Glass _Jll-0 Book .fc COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT A HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL AND MODERN EUROPE A HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL AND MODERN EUROPE BY HENRY E. BOURNE PROFESSOR IN THE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY ; AUTHOR OF ' THE TEACH- ING OR HISTORY AND CIVICS IN THE ELE- MENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL,' ETC. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON AND BOMBAY 1905 M T. Li";,v'.iy of TfifJGrtS'ss fwu Copies rtuceiveu NOV TO l^Mi> Copyright, 1905, by LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. ALL RIGHTS RE8ERVED0 NottooolJ i^tcsB J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Horwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE To the American pupil the history of Europe is important because it is also the early history of his own people. In the older Europe lie the beginnings of American civilization, institutions as well as religious customs, literature, and habits of thought. But it is difficult to explain the development of Europe since the downfall of the Roman Empire within the somewhat rigorous limits assigned to a text-book. A brief text-book has the advantage of making possible a larger use of books for supplementary reading, which are constantly increas- ing in numbers and utility. One of the conditions of brevity is the omission of many facts which are ordinarily explained or at least mentioned. The principle of selection adopted in the preparation of this book has been the value of the fact in explaining the Europe of the present day and in showing the course of its development. Emphasis has also been laid upon geographical facts in order that the geography of Europe al- ready studied in the elementary school may be reviewed and explained, as it must necessarily be in the study of the histori- cal facts which lie behind the present frontier lines or the condition of modern nations. The attempt has been made to narrate the history of the more important countries together in chronological order, in- stead of giving to each a separate treatment, and so obliging the reader to move forward and backward along the chrono- logical series and, by an unusual effort of attention, make the necessary correlation of events, or fail to gain an adequate con- ception of the progress of Europe as a whole. Many events in one country directly affected events in another or at least illustrated similar tendencies in thought or in institutions. Vi • PBEFACE The result of the attempt to narrate the history of Europe in this way may occasionally seem to lack the compactness and clearness of a separate treatment, but it should possess the advantages of a larger unity, making intelligible what might otherwise seem the consequence of individual caprice or of chance. This method should also accustom the pupil to group events, in order by discovering their relations to gain more of their meaning. To the pictures and maps have been added explanations and descriptions which should render them more useful. Several of the maps are, with the consent of the publishers, reproduced with modifications from Freeman's Historical Geography of Europe. Two or three are based upon maps in Droysen's Handatlas. In making modifications Lane-Poole's Historical Atlas of Modern Europe and Longnon's Atlas Historique de la France have been constantly consulted. The author's thanks are due to Professor S. B. Platner for permission to use a picture of the Wall of Aurelian which appeared in his Ancient Borne. The author has been greatly assisted by the suggestions of Professor Edward G. Bourne, of Yale University, and of Dr. W. S. Robertson, of Western Eeserve University, who have read the book in manuscript, and of Dr. E. J. Benton, of Western Reserve University, who has read the proof-sheets. No one of these gentlemen is, however, responsible for any errors which remain uncorrected. HENKY E. BOURNE. Cleveland, August 1, 1905. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction xv CHAPTER I. The Roman Empire in the Fourth Century . . 1 II. The German Invasions 20 III. The Church and the Mohammedans . . • .37 IV. The Beginnings op New Peoples . ' , . .53 V. The Age of Charlemagne 66 VI. Beginnings op Feudal Europe 82 VII. The New Europe, its Rulers and its Foes . . 99 VIII. The Rise of the People 120 IX. The Ruin of the Empir:e : The Growth of England AND France 134 X. Wars of Nations and Races: The Cry of Reform IN the Church 148 XL The Renaissance 167 XII. The Protestant Revolution ..... 184 XIII. The Struggle of the Faiths 204 XIV. The Last Wars of Religion 225 XV. The Puritan Revolution 241 XVI. The Age of Louis XIV 259 XVII. Downfall of Louis the Great 273 XVIII. New Struggles for Supremacy ..... 288 XIX. Colonial Empires Gained and Lost .... 299 XX. The Enlightened Despots 312 XXI. From Reform to Revolution 326 XXII. The Revolution at War with Europe . . . 341 XXIII. The Rise of Napoleon 356 XXIV. The Conquest of Europe 368 vii Vlll CONTENTS CHAPTER XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. Eeorganized Europe The Revolution of 1848 A New Era of National Wars . Refounding the German Empire After the Great National Wars Last Decade of the Nineteenth Century PAGB 387. 403 419 434 449 464 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (From photographs or prints unless otherwise indicated. Arranged in alphabetical order) PAGE Abbey of Montmajour 42 Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel 94 Aix-la^Chapelle (Aachen) . . . 77 Alcazar at Seville, The 124 Amiens, Cathedral of 171 Armada Ship 218 Assignat, An (from MacLehose. From the Monarchy to the Be- puhlic in France. By permission) 335 Bastille, The (from Plan de Louis Bretez, dit Plan de Turgot, 1734) 328 Bible, Wycliffe's (from Tout and Sullivan's Elementary History of England) 158 Bismarck, Prince 435 Bonaparte, Napoleon (from the portrait in the Versailles Museum) 361 Calvin, John 197 Canterbury Cathedral 131 Carcassonne ........... 23 Carcassonne, The Causeway 121 Carmelite Monastery, The . 345 Castle of Talaise 103 Castle of Montlh^ry 95 Cathedral, Amiens 171 Cathedral, Canterbury . 131 Cathedral, Notre Dame 365 Cavour, Count di . . 426 Chamb^ry, Chateau of 283 Charles I. of England (after a portrait by Van Dyck) . . . 242 Charles V. (after a portrait by Titian) 190 Chateau of Chamb^ry 283 Chateau of Chenonceaux . . . . . . . • • 196 Chateau Gaillard • • 136 ix X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PA6K Chenonceaux, Chateau of . . . - 196 Church of the Holy Sepulchre Ill Claudia, Ruins of the 6 Clive, Robert (after a portrait by Nathaniel Dance) . . . 304 Coligny, Gaspard de (the monument by Crauk, part of the apse of the Oratoire at Paris) 215 Commons, House of (from Gardiner's StudenVs History of England) 293 Commons, House of, Contemporary View 455 Cordova, Mosque of 50 Council of Trent, The (from a painting ascribed to Titian) . . 207 Cromwell, Oliver (after a portrait by Samuel Cooper, at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge) 255 Danton, G. J. (reproduced by permission from the portrait in " Life of Danton " by A. H. Beesley) 349 Domesday Book (from Gardiner's Students History of England) . 105 Elizabeth, Queen 210 Erasmus (after a portrait by Holbein) 186 Falaise, Castle of 103 Fight between Armed and Mounted Knights of the Time of Henry III. (from Cott. Ms. Nero. D. i. f. 4) 141 Frederick the Great 317 Garibaldi (from an engraving by HoU from a photograph) . . 428 Gimignano, S . 172 Gladstone, William Ewart (from a portrait by Elliott and Fry) . 465 Guizot, F. P. G. (from an engraving in Guizot's History of France) 405 Gustavus II., Adolphus (from an engraving after the picture by Sir A. Van Dyck) 235 Hadrian, Wall of 2 Henry IV. of France 220 Henry VIII. (after a picture belonging to the Earl of Warwick) . 194 Holy Sepulchre, Church of the Ill Jeanne d'Arc, La Tour 160 Kaaba, The (from a picture in " Bilder- Atlas zu Mekka ") . . 46 Kossuth 412 Lafayette, Marquis de 329 Lafayette in later life (from an engraving by Freeman after an original by Levachez) 397 Laud, William (from an old print) 246 Leicester, Ruins of the Roman Wall at (from Gardiner's Student''s History of England) 56 Louis XIV. (from an engraving) 261 LIST OF ILLUSTBATI0N8 xi PAGE Louis XVI. (after a portrait by Duplessis) 337 Louis XVI., Execution of (from Les Bevolutions de Paris, a con- temporary newspaper) 347 Llibeck 150 Lutlier, Martin 188 Marlborough, Duke of (from an engraving after the original by Sir Godfrey Kneller) 278 Metternich, Prince 392 Mirabeau, Comte de (from a steel engraving published in Paris) . 333 Moltke, Count von 443 Montlh^ry, Castle of 95 Montmajour, Abbey of .42 Mont-Saint-Michel, Abbey of 94 Napoleon III. (from a French print) 414 Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul (from the portrait in the Ver- sailles Museum) 361 Nelson, Lord (after a portrait by Abbott in the National Portrait Gallery) 369 New College, Oxford 168 Notre Dame, Paris 365 Nuremberg -. 175 Palais Bourbon 467 Pantheon, Rome, The 9 Peter the Great 278 Philip II. (after a portrait by Titian) , . . . . . 208 Pitt, William (after a portrait by Hoare) . . . . . . 303 Puffing Billy (from Gardiner's Studenfs History of England) . 389 Ravenna, Tomb of Theodoric at 29 Richelieu (after the portrait by Champaigne in the Louvre) . . 237 Robespierre (reproduced by permission from the portrait in Barras's Memoirs, ed. by G. Duruy) 350 Rochambeau, Comte de 315 Rome, The Pantheon 9 Rome, The Wall of (from Platner's Ancient Borne., by permission) . 13 Saint Sophia, Constantinople 32 Saint Sophia — Interior 33 Steamboat, An Early English (from The Instructor of 1833) . . 388 Stein, Baron vom und zum (from an engraving published at Leipsic) 376 Temple, The (from an old print) 344 Thiers, Louis Adolphe 445 Trent, The Council of (from a painting ascribed to Titian) . . 207 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Tuileries, The (from the plan of 1734, called the Plan de Turgot) . 332 Versailles, Palace of 266 Victor Emmanuel II. 421 Victory, H. M. S 370 Vikings, A ship of the Northmen or (now in the University at Chris- tiania) 85 Vincennes, Chateau of 152 Wall of Hadrian 2 Wall of Rome .13 Wellington, Duke of (after a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence) . 381 Westminster Hall 251 William I. of Germany 446 William III. of England (after the portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller) 268 Wycliffe's Bible 158 LIST OF MAPS PAGE 1. Physical Map facing xiv 2. The Roman Empire in 395 a.d. Colored . . facing 1 3. Europe, about 600 a.d. Colored .... facing 34 4. Saracen Dominion at its Greatest Extent Westward, 750. Colored facing 49" 5. Europe, End of Seventh Century 62 6. Italy in 814 70 7. Empire of Charlemagne in 814, with the three subdivisions made in 843 79 8. Lotharingia North of the Alps according to the Division of 843 . 83 9. The Moslem Peril, 1090 110 10. Extent of the Hohenstaufen Empire about 1180. Colored facing 129 11. The Seven Electorates in the Fourteenth Century . . . 151 12. Advance of the Turks. Colored .... facing 163 13. Dominions of Charles V. prior to 1555. Colored . facing 193 14. Division of Territory between Catholics and Protestants about 1555 205 15. Division of England, January, 1643 249 16. Western Europe in 1660. Colored .... facing 254 ' 17. The Waning of the Turkish Power. Colored . . facing 276 18. Settlements in 1713, 1714, 1720, 1721. Illustrating the division of the Spanish possessions and the advance of Russia . 282 19. First Partition of Poland, 1772 308 20. Boundaries of France. Colored .... facing 363 " 21. The Settlement of 1814-1815. Gains of the principal states . 383 22. Unification of Italy. Colored facing 428 ' 23. Prussian Conquests 439 24. The Eastern Mediterranean since the Russo-Turkish War . 457 25. The Colonies and Dependencies of Europe and the United States in 1900. Colored ..... facing 469 GENEALOGICAL TABLES PAGE Principal Descendants of Charlemagne 98 Hugh Capet's Family 98 Family of William the Conqueror 119 Heirs of Philip III. and Philip IV. of France 165 Yorkist and Lancastrian Claimants to the Crown of England . . 183 Hapsburg, Burgundian, Spanish Relationships 203 Heirs of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. of England .... 224 Claim of Henry of Navarre, of the House of Bourbon, to the French Crown 224 Claimants of the Spanish Heritage . . . . . . . 272 Stuart and Hanoverian Families 286 Bourbon-Orleans Relationships 402 INTRODUCTION The Aim of History. — Some eminent men have disparaged the study of history because its facts cannot be systematized and the laws of the progress or decay of civilization deduced from them in the same manner and with the same exactness as the laws of physics and chemistry have been deduced from what are called chemical or physical facts. The causes of any single event, not to speak of the condition of a whole country at a particular time, are so many and so various that they can- not be isolated and examined as is the case with facts which belong to the world of natural science. Certain of them could not be measured exactly were it possible to stud}^ them sepa- rately. The decision of Eobert E. Lee to resign his commis- sion in the United States Army and follow his State in her attempt to withdraw from the Union was momentous, but the weight of each of the reasons which influenced him could not be mechanically determined nor exactly estimated, nor could the resulting decision have been predicted with scientific certainty. Nevertheless, history offers at least partial ex- planations of even such events, which depend so much upon individual character. As for events of another sort, the method of electing a president in this country or the system of cabinet government in England, history explains how these came to be, and the exact manner in which they were developed shows, better than any other form of reasoning, what is the real meaning of the custom or institution and whether it is the result of passing intrigues or of tendencies lying deep in the experience of the people. Among the school studies those which concern mankind most closely, language or literature, political economy or civil government, depend upon history for many services. Some literary works more than others require XV XVI INTll OB UCTION an historical explanation, but it is safe to say that all are better understood if the age when they were produced is also understood. The relations of political economy and of civics to history are still closer. Political economy is becoming more and more what is called economic history, that is, the history of those activities of men which result in the production and distribution of wealth. Civics treats of the political activities of men in municipality, state, and nation, or describes the institutions which have grown out of these efforts. It needs no argument to prove