — Progress of papal authority — Effects of excom- 
 munication — Lothaire — State of the Church in the tenth century — Marriage of 
 priests — Simony — Episcopal elections — Imperial authority over the popes — Disputes 
 concerning investitures — Qregory VII and Henry IV — Concordat of Calixtus — 
 Election by chapters — General system of Gregory VII — Progress of papal usurpa- 
 tions in the twelfth century — Innocent III— His character and schemes — Continual 
 progress of the papacy — Canon law — Mendicant orders — Dispensing power — Taxa- 
 tion of the clergy by the popes — Encroachments on rights of patronage — Man- 
 dates, reserves, etc. — General disaffection toward the See of Rome in the thir- 
 teenth century — Progress of ecclesiastical jurisdiction— Irnmunity of the clergy in 
 criminal cases — Restraints imposed upon their Jurisdiction — Upon their acquisi- 
 tion of property — Boniface VIII — His quarrel with Philip the Fair — Its termina- 
 tion — Gradual decline of papal authority — Louis of Bavaria — Secession to Avignon 
 and return to Rome — Conduct of Avignon popes — Contested election of Urban 
 and Clement produces the great schism — Council of Pisa — Constance — Basle — 
 Methods adopted to restrain the papal usurpations in England, Germany, and 
 France — Liberties of the Gallican Church — Decline of the papal influence in Italy. 
 
 AT the irruption of the northern invaders into the Roman 
 Empire they found the clergy already endowed with ex- 
 ^ tensive possessions. Besides the spontaneous oblations 
 upon which the ministers of the Christian Church had 
 originally subsisted, they had obtained, even under the pagan 
 emperors, by concealment or connivance — for the Roman law 
 did not permit a tenure of lands in mortmain — certain immov- 
 able estates, the revenues of which were applicable to their own 
 maintenance and that of the poor.^ These, indeed, were pre- 
 carious and liable to confiscation in times of persecution. But 
 it was among the first effects of the conversion of Constantine 
 to give not only a security, but a legal sanction, to the territorial 
 acquisitions of the Church. The edict of Milan, in 313, recog- 
 nises the actual estates of ecclesiastical corporations.^ Another, 
 published in 321, grants to all the subjects of the empire the 
 
 ^ Giannone, " Istoria di Napoli," 1. ii, tion, but a comparison of the three 
 
 c. 8; Gibbon, chaps. 15 and 20; F. Paul's seems to justify my text. 
 "Treatise on Benefices," c. 4. The last ^ Qjannone; Gibbon, ubi supra; F. 
 
 writer does not wholly confirm this posi- Paul, c. 5. 
 
 407 
 
4o8 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 power of bequeathing their property to the Church.' His own 
 liberality and that of his successors set an example which did 
 not want imitators. Passing rapidly from a condition of distress 
 and persecution to the summit of prosperity, the Church degen- 
 erated as rapidly from her ancient purity, and forfeited the respect 
 of future ages in the same proportion as she acquired the blind 
 veneration of her own. Covetousness especially became almost 
 a characteristic vice. Valentinian I, in 370, prohibited the clergy 
 from receiving the bequests of women — a modification more dis- 
 creditable than any general law could have been. And several 
 of the fathers severely reprobate the prevailing avidity of their 
 contemporaries.* 
 
 The devotion of the conquering nations, as it was still less 
 enlightened than that of the subjects of the empire, so was it 
 still more munificent. They left, indeed, the worship of Hesus 
 and Taranis in their forests; but they retained the elementary 
 principles of that and of all barbarous idolatry, a superstitious 
 reverence for the priesthood, a credulity that seemed to invite 
 imposture, and a confidence in the efficacy of gifts to expiate 
 offences. Of this temper it is undeniable that the ministers of 
 religion, influenced probably not so much by personal covetous- 
 ness as by zeal for the interests of their order, took advantage. 
 Many of the peculiar and prominent characteristics in the faith 
 and discipline of those ages appear to have been either intro- 
 duced or sedulously promoted for the purposes of sordid fraud. 
 To those purposes conspired the veneration for relics, the wor- 
 ship of images, the idolatry of saints and martyrs, the religious 
 inviolability of sanctuaries, the consecration of cemeteries, but, 
 above all, the doctrine of purgatory and masses for the relief 
 of the dead. A creed thus contrived, operating upon the minds 
 of barbarians, lavish though rapacious, and devout though dis- 
 solute, naturally caused a torrent of opulence to pour in upon 
 the Church. Donations of land were continually made to the 
 bishops, and, in still more ample proportion, to the monastic 
 foundations. These had not been very numerous in the West 
 till the beginning of the sixth century, when Benedict estab- 
 lished his celebrated rule.^ A more remarkable show of piety, 
 a more absolute seclusion from the world, forms more im- 
 pressive and edifying, prayers and masses more constantly re- 
 peated, gave to the professed in these institutions an advantage 
 in public esteem over the secular clergy. 
 
 The ecclesiastical hierarchy never received any territorial en- 
 dowment by law, either under the Roman Empire or the king- 
 
 'F. Paul. ^ „ , "Treatise on Benefices," c. 8; Fleury, 
 
 * Giannone, ubi supra; F. Paul, c. 6. " Huitieme Discours sur I'Hist. Eccle- 
 
 "^ Giannone, 1. iii, c. 6; 1. iv, c. 12; siastique "; Muratori, Dissert, 65. 
 
WEALTH OF THE CHURCH 
 
 409 
 
 doms erected upon its ruins. But the voluntary munificence 
 of princes, as well as their subjects, amply supplied the place 
 of a more universal provision. Large private estates, or, as 
 they were termed, patrimonies, not only within their own dio- 
 ceses, but sometimes in distant countries, sustained the dignity 
 of the principal sees, and especially that of Rome.^ The French 
 monarchs of the first dynasty, the Carlovingian family and their 
 great chief, the Saxon line of emperors, the Kings of England 
 and Leon, set hardly any bounds to their liberality, as numer- 
 ous charters still extant in diplomatic collections attest. Many 
 churches possessed seven or eight thousand mansi ; one with but 
 two thousand passed for only indifferently rich.'' But it must 
 be remarked that many of these donations are of lands unculti- 
 vated and unappropriated.^ The monasteries acquired legitimate 
 riches by the culture of these deserted tracts and by the prudent 
 management of their revenues, which were less exposed to the 
 ordinary means of dissipation than those of the laity. Their 
 wealth, continually accumulated, enabled them to become the 
 regular purchasers of landed estates, especially in the time of 
 the crusades, when the fiefs of the nobility were constantly in 
 the market for sale or mortgage.® 
 
 If the possessions of ecclesiastical communities had all been 
 as fairly earned, we could find nothing in them to reprehend. 
 But other sources of wealth were less pure, and they derived 
 their wealth from many sources. Those who entered into a mon- 
 astery threw frequently their whole estates into the common 
 stock, and even the children of rich parents were expected to 
 make a donation of land on assuming the cowl. Some gave their 
 property to the Church before entering on military expeditions ; 
 gifts were made by some to take effect after their lives, and be- 
 quests by many in the terrors of dissolution. Even those lega- 
 cies to charitable purposes, which the clergy could with more 
 decency and speciousness recommend, and of which the admin- 
 istration was generally confined to them, were frequently applied 
 to their own benefit.^*' They failed not, above all, to inculcate 
 upon the wealthy sinner that no atonement could be so acceptable 
 to Heaven as liberal presents to its earthly delegates.^^ To die 
 
 " St. Marc, tome i, p. 281 ; Giannone, 1. 
 iv, c. 12. 
 
 ■^ Schmidt, tome ii, p. 205. 
 
 * Muratori, Dissert. 65 ; Du Cange, voc. 
 Eremus. 
 
 " Heeren, " Essai sur les Croisades," 
 p. 166; Schmidt, tome ii, p. 293. 
 
 " Primo sacris pastoribus data est fa- 
 cultas, ut haereditatis portio in pauperes 
 et egenos dispergeretur ; sed sensim 
 ecclesiae quoque in pauperum censum 
 venerunt, atque intestatae gentis mens 
 credita est proclivior in eas futura fuisse: 
 qua ex re pinguius illarum patrimonium 
 
 evasit. Immo episcopi ipsi in rem suam 
 ejusmodi consuetudinem interdum con- 
 vertebant : ac tributum evasit, quod 
 antea pii moris fuit. (Muratori, " An- 
 tiquitates Italiae," tome v, Dissert. 67.) 
 
 ^^ Muratori, Dissert. 67 (" Antiquit. 
 Italiae," tome v, p. 1055), has preserved 
 a curious charter of an Italian count, 
 who declares that, struck with reflections 
 upon his sinful state, he had taken 
 counsel with a certain religious how he 
 should atone for his offences. Accepto 
 consilio ab iis, excepto si renunciare 
 saeculo possem, nullum esse melius inter 
 
410 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 without allotting a portion of worldly wealth to pious uses was 
 accounted almost like suicide or a refusal of the last sacraments ; 
 and hence intestacy passed for a sort of fraud upon the Church, 
 which she punished by taking the administration of the de- 
 ceased's effects into her own hands. This, however, was pecul- 
 iar to England, and seems to have been the case there only from 
 the reign of Henry III to that of Edward III, when the bishop 
 took a portion of the intestate's personal estate for the advan- 
 tage of the Church and poor, instead of distributing it among 
 his next of kin.^^ xh^ canonical penances imposed upon repent- 
 ant offenders, extravagantly severe in themselves, were com- 
 muted for money or for immovable possessions — a fertile though 
 scandalous source of monastic wealth, which the popes after- 
 ward diverted into their own coffers by the usage of dispensa- 
 tions and indulgences.^^ The Church lands enjoyed an immunity 
 from taxes, though not in general from military service, when 
 of a feudal tenure.^* But their tenure was frequently in what 
 was called frankalmoign, without any obligation of service. 
 Hence it became a customary fraud of lay proprietors to grant 
 estates to the Church, which they received again by way of iief 
 or lease, exempted from public burdens. And, as if all these 
 means of accumulating what they could not legitimately enjoy 
 were insufficient, the monks prostituted their knowledge of writ- 
 ing to the purpose of forging charters in their own favour, which 
 might easily impose upon an ignorant age, since it has required 
 a peculiar science to detect them in modern times. Such rapacity 
 might seem incredible in men cut ofT from the pursuits of life 
 and the hope of posterity if we did not behold every day the 
 unreasonableness of avarice and the fervour of professional at- 
 tachments.^*^ 
 
 As an additional source of revenue, and in imitation of the 
 Jewish law, the payment of tithes was recommended or en- 
 joined. These, however, were not applicable at first to the main- 
 
 cleemosinarum virtutes, quam si de pro- 
 priis meis substantiis in monastenum 
 concederem. Hoc consilium ab iis li- 
 benter, et ardentissimo animo ego ac- 
 cepi. 
 
 ^2 Selden, vol. iii, p. 1676; Prynne's 
 " Constitutions," vol. iii, p. 18; Black- 
 stone, vol. ii, c. 32. In France the lord 
 of the fief seems to have taken the whole 
 spoil. (Du Cange, voc. Intestatus.) 
 
 ^^ Mtiratori, Dissert, 68. 
 
 ^* Palgrave has shown that the Anglo- 
 Saxon clergy were not exempt, originally 
 at least, from the trinoda necessitas im- 
 posed on all allodial proprietors. They 
 were better treated on the Continent; 
 and Boniface exclaims that in no part of 
 the world wa? such servitude imposed on 
 the Church as among the English. 
 (" English Commonwealth," i, 158.) But 
 
 when we look at the charters collected 
 in Kemble's " Codex Diplomaticus " 
 (most or nearly all of them in favour 
 of the Church), we shall hardly think 
 they were ill off, though they might be 
 forced sometimes to repair a bridge or 
 send their tenants against the Danes. 
 
 ^^ Muratori's sixty-fifth, sixty-seventh, 
 and sixty-eighth dissertations on the 
 " Antic[uities of Italy " have furnished 
 the principal materials of my text, with 
 Father Paul's " Treatise on Benefices," 
 especially chaps. 19 and 29. Giannone, 
 loc. cit. and 1. iv, c. 12; 1. v, c. 6; 1. x, 
 c. 12. _ Schmidt, " Hist, des Allemands," 
 tome i, p. 370; tome ii, pp. 203, 462; tome 
 iv, p. 202. Fleury, III. " Discours sur 
 I'Hist, Eccles," Du Cange, voc. Pre- 
 caria. 
 
TITHES 
 
 411 
 
 tenance of a resident clergy. Parochial divisions, as they now 
 exist, did not take place, at least in some countries, till several 
 centuries after the establishment of Christianity.^® The rural 
 churches, erected successively as the necessities of a congrega- 
 tion required or the piety of a landlord suggested, were in fact 
 a sort of chapels dependent on the cathedral, and served by itin- 
 erant ministers at the bishop's discretion." The bishop himself 
 received the tithes, and apportioned them as he thought fit. A 
 capitulary of Charlemagne, however, regulates their division into 
 three parts : one for the bishop and his clergy, a second for the 
 poor, and a third for the support of the fabric of the Church.^® 
 Some of the rural churches obtained by episcopal concessions 
 the privileges of baptism and burial, which were accompanied 
 with a fixed share of tithes, and seem to imply the residence of 
 a minister. The same privileges were gradually extended to the 
 rest, and thus a complete parochial division was finally estab- 
 lished. But this was hardly the case in England till near the 
 time of the conquest.^® 
 
 The slow and gradual manner in which parochial churches 
 became independent appears to be of itself a sufficient answer 
 to those who ascribe a great antiquity to the universal payment 
 of tithes. There are, however, more direct proofs that this spe- 
 cies of ecclesiastical property was acquired not only by degrees 
 but with considerable opposition. We find the payment of tithes 
 first enjoined by the canons of a provincial council in France 
 near the end of the sixth century. From the ninth to the end 
 of the twelfth, or even later, it is continually enforced by similar 
 authority.^^ Father Paul remarks that most of the sermons 
 
 " Muratori, Dissert. 74, and Fleury, 
 " Institutions au Droit Ecclesiastique," 
 tome i, p. 162, refer the origin of parishes 
 to the fourth century; but this must be 
 limited to the most populous part of the 
 empire. 
 
 "These were not always itinerant; 
 commonly, perhaps, they were depend- 
 ents of the lord, appointed by the bishop 
 on his nomination. Lehuerou, " Institut. 
 Carolingiennes," p. 526, who quotes a ca- 
 pitulary of the Emperor Lothaire in 825: 
 * De clericis vero laicorum, unde non- 
 nulli eorum conqueri videantur, eo quod 
 quidam episcopi ad eorum preces nolint 
 in ecclesiis suis eos, cum utiles sint, ordi- 
 nare, visum nobis fuit, ut . . . et cum 
 caritate et ratione utiles et idonei eli- 
 gantur; et si laicus idoneum utilemque 
 clericum obtulerit nulla qualibet occa- 
 sione ab episcopo sine ratione certa re- 
 pellatur; et si rejiciendus est, propter 
 scandalum vitandum evidenti ratione 
 manifestetur." Another capitulary of 
 Charles the Bald, in 864, forbids the es- 
 tablishment of priests in" the churches 
 of patrons, or their ejection without the 
 bishop's consent : " De his qui sine 
 
 consensu episcopi presbyteros in ecclesiis 
 suis constituunt, vel de ecclesiis dejici- 
 unt." Thus the churches are recognised 
 as the property of the lord; and the par- 
 ish may be considered as an established 
 division, at least very commonly, so 
 early as the Carlovingian empire. I do 
 not by any means deny that it was par- 
 tially known in France before that time. 
 
 Guizot reckons the patronage of 
 churches by the laity among the circum- 
 stances which diminished or retarded ec- 
 clesiastical power. (Le^on 13.) It may 
 have been so; but without this patronage 
 there would have been very few parish 
 churches. It separated, in some degree, 
 the interests of the secular clergy from 
 those of the bishops and the regulars. 
 
 1* Schmidt, tome ii, p. 206. This seems 
 to have been founded on an ancient 
 canon. (F. Paul, c. 7.) 
 
 " Collier's " Ecclesiastical History," p. 
 229. 
 
 20 Selden's " History of Tithes," vol. 
 iii, p. iio3, edit. Wilkins. Tithes are said 
 by Giannone to have been enforced by 
 some papal decrees in the sixth century 
 (1. iii, c. 6). 
 
412 
 
 Hallam's middle ages 
 
 preached about the eighth century inculcate this as a duty, and 
 even seem to place the summit of Christian perfection in its per- 
 formance.^^ This reluctant submission of the people to a general 
 and permanent tribute is perfectly consistent with the eagerness 
 displayed by them in accumulating voluntary donations upon the 
 Church. Charlemagne was the first who gave the confirmation 
 of a civil statute to these ecclesiastical injunctions ; no one at 
 least has, so far as I know, adduced any earlier law for the pay- 
 ment of tithes than one of his capitularies.^^ But it would be 
 precipitate to infer either that the practice had not already gained 
 ground to a considerable extent, through the influence of eccle- 
 siastical authority, or, on the other hand, that it became uni- 
 versal in consequence of the commands of Charlemagne.^^ In 
 the subsequent ages it was very common to appropriate tithes, 
 which had originally been payable to the bishop, either toward 
 the support of particular churches or, according to the prevalent 
 superstition, to monastic foundations.^* These arbitrary conse- 
 crations, though the subject of complaint, lasted, by a sort of 
 prescriptive right of the landholder, till about the year 1200. 
 It was nearly at the same time that the obligation of paying tithes, 
 which had been originally confined to those called predial, or 
 the fruits of the earth, was extended, at least in theory, to every 
 species of profit, and to the wages of every kind of labour.^'^ 
 
 Yet there were many hindrances that thwarted the clergy 
 in their acquisition of opulence, and a sort of reflux that set 
 sometimes very strongly against them. In times of barbarous 
 violence nothing can thoroughly compensate for the inferiority 
 of physical strength and prowess. The ecclesiastical history of 
 the middle ages presents one long contention of fraud against 
 robbery ; of acquisitions made by the Church through such 
 means as I have described, and torn from her by lawless power. 
 Those very men who in the hour of sickness and impending 
 death showered the gifts of expiatory devotion upon her altars, 
 had passed the sunshine of their lives in sacrilegious plunder. 
 Notwithstanding the frequent instances of extreme reverence 
 for religious institutions among the nobility, we should be de- 
 ceived in supposing this to be their general character. Rapacity, 
 
 " " Treatise on Benefices," c. ii. 
 
 *2 Mably (" Observations sur I'Hist. de 
 France," tome i, pp. 238 et 438) has, with 
 remarkable rashness, attacked the cur- 
 rent opinion that Charlemagne estab- 
 lished the legal obligation of tithes, and 
 denied that any of his capitularies bear 
 such an interpretation. Those which he 
 quotes have indeed a different meaning; 
 but he has overlooked an express enact- 
 ment in 789 (" Baluzii Capitularia," tome 
 i, p. 251), which admits of no question, 
 and I believe that there are others in 
 confirmation. 
 
 " The grant of Ethelwolf in 855 has 
 appeared to some antiquaries the most 
 probable origin of the general right to 
 tithes in England. [Note I.] It is said 
 by Marina that tithes were not legally 
 established in Castile till the reign of 
 Alfonso X. (" Ensayo sobre les Siete 
 Partidas," c. 359.) 
 
 " Selden, p. 11 14 et seq.; Coke, 2 Inst., 
 p. 641. 
 
 M J°^^'^^"'^ "History of Tithes"; 
 Treatise on Benefices," c. 28; Giannone, 
 1. X, c. 12. 
 
SPOLIATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY 
 
 413 
 
 not less insatiable than that of the abbots, was commonly united 
 with a daring fierceness that the abbots could not resist.^^ In every 
 country we find continual lamentation over the plunder of ecclesi- 
 astical possessions. Charles Martel is reproached with having 
 given the first notorious example of such spoliation. It was not, 
 however, commonly practised by sovereigns. But the evil was 
 not the less universally felt. The parochial tithes especially, as 
 the hand of robbery falls heaviest upon the weak, were exposed 
 to unlawful seizure. In the tenth and eleventh centuries nothing 
 was more common than to see the revenues of benefices in the 
 hands of lay impropriators, who employed curates at the cheap- 
 est rate — an abuse that has never ceased in the Church.^^ Sev- 
 eral attempts were made to restore these tithes ; but even Greg- 
 ory VII did not venture to proceed in it ; ^^ and, indeed, it is 
 highly probable that they might be held in some instances by 
 a lawful title.-^ Sometimes the property of monasteries was 
 dilapidated by corrupt abbots, whose acts, however clandestine 
 and unlawful, it was not easy to revoke. And both the bishops 
 and convents were obliged to invest powerful lay protectors, 
 under the name of advocates, with considerable fiefs, as the price 
 of their assistance against depredators. But these advocates be- 
 came too often themselves the spoilers, and oppressed the help- 
 less ecclesiastics for whose defence they had been engaged. ^^ 
 
 If it had not been for these drawbacks, the clergy must, one 
 would imagine, have almost acquired the exclusive property 
 of the soil. They did enjoy, according to some authorities, 
 nearly one half of England, and, I believe, a greater proportion 
 in some countries of Europe.^^ They had reached, perhaps, their 
 
 " The Church was often compelled to 
 grant leases of her lands, under the name 
 of precariae, to laymen, who probably 
 rendered little or no service in return, 
 though a rent or census was expressed in 
 the instrument. These precariae seem to 
 have been for life, but were frequently 
 renewed. They are not to be confounded 
 with terrae censuales, or lands let to a 
 tenant at rack-rent, which, of course, 
 formed a considerable branch of revenue. 
 The grant was called precaria from being 
 obtained at the prayer of a grantee; 
 and the uncertainty of its renewal seems 
 to have given rise to the adjective pre- 
 carious. 
 
 In the ninth century, though the pre- 
 tensions of the bishops were never high- 
 er, the Church itself was more pillaged 
 under pretext of these precariae, and in 
 other ways, than at any former time. 
 (See Du Cange for a long article on 
 Precariae.) 
 
 "Du Cange, voc. Abbas. 
 
 *^ Schmidt, tome iv, p. 204. At an 
 assembly held at St. Denis in 997 the 
 bishops proposed to restore the tithes to 
 the secular clergy; but such a tumult 
 
 was excited by this attempt that the 
 meeting was broken up. (" Recueil des 
 Historiens," tome xi, praefat., p. 212.) 
 
 2" Selden's " Hist, of Tithes," p. 1136. 
 The third Council of Lateran restrains 
 laymen from transferring their impro- 
 priated tithes to other laymen. (Velly, 
 " Hist, de France," tome iii, p. 235.) 
 This seems tacitly to admit that their 
 possession was lawful, at least by pre- 
 scription. 
 
 3** For the injuries sustained by ec- 
 clesiastical proprietors, see Muratori, 
 Dissert. ^2. Du Cange, voc. Advocatus. 
 Schmidt, tome ii, pp. 220, 470; tome iii, 
 p. 290; tome iv, pp. 188, 202. " Recueil 
 des Historiens," tome xi, praefat., p. 184. 
 Martenne, " Thesaurus Anecdotorum." 
 tome i, p. 595- Vaissette, " Hist, de 
 Languedoc," tome ii, p. 109, and ap- 
 pendix, passim. 
 
 31 Turner's " Hist, of England," vol. 
 ii, p. 413, from Avesbury. According to 
 a calculation founded on a passage in 
 Knyghton, the revenue of the English 
 Church in 1337 amounted to 730,000 
 marks per annum. Macpherson's ** An- 
 nals of Commerce," vol. i, p. 519; " His- 
 
414 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 zenith in respect of territorial property about the conclusion of 
 the twelfth century.^^ After that time the disposition to enrich 
 the clergy by pious donations grew more languid, and was put 
 under certain legal restraints, to which I shall hereafter advert ; 
 but they became rather more secure from forcible usurpations. 
 
 The acquisitions of wealth by the Church were hardly so 
 remarkable, and scarcely contributed so much to her greatness, 
 as those innovations upon the ordinary course of justice which 
 fall under the head of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and immunity. 
 It is hardly, perhaps, necessary to caution the reader that rights 
 of territorial justice, possessed by ecclesiastics in virtue of their 
 fiefs, are by no means included in this description. Episcopal 
 jurisdiction, properly so called, may be considered as depending 
 upon the choice of litigant parties, upon their condition, and 
 upon the subject-matter of their differences. 
 
 I. The arbitrative authority of ecclesiastical pastors, if not 
 coeval with Christianity, grew up very early in the Church, and 
 was natural, or even necessary, to an insulated and persecuted 
 society.^^ Accustomed to feel a strong aversion to the imperial 
 tribunals, and even to consider a recurrence to them as hardly 
 consistent with their profession, the early Christians retained 
 somewhat of a similar prejudice even after the establishment of 
 their religion. The arbitration of their bishops still seemed a 
 less objectionable mode of settling differences. And this arbi- 
 trative jurisdiction was powerfully supported by a law of Con- 
 stantine, which directed the civil magistrate to enforce the exe- 
 cution of episcopal awards. Another edict, ascribed to the same 
 emperor, and annexed to the Theodosian code, extended the 
 jurisdiction of the bishops to all causes which either party chose 
 to refer to it, even where they had already commenced in a secular 
 court, and declared the bishop's sentence not subject to appeal. 
 This edict has clearly been proved to be a forgery. It is evi- 
 dent, by a novel of Valentinian III, about 450, that the Church 
 had still no jurisdiction in questions of a temporal nature, ex- 
 cept by means of the joint reference of contending parties. Some 
 expressions, indeed, used by the emperor seem intended to re- 
 press the spirit of encroachment upon the civil magistrates, which 
 
 toire du Droit public Eccles. Frangois,** 
 tome i, p. 214.) Anthony Harmer (Henry 
 Wharton) says that the monasteries did 
 not possess one fifth of the land; and I 
 incline to think that he is nearer the 
 truth than Mr. Turner, who puts the 
 wealth of the Church at above 28,000 
 knights' fees out of 53,215. The bishops' 
 lands could not by any means account 
 for the diflference, so that Mr. Turner 
 was probably deceived by his authority. 
 
 ^^ The great age of monasteries in 
 England was the reigns of Henry I, 
 
 Stephen, and Henry II. (Littleton's 
 " Henry II," vol. ii, p. 329.) David I of 
 Scotland, contemporary with Henry II, 
 was also a noted founder of monasteries. 
 (Dalrymple's " Annals.") 
 
 3' I Corinth., v, 4- The word e^ovGe- 
 vrifi-ivovt, rendered in our version " of 
 no reputation," has been interpreted by 
 some to mean persons destitute of coer- 
 cive authority, referees. The passage at 
 least tends to discourage suits before a 
 secular judge. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION 415 
 
 had probably begun to manifest itself. Charlemagne, indeed, 
 in one of his capitularies, is said by some modern writers to have 
 repeated all the absurd and enormous provisions of the spuri- 
 ous constitution in the Theodosian code.^* But this capitulary 
 is erroneously ascribed to Charlemagne. It is only found in one 
 of the three books subjoined by Benedict Levita to the four books 
 of capitularies collected by Ansegisus ; these latter relating only 
 to Charlemagne and Louis, but the others comprehending many 
 of later emperors and kings. And, what is of more importance, 
 it seems exceedingly doubtful whether this is any genuine capitu- 
 lary at all. It is not referred to any prince by name, nor is it 
 found in any other collection. Certain it is that we do not find 
 the Church, in her most arrogant temper, asserting the full privi- 
 leges contained in this capitulary.^^ 
 
 2. If it was considered almost as a general obligation upon 
 the primitive Christians to decide their civil disputes by internal 
 arbitration, much more would this be incumbent upon the clergy. 
 The canons of several councils, in the fourth and fifth centuries, 
 sentence a bishop or priest to deposition who should bring any 
 suit, civil or even criminal, before a secular magistrate. This 
 must, it should appear, be confined to causes where the defend- 
 ant was a clerk, since the ecclesiastical court had hitherto no 
 coercive jurisdiction over the laity. It was not so easy to induce 
 laymen, in their suits against clerks, to prefer the episcopal tri- 
 bunal. The emperors were not at all disposed to favour this 
 species of encroachment till the reign of Justinian, who or- 
 dered civil suits against ecclesiastics to be carried only be- 
 fore the bishops. Yet this was accompanied by a provision 
 that a party dissatisfied with the sentence might apply to the 
 secular magistrate, not as an appellant, but a co-ordinate juris- 
 diction ; for if different judgments were given in the two courts, 
 the process was ultimately referred to the emperor.^® But the 
 early Merovingian kings adopted the exclusive jurisdiction of 
 the bishop over causes wherein clerks were interested, without 
 any of the checks which Justinian had provided. Many laws 
 enacted during their reigns and under Charlemagne strictly pro- 
 hibit the temporal magistrates from entertaining complaints 
 against the children of the Church. 
 
 This jurisdiction over the civil causes of clerks was not im- 
 mediately attended with an equally exclusive cognizance of 
 criminal offences imputed to them, wherein the state is so deeply 
 
 " " Baluzii Capitularia," tome i, p. 9018. ^^ This was also established about the 
 
 "Gibbon, c. xx. Giannone, 1. ii, c. 8; same time by Athalaric, King of the 
 
 1. iii, c. 6; 1. vi, c. 7. Schmidt, tome ii, Ostrogoths, and of course affected the 
 
 p. 208. Fleury, " yme Discours," and popes who were his subjects. (St. Marc, 
 
 Institutions au Droit Ecclesiastique," tome i, p. 60; Fleury, "Hist. Eccles.," 
 
 tome ii, p. i, " Memoires de TAcademie tome vii, p. 292.) 
 des Inscriptions," tome xxxix, p. 566. 
 
4i6 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 interested, and the Church could inflict so inadequate a punish- 
 ment Justinian appears to have reserved such offences for trial 
 before the imperial magistrate, though with a material provision 
 that the sentence against a clerk should not be executed without 
 the consent of the bishop or the final decision of the emperor. 
 The bishop is not expressly invested with this controlling power 
 by the laws of the Merovingians ; but they enact that he must 
 be present at the trial of one of his clerks, which probably was 
 intended to declare the necessity of his concurrence in the judg- 
 ment. The episcopal order was indeed absolutely exempted from 
 secular jurisdiction by Justinian— a privilege which it had vainly 
 endeavoured to establish under the earlier emperors. France 
 permitted the same immunity; Chilperic, one of the most arbi- 
 trary of her kings, did not venture to charge some of his bishops 
 with treason, except before a council of their brethren. Finally, 
 Charlemagne seems to have extended to the whole body of the 
 clergy an absolute exemption from the judicial authority of the 
 
 magistrate.^^ 
 
 3. The character of a cause, as well as of the parties engaged, 
 might bring it within the limits of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. ^ In 
 all questions simply religious the Church had an original right 
 of decision; in those of a temporal nature the civil magistrate 
 had, by the imperial constitution, as exclusive an authority.^^ 
 Later ages witnessed strange innovations in this respect, when 
 the spiritual courts usurped, under sophistical pretences, almost 
 the whole administration of justice. But these encroachments 
 were not, I apprehend, very striking till the twelfth century; 
 and as about the same time measures, more or less vigorous and 
 successful, began to be adopted in order to restrain them, I shall 
 defer this part of the subject for the present. 
 
 In this sketch of the riches and jurisdiction of the hierarchy 
 I may seem to have implied their political influence, which is 
 naturally connected with the two former. They possessed, how- 
 ever, more direct means of acquiring temporal power. Even 
 under the Roman emperors they had found their road into pal- 
 aces ; they were sometimes ministers, more often secret coun- 
 sellors, always necessary but formidable allies, whose support 
 was to be conciliated and interference to be respected. But they 
 
 " " Memoires de rAcademie," ubi su- 
 pra; Giannone, 1. iii, c. 6; Schmidt, tome 
 li, p. 236; Fleury, ubi supra. 
 
 Some of these writers do not state the 
 law of Charlemagne so strongly. Never- 
 theless, the words of a capitulary in 789, 
 Ut clerici ecclesiastic! orainis si culpam 
 incurrerint apud ecclesiasticos judicen- 
 tur, non apud saeculares, are sufficiently 
 general (" Baluz. Capitul.," tome i, p. 
 227) I and the same is expressed still more 
 forcibly in the collection published by 
 
 Ansegisus under Louis the Debonair. 
 (Id., pp. 904 and 1115. See other proofs 
 in Fleury, " Hist. Eccles.," tome ix, 
 p. 607.) 
 
 '^ Quoties de religione agitur, episco- 
 pos oportet judicare; alteras vero causas 
 quae ad ordinarios cognitores vel ad usum 
 public! juris pertinent, legibus oportet 
 audiri. (" Lex Arcadii et Honorii," apud 
 " Mem. de I'Academie," tome xxxix, 
 p. 571.) 
 
POLITICAL POWER OF THE CLERGY 417 
 
 assumed a far more decided influence over the new kingdoms 
 of the West. They were entitled, in the first place, by the nature 
 of those free governments, to a privilege unknown under the 
 imperial despotism, that of assisting in the deliberative assem- 
 blies of the nation. Councils of bishops, such as had been con- 
 voked by Constantine and his successors, were limited in their 
 functions to decisions of faith or canons of ecclesiastical disci- 
 pline. But the northern nations did not so well preserve the dis- 
 tinction between secular and spiritual legislation. The laity 
 seldom, perhaps, gave their suffrage to the canons of the Church ; 
 but the Church was not so scrupulous as to trespassing upon the 
 province of the laity. Many provisions are found in the canons 
 of national and even provincial councils which relate to the tem- 
 poral constitution of the state. Thus one held at Calcluith (an 
 unknown place in England), in 787, enacted that none but legiti- 
 mate princes should be raised to the throne, and not such as were 
 engendered in adultery or incest. But it is to be observed that, 
 although this synod was strictly ecclesiastical, being summoned 
 by the Pope's legate, yet the Kings of Mercia and Northumber- 
 land, with many of their nobles, confirmed the canons by their 
 signature. As for the councils held under the Visigoth Kings of 
 Spain during the seventh century, it is not easy to determine 
 whether they are to be considered as ecclesiastical or temporal 
 assemblies,^® No kingdom was so thoroughly under the bondage 
 of the hierarchy as Spain.*® The first dynasty of France seem 
 to have kept their national convention, called the Field of March, 
 more distinct from merely ecclesiastical councils. 
 
 The bishops acquired and retained a great part of their as- 
 cendency by a very respectable instrument of power — intellectual 
 superiority. As they alone were acquainted with the art of writ- 
 ing, they were naturally intrusted with political correspondence, 
 and with the framing of the laws. As they alone knew the ele- 
 ments of a few sciences, the education of royal families devolved 
 upon them as a necessary duty. In the fall of Rome their influ- 
 ence upon the barbarians wore down the asperities of conquest, 
 and saved the provincials half the shock of that tremendous revo- 
 lution. As captive Greece is said to have subdued her Roman 
 conqueror, so Rome, in her own turn of servitude, cast the fetters 
 of a moral captivity upon the fierce invaders of the north. Chiefly 
 through the exertions of the bishops, whose ambition may be 
 forgiven for its effects, her religion, her language, in part even 
 her laws, were transplanted into the courts of Paris and Toledo, 
 which became a degree less barbarous by imitation.*^ 
 
 "Marina, " Teoria de las Cortes," Eccles.," tome viii, pp. 368, 397; tome ix, 
 tome i, p. 9. p, 68, etc. 
 
 *" See instances of the temporal power ** Schmidt, tome i, p. 365. 
 
 of the Spanish bishops in Fleury, " Hist. 
 27 
 
4i8 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the great authority and privileges 
 of the Church, it was decidedly subject to the supremacy of the 
 crown, both during the continuance of the Western Empire and 
 after its subversion. The emperors convoked, regulated, and 
 dissolved universal councils ; the Kings of France and Spain 
 exercised the same right over the synods of their national 
 churches.*^ The Ostrogoth Kings of Italy fixed by their edicts 
 the limits within which matrimony was prohibited on account 
 of consanguinity, and granted dispensations from them.*^ 
 Though the Roman emperors left episcopal elections to the 
 clergy and people of the diocese, in which they were followed 
 by the Ostrogoths and Lombards, yet they often interfered so 
 far as to confirm a decision or to determine a contest. The Kings 
 of France went further, and seem to have invariably either nomi- 
 nated the bishops, or, what was nearly tantamount, recommended 
 their own candidate to the electors. 
 
 But the sovereign who maintained with the greatest vigour 
 his ecclesiastical supremacy was Charlemagne. Most of the 
 capitularies of his reign relate to the discipline of the Church ; 
 principally, indeed, taken from the ancient canons, but not the 
 less receiving an additional sanction from his authority.** Some 
 of his regulations, which appear to have been original, are such 
 as men of high-church principles would, even in modern times, 
 deem infringements of spiritual independence : that no legend of 
 doubtful authority should be read in the churches, but only the 
 canonical books, and that no saint should be honoured whom 
 the whole Church did not acknowledge. These were not passed 
 in a synod of bishops, but enjoined by the sole authority of the 
 emperor, who seems to have arrogated a legislative power over 
 the Church which he did not possess in temporal affairs. Many 
 of his other laws relating to the ecclesiastical constitution are en- 
 acted in a general council of the lay nobility as well as of prelates, 
 and are so blended with those of a secular nature that the two 
 orders may appear to have equally consented to the whole. His 
 father Pepin, indeed, left a remarkable precedent in a council 
 held in 744, where the Nicene faith is declared to be established, 
 and even a particular heresy condemned, with the consent of the 
 bishops and nobles. But whatever share we may imagine the 
 laity in general to have had in such matters, Charlemagne him- 
 self did not consider even theological decisions as beyond his 
 
 ** Encyclopedic, art. Concile. Schmidt, Soain, down to the eleventh century, see 
 
 tome i, p. 384. De Marca, " De Con- Marina, " Ensayo sobre las Siete Parti- 
 
 cordantia Sacerdotii et Imperii," 1. ii, das," c. 322, etc, and De Marca, 1. vi, 
 
 chaps. 9, 11; et 1. iv, passim. c. 23. 
 
 The last of these sometimes endeav- *^ Giannone, 1. iii, c. 6. 
 
 ours to extenuate the royal supremacy, ** *' Baluzii Capitularia," passim ; 
 
 but his own work furnishes abundant Schmidt, tome ii. p. 239; Gaillard, "Vie 
 
 evidence of it, especially 1. vi, c. 19, etc. de Charlemagne," tome iii. 
 For the ecclesiastical independence of 
 
SUPREMACY OF THE STATE 
 
 419 
 
 province ; and, in more than one instance, manifested a deter- 
 mination not to surrender his own judgment, even in questions 
 of that nature, to any ecclesiastical authority.^*^ 
 
 This part of Charlemagne's conduct is duly to be taken into 
 the account before we censure his vast extension of ecclesiastical 
 privileges. Nothing was more remote from his character than 
 the bigotry of those weak princes who have suffered the clergy 
 to reign under their names. He acted upon a systematic plan 
 of government, conceived by his own comprehensive genius, but 
 requiring too continual an application of similar talents for 
 durable execution. It was the error of a superior mind, zealous 
 for religion and learning to believe that men dedicated to the 
 functions of the one, and possessing what remained of the other, 
 might, through strict rules of discipline, enforced by the con- 
 stant vigilance of the sovereign, become fit instruments to reform 
 and civilize a barbarous empire. It was the error of a magnani- 
 mous spirit to judge too favourably of human nature, and to pre- 
 sume that great trusts would be fulfilled and great benefits re- 
 membered. 
 
