(i^arnell IHmoeraity Hibratg 3tliara, Nemlarb arV15631 Charlemagne. Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 323 706 olin,anx Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031323706 CHARLEMAGNE. THE HOME LIBRARY. CHARLEMAQ^S^E, EEV. EDWAED L. QUTTS, B.A.., HON. D.D. UNIV. OF THE SOUTH, U.S. AUTHOR OF " CONSTANTINE THE GREAT," " TURNING POINTS OF GENERAL, AND OF ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY," ETC. WITH MAP. PUBLISHED CNDEB THE DIBEOTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOE PROMOTING CHKISTIAN KNOWLEDGE ; NORTHUMBERLAND AVENtTE, CHARING CROSS ; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET ; 48, PICCADILLr ; AND 135, NORTH STREET, BRIGHTON. NEW YORK : E. & J. B. YOUNG AND CO. 1882. CORNE Ur.:VEKSITY| LIBRARY PEEFACE. The popular view of history possesses two cha- racteristics : first, it deals in broad generalizations, and marks history out into great Periods ; secondly, it is attracted by great individualities, and seizes on certain Men as the representatives of the Periods in which they lived. Thus Charlemagne stands in the popular view- as the representative man of that obscure but very important period in which three elements — the ancient civilization of the Empire of the West, the fresh vigour of the Barbarians who overran it, and the Church — were being fused into the national life of mediaeval Europe. When we come to study the period we find that the process of fusion was very complex, and ex- tended over a long period; and that while we may conveniently accept Charlemagne as the central VI PEEFACF. and representative figure in this period of history, we must begin far back to trace the gradual changes which led up to him ; and if we are rightly to appreciate him and his work we must continue to study the history of the period long after hefhas passed away from it. And so in this book it will be found tha^ the actual life of the Emperor Karl occupies only a por- tion of it, while it has been thought that the popular name of " Charlemagne " may appropriately stand as the title of what is a sketch of his period. CONTENTS. PAGE CnKONOLOGiCAL Table xvi CHAPTER I. THE PBAXKS. Description of the Franks — Their inroads into the empii'e^ Their first settlement in Batavia, a.d. 355 — Spread as far as the Somme, a.d. 145— Franks in alliance with the Eomans 1 CHAPTER II. THE SETTLEMENT OP THE BAKBABIANS. Political condition of Gaul on the accession of Clovis — The kingdom of the Franks — The Roman province — The settlements of the barbarians — The Burgundians — The Visigoths — Surrender of Southern Gaul to the Visigoths 7 CHAPTER III. K03IAN QAVL. Social condition of Gaul ou the accession of Clovis — AppoUi- naris Sidonius — A Gallo-Roman villa — A Visigothic king — A Frank chief — Burgundian society — Saxon pirates 15 Vm CONTENTS. CHAPTEE IV. THE CONQUESTS OP CLOTIS. VJlGU The battle of Soissons and conquest of the Eoman province — The marriage of Clovis — War with the Alemanni — The battle of Tolbiac — The conversion of Clovis — The Franks embrace Christianity — Conquest of the Burgun- dians — Conquest of Aquitaine — Consolidation of the Frank kingdoms — The Franks and 'the Latins separate nations — Survey of the Frank Empire— The cities — Clovis nominated consul and patrician 29 CHAPTEE V. THE MEEOVINGIAN KINGS. Division of the dominions of Clovis among his four sons — Eeconquest of Burgundy — Death of Clodomir and murder of his sons — Conquest of Thuringia — Ostrogothic posses- sions in Gaul relinquished to the Franks — Bavaria and Swabia recognize the Frankish sovereignty — Death of Theodoricandofhisson — Death of Childebert — Clothaire sole king — Etjvate life of the Frank kings — Death of Clothaire, and division of the kingdom again among his four sons — Their characters — Charibert — Guntram — Anecdote of trial by combat — Chilperic — Sigebert Marriage of Sigebert and Brunhilda — Of Chilperic and Gales-wintha — Fredegonda — War between Sigebert and Chilperic — Assassination of Sigebert — Succeeded by ChUdebert n. — The remarriage of Brunhilda — Fate of Merowig — The pretender Gundovald 45 CHAPTEE VI. THE MEEOTINGIAN KDTGS — continued. Struggle between the royal power and the nobles— Death of Chilperic— Succeeded by Clothaire II.— Death of Pretex- tatus— Death of Guntram— Succeeded by Childebert of Austrasia— Death of Childebert— Succeeded by Theode- CONTENTS. IX PAGE bert in Austrasia, and Tlieodorio in Burgundy — Death of Fredegonda — Her character — Brunhilda driven to Burgundy — The two brothers unite against Clothaire — They go to war with each other — Theodebert slain — Theodoric dies — The Austrasian nobles invite Clothaire — Brunhilda and the Austrasian princes slain, and the ■whole of the Frank dominions united in Clothaire 11. — Character of Brunhilda — Death of Clothaire II. — Suc- ceeded by Dagobert, -who gives Aquitaine to Charibert — Character of Dagobert — He gives up Austrasia to his son Sigebert 65 CHAPTER VII. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTOEY. Planting of the Church in Gaul — Increase in the reign of Decius — Council of Aries — Metropolitan organization — Beginnings of the patriarchal authority of the Eoman see — Work of St. Martin of Tours — Eelations of the British and Gallic Churches — Csesarius of Aries — The position of the bishops — Of the counts — All the clergy Latins — Gradnal introduction of Franks — The monastic institution introduced by St. Martin at Liguge — By Cassian at Marseilles — By Honoratus at Lerins — Spreads over Gaul — Kevived by St. Benedict — Description of a monastery of monks — Account of the possessions of St. Riquier — Monasteries of women — Relations of the Church of Gaul with that of Saxon England 85 CHAPTER VIII. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. Church architecture — Sidonius's description of the new church at Lyons — A Church function— Gregory of Tours's description of the new basilica of St. Martin, and of that at Clermont — Paintings in churches — Actual re- mains of churches — Fragments of sculpture, etc.— Mode of election of bishops — The election of a bishop at CONTEXTS. Bourges — Sidouius's speech — Illustrations of mode of episcopal appointments under the Merovingian kings from Gregory of Tours — Rogations — Solitaries and re- cluses — Keligious widows — Custom of sanctuary — Life in the sanctuaries of St. Martin of Tours, and St. Hilary of Poitiers — Belief in miracles — Reverence for relics — Pilgrimage — Impostures — Energumens Ill OHAPTEE IX. THE COXVEXT OF ST. KADEGUNDA AT POITIER.S. Eadegvmda taken captive — Educated and married by Clo- thaire — Flees from court — Is consecrated a deaconess — Takes sanctuary at St. Hilary of Poitiers — Founds a monastery of women there — Description of the building — Of the rules— Venantius Fortunatus comes to Poitiers —His relations with the convent of Eadegunda — The revolt of Chrodielda and forty nuns — They ilee to Tours — Relurn to Poitiers and take sanctuary at St, Hilary's 139 CHAPTER X. THE CELTIC MISSIONAIilEt^. Columbanus — His birth — Mission to Gaul — Founds a monas- tery at Annegi-ay- Another at Luxeuil — Controversy with the Gallic Church — Quarrels with King Theodoric and is banished — Founds a monastery at Bregenz — Another at Bobbio — Gallus — Other Celtic missionaries among the Franks — Emmeran ... I53 CHAPTER XI. THE MAITOES OF THE PALACli. Original functions of the major-domus — Gradual growth of his powers— Pepin of Landen— Mayoralty of Grimoald— Supremacy of the Neustrians under Queen Bathilidis and the mayor Erohinoald — Ebroin elected to the mayor- alty—Replaced by St. Ledger— Pepin of Heristal— CONTENTS. Struggle between the mayors of Neustria and Austrasia — Victory of Pepin — His sole mayoralty — Nominates his grandson mayor under guardianship of his wife Pleotru- dis — Charles is elected Duke of Austrasia — Struggle with Kainfroy — Obtains the sole mayoralty — His wars — The Saracen invasion of France — Defeated by Charles Martel at Poitiers — Seizure of Church estates — His mayoralty — Carloman and Pepin the Short succeed to the mayoralty — Carloman resigns and becomes a monk — Pepin's sole mayoralty — Is elected king 165 CHAPTER XII. Boniface, his birth, etc. — His missionary journey to Prisia — Keturn to England — First visit to Kome — Missionary work in Germany — Second visit to Rome, and con- secration as regionary bishop — His labours among the Germans — Third visit to Kome — Receives the pall — Organizes the Churches of Bavaria — Founds sees and monasteries in Swabia and Thuringia — His influence in the reformation of the Gallic Church — Council of Les- tines — Council of Soissons — Foundation of Fulda — Martyrdom of Boniface — His character 183 CHAPTER XIII. EELATIONS BETWEEN THE MAYOKS OF THE PALACE AND K03IE. The barbarian occupation of Italy — The last emperors — Count Ricimer — Count Odoaoer — Deposes Augustulus — Extin- guishes the 'Western Empire, and reigns as patrician — Theodoric, King of the Goths — His widow, Amalasuntha, marries Theodatus — Justinian's ambition — Wars of Beli- sarius — Invasion of the Lombards — Foundation of their kingdom in North Italy — History of Rome during this period — Rome appeals to Charles Martel for aid against ^ the Lombards 197 XU CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. (JHAKLES AND CAELOMAN JOINT-KINGS. rAGE Birth, etc., of Charles— Partition of the kingdom between Charles and Carloman— War with Aquitaine— Alliance with the Lombards— Letter of Pope Stephen IIL— Charles marries Desiderata— Divorces her— Death of Carloman ^^' CHAPTER XV. THE CONQVEST OF THE LOMBABD KINGDOM. Charles's military resources — Mode of warfare — Intrigues at the court of Pavia — Charles invades Lombardy — Disper- sion of the Lombard forces — Siege of Pavia— Romance description of Charles — He spends Easter at Rome — Pavia surrenders — Charles is crowned King of the Lorn- _ liards — Greco-Italian conspiracy — Campaign against Beneventum — Submission of the duke — Invasion of Bavaria — Suri-ender of the duke — Incorporation of Ba- varia iuto the Frank kingdom — Revolt of Duke of Bene- ventum — Campaign against him — Conquest of Liburnia from the Greeks 225 CHAPTER XVI. THE SAXON WAR. Description of Saxony — Campaign of a.d. 772 — Destruction of the Irminsul — Revolt of 774, and subsequent cam- paign — Revolt of 776, and campaign— The Champ de Mai held at Paderbom — Witikind's raid into Francia, 778 — Revolt of 782 — Defeat of Frank troops — Massacre of the revolters — The great rebellion of 783 — The Saxons fight two pitched battles and are defeated — Charles com- pletes their subjugation in a winter campaigo — Severe laws — Submission and baptism of Witikind 242 CONTENTS. XUl CHAPTER XVII. THE SPANTSH CONQnEST. Saracen envoys seek the assistance of Charles and offer him their allegiance — He marches into Spain — Doubtful suc- cesses — Retires to Aquitaine — Defeat of his rearguard at Eoncevaux— Organization of the kingdoms of Aquitaine and Italy — Alliance with Irene 255 CHAPTER XVIII. THE CHAPTEK OE MISFORTUNES. The Huns invade the empii-e, and are defeated — Charles marches against the Huns — The results of the campaign — Conspiracy against Charles — Count Theodorie and his troops massacred by the Saxons — Revolt of Grimoald — The Saracens invade Aquitaine — Defeated by Count William of Toulouse 261 CHAPTER XIX. CONCLUSION OP THE WAKS OF CONQUEST. The second period of the Saxon war — Deportation of Saxons — Planting of foreign colonies among them — Second period of the Saracen war — The definitive conquest of the Spanish march — Pepin defeats the Huns, captures the " King," and settles the country 268 CHAPTER XX. CHARLES EMPEROE. Death of Pope Adrian — Election of Leo III. — Charles's letter to him — Revolt against Leo — He flees to Charles — Is escorted back to Rome — The Norman pirates — Charles visits Kome — Holds inquiry into accusations against the pope — The Christmas of 800 in St. Peter's — Coronation of Charles as emperor — Three different/ accounts of the event — Significance of the event ../ 272 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXI. Charles's personal character and domestic life. PAOE His alliances — Anecdote of his reception of ambassadors — His buildings — His wives and children — Education of his children — His affection for them — Loved the resort of foreigners to his court — Description of his person and habits — His costume — His habits at table — His learning — His devotion 290 CHAPTER XXII. THE REVIVAL OP LEARNING. The decay of classical learning — The character of the monas- tic schools — Learning valued by the Frank sovereigns — Charles invites Paul the Deacen to his court — The schools of York — Its library — Charles invites Alcuin to his court — The literary courtiers — The Chartulary of 787 — The new Homilary— The popular schools — Alcuin returns to the abbacy of St. Martin at Tours — Is suc- ceeded in the Palatine school by Clement of Ireland — Charles's encouragement of the Palatine scholars — Death of Alcuin— His character — Charles's literary character 306 CHAPTER XXIII. THE ECCLESIASTICAL WORK OP CHARLES. Charles's ecclesiastical policy — His Church patronage — Anec- dotes—Policy towards the Roman See — The Iconoclastic controversy — The Caroline Books — The theological tone of the age — The Adoptionist controversy — The Council of Frankfort — The history of the Filioque : 323 CHAPTER XXIV. THE END. Policy of the emperor— Growing infirmities of Charles— He associates Louis with himself in the empire Dies a.d. 814 — His burial — Character 33.T CHBONOLOaY OP THE EeIQN OF ChARLES 315 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 481-510. Clovis. 510. Theodoric, aodomir, Chil- debert, Clothaire. 558. Clothaire alone. 561. Qmribert, Guntram, Chil- peric, Sigebert. 584. aothaire 593. Childebert. II. 601. Theodoric andTheo- debert. 614-«28. aothaire n. alone. 628. Dagobert. | 630. Charibcrt. 637. Dagobert alone. 63V-654. Sige- 655. CloTis II. bert II. 656-668. Clo- 654. Childeric thaire lU. n. Qneen Bathili- dis guard. 663. Childeric I ;. alone. Jnetinlan emperor. 673. Theodoric I 672. Dagobert III. I II. 679-691. Theodoric HI. alone. [687-714. Pepin I'Heristal, mayor.] 690-695. Clovis III. 695-711. Childebert HI. 714. Dagobert III. 716. Chilperic II., Clothaire IV. 720. Theodoric IV. [717-711. Charies Martel, mayor.] [741-751. Carloman and Pepin, mayors ] 742-751. Childeric III. [751-752. Pepin-le-Bret mayor.] 752-761. Pepin king. 768-772. Charles and Carloman. 792-814. Charles alone. 717-741. Leothelsau- rian emperor. 741-775. Const. Co- pronymns emperor. 476-493. Odoacer. 493-526. Theodoric the Goth. 563. Alboin. [622. Mohammed.] 741-742. Zacharias pope. 742. Stephen II. 745-757. Stephen UI. 775-780. Leo IV. 7S6. Haronn-al- emperor. i Raschid. 797. Irene empress, i Stxn/or-ilLs Ci^erl-SstjDjf fr-"- *i-„j:. .'T — ;,.,;„„ '{ry^,,^^^A£,^ CHARLEMAGNE. CHAPTER I. THE FRANKS. Description of the Franks — Their inroads into the empire — Their first settlement in Batavia, a.d. 355 — Spread as far as the Somme, A.r. 445— Franks in alliance ■with the Romans. It was in the troubled reign of Gordian that the Franks made their first inroad into the Roman Empire : a horde of Teutonic giants, with light complexions, fair hair, and " green " eyes ; clothed in the spoils of the bear, the urus, the boar, and the wolf, they looked at a distance like a herd of wild beasts. Each man bore in his right hand a long lance, in the left a buckler, in his girdle a two- edged axe, which was their peculiar weapon, and which they either used in hand-to-hand encounters, or hurled from a distance with unerring precision. In migrating to new homes they carried their wives and children, and rude household goods, in rough ^ B CHARLEMAGNE. waggons with great wheels of solid wood, drawn by oxen. The waggons, ranged in a circle, formed a protection to their camp when needful. In battle, according to the ancient German custom, they formed themselves into a wedge. At the point of it they placed chosen warriors ; each chief was surrounded by the men of his own family. The formidable phalanx advanced with impetuosity, yet with a measured movement which carefully preserved its formation ; presenting to the foe the vision of a forest of lances, a crowd of half- naked bodies, half-clad in the skins of wild beasts. A cloud of cavah-y similarly clad and armed covered the Avings of the phalanx. In charging they uttered a terrible war-cry, made more shrill and dissonant by the application of the edge of the buckler to the mouth. In marching they sang a war-song, in which they exulted over " slaughtered foes, given for food to the wild beasts, and weeping women ; and welcomed death in battle as the natural end of life, which brave men meet with a smile." * Thus they emerged from the German forests, crossed the Rhine upon huge rafts of timber, and burst upon the terrified inhabitants of the peaceful and prosperous province of Gaul ; devastating the peaceful country, burning villas, driving off flocks and herds, the country people fleeing before them. Sometimes they would pass in sight of the towns, where the gates were closed and the walls manned by the citizen militia, and leave them unattacked ; * Cliateaubriand, " Les Martyrs," ciiap. vi. THE FEANKS. sometimes, in more formidable numbers, they would storm the towns, and carry off the citizens as slaves and their wealth as booty. Again and again, during two centuries, attracted by the rich prey which the towns and villas of the wealthy provincials offered, they repeated their raids, and again and again the Imperial legions defeated them with great slaughter, and chased the survivors out of the empire. Aurelian defeated them at Mayence in A.D. 242, and drove them into the swamps of Holland. Twelve years after another inroad was punished by the generals of Gallienus. In A.D. 276 they had gained possession of sixty Gallic cities, from which Probus drove them, and, it is said, killed 400,000 of them and their allies. Constantius Chlorus, in A.D. 292, drove the Salian * Franks out of the Batavian Islands of the Lower Rhine. His great son Constantine defeated them in the early years of his reign with great slaughter, carried off two of their kings and thousands of their warriors in triumph to his capital of Treves, and there, in the games in honour of his victory, the famous Ludi Francici, gave them to the lions in the amphitheatre. The year A.D. 355 is a prominent date in the * The origin of the namea Salian and Eipuarian, by which the two great divisiona of the Franks are known in history, is obscure. Salian, perhaps, means those who dwelt along the river Ysscl, or Sal : the Sicambrian tribe seems to be the leading tribe of this division. The name Kipuarii, or Eiparii, it may be suggested with greater probability, denoted those who lived on the bank of the Rhine.— Perry, " The Franks." CHARLEMAGNE. history. In that year there was a great and general movement of the Franks along the whole frontier from Strasburg to the sea, and apparently they endeavoured to establish themselves all along the left bank of the river. The Salians then again seized Batavia, and spread into Toxandria, where they firmly established themselves. This was their first permanent settlement on the left bank of the Rhine, and the foundation of the kingdom of Clovis. The Emperor Julian attacked them in A.D. 358, but allowed them to retain their lands on condition of acknowledging themselves subjects of the empire. For the most part they continued faithful allies, and formed a useful barrier against the barbarians beyond them. At this period bodies of Frank auxiliaries were taken into the Imperial service, in which some of their chiefs rose to high rank and great influence. The Franks gradually spread further and further, until, at the beginning of the fifth century, we find them occupying the left bank of the Rhine as far as Tournai, which then became the chief town of the Salian Franks. The Ripuarians, meanwhile, had been also extending themselves downwards from Andernach, along the middle Rhine, tod they gained Cologne about the same time that their Salian brothers reached Tournai. About the year A.D. 430, when the bai'barians were breaking into the empire on every side, we come to the third stage in the westward progress of the Salian Franks. The legendary histories assign THE FEANKS. the leadership in the conquests of this period to the fabulous King Pharamond, but there is no evidence of the existence of such a person. The conquest of Cambrai by Clodion, in A.D. 445, is a well-established historical fact, and the conquest of the country as far as the river Somme; for though the Franks suffered a surprise and defeat at the hands of Aetius and Majorian, yet at the end of the war they re- tained possession of their conquests. It is probable that this part of the country was then comparatively desolate, and that its colonization by the Franks did not dispossess any considerable native population. Clodion died in A.D. 448. Attila appeared in Gaul in a.d. 450. The kingship of the Salian Franks was disputed by two rival princes. The legends call one Merov^eus. He appealed to Aetius, the Koman Prefect, for countenance; his rival ap- pealed to Attila. In the great battle of Chalons, Merovseus and his warriors were among the bar- barian allies whom Aetius and the Visigothic Theo- doric brought into the field ; the rival faction of the Salian Franks was among the allies of the Huns. The fate of the great battle, in giving victory to the Roman, gave to Merovseus the kingship of the Salian Franks. His son Childeric, who succeeded him, was a licen- tious youth, who, giving way to unbridled passion, and dishonouring the daughters of his chiefs,* was driven into exile. It is a remarkable illustration of the relations between the Romans and the Franks, * Gregory of Tours, " Historia Francorum," Lib. ii. 12. 6 CHARLEMAGNE. that when the Franks thus drove away their here- ditary chief, they chose .(Egidius, the Prefect of Gaul, as their king. At the end of eight years, ChUderic's friends had prepared the way for his return from exile, and he was restored to his sovereignty. He had spent his years of exile at the court of the King of Thuringia. The grateful Frank seems to have repaid the hos- pitality of his roj'^al host by gaining the affections of his queen, Basine ; for, on his return from exile, Basine fled and foUowed him. He married her, and Clovis was their son. The remaining fifteen years of the reign of ChUderic he was in alliance with ^gidius, in defence of Northern and Central Gaul, against the growing power of the Visigoths of Spain and Aquitaine. ( 7 ) CHAPTER II. THE SETTLEMENT OF THE BARBARIANS. Political condition of Gaul on the accession of Clevis— The king- dom of the Franks— The Roman province— The settlements of the barbarians— The Burgundians— The Visigoths— Sur- render of Southern Gaul to the Visigoths. Before we enter upon the eventful reign of Clovis, it wiU be convenient to consider the condition of Gaul before the commencement of his conquests. It was divided into four, if not five, independent states. First, the Frank dominions ; they were divided into the Salian and Ripuarian kingdoms, and these again subdivided according to the Teutonic custom of dividing the possessions of a father among all his sons ; but the divisions, being all united in one general annual assembly of the whole people, and usually acting together in gi-eat undertakings of general interest, may be regarded as one state. Northern Gaul, from the Somme westward to the Atlantic, from the Channel southward to the Loire, was stiU nominally a portion of the Roman Empire. It is a question whether the Armoricans (Bretagne), CIUIILEMAGNE. secluded in their hills and forests, and governed patriarchaUy by their chiefs, continued to regard the Prefect of Gaul as the head of their government ; but, at least, no acts of hostility had clearly defined them as rebels to the empire. Syagrius, the Prefect of Gaul, was of one of the great families of the province; his father ^gidius, and his grandfather Aetius, had filled the same, high oflice before him. Perhaps a more ambitious man might have sought to make of this remnant of the Gallic province what it is sometimes called by historians, the kingdom of Syagrius. The whole of Central Gaul was divided between the Burgundians and the Visigoths. The Visigoths were bounded on the side of Roman Gaul by the river Loire, and on the east by the Rhone. The Burgundians were bounded on the side of Roman Gaul by the river Marne, and on the west by the Rhone. The south of Gaul, where the Greeks had planted their language and civilization, which still lingered in Marseilles and Aries, had only lately been abandoned by Odoacer and seized by Euric. \ye should entirely misunderstand the condition of things if we supposed that the Visigoths in the south-west and the Burgundians in the south-east had conquered the people of these districts, seized upon their possessions, and substituted their own government, laws, and institutions, for those of the empire. The actual process by which these barbarians obtained their seats in Gaul, and the conditions under which they held them, are very THE SETTLEMENT OF THE BARBARIAJJS. 9 curious, very interesting, and must be carefully considered, if the whole history of the subsequent period is to be at all intelligible. The empire had long ago found out its weakness, in the absence of a warlike population from which" armies could be drawn numerous enough and brave enough to defend the frontiers against the in- creasing pressure of the barbarians, and had begun to adopt the policy of enlisting the barbarians as allies against the barbarians. This was done in two ways. Bodies of barbarians — Goths, Vandals, Franks — were enlisted into the armies as auxiliary troops, remaining under the command of their own patriarchal princes and chiefs, but receiving more or less of the Roman arms and discipline. The com- manders of these bodies of mercenaries held a two- fold character. They were usually the hereditary chiefs of their soldiers, and exercised among them not merely the authority of a mihtary commander, but the rule of a native prince. To the empire they were generals in the army, Romans in lan- guage and civilization, holding a distinguished social position in right of their princely birth, and often attaining to high office and great influence in the state. The Imperial history of these centuries supplies a long list of Goths and Franks, who became so powerful in troublous times as to hold the fate of the empire in their hands ; and in the last days of the Western Empire, their barbarian armies, like the Pretorians of one earlier period and the Legions of another, made and unmade emperors. 10 CHAELEMAGNE. Another way in which the policy of the empire had sought to use the valour of the barbarians as a defence, was by planting colonies of them here and there along the frontiers, where they settled and cultivated the soil, and became partially civilized, and were ready to defend their own possessions ; and so acted as bulwarks of the empire generally against the inroads of barbarians from without. AureHan, at the same time that he abandoned the Dacian territory beyond the Danube, planted a colony of Dacians on the hither side of the boundary river, in. Moesia. Probus planted colonies of the Franks and other German tribes along the Rhine and the Danube. Constantine the Great pursued the policy of seeking to conciliate, to civilize — in a word, to Eomanize — the barbarians who were in contact with the empire. Valens allowed the Visi- goths to cross the Danube, and assigned them lands in Thrace. These facts must be borne carefully in mind in reading the history of the disruption of the Western Empire. They explain the attitude of the barbarians towards the empire, and the relations of the empire with the barbarians at this period. They explain how it comes to pass that armies of barbarians, obeying no one but their own chiefs, receive the Imperial pay, and control their nominal master. They explain how whole tribes of barbarians come to be peacefully settled, either in one body on the frontiers, or scattered over a province among the Latin inhabitants. And, lastly, they explain how THE SETTLEMENT OF THE BARBAEIANS. 11 tribes of barbarians who had invaded the empire and effected forcible settlements, were dealt with on the fiction that they were military colonists and allies of the emperor. These settlements were the more easily arranged because the barbarians, accustomed to the free life of the field and forest, did not care to inhabit the towns and cities ; all they desired was to settle in the open country. On the other hand, the Roman population was chiefly concentrated in the towns and cities, while the lands of the Imperial treasury, lands still unreclaimed, and perhaps sometimes the estates of great proprietors who had been slain, afforded ample means of satisfying the barbarians. The settlement of the barbarians in Gaul was partly the result of one and partly of the other of these processes. When Jovinus (a.d. 411) usurped the purple, he engaged certain tribes of Burgundians in his service, and ceded to them settlements in the district known as the first, or Upper Germany ; and on the defeat and death of the usurper, Honorius, the lawful emperor, found it expedient to confirm the conces- sion made to the Burgundians. They were a race of comparatively mild disposition, who took quiet possession of the lands allotted to them, without inflicting wanton injury upon the people among whom they were allocated; and they gradually spread over the whole of the two provinces watered by the Saone and the Rhone, which still retain the national appellation of Burgundy. 12 CHARLEMAGNE. The history of the Visigothic settlement in Gaul is a longer and more interesting story, and illus- trates very fully all the aspects of the relations of the barbarians and the empire. The Visigoths had already, in pursuance of the policy of Constan- tine, been Christianized and partially civilized, while still in their seats beyond the Danube, when, in the year a.d. 376, pressed by the migration of the Huns from their Scythian deserts, they obtained leave of Valens to seek refuge within the empire. A district was assigned them in Thrace, where large tracts of fertile and uncultivated land afforded them desirable possessions. They still retained their national lan- guage and customs, and the hereditary chiefs of their tribes and families still ruled them in peace and commanded them in war. In return, they sup- plied a body of 40,000 auxiliaries for the service of the state. At the beginning of the reign of Honorius, Alaric was the commander of the Gothic auxiliaries ; a prince of one of the noblest Gothic families, a warrior who had learned the art of war under the great Theodosius. Eefused the post to which he thought himself entitled, of the command of the Eoman armies, he revolted with his Gothic con- tingent ; and the whole of the Goths of Thrace broke out in rebellion and swelled his forces. It is not our business here to follow his history in detail. Every one knows how he invaded Italy, thrice appeared before the walls of Rome, and the third time gave it up to sack and pillage. After THE SETTLEMENT OF THE BARBARIANS. 