the value of history in the study of such subjects ; it furnishes one of their principal methods of investi- gation as well as a multitude of illustrations of what they aim to explain. History cannot, therefore, be considered, as for- merly, a polite study, of little utility save to amuse the leisure of the idle or to offer an occasional anecdote to enliven con- versation. Supplementary Reading. — History will not perform these services if historical knowledge is limited to what may be learned from the text-book. A text-book like this, which attempts to explain fifteen hundred years of European devel- opment, can do little more than summarize the most important events, awaken an interest in such facts, and suggest lines of further inquiry. The pupil should consider his study of his- tory in school mainly as the beginning of a systematic course of reading which is to be one of the sources of instruction and intellectual pleasure of his later years. The text-book will furnish a temporary framework for facts, to be enlarged and improved as his knowledge increases. During schooldays he should also learn how to use other books and should acquire the habit of reading historical works of real literary interest. Affixed to each chapter of this book are two lists of books, — brief manuals, convenient for obtaining more detailed state- ments or further explanations of what is alluded to in the text, and larger works, many of them chosen from permanent historical literature. It is not expected that the pupil shall look up all the references suggested under '' Further Study." INTBODUCTION xvii Supplementary reading to be made effective must be under careful individual direction. It is better that pupils be sent to these books to search for answers to a particular query, or to obtain different points of view about an event or policy, or more details of a special incident. If a student is prompted by personal interest to do this " outside " reading indepen- dently, so much the better, but it should not be made a uni- form requirement. Many of the books referred to are of such a character that they will be useful primarily in assisting the teacher rather than the pupil. Selections from the Sources. — The books most commonly re- ferred to under " Further Study " are collections of passages taken from what are called " original sources," that is, from docun^ents, letters, or other writings which appeared near the time at which the event touched upon occurred. Occasionally the writing may be a part of the event, as Pope Urban's speech at Clermont was a good part of the origin of the First Crusade. As the selections in such books have been made with the needs of the pupil and the requirements of the subject both in mind, these books are, on the whole, the most useful for sup- plementary reading. It is not expected that the pupil shall become an historical investigator or that he shall acquire any large part of his knowledge from original material, but in these selections he will often find the best illustrations of the topics he is studying, and presented in a form which adds a peculiar interest to what is said. Selections from the Koran make Mohammedanism more real than do ordinary explanations. The explanations are necessary, for without them the pupil could do little with original material of some kinds, but this material may add an element of actuality or bring out an in- teresting point of view. In using these selections it is advis- able for the teacher to give specific questions for search. Vague reading here is of as little value as vague reading of anything else. The results of these inquiries should be writ- ten in note-books, in order that they may be made concise and clear. xviii INTRODUCTION The Use of Dates. — Chronology and geography have always been called the eyes of history. Dates are primarily useful in keeping the elementary facts of a period in their exact time relations until their less obvious causal relations can be studied with care. A few dates are of such importance that they should be fixed permanently in the memory. Many of the more significant dates are mentioned in the list at the end of each chapter. History and Geography. — In the study of history it is necessary to refer constantly to maps, — to the map of the world as it is to-day, because this is a summary of many of the consequences the causes of which history explains ; to maps showing how the world or some portion of it appeared after important changes had been made in the boundaries of peoples; and to relief or physical maps which give an idea of different countries, whether flat or mountainous, waterless or full of rivers. There are also maps which show how the world looked to geographers at the time when they were drawn, in many cases while knowledge of the earth was still incomplete. Maps made in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies enable us to appreciate the difficulties of navigating unknown seas or of sailing along coasts not yet noted on the charts. The representation given in Map 2, of this volume, of the world as it appeared to Ptolemy reveals the fact that the Romans had conquered about all of the lands of which they had definite knowledge. In using historical maps it should be remembered that as changes in boundary lines have been made frequently, a small collection of maps can portray the situation only after important incidents like an unusually great war or the emigration of peoples. M. Longnon in his Historical Atlas of France includes seventeen maps of Gaul for the period between the later years of Chlodwig and the acces- sion of Charlemagne. Only such large atlases can give with satisfactory completeness even the important changes. In this volume several maps embody a comparison between the situa- tion at one period and that at another period sufficiently INTRODUCTION xix remote to show the final settlement for the territory in ques- tion. By such comparisons it is possible to understand the gradual process of the growth of modern Europe and to per- ceive the relation of this modern world to the ancient and the mediaeval world. Influence of Geography upon History. — It was not until the eighteenth century that thoughtful men realized the extent to which the history of different peoples has been influenced by such geographical conditions as climate, character of the soil, minerals, waterways, and nearness to the sea. England, with great deposits of coal and iron close to one another, with rivers deep enough for ocean-going ships, surrounded by seas which are highways to the gates of other lands as well as means of defence for herself, seems destined by nature to become a manufacturing and trading country, provided with vast fleets for commerce and for war. It would be a mistake to explain everything by such natural reasons, for much depends also upon the characteristics of the people who occupy the region. In most cases the inhabitants of a country already had a developed character when they settled in it, so that their suc- cesses or failures can be attributed in part only to the region itself. Geographical reasons are, however, so important that they should be considered at every step. Geography of Europe. — A glance at Map 1 shows that Europe is a peninsula thrust southwestward between the seas and narrowing toward Spain, its terminus. This peninsula, the total area of which is only slightly greater than that of the United States, -has been the scene of nearly all the history alluded to in the present volume. It is true there is a Greater Europe, wherever Europeans have carried their civilization or have won the mastery, but this larger history has been touched only incidentally. Several of the features of Europe's geog- raphy have strikingly influenced its history. Before the peninsula broadens into Spain its width is only two hundred and fifty miles. A frontier so short, combined with the prac- tical impassability of the Pyrenees except at the eastern and XX INTRODUCTION western ends, separates Spain from the rest of the continent almost as mucli as the English Channel separates Great Britain. The Channel has affected the fortunes of the English at every turn. Movements like the French Eevolution, which broke all other barriers, could not cross the Channel. In later days it has enabled the English to hold aloof from European alli- ances, relying upon a fleet strong enough to dominate the " narrow seas." Spain's aloofness is not an equally " splendid isolation," and it is a question whether Spain would ever have played an important i^art in European affairs had not the possessions of her monarchs in Italy and the Netherlands, their marriage alliance with the Hapsburgs, and their cham- pionship of the Church drawn them out of their isolation. The situation of Erance is also full of meaning. Between two seas, she has been part of both Mediterranean and north- ern worlds. One of the most thoroughly Romanized of the provinces of the Empire, she has been foremost repeatedly in the enterprises of the later Europe. In northern Europe one unbroken plain stretches from the North Sea to the Urals. Here is the secret of the fate of Poland. Without a compactly organized government and a strong army she fell a prey to better-organized neighbors. Looking across the Mediterra- nean, it is clear that the belt of country between the deserts and the sea is so narrow that it could not support a popula- tion large enough to control its own destiny. It was doomed to be a land of colonies > and the spoil of conquerors from the time when the Phoenicians founded Carthage to the occupa- tion of Algiers and Tunis by the French and Of Egypt by the English. The rivers of Europe, especially the Rhine and the Danube, have had an important part in the migration of peoples and in commerce, and have served also as military frontiers. The Danube was the ordinary route by which in- vaders — the Goths, the Huns, the Magyars, and the Mongols — marched toward western Europe. The Magyars, or Hungari- ans, were finally driven back and settled in the great Danubian plain, becoming the defenders of the West against the Turk. INTRODUCTION xxi Natural Boundaries. — It is impossible to allude here even to the principal influences geography has exercised upon the his- tory of European peoples or states or cities. To gain an ade- quate understanding of the subject, teacher and student should consult such books as Tlie Relations of Geography and History, by H. B. George.' But there is one other topic so important as to require brief comment. The limits of certain nations are apparently marked off by nature, — the English by the Channel, the Spanish by the Pyrenees, the Italians by the Alps, and, to some extent, the Hungarians by the Carpathian Mountains. If the history of these and other peoples be con- sidered attentively, many events seem to work together to em- phasize the controlling influence of such natural boundaries. The Channel was a good reason why the Norman English kings should not retain territories in western France. The Pyrenees served partly to explain why Rousillon was ceded to France in 1659. The absence of such clearly marked boundaries also explains why the French and the Germans have struggled so long over the region west of the Rhine, and, as already re- marked, why Prussia, Austria, and Russia succeeded in parti- tioning Poland. Nevertheless, it is unsafe to draw inferences hurriedly from physical features which apparently indicate good boundaries. Throughout the Middle Ages rulers paid no attention to such influences; they acquired fiefs by marriage or conquest wherever it was possible. The latest history of Europe shows in the acquisition of colonial possessions a simi- lar defiance of physical restraints. Moreover Italy, instead of being a united country, remained a " geographical expression " for over a thousand years. The eastern ranges of the Alps spread out fanshape into the Danubian valley, and from the time of the Visigoths have offered to invaders an easy entrance into Italy. The Swiss geographically belong to two or three different countries, but remain loyal to one another and to their republic. The argument from natural boundaries was used by the French during the Revolutionary Wars as an excuse for annexing the region west of the Rhine, although a river is not xxn INTRODUCTION a real barrier, except in the military sense, and the people on both sides are likely to show the same characteristics. In studying this or any other geographical fact it is necessary to take into account all the conditions which influence the result. KEFERENCES — BOOKS USEFUL FOR TEACHERS Bourne, H. E., TJie Teachinff of History and Civics. Longmans. Committee of Seven, History in Schools. Macmillan. George, H. B., The Belations of History and Geography. Oxford Uni- versity Press Hinsdale, B. A., Hoio to Teach and Study History. Appleton. Mace, W. H., Method in History. Ginn. New England History Teachers' Association, A History Syllabus for Secondary Schools. Heath. New England History Teachers' Association, Historical Sources in Schools. Macmillan. n 20° 10° 0' 10' 20' 65 ■~7\ / J^r-i 1 <$ [^ \^ /^-W '^/ I A^[^t i^fei/ m^\ If / / 1^^=' A < is'^^S^ x-^" -N,( ^ty / ^ -r) ifi^ bjK^r^ J \<\ 'C. ^.^ / '^'^''N'^^'^'^'^'^-fw^^^.i-^P^'vV y> \ % I /^ -^ 1 K^M\ A If T ■'■J a. \ \ 46 W^ / / ^^^4i ^ wu^2a p/s TB I A - IJ c ^ / r^^^\ /^==^^4Ajt" \ f ' \. V.},c / L — ^ / ^ r^^^7=-H ==C^;0^\^ \. / /"■ — ^- y X "'^i J ^ -""^ .^ ^^^l Vt^ V - — , ~~~»^ / r^^-^^^^<^ p-'s-^J-^ [— \ "A, ( r \ 3ER / ii / \ ^^-J \^ / ] L 1 »^ \ v^^ \ r c^jWz.^^ \^ 0\ \ L \ ^ <> /T*i— --T >^ iv l/^ ^ V ^^'^-.^ \ ^ / /®/ ^^^^ /7 /-^'^ / ^^■^■^ c^^^ "^V— w " '^' ? ^ si -^7^ ( I s > \ 35 A'v^— -7L/ V ^^^fe^^miI2i(' i>< THE ROMAN EMPIRE \ />\ IN 395 A.D, \ ^/ ( / Included the parts of modern Europe, Asia and y 1 Africa within the red lines. North of the frontier ■>i^ * « *^ ^~_x' n I p*><^ 1 I jfl dwelt German or Slavic tribes 1 '■^. The Empire was divided into four prefectures. 1 " ^^s^ , 3 C»,^ 25 ■^ these into dioceses, one of wliich is indicated witliin / / black lines on the map of France and Western Ger- / / many. Each diocese was divided into provinces, of i »' which an example is indicated by the broken lines If ■within the diocese of Gaul. — 1 \ / r\- / /_ / 1 — 0" 10' Longitude East from Greenwich 20° Huns strogo itfis S h G AK lAj ^%^! E M P I RE / V \ \ E G X ?> BORMAY & CO.,N.Y. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY CHAPTER I. THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY 1. The Roman World. — Never since the fourth century of the Christian era has the civilized world been united under one government. There are single countries as large as the Roman Empire, and the world includes lands unknown to the Romans, but they alone have been able to boast that all peoples save the outer barbarians were joined with them in one great state. This dominion was the result of victorious campaigns pushed forward from land to land by the Republic and com- pleted by the Empire. It included what is now England, France, a part of Germany, Spain, the southern portion of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Balkan states south of the Danube, the Turkish empire, Italy and Greece, Egypt and northern Africa. Although the peoples which dwelt in these widely scattered regions — Syrians, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Celts, Germans — were well-nigh as different from one another as their modern successors, they were bound together for two or three centuries by ties even stronger than the courage and the might of the Roman legions. Rome had robbed them of their independence, but in return she had given them orderly gov- ernment, freedom from endless petty wars, entrance into a community of peoples which shared all those ways of living, customs, laws, and ideas, which together we call Grseco-Romaa civilization. At first the conquered had been treated as sub- 1 2 BOM AN EMPIRE IN THE FOUBTH CENTURY jects, but afterward they had been raised to the level of citizenship. The name E-oman ceased to mean a native of the city by the Tiber, or even of Italy ; it became equally applica- ble to the dweller in London, Constantinople, or Alexandria. There were many reasons why this union of neighboring peo- ples as provinces under a single imperial rule should endure, but there were also causes which were working its ruin. One of the Defences of the Empire. Wall of Hadrian (117-138); also ascribed to Septimius Severus (193-211). Extends from the mouth of the Tyne to Solway Firth, T3h miles ; height 12 feet (with parapet, 16), thickness about 8 feet. Material, concrete, faced with square blocks. On the north a ditch, 10 to 15 feet deep, about 32 feet wide at top. Along the line, 18 walled camps, watch towers and "mile-castles" between. 2. Bonds of Union, Routes. — Sometimes the boundaries of a nation are traced by bodies of water like the English Chan- nel, or by mountain ranges like the Alps and the Pyrenees. Such natural barriers also protect the union of peoples when once this has been accomplished. The Roman Empire had no bulwarks of this sort; but since its provinces lay about the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, it possessed water routes BONDS OF UNION 6 wliicli were an almost equally good means of securing its unity. To guard these routes the government organized several war fleets, notably those of Misenum, Eavemia, Egypt, Syria, the Black Sea, Britain, and the Rhine. But it did not think such natural highways were enough. Just as modern governments have built railways in order to be able to move their armies rapidly to any place on the frontier or to bind distant parts of their territory together, so the Eomans covered the Empire with a network of great roads. These roads were pushed straight over hills and across marshes, teaching the peoples along the route the bold and tireless energy of Eome. They were paved with heavy blocks of dressed stone, laid upon foundations two or three feet deep, and so solidly constructed that long sections of them still remain. At convenient inter- vals relays of horses were stationed, and vehicles were in readiness in order that messages and officers could be sent forward rapidly to distant places. Private wagons were also provided for merchants and travellers. So well managed were the roads that merchandise was generally carried by them rather than by sea. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the railways were built, that com- munication between different parts of the world again became as comfortable and rapid. In France, at least, the new system of national roads and of railways is based largely upon the Roman system. For Gaul the principal centre was Lyons, which was reached from Italy by three routes across the Alps. From Lyons roads branched in all directions, — northward to the Rhine, northwestward to the Channel, westward to the lower Loire and the Garonne, and southward to Marseilles. Through Aries and Nimes ran the more direct road from Italy to Spain. In Britain four roads centred at London and three at Chester. 3. XTnion through Language. — The use of Latin, the language of the Romans, even more than the system of roads, showed how all the conquered peoples were becoming parts of one vast community. East of the Adriatic Sea Latin never took the 4 ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY place of Greek as the language of common life. Indeed, the spread of Greek was furthered by the peace which the Romans brought and by the ease of communication under their rule, so that the eastern half of the Empire became more and more Greek or Hellenic in ideas and sympathies. Side by side with Greek, Latin was used as an official language. In the West, Latin had no such unconquered rival. It early became the language of Africa and Spain. Its struggle with Celtic in Gaul continued longer, but even before Latin had become the language of the common people it was studied eagerly by educated men who were soon famous for their skilful use of it in formal speech. In the end Celtic was so completely forgotten that in modern French there are only twenty-six words of Celtic origin. Although the government did not organize any system of public elementary schools, the provin- cials were so eager to have their children taught that man}'' private schools were opened. Secondary schools and schools of higher education were directly encouraged by the emperors, who ordered the cities to maintain them. The school at Marseilles was famous for its physicians, and that at Bordeaux for its training in the use of elegant Latin. Youths came even from Italy to attend these schools. Athens was the seat of a still greater school, at which, as in Rome, the imperial gov- ernment supported professors. Educated men felt at home in all parts of the Graeco-Roman world. A glance at the history of some of the literary men of the later Empire illustrates this fact. Ulpian and Papinian, two of the ablest Roman jurists, were natives of Syria. Of the three most prominent poets of the fourth century, one was an Asiatic, another a Spaniard, and the third a Gaul. The best history of the time was written by Ammianus, a native of Antioch, who, after an active career as a soldier, lived in Rome and wrote his work in Latin. Augus- tine, the most influential theblogian of the period, was a north African. Jerome, born on the confines of Italy and Greece, completed the Vulgate, his immortal translation of the Bible into Latin, in a convent at Bethlehem. But east of the Adri- BONDS OF UNION 5 atic the Greek language and Greek ideas were making more progress than Latin, and in the West the Latin that the com- mon people learned was not the language of Cicero and Caesar, but the ordinary language of conversation on the streets, which the soldiers and emigrants had taken with them to the prov- inces, and which later developed into the earliest forms of French, Spanish, and Italian. 4. Law. — Another bond of union was the Roman law. This was the most lasting benefit conferred by the Empire, because upon it were to be based the laws of southern and western Europe. At first it was a privilege to be judged according to this law, but when citizenship was granted to all the provin- cials, there was no longer any reason to administer two kinds of law, one for Romans and one for natives, since all had offi- cially been made Romans. Meanwhile the law itself was being improved by the judges whose duty it was to decide the cases brought before them. Punishments became less severe, the lot of the slave was bettered, women and children gained more rights; in short, this system of law was winning the name so often applied to it since, of " written reason." 5. Manner of Life. — The Romans, like the Greeks before them, carried everywhere the art of living in cities. In some ways these cities have not yet been surpassed. They were adorned with splendid public baths, furnished with an abun- dance of pure water, brought in stone aqueducts often from distant hills. One of these aqueducts, built to supply Nimes, still spans the river Gard. The broken arches of some which supplied Rome still stretch across the Campagna. Many of the temples, afterward converted into Christian churches, remain, even in ruin, the wonder and inspiration of modern builders. The theatres also were public buildings, but unfortunately the plays were not always wholesome in their teaching. 6. The Empire and the Churclii * — Rome was tolerant toward the religions of the peoples which she conquered. With the establishment of the Empire it became customary to look upon the emperor as a god, the embodiment of the genius of Rome 6 BOM AN EMPIBE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY which had brought peace, security, and many other advantages to the world. The Christians refused to join in this worship and organized secretly into churches, although all secret associa- tions were contrary to law. They were therefore looked upon as disobedient subjects. Since they attended no festivals at which the ancient gods of Greece and Kome were honored, their neighbors sometimes believed them to be unsocial and Ruins of the Claudia. An aqueduct completed by the Emperor Claudius in 52 a.d. These arches extended originally more than seven miles across the plain to the hills. The structure was nearly a hundred feet high.. even haters of the human race. But the spread of Christianity, first among the poor and obscure, and afterward among the higher and more influential classes, could be checked neither by the outburst of popular hatred nor by the spasmodic attempts of the emperors to punish with death those con- victed of being Christians. This policy was changed by the imperial government in 311, and Christianity was reluctantly recognized as a legal religion. A year or two afterward the Emperor Constantine carried out more effectively the policy of VICTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 7 toleration. Later in the century all other religious worship was forbidden. The old religions died hard, defending them- selves longest among the countrymen, or pagani. For this reason they came to be called "pagan." By the end of the fourth century the Christian Church was highly organized, with bishops of cities, metropolitan bishops of provincial capitals, and patriarchs of five great cities, chiefly m the East. The patriarchate most honored was that of Rome, which, it was held, had been founded by St. Peter and St. Paul, and of which St. Peter had been the first bishop. As soon as the Greek thinkers came to look upon Christianity as a true religion, they were eager to define exactly what each one should believe about God and about Jesus Christ. The teachers of the West, less anxious to argue about such questions, set themselves to explain just how men might become Christians, and how they might be free from the evil that was in the world. A great council was held at Niceea, in 325, under the presidency of Constantine, to settle the question of the relation of Christ to God. This council drew up a creed, which, after some changes, became the Nicene creed. Christians who refused to accept the doctrine about Christ set forth in this creed — namely, that Christ is in being the same and coequal with God — were called Arians, because Arius, a priest of Alexandria, held a view which the council condemned. What the council of Nicaea did for this doctrine, Augustine did for the doctrines of Chris- tian character and conduct, so that by the middle of the fifth century the beliefs commonly called Christianity had all been carefully explained in books and in the acts of councils. Although the victory of Christianity seemed to give to the Empire another bond of union, in reality it did not strengthen the feeling of loyalty or gratitude toward the imperial rule. It taught men to regard their fate in an'other world as more important than their condition on earth. It weakened the prejudice against the barbarians, who might also be fellow- Christians. It founded a government of bishops and councils which eventually rivalled the government of the emperors. 8 ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY 7. The Imperial Government. — The emperors of the fourth century were very different from Augustus, who had tried simply to play the part of the first citizen of Rome, though he had held those magistracies which would enable him to control the government. His successors had become monarch s in the full sense of the word and had surrounded themselves with the ceremony and the splendor of eastern despots. The senate, which had been the actual ruler of the Eepublic, and with which the early emperors had shared their power, was hardly more than a body of nobles enjoying high privileges and freed from the most burdensome taxes. Distinguished men in the provinces were raised to senatorial rank as a favor or as a reward. The ancient difference in rights between Roman and provincial gave place to a new difference due to office or rank granted by the emperor. Such rank was marked by titles much like those which go with nobility or high office in some modern countries. The titles count and duke began to be used. The chief officials were the prefects of the four prefectures into which the Roman world was divided. Under them were the vicars of the thirteen dioceses, and under these the governors of one hundred and eighteen prov- inces. For the ordinary citizen the most irajDortant officials were not these public men but the subordinates or clerks, who held their positions for life, and who, from their knowledge of the way in which government business had been done, were more likely to control their nominal chiefs than to be con- trolled by them, especially as even so great an officer as a pre- fect held his position only a short time. Thus the Empire came to be managed by a bureaucracy, that is, by officers or employees of the bureaus or commissions to which all public business was intrusted. 