 It is highly probable, indeed, that an ambitious hierarchy 
 did not endure without reluctance this imperial supremacy of 
 Charlemagne, though it was not expedient for them to resist 
 a prince so formidable, and from whom they had so much to 
 expect. But their dissatisfaction at a scheme of government 
 incompatible with their own objects of perfect independence pro- 
 duced a violent recoil under Louis the Debonair, who attempted 
 to act the censor of ecclesiastical abuses with as much earnest- 
 ness as his father, though with very inferior qualifications for so 
 delicate an undertaking. The bishops, accordingly, were among 
 the chief instigators of those numerous revolts of his children 
 which harassed this emperor. They set, upon one occasion, the 
 first example of a usurpation which was to become very danger- 
 ous to society — the deposition of sovereigns by ecclesiastical 
 authority. Louis, a prisoner in the hands of his enemies, had 
 
 ** Charlemagne had apparently de- 
 vised an ecclesiastical theory, which 
 would now be called Erastian, and per- 
 haps not very short of that of Henry 
 VIII. He directs the clergy what to 
 preach in his own name, and uses the 
 first person in ecclesiastical canons. Yet, 
 if we may judge by the events, the bish- 
 ops lost no part of their permanent as- 
 cendency in the state through this inter- 
 ference, though compelled to acknowl- 
 edge the supremacy of a great mind. By 
 a vigorous repression of those secular 
 propensities which were displaying them- 
 selves among the superior clergy, he en- 
 deavoured to render their moral influ- 
 ence rnore effective. This, however, could 
 not be achieved in the ninth century; 
 nor could it have been brought about 
 
 by any external power. Nor was it 
 easily consistent with the continual pres- 
 ence of the bishops in national assem- 
 blies, which had become essential to the 
 polity of his age, and with which he 
 would not, for several reasons, have 
 wholly dispensed. Yet it appears, by a 
 remarkable capitulary of 811, that he had 
 perceived the inconvenience of allowing 
 the secular and spiritual powers to clash 
 with each other: Discutiendum est atque 
 interveniendum in quantum se episcopus 
 aut abbas rebus secularibus debeat in- 
 serere, vel in quantum comes, vel alter 
 laicus, in ecclesiastica negotia. But as 
 the laity, himself excepted, had probably 
 interfered very little in church affairs, 
 this capitulary seems to be restrictive 
 of the prelates. 
 
420 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 been intimidated enough to undergo a public penance; and the 
 bishops pretended that, according to a canon of the Church, he 
 was incapable of returning afterward to a secular life or preserv- 
 ing the character of sovereignty.*^ Circumstances enabled him 
 to retain the empire in defiance of this sentence ; but the Church 
 had tasted the pleasure of trampling upon crowned heads, and 
 was eager to repeat the experiment. Under the disjointed and 
 feeble administration of his posterity in their several kingdoms, 
 the bishops availed themselves of more than one opportunity 
 to exalt their temporal power. Those weak Carlovingian princes, 
 in their mutual animosities, encouraged the pretensions of a com- 
 mon enemy. Thus Charles the Bald and Louis of Bavaria, hav- 
 ing driven their brother Lothaire from his dominions, held an 
 assembly of some bishops, who adjudged him unworthy to reign, 
 and, after exacting a promise from the two allied brothers to 
 govern better than he had done, permitted and commanded them 
 to divide his territories.*^ After concurring in this unprecedented 
 encroachment, Charles the Bald had little right to complain when, 
 some years afterward, an assembly of bishops declared himself 
 to have forfeited his crown, released his subjects from their alle- 
 giance, and transferred his kingdom to Louis of Bavaria. But, 
 in truth, he did not pretend to deny the principle which he had 
 contributed to maintain. Even in his own behalf he did not 
 appeal to the rights of sovereigns, and of the nation whom they 
 represent. '' No one,'' says this degenerate grandson of Charle- 
 magne, '' ought to have degraded me from the throne to which 
 I was consecrated, until at least I had been heard and judged 
 by the bishops, through whose ministry I was consecrated, who 
 
 ■•* Habitu saeculi se exuens habitum 
 pcenitentis per impositionem manuum 
 episcoporum suscepit; ut post tantam 
 talemque poenitentiam nemo ultra ad 
 militiam ssecularem redeat. Acta ex- 
 auctorationis Ludovici, apud Schmidt, 
 tome ii, p. 68. There was a sort of prece- 
 dent, though not, I think, very apposite, 
 for this doctrine of implied abdication, 
 in the case of Wamba, King of the Visi- 
 goths in Spain, who, having been clothed 
 with a monastic dress, according to a 
 common superstition, during a dangerous 
 illness, was afterward adjudged by a 
 council incapable of resuming his crown, 
 to which he voluntarily submitted. The 
 story, as told by an original writer, 
 quoted in Baronius ad a. d. 68i, is too 
 obscure to warrant any positive infer- 
 ence; though I think we may justly 
 suspect a fraudulent contrivance between 
 the bishops and Ervigius, the successor 
 of Wamba. The latter, besides his mo- 
 nastic attire, had received the last sacra- 
 ments; after which he might be deemed 
 civilly dead. Fleury, " 3me Discours sur 
 I'Hist. Ecclesiast.," puts this case too 
 strongly when he tells us that the bishops 
 
 deposed Wamba; it may have been a 
 voluntary abdication, influenced by su- 
 perstition, or, perhaps, by disease. A 
 late writer has taken a different view of 
 this event, the deposition of Louis at 
 Compiegne. It was not, he thinks, una 
 hardiesse sacerdotale, une temerite eccle- 
 siastique, mais bien une lachete politique, 
 Ce n'etait point une tentative pour 
 clever I'autorite religieuse au-dessus de 
 Tautorite royale dans les affaires tempo- 
 relies; c'etait, au contraire, un abaisse- 
 ment servile de la premiere devant le 
 monde. (Fauriel, " Hist, de la Gaule Me- 
 ndtonale," iv, 150.) In other words, the 
 bishops lent themselves to the aristocratic 
 faction which was in rebellion against 
 Louis. Ranke, as has been seen in an 
 early note, thinks that they acted out of 
 revenge for his deviation from the law of 
 817, which established the unity of the 
 empire. The bishops, in fact, had so 
 many secular and personal interests and 
 sympathies that we can not always judge 
 of their behaviour upon general prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 " Schmidt, tome ii, p. tj. Velly, tome 
 n, p. 61; see, too, p. 74. 
 
PRETENSIONS OF THE HIERARCHY 
 
 421 
 
 are called the thrones of God, in which God sitteth, and by whom 
 he dispenses his judgments ; to whose paternal chastisement I 
 was willing to submit, and do still submit myself." ^^ 
 
 These passages are very remarkable, and afford a decisive 
 proof that the power obtained by national churches, through 
 the superstitious prejudices then received, and a train of favour- 
 able circumstances, was as dangerous to civil government as 
 the subsequent usurpations of the Roman pontiff, against which 
 Protestant writers are apt too exclusively to direct their animad- 
 versions. Voltaire, I think, has remarked that the ninth century 
 was the age of the bishops, as the eleventh and twelfth were of 
 the popes. It seemed as if Europe was about to pass under as 
 absolute a domination of the hierarchy as had been exercised 
 by the priesthood of ancient Egypt or the Druids of Gaul. There 
 is extant a remarkable instrument recording the election of 
 Boson, King of Aries, by which the bishops alone appear to have 
 elevated him to the throne, without any concurrence of the nobil- 
 ity.'*^ But it is inconceivable that such could have really been 
 the case; and if the instrument is genuine, we must suppose it 
 to have been framed in order to countenance future pretensions. 
 For the clergy, by their exclusive knowledge of Latin, had it in 
 their power to mould the language of public documents for their 
 own purposes ; a circumstance which should be cautiously kepi 
 in mind when we peruse instruments drawn up during the dark 
 ages. 
 
 It was with an equal defiance of notorious truth that the 
 Bishop of Winchester, presiding as papal legate at an assembly 
 of the clergy in 1141, during the civil war of Stephen and Matilda 
 asserted the right of electing a King of England to appertain 
 principally to that order, and, by virtue of this unprecedented 
 claim, raised Matilda to the throne.^^ England, indeed, has beer 
 obsequious, beyond most other countries, to the arrogance oj 
 her hierarchy ; especially during the Anglo-Saxon period, wher 
 the nation was sunk in ignorance and effeminate superstition 
 Every one knows the story of King Edwy in some form or other 
 though I believe it impossible to ascertain the real circumstances 
 of that controverted anecdote. ^^ But, upon the supposition leasi 
 favourable to the king, the behaviour of Archbishop Odo anc 
 Dunstan was an intolerable outrage of spiritual tyranny. 
 
 But while the prelates of these nations, each within his re- 
 spective sphere, were prosecuting their system of encroachmem 
 
 4 
 
 *8 Schmidt, tome ii, p. 217. que primo in auxlium Divinitate, filiar 
 
 *" " Recueil des Historiens," tome ix, pacifici regis, etc., in Anglia Norman 
 
 p. 304. niaeque dominam eligimus, et ei fider 
 
 ^^ Ventilata est causa, says the legate, et manutenementum promittimus. (Gul 
 
 coram majori parte cleri Angliae, ad Malmsb., p. 188.) 
 
422 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 upon the laity, a new scheme was secretly forming within the 
 bosom of the Church, to enthral both that and the temporal gov- 
 ernments of the world under an ecclesiastical monarch. Long 
 before the earliest epoch that can be fixed for modern history, 
 and, indeed, to speak fairly, almost as far back as ecclesiastical 
 testimonies can carry us, the Bishops of Rome had been venerated 
 as first in rank among the rulers of the Church. The nature of 
 this primacy is doubtless a very controverted subject. It is, 
 however, reduced by some moderate Catholics to little more 
 than a precedency attached to the See of Rome in consequence 
 of its foundation by the chief of the apostles, as well as the dig- 
 nity of the imperial city.^^ A sort of general superintendence was 
 admitted as an attribute of this primacy, so that the Bishops of 
 Rome were entitled, and indeed bound, to remonstrate when any 
 error or irregularity came to their knowledge, especially in the 
 Western churches, a greater part of which had been planted by 
 them, and were connected, as it were by filiation, with the com- 
 mon capital of the Roman Empire and of Christendom.^^ Vari- 
 ous causes had a tendency to prevent the Bishops of Rome from 
 augmenting their authority in the East, and even to diminish 
 that which they had occasionally exercised — the institution of 
 patriarchs at Antioch, Alexandria, and afterward at Constanti- 
 nople, with extensive rights of jurisdiction ; the difference of 
 rituals and discipline ; but, above all, the many disgusts taken by 
 the Greeks, which ultimately produced an irreparable schism be- 
 tween the two churches in the ninth century. But within the 
 pale of the Latin Church every succeeding age enhanced the 
 power and dignity of the Roman See. By the constitution of the 
 Church, such at least as it became in the fourth century, its 
 divisions being arranged in conformity to those of the empire, 
 every province ought to have its metropolitan, and every vicari- 
 ate its ecclesiastical exarch or primate. The Bishop of Rome 
 presided, in the latter capacity, over the Roman vicariate, com- 
 prehending southern Italy and the three chief Mediterranean 
 
 ''^ These foundations of the Roman pri- 
 macy are indicated by Valentinian III, 
 a great favourer of that see, in a novel of 
 the year 455: Cum igitur sedis aposto- 
 licae primatum E. Petri meritum, qui 
 est princeps sacerdotalis coronae et Ro- 
 manae dignitas civitatis, sacraj etiam sy- 
 nodi firmavit auctoritas. The last words 
 allude to the sixth canon of the Nicene 
 Council, which establishes or recognises 
 the patriarchal supremacy, in their re- 
 spective districts, of the Churches of 
 Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. (De 
 Marca, " De Concordantia Sacerdotii et 
 Imperii," 1. i, c. 8.) At a much earlier 
 period, Irenaeus rather vaguely, and Cvp- 
 rian more positively, admit, or rather 
 assert, the primacy of the Church of 
 Rome, which the latter seems even to 
 
 have considered as a kind of centre of 
 Catholic unity, though he resisted every 
 attempt of that church to arrogate a con- 
 trolling power.— See his treatise, " De 
 Unitate Ecclesise," 1818. [Note III.] 
 
 " Dupin, " De antiqua Ecclesiae Dis- 
 ^Pl'.na. p. 306 et seq.; " Histoire du 
 Droit Public Ecclesiastique Frangois," p. 
 149- The opinion of the Roman See^s 
 supremacy, though apparently rather a 
 vague and general notion, as it still con- 
 P""^?. .JP those Catholics who deny its 
 infallibility, seems to have prevailed very 
 much in the fourth century. Fleury 
 brings remarkable proofs of this from the 
 writings of Socrates, Sozomen, Ammi- 
 anus Marcelhnus, and Optatus. ("Hist. 
 Eccles., tome iii, pp. 282, 320, 449; tome 
 
 IV, p. 227.) ' -r^y, 
 
RISE OF THE PAPAL POWER 
 
 423 
 
 islands. But, as it happened, none of the ten provinces forming 
 this division had any metropoHtan ; so that the popes exercised 
 all metropolitical functions within them, such as the consecra- 
 tion of bishops, the convocation of synods, the ultimate decision 
 of appeals, and many other sorts of authority. These provinces 
 are sometimes called the Roman patriarchate; the Bishops of 
 Rome having always been reckoned one, generally indeed the 
 first, of the patriarchs ; each of whom was at the head of all the 
 metropolitans within his limits, but without exercising those 
 privileges which by the ecclesiastical constitution appertained to 
 the latter. Though the Roman patriarchate, properly so called, 
 was comparatively very small in extent, it gave its chief, for the 
 reason mentioned, advantages in point of authority which the 
 others did not possess.^* 
 
 I may perhaps appear to have noticed circumstances inter- 
 esting only to ecclesiastical scholars. But it is important to ap- 
 prehend this distinction of the patriarchate from the primacy of 
 Rome, because it was by extending the boundaries of the former, 
 and by applying the maxims of her administration in the south 
 of Italy to all the Western churches, that she accomplished the 
 first object of her scheme of usurpation, in subverting the pro- 
 vincial system of government under the metropolitans. Their 
 first encroachment of this kind was in the province of Illyricum, 
 which they annexed in a manner to their own patriarchate, by 
 not permitting any bishops to be consecrated without their con- 
 sent.'^® This was before the end of the fourth century. Their 
 subsequent advances were, however, very gradual. About the 
 middle of the sixth century we find them confirming the elec- 
 tions of Archbishops of Milan.^^ They came by degrees to exer- 
 cise, though not always successfully, and seldom without oppo- 
 sition, an appellant jurisdiction over the causes of bishops de- 
 posed or censured in provincial synods. This, indeed, had been 
 " granted, if we believe the fact, by the canons of a very early 
 council, that of Sardica, in 347, so far as to permit the Pope 
 to order a revision of the process, but not to annul the sentence." 
 Valentinian III, influenced by Leo the Great, one of the most 
 
 "^Dupin, " De Antiqua Eccles. Disci- 
 pHna," p. 30, etc.; Giannone, "1st. di 
 Napoli, 1. 11, c. 8; 1. iii, c. 6; De Marca, 
 1- i, c. 7 et alibi. There is some disagree- 
 ment among these writers as to the ex- 
 tent of the Roman patriarchate, which 
 some suppose to have even at first com- 
 prehended all the Western churches, 
 though they admit that, in a more par- 
 ticular sense, it was confined to the 
 vicariate of Rome. 
 
 /»Dupin, p. 66; Fleury, "Hist. Ec- 
 cles.," tome V, p. 373. The ecclesiastical 
 province of Illyricum included Mace- 
 donia. Siricius, the author of this en- 
 
 croachment, seems to have been one of 
 the first usurpers. In a letter to the 
 Spanish bishops (a. d. 375), he exalts 
 his own authority very high. (De Marca, 
 1. i, c. 8.) 
 
 8« St. Marc, tome i, pp. i39, i53-. 
 
 " Dupin, p. 109; De Marca, 1. vi, c. 14. 
 These canons have been questioned, and 
 Dupin does not seem to lay much stress 
 on their authority, though I do not per- 
 ceive that either he or Fleury (" Hist. 
 Eccles.," tome iii, p. 372) doubts their 
 genuineness. Sardica was a city of Illyri- 
 cum, which the translator of Mosheim has 
 confounded with Sardes. 
 
424 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ambitious of pontiffs, had gone a great deal further, and estab^ 
 Hshed almost an absolute judicial supremacy in the Holy See.*^® 
 But the metropolitans were not inclined to surrender their pre- 
 rogatives ; and, upon the whole, the papal authority had made 
 no decisive progress in France, or perhaps anywhere beyond 
 Italy, till the pontificate of Gregory I. 
 
 This celebrated person was not distinguished by learning, 
 which he affected to depreciate, nor by his literary performances, 
 which the best critics consider as below mediocrity, but by quali- 
 ties more necessary for his purpose — intrepid ambition and un- 
 ceasing activity. He maintained a perpetual correspondence with 
 the emperors and their ministers, with the sovereigns of the 
 Western kingdoms, with all the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, 
 employing, as occasion dictated, the language of devotion, arro- 
 gance, or adulation.^^ Claims hitherto disputed, or half preferred, 
 assumed under his hands a more definite form, and nations too 
 ignorant to compare precedents or discriminate principles yielded 
 to assertions confidently made by the authority which they most 
 respected. Gregory dwelt more than his predecessors upon the 
 power of the keys, exclusively, or at least principally, committed 
 to St. Peter, which had been supposed in earlier times, as it is 
 now by the Gallican Catholics, to be inherent in the general body 
 of bishops, joint sharers of one indivisible episcopacy. And thus 
 the patriarchal rights, being manifestly of mere ecclesiastical in- 
 stitution, were artfully confounded or, as it were, merged in the 
 more paramount supremacy of the papal chair. From the time 
 of Gregory the popes appear in a great measure to have thrown 
 away that scaffolding, and relied in preference on the pious ven- 
 eration of the people, and on the opportunities which might 
 
 Consultations or references to the 
 Bishop of Rome, in difficult cases of faith 
 or discipline, had been common in early 
 ages, and were even made by provincial 
 and national councils. But these were 
 also made to other bishops eminent for 
 personal merit or the dignity of their 
 sees. The popes endeavoured to claim 
 this as a matter of right. Innocent I 
 asserts (a. r>. 402) that he w^as to be 
 consulted, quoties fidei ratio ventilatur; 
 and Gelasius (a. d, 492), quantum ad re- 
 ligionem pertinet, non nisi apostolicae 
 sedi, juxta canones, debetur summa ju- 
 dicii totius. As the oak is in the acorn, 
 so did these maxims contain the system 
 of Bellarmin. (De Marca, 1. i, c. 10, and 
 1. vii, c. 12; Dupin.) 
 
 ''^ Some bishops belonging to the prov- 
 ince of Hilary, metropolitan of Aries, ap- 
 pealed from his sentence to Leo, who 
 not only entertained their appeal, but 
 presumed to depose Hilary. This as- 
 sumption of power would have had little 
 effect if it had not been seconded by the 
 emperor in very unguarded language ; 
 hoc perenni sanctione decernimus, ne 
 
 quid tarn episcopis Gallicanis, quam ali- 
 arum provinciarum, contra consuetu- 
 dinem veterem liceat sine auctoritate 
 viri venerabilis papa; urbis aeternae ten- 
 tare; sed illis omnibusque pro lege sit, 
 quidquid sanxit vel sanxerit apostolicae 
 sedis auctoritas. (De Marca, " De Con- 
 cordantia Sacerdotii et Imperii," 1. i, c. 
 8.) The same emperor enacted that any 
 bishop who refused to attend the tribunal 
 of the Pope when summoned should be 
 compelled by the governor of his prov- 
 ince; ut quisquis episcoporum ad ju- 
 dicium Romani episcopi evocatus venire 
 neglexerit, per moderatorem ejusdem pro- 
 vinciae adesse cogatur. (Id., 1. vii, c. 13; 
 Dupin, •' De Ant. Discipl.," pp. 29 et 
 171.) 
 
 ^»The flattering style in which this 
 pontiff addressed Brunehaut and Phocas, 
 the most flagitious monsters of his time, 
 is mentioned in all civil and ecclesiastical 
 history. Fleury quotes a remarkable 
 letter to the Patriarchs of Antioch and 
 Alexandria wherein he says that St, 
 Peter has one see, divided into three, 
 Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria; stoop- 
 
GREGORY I 
 
 425 
 
 occur for enforcing their dominion with the pretence of divine 
 authority.^*^ 
 
 It can not, I think, be said that any material acquisitions of 
 ecclesiastical power were obtained by the successors of Gregory 
 for nearly one hundred and fifty years. ^^ As none of them pos- 
 
 ing to this absurdity, and inconsistence 
 with his real system, in order to concili- 
 ate their alliance against his more im- 
 mediate rival, the Patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople. ('* Hist. Eccles.," tome viii, 
 p. 124.) 
 
 <«» Gregory seems to have established 
 the appellant jurisdiction of the See of 
 Rome, which had been long in suspense. 
 Stephen, a Spanish bishop, having been 
 deposed, appealed to Rome. Gregory 
 sent a legate to Spain, with full powers 
 to confirm or rescind the sentence. He 
 says in his letter on this occasion, a 
 sede apostolica, quae omnium ecclesi- 
 arum caput est, causa hsec audienda ac 
 didimenda fuerat. (De Marca, 1. vii, c. 
 18.) In writing to the Bishops of France, 
 he enjoins them to obey Virgilius, Bishop 
 of Aries, whom he has appointed his 
 legate in France, secundum antiquam 
 consuetudinem; so that, if any conten- 
 tion should arise in the Church, he may 
 appease it by his authority, as vicegerent 
 of the apostolic see; auctoritatis suae 
 vigore, vicibus nempe apostolic3e sedis 
 functus, discreta moderatione compescat. 
 (" Gregorii Opera," tome ii, p. 783, edit. 
 Benedict.; Dupin, p. 3^; Pasquier, " Re- 
 cherches de la France, ' 1. iii, c. 9.) 
 
 ^'^ I observe that some modern publica- 
 tions annex considerable importance to 
 a supposed concession of the title of 
 universal bishop, made by the Emperor 
 Phocas in 606 to Boniface III, and even 
 appear to date the papal supremacy from 
 this epoch. Those who have imbibed this 
 notion may probably have been misled 
 by a loose expression in Mosheim's " Ec- 
 clesiastical History," vol. ii, p. 169, though 
 the general tenor of that passage by no 
 means gives countenance to their opin- 
 ion. But there are several strong objec- 
 tions to our considering this as a leading 
 fact, much less as marking an era in the 
 history of the papacy, i. Its truth, as 
 commonly stated, appears more than 
 questionable. The Roman pontiffs, Greg- 
 ory I and Boniface III, had been ve- 
 hemently opposing the assumption of 
 this title by the Patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople, not as due to themselves, but as 
 one to which no bishop could legitimately 
 pretend. There would be something al- 
 most ridiculous in the emperor's imme- 
 diately conferring an appellation on 
 themselves which they had just dis- 
 claimed ; and though this objection 
 would not stand against evidence, yet 
 when we find no better authority quoted 
 for the fact than Baronius, who is no 
 authority at all, it retains considerable 
 weight. And, indeed, the want of early 
 testimony is so decisive an objection 
 to any alleged historical fact that, but 
 for the strange prepossessions of some 
 
 men, one might rest the case here. 
 Fleury takes no notice of this part of the 
 story, though he tells us that Phocas 
 compelled the Patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople to resign his title. 2. But if the 
 strongest proof could be advanced for 
 the authenticity of this circumstance, we 
 might well deny its importance. The 
 concession of Phocas could have been of 
 no validity in Lombardy, France, and 
 other western countries, where neverthe- 
 less the papal supremacy was incom- 
 parably more established than in the 
 East. 3. Even within the empire it 
 could have had no efficacy after the vio- 
 lent death of that usurper, which fol- 
 lowed soon afterward. 4. The title of uni- 
 versal bishop is not very intelligible ; 
 but, whatever it meant, the Patriarchs of 
 Constantinople had borne it before, and 
 continued to bear it ever afterward. 
 (Dupin, " De Antiqua Disciplina," p. 329.) 
 5. The preceding popes, Pelagius II and 
 Gregory I had constantly disclaimed the 
 appellation, though it had been adopted 
 by some toward Leo the Great in the 
 Council of Chalcedon (Fleury, tome viii, 
 p. 95) ; nor does it appear to have been 
 retained by the successors of Boniface. 
 It is even laid down in the decretum of 
 Gratian that the Pope is not styled uni- 
 versal : nee etiam Romanus pontifex uni- 
 versalis appellatur (p. 303, edit. 1591), 
 though some refer its assumption to the 
 ninth century. (" Nouveau Traite de 
 Diplomatique," tome v, p. 93.) In fact, 
 it has never been a usual title. 6. The 
 popes had unquestionably exercised a spe- 
 cies of supremacy for more than two 
 centuries before this time, which had 
 lately reached a high point of authority 
 under Gregory I. The rescript of Valen- 
 tinian III in 455, quoted in a former 
 note, would certainly be more to the pur- 
 
 f)ose than the letter of Phocas. 7. Last- 
 y, there are no sensible marks of this 
 supremacy making a more rapid progress 
 for a century and a half after the pre- 
 tended grant of that emperor. [1818.] 
 The earliest mention of this transaction 
 that I have found, and one which puts 
 an end to the pretended concession of 
 such a title as universal bishop, is in a 
 brief general chronology, by Bede, en- 
 titled " De Temporum Ratione." He 
 only says of Phocas: Hie, rogante papa 
 Bonifacio, statuit sedem Romanae et apos- 
 tolica ecclesise caput esse omnium ec- 
 clesiarum, quia ecclesia Constantinopoli- 
 tana primam se omnium ecclesiarum 
 scribebat. (" Beda: Opera," cura Giles, 
 vol. vi, p. 323.) This was probably the 
 exact truth; and the subsequent additions 
 were made by some zealous partisans of 
 Rome, to be seized hold of in a later age, 
 and turned against her by some of her 
 
426 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 sessed vigour and reputation equal to his own, it might even 
 appear that the papal influence was retrograde. But in effect 
 the principles which supported it were taking deeper root, and 
 acquiring strength by occasional though not very frequent exer- 
 cise. Appeals to the Pope were sometimes made by prelates dis- 
 satisfied with a local sentence ; but his judgment of reversal was 
 not always executed, as we perceive by the instance of Bishop 
 Wilfrid.^^ National councils were still convoked by princes, and 
 canons enacted under their authority by the bishops who at- 
 tended. Though the Church of Lombardy was under great sub- 
 jection during this period, yet those of France, and even of Eng- 
 land, planted as the latter had been by Gregory, continued to 
 preserve a tolerable measure of independence.^^ The first strik- 
 ing infringement of this was made through the influence of an 
 Englishmen, Winfrid, better known as St. Boniface, the apostle 
 of Germany. Having undertaken the conversion of Thuringia, 
 and other still heathen countries, he applied to the Pope for a 
 commission, and was consecrated bishop without any determi- 
 nate see. Upon this occasion he took an oath of obedience, 
 and became ever afterward a zealous upholder of the apostolical 
 chair. His success in the conversion of Germany was great, his 
 reputation eminent, which enabled him to effect a material revo- 
 lution in ecclesiastical government. Pelagius H had, about 580, 
 sent a pallium, or vest peculiar to metropolitans, to the Bishop 
 of Aries, perpetual vicar of the Roman See in Gaul.^* Gregory 
 I had made a similar present to other metropolitans. But it 
 
 equally zealous enemies. The distinc- 
 tion generally made is, that the Pope is 
 " universalis ecclesia; episcopus," but not 
 " episcopus universalis "; that is, he has 
 no immediate jurisdiction in the dioceses 
 of other bishops, though he can correct 
 them for the undue exercise of their 
 own. The Ultramontanes, of course, go 
 further. 
 
 "2 I refer to the English historians for 
 the history of Wilfrid, which neither 
 altogether supports, nor much impeaches, 
 the independency of our Anglo-Saxon 
 Church in 700; a matter hardly worth so 
 much contention as Usher and Stilling- 
 fleet seem to have thought. The con- 
 secration of Theodore by Pope Vitalian 
 in 668 is a stronger fact, and can not be 
 got over by those injudicious Protestants 
 who take the bull by the horns. The 
 history of Wilfrid has been lately put in 
 a light as favourable as possible to him- 
 self and to the authority of Rome by Dr. 
 Lingard. We have for this to rely on 
 Eddius (published in Gale's " Scrip- 
 tores "), a panegyrist in the usual style 
 of legendary biography — a style which 
 has, on me at least, the effect of produc- 
 ing utter distrust. Mendacity is the badge 
 of all the tribe. Bede is more respect- 
 able; but in this case we do not learn 
 
 much from him. It seems impossible 
 to deny that, if Eddius is a trustworthy 
 historian, Dr. Lingard has made out his 
 case; and that we must own appeals to 
 Rome to have been recognised in the 
 Anglo-Saxon Church. Nor do I perceive 
 any improbability in this, considering 
 that the Church had been founded by 
 Augustin, and restored by Theodore, 
 both under the authority of the Roman 
 See. This intrinsic presumption is worth 
 more than the testimony of Eddius. But 
 we see by the rest of Wilfrid's history 
 that it was not easy to put the sentence 
 of Rome in execution. The plain facts 
 2^e that, having gone to Rome claiming 
 the See of York, and having had his 
 claim recognised by the Pope, he ended 
 his days as Bishop of Hexham. 
 
 «3 Schmidt, tome i, pp. 386, 394. 
 
 "* Ut ad instar suum, in Galliarum 
 partibus primi sacerdotis locum obtineat, 
 et quidquid ad gubernationem vel dis- 
 pensationem ecclesiastici status geren- 
 dum est, servatis patrum regulis, et sedis 
 apostohcaj constitutis, faciat. Prxterea, 
 pallium ilh concedit, etc. (Dupin, p. 34,) 
 Gregory I confirmed this vicariate to 
 Virgihus, Bishop of Aries, and gave him 
 the power of convoking synods. (De 
 Marca, 1. vi, c. 7.) 
 
SYNOD OF FRANKFORT 
 
 427 
 
 was never supposed that they were obliged to wait for this favour 
 before they received consecration, until a synod of the French 
 and German bishops, held at Frankfort in 742, by Boniface, as 
 legate of Pope Zachary. It was here enacted that, as a token 
 of their willing subjection to the See of Rome, all metropolitans 
 should request the pallium at the hands of the Pope, and obey 
 his lawful commands.*^^ This was construed by the popes to 
 mean a promise of obedience before receiving the pall, which 
 was changed in after times by Gregory VII into an oath of 
 fealty.^^ 
 
 This Council of Frankfort claims a leading place as an epoch 
 in the history of the papacy. Several events ensued, chiefly of a 
 political nature, which rapidly elevated that usurpation almost 
 to its greatest height. Subjects of the throne of Constantinople, 
 the popes had not as yet interfered, unless by mere admonition, 
 with the temporal magistrate. The first instance wherein the 
 civil duties of a nation and the rights of a crown appear to have 
 been submitted to his decision was in that famous reference as 
 to the deposition of Childeric. It is impossible to consider this 
 in any other light than as a point of casuistry laid before the 
 first rehgious judge in the Church. Certainly, the Franks who 
 raised the king of their choice upon their shields never dreamed 
 that a foreign priest had conferred upon him the right of govern- 
 ing. Yet it was easy for succeeding advocates of Rome to con- 
 strue this transaction very favourably for its usurpation over the 
 thrones of the earth.*^ 
 
 I shall but just glance at the subsequent political revolutions 
 of that period — the invasion of Italy by Pepin, his donation of 
 the exarchate to the Holy See, the conquest of Lombardy by 
 Charlemagne, the patriarchate of Rome conferred upon both 
 these princes, and the revival of the Western Empire in the per- 
 son of the latter. These events had a natural tendency to exalt 
 
 "^ Decrevimus, says Boniface, in nostro 
 synodali conventu, et confess! sumus 
 fidem catholicam, et unitatem et subjec- 
 tionem Romanae ecclesiae fine tenus ser- 
 vare, S. Petro et vicario ejus velle sub- 
 jici, metropolitanos pallia ab ilia sede 
 quaerere, et, per omnia, praecepta S. Pe- 
 tri canonice sequi. (De Marca, 1. vi, c. 
 7: Schmidt, tome i, pp. 424. 438. 446.) 
 This writer justly remarks the obligation 
 which Rome had to St. Boniface, who 
 anticipated the system of Isidore. We 
 have a letter from him to the English 
 clergy, with a copy of canons passed in 
 one of his synods, for the exaltation of 
 the apostolic see, but the Church of 
 England was not then inclined to ac- 
 knowledge so great a supremacy in 
 Rome. (Collier's " Eccles. History/' p. 
 128.) 
 
 In the eighth general council, that of 
 
 Constantinople in 872, this prerogative 
 of sending the pallium to metropolitans 
 was not only confirmed to the Pope, but 
 extended to the other patriarchs, who 
 had every disposition to become as great 
 usurpers as their more fortunate elder 
 brother. 
 
 ^" De Marca, ubi supra; Schmidt, tome 
 ii, p. 262. According to the latter, this 
 oath of fidelity was exacted in the ninth 
 century; which is very probable, since 
 Gregory VII himself did but fill up the 
 sketch which Nicholas I and John VlII 
 had delineated. I have since found this 
 confirmed by Gratia (p. 305). 
 
 *^ Eginhard says that Pepin was made 
 king per auctoritatem Romani pontificis; 
 an ambiguous word, which may rise to 
 command, or sink to advice, according 
 to the disposition of the interpreter. 
 
428 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 the papal supremacy, which it is needless to indicate. But a 
 circumstance of a very different nature contributed to this in a 
 still greater degree. About the conclusion of the eighth cen- 
 tury there appeared, under the name of one Isidore, an unknown 
 person, a collection of ecclesiastical canons, now commonly de- 
 nominated the ** False Decretals." ^® These purported to be re- 
 scripts or decrees of the early Bishops of Rome ; and their effect 
 was to diminish the authority of metropolitans over their suf- 
 fragans, by establishing an appellant jurisdiction of the Roman 
 See in all causes, and by forbidding national councils to be holden 
 without its consent. Every bishop, according to the decretals 
 of Isidore, was amenable only to the immediate tribunal of the 
 Pope, by which one of the most ancient rights of the provincial 
 synod was abrogated. Every accused person might not only 
 appeal from an inferior sentence, but remove an unfinished pro- 
 cess, before the supreme pontiff. And the latter, instead of di- 
 recting a revision of the proceedings by the original judges, 
 might annul them by his own authority ; a strain of jurisdiction 
 beyond the canons of Sardica, but certainly warranted by the 
 more recent practice of Rome. New sees were not to be erected, 
 nor bishops translated from one see to another, nor their resigna- 
 tions accepted, without the sanction of the Pope. They were still, 
 indeed, to be consecrated by the metropolitan, but in the Pope's 
 name. It has been plausibly suspected that these decretals were 
 forged by some bishop, in jealousy or resentment ; and their gen- 
 eral reception may at least be partly ascribed to such sentiments. 
 The archbishops were exceedingly powerful, and might often 
 abuse their superiority over inferior prelates ; but the whole epis- 
 copal aristocracy had abundant reason to lament their acquies- 
 cence in a system of which the metropolitans were but the earliest 
 victims. Upon these spurious decretals was built the great fabric 
 of papal supremacy over the different national churches — a fabric 
 which has stood after its foundation crumbled beneath it; for 
 no one has pretended to deny, for the last two centuries, that the 
 imposture is too palpable for any but the most ignorant ages to 
 
 credit. ^^ 
 
 «8The era of the False Decretals has 
 not been precisely fixed; they have sel- 
 dom been supposed, however, to have 
 appeared much before 800. But there 
 is a genuine collection of canons pub- 
 lished by Adrian I in 785, which contain 
 nearly the same principles, and many of 
 which are copied by Isidore, as well as 
 Charlemagne in his capitularies. (De 
 Marca, I. vii, c. 20: Giannone, 1. v, c. 6; 
 Dupm, " De Antiqua Disciplina," p. i.-?.^.) 
 Fleury (" Hist. Eccles.," tome ix, p. 500) 
 seems to consider the decretals as older 
 than this collection of Adrian; but I have 
 not observed the same opinion in any 
 
 other writer. The right of appeal from 
 a sentence of the metropolitan deposing 
 a bishop to the Holy Sec is positively 
 recognised in the capitularies of Louis 
 the Debonair (Baluze, p. 1000); the last 
 three books of which, according to the 
 collection of Ansegisus, are said to be 
 apostolica auctoritate roborata, quia his 
 cudendis maxime apostolica interfuit le- 
 gatio (p. 1132). 
 
 ^» I have not seen any account of the 
 decretals so clear and iudicious as in 
 Schmidt's " History of C.ermany," tome 
 n, p. 249. Indeed, all the ecclesiastical 
 part of that work is executed in a very 
 
PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS 
 
 429 
 
 The Galilean Church made for some time a spirited though 
 unavailing struggle against this rising despotism. Gregory IV, 
 having come into France to abet the children of Louis the Debo- 
 nair in their rebellion, and threatened to excommunicate the 
 bishops who adhered to the emperor, was repelled with indigna- 
 tion by those prelates. " If he comes here to excommunicate," 
 said they, " he shall depart hence excommunicated." '^^ In the 
 subsequent reign of Charles the Bald a bold defender of eccle- 
 siastical independence was found in Hincmar, Archbishop of 
 Rheims, the most distinguished statesman of his age. Appeals 
 to the Pope even by ordinary clerks had become common, and 
 the provincial councils, hitherto the supreme spiritual tribunal, 
 as well as legislature, were falling rapidly into decay. The frame 
 of church government, which had lasted from the third or fourth 
 century, was nearly dissolved ; a refractory bishop was sure to 
 invoke the supreme court of appeal, and generally met there with 
 a more favourable judicature. Hincmar, a man equal in ambi- 
 tion, and almost in public estimation, to any pontiff, sometimes 
 came off successfully in his contentions with Rome.'^^ But time 
 is fatal to the unanimity of coalitions ; the French bishops were 
 accessible to superstitious prejudice, to corrupt influence, to 
 mutual jealousy. Above all, they were conscious that a persua- 
 sion of the Pope's omnipotence had taken hold of the laity. 
 Though they complained loudly, and invoked, like patriots of 
 a dying state, names and principles of a freedom that was no 
 more, they submitted almost in every instance to the continual 
 usurpations of the Holy See. One of those which most annoyed 
 their aristocracy was the concession to monasteries of exemption 
 from episcopal authority. These had been very uncommon till 
 about the eighth century, after which they were studiously multi- 
 plied.'^^ It was naturally a favourite object with the abbots ; 
 
 superior manner. (See also De Marca, 1. 
 iii, c. 5; 1. vii, c. 20.) The latter writer, 
 frorn whom I have derived much infor- 
 mation, is by no means a strenuous ad- 
 versary of ultramontane pretensions. In 
 fact, it was his object to please both in 
 France and at Rome, to become both an 
 archbishop and a cardinal. He failed 
 nevertheless of the latter hope; it being 
 impossible at that time (1650) to satisfy 
 the papal court without sacrificing alto- 
 gether the Gallican Church and the 
 crown. 
 
 ^"De Marca, I. iv, c. 11; Velly, etc. 
 
 "De Marca. 1. iv, c. 68, etc.; 1. vi, 
 c, 14, 28; 1. vii, c. 21. Dupin, p. 13-?. 
 etc. " Hist, du Droit Eccles. Frangois." 
 pp. 188, 224. Velly, etc. Hincmar, how- 
 ever, was not consistent; for, having 
 obtained the See of Rheims in an equivo- 
 cal manner, he had applied for confirma- 
 tion at Rome, and in other respects im- 
 paired the Gallican rights. (Pasquier, 
 ' Recherches de la France," I. iii, c. 12,) 
 
 " The earliest instance of a papal ex- 
 emption is in 455, which, indeed, is a 
 respectable antiquity. Others scarcely 
 occur till the pontificate of Zachary in 
 the middle of the eighth century, who 
 granted an exemption to Monte Casino, 
 ita ut nullius juri subjaceat, nisi solius 
 Romani pontificis. (See this discussed 
 in Giannone, 1. v, c. 6.) Precedents for 
 the exemption of monasteries from epis- 
 copal jurisdiction occur in Marculfus's 
 forms compiled toward the end of the 
 seventh century, but these were by royal 
 authority. The Kings of France were 
 supreme heads of their national church. 
 (Schmidt, tome i, p. 382; De Marca, 1. 
 iii, c. 16; Fleury, "Institutions au Droit, 
 tome i, p. 228.) Muratori, Dissert. 70 
 (tome iii, p. 104, Italian), is of opinion 
 that exemptions of monasteries from epis- 
 copal visitation did not become frequent 
 in Italy till the eleventh century, and 
 that many charters of this kind are for- 
 geries. It is held also by some English 
 
430 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 and sovereigns, in those ages of blind veneration for monastic 
 establishments, were pleased to see their own foundations ren- 
 dered, as it would seem, more respectable by privileges of inde- 
 pendence. The popes had a closer interest in granting exemp- 
 tions, which attached to them the regular clergy, and lowered 
 the dignity of the bishops. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries 
 whole orders of monks were declared exempt at a single stroke ; 
 and the abuse began to awaken loud complaints, though it did 
 not fail to be aggravated afterward. 
 