13 his death his brother Adolph succeeded him as King of the Goths ; and, frankly admitting that it was not possible for the Goths to undertake the task of administering the Koman world, he contented him- self with obtaining large concessions from Honorius ; married the emperor's sister, Placidia, who was his captive; resumed the title and attitude of an Imperial general; and became one of the most powerful supporters of the Imperial throne. He suppressed the usurpers Jovinus and Sebastian in Gaul ; he marched against the mixed multitude of Suevi, Vandals, and Alans, who had invaded Spain. Here he was assassinated. But his successor, Wallia, completed the defeat of the barbarians, and restored Spain to the obedience of Honorius. He and his warriors were rewarded by the grant of possessions in Aquitaine — the country between the Loire, the ocean, and the Pyrenees, whose in- habitants were celebrated among the Gauls for their wealth, their learning, and the politeness of their manners; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal residence at Thoulouse. When Odoacer, who had long been virtual master of Italy, and had made and unmade its emperors, at length deposed Augustulus (a.d. 476), and, under the decent pretext of being the representative of the Eastern emperor, exercised openly the power he had long virtually possessed, he sought to secure the new state of things by friendly arrange- ment with the principal barbarians, who were also interested in the fate of the empire ; he con- 14 CHARLEMAGNE. ciliated the friendship and support of Euric, king of the Visigoths, by abandoning to him the Roman possessions in the south of Gaul. Aries and Mar- seilles surrendered to the arms of Euric. Auvergne, where Vercingetorix had made the last stand against the conquests of Csesar, strong in its volcanic peaks and wooded defiles, and in the spirit of its inhabitants, made a brave resistance, but was at length obliged to submit to the Gothic rule. Euric had been fifteen years the ruler of the Visigoths, and had still another seven years to rule, when (a.d. 481) the death of Childeric the Frank left the boy Clovis, fourteen years of age, as his successor. ( 13 ) CHAPTER III. ROMAN GAUL. Social condition of Gaul on the accession of Clovis — Appollinaria Sidonius — A Gallo-Komau villa — A Visigothic king— A Frank chief — Burgundian society — Saxon pirates. A SURVEY of the social condition of the iJourishing province of Gaul, before the beginning of the bar- barian settlements in it, would have revealed the following general characteristics. ' In the cities of the south of Gaul, the refined civilization which the Greeks had planted there still pervaded the lan- guage, the dress, the habits of the people. In the north of Gaul the Roman type of civilization had formed its institutions, language, and habits, and had not yet in this northern province deteriorated to such a level of vicious enervation as in Italy itself Aquitania was specially noted among the Gauls for its high degree of elegant refinement. In the last chapter we have seen how the Bur- gundians obtained settlements in the country east of the Rhone, the Visigoths in Aquitaine and the 16 CHAELEMAGNE. south, and how the Franks gradually spread from the Rhone to the Somme, leaving North-Central Gaul still imder the government of Syagrius. It happens that just at this period of the history — a period otherwise very obscure — we are so fortunate as to have one contemporary writer, who for the period embraced by his history, viz. the period of these barbarian settlements, and for the part of the country over which his personal knowledge ex- tended, viz. the south and west of Gaul, Auvergne and Aquitaine, gives us a series of pictures of society so vivid as to place us in the very presence of the men and events among which he lived. His own personal history may first be sketched, as in itself a valuable illustration of the history of the time. Caius Sollius AppoUinaris Sidonius was of one of the greatest of the Gallo-Roman families of Auvergne. He tells us* that his father, father-in- law, grandfather, and great-grandfather had held oflice as Prefects of Gaul and of the Pretorium, and Masters of the Palace and of the Soldiers ; that is, the highest offices of the state. At the age of twenty he married the daughter of Avitus, the head of another of the greatest of the noble families of Gaul. Six years after this marriage Avitus was raised to the Imperial throne by Ricimer. Sidonius followed his Imperial father-in-law to Rome, and there pronounced the customary poetical pane- gyric, on the first day of the following year, in presence of the emperor and the senate; and in ■" Lib. i. Ep. 3. ROMAN GAUL. 17 recognition of his literary ability a bronze statue was decreed to the young orator in the Forum of Trajan. When Avitus was dethroned by Ricimer, part of Gaul rose in revolt, and Sidonius was involved in the outbreak. He was, however, pardoned by the virtuous Majorian, pronounced at Lyons the poetical eulogium of the magnanimous emperor, was raised to the dignity of count, and held several employ- ments under him. When Majorian in turn was poisoned by Ricimer, Sidonius retired to his country seat of Avitacum, in Auvergne, during the short reign of Severus. But when Severus had been also poisoned, and Anthemius had been placed on the throne, the new emperor sent for Sidonius and made him chief of the senate, prefect of the city, and patrician, and for the third time he pronounced the poetical eulogy of an emperor, on the first day of the year 468. At the end of 471 he quitted the courtj and retired to his estate at Avitacum. The see of Clermont becoming vacant, the clergy and peo- ple elected their distinguished neighbour as their bishop,* and we find him in friendly correspondence * The prelates of the iifth century, at least in the moat consider- able cities,, were frequently men of the highest rank, and of great wealth, and often men who had not been trained up as priests, but had filled the first offices in the civil service of the empire. Such at this time were, besides Sidonius, Patiens of Lyons, Avitus of Vienne, and AppoUinaris of Valence, the last two grandsons of an emperor. The emperor Avitus, when deposed, accepted a bishopric, which he was not permitted long to enjoy. Glycerius, when deposed, accepted the bishopric of Salona : — it is uncertain whether or not he is identical with the Glycerius who shortly afterwards was Arch- bishop of Eheims. C 18 CHARLEMAGNE. ■with the most noted of the Gallic bishops — Lupus of Troyes, Remigius of Eheims, Patiens of Lyons, and others. It -was while Sidonius was their bishop that Auvergne was invaded by Euric the Visigoth (a.d. 474), and Clermont sustained a siege ; his brother-in-law Ecdicius, the son of the late Emperor Avitus, and the natural leader of the Auvergnats, was at the head of the patriotic defence, and the bishop, no doubt, shared in it. The consequence was that when Euric obtained the mastery Sido- nius was exiled. But at the end of a year he was allowed to return to his flock, and died among them in the year a.d. 488, the fifty-eighth year of his age, the eighteenth of his episcopate, and the seventh or eighth year of the reign of Clovis. Besides the three eulogiums which we have men- tioned, and which deal with the political events of the times, Sidonius has left us a collection of his letters, written in imitation of those of Cicero and of the younger Pliny, and intended for publication, in which we find those sketches of life and manners which are so charming and so valuable. We gather in general from them that the Visigothic element in the population was much smaller in proportion, and that its introduction into the midst of the Eoman population had caused much less disturbance in the conditions of the ancient society, than we should have supposed. Many of the great Gallo-Roman families retain their possessions, or a large portion of them, and still inhabit their luxurious villas. Sidonius describes his o\^n villa at some lenoth. EOMAN GATJL. 19 He has numerous friends with whom he exchanges visits, and whose pleasant hospitalities he describes. He keeps up a considerable literary correspondence, sometimes throws off a jeu d'esprit in verse, and altogether gives the impression that the elegant, luxurious Roman life with which we are familiar was still going on in Southern Gaul, as if no Gothic king were keeping his court at Thoulouse, no Gothic garrisons were established here and there through- out the land, and there were no Gothic " guests " quartered upon the estates of the great proprietors. And yet we are continually comipg upon indications that the barbarian dominated the political life of this Roman society ; the fresh-complexioned, fair- haired, blue-eyed giants, in their barbaric trappings, frequently come upon the scene, and the feelings of the higher classes of the La.tins towards them is fully told in a single line — " the barbarians whom we ridicule and despise and fear." * But with these general remarks, and with an occasional note, we will leave the letters of Sidonius to speak for themselves. In Lib. ii. Ep. 1, he gives a long description, clearly imitated from Pliny, of the villa at Avitacum ; an estate dearer to him, he says, as being his wife's possession, than if it had been his own. Behind it rose a high mountain ; lower hills on each side left a plateau on which the villa stood, overlooking a lake two miles in length. He describes the bath built at the foot of a cliif covered with wood, so * Sidonius, Lib. iv. Ep. 15. 20 CHARLEMAGNE. that the trees cut for fuel almost fall into the mouth of the furnace which heats the water. The bath- room has a semicircular apse, into which the boiling water pours through leaden pipes. Adjoining is the UnguentariuTn, of the same dimensions. The Frigi- darium is so large as to rival those of public baths, and is of exact proportions; its roof terminates in a cone, with its four sides covered with tiles. The interior of the room is lined with cement of extreme whiteness. It has no lascivious pictures, no shame- less nudities, whose artistic skill is a disgrace to the artist. No actors here, in masks and ridiculous costumes, imitate the trappings of Philistio. No wrestlers and boxers in indecent attitudes. In a word, there is nothing to shock the most pure. Some verses may attract for a moment the attention of those who enter, who, without perhaps caring to read them over again, will not regret having read them once. It is clearly the modest author of the verses who thus speaks of them. He describes at length the cold bath, with its water conveyed from the mountains, and poured into the piscina through lions' heads so lifelike as almost to startle the spectator. We cannot go through the detailed description of the buUdings of the viUa, with its summer and winter apartments, and its long corridor, which affords an ambulatory by day, and a sleeping-place for the slaves by night We win only particularize a small dining-room, with a platform above it, mounted by a broad and convenient stair, where one may in summer enjoy ROMAN GAUL. 21 at the same time the pleasures of the table and the view of the lake. " There it is pleasant to watch the fisherman engaged in his sport; there it is charming to hear at midday the shrill sound of the cicalas, and in the evening the croaking of the frogs, and in the profound silence of the night the voices of swans, geese, fowls ; then the caw of rooks saluting thrice the rosy face of the rising dawn ; the voice of Philomel warbling among the fruit trees, Progne twittering among the eaves. With these mingles sometimes the sound of the Pan-pipes, with which the watchful Tityruses of our mountains contend against one another in nightly concerts, amidst the flocks which tinkle their bells as they browse their pastures.'' He describes another of these country houses so briefly and yet so completely that we extract the entire passage : it is in the south of Gaul (Narbonne), the property of Consentius. " Situated in the neighbourhood of a city, a river, and the sea, it supplies food for your guests, and guests for yourself Moreover, it oflers by its situa- tion an agreeable prospect. First, the house presents high walls disposed with art following all the rules of architectural symmetry; then, it is embellished with a chapel, majestic porticoes, and baths ; lastly, fields, streams, vineyards, oliveyards, avenues, an esplanade, a mount, make it a delicious abode. To the richness and elegance and convenience of the furniture you have added the treasures of a large library, so that while you thus occupy yourself with 22 CHARLEMAGNE. literature and with agriculture, one does not know which is best cultivated, your estate or your mind." * Other letters f give a pleasant description of the mode of life which the cultured Gallo-Roman gentry led in their country residences. Another letter gives a personal description of Theodoric II., King of the Visigoths, the predecessor of Euric, and a very interesting description of his daily life, which, long as it is, is worth quoting, since it helps us much to realize what manner of men these barbarian kings were. " Theodoric is a very noticeable man, one who would at once attract atten- tion even from those who casually beheld him, so richly have the will of" God and the plan of nature endowed his person with gifts corresponding with his fortunes. His character is such that not even the detraction which waits on kings can lessen the praises bestowed upon it. . . . Before dawn he attends with a small suite the office of Prime [Antelueanos] of his [Arian] priests, and worships with great diligence ; but, to speak in confidence, one can see that he observes this reverence out of habit rather than out of devotion. The cares of administration occupy the rest of the morning. An armed attendant stands beside his chair; a crowd of skin-clad guards are so far admitted as to be at hand, and so far excluded as not to disturb by their noise, so that the murmur of their conversation may be just heard before the doors, without the curtains * Lib. viii. Ep. 4. t Lib. ii. Letter 9 ; Lib. viii. Ep. 13. ROMAN GAUL. 23 but within the barriers. Meanwhile audience is given to the ambassadors of the nations ; he hears them at length, he answei's briefly. If anything can be protracted he is slow, if anything to be done he is prompt. " When the second hour is come, he rises from his seat, and finds time to inspect his treasury or his stable. If a hunt has been ordered, he considers it beneath the royal dignity to carry his bow by his side, but if you point out, or if chance presents, bird or beast, he puts his hand behind him ; his attendant puts the unstrung bow into it, for he would think it childish to carry it in a case, and womanish to take it ready strung. Therefore, having taken it, he sometimes strings it by bringing the two heads together with his hands ; sometimes, putting the knotted end to his heel, he slips the knot of the loose cord into its place with his finger ; he takes the arrows, fixes, shoots them, first asking what you wish him to hit. You say what he should do, and he does it ; if either makes a mistake, it is more rarely the aim of the archer than the sight of the chooser which is in fault. " If you are asked to dinner, which on non-festal days is like that of a private person, no panting servant places on the table a tasteless heap of tarnished silver. It is the conversation which is weighty, for there people talk of serious things or not at all. The cushions of the couches and the tapestries of the room are sometimes of purple, sometimes of fine linen. The meals please by 24 CHARLEMAGNE. skilful cookery, not by costliness ; the dishes by their polish, not their massiveness. The cups and goblets are so seldom filled, that you are more likely to complain of thirst than to incur the complaint of intemperance. What shall I say more? You see there Greek elegance, Gallic abundance, Italian quickness, the stateliness of a public banquet, the courtesy of a private host, the etiquette of a royal household. The splendour of the Saturday festival* I need not describe, since no one is ignorant of it. Let me return to what I undertook. "The midday sleep is never long, and is often omitted. At this hour he likes to play at tables, t " You would think he was waging war even in playing his men; his sole care is to win. "When playing he lays aside a little his royal gravity; he bids one play truly as between friends. To tell you what I think, he fears to be feared. Then he is amused by the vexation of the loser, and believes that he has not let him win out of courtesy when he sees him annoyed at his defeat. What wiU amuse you is that often his satisfaction arising from such insignificant causes furthers the success of serious aflairs. Then petitions which have been refused before to influential solicitation, are granted at once. I myself have sometimes considered * De luxu Sahhatario. The Goths, being Axians, kept Saturday as a feast, 'while the Catholics fasted, t The game here mentioned was a very common one at this period, but what was the nature of it is uncertain ; it was played with a board (tabtda), dice (tesseras), and men (cahidi); it is difficult to determine how to translate some of the technical words used in the description of it. BOMAN GAUL. 25 myself fortunate in being vanquished, since my lost game has won me my cause. "About nine o'clock the cares of government recommence. The door keepers return, the patrons return. The noise of litigation goes on into the evening, till the royal supper interrupts it, and then it spreads throughout the palace with the patrons, and keeps them awake till bedtime. "During supper sometimes, though not often, mimic actors are introduced, but no guest is allowed to be wounded by their biting pleasantries. Here there are no hydraulic organs, no learned and tedious concerts, no lyrist or flutist, no female player on the tambourine or psaltery ; the king is only pleased with those strains whose sense soothes the soul as much as their melody the ear. When he has risen from table the guards of the treasure begin their nightly watch ; armed guards are placed at the doors of the palace, who keep watch during the hours of the first sleep." * In Lib. iv. 20, he describes a youth of royal lace ■ — probably a Frank — who has married the daughter of some distinguished Gallo-Eoman, paying a visit to the palace of his father-in-law. " You who are fond of seeing armour and armed men, what a pleasure it would have been to you could you. have seen the royal youth Siglmer, decked out in the fashion and splendour of his race, like a bride- * The reader may, if he pleases, compare with this the Imperial Bupper of Majorian, minutely and interestingly described in Lib. i. Ep. 11, and the Roman banquet in Lib. viii. 13. 2f) CHAELEMAGNE. groom or suitor, visiting the palace of his father-in- law ! His own horse gorgeously caparisoned, other horses trapped with blazing gems going before or following him ; but what most deserved attention was the young prince himself, on foot, in the midst of his outriders and rear-guard, clad in a combina- tion of flaming crimson, shining gold, and milk- white silk, his ruddy cheeks, golden hair, and milk-white skin repeating these colours of his dress. The aspect of the petty kings and com- panions who accompanied him was terrible, even in their peaceful errand. They had the foot protected with leather, while the calf, knee, and thigh were uncovered. Their tunics, of various colours, coming high up in the neck, tight-girdled, scarcely reached their bare legs ; the sleeves covered only the upper part of .their arms; they had green cloaks adorned with purple fringes ; their swords, depending from their shoulders by baldrics, were pressed close to their sides by the reindeer skins, which were fastened by a round clasp.* As for that part of their adornment which was also a defence, their right hand held hooked lances and battle-axes for throwing; their left sides were shadowed by round shields, whose silvery lustre, with a golden boss, proclaimed wealth as well as taste. All was so ordered that in this wedding * Mr. Hodgkin (" Italy and her Invaders ") says that the Bheiio or reindeer skin seems to have answered the same purpose as the waterproof of modern civilization, and, like it, when not actually in use would be rolled up and slung over the shoulder. ROMAN GAUL. 27 procession the splendour of Mars was not less apparent than that of Venus." Another letter, in a few jocose verses, gives a picture of the curious mixture of barbarous rude- ness and Roman refinement which that mixed society- presented, and makes no secret of the feelings with which the Gallo-Roman nobility endured the coarse- ness of their barbarian masters. We are indebted to Mr. Hodgkin's '' Italy and her Invaders" for a poetical version in which he retains the metre of the original : — " Ah me, my friend, why hid me, e'en if I had the power To write the light Fescennine verse, fit for the nuptial bower ? Do you forget tliat I am placed among the long-haired hordes, That daily I .im bound to hear the stream of German words, That I must hear, and then must praise, with sorrowful grimace (Disgust and approbation both contending in my face), Whate'er the gormandizing sons of Burgundy may sing, While they upon their yellow hair the rancid butter fling ? " Now let me tell you what it is that makes my lyre be dumb : It cannot sound when all around barbarian lyres do hum. The sight of all these patrons tall (each one is seven feet high) From my poor muse makes every thought of six-foot metres fly. Oh I happy are thine eyes, my friend: thine ears, how happy those ! And oh ! thrice happy I would call thy undisgusted nose. 'Tia not round thee that every morn ten talkative machines Exhale the smell of onions, leeks, and all their vulgar greens ; They do not seek thy house, as mine, before the dawn of day, So many giants and so tall, so fond of trencher play, That scarce Alcinous himself, that hospitable king. Would flnd his kitchen large enough for the appetites they bring. They do not, these efi'usive souls, declare they look on thee As father's friend or foster-sire — but alas ! they do on me. 28 CHAELEMAGNE. " But stop, my muse ! pull up 1 be Btill ! or else some fool will say, 'Bidonius writes lampoons again.' Don't you believe them, pray." We will only, at present, allude to one more of these interesting letters,* "which gives us a glimpse of a Roman military officer, causing his trumpets to sound the signal of departure on board the fleet, for, with the duties of a soldier and a sailor com- bined, he has orders to coast along the winding shores of the ocean, looking out for the curved barks of the Saxons — pirates every man of them. Prevented by the Franks, who intervened between them and the empire, from taking part in the adventures by which other tribes were carving out settlements on the continent, the Saxons took to their ships and cros.lunged into the river. The Franks hastened to cross after him. Amved on the other bank, the king rode at the duke, who turned and fled, crying that he acknowledged Clothaire as his master and lord; that he was the most humble of his servants ; that however the affair finished it woukl be lamentable, either that so clement a master should kill his slave, or that the slave should kill his master. But the old wamor stiU pursued his foe in grim silence, till, getting within reach, he slew him, cut off his head, and carried it back to his son and the other Franks, who were hastening, full of fear, to support him.* After a reign of half a century, Clothaire died in » " Etudes Historique sur le VII. Sifecle," by Ch. Barthelemy. THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 79 the year A.D. 628. Dagobert allowed to his younger brother Charibert the kingship of the fair province of Aquitaine, whose government his descendants retained long after the Merovingian dynasty had lost the throne of the Franks. The reign of Dagobert in Austrasia, under the able guardianship of Arnulf and Pepia, had been a successful one. On his succession to the Neustrian kingdom he took up his residence at Paris, and there a change seems to have come over his cha- racter. It was probably the result of the transition from the rude Teutonic court and people of Aus- trasia to the cultivated and corrupting Latin civilization of Neustria, and the exchange of the dominating influence of Arnulf and Pepin for the adulation of the courtiers of the Latin kingdom, acting upon a disposition inclined to magnificence and gaiety. St. Ouen, who knew him well, describes him (ia his life of St. Eligius) as ardent, handsome, renowned, so that there was none like him among all the former Frankish king.'^. (" Rex Dagobertus, torrens, pulcher, inclytus, ita ut nullus ei similes fuerit in cunctis retro Francorum regibus.") He became magnificent in his expenditure, luxu- rious in his habits, abounding in his gallantries. At the same time he encouraged learning and art. Some of the most saintly men of the time were attached to his court ; the famous St. Eligius was an inmate of his palace, and honoured with his friendship for twenty years. He founded the abbey of St. Denis, and was a great benefactor 80 CHAKLKMAGNE. to the Churches. Among the contemporary kings of Europe there was not one who was a more powerful and magnificent prince. The Parisians liked the gay, free-handed king whose expenditure enriched as his magnificence dazzled them, and " the good King Dagobert " lives to this day in the popu- lar legends of France. In the latter part of his reign, some hostilities with the barbarian tribes on the Eastern frontier of the Frankish dominions were waged with ill suc- cess, and the safety of the Eastern kingdom was menaced. We see the power of the Austrasian nobles again sho\Ying itself in the fact that at this crisis Dagobert nominated his infant son Sigebert as King of Austrasia, and placed him under the guardianship of Cunibert, Bishop of Cologne, who had succeeded Arnulf as one of the leaders of the party of the nobles. Two years before his death, at the assembly of the Champ de Mai, in the presence of his two sons, and of the bishops and nobles and people present, Dagobert published his will, leaving great benefac- tions to the Church. Historians have gladly assumed that this betokened repentance of the faults which had sullied his character. On the death of Dagobert, in a.d. 637, he was succeeded in Neustria by his son, Clovis II. But Dagobert is commonly regarded by historians as the last of the Merovingians who exercised anything like an independent authority, and all his successors are stigmatized as Rois faineants. The death of THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 81 Brunhilda was the beginning of the constitutional limitation of the i-oyal power of the Merovingian kings, and the conquest of the mayoralty by Charles Marte] may be regarded as the real commencement of the Carolingian sovereignty. But the i)assage from the one condition to the other was probabh- more gradual than is commonly represented. Gri- moald is described as paying great personal deference to the king, and strenuously maintaining the royal prerogative. St. Dagobert II. and St. Clovis, at least, were not men incapacitated by a life of luxury. The history, in bi-ief, is that the nobles forced on the Crown an elective minister ; the family of the minister was powerful enough to make the office hereditary ; the hereditary minister gradually thrust the king more and more into the background ; and at last, at the end of a century and a half, was able to thrust him from his throne. What underlies and largely helps to explain the whole story is the un- precedented fact that there should have been in one family a succession of men of such genius and ambi- tion as Pepin the Elder and Arnulf (joint guardians of the Austrasian kingdom, and connected by the marriage of their children), Grimoald, Pepin of Heristal, Carl Martel, and Pepin the king. We must bear in mind that the current estimate of the Rois fainiants is derived chiefly from Carolingian writers. But we catch glimpses here and there, in lives of saints and the like works, which deal with the same period, which show us that the whole his- tory would bear a different aspect if told from the G 82 CHABXEMAGNE. Merovingian point of view. We, however, need not enter into the details of the history. It is enough for our purpose to give the briefest statement of the subsequent history of the Merovingian kings. Clovis II. married Bathildis, who is interesting tO'US as a captive Anglo-Saxon princess whom the king saw in the house of his Mayor, loved, and mar- ried. Sigebeit II. of Austrasia died childless in A.D. Qoi, and Clovis II. placed his son Childeric II. on the throne. Clovis himself died in the following year, A D. G-j5, and the Queen Bathildis showed that to the virtues of Radegunda she united something of the talent of Brunhilda, for on the king's death she successfully ruled Neustrla as the guardian of her son Clothaire III. In A.D. 664, under the nominal king of Neustria, Clothaire III., the mayor of the palace was Ebroin ; that of Austrasia, under the nominal king, Childeric II., was Wulfoald. Clothaire III. dying in A.D. 670, not yet twenty years of age, Ebroin immediately place'l on the throne the third son of Clovis II., viz. Theodoric III., that he might continue to rule in his name. But the principal men of Neustria and Burgund}', who had not been consulted by Ebroin, went over to Childeric II., and put an army in the field. Theodoric III. and Ebroin were reduced to take sanctuary in the churches, and then to receive the monastic tonsure, and enter, one into the monastery of St. Denis, the other into that of Luxeuil. In 675 Childeric II., who had made himself odious to his nobles, was massacred with THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. 83 his wife and one of his children under age. His brother Theodoric III. was raised to the throne of Neustria by the very same persons who had dethroned him and shut him up in the monastery of St. Denis. Austrasia recalled from England Dagobert II., son of St. Sigebert, to whom St. Wilfred had given a generous hospitality. In 674! Ebroin also came out of his monastery, and pro- claimed a pretended son of Clothaire III., under the name of Clovis. At the end of a year, he caused this pretender to disappear, reconciled himself witli Theodoric, whom he caused to be recognized as king in Neustria and Burgundy, reserving to him- self the real sovereignty. In 679 Dagobert II. was put to death by the faction of Ebroin, who was himself assassinated by a Frank lord whose destruc- tion he had resolved upon. In 687 the Duke Pepin of Austrasia gained a decisive factory at Testri over the army of Neustria, and made Theodoric III. prisoner. He then effected a settle- ment of the empire by recognizing Theodoric as sole king, on condition that he himself should be recognized as sole mayor. It was the triumph of the mayors of Austrasia over those of Neustria ; it was the triumph of the mayoralty over the crown. "From this time forward," says the chronicler Erchambert, "the kings began to have only the royal name and not the royal dignity." Eginhard gives a graphic and touching picture of the prince when the later kings had really become Bois faineants : — " AH that remained of royalty to 84 CHAKLEIUGNE. the descendant of Clovis," he says, " was the title of king, the flowing hair and long beard, and the throne on which he sat as the representative of the Frank monarchy, giving audience to foreign ambas- sadors, arid repeating to them the answers which had been previously dictated to him. Besides, he possessed only an insecure pension, and a single estate which supplied him with a habitation and a small number of servants. If he travelled, it was in a car drawn by a team of oxen which an ox-herd drove with his goad : it was thus that he travelled once a year to the palace, to play his part in the general assembly of the people which met for the consideration of public affairs. The administration of the kingdom, both as to its internal and external affairs, was entirely in the hands of the mayor of the palace. ( 85 ) CHAPTER VII. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. Planting of the Church in Gaul — Increase in the reign of Decius — Council of Aries — Metropolitan organization — Beginnings of the patriarchal authority of the Roman See — Work of St. Martin of Tours — Relations of the British and Gallic Churches • — Csesariua of Aries — The position of the bishops — Of the counts — All the clergy Latins — Gradual introduction of Franks — The monastic institution introduced by St. Martin at Liguge — By Cassian at Marseilles — By Honoratus at Lerins — Spreads over Gaul — Revived by St. Benedict — Description of a monastery of monks — Account of the possessions of St. Riquier — Monasteries of women — Relations of the Church of Gaul with that of Saxon England. Christianity appears to have been introduced into Gaul from Smyrna, by way of Marseilles and the great water-way of the Rhone, apparently about the middle of the second century, when the interesting story of the martyrs of Vienne first gives us a glimpse of the Churches, apparently recently es- tablished, of the ancient city of Vienne and the neighbouring town of Lyons. The martyred Bishop 86 CHARLEMAGNE. Pothinus was succeeded in the see of Vienne by the illustrious Father of the Church, Irenseus, the pupil of Polycarp, who was the disciple of the Apostle 8t. John. Gregory of Tours tells us * the tradition of his day that in the reign of Decius, i.e. about the middle of the third century, seven missionaries set out from Rome for the conversion of Gaul, and founded seven sees. Some of the particulars which Gregory gives are inconsistent with known facts, but there probably was a missionary movement at this period which strengthened and extended the Church in Gaul. It is probably to an extension of this missionary movement across the Channel that we owe the first planting of the Church in Britain. The close relations of our own Church with that of Gaul, thoiigh such scanty records of them have come down to us, give us an additional interest in the history of the Gallic Church. By the beginning of the fourth centurj^ more than twenty bishops may be counted in Gaul.f The great council of the West, which Constantine summoned to determine the Donatist controversy, was held at Aries; and the signatures of the bishops present give us the names of the principal bishops of Gaul, and include three from distant Britain. At this time the Churches of the soiith of Gaul were disturbed by a controversy which has con- » Book I. § 28. t De Broglie, " L'EgUee et TEmpire," vol. ii. p. 95. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 87 siderable interest aa an illustration of the principles of Church organization. Constantius, Bishop of Aries, claimed for himself the dignity and rights- of primate and metropolitan of the province, instead of Simplicius, the Bishop of Vienne, on the ground that the Prefect of Gaul had lately removed his residence and seat of government from the latter city to the former, and that the bishop of the metropolitan city was of right the metropolitan bishop. The question was considered at a synod of the bishops of Gaul, assembled at Turin, A.D. 397. The reasons alleged by Constantius not appearing clear, the synod decided provisionally that he of the two bishops who could prove his city to be the metropolis should have the primacy over the province, and that in the mean time each should have jurisdiction over the Churches nearest his capital. The decision recognized the important principle that the organization of the Church is not to be tied up by ancient precedents, but is to be modified and adapted to the exigencies of times and circumstances. A little later we find Bishop Celedonius en- deavouring to escape sentence of deposition at the hands of Hilary, Bishop of Aries, by pleading that his see of Besan9on was in the jurisdiction of Vienne, and not in that of Aries. Celedonius sought the interposition of Zosimus, the Bishop of Rome, who gladly entertained all such recourses to the growing authority of the see, and — is it too much to say ? — seem."? to have encouraged them by usually taking 88 CHARLEMAGKE. the side of the appellants. Similar appeals were made to the same pope from the African Church by Coelestius and Pelagius, and by Apiarius.* These incidents serve to mark the early stage of the growth of the Papal power ; bishops were beginning to appeal to the Bishop of Rome against their own metropolitans, and the bishops of Rome were be- ginning to assume a right to hear and determine such appeals; and the fact that such illustrious Fathers of the Church as Hilaiy in the one case, and Augustine in the other, entirely declined to recognize any such right of appeal, and formally refused to accept the decision of the Roman prelate, is enough to prove that no such authority in the Roman See had hitherto been recognized in the constitution of the Church. We note in these incidents the first strong ripple which marks the existence, and strength, and direction of a current of religious thought and ecclesiastical tendency, which gaiD.s strength and volume as it flows down the stream of our history — the patriarchal authority of the Roman See. At a later period of the history we shall see the beginnings of the temporal power of the Roman See. The two together formed the basis of the mediaeval Papacy. In the middle of the fourth century, so great an impulse was given to the spread of Christianity in Gaul by the labours of St. Martin, as to have won » See Augustine : " Fathers for English Eeaders," S P C K pp. 201 and 212. ' ' '' THE ECCI.ESIASTICAL HISTORY. 89 for him the title of the "Apostle of Gaul." The stoiy of his work shows that the worship of the deities of the ancient mythology still, down to his time, prevailed more or less throughout the country. In the course of another century, however — that is, by the time that the disruption of the empire beffan— the whole of Gaul seems to have been Christianized, and bishops were seated in most of its cities. Clovis, in the last year of his reign (a.d. 511), summoned a council at Orleans, which was attended by forty-four bishops. Ctesarius, elected Bishop of Aries a.d. 502, was the greatest Gallic bishop of his time, and of all Gallic bishops was second only to Irenseus, Martin, and Hilary. He lived through the political changes which transferred Southern Gaul from the Visigoths to the Franks, and down into the reign of Childebert. Himself a scholar of the monastery of Lerins, he drew up a Rule for monks, and a Rule for virgins for a convent over which his sister Csesaria presided. We mention Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, and Severus, Bishop of Treves, among the most distinguished Gallic prelates of the fifth century, only because they took part in events which show the intimate relations which existed between the British Church and the Gallic Church from which it probably derived its existence. The Pelagian heresy had spread to such an extent, or was so influentially supported, in Britain, that 90 CHARLEMAGNE. the orthodox party sent to the Church of Gaul to ask help to combat the heresy. A synod of Gallic bishops deputed the two former bishops in 429 to go and lend the weight of their learning and reputa- tion to the support of the truth. At a synod of British bishops, which seems to have been held at Verulam, their arguments and their authority seem to have silenced the heretical party for a time ; but in 447 Germanus and Severus, after- wards Bishop^ Treves (Lupus having died in the mean time), paid a second visit to Britain on a similar errand. The bishops of the Chui-ch at this time held a great position in the society of their times. Not only did the bishop. hold a position of great spiritual influence in his city as the acknowledged head and ruler of the whole civic community, re- garded in its highest aspect as a Christian Church, but other functions of a civil nature had in process of time become attached to his office, and had greatly added to his authority. He was in some sense the chief magistrate of his city. For the early Christians, acting upon the precept of St. Paul, not to go to law before the unbelievers (1 Cor. vi. 1-6), had made a practice of referring their disputes instead to the arbitration of their bishops. Christian emperors had recognized the custom, and given legal force to these episcopal decisions. We learn, in reading Augustine's addresses to his people of Hippo,* that a considerable portion of a * Augustine : " Fathers for English Eeaders," S.P.C.K., p. 169. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 91 bishop's time was taken up with the fulfilment of these judicial functions. Again, something of the old power which the Tribune of the People possessed, to interpose between the people and the ordinary magistrates, had fallen upon the bishops. The opinion of the times deemed it a proper exercise of their sacred function to interpose on behalf of any one they thought oppressed, and even to seek remission of the punishment of those who had been justly con- demned. His house, his person, had privilege of sanctuary ; his interposition on behalf of a criminal usually obtained his pardon, or at least some mitiga- tion of his punishment. In the centuries of which we write, the bishop was regarded as the official protector of his people against the Frankish part of the population. Another obvious cause of the great position of the bishops of the time of which we are speaking is the great wealth of their sees. Not only did they derive a large income from the tithes and offerings of the people, but many of the more important sees possessed estates so large as to place the bishops among the great landowners of the country. Some of these estates were the benefactions of pious donors, both Eoman and Frank;* but the bulk of the wealth of the sees had arisen from the * Clovie, after his conversion, gave the Church of Eheims lands in Belgium, Thuringia, Austrasia, Septimania, and Aquitaine. The Church of Besan5ou vfas a sovereignty ; its archbishop had for liege-men the Viscount of Besan^on, the Seigneurs of Salm, Montfaucon, Montferrand, Durnes, Montbeliard, and St. Seine; the 92 CHARLEMAGNE. custom for wealthy bishops to bequeath their private possessions to their Churches. This is sufficiently illustrated in the brief biographical notices which Gregory gives us of his predecessors in the see of Tours. Thus he tells us that Perpetuus, the seventh bishop, a man of senatorial family, was very rich, and possessed property in many cities ; he left all that he possessed to Churches, and particularly to that of Tours. He was succeeded by a relation, Volusinius, who was also very rich. Verus, the eighth bishop, left his possessions to the Churches and to his servants. The eleventh bishop, Dinifius, received largesses from the royal treasury, the greater part of which he gave to his Church. The twelfth, Ommatius, of senatorial family, was very rich in lands ; he left his lands to the Churches of the cities in which they were situated. Thus the see of Tours, at the time when Gregory wrote, had been endowed with wide possessions of at least four " rich," and " very rich," senatorial families, besides donations from other sources. Last, but not least important, these great posi- tions were usually at this time occupied by men of the highest mark. The election to a vacant see rested in the clergy and laity of the city itself, and it had become the custom for the city to look round for some layman of high rank, wealth, and character, and by the gentle moral compulsion which was Count of Burgundy held the Seigneuries of Gray, VeBoul, and Ohoze of the Archbishopric of Besan^on (Chateaubriand, " Analyse Eaisonnd de I'Histoire de France, Seconde Eaoe "). THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 93 customary at the time, to force upon him the office and duties of their spiritual Lord. It would be easy to draw up a considerable list of bishops of this period who were of the highest families, and had held the highest offices in the state, not ex- cepting the Imperial office itself,* and who had not thought it imbecomiug to spend the latter portion of their lives in the episcopate. Men of such rank and character could not but add greatly to the prestige of the episcopal dignity in the eyes of the whole people. When we put all this together — the sacred charac- ter of the bishop, his great wealth, that he adminis- tered justice in his city and ruled his wide estates, coined money, was the recognized patron and pro- tector of the Latin race against the Frank, and when we call to mind that the Latins were still under the Imperial law, and that the king was especially the king of the Franks — we shall see that King Childeric had some reason in the complaint, which Gregory of Tours says he was accustomed to make, that the wealth of the people was diverted from the royal treasury into the coffers of the Church, and that the bishops were more of kings than he was. On the other hand, the Bishop's authority in the city was limited by the authority of the Count. The count was an officer with military attributes and dictatorial power, whom the Frank kings appointed in every important city to guard the royal interests and collect the royal revenue, without any care to * See note, p. 17. 94 CHARLEMAGNE. regulate his functions and harmonize them with the ancient municipal institutions. The bishop and the count were thus pitted against one another in every city, each with large, ill-defined power. One the chief of the more numerous Latin community, the other the representative of the dominant Prank- ish power. Probably in many cases the bishop was of better family, of greater wealth, and of far more influence with the citizens than the count. The count, on the other hand, represented the royal pre- rogative, with all its vague terrors. Happily for the citizens, there was no royal garrison ; the count had only the handful of attendants whom he could entertain in his own house. Gregory of Tours has given us a very complete and graphic story of his own relations as bishop of the great city of Tours, with Leudaste the count. When the count is seek- ing office he " shows himself humble and submissive to Gregory, often swearing upon the shrine of the saint (Martin of Tours) that he would never do anything contrary to the laws of reason, and that he would be faithful to the bishop in all things as well in his private affairs as in those of the Church." " But when he was fairly established in his office he was so filled with pride that he would enter the episcopal house clad in cuirass and corselet, armed with lance and bow, and with his casque on his head, having confidence in nobody because he was everybody's enemy." " When he sat as judge with the chief people of the place, whether laymen or clerics, if any man stood up for his own rights, THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 95 immediately he went into a rage, and vomited forth insults against the citizens. He caused priests to be brought before him bound, and soldiers to be beaten with rods, and committed so many cruelties that one could hardly narrate them." He committed many wrongs against Gregory, and plundered the goods of the Church ; and at length entered into a wicked plot, seeking by false witnesses to move the king against the bishop and to get him deprived.* The king, Chilperic, summoned Gregory to trial before a synod of bishops at his own palace of Braine, and one incident of the synod is that Venan- tius Fortunatus read an inaugural poem to the assembled Fathers. The plot recoiled on the heads of the intriguers. Leudaste -^vas deprived of his office, and finally was seized and slain (as we have elsewhere had occasion to mention f) by order of Fredegonda ; and the citizens of Tours were allowed by Chilperic to choose his successor. We have many other notices of the relations of the bishops and counts. Maracarius, Count of An- gouleme, sought and obtained the episcopal see of his city, but soon after was poisoned, and Fronto, his successor in the see, was accused of the crime. Mar- tin, the nephew of Maracarius, obtained the count- ship in order to avenge his uncle's death. Fronto, after a few months' tenure of the see, had been suc- ceeded by Heraclius. The count accused Heraclius of retaining in his service men who had been guilty * Lib. V. 49. t See p. 70. 96 CHAELEMAGNE. of his uncle's death, and of entertaining at his table priests who had been implicated in the affair. The enmity between them increased. The count began, by little and little, to seize by violence the domains which Maracarius had left his Church by his testa- ment, pretending that they ought not to be retained by a Church whose clergy had killed the testator. He slew some laymen, and at length seized and killed a clerk, whom he accused of being accom- plices in the murder. The bishop then interdicted the count from entering the doors of the church. Before a synod of bishops assembled at Saintes, Martin demanded to be reconciled with Heraclius. He promised to restore the Church estates he had seized, and to humble himself before the minister of the Lord. Heraclius assented. But Martin only kept the word of promise to the ear ; he despoiled the estates and razed the buildings, saying that if the Church would have them back it should find them waste. Heraclius interdicted him anew. Then Heraclius died. Martin obtained restoration to communion from other bishops.* But a few months afterwards the count also died in torments, recognizing them as the punishment of his treat- ment of the bishop. Gregory concludes his story with the moral, " Let all, then, wonder, and fear to injure bishops. For God avenges His servants who trust in Him." t At Gevaudan, Palladius, son of the former Count * The Church in those days seems to have very easily restored men guilty of the greatest crimes. t Gregory, v. 37. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 97 Brittien, was raised by Sigebert to the office of count. Discord arose between him and Bishop Par- thenius, and excited great enmities among the people ; for he assailed the bishop with outrages and affronts and injuries, seized the goods of the Church, and plundered its servants. The count and the bishop appeared before the king. Next year Palladius was deprived, committed suicide, and was not buried with Christians, nor were masses said for him.* In the earlier years after the conquest, all ranks of the clergy were filled by Gallo-Romans. The Franks were the dominant race, and were Christian, but they were new converts from a rude heathen- ism, and it would take some generations to raise up a "native ministry" among them. Not only the literature of the (Western) Church, but all its services, and, stiU more, the conversational inter- course of all civilized and Christian people, was in Latin. Besides, the Franks were warriors, a con- quering caste, a separate nation ; and to lay down battle-axe and spear, and enter into the peaceful ranks of the Romano-Gallic Church, would have seemed to them like exchanging their nationality for that of the more highly cultured, perhaps, but, in their eyes, subject race. The Frank kings did not ignore the value of education. Clovis is said to have established a Palatine school, and encouraged his young men to qualify themselves for the positions which his con- * Gregory, v. 40. 98 CHARLEMAGNE. quests had opened out to them. His grandsons, "we have seen, prided themselves on their Latin culture. After a while, Franks aspired to the magnificent positions which the great sees of the Church offered to their ambition ; and we find men with Teutonic names, and no doubt of Teutonic race, among the bishops. For example, Gregory of Tours gives us a list of the bishops who met in synod at Paris, for the trial of Pretextatus, and the names give us a clue to the proportion of Franks who by that time had been placed in the sees of his kingdom by Chilperic* The list is as follows : — Of Gauls, Gregory of Tours, Felix of Nantes, Dumnolus of Le Mans, Honoratus of Amiens, ./Etherius of Lisieux, and Pappolus of Chartres ; of Franks, Eaghenemod of Paris, Leudovald of Bayeux, Romhaire of Coutance, Merovig of Poitiers, Malulf of Senlis, and Berthramn of Bordeaux. For a stUl longer period, few Franks entered into the lower ranks of the Church. Not only did the priesthood ofier little temptation to them, but also the policy of the kings and nobles opposed the diminution of their military strength by refusing leave to their Franks to enter into holy orders or into the monasteries. The cultured families of the cities would afford an ample supply of men for the clergy, and promising youths of a lower class seem * It is to be borne in mind that Gregory tells us that few clerks were promoted by Chilperic ; i.e. that he overruled the canonical mode of election, and arbitrarily nominated to most of the sees which fell vacant in his reign. See p. 56. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 99 already not infrequently to have been educated for the service of the Churcli. It was only in a later period, when some approach had been made to a fusion of the races, that we find Franks enter- ing into the lower ranks of the Churcli, and simul- taneously we find Gallo-Romans in the ranks of the armies. There was a wide gulf between the bishops and the other orders of the clergy. The bishops were powerful nobles, almost the kings of the GaUo- Roman cities ; the habitual counsellors of the kings, their names appear before those of the nobles and coimsellors in the royal edicts. We see them act- ing as the guardians and regents of a minority ; we find them at the head of the faction of nobles which controlled the royal power. Monks wielded a powerful spiritual influence. But the name of not a single priest appears in the history of the times as exercising any influence or authority. When at length, in the latter part of the Merovingian period, the bishops were little other than great nobles, with little of episcopal spirit in them, they regarded their clergy as the nobles did their homines — their "men," — as bound to obey them and support their interests in secular matters. At length, simoniacal appointments to the great ofiices of the Church became largely prevalent ; a worldly character in the prelates was an inevitable con- sequence ; and that as naturally led to clerical neglect; and that, again, to a general religious deadness. 100 CHAELEMAGNE. Under the gradual secularization of the Church in the Merovingian period, the monasteries had the greatest share in keeping alive a remnant of vital religion among the people ; and in the gradual decay of learning and art, the monastic institution was the ark in which the ancient civilization survived the deluge of barbarism, and emerged at length to spread itself over the modern world. St. Martin introduced the monastic institution into G-aul at Ligug^ near Poitiers. When the bishopric of Tours was forced upon him, he founded another house at Marmoutier, on the bank of the Loire, a mile above the city, where a cliff of rocks on one side and a bend of the Loire on the other enclosed a little span of meadow between rock and river ; and there he lived among eighty monks, some dwelling in caves in the rocks, some in wattled huts in the meadow. These two monasteries con- tinued to be the capitals of ascetic religion in Aquitaine. So rapidly did the ascetic spirit spread, that when Martin died two thousand monks fol- lowed him to his grave; and so great was his reputation, that his shrine became the most famous place of pilgrimage in France. Some years laterj the monastery of St. Victor was founded at Marseilles by Cassian (a.d. 350-447). Its founder had been a pupil of Chrysostom, after- wards a monk in the monastery of Jerome at Bethle- hem. He is one of the great writers on the ascetic life ; his " Institutes," describing the regulations and THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 101 observances of the Eastern monks, formed one of the chief text-books of Western monachism in sub- sequent ages. In the Pelagian controversy, the theologians of Marseilles "were learned enough and self-reliant enough to take a line of their own, be- tween the views of Augustine on one hand, and those of Pelagius on the other; the Augustinians called it semi-Pelagianism, but it is possible that the disciples of Cassian were really maintaining the ancient Catholic views on the subjects under dis- cussion. Honoratus, in A.D. 410, founded another famous monastery at Lerins, one of a group of rocky islets off the southern coast of Gaul, opposite the well- known modern watering-place of Cannes. It was from the monasteries of Marseilles and Lerins, illus- trious throughout Christendom for learning and piety, that the Churches of Gaul in the fifth century drew their most famous bishops and priests. From these centres monasteries gradually spread over the provinces of southern Gaul, and formed, as it were, oases of learning and piety and peace amidst the confusion and turbulence of the times. Romanian and Sulpicius had founded a monas- tery in the eastern extremity of Gaul, upon those hills of Jura which separate Gaul from Switzerland. King Sigismund rebuilt the monastery of Aja, the monastic metropolis of the kingdom of Burgundy, and himself entered into it. There, we read, nine hundred monks, divided into nine chori, kept up in their church the Laus Perennis — the service of 102 CHARLEMAGNE. perpetual praise. There were also solitary ancho- rites scattered about the land, some of whom imi- tated, in the climate of Gaul, the wildest austerities of the solitaries of the Egyptian desert.* At the end of the fifth century, the monasteries had ceased to send forth illustrious men to occupy the first rank as bishops and theologians ; but a great revival of the institution was introduced, in the beginning of the sixth century, by the genius of St. Benedict. St. Benedict (480-54.0) lived in Italy in the troubled period after the deposition of Augustulus. On the summit of a hill between Rome and Naples, crowned' by a temple of Apollo, then stiU fre- quented by the neighbouring rustics, he founded the famous monastery of Monte Cassino. His piety and genius attracted a great multitude of monks from all quarters. On the other hand, Monte Cassino was like a hive, continually sending off swarms of monks to found new houses all over Europe. Many of the existing houses adopted his Rule, and sought for his monks to infuse new life into existing communities. Under the Merovingian kings the monasteries of Gaul not only multiplied, but increased in wealth, and, as a consequence, suffered like the bishoprics from being often sought by ambitious and covetous men, and being given by the king as rewards to his followers. But we must remember in both cases that the humble priests of a diocese might be good, ♦ Some notes of them will be found in tho following chapter. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 103 pious men, doing their duty in the streets of the city, and the villages and fai-msteads of the country, although their bishop was neglecting them and living the life of a secular nobleman. And, still more, a monastery under the actual rule of a holy prior could carry on its carefully regulated life, more scandalized than harmed by the fact that its abbot, in his separate apartments, was living a very unmortified life, or was absent on one of his farms, or at court, for the greater part of the year. " An abbey, in those times, was much the same as the dwelling of a wealthy patrician Roman, with the different classes of slaves and workmen attached to the service of the property and of the proprietor, with the towns and villages depending upon them. The abbot was the master, the monks answered to the freedmen of the master, and cultivated literature, the arts and sciences. No difference was apparent to the eye, even in the outward aspect of the abbey and its inhabitants. A monastery was, as to its architecture, a Roman house ; with the atrium or cloister in the middle, with little chambers around the cloister. And since, under the later Csesars, it had been permitted, and even ordered, to private persons to fortify their houses, a convent surrounded with embattled walls entirely resembled the more considerable Roman country houses. The habit of the monks was that of the rest of the world ; it is only because the religious of the present day have retained the costume of that age that it appears so extraordinary. 104 • CHARLEMAGNE. " The abbey, then, was but a Roman house, but was inalienable by the ecclesiastical law, and endowed by the feudal law with a kind of sovereignty ; it administered justice ; it had its knights and its soldiers ; it was a little state com- plete in all respects ; and at the same time it was an experimental farm, a manufactory (they made linen and cloth), and a school. " One can conceive nothing more favourable to the cultivation of the mind, and to individual in- dependence, than this common life. A religious community represented an artificial family always in its manhood, which had not, like a natural family, to go through the period of helpless infancy or helpless old age; it never experienced the dis- advantages of tutelage and minority, or was troubled by the inconveniences which belong to female weaknesses. This family, which never died, ac- cumulated possessions without losing any; free from the cares of the world, it exercised a powerful influence upon it. . . . " The monasteries became a kind of fortresses in which civilization sheltered itself under the banner of some saint ; the culture of high intelligence was preserved there, and philosophic truth was reborn there of religious truth. Political. truth, or liberty, found an exponent and a defender in the monk, who searched into everything, said everything, and feared nothing. Without the inviolability and the leisure of the cloister, the books and the languages of the ancient world would never have been trans- THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 105 mifcted to us, and the chain which connects the past with the present would have been snapt. Astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, civil law, physic and medicine, the profane authors, grammar, and the belles lettres, all the arts, had a succession of professors uninterrupted from the first days of Clovis down to the age when the universities, themselves religious foundations, brought science forth from the monasteries. To establish this fact it is enough to name Alcuin, Anghilbert, Eginhard, Treghan, Loup de Ferrieres, Eric d'Auxerre, Hincmar, Odo of Clugny, Cherbert, Abbon, Fulbert. Music, painting, engraving, and, above all, archi- tecture, owe infinite obligations to the Church- men. * Some idea of the wealth of the monasteries may be gathered from a document which remains to us, of a little later date. In the year a.d. 831, Heric rendered to Louis le Debonnaire an account of the possessions of the abbey of St. Riquier. In the town of St. Riquier, the property of the monks, there were two thousand five hundred manses of laymen; each manse paid two pence, thirty-six bushels of wheat, of oats, and of beans, four fowls, and thirty eggs. Four mills owed three thousand quarters of mixed grain, eight pigs, and twelve cows. The market each week supplied forty sous of gold, and the toll twenty sous of gold. Thirteen bakehouses produced each yearly ten sous of gold, * Chateaubriand, "Analyse de I'Histoire de France, Seconde Eace." 106 CHARLEMAGNE. three huadred loaves and thirty cakes in the time of the litanies. The benefice of St. Michael gave a revenue of five hundred sous of gold, distributed in alms by the brothers of the abbey. The chance fees for the burial of the poor and of strangers was valued, one year with another, at a hundred sous of gold, similarly distributed in alms. The abbot distributed daUy to mendicants five sous of gold; he maintaiued three hundred poor, a hundred and fifty widows, and sixty clerks. Marriages brought in annually twenty pounds weight of silver, and the decision of lawsuits sixty-eight pounds. The street of the merchants (in the town of St. Eiquier) owed the abbey every year a piece of tapestry of the value of a hundred sous of gold, and the street of the blacksmiths all the ironwork needed in the abbey. The street of the buckler-makers was bound to supply the covers of books ; they covered and sewed the books, and this was estimated at thirty sous of gold. The street of the saddlers supplied saddles to the abbot and the brethren ; the street of the bakers delivered a hundred loaves weekly ; the street of the squires (servientium) was exempt from all charge. The street of the cord- wainers (shoemakers) furnished the shoes of the servants and cooks of the abbey ; the street of the butchers was assessed each year at thirty gallons of grease ; the street of fullers made up the woollen mattresses for the monks, and the street of the skinners the skins which they needed ; the street of the vine-dressers gave weekly thirty-seven gallons THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 107 of wine and two of oil ; the street of the innkeepers sixty gallons of beer daily ; the street of the hundred and ten knights were bound to keep up each his horse, buckler, lance, sword, and other arms. The chapel of the nobles gave each year twelve pounds of incense and perfume, the four chapels of the common people paid a hundred pounds of wax and three of incense. The offerings presented at the tomb of St. Kiquier were worth weekly two hundred marks, or three hundred pounds of silver. Then follows the inventory of the vessels of gold and silver of the three churches of St. Riquier, and the catalogue of the books in the library. Then a list of the villages of St. Riquier, to the number of twenty. In these villages are certain vassals of St. Riquier, who hold the lands as military benefices (i.e. on condition of rendering military service). There are thirteen other villages besides without melange de fief, and these villages, says the document, are not so much villages as towns and cities. The enumeration of the churches, towns, villages, and dependent lands of St. Riquier, presents the names of a hundred knights attached to the , monastery, who formed around the abbot, on the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, an almost royal court." The monasteries of women filled a place in the society of that day, less important perhaps to the learning and civilization of the future, but of special 108 CHARLEMAGNE. value in an age of violence and change. We cannot doubt that, though there was not that general con- fiscation of the property of the Gallo-Roman pro- prietors which some have supposed, there were many illegal acts by which individual Romans were dispossessed by the unauthorized intrusion of a Frank adventurer seeking his fortune, or of a Frank noble seeking to increase his estates. It is easy to imagine the number of high-bom, delicately nurtured women who would, under such circum- stances, be suddenly thrust out from the splendour and refinement of a Roman viUa life, and cast upon the world. To these ladies, with the religious notions of their time, a religious house ofiered a peaceful and dignified refuge. CEesarius of Aries founded a nunnery in that city, of which his sister was the first head, and drew up a " Rule of Life " for the nuns. Half a century after- waids Radegunda founded another in the city of Poitiers, whose history is so fuUy given by contem- porary writers, and so curiously illustrates the manners of the times, that it is worth while to give it at some length in an episodical chapter.