8. Burden of Empire. — It has been said that the world has never been so happy and prosperous as in the second century of the Empire. At that time the Empire meant peace and justice for all, and its cost to the ordinary citizen was not bur- densome. After the turmoil of the next century had ruined BURDEN OF EMPIRE 9 many provinces, and after the reorganization of the imperial monarchy by Diocletian and his successors had increased the expenses, the situation steadily grew worse. The total sums of money demanded of the taxpayers were not greater than those voluntarily raised by some modern peoples, but the bur- Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y. 1'he Pantheon, Rome. Built by Hadrian, 120-124. The diameter of the dome is a little over 142 feet, or greater than that of any other dome. In the year 609 this Roman temple was dedicated as the church of S. Maria ad Martyres. It was afterward called S. Maria Rotonda. Now used as a burial place of the kings of Italy. den was made heavier by the wasteful method of collecting the money, by the frequent efforts of officials to enrich them- selves at the expense of the taxpayers, and by special favors granted to rich and influential men excusing them from pay- ment, and in this way putting the burden upon their poorer neighbors. Occasionally the owner of a great estate with a 10 liOMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY small army of servants defied the tax-gatherer to enter his domains. Besides the taxes paid in money there were others paid by furnishing the army or imperial officials with pro- visions, with transportation, and with labor on roads or fortifi- cations. Such taxes " in kind " had grown out of the scarcity of money and the depreciation of the coins in circulation. This shows that society was falling back upon a system of barter — what the political economists call a "natural economy" as distinguished from a money economy. It also showed that the community was fast becoming unable to bear the expenses of the Empire. 9. Crushing Load of the Middle Class. — One of the conse- quences of this system of taxation was the ruin of the well- to-do middle class. Each city, like all ancient cities, included a large amount of territory, often larger than the average American county. Landowners who held at least sixteen acres belonged to the local senate or curia. To them was as- signed the heavy task of collecting the taxes. The sum for each city was fixed by the government and must be collected by the curials from the citizens or paid out of their own resources. As the task became more difficult their only means of escape was to be elevated to the rank of imperial senators, which would free them from such duties. They could not change their residence nor sell their property. The burden descended from father to son. Some sought to escape it by taking refuge among the barbarians. 10. The City's Defender. — Oppression of the taxpayers went on in spite of the attempts of emperors to check it. After 364 each city was provided with a defensor, a sort of attorney whose business it was to guard the interests of the city and sometimes to protect the lower classes against the exactions of the curia. Occasionally, also, the defensor acted the part of government agent in holding the curials to their disastrous task. Later the defensor was often replaced by the bishop, who naturally gained influence and power by guarding his flock against oppression. ENSLAVEMENT OF WORK 11 11. The Enslavement of Work. — The local senators were not the only ones whose liberty disappeared as the needs of the Empire became greater. The associations or corporations of artisans and tradesmen which had originally been formed for social purposes or to insure the members a decent burial were used as a means of more readily exacting the tax which fell upon persons of this class or of compelling the perform- ance of work necessary for the welfare of the community. For example, the pig and cattle merchants and the bakers who provided food for the public distributions made at Eome and Constantinople were treated as castes from which it was impossible to withdraw. So, also, were the boatmen and the conductors. of transports. The workmen in the imperial mints, armories, and mines were even branded with a red-hot iron to guard against their escape. Only by chaining each man to his task could the unwieldy fabric of the Empire be kept in place. 12. The Enslavement of Land. — The farmer, also, in most cases, ceased to be an independent owner of land and was partly enslaved. Sometimes he gave up his title to his rich neighbor in order to be protected against the tax-gatherers. He did this, too, when invasion and local disorder exposed him to ruin. Often it was the only way to extricate himself from the burden of debt which the hardness of the times laid upon him. Unfortunately, also, owners of great domains discovered that they could seize these little farms without being called to account by the distant prefect to whose jurisdiction alone they were subject in criminal matters. All such abandon- ments of title were accomplished by a species of fictitious sale, in order to avoid openly breaking the laws which forbade such transactions. The free farmers who in this way ceased to be owners of their farms continued to cultivate them. Their position was similar to that of other freemen, called coloni, or settlers, to whom the landlord had granted a farm. The gov- ernment, in order to make sure that each piece of land paid its due share of the taxes, took account of such tenants and 12 liOMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY compelled them and their children after them to remain per- manently upon the land. They also lost the privilege of marrying freely outside the estate, for such a marriage would mean that some other landlord had lost one of his tenants. There were other coloni, the freedmen, who differed from the free coloni only in that they could not bequeath property, and the slaves who had been settled upon a portion of the estate in order that they might work better than did the ordinary slave under the overseer. These changes were dragging free- men down toward slavery and pulling slaves up toward free- dom. The two met on the level which in the Middle Ages is called serfdom. 13. Those who Profited. — The only man who continued to prosper while the Empire was growing weaker was the lich noble. Wealth more and more meant landed property. Ihis was cultivated either by slaves or by coloni. A large estate was an almost independent community, with its villages of coloni, its great courtyard surrounded by houses for slaves, a prison, barns, storehouses, shops, a mill, a winepress, and a forge, and at some distance the mansion of the lord, a house provided with spacious rooms, dining halls, and libraries, promenades, surrounded by extensive gardens, often overlooking a charming country-side. It was only when the invasions began or bands of marauders threatened their peace that these mansions were transformed into fortified strongholds. The owners were not warriors like the ancient Romans. They disdained service in the army. They were fond of literature and the arts, and their efforts to cultivate them gave to later Roman civilization an appearance of refinement and intellectual energy which hid from view the signs of weakness and decay. 14. Defence of Empire. — Since the freemen were sinking toward slavery and the nobles had lost that taste for war and conquest which carried the Roman eagles over the ancient world, the sole safeguard of the Empire was the regular army. This consisted of about four hundred thousand men, some of them settled in communities along the frontier and intrusted DEFENCE OF EMPIRE 13 with its ordinary defence. These soldier settlers were fre- quently drawn from some German tribe that had entered the service of the Empire and had found its reward in such a grant of land. The more active portion of the army was kept in garrison in towns from which detachments could be moved The Wall of Rome. Built by the Emperor Aurelian (270-275), rebuilt by Honorius (395- 423). Constructed of brick-faced concrete ; thickness, 12 or 13 feet ; height, from 29 to 58 feet, according to the slope of the ground. rapidly toward threatened points on the frontier. All im- portant towns, even those in the interior, were surrounded by walls, for after the invasions of the third century the frontier was no longer secure. 15. Beyond the Frontier. — The greatest danger lay on the northern frontier from the mouth of the Ehine to the mouth 14 ItOMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY of the Danube. There had been campaigns, some of them disastrous, against the Persians in the upper valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates, but it was only the Germans who were likely to become actual invaders. The principal tribes toward the end of the century were the Franks on the lower Rhine, and north of them the Saxons, the Burgundians on the Main, the Alamamii between the upper Rhine and the upper Danube, the Vandals between the Danube and the Theiss, the Visigoths north of the lower Danube, and still further east the Ostrogoths. Several of these names reappear in the modern geographical names, — France, Franconia, Saxony, Essex, Burgundy, and in Allemagne, the French name for Germany. 16. German Immigrants. — The Germans were not strangers within the Roman Empire. Two centuries before, Tacitus, a great Roman historian, had sought to chastise Roman vices by holding up the picture of German virtues. Caesar, also, a hundred and fifty years still earlier, had written about the Ger- mans. From time to time Germans had entered the army, either singly or as tribes of confederates or foederati. Some of them had risen to high rank. Stilicho, the greatest general in the fifth century, was a Vandal. German fashions were much admired by the Romans. As the population of the Empire decreased, thousands of Germans had been given vacant lands within its limits. In Gaul many became coloni on the large estates. In the eastern provinces the masons, porters, and water-carriers were mostly Goths. 17. Germans at Home. — The relations of the German peo- "^^^ pies to the Empire were so close that in all the borderland Roman ways of living began to be customary. The words which described these things also were adopted by the Ger- mans, and have remained in their language to this day. They had already learned to dwell in settled communities and to cultivate the soil. It is probable that the freeman owned simply his house and the land immediately about it, and that the land which he planted was assigned to him each year, or THE GERMANS 15 at the end of a period of years. As with all early peoples, the chief wealth was in cattle. The men loved war, and from early youth were trained to endure its hardships. To the Roman they seemed tall, fair, and of a fierce countenance. To their simple virtues they unhappily joined some rude vices, especially drunkenness and gambling. Men staked even their own freedom, although it took a family once reduced to slavery three generations to rise again to full freedom. To the Romans each tribe seemed a civitas, or city-state. Although there were kings, most of the power belonged to the freemen, who met from time to time in an assembly and either rejected what was proposed to them by shouts of disapproval or clashed their arms together in token of acceptance. They could even depose their king. Their leader in war was often not the king himself, but some bold warrior chosen because of his prowess in battle. These men the Romans called duces or dukes. Occasionally the office descended from father to son. Besides the kings and the dukes there were other nobles, although they decreased in numbers and influence as the power of the kings was strengthened by wars and by expeditions. 18. German Ideas of Justice and of God. — The Germans did not have the same ideas of justice as the Romans. Their crude customs set so high a value upon personal liberty that though a man had killed his neighbor he was not punished like a modern criminal. The family coiild, however, take ven- geance upon the aggressor or any of his family. Each sort of man in the tribe — noble, freeman, or slave — had his price or ivergeld fixed by law. If the aggressor were ready to pay the ivergeld or damages to the injured family, and the family was willing to accept this, the wrong was righted. Other wrongs were settled in the same way. If the parties in a quarrel were willing to bring the affair before the assembly presided over by a chosen chief or by the king, the truth was learned through a solemn oath supported by the friends of the parties or by various ordeals. According to one of these 16 ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY ordeals the accused man ^as to thrust his hand into boiling water, and if after a certain cirae the arm showed signs of healing he was considered iiii cent. By another, both accused and accuser were to tight I eiure the judges, and the victor's statement was accepted as true.>^Like all European peoples, the Germans worshipped the great forces of nature, the sun- light and the storm, and the mysterious beauty of the earth. The names of several gods have been preserved to mark our week days, — Tuesday, Wednesday, Tliursday, and Friday. 19. The Christian Conquest of the Germans. — Not long after Christianity had been legalized in the Empire it Avas also taught among the Visigoths north of the Danube by Bishop Ulphilas, a child, it is said, of Christians taken captive in an earlier Gothic raid. When his followers were persecuted by their heathen fellow-tribesmen, they gained permission to cross the river and settle within the Empire. Ulphilas had been ordained a bishop in 341 when Arianism was favored at Constantinople, so that he taught his Gothic converts this doctrine of the relation of Christ to God. The result was that the later Romans detested the Goths not only as invaders and plunderers, but as heretics and enemies of the true Church. As Christianity passed from the Goths to other German tribes, Arianism became the general form of belief held by all the Germans save the Franks. The work of Ulphilas was so far- reaching chiefly because he had given the Gothic language a written form, and had translated into it the Bible, except the books of Kings, which he feared would strengthen the war- like spirit. A manuscript of this Bible still exists and is the earliest example of a Germanic language. 20. Revolt of the Visigothic Federates. — In the latter part of the fourth century the loosely organized Gothic king- dom was attacked by the Huns, a people of shepherds and marauders which had wandered from northern Asia across the Ural Mountains into the valley of the Volga. The Ostrogoths were conquered, but two hundred thousand Visigoths in 376 sought refuge within the Empire behind the Danube. They REVOLT OF VISIGOTHS 17 were granted lands on condition of serving as foederati. Un- fortunately, they were so ill-tr^ ted by the Roman ofi&cials that they soon rose in revolt and*^'>t5gan to lay waste the whole region. At a battle in 378, n^air- Adrianople, the Roman army was overrun by a sudden charge of Gothic horsemen. Valens, the emperor, perished. The new emperor, Theodosius, suc- ceeded in pacifying the Goths and in settling them again as foederati partly in Asia Minor and partly in Europe. When he died, in 395, his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, reigned, one at Constantinople, the other at Rome. After this date the Empire was never really united under a single emperor, so that it is often taken as the beginning of a new era or even of the Middle Ages. SUMMARY I. The Roman Empire. — 1. Size: (a) in relation to civilized world ; (6) in relation to the modern states which its frontiers would enclose. 