 The principles of ecclesiastical supremacy were readily ap- 
 plied by the popes to support still more insolent usurpations. 
 Chiefs by divine commission of the whole Church, every earthly 
 sovereign must be subject to their interference. The bishops, 
 indeed, had, with the common weapons of their order, kept their 
 own sovereigns in check, and it could not seem any extraordinary 
 stretch in their supreme head to assert an equal prerogative. 
 Gregory IV, as I have mentioned, became a party in the revolt 
 against Louis I, but he never carried his threats of excommuni- 
 cation into effect. The first instance where the Roman pontiffs 
 actually tried the force of their arms against a sovereign was the 
 excommunication of Lothaire, King of Lorraine, and grandson 
 of Louis the Debonair. This prince had repudiated his wife, 
 upon unjust pretexts, but with the approbation of a national 
 council, and had subsequently married his concubine. Nicolas 
 I, the actual Pope, despatched two legates to investigate this 
 business, and decide according to the canons. They hold a 
 council at Metz, and confirm the divorce and marriage. Enraged 
 at this conduct of his ambassadors, the Pope summons a council 
 at Rome, annuls the sentence, deposes the Archbishops of Treves 
 and Cologne, and directs the king to discard his mistress. After 
 some shuffling on the part of Lothaire, he is excommunicated; 
 
 antiquaries that no Anglo-Saxon monas- 
 tery was exempt, and that the first in- 
 stance is that of Battle Abbey under the 
 Conqueror, the charters of an earlier 
 date having been forged. (Hody on 
 " Convocations," pp. 20 and 170.) It is 
 remarkable that this grant is made by 
 William, and confirmed by Lanfranc. 
 (Collier, p. 256.) Exemptions became 
 very usual in JEngland afterward. (Hen- 
 ry, vol. V, p. 337.) It is nevertheless to 
 be admitted that the bishops had exer- 
 cised an arbitrary and sometimes a ty- 
 rannical power over the secular clergy; 
 and after the monks became part of the 
 Church, which was before the close of 
 the sixth century, they also fell under a 
 control not always fairly exerted. Both 
 complained greatly, as the acts of coun- 
 cils bear witness: Un fait important et 
 trop peu remarque se revele 9a et la 
 dans le cours de cette epoque; c'est la 
 lutte des pretres de paroisse centre les 
 
 eveques. (Guizot, " Hist, de la Civilis. 
 en France, legon 13.) In this contention 
 the weaker must have given way: but the 
 regulars, sustained by public respect, 
 and having the countenance of the See 
 of Rome, which began to encroach upon 
 episcopal authority, came out successful 
 in securing themselves by exemptions 
 from the jurisdiction of the bishops. The 
 latter furnished a good pretext by their 
 own relaxation of manners. The mon- 
 asteries in the eighth and ninth centuries 
 seem not to have ^iven occasion to much 
 reproach, at least in comparison with the 
 prelacy. Au commencement du huitieme 
 siecle, I'eglise etait elle tombde dans un 
 desprdre presque e^al a celui de la societe 
 civile. Sans supeneurs et sans inferieurs 
 a redouter, degages de la surveillance des 
 metropolitains comme des conciles et de 
 I'infiuence des pretres, une foule d'eve- 
 ques se livraient aux plus scandaleux 
 exc^s. 
 
EXCOMMUNICATIONS 43 1 
 
 and, in a short time, we find both the king and his prelates, who 
 had begun with expressions of passionate contempt toward the 
 Pope, suing humbly for absolution at the feet of Adrian II, suc- 
 cessor of Nicolas, which was not granted without difficulty. In 
 all its most impudent pretensions the Holy See has attended to 
 the circumstances of the time. Lothaire had powerful neigh- 
 bours, the Kings of France and Germany, eager to invade his 
 dominions on the first intimation from Rome, while the real 
 scandalousness of his behaviour must have intimidated his con- 
 science and disgusted his subjects. 
 
 Excommunication, whatever opinions may be entertained as 
 to its religious efficacy, was originally nothing more in appear- 
 ance than the exercise of a right which every society claims — 
 the expulsion of refractory members from its body. No direct 
 temporal disadvantages attended this penalty for several ages ; 
 but as it was the most severe of spiritual censures, and tended 
 to exclude the object of it not only from a participation in re- 
 ligious rites, but in a considerable degree from the intercourse of 
 Christian society, it was used sparingly and upon the gravest 
 occasions. Gradually, as the Church became more powerful and 
 more imperious, excommunications were issued upon every 
 provocation, rather as a weapon of ecclesiastical warfare than 
 with any regard to its original intention. There was certainly 
 some pretext for many of these censures, as the only means of 
 defence within the reach of the clergy when their possessions 
 were lawlessly violated. "^^ Others were founded upon the neces- 
 sity of enforcing their contentious jurisdiction, which, while it 
 was rapidly extending itself over almost all persons and causes, 
 had not acquired any proper coercive process. The spiritual 
 courts in England, whose jurisdiction is so multifarious, and, 
 in general, so little of a religious nature, had till lately no means 
 even of compelling an appearance, much less of enforcing a sen- 
 tence, but by excommunication.'^* Princes who felt the inade- 
 quacy of their own laws to secure obedience called in the assist- 
 ance of more formidable sanctions. Several capitularies of 
 Charlemagne denounce the penalty of excommunication against 
 incendiaries or deserters from the army. Charles the Bald pro- 
 cured similar censures against his revolted vassals. Thus the 
 boundary between temporal and spiritual offences grew every 
 day less distinct ; and the clergy were encouraged to fresh en- 
 croachments as they discovered the secret of rendering them suc- 
 cessful.'^^ 
 
 The civil magistrate ought undoubtedly to protect the just 
 
 ■" Schmidt, tome iv, p. 217; Fleury, a process in contempt, was abolished in 
 
 " Institutions au Droit," tome ii, p. 192. England, but retained in Ireland. 
 
 ''* By a recent statute, 53 G., iii, c, 127, ^* " Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscript.," 
 
 the writ De excommunicato capiendo, as tome xxxix, p. 596, etc. 
 
432 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 rights and lawful jurisdiction of the Church. It is not so evi- 
 dent that he should attach temporal penalties to her censures. 
 Excommunication has never carried such a presumption of moral 
 turpitude as to disable a man, upon any solid principles, from 
 the usual privileges of society. Superstition and tyranny, how- 
 ever, decided otherwise. The support due to Church censures 
 by temporal judges is vaguely declared in the capitularies of 
 Pepin and Charlemagne. It became in later ages a more estab- 
 lished principle in France and England, and, I presume, in other 
 countries. By our common law an excommunicated person is 
 incapable of being a witness or of bringing an action, and he 
 may be detained in prison until he obtains absolution. By the 
 ** Establishments " of St. Louis, his estate or person might be 
 attached by the magistrate."^® These actual penalties were at- 
 tended by marks of abhorrence and ignominy still more calcu- 
 lated to make an impression on ordinary minds. They were 
 to be shunned, like men infected with leprosy, by their servants, 
 their friends, and their families. Two attendants only, if we may 
 trust a current history, remained with Robert, King of France, 
 who, on account of an irregular marriage, was put to this ban 
 by Gregory V, and these threw all the meats which had passed 
 his table into the fire."^^ Indeed, the mere intercourse with a 
 proscribed person incurred what was called the lesser excom- 
 munication, or privation of the sacraments, and required peni- 
 tence and absolution. In some places a bier was set before the 
 door of an excommunicated individual, and stones thrown at 
 his windows : a singular method of compelling his submission."^® 
 Everywhere the excommunicated were debarred of a regular 
 sepulture, which, though obviously a matter of police, has, 
 through the superstition of consecrating burial grounds, been 
 treated as belonging to ecclesiastical control. Their carcasses 
 were supposed to be incapable of corruption, which seems to 
 have been thought a privilege unfit for those who had died in 
 so irregular a manner."^^ 
 
 But as excommunication, which attacked only one and per- 
 haps a hardened sinner, was not always efficacious, the Church 
 had recourse to a more comprehensive punishment. For the 
 offence of a nobleman she put a county, for that of a prince his 
 entire kingdom, under an interdict or suspension of religious 
 
 '" " Ordonnances des Rois," tome i, p. 
 121. But an excommunicated person 
 might sue in the lay though not in the 
 spiritual court. No law seems to have 
 been so severe in this respect as that 
 of England, though it is not strictly ac- 
 curate to say with Dr. Cosens (Gibson's 
 "Codex," p. 1 102) that the writ De ex- 
 commun. capiendo is a privilege peculiar 
 to the English Church. 
 
 '' Velly, tome ii. 
 
 '8 Vaissette, " Hist, de Languedoc," 
 tome 111, appendix, p. 350; Du Cange, 
 voc. Excommunicatio. 
 
 ■'^ Du Cange, voc. Imblocatus: where 
 several authors are referred to, for the 
 constant opinion among the members of 
 the Greek Church that the bodies of 
 excommunicated persons remain in statu 
 quo. 
 
INTERDICTS 
 
 433 
 
 offices. No stretch of her tyranny was perhaps so outrageous 
 as this. During an interdict the churches were closed, the bells 
 silent, the dead unburied, no rite but those of baptism and ex- 
 treme unction performed. The penalty fell upon those who had 
 neither partaken nor could have prevented the offence ; and the 
 offence was often but a private dispute, in which the pride of a 
 pope or bishop had been wounded. Interdicts were so rare before 
 the time of Gregory VII that some have referred them to him 
 as their author; instances may, however, be found of an earlier 
 date, and especially that which accompanied the above-mentioned 
 excommunication of Robert, King of France. They were after- 
 ward issued not infrequently against kingdoms, but in particu- 
 lar districts they continually occurred.^^ 
 
 This was the mainspring of the machinery that the clergy 
 set in motion, the lever by which they moved the world. From 
 the moment that these interdicts and excommunications had been 
 tried the powers of the earth might be said to have existed only 
 by sufferance. Nor was the validity of such denunciations sup- 
 posed to depend upon their justice. The imposer, indeed, of an 
 unjust excommunication was guilty of a sin, but the party sub- 
 jected to it had no remedy but submission. He who disregards 
 such a sentence, says Beaumanoir, renders his good cause bad.®^ 
 And indeed, without annexing so much importance to the direct 
 consequences of an ungrounded censure, it is evident that the 
 received theory of religion concerning the indispensable obliga- 
 tion and mysterious efficacy of the rights of communion and 
 confession must have induced scrupulous minds to make any 
 temporal sacrifice rather than incur their privation. One is rather 
 surprised at the instances of failure than of success in the em- 
 ployment of these spiritual weapons against sovereigns or the 
 laity in general. It was perhaps a fortunate circumstance for 
 Europe that they were not introduced, upon a large scale, during 
 the darkest ages of superstition. In the eighth or ninth centuries 
 they would probably have met with a more implicit obedience. 
 But after Gregory VII, as the spirit of ecclesiastical usurpation 
 became more violent, there grew up by slow degrees an opposite 
 feeling in the laity, which ripened into an alienation of senti- 
 ment from the Church, and a conviction of that sacred truth 
 which superstition and sophistry have endeavoured to eradicate 
 from the heart of man, that no tyrannical government can be 
 founded on a divine commission. 
 
 Excommunications had very seldom, if ever, been levelled 
 at the head of a sovereign before the instance of Lothaire. His 
 
 *^ Giannone, 1. vii, c. i; Schmidt, tome 535; Fleury, "Institutions," tome ii, 
 iv, p. 220; Dupin, " De Antiqua Eccl, p. 200. 
 Disciplina," p. 288; St. Marc, tome ii, p. "P. 261. 
 
 28 
 
434 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ignominious submission and the general feebleness of the Carlo- 
 vingian line produced a repetition of the menace at least, and in 
 cases more evidently beyond the cognizance of a spiritual au- 
 thority. Upon the death of this Lothaire, his uncle, Charles the 
 Bald, having possessed himself of Lorraine, to which the Em- 
 peror Louis II had juster pretensions, the Pope Adrian II warned 
 him to desist, declaring that any attempt upon that country 
 would bring down the penalty of excommunication. Sustained 
 by the intrepidity of Hincmar, the king did not exhibit his usual 
 pusillanimity, and the Pope in this instance failed of success.®^ 
 But John VIII, the next occupier of the chair of St. Peter, car- 
 ried his pretensions to a height which none of his predecessors 
 had reached. The Carlovingian princes had formed an alliance 
 against Boson, the usurper of the kingdom of Aries. The Pope 
 writes to Charles the Fat : '' I have adopted the illustrious Prince 
 Boson as my son ; be content, therefore, with your own king- 
 dom, for I shall instantly excommunicate all who attempt to in- 
 jure my son." ^^ In another letter to the same king, who had 
 taken some property from a convent, he enjoins him to restore 
 it within sixty days, and to certify by an envoy that he had obeyed 
 the command, else an excommunication would immediately 
 ensue, to be followed by still severer castigation, if the king 
 should not repent upon the first punishment. ^^ These expres- 
 sions seem to intimate a sentence of deposition from his throne, 
 and thus anticipate by two hundred years the famous era of 
 Gregory VII, at which we shall soon arrive. In some respects 
 John VIII even advanced pretensions beyond those of Gregory. 
 He asserts very plainly a right of choosing the emperor, and may 
 seem indirectly to have exercised it in the election of Charles 
 the Bald, who had not primogeniture in his favour.®^ This 
 prince, whose restless ambition was united with meanness as well 
 as insincerity, consented to sign a capitulation, on his corona- 
 tion at Rome, in favour of the Pope and Church — a precedent 
 which was improved upon in subsequent ages.^*^ Rome was now 
 prepared to rivet her fetters upon sovereigns, and at no period 
 have the condition of society and the circumstances of civil 
 governrnent been so favourable for her ambition. But the con- 
 summation was still suspended, and even her progress arrested, 
 for more than a hundred and fifty years. This dreary interval 
 is filled up, in the annals of the papacy, by a series of revolutions 
 and crimes. Six popes were deposed, two murdered, one muti- 
 lated. Frequently two or even three competitors, among whom 
 it is not always possible by any genuine criticism to distinguish 
 
 S Pi Marca, 1. iy, c. n. ss <• b^i^^ Capitularia," tome ii, p. 
 
 »3 Schmidt, tome u, p. 260. 251; Schmidt, tome ii, p. 197. 
 ^* Durionbus deincens sciens te ver- ^ Schmidt, tome ii, p. 199. 
 
 beribus erudiendum. (Schmidt, p. 261.) 
 
CORRUPTION OF MORALS 
 
 435 
 
 the true shepherd, drove each other alternately from the city. 
 A few respectable names appear thinly scattered through this 
 darkness; and sometimes, perhaps, a pope who had acquired 
 estimation by his private virtues may be distinguished by some 
 encroachment on the rights of princes or the privileges of na- 
 tional churches. But in general the pontiffs of that age had 
 neither leisure nor capacity to perfect the great system of 
 temporal supremacy, and looked rather to a vile profit from 
 the sale of episcopal confirmations or of exemptions to monas- 
 teries.^^ 
 
 The corruption of the head extended naturally to all other 
 members of the Church. All writers concur in stigmatizing the 
 dissoluteness and neglect of decency that prevailed among the 
 clergy. Though several codes of ecclesiastical discipline had 
 been compiled by particular prelates, yet neither these nor the 
 ancient canons were much regarded. The bishops, indeed, who 
 were to enforce them had most occasion to dread their severity. 
 They were obtruded upon their sees, as the supreme pontiffs 
 were upon that of Rome, by force or corruption. A child of 
 five years old was made Archbishop of Rheims. The See of 
 Narbonne was purchased for another at the age of ten.^^ By 
 this relaxation of morals the priesthood began to lose its hold 
 upon the prejudices of mankind. These are nourished chiefly, 
 indeed, by shining examples of piety and virtue, but also, in a 
 superstitious age, by ascetic observances, by the fasting and 
 watching of monks and hermits, who have obviously so bad a 
 lot in this life that men are induced to conclude that they must 
 have secured a better reversion in futurity. The regular clergy 
 accordingly, or monastic orders, who practised, at least appar- 
 ently, the specious impostures of self-mortification, retained at all 
 times a far greater portion of respect than ordinary priests, though 
 degenerated themselves, as was admitted, from their primitive 
 strictness. 
 
 Two crimes, of at least violations of ecclesiastical law, had 
 become almost universal in the eleventh century, and excited 
 general indignation — the marriage or concubinage of priests and 
 the sale of benefices. By an effect of those prejudices in favour 
 of austerity to which I have just alluded, celibacy had been, from 
 very early times, enjoined as an obligation upon the clergy. It 
 was perhaps permitted that those already married for the first 
 time, and to a virgin, might receive ordination ; and this, after 
 prevailing for a length of time in the Greek Church, was sanc- 
 
 *^ Schmidt, tome ii, p. 414; Mosheim: the Church to have bishops under twenty 
 
 St. Marc; Muratori, " Ann. d' Italia," years old. (Id., p. 149.) Even the Pope 
 
 passim. Benedict IX is said to have been only 
 
 *^ Vaissette, " Hist, de Languedoc," twelve, but this has been doubted, 
 tome ii, p. 252. It was almost general in 
 
436 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 tioned by the Council of Trullo in 691,®^ and has ever since con- 
 tinued one of the distinguishing features of its discipHne. The 
 Latin Church, however, did not receive these canons, and has 
 uniformly persevered in excluding the three orders of priests, 
 deacons, and subdeacons, not only from contracting matrimony, 
 but from cohabiting with wives espoused before their ordination. 
 The prohibition, however, during some ages existed only in the 
 letter of her canons. In every country the secular or parochial 
 clergy kept women in their houses, upon more or less acknowl- 
 edged terms of intercourse, by a connivance of their ecclesiastical 
 superiors, which almost amounted to a positive toleration. The 
 sons of priests were capable of inheriting by the law of France 
 and also of Castile.^^ Some vigorous efforts had been made in 
 England by Dunstan, with the assistance of King Edgar, to dis- 
 possess the married canons, if not the parochial clergy, of their 
 benefices ; but the abuse, if such it is to be considered, made in- 
 cessant progress, till the middle of the eleventh century. There 
 was certainly much reason for the rulers of the Church to restore 
 this part of their discipline, since it is by cutting off her mem- 
 bers from the charities of domestic life that she secures their 
 entire affection to her cause, and renders them, like veteran sol- 
 diers, independent of every feeling but that of fidelity to their 
 commander and regard to the interests of their body. Leo IX, 
 
 the impulse of the passions." (" Ang.- 
 Sax. Church," p. 176.) Whatever may 
 have been the case in England, those 
 who look at the abstract of the canons 
 of French and Spanish councils, in Du- 
 pin's " Ecclesiastical History," from the 
 sixth to the eleventh century, will find 
 hardly one wherein there is not some en- 
 actment against bishops or priests retain- 
 ing wives in their houses. Such pro- 
 visions were not repeated certainly with- 
 out reason; so that the remark of Fleury 
 (tome xi, p. 594) that he has found no 
 instance of clerical marriage before 893 
 can not weigh for a great deal. It is 
 probable that bishops did not often 
 niarry after their consecration; but this 
 can not be presumed of priests. Southey, 
 in his " Vindiciae Ecclesia: AnglicanK," 
 p. 290, while he produces some mstances 
 of clerical matrimony, endeavours to mis- 
 lead the reader into the supposition that 
 it was even conformable to ecclesiastical 
 canons.* 
 
 "" " Recueil des Historiens," tome xi, 
 
 * A late writer, who has glossed over every fact in ecclesiastical history which 
 could make against his own particular tenets, asserts, " In the earliest ages of the 
 Church no restriction whatever had been placed on the clergy in this respect." 
 (Palmer's " Compendious Ecclesiastical History," p. 115.) This may be, and I believe 
 it is, very true' of the apostolical period; but the "earliest ages" are generally 
 understood to go further: and certamly the prohibition of marriage to priests was 
 an established custom of some antiquity at the time of the Nicene Council. The 
 question agitated there was, not whether priests should marry, contrary as it was 
 admitted by their advocate to apxaia e/cKATjcria? 7rapa5o<7-ts, but whether married men 
 should be ordained. I do not see any difference in principle, but the (Thurch had 
 made one. 
 
 St* This council was held at Constan- 
 tinople in the dome of the palace, called 
 Trullus by the Latins. The nominative 
 Trullo, though soloecistical, is used, I 
 believe, by ecclesiastical writers in Eng- 
 lish. (St. Marc, tome i, p. 294; " Art de 
 verifier les Dates," tome i, p. 157; Fleury, 
 " Hist. Eccles,," tome x, p. iio.) Bishops 
 are not within this permission, and can 
 not retain their wives by the discipline 
 of the Greek Church. Lingard says of 
 the Anglo-Saxon Church: " During more 
 than two hundred years from the death 
 of Augustin the laws respecting clerical 
 celibacy, so galling to the natural pro- 
 pensities of man, but so calculated to 
 enforce an elevated idea of the sanctity 
 which becomes the priesthood, were en- 
 forced with the utmost rigour: but dur- 
 ing part of the ninth century and most 
 of the tenth, when the repeated and san- 
 guinary devastations of the Danes threat- 
 ened the destruction of the hierarchy no 
 less than of the government, the ancient 
 canons opposed out a feeble barrier to 
 
NEGLECT OF CELIBACY 
 
 437 
 
 accordingly, one of the first pontiffs who retrieved the honour 
 of the apostoHc chair, after its long period of ignominy, began 
 in good earnest the difficult work of enforcing celibacy among 
 the clergy.^^ His successors never lost sight of this essential 
 point of discipline. It was a struggle against the natural rights 
 and strongest affections of mankind, which lasted for several 
 ages, and succeeded only by the toleration of greater evils than 
 those it was intended to remove. The laity, in general, took 
 part against the married priests, who were reduced to infamy 
 and want, or obliged to renounce their dearest connections. In 
 many parts of Germany no ministers were left to perform divine 
 services.®^ But perhaps there was no country where the rules 
 of celibacy met with so little attention as in England. It was 
 acknowledged in the reign of Henry I that the greater and better 
 part of the clergy were married, and that prince is said to have 
 permitted them to retain their wives.^^ But the hierarchy never 
 
 preface; Marina, " Ensayo sobre las Siete 
 Partidas," chaps. 221, 223. This was by 
 virtue of the general indulgence shown 
 by the customs of that country to con- 
 cubinage, or baragania; the children of 
 such a union always inheriting in default 
 of those born in solemn wedlock. (Ibid.) 
 
 ^^ St. Marc, tome iii, pp. 152, 164, 219, 
 602, etc. 
 
 "-Schmidt, tome iii, p. 279; Martenne, 
 " Thesaurus Anecdotorum," tome i, p. 
 230. A Danish writer draws a still darker 
 picture of the tyranny exercised toward 
 the married clergy, which, if he does not 
 exaggerate, was severe indeed: alii mem- 
 bris truncabantur, alii occidebantur, alii 
 de patria expellebantur, pauci sua reti- 
 nuere. (Langebek, " Script. Rerum Da- 
 nicarum," tome i, p. 380.) The prohibi- 
 tion was repeated by Waldemar II in 
 1222, so that there seems to have been 
 much difficulty found. (Id., pp. 287 and 
 272.) 
 
 "Wilkins, "Concilia," p. 387; "Chron- 
 icon Saxon"; Collier, pp. 248, 286, 294; 
 Littleton, vol. iii, p. 328. The third 
 Lateran Council fifty years afterward 
 speaks of the detestable custom of keep- 
 ing concubines long used by the English 
 clergy. Cum in Anglia prava et detesta- 
 bili consuetudine et longo tempore fuerit 
 obtentum, ut clerici in domibus suis 
 fornicarias habeant. (Labbe, " Concilia," 
 tome X, p. 1633.) Eugenius IV sent a 
 legate to impose celibacy on the Irish 
 clergy. (Littleton's " Henry II," vol. ii, 
 p. 42.) 
 
 The English clergy long set at naught 
 the fulminations of the Pope against 
 their domestic happiness; and the com- 
 mon law, or at least irresistible custom, 
 seems to have been their shield. There 
 
 is some reason to believe that their chil- 
 dren were legitimate for the purposes of 
 inheritance, which, however, I do not 
 assert. The sons of priests are men- 
 tioned in several instruments of the 
 twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but we 
 can not be sure that they were not born 
 before their fathers* ordination, or that 
 they were reckoned legitimate.* 
 
 An instance, however, occurs in the 
 " Rot. Cur. Regis," a. d. 1194, where the 
 assize find that there has been no presen- 
 tation to the Church of Dunstan, but the 
 parsons have held it from father to son. 
 Sir Francis Palgrave, in his introduction 
 to these records (p. 29), gives other 
 proofs of this hereditary succession in 
 benefices. Giraldus Cambrensis, about 
 the end of Henry II's reign (apud 
 Wright's " Political Songs of England," 
 P- 353). mentions the marriage of the 
 parochial clergy as almost universal. 
 More sacerdotum parochialium Angliae 
 fere cunctorum damnabili quidem et de- 
 testabili, publicam secum habebat comi- 
 tem individuam, et in foco focariam, et 
 in cubiculo concubtnam. They were 
 called focari?e, as living at the same 
 hearth; and this might be tolerated, per- 
 haps, on pretence of service; but the fel- 
 lowship, we perceive, was not confined to 
 the fireside. It was about this time that 
 a poem, " De Concubinis Sacerdotum," 
 commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, 
 but alluding by name to Pope Innocent 
 III, humorously defends the uncanonical 
 usage. It begins thus: 
 " Prisciani regula penitus cassatur, 
 
 Sacerdos per hie et haec olim declina- 
 batur, 
 
 Sed per hie solummodo nunc articu- 
 latur, 
 
 * Among the witnesses to some instruments in the reign of Edward I, printed 
 by Mr. Hudson Gurney from the court rolls of the manor of Keswick in Norfolk, 
 ve have more than once Walter filius presbyteri. But the rest are described by the 
 lather's surname, except one, who is called filius Beatricis; and as he may be sus- 
 pected of being illegitimate, we can not infer the contrary as to the priest's son. 
 
438 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 relaxed in their efforts ; and all the councils, general or pro- 
 vincial, of the twelfth century utter denunciations against con- 
 cubinary priests.^* After that age we do not find them so fre- 
 quently mentioned ; and the abuse by degrees, though not sup- 
 pressed, was reduced within limits at which the Church might 
 connive. 
 
 Simony, or the corrupt purchase of spiritual benefices, was 
 the second characteristic reproach of the clergy in the eleventh 
 century. The measures taken to repress it deserve particular 
 consideration, as they produced effects of the highest importance 
 in the history of the middle ages. According to the primitive 
 custom of the Church, an episcopal vacancy was filled up by 
 election of the clergy and people belonging to the city or dio- 
 cese. The subject of their choice was, after the establishment 
 of the federate or provincial system, to be approved or rejected 
 by the metropolitan and his suffragans, and, if approved, he was 
 consecrated by them.^^ It is probable that, in almost every case, 
 the clergy took a leading part in the selection of their bishops ; 
 but the consent of the laity was absolutely necessary to render 
 it valid. ^®. They were, however, by degrees excluded from any 
 real participation, first in the Greek and finally in the Western 
 Church. But this was not effected till pretty late times ; the 
 
 Cum per nostrum prsesulem haec amo- 
 
 veatur." 
 The last lines are better known, hav- 
 ing been often quoted: 
 " £cce jam pro clericis multum alle- 
 gavi, 
 Necnon pro presbyteris multa compro- 
 
 bavi; 
 Pater-noster nunc pro me, quoniam 
 
 peccavi, 
 Dicat quisque presbyter cum sua 
 suavi." 
 (" Poems ascribed to Mapes," p. 171, 
 Camden Society, 1841.) 
 
 Several other poems in this very cu- 
 rious volume allude to the same subject. 
 In a dialogue between a priest and a 
 scholar, the latter having taxed him with 
 keeping a presbytera in his house, the 
 parson defends himself by recrimination: 
 Malo cum presbytera pulcra fornicari, 
 Servituros domino filios lucrari, 
 Quam vagas satellites per antra sec- 
 
 tari; 
 Est inhonestissimum sic dehonestari." 
 
 , , . ^P- 256.) 
 John, on occasion of the interdict pro- 
 nounced against him in 1208, seized the 
 concubines of the priests and compelled 
 them to redeem themselves by a fine. 
 Presbyterorum et clericorum focariae per 
 totam Angliam a ministris regis captae 
 sunt, et ad se redimendum graviter com- 
 pulsae. (Matt. Paris, p. igo.) This is 
 omitted by Lingard. 
 
 It is said by Raumer (" Gesch. der 
 HohenstauflFen," vi, 235) that there was a 
 married Bishop of Prague during the 
 
 pontificate of Innocent III, and that the 
 custom of clerical marriages lasted in 
 Hungary and Sweden to the end of the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 The marriages of English clergy are 
 noticed and condemned in some provin- 
 cial constitutions of 1237. (Matt. Paris, 
 p. 381.) And there is, even so late as 
 1404. a mandate by the Bishop of Exeter 
 against married priests. (Wilkins, " Con- 
 cilia," tome iii, p. 277.) 
 
 ^* Quidam sacerdotes Latini, says In- 
 nocent III, in domibus suis habent con- 
 cubinas, et nonnulli aliquas sibi non me- 
 tuunt desponsare. (" Opera Innocent 
 III," p. 558; see also pp. 300 and 407.) 
 The latter can not be supposed a very 
 common case, after so many prohibi- 
 tions; the more usual practice was to 
 keep a female in their houses, under 
 some pretence of relationship or servi- 
 tude, as is still said to be usual in Cath- 
 olic countries. (Du Cange, voc. Fo- 
 caria.) A writer of respectable authority 
 asserts that the clergy frequently ob- 
 tained a bishop's license to cohabit with 
 a mate. (Harmer's [Wharton's] " Ob- 
 servations on Burnet," p. 11.) I find a 
 passage m Nicholas de Clemangis about 
 1400, quoted in Lewis's "Life of Pecock," 
 p. 30: Plerisque in diocesibus, rectores 
 parochiarum ex certo et conducto cum 
 his praelatis pretio, passim et public^ con- 
 cubinas tenent. This, however, does not 
 amount to a direct license. 
 
 ^ 0^ Marca, " De Concordantia," etc., I. 
 VI, c. 2. 
 
 " Father Paul on " Benefices," c. 7. 
 
INVESTITURES 
 
 439 
 
 people fully preserved their elective rights at Milan in the elev- 
 enth century, and traces of their concurrence may be found both 
 in France and Germany in the next age,^^ 
 
 It does not appear that the early Christian emperors inter- 
 posed with the freedom of choice any further than to make their 
 own confirmation necessary in the great patriarchal sees, such 
 as Rome and Constantinople, which were frequently the objects 
 of violent competition, and to decide in controverted elections.^® 
 The Gothic and Lombard Kings of Italy followed the same line 
 of conduct.^^ But in the French monarchy a more extensive 
 authority was assumed by the sovereign. Though the practice 
 was subject to some variation, it may be said generally that the 
 Merovingian kings, the line of Charlemagne, and the German 
 emperors of the house of Saxony, conferred bishoprics either 
 by direct nomination or, as was more regular, by recommenda- 
 tory letters to the electors.^^^ In England also, before the con- 
 quest, bishops were appointed in the witenagemot; and even in 
 the reign of William it is said that Lanfranc was raised to the 
 see of Canterbury by consent of Parliament.^^^ But, independ- 
 ently of this prerogative, which length of time and the tacit sanc- 
 tion of the people have rendered unquestionably legitimate, the 
 sovereign had other means of controlling the election of a bishop. 
 Those estates and honours which compose the temporalities of 
 the see, and without which the naked spiritual privileges would 
 not have tempted an avaricious generation, had chiefly been 
 granted by former kings, and were assimilated to lands held on 
 a beneficiary tenure. As they seemed to partake of the nature 
 of fiefs, they required similar formalities — investiture by the lord 
 and an oath of fealty by the tenant. Charlemagne is said to have 
 introduced this practice ; and, by way of visible symbol, as usual 
 in feudal institutions, to have put the ring and crozier into the 
 
 '^ De Marca, ubi supra; Schmidt, tome 
 ivj, p. 173. The form of election of a 
 Bishop of Puy, in 1053, runs thus: Clerus, 
 populus, et militia elegimus. (Vaissette, 
 "Hist, de Languedoc," tome ii, appen- 
 dix, p. 220.) Even Gratian seems to ad- 
 mit in one place that the laity had a sort 
 of share, though no decisive voice, in 
 filling up an episcopal vacancy. Electio 
 clericorum est, petitio plebis. (Decret., 
 1. i, distinctio 62.) And other subsequent 
 passages confirm this. 
 
 ^^ Gibbon, c. 20; St. Marc, " Abrege 
 Chronologique," tome i, p. 7. 
 
 "* Fra Paolo on "Benefices," c. 9; 
 Giannone, 1, iii, c. 6; 1. iv, c. 12; St. 
 Marc, tome i, p. 37. 
 
 "* Schmidt, tome i, p. 386; tome ii, pp. 
 24s. 487. This interference of the kings 
 was perhaps not quite conformable to 
 their own laws, which only reserved to 
 them the confirmation. Episcopo dece- 
 dente, says a constitution of Clotaire II 
 
 in 615, in loco ipsius, qui a metropolitano 
 ordinari debet, a provincialibus, a clero 
 et populo eligatur: et si persona con- 
 digna fuerit, per ordinationem principis 
 ordinetur. (' Baluz. Capitul.," tome i, 
 p, 21.) Charlemagne is said to have ad- 
 hered to this limitation, leaving elections 
 free, and only approving the person, and 
 conferring investiture on him. (Father 
 Paul on Benefices," c. 15.) But a more 
 direct influence was restored afterward. 
 Ivon, Bishop of Chartres, about the year 
 HOC, thus concisely expresses the several 
 
 Earties concurring in the creation of a 
 ishop: Eligente clero, suflfragante po- 
 pulo, dono regis, per manum metropoli- 
 tani, approbante Romano pontifice. (Du 
 Chesne, " Script. Rerum Gallicarum," 
 tome iv, p. 174.) 
 
 101 Littleton's " Hist, of Henry II," 
 vol. iv, p. 144. But the passage which 
 he quotes from the " Saxon Chronicle " 
 is not found in the best edition. 
 
440 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 hands of the newly consecrated bishop. And this continued for 
 more than two centuries afterward without exciting any scandal 
 or resistance. ^^^ 
 
 The Church has undoubtedly surrendered part of her inde- 
 pendence in return for ample endowments and temporal power, 
 nor could any claim be more reasonable than that of feudal supe- 
 riors to grant the investiture of dependent fiefs. But the fairest 
 right may be sullied by abuse; and the sovereigns, the lay pa- 
 trons, the prelates of the tenth and eleventh centuries, made their 
 powers of nomination and investiture subservient to the grossest 
 rapacity.^^^ According to the ancient canons, a benefice was 
 avoided by any simoniacal payment or stipulation. If these were 
 to be enforced, the Church must almost be cleared of its min- 
 isters. Either through bribery in places where elections still 
 prevailed, or through corrupt agreements with princes, or at least 
 customary presents to their wives and ministers, a large propor- 
 tion of the bishops had no valid tenure in their sees. The. case 
 was perhaps worse with inferior clerks ; in the Church of Milan, 
 which was notorious for this corruption, not a single ecclesiastic 
 could stand the test, the archbishop exacting a price for the col- 
 lation of every benefice.^^^ 
 
 The Bishops of Rome, like those of inferior sees, were regu- 
 larly elected by the citizens, laymen as well as ecclesiastics. But 
 their consecration was deferred until the popular choice had 
 received the sovereign's sanction. The Romans regularly de- 
 spatched letters to Constantinople or to the exarchs of Ravenna, 
 praying that their election of a pope might be confirmed. Ex- 
 ceptions, if any, are infrequent while Rome was subject to the 
 Eastern Empire. ^^' This, among other imperial prerogatives, 
 Charlemagne might consider as his own. He possessed the city, 
 especially after his coronation as emperor, in full sovereignty ; 
 and even before that event had investigated, as supreme chief, 
 some accusations preferred against the Pope Leo III. No va- 
 cancy of the papacy took place after Charlemagne became em- 
 peror ; and it must be confessed that, in the first which happened 
 under Louis the Debonair, Stephen IV was consecrated in haste 
 without that prince's approbation.^^^^ But Gregory IV, his suc- 
 cessor, waited till his election had been confirmed; and, upon 
 
 "*De Marca, p. 416; Giannone, I. vi, 2.30, 206. 568; Muratori, a. d. 958, 105:7, 
 
 *^- 7- -r AT • r -r r ^**^- ' F^eury. "Hist. Eccles.," tome xiii, 
 
 ♦1, ?°*u'^^^^' ■^^'■'^'i'/ M J Tuscany, fa- p. 73. The sum. however, appears to 
 
 ther of the Countess Matilda, and by far have been very small: rather like a fee 
 
 the greatest prince in Italy, was flopRed than a bribe. 
 
 before the altar by an abbot for selling 105 Le Blanc, "Dissertation sur I'Au- 
 benefices. (Muraton, ad ann. 1046.) The torite des Empereurs " This is sub- 
 offence was much more common than joined to his ''^Traite des Monnoyes "• 
 the punishment, but the two combined but not in all copies, which maVes those 
 furnish a good specimen of the eleventh that want it less valuable (St Marc 
 cent"n^- ^, ... and Muratori. passim.) 
 
 i°*St. Marc, tome 111, pp. 65, 188, 219, i«>" Muratori, a. d. 817; St Marc 
 
CONFIRMATION OF POPES 
 
 441 
 
 the whole, the Carlovingian emperors, though less uniformly 
 than their predecessors, retained that mark of sovereignty.^*^^ But 
 during the disorderly state of Italy which followed the last reigns 
 of Charlemagne's posterity, while the sovereignty and even the 
 name of an emperor were in abeyance, the supreme dignity of 
 Christendom was conferred only by the factious rabble of its 
 capital. Otho the Great, in receiving the imperial crown, took 
 upon him the prerogatives of Charlemagne. There is even ex- 
 tant a decree of Leo VIII, which grants to him and his successors 
 the right of naming future popes. But the authenticity of this 
 instrument is denied by the Italians. ^^^ It does not appear that 
 the Saxon emperors went to such a length as nomination, except 
 in one instance (that of Gregory V, in 996) ; but they some- 
 times, not uniformly, confirmed the election of a pope, according 
 to ancient custom. An explicit right of nomination was, how- 
 ever, conceded to the Emperor Henry III in 1047, ^s the only 
 means of rescuing the Roman Church from the disgrace and de- 
 pravity into which it had fallen. Henry appointed two or three 
 very good popes, acting in this against the warnings of a selfish 
 policy, as fatal experience soon proved to his family. ^*^® 
 
 This high prerogative was perhaps not designed to extend 
 beyond Henry himself. But even if it had been transmissible 
 to his successors, the infancy of his son, Henry IV, and the fac- 
 tions of that minority, precluded the possibility of its exercise. 
 Nicolas II, in 1059, published a decree which restored the right 
 of election to the Romans, but with a remarkable variation from 
 the original form. The cardinal bishops (seven in number, hold- 
 ing sees in the neighbourhood of Rome, and consequently suf- 
 fragans of the Pope as patriarch or metropolitan) were to choose 
 the supreme pontifiF, with the concurrence first of the cardinal 
 priests and deacons (or ministers of the parish churches of Rome), 
 and afterward of the laity. Thus elected, the new Pope was to 
 be presented for confirmation to Henry, " now king, and here- 
 after to become emperor," and to such of his successors as should 
 personally obtain that privilege. ^^^ This decree is the founda- 
 tion of that celebrated mode of election in a conclave of cardinals 
 which has ever since determined the headship of the Church. 
 It was intended not only to exclude the citizens, who had, in- 
 
 "^ Le Blanc; Schmidt, tome ii, p. i86; 
 St. Marc, tome i, pp. 387, 303, etc. 
 
 }°^ St. Marc has defended the authen- 
 ticity of this instrument in a separate 
 dissertation (tome iv, p. 1167), though ad- 
 mitting some interpolations. Pagi, in 
 ' Baronium," tome iv, p. 8, seemed to 
 me to have urged some weighty obiec- 
 tions; and Muratori, " Annali d' Italia," 
 A. D. 962, Speaks of it as a gross impos- 
 ture, in which he probably goes too far. 
 