* We add a brief note on the relations between the Church of Gaul and that of Saxon England. When Gregory the Great sent Augustine and his monks to effect the conversion of the country in which his interest had been excited by the sight of a group of captive children (English) exposed for sale in the Roman forum, he furnished them with letters of * Chap. xi. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 109 commendation to some of the leading bishops of Gaul, and to Queen Brunhilda, and the kings Theodebert and Theodoric. But when they learned that a daughter of Childe- bert was married to Ethelbert of Kent, and that Bishop Liudhard was at the court of the Kentish king, instead of trying to make their way to the Northumbrian kingdom from which Gregory's little friends had come, they directed their steps to Kent; and it was the favourable opening thus already made by the Frank princess and Bishop Liudhard which caused Canterbury to become the head-quarters of Augustine's missionary work. Then, when Augustine had met with success in Kent, he was consecrated bishop of the Anglo- Saxons, at the request of Gregory, by the Gallic bishops ; so that, so far as our English succession is derived from Augustine, it is derived from the Church of Gaul. The Gallic Church also had a direct share in the conversion of their neighbours and the planting of the Church among them. King Sigebert, who estab- lished the faith in the East Ajiglian kingdom, had been converted and " admitted to the sacraments of the faith " while an exile in Gaul, and as soon as he ascended the throne " he made it his business " to make all his province partake of the same blessings ; and " being desirous to imitate the good institutions which he had seen in France, he set up a school for youths to be instructed in literature." * Felix, who * Bede, " Ecclesiastical History," ii. 15 110 CHAELEMAGNE. was consecrated as his bishop, was born and or- dained priest in Burgundy, before he occupied for seventeen years the see o^the East Angles. In the West Saxon kingdom * also. Bishop Agil- bert, who laboured for some time among them plant- ing the faith, was a Gallo-Boman, and afterwards Bishop of Paris. Wini, who was bishop of another section of the West Saxons at the same time, had been ordained in Gaul. Agilbert, when afterwards invited to return to the West Saxons, declined, but sent his nephew Eleutherius, who was con- secrated as their bishop by Theodore, and laboured among them. We hardly estimate rightly the diffi- culty of the journey which Augustine and his com- panions undertook from Italy to Gaul, and across the breadth of Gaul, and across the Channel. The circumstances threw the Church of England in Saxon, as formerly in Roman times, upon its more highly civilized Gallic neighbour for help. It amply repaid its obligations when, subsequently, it sent Boniface to reorganize the Church of the Franks, and Alcuin to revive learning in the empire of Charlemagne. * Beclo, " Ecclesiastical History," iii. 7. ( m ) CHAPTER Vlil. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. Church architecture — Sidonius's description of the new church at LyoBS — A Church function —Gregory of Tours's description of' the new basilica of St. Martin, and of that at Clermont — Paintings in churches — Actual remains of churches— Frag- ments of sculpture, etc. — Mode of election of bishops — The election of a bishop at Bourges — Sidonius's speech — Illus- trations of mode of episcopal appointments under the Mero- vingian kings from Gregory of Tours — Rogations — Solitaries and recluses — Eeligious widows — Custom of sanctuary — Life in the sanctuaries of St. Martin of Tours, and St. Hilary of Poitiers — Belief in miracles — Keverence for relics— Pilgrimage — Impostures — Energumens. Since the illustration of the religious history of the period is the especial aim of our work, we shall throw together here a few particulars which do not fall into the stream of the narrative, but which seem necessary to a correct conception of the condition of the Church and the religious spirit and manners of the times. Churches. — Of the fabrics of the churches of that time we have quite sufficient information to 112 CHAKLEMAGNE. enable us to realize what they were in plan, mag- nitude, and architectural character. The basilican plan, for the larger churches at least, obtained throughout the whole period ; costly- material was employed upon them, marble columns, tesselated pavements, gilded ceilings, mosaics and paintings on the walls. The architectural style gradually changed from the already debased clas- sical styles of the age of Constantine down to the rude Romanesque of the eighth century. One of the pleasant letters of Sidonius * describes a basilica which Patiens, Bishop of Lyons, built in that city in honour of the popular Gallic Saint Justus. Sidonius and two other poets, the most eminent of their age and nation, were invited by the bishop to supply three inscriptions,! which were to be engraved on tablets and placed at the west end of the church. Sidonius gives us a copy of his composition, which is in verse; he pleasantly ex- cuses himself from sending those of his friends, be- cause he is unwilling to submit his own to the unfavourable comparison, as it is bad taste to give a bride a bridesmaid handsomer than herself We gather from the verses that the new church faced " the equinoctial east.'' " It is hght within ; the sun is attracted to the gilded ceiling, and wanders with its yellow glow over the yellow metal. Marbles of various splendour enrich the ceiling (caTneram), the * Lib. ii. 10. t Sidonius also wrote an inscription for tlie new basilica at Tours built by Bishop Perpetuus (Lib. iv. Ep. 18). ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 113 pavement, and the windows ; and through the leek- green glass of the windows, beneath varicoloured figures, an encrustation, grassy and spring-like, bends around the sapphire gems. ' Ac sub verBicoloribus figuris Vernans herbida crueta sapphiratos Flectit per praaiuum vitrum lapillos.' It has a triple portico (probably along three sides of the atrium), magnificent with Aquitanian mar- bles, and a similar portico closes the further side of the atrium. A grove of stone scatters its columns far and- wide over the interior." It is easy to gather that the church was of the usual basilican type, hand- somely adorned with marbles, mosaic, and gilding.* In another letter, Sidonius gives incidentally a glimpse of a Church function in this very church : " We had assembled at the sepulchre of St. Justus, where they made the yearly procession before dawn. There was a great multitude of people, more than the capacious basilica and the crypt could hold, though surrounded with spacious porticoes. When the office of vigils was ended (chanted by monks and clergy in alternate choruses), we parted from one another, but did not go far, that we might be in readiness for Tierce, when the priests should celebrate the Divine office. The crowd in the church, the many lights, and the closeness of the night — for it was still summer, though tempered by the freshness of the coming autumn — oppressed us, and when the various ranks of citizens dispersed, * See also Lib. vi. 12. 114 CHAELEMAGNI-. we, who belonged to the first families of Lyons, de- cided to make our rendezvous at the tomb of the Consul Syagrius, which was scarce a bowshot from the church. Here some reclined under the shade of a trellis, covered with the leaves and clusters of a vine ; others, of whom I was one, sat on the green sward, which was fragrant with flowers. Whoever could teU a good story was sure of eager listeners. There was no sustained conversation, for it was con- tinually interrupted by lively saUies. At length, tired of doing nothing, the old people played at tables, the young ones at ball (tennis)." Sidonius wrote an epigram. It was hardly read when word came that it was time for the bishop to leave his chamber, and all rose and returned to the church. Gregory of Tours has frequent notices of the new churches built during the period embraced by his ecclesiastical history. He tells us the actual dimen- sions of the new basilica * of St. Martin, built by Perpetuus, the sixth successor of St. Martin in the see of Tours. It was 160 feet long by 60 wide; its height to the ceiling was 45 feet ; it had 32 windows in the presbytery, and 20 in the nave, and 41 columns; in the whole edifice 62 windows, 120 columns, and 8 gates. Since the ceiling (camera) of the ancient church was an elegant work, the bishop erected another church in honour of SS. Peter and * Mabillon says that it has been satisfactorily shown that in the writings of authors who wrote in Gaul in the sixth and seventh centuries, " basilica " is to be understood as meaning the church of a convent ; cathedral and parish churches being called " ecclesise." ("Diet, of Christian Antiq.," art. "Basilica.") ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 115 Paul, and placed this ceiling upon it.* The first basilica of St. Martin had been built by Bishop Brice, the fourth bishop. This second church of Perpetuus was burnt down, and rebuilt by Gregory, larger and more beautiful, and dedicated in the seventeenth year of his episcopate.f The church which Namatius, the eighth bishop of Clermont, built, " which is the principal church there," was 150 feet long by 60 wide, and 50 feet high to the ceiling of the nave ; in front it had a round apse, on each side stretched aisles of elegant stnicture, and the whole edifice was disposed in the form of a cross. It had 42 windows, 70 columns, and 8 gates. Gregory gives an interesting note of the religious impression produced upon the mind by the building : " A pious fear of God makes itself felt in this place, which is* penetrated by a bright clearness, and very often the religious perceive there perfumes which teem as if they were given out by sweet spices. The walls of the altar are adorned with different kinds of marbles, carved with much elegance." The wife of the above Bishop Namatius built the basilica of St. Stephen without the walls of the town, and had it painted with paintings, which she indicated to the artists out of a book which she possessed — some religious book, doubtless, illumi- nated with miniature paintings. One day, when the bishop's wife was sitting in the church reading, a poor person, who came into the church to pray, took * ii. 14. t X. 31. 116 CHARLEMAGNE. her for a poor old woman, and put a piece of bread on her knees. She accepted it with thanks, and kept it, "using it at meals for the blessing." Bishops and priests used to send presents of blessed loaves (Eulogice), in token of respect or affection ; the re- ceiver used to eat a little of the loaf erery day, as if it conveyed a quasi-sacramental blessing : e.g. we are told in the life of Eligius, that when he left the monastery of Luxeuil, after a visit, "he earnestly begged a little loaf of bread, of which he ate a little every day, fasting, as if it had been the holy com- munion." So the wife of Namatius accepted the loaf given her in charity as if it had been a Eulogia, and, according to custom, eat a little of it every day till none of it was left.* Agricola, Bishop of Chalons, a man of senatorial race, wise and cultured, built in his city many edifices, also a church with columns, marbles, and mosaic pictures.f Of Balmatius, Bishop of Hhodez, he tells us that he constructed a church, but as he often had it puUed down in order to make it more perfect, he died, leaving it unfinished. There are stUl some actual remains of the churches of this period; at Perigueux, and the baptistry at Poitiers. Along the Loire are several churches, which date from the sixth to the eighth centuries. In the valley of the Rhone are many remains in a good Roman style, which are, no doubt, of this period, e.g. the porch of Avignon Cathedral. The church of • ii. 16. t V. 46. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 117 the Convent of Romain-motier in the Jura, which still remains, was dedicated by Pope Stephen II. A.D. 753. The Abec^daire of M. de Oaumont gives us en- gravings of a few fragments of the church work of this period: carved capitals, specimens of mouldings and surface decorations, fragments of pavements, mosaics, and sculptiu-ed sarcophagi ; which help us to realize the details of the churches which Sidonius and Gregory describe, and serve to illustrate the gradual change in architecture from the tolerably pure classic character of the fifth and sixth centuries, through the knot-work and rude figure design of the seventh and eighth. Bishops. — Sidonius gives us much information on the mode of electing bishops in his time. In the case of a vacancy in the see of Chalons, he teUs us * there were three candidates ; one a man of no merit but of good family, the second a man who was gaining partisans by help of his kitchen ; f the third had secretly pledged himself to reward his partisans out of the possessions of the see. The bishops of the province assembled ; and in the end Patiens and Epiphanius consecrated John the Archdeacon, who was recommended by his honesty, charity, and sweetness of disposition. How the bishops * Bk. vi. 7. + Gregory of Tours also (v. 47) tells us that on the death of Balmatius, Archbishop of Rhodez, many, as usual, sought his see. The priest Transobaldus had great expectation of it, and made a feast to the clergy of the city. 118 CHARLEMAGNE. were able to get rid of the other candidates is probably indicated by what took place in the next instance. In the seventh book we have several letters (5, 6, 8, 9) relating to the filling up of the vacant see of Bourges. In the first of these letters to the Lord Pope Agroecius* (he was Bishop of Sens), he teUs him that he has been summoned to Bourges because of the death of their bishop, and the confusion which exists over the choice of a successor among a multi- tude of unworthy candidates. He informs him that the wars have not left in the province a sufficient number of bishops to consecrate ; and therefore he invites Agroecius, though of another province, to come to their assistance ; and he promises that he vnll leave the selection of the new bishop to him, ' The title "Pope,'' which is nothing more than "Father," was given to all bishops in those days. Sidonius constantly addresses his contemporary bishops as " Lord Pope," etc. A little later Eadegunda, in her letter to the bishops, addresses them as her " holy lords, and most worthy possessors of the apostolic see, her fathers in Christ " (dominis Sanctis et apostolica sede dignissimis, in Cliristo patribus), and signs herself "Eadegunda, a sinner" QSadegundis peccatrix). St. Didier, Bishop of Cahors, writing to St. Ouen, addresses him, " Holy and excellent Apostolic Father and Pope" QSancto ac prxferendo apostolico patre Dadoni papie Deside- rius servus servorum Dei — Lib. i. Ep. 10), and signs himself " Didier, servant of the servants of God." So St. Eligius, writing to the same St. Didier, addresses him as his " ever Lord and apostolic father, Pope Desiderius," and signs himself " Eligius, servant of the servants of God " (" Letters of St. Desiderius," Lib. ii. Ep. 10). The see of Bome has retained some of these ancient forms of expression, which have been gradually abandoned by the other bishops of the West. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 119 and "will support his choice. Letter 8 is to the Lord Pope Euphronius (Bishop of Autun), to ask his advice on the same business. He tells him that the people of Bourges demand for their bishop a layman of distinction (vir spectabilis) named Sim- plicius. In Letter 9, to the Lord Pope Perpetuus (Bishop of Tours), he tells him, with a good deal of humour, that there was so great a crowd of com- petitors that two benches could not hold the candi- dates for this one see. Every one was satisfied with himself, and every one was dissatisfied with aU the rest (Omnes placebant sibi, omnes omnibus dis- plicebant). The clergy and people got out of their embarrassment by putting the nomination absolutely into the hands of Sidonius. Perpetuus has asked him for a copy of the speech he made to the people of Boui'ges on the occasion, and he here sends it. It is very long and oratorical, according to ths pre- vailing taste, but it is a very interesting illustration of the manners of the times. We can only extract fragments of two or three sentences which illustrate the subject on which we are engaged. " If I should nominate to you," he says, " one from among the monks, though he were equal to Paul, Antony, Hilarius, or Macarius, I should hear the murmur of a crowd of ignoble dwarfs buzzing about my ears, saying, ' We want a man to fulfil the duties of a bishop, not of an abbot. This man is much more fit to intercede for souls before the Celestial Judge, than for bodies before the judges of this world.' ... If I nominate a clerk, those who are of older 120 CHARLEMAGNE. standing will be jealous of him, and those of younger standing wiU decry him; for there are some who think the number of years a man has been in the priesthood is the sole measure of his merit, as if to have lived long rather than to have lived well fitted a man for the Episcopate. ... If I indicate a man who has had experience in military command, I shall hear these words : ' Because Sidonius was transfen-ed from secular office to the episcopate, he is unwilling to have for his metropolitan a man taken out of the body of the clergy : proud of his own birth, elevated to the highest rank by his dignities, he de- spises the poor of Christ.' "... He concludes by nominating Simplicius, " until to-day one of your order (a layman), who from to-day wiU belong to our order, if, by you, God shall so determine." He gives a long eulogy of Simphcius and a statement of his claims : " Bishops and pretors have been among his ancestors; he himself is among the most notable of your feUow-citizens. Some one will say that Eucherus and Pannychius are more distinguished; but they have contracted second marriages." " Sim- plicius is a man of competent learning, great charity, etc." " More than once, on behalf of your city, he has stood before kings in furs and princes in purple." * He praises his wife, " descended from the family of the Palladii, who have occupied the chair both of letters and of the altars, with the approbation of their order." But " since," he says, " the character of a matron should be mentioned only with delicacy * That is, barbarian kiiiga and Boman emperors. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 121 and brevity" (Sane quia persona matronie verecun- dam et siKcinctam sui exegit mentionem), he con- tents himself with stating that the lady is worthy of the honours of the two families ; of that in which she was bom and brought up, and of that into which she has entered by an honourable marriage. Both have brought up their children wisely and well." He concludes, "Since you have sworn to recognize and accept the decision of my Infirmity on the subject of this election — in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, SiMPLicius is he whom I declare worthy to be made metropolitan of oiu: province and bishop of your city." Gregory of Tours gives us numerous notices of the mode of appointing bishops in his day. The regular mode of election was by the clergy and laity of the city ; and the canons required that no one should come to the episcopate without having regularly passed through the degrees of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.* But the Frank kings assumed to themselves a right of nomination, and though an attempt was sometimes made to hurry through an election and consecration before the king could intervene,t the royal nomination seems never to have been openly resisted and refused.| * Lib. vi. 15. Cato, who was a candidate for the see of Tours when Euphronius was elected, says of himself that he had been lector ten years, sub-deacon five years, deacon fifteen years, priest twenty years. ' + vi. 7. % Lib. iii. 15 ; vi. 9, 39. 122 CHABLEMAGNE. Frequently the king nominated a layman (we have Been that it had not been unusual in former times to elect laymen), and they were passed though the different degrees very hastily. Thus Maraearius, Count of Angouleme,was made clerk and consecrated bishop * The King Clothaire caused Badegesilus, mayor of the royal palace, to be elected Bishop of Avignon, who, having been tonsured, passed by the different degrees of the clericature, and forty days after succeeded to the see.f These last examples are enough to indicate that the kings often promoted their civil servants and courtiers to the office of bishop. The kings not only rewarded service out of the benefices of the Church, but even sold their nominations. When a see was vacant, candidates for it posted off in haste to the king and sought his nomination by presents. J Gregory says of King Chilperic that few priests obtained the episcopate in his reign. On the other hand, Guntram, when a number of candidates for the see of Bourges offered him presents, said it was not his custom to sell the priesthood.§ He had also sworn not to choose laymen for bishops, but some- times did so ; " for alas," says Gregory, " what cannot the accursed thirst of gold effect in the hearts of mortals." || Some bishops were married men.lT Sometimes a coadjutor with right of succession was appointed to * V. 37. t vi. 9. I vi. 39 ; x. 26, etc. § vi. 39. I. Lib. viii. 22. t ir. 36 ; viii. 39. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 123 an infirm bishop. Three * bishops who had wrong- fully consecrated a bishop to the see of Dax were required to maintain him.f Rogations. — Sidonius J tells how, about the year A.D. 468, the city of Vienne was afflicted with a strange succession of calamities — iires, earthquakes, frightful noises ; and Mamertius the bishop instituted processions of clergy and people, walking through the streets, singing psalms and appropriate prayers, for the three days preceding Ascension Day, in order to pray for deliverance from these calamities, and those still greater which these seemed to portend. Other cities adopted the custom ; it gradually became general. The Council of Orleans in the last year of Clovis ordered its universal adoption. It spread to the English Church, so intimately related with that of Gaul. The beating of the bounds of our parishes on Ascension Day is the meagre remnant of what must have been, and might still be, a very grand and striking act of popular recognition of Almighty God. Recluses and Solitaeies. — Not only the more sober life of the religious community, which Martin and Cassian and Benedict had introduced into Gaul, but the wild austerities and exceptional extravagancies of the Egyptian solitaries found * v. 5. See also Sidonius (Lib. iv. Letter 11), for another example in his day. t viii. 20. t Lib. vii. Ep. 1. 124 CHARLEMAGNE. imitators in a physical and moral climate which would seem little adapted to them. Gregory tells us * of a man named Vulfilaic, in the neighbourhood of Treves, who had imitated Simeon and the other styhtes of the East, and lived on his pillar for several years ; and of a priest who always retained a standing position iintU his feet had become diseased. The life of reclusion, a curious phase of the " religious " Hfe, seems to have flourished in Gaul in these times. It is fully illustrated in the pages of Gregory's history : — " In the city of Nice lived a recluse named Hospitius, a man of great abstinence, who wore on his naked body chains of iron, and over them a robe of hair-cloth, and eat nothing but bread and dates." " God deigned to work great miracles by him ; " of which some examples are given — healing the sick, the deaf and dumb, the blind, and the possessed. He had also a gift of prophecy; e.g. he foretold the invasion of Gaul by the Lombards. He lived in a tower, the entrance to which was walled up, and by his window he held his only communication with the world. When the Lombards at length invaded the country they surrounded the recluse's tower, and finding no door, some -of them climbed upon the roof and broke it up, and so obtained entrance; and finding him in chains, and clothed with hair-cloth, they supposed he must be some great criminal. In the true recluse spirit he con- * Lib. Tiii. 15. ECCLESIASTICAI. ANTIQtTITIES. 125 fessed that he was so ; but they did him no injury, and left him in his cell. " On the approach of death he sent to the prior of. the monastery and bade him 'bring tools to open the wall, and send messengers to the bishop of the city to come and bury me, for in three days I shall leave this world and go to the rest which God has promised me.' " * The tomb of this recluse was stiU to be seen in the cathedral of Nice in the seventeenth century. The tower which he inhabited was situated on a little peninsula about a league from Nice, and bore the name of San Sospir.t One of the nuns of St. Radegunda, in the monastery at Poitiers, had a vision of the Celestial Bridegroom, and " a few days afterwards begged the abbess to cause a little cell to be made ready for her, to live there in rechision. The cell was soon ready. The abbess said to her, ' Behold the ceU ; now what do you wish ? ' The religious demanded that it might be permitted to her to be enclosed there. This favour was granted her. She was conducted there by the assembled virgins, with chants, by the light of torches, Radegunda holding her by the hand. Then, having said adieu to all her companions, and embraced them one by one, she was enclosed, the opening of the cell was sealed, and there she gives herself up to this day to prayer and reading." | A little later we read of another recluse in the same monastery. One of the nuns, "having slid from the height of the walls, had taken sanctuary * vi. 6, t Note in loc. by Guizot. J vi. 29. 126 CHAELEMAGNE. in the neighbouring basilica of St. Hilary, and brought many accusations against the abbess, which were found to be false. But at last, having climbed back into the monastery with cords by the same place by which she had escaped, she demanded to be enclosed in a secret cell, saying, 'For having sinned greatly against God and against my Lady Radegunda' (who at that time was living) 'I wish to separate myself altogether from the society of this convent, and to do penance for the forgetfuhiess of my duties. I know that the Lord is full of mercy, and forgives those who confess their sins.' She entered into her cell. But afterwards the spirit of disorder raised by' Chrodielda in this monastery extended to the poor recluse, and she broke the door of her cell during the night and went to join Chrodielda." At Bordeaux a child of twelve years old, named Anatolius, refused to be dissuaded from becoming a recluse, and was walled up in a corner of an ancient vaulted building. After having lived this life for eight years, he seems to have been able to endure it no longer. He complained of internal pains, and at length he loosened the squared stones which kept him enclosed, overturned the wall, bruising his hands, and came out.* Another recluse, giving way to love of wine, got into a habit of drinking, and went mad.* Gregory speaks of other recluses — Senoch at Tours, Caluppa in Auvergne, Patroeles at Bourges, Eparcus, who * Yiii. 34. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 127 lived the life of seclusion for forty-four years at Angouleme, and others.* We need do no more than name them; we have already said enough to illustrate the common existence of the recluse life in this period, the motives which influenced the recluses, and the various results of the unnatural experi- ment. Eeligious Widowhood — that is, the observance by widows of a "religious" life, based upon the "rule" laid down by St. Paul (1 Tim. v.), was very usual. We have seen that Clotilda, the widow of Clovis, lived in religious retirement at Tours. Ingoberga, the widow of King Childebert, also is described as a woman of great wisdom, given to a religious life, diligent in watchings, prayers, and alms.f Gregory's account of another religious widow may be given at length, as it illustrates other customs of the time. " The mother of Count Eula- lius had an oratory in her house, and used often, when the servants were asleep, to spend the night- watches in prayers and tears; on such occasions she wore a hair-cloth. One day she was found strangled, it was believed by her dissolute son. At the festival of St. Julian, at the time of divine service, Eulalius prostrated himself before the bishop, and complained that he was refused com- munion, innocent and unheard. The bishop bade him then take part in the service. When it came * Eg. in the " Libri de Gloria Confessorum," xoviii., ci., ciii., etc. t Gregory of Tours, ix. 26. 128 CHAKLESIAGNE. to the administration, the bishop addressed him. ' Popular report accuses you of matricide. I know not whether you are guUty; I remit the judgment to God and St. Julian. If you are innocent as you say, approach, take a portion of the Eucharist, and put it into your mouth.' " * The bishop did not give it him, but challenged him to take it. Sanctuaet.— ^mother custom, very frequently alluded to in Gregory's narrative, is the custom of sanctuary. Again and again we are told of men who have incurred the displeasure of the king.f or have committed some crime, or of slaves who fear the anger of their master,^ taking temporary refuge in the nearest church, or taking up their abode in the precincts of some more famous shrine.