2. Hindrances and helps to union: (a) differences of race, of language, and of religion, partly overcome (&) by grant of same rights, growth of a general system of law, increasing use of Latin as the language of literature and of education, as well as of administration and of the courts, by a similar manner of living, and by a good system of roads and waterways ; (c) Christianity and its triumph as a help or a hindrance. II. The Roman Government. — 1. Change in its character. 2. Its subdivisions. 3. Its officials. 4. New expenses and heavy taxes. 5. The men who paid and the men who did not pay. 6. An offi- cial protector for the weak. III. The People. — 1. Artisans and tradesmen lose their liberties. 2. Farmers : (a) disappearance of free farmers ; (6) the colonist farmers ; (c) the freedmen as farmers. 3. The nobles : (a) origin of their privileges ; (6) their manner of life ; (c) their dislike of military service. IV. The Army. — 1. Lack of free recruits. 2. German tribesmen as soldiers. 3. Size of army. 4. Military frontier settlements and town garrisons. V. The Outer Barbarians. — The German tribes : 1. Location. 2. Immigration. 3. Their government, manner of life, and religion. 18 ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY Special Points of View : — 1. Weakness of the Empire : (a) from its many frontiers ; (6) from the increasing difficulty of raising money ; (c) because of the decay of patriotism wliere the burdens of society were greater than its benefits ; (d) from the lack of freemen ready to enlist in the army ; (e) because the nobles had lost the fighting spirit ; (/) from the danger that German tribes in the service of the Empire should revolt. 2. Beginnings of Mediasval Society : (a) grovyth of a new nobility ; (6) loss of freedom by workmen in town and country ; (c) a land system in which vast estates were held by individual men, and were cultivated by men who had partly or wholly lost their free- dom ; (d) growing custom of great nobles to defy public officials and exempt their lands from taxation. FURTHER STUDY (See also Bibliography, pp. 477.) General Reading : Adams, Civilization during the Middle Ages ; Bryce, Holy Roman Empire (ed. 1904 ) ; Munro and Sellery, Mediaeval Civilization; B^mont and Monod, 3Iediceval Europe; Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages ; Duruy, The Middle Ages ; Cun- ningham, Western Civilization, Vol. II. ; Lavisse, Political History of Europe; histories of separate countries, — England, by Bright, 5 vols., Gardiner, Green, Andrews, Cheyney, Terry; France, by Adams, Duruy, Kitchin, 3 vols. ; Germany, by Henderson, 2 vols. ; Spain, by Burke, 2 vols. ; manuals of Church history by Fisher, Newman, 2 vols., Alzog, 3 vols. ; selections from the sources, docu- ments, writings, letters, etc. : Henderson, Historical Documents of the Middle Ages; Robinson, Readings in European History; Jones, Civilization during the Middle Ages ; Pennsylvania Trans- lations and Reprints ; Thatcher-McNeal, Source Book for Me- diaeval History ; source books of English history by Colby, Lee, Kendall, Adams-Stephens. Paragraphs : — 1. The heritage of civilization left by the Greeks and Romans, Adanjs, Civilization, Ch. 2. 3. Language, Munro and Sellery, 3-17. 4. Roman Law, see Morey. For later influence of this law, see para- graphs 32 (Justinian's code), 132 (revival at Bologna and else- where). BOMAN EMPIRE IN THE FOURTH CENTURY 19 Paragraphs : — 5. Architecture, see Sturgis, Ch. 2, or Lanciani. 6. Roman Policy toTward Christianity : selections from imperial decrees, contemporary letters, and from Roman and Christian writers, in Translations and Beprints, Vol, IV., No. 1 ; Jones, No. 1 ; and Robinson, Nos. 6 and 7 ; see Adams, Ch. 3 ; Bury, Vol. I., 1-24 ; Newman, 147-172 ; or, at length, Ramsay. 7-13. The Roman Government, the burdens it imposed, the con- sequences, Cunningham, 170-195 ; Hodgkin, Theodosius, 33-54 ; Munro and Sellery, 18-43 ; Bury, 25-49, particularly Dill, 189- 234 ; list of officials, Tr. and Bp. , Vol. VI., No. 4 ; life among barbarians more tolerable, Robinson, Nos. 8, 9. 15-18. The Germans : Adams, Civilisation, Ch. 5 ; Henderson, Ch. 1 ; see also Bury and Dill ; selection from the Germania of Tacitus, in Tr. and Bp., Vol. VI., No. 3 ; Thatcher-McNeal, Nos. 1, 4 ; Jones, No. 2 ; Kendall, No. 2 ; Colby, 9-13. Additional Reading : Hodgkin, Dynasty of Theodosius and Italy and her Invaders, 8 vols. ; Villari, The Barbarian Invasions of Italy, 2 vols. ; Morey, Outlines of Boman Law ; Bury, Later Boman Empire, 2 vols. ; Dill, Boman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Boman Empire, Bury ed., 7 vols. ; Gummere, Germanic Origins; Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Borne; Ramsay, The Church in the Boman Empire; Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 6 vols. ; Sturgis, Euro- pean Architecture. CHAPTER II. THE GERMAN INVASIONS 21 . The Fall of Rome. — Within two centuries of the death of Theodosius the ruin of the Empire was almost complete. Instead of a single will controlling the peoples from the bor- ders of Scotland to the valley of the Euphrates, many king- doms had sprung into existence, mainly in the West — Saxon, Frankish, Burgundian, Gothic, and Vandal — and on the thrones were men with strange names — Ethelbert, Penda, Chlodwig, Euric, Gondebald, Genseric. The Middle Ages had begun. This seems clear to us, but the men of the fifth and sixth centuries did not look at things as we do. They were not accustomed to think chiefly of what was taking place in western Europe, and they saw that the Empire still existed with its capital at Constantinople, and with the ancient East as well as north Africa under its administration. It even re- covered some of its lost territories in Italy and in Spain. Moreover, several of the German kings accepted from the em- peror titles which meant that they were high officials of his government. A few of them actually so regarded themselves, and such the people thought them to be. Even men of intelli- gence continued to believe in the union of the world under a Eoman emperor. These were not the first centuries that had seen invasions from which the Empire recovered. Eude sol- diers had many times led their troops — and among them German foederati — into the heart of rich provinces in search of power, and had even mounted the impei'ial throne. The suc- cessive invasions which now ruined the Empire came either at such long intervals of time or troubled such widely separated 20 VISIGOTHIC RAIDS 21 provinces that not until long afterward could men put them together as belonging to one great event — the fall of the Empire. 22. Alaric's First Attacks. — The Visigoths were foederati in the service of Rome, but they had gained a taste for plun- der and had not forgotten their victory at Adrianople. Their chief, Alaric, soon after the death of Theodosius, possibly because the government refused him a high command in the army, led them on a plundering expedition through Macedonia into Greece. The imperial of&cers were too jealous of one another to unite against the common enemy. Stilicho at one time had Alaric in his power, but allowed him to escape. To free Greece from such a scourge Arcadius appointed Alaric general of the imperial forces in western Illyricum, whence he would be more likely to march into Italy than to threaten Constantinople. After the Gothic chieftain had armed his followers in the imperial arsenals he did attempt the invasion of Italy, only to be beaten back in 402 by Stilicho. A new danger now threatened Italy in the onset of a vast horde of Germans and slaves under Eadagaisus, a wave of invasion thrown forward by the movements of the Huns and the Ostro- goths beyond the northern frontier. Stilicho was equal to this new task, and the invaders were either slain or captured and sold as slaves. 23. Provinces ravaged ; Rome sacked, 410. — Unfortunately Stilicho was suspected by the Roman party at court of con- spiring to create a throne for his son. Already he was the virtual ruler of the West. His wife was the adopted daughter of Theodosius, and his daughter was the wife of Honorius. Partly prompted by jealousy of this powerful German the legions of Britain proclaimed an emperor whose name, Con- stantine, reminded men of the good fortune of another soldier raised to the throne by these legions just a hundred years before. The usurper could not march into Italy, for he was kept busy in Gaul by a multitude of Germans, chiefly Vandals and Suevi, who crossed the Rhine at the end of 406. Another 22 THE GERMAN INVASIONS year passed and Stilicho's Eoman enemies, working on the jealous fears of Honorius, persuaded him to slaughter Stilicho, his family, and many other influential Germans. The victory of the Koman party was brief. Alaric, who had been in the pay of Stilicho, saw that this was his opportunity. He marched at once upon Eome. As its walls were too strong to be taken by assault, he reduced it by famine and put it to ransom. He next demanded two Eoman provinces as a per- manent home for his people. The emperor would not consent. He was himself secure behind the marshes of Eavenna, which he had made his capital since Alaric' s first invasion of Italy. Alaric tried the expedient of setting up a rival emperor at Eome. After this scheme had failed, in 410, he forced an en- trance into the city and gave it over to his barbarous followers to pillage. Only the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul were respected, while hundreds of palaces offered rich spoil to the plunderers. Not since the year 390 before Christ had the city been in the hands of the barbarians. Men could not understand so portentous an event. Those who still wor- shipped the ancient gods declared that the disaster was due to the impiety which had permitted Christianity to displace the old religion. Augustine in reply wrote his famous City of God, describing a new and spiritual city, the Christian's true home, a city not to be overthrown like the earthly Eome by the weaknesses and the crimes of men. 24. Germans in Gaul and Spain. — Meanwhile Gaul was a prey to bands of wandering Germans who plundered, burned, and ransomed through the length and breadth of the land. The evidences of their work have been discovered in the scanty ruins of Eoman cities and country houses, their stones blackened by fire, or in some secret store of gold or silver that was hurriedly buried at the approach of the enemy. A new usurper invited the marauders across the Pyrenees into Spain After they had gone, the Visigoths marched up from Italy under Alaric's brother-in-law. He and the chiefs or kings who succeeded him concluded that it was best for their peoples to GERMANS IN GAUL AND SPAIN 23 enter the service of the Empire rather than to continue their career as plunderers. As the chief reason that led them within the Empire was the lack of land, the only way for the Empire to purchase their service was to grant them land. For this they agreed to drive the Vandals and the Suevi out of Spain. These peoples had not captured many Spanish cities, Carcassonxe. City on the Aude in southern France. Fortified by the Visigoths, probably on foundations of Roman walls. Walls rebuilt and enlarged in the Middle Ages. See, also, page 121. but held the open country. All the Vandals except those north of the Douro were conquered, and the Visigoths received the provinces in the Garonne valley as their reward. Although they had originally come to this region as plunderers, they now began to respect what property was left the Eoman inhabit- ants. Since it was land that they must have, it was decided that when they could not be provided out of vacant or public 24 THE GERMAN INVASIONS lands the larger landowners should be required to give up two- thirds of their estates. In the case of other German tribes occasionally only one-third was demanded. This land settle- ment of itself would not have brought much distress had it not been preceded by wanton destruction of property, the burning of cities, and the massacre of the natives. A little later the Burgundians, who also were recognized as in the service of the Empire, settled in the Ehone valley on similar , terms. While these events were taking place greater numbers of Germans had moved to the west bank of the Ehiue into the region that was to become Alsace and Lorraine. Here they fixed themselves so firmly that their western border became in time the line of separation between the two languages, French and German. The southward movement of the Franks along the lower Ehine, driving the ancient inhabitants of the Belgian provinces beyond the river Lys and the neighboring forests, marked the origin of the Flemings. Britain had been abandoned by the Roman legions and Avas left to defend it- self. After the first storm was over the Empire seemed still united, although German kingdoms had been established within its borders. 25. Attila and Aetius. — Since the day when the Visigoths took refuge within the Empire the Huns had been extending their power westward to the great bend of the Danube. Their capital was somewhere on the Theiss. To guard the provinces from their raids the emperor at Constantinople was forced to pay a heavy tribute. Occasionally, also, Hunnic soldiers were hired to fight in the Roman armies. Aetius, the Stilicho of this period, had been a hostage with the Huns, and had once through their intercession been restored to favor at the court of Ravenna, and even advanced to the command of the troops. Although Aetius and Attila, the terrible king of the Huns, were on friendly terms, Attila was drawn into a war with the Empire in which Aetius became his antagonist. It happened in this way : the Vandals had again occupied the southern part of Spain and, taking advantage of quarrels in the African ATTILA AND THE HUNS 25 Church, and between Eoman officials in Africa, had crossed the straits of Gibraltar in 429 and seized the disturbed provinces. At first they entered into a bargain with the Eoman government at Constantinople similar to that which bound the Visigoths and the Burgundians to the court of Eavenna. They even promised to pay a tribute of grain and oil. Afterward Africa became an independent Vandal kingdom. It was partly to please the Vandal king, who feared Aetius, partly to claim a share of the Empire as husband of a Eoman princess, partl}^ for plunder and conquest, that Attila marched into Gaul in 451 at the head of a host of Huns, Ostrogoths, and other tribesmen. Never before had Asiatics stretched their power so far into western Europe. In the presence of this danger Aetius per- suaded the Visigoths, the Burgundians, and even the Franks to make common cause with the Eomans. Aetius and his followers, Eoman and German, saved Orleans, which the Huns were besieging, and a little later fought a battle with them near Troyes, at Maurica. This is commonly called the battle of Chalons, where it was formerly believed to have taken place. The struggle was so fierce that the rivulet which flowed through the fields was swollen into a torrent of blood. In after days it was said that German and Hun were wont to rise from their graves and give ghostly battle in the air. Although neither party was really defeated, the fruits of victory belonged to Aetius, for Attila decided to retreat to his capital. The next year he invaded Italy and plundered the plains of the Po. Why he did not advance to Eome is not known. Probably his army was weakened by famine and disease and harassed by the troops of Aetius. At all events, after receiving an embassy led by the Eoman bishop, Leo, he again retreated. A year later he died, and his kingdom soon fell to pieces. The same jealous folly which had destroyed Stilicho now caused the emperor to murder Aetius. As the first sack of Eome was the consequence of Stilicho's murder, so another and worse pillage of the city by the Vandals in 455 was made possible by the death of Aetius. Leo again inter- 26 TUE GERMAN INVASIONS vened, and, although he could not save the riches of the city from plunder, he protected the people from massacre. 