 It obtained credit rather early, and is 
 admitted into the Decretum of Gratian, 
 notwithstanding its obvious tendency (p. 
 211, edit. 1591). 
 
 ^'^ St. Marc; Muratori; Schmidt: Stru- 
 vius. 
 
 ^^•^ St. Marc, tome iii, p. 276. The first 
 canon of the third Lateran Council makes 
 the consent of two thirds of the college 
 necessary for a pope's election, (Labbe, 
 " Concilia," tome x, p. 1508. 
 
442 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 deed, justly forfeited their primitive right, but as far as possible 
 to prepare the way for an absolute emancipation of the papacy 
 from the imperial control, reserving only a precarious and per- 
 sonal concession to the emperors instead of their ancient legal 
 prerogative of confirmation. 
 
 The real author of this decree, and of all other vigorous meas- 
 ures adopted by the popes of that age, whether for the assertion 
 of their independence or the restoration of discipline, was Hilde- 
 brand, Archdeacon of the Church of Rome, by far the most con- 
 spicuous person of the eleventh century. Acquiring by his ex- 
 traordinary qualities an unbounded ascendency over the Italian 
 clergy, they regarded him as their chosen leader and the hope 
 of their common cause. He had been empowered singly to nomi- 
 nate a pope on the part of the Romans after the death of Leo IX, 
 and compelled Henry III to acquiesce in his choice of Victor 
 11.^^^ No man could proceed more fearlessly toward his object 
 than Hildebrand, nor with less attention to conscientious im- 
 pediments. Though the decree of Nicolas II, his own work, had 
 expressly reserved the right of confirmation of the young King 
 of Germany, yet on the death of that pope, Hildebrand procured 
 the election and consecration of Alexander II without waiting 
 for any authority.^^^ During this pontificate he was considered 
 as something greater than the Pope, who acted entirely by his 
 counsels. On Alexander's decease, Hildebrand, long since the 
 real head of the Church, was raised with enthusiasm to its chief 
 dignity, and assumed the name of Gregory VII. 
 
 Notwithstanding the late precedent at the election of Alex- 
 ander II, it appears that Gregory did not yet consider his plans 
 sufficiently mature to throw off the yoke altogether, but de- 
 clined to receive consecration until he had obtained the consent 
 of the King of Germany.^^^ This moderation was not of long 
 continuance. The situation of Germany speedily afforded him 
 an opportunity of displaying his ambitious views. Henry IV, 
 through a very bad education, was arbitrary and dissolute; the 
 Saxons were engaged in a desperate rebellion ; and secret dis- 
 affection had spread among the princes to an extent of which 
 the Pope was much better aware than the king.^^* He began 
 by excommunicating some of Henry's ministers on pretence of 
 simony, and made it a ground of remonstrance that they were 
 not instantly dismissed. His next step was to publish a decree, 
 or rather to renew one of Alexander II, against lay investitures.^^° 
 
 "^ St. Marc. p. 97, "♦Schmidt; Saint Marc. These two 
 
 ^^- Id., p. 306. arc my principal authorities for the con- 
 
 *" St. Marc, p. 552. He acted, how- test between the Church and the em- 
 
 ever, as pope, corresponding in that char- pire. 
 
 acter with bishops of all countries, from "^ St. Marc, tome iii, p. 670. 
 
 the day of his election (p. 554). 
 
DIFFERENCES OF GREGORY VII WITH HENRY IV 
 
 443 
 
 The abolition of these was a favourite object of Gregory, and 
 formed an essential part of his general scheme for emancipating 
 the spiritual and subjugating the temporal power. The ring 
 and crosier, it was asserted by the papal advocates, were the em- 
 blems of that power which no monarch could bestow ; but even 
 if a less offensive symbol were adopted in investitures, the dig- 
 nity of the Church was lowered, and her purity contaminated, 
 when her highest ministers were compelled to solicit the patron- 
 age or the approbation of laymen. Though the estates of bishops 
 might strictly be of temporal right, yet, as they had been in- 
 separably annexed to their spiritual office, it became just that 
 what was first in dignity and importance should carry with it 
 those accessory parts. And this was more necessary than in 
 former times on account of the notorious traffic which sover- 
 eigns made of their usurped nomination to benefices, so that 
 scarcely any prelate sat by their favour whose possession was 
 not invalidated by simony. 
 
 The contest about investitures, though begun by Gregory 
 VII, did not occupy a very prominent place during his pontifi- 
 cate, its interest being suspended by other more extraordinary 
 and important dissensions between the Church and empire. The 
 Pope, after tampering some time with the disaffected party in 
 Germany, summoned Henry to appear at Rome and vindicate 
 himself from the charges alleged by his subjects. Such an out- 
 rage naturally exasperated a young and passionate monarch. 
 Assembling a number of bishops and other vassals at Worms, 
 he procured a sentence that Gregory should no longer be obeyed 
 as lawful Pope. But the time was past for those arbitrary en- 
 croachments, or at least high prerogatives, of former emperors. 
 The relations of dependency between Church and state were 
 now about to be reversed. Gregory had no sooner received 
 accounts of the proceedings at Worms than he summoned a coun- 
 cil in the Lateran palace, and by a solemn sentence not only 
 excommunicated Henry, but deprived him of the kingdoms of 
 Germany and Italy, releasing his subjects from their allegiance, 
 and forbidding them to obey him as sovereign. Thus Gregory 
 VII obtained the glory of leaving all his predecessors behind, 
 and astonishing mankind by an act of audacity and ambition 
 which the most emulous of his successors could hardly surpass. ^^® 
 
 ^}* The sentence of Gregory VI T 
 against the Emperor Henry was directed, 
 we should always remember, to persons 
 already well disposed to reject his au- 
 thority. Men are glad to be told that it 
 IS their duty to resist a sovereign against 
 whom they are in rebellion, and will not 
 be very scrupulous in examining conclu- 
 sions which fall in with their inclinations 
 and interests. Allegiance was in those 
 
 turbulent ages easily thrown off, and the 
 right of resistance was in continual exer- 
 cise. To the Germans of the eleventh 
 century a prince unfit for Christian 
 communion would easily appear unfit to 
 reign over them; and though Henry had 
 not given much real provocation to the 
 Pope, his vices and tyranny might seem 
 to challenge any spiritual censure or 
 temporal chastisement. A nearly con- 
 
444 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The first Impulses of Henry's mind on hearing this denuncia- 
 tion were indignation and resentment. But, like other inexperi- 
 enced and misguided sovereigns, he had formed an erroneous 
 calculation of his own resources. A conspiracy, long prepared, 
 of which the Dukes of Swabia and Carinthia were the chiefs, 
 began to manifest itself. Some were alienated by his vices, and 
 others jealous of his family. The rebellious Saxons took cour- 
 age ; the bishops, intimidated by excommunications, withdrew 
 from his side, and he suddenly found himself almost insulated 
 in the midst of his dominions. In this desertion he had recourse, 
 through panic, to a miserable expedient. He crossed the Alps 
 with the avowed determination of submitting, and seeking abso- 
 lution from the Pope. Gregory was at Canossa, a fortress near 
 Reggio, belonging to his faithful adherent, the Countess Matilda. 
 It was in a winter of unusual severity. The emperor was ad- 
 mitted, without his guards, into an outer court of the castle, and 
 three successive days remained from morning till evening in a 
 woollen shirt and with naked feet ; while Gregory, shut up with 
 the countess, refused to admit him to his presence. C)n the 
 fourth day he obtained absolution ; but only upon condition of 
 appearing on a certain day to learn the Pope's decision whether 
 or no he should be restored to his kingdom, until which time 
 he promised not to assume the ensigns of royalty. 
 
 This base humiliation, instead of conciliating Henry's ad- 
 versaries, forfeited the attachment of his friends. In his contest 
 with the Pope he had found a zealous support in the principal 
 Lombard cities, among whom the married and simoniacal clergy 
 had great influence. ^^'^ Indignant at his submission to Gregory, 
 whom they affected to consider as a usurper of the papal chair, 
 they now closed their gates against the emperor, and spoke 
 openly of deposing him. In this singular position between oppo- 
 
 temporary writer combines the two jus- 
 tifications of the rebellious party. Nemo 
 Romanorum pontificem reges a regno 
 deponere posse denegabit, quicunque 
 dccreta sanctissimi papae Gregorii non 
 proscribenda judicabit. Ipse enim vir 
 apostolicus. . . . Praiterea, liberi ho- 
 mines Henricum eo pacto sibi praeposue- 
 runt in regem, ut electores suos juste 
 judicare et regali providentia gubernare 
 satageret, quod pactum ille postea prae- 
 varicari et contemnere non cessavit, etc. 
 Ergo, et absque sedis apostolicae judicio 
 principes eum pro rege merito refutare 
 possent, cum pactum adimplere contemp- 
 serit, quod iis pro electione su promi- 
 serat; quo non adimpleto, nee rex esse 
 poterat. (" Vita Greg. VII," in Mura- 
 tori, " Script. Rer. Ital.," tome iii, 
 P- 342.) 
 
 Upon the other hand, the friends and 
 supporters of Henry, though ecclesias- 
 tics, protested against this novel stretch 
 of prerogative in the Roman see. Sev- 
 
 eral proofs of this are adduced by 
 Schmidt, tome iii, p. 315. 
 
 ^" There had been a kind of civil war 
 at Milan for about twenty years before 
 this time, excited by the intemperate 
 zeal of some partisans who endeavoured 
 to execute the papal decrees against 
 irregular clerks by force. The history of 
 these feuds has been written by two con- 
 temporaries, Arnulf and Landulf, pub- 
 lished in the fourth volume of Muratori's 
 ' Scriptores Rerum Italicarum"; suffi- 
 cient extracts from which will be found 
 in Sl Marc, tome iii, p. 230, etc., and in 
 Muratori s " Annals." The Milanese 
 clergy set up a pretence to retain wives, 
 under the authority of their great arch- 
 bishop, St. Ambrose, who, it seems, has 
 spoken with more indulgence of this 
 practice than most of the fathers. Both 
 Arnulf and Landulf favour the married 
 clerks, and were perhaps themselves of 
 that description. (Muratori.) 
 
DIFFERENCES OF GREGORY VII WITH HENRY IV 445 
 
 site clangers, Henry retrod his late steps, and broke off his treaty 
 with the Pope ; preferring, if he must fall, to fall as the defender 
 rather than the betrayer of his imperial rights. The rebellious 
 princes of Germany chose another king, Rodolph, Duke of 
 Swabia, on whom Gregory, after some delay, bestowed the 
 crown, with a Latin verse importing that it was given by virtue 
 of the original commission of St. Peter.^^*^ But the success of 
 this pontiff in his immediate designs was not answerable to his 
 intrepidity. Henry both subdued the German rebellion and car- 
 ried on the war with so much vigour, or rather so little resist- 
 ance, in Italy that he was crowned in Rome by the antipope 
 Guibert, whom he had raised in a council of his partisans to the 
 government of the Church instead of Gregory. The latter found 
 an asylum under the protection of Roger Guiscard, at Salerno, 
 where he died an exile. His- mantle, however, descended upon 
 his successors, especially Urban H and Paschal H, who strenu- 
 ously persevered in the great contest for ecclesiastical independ- 
 ence; the former with a spirit and policy of Gregory VII, the 
 latter with steady but disinterested prejudice. ^^^ They raised 
 up enemies against Henry IV out of the bosom of his family, 
 instigating the ambition of two of his sons successively, Conrad 
 and Henry, to mingle in the revolts of Germany. But Rome, 
 under whose auspices the latter had not scrupled to engage in 
 an almost parricidal rebellion, was soon disappointed by his un- 
 expected tenaciousness of that obnoxious prerogative which 
 had occasioned so much of his father's misery. He steadily re- 
 fused to part with the right of investiture, and the empire was 
 still committed in open hostility with the Church for fifteen 
 years of his reign. But Henry V being stronger in the support 
 of his German vassals than his father had been, none of the 
 popes with whom he was engaged had the boldness to repeat 
 the measures of Gregory VII. At length, each party grown 
 weary of this ruinous contention, a treaty was agreed upon be- 
 tween the emperor and Calixtus II, which put an end by com- 
 promise to the question of ecclesiastical investitures. By this 
 compact the emperor resigned forever all pretence to invest 
 bishops by the ring and crosier, and recognised the liberty of 
 elections. But in return it was agreed that elections should be 
 
 "8 Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema 
 Rodolpho. 
 
 ^^* Paschal II was so conscientious in 
 his abhorrence of investitures that he 
 actually signed sn agreement with 
 Henry V in iiio, whereby the prelates 
 were to resign all the lands and other 
 possessions which they held in fief of the 
 emperor, on condition of the latter re- 
 nouncing the right of investiture, which 
 indeed, in such circunr^tances, would fall 
 of itself. This extraordinary concession, 
 
 as may be imagined, was not very satis- 
 factory to the cardinals and bishops about 
 Paschal's court, more worldly minded 
 than himself, nor to those of the em- 
 peror's party, whose joint clamour soon 
 put a stop to the treaty. (St. Marc, tome 
 iv. p. 076.) A letter of Paschal to An- 
 selm (Schmidt, tome iii, p. 304) seems 
 to imply that he thought it better for 
 the Church to be without riches than to 
 enjoy them on condition of doing hom- 
 age to laymen. 
 
446 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 made in his presence or that of his officers, and that the new 
 bishop should receive his temporahties from the emperor by 
 the sceptre.^^*^ 
 
 Both parties in the concordat at Worms receded from so 
 much of their pretensions that we might almost hesitate to deter- 
 mine which is to be considered as victorious. On the one hand, 
 in restoring the freedom of episcopal elections the emperors lost 
 a prerogative of very long standing, and almost necessary to the 
 maintenance of authority over not the least turbulent part of their 
 subjects. And though the form of investiture by the ring and 
 crosier seemed in itself of no importance, yet it had been in effect 
 a collateral security against the election of obnoxious persons. 
 For the emperors, detaining this necessary part of the pontificals 
 until they should confer investiture, prevented a hasty conse- 
 cration of the new bishop, after which, the vacancy being legally 
 filled, it would not be decent for them to withhold the temporali- 
 ties. But then, on the other hand, they preserved by the con- 
 cordat their feudal sovereignty over the estates of the Church, 
 in defiance of the language which had recently been held by its 
 rulers. Gregory VII had positively declared, in the Lateran 
 Council of 1080, that a bishop or abbot receiving investiture from 
 a layman should not be reckoned as a prelate.^^^ The same doc- 
 trine had been maintained by all his successors, without any 
 limitation of their censures to the formality of the ring and cro- 
 sier. But Calixtus II himself had gone much further, and abso- 
 lutely prohibited the compelling ecclesiastics to render any serv- 
 ice to laymen on account of their benefices.^^^ It is evident that 
 such a general immunity from feudal obligations for an order 
 who possessed nearly half the lands in Europe struck at the 
 root of those institutions by which the fabric of society was prin- 
 cipally held together. This complete independency had been 
 the aim of Gregory's disciples ; and by yielding to the continu- 
 ance of lay investitures in any shape Calixtus may, in this point 
 of view, appear to have relinquished the principal object of con- 
 tention.^-^ 
 
 ^2" St. Marc, tome iv, p. 1093; Schmidt, 
 tome iii, p. 178. The latter quotes the 
 Latin words. 
 
 121 St. Marc, tome iv, p. 774. A bish- 
 op of Placentia asserts that prelates dis- 
 honoured their order by putting their 
 hands, which held the body and blood 
 of Christ, between those of impure lay- 
 men (p. 956). The same expressions are 
 used by others, and are levelled at the 
 form of feudal homage, which, according 
 to the principles of that a^e, ought to 
 have been as obnoxious as investiture. 
 
 ^^2 Id., pp. 1061, 1067. 
 
 ^-' Ranke observes that, according to 
 the concordat of Worms, predominant 
 influence was yielded to the emperor in 
 
 Germany and to the Pope in Italy; an 
 agreement, however, which was not ex- 
 pressed with precision, and which con- 
 
 t?.'xx? *^^ S^^^ of fresh disputes. 
 ( Hist, of Reform.," i, 34.) But even 
 It this victory should be assigned to 
 Rome in respect of Germany, it does not 
 seem equally clear as to England. Lin- 
 gard says of the agreement between 
 Henry I and Paschal II : «• Upon the 
 whole, the Church gained little by this 
 compromise. It might check, but did 
 not abolish, the principal abuse. If 
 Henry surrendered an unnecessary cere- 
 mony, he still retained the substance. 
 Ihe right which he assumed of nomi- 
 nating bishops and abbots was left un- 
 
CAPITULAR ELECTIONS 
 
 447 
 
 The emperors were not the only sovereigns whose practice 
 of investiture excited the hostihty of Rome, although they sus- 
 tained the principal brunt of the war. A similar contest broke 
 out under the pontificate of Paschal II with Henry I of Eng- 
 land; for the circumstances of which, as they contain nothing 
 peculiar, I refer to our own historians. It is remarkable that 
 it ended in a compromise not unlike that adjusted at Worms, 
 the king renouncing all sorts of investitures, while the Pope con- 
 sented that the bishop should do homage for his temporalities. 
 This was exactly the custom of France, where an investiture by 
 the ring and crosier is said not to have prevailed ; ^^* and it an- 
 swered the main end of sovereigns by keeping up the feudal 
 dependency of ecclesiastical estates. But the Kings of Castile 
 were more fortunate than the rest ; discreetly yielding to the pride 
 of Rome, they obtained what was essential to their own author- 
 ity, and have always possessed, by the concession of Urban II, 
 an absolute privilege of nomination to bishoprics in their domin- 
 ions ^^^ — an early evidence of that indifference of the popes 
 toward the real independence of national churches to which sub- 
 sequent ages were to lend abundant confirmation. 
 
 When the emperors had surrendered their pretensions to in- 
 terfere in episcopal elections, the primitive mode of collecting 
 the suffrages of clergy and laity in conjunction, or at least of 
 the clergy with the laity's assent and ratification, ought naturally 
 to have revived. But in the twelfth century neither the people, 
 nor even the general body of the diocesan clergy, were consid- 
 ered as worthy to exercise this function. It soon devolved alto- 
 gether upon the chapters of cathedral churches. ^^^ The original 
 
 impaired." ("Hist, of Engl.," ii, 169.) 
 But if this nomination by the crown 
 was so great an abuse, why did the popes 
 concede it to Spain and France? The 
 real truth is, that no mode of choosing 
 bishops is altogether unexceptionable. 
 But, upon the whole, nomination by the 
 crown is likely to work better than any 
 other, even for the religious good of 
 the Church. As a means of preserving 
 the connection of the clergy with the 
 state, it is almost indispensable. 
 
 Schmidt observes, as to Germany, that 
 the dispute about investitures was not 
 wholly to the advantage of the Church; 
 though she seemed to come out success- 
 fully, yet it produced a hatred on the 
 part of the laity, and, above all, a deter- 
 mination in the princes and nobility, to 
 grant no more lands over which their 
 suzerainty was to be disputed (iii, 269). 
 The emperors retained a good deal— the 
 regale, or possession of the temporalities 
 during a vacancy; the prerogative, on a 
 disputed election, of investing whichever 
 candidate they pleased; above all, per- 
 haps, the recognition of a great principle, 
 that the Church was, as to its temporal 
 estate, the subject of the civil magistrate. 
 
 The feudal element of society was so 
 opposite to the ecclesiastical that what- 
 ever was gained by the former was so 
 much subtracted from the efficacy of the 
 latter. This left an importance to the 
 imperial investiture after the Calixtin 
 concordat, which was not intended prob- 
 ably by the Pope. For the words, as 
 quoted by Schmidt (iii, 301), Habeat 
 imperatoria dignitas electum liber, con- 
 secratum canonice, regaliter per scep- 
 trum sine pretio tamen investire solen- 
 niter, imply nothing more than a formal- 
 ity. The emperor is, as it were, com- 
 manded to invest the bishop after con- 
 secration. But in practice the emperors 
 always conferred the investiture before 
 consecration. (Schmidt, iv, 153.) 
 
 124 " Histoire du Droit Public Ecclesi- 
 astique Frangois," p. 261. I do not fully 
 rely on this authority. 
 
 125 F. Paul on " Benefices," c. 24; Zu- 
 rita, " Annales de Aragon," tome iv, p. 
 305. Fleury says that the Kings of Spain 
 nominate to bishoprics by virtue of a 
 particular indulgence, renewed by the 
 Pope for the life of each prince. (" In- 
 stitutions au Droit," tome i, p. 106.) 
 
 126 Fra Paolo ('* Treatise on Bene- 
 
448 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 of these may be traced very high. In the earliest ages we find 
 a college of presbytery consisting of the priests and deacons, 
 assistants as a council of advice, or even a kind of Parliament, 
 to their bishops. Parochial divisions, and fixed ministers at- 
 tached to them, were not established till a later period. But 
 the canons, or cathedral clergy, acquired afterward a more dis- 
 tinct character. They were subjected by degrees to certain strict 
 observances, little differing, in fact, from those imposed on mo- 
 nastic orders. They lived at a common table, they slept in a 
 common dormitory, their dress and diet were regulated by pecul- 
 iar laws. But they were distinguished from monks by the right 
 of possessing individual property, which was afterward extended 
 to the enjoyment of separate prebends or benefices. These strict 
 regulations, chiefly imposed by Louis the Debonair, went into 
 disuse through the relaxation of discipline ; nor were they ever 
 effectually restored. Meantime the chapters became extremely 
 rich ; and as they monopolized the privilege of electing bishops, 
 it became an object of ambition with noble families to obtain 
 canonries for their younger children as the surest road to eccle- 
 siastical honours and opulence. Contrary, therefore, to the gen- 
 eral policy of the Church, persons of inferior birth have been 
 rigidly excluded from these foundations. ^^^ 
 
 The object of Gregory VII, in attempting to redress those 
 more flagrant abuses which for two centuries had deformed the 
 face of the Latin Church, is not incapable, perhaps, of vindica- 
 tion, though no sufficient apology can be offered for the means 
 he employed. But the disinterested love of reformation, to which 
 candour might ascribe the contention against investitures, is 
 belied by the general tenor of his conduct, exhibiting an arro- 
 gance without parallel, and an ambition that grasped at universal 
 and unlimited monarchy. He may be called the common enemy 
 of all sovereigns whose dignity as well as independence morti- 
 fied his infatuated pride. Thus we find him menacing Philip I 
 of France, who had connived at the pillage of some Italian mer- 
 chants and pilgrims, not only with an interdict, but a sentence 
 of deposition. ^^^ Thus, too, he asserts, as a known historical 
 fact, that the kingdom of Spain had formerly belonged, by spe- 
 
 fices," c. 24) says that between 1122 and 
 1 145 it became a rule almost everywhere 
 established that bishops should be cho- 
 sen by the chapter. Schmidt, however, 
 brings a few instances where the consent 
 of the nobility and other laics is ex- 
 pressed, though perhaps little else than 
 a matter of form. Innocent II seems to 
 have been the first who declared that 
 whoever had the majority of the chapter 
 in his favour should be deemed duly 
 elected; and this was confirmed by Otho 
 IV in the capitulation upon his acces- 
 
 sion. (" Hist, des AUemands," tome iv, 
 p. 175.) Fleury thinks that chapters had 
 not an exclusive election till the end of 
 the twelfth century. The second Lateran 
 Council in 1139 represses their attempts 
 to engross it. (*' Institutions au Droit 
 Eccles.," tome i, p. 100.) 
 
 ^^^ Schmidt, tome ii, pp. 224, 473; tome 
 iii, p. 281; Encyclopedie. art. Chanoine; 
 F. Paul on " Benefices,*' c. 16; Fleury, 
 " 8me Discours sur I'Hist. Eccles." 
 
 128 St. Marc, tome iii, p. 628; Fleury, 
 " Hist. Eccles.," tome xiii, pp. 281, 284. 
 
POLICY OF GREGORY VII 
 
 449 
 
 cial right, to St. Peter ; and by virtue of this imprescriptible claim 
 he grants to a certain Count de Rouci all territories which he 
 should reconquer from the Moors, to be held in fief from the 
 Holy See by a stipulated rent.^^'^ A similar pretension he makes 
 to the kingdom of Hungary, and bitterly reproaches its sover- 
 eign, Solomon, who had done homage to the emperor, in deroga- 
 tion of St. Peter, his legitimate lord.^^^ It was convenient to 
 treat this apostle as a great feudal suzerain, and the legal prin- 
 ciples of that age were dexterously applied to rivet more forcibly 
 the fetters of superstition.^^^ 
 
 While temporal sovereigns were opposing so inadequate a 
 resistance to a system of usurpation contrary to all precedent 
 and to the common principles of society, it was not to be ex- 
 pected that national churches should persevere in opposing pre- 
 tensions for which several ages had paved the way. Gregory 
 VII completed the destruction of their liberties. The principles 
 contained in the decretals of Isidore, hostile as they were to 
 ecclesiastical independence, were set aside as insufificient to estab- 
 lish the absolute monarchy of Rome. By a constitution of Alex- 
 ander II, during whose pontificate Hildebrand himself was 
 deemed the effectual Pope, no bishop in the Catholic Church 
 was permitted to exercise his functions until he had received 
 the confirmation of the Holy See : ^^^ a provision of vast im- 
 portance, through which, beyond perhaps any other means, Rome 
 has sustained, and still sustains, her temporal influence, as well 
 as her ecclesiastical supremacy. The national churches, long 
 abridged of their liberties by gradual encroachments, now found 
 themselves subject to an undisguised and irresistible despotism. 
 Instead of affording protection to bishops against their metro- 
 politans, under an insidious pretence of which the popes of the 
 ninth century had subverted the authority of the latter, it became 
 the favourite policy of their successors to harass all prelates with 
 citations to Rome.^^^ Gregory obliged the metropolitans to 
 attend in person for the pallium. ^^* Bishops were summoned 
 
 **" The language he employs is worth 
 quoting as a specimen of his style: Non 
 latere vos credimus, regnum Hispanise 
 ab antiquo juris sancti Petri fuisse, et 
 adhuc licet diu a paganis sit occupatum, 
 lege tamen justitise non evacuata, nulli 
 mortalium, sed soli apostolicae sedi ex 
 aequo pertinere. Quod enim auctore Deo 
 semel in proprietates ecclesiarum juste 
 pervenerit, manetite Eo, ab usu quidem, 
 sed ab earum jure, occasione transeuntis 
 temporis, sine legitima concessione divelli 
 non poterit. Itaque comes Evalus de 
 Roceio, cujus famam apud vos haud ob- 
 scuram esse putamus, terram illam ad 
 honorem Sti. Petri ingredi, et a pagano- 
 rum manibus eripere cupiens, banc con- 
 cessionem ab apostolica sede obtinuit, ut 
 partem illam, unde paganos suo studio 
 
 29 
 
 et adjuncto sibi aliorum auxilio expellere 
 possit, sub conditione inter nos factse 
 pactionis ex parte Sti. Petri possideret. 
 ("Labbe,^ " Concilia," tome x, p, 10,) 
 Three instances occur in the Corps 
 Diplomatique of Dumont, where a Duke of 
 Dalmatia (tome i, p. 53), a Count of Pro- 
 vence (p. 58), and a Count of Barcelona 
 (ibid.) put themselves under the feudal 
 superiority and protection of Gregory 
 VII. The motive was sufficiently obvious. 
 
 "*• St. Marc, tome iii, pp. 624, 674; 
 Schmidt, p. 73. 
 
 "^ The character and policy of Greg- 
 ory VII are well discussed by Schmidt, 
 tome iii, p. 307. 
 
 132 St. Marc, p. 460. 
 
 1'^ Schmidt, tome iii, pp. 80, 322. 
 
 ^^* Id., tome iv, p. 170. 
 
450 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 even from England and the northern kingdoms to receive the 
 commands of the spiritual monarch. William the Conqueror 
 having made a difficulty about permitting his prelates to obey 
 these citations, Gregory, though in general on good terms with 
 that prince, and treating him with a deference which marks the 
 effect of a firm character in repressing the ebullitions of over- 
 bearing pride,^^^ complains of this as a persecution unheard of 
 among pagans. ^^^ The great quarrel between Archbishop An- 
 selm and his two sovereigns, William Rufus and Henry I, was 
 originally founded upon a similar refusal to permit his departure 
 for Rome. 
 
 This perpetual control exercised by the popes over ecclesi- 
 astical and in some degree over temporal affairs was maintained 
 by means of their legates, at once the ambassadors and the lieu- 
 tenants of the Holy See. Previously to the latter part of the 
 tenth age these had been sent not frequently and upon special 
 occasions. The legatine or vicarial commission had generally 
 been intrusted to some eminent metropolitan of the nation within 
 which it was to be exercised, as the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 was perpetual legate in England. But the special commissioners, 
 or legates a latere, suspending the Pope's ordinary vicars, took 
 upon themselves an unbounded authority over the national 
 churches, holding councils, promulgating canons, deposing bish- 
 ops, and issuing interdicts at their discretion. They lived in 
 splendour at the expense of the bishops of the province. This 
 was the more galling to the hierarchy, because simple deacons 
 were often invested with this dignity, which set them above 
 primates. As the sovereigns of France and England acquired 
 more courage, they considerably abridged this prerogative of 
 the Holy See, and resisted the entrance of any legates into their 
 dominions without their consent. ^^^ 
 
 From the time of Gregory VH no pontiff thought of await- 
 ing the confirmation of the emperor, as in earlier ages, before 
 he was installed in the throne of St. Peter. On the contrary, 
 it was pretended that the emperor was himself to be confirmed 
 by the Pope. This had, indeed, been broached by John VHI 
 two hundred years before Gregory.^^^ It was still a doctrine not 
 calculated for general reception ; but the popes availed them- 
 
 es st. Marc, pp. 628, 788; Schmidt, 
 tome iii, p. 82. 
 
 ^3*^81. Marc, tome iv, p, 761; Collier, 
 p. 252. 
 
 "■' De Marca, 1. vi, chaps, 28, 30, 31 ; 
 Schmidt, tome ii, p. 498; tome iii, pp. 
 3;f2, 320; " Hist, du Droit Public Eccl. 
 Frangois," p. 250; Fleury, " 4me Dis- 
 cours sur I'Hist. Eccles.," c. 10. 
 
 1S8 Vide supra. It appears manifest 
 that the scheme of temporal sovereignty 
 was only suspended by the disorders of 
 the Roman See in the tenth century. 
 
 Peter Damian, a celebrated writer of the 
 age of Hildebrand, and his friend, puts 
 these words into the mouth of Jesus 
 Christ, as addressed to Pope Victor II: 
 Ego claves totius universalis ecclesiae 
 meae tuis rnanibus tradidi, et super eam 
 te mihi vicarium posui, quam proprii 
 sanguinis effusione redemi. Et si pauca 
 sunt ista, etiam monarchias addidi: im- 
 mo sublato rege de medio totius Romani 
 imperii vacantia tibi jura permisi. 
 (Schmidt, tome iii, p. 78.) 
 
ADRIAN IV 
 
 451 
 
 selves of every opportunity which the temporizing policy, the 
 negligence or bigotry of sovereigns threw into their hands. 
 Lothaire coming to receive the imperial crown at Rome, this 
 circumstance was commemorated by a picture in the Lateran 
 palace, in which, and in two Latin verses subscribed, he was rep- 
 resented as doing homage to the Pope.^^^ When Frederick Bar- 
 barossa came upon the same occasion, he omitted to hold the 
 stirrup of Adrian IV, who, in his turn, refused to give him the 
 usual kiss of peace ; nor was the contest ended but by the em- 
 peror's acquiescence, who was content to follow the precedents 
 of his predecessors. The same Adrian, expostulating with Fred- 
 erick upon some slight grievance, reminded him of the imperial 
 crown which he had conferred, and declared his willingness to 
 bestow, if possible, still greater benefits. But the phrase em- 
 ployed (majora beneficia) suggested the idea of a fief; and the 
 general insolence which pervaded Adrian's letter confirming this 
 interpretation, a ferment arose among the German princes in 
 a congress of whom this letter was delivered. ** From whom, 
 then," one of the legates was rash enough to say, '' does the 
 emperor hold his crown, except from the Pope? " which so irri- 
 tated a prince of Wittelsbach, that he was with difficulty pre- 
 vented from cleaving the priest's head with his sabre.^^° Adrian 
 IV was the only Englishman that ever sat in the papal chair. 
 It might, perhaps, pass for a favour bestowed on his natural 
 sovereign, when he granted to Henry II the kingdom of Ireland ; 
 yet the language of this donation, wherein he asserts all islands 
 to be the exclusive property of St. Peter, should not have had a 
 very pleasing sound to an insular monarch. 
 
 I shall not wait to comment on the support given to Becket 
 by Alexander III, which must be familiar to the English reader, 
 nor on his speedy canonization ; a reward which the Church 
 has always held out to its most active friends, and which may 
 be compared to titles of nobility granted by a temporal sover- 
 eign.^*^ But the epoch when the spirit of papal usurpation was 
 most strikingly displayed was the pontificate of Innocent III. 
 In each of the three leading objects which Rome has pursued — 
 independent sovereignty, supremacy over the Christian Church, 
 control over the princes of the earth — it was the fortune of this 
 pontiff to conquer. He realized, as we have seen in another 
 
 "' " Rex venit ante fores, jurans prius 
 urbis honores: 
 Post homo fit papae, sumit quo 
 dante coronam." 
 (Muratori, " Annali," a. d ii5;7.) 
 There was a pretext for this artful 
 line. Lothaire had received the estate 
 of Matilda in fief from the Pope, with 
 a reversion to Henry the Proud, his son- 
 in-law. (Schmidt, p. 349.) 
 
 1*" Muratori, ubi supra; Schmidt, tome 
 
 iii, p. 393- 
 
 1*^ The first instance of a solemn papal 
 canonization is that of St. Udalric by John 
 XVI, in 993, However, the metropolitans 
 continued to meddle with this sort of 
 apotheosis till the pontificate of Alexander 
 III, who reserved it, as a choice preroga- 
 tive, to the Holy See. (" Art. de verifier 
 les Dates," tome i, pp. 247 and 290.) 
 
452 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 place, that fond hope of so many of his predecessors, a dominion 
 over Rome and the central parts of Italy. During his pontifi- 
 cate Constantinople was taken by the Latins; and, however 
 he might seem to regret a diversion of the crusaders, which 
 impeded the recovery of the Holy Land, he exulted in the 
 obedience of the new patriarch and the reunion of the Greek 
 Church. Never, perhaps, either before or since, was the great 
 Eastern schism in so fair a way of being healed ; even the Kings 
 of Bulgaria and of Armenia acknowledged the supremacy of 
 Innocent, and permitted his interference with their ecclesiastical 
 institutions. 
 
 The maxims of Gregory VII were now matured by more than 
 a hundred years, and the right of trampling upon the necks of 
 kings had been received, at least among churchmen, as an in- 
 herent attribute of the papacy. '' As the sun and the moon are 
 placed in the firmament " (such is the language of Innocent), 
 " the greater -as the light of the day, and the lesser of the night, 
 thus are there two powers in the Church — the pontifical, which, 
 as having the charge of souls, is the greater ; and the royal, which 
 is the less, and to which the bodies of men only are intrusted.'' ^*^ 
 Intoxicated with these conceptions (if we may apply such a word 
 to successful ambition), he thought no quarrel of princes beyond 
 the sphere of his jurisdiction. '' Though I can not judge of the 
 right to a fief," said Innocent to the Kings of France and Eng- 
 land, " yet it is my province to judge where sin is committed, 
 and my duty to prevent all public scandals.'' Philip Augustus, 
 who had at that time the worse in his war with Richard, acqui- 
 esced in this sophism ; the latter was more refractory till the 
 papal legate began to menace him with the rigour of the 
 Church.^" But the King of England, as well as his adversary, 
 condescended to obtain temporary ends by an impolitic submis- 
 sion to Rome. We have a letter from Innocent to the King of 
 Navarre, directing him, on pain of spiritual censures, to restore 
 some castles which he detained from Richard.^** And the latter 
 appears to have entertained hopes of recovering his ransom paid 
 to the emperor and Duke of Austria through the Pope's inter- 
 ference,^*^ By such blind sacrifices of the greater to the less, 
 
 1*2 " Vita Innocentii Tertii," in Mura- 
 tori, " Scriptores Rerum Ital.," tome iii, 
 pars i, p. 448. This life is written by a 
 contemporary. (St. Marc, tome v, p. 325; 
 Schmidt, tome iv, p. 227.) 
 
 1*^ Philippus rex Franciae in manu ejus 
 data fide promisit se ad mandatum ipsius 
 pacera vel treugas cum rege Angliae ini- 
 turum. Richardus autem rex Angliae se dif- 
 ficilem ostendebat. Sed cum idem legatus 
 ei cepit rigorem ecclesiasticum intentare, 
 s?niori ductus consilio acc^uievit. (" Vita 
 Innocentii Tertii," tome iii, pars i, p. 503.) 
 
 1**" Innocentii Opera" (Coloniae, 1574)1 
 p. 124. 
 
 '■•^ Id., p. 134. Innocent actually wrote 
 some letters for this purpose, but with- 
 out any effect, nor was he probably at all 
 solicitous about it (pp. 139 and 141). Nor 
 had he interfered to procure Richard's 
 release from prison : though Eleanor 
 wrote him a letter, in which she asks, 
 " Has not God given you the power to 
 govern nations and kin^s? " (Velly, 
 " Hist, de France," tome iii, p. 382.) 
 
PRETENSIONS OF INNOCENT III 453 
 
 of the future to the present, the sovereigns of Europe played con- 
 tinually into the hands of their subtle enemy. 
 
 Though I am not aware that any pope before Innocent III 
 had thus announced himself as the general arbiter of differences 
 and conservator of the peace throughout Christendom, yet the 
 scheme had been already formed, and the public mind was in 
 some degree prepared to admit it. Gerohus, a writer who lived 
 early in the twelfth century, published a theory of perpetual pacifi- 
 cation, as feasible certainly as some that have been planned 
 in later times. All disputes among princes were to be referred 
 to the Pope. If either party refused to obey the sentence of 
 Rome, he was to be excommunicated and deposed. Every Chris- 
 tian sovereign was to attack the refractory delinquent under pain 
 of a similar forfeiture.^^® A project of this nature had not only 
 a magnificence flattering to the ambition of the Church, but was 
 calculated to impose upon benevolent minds, sickened by the 
 cupidity and oppression of princes. No control but that of re- 
 ligion appeared sufficient to restrain the abuses of society ; while 
 its salutary influence had already been displayed both in the 
 Truce of God, which put the first check on the custom of private 
 war, and more recently in the protection afforded to crusaders 
 against all aggression during the continuance of their engage- 
 ment. But reasonings from the excesses of liberty in favour of 
 arbitrary government, or from the calamities of national wars 
 in favour of universal monarchy, involve the tacit fallacy that per- 
 fect, or at least superior, wisdom and virtue will be found in the 
 restraining power. The experience of Europe was not such as 
 to authorize so candid an expectation in behalf of the Roman See. 
 
 There were certainly some instances where the temporal 
 supremacy of Innocent III, however usurped, may appear to 
 have been exerted beneficially. He directs one of his legates to 
 compel the observance of peace between the Kings of Castile 
 and Portugal, if necessary, by excommunication and interdict.^*^ 
 He enjoins the King of Aragon to restore his coin, which he 
 had lately debased, and of which great complaint had arisen in 
 his kingdom. ^*^ Nor do I question his sincerity in these or in 
 any other cases of interference with civil government. A great 
 mind, such as Innocent III undoubtedly possessed, though prone 
 to sacrifice every other object to ambition, can never be indif- 
 ferent to the beauty of social order and the happiness of mankind. 
 But, if we may judge by the correspondence of this remarkable 
 person, his foremost gratification was the display of unbounded 
 power. His letters, especially to ecclesiastics, are full of unpro- 
 voked rudeness. As impetuous as Gregory VII, he is unwilling 
 to owe anything to favour ; he seems to anticipate denial ; heats 
 
 ^" Schmidt, tome iv, p. 232. "^ " Innocent. Opera," p. 146. "« p, 378. 
 