§ And we find that the sanctuary was almost universally respected. Even a man who attempted to assas- sinate ]^ng Guntram, and who was at once dragged out of the church to which he had fled by the over- zealous servants of the king, was only beaten, and not slain, "because they thought it was not per- mitted to put to death a man whom they had dragged out of the church ; " || and on another occasion Theodebert says,ir "We are Christians, and it is not permitted to punish criminals whom they have dragged out of the church." * We read afterwards of the dissolute count that he carried ofif a nun from the monastery of Lyons and married her. t X. 10 ; V. 1 ; Brunehaut, yi. 15 ; Fredegonda, ix. 9. J 7. 3. § iv. 15. II ix. 3. 5 ix. 38. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 129 The immunity of the sanctuary was sometimes evaded. Two slaves of Duke Rauchlin the Cruel had married without their lord's leave, and had fled for sanctuary to the neighbouring church. The priest interceded with the duke not to kill, or beat, or separate them, and he promised that he would not. When they returned, he had a grave dug, and had them placed in it together, and filled it in, and so fulfilled his promise. The great basilicas of St. Martin at Tours and St. Hilary at Poitiers seem to have been the two most famous sanctiiaries of Gaul. On the assassination of King Sigebert, Chilperic seized the Touraine, and as a consequence of this revolutions Duke Guntram, surnamed Bose — the Bad — took sanctuary in St. Martin's. Chilperic sent Duke Rauchlin the Cruel, with troops, to demand the refugee, with the threat of burning the suburbs of the town if he were not surrendered. Bishop Gregory, who was a young man, and had only lately succeeded to the see, was greatly troubled, but he refused to allow the violation of the right of sanctuary. Rauchlin burnt one villa, by way of enforcing his threats, and was seized with sickness. A few days after, on the feast of the Epiphany, he entered the city on horseback, and finding the clergy going in procession from the cathedral to the basilica of St. Martin, preceded by banners and the cross, he put himself at the head of the pro- cession, immediately after the cross. On entering the church his illness increased ; and he died at the K 130 CHARLEMAGNE. end of the month. Chilperic took the strange step of writing a letter to St. Martin, asking leave to remove the criminal from his protection. The letter was placed upon the saint's tomb, with a blank paper for the saint's reply. Since the saint did not give any reply to the missive, the king con- tented himself with taking an oath from Guntram Bose that he would not quit the sanctuary without his knowledge. When, shortly after, Merovig, the son of Chil- peric, was by his father's order tonsured, ordained priest, and sent into exile into a monastery in the country of Le Mans, the Duke Guntram Bose, who was still living in sanctuary at St. Martin's, sent a deacon, advising him to escape from his conductors and take sanctuary also. The historian follows the fortunes of the unhappy young prince, and thus introduces us into the inner life of the sanctuary at Tours. The weak young prince and the wicked duke lived there, with their attendants, within the sacred precincts, a life of riot and debauchery. Occasionally they sallied out into the town, attacked the house of some citizen, and retreated with their plunder into sanctuary. Once Guntram Bose induced the prince even to mount and sally forth from the town for a day's hunting, thinking to betray him to an ambush laid for his life by the Queen Fredegonda. King Chilperic tried to induce the bishop to expel the prince from the sanctuary, but in vain. He sent soldiers to ravage the territory of Tours in revenge; but he did not violate the ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 131 sanctuary.* At length Merovig left of his own accord, and fled to Austrasia. Some years afterwards, Eberulf, the chamberlain of Chilperic, accused by Fredegonda of the king's death, took sanctuary in St. Martin's, and dwelt in the sacristy. He, like Merovig, sought to relieve the tedium of his confinement with feasting and loose living. One evening, when the priest who had charge of the doors had retired, after having closed them, some young women came in with some of the servants of Eberulf, strolling about, admiring the pictures on the walls, and the ornaments of the holy shrine. This was a scandal to the religious, and the priest was ordered to bolt the doors. But Eberulf, having heard of it, after supper, elevated with wine, entered the church at the beginning of night, when they chanted the Psalms (vespers, perhaps), and abused both the priest and Gregory the bishop for what had been done. The sequel of the story tells us how a servant of Fredegonda's, incited to it by the queen, pretended to take sanctuary, wormed himself into the confidence of Eberulf, took an opportunity when alone with him to stab him mortally, and then sought refuge in the ceU of the abbot himself But not only the servants of the murdered noble, but the pilgrims who happened to be there, forced open the abbot's cell, dragged the sacrilegious murderer out, and killed him. When Count Leudaste had fallen under the dis- * When Duke Astrapiua took sanctuary in St. Martin's, King Chramnus forbade any one to gl\c him food or water (iv. 15). 132 CHARLEMAGNE. pleasure of Chilperic and Fredegonda, he took sanctuary at St. Hilary at Poitiers. He organized some of the lawless men he found there into a band, with whom he used to make sorties into the town, attack and plunder the house of some rich citizen, and retire again into sanctuary. He ate and drank and diced, and introduced women of bad repute into the very porticoes of the church, till at length the authorities of the church refused to tolerate his excesses, and drove him out of sanctuary. The wife of Duke Eauchlin was told of his death at Soissons, as she was crossing the Place of the city on her way to church, covered with gold and jewels, preceded and followed by servants. She at once took sanctuary in the basilica of St. Medard.* The bishops exercised a kindred power of miti- gating the horrors of the time, by personal inter- ference on behalf of a criminal, which was often effectual. •}" Thus, Guntram Bose on one occasion took sanctuary in the cathedral of Verdun, and the bishop made his peace with King Childebert. No doubt it often led the bishop into a position of great difficulty, when some powerful criminal sought his influence to defeat justice. Guntram Bose, on another occasion, sought refuge in the • Gregory, Ix. 9. t St. Augustine exercised this privilege so freely as to call forth a remonstrauoe from the Vicar of Africa. He sometimes refused to interfere where he thought that punishment was deserved, as in the case of the people of Calamus (Augustiue, " Fathers foi English Readers," pp. 170, 117). ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 133 house of the Bishop of Mayence, and threatened to kill him if he did not obtain his pardon from King Childebert. The bishop had the double claim of his sacred office and of being godfather to the king's son, but the king refused to let the criminal so escape his vengeance. He ordered the bishop's house to be set on fire, saying, " If the bishop likes to stay with him, let them both burn." His clerks dragged the bishop out of the burning house. When Guntram Bose was at last driven out by the flames, the king's men who waited for him pierced his body at once with so many lances that it Vi^as not able to fall to the earth.* Miracles. — Gregory fuUy shared the belief of his age that the power of working miracles was possessed by many men 'of eminent holiness and faith^bishops, monks, recluses. He wrote a whole book on the miracles of St. Martin, of St. Julian, and of others. In the great majority of cases they are miracles of healing, but others are recorded. The power was even so common as not always to command for the miracle-worker the reverence we should suppose inseparable from such a gift ; as we learn from a story of a young monk who was set to watch a heap of com, while his brethren were engaged in other labours of the field. The clouds gathered and threatened rain, and the "■ ix. 10. For examples of the custom of sanctuary in the Englidhi Church, and an essay on the subject, see the Churchman'i Family Magmine, for Oct. 1, 1864. 134 CHABLEMAGNE. young monk, unable to protect his charge from it, prostrated himself on the ground and prayed ; and, in answer to his prayers, while the rain fell all around, not a drop fell upon the corn. The monks, running to save the corn, found it so. The abbot had the young monk beaten and confined to his cell for a week on bread and water, saying, "It behoves you, my son, to grow humbly in the fear and service of God, and not to glorify yourself by prodigies and miracles." * Relics. — Another of the characteristics of the religion of the time, which occupies so large a space iu the pages of its history that it ought not to pass without notice here, is the general rage for the possession of relics, and the consequent active traffic in them. People believed that by possessing the relic of a saint they brought themselves under his special protection, and that their special de- votion to him secured his good offices. He wrought mii-acles of healing at his shrine ; he furthered the prayers of his clients with his own intercession ; he avenged injuries done to them. Every cathedral desired to increase its reputation by the possession of relics as many and as sacred as it could obtain. Every founder of a monastery thought it among tlie most important provisions for the well-being of his pious work that he should obtain the relics of some saint, under whose special patronage he might place his foundation. * Bk. iv. § 34. ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 135 Thus Radegunda, "authorized by letters from King Sigebert, sent clerks to the East, to search there for morsels of wood of the Lord's cross, and relics of the holy apostles and martyrs," which were deposited in her church with great solemnity. When Eginhard, the secretary and historian of Charlemagne, founded a monastery, he sent Ratleig, his notary, to Rome to seek for relics.* The posses- sion of the relics of some popular saint was, in temporal as in rehgious matters, a great advantage. It was the veneration for St. Martin which made kings pay special respect to his sanctuary, and remit taxes to his citizens ; j which made pilgrims flock to his shrine to pray, and sick folk to seek healing, whose offerings constituted a large revenue. In such a traffic there was evidently ample room for imposture. Gregory tells us of fellows who went about with pretended relics, J not only de- * The story is given in minute and interesting detail by Egin- liard himself, in hia " History of the Translation of SS. Marcellinua and Peter," Lib. i. 2. t Gregory, ix. 30. I Like Chaucer's Pardoner — " That streit was comen from the court of Eome For in his male he had a pilwebere Which, as he saide, was oure ladies veil : He saide he hadde a gobbet of the seyl Thatte Peter had whan that he went Upon the see, til Jesu Christ him hent." He had a crois of laton ful of stones, And in a glasse he hadde pigges bones. ' took. 136 CHARLEMAGNE. ceiving the common people and cheating them of their pence, but impudently thrusting themselves into the houses of the bishops and demanding respect and hospitality, and expecting presents. An impostor came to Tours, clad in a colobium, and over that a sindone, like an Egyptian hermit. He carried a cross, to which a number of little ampullae were suspended, containing, he said, holy oil. He pretended to have come from Spain, bring- ing relics of the martyrs Vincent the Levite and St. Felix. He went to the basUica of St. Martin, and sent in to the bishop, commanding him to come out and meet the sacred relics with due solemnity. When he saw that the bishop was not to be imposed upon, he threatened, with a lofty air and pompous voice, to complain of him to King Chilperic, and went on to Paris. When he entered this city. Bishop Raynemond was walking with hia people in procession round the holy places, cele- brating the rogations, which they are accustomed to celebrate before the day of the Ascension of the Lord. At the sight of his strange vestments and his cross, some women of the town and rustics joined him. He made a procession of them, and was going to make the circuit of the holy places with this crowd following him. The bishop, seeing this, sent his But with these relikes -whanne that he fond A poure parsone dwelling upon lond, Upon a day he gat him more monie Than that the parsone gat in monthes tweie. And thus with fained flattering and japes, He made the parsone and the people his apes." ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 137 archdeacon to him, saying "If you bear relics of the saints, place them for a little while in the basilica, and celebrate the holy days with us ; and when these solemnities are over, then you shall proceed on your way." But he, taking no notice of what the archdeacon said, overwhelmed the bishop with insults and curses. The bishop, per- ceiving that he was an impostor, ordered him to be shut up in a cell. They then examined what he carried, and found a great bag full of roots of divers herbs, some moles' teeth, bones of mice, claws and fat of bears. They threw it all into the river, took his cross from him, and ordered him to quit the territory of Paris. But, having made another cross, he began his impostures anew. He was taken by the archdeacon, and put in chains. The Bishop of Tarbes recognized him as a runa way servant of his. " There are many," says Gregory, " who by such impostures lead the country people astray." * Another instance of religious imposture is given by Gregory in his " Book of Miracles " (§ cvi.). A certain woman, under a pretence of religion, spent her time in fasting, watching, prayer, and con- stantly making the round of the holy places in feigned devotion. She collected money for the re- demption of captives, and in course of time had amassed immense sums, which she hid in secret places. We need not go on to describe how it was found that, after her death, the ill-gotten gold was poured molten down her throat, etc. ' ix. 40. lyS CHARLEMAGNE. Pilgrimages. — The custom of pilgrimage is cor- relative with the belief in relics. Sick people travelled to the shrine of some famous saint to ask a miracle of healing ; devout people travelled from shrine to shrine to seek a special interest in the prayers of the saints. The custom prevailed largely throughout Christendom at this period. Rome was the great object of pilgrimage throughout the West, the Holy Land being practically out of reach.* Energumens. — Another belief of the times was that there were many persons possessed, and the utterances of these energumens were listened to as utterances of superhuman knowledge.f There is a very curious example near the end of Eginhard's " History of the Translation of the Blessed Martyrs SS. Marcellinus and Peter," Lib, vii. c. 91. * For examples in the English Church of hermits and recluses, religious widows, relics, and pilgrimages, with essays on the.e subjects, see " Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages," by the same author. Virtue & Co., London, 1872. t Kg. Gregory of Tours, " De Mirac. St. Jlartini," § xxv. ; " Historia Franoorum," v. 1 4, etc. ( 139 ) CHAPTER IX. THE CONVENT OF ST. RADEGUNDA AT POITIERS. Eadegunda taken captive — Educated and married by Clothaire — Flees from court — Is consecrated a deaconess — Takes sanctuary at St. Hilary of Poitiers — Founds a monastery of women there — Description of the building — Of the rules — Venantius For- tunatus comes to Poitiers — His relations with the convent of Radegunda — The revolt of Chrodielda and forty nuns— They flee to Tours^Keturn to Poitiers and take sanctuary at St, Hilary's. Clothaire I. accompanied his brother Theodoric in an expedition against the Thuringians, and among the booty and captives which fell to his share, was a daughter of the late king, a pretty child of seven years of age, named Radegunda. The child's beauty pleased the king, and he had her carefuUy brought up, with the intention of one day marrying her. The Thuringian girl was committed to the care of a Gallo-Roman famUy, M'ho brought her up, not like the German women, but in the learning and refinement and ideas of the ladies of the Roman nobility. From an early period she showed an inclination towards the religious life. 140 CHAELEMAGNE. When at length Clothaire sent for her, she fled, but "was caught and brought to court, and, in spite of her reluctance, was married to the king. He had other wives living, indeed; but the Church was obliged to tolerate the Frankish custom, which allowed — or was it the license of the Frankish kings which assumed ? — a privilege as large as that of Solomon. The position of Radegunda was, in the eyes of all men, that of a lawful and, by caprice of the king, that of a favourite wife. But the young bride gave herself to religious austerities and works of mercy, so that the king would say, ''It is a nun, and not a queen, that I have got." She disliked the rude court, and loved the society of the learned and religious men who visited it. What brought matters to a crisis was that the king, on some suspicion, slew her brother, who had been brought up in the king's household. Rade- gunda fled to Noyon, to the Bishop Meodardus, who had a wide reputation for sanctity, and entreated him to consecrate her to God. The bishop hesitated ; the Frankish attendants who had accompanied the queen in her hasty journey threatened the bishop ■with the king's anger; they sought to drag her away, and the queen, alarmed at the tumult, sought refuge ■«'ith her women in the vestry of the church. When aU was quiet, Radegunda threw a nun's habit over her royal attire, and proceeded from the vestry into the church, where the bishop sat in the sanctuary, and kneeling before him, addressed him : THE CONVENT OF ST. RADEGUNDA AT POITIEES. 141 " If thou delayest to consecrate me, and fearest men more than God, thou wilt have to render an account, and the Shepherd will demand of thee the soul of His lamb." Moved by this solemn appeal, the bishop at once consecrated her as a deaconess of the Church. Then she fled again to take sanctuary at Tours, and not feeling safe even there, fled again into the in- terior of the territory of Aquitaine, and took sanc- tuary at St. Hilary of Poitiers. The king at first stormed, and insisted upon his wife's return. At last he Avas pacified, and resigned himself to her loss. Then he generously gave up to her the estates which he had conferred on her as her Morgen-gift, and allowed her to carry into execution her desire to found a convent at Poitiers, and endow it with her possessions. The house was three years in building. In its general plan and arrangements it was, in fact, a Ro- man villa, such as we have already had occasion to describe, with all the usual appurtenances of porti- coes, baths, and gardens, and with the special ad- dition of a handsome church. As a precaiition ao-ainst the violence of the times, the walls ^vere high and strong, like ramparts, and the entrance was defended by towers. During the time that the material fabric was growing, the royal devotee was gathering and train- ing her nuns. These were chiefly of Gallo-Roman race and of noble families. When at length all was ready, about the year A.d. 550, the citizens of Poitiers were greatly edified with the sight of the 142 CHARLEMAGNE. ex-queen and a long train of noble maidens, pre- ceded by ecclesiastics, and attended by friends, pro- ceeding in solemn procession through the streets, to take possession of the sacred retreat which they had vowed never to quit. The foundation deed is given us by Gregory : * — " To my holy lords and most worthy possessors of the Apostolic See, my fathers in Christ, to all bishops, Radegunda a sinner.f "... I have constituted and founded, by the institution and bounty of the very excellent Lord King Clothaire, a monastery of damsels ('puellarum) at Poitiers ; I have endowed it with all which the royal munificence has given to me. I have imposed upon this congregation, which I have gathered with the help of Christ, the rule under which the holy Csesarea lived — a rule which the blessed Cesarius, Bishop of Aries, suitably (convenienter) gathered from the institutions of the holy fathers. And by the consent of the blessed bishops, both of this city and of others, and by the choice of our congregation, I have instituted as its abbess my lady and sister (doininaTTi et sororem tneavi) Agnes, whom from an early age I have cherished and brought up as a daughter, and I have submitted myself to regiilar obedience to her after God. And in conformity with apostolic usage, both I and my sisters have by charter surrendered into her hands all our * X. 42. t " Dominis Sanctis et apostolioa sede dignissimis, in Cliristo, patribus, etc. Kadegundis peocatvix." THE CONVENT OF ST. RADEGUNDA AT POITIERS. 148 earthly possessions, reserving nothing to ourselves on entering into the monastery, in fear of the fate of Ananias and Sapphira." The foundress goes on to beseech the bishops, by the most solemn adjurations, to protect her house against any one, whether the bishop of the place, or the representative of the royal authority, who shall attempt to alter its regulations, or to take away any property once given it by any of the sisters on entering or other; and to secure to the community freedom of election of their abbess. The study of literature occupied the first rank among the occupations imposed on all the com- munity. Two hours of each day were to be devoted to it ; the rest of the time was occupied in religious exercises, the reading of holy books, and needle- work. During the working, which was done altogether, one of the sisters read aloud. The most intelligent of the nuns, instead of being- employed in spinning, sewing, or embroidery, were busy in another room at the work of transcribing books. Although severe in certain points, such as abstinence from meat and wine, the rules tolerated some of the comforts to which the ladies had been accustomed, and even some of the pleasures of a secular life were permitted to the young recluses : e.g. the frequent use of the bath, amusements of various kinds, among them the then universal game of Tables. We have seen that Radegunda had placed Agnes as abbess over the community ; she herself held af^ 144 CHARLEMAGNE. anomalous position as founder. The ex-queen and her abbess received as visitors not only bishops and clergymen, but also laymen of distinction. A generous hospitality was offered to their guests, at which the ex-queen presided out of courtesy, though abstaining from taking any share in the meal. The ycung recluses had also some variety in the monotony of their lives, and a wholesome breath of society from the outside, when dramatic scenes — ^probably of the nature of the mysteries and miracle plays so common throughout the Middle Ages — were occasionally represented, in which young girls from, without, and probably also the novices of the house, appeared in brilliant costumes. Such was the order established by Radegunda in her convent of Poitiers ; a compound of her personal inclinations and of the traditions preserved for half a century in the celebrated convent of Aries. The great Bishop of Tours was brought into special relations with the ex-queen and her convent at Poitiers, and to him we are indebted for some famous subsequent passages in its history. But for the most curious and interesting pictures of the daily life of the royal devotee, and the interior economy of the convent, we are indebted to another writer, already twice mentioned, who is one of the characteristic personages of the times, and deserve', a special description — the genial, pleasant, cultured, gentleman and man of letters, Venantius Fortunatus. " Bom in the environs of Treviso, and educated THE CONVENT OF ST. RADEGUNDA AT POITIERS. 145 at Ravenna, Fortunatus came to Gaul to visit the tomb of St. Martin, in fulfilment of a pious vow ; but the journey being in all ways delightful to him, he made no haste to terminate it. After having accomplished his pilgrimage to Tours, he continued to travel from town to town, and the society of the cultured Italian gentleman was sought and welcomed by all the rich and noble men who still piqued themselves on their refinement and elegance. He travelled all over Gaul, from Mayence to Bordeaux, and from Toulouse to Cologne, visiting on his road the bishops, counts, and dukes, either of Gallic or Frankish origin, and finding in most of them obliging hosts and often truly kind friends. "Those whom he left, after a stay of a longer or shorter period in their episcopal palaces, their country houses, or strong fortresses, kept up a regular correspondence with him from that period, and he replied to their letters by pieces of elegiac poetry, in which he retraced the remembrances and incidents of his journey. . . . He freely flavoured his poetic epistles with compliments and flattery. The poet and wit praised the kindness, the hospitality, of the Frankish nobles, not omitting the facility with which they conversed in Latin; and the political talents, the ingenuity, and the know- ledge of law and business which characterized the Gallo-Roman nobles. To praise of the piety of the bishops, and their zeal in building and con- secrating new churches, he added approbation of their administrative works for the prosperity. 146 CHARLEMAGNE. ornament, or safety of their cities. He praised one for having restored ancient edifices — a pretorium, a portico, and baths ; a second for having turned the course of the river, and dug canals for irrigation ; a third for having erected a citadel, fortified with towers and machines of war. All this, it must be owned, was marked with signs of extreme literary- degeneracy, being written in a style at once pedantic and careless, full of incorrect and distorted expressions and of puerile puns ; but, setting these aside, it is pleasant to witness the appearance of Venantius Fortunatus, rekindling a last flash of intellectual life in Gaul, and to see this stranger becoming a bond of union between those who, in the midst of a society declining into barbarism, here and there retained the love of literature and mental enjoyments." * The monastery of Poitiers had attracted the attention of the Christian world for fifteen years, when, in A.D. 567, Venantius, in the course of his travels, paid a visit to Poitiers, bringing letters of introduction from King Sigebert to Radegunda. The recluses seem to have been delighted with his society ; he was equally charmed with their flatter- ing attentions. He protracted his visit. A friend- ship sprang up between the genial scholar on one side, and the ex-queen and the young abbess on the other, which may be compared with the religious friendship of Rufinus and Melania, or of Jerome and Paula and Eustochium. Venantius settled at * Aug. Thierry's " Narratives of the Merovingian Era," chap. v. THE CONVENT OF ST. RADEGUNDA AT POITIERS. 147 Poitiers, and became the friend and counsellor of the ladies of the convent. A number of his poems are addressed to the ex-queen and the abbess, whom he calls his mother and sister, and their playful gaiety has given a little occasion for scandal both in ancient and in modern times.* He continued his relations with the convent until the death of Radegunda. It was perhaps after that event that he was ordained as one of the priests of the cathedral church. Towards the end of his life, he was elected Bishop of Poitiers, f On the death of Kadeguuda, Meroveus, Bishop of Poitiers, being absent, Gregory of Tours was sent for to perform the funeral ceremonies. He found the body exposed on a bier, after the fashion of the times. Her countenance, he says, surpassed in beauty the roses and lilies strewn over her. He could not have believed her dead, but for the lamen- tations of the nuns, to the number of two hundred, most of them of the greatest families, and some even of royal extraction. | * M. Guizot and M. A. Thierry in modern times have re- presented that these poems show that Fortunatus was a luxurious hon-vivant, and that the ladies of the convent humoured his tastes by giving him dainty banquets. The poems do not bear out this view. See "Erreurs et Mensonges Historiques," by M. Ch. Barthelemy, p. 186. t The hymn Vexilla Regis, " The royal banners forward go," is attributed to him. X Lives of Radegunda, written by Gregory himself, by Fortu- natus, and by one of her nuns, have come down to us. For modern lives, see " Histoire de S. Eadegonde," by Ed. de Fleury, 148 CHABLEMAGNE. The abbess Agnes did not long survive her patroness. She was succeeded by Leubovere, and it seems to have been the disappointment felt by the "nuns of royal extraction," mentioned by Gregory, that the election did not fall upon one of them, which led to one of the most famous scandals of the age. We will let Gregory of Tours tell the story, for the most part, in his own words. "In St. Radegunda's monastery at Poitiers the devil insinuated himself into the heart of Ghrodieldis, who called herself a daughter of the deceased King Charibert ; * she raised a great scandal, and trusting in the fact that she had kings for her relations made the Religious promise, on oath, that when she should have accused the Abbess Leubovere and have driven her from the monastery, they would choose her in her place. She then left the monastery with forty, or even more, of these girls, and her cousin Basine,t the daughter of Chilperic, saying, ' I go to seek the kings, my relations, to make them acquainted with our wrongs ; for they keep us here in humiliation, not like daughters of kings, but like base servants.' She had forgotten, this miserable sinner, with what humility the blessed Radegunda, the foundress of the monastery, behaved. Having A.D. 1817 ; " Lea Saints de la France," by Ch. Barthelemy ; Aug. Thierry's " Narratives of the Merovingian Era." * And therefore a sister of our Queen Bertha, wife of Ethelbeit of Kent. t Gregory (v. 39), says she was the daughter of Clovis, the son of Chilperic, who was murdered by the command of his stepmother Eiedegouda. THE COXVENT OF ST. RADEGUNDA AT POITIERS. 149 then arrived at Tours, she came to us, and having saluted us, said, 'I supplicate you, holy bishop, deign to protect and nourish these maidens whom the Abbess of Poitiers keeps in great humiliation, while I go to the kings, our relations, to reveal to them what we suffer, and return here again.' I said to her, ' If the abbess is in fault, and has in any way violated the canonical oath, we will go and find our brother, the Bishop Meroveus, and will reprimand her together; but do you amend your conduct by returning to your monastery, lest luxury disperse those whom the holy Radegunda gathered together by fastings, by multiplied prayers, and by abundant alms.' She replied, ' Not at all ; we shall go and seek the kings.' And I rejoined, ' Why do you resist what is right, and for what reason do you refuse to listen to sacerdotal admonitions ? I fear lest the assembled bishops should interdict you the communion.' This is indeed what we find ex- pressed in a letter which our predecessors wrote to the blessed Radegunda at the time of the establish- ment of her convent." Gregory here puts on record the document by which the bishops, seven of them, had given Radegunda authority to establish her monastery. We need not quote the whole of it. It is enough for the present purpose to say that it forbids any \^ho had entered the convent to leave it again, and pronounces against any such fugitive a threat of interdict and anathema. The bishop resxxmes : — 150 CHARLEMAGNE. " After having read this letter, Chrodieldis said, ' Nothing will keep us back ; we shall go without any delay to seek the kings whom we know to be our relations.' Since they had come on foot from Poitiers without a single horse, they were tired and exhausted; no one on their way had given them anything to eat, and they had arrived at our city on the first day of the month. There had been much rain, and the roads were interrupted by a great quantity of water." Gregory advised them at least to wait till better weather for their journey, and accordingly they remained at Tours till summer came. Then Chrodieldis, confiding the rest to the cares of her cousin Basine, set ofi' to find King Guntram. He received her, honoured her with presents, and she returned to Tours, leaving in the monastery of Autun Constantina, the daughter of Burgolin, to await there the bishops to whom the king had given order to come and inquire into her differences with the abbess. Meantime, before she returned from the king, many of her Religious, assailed on difierent sides, had entered into bonds of marriage. Chrodieldis and her cousin awaited the arrival of the bishops, but not seeing them come, she returned to Poitiers, and sought an asylum in the basilica of St. Hilary, where she gathered round her robbers, murderers, adulterers, and criminals of all kinds, ready for other crimes also, whom she unlisted in her interest, saying, "We are queens, and we will not re-enter our monastery till the abbess has been driven out of it." THE CONVENT OF ST. RABEGUNDA AT POITIERS. 