26. The Last of the West Eoman Emperors, — The murder of Aetius had also been avenged by the murder of the emperor Valentinian III. At this time, as at the death of Honorius, twenty years before, the whole Empire might again have been brought under a single ruler, and the separation which Theodosius had provided for in 395 might have been ended. Indeed, several times in the stormy days which followed there was no emperor save at Constantinople, but the phantom of a separate imperial government in Italy lingered for another twenty years. The real power belonged to the army and to its leaders, successors to Stilicho and Aetius. One of these generals, a German, made and unmade emperors during almost the whole period. After his death another general named his young son, Eomulus, emperor, and to him was given the title Augustulus, the little Augustus. He did not reign long, for Odovacar, a foreign officer, deposed him in 476, and caused the senate to send an embassy to Constantinople asking for the reunion of the Empire, and that the title '' patrician " be granted to Odovacar. Odovacar's followers, like the Visigoths and Burgundians, wanted a portion of the land upon which to settle. In one sense Italy now became a German kingdom, in another sense it was brought under the rule of the emperor at Constantinople. The Romans lived on under their old laws, while their German neighbors were ruled according to German customs. This event has often been called the " Fall of the Roman Empire," and it has been taken as the proper starting- point of the Middle Ages. Such a description of it was the invention of men who did not truly understand what had happened. The Roman Empire was falling, but the events which brought about its ruin were scattered over the fifth and sixth centuries. 27. Fate of Gaul and Britain. — The death of Aetius and the confusion in Italy took away what little chance there was of restraining the Germans in Gaul and keeping up the ap- FATE OF GAUL AND BRITAIN 27 pearance of real imperial government. The Burgundians en- larged their territory in the Ehone valley, and the Visigoths ceased to consider themselves foederati. They even invaded Spain and conquered it for themselves, their kingdom for a time extending from the Loire to the straits of Gibraltar. Already Britain, which since the usurper Constantine left its shores had not been protected by a Roman army, was suffer- ing from incursions of Saxon and Anglian bands. Many of the Britons, in despair, crossed to Gaul, and in the peuinsula of Armorica laid the foundations of modern Brittany. Others sullenly and slowly fell back toward the western shores of Britain itself. About their gallant resistance cluster the legends of King Arthur and his Knights. The struggle was so stubborn that nearly all traces of Roman and Christian civ- ilization were destroyed and the eastern part of the island be- came as barbarous and heathen as the lands beyond the Rhine. In the north of Gaul there were a few provinces under the rule of the Roman general, Syagrius. Even this remnant of empire was swept away in 486 when the Prankish king, Chlod- wig (Clovis), conquered Syagrius at Soissons. 28. The Victorious Franks. — Soon afterward Chlodwig, by treacherous and- brutal deeds, united all the Franks under his rule. He next conquered the Alamanni. It was during this struggle that, tradition says, he took a step which changed the relations of Roman and German. All the German tribes had hitherto held to the Arian views which they had at first received. With the growing influence of the Church, which regarded Arianism as a deadly heresy, it was difficult to com- pel Roman and German to live quietly side by side. Even the peaceful Burgundian kings could not overcome the suspicion with which they were looked upon. The wise Chlodwig saw the power which the bishops held and won them over to his support by accepting the Christian faith in the form they taught and by being baptized with three thousand of his followers by Saint Remi. Henceforward in any conflicts which the Franks were to have with either the Burgundians or the Visigoths 28 THE GERMAN INVASIONS the powerful churclimen would wish for a Frankish victory. It was not long before Chlodwig had driven the Visigoths south of the Garonne and his successors had made of the Burgundians a tributary people. Unlike the other Germans the Franks did not demand a part of the soil. They were conquerors, not emigrants, and after their victories many of them returned to their northern homes. Chlodwig, who died iu 511, was the founder of the Merovingian line of kings, named from his legendary ancestor Meroveus. 29. The Ostrogoths invade Italy. — The soldier Odovacar did not long rule undisturbed in Italy. A short time before he deposed the little Augustus one branch of the Ostrogothic people received a new king, Thiuda-reiks, called Theodoric by the Romans. Theodoric, during his youth, had lived as a hostage at Constantinople, a pledge of the peace betweerj his tribe and the Empire. After he became king he alternately served the Empire as a commander of foederati and quarre^lled with the emperors, harrying the country almost to the gates of Constantinople. In one of the intervals of peace he was raised to the consulate, still a high honor, although it gave no real power. Finally he proposed to the emperor to lead his Goths into Italy, overthrow Odovacar, and rule there until the em- peror could come to reestablish his own authority over these well-nigh lost provinces. The emperor was glad to have so troublesome an officer as far away as possible. Theodoric, in 488, gathered his tribe together, probably about two hundred thousand in number, with forty thousand fighting men. The journey from the banks of the Danube was long and dangerous, for it lay through the lands of hostile tribes. Odovacar was no match for his new rival and in 490 shut himself up in Ravenna. After a three years' siege he surrendered, but soon suffered the fate of Stilicho and of Aetius. The excuse was the same, and the murderer was Theodoric himself. 30. Theodoric rules Italy, 493-526. — From the death of Odovacar until his own death, over thirty years later, Theod- oric ruled unopposed over Italy. His followers received a THEODORIC IN ITALY 29 third of the land, and settled quietly beside the conquered, liv- ing under the same officers, and probably the same laws. The organization of Italy was not changed ; even the taxes were collected in the old way, though the condition of the curials was made more endurable. Theodoric surrounded himself with advisers who sincerely tried to rule as the Empire had Tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna. Constructed during Ms reign. Used during the Middle Ages as the choir of tlie church S. Maria della Rotonda. The roof is a single block of Istrian marble, 33 feet in diameter, weighing 300 tons. been ruled in its happier days, and Italy began to recover its vanished prosperity. The distribution of land to the con- querors had been an advantage, partly because it brought many abandoned estates under cultivation, and partly because some of the greater estates were subdivided. Italy became more capable of furnishing its own food supply, although it was still necessary to fetch grain from other countries. The greatest obstacle in Theodoric's path grew out of the fact that 30 THE GERMAN INVASIONS his followers were Ariaus dwelling in the midst of a population which looked upon Arians as dangerous heretics. He naturally suspected that the Romans were plotting to drive away both him and his Goths, and to restore the authority of the em- peror. He had been careful to act as if Italy was a part of the Empire, and on his coins the image of the emperor was stamped, but he did not mean that the emperor should actually rule. Toward the end of his reign, mastered by his suspicions of treason, he struck as savagely as at Ravenna. Two dis- tinguished Romans were put to death, one of whom, Boethius, wrote during captivity a book on the Consolation of Philosophy, which has immortalized his name. About the same time the honors which the emperor showed the pope of Rome, who went on an embassy to Constantinople, further exasperated Theodoric. The pope, on his return, was arrested, and died in prison. In 526 Theodoric also died. One year more and the imperial throne was mounted by Justinian, whose gen- erals were to destroy the kingdom Theodoric had so wisely managed. 31. The New East: Justinian, 527-565. — Ever since Alaric marched down into Italy the East had suffered almost as much as the West. To protect from raids their European provinces the emperors had been forced to pay tribute to one barbarian chieftain after another. Shortly before Justinian became em- peror the administration had been reformed, prosperity had returned to the provinces, and the revenues were increasing. During the first years of his reign it seemed as if the Empire was to recover its former territories in Africa and in the West, and to enter upon a new career of glory, but in fact it was ceas- ing to be imperial and was becoming more distinctly a Greek or Byzantine kingdom. Because of this change it lingered until the Middle Ages were passing into the full blaze of the Renais- sance. Though the people still called themselves Romaioi, they gained a spirit really Greek and national, which gave them more unity and greater power of resistance. Justinian tacitly recog- nized the change when he abolished the ancient consulate and JUSTINIAN 31 when he permitted Greek to take the place of Latin in official documents. In strange contrast was his codification of the Roman law, the most important means by which Rome's legacy to the world was to be preserved. 32. The Roman Law. — Justinian had not been on the throne six months before he appointed a commission to revise and bring into a consistent whole all the laws which previous em- perors had issued. The result was the Civil Code, completed in a little more than a year. Tribonian, the best-known mem- ber of this commission, was placed at the head of a second, which in three years condensed into five or six volumes more than a hundred volumes of opinions of lawyers whose explana- tions of disputed questions had been accepted by the courts as decisive. This work was called the Digest or Pandects. 33. Reconquest of Africa and Italy. — After Justinian's great work for Roman law was finished, his general, Belisarius, in 534, utterly destroyed the Vandal kingdom and recovered Africa as an imperial province. This was followed by the reconquest of Sicily and the overthrow of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. In both Africa and Italy the excuse for war was the dethrone- ment of princes favorable to Justinian. In Italy the prosperous days of Theodoric were regretfully remembered when the impe- rial tax-gatherers began to oppress the people. For a time there was a chance that a new Gothic hero, the chivalrous Totila, would restore the fortunes of his countrymen ; but he, too, per- ished, and Italy in 552 became a part of the Empire in fact, as it always had been in name. The cost of it all was terrible, for the land was covered with ruins. The population of Rome, which so late as the reign of Honorius had been a million, had sunk to fifty thousand. During the last sieges the aqueducts had been cut, so that the splendid baths became useless, and they, as well as the temples, began to crumble. 34. The Lombards. — Justinian had not been dead three years before the Lombards, another German horde, appeared in Italy, and robbed the Empire of a large part of its con- quest. They seized the plains of the Po, and extended their 32 THE GERMAN INVASIONS rule far down the peninsula beyond Rome. There remained to the Greeks only Rome and the territory immediately de- pendent upon it, the lands about Ravenna, and the southern part of the peninsula. These were ruled by an officer called an exarch, who lived at Ravenna. 35. Glories and Perils of Justinian. — Justinian is remem- bered not merely for his victories and his laws, but also for Saint Sophia. At Constantinople, erected by Justinian in 538 as a church, converted by the Turks into a mosque. Its dome is 107 feet in diameter, while the dome of the Pantheon is 1-12 feet. his great public buildings, and especially for the church of St. Sophia, which still stands, though transformed into a Turkish mosque. In the midst of his enterprises the whole eastern world was overwhelmed by a plague so frightful that it can be compared only with the plague at Athens in the Peloponne- sian War, and the Black Death which swept across Europe in 1347-1348. A few years before his power had been shaken by an insurrection in Constantinople, called the Nika. While SAINT SOPHIA 33 the struggle was still undecided, he was encouraged by the bold words of the Empress Theodora, who assured him it was better Note. — The interior of the church of Saint Sophia was sheathed in beautiful marbles, and its columns were of porphyry. These are still unharmed, but the mosaics representing saints and angels have been covered because the church is now a mosque. 34 THE GERMAN INVASIONS to die on the throne than to live in exile, and who reminded him of an old saying that " Empire is a fair winding sheet." 