454 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 himself into anger as he proceeds, and, where he commences 
 with soHcitation, seldom concludes without a menace.^*® An 
 extensive learning in ecclesiastical law, a close observation of 
 whatever was passing in the world, an unwearied diligence, sus- 
 tained his fearless ambition.^^*' With such a temper, and with 
 such advantages, he was formidable beyond all his predecessors, 
 and perhaps beyond all his successors. On every side the thun- 
 der of Rome broke over the heads of princes. A certain Swero 
 is excommunicated for usurping the crown of Norway. A legate, 
 in passing through Hungary, is detained by the king: Innocent 
 writes in tolerably mild terms to this potentate, but fails not to 
 intimate that he might be compelled to prevent his son's suc- 
 cession to the throne. The King of Leon had married his cousin, 
 a princess of Castile. Innocent subjects the kingdom to an inter- 
 dict. When the clergy of Leon petition him to remove it, be- 
 cause, when they ceased to perform their functions, the laity 
 paid no tithes, and listened to heretical teachers when orthodox 
 mouths were mute, he consented that divine service with closed 
 doors, but not the rites of burial, might be performed.^^^ The 
 king at length gave way, and sent back his wife. But a more 
 illustrious victory of the same kind was obtained over Philip 
 Augustus, who, having repudiated Isemburga of Denmark, had 
 contracted another marriage. The conduct of the king, though 
 not without the usual excuse of those times, nearness of blood, 
 was justly condemned ; and Innocent did not hesitate to visit 
 his sins upon the people by a general interdict. This, after a short 
 demur from some bishops, was enforced throughout France ; 
 the dead lay unburied, and the living were cut ofif from the offices 
 of religion, till Philip, thus subdued, took back his divorced wife. 
 The submission of such a prince, not feebly superstitious, like 
 his predecessor, Robert, nor vexed with seditions, like the Em- 
 peror Henry IV, but brave, firm, and victorious, is perhaps the 
 proudest trophy in the scutcheon of Rome. Compared with this, 
 the subsequent triumph of Innocent over our pusillanimous John 
 seems cheaply gained, though the surrender of a powerful king- 
 dom into the vassalage of the Pope may strike us as a proof of 
 
 "9 pp. 31. 7Z, 76, etc. 
 
 "® The following instance may illus- 
 trate the character of this pope, and his 
 spirit of governing the whole world, as 
 much as those of a more public nature. 
 He writes to the chapter of Pisa that one 
 Rubens, a citizen of that place, had com- 
 plained to him that, having mortgaged a 
 house and garden for two hundred and 
 fifty-two pounds, on condition that he 
 might redeem it before a fixed day, with- 
 in which time he had been unavoidably 
 prevented from raising the money, the 
 creditor had now refused to accept it; 
 and directs them to inquire into the facts, 
 
 and, if they prove truly stated, to com- 
 pel the creditor by spiritual censures to 
 restore the premises, reckoning their 
 rent during the time of his mortgage 
 as part of the debt, and to receive the 
 remainder, (Id., tome ii, p. 17.) It 
 must be admitted that Innocent III dis- 
 couraged in general those vexatious and 
 dilatory appeals from inferior ecclesias- 
 tical tribunals to the court of Rome, 
 which had gained ground before his time, 
 and especially in the pontificate of Alex- 
 ander III. 
 
 "1" Innocent. Opera," tome ii, p. 411; 
 " Vita Innocent III." 
 
PRETENSIONS OF INNOCENT III 
 
 455 
 
 stupendous baseness on one side, and audacity on the other."^ 
 Yet, under this very pontificate, it was not unparalleled. Peter 
 II, King of Aragon, received at Rome the belt of knighthood 
 and the royal crown from the hands of Innocent III; he took 
 an oath of perpetual fealty and obedience to him and his succes- 
 sors; he surrendered his kingdom, and accepted it again to be 
 held by an annual tribute, in return for the protection of the 
 Apostolic See.^^^ This strange conversion of kingdoms into 
 spiritual fiefs was intended as the price of security from ambitious 
 neighbours, and may be deemed analogous to the change of al- 
 lodial into feudal, or, more strictly, to that of lay into ecclesi- 
 astical tenure, which was frequent during the turbulence of the 
 darker ages. 
 
 I have mentioned already that among the new pretensions 
 advanced by the Roman See was that of confirming the election 
 of an emperor. It had, however, been asserted rather incidentally 
 than in a peremptory manner. But the doubtful elections of 
 Philip and Otho after the death of Henry VI gave Innocent III 
 an opportunity of maintaining more positively this pretended 
 right. In a decretal epistle addressed to the Duke of Zahringen, 
 the object of which is to direct him to transfer his allegiance 
 from Philip to the other competitor. Innocent, after stating the 
 mode in which a regular election ought to be made, declares 
 the Pope's immediate authority to examine, confirm, anoint, 
 crown, and consecrate the elect emperor, provided he shall be 
 worthy; or to reject him if rendered unfit by great crimes, such 
 as sacrilege, heresy, perjury, or persecution of the Church ; in 
 default of election, to supply the vacancy; or, in the event of 
 equal suffrages, to bestow the empire upon any person at his 
 discretion.^^* The princes of Germany were not much influenced 
 by this hardy assumption, which manifests the temper of Inno- 
 cent III and of his court, rather than their power. But Otho IV 
 at his coronation by the Pope signed a capitulation, which cut 
 off several privileges enjoyed by the emperors, even since the 
 
 ^'^ The stipulated annual payment of 
 one thousand marks was seldom made 
 by the Kings of England: but one is al- 
 most ashamed that it should ever have 
 been so. Henry III paid it occasionally 
 when he had any object to attain, and 
 even Edward I for some years; the latest 
 payment on record is in the seventeenth 
 of his reign. After a long discontinu- 
 ance, it was demanded in the fortieth 
 of Edward III (1366), but the Parlia- 
 ment unanimously declared that John 
 had no right to subject the kingdom to 
 a superior without their consent, which 
 put an end forever to the applications. 
 (Prynne's " Constitutions," vol. iii.) 
 
 "3 Zurita, " Annales de Aragon," tome 
 i, fol. 91. This was not forgotten toward 
 the latter part of the same century, when 
 
 Peter III was engaged in the Sicilian 
 war, and served as a pretence for the 
 Pope's sentence of deprivation. 
 
 1" " Decretal," 1. i, tit. 6, c. 34, com- 
 monly cited Venerabilem. The rubric 
 or synopsis of this epistle asserts the 
 Pope's right electum imperatorem ex- 
 ammare, approbare et inungere, conse- 
 crare et coronare, si est di^nus; vel re- 
 jicere si est indignus, ut quia sacrilegus, 
 excommunicatus, tyrannus, fatuus et hae- 
 reticus, paganus, perjurus, vel ecclesiae 
 persecutor. Et electoribus nolentibus 
 eligere, papa supplet. Et data paritate, 
 vocum eligentium, nee accedente majore 
 Concordia, papa potest gratificari cui vult. 
 The epistle itself is, if possible, more 
 strongly expressed. 
 
456 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Concordat of Calixtus, in respect of episcopal elections and in- 
 vestitures.^*^^ 
 
 The noonday of papal dominion extends from the pontificate 
 of Innocent III inclusively to that of Boniface VIII ; or, in other 
 words, through the thirteenth century. Rome inspired during 
 this age all the terror of her ancient name. She was once more 
 the mistress of the world, and kings were her vassals. I have 
 already anticipated the two most conspicuous instances when her 
 temporal ambition displayed itself, both of which are inseparable 
 from the civil history of Italy.^^® In the first of these, her long 
 contention with the house of Swabia, she finally triumphed. 
 After his deposition by the Council of Lyons the affairs of Fred- 
 erick II went rapidly into decay. With every allowance for the 
 enmity of the Lombards and the jealousies of Germany, it must 
 be confessed that his proscription by Innocent IV and Alexander 
 IV was the main cause of the ruin of his family. There is, how- 
 ever, no other instance, to the best of my judgment, where the 
 pretended right of deposing kings has been successfully exer- 
 cised. Martin IV absolved the subjects of Peter of Aragon from 
 their allegiance, and transferred his crown to a prince of France, 
 but they did not cease to obey their lawful sovereign. This is 
 the second instance which the thirteenth century presents of in- 
 terference on the part of the popes in a great temporal quarrel. 
 As feudal lords of Naples and Sicily, they had indeed some pre- 
 text for engaging in the hostilities between the houses of Anjou 
 and Aragon, as well as for their contest with Frederick II. But 
 the pontiffs of that age, improving upon the system of Innocent 
 III, and sanguine with past success, aspired to render every Eu- 
 ropean kingdom formally dependent upon the See of Rome. Thus 
 Boniface VIII, at the instigation of some emissaries from Scot- 
 land, claimed that monarchy as paramount lord, and interposed, 
 though vainly, the sacred panoply of ecclesiastical rights to rescue 
 it from the arms of Edward I.^^*^ 
 
 This general supremacy effected by the Roman Church over 
 mankind in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries derived material 
 support from the promulgation of the canon law. The founda- 
 tion of this jurisprudence is laid in the decrees of councils, and 
 in the rescripts or decretal epistles of popes to questions pro- 
 pounded upon emergent doubts relative to matters of discipline 
 and ecclesiastical economy. As the jurisdiction of the spiritual 
 tribunals increased, and extended to a variety of persons and 
 causes, it became almost necessary to establish a uniform system 
 for the regulation of their decisions. After several minor com- 
 pilations had appeared, Gratian, an Italian monk, published 
 
 "5 Schmidt, tome iv, pp. 149, 175. *" Dalrymple's " Annals of Scotland," 
 
 "" See chapter iii. vol. i, p. 267. 
 
CANON LAW 
 
 457 
 
 about the year 1140 his " Decretum/' or general collection of 
 canons, papal epistles, and sentences of fathers, arranged and 
 digested into titles and chapters, in imitation of the '' Pandects," 
 which very little before had begun to be studied again with great 
 diligence.^^® This work of Gratian, though it seems rather an 
 extraordinary performance for the age when it appeared, has 
 been censured for notorious incorrectness as well as inconsist- 
 ency, and especially for the authority given in it to the false 
 decretals of Isidore, and consequently to the papal supremacy. 
 It fell, however, short of what was required in the progress of 
 that usurpation. Gregory IX caused the five books of " De- 
 cretals " to be published by Raimond de Pennafort in 1234. These 
 consist almost entirely of rescripts issued by the later popes, 
 especially Alexander III, Innocent III, Honorius III, and Greg- 
 ory himself. They form the most essential part of the canon 
 law, the '' Decretum " of Gratian being comparatively obsolete. 
 In these books we find a regular and copious system of juris- 
 prudence, derived in a great measure from the civil law, but with 
 considerable deviation, and possibly improvement. Boniface 
 VIII added a sixth part, thence called the Sext, itself divided 
 into five books, in the nature of a supplement to the other five, 
 of which it follows the arrangement, and composed of decisions 
 promulgated since the pontificate of Gregory IX. New consti- 
 tutions were subjoined by Clement V and John XXII, under the 
 name of Clementines and Extravagantes Johannis ; and a few 
 more of later pontiffs are included in the body of canon law, 
 arranged as a second supplement after the manner of the Sext, 
 and called Extravagantes Communes. 
 
 The study of this code became, of course, obligatory upon 
 ecclesiastical judges. It produced a new class of legal practi- 
 tioners, or canonists ; of whom a great number added, like their 
 brethren, the civilians, their illustrations and commentaries, for 
 which the obscurity and discordance of many passages, more 
 especially in the " Decretum,'' gave ample scope. From the 
 general analogy of the canon law to that of Justinian, the two 
 systems became, in a remarkable manner, collateral and mutually 
 intertwined, the tribunals governed by either of them borrowing 
 their rules of decision from the other in cases where their pecul- 
 iar jurisprudence is silent or of dubious interpretation. ^^^ But 
 the canon law was almost entirely founded upon the legislative 
 authority of the Pope ; the " Decretals " are, in fact, but a new ar- 
 rangement of the bold epistles of the most usurping pontiffs, 
 and especially of Innocent III, with titles or rubrics compre- 
 
 168 Tiraboschi has fixed on 1140 as the "» Duck, " De Usu Juris Civilis," 1. i, 
 
 date of its appearance (iii, 343). but c. 8. 
 others bring it down some years later. 
 
458 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 hending the substance of each in the compiler's language. The 
 superiority of ecclesiastical to temporal power, or at least the 
 absolute independence of the former, may be considered as a 
 sort of key-note which regulates every passage in the canon 
 law.^®^ It is expressly declared that subjects owe no allegiance 
 to an excommunicated lord, if after admonition he is not recon- 
 ciled to the Church. ^^^ And the rubric prefixed to the declara- 
 tion of Frederick II's deposition in the Council of Lyons asserts 
 that the Pope may dethrone the emperor for lawful causes.^®^ 
 These rubrics to the " Decretals " are not perhaps of direct au- 
 thority as part of the law, but they express its sense, so as to be 
 fairly cited instead of it.^®^ By means of her new jurisprudence, 
 Rome acquired in every country a powerful body of advocates, 
 who, though many of them were laymen, would, with the usual 
 bigotry of lawyers, defend every pretension or abuse to which 
 their received standard of authority gave sanction. ^^* 
 
 Next to the canon law, I should reckon the institution of 
 the mendicant orders among those circumstances which prin- 
 cipally contributed to the aggrandizement of Rome. By the 
 acquisition, and in some respects the enjoyment, or at least 
 ostentation, of immense riches, the ancient monastic orders had 
 forfeited much of the public esteem. ^°^ Austere principles as 
 to the obligation of evangelical poverty were inculcated by the 
 numerous sectaries of that age, and eagerly received by the peo- 
 ple, already much alienated from an established hierarchy. No 
 means appeared so efficacious to counteract this effect as the 
 institution of religious societies strictly debarred from the insidi- 
 ous temptations of wealth. Upon this principle were founded 
 
 ^8<* Constitutiones principum ecclesias- 
 ticis constitutionibus non praeeminent, 
 sed obsequuntur. (" Decretum," dis- 
 tinct. 10.) Statutum generale laicorum 
 ad ecclesias vel ad ecclesiasticas per- 
 sonas, vel eorum bona, in earum prx- 
 judicium non extenditur. (" Decretal," 
 1. i, tit. 2, c. 10.) Qusecunque a principi- 
 bus in ordinibus vel in ecclesiasticis re- 
 bus decreta inveniuntur, nulHus auctori- 
 tatis esse monstrantur. (" Decretum," 
 distinct. 96.) 
 
 ^°^ Domino excommunicato manente, 
 subditi fidelitatem non debent; et si 
 longo tempore in e perstiterit, et moni- 
 tus non pareat ecclesiae, ab ejus debito 
 absolvuntur. (" Decretal," 1. v, tit. 37, 
 c. 18). I must acknowledge that the 
 decretal epistle of Honorius III scarce- 
 ly warrants this general proposition of 
 the rubric, though it seems to lead 
 to it. 
 
 "2 Papa imperatorem deponere potest 
 ex causis legitimis (1. ii, tit. 13, c. 2). 
 
 ^°^ If I understand a bull of Gregory 
 XIIT, prefixed to his recension of the 
 canon law, he confirms the rubrics or 
 glosses along with the text: but I can 
 
 not speak with certainty as to his 
 meaning. 
 
 ^0* For the canon law I have consult- 
 ed, besides the " Corpus Juris Canonici," 
 Tiraboschi, " Storia della Litteratura," 
 tomes iv and v; Giannone, 1. xiv, c. 3; 
 1. xix, c. 3; 1. xxii, c. 8; Fleury, "In- 
 stitutions au Droit Ecclesiastique," tome 
 1, p. 10, and " sme Discours sur I'His- 
 toire Eccles.; Duck, " De Usu Juris 
 Civihs," 1. i, c. 8; Schmidt, tome iv, p. 
 39; F. Paul, "Treatise of Benefices," c. 
 31. I fear that my few citations from 
 the canon law are not made scientifically; 
 the proper mode of reference is to the 
 first word, but the book and title are 
 rather more convenient, and there are 
 not many readers in England who will 
 detect this impropriety. 
 
 i«' It would be easy to bring evidence 
 from the writings of every successive 
 century to the general viciousness of the 
 regular clergy, whose memory it is some- 
 times the fashion to treat with respect. 
 (See particularly Muratori, Dissert. 65; 
 and Fleury, " 8me Discours.") The lat- 
 ter observes that their great wealth was 
 the cause of this relaxation in discipline. 
 
MENDICANT ORDERS 459 
 
 the orders of Mendicant Friars, incapable, by the rules of their 
 foundation, of possessing estates, and maintained only bv alms 
 and pious remunerations. Of these, the two most celebrated 
 were formed by St. Dominic and St. Francis of Assisi, and estab- 
 lished by the authority of Honorius III in 1216 and 1223. These 
 great reformers, who have produced so extraordinary an effect 
 upon mankind, were of very different characters : the one, active 
 and ferocious, had taken a prominent part in the crusade against 
 the unfortunate Albigeois, and was among the first who bore the 
 terrible name of inquisitor; while the other, a harmless enthu- 
 siast, pious and sincere, but hardly of sane mind, was much 
 rather accessory to the intellectual than to the moral degrada- 
 tion of his species. Various other mendicant orders were insti- 
 tuted in the thirteenth century ; but most of them were soon sup- 
 pressed, and, besides the two principal, none remain but the 
 Augustin and the Carmelites. ^'^^ 
 
 These new preachers were received with astonishing appro- 
 bation by the laity, whose religious zeal usually depends a good 
 deal upon their opinion of sincerity and disinterestedness in their 
 pastors. And the progress of the Dominican and Franciscan 
 friars in the thirteenth century bears a remarkable analogy to that 
 of our English Methodists. Not deviating from the faith of the 
 Church, but professing rather to teach it in greater purity, and 
 to observe her ordinances with greater regularity, while they im- 
 puted supineness and corruption to the secular clergy, they drew 
 round their sermons a multitude of such listeners as in all ages 
 are attracted by similar means. They practised all the stratagems 
 of itinerancy, preaching in public streets, and administering the 
 communion on a portable altar. Thirty years after their insti- 
 tution a historian complains that the parish churches were de- 
 serted, that none confessed except to these friars — in short, that 
 the regular discipline was subverted. ^^''^ This uncontrolled privi- 
 lege of performing sacerdotal functions, which their modern anti- 
 types assume for themselves, was conceded to the mendicant 
 orders by the favour of Rome. Aware of the powerful support 
 they might receive in turn, the pontiffs of the thirteenth century 
 accumulated benefits upon the disciples of Francis and Dominic. 
 They were exempted from episcopal authority ; they were per- 
 mitted to preach or hear confessions without leave of the ordi- 
 jj3j.y 168 ^Q accept of legacies, and to inter in their churches. Such 
 privileges could not be granted without resistance from the other 
 
 *^^ Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical His- quoniam casus episcopales reservati epis- 
 
 tory"; Fleury, " 8me Discours "; Cre- copis ab homine, vel a jure, communiter 
 
 vier, " Histoire de TUniversite de Paris," a Deum timentibus episcopis ipsis fra- 
 
 tome i, p. 318. tribus committuntur, et non presbyteris, 
 
 ^"■^ Matt. Paris, p. 607. quorum simplicitas non sufficit aliis diri- 
 
 108 Another reason for preferring the gendis. (Wilkins, " Concilia," tome ii, 
 
 friars is given by Archbishop Peckham: p. 169.) 
 
460 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 clergy; the bishops remonstrated, the University of Paris main- 
 tained a strenuous opposition; but their reluctance served only 
 to protract the final decision. Boniface VIII appears to have 
 peremptorily established the privileges and immunities of the 
 mendicant orders in 1295.^^^ 
 
 It was naturally to be expected that the objects of such ex- 
 tensive favours would repay their benefactors by a more than 
 usual obsequiousness and alacrity in their service. Accordingly, 
 the Dominicans and Franciscans vied with each other in mag- 
 nifying the papal supremacy. Many of these monks became 
 eminent in canon law and scholastic theology. The great law- 
 giver of the schools, Thomas Aquinas, whose opinions the Do- 
 minicans especially treat as almost infallible, went into the exag- 
 gerated principles of his age in favour of the See of Rome.^^^ 
 And as the professors of those sciences took nearly all the learn- 
 ing and logic of the times to their own share, it was hardly pos- 
 sible to repel their arguments by any direct reasoning. But this 
 partiality of the new monastic orders to the popes must chiefly 
 be understood to apply to the thirteenth century, circumstances 
 occurring in the next which gave in some degree a different com- 
 plexion to their dispositions in respect of the Holy See. 
 
 We should not overlook, among the causes that contributed 
 to the dominion of the popes, their prerogative of dispensing 
 with ecclesiastical ordinances. The most remarkable exercise of 
 this was as to the canonical impediments of matrimony. Such 
 strictness as is prescribed by the Christian religion with respect 
 to divorce was very unpalatable to the barbarous nations. They, 
 in fact, paid it little regard ; under the Merovingian dynasty, 
 even private men put away their wives at pleasure.^^^ In many 
 capitularies of Charlemagne we find evidence of the prevailing 
 license of repudiation and even polygamy.^^^ The principles 
 which the Church inculcated were in appearance the very reverse 
 of this laxity, yet they led indirectly to the same effect. Mar- 
 
 109 Crevier, " Hist, de TUniversite de 
 Paris," tome i et tome ii, passim; Fleury, 
 ubi supra; " Hist, du Droit Ecclesias- 
 tique FrariQois," tome i, pp. 394. 396, 
 446; Collier's " Ecclesiastical History," 
 vol. i, pp. 437. 448, 452; Wood's " An- 
 tiquities of Oxford," vol. i, pp. 376, 480 
 (Gutch's edition). 
 
 ^"^ It was maintained by the enemies 
 of the mendicants, especially William St. 
 Amour, that the Pope could not give 
 them a privilege to preach or perform 
 the other duties of the parish priests. 
 Thomas Aquinas answered that a bishop 
 might perform any spiritual functions 
 within his diocese, or commit the charge 
 to another instead, and that the Pope, 
 being to the whole Church what a bishop 
 is to his diocese, might do the same 
 everywhere. (Crevier, tome i, p. 474.) 
 
 "^ " Marculfi Formula." 1. ii, c. 30. 
 
 ^•2 Although a man might not marry 
 again when his wife had taken the veil, 
 he was permitted to do so if she was in- 
 fected with the leprosy. (Compare " Ca- 
 pitularia Pippini," a. d. 752 and 755.) If 
 a woman conspired to murder her hus- 
 band, he might remarry. (Id., a. d. 753.) 
 A large proportion of Pepin's laws re- 
 late to incestuous connections and di- 
 vorces. One of Charlemagne seems to 
 imply that polygamy was not unknown 
 even among priests. Si sacerdotes plures 
 uxores habuerint, sacerdotio priventur; 
 quia ssecularibus deteriores sunt. (Ca- 
 pitul., A. D. 769.) This seems to imply 
 that their marriage with one was allow- 
 able, which nevertheless is contradicted 
 by other passages in the capitularies. 
 
PAPAL DISPENSATIONS 
 
 461 
 
 riages were forbidden, not merely within the limits which Nature, 
 or those inveterate associations which we call Nature, have ren- 
 dered sacred, but as far as the seventh degree of collateral con- 
 sanguinity, computed from a common ancestor.^^^ Not only 
 was affinity, or relationship by marriage, put upon the same foot- 
 ing as that by blood, but a fantastical connection, called spiritual 
 affinity, was invented in order to prohibit marriage between a 
 sponsor and godchild. A union, however innocently contracted, 
 between parties thus circumstanced, might at any time be dis- 
 solved, and their subsequent cohabitation forbidden ; though 
 their children, I believe, in cases where there had been no knowl- 
 edge of the impediment, were not illegitimate. One readily ap- 
 prehends the facilities of abuse to which all this led ; and history 
 is full of dissolutions of marriage, obtained by fickle passion or 
 cold-hearted ambition, to which the Church has not scrupled to 
 pander on some suggestion of relationship. It is so difficult to 
 conceive, I do not say any reasoning, but any honest supersti- 
 tion, which could have produced those monstrous regulations 
 that I was at first inclined to suppose them designed to give, by 
 a side wind, that facility of divorce which a licentious people de- 
 manded, but the Church could not avowedly grant. This refine- 
 ment would, however, be unsupported by facts. The prohibi- 
 tion is very ancient, and was really derived from the ascetic tem- 
 per which introduced so many other absurdities.^^* It was not 
 until the twelfth century that either this or any other established 
 rules of discipline were supposed liable to arbitrary dispensa- 
 tion; at least the stricter churchmen had always denied that the 
 Pope could infringe canons, nor had he asserted any right to 
 do so.^^^ But Innocent III laid down as a maxim that out of 
 the plenitude of his power he might lawfully dispense with the 
 law; and accordingly granted, among other instances of this 
 prerogative, dispensations from impediments of marriage to the 
 Emperor Otho IV.^"^® Similar indulgences were given by his 
 successors, though they did not become usual for some ages. 
 
 "' See the canonical computation ex- 
 plained in St. Marc, tome iii, p. yj^- 
 Also in Blackstone's law tracts, " Trea- 
 tise on Consanguinity." In the eleventh 
 century an opinion began to gain ground 
 in Italy that third cousins might marry, 
 being in the seventh degree according to 
 the civil law. Peter Damian, a passionate 
 abettor of Hildebrand and his maxims, 
 treats this with horror, and calls it a 
 heresy. (Fleury, tome xiii, p. 152; St. 
 Marc, ubi supra.) This opinion was sup- 
 ported by a reference to the " Institutes 
 of Justinian "; a proof, among several 
 others, how much earlier that book was 
 known than is vulgarly supposed. 
 
 "* Gregory I pronounces matrimony 
 to be unlawful as far as the seventh 
 degree; and even, if I understand his 
 
 meaning, as long as any relationship 
 could be traced; which seems to have 
 been the maxim of strict theologians, 
 though not absolutely enforced. (Du 
 Cange, voc. Generatio; Fleury, " Hist. 
 Eccles.," tome ix, p. 211.) 
 
 "^ De Marca, I. iii, chaps. 7, 8, 14; 
 Schmidt, tome iv, p. 235. Dispensations 
 were originally granted only as to canon- 
 ical penances, but not prospectively to 
 authorize a breach of discipline. Gra- 
 tian asserts that the Pope is not bound 
 by the canons, in which, Fleury observes, 
 he goes beyond the False Decretals. 
 (" Septieme Discours," p. 291.) 
 
 ^^° Secundum plenitudinem potestatis 
 de jure possumus supra jus dispensare. 
 (Schmidt, tome iv, p, 235.) 
 
462 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The fourth Lateran Council in 121 5 removed a great part of the 
 restraint by permitting marriages beyond the fourth degree, or 
 what we call third cousins ; ^^^ and dispensations have been made 
 more easy when it was discovered that they might be converted 
 into a source of profit. They served a more important purpose 
 by rendering it necessary for the princes of Europe, who seldom 
 could marry into one another's houses without transgressing 
 the canonical limits, to keep on "good terms with the court of 
 Rome, which, in several instances that have been mentioned, ful- 
 minated its censures against sovereigns who lived without per- 
 mission in what was considered an incestuous union. 
 
 The dispensing power of the popes was exerted in several 
 cases of a temporal nature, particularly in the legitimation of 
 children, for purposes even of succession. This Innocent III 
 claimed as an indirect consequence of his right to remove the 
 canonical impediment which bastardy offered to ordination ; since 
 it would be monstrous, he says, that one who is legitimate for 
 spiritual functions should continue otherwise in any civil mat- 
 ter.^^^ But the most important and mischievous species of dis- 
 pensations was from the observance of promissory oaths. Two 
 principles are laid down in the " Decretals '' — that an oath disad- 
 vantageous to the Church is not binding; and that one extorted 
 by force was of slight obligation, and might be annulled by eccle- 
 siastical authority.^^^ As the first of these maxims gave the most 
 unlimited privilege to the popes of breaking all faith of treaties 
 which thwarted their interest or passion, a privilege which they 
 continually exercised, ^^^ so the second was equally convenient 
 to princes weary of observing engagements toward their sub- 
 
 y^J Fjeury, " Institutions au Droit Ec- 
 clesiastique," tome i, p. 296. 
 
 "« " Decretal," 1. iv, tit. 17, c. 13. 
 
 "' Juramentum contra utilitatem eccle- 
 siasticam prsestium non tenet. (" Decre- 
 tal," 1. ii, tit. 24, c. 27, et Sext., 1. i, tit. 11, 
 c. I.) A juramento per metum extorto 
 ecclesia sblet absolvere, et ejus transgres- 
 sores ut peccantes mortaliter non puni- 
 entur. (Eodem lib. et tit., c. 15.) The 
 whole of this title in the decretals upon 
 oaths seems to have given the first opening 
 to the lax casuistry of succeeding times. 
 
 180 Take one instance out of many. 
 Piccinino, the famous condottiere of the 
 fifteenth century, had promised not to 
 attack Francis Sforza, at that time en- 
 gaged against the Pope. Eugenius IV 
 (the same excellent person who had an- 
 nulled the compatacta with the Hussites, 
 releasing those who had sworn to them, 
 and who afterward made the King of 
 Hungary break his treaty with Amurath 
 II) absolves him from this promise, on 
 the express ground that a treaty disad- 
 vantageous to the Church ought not to 
 be kept. (Sismondi, tome ix, p. 196.) 
 The Church in that age was synonymous 
 with the papal territories in Italy. 
 
 It was in conformity to this sweeping 
 principle of ecclesiastical utility that 
 Urban VI made the following solemn 
 and general declaration against keeping 
 faith with heretics: Attendentes quod 
 hujusmodi confoederationes, colligationes, 
 et ligae seu conventiones factae cum hu- 
 jusmodi haereticis seu schismaticis post- 
 quam tales eflfecti erant, sunt temerariae, 
 illicitae, et ipso jure nullae (etsi forte ante 
 ipsorum lapsum in schisma, seu haeresin 
 initae seu factae fuissent), etiam si forent 
 juramento vel fide data firmatze, aut con- 
 firmatione^ apostolica vel quacunque fir- 
 mitate alia roboratae, postquam tales, ut 
 prsemittitur, sunt eflfecti. (Rymer, tome 
 vii, p. 352.) 
 
 It was of little consequence that all 
 divines and sound interpreters of canon 
 law maintain that the Pope can not dis- 
 pense with the divine or moral law, as 
 De Marca tells us (1. iii, c. 15), though 
 he admits that others of less sound judg- 
 ment assert the contrary, as was common 
 enough, I believe, among the Jesuits at 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 His power of interpreting the law was 
 of itself a privilege of dispensing with it. 
 
PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS 
 
 463 
 
 jects or their neighbours. They protested with, a bad grace 
 against the absolution of their people from allegiance by an au- 
 thority to which they did not scruple to repair in order to bolster 
 up their own perjuries. Thus Edward I, the strenuous asserter 
 of his temporal rights, and one of the first who opposed a bar- 
 rier to the encroachments of the clergy, sought at the hands of 
 Clement V a dispensation from his oath to observe the great 
 statute against arbitrary taxation. 
 
 In all the earlier stages of papal dominion the supreme head 
 of the Church had been her guardian and protector; and this 
 beneficent character appeared to receive its consummation in the 
 result of that arduous struggle which restored the ancient prac- 
 tice of free election to ecclesiastical dignities. Not long, how- 
 ever, after this triumph had been obtained, the popes began by 
 little and little to interfere with the regular constitution. Their 
 first step was conformable, indeed, to the prevailing system of 
 spiritual independence. By the concordat of Calixtus it appears 
 that the decision of contested elections was reserved to the em- 
 peror, assisted by the metropolitan and suffragans. In a few 
 cases during the twelfth century this imperial prerogative was 
 exercised, though not altogether undisputed.^®^ But it was con- 
 sonant to the prejudices of that age to deem the supreme pontiff 
 a more natural judge, as in other cases of appeal. The point 
 was early settled in England, where a doubtful election to the 
 archbishopric of York, under Stephen, was referred to Rome, 
 and there kept five years in litigation.^^^ Otho IV surrendered 
 this among other rights of the empire to Innocent III by his 
 capitulation,^®^ and from that pontificate the papal jurisdiction 
 over such controversies became thoroughly recognised. But the 
 real aim of Innocent, and perhaps of some of his predecessors, was 
 to dispose of bishoprics, under pretext of determining contests, 
 as a matter of patronage. So many rules were established, so 
 many formalities required by their constitutions, incorporated 
 afterward into the canon law, that the court of Rome might easily 
 find means of annulling what had been done by the chapter, and 
 bestowing the see on a favourite candidate.^®* The popes soon 
 assumed not only a right of decision, but of devolution — that is, 
 of supplying the want of election, or the unfitness of the elected, 
 
 "1 Schmidt, tome iii, p. 299; tome iv, 
 p. 149. According to the concordat, elec- 
 tions ought to be made in the presence 
 of the emperor or his officers; but the 
 chapters contrived to exclude them by 
 degrees, though not perhaps till the thir- 
 teenth century. (Compare Schmidt, tome 
 iii, p. 296; tome iv, p. 146.) 
 
 "2 Henry's " Hist, of England," vol. 
 V, p. 324; Littleton's " Henry II," vol. 
 i» P- 356. ^ 
 
 ^*» Schmidt, tome iv, p. 149. One of 
 
 these was the spoHum, or movable estate 
 of a bishop, which the emperor was used 
 to seize upon his decease (p. 154). It 
 was certainly a very leonine prerogative; 
 but the popes did not fail, at a subse- 
 
 ?uent time, to claim it for themselves. 
 Fleury, " Institutions au Droit," tome i, 
 p. 425; Lenfant, " Concile de Constance," 
 tome ii, p. 130.) 
 
 18* F. Paul, c. 30; Schmidt, tome iv, 
 pp. 177, 247. 
 
464 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 by a nomination of their own.^®^ Thus Archbishop Langton, if 
 not absolutely nominated, was at least chosen in an invalid and 
 compulsory manner by the order of Innocent III, as we may 
 read in our English historians. And several succeeding Arch- 
 bishops of Canterbury equally owed their promotion to the papal 
 prerogative. Some instances of the same kind occurred in Ger- 
 many, and it became the constant practice in Naples. ^®*^ 
 
 While the popes were thus artfully depriving the chapters 
 of their right of election to bishoprics, they interfered in a more 
 arbitrary manner with the collation of inferior benefices. This 
 began, though in so insensible a manner as to deserve no notice 
 but for its consequences, with Adrian IV, who requested some 
 bishops to confer the next benefice that should become vacant 
 on a particular clerk.^®^ Alexander III used to solicit similar 
 favours. ^^® These recommendatory letters were called mandates. 
 But though such requests grew more frequent than was accept- 
 able to patrons, they were preferred in moderate language, and 
 could not decently be refused to the apostolic chair. Even Inno- 
 cent III seems in general to be aware that he is not asserting 
 a right ; though in one instance I have observed his violent 
 temper break out against the chapter of Poitiers, who had made 
 some demur to the appointment of his clerk, and whom he threat- 
 ens with excommunication and interdict.^^^ But, as we find in 
 the history of all usurping governments, time changes anomaly 
 into system, and injury into right; examples beget custom, and 
 custom ripens into law ; and the doubtful precedent of one gen- 
 eration becomes the fundamental maxim of another. Honorius 
 III requested that two prebends in every church might be pre- 
 served for the Holy See ; but neither the bishops of France nor 
 England, to whom he preferred this petition, were induced to 
 comply with it.^^^ Gregory IX pretended to act generously in 
 limiting himself to a single expectative, or letter directing a par- 
 ticular clerk to be provided with a benefice in every church. ^^^ 
 But his practice went much further. No country was so intol- 
 erably treated by this Pope and his successors as England 
 throughout the ignominious reign of Henry III. Her Church 
 seemed to have been so richly endowed only as the free pasture 
 of Italian priests, who ^were placed, by the mandatory letters 
 of Gregory IX and Innocent IV, in all the best benefices. If 
 
 185 Thus we find it expressed, as cap- 
 tiously as words could be devised, in the 
 " Decretals," 1. i, tit. 6, c. 22: Electus a 
 majori et saniori parte capituli, si est, et 
 erat idoneus tempore electionis, con- 
 firmabitur; si autem erit indignus in or- 
 dinibus scientia vel aetate, et fuit scienter 
 electus, electus a minori parte, si est dig- 
 nus, confirmabitur. 
 
 A person canonically disqualified when 
 
 presented to the Pope for confirmation 
 was said to be postulatus, not electus. 
 
 18" Giannone, 1. xiv, c. 6; 1. xix, c. 5. 
 
 "^ St. Marc, tome v, p. 41; "Art de 
 verifier les Dates." tome i, p. 288; En- 
 cyclopedic, art. Mandats. 
 
 1^* Schmidt, tome iv, p. 230. 
 
 '«» " Innocent III Opera," p. 502. 
 
 "OM. Paris, p. 267; De Marca, 1. iv, c. 9. 
 
 "1 F. Paul on " Benefices," c. 30. 
 
MANDATES 
 
 46s 
 
 we may trust a solemn remonstrance in the name of the whole 
 nation, they drew from England, in the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, sixty or seventy thousand marks every year — a sum 
 far exceeding the royal revenue.^^^ This was asserted by the 
 English envoys at the Council of Lyons. But the remedy was 
 not to be sought in remonstrances to the court of Rome, which 
 exulted in the success of its encroachments. There was no de- 
 fect of spirit in the nation to oppose a more adequate resistance ; 
 but the weak-minded individual upon the throne sacrificed the 
 public interest sometimes through habitual timidity, sometimes 
 through silly ambition. If England, however, suffered more re- 
 markably, yet other countries were far from being untouched. 
 A German writer about the beginning of the fourteenth century 
 mentions a cathedral where, out of about thirty-five vacancies 
 of prebends that had occurred within twenty years, the regular 
 patron had filled only two.^®^ The case was not very different 
 in France, where the continual usurpations of the popes pro- 
 duced the celebrated Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis. This 
 edict, the authority of which, though probably without cause, 
 has been sometimes disputed, contains three important pro- 
 visions ; namely, that all prelates and other patrons shall enjoy 
 their full rights as to the collation of benefices, according to 
 the canons ; that churches shall possess freely their rights of elec- 
 tion; and that no tax or pecuniary exaction shall be levied by 
 the Pope without consent of the king and of the national 
 Church.^^* We do not find, however, that the French govern- 
 
 ^^2 M. Paris, pp. 579, 740. 
 
 "' Schmidt, tome vi, p. 104. 
 
 104 «• Ordonnances des Rois de France," 
 tome i, p. 97. Objections have been 
 made to the authenticity of this edict, 
 and in particular that we do not find the 
 king to have had any previous differ- 
 ences with the See of Rome; on the con- 
 trary, he was just indebted to Clement 
 IV for bestowing the crown of Naples 
 on his brother, the Count of Provence. 
 Velly has defended it, "Hist, de France," 
 tome vi, p. 57; and in the opinion of 
 the learned Benedictine editors of " L'Art 
 de verifier les Dates," tome i, p. 585, 
 cleared up all difficulties as to its genu- 
 ineness. In fact, however, the " Prag- 
 matic Sanction " of St. Louis stands by 
 itself, and can only be considered as a 
 protestation against abuses which it was 
 still impossible to suppress. 
 