151 Under her direction these ruffians issued from the sanctuary, broke into the monastery of Kadegunda, dragged the abbess from before the altar of the holy cross, and kept her in confinement. This was just before Easter, and the bishop declared that he would not celebrate the Easter Eve Baptisms or the . Easter Eucharist, and that he would raise the citizens against them, unless they liberated the abbess. An officer of the king, arriving at this crisis, took the matter in hand; attacked the sanctuary and rescued the abbess by force, and punished the ruffians by cutting off of hands and ears and noses. After long delay, a synod of bishops met at Poitiers, under the presidency of Meroveus, and having made due inquiry, admonished the nuns to return to their monastery, and on their refusal pronounced sentence of excommunication upon them, according to the tenor of their foundation deed. Then the crowd of people in sanctuary made a riot, and, rushing into the church, made an assault upon the clergy. Bishops were flung down on the pavement, the deacons and other clerks rushed out of the basilica all bruised and bleeding. Then the irrepressible Chrodieldis engaged men and invaded the villas of the monastery, and whom- soever she was able to seize from the monastery she reduced to her obedience by stripes and slaughter, threatening, if she could efiect an entrance into the monastery, to throw the abbess from the top of its walls. 152 CHARLEJIAGNE. When King Childebert heard of these disorders, he directed Maccon, Count of Poitiers, to repress them. In the end, the rebellious nuns refusing to submit, and the bishops refusing to withdraw their excommunication, the nuns were dispersed, some to their relations, some to their own houses. Several returned to the monasteries to which they had formerly belonged, because, having no wood, they were unable, from the cold of the winter, to live together longer. Only a small number remained with Chrodieldis and Basine, and there were great dis- cords between these two, each wishing to take pre- cedence of the other (altera alteri se prceponere cupiehat). At length Basine submitted and re- turned to the convent, but Chrodieldis, who con- tinued obstinate, retired to an estate accorded her by Childebert. ( 153 5 CHAPTER X. THE CELTIC MISSIONARIES. Coliimbanus — His birth — Mission to Gaul — Founds a monastery at Annogray — Another at Luxeuil — Controversy with the Gallic Church^ Quarrels with King Theodoric and is banished — Founds a monastery at Bregenz — Another at Bobbio — Gallus — Other Celtic missionaries among the Franks — Emmeran. While the monastic institution helped to preserve religion amidst the gradual corruption of the Church in Neustria, it was the chief source of the spiritual life which was spreading among the Franks of Austrasia, and among the dependent nations on their eastern frontier. Ireland was at this time the seat of a learning and religious zeal which overflowed in a crowd of adventurous missionaries who went forth to spread the Gospel among the barbarous nations of Europe. Columbanus was born of noble parents, in Ireland, in 543, the same year that St. Benedict died at Monte Cassino ; he was trained as a monk in the famous monastery of (the Irish) Bangor, under St. Comgall. In the year A.D. 585, at the age of about thirty, he crossed with twelve companions 154 CHARLEMAGNE. into Gaul, and for several years travelled about preaching; he was ■welcomed by King Guntram into Burgundy, and there sought a site for a monastery. On the confines of Burgundy and Austrasia, amid the defiles and forests of the Vosges, he built a small house on the ruins of the Roman fortress of Annagrates (Annegray). Shortly after, leaving some of his monks at Annegray, he moved to the more extensive ruins of the ancient Lexovium, where, clearing the tangled thickets which had grown over the once celebrated Roman watering place, he erected the rude buildings of a monastery, cleared the neighbouring lands, and sowed and reaped amidst the brethren. His rule of life, sterner than that of Benedict, required absolute obedience, incessant labour, the sparest diet, severe restraint in every gesture, word, and thought: breaches of rule were punished by severe penances and even by beating. He entertained no superstitious belief that these austerities were in themselves meritorious. He himself gives us the rationale of his system. "Whosoever overcomes himself," he was wont to say, "treads the world underfoot; no one who spares himself can truly hate the world. If Christ be in us we cannot live to ourselves; if we have conquered ourselves we have conquered aU things ; if the Creator of all things died for us while yet in our sins, ought not we to die to sin ? Let us die to ourselves; let us live in Christ, that Christ may live in us." For twenty years he thus lived, and taught and THE CELTIC MISSIONARIES. 156 trained men, amidst the wild solitudes of the moun- tains, and the fame of his monastery spread far and wide. His ascetic life was a tacit rebuke to the worldliness of the Frankish clergy, and his adher- ence to the customs of the Celtic Church, especially in the time of keeping Easter, provoked animadver- sion. Gregory I. wrote to him on the subject as early as a.d. 599, but in reply, while expressing all due respect for the exalted position of the Bishop of Rome, he maintained his own independence, and adhered to his own customs. In 602 a synod of several of the Frankish bishops addressed a letter to him on the same subject. In his reply he expresses his thankfulness that he has been the occasion of their meeting, and wishes that they met oftener, as the canons require. On the Easter ques- tion he refers them to his letter to Gregory, and begs them to leave him in peace : " In the name of our common Lord and Master Jesus Christ, I beseech you, let me live in peace and quiet, as I have lived for twelve years in these woods, beside the bones of my seventeen departed brethren. Let Gaul receive into her bosom all who, if they deserve it, will meet in heaven. For we have one kingdom promised us, and one hope of our calling in Christ, with whom we shall reign together, if first we sufier with Him here on earth. Choose ye which rule respecting Easter ye prefer to follow, remembering the words of the Apostle, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. But let us not quarrel one with another, lest our enemies the Jews, the heretics, and pagan 156 CHARLEMAGNE. Gentiles, rejoice in our contention. . . . Pray for us, my fathers, even as we, humble as we are, pray for you. Regard us not as strangers, for we are members together of one body, whether we be Gauls, or Britons, or Iberians, or to whatever nation we belong. . . . Let us learn to love one another, and praise one another, and correct one another, and pray for one another, that with Him we may together reign for evermore." A curious spectacle, this colony of foreigners, Celts amidst Teutons, men of mortified aspect and unnaturally restrained lives, amidst the rough jovial giants of the forest, differing in their religious customs even from the clergy and monks of the Frankish Church. During these twelve years those dynastic changes had taken place which we have already had to describe. King Guntram at his death had left his dominions to his nephew Childebert of Austrasia. Childebert, dead, had been succeeded by his two sons, Theodebert in Austrasia and Theodoric in Burgundy. The aged Brunhilda, the grandmother of the two princes, had been exiled from the court of Metz, and had taken refuge with her younger grandson in Burgundj^ The chroniclers accuse her of conniving at the licentious life which the young king led in order to maintain her own influence over him. We know that all his family, with few exceptions, needed no encouragement to licentious- ness, and would not be restrained. It is more likely that the able queen simply refrained from attempt- ing to control him, and tried to maintain the THE CELTIC MISSIONAHIES. 157 interests of the royal house as she had been doing for many years past. The fame of the abbot of Luxeuil attracted Theodorie, and he often visited the abbey ; — it is common enough for men to admire the ascetic virtue which they do not care to imitate ; and the abbot did not neglect the duty of rebuking the king's vices ; but this does not seem to have led to any quarrel between them. But on one occasion, when Columbanus had gone to the palace, Brunhilda brought to him the king's two (illegitimate) children and asked his blessing upon them. He replied, " These bastards, born in sin, shall never wield the royal sceptre." Seeing that it was the custom of the Merovingian family for illegitimate sons of the king to inherit together with their legitimate brothers, and calling to mind the sinister effect Avhich such a prophecy from a popular saint would have on the minds of the people, the abbot's reply had a very important political significance ;* at least, it was not very charitable, and it was the occasion of a quarrel between the queen-mother and the abbot. She is said to have avenged herself by petty annoy- ances, that she cut off supplies from his monasteries, and stirred up jealousy between them and neigh- ' It may be an early indication of the endeavours which tlie Church was making to restrain the licensed polygamy and con- cubinage of the Merovingian kings, by insisting upon the ille- gitimacy of all but the issue of a lawful marriage ; and the indifference of the aged Queen Brunhilda to a license to which she had all her life been accustomed, may explain the accusation of the Church historians that she encouraged the vices of her grandson. 158 CHARLEMAGNE. bouring convents. The abbot repaired again to court to remonstrate, but seems not to have met a friendly reception ; on his part he refused to eat the meal which the king sent him, which, accord- ing to the customs of the times, was an overt refusal of friendship; and on his return to his convent he wrote, threatening the king with excommunica- tion. The courtiers, the nobles, and bishops (stirred up, the chronicler says, by the queen-mother) inflamed the king's anger against the audacious stranger. Theodoric repaired to Luxeuil and de- manded entrance ; the abbot replied with menaces. " Thou thinkest," said the young king, " I shall confer on thee a martyr's crown. I am not so foolish as to gratify thy pride, but thou shalt go hence by the way by which thou earnest." Columbanus refused to leave his cell. He was taken out of it by force and carried away to Besan9on. But he eluded his guards, and made his way back to Luxeuil. Again he was taken, and with two or three of his monks hurried off to Auxerre, thence to Nevers, to Orleans, to Tours, so to Nantes, where he was put on board a ship bound for Ireland. But a storm drove the ship into some harbour on the Neustrian coast, and Columbanus landed. Clothaire II. besought him to remain with him ; but after spending a few days at his court, and giving the king some advice on political maitters, he repaired to the court of Theodobert of Austrasia, who also received him with all honour, and invited him to stay in hia dominions. THE CELTIC MISSIONARIES. 159 Many of the brethren from Luxeuil rejoined their abbot here. He made arrangements for the well-being of the monastery at Luxeuil, but for himself he resolved to set out with the monks who had come to him in search of a new home. Em- barking on the Rhine, and turning up the tributary Limmat, they reached Tugium (Zug), on the shores of the Lake of Zurich, and began to preach to the pagan Suevians. But they seem to have exhibited less prudence than zeal. Gallus, one of his monks, set fire to their temples, and flung their idols into the lake. Columbanus, at a great sacrifice to Woden, spilt (by miracle, his chroniclers say) the great vessel of beer which formed one of the offer- ings (and which, perhaps, should have ministered to a post-sacrificial feast). The Suevi rose against them, and they were obliged to fly, shaking off the dust from their feet, and devoting them and their children to misery and perdition. Next they travelled to the Lake of Constance, where a local priest pointed out Bregenz on the south-east side of the lake, where were ruins of a Roman town and a church still standing. Here again (at Fontaines) they built themselves houses, took possession of the ancient church, destroy- ing three idols which were in it, cleared and sowed land, laid out gardens, and planted fruit trees. One of the legends of this time has a wild poetry in it. One night, when GaUus was engaged on the quiet waters of the lake catching fish for the next day's meal of the community, he overheard the spirit of 160 CHARLEMAGNE. the mountain call to the spirit of the waters : " Arm and come to my assistance. Strangers have come and driven me from my temple. Haste and help me to expel them from the land." To whom the spirit of the waters replied, " Lo ! one of them is even now busied on my surface, but I cannot injure him, for he is defended by the invocation of an all- prevailing Name." Gallus shuddered at this un- earthly dialogue, and crossing himself, addressed the spirits : " I adjure you, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye depart from this place, and never dare to injure any one more." Then he hastened home and told the abbot, who rejoiced at this manifest proof that even the devils were subject unto them. But he was compelled yet again to remove and seek a new home. The local chieftain was hostile. Moreover, Theodebert had been defeated, and Theo- doric was marching through the country to com- plete his overthrow. Columbanus crossed the Alps with his disciples, and repaired to the com-t of Agilulf and Theodolinda, who received him gladly. Here he settled, and founded the monastery of Bobbio, in one of the Vaudois valleys, which long continued to be a centre of religion and learning to the north of Italy. Clothaire II., on becoming sole king of the Franks, sent to invite his return to Luxeuil ; but he spent the few remaining years of his adventurous life in literary labours at Bobbio, and died there in 615, at the age of seventy-two. THE CELTIC MISSIONARIES. 161 When Columbanus crossed the Alps, Gallus had been left behind sick, with two other of the brethren. He founded, on the bank of a stream running into the Lake of Constance, the famous monastery which still exists and bears his name. He declined the offer of the sec of Constance, which his virtues induced the duke, the bishops and clergy, and the people to offer him. For twelve years he continued his life of usefulness, reviving the faith in the see of Constance ; reclaiming from barbarism the district bordering on the Black Forest; and teaching the people the arts of agriculture as well as the duties of religion. After his death, in A.D. 627, his cell became the resort of thousands of pilgrims, and was replaced by a more magnificent edifice under the auspices of Pepin I'Heristal; and, during the ninth and tenth centuries, it was one of the most cele- brated schools of learning in Europe. Columbanus was foUo^^ ed by a number of other missionaries, who left the monasteries of Ireland to preach the Gospel in the Germanic forests. Their number, and the permanent success of their labours, is marked by the veneration paid in many of the German towns and villages to this day to local saints of Irish name. Our space will only allow us to mention a few, in order to indicate the gradual spread of religion and civilization in Austrasia and its eastern dependents. Fridolin, like Gallus, preached in the neighbour- hood of Switzerland, Suabia, and Alsace, and M 162 CHARLEMAGNE. founded a monastery at Leckingen, on the Rhine. Magnoald also, or Magnus, the pupil of Gallus, founded a monastery at Fiissen in Suabia ; and Trudport, an Irish anchorite, penetrated as far as Breisgau in the Black Forest, where he was mur- dered. Somewhat later (A.D. 64-3), Kilian, a bishop of lona, sailed from Ireland with two companions, and selected Wiirzburg in Franconia as the scene of his labours, and was assassinated there. The example of Columbanus and his successors was not wholly without effect upon the GaUo- Frankish Church. A synod, held in A.D. 613, ac- knowledged the claims of the heathen on their sympathy; appointed Eustatius, the successor of Columbanus in the monastery of Luxeuil, director of their mission, and sent him with a monk named Agil to Bavaria. About the middle of the century (630), their labours in this field were followed up by Emmeran, a native of Poitiers, and a bishop in Aquitania. Moved by the reports of the heathen- ism in Pannonia, he resigned his see and set out thither. Arrived at Ratisbon, he was forcibly de- tained by Duke Theodo, and consented to labour among his people, as yet only half reclaimed from heathenism. Before the close of the century (696), Rupert, Bishop of Worms, at the invitation of an- other Theodo, sought to reclaim the people, many of whom, after the death of Emmeran, had relapsed into idolatry. With his companions, he went about from place to place preaching, and at length obtained from the duke the site of the ancient THE CELTIC MISSIONAHIES. 163 Juvavium — still strewn with the remains of Roman temples and baths — and there built a church, the precursor of the cathedral of Salzburg ; and on a neighbouring eminence erected a convent, of which his niece Ermentrudis was the first abbess. The Church of Salzburg soon became the parent of many others in Bavaria and Corinthia, and a missionary centre from which the light of Christian civilization was diffused over the neighbouring regions.* * In this account of the Celtic missionaries, we have borrowed freely from Dr. Maclear'a " History of Church Missions dujing the Middle Ages." THE CAKOLINGIAN LIN'E. Pepiu (the Elder). Amulph, Bishop of Sletz. I I Grimoald (mayor). Beggu = Anegisus. Plectnidis = Pepin of Heristal = Alpaida. 1 1 1 Drogo. Grimoald. Charles Martel. 1 Carloman. Pepin (the Short). Gry| Charles (the Great). Carloman. ( 165 ) CHAPTER XI. THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. Original functions of the major-domus — Gradual growth of hia powers— Pepin of Landen — Mayoralty of Grimoald — Supre- macy of the Neuatrians under Queen Balhilidis and tlio mayor Erchinoald — Ebroin elected to the mayoralty — Keplaced by St. Ledger — Pepin of Heristal— Struggle between the mayors of Neustria and Austrasia — Victory of Pepin— His sole mayoralty — Nominates his grandson mayor under guar- dianship of his wife Plectrudis — Charles is elected Duke of Austrasia — Struggle with Eainfroy — Obtains the sole mayoralty — His wars — The Saracen invasion of France — De- feated by Charles Martel at Poitiers — Seizure of Church estates — His mayoralty — Carloman and Pepin the Short succeed to the mayoralty — Carloman resigns and becomes a monk — Pepin's sole mayoralty — Is elected king. The major-domus of the Frankish kings was ori- ginally no more than his name implies — a kind of steward of the royal household, the manager of all the royal estates and servants. The office gradually grew in importance. We learn from* Gregory of Tours, that in his time the major-domus was also Tirtually president of the council, and commander of the armed retainers 166 CHARLEMAGNE. whom the king maintained in his service. Tho king usually conferred the office upon some dis- tinguished warrior and capable man of affairs in whom he had confidence. It is easy to see that during a minority, and even during the reign of a king who was more inclined to indulge in the pleasures than to fulfil the arduous duties of his rank, the major-domus must have wielded a very considerable authority and influence. It was when Sigebert I. was assassinated, and Brunhilda was in captivity, and the Austrasians elected their son Childebert II. — a boy of six years old — king, that the office of mayor seems to have begun to assume something of its subsequent political prominence, as representative of the execu- tive government. When the revolution in which Brunhilda perished stipulated that the major-domus should be elected by the people, it made his office a constitutional check upon the royal prerogative. When Clothaire III. placed Dagobert on the throne of Austrasia, and committed the actual government to Pepin, the major-domus, and Arnulf, Bishop of Metz, then it was that the possession of this great office by the most powerful of the Austrasian nobles laid the foundation for that gradual aggrandizement of the power of the mayor in the family of Pepin, which ended only in the usurpation of the throne by this powerful, able, and ambitious race. Pepin of Landen is the first of this great family of whom history makes any mention. He appears to have been the hereditary chief of domains which THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 167 correspond v/ith two modern kingdoms, Holland and Belgium. The fact that these domains were the first acquisitions of the Salian tribe on the left of the Rhine, would suggest that the ancestors of Pepin must have been among the most illustrious of those who conquered the first Frank settlements in Gaul. His position on the Frank frontier over against the Frisians must have made it necessary for the duke of the march to maintain a large force, and to be skilful in war. The facts that his wife Itta is counted among the Frankish saints, and that he himself founded the first monastery, that of Meldert, and encouraged a great religious move- ment in his domains, indicate that it was not merely his military force or skill which made him the leader of the Austrasian nobles. When Dagobert succeeded his father, and became sole king of the Franks, he was able to throw off the tutelage of Pepin, and to assert the royal power. And when events led to his nomination of his son Sigebert to the throne of Austrasia, he com- mitted him to the guardianship of Cunibert, Arch- bishop of Cologne, and AdalgisU, mayor of the palace, and found pretexts for detaining Pepin and some other of the most powerful of the Austrasian nobles at the court of Paris. On the death of Dagobert, Pepin returned to the court of Metz, and in conjunction with Cunibert took the direction of affairs. Pepin, on his death in the y«ar 639, left one son, Grimoald, and a great contest for the mayoralty 168 CHAELEMAGNE. ensued; the daim of Grimoald, the leader of the aristocracy, being contested by a certain Otto, who seems to have been the candidate of the popular party, the simple Frank freemen, as opposed to the faction of the nobles. Otto was assassinated by the Duke of the Alemanni in 642 ; and from that time for fourteen years Grimoald governed under the name of Sigebert III. His administration of Austrasia seems to have been able and beneficial. He was scrupulously deferential to the saintly king, and he strenuously defended the royal pre- rogative : historians account for this policy by the secret ambitions which the sequel disclosed. The monastic enthusiasm was at its height in the north and east of the Frankish territory, and the mayor and his family seconded the wishes of the king in its encouragement. Grimoald aided in the founda- tion of the two abbeys of Stavelot and Malmedy by St. Remaclus. The mother of Grimoald, St. Itta, and his sister, St. Gertrude, founded the monastery of NiveUes. His other sister, St. Begga, the wife of Angesil, the son of St. Amulf, founded the abbey of Ardennes. It is said that Grimoald's deference to the king was prompted by his desire to induce Sigebert to adopt his son as heir to the throne. Failing this, on the king's death in a.d. 656, he cut the hair of his son Dagobert and sent him to a monastery in Ireland, and placed his own son on the throne. The usurpation was premature. The Austrasian nobles were not willing to yield an hereditary THE MAYOBS OF THE PALACE. 169 royalty to one of their own body ; the people were not prepared to recognize any king but one of the sacred Merovingian blood. The father and son were sent to the King of Neustria, by whom they were first imprisoned and afterwards slain. The only descendant of Pepin was an infant son of Begga and Angesil, viz. Pepin of Heristal. The late attempt of Grimoald had no doubt obscured the prestige of her family, and had thrown the politics of Austrasia into confusion. The result was the subjection of Austrasia to Neustria. The able Queen Bathildis and Erchinoald, the mayor of the palace of Neustria, conducting the government of the young king, Clovis II., extended their authority over the whole of the Frank dominions. On the death of Erchinoald (658), Ebroin, another Neustrian mayor, was elected at a national assembly through the influence of Bathildis, and ably espoused the policy which aimed at maintaining the royal prerogative, and extending it over the whole of the empire. But on the death of Clovis II., while his eldest son Clothaire III. succeeded him on the throne of Paris, the Austrasians obtained the nomination of his second son Childeric II. to the throne of Metz, and exercised their right to elect a mayor of their own — a "new man," named Wul- foald. We come now to a violent counter-revolution. On the death of Clothaire III., Ebroin, instead of summoning an assembly of the people to elect a successor, placed his infant brother Theodoric on 170 CHARLEMAGXE. the throne, proposing to continue to govern in his name. But the people of Neustria and Burgundy opposed this- cottp d'4tat, and oflPered the crown to the Austrasian king, Childeric II. Ebroin and Theodoric were sent into confinement in the monastery of Luxeuil. Childeric moved his court to Paris. The most able of the opponents of Ebroin, Leodegaire,* Bishop of Autun, became the virtual minister, though Wulfoald retained the title of mayor. But Childeric soon developed the instincts of his race ; he grew tired of the tutelage of Leode- gaire, and sent him to join his rival Ebroin in con- finement at Luxeuil ; and began to resume all the habits of a despotic king. This resulted in the king's assassination. The mayor, Wulfoald, fled to Austrasia. Theodoric, Ebroin, and Leodegaire came out from their seclu- sion, and recommenced their intrigues. Ebroin proved the more able man. He placed Theodoric on the throne, imprisoned Leodegaire, and ruled with a strong hand. Wulfoald recalled Dagobert from Ireland, and placed him on the throne of Austrasia. But he also exercised his power too despotically. The nobles rose against him, deposed him, formally tried and condemned him, and put him to death. Pepin of Heristal and his cousin Martin appear after this revolution in the front of aifairs, and it would seem as if the young dukes of Austrasia had been the leaders in the recent revolution. St. Ledger. THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE 171 In Austrasia this revolutioa definitively settled the power of the aristocratic party, of which hence- forward the family of Pepin is the leader. But in Neustria the return of Ebroin to power was the triumph of the opposite principle, for Ebroin vigor- ously maintained the power of the crown, sought to extend the influence of Neustria over Austrasia, and therewith to extend his own authority as minister of the crown over the whole of the Frank dominions. The next phase of the history is the struggle between the two races and the two principles for the supremacy, each under the conduct of its mayor of the palace. We need not enter into details. Austrasia began the war, and in its early years sustained several defeats; but in the battle of Testry, A.D. 687, the Neustrians sustained a great defeat: their mayor, Bertaire, fell a victim to the rage of his own troops, the king fled to Paris, and there surrendered to his conqueror. Pepin treated the king with respect, and concluded a peace with him on the condition that he should be accepted by the king as mayor of the palace in Neustria as well as in Austrasia. Thus Austrasia finally prevailed over Neustria — the Frank over the Latin element in the mixed empire. The limitation of the power of the Merovingian crown was finally won, and Pepin of Heristal grasped the virtual government of the whole of the Frank dominions. The sole kings of the Franks since Dagobert had fixed their court in Neustria. Pepin, on the 172 CHARLEMAGNE. contrary, continued to reside on his hereditary domains, and thus transferred the centre of the government to Austrasia, where it continued for the whole duration of the Frank Empii'e. Wisely re- specting the jealousy of the nobles and the attach- ment of the people to the Merovingian family, he contented himself with the substance of power, which he wielded with wisdom and vigour for twenty years. Yet he styled himself "Dux et Princeps Francorum," and dated the public acts by the years of his own rule as well as those of the king's reign — " Regnante Rege, gubemante N. Majoredomus." The special feature of his rule which it concerns us to note is that he, no longer content with keep- ing the barbarians on the eastern frontier of the Frank dominions in check by frequent warlike operations, began to wage a war of conquest against them, and to plant civilization and Christianity among them. Thus, under a treaty which Pepin imposed upon Radbod, the Duke of the Frisians, the English Willebrord, with twelve companions, laboured among them with considerable success, and founded the see of Utrecht, the first which had been founded in the countries beyond the limits of the ancient empire. Pepin of Heristal thought that his long and suc- cessful administration of twenty years had con- solidated the power of his family, and that he might treat his office as hereditary. He made his two sons mayors of Neustria and Burgundy, and on THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 173 their death he nominated his infant grandson as his successor in the mayoralty of the whole king- dom, under the guardianship of his wife Plectrudis. But the times were not yet ripe for such a step. The Franks might accept an infant for king, pro- vided he were of the sacred race, because the king's duties were only those of representation; but the mayor of the palace must stiU be the real chief of the people, the guide of their counsels, and their leader in war. Pepin had left another son — these mayors of the palace assumed as much licence in their domestic relations as the kings — by a second wife, Alpaida. St. Lambert, Bishop of Maestrict, had denounced this second marriage as adulterous, and Count Odo, the brother of Alpaida, had slain the bishop in the sanctuary of his cathedral in revenge. The son of this second coimection was Karl, or Charles, who had inherited the great qualities of his father. Plectrude feared the ambition and ability of her rival's son, and had him imprisoned at Cologne. But the Austrasians rose and released him, and hailed him as Duke of Austrasia in his father's stead. The Neustrians, also, refusing to recognize this hereditary transmission of the mayoralty, elected Rainfroy as their major-domus, and the strife which had existed between Ebroin and Pepin was re- newed between Rainfroy and