36. The Doom of Ancient Civilization. — In the century and a half between the march of Alaric and the occupation of Italy by the Lombards, the appearance of western Europe had changed strangely. Whole districts had been depopulated and were now covered with forests infested by dangerous wild beasts. The great roads were no longer safe. Pirates terror- ized the seas. Commerce and trade languished. Artisans be- came scarce, and their work rude and inartistic. For this reason a horse cost less than his bridle. The king of Bur- gundy searched in vain through his dominions for a mechanic who could construct a water-clock. Industry in the towns languished because each great estate had among its slaves the artisans needed to do the work which was indispensable. The disorder and violence drove men to people the world with imaginary terrors, demons, goblins, and dragons, as if bar- barian chieftains and robber lords were not enough. Their notions of nature became as crude and childlike as those of the Greeks before the philosophers and mathematicians had painfully worked out a scientific notion of the world. The shadow of the Dark Ages already lay upon Europe. SUMMARY I. The Three Attacks. — 1. Visigothic federates and the Germans beyond the Rhine : (a) Alaric's march through Greece and his first repulse in Italy ; (6) raid of Radagaisus ; (c) Vandals and Suevi ravage Gaul and Spain ; (d) sack of Rome ; (e) Visigothic federates reconquer Spain from Vandals and settle in Garonne valley. 2. Attack of Huns and Vandals : (a) Vandals cross into Africa ; (b) Attila invades Gaul, is repulsed ; (c) invades Italy, retires ; (d) Vandals sack Rome ; (e) Visigothic kingdom in southern Gaul and Spain, Burgundian kingdom in Rhone valley ; (/) Angles and Saxons begin conquest of Britain. 3. Ostrogoths and Franks : (a) Odovacar in control of Italy ; (6) Theodoric in Italy ; (c) Chlodwig in nortliern Gaul. EUBOPE ABOUT 600 A.D. AFTER THE GERMANIC INVASIONS Tlie Empire in red. Earlier fi-ontier in ttie West indicated by broken red lines. Sliglit gains liad been made on tlie eastern frontier. In the West tlie population of Italy, Spain and of Gaul, south of the broken line remained chiefly Gallo-Roman, the Germans forming a small percentage of it. German kingdoms which had disappeared are noted. Longitude East from Greeowich THE GERMAN INVASIONS 35 11. German and Roman. — 1. German settlements : (a) Visigoths in southern Gaul and Spain ; (6) Burgundians in Rhone valley ; (c) Franks in northern Gaul ; (d) Ostrogoths in Italy ; (e) Van- dals in Africa ; (/) Angles, Saxons in Britain ; (gr) Lombards in Italy. 2. Destroyers or neighbors : (a) compare case of Visigoths and Ostrogoths ; (b) compare these with case of Franks, or (c) of Angles and Saxons, 3. Land settlements : (a) Visigothic ; (6) Frankish ; (c) Ostrogothic. 4. Law (Theodoric). III. Partial Recovery of Empire, — 1. Justinian, his work and his conquests, 2, Lombard attack. 3, Portions of old Empire still under imperial control at end of Justinian's reign. Special Point of Vie-w : — With the aid of books referred to under "Further Study," consider the careers of the defenders and assailants of the Empire (Stilicho, Aetius, Syagrius, and the generals of Justinian ; Alaric, Attila, Chlodwig, Odovacar, and Theodoric), in order to discover addi- tional reasons why the Empire lost in the struggle, IMPORTANT DATES 378, Battle of Adrianople. 395. Death of Theodosius ; administrative division of the Empire, 410. Sack of Rome by Alaric (group minor events in relation to this), J 449. Beginning of Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, \ 451, Battle of Maurica (Chalons) ; associate Vandal sack of Rome, 455. r 476. Odovacar deposes Romulus Augustulus (" Fall of Rome "). \ 486. Victory of Chlodwig over Syagrius, l 493. Theodoric becomes ruler of Italy. 527-565. Reign of Justinian (reconquest of Italy and Africa). 568. Lombard invasion. FURTHER STUDY General Reading, see list for Chapter I. ; add Oman, Dark Ages. Paragraphs : — 21, In studying the general character and consequences of the German invasions compare the accounts in Bright, Green, or Gardiner, for England ; in Henderson, for Germany ; Adams, Duruy, or Kitchin, Vol, I,, for France ; Burke, for Spain ; Hodgkin, Dy- nasty of Theodosius and Theodoric for Italy. See also Dill, pp. 237-318, 36 THE GERMAN INVASIONS Paragraphs : — 22-23. Gothic Invasion, early accounts in Eobinson, Nos. 11-13 ; Thatcher-McNeal, No. 3. Sieges of Rome, Hodgkin, Theodosius, 159-167 ; results of sack, Lanciani, Destruction of Borne, Cli. 5. Stilicho, Bury, I., 74 ff. ; Hodgkin, Theodosius, Villari, Barbarian Invasions of Italy. 24. The Goths and Burgundians in Southern Gaul : Kitchin, I., 60 ; Dill, 288 ff. 25. Huns : description by Ammianus and by Priscus, Robinson, Nos. 10, 14. Pull narrative of Priscus, Bury, Vol. I., 21.3-22.3. Attila's career, Hodgkin, 169-203 ; Aetius, Bury, I., 167 ff. Relation of Attila's invasion to beginnings of Venice, Hodgkin, 199. 26. Nature of "Fall of Rome," see Bryce, Ch. 3. Thatcher-McNeal, No. 3. Odovacar, Bury, I., 276 ff. ; Hodgkin, Theodoric, Chs. 6, 7 ; Oman, Dark Ages, Ch. 1. 27. Coming of the English : Green, 5-14 ; Green, Making of England, Chs. 1-4 ; Ramsay, I., Ch. 9 ; Colby, No. 5 ; Kendall, No. 3. 28. Chlodwig (Clovis) : Robinson, No. 17 ; importance of his conversion, Lavisse, 18-21 ; Kitchin, I., 69-70 ; Alzog, II., 46-50. 29-30. Ostrogoths in Italy : Hodgkin, Theodoric. Thatcher-McNeal, No. 3. Por the owners of the great estates referred to here and in 24, see 12 and 13. 31. The New East, see especially Oman's Byzantine Empire, Ch. 11. 32. The Roman Law : Morey, 158-163 ; Gibbon, Ch. 44 ; Bury, I., 365- 371 ; Wilson, The State, 167-174. 33. Victories of Justinian: Bury, I., 381-398; Oman, Dark Ages, Chs. 5, 6. 34. Lombards: Bury, II., 145-158; Oman, Dark Ages, Ch. 11. 35. The Nika : Gibbon, Ch. 40 ; Bury, I., 337-345 ; Munro and Sellery, 87-113. 36. Results of Invasions : Robinson, No. 12 ; Munro and Sellery, 44-49, 50-59. Additional Reading : Green, The Making of England ; Ramsay, Foundations of England, 2 vols. ; Church, Early Britain ; Blok, History of the Netherlands, 3 vols. ; Oman, Byzantine Empire ; Oman, Dark Ages (476-918). CHAPTER III. THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS Y 37. Work of the Church : Borders of Christendom. — At a time when the remnant of the Empire was becoming Greek and when the western provinces were ingulfed in the rising flood of barbarism, the task of guarding the Roman name and something of Roman ideas and institutions passed to the Church. Even Rome itself was to regain through the Church its position of capital as well as a new title to the name "Eternal City." The subdivisions of the Empire were per- petuated in ecclesiastical dioceses and provinces. The Roman law was preserved not merely in its influence upon the laws of the German kingdoms, but also in the laws of the Church, commonly called the canon law. Priests and monks were the teachers and writers, and saved the books of the Romans from utter destruction. Almost all that we mean by civilization took refuge within the protecting enclosure of church or mon- astery walls. In this way the Church rendered less disastrous the wreck of the Empire and maintained a bond of union between peoples otherwise enemies. ( Furthermore, it took up a work which the Empire had long abandoned, and pushed the frontiers of civilization northward into Germany, the Scan- dinavian Peninsula, and Russia.-/ Meanwhile a power arose in the East which robbed the Empire of more than half the territory it still controlled, and which menaced even the Christian peoples of the West. This was Islam or Moham- Y medanism. The two centuries which followed the death of Justinian saw this new invasion roll over Syria and Africa, and penetrate into Europe as far as the valley of the Loire. 37 38 THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS 38. Growth of the Bishop's Power. — AVherever the German invaders put an end to the imperial rule or undertook to direct it themselves, the conquered Eomans naturally turned to their bishops for protection. Even before the invasions the bishops had been something more than rulers of the Church. They managed the property given or bequeathed to it, especially after the reign of Constantine. From the early days of Christianity the brethren had been taught to bring their dis- putes before them for settlement. Constantine ordered that at the request of one of the parties to a civil case it be transferred to the bishop's court. Although this privilege disappeared later, the bishops retained control of civil cases in which priests were involved. When the invasions had interrupted trade and commerce, and had destroyed much of the wealth that could be seized and carried away, the only form of wealth that remained fairly secure was land. Whoever could keep large estates was a great man because he could care for many dependents, and these dependents could work and, if need be, fight for him. Such a powerful landlord the Chiirch was speedily coming to be, and it took advantage, as did all other great landlords, of the fact that property and power went to- gether. Consequently the collapse of the imperial administra- tion, instead of seriously crippling the Church, was one of the causes of increasing its influence. If the bishop was to be looked to for protection, it was also natural that he should be chosen from among those who were already rich and influ- ential, especially if they were men who had had experience in managing affairs. Many of the prominent bishops of the fifth century in Italy and Gaul were chosen from the senatorial class, that is, from among the wealthiest nobles. Gradually they took into their hands matters which had once belonged to the imperial officers. In Italy, after Justinian had restored the authority of the Empire, each city had its count or tribune as well as its bishop, but often it was the bishop rather than the tribune who was the real ruler. Into his hands passed at least the duties of the " defender," the care of the poor, and THE PAPACY 39 the maintenance of public works. As soon as the Germans abandoned their Arianism, the bishop could be looked upon no longer as an enemy by any of the contending peoples, — Goth, Burgundian, Lombard, or Greek, — because all professed the same faith. This freed his position from the ordinary dangers of rule in such times. Although there were bad as well as good bishops, the increase in their power was on the whole a great advantage. They understood better than any one out- side of Constantinople the way the old government had been carried on. /C 39. The Papacy. — If the ordinary bishop gained in influ- ence during these centuries of strife, the greatest gainer was the bishop of Rome, who in Italy by the fifth century was coming to be called "pope" to distinguish him from other bishops. The Eoman Church was the richest of all, possessing estates in Italy, Africa, and other parts of the West. Not only was the pope, by the end of the sixth century, superior to the representative of the emperor in Rome, but the city itself was organized like a big parish. It was divided into quarters, at the head of each of which was placed a deacon. The life of the whole community centred in the churches or basilicas. Outside of Rome the magic of the Roman name was enough to give the pope his unique position among the bishops of the world. This was strengthened by the belief that the church at Rome had been founded by Peter, the " Prince of the Apostles," to whom Christ had said, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church : and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.'" The popes urged that to Peter, and to them as his successors, the care of guarding the doctrines of the Church had been intrusted. They were practical minds, not inclined, as were their brethren in Constantinople and the East, to stray away into curious investigations upon the mystery of God's nature and of the union of the human and the divine in Christ's personality. Very few western bishops attended the Church councils where these questions were debated. When the pope did interfere, it was rather as an arbiter or judge who 40 THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS came to settle the controversy. His representative presided over the council of Chalcedon, which met in 451, the year Attila was ravaging Gaul, and his letter to the council con- tained the words which were embodied in the Nicene creed about the two natures of Christ. To this reputation for right teaching or orthodoxy, in which they had no rivals, the popes added much actual power. By the council of Nicgea (325) they had been given jurisdiction over Italy. In the West there was no church which could equal theirs in antiquity or in prominence, so that while the bishops of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria claimed an equality with the bishop of Rome, no western bishops in later days put forward such a claim. To the papal claim of control beyond the confines of Italy over the whole West Valentinian III. gave the support of an imperial decree. The belief gained ground that the Church was one, and that its head was the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, who presided at Eome. Just how far the idea would be carried out and in what ways it would affect the actual administration of the Church depended upon circum- stances, and chiefly upon the patient persistence and skill with which, decade after decade, the popes urged their claims and managed the affairs which came into their hands. 40. Origin of Monasticism. — The work of the Church in stay- ing the ruin of ancient civilization was aided by companies of men whose aim might, at first glance, seem inconsistent Avith the existence of society itself. These men were monks, grouped under the direction of abbots in monasteries scattered all over the West. Those who first led the way in this manner of living were moved by a sense of the seriousness of the conflict within them between the desire to do right and to be pure and the temptation to seek their own pleasures, even if these were ignoble and vicious. Their decision to turn away from the world was increased by the violence which swept like an epidemic through the Empire as the authority of the law was less respected and as bands of marauding Romans or barbarians went about attacking towns and maltreating the BENEDICTINE RULE 41 inhabitants. They became convinced that in his Gospel Jesus called some to a higher life, one which should be a closer imita- tion of the life of him who had no place where to lay his head, and no mother nor any brethren save those who did the will of Grod. They longed to yield to him a completer obedience than was possible to those who remained in the world and continued to own lands and to have wives and'children. Obscurely com- bined with these feelings was the belief that about earthly rela- tionships there was a taint which they must seek to escape. Some of the early Christians of the East who looked at the world in this way sold their property, separated themselves from their families, and retired into the deserts to mortify the flesh and to live wholly in thoughts of God. Even here evil beset them, for the body, tortured by hunger, thirst, the heats of the desert, and utter loneliness, retaliated, vexing the mind with dreams of dreadful monsters or visions of the earthly temptations embodied in shapes irresistibly alluring. Bitter experience taught some of the hermits a wiser plan. They withdrew from the desert and gathered other like-minded men into houses or monasteries, where they lived under the direction of a leader and according to a rule. Similar houses were also founded for women. The great lawgiver of the monasteries of the West was Benedict, who, in 528, while Justinian was begin- ning his work at Constantinople, built on the ruins of a pagan temple in southern Italy the famous monastery of Monte Casino. 