 Of this law, which was published in 
 1268, Sismondi says : En lisant la prag- 
 matique sanction, on se demande avec 
 etonnement ce qui a pu causer sa prodi- 
 gieuse celebrite. Elle n'introduit aucun 
 droit nouveau; elle ne change rien a 
 I'organisation ecclesiastique; elle declare 
 seulement que tous les droits existans 
 seront conserves, que toute la legislation 
 canonique soit executee. A I'exception 
 de I'article v, sur la levees d'argent de la 
 
 30 
 
 cour de Rome, elle ne contient rien que 
 cette cour n'eut pu publier elle-meme; 
 et quant a cet article, qui paroit seul 
 dirige contre la chambre apostolique, il 
 n'est pas plus precis que ceux que bien 
 d'autres rois de France, d'Angleterre, et 
 d'Allemagne, avaient deja promulgues 
 a plusieurs reprises, et toujours sans 
 effet. (" Hist, des Franc," v. 106.) But 
 Sismondi overlooks the fourth article, 
 which enacts that all collations of bene- 
 fices shall be made according to the max- 
 ims of councils and fathers of the 
 Church. This was designed to repress 
 the dispensations of the Pope; and if 
 the French lawyers had been powerful 
 enough, it would have been successful 
 in that object. He goes on, indeed, him- 
 self to say: Ce qui changea la prag- 
 matique sanction en une barriere puis- 
 sante contre les usurpations de la cour 
 de Rome, c'est que les legistes s'en em- 
 parerent; ils prirent soin de I'expliquer, 
 de la commenter; plus elle etait vague, et 
 plus, entre leurs mains habiles, elle pou- 
 voit recevoir d'extension. Elle suffisait 
 seule pour garantir toutes les libert^s 
 du royaume; une fois que les parlemens 
 etoient resolus de ne jamais permettre 
 qu'elle fut violee, tout empietement de 
 la cour de Rome ou des tribunaux ec- 
 clesiastiques, toute lev^e de deniers or- 
 
466 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ment acted up to the spirit of this ordinance ; and the Holy See 
 continued to invade the rights of collation with less ceremony 
 than they had hitherto used. Clement IV published a bull in 
 1266, which, after asserting an absolute prerogative of the su- 
 preme pontiff to dispose of all preferments, whether vacant or 
 in reversion, confines itself in the enacting words to the reserva- 
 tion of such benefices as belong to persons dying at Rome (va- 
 cantes in curia). ^^^ These had for some time been reckoned as a 
 part of the Pope's special patronage; and their number, when 
 all causes of importance were drawn to his tribunal, when metro- 
 politans were compelled to seek their pallium in person, and 
 even by a recent constitution exempt abbots were to repair to 
 Rome for confirmation,^^^ not to mention the multitude who 
 flocked thither as mere courtiers and hunters after promotion, 
 must have been very considerable. Boniface VIII repeated this 
 law of Clement IV in a still more positive tone ; ^^'^ and Clement 
 V laid down as a maxim that the Pope might freely bestow, as 
 universal patron, all ecclesiastical benefices. ^^® In order to render 
 these tenable by their Italian courtiers, the canons against plurali- 
 ties and non-residence were dispensed with, so that individuals 
 were said to have accumulated fifty or sixty preferments.^®® It 
 was a consequence from this extravagant principle that the Pope 
 might prevent the ordinary collator upon a vacancy ; and as 
 this could seldom be done with sufficient expedition in places 
 remote from his court, that he might make reversionary grants 
 during the life of an incumbent, or reserve certain benefices spe- 
 cifically for his own nomination. 
 
 The persons as well as estates of ecclesiastics were secure 
 from arbitrary taxation in all the kingdoms founded upon the 
 ruins of the empire, both by the common liberties of freemen, 
 and more particularly by their own immunities and the horror 
 of sacrilege.^°° Such at least was their legal security, whatever 
 violence might occasionally be practised by tyrannical princes. 
 But this exemption was compensated by annual donatives, prob- 
 ably to a large amount, which the bishops and monasteries were 
 accustomed, and as it were compelled, to make to their sover- 
 eigns.^^^ They were subject also, generally speaking, to the 
 
 donnee par elle, toute election irreguliere, 
 toute excommunication, tout interdit, qui 
 touchoient I'autorite royale ou les droits 
 du sujet, furent denonces par les legistes 
 en parlement, comma contraires aux 
 franchises des eglises de France, et a la 
 pragmatique sanction. Ainsi s'introdui- 
 sait I'appel comme d'abus qui reussit 
 seul a contenir la jurisdiction eccl6sias- 
 tique dans de justes bornes. 
 
 i«= " Sext. Decretal," 1. iii, tome iv, c. 
 2; F. Paul on " Benefices," c. 35. This 
 writer thinks the privilege of nominating 
 benefices vacant in curia to have been 
 
 among the first claimed by the popes, 
 even before the usage of mandates (c. 30). 
 
 10" Matt. Paris, p. 817. 
 
 1" " Sext. Decret.," 1. iii, tome iv, c. 3. 
 Pie extended the vacancy in curia to all 
 places within two days' journey of the 
 papal court. 
 
 i»8F. Paul, c. 35. 
 
 "^ Id., chaps. 33-35; Schmidt, tome iv, 
 p. 104. 
 
 200 Muratori, Dissert. 70 ; Schmidt, 
 tome iii, p. 211. 
 
 -^^ Schmidt, tome iii, p. 211; Du Cange, 
 voc. Dona. 
 
PAPAL TAXATION OF THE CLERGY 
 
 467 
 
 feudal services and prestations. Henry I is said to have ex- 
 torted a sum of money from the EngHsh Church.^^^ g^ ^j^^ 
 first eminent instance of a general tax required from the clergy 
 was the famous Saladine tithe: a tenth of all movable estate, 
 imposed by the Kings of France and England upon all their sub- 
 jects, with the consent of their great councils of prelates and 
 barons, to defray the expense of their intended crusade. Yet 
 even this contribution, though called for by the imminent peril 
 of the Holy Land after the capture of Jerusalem, was not paid 
 without reluctance, the clergy doubtless anticipating the future 
 extension of such a precedent.^*^^ Many years had not elapsed 
 when a new demand was made upon them, but from a different 
 quarter. Innocent HI (the name continually recurs when we 
 trace the commencement of a usurpation) imposed in 1199 upon 
 the whole Church a tribute of one fortieth of movable estate, to 
 be paid to his own collectors, but strictly pledging himself that 
 the money should only be applied to the purposes of a crusade.^^* 
 This crusade ended, as is well known, in the capture of Constanti- 
 nople. But the word had lost much of its original meaning, 
 or rather that meaning had been extended by ambition and 
 bigotry. Gregory IX preached a crusade against the Emperor 
 Frederick, in a quarrel which only concerned his temporal prin- 
 cipality, and the Church of England was taxed by his authority 
 to carry on this holy war.^^'^ After some opposition, the bishops 
 submitted, and from that time no bounds were set to the rapacity 
 of papal exactions. The usurers of Cahors and Lombardy, re- 
 siding in London, took up the trade of agency for the Pope; 
 and in a few years he is said, partly by levies of money, partly 
 by the revenues of benefices, to have plundered the kingdom 
 of nine hundred and fifty thousand marks ; a sum equivalent, 
 perhaps, to not less than fifteen millions sterling at present. In- 
 nocent IV, during whose pontificate the tyranny of Rome, if we 
 consider her temporal and spiritual usurpations together, seems 
 to have reached its zenith, hit upon the device of ordering the 
 English prelates to furnish a certain number of men at arms to 
 defend the Church at their expense. This would soon have been 
 
 so^Eadmer, p. 83. 
 
 *°3 Schmidt, tome iv, p. 212; Little- 
 ton's "Henry II," vol. iii, p. 472; Velly, 
 tome iii, p. 316. 
 
 20* Innocent, " Opera," p. 266. 
 
 205 j^ Paris, p. 470. It was hardly 
 
 f>ossible for the clergy to make any el- 
 ective resistance to the Pope without 
 unravelling a tissue which they had been 
 assiduously weaving. One English prel- 
 ate distinguished himself in this reign 
 by his strenuous protestation against all 
 abuses of the Church. This was Robert 
 Grosstete, Bishop of Lincoln, who died 
 in 1253, the most learned Englishman of 
 
 his time, and the first who had any tinc- 
 ture of Greek literature. Matthew Paris 
 gives him a high character, which he 
 deserved for his learning and integrity; 
 one of his commendations is for keeping 
 a good table. But Grosstete appears to 
 have been imbued in a great degree with 
 the spirit of his age as to ecclesiastical 
 power, though unwilling to yield it up 
 to the Pope: and it is a strange thing 
 to reckon him among the precursors of 
 the Reformation. (M. Paris, p. 754 ; 
 Berington's " Literary History of the 
 Middle Ages," p. 378.) 
 
468 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 commuted into a standing escuage instead of military service.^^® 
 But the demand was perhaps not complied with, and we do not 
 find it repeated. Henry IIFs pusillanimity would not permit any 
 effectual measures to be adopted ; and, indeed, he sometimes 
 shared in the booty, and was indulged with the produce of taxes 
 imposed upon his own clergy to defray the cost of his projected 
 war against Sicily.^^^ A nobler example was set by the kingdom 
 of Scotland: Clement IV having, in 1267, granted the tithes of 
 its ecclesiastical revenues for one of his mock crusades, King 
 Alexander III, with the concurrence of the Church, stood up 
 against this encroachment, and refused the legate permission to 
 enter his dominions. ^"^^ Taxation of the clergy was not so out- 
 rageous in other countries ; but the popes granted a tithe of bene- 
 fices to St. Louis for each of his own crusades, and also for the 
 expedition of Charles of Anjou against Manfred. ^^* In the Coun- 
 cil of Lyons, held by Gregory X in 1274, a general tax in the 
 same proportion was imposed on all the Latin Church for the 
 pretended purpose of carrying on a holy war.^^^ 
 
 These gross invasions of ecclesiastical property, however sub- 
 missively endured, produced a very general disaffection toward 
 the court of Rome. The reproach of venality and avarice was 
 not indeed cast for the first time upon the sovereign pontiffs ; 
 but it had been confined, in earlier ages, to particular instances, 
 not affecting the bulk of the Catholic Church. But, pillaged 
 upon every slight pretence, without law and without redress, the 
 clergy came to regard their once paternal monarch as an arbi- 
 trary oppressor. All writers of the thirteenth and following cen- 
 turies complain in terms of unmeasured indignation, and seem 
 almost ready to reform the general abuses of the Church. They 
 distinguished, however, clearly enough between the abuses which 
 oppressed them and those which it was their interest to preserve, 
 nor had the least intention of waiving their own immunities 
 and authority. But the laity came to more universal conclu- 
 sions. A spirit of inveterate hatred grew up among them, not 
 only toward the papal tyranny, but the whole system of ecclesi- 
 astical independence. The rich envied and longed to plunder 
 the estates of the superior clergy; the poor learned from the 
 Waldenses and other sectaries to deem such opulence incom- 
 patible with the character of evangelical ministers. The itiner- 
 
 208 -j^ Paris, p. 613. It would be end- substance of English ecclesiastical his- 
 
 less to multiply proofs from Matthew tory during the reign of Henry III may 
 
 Paris, which, indeed, occur in almost be collected from Henry, and still better 
 
 every page. His laudable zeal against from Collier, 
 
 papal tyranny, on which some Protestant ^os Dalrymple's " Annals of Scotland," 
 
 writers have been so pleased to dwell, vol. i, p. 179. 
 
 was a little stimulated by personal feel- ^^^ Velly, tome iv, p. 343; tome v, p. 
 
 ings for the abbey of St. Alban's; and 343; tome vi, p. 47, 
 
 the same remark is probably applicable ^to idem, tome vi, p. 308; St. Marc, 
 
 to his love of civil liberty. tome vi, p. 347. 
 
 207 
 
 Rymer, tome i, p. 599, etc. The 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION 469 
 
 ant minstrels invented tales to satirize vicious priests, which 
 a predisposed multitude eagerly swallowed. If the thirteenth 
 century was an age of more extravagant ecclesiastical preten- 
 sions than any which had preceded, it was certainly one in which 
 the disposition to resist them acquired greater consistence. 
 
 To resist had, indeed, become strictly necessary, if the tem- 
 poral governments of Christendom would occupy any better 
 station than that of ofificers to the hierarchy. I have traced al- 
 ready the first stage of that ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which, 
 through the partial indulgence of sovereigns, especially Justinian 
 and Charlemagne, had become nearly independent of the civil 
 magistrate. Several ages of confusion and anarchy ensued, dur- 
 ing which the supreme regal authority was literally suspended 
 in France, and not much respected in some other countries. 
 It is natural to suppose that ecclesiastical jurisdiction, so far 
 as even that was regarded in such barbarous times, would be 
 esteemed the only substitute for coercive law, and the best se- 
 curity against wrong. But I am not aware that it extended itself 
 beyond its former limits till about the beginning of the twelfth 
 century. From that time it rapidly encroached upon the secular 
 tribunals, and seemed to threaten the usurpation of an exclusive 
 supremacy over all persons and causes. The bishops gave the 
 tonsure indiscriminately, in order to swell the list of their sub- 
 jects. This sign of a clerical state, though below the lowest of 
 their seven degrees of ordination, implying no spiritual office, con- 
 ferred the privileges and immunities of the profession on all who 
 wore an ecclesiastical habit and had only once been married. ^^^ 
 Orphans and widows, the stranger and the poor, the pilgrim and 
 the leper, under the appellation of persons in distress (miserabiles 
 personae), came within the peculiar cognizance and protection 
 of the Church ; nor could they be sued before any lay tribunal. 
 And the whole body of crusaders, or such as merely took the vow 
 of engaging in a crusade, enjoyed the same clerical privileges. 
 
 But where the character of the litigant parties could not, 
 even with this large construction, be brought within their pale, 
 the bishops found a pretext for their jurisdiction in the nature 
 of the dispute. Spiritual causes alone, it was agreed, could apper- 
 tain to the spiritual tribunal. But the word was indefinite ; and, 
 according to the interpreters of the twelfth century, the Church 
 was always bound to prevent and chastise the commission of 
 
 "^ Clerici qui cum unlets et virginibus Philip the Bold, however, had sub- 
 
 contraxerunt, si tonsuram et vestes de- jected these married clerks to taxes, and 
 
 ferant clericales, privilegium retineant later ordinances of the French kings^ ren- 
 
 praesenti declaramus edicto, hujus- dered them amenable to temporal juris- 
 
 modi clericos conjugates pro commissis diction; from which, in Naples, by vari- 
 
 ab iis excessibus vel delictis, trahi non ous provisions of the Angevin line, they 
 
 posse criminaliter aut civiliter ad judi- always continued free. (Giannone, I. xix, 
 
 cium sseculare. (Bonifacius Octavus, in c. 5.) 
 " Sext. Decretal," 1. iii, tit. 2, c. i.) 
 
470 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 sin. By this sweeping maxim, which we have seen Innocent III 
 apply to vindicate his control over national quarrels, the com- 
 mon differences of individuals, which generally involve some 
 charge of wilful injury, fell into the hands of a religious judge. 
 One is almost surprised to find that it did not extend more uni- 
 versally, and might praise the moderation of the Church. Real 
 actions, or suits relating to the property of land, were always 
 the exclusive province of the lay court, even where a clerk was 
 the defendant. ^^^ But the ecclesiastical tribunals took cognizance 
 of breaches of contract, at least where an oath had been pledged, 
 and of personal trusts. ^^^ They had not only an exclusive juris- 
 diction over questions immediately matrimonial, but a concurrent 
 one with the civil magistrate in France, though never in England, 
 over matters incident to the nuptial contract, as claims of mar- 
 riage portion and of dower.^^* They took the execution of testa- 
 ments into their hands, on account of the legacies to pious uses 
 which testators were advised to bequeath. ^^^ In process of time, 
 and under favourable circumstances, they made still greater 
 strides. They pretended a right to supply the defects, the doubts, 
 or the negligence of temporal judges; and invented a class of 
 mixed causes, whereof the lay or ecclesiastical jurisdiction took 
 possession according to priority. Besides this extensive author- 
 ity in civil disputes, they judged of some offences which naturally 
 belong to the criminal law, as well as of some others which 
 participate of a civil and criminal nature. Such were perjury, 
 sacrilege, usury, incest, and adultery ; ^^^ from the punishment of 
 all which the secular magistrate refrained, at least in England, 
 after they had become the province of a separate jurisdiction. 
 Excommunication still continued the only chastisement which 
 the Church could directly inflict. But the bishops acquired a 
 right of having their own prisons for lay offenders,^^^ and the 
 monasteries were the appropriate prisons of clerks. Their sen- 
 tences of excommunication were enforced by the temporal magis- 
 trate by imprisonment or sequestration of effects ; in some cases 
 by confiscation or death. ^^^ 
 
 "2 " Decretal." 1. ii, tome ii; " Ordon- 
 nances des Rois," tome i, p. 40 (a. d. 
 1189). In the Council of Lambeth in 1261 
 the bishops claim a right to judge inter 
 clericos suos, vel inter laicos conque- 
 rentes et clericos defendentes, in person- 
 alibus actionibus super contractibus, aut 
 delictis aut quasi — i. e., quasi dilictis. 
 (Wilkins, " Concilia," tome i, p. 747.) 
 
 213 " Ordonnances des Rois," p. 319 
 (a. d. 1290), 
 
 ^^* Id., pp. 40, 121, 220, 319. 
 
 ^^■^ Id., p. 319; Glanvil, 1. vii, c. 7. 
 Sancho IV gave the same jurisdiction to 
 the clergy of Castile, " Teoria de las Cor- 
 tes," tome iii, p. 20; and in other respects 
 followed the example of his father, Al- 
 
 fonso X, in favouring their encroach- 
 ments. The Church of Scotland seems 
 to have had nearly the same jurisdiction 
 as that of England. (Pinkerton's " His- 
 tory of Scotland," vol. i, p. 177.) 
 
 ^10 n ^35 ^ maxim of the canon, as 
 well as the common law, that no person 
 should be punished twice for the same 
 offence; therefore, if a clerk had been 
 degraded, or a penance imposed on a 
 layman, it was supposed unjust to pro- 
 ceed against him in a temporal court, 
 
 2" Charlemagne is said by Giannone 
 to have per--iitted the bishops to have 
 prisons of their own (I. vi, c. 7). 
 c "\Giannone, 1. xix, c. 5, tome iii; 
 bchmidt, tome iv, p. 195; tome vi, p. 125; 
 
IMMUNITY OF THE CLERGY 
 
 471 
 
 The clergy did not forget to secure along with this jurisdic- 
 tion their own absolute exemption from the criminal justice of 
 the state. This, as I have above mentioned, had been conceded 
 to them by Charlemagne ; and this privilege was not enjoyed 
 by clerks in England before the conquest, nor do we find it 
 proved by any records long afterward ; though it seems, by what 
 we read about the constitutions of Clarendon, to have grown 
 into use before the reign of Henry II. As to France and Ger- 
 many, I can not pretend to say that the law of Charlemagne 
 granting an exemption from ordinary criminal process was ever 
 abrogated. The *' False Decretals " contain some passages in 
 favour of ecclesiastical immunity, which Gratian repeats in his 
 collection.^^® About the middle of the twelfth century the prin- 
 ciple obtained general reception, and Innocent III decided it 
 to be an inalienable right of the clergy, whereof they could not 
 be divested even by their own consent.^-^ Much less were any 
 constitutions of princes, or national usages, deemed of force to 
 abrogate such an important privilege. ^^^ These, by the canon 
 law, were invalid when they affected the rights and liberties of 
 holy Church.^^^ But the spiritual courts were charged with scan- 
 dalously neglecting to visit the most atrocious offences of clerks 
 with such punishment as they could inflict. The Church could 
 always absolve from her own censures ; and confinement in a 
 monastery, the usual sentence upon criminals, was frequently 
 slight and temporary. Several instances are mentioned of hei- 
 nous outrages that remained nearly unpunished through the shield 
 of ecclesiastical privilege.^^^ And as the temporal courts re- 
 fused their assistance to a rival jurisdiction, the clergy had no 
 redress for their own injuries, and even the murder of a priest 
 at one time, as we are told, was only punishable by excommuni- 
 cation.^^* 
 
 Such an incoherent medley of laws and magistrates, upon 
 the symmetrical arrangement of which all social economy mainly 
 depends, could not fail to produce a violent collision. Every 
 
 Fleury, " yme Discours," " Mem. de 
 TAcad. des Inscript.," tome xxxix, p. 603. 
 Ecclesiastical jurisdiction not having 
 been uniform in different ages and coun- 
 tries, it is difficult without much atten- 
 tion to distinguish its general and per- 
 manent attributes from those less com- 
 pletely established. Its description, as 
 given in the " Decretals," lib. ii, tit. 2, 
 De foro competenti, does not support the 
 pretensions made by the canonists, nor 
 come up to the sweeping definition of 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction by Boniface 
 VIII in the " Sext.," 1. iii, tit. 23, c. 40, 
 sive ambae partes hoc voluerint, sive una 
 super causis ecclesiasticis, sive quae ad 
 forum ecclesiasticum ratione personarum, 
 negotiorum, vel rerum de jure vel de 
 antiqua consuetudine pertinere noscuntur. 
 
 ^'^ Fleury, " 7me Discours." 
 
 220 Id.; "Institutions au Droit Ec- 
 cl6s.," tome ii, p. 8. 
 
 "^ In criminalibus causis in nullo casu 
 possunt clerici ab aliquo quam ab eccle- 
 siastico judice condemnari, etiamsi con- 
 suetudo regia habeat ut fures a judicibus 
 saecularibus judicentur. (" Decretal," 1. 
 i, tit. I, c. 8.) 
 
 "2 " Decret.," distinct. 96. 
 
 "3 Collier, vol. i, p. 351. It is laid 
 down in the canon laws that a layman 
 can not be a witness in a criminal case 
 against a clerk. (" Decretal," 1. ii, tit. 
 20, c. 14.) 
 
 22* Littleton's " Henry II," vol. iii, p. 
 3^2. This must be restricted to that pe- 
 riod of open hostility between the Church 
 and state. 
 
472 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 sovereign was interested in vindicating the authority of the con- 
 stitutions which had been formed by his ancestors or by the 
 people whom he governed. But the first who undertook this 
 arduous work, the first who appeared openly against ecclesiastical 
 tyranny, was our Henry II. The Anglo-Saxon Church, not so 
 much connected as some others with Rome, and enjoying a sort 
 of barbarian immunity from the thraldom of canonical disci- 
 pline, though rich, and highly respected by a devout nation, 
 had never, perhaps, desired the thorough independence upon 
 secular jurisdiction at which the continental hierarchy aimed. 
 William the Conqueror first separated the ecclesiastical from the 
 civil tribunal, and forbade the bishops to judge of spiritual causes 
 in the hundred court.^^^ His language is, however, too indefinite 
 to warrant any decisive proposition as to the nature of such 
 causes ; probably they had not yet been carried much beyond 
 their legitimate extent. Of clerical exemption from the secular 
 arm we find no earlier notice than in the coronation oath of 
 Stephen ; which, though vaguely expressed, may be construed 
 to include it.^^^ But I am not certain that the law of England 
 had unequivocally recognised that claim at the time of the con- 
 stitutions of Clarendon. It was at least an innovation, which 
 the legislature might without scruple or transgression of justice 
 abolish. Henry II, in that famous statute, attempted in three 
 respects to limit the jurisdiction assumed by the Church ; assert- 
 ing for his own judges the cognizance of contracts, however con- 
 firmed by oath, and of rights of advowson, and also that of 
 offences committed by clerks, whom, as it is gently expressed, 
 after conviction or confession the Church ought not to protect. ^^^ 
 These constitutions were the leading subject of difference be- 
 tween the king and Thomas a Becket. Most of them were an- 
 nulled by the Pope, as derogatory to ecclesiastical liberty. It 
 is not improbable, however, that, if Louis VII had played a 
 more dignified part, the See of Rome, which an existing schism 
 rendered dependent upon the favour of those two monarchs, 
 might have receded in some measure from her pretensions. But 
 France implicitly giving way to the encroachments of ecclesias- 
 
 225 Ut nullus episcopus vel archidiaco- 
 nus de legibus episcopalibus amplius in 
 Hundret placita teneant, nee causam 
 quas ad regimen animarum pertinet, ad 
 judicium saecularium hominum adducant. 
 (VVilkins, " Leges Anglo-Saxon," 230.) 
 
 Before the conquest the bishop and 
 earl sat together in the court of the 
 county or hundred, and, as we may in- 
 fer from the tenor of this charter, eccle- 
 siastical matters were decided loosely, 
 and rather by the common law than ac- 
 cording to the canons. This practice 
 had been already forbidden by some 
 canons enacted under Edgar (id., p. 8.p, 
 but apparently with little effect. The 
 
 separation of the civil and ecclesiastical 
 tribunals was not made in Denmark till 
 the rei^n of Nicholas, who ascended the 
 throne m 1105. (Langebek, " Script. Rer, 
 Danic," tome iv, p. 380.) Others refer 
 the law to St. Canut, about 1080 (tome ii, 
 p. 209). 
 
 228 Ecclesiasticarum personarum et om- 
 nium clericorum, et rerum eorum jus- 
 titiam et potestatem, et distributionem 
 honorum ecclesiasticorum, in manu epis- 
 coporum esse perhibeo, et confirmo. 
 (Wilkins, " Leges Anglo-Saxon," p. 310.) 
 
 "T Wilkins, ^' Leges Anglo-Saxon,'^' p. 
 323; Littleton's " Henry II "; Collier, 
 etc. 
 
REPRESSION OF ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION 473 
 
 tical power, it became impossible for Henry completely to with- 
 stand them. 
 
 The constitutions of Clarendon, however, produced some 
 effect, and in the reign of Henry HI more unremitted and suc- 
 cessful efforts began to be made to maintain the independence 
 of temporal government. The judges of the king's court had 
 until that time been themselves principally ecclesiastics, and con- 
 sequently tender of spiritual privileges.^^^ But now, abstaining 
 from the exercise of temporal jurisdiction, in obedience to the 
 strict injunctions of their canons,^^^ the clergy gave place to 
 common lawyers, professors of a system very discordant from 
 their own. These soon began to assert the supremacy of their 
 jurisdiction by issuing writs of prohibition whenever the ecclesi- 
 astical tribunals passed the boundaries which approved use had 
 established. ^^° Little accustomed to such control, the proud 
 hierarchy chafed under the bit; several provincial synods pro- 
 test against the pretensions of laymen to judge the anointed 
 ministers whom they were bound to obey ; ^^^ the cognizance of 
 rights of patronage and breaches of contract is boldly asserted ; ^^^ 
 but firm and cautious, favoured by the nobility, though not much 
 by the king, the judges receded not a step, and ultimately fixed 
 a barrier which the Church was forced to respect. ^^^ In the en- 
 suing reign of Edward I an archbishop acknowledges the abstract 
 right of the king's bench to issue prohibitions ; ^^'^ and the statute 
 entitled Circumspecte agatis, in the thirteenth year of that prince, 
 while by its mode of expression it seems designed to guarantee 
 the actual privileges of spiritual jurisdiction, had a tendency, 
 especially with the disposition of the judges, to preclude the 
 assertion of some which are not therein mentioned. Neither 
 the right of advowson nor any temporal contract is specified 
 in this act as pertaining to the Church ; and, accordingly, the 
 temporal courts have ever since maintained an undisputed juris- 
 diction over them.^^^ They succeeded also partially in prevent- 
 
 "8 Dugdale's " Origines Juridicales," 
 c. 8. 
 
 2«> " Decretal," 1. i, tit. yj, c. i; Wil- 
 kins, " Concilia," tome ii, p. 4- 
 
 230 Prynne has produced several ex- 
 tracts from the pipe rolls of Henry II, 
 where a person has been fined quia placi- 
 tavit de laico feodo in curia christiani- 
 tatis. And a Bishop of Durham is fined 
 five hundred marks quia tenuit placitum 
 de advocatione cujnsdam ecclesiae in curia 
 christianitatis. (Epistle dedicatory to 
 Prynne's " Records," vol. iii.) Glanvil 
 gives the form of a writ of prohibition to 
 the spiritual court for inquiring de feodo 
 laico; for it had jurisdiction over lands 
 in frankalmoign. This is conformable to 
 the constitutions of Clarendon, and shows 
 that they were still in force. (See also 
 Littleton's " Henry II," vol. iii, p. 97-) 
 
 231 Cum judicandi Christos domini nul- 
 la sit laicis attributa potestas, apud quos 
 manet necessitas obsequendi. (Wilkins, 
 " Concilia," tome i, p. 747.) 
 
 2'2 Id., ibid.; et tome ii, p. 90. 
 
 233 Vide Wilkins, " Concilia," tome ii, 
 passim. 
 
 234 Licet prohibitiones hujusmodi a 
 curia christianissimi regis nostri juste 
 proculdubio, ut diximus, concedantur. 
 (Id., tome ii, pp. 100 and 115.) 
 
 236 The statute Circumspecte agatis — for 
 it is acknowledged as a statute, though 
 not drawn up in the form of one — is 
 founded upon an answer of Edward I to 
 the prelates who had petitioned for some 
 modification of prohibitions. Collier, al- 
 ways prone to exaggerate church au- 
 thority, insinuates that the jurisdiction 
 of the spiritual court over breaches of 
 
474 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 ing the impunity of crimes perpetrated by clerks. It was enacted 
 by the statute of Westminster, in 1275, or rather a construction 
 was put upon that act, which is obscurely worded, that clerks 
 indicted for felony should not be delivered to their ordinary until 
 an inquest had been taken of the matter of accusation, and, if 
 they were found guilty, that their real and personal estate should 
 be forfeited to the crown. In later times the clerical privilege 
 was not allowed till the party had pleaded to the indictment, and 
 being duly convict, as is the practice at present. ^^* 
 
 The civil magistrates of France did not by any means exert 
 themselves so vigorously for their emancipation. The same or 
 rather worse usurpations existed, and the same complaints were 
 made, under Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and Philip the Bold ; 
 but the laws of those sovereigns tend much more to confirm 
 than to restrain ecclesiastical encroachments. ^^^ Some limita- 
 tions were attempted by the secular courts ; and a historian gives 
 us the terms of a confederacy among the French nobles in 1246, 
 binding themselves by oath not to permit the spiritual judges to 
 take cognizance of any matter, except heresy, marriage, and 
 usury.^^^ Unfortunately, Louis IX was almost as little disposed 
 as Henry III to shake off the yoke of ecclesiastical dominion. 
 But other sovereigns in the same period, from various motives, 
 were equally submissive. Frederick II explicitly adopts the ex- 
 emption of clerks from criminal as well as civil jurisdiction of 
 seculars. ^^^ And Alfonso X introduced the same system in Cas- 
 tile — a kingdom where neither the papal authority nor the in- 
 dependence of the Church had obtained any legal recognition 
 until the promulgation of his code, which teems with all the prin- 
 
 contract, even without oath, is preserved 
 by this statute; but the express words 
 of the king show that none whatever was 
 intended, and the archbishop complains 
 bitterly of it afterward. (Wilkins, ' Con- 
 cilia," tome ii, p. ii8; Collier's " Ecclesi- 
 ast. History," vol. i, p. 487.) So far 
 from having any cognizance of civil con- 
 tracts not confirmed by oath, to which 
 I am not certain that the Church ever 
 pretended in any country, the spiritual 
 court had no jurisdiction at all, even 
 where an oath had intervened, unless 
 there was a deficiency of proof by writ- 
 ing or witnesses. (Glanvil, 1. x, c. 12; 
 Constitut. Clarendon, art. 15.) 
 
 -^"2 Inst., p. 163. This is not likely 
 to mislead a well-informed reader, but 
 it ought, perhaps, to be mentioned that 
 by the " clerical privilege " we are only 
 to understand what is called benefit of 
 clergy, which, in fact, is, or rather was 
 till recent alterations of the law since 
 the first edition of this work, no more 
 than the remission of capital punishment 
 for the first conviction of felony, and 
 that not for the clergy alone, but for 
 all culprits alike. They were not called 
 upon at any time, I believe, to prove 
 
 their claim as clergy, except by reading 
 the neck-verse after trial and conviction 
 in the king's court. They were then in 
 strictness to be committed to the ordi- 
 nary or ecclesiastical superior, which 
 probably was not often done. 
 
 ^•''^ It seems deducible from a law of 
 Philip Augustus, " Ordonnances des 
 Rois," tome i, p. 39, that a clerk con- 
 victed of some heinous ofiFences might be 
 capitally punished after degradation; yet 
 a subsequent ordinance (p. 43) renders 
 this doubtful, and the theory of clerical 
 immunity became afterward more fully 
 established. 
 
 ==« Matt. Paris, p. 629. 
 
 239 Statuirnus, ut nullus ecclesiasticam 
 personam, in criminali qujcstione vel 
 civili, trahere ad judicium s.neculare prae- 
 sumat. " Ordonnances des Rois de 
 France," tome i, p. 611, where this edict 
 is recited and approved by Louis Hutin. 
 Philip the Bold had obtained leave from 
 the Pope to arrest clerks accused of hei- 
 nous crimes, on condition of remitting 
 them to the bishop's court for trial. 
 (" PTist. du Droit Eccl. Frang.," tome i, 
 p. 426.) A council at Bourges. held in 
 1276, had so absolutely condemned all 
 
ALIENATIONS IN MORTMAIN 
 
 475 
 
 ciples of the canon law.^*^ It is almost needless to mention that 
 all ecclesiastical powers and privileges were incorporated with 
 the jurisprudence of the kingdom of Naples, which, especially after 
 the accession of the Angevin line, stood in a peculiar relation of 
 dependence upon the Holy See.^*^ 
 
 The vast acquisitions of landed wealth made for many ages 
 by bishops, chapters, and monasteries, began at length to excite 
 the jealousy of sovereigns. They perceived that, although the 
 prelates might send their stipulated proportion of vassals into 
 the field, yet there could not be that active co-operation which 
 the spirit of feudal tenures required, and that the national arm 
 was palsied by the diminution of military nobles. Again the 
 reliefs upon succession, and similar dues upon alienation, inci- 
 dental to fiefs, were entirely lost when they came into the hands 
 of these undying corporations, to the serious injury of the feudal 
 superior. Nor could it escape reflecting men, during the contest 
 about investitures, that, if the Church peremptorily denied the 
 supremacy of the state over her temporal wealth, it was but a 
 just measure of retaliation, or rather self-defence, that the state 
 should restrain her further acquisitions. Prohibitions of gifts 
 in mortmain, though unknown to the lavish devotion of the new 
 kingdoms, had been established by some of the Roman emperors 
 to check the overgrown wealth of the hierarchy.^*^ The first 
 attempt at a limitation of this description in modern times was 
 made by Frederick Barbarossa, who, in 1158, enacted that no 
 fief should be transferred, either to the Church or otherwise, with- 
 out the permission of the superior lord. Louis IX inserted a 
 provision of the same kind in his '' Establishments." ^*^ Castile 
 had also laws of a similar tendency.^^* A license from the crown 
 is said to have been necessary in England before the conquest 
 for alienations in mortmain ; but, however that may be, there 
 seems no reason to imagine that any restraint was put upon them 
 by the common law before Magna Charta, a clause of which 
 statute was construed to prohibit all gifts to religious houses 
 without the consent of the lord of the fee. And by the 7th Ed- 
 ward I alienations in mortmain are absolutely taken away, though 
 the king might always exercise his prerogative of granting a 
 
 interference of the secular power with 
 clerks that the king was obliged, to 
 solicit this moderate favour (p. 421). 
 
 ^'^^ Marina, " Ensayo Historico-Critico 
 sobre las Siete Partidas," c, 320, etc.; 
 " Hist, du Droit Eccles. Fran?.," tome 
 i, p. 442. 
 
 "^ Giannone, 1. xix, c. v; 1. xx, c. 8. 
 One provision of Robert, King of Naples, 
 is remarkable: it extends the immunity 
 of clerks to their concubines. (Ibid.) 
 
 Villani strongly censures a law made 
 at Florence in 1345, taking away the 
 personal immunity of clerks in criminal 
 
 cases. Though the state could make 
 such a law, it had no right to do so 
 a^'ainst the liberties of holy Church (1. 
 xii, c. 43). 
 
 "*- Giannone, I. iii. 
 
 243 " Ordonnances des Rois," p. 213. 
 See, too, p. 303 and alibi. Du Cange, 
 voc. Manus morta. Amortissiment, in 
 Denisart and other French law-books. 
 Fleury, " Instit. au Droit," tome i, p. 
 350. 
 
 2" Marina, " Ensayo sobre las Siete 
 Partidas." c. 235. 
 
476 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 license, which was not supposed to be affected by the stat- 
 ute.2*5 
 
 It must appear, I think, to every careful inquirer that the 
 papal authority, though manifesting outwardly more show of 
 strength every year, had been secretly undermined, and lost a 
 great deal of its hold upon public opinion, before the accession 
 of Boniface VIII, in 1294, to the pontifical throne. The clergy 
 were rendered sullen by demands of money, invasions of the legal 
 right of patronage, and unreasonable partiality to the mendicant 
 orders; a part of the mendicants themselves had begun to de- 
 claim against the corruptions of the papal court ; while the laity, 
 subjects alike and sovereigns, looked upon both the head and 
 the members of the hierarchy with jealousy and dislike. Boni- 
 face, full of inordinate arrogance and ambition, and not suffi- 
 ciently sensible of this gradual change in human opinion, en- 
 deavoured to strain to a higher pitch the despotic pretensions 
 of former pontiffs. As Gregory VII appears the most usurping 
 of mankind till we read the history of Innocent III, so Innocent 
 III is thrown into shade by the superior audacity of Boniface 
 VIII. But independently of the less favourable dispositions of 
 the public, he wanted the most essential quality for an ambitious 
 pope — reputation for integrity. He was suspected of having 
 procured through fraud the resignation of his predecessor, Celes- 
 tine V, and his harsh treatment of that worthy man afterward 
 seems to justify the reproach. His actions, however, display the 
 intoxication of extreme self-confidence. If we may credit some 
 historians, he appeared at the Jubilee in 1300, a festival success- 
 fully instituted by himself to throw lustre around his court and 
 fill his treasury,^**^ dressed in imperial habits, with the two swords 
 borne before him, emblems of his temporal as well as spiritual 
 dominion over the earth. ^*^ 
 
 It was not long after his elevation to the pontificate before 
 Boniface displayed his temper. The two most powerful sover- 
 eigns of Europe, Philip the Fair and Edward I, began at the same 
 moment to attack in a very arbitrary manner the revenues of the 
 Church. The English clergy had, by their own voluntary grants, 
 or at least those of the prelates in their name, paid frequent sub- 
 
 ^""2 Inst., p. 74; Blackstone, vol. ii, 
 c. 18. 
 
 '*^ The Jubilee was a centenary com- 
 memoration in honour of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, established by Boniface VIII 
 on the faith of an imaginary precedent a 
 century before. The period was soon 
 reduced to fifty years, and from thence to 
 twenty-five, as it still continues. The 
 court of Rome at the next jubilee will, 
 however, read with a sigh the description 
 given of that in 1300: Papa innumera- 
 bilem pecuniam ab iisdem recepit, quia 
 die et nocte duo clerici stabant ad altare 
 
 sancti Pauli, tenentes in eorum manibus 
 rastellos, rastellantes pecuniam infinitam. 
 (Auctor apud Muratori, *' Annali d' Ita- 
 lia.") Plenary indulgences were granted 
 by Boniface to all who should keep their 
 jubilee at Rome, and I suppose are still 
 to be had on the same terms. Matteo 
 Villani gives a curious account of the 
 throng at Rome in 1350. 
 
 2"Giannone, 1. xxi, c. 3; Velly, tome 
 vii, p. 149. I have not observed any good 
 authority referred to for this fact, which 
 is, however, in the character of Boni- 
 face. 
 
BONIFACE VIII 
 
 477 
 
 sidies to the crown from the beginning of the reign of Henry 
 III. They had nearly in effect waived the ancient exemption, 
 and retained only the common privilege of English freemen to 
 tax themselves in a constitutional manner. But Edward I came 
 upon them with demands so frequent and exorbitant that they 
 were compelled to take advantage of a bull issued by Boniface, 
 forbidding them to pay any contribution to the state. The king 
 disregarded every pretext, and, seizing their goods into his hands, 
 with other tyrannical proceedings, ultimately forced them to ac- 
 quiesce in his extortion. It is remarkable that the Pope appears 
 to have been passive throughout this contest of Edward I with 
 his clergy. But it was far otherwise in France. Philip the Fair 
 had imposed a tax on the ecclesiastical order without their con- 
 sent, a measure perhaps unprecedented, yet not more odious than 
 the similar exactions of the King of England. Irritated by some 
 previous differences, the Pope issued his bull known by the initial 
 words Clericis laicos, absolutely forbidding the clergy of every 
 kingdom to pay, under whatever pretext of voluntary grant, gift, 
 or loan, any sort of tribute to their government without his spe- 
 cial permission. Though France was not particularly named, 
 the king understood himself to be intended, and took his revenge 
 by a prohibition to export money from the kingdom. This 
 produced angry remonstrances on the part of Boniface ; but the 
 Gallican Church adhered so faithfully to the crown, and showed, 
 indeed, so much willingness to be spoiled of their money, that 
 he could not insist upon the most unreasonable propositions of 
 his bull, and ultimately allowed that the French clergy might 
 assist their sovereign by voluntary contributions, though not by 
 way of tax. 
 