Charles. At this crisis Clothaire IV. died, and Karl arranged the rival claims by consenting to acknowledge Chil- 174 CHARLEMAGNE. peric II. as King of Austrasia, on condition of his own recognition as major-domus of Neustria. Thus he again united in one hand both the royalty and the mayoralty of the two great divisions of the empire (a.d. 717). But the enemies of the Franks took advantage of the weakness caused by their divisions to attack them. The Saxons, aided by the Frisians, invaded the empire on the side of Belgium, and five times penetrated to the Rhine, and five times were de- feated and driven back within their own limits. The Aquitanians had gradually grown into great prosperity under their hereditary dukes of the Mero- vingian race, who regarded with natural jealousy the rise of the power of the family of Pepin on the luin of the royal power, and needed the experience of more than one unsuccessful campaign before they recognized the authoritj"^ of the major-domus. The Swabians and Bavarians also sought to re- sume their ancient independence. But the active and able mayor marched his Austrasian warriors on the frontiers of the Rhine and the Elbe, on the Loire and the Rhone, and everywhere maintained the authority of his administration and the integrity of the kingdom. And now a new and more formidable enemy had to be confronted. In a.d. 710, the Saracens of Africa, invited by the treachery of Count Julian, had invaded Spain. One great battle, in which the Goths were defeated and their king Roderick slain, broke for ever the power of the Visigothic king- THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 175 dom ; and within two years, with the exception of those who had taken refuge in the mountains of the Asturias and of Castile, they had made them- selves masters of the whole of Spain. Then they had crossed the Pyrenees, and established them- selves in Septimania. During fifteen years they made incursions over the south of Gaul as far as the Rhone, and even penetrated into Burgundy. They invaded Aquitaine, but Eudon, the duke, defeated them and drove them out of his province. But now a revolution in Spain placed another dynasty on the Moorish throne, and was followed by a supreme effort to carry forward the Moham- medan conquests into Europe. When the de- scendants of the house of Abbas, by a successful revolution, replaced the Ommayades on the throne of Damascus, a youth named Abdalrhaman alone escaped from the destruction of the royal family. He fled to Spain, and was received there by the adherents of his family as their sovereign, and established a separate caliphate at Cordova. Ab- dalrhaman sought to continue the long career of Mohammedan conquest. He burst into Aquitaine. A count of Poitiers, who alone made any resistance to the invasion, was taken and decapitated. The invaders marched on into the very centre of France, taking some of its wealthiest towns. They ap- proached Tours, the hallowed sanctuary of the patron saint, enriched by the offerings of ages. It was not a mere predatory invasion, like those with which the Moors had harassed the country for 176 CHARLEMAGNE. years past ; they came with their families and pos- sessions, intending to settle on the lands which they hoped to conquer. Duke Eudon, unable to make head against the invasion, sought help from the powerful mayor. Charles gathered troops, and hastened to the defence of the empire. It was as the Moorish armies marched towards the assault of Tours that the army of the Franks met them. The Arab authors describe the meeting of the armies as having taken place close to Tours ; the GaUic chroniclers indicate an extensive plain outside Poitiers as the famous battle-field. Per- haps the series of engagements, which lasted for several days, began at Tours, and the decisive battle took place at Poitiers. Abdalrhaman was slain, and his forces were routed with great slaughter. The survivors retired within their own limits, and the progress of the Mohammedan conquests was definitively arrested. It was one of the decisive battles of history; it obtained for the great major-domus the name of Martel — the Hammer — and the lasting gratitude of the Christian world. The special feature of the mayoralty of Charles Martel is that the character of his civil wars against Neustria, Aquitaine, and Burgundy was almost that of a reconquest of those countries, accom- panied by all the violences of barbarian invasion, and followed by a political revolution. Austrasian Franks were settled in the conquered countries, to garrison them on behalf of the conqueror. The THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 177 estates of the Church were specially seized upon to furnish fiefs for the soldiers of the mayor, and it has afforded cause of undying reproach against the name of the Hammer of the Saracens that he thus set the example of plundering the Church. Charles was not, so far as we know him, of a character to plunder the Church wantonly. He pursued the policy of his family in encouraging the spread of Christianity and the founding of churches and monasteries in the eastern portion of his do- minions and conquests. But we have already seen the way in which the bishoprics and monasteries of Gaul had aggregated the estates of great and wealthy families, so that the Church held a very large proportion of the cultivated lands of the country. We can readily suppose that this was a cause of military and financial weakness to the state, and that the warlike mayor thought it true policy to convert some of this great wealth to the purposes of rewarding the soldiers who had saved it from the Saracen, and to redistribute some of those vast landed possessions in the interest of the state. What was of greater importance was, that amidst these wars and revolutions religion and learning had greatly suSered. The Church of Gaul had fallen into disorder, and the religion of the country had been reduced to its lowest point of degrada- tion ; and these evils had been aggravated by the abuse of influence by the mayor in thrusting unfit persons upon the benefices of the Church. Boni- N 178 CHARLEMAGNE. face, on the point of paying a visit to the court of the mayor, describes it to his friend, Daniel of Winchester (a.d. 723), in these terms : " I shall find at his court false and hypocritical pastors, enemies of the Ghurgh of God; murderers and adulterers clothed in episcopal titles, who destroy their own souls and those of the people. . . . What have I not to fear from the influence of such men upon the people to whom I go to preach the faith of Jesus Christ in its purity!" We shall have in a subsequent chapter to deal connectedly with the relations of the mayors of the palace with the Roman See; but it is convenient to mention here the fact that when the Lombards, who had conquered the exarchate of Ravenna, were de- manding the submission of the city of Rome, its bishop, Gregory III., sent an embassy to the powerful major-domus, asking his intervention, and, it would seem, offering to withdraw the nominal allegiance which the Romans still paid to the Eastern emperor, and to transfer their allegiance to one who had the power to protect them. It is difiicult to see in what other light we can understand the fact that the Roman ambassadors tendered to the Frank mayor the keys of Rome, the keys of St. Peter, and the title of patrician. A request to that effect from Charles, whose alliance was sought also by the Lombards against the emperor, was enough to in- duce them for the moment to suspend their action against Rome. The most striking evidence of the undisputed THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE. 179 authority of the latter years of the rule of Charles, is that when Theodovic IV., the successor of Chil- deric II., died in 737 A.D., the major-domus did not appoint any successor, nor did the people take any step towards the election of another king ; but the mayor continued to rule for the remaining five years of his life, and then was able to transmit his office as if it had been an hereditary office. He divided it, according to. the German custom of in- heritance, between his sons. To Carloman, the eldest, he left the mayoralty of Austrasia ; to Pepin that of Neustria. To a third illegitimate son, Grypho, he gave some provinces, with which the young prince was dissatisfied, raised war against his half-brothers, and went through a series of romantic adventures, which terminated in an early death. The subject nations again, on the death of the great Karl, made a great effort to reassert their indepiendence, but the two brothers acted in concert, struck rapid and powerful blows, and speedily made good their su- premacy. They found it, however, prudent to fill the vacant throne with an infant Merovingian, Childeric III. In a short time Carloman laid down his office, to adopt a religious life. His motives, says Eginhard, are unknown, unless perhaps out of love of the con- templative life. He went with a great train and with costly presents to Rome, and there, by the advice of Pope Zachary, he became a monk and built a monastery on Mount Soracte ; and subse- quently he retired to that of Monte Cassino. The 180 CHARLEMAGNE. powers of the empire were again united in the hand of Pepin the Short. Pepin was not deficient in warlike energy; he administered the affairs of government with a firm hand ; but the distinctive character of his policy is his alliance with the Church. He took Boniface for his adviser in ecclesiastical matters, and aided him in reforming the abuses of the Frankish Church, and bringing it into closer relations with the Roman See. Throughout this period we feel the lack of a competent contemporary historian. We are not told what led up to the accomplishment of the change of dynasty which had so long been impend- ing, and which had proved so difficult of accom- pli-hment. We dimly see that it was resolved to counteract the superstitious reverence of the Franks for their Merovingian kings by an appeal to their religious veneration for the see of Rome. It was no doubt with the consent of the principal men in Church and State, and no doubt after having pre- viously sounded the pope, that Burchard, Archbishop of Wurzburg, and Fulrad, the chaplain of Pepin, were sent on an embassy to Rome to ask the pope's solution of the question whether it was right that the royal name and dignity should be borne by one who had ceased to have any real power or authority, or whether he who possessed the authority and endured the labour of the government ought not to bear the name and dignity of king. The pope's answer was, as had no doubt been THE MAYOES OF THE PALACE. 181 previously ascertained, that he who really governed the kingdom should bear the title and dignity of king. The pope's reply was made known to the great annual assembly of the Franks at the ensuing Champ de Mai. Pepin was raised upon a shield, after the ancient German manner, and borne thrice through the throng as the recognized king of the Franks. The religious feeling of the people was also appealed to on behalf of the new dynasty by a solemn anointing of the new king in the basilica of Soissons. The dethroned dynasty was so little for- midable that it was considered enough to cut the hair of ChUderic and send him to the cloister. He was not the only royal monk ; Carloman was already cheerfully digging in the garden at Monte Cassino, and a Lombard king, Rachis, was cultivating the vines of the same monastery. True, they had voluntarily embraced the religious life, and he had been compelled to submit to it, and that makes a great difference. The danger of the precedent was seen very clearly, and pope and king did their best to make all men understand that this precedent was not to be taken to consecrate the title of every successful usurper, but that this was the solemn inauguration of a new dynasty in place of one which had become incapable of fulfilling its duties. And we must do both pope and major-domus and Frank people the justice to say that they had not been hasty in de- throning the Merovingian dynasty, and that, in the language of the high politics of the present day, they 182 CHAELEMAGNE. only recognized the logic of events when they at length acknowledged the Carolingian dynasty as royal. The march of events in Italy soon afforded the see of Rome an opportunity of claiming from the gratitude of King Pepin a service in return for the crown and title it had given him. But we shall find it convenient to take a separate survey of the affairs of Italy, which were bringing about relations between the see of Rome and the dynasty of King Pepin which were destined so largely to affect the future history of both. ( 183 ) CHAPTER XIT. BONIFACE. Boniface, his birth, etc. — Hia missionary journey to Frisia — Return to England — First visit to Rome — Missionary work in Ger- many — Second visit to Rome, and consecration as regionary bishop — His labours among the Germans — Third visit to Rome — Receives the pall — Organizes the Churches of liavaria — Founds sees and monasteries in Swabia and Thuringia — His influence in the reformation of the Gallic Church— Council of Lestines — Council of Soissons— Foundation of Fulda — Martyr- dom of Boniface — His character. We have next to speak of one who exercised a greater influence upon the Church history of this Frankish kingdom than any other, not merely by the larger extent of his own missionary labours and successes, but also by the completion and organization of the work of his missionary prede- cessors in Eastern Germany, by the revival and to some extent reformation of the Church in Neustria, and by the commimication of new energy, power, and unity to the whole Church of the Frankish dominions. Boniface, whose original name was Winfrid, was 184 CHARLEMAGNE. of a noble Devonshire family, (A.D. 680), educated at the monastery of Nutcelle, in Hampshire, and at the age of thirty-five years had obtained a high reputation for learning and ability, when (in A.D. 716), seized with the prevalent missionary enthu- siasm, he abandoned his prospects at home, and set out with two companions to labour among the Frisians. He found the Frisians, under Duke Radbod, at war with Charles Martel, devastating the churches and monasteries which the Franks had already founded among them. Winfrid was refused permission by the duke to preach in his dominions, and he returned home to England. In the follow- ing spring he went to Rome, where he remained for some months, and then, with a general authoriza- tion from the pope to preach the Gospel in Central Europe, he crossed the Alps, passed through Bavaria into Thuringia, where he began his work. While here the death of Radbod, a.d. 719, and the conquest of Frisia by Charles Martel opened up new prospects for the evangelization of that country, and Boniface went thither and laboured for three years among the missionaries, under Willibrord of Utrecht. Then, following in the track of the victorious forces of Charles Martel, he plunged into the wilds of Hessia, converted two of its chiefs, whose example was followed by multitudes of the Hessians and Saxons, and a monastery arose at Amoneburg as the head-quarters of the mission. The Bishop of Rome, being informed of this success, summoned Boniface to Rome, A.D. 723, and con- BONIFACE. 185 secrated him a regionary bishop, with a general jurisdiction over all whom he should win from paganism into the Christian fold, requiring from him at the same time the oath which was usually required of bishops within the patriarchate of Rome, of obedience to the see. With this dignitj'', and bearing letters of commendation to the Frankish major-domus, and to the Bishops of Bavaria and Swabia, and the chiefs of the countries in which he proposed to labour, he recrossed the Alps, visited the court of Charles, and under his jirotection re- tui'ned to Hessia. There he produced at once a great impression on the minds of the superstitious people by felling the great sacred oak of Thor at Geismar, and building a church out of its timbers. He laboured successfully among the Hessians for ten years ; heathen temples disappeared, and churches arose in their place, monastic cells were founded, land was cleared and cultivated, and the pious simple lives of the missionaries won the hearts of the rude tribesmen. An appeal to his native England for more labourers brought him out both men and women, books, and other supplies. He planted monastic colonies at Ordrop, Fritzlar, and Hamanaburg. On the death of Gregory II., in the same year in which Charles Martel gained his gi-eat victory over the Saracens, Boniface again visited Rome, and this time with a numerous retinue of Franks, Burgundians, and Anglo-Saxons. The new pope received the most successful mis- sionary bishop of the time with deserved honour, 18() CHARLEMAGNE. invested him with the pall, gave him the authority of a legate of the Roman See, and authorized him to visit and regulate the Bavarian Church. On his return through Bavaria, in concert with its Duke Odilo, he executed this commission, and added to the solitary see of Passau those of Salzburg, Frei- singen, and Ratisbon, with a view to regulate the ecclesiastical lawlessness which prevailed. He was now joined by a kinswoman, Walpurga, who had been a nun in the convent of Wimburn, and who had brought out with her thirty sisters ; and by their help he founded convents of women at Heidenheim, in Swabia, where Walpurga and her brother built a church and a double monastery of monks and nuns, others at Bischofsheim on the Tuber, at Kilzingen in Franconia, in Thuringia, and in Bavaria. He also founded four new sees in Hessia and Thuringia. In 741, the great Charles Martel died. Boniface had the entire confidence of his sons and successors, Carloman and Pepin. They, as we have seen, had first to suppress the revolt of the dependent nations ; that done, they set themselves to that which is the characteristic work of their reign, the reformation of the Frank Church. Hitherto we have seen Boniface only as a mis- sionary of a grand and statesmanlike calibre, evangelizing heathen nations, and organizing among them the institutions of the Church. The genius which he had shown in this work, and the ex- perience he had gained in it, were now to be BONIFACE. 187 employed in the restoration of order and religion in the Churches of Neustria and Austrasia. It was not only his personal qualities which fitted him to be the adviser of the ecclesiastical policy of the mayors of the palace ; his official character as Legate of the Roman See gave him a prestige, which, backed by the power of the mayors, enabled him to play the part of visitor of the Churches and corrector of their abuses. It was indeed an unpre- cedented exercise of the authority of the Bishop of Rome. But the disorder in the Frankisli Church, the abeyance of metropolitan authority, the disuse of synods, the disorderly lives of the bishops and clergy, the general decay of religion, the want of some harmonizing and controlling authority over the Churches of the various states which were in- cluded within the Frankish dominions, and over the monasteries and clergy of the Celtic school, — all these things probably led men to recognize the utility of a central authority with a vast prestige, which could step in and reduce to order and har- mony the whole ecclesiastical system within the Frankish dominions. The patriarchal authority which the Roman See had for some centuries been claiming, had become familiar to the thoughts of men, and seemed to offer such a central authority. The vast services, the personal character of Boniface, served to recommend the legatine power with which he was invested. The mayors of the palace welcomed so statesmanlike a plan for the refor- mation and consolidation of the Church within their 188 CHARLEMAGNE. dominions; the bishops were perhaps conscious that their previous disorders deprived them of the power of resistance to the proposed method of reforming them. At a preliminary council, held A.D. 742, Boniface laid before the mayors and their principal council- lors the reforms which he advised ; and when the way had thus been prepared, an assembly was con- voked at Lestines in the following year (743), for a general consideration and resettlement of the affairs of the Church throughout the Frank dominions. On one hand the Church had to complain of the State. Charles Martel had laid hands freely on the pro- perty of the Churches to support the expenses of his wars ; he had granted its estates as rewards to his followers. The Church had to complain of the pre- sentation of unfit men to bishoprics and abbeys, and of a wide-spread practice of simony. On the other hand, earnest-minded men had to complain of the Church ; of bishops who lived secular lives, and who did not look after their clergy ; of clergymen who neglected their flocks, and made no effort to exterminate the heathenism which still lingered among them. This famous council of Lestines, like many of the assemblies of this period, consisted of the nobles and councillors of the sovereign, as well as of the bishops and abbots of the Church, and was half royal council, half ecclesiastical synod. The importance of the assembly wiU be seen at once in the fact that it was the first synod which had BONIFACE. 189 assembled, at least in Austrasian France, for eighty years. We can only briefly name some of the most important regulations of this council. First, the decrees of the council went forth in the name and on the authority of the mayors. The French Church formally recognized the patriarchal authority of the Roman See ; the jurisdiction of Boniface as papal legate over the other bishops was duly confirmed ; the metropolitan system was revived; it was enacted that, as a token of their willing subjection to the sec of Rome, all metropolitans should re- quest the pallium at the hands of the pope, and obey his lawful commands ; that synods should be held yearly. It arranged the question of Church property by a compromise which recognized all the property which had got into the hands of laymen as Church property, to revert to the Church on the death of the present holders, who were to pay a quit rent; but left it vaguely in the power of the prince to use the property of the Churches in a similar way in state emergencies, provided the Churches were in no case reduced to poverty. Disciplinary regulations were made requiring clerical celibacy ; forbidding the clergy to carry arms, to serve in war, to hunt or hawk — this was clearly aimed at the bishops ; others requiring the clergy to be obedient to their bishops, to receive him at his visitation, and give a faithful account of the state of their parishes ; others requiring bishops and clergy to be diligent to suppress the remains of heathenism. 190 CHARLEMAGNE. We can hardly help regarding all the steps by which the papal power was gradually extended with the prejudice derived from our knowledge of the monstrous height to which it ultimately grew. But if we estimate fairly what was done at this important council, we shall see that there is much to be said in its favour. The barbarians regarded Rome with an almost superstitious reverence, and regarded the Bishop of Eome as the greatest bishop of the West. All that was done at this council amounted to the recognition by the Church of the Frank dominions of the patriarchal authority of Rome, and to the admission that the patriarchal authority included a right of visitation and regula- tion of the Churches. It was the manifest utility of such a central authority, under the circumstances of the times, which led to the ready acceptance of its interposition. And if this patriarchal au- thority had never gone further than the encourage- ment and regulation of missions to the heathen, and the summoning of Churches which had fallen into disorder to hold a synod and put their affairs in order, the Churches of the West might have been content to assent to so useful an authority to the present day. The subsequent history makes it clear that neither the Carolingian princes, .nor Boniface, nor the Frankish Church, intended to recogni.ze anything more in Rome than a patri- archal authority as it existed in the ancient con- stitution of the Church, though by this formal adhesion of the Frank State and Church they un- BONIFACE. 191 doubtedly gave it a power which materially helped its subsequent pretensions. The next important step in the history is worth giving in detail, since it brings into one vie\1 several of the characteristic features of the condition of the Frankish Church at this time. In the yeai 744, Gerald, Bishop of Mentz, was slain in a war like expedition against the Saxons. His son GwiUieb, though only a layman in Carloman's court, was, by the mayor's influence, consecrated as his successor. In the following year, Carloman led another army against the Saxons, and Bishop Gwillieb followed in his train. When the armies found themselves face to face on either side of the river Wiseraha, Gwillieb sent a messenger to in- quire the name of the chief who had slain his i'ather, and having ascertained it, he sent him an invitation to meet him in friendly conference in the midst of the shallow scream. The chief com- plied. The two met in mid-stream, and during the conference the bishop stabbed the Saxon to the heart. The act of the bishop was the signal for a general engagement, in which Carloman gained a decisive victory. When Gwillieb was remonstrated with, he replied, " Because I am a bishop, shall I not revenge my father's murder ? " and he returned to his diocese as if nothing had happened. All this is an illustration of the former state of the Frankish Church. What follows marks the begin- ning of the new and better state. At the synod of the following year, Boniface made a formal charge 192 CHARLEMAGNE. against the homicide bishop, and Gwilleib found himself unable to resist a sentence of deposition. Boniface, with Carloman's consent, assumed ti;e vacant see of Mentz as metropolitan, whence he exercised jurisdiction over the dioceses of Mentz, Worms, Spires, Tongres, Cologne, and Utrecht, as well as over the nations he had won to the Christian faith. At a council held at Soissons in 744, under the joint authority of the two mayors, among other things done, Adalbert and Clemens, two of Boni- face's most energetic opponents, were formally con- demned. The former was apparently a fanatic, with a strong following among the lower classes; the latter the champion of the Celtic school, which was strong in the eastern part of the Frankish do- minions, and whose maintenance of different eccle- siastical customs and sturdy spirit of independence had, since Columbanus's time, been a source of dis- cord in the Frankish Church. In A.D. 744, Boniface founded in the wild forest of Bucchenau, in the hilly country between Hesse and Bavaria, a hundred miles east of the Rhine, the monastery of Fulda, which was destined to become, among the monasteries of Germany, what Monte Cassino already was in Italy. After Carloman's abdication, in A.D. 747, Boni- face began to withdraw from public life, requesting the pope to depute some one else as papal com- missary at the synods. He resigned his see of Mentz, appointing his countryman and disciple BONIFACE. 193 Lull as his successor. It had been his intention to end his days in his monastery of Fulda, but feeling attracted towards the scene of his early labours, he set out once more on a missionary visit to Frisia. Many thousands were baptized, and Boniface ap- pointed a large number of them to meet him at a place near Docum, on Whitsun Eve, to receive the rite of confirmation. Instead of the converts whom he expected, he found himself surrounded by a body of armed pagans. Boniface forbade resistance, and they conferred on him a martyr's death. The book of the Gospels which he held in his hand when he was killed, and which was stained with his blood, is still kept as a relic. Boniface was not only a zealous missionary, an earnest preacher, a learned scholar, but he was a statesman and an able administrator. He not only spread the Gospel among the heathen, but he or- ganized the Church among the newlj' converted nations of Germany; he regulated the disorder which existed in the Frankish Church, and estab- lished the relations between Church and State on a settled basis. The mediaeval analysts teU us that Boniface crowned Pepin king, and modern writers have usually reproduced the statement. '' Kettberg, and the able writer of the biography of Boniface in Herzog (Real Ecyk, s.v.), argue satisfactorily from Boniface's letters that he took no part in Pepin's coronation." * * Smith's " Dictionary of Christian Biography.'' O 194 CHARLEMAGNE. When Boniface withdrew from the active super- vision of the Frankish Churches, it is probable that his place was to some extent supplied in the coun- cils of the mayor and in the synods of the Church by Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, a man whose character and influence in the history of the Frank Church have hardly hitherto been appreciated.* Born of noble parents in the early part of the eighth century, he passed the early part of his life at court, and was promoted by Charles Martel to the office of " Referendarius," or chancellor. By favour of Pepin he was in 842 elected to the impor- tant see of Metz, still retaining his civil office, and is one of the first of the long line of statesman- bishops which did not terminate in Europe till the seventeenth century. A man of great ability and force of character, one of the most trusted coun- sellors of the sovereign, and at the same time one of the foremost prelates of the Church, possessing great wealth, which he used with princely and episcopal munificence, he exercised a veiy powerful influence, and that influence was exercised in the direction of ecclesiastical reform. The most important and lasting of his refoims was the organization of the clergy of his cathedral into a community living under a religious rule. The aim of the' statesman-bishop was to secure better discipline of the clergy of the cathedral. To this end he gathered them into a clergy-house (monasteri imn), and required them to live a common * Smith's " Dictionary of Christian Biography." BONIFACE. 195 life, under a rule. The idea of the clergy of a cathe- dral living thus together a common life, together with their bishop, dates back to the time of St. Augustine, and had never been lost sight of What Chrodegang did was to revive this mode of life, and to adapt the rule of St. Benedict, which was being pressed upon all the monasteries, to the circum- stances of the body of secular clergy forming the staff of a cathedral. In the cathedral monasterium the bishop takes the place of the abbot, the arch- deacon of the prior. The clergy are called Canovici, instead of ilonaxJii. They eat in a common re- fectory, they sleep in a common dormitory, and observe the hours of prayer. But they do not vow poverty or obedience ; and in the refectory they are not all seated together as equals, but at seven different tables according to their clerical order — the first table for the bishop, archdeacon, and guests, the second for priests, and the others in the descending scale of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The i-ule thus established by Chrodegang for his own cathedral was introduced into others ; it was adopted at the Council of Aachen in a.d. 716, and made obligatoiy upon all the cathedral bodies of the whole of the wide dominions of Charlemagne ; and was the basis of the constitutions of aU the cathedral bodies of (continental) mediaeval Europe. Chrodegang also took steps to improve the disci- pline of the rest of the clergy, and promoted to that 196 CHARLEMAGNE. end the holding of annual synods. He sought also to control the extravagances and abuses of the numerous solitaries by requiring them to live either as cloistered monks, or under the bishop in " canon- ical order." ( 197 ) CHAPTER XIII. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE AND ROME. The barbarian occupation of Italy- The last emperors — Count Eicimer — Count Odoacer — Deposes Augustulus — Extinguishes the Western Empire, and reigns as patrician — Theodoric, King of the Goths — His widow, Amalasuntha, marries Theo- datus — Justinian's ambition — Wars of Belisarius — Invasion of the Lombards — Foundation of their kingdom in North Italy — History of Rome during tliis period — Rome appeals to Charles Martel for aid against the Lombards. In Gaul, Spain, and Africa, the barbarians seized portions of the empire as iavaders, and held pos- session by right of conquest ; in Italy the barbarians themselves composed the armies of the empire, and thus were able to make themselves masters of its fortunes; and they exercised virtual rule by nominating the emperor and controlling his ad- ministration. In the twenty years which succeeded the death of Valentinian, the last of the family of the great Theo- dosius, nine emperors had successively worn the 198 CHARLEMAGNE. purple. During the greater part of this period, Count Ricimer, the commander of the barbarian troops which formed the military defence of Italy, stood beside the throne making and unmaking emperors and controlling their power. In vain Majorian, with abilities and virtues worthy of the best days of Rome, strove to restore the fortunes of the empire ; in vain Anthemius endeavoured to maintain the dignity of the purple ; the attempt to make them- selves independent of Ricimer cost them their lives. When Ricimer died, Orestes, the next commander of the armies, being a Roman, placed his son Augus- tulus upon the throne. The troops demanded that a third of the lands of Italy should be allotted among them, as landed settlements had been allotted to their barbarian kindj-ed in other parts of the empire. Orestes was too much a Roman to concede this demand, and a mutiny of the discontented troops put into the hands of Odoacer the command of the armies and the fortunes of Italy. Odoacer felt himself strong enough to depose Augustulus, and secure enough to allow the deposed emperor to live in luxurious retirement, while he assumed openly to himself the government of Italy. The transaction was a very remarkable one, and had an important bearing upon the subsequent revival of the Imperial title by Charlemagne. The barbarian who thus thrust the last of the line of the Western emperors from his throne, did not pre- tend to take upon himself the august Imperial dignity and its great political claims. He con- SUPPRESSION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. X99 tented himself with assuming in Italy the same position which other barbarian kings had assumed in other parts of the empire. But the whole poli- tical situation as it existed throughout the West was based upon the theory of the Imperial constitution. The barbarian kings were kings of their own nations, but they ruled their Latin subjects by the Imperial law under the decent pretext of being the authorized delegates of the Imperial authority, and often under the grand names of consul or patrician. Odoacer had the political sagacity to perceive that this Imperial theory would serve its purpose quite as well, and that the theory would correspond more accurately with the facts, if it were transferred to the court of Constantinople as its centre. Accord- ingly, the unfortunate young emperor was required to resign his Imperium into the hands of the senate, and the senate was required to abdicate its right to elect a successor. They sent an embassy to convey the Imperial ornaments to Constantinople, and at the same time, in an epistle addressed to the Emperor Zeno, they solemnly " disclaim the necessity, or even the wish, of continuing any longer the Imperial succession in Italy ; since in their opinion the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade and protect at the same time both the East and the West. In their own name, and in the name of the people, they consent that the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to Constan- tinople. . . . The republic might safely confide in the civil and military virtues of Odoacer, and they 200 CHARLEMAGNE. humbly request that the emperor would invest him with the title of Patrician, and the administration of the diocese of Italy." They erected statues of Zeno in the public places of Rome, in acknowledg- ment of his sovereignty. The patrician exercised his power with moderation. The Latin population was still governed by the Imperial laws, and the civil administration was stiU conducted according to ancient precedents by the pretorian prefect and his subordinate oflBcers. The Emperor of the East was at first indignant at the suppression of the empire of the West ; but he accepted the situation, and prudently kept ahve the Imperial forms and claims in the West in view of the possible changes of the future. The power of Odoacer did not last long. Theodoric, heir of the royal race of the Ostrogoths, first a hostage in the court of Constantinople, then its ally, undertook, with the connivance of the emperor, the conquest of Odoacer. After a long and arduous and desolating war, the Ostrogothic invaders effected the conquest they had undertaken. Rome accepted Theodoric as a deliverer. Odoacer fled to Ravenna, whose strength enabled him to sustain there a three years' siege, and then to secure the terms of a divided sovereignty, which in a very few days was terminated by his assassination. Theodoric played in Italy the same part which we have seen Clovis play in Aquitaine. He pre- sented himself and was accepted by the Latin THEODORIC THE GREAT. 201 population as a deliverer ; he replaced Odoacer and his followers in the third of the lands of Italy which thej"- had exacted. During a long reign of thirty-three years he restrained his Goths from oppression, and sought to promote their progress in civilization, while retain- ing their ancient spirit and their warlike character ; he ruled the subject population with justice and moderation. The names of Cassiodorus, Boethius, Symmachus, who were his ministers, are enough to remind us that though Theodoric the Goth ruled in Ravenna, Italy had not ceased to be Roman. Under his firm and just rule Italy enjoyed a season of peace and general prosperity. On his death (a.d. 526), Theodoric left the govern- ment of Italy to his grandson Athalaric, under the guardianship of his widow, the young, beautiful, accomplished, and able Amalasuntha ; and on the young king's death the queen sought, by giving her hand and the title of king to her cousin Theodatus, to retain the substance of power in her own hands. But the ungrateful and unworthy prince allowed him- self to be put at the head of a faction hostile to the queen, which imprisoned and shortly murdered her. Justinian had succeeded to the throne of the East (a.d. 527), and had conceived the great design of recovering the severed portions of the Western empire and annexing them to the empire of the East, and thus restoring once more the empire of Constantine in the power and grandeur of its unity. The genius of a great general made the grand con- 202 CHAPLEMAaNE. ception of the emperor possible. Belisarius first defeated the Vandals in Africa ; was welcomed as a deliverer by the long and cruelly oppressed provin- cials; and united to the Eastern empire the provinces which had been the most important of the Western. Justinian next took advantage of the dissensions among the Goths. Belisarius landed in Italy. Rome opened its gates to him. The Goths collected their forces, and wasted them before its walls in a twelvemonths' siege. At length the Goths were worsted ; Ravenna surrendered, and Italy became a province of the Eastern empire. The successes of Belisarius had excited jealousy ; he was recalled, and Italy was placed under the wise and able rule of the Exarch Narses. The successors of Genseric and of Theodoric were both sent captives to Con- stantinople, where the generosity of the emperor accorded to them the title of Patrician, and assigned them a princely maintenance. Both parties, we have already had occasion to say, sought aid from the Franks, who, taking advantage of the opportunity, invaded the plains of Italy under Theodebert (a.d. 539), fought impartially against both Goths and Romans, ravaged the country, and plundered the towns of North Italy, left thousands of their num- ber behind dead of famine and disease, while the rest recrossed the Alps in safety with their booty. Italy had been reunited to the empire only six- teen years when Alboin and his Langobards, with a mixed host of barbarian allies, poured forth from INVASION OF THE LOMBARDS. 203 Pannonia upon the plains of North Italy (a.d. 563). The reputation of their ferocity went before them, and filled the land with terror. Those who could fled, the rest submitted ; only Pavia resisted, and sustained a three years' siege, and when taken was adopted by Alboin as his capital city. But the conduct of the invaders was that of a pre- datory horde of mere barbarians, delighting as much in carnage and destruction as in plunder, rather than that of men who proposed to inhabit the country they had won. Gregory the Great describes in vivid language how they depopulated cities, ruined castles, burnt churches, destroyed monasteries, wasted farms, showing no reverence for holy places or persons, and left behind them a solitude where wild beasts roamed over fields once smiling with plenty, and peopled with industrious inhabitants. In truth, they were a horde of barbarians and not yet a nation. When Alboin died, they at once broke up into a number of sections, under inde- pendent leaders — Dukes of Friuli, Bergamo, Pavia, Turin, in the north, of Beneventum and Spoletum in the south ; while roving bands, each under its independent leader, wandered over Italy, wasting the country, now and then sacking a town, and carrying terror everywhere. Only aften ten years of this confusion did the approach of Childebert of Austrasia, who again descended into Italy, force upon the Lombards the need of uniting their arms against the common enemy, under the command of Antharus (a.d 584), the son of Alboin. The duchies 204 CHARLEMAGNE. of North Italy continued to be ruled by him and his successors, but the southern duchies of Bene- ventum and Spoletum were able, by the advantage of their position, to maintain a virtual independence. There remained to the empire on the mainland of Italy the impregnable position of Ravenna, with a territory round about it, where the exarch con- tinued to represent the Imperial authority ; Venice, protected by its situation ; Naples, which was popu- lous and strong enough to defend itself, and soon independent enough to elect its own dukes; and, lastly, Rome, whose strong walls and large popu- lation, rather perhaps than its slender Imperial ■ garrison, enabled it to keep the barbarians at bay. No doubt these cities were increased in power and wealth by the influx of many of the noblest and wealthiest of the refugees from Lombard tyranny. The islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica also, which were out of reach of the Lombards, retained their allegiance to the empire. This continued to be the political division of Italy for two hundred years. During this period Rome was isolated amidst the Lombard monarchy, which constantly menaced and sometimes assailed its independence. Neither the emperors nor their representatives, the exarchs of Ravenna, were able to help it. The city was thrown upon its own resources, both for its internal government and for its defence against the enemy. The bishop, who was by far the most wealthy, powerful, and influen- tial personage in it, naturally became its leader. THE SEE OF ROME. 205 The description which we have already given * of the great cities of Gaul, and of the position of the bishops of its cities under Clovis and his sons, will help us to understand the condition of Rome and the position of its bishop. We have seen how Tours, for example, had been enriched by the estates of several wealthy provincial families. But the Roman See had been enriched by the great houses of Rome with vast estates scattered over Italy and Gaul. The letters of Gregory the Great at this time give us a very interesting picture of the possessions of the see, and the way in which the able prelate, in his capacity of a great landowner, looked sharply after his agents, was a good landlord to his tenants, and cared for the temporal and spiritual well-being of the labourers on his estates. The Bishop of Rome occupied the Lateran Palace which Constan- tine had given to the see, and maintained consider- able state ; the withdrawal of the government to Milan, and afterwards to Ravenna, the ruin of the great families by the successive sacks of Rome, had left the bishop the most important personage in it. We have seen that the sees of the Gallic cities were frequently filled by men of high provincial birth, and who had held gTeat civil offices. So the Roman See was frequently occupied by men of the great historic families, and who had held high office in the state. Gregory, for example, was of a noble and wealthy family, and before he was ordained " Pp. 90-93. 206 CHAELEMAGNE. had held the oiEce of city pretor {prcetor urbanus), one of the leading magistracies of the city. The conspicuous position which the bishop held as the representative of the Respublica (so they still called it) in its Christian aspect, was shown when Leo went out at the head of a procession to treat with Attila and induced the terrible Hun to accept a ransom and spare the city ; and again when the same great bishop similarly went out to meet Gen- seric, and obtained of the Vandal the promise that the city should not be burnt or the captives tortured. It is true that these later days of revolution had been troublous times for the see, and that its pres- tige had suffered some diminution. Theodoric the Goth, Arian though he was, had claimed the right, which had belonged to the emperors, to confirm the elections to the see. In the disputed election of Symmachus and Laurence, he had summoned the candidates before him to Ravenna and decided between them ; he had commanded John, with four other bishops and four senators (A.D. 525), to go as his ambassadors to Constantinople, to claim for the Arians of the empire the same toleration which he accorded to the Catholics of Italy. King Theode- bert, in A.D. 536, obliged Agapetus to go as ambas- sador to Justinian to try to avert hostilities. At the end of his life he anticipated the choice of the Romans, and nominated a bishop of Rome from his palace in Ravenna. The Byzantine emperors had still further lowered o THE SEE OP EOME. 207 the prestige of the see of Rome. Justinian exercised the right of confirmation of elections to the see. Belisarius deposed Silverius, and sent him in chains to Constantinople, and nominated Vigilius in his stead. Justinian summoned Vigilius to court, and put him in prison. There are few of the holders of the see whose reigns were more inglorious than those of Vigilius, Pelagius I., Benedict I., and Pela- gius II. ; they were nominated by, and obsequiously obeyed the orders of, not the emperor, but his representative, the Exarch of Ravenna ; while the bishops of Constantinople assumed the tone of premier bishops of the empire, and Justinian sup- ported their pretensions.* The prestige of the see of Rome was further lessened by the schism of Aquileia and other Italian provinces, in consequence of the heretical compliance of Vigilius in the con- troversy on the " Three Articles " — a schism which lasted a century and a half, during which even the nearest neighbours of Rome refused intercommunion with her. The policy of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, in commanding the destruction of the sacred images throughout his empire, served to alienate from the empire the sympathies of the whole of its Italian dependencies, and threw them into an attitude of open resistance (A.D. 726-730). Gregory replied to * On the same grounds on which the see of Aries had clriimed the metropolitan dignity in plaf-e of Vienne, that the political change •which had made Constantinople the sole capital and seat of the Imperial government ought to be followed by the transfer of the ecclesiastical precedence to the bishop of the Imperial see. 208 CHARLEMAGNE. the Imperial mandate in a letter of insolent defiance : " You declare, with foolish arrogance, 'I will despatch my orders to Rome, I will break in pieces the image of St. Peter, and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin [who was seized by the exarch (A.D. 653), acting under the orders of the Emperor Constans II., sent to Constantinople, treated with great cruelty, and died in exile], shall be transported in chains and exiled to the foot of the Imperial throne.' Would to God that I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the holy Martin ! . . . But it is our duty to live for the edification and support of the faithful people, nor are we reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as you are of defending your Eoman subjects, the maritime situation of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation ; but we can remove to the distance of four and twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the Lombards, and then — you may pursue the winds." Ravenna and Venice, as well as Rome, broke out into open revolt. A force sent against Ravenna from Constantinople was defeated. But on the exhortation of the pope the Italians abstained from separating themselves entirely from the empire, and still allowed the exarch to reside — a captive rather than a master — within the walls of Ravenna. The Lombards did not overlook the opportunity which the circumstances ofiered of attempting to complete their Italian kingdom. King Luitprand appeared in arms at the gates of Rome, but once more (a.d. 730) Rome was saved by the influence of her THE SEE OF ROME. 209 bishop over the impressible mind of an invader. The king listened to the voice of Gregory II., visited the Church of St. Peter, and, after performing his devotions, left armour and mantle, sword and crown, as offerings on the Apostle's tomb, withdrew his troops, and resigned his conquests. Shortly after he resigned his crown, and retired as a monk to Monte Cassino. It was nine years later that Gregory III. sent that embassy to Charles Martel (a.d. 739) of which we have already spoken ; and the Lombards continuing to harass the Roman territory and threaten the city, the pope sent a second and a third appeal for help in the subsequent years (a.d. 740-41). The mayor •seems to have entertained the appeal favourably, and to have contemplated some active interposition, when the death of the mayor and of the pope in the same year (a.d. 741), and nearly at the same time, closed this phase of the negotiation. Then, as we have already related, Pepin, on the resignation of Carloman, thought that the time was ripe for putting aside the decaj'ed dynasty and assuming to himself and his race the royal dignity. The new pope, Zacharias, gave a favourable reply to the question referred to him as to the case of conscience involved in the change of dynasty and transfer of allegiance, and strengthened the title of the new royal race with all the sanctions of religion. The time soon came for the see of Rome to claim at the hands of King Pepin the reward of the service it had rendered him. There was a new 210 CHARLEMAGNE. pope, Stephen, and a new king of the Lombards, Aistulf (a.d. 750). The pope, by splendid presents, obtained of the king a promise of a forty years' peace, but the treaty was almost immediately broken. The King Aistulf commenced hostilities against Ravenna, took it, and finally extinguished the Imperial authority there. Then he proceeded to round off the Lombard sovereignty, by sum- moning Eome to acknowledge allegiance and pay tribute. The Bishop of Rome sent to the emperor to ask for aid, and at the same time sent to the king of the Franks to ask for his intervention. The court of Constantinople sent one of its great officials, John the Patrician, to make known that the emperor could send no material -succours, but to call upon the Bishop of Rome to join him in an embassy to the Lombard king to try what could be done by negotiation. At the same time came Chrodegang, the Chancellor-Bishop of Metz, and Duke Autchardus, whom King Pepin had sent to mediate between the Romans and the Lombards. All four proceeded on their errand to Pa via ; but the Lombard king refused aU concessions. Then the Bishop of Rome declared his intention to accom- pany the Frank ambassadors back to their master, and Aistulf did not venture to use force to prevent his journej'. Now for the first time Charlemagne appears upon the stage of history. The young prince was but twelve years old when the king sent him THE KING OF THE FRANKS AND THE POPE. 211 to greet the illustrious visitor, and to act as his escort of honour. On his near approach, the king himself, with his queen, the younger princes, and his court, in royal pomp, went out a league from his palace of Pontyon-le-Perche to meet him. Stephen and his clergy appeared in sack- cloth and ashes as mourners and suppliants, and throwing themselves at the king's feet, besought his aid against the enemy of Home. The king received the patriarch of the West with extraordinary honours ; he prostrated himself in turn before the pope ; and when these greetings were over, and the pope mounted his mule, the king walked by his side, holding his bridle-rein. The pope's stay in Gaul, lengthened by sickness, extended to the summer of the following year. He took up his residence in the Abbey of St. Denis at Paris, the royal abbey founded by Dagobert, which, enriched by the Carolingian princes, and endowed with special privileges by the pope, became, what Westminster Abbey in later times was to the Eng- lish kings, the scene of the coronation and sepulture of the kings of France. Meantime, Pepin sent ambassadors to invite Ais- tulf to abandon his designs upon the city and terri- tory of Rome. Aistulf sent a remarkable ambassador in return, to endeavour to induce Pepin to withdraw his opposition to the natural development of the Lombard kingdom ; this was Carloman, the king's brother, who was drawn from his retreat at Monte Cassino — which lay within the Lombard dominions 212 CHARLEMAGNE. — and sent on this political errand. It was a fruit- less one. It was the policy of the Franks to prevent the aggrandizement of the Lombard kingdom. Pepin formally engaged, in spite of the opposition of some of the most powerful men of the nation, to take up arms if negotiations should fail, in order to keep Rome from the hands of the Lombards. Carlo- man remained in France, perhaps to keep such a hostage safe from the hands of Aistulf, and died there in the course of the following year. Rome had something to offer in acknowledgment of the material aid thus promised. At a grand ceremonial in the basilica of St. Denis, the patri- arch of the West solemnly consecrated Pepin with holy oil, and with him his wife Bertrada as the sharer of his -royal dignity, and his sons as the legitimate heirs of his crown and kingdom, and pro- hibited the nation of the Franks, on pain of excom- munication, from choosing a king outside this royal race. The consecration at Rheims had represented the sanction of the Frankish Church to the chansre of dynasty, but this solemn consecration by the patriarch of the West gave the highest possible religious prestige to the new dynasty, not only in the eyes of the Franks, but in those also of the dependent nations, and of all the rest of Christendom. Moreover, the Bishop of Rome conferred at the same time on Pepin and on the young princes, his sons, the title of Patrician of the Romans. But the significance of this act is somewhat doubtful. Patrician was an honorary title which from the time THE KING OF THE FRANKS AND THE POPE. 213 of Constantine had been bestowed upon a small number of very illustrious persons, and which elevated them to the highest rank next to the Imperial family, but it did not necessarily imply any authority or office : for example, we have just seen that Justinian sought to console with this illustrious title the two conquered princes, the last Vandal king and the last Ostrogothic king, after tliey had adorned the triumph of Belisarius. How the bishops of Rome came to offer the title to Charles Martel and Pepin is not clear. We can only conjecture that under the rule of Theodoric the senate of Rome had, at the king's desire, been accustomed to confer honorary titles, and that it was the senate which now, through the Bishop of Rome acting with full powers on behalf of the city, offered the title to the mayors of the palace whose protec- tion they sought. Probably its utmost political significance was that it recognized them as Romans of the highest nominal rank, and as thereby bound to be patrons and protectors of the city. In the spring Pepin led a considerable army into Italy, inflicted a total defeat in the first battle at Susa,and marched forward, ravaging the country and committing its strong places to the flames. Aistulph retired into the strong city of Pavia, and sought for peace. It was granted on condition that he should recognize the sovereignty of the Frankish king and pay him an annual tribute, that he should restore the Roman territories which he had seized, and abstain from hostilities against the republic. 214 CHARLEMAGNE. The Romans were overjoyed at their deliverance, but their joy lasted only a short time. For no sooner had the Franks recrossed the Alps than Ais- tulf reopened hostilities — wasted the country up to the walls of Rome, and laid siege against the city itself. The pope sent letters again, and yet again, each more urgent than the others. The third appeal was, by a very bold figure of speech, put into the mouth of St. Peter, who in person was repre- sented as addressing the Frank king, asking the protection of the see of which he had long been esteemed the founder and patron, and promising in return a long and victorious life and a place in the kingdom of heaven. Pepin in the following year returned to Italy, besieged Aistulf in Pavia, reduced him to sue for peace, and imposed upon him as a condition the cession of cities and territory which Pepin bestowed upon the Pope of Rome. Two Imperial envoys who were present urged their master's claim, that the exarchate of Ravenna should be restored to its former condition of immediate dependence upon the Eastern empire. But Pepin replied that he had gone to war for St. Peter, not for the emperor, and added these conquests to the possessions of the Roman See. This donation of Pepin did not at once make the pope an independent sovereign. The political position was anomalous and complicated. The see, as we have seen, had already very large possessions in Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and elsewhere ; Pepin added THE DONATION OF PEPIN. 215 the magnificent endowment of these new territories. The Bishop of Rome became the actual ruler of these territories, under the protection of the Frankish king ; but in theory neither the Roman republic, nor the Bishop of Rome with respect to these and the other possessions of his see, had formally thrown off their political dependence on the empire ; and the public acts continued to be dated by the years of the emperor's reign. The process by which the Bishop of Rome became an independent temporal power was as slow and gradual as that by which the mayor of the palace became king of the Franks. A few sentences will suffice to conclude the history of the reign of Pepin, and to introduce the central hero of our story. The southern portion of Gaul, from the Pyrenees on the west to the mouth of the Rhone on the east, called Septimania, had for forty-eight years been under the Mussulman domination, when, in A..D. 759, Pepin, freed from other wars, resolved to employ the military force of his kingdom in driving the Saracens entirely out of France. This was success- fully accomplished in one campaign. Then the Frank king found cause of quarrel with Waifre, the Duke of Aquitaine, resolving to reduce these fair provinces between the Loire and the Garonne once more to their former dependence on the Frankish kingdom. It cost nine years of war to effect the conquest. In the course of it we gain a clear view 216 CHARLEMAGNE. of the political dangers ■which surrounded the Frank sovereignty. Tassilon, the hereditary Duke of Bavaria, though the nephew of Pepin, was ready to take any opportunity to reassert the independence of his country. Desederius, or Didier, who had succeeded Aistulf on the throne of the Lombards, was ready to ally himself with the enemies of the Frank. The Greek emperor was induced, by the offer o£ the restoration of his Italian dominion, to promise the aid of a fleet, which should first recover the exarchate and then make a descent upon Gaul. But aU these attempted combinations came to very little. The desertion of the Bavarian contingent only gave a year's respite to Duke Waifre. In suc- cessive years Aquitaine was overrun by the invading Franks, who treated the conquered country with all the cruelty of barbarian warfare ; towns were burnt, people massacred, vineyards torn up, the country ravaged. Waifre, with a few adherents, was hunted through forest and mountain, and at length assas- sinated by his own followers. Tassilon returned to his allegiance ; the Byzantine fleet failed to appear. Pepin died Sept. 24, 768, twenty-seven years from his succession to the mayoralty, sixteen from bis accession to the kingdom, leaving a kingdom which extended from the Khine to the Pyrenees, from the Alps to the ocean. ( 217 ) CHAPTER XIV. CHARLES AND CAELOMAN JOINT-KINGS. Birth, etc., of Charles — Partition of the kingdom between Charles and Carloman — War with Aquitaine — Alliance with the Lombards— Letter of Pope Stephen III. — Charles marries Desiderata — Divorces her — Death of Carloman. It is a little remarkable that Eginhard, the intimate and secretary of Charles, should have to say that neither he himself, nor any one then living, knew anything about the birth of this prince, nor about his infancy, nor eveo about his youth. King Pepin had, indeed, associated his two son^ with himself, at his consecration by the Bishop of Rome, in the title of king, but he never gave either of them any separate government or employment. They shared with other young nobles the instructions of Peter of Pisa, whom Pepin retained at his court for that purpose. A phrase in a letter of Stephen seems to imply that Pepin took the young princes with him in his Italian expeditions ; and there is reason to believe that Charles, at least, accompanied his father in the Aquitanian war ; and by that time he 218 CHARLEMAGNE. was old enough to profit by the lessons of war on a great scale in which he had the opportunity of taking part. Oiithe death of Pepin a national assembly was held s^-~St. Denis around his tomb, in which the Franks recognized his two sons as their kings " on condition," says Eginhard, "that they made an equal division of the kingdom, the same as that which had existed in the lifetime of Pepin and Oarloman ; Charles taking the portion of his father Pepin, and Carloman that of his uncle and name- sake. What other division the deceased king had indicated, or had been otherwise contemplated, we are not told; but Carloman considered himself wronged by the actual division. His adherents stimulated his resentment to the edge of a civil war, which was only avoided by the patience of Charles. Recent French writers * say that this division was not a division of the Frank territory into two kingdoms, but only of the administration of the undivided kingdom ; and seem to establish, from the dates of the state documents which came out of the chancelleries of the two kings, that in fact they disregarded the limits of the ancient rival kingdoms of Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy; that Charles took the administration of the are of territory embracing Aquitaine, the north of France, and the north-east, while Carloman took the ad- * Kroeber, " Partage du royaume des Francs entre Charlemagne et Carloman," ap. Biblioth. de I'fecole des Chartd. PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 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