 For a very few years after these circumstances the Pope 
 and King of France appeared reconciled to each other ; and the 
 latter even referred his disputes with Edward I to the arbitra- 
 tion of Boniface, " as a private person, Benedict of Gaeta (his 
 proper name), and not as pontiff " ; an almost nugatory precau- 
 tion against his encroachment upon temporal authority.^^^ But 
 a terrible storm broke out in the first year of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. A bishop of Pamiers, who had been sent as legate from 
 Boniface with some complaint, displayed so much insolence and 
 
 "8 Walt. Hemingford, p. 150. The 
 award of Boniface, which he expresses 
 himself to make both as Pope and Bene- 
 dict of Gaeta, is published in Rymer, 
 tome ii, p. 819, and is very equitable. 
 Nevertheless, the French historians 
 agreed to charge him with partiality to- 
 ward Edward, and mention several proofs 
 of it, which do not appear in the bull 
 itself. Previous to its publication it 
 was allowable enough to follow common 
 fame; but Velly has repeated mere false- 
 
 hoods from Mezeray and Baillet, while 
 he refers to the instrument itself in Ry- 
 mer, which disproves them. (" Hist, de 
 France," tome vii, p. 139.) M. Gaillard, 
 one of the most candid critics in history 
 that France ever produced, pointed out 
 the error of her common historians in 
 the " Mem, de TAcademie des Inscrip- 
 tions," tome xxxix, p. 642; and the ed- 
 itors of " L'Art de verifier les Dates " 
 have also rectified it. 
 
478 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 such disrespect toward the king that Philip, considering him as 
 his own subject, was provoked to put him under arrest, with a 
 view to institute a criminal process. Boniface, incensed beyond 
 measure at this violation of ecclesiastical and legatine privileges, 
 published several bulls addressed to the king and clergy of 
 France, charging the former with a variety of offences, some of 
 them not at all concerning the Church, and commanding the 
 latter to attend a council which he had summoned to meet at 
 Rome. In one of these instruments, the genuineness of which 
 does not seem liable to much exception, he declares in concise 
 and clear terms that the king was subject to him in temporal 
 as well as spiritual matters. This proposition had not hitherto 
 been explicitly advanced, and it was now too late to advance it. 
 Philip replied by a short letter in the rudest language, and or- 
 dered his bulls to be publicly burned at Paris. Determined, 
 however, to show the real strength of his opposition, he sum- 
 moned representatives from the three orders of his kingdom. 
 This is commonly reckoned the first assembly of the States- 
 General. The nobility and commons disclaimed with firmness 
 the temporal authority of the Pope, and conveyed their senti- 
 ments to Rome through letters addressed to the college of cardi- 
 nals. The clergy endeavoured to steer a middle course, and were 
 reluctant to enter into an engagement not to obey the Pope's 
 summons ; yet they did not hesitate unequivocally to deny his 
 temporal jurisdiction. 
 
 The council, however, opened at Rome ; and notwithstanding 
 the king's absolute prohibition, many French prelates held them- 
 selves bound to be present. In this assembly Boniface promul- 
 gated his famous constitution, denominated Unam sanctam. The 
 Church is one body, he therein declares, and has one head. 
 Under its commands are two swords, the one spiritual, and the 
 other temporal ; that to be used by the supreme pontiff himself ; 
 this by kings and knights, by his license and at his will. But 
 the lesser sword must be subject to the greater, and the temporal 
 to the spiritual authority. He concludes by declaring the sub- 
 jection of every human being to the See of Rome to be an article 
 of necessary faith. ^^^ Another bull pronounces all persons of 
 whatever rank obliged to appear when personally cited before 
 the audience or apostolical tribunal at Rome ; " since such is our 
 pleasure, who, by divine permission, rule the world." Finally, 
 as the rupture with Philip grew more evidently irreconcilable, 
 
 "" Uterque est in potestate ecclesise, auctoritatem spiritali subjici potestati. 
 
 spiritalis scilicet gladius et materialis. Porro subesse Romano pontifici omni 
 
 Sed IS quidem pro ecclesia, ille vero ab humanae creaturae declaramus, dicimus, 
 
 ecclesia exercendus: ille sacerdotis, is definimus et pronunciamus omnino esse 
 
 manu regum ac militum, sed ad nutum de necessitate fidei. ("Extravagant " 1. 
 
 et patientiam sacerdotis. Oportet autem i, tit. 8, c. i.) 
 gladium esse sub gladio, et temporalem 
 
BONIFACE VIII 
 
 479 
 
 and the measures pursued by that monarch more hostile, he not 
 only excommunicated him, but offered the crown of France to 
 the Emperor Albert I. This arbitrary transference of kingdoms 
 was, like many other pretensions of that age, an improvement 
 upon the right of deposing excommunicated sovereigns. Greg- 
 ory VII would not have denied that a nation, released by his 
 authority from its allegiance, must re-enter upon its original 
 right of electing a new sovereign. But Martin IV had assigned 
 the crown of Aragon to Charles of Valois ; the first instance, I 
 think, of such a usurpation of power, but which was defended 
 by the homage of Peter II, who had rendered his kingdom 
 feudally dependent, like Naples, upon the Holy See.^^^ Albert 
 felt no eagerness to realize the liberal promises of Boniface ; who 
 was on the point of issuing a bull absolving the subjects of 
 Philip from their allegiance, and declaring his forfeiture, when 
 a very unexpected circumstance interrupted all his projects. 
 
 It is not surprising, when we consider how unaccustomed 
 men were in those ages to disentangle the artful sophisms, and 
 detect the falsehoods in point of fact, whereon the papal suprem- 
 acy had been established, that the King of France should not 
 have altogether pursued the course most becoming his dignity 
 and the goodness of his cause. He gave too much the air of a 
 personal quarrel with Boniface to what should have been a reso- 
 lute opposition to the despotism of Rome. Accordingly, in an 
 assembly of his states at Paris, he preferred virulent charges 
 against the Pope, denying him to have been legitimately elected, 
 imputing to him various heresies, and ultimately appealing to a 
 general council and a lawful head of the Church. These measures 
 were not very happily planned ; and experience had always shown 
 that Europe would not submit to change the common chief of 
 her religion for the purposes of a single sovereign. But Philip 
 succeeded in an attempt apparently more bold and singular. 
 Nogaret, a minister who had taken an active share in all the 
 proceedings against Boniface, was secretly despatched into Italy, 
 and, joining with some of the Colonna family, proscribed as 
 Ghibelins, and rancorously persecuted by the Pope, arrested him 
 at Anagnia, a town in the neighbourhood of Rome, to which 
 he had gone without guards. This violent action was not, one 
 
 250 Innocent IV had, however, in 1245, 
 appointed one Bolon, brother to Sancho 
 II, King of Portugal, to be a sort of co- 
 adjutor in the government of that king- 
 dom, enjoining the barons to honour him 
 as their sovereign, at the same time de- 
 claring that he did not intend to deprive 
 the king or his lawful issue, if he should 
 have any, of the kingdom. But this was 
 founded on the request of the Portuguese 
 nobility themselves, who were dissatisfied 
 with Sancho's administration. (" Sext. 
 
 Decretal." 1. i, tit. 8, c. 2; " Art de veri- 
 fier les Dates," tome i, p. 778.) 
 
 Boniface invested James II of Aragon 
 with the crown of Sardinia, over which, 
 however, the See of Rome had always 
 pretended to a superiority by virtue of 
 the concession (probably spurious) of 
 Louis the Debonair. He promised Fred- 
 erick, King of Sicily, the empire of Con- 
 stantinople, which, I suppose, was not a 
 fief of the Holy See. (Giannone, 1. xxi, 
 c. 3) 
 
48o HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 would imagine, calculated to place the king in an advantageous 
 light, yet it led accidentally to a favourable termination of his 
 dispute. Boniface was soon rescued by the inhabitants of Anag- 
 nia ; but rage brought on a fever which ended in his death ; and 
 the first act of his successor, Benedict XI, was to reconcile the 
 King of France to the Holy See.-^^ 
 
 The sensible decline of the papacy is to be dated from the 
 pontificate of Boniface VIII, who had strained its authority to a 
 higher pitch than any of his predecessors. There is a spell 
 wrought by uninterrupted good fortune, which captivates men's 
 understanding, and persuades them, against reasoning and anal- 
 ogy, that violent power is immortal and irresistible. The spell is 
 broken by the first change of success. We have seen the working 
 and the dissipation of this charm with a rapidity to which the 
 events of former times bear as remote a relation as the gradual 
 processes of Nature to her deluges and her volcanoes. In tracing 
 the papal empire over mankind we have no such marked and defi- 
 nite crisis of revolution. But slowly, like the retreat of waters, 
 or the stealthy pace of old age, that extraordinary power over 
 human opinion has been subsiding for five centuries. I have al- 
 ready observed that the symptoms of internal decay may be traced 
 further back. But as the retrocession of the Roman terminus 
 under Adrian gave the first overt proof of decline in the ambitious 
 energies of that empire, so the tacit submission of the successors 
 of Boniface VIII to the King of France might have been hailed 
 by Europe as a token that their influence was beginning to abate. 
 Imprisoned, insulted, deprived eventually of life by the violence 
 of Philip, a prince excommunicated, and who had gone all lengths 
 in defying and despising the papal jurisdiction, Boniface had every 
 claim to be avenged by the inheritors of the same spiritual do- 
 minion. When Benedict XI rescinded the bulls of his predecessor 
 and admitted Philip the Fair to communion, without insisting on 
 any concessions, he acted perhaps prudently, but gave a fatal blow 
 to the temporal authority of Rome. 
 
 Benedict XI lived but a few months, and his successor, Clem- 
 ent V, at the instigation, as is commonly supposed, of the King 
 of France, by whose influence he had been elected, took the ex- 
 traordinary step of removing the papal chair to Avignon. In this 
 city it remained for more than seventy years, a period which 
 Petrarch and other writers of Italy compare to that of the Baby- 
 lonish captivity. The majority of the cardinals was always 
 French, and the popes were uniformly of the same nation. Tim- 
 idly dependent upon the court of France, they neglected the in- 
 terests and lost the affections of Italy. Rome, forsaken by her 
 
 251 Velly, " Hist, de France," tome vii, pp. 109-258; Crevier, *' Hist, de I'Univer- 
 site de Paris," tome ii, p. 170, etc. 
 
CONTEST WITH LOUIS OF BAVARIA 
 
 481 
 
 sovereign, nearly forgot her allegiance; what remained of papal 
 authority in the ecclesiastical territories was exercised by cardinal 
 legates, little to the honour or advantage of the Holy See. Yet 
 the series of Avignon pontiffs were far from insensible to Italian 
 politics. These occupied, on the contrary, the greater part of their 
 attention. But engaging in them from motives too manifestly 
 selfish, and being regarded as a sort of foreigners from birth and 
 residence, they aggravated that unpopularity and bad reputation 
 which from various other causes attached itself to their court. 
 
 Though none of the supreme pontififs after Boniface VIII 
 ventured upon such explicit assumptions of a general jurisdiction 
 over sovereigns by divine right as he had made in his controversy 
 with Philip, they maintained one memorable struggle for tem- 
 poral power against the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. Maxims 
 long boldly repeated without contradiction, and ingrafted upon 
 the canon law, passed almost for articles of faith among the clergy 
 and those who trusted in them; and in despite of all ancient au- 
 thorities, Clement V laid it down that the popes, having trans- 
 ferred the Roman Empire from the Greeks to the Germans, and 
 delegated the right of nominating an emperor to certain electors, 
 still reserved the prerogative of approving the choice, and of re- 
 ceiving from its subject upon his coronation an oath of fealty 
 and obedience.^^^ This had a regard to Henry VII, who denied 
 that his oath bore any such interpretation, and whose measures, 
 much to the alarm of the court of Avignon, were directed toward 
 the restoration of his imperial rights in Italy. Among other things 
 he conferred the rank of vicar of the empire upon Matteo Vis- 
 conti, Lord of Milan. The popes had for some time pretended 
 to possess that vicariate, during a vacancy of the empire; and after 
 Henry's death insisted upon Visconti's surrender of the title. Sev- 
 eral circumstances, for which I refer to the political historians of 
 Italy, produced a war between the Pope's legate and the Vis- 
 conti family. The Emperor Louis sent assistance to the latter, as 
 heads of the Ghibelin or imperial party. This interference cost 
 him above twenty years of trouble. John XXII, a man as pas- 
 sionate and ambitious as Boniface himself, immediately published 
 a bull in which he asserted the right of administering the empire 
 during its vacancy (even in Germany, as it seems from the gener- 
 ality of his expression), as well as of deciding in a doubtful choice 
 of the electors, to appertain to the Holy See; and commanded 
 
 2" Romani principes, etc. . . . Romano 
 pontifici, a quo approbationem personae 
 ad imperialis celsitudinis apicem assu- 
 mendae, necnon unctionem, consecratio- 
 nem et imperii coronam accipiunt, sua 
 submittere capita non reputarunt indig- 
 num, seque illi et eidem ecclesiae, quae a 
 Griecis imperium transtuHt in Germanos, 
 et a qua ad certos eorum principes jus et 
 
 31 
 
 potestas eligendi regem, in imperatorem 
 postmodum promovendura, pertinet, ad- 
 stringere vinculo juramen*i, etc. (Cle- 
 ment, 1. ii, tome ix.) The terms of the 
 oath, as recited in this constitution, do 
 not warrant the Pope's interpretation, 
 but imply only that the emperor shall 
 be the advocate or defender of the 
 Church. 
 
482 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Louis to lay down his pretended authority until the supreme 
 jurisdiction should determine upon his election. Louis's election 
 had indeed been questionable; but that controversy was already 
 settled in the field of Miihldorf, where he had obtained a victory 
 over his competitor, the Duke of Austria ; nor had the Pope ever 
 interfered to appease a civil war during several years that Germany 
 had been internally distracted by the dispute. The emperor, not 
 yielding to this peremptory order, was excommunicated; his vas- 
 sals were absolved from their oath of fealty, and all treaties of 
 alliance between him and foreign princes annulled. Germany, 
 however, remained firm; and if Louis himself had manifested 
 more decision of mind and uniformity in his conduct, the court of 
 Avignon must have signally failed in a contest from which it did 
 not in fact come out very successful. But while at one time he 
 went intemperate lengths against John XXII, publishing scanda- 
 lous accusations in an assembly of the citizens of Rome, and caus- 
 ing a Franciscan friar to be chosen in his room, after an irregular 
 sentence of deposition, he was always anxious to negotiate terms 
 of accommodation, to give up his own active partisans, and to 
 make concessions the most derogatory to his independence and 
 dignity. From John indeed he had nothing to expect; but Bene- 
 dict XII would gladly have been reconciled, if he had not feared 
 the Kings of France and Naples, political adversaries of the em- 
 peror, who kept the Avignon popes in a sort of servitude. His 
 successor, Clement VI, inherited the implacable animosity of 
 John XXII toward Louis, who died without obtaining the ab- 
 solution he had long abjectly solicited, ^^^ 
 
 Though the want of firmness in this emperor^s character gave 
 sometimes a momentary triumph to the popes, it is evident that 
 their authority lost ground during the continuance of this strug- 
 gle. Their right of confirming imperial elections was expressly 
 denied by a Diet held at Frankfort in 1338, which established as a 
 fundamental principle that the imperial dignity depended upon 
 God alone, and that whoever should be chosen by a majority of 
 the electors became immediately both king and emperor, with 
 all prerogatives of that station, and did not require the approba- 
 tion of the Pope."*\ This law, confirmed as it was by subsequent 
 usage, emancipated the German Empire, which was immediately 
 
 "8 Schmidt, " Hist, des Allemands," 
 tome iv, pp. 446-536, seems the best mod- 
 ern authority for this contest between 
 the empire and papacy. See also Stru- 
 vius, " Corp. Hist. German.," p. 591. 
 
 2" Ouod imperialis dignitas et potestas 
 immediate ex solo Deo, et quod de jure 
 et imperii consuetudine antiquitias appro- 
 bata postquam aliquis eligitur in impera- 
 torem sive regem ab electoribus imperii 
 concorditer, vel majori parte eorundem, 
 
 statim ex sola electione est rex verus et 
 imperator Romanorum censendus et no- 
 mmandus, et eidem debet ab omnibus 
 imperie subjectis obediri, et administrandi 
 ^ura imperil, et caetera faciendi, quae ad 
 imperatorem verum pertinent, plenariam 
 habet potestatem, nee papae sive sedis 
 apostohcae aut alicujus alterius approba- 
 tione, confirmatione. auctoritate indiget 
 vel censensu. (Schmidt, p. 513.) 
 
RAPACITY OF THE AVIGNON POPES 
 
 483 
 
 concerned in opposing the papal claims. But some who were 
 actively engaged in these transactions took more extensive views, 
 and assailed the whole edifice of temporal power which the Roman 
 See had been constructing for more than two centuries. Several 
 men of learning, among whom Dante, Ockham, and Marsilius 
 of Padua are the most conspicuous, investigated the foundations 
 of this superstructure, and exposed their insufBciency.^^'^ Litera- 
 ture, too long the passive handmaid of spiritual despotism, began 
 to assert her nobler birthright of ministering to liberty and truth. 
 Though the writings of these opponents of Rome are not always 
 reasoned upon very solid principles, they at least taught mankind 
 to scrutinize what had been received with implicit respect, and 
 prepared the way for more philosophical discussions. About this 
 time a new class of enemies had unexpectedly risen up against the 
 rulers of the Church. These were a part of the Franciscan order, 
 who had seceded from the main body on account of alleged de- 
 viations from the rigour of their primitive rule. Their schism was 
 chiefly founded upon a quibble about the right of property in 
 things consumable, which they maintained to be incompatible 
 with the absolute poverty prescribed to them. This frivolous 
 sophistry was united with the wildest fanaticism ; and as John 
 XXII attempted to repress their follies by a cruel persecution, 
 they proclaimed aloud the corruption of the Church, fixed the 
 name of Antichrist upon the papacy, and warmly supported the 
 Emperor Louis throughout all his contention with the Holy 
 See.2^« 
 
 Meanwhile the popes who sat at Avignon continued to invade 
 with surprising rapaciousness the patronage and revenues of the 
 Church. The mandates or letters directing a particular clerk to be 
 preferred seem to have given place in a great degree to the more 
 effectual method of appropriating benefices by reservation or 
 provision, which was carried to an enormous extent in the four- 
 teenth century. John XXII, the most insatiate of pontiffs, re- 
 served to himself all the bishoprics in Christendom.-^^ Bene- 
 dict XII assumed the privilege for his own life of disposing of all 
 benefices vacant by cession, deprivation, or translation. Clement 
 VI naturally thought that his title was equally good with his 
 
 ^^ Giannone, I. xxii, c. 8; Schmidt, 
 tome vi, p, 152. Dante was dead before 
 these events, but his principles were the 
 same, pckham had already exerted his 
 talents in the same cause by writing, in 
 behalf of Philip IV, against Boniface, a 
 dialogue between a knight and a clerk on 
 the temporal supremacy of the Church. 
 This is published among other tracts of 
 the same class in Goldastus, " Monarchia 
 Imperii," p. 13. This dialogue is trans- 
 lated entire in the " Songe du Vergier," 
 
 a more celebrated performance, ascribed 
 to Raoul de Presles under Charles V. 
 
 ^"^ The schism of the rigid Franciscans 
 or Fratricelli is one of the most singular 
 parts of ecclesiastical history, and had a 
 material tendency both to depress the 
 temporal authority of the papacy and to 
 pave the way for the Reformation. It is 
 fully treated by Mosheim, cent. 13 and 
 14, and by Crevier, " Hist, de I'Universit^ 
 de Paris," tome ii, pp. 233-264, etc. 
 
 2" Fleury, " Institutions," etc., tome i, 
 p. 368; F. Paul on " Benefices," c. 37. 
 
484 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 predecessor's, and continued the same right for his own time; 
 which soon became a permanent rule of the Roman chancery.^^® 
 Hence the appointment of a prelate to a rich bishopric was gener- 
 ally but the first link in a chain of translation which the Pope 
 could regulate according to his interest. Another capital innova- 
 tion was made by John XXII in the establishment of the famous 
 tax called annates, or first fruits of ecclesiastical benefices, which 
 he imposed for his own benefit. These were one year's value, 
 estimated according to a fixed rate in the books of the Roman 
 chancery, and payable to the papal collectors throughout Eu- 
 rope. ^^® Various other devices were invented to obtain money, 
 which these degenerate popes, abandoning the magnificent 
 schemes of their predecessors, were content to seek as their 
 principal object. John XXII is said to have accumulated an 
 almost incredible treasure, exaggerated perhaps by the ill-will 
 of his contemporaries ; ^^^ but it may be doubted whether even 
 his avarice reflected greater dishonour on the Church than the 
 licentious profuseness of Clement VI. ^^^ 
 
 These exactions were too much encouraged by the Kings of 
 France, who participated in the plunder, or at least required the 
 mutual assistance of the popes for their own imposts on the 
 clergy. John XXII obtained leave of Charles the Fair to levy 
 a tenth of ecclesiastical revenues ; ^^^ and Clement VI, in return, 
 granted two tenths to Philip of Valois for the expenses of his war. 
 A similar tax was raised by the same authority toward the ransom 
 of John. 2®^ These were contributions for national purposes un- 
 connected with religion, which the popes had never before pre- 
 tended to impose, and which the king might properly have levied 
 with the consent of his clergy, according to the practice of Eng- 
 land. But that consent might not always be obtained with ease, 
 and it seemed a more expeditious method to call in the authority 
 of the Pope. A manlier spirit was displayed by our ancestors. It 
 
 2^8 F. Paul, c. 38. Translations of bish- 
 ops had been made by the authority of 
 the metropolitan till Innocent III re- 
 served this prerogative to the Holy See. 
 (De Marca, 1. vi, c. 8.) 
 
 259 F. Paul, c. 38; Fleury, p. 424; r>e 
 Marca, 1. vi, c. 10; Pasquier, 1, Hi, c. 28. 
 The popes had long been in the habit of 
 receiving a pecuniary gratuity when 
 they granted the pallium to an arch- 
 bishop, though this was reprehended by 
 strict men, and even condemned by 
 themselves. (De Marca, ibid.) It is no- 
 ticed as a remarkable thing of Innocent 
 IV that he gave the pall to a German 
 archbishop without accepting anything. 
 (Schmidt, tome iv, p. 172.) The original 
 and nature of annates is copiously treated 
 in Lenfant, " Concile de Constance," 
 tome ii, p. 133. 
 
 2*" G. Villani puts this at 25,000,000 
 
 florins, which it is hardly possible to 
 believe. The Italians were credulous 
 enough to listen to any report against 
 the Popes of Avignon. (L. xi, c. 20; 
 Giannone, 1. xxii, c. 8.) 
 
 2«i For the corruption of morals at 
 Avignon during the secession, see De 
 Sade, " Vie de Petrarque," tome i, p. 
 70, and several other passages. 
 
 202 Continuator Gul. de Nangis, in 
 " Spicilegi9 d'Achery," tome iii, p. 86 
 (folio edition). Ita miseram ecclesiam, 
 says this monk, unus tondet, alter ex- 
 coriat. 
 
 283 Fleury, " Institut. au Droit Ecclesi- 
 astique," tome ii, o. 245; Villaret, tome 
 IX, p. 431. It became a regular practice 
 for the king to obtain the Pope's consent 
 to lay a tax on his clergy, though he 
 sometimes applied first to themselves. 
 (Gamier, tome xx, p. 141.) 
 
RAPACITY OF THE AVIGNON POPES 
 
 48 s 
 
 was the boast of England to have placed the first legal barrier 
 to the usurpations of Rome, if we except the insulated Pragmatic 
 Sanction of St. Louis, from which the practice of succeeding 
 ages in France entirely deviated. The English barons had, in a 
 letter addressed to Boniface VIII, absolutely disclaimed his tem- 
 poral supremacy over their crown, which he had attempted to set 
 up by intermeddling in the quarrel of Scotland. ^^* This letter, 
 it is remarkable, is nearly coincident in point of time with that 
 of the French nobility ; and the two combined may be considered 
 as a joint protestation of both kingdoms, and a testimony to the 
 general sentiment among the superior ranks of the laity. A very 
 few years afterward, the Parliament of Carlisle wrote a strong 
 remonstrance to Clement V against the system of provisions and 
 other extortions, including that of first fruits, which it was ru- 
 moured, they say, he was meditating to demand.-^^ But the court 
 of Avignon was not to be moved by remonstrances ; and the 
 feeble administration of Edward II gave way to ecclesiastical 
 usurpations at home as well as abroad.^^® His magnanimous son 
 took a bolder line. After complaining ineffectually to Clement 
 VI of the enormous abuse which reserved almost all English 
 benefices to the Pope, and generally for the benefit of aliens,^®^ 
 he passed in 1350 the famous statute of provisors. This act, re- 
 citing one supposed to have been made at the Parliament of Car- 
 lisle, which, however, does not appear,^^^ and complaining in 
 strong language of the mischief sustained through continual res- 
 ervations of benefices, enacts that all elections and collations shall 
 be free, according to law, and that, in case any provision or 
 reservation should be made by the court of Rome, the king 
 should for that turn have the collation of such a benefice, if it 
 be of ecclesiastical election or patronage.^^® This devolution to 
 the crown, which seems a little arbitrary, was the only remedy 
 that could be effectual against the connivance and timidity of 
 chapters and spiritual patrons. We can not assert that a statute 
 so nobly planned was executed with equal steadiness. Sometimes 
 
 '^* Rymer, tome ii, p. 373; Collier, vol. 
 i, p. 725. 
 
 285 " RotuH Parliamenti," vol. i, p. 204. 
 This passage, hastily read, has led Col- 
 lier and other English writers, such as 
 Henry and Blackstone, into the supposi- 
 tion that annates were imposed by Cle- 
 ment V. But the concurrent testimony 
 of foreign authors refers this tax to John 
 XXII, as the canon law also shows. 
 (" Extravagant. Communes," 1. iii, tit. 2, 
 
 C. II.) 
 
 2o«The statute called Articuli cleri, in 
 1316, was directed rather toward con- 
 firming than limiting the clerical immu- 
 nit ' in criminal cases. 
 
 2" Collier, p. 546. 
 
 2«8 It is smgular that Sir E. Coke 
 should assert that this act recites and is 
 
 founded upon the statute 35 E. I, De 
 asportatis religiosorum (2 Inst., 580) : 
 whereas there is not the least resem- 
 blance in the words, and very little, if 
 any, in the substance. Blackstone, in 
 consequence, mistakes the nature of that 
 act of Edward I, and supposes it to have 
 been made against papal provisions, to 
 which I do not perceive even an allusion. 
 Whether any such statute was really 
 made in the Carlisle Parliament of 35 
 E. I, as is asserted both in 25 E. Ill 
 and in the roll of another Parliament, 
 17 E. Ill (" Rot. Pari.," tome ii, p. 144), 
 is hard to decide; and perhaps those who 
 examine this point will have to choose 
 between wilful suppression and wilful in- 
 terpolation. 
 
 2<'» 25 E. Ill, Stat. 6. 
 
486 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 by royal dispensation, sometimes by neglect or evasion, the papal 
 bulls of provision were still obeyed, though fresh laws were en- 
 acted to the same effect as the former. It was found on examina- 
 tion in 1367 that some clerks enjoyed more than twenty bene- 
 fices by the Pope's dispensation.^^** And the Parliaments both of 
 this and of Richard IPs reign invariably complain of the disre- 
 gard shown to the statutes of provisors. This led to other meas- 
 ures, which I shall presently mention. 
 
 The residence of the popes at Avignon gave very general of- 
 fence to Europe, and they could not themselves avoid perceiving 
 the disadvantage of absence from their proper diocese, the city of 
 St. Peter, the source of all their claims to sovereign authority. 
 But Rome, so long abandoned, offered but an inhospitable recep- 
 tion : Urban V returned to Avignon, after a short experiment 
 of the capital; and it was not till 1376 that the promise, often 
 repeated and long delayed, of restoring the papal chair to the 
 metropolis of Christendom, was ultimately fulfilled by Gregory 
 XL His death, which happened soon afterward, prevented, it is 
 said, a second flight that he was preparing. This was followed 
 by the great schism, one of the most remarkable events in eccle- 
 siastical history. It is a difficult and by no means an interesting 
 question to determine the validity of that contested election 
 which distracted the Latin Church for so many years. All con- 
 temporary testimonies are subject to the suspicion of partiality 
 in a cause where no one was permitted to be neutral. In one fact, 
 however, there is a common agreement, that the cardinals, of 
 whom the majority were French, having assembled in conclave, 
 for the election of a successor to Gregory XI, were disturbed by 
 a tumultuous populace, who demanded with menaces a Roman, 
 or at least an Italian, pope. This tumult appears to have been 
 sufficiently violent to excuse, and in fact did produce, a consider- 
 able degree of intimidation. After some time the cardinals made 
 choice of the Archbishop of Bari, a Neapolitan, who assumed 
 the name of Urban VI. His election satisfied the populace, and 
 tranquility was restored. The cardinals announced their choice 
 to the absent members of their college, and behaved toward 
 Urban as their pope for several weeks. But his uncommon 
 harshness of temper giving them offence, they withdrew to a 
 neighbouring town, and, protesting that his election had been 
 compelled by the violence of the Roman populace, annulled the 
 whole proceeding, and chose one of their own number, who took 
 the pontifical name of Clement VII. Such are the leading cir- 
 cumstances which produced the famous schism. Constraint is 
 so destructive of the essence of election, that suffrages given 
 through actual intimidation ought, I think, to be held invalid, 
 
 "0 Collier, p. 568. 
 
THE GREAT SCHISM 487 
 
 even without minutely inquiring whether the degree of illegal 
 force was such as might reasonably overcome the constancy of a 
 firm mind. It is improbable that the free votes of the cardinals 
 would have been bestowed on the Archbishop of Bari ; and I 
 should not feel much hesitation in pronouncing his election to 
 have been void. But the sacred college unquestionably did not 
 use the earliest opportunity of protesting against the violence 
 they had suffered ; and we may infer almost with certainty that, 
 if Urban's conduct had been more acceptable to that body, the 
 world would have heard little of the transient riot at his election. 
 This, however, opens a delicate question in jurisprudence, namely, 
 under what circumstances acts, not only irregular, but substan- 
 tially invalid, are capable of receiving a retroactive confirmation 
 by the acquiescence and acknowledgment of parties concerned to 
 oppose them. And upon this, I conceive, the great problem of 
 legitimacy between Urban and Clement will be found to de- 
 pend.^^^ 
 
 Whatever posterity may have judged about the pretensions 
 of these competitors, they at that time shared the obedience of 
 Europe in nearly equal proportions. Urban remained at Rome ; 
 Clement resumed the station at Avignon. To the former adhered 
 Italy, the Empire, England, and the nations of the north ; the 
 latter retained in his allegiance France, Spain, Scotland, and 
 Sicily. Fortunately for the Church, no question of religious faith 
 intermixed itself with this schism ; nor did any other impediment 
 to reunion exist than the obstinancy and selfishness of the con- 
 tending parties. As it was impossible to come to any agreement 
 on the original merits, there seemed to be no means of healing the 
 wound but by the abdication of both popes and a fresh undis- 
 puted election. This was the general wish of Europe, but urged 
 with particular zeal by the court of France, and, above all, by the 
 University of Paris, which esteems this period the most honour- 
 able in her annals. The cardinals, however, of neither obedience 
 would recede so far from their party as to suspend the election 
 of a successor upon a vacancy of the pontificate, which would 
 have at least removed one half of the obstacle. The Roman 
 conclave accordingly placed three pontiffs successively, Boni- 
 face IX, Innocent VI, and Gregory XII, in the seat of Urban 
 VI; and the cardinals at Avignon, upon the death of Clement 
 in 1394 elected Benedict XIII (Peter de Luna), famous for his 
 inflexible obstinacy in prolonging the schism. He repeatedly 
 promised to sacrifice his dignity for the sake of union. But there 
 
 2" Lenfant has collected all the origi- and those of Avignon are not. The mod- 
 nal testimonies on both sides in the first ern Italian writers express no doubt 
 book of his " Concile de Pise." No about the legitimacy of Urban ; the 
 positive decision has ever been made French at most intimate that Clement's 
 on the subject, but the Roman popes are pretensions were not to be wholly re- 
 numbered in the commonly received list, jected. 
 
488 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 was oo subterfuge to which this crafty pontifif had not recourse 
 in order to avoid compHance with his word, though importuned, 
 threatened, and even besieged in his palace at Avignon. Fatigued 
 by his evasions, France withdrew her obedience, and the GalH- 
 can Church continued for a few years without acknowledging any 
 supreme head. But this step, which was rather the measure of 
 the University of Paris than of the nation, it seemed advisable 
 to retract; and Benedict was again obeyed, though France con- 
 tinued to urge his resignation. A second subtraction of obedi- 
 ence, or at least declaration of neutrality, was resolved upon, as 
 preparatory to the convocation of a general council. On the 
 other hand, those who sat at Rome displayed not less insincerity. 
 Gregory XII bound himself by oath on his accession to abdicate 
 when it should appear necessary. But while these rivals were 
 loading each other with the mutual reproach of schism, they 
 drew on themselves the suspicion of at least a virtual collusion 
 in order to retain their respective stations. At length the cardi- 
 nals of both parties, wearied with so much dissimulation, deserted 
 their masters, and summoned a general council to meet at Pisa.^^^ 
 The council assembled at Pisa deposed both Gregory and 
 Benedict, without deciding in any respect as to their pretensions, 
 and elected Alexander V by its own supreme authority. This 
 authority, however, was not universally recognised ; the schism, 
 instead of being healed, became more desperate ; for, as Spain 
 adhered firmly to Benedict, and Gregory was not without sup- 
 porters, there were now three contending pontiffs in the Church. 
 A general council was still, however, the favourite and indeed the 
 sole remedy ; and John XXIII, successor of Alexander V, was re- 
 luctantly prevailed upon, or perhaps trepanned, into convoking 
 one to meet at Constance. In this celebrated assembly he was 
 himself deposed ; a sentence which he incurred by that tenacious 
 clinging to his dignity, after repeated promises to abdicate, which 
 had already proved fatal to his competitors. The deposition of 
 John, confessedly a legitimate pope, may strike us as an extraor- 
 dinary measure. But, besides the opportunity it might afford of 
 restoring union, the council found a pretext for this sentence in 
 his enormous vices, which indeed they seem to have taken upon 
 common fame without any judicial process. The true motive, 
 however, of their proceedings against him was a desire to make 
 a signal display of a new system which had rapidly gained ground, 
 and which I may venture to call the whig principles of the Cath- 
 olic Church. A great question was at issue, whether the polity 
 of that establishment should be an absolute or an exceedingly 
 limited monarchy. The papal tyranny, long endured and still 
 
 =" Villaret; Lenfant, " Concile de Pise "; Crevier, " Hist, de I'Universite de Paris " 
 tome iii. ' 
 
COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 
 
 489 
 
 increasing, had excited an active spirit of reformation which the 
 most distinguished ecclesiastics of France and other countries en- 
 couraged. They recurred, as far as their knowledge allowed, to 
 a more primitive discipline than the canon law, and elevated the 
 supremacy of general councils. But in the formation of these 
 they did not scruple to introduce material innovations. The 
 bishops have usually been considered the sole members of eccle- 
 siastical assemblies. At Constance, however, sat and voted not 
 only the chiefs of monasteries, but the afnbassadors of all Chris- 
 tian princes, the deputies of universities, with a multitude of 
 inferior theologians, and even doctors of law.-^^ These were 
 naturally accessible to the pride of sudden elevation, which en- 
 abled them to control the strong and humiliate the lofty. In ad- 
 dition to this the adversaries of the court of Rome carried another 
 not less important innovation. The Italian bishops, almost uni- 
 versally in the papal interests, were so numerous that, if suffrages 
 had been taken by the head, their preponderance would have 
 impeded any measures of transalpine nations toward reforma- 
 tion. It was determined, therefore, that the council should di- 
 vide itself into four nations, the Italian, the German, the French, 
 and the English, each with equal rights ; and that, every proposi- 
 tion having been separately discussed, the majority of the four 
 should prevail. ^"^^ This revolutionary spirit was very unaccept- 
 able to the cardinals, who submitted reluctantly, and with a 
 determination, that did not prove altogether unavailing, to save 
 their papal monarchy by a dexterous policy. They could not, 
 however, prevent the famous resolutions of the fourth and fifth 
 sessions, which declare that the council has received, by divine 
 right, an authority to which every rank, even the papal, is obliged 
 to submit, in matters of faith, in the extirpation of the present 
 schism, and in the reformation of the Church both in its head and 
 its members ; and that every person, even a pope, who shall ob- 
 stinately refuse to obey that council, or any other lawfully assem- 
 bled, is liable to such punishment as shall be necessary.^^^ These 
 decrees are great pillars of that moderate theory with respect 
 
 "3 Lenfant, " Concile de Constance," 
 tome i, p. 107 (edit. 1727) ; Crevier, tome 
 iii, p. 405. It was agreed that the am- 
 bassadors could not vote upon articles 
 of faith, but only on questions relating to 
 the settlement of the Church. But the 
 second order of ecclesiastics were allowed 
 to vote i^enerally. 
 
 2^* This separation of England, as a 
 coequal limb of the council, gave great 
 umbrage to the French, who maintained 
 that, like Denmark and Sweden, it ought 
 to have been reckoned along with Ger- 
 many, The English deputies came down 
 with a profusion of authorities to prove 
 the antiquity of their monarchy, for 
 which they did not fail to put in requi- 
 
 sition the immeasurable pedigrees of Ire- 
 land. Joseph of Arimathea, who planted 
 Christianity and his stick at Glastonbury, 
 did his best to help the cause. The re- 
 cent victory of Agincourt, I am inclined 
 to think, had more weight with the 
 council. (Lenfant, tome ii, p. 46.) 
 
 At a time when a very different spirit 
 
 Erevailed, the English bishops under 
 [enry II and Henry III had claimed 
 as a right that no more than four of 
 their number should be summoned to a 
 general council. (Hoveden, p. 320; Carte, 
 vol. ii, p. 84.) This was like boroughs 
 praying to be released from sendmg 
 members to Parliament. 
 
 2"^ Id., p. 164; Crevier, tome iii, p. 417. 
 
490 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 to the papal authority which distinguished the GalHcan Church, 
 and is embraced, I presume, by almost all laymen and the major 
 part of ecclesiastics on this side of the Alps.^^^ They embarrass 
 the more popish churchmen, as the Revolution does our English 
 Tories ; some boldly impugn the authority of the Council of Con- 
 stance, while others chicane upon the interpretation of its decrees. 
 Their practical importance is not, indeed, direct ; universal coun- 
 cils exist only in possibility; but the acknowledgment of a pos- 
 sible authority paramoiint to the See of Rome has contributed, 
 among other means, to check its usurpations. 
 
 The purpose for which these general councils had been re- 
 quired, next to that of healing the schism, was the reformation 
 of abuses. All the rapacious exactions, all the scandalous venality 
 of which Europe had complained, while unquestioned pontiffs 
 ruled at Avignon, appeared light in comparison of the practices 
 of both rivals during the schism. Tenths repeatedly levied upon 
 the clergy, annates rigorously exacted and enhanced by new 
 valuations, fees annexed to the complicated formalities of the 
 papal chancery, were the means by which each half of the Church 
 was compelled to reimburse its chief for the subtraction of the 
 other's obedience. Boniface IX, one of the Roman line, whose 
 fame is a little worse than that of his antagonists, made a gross 
 traffic of his patronage ; selling the privileges of exemption from 
 ordinary jurisdiction, of holding benefices in commendam, and 
 other dispensations invented for the benefit of the Holy See.^^^ 
 Nothing had been attempted at Pisa toward reformation. At 
 Constance the majority were ardent and sincere ; the representa- 
 tives of the French, German, and English churches met with a 
 determined and, as we have seen, not always unsuccessful reso- 
 lution to assert their ecclesiastical liberties. They appointed a 
 committee of reformation, whose recommendations, if carried 
 into effect, would have annihilated almost entirely that artfully 
 constructed machinery by which Rome had absorbed so much 
 of the revenues and patronage of the Church. But men, inter- 
 ested in perpetuating these abuses, especially the cardinals, im- 
 proved the advantages which a skilful government always enjoys 
 in playing against a popular assembly. They availed themselves 
 of the jealousies arising out of the division of the council into 
 nations, which exterior political circumstances had enhanced. 
 France, then at war with England, whose pretensions to be 
 counted as a fourth nation she had warmly disputed, and not well 
 disposed toward the Emperor Sigismund, joined with the Italians 
 
 27« This was written in 1816. The pres- =" Lenfant, " Hist, du Conci!e de 
 
 ent state of opinion among those who Pise," passim; Crevier; Villaret; Schmidt: 
 belong to the Galilean Church has be- Collier, 
 come exceedingly different from what it 
 was in the last two centuries. [1847.] 
 
COUNCIL OF BASLE 49I 
 
 against the English and German members of the council in a 
 matter of the utmost importance, the immediate election of a pope 
 before the articles of reformation should be finally concluded. 
 These two nations, in return, united with the Italians to choose 
 the Cardinal Colonna, against the advice of the French divines, 
 who objected to any member of the sacred college. The court of 
 Rome were gainers in both questions. Martin V, the new Pope, 
 soon evinced his determination to elude any substantial reform. 
 After publishing a few constitutions tending to redress some of 
 the abuses that had arisen during the schism, he contrived to 
 make separate conventions with the several nations, and as soon 
 as possible dissolved the council.-^® 
 
 By one of the decrees passed at Constance, another general 
 council was to be assembled in five years, a second at the end of 
 seven more, and from that time a similar representation of the 
 Church was to meet every ten years. Martin V accordingly con- 
 voked a council at Pavia, which, on account of the plague, was 
 transferred to Siena ; but nothing of importance was transacted 
 by this assembly.^'^* That which he summoned seven years after- 
 ward to the city of Basle had very different results. The Pope, 
 dying before the meeting of this council, was succeeded by Eu- 
 genius IV, who, anticipating the spirit of its discussions, at- 
 tempted to crush its independence in the outset by transferring 
 the place of session to an Italian city. No point was reckoned so 
 material in the contest between the popes and reformers as 
 whether a council should sit in Italy or beyond the Alps. The 
 Council of Basle began, as it proceeded, in open enmity to the 
 court of Rome. Eugenius, after several years had elapsed in 
 more or less hostile discussions^ exerted his prerogative of re- 
 moving the assembly to Ferrara, and from thence to Florence. 
 For this he had a specious pretext in the negotiation, then appar- 
 ently tending to a prosperous issue, for the reunion of the Greek 
 Church; a triumph, however transitory, of which his council at 
 Florence obtained the glory. On the other hand, the assembly 
 of Basle, though much weakened by the defection of those who 
 adhered to Eugenius, entered into compacts with the Bohemian 
 insurgents, more essential to the interests of the Church than 
 any union with the Greeks, and completed the work begun at 
 Constance by abolishing the annates, the reservations of bene- 
 fices, and other abuses of papal authority. In this it received 
 the approbation of most princes ; but when, provoked by the 
 endeavours of the Pope to frustrate its decrees, it proceeded so 
 
 "8 Lenfant, " Concile de Constance." piven a good sketch of the council, and 
 
 The copiousness as well as impartiality Schmidt (" Hist, des Allemandes," tome 
 
 of this work justly renders it an almost v) is worthy of attention, 
 exclusive authority. Crevier (" Hist, de ^^ Lenfant, " Guerre des Hussites," 
 
 rUniversite de Paris," tome iii) has tome i, p. 223. 
 
492 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 far as to suspend and even to depose him, neither France nor 
 Germany concurred in the sentence. Even the Council of Con- 
 stance had not absolutely asserted a right of deposing a lawful 
 pope except in case of heresy, though their conduct toward John 
 could not otherwise be justified.^®^ This question indeed of eccle- 
 siastical public law seems to be still undecided. The fathers of 
 Basle acted, however, with greater intrepidity than discretion, and, 
 not perhaps sensible of the change that was taking place in public 
 opinion, raised Amadeus, a retired Duke of Savoy, to the pontifi- 
 cal dignity by the name of Felix V. They thus renewed the 
 schism, and divided the obedience of the Catholic Church for a 
 few years. The empire, however, as well as France, observed a 
 singular and not very consistent neutrality ; respecting Eugenius 
 as a lawful pope, and the assembly at Basle as a general council. 
 England warmly supported Eugenius, and even adhered to his 
 council at Florence ; Aragon and some countries of smaller note 
 acknowledged Felix. But the partisans of Basle became every 
 year weaker; and Nicholas V, the successor of Eugenius, found 
 no great difficulty in obtaining the cession of Felix, and termi- 
 nating this schism. This victory of the court of Rome over the 
 Council of Basle nearly counterbalanced the disadvantageous 
 events at Constance, and put an end to the project of fixing 
 permanent limitations upon the head of the Church by means 
 of general councils. Though the decree that prescribed the con- 
 vocation of a council every ten years was still unrepealed, no 
 absolute monarchs have ever more dreaded to meet the repre- 
 sentatives of their people than the Roman pontiffs have abhorred 
 the name of those ecclesiastical synods : once alone, and that with 
 the utmost reluctance, has the Catholic Church been convoked 
 since the Council of Basle ; but the famous assembly to which I 
 allude does not fall within the scope of my present undertaking.^^^ 
 It is a natural subject of speculation, what would have been 
 the effects of these universal councils, which were so popular in 
 the fifteenth century, if the decree passed at Constance for their 
 periodical assembly had been regularly observed. Many Cath- 
 olic writers, of the moderate or cisalpine school, have lamented 
 their disuse, and ascribed to it that irreparable breach which the 
 
 ^^'^ The Council of Basle endeavoured 
 to evade this difficulty by declaring Eu- 
 genius a relapsed heretic. (Lenfant, 
 " Guerre des Hussites," tome ii, p. 98.) 
 But as the Church could discover no 
 heresy in his disagreement with that as- 
 sembly, the sentence of deposition gained 
 little strength by this previous decision. 
 The bishops were unwilling to take this 
 violent step against Eugenius; but the 
 minor theologians, the democracy of the 
 Catholic Church, whose right of suffrage 
 seems rather an anomalous infringement 
 of episcopal authority, pressed it with 
 
 much heat and rashness. See a curious 
 passage on this subject in a speech of 
 the Cardinal of Aries. (Lenfant, tome 
 11, p. 225.) 
 
 281 There is not, I believe, any sufficient 
 history of the Council of Basle. Lenfant 
 designed to write it from the original 
 acts, but, finding his health decline, in- 
 termixed some rather imperfect notices 
 of its transactions with his history of the 
 Hussite war, which is commonly quoted 
 under the title of " History of the Coun- 
 cil of Basle." Schmidt, Crevier, and 
 Villaret are still my other authorities. 
 
UNIVERSAL COUNCILS 
 
 493 
 
 Reformation has made in the fabric of their Church. But there 
 is almost an absurdity in conceiving their permanent existence. 
 What chemistry could have kept united such heterogeneous 
 masses, furnished with every principle of mutual repulsion? 
 Even in early times, when councils, though nominally general, 
 were composed of the subjects of the Roman Empire, they had 
 been marked by violence and contradiction : what then could 
 have been expected from the delegates of independent kingdoms, 
 whose ecclesiastical polity, whatever may be said of the spiritual 
 unity of the Church, had long been far too intimately blended 
 with that of the state to admit of any general control without its 
 assent? Nor, beyond the zeal, unquestionably sincere, which 
 animated their members, especially at Basle, for the abolition 
 of papal abuses, is there anything to praise in their conduct, or 
 to regret in their cessation. The statesman who dreaded the en- 
 croachments of priests upon the civil government, the Christian 
 who panted to see his rights and faith purified from the corruption 
 of ages, found no hope of improvement in these councils. They 
 took upon themselves the pretensions of the popes whom they 
 attempted to supersede. By a decree of the fathers at Constance, 
 all persons, including princes, who should oppose any obstacle to 
 a journey undertaken by the Emperor Sigismund, in order to 
 obtain the cession of Benedict, are declared excommunicated, 
 and deprived of their dignities, whether secular or ecclesiasti- 
 cal.^®^ Their condemnation of Huss and Jerome of Prague, and 
 the scandalous breach of faith which they induced Sigismund to 
 commit on that occasion, are notorious. But perhaps it is not 
 equally so that this celebrated assembly recognised by a solemn 
 decree the flagitious principle which it had practised, declaring 
 that Huss was unworthy, through his obstinate adherence to 
 heresy, of any privilege; nor ought any faith or promise to be 
 kept with him, by natural, divine, or human law, to the prejudice 
 of the Catholic religion.^®^ It will be easy to estimate the claims 
 
 282 Lenfant, tome i, p. 439- 
 
 2S3 Nee aliqua sibi fides aut promissio, 
 de jure naturali, divino, et humano, fuerit 
 in prejudicium Catholicse fidei obser- 
 vanda. (Lenfant, tome i, p. 49i-) 
 
 This proposition is the great disgrace 
 of the council in the aflfair of Huss. But 
 the violation of his safe-conduct being a 
 famous event in ecclesiastical history, and 
 which has been very much disputed with 
 some degree of erroneous statement on 
 both sides, it may be proper to give brief- 
 ly an impartial summary, i. Huss came 
 to Constance with a safe-conduct of the 
 emperor very loosely worded, and not 
 directed to any individuals. (Lenfant, 
 tome i, p. 59.) 2. This pass, however, 
 was binding upon the emperor himself, 
 and was so considered by him when he 
 remonstrated against the arrest of Huss. 
 
 (Id., pp. 72f 83,) 3. It was not binding 
 on the council, who possessed no tem- 
 poral power, but had a right to decide 
 upon the question of heresy. 4. It is not 
 manifest by what civil authority Huss 
 was arrested, nor can I determine how 
 far the imperial safe-conduct was a legal 
 protection within the citv of Constance. 
 5. Sigismund was persuaded to acquiesce 
 in the capital jjunishment of Huss, and 
 even to make it his own act (Lenfant, 
 p. 409) ; by which he manifestly broke 
 his engagement. 6. It is evident that in 
 this he acted by the advice and sanction 
 of the council, who thus became acces- 
 sor)' to the guilt of his treachery. 
 
 The great moral to be drawn from the 
 story of John Huss's condemnation is, 
 that no breach of faith can be excused by 
 our opinion of ill desert in the party, or 
 
494 
 
 HALLAM^S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 of this congress of theologians to our veneration, and to weigh 
 the retrenchment of a few abuses against the formal sanction of 
 an atrocious maxim. 
 
 It was not, however, necessary for any government of toler- 
 able energy to seek the reform of those abuses which affected the 
 independence of national churches, and the integrity of their 
 regular discipline, at the hands of a general council. Whatever 
 difficulty there might be in overturning the principles founded 
 on the decretals of Isidore, and sanctioned by the prescription of 
 many centuries, the more flagrant encroachments of papal tyr- 
 anny were fresh innovations, some within the actual generation, 
 others easily to be traced up, and continually disputed. The 
 principal European nations determined, with different degrees 
 indeed of energy, to make a stand against the despotism of Rome. 
 In this resistance England was not only the first engaged, but the 
 most consistent; her free Parliament preventing, as far as the 
 times permitted, that wavering policy to which a court is liable. 
 We have already seen that a foundation was laid in the statute 
 of provisors under Edward III. In the next reign many other 
 measures tending to repress the interference of Rome were 
 adopted, especially the great statute of praemunire, which sub- 
 jects all persons bringing papal bulls for translation of bishops 
 and other enumerated purposes into the kingdom to the penal- 
 ties of forfeiture and perpetual imprisonment.^®* This act re- 
 ceived, and probably was designed to receive, a larger interpre- 
 tation than its language appears to warrant. Combined with the 
 statute of provisors, it put a stop to the Pope's usurpation of pat- 
 ronage, which had impoverished the Church and kingdom of 
 England for nearly two centuries. Several attempts were made 
 to overthrow these enactments ; the first Parliament of Henry IV 
 gave a very large power to the king over the statute of provisors, 
 enabling him even to annul it at his pleasure.^®^ This, however, 
 does not appear in the statute-book. Henry indeed, like his pred- 
 ecessors, exercised rather largely his prerogative of dispensing 
 with the law against papal provisions ; a prerogative which, as to 
 this point, was itself taken away by an act of his own, and another 
 of his son Henry V.^®^ But the statute always stood unrepealed ; 
 and it is a satisfactory proof of the ecclesiastical supremacy of 
 
 ""^ " Rot. Pari.," vol. in, p. 428. 
 ,r "' if^L ^Y' <^- 81 3 H. V! c". 4 Martin 
 V published an angry bull against the 
 
 execrable statute '^ of praemunire; en- 
 joining Archbishop Chicheley to procure 
 Its repeal. (Collier, p. 653.) Chicheley 
 did all m his power; but the commons 
 were always inexorable on this head (p. 
 636), and the archbishop even incurred 
 Martin's resentment by it (Wilkins, 
 
 Concilia," tome 111, p. 483.) 
 
 by a narrow interpretation of our own 
 engagements. Every capitulation ought 
 to be construed favourably for the 
 weaker side. In such cases it is emphat- 
 ically true thatj if the letter killeth, the 
 spirit should give life. 
 
 Gerson, the most eminent theologian 
 of his age, and the coryphaeus of the 
 party that opposed the transalpine prin- 
 ciples, was deeply concerned in this atro- 
 cious business. (Crevier, p. 432.) 
 
 "* 16 Ric. II, c. 5. 
 
INFLUENCE OF WICLIFF 
 
 495 
 
 the legislature that in the concordat made by Martin V at the 
 Council of Constance with the English nation we find no men- 
 tion of reservation of benefices, of annates, and the other prin- 
 cipal grievances of that age,^^"^ our ancestors disdaining to accept 
 by compromise with the Pope any modification or even con- 
 firmation of their statute law. They had already restrained an- 
 other flagrant abuse, the increase of first fruits by Boniface IX ; 
 an act of Henry IV forbidding any greater sum to be paid on 
 that account than had been formerly accustomed.^^® 
 
 It will appear evident to every person acquainted with the 
 contemporary historians and the proceedings of Parliament that, 
 besides partaking in the general resentment of Europe against 
 the papal court, England was under the influence of a peculiar 
 hostility to the clergy, arising from the dissemination of the prin- 
 ciples of Wicliff.^®* All ecclesiastical possessions were marked 
 for spoliation by the system of this reformer ; and the House of 
 Commons more than once endeavoured to carry it into effect, 
 pressing Henry IV to seize the temporalities of the Church for 
 public exigencies. ^^^ This recommendation, besides its injustice, 
 was not likely to move Henry, whose policy had been to sustain 
 the prelacy against their new adversaries. Ecclesiastical juris- 
 diction was kept in better control than formerly by the judges 
 of common law, who, through rather a strained construction 
 of the statute of praemunire, extended its penalties to the spiritual 
 courts when they transgressed their limits. ^^^ The privilege of 
 clergy in criminal cases still remained, but it was acknowledged 
 not to comprehend high treason. ^^^ 
 
 Germany, as well as England, was disappointed of her hopes 
 
 '" Lenfant, tome ii, p. 444. 
 
 "8 6 H. IV, c. r. 
 
 ^^ See, among many other passages, 
 the articles exhibited by the Lollards to 
 Parliament against the clergy in 1394. 
 Collier gives the substance of them, and 
 they are noticed by Henry, but they 
 are at full length in Wilkins, tome iii, 
 p. 221. 
 
 290 Waigjngiiam, pp. 371, 379; "Rot. 
 Pari.," II H. IV, vol. iii, p. 645. The 
 remarkable circumstances detailed by 
 Walsingham in the former passage are 
 not corroborated by anything in the 
 records. But as it is unlikely that so 
 
 f)articular a narrative should have _ no 
 oundation, Hume has plausibly conjec- 
 tured that the roll has been wilfully mu- 
 tilated. As this suspicion occurs in 
 other instances, it would be desirable to 
 ascertain, by examination of the original 
 rolls, whether they bear any external 
 marks of injury. The mutilators, how- 
 ever, if such there were, have left a great 
 deal. The rolls of Henry IV and V's 
 Parliaments are quite full of petitions 
 against the clergy. 
 
 2" "3 Inst.,'^ p. 121; Collier, vol. i, 
 p. 668. 
 
 ^^ " 2 Inst.." p. 634, where several in- 
 stances of priests executed for coining 
 and other treasons are adduced. And 
 this may also be inferred from 25 E. Ill, 
 Stat. 3, c. 4; and from 4 H. IV, c. 3. 
 Indeed, the benefit of clergy has never 
 been taken away by statute from high 
 treason. This renders it improbable that 
 Chief-Justice Gascoyne should, as Carte 
 tells us (vol. ii, p. 664), have refused to 
 try Archbishop Scrope for treason, on 
 the ground that no one could lawfully 
 sit in judgment on a bishop for his life. 
 Whether he might have declined to try 
 him as a peer is another question. The 
 Pope excommunicated all who were con- 
 cerned in Scrope's death, and it cost 
 Henry a large sum to obtain absolution. 
 But Boniface IX was no arbiter of the 
 English law. Edward IV granted a 
 strange charter to the clergy, not only 
 dispensing with the statutes of prae- 
 munire, but absolutely exempting them 
 from temporal jurisdiction in cases of 
 treason as well as felony. (Wilkins, 
 " Concilia," tome iii, p. 583; Collier, p. 
 678.) This, however, being an illegal 
 grant, took no effect, at least after his 
 death. 
 
496 
 
 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 of general reformation by the Italian party of Constance ; but 
 she did not supply the want of the council's decrees with suffi- 
 cient decision. A concordat with Martin V left the Pope in 
 possession of too great a part of his recent usurpations. ^^^ This, 
 however, was repugnant to the spirit of Germany, which called 
 for a more thorough reform with all the national roughness and 
 honesty. The Diet of Mentz, during the continuance of the 
 Council of Basle, adopted all those regulations hostile to the 
 papal interests which occasioned the deadly quarrel between that 
 assembly and the court of Rome.^^^ But the German Empire 
 was betrayed by Frederick III, and deceived by an accomplished 
 but profligate statesman, his secretary, ^neas Sylvius. Fresh 
 concordats, settled at Aschaffenburg in 1448, nearly upon a foot- 
 ing of those concluded with Martin V, surrendered great part 
 of the independence for which Germany had contended. The 
 Pope retained his annates, or at least a sort of tax in their place ; 
 and instead of reserving benefices arbitrarily, he obtained the 
 positive right of collation during six alternate months of every 
 year. Episcopal elections were freely restored to the chapters, 
 except in case of translation, when the Pope still continued to 
 nominate ; as he did also if any person, canonically unfit, were 
 presented to him for confirmation. ^^^ Such is the concordat of 
 Aschaffenburg, by which the Catholic principalities of the empire 
 have always been governed, though reluctantly acquiescing in its 
 disadvantageous provisions. Rome, for the remainder of the fif- 
 teenth century, not satisfied with the terms she had imposed, is 
 said to have continually encroached upon the right of election. ^^^ 
 But she purchased too dearly her triumph over the weakness 
 of Frederick III, and the Hundred Grievances of Germany, pre- 
 sented to Adrian VI by the Diet of Nuremberg in 1522, mani- 
 fested the working of a long-treasured resentment, that had made 
 straight the path before the Saxon reformer. 
 
 I have already taken notice that the Castilian Church was 
 in the first ages of that monarchy nearly independent of Rome. 
 But after many gradual encroachments the code of laws pro- 
 mulgated by Alfonso X had incorporated a great part of the 
 decretals, and thus given the papal jurisprudence an authority 
 which it nowhere else possessed in national tribunals. ^^"^ That 
 
 2»'' Lenfant, tome ii, p. 428; Schmidt, 
 tome V, p. 131. 
 
 ^o* Schmidt, tome v, p. 221; Lenfant. 
 
 205 Schmidt, tome v, p. 250; tome vi, p. 
 94, etc. He observes that there is three 
 times as much money at present as in 
 the fifteenth century: if, therefore, the 
 annates are now felt as a burden, what 
 must they have been? (p. 113). To this 
 Rome would answer. If the annates were 
 but sufficient for the Pope's maintenance 
 at that time, what must they be now? 
 
 2»« Schmidt, p. 98; ^neas Sylvius, 
 Epist. 369 and 371; and " De Moribus 
 Germanorum," pp. 1041, 1061. Severs! 
 little disputes with the Pope indicate the 
 spirit that was fermenting in Germany 
 throughout the fifteenth century. But 
 this is the proper subject of a more de- 
 tailed ecclesiastical history, and shouM 
 form an introduction to that of the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 2»^ Marina, *' EnsayoHistorico-Critico," 
 c. 320, etc. 
 
CHECKS ON PAPAL AUTHORITY 497 
 
 richly endowed hierarchy was a tempting spoil. The popes filled 
 up its benefices by means of expectatives and reserves with their 
 own ItaHan dependents. We find the Cortes of Palencia in 1388 
 complaining that strangers are beneficed in Castile, through 
 which the churches are ill supplied, and native scholars can not 
 be provided, and requesting the king to take such measures in 
 relation to this as the Kings of France, Aragon, and Navarre, 
 who do not permit any but natives to hold benefices in their 
 kingdoms. The king answered to this petition that he would 
 use his endeavours to that end.^®^ And this is expressed with 
 greater warmth by a Cortes of 1473, "vvho declare it to be the 
 custom of all Christian nations that foreigners should not be 
 promoted to benefices, urging the discouragement of native learn- 
 ing, the decay of charity, the bad performance of religious rites, 
 and other evils arising from the non-residence of beneficed priests, 
 and request the king to notify to the court of Rome that no 
 expectative or provision in favour of foreigners can be received 
 in future.^^® This petition seems to have passed into a law ; but 
 I am ignorant of the consequences. Spain certainly took an 
 active part in restraining the abuses of pontifical authority at the 
 Councils of Constance and Basle ; to which I might add the 
 name of Trent, if that assembly were not beyond my province. 
 
 France, dissatisfied with the abortive termination of her ex- 
 ertions during the schism, rejected the concordat offered by 
 Martin V, which held out but a promise of imperfect reforma- 
 tion.^^° She suffered in consequence the papal exactions for 
 some years, till the decrees of the Council of Basle prompted her 
 to more vigorous efforts for independence, and Charles VII en- 
 acted the famous Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges.^**^ This has 
 been deemed a sort of Magna Charta of the Galilean Church ; 
 for though the law was speedily abrogated, its principle has 
 remained fixed as the basis of ecclesiastical liberties. By the 
 Pragmatic Sanction a general council was declared superior to 
 the Pope ; elections of bishops were made free from all control ; 
 mandates or grants in expectancy, and reservations of benefices, 
 were taken away ; first fruits were abolished. This defalcation 
 of wealth, which had now become dearer than power, could not 
 be patiently borne at Rome. Pius II, the same ^neas Sylvius 
 who had sold himself to oppose the Council of Basle, in whose 
 service he had been originally distinguished, used every endeav- 
 our to procure the repeal of this ordinance. With Charles VII 
 he had no success ; but Louis XI, partly out of blind hatred to 
 
 208 Id.; " Teoria de las Cortes," tome 
 iii, p. 126. 
 
 289 " Teoria de las Cortes," tome ii, p. _. , , 
 
 364; Mariana, " Hist. Hispan.," 1. xix, tome iv, p. loo; Pasquier, " Recherches 
 c. I. de la France," 1. iii, c. 2t. 
 
 300 Villaret, tome xv, p. 126. 
 
 32 
 
498 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 his father's memory, partly from a delusive expectation that the 
 Pope would support the Angevin faction in Naples, repealed the 
 Pragmatic Sanction. ^^^ This may be added to other proofs that 
 Louis XI, even according to the measures of worldly wisdom, 
 was not a wise politician. His people judged from better feel- 
 ings ; the Parliament of Paris constantly refused to enregister 
 the revocation of that favourite law, and it continued in many 
 respects to be acted upon until the reign of Francis I.^^^ At 
 the States-General of Tours, in 1484, the inferior clergy, sec- 
 onded by the two other orders, earnestly requested that the 
 Pragmatic Sanction might be confirmed ; but the prelates were 
 timid or corrupt, and the regent Anne was unwilling to risk a 
 quarrel with the Holy See.^^* This unsettled state continued, 
 the Pragmatic Sanction neither quite enforced nor quite re- 
 pealed, till Francis I, having accommodated the differences of his 
 predecessor with Rome, agreed upon a final concordat with Leo 
 X, the treaty that subsisted for almost three centuries between 
 the papacy and the kingdom of France. ^"^^ Instead of capitular 
 election or papal provision, a new method was devised for fill- 
 ing the vacancies of episcopal sees. The king was to nominate 
 a fit person, whom the Pope was to collate. The one obtained 
 an essential patronage, the other preserved his theoretical su- 
 premacy. Annates were restored to the Pope; a concession of 
 great importance. He gave up his indefinite prerogative of re- 
 serving benefices, and received only a small stipulated patronage. 
 This convention met with strenuous opposition in France ; the 
 Parliament of Paris yielded only to force ; the university hardly 
 stopped short of sedition ; the zealous Gallicans have ever since 
 deplored it, as a fatal wound to their liberties. There is much 
 exaggeration in this, as far as the relation of the Gallican Church 
 to Rome is concerned ; but the royal nomination to bishoprics 
 impaired, of course, the independence of the hierarchy. Whether 
 this prerogative of the crown were upon the whole beneficial to 
 France, is a problem that I can not affect to solve ; in this coun- 
 try there seems little doubt that capitular elections, which the 
 statute of Henry VIII has reduced to a name, would long since 
 have degenerated into the corruption of close boroughs ; but the 
 circumstances of the Gallican establishment may not have been 
 entirely similar, and the question opens a variety of considera- 
 tions that do not belong to my present subject. 
 
 From the principles established during the schism, and in 
 the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, arose the far-famed liberties 
 
 3"-ViIlaret, and Garnier, tome xvi; '"* Gamier, tome xix, pp. 216 and 321. 
 
 Crevier, tome iv, pp. 256, 274. 3°' Garnier, tome xxiii, p. 151; "Hist. 
 
 3*>3 Garnier, tome xvi, p. 432; tome du Droit Public Eccles. Fr.," tome ii, 
 
 xvii, p. 222, et alibi; Crevier, tome iv, p. p. 243; Fleury, "Institutions au Droit," 
 
 318, et alibi. tome i, p. 107. 
 
THE GALLICAN CHURCH 
 
 499 
 
 of the Gallican Church, which honourably distinguished her from 
 other members of the Roman communion. These have been 
 referred by French writers to a much earher era ; but except so 
 far as that country participated in the ancient ecclesiastical inde- 
 pendence of all Europe, before the papal encroachments had sub- 
 verted it, I do not see that they can be properly traced above 
 the fifteenth century. Nor had they acquired even at the expira- 
 tion of that age the precision and consistency which was given 
 in later times by the constant spirit of the Parliaments and uni- 
 versities, as well as by the best ecclesiastical authors, with little 
 assistance from the crown, which, except in a few periods of 
 disagreement with Rome, has rather been disposed to restrain 
 the more zealous Gallicans. These liberties, therefore, do not 
 strictly fall within my limits ; and it will be sufficient to observe 
 that they depended upon two maxims : one, that the Pope does 
 not possess any direct or indirect temporal authority ; the other, 
 that his spiritual jurisdiction can only be exercised in conformity 
 with such parts of the canon law as are received by the king- 
 dom of France. Hence the Gallican Church rejected a great 
 part of the Sext and Clementines, and paid little regard to mod- 
 ern papal bulls, which, in fact, obtained validity only by the king's 
 approbation. ^°® 
 
 The pontifical usurpations which were thus restrained, af- 
 fected, at least in their direct operation, rather the Church than 
 the state ; and temporal governments would only have been half 
 emancipated, if their national hierarchies had preserved their 
 enormous jurisdiction. ^^^ England, in this also, began the work, 
 and had made a considerable progress, while the mistaken piety 
 or policy of Louis IX and his successors had laid France open 
 to vast encroachments. The first method adopted in order to 
 check them was rude enough — by seizing the bishop's effects 
 when he exceeded his jurisdiction. ^^^ This jurisdiction, accord- 
 ing to the construction of churchmen, became perpetually larger : 
 
 3C0 Fleury, " Institutions au Droit," 
 tome ii, p. 226, etc., and " Discours sur 
 les Libertes de I'feglise Gallicane." The 
 last editors of this dissertation go far 
 beyond Fleury, and perhaps reach the 
 utmost point in limiting the papal au- 
 thority which a sincere member of that 
 communion can attain. (See notes, pp. 
 417 and 445.) 
 
 3"^ It ought always to be remembered 
 that ecclesiastical, and not merely papal, 
 encroachments are what civil govern- 
 ments and the laity in general have had 
 to resist; a point which some very 
 zealous opposers of Rome have been 
 willing to keep out of sight. The latter 
 arose out of the former, and perhaps 
 were in some respects less objectionable. 
 But the true enemy is what are called 
 high-church principles; be they main- 
 
 tained by a pope, a bishop, or a presby- 
 ter. Thus Archbishop Stratford writes to 
 Edward III: Duo sunt, quibus princi- 
 paliter regitur mundus, sacra pontificalis 
 auctoritas, et regalis ordinata potestas: 
 in quibus est pondus tanto gravius et 
 sublimius sacerdotum, quanto et de regi- 
 bus illi in divino reddituri sunt examine 
 rationem; et ideo scire debet regia celsi- 
 tudo ex illorum vos dependere judicio, 
 non illos ad vestram dirigi posse volun- 
 tatem, (Wilkins, " Concila,' tome ii, p. 
 663.) This amazing impudence toward 
 such a prince as Edward did not suc- 
 ceed; but it is interesting to follow the 
 track of the star which was now rather 
 receding, though still fierce. 
 
 308 De Marca, " De Concordantia," 1. 
 iv, c. 18. 
 
Soo 
 
 HALLAM^S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 even the reforming Council of Constance give an enumeration 
 of ecclesiastical causes far beyond the limits acknowledged in 
 England, or perhaps in France.^*^® But the Parliament of Paris, 
 instituted in 1304, gradually established a paramount authority 
 over ecclesiastical as well as civil tribunals. Their progress was 
 indeed very slow. At a famous assembly in 1329, before Philip 
 of Valois, his advocate general, Peter de Cugnieres, pronounced 
 a long harangue against the excesses of spiritual jurisdiction. 
 This is a curious illustration of that branch of legal and ecclesi- 
 astical history. It was answered at large by some bishops, and 
 the king did not venture to take any active measures at that 
 time.^^° Several regulations were, however, made in the four- 
 teenth century, which took away the ecclesiastical cognizance of 
 adultery, of the execution of testaments, and other causes which 
 had been claimed by the clergy.^^^ Their immunity in criminal 
 matters was straitened by the introduction of privileged cases, 
 to which it did not extend ; such as treason, murder, robbery, 
 and other heinous offences.^^^ The Parliament began to exercise 
 a judicial control over episcopal courts. It was not, however, 
 till the beginning of the sixteenth century, according to the best 
 writers, that it devised its famous form of procedure, the " appeal 
 because of abuse." ^^^ This, in the course of time, and through 
 the decline of ecclesiastical power, not only proved an .effectual 
 barrier against encroachments of spiritual jurisdiction, but drew 
 back again to the lay court the greater part of those causes which 
 by prescription, and indeed by law, had appertained to a differ- 
 ent cognizance. Thus testamentary, and even, in a great degree, 
 matrimonial causes were decided by the Parliament ; and in many 
 other matters that body, being the judge of its own competence, 
 narrowed, by means of the appeal because of abuse, the bounda- 
 ries of the opposite jurisdiction.^^* This remedial process appears 
 to have been more extensively applied than our English writ 
 of prohibition. The latter merely restrains the interference of 
 the ecclesiastical courts in matters which the law has not com- 
 
 s*"' De Marca, " De Concordantia," 1. 
 IV, c. 15; Lenfant, " Cone, de Constance," 
 tome n, p. 331. De Marca (1. iv, c. 15) 
 gives us passages from one Durandus 
 about 1309, complaining that the lay 
 judges invaded ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 and reckoning the cases subject to the 
 latter, under which he includes feudal 
 and criminal causes in some circum- 
 stances, and also those in which the 
 temporal judges are in doubt; si quid 
 ambiguum inter judices szeculares ori- 
 atur. 
 
 .. /'^'^^^.y' *,9"^^ ^"'' P- 234; Fleury, 
 Institutions,'' tome ii, p. 12: "Hist, du 
 
 ?,'Kr?,^'^^' Frang.," tome ii, p. 86. 
 3^1 Villaret, tome xi, p. 182. 
 312 Fleury, " Institutions au Droit," 
 tome 11, p. 138. In the famous case of 
 
 Balue, a bishop and cardinal, whom 
 Louis XI detected in a treasonable in- 
 trigue, it was contended by the king that 
 he had a right to punish him capitally. 
 (Du Clos, ** Vie de Louis XI," tome i, 
 p. 422; Garnier, " Hist, de France," tome 
 xvii, p. 330.) Balue was confined for 
 many years in a small iron cage, which 
 till lately was shown in the castle of 
 Loches. 
 
 ^^^ Pasquier, 1. iii, c. 33; " Hist, du 
 Droit Eccles. Frangois," tome ii, p. 119; 
 Fleury, " Institutions au Droit Eccles. 
 Francois," tome ii, p. 221; De Marca, 
 " De Concordantia Sacerdotii et Im- 
 perii," 1. iv, c. 19. The last author 
 seems to carry it rather higher. 
 
 814 Fleury, " Institutions," tome ii, p. 
 42, etc. 
 
DECLINE OF PAPAL INFLUENCE 
 
 501 
 
 mitted to them. But the Parliament of Paris considered itself, 
 I apprehend, as conservator of the liberties and discipline of the 
 Gallican Church ; and interposed the appeal because of abuse 
 whenever the spiritual court, even in its proper province, trans- 
 gressed the canonical rules by which it ought to be governed.^^'^ 
 While the Bishops of Rome were losing their general influ- 
 ence over Europe, they did not gain more estimation in Italy. 
 It is, indeed, a problem of some difificulty whether they derived 
 any substantial advantage from their temporal principality. For 
 the last three centuries it has certainly been conducive to the 
 maintenance of their spiritual supremacy, which, in the compli- 
 cated relations of policy, might have been endangered by their 
 becoming the subjects of any particular sovereign. But I doubt 
 whether their real authority over Christendom in the middle 
 ages was not better preserved by a state of nominal dependence 
 upon the empire, without much effective control on one side, 
 or many temptations to worldly ambition on the other. That 
 covetousness of temporal sway which, having long prompted 
 their measures of usurpation and forgery, seemed, from the time 
 of Innocent III and Nicholas III, to reap its gratification, im- 
 paired the more essential parts of the papal authority. In the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the popes degraded their char- 
 acter by too much anxiety about the politics of Italy. The veil 
 woven by religious awe was rent asunder, and the features of 
 ordinary ambition appeared without disguise. For it was no 
 longer that magnificent and original system of spiritual power 
 which made Gregory VII, even in exile, a rival of the emperor, 
 which held forth redress where the law could not protect, and 
 punishment where it could not chastise, which fell in sometimes 
 with superstitious feeling, and sometimes with political interest. 
 Many might believe that the Pope could depose a schismatic 
 prince, who were disgusted at his attacking an unoffending neigh- 
 bour. As the cupidity of the clergy in regard to worldly estate 
 had lowered their character everywhere, so the similar conduct 
 of their head undermined the respect felt for him in Italy. The 
 censures of the Church, those excommunications and interdicts 
 which had made Europe tremble, became gradually despicable 
 as well as odious when they were lavished in every squabble 
 for territory which the Pope was pleased to make his own 
 
 815 pe Marca, " De Concordantia," 1. 
 iv, c. 9; Fleury, tome ii, p. 224. In Spain, 
 even now, says De Marca, bishops or 
 clerks not obeying royal mandates that 
 inhibit the excesses of ecclesiastical courts 
 are expelled from the kingdom and de- 
 prived of the rights of denizenship, 
 
 2^' In 1290 Pisa was put under an inter- 
 dict for having conferred the signiory 
 on the Count of Montefeltro; and he was 
 
 316 
 
 ordered, on pain of excommunication, to 
 lay down the government within a month. 
 (Muratori ad ann.) A curious style for 
 the Pope to adopt toward a free city! 
 Six years before the Venetians had been 
 interdicted because they would not allow 
 their galleys to be hired by the King of 
 Naples. But it would be almost end- 
 less to quote every instance. 
 
502 HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Even the crusades, which had already been tried against the 
 heretics of Languedoc, were now preached against all who 
 espoused a different party from the Roman See in the quarrels 
 of Italy. Such were those directed at Frederick II, at Manfred, 
 and at Matteo Visconti, accompanied by the usual bribery, in- 
 dulgences, and remission of sins. The papal interdicts of the 
 fourteenth century wore a different complexion from those of 
 former times. Though tremendous to the imagination, they had 
 hitherto been confined to spiritual effects, or to such as were 
 connected with religion, as the prohibition of marriage and sepul- 
 ture. But Clement V, on account of an attack made by the Ve- 
 netians upon Ferrara in 1309, proclaimed the whole people 
 infamous, and incapable for three generations of any office, their 
 goods, in every part of the world, subject to confiscation, and 
 every Venetian, wherever he might be found, liable to be reduced 
 into slavery.^^^ A bull in the same terms was published by Greg- 
 ory XI in 1376 against the Florentines. 
 
 From the termination of the schism, as the popes found their 
 ambition thwarted beyond the Alps, it was diverted more and 
 more toward schemes of temporal sovereignty. In these we 
 do not perceive that consistent policy which remarkably actuated 
 their conduct as supreme heads of the Church. Men generally 
 advanced in years, and born of noble Italian families, made the 
 papacy subservient to the elevation of their kindred, or to the 
 interest of a local faction. For such ends they mingled in the 
 dark conspiracies of that bad age, distinguished only by the more 
 scandalous turpitude of their vices from the petty tyrants and 
 intriguers with whom they were engaged. In the latter part of 
 the fifteenth century, when all favourable prejudices were worn 
 away, those who occupied the most conspicuous station in Eu- 
 rope disgraced their name by more notorious profligacy than 
 could be paralleled in the darkest age that had preceded; and 
 at the moment beyond which this work is not carried, the invasion 
 of Italy by Charles VIII, I must leave the pontifical throne in 
 the possession of Alexander VI. 
 
 It has been my object in the present chapter to bring within 
 the compass of a few hours' perusal the substance of a great and 
 interesting branch of history ; not certainly with such extensive 
 reach of learning as the subject might require, but from sources 
 of unquestioned credibility. Unconscious of any partialities that 
 could give an oblique bias to my mind, I have not been very 
 solicitous to avoid offence where offence is so easily taken. Yet 
 there is one misinterpretation of my meaning which I would 
 gladly obviate. I have not designed, in exhibiting without dis- 
 guise the usurpations of Rome during the middle ages, to furnish 
 
 ai^ Muratori. 
 
DECLINE OF PAPAL INFLUENCE 503 
 
 materials for unjust prejudice or unfounded distrust. It is an 
 
 advantageous circumstance for the philosophical inquirer into 
 
 the history of ecclesiastical dominion that, as it spreads itself 
 
 over the vast extent of fifteen centuries, the dependence of events 
 
 upon general causes, rather than on transitory combinations or 
 
 the character of individuals, is made more evident, and the future 
 
 more probably foretold from a consideration of the past, than 
 
 we are apt to find in political history. Five centuries have now 
 
 elapsed, during every one of which the authority of the Roman 
 
 See has successively declined. Slowly and silently receding from 
 
 their claims to temporal power, the pontiffs hardly protect their 
 
 dilapidated citadel from the revolutionary concussions of modern 
 
 times, the rapacity of governments, and the growing averseness 
 
 to ecclesiastical influence. But if, thus bearded by unmannerly 
 
 and threatening innovation, they should occasionally forget that 
 
 cautious policy which necessity has prescribed, if they should 
 
 attempt (an unavailing expedient !) to revive institutions which 
 
 can be no longer operative, or principles that have died away, 
 
 their defensive efforts will not be unnatural, nor ought to excite 
 
 either indignation or alarm. A calm, comprehensive study of 
 
 ecclesiastical history, not in such scraps and fragments as the 
 
 ordinary partisans of our ephemeral literature obtrude upon us, 
 
 is perhaps the best antidote to extravagant apprehensions. Those 
 
 who know what Rome has once been are best able to appreciate 
 
 what she is ; those who have seen the thunderbolt in the hands 
 
 of the Gregories and the Innocents will hardly be intimidated 
 
 at the sallies of decrepitude, the impotent dart of Priam amid the 
 
 crackling ruins of Troy.^^^ 
 
 318 It is again to be remembered that this paragraph was written in 1816. 
 
 END OF VOL. I