41. Benedictine Eule. — The Eule which Benedict drew up for his monks was adopted or imitated everywhere, and the order named Benedictine became the most influential of those of its type. Although Benedict had been a hermit, he marked out in his Eule a way of living in strong contrast to the hermit life, which caused the monks to become useful path breakers for the new civilization. " Idleness," he declared, " is the enemy of the soul." In consequence, the monks were to occupy them- selves either with manual labor or in reading. Wherever a Benedictine monastery was placed, the forests were cleared and the fields were cultivated. Much land, which on account 42 THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS of the disorder of the times had become wild, was reclaimed. The monks spread the tradition of good farming. In order that all the brethren might have books to read, some of them were kept at work copying sacred writings, and even the Roman writers, whose Latin was still admired and imitated. It was in this way that many Roman books were preserved. The system not only dignified labor, which had to so great an extent in wfii i • i,^ HKainiJ^HJi Abbey of Montmajour. In southeastern France. Part of the ruins date from the sixth century. Its position as well as its walls and great tower made it virtually into a strong fortress. ancient society been left to slaves, it also refused to distinguish between the slave and the freeman. Although the monk was vowed to poverty, the monastery in which he lived might be- come rich and he might enjoy some of the benefits of wealth. As generous persons began to leave lands or money to these establishments, they became landowners, managing their estates through stewards. The estates of the Abbey of St. Germain- POPE GREGORY, AND THE MISSION TO ENGLAND 43 des-Pres, a monastery which stood just outside mediaeval Paris, eventually covered nearly 800 square miles. 42. Monks as Missionaries. — The monasteries not merely helped to redeem the country from desolation and preserved literature, they were the centres from which missionaries were sent to extend the Christian faith among tribes which had never been reached. During the fifth and sixth centuries, when the Saxons and Angles were driving the Britons west- ward, British Christianity took refuge in Ireland. Monasteries and churches were built everywhere. The monks industriously copied ancient books. So full of zeal and so learned were these monks that Ireland won the name of the Isle of the Saints. Prom Ireland Saint Coluraba crossed to Scotland about 563, and at lona, an island not far from Pingal's cave, founded a monastery which became a centi*e for the spread of Christianity through Scotland and the northern part of the England of the Angles and the Saxons. 43. Pope Gregory (590-604), and the Mission to England. — The first pope to make use of the monks as missionaries was Gregory the Great. He was of noble birth and had risen to be prefect of Rome. Afterward he suddenly broke off his public career, turned his palace into a monastery, and became its abbot. When in 590, notwithstanding his protests, he was chosen pope, Italy was in a desperate condition. As he wrote in one of his letters : " The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste, . . . villages are empty. ... We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. ... If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds." He deserved the name " Great " because he did much to lessen these miseries by holding the ruthless Lombards in check, by redeeming captives, and by using the income of Church estates to relieve the poor and the suffering. His care was also extended over the churches of the West, where, with- out constantly asserting his supremacy as bishop of Rome, he sought to introduce more order and justice. While he took for the bishop of Rome the humble title servus servorum dei 44 THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS (servant of God's servants), he rebuked the pretensions of the bishop of Constantinople that the See of New Eome was equal in dignity to the church founded by Peter. With all these labors he had time to improve the ritual of the Church and its music. He did not forget the ideals of his monastic life. As pope he was surrounded by monks. The Rule of Benedict was confirmed through his influence by a Church council. He also determined to use the monks as missionaries. This was partly because he had himself wanted to become a missionary. One day while he was an abbot he saw in the Roman slave market three fair-haired boys for sale. He inquired who they were and the reply was Angles. "Angels," he exclaimed, "yes, they have faces like angels, and they should become companions of the angels in heaven." Since he could not go to England when he became pope, he sent the prior of his monastery, Augustine, and forty monks, who in 597 established themselves at Canterbury in the kingdom of Kent. 44. British and Roman Missionaries. — Canterbury was the southern centre from which the work of converting the heathen Anglo-Saxons was pushed steadily on. There was great jealousy between the Scottish and Irish missionaries and these newcomers from E-ome, for Ireland and Scotland had so long been cut off from Europe that their religious customs were different from the customs which the influence of Rome was spreading everywhere. The quarrel threatened to be long and bitter, but it was ended by King Oswiu of Northumberland, who, at the conference of Whitby, in 664, decided for the Roman party because he feared lest Peter, the bearer of the keys of heaven, might some day refuse him entrance were he disobedient to the commands of the Romans. It was fortunate that the affair was so decided, for otherwise England might have remained less open to influences from the Continent and to the new civilization which was to grow up there. 45. Boniface, Apostle to the Germans. — A little over a cen- tury after Gregory had sent Augustine to convert the Anglo- Saxons, another Pope Gregory found in one of these converted GAINS AND LOSSES OF CHRISTENDOM 45 Anglo-Saxons a missionary to the Germans beyond the Rhine. His name was Boniface. He was not the first to work among the Germans, for monks had come over from Ireland and Scot- land and had prepared the way. Unlike them Boniface was anxious in all things to follow the leadership of the pope. He took an oath of obedience in 722, promising to have no com- munion with those who did not do as the successors of Peter taught or who should resist their authority. The work of Boniface lay in what is now southern and western Germany. Everywhere he sought to root out pagan superstitions and sub- stitute Christian ceremonies for the rites venerated by the peo- ple. Before an awe-stricken multitude he cut down the sacred oak of Geismar and constructed a Christian chapel out of the wood. He was so successful that the pope made him arch- bishop and gave him power to establish bishoprics. Among those which afterward became centres of a better civilization were Eegensburg, Salzburg, and Wurzburg, and also the monas- tery of Fulda. Supported by the Prankish rulers, Charles Mar- tel and Pepin, he reformed the Prankish Church, which was sorely troubled by bishops and abbots Tvho were often either passionate huntsmen or plunderers rather than shepherds of the people. Several bishoprics and abbeys had been seized by lay- men. Toward the end of his life the archbishopric of Mainz was created for him and became the Church capital of Ger- many. Notwithstanding these successes Boniface longed to return to his missionary work. He went to Prisia, where the pagan party was still strong, and there in 755 he was murdered. 46. Gains and Losses of Christendom. — Through the work of men like Augustine and Boniface Britain, now becoming Eng- land, was won again to Christianity, and the frontier of the rude Christian civilization of the day was pushed beyond the Ehine. Scotland and Ireland had also been territorial gains to Christendom made since the collapse of the Empire. These were some compensation for the losses in the east and south, where whole regions were torn away by the victorious Mos- lems, and where for centuries Christianity had to defend itself. 46 THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS 47. Religion in Arabia : Mohammed (571-632). — Somewhat inland from the eastern shore of the Red Sea lies the city of Mecca. Here Mohammed was born six years after the death of Justinian. At this time the Arab tribes were not united The Kaaba At Mecca. The chief sanctuary of Islam. First erected, according to the legend, by Abraham and Ishmael. Form : a cube, 40 feet long, 33 feet wide, 50 feet high. la its walls is set the sacred black stone. This was broken by fire in 683, but its parts were held together in a setting of silver. The Kaaba has been reconstructed several times since Moham- med's day. The building is covered with a heavy black silk damask — the sacred carpet — which is replaced by a new one each year. under a single rule, nor did they all have the same religious customs, although there were signs of a change which would bring them together. The principal shrine, the Kaaba at Mecca, was becoming the centre of the religious life of the whole race. Within its walls were gathered more than three hundred of the local gods and here was the stone which the Angel Gabriel had TEACHINGS AND TRIUMPHS OF MOHAMMED 47 brought, and which had lost its dazzling whiteness, blackened by the sins of those who touched it. Although the people were idolaters, there were teachers who declared that earlier there had been a purer religion, in which Allah, or God, alone was worshipped. Such men were especially open to the influence of Jewish and Christian ideas which came in from the neighbor- ing Palestine. Before Mohammed became a religious teacher he was regarded as a just man, who could be trusted to settle fairly the disputes which were brought to him. There was something also that marked him as of a nature different and greater than his fellows. He was fortunate in winning the love of a distant relative, the rich widow Kadijah, into whose service he had entered as a commercial agent. After his marriage with her, freed from the need of earning a livelihood, his thoughts turned more and more to the religious questions which were troubling the minds of other Arabs. He often wandered upon the mountains fasting. Soon he had visions and heard voices, as it were the voices of angels. At first he was afraid that demons were vexing him or that he was going mad, but Kadi- jah reassured him, believing it was truly the Angel Gabriel who had spoken. He gave himself up to this strange experi- ence. It was long before even his own family was convinced that he was a prophet. When first he declared himself, they laughed him to scorn. As gradually the little band of disciples increased, the guardians of the Kaaba began to look upon him as a dangerous man and finally resolved to kill him. He knew of their design and fled, September 24, 622, to a town where he already had adherents and which took the name Medina. This flight, or Hegira, was regarded by his followers as the beginning of a new era. 48. Teaching's and Triumphs of Mohammed. — What Mo- hammed heard in his visions he recited to his disciples, who afterward gathered these sayings into a book called the Koran, which means recitation. The deep-seated conviction which underlay all his thought was submission to the will of God, and from this came the name Islam, which describes his reli- 48 THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS gious system. Entire submission implied that God was all- powerful, and Mohammed also taught that there is but one God and taught this so zealously that idolaters became the special enemies of his followers. He regarded himself as the last and greatest of the prophets. Believers must not only accept his message, they must also pray, fast, give alms, and go on pilgrimages. Since he recognized the Old Testament worthies and Jesus also as prophets, it was hard for the ignorant Christian peoples who first came in contact with his doctrines to regard them otherwise than as some new heresy not very different from a vigorous kind of Arianism, A change had come over Mohammed's mild and dreamy temperament since he had been bitterly ridiculed and persecuted. He came to regard his enemies as the enemies of Allah, and their property as the spoil of true believers. Kot long after he fled to Medina he began to offer them the plunder of the caravans of Mecca. In the hard fighting which ensued the military ardor of his followers, their love of plunder, and their burning faith were all welded into one confused mass of feeling, which later was to send them to the conquest of many Roman provinces. Mecca itself yielded eight years after the Hegira, and soon all Arabia submitted. Mohammed was preparing an expedition against Syria when he died. 49. Conquests of the Mohammedans. — The followers of Mohammed immediately began to quarrel over the question who should take his place as religious and national leader. This quarrel led to murders, and was eventually to divide the Mohammedans into two hostile sects, but it did not keep them from hastening to the spoil of the Empire and of its antagonist, the Persian kingdom. Their march of conquest led in two directions, to the east beyond the Caspian and even to the Indus, and along the northern coast of Africa into Spain and southern Gaul. Their eastern victories account for the fact that there are now in India fifty million Mohammedans. Of the Empire, Syria was the first to suffer. In 634, within two years of Mohammed's death, Jerusalem was captured. In Egypt it u . l.^-. -f w « \ VW^^H \/.---/'^'^^ \ \ \ y\ Y^ \ ^ — '/'^ \ y) :f\^C^^^ ^^\ Jh '~Vv.-^^'^^'\/^ )f~-c; .^•'^ /^ V ^ \ y^^'^'^^y 's '^'^'^^ ^^^^ A ii ^.^'^ M/ /\ •^ § 1 \ y^""' ./ j ^ Yv— o, y \M.''' J f / \^ ■■3 ^ yS-—-^ — J j / ^.^«^ ^^ / 1 \ _% ^"Z^x .^^ >'^ y ^ /i^ ( J 3/— -4 /^""'"'^ \ y^ , f^<^ ( /^' V__J— w^^^"*^^^!" \ Y ,j''^ V \l^^^^^^^'7' K^^i^^^^\J^ t 'l"^'4 y^ ^ \ ^\TiWi )^\~''^^^^^^^'^^^'^$^'=^y^ \ \ *vA ^VY '^/^l^i^TlIl-L 1 .-''V %\ 1 ms^. ^-1 — — 1 1 'n r'^^i^^ra /I / 1 i 5 1 y^'p^ ^^M -r^^r« * "^ 2)' / / ^ifY^ ° » ^1 _,y Ue.^ A / J s ■^ J_K / ov^i^ V / ^ 1 ? V A J \ y^xS .^ / / "JC/^ T^.^ r . J 1 f fc^T¥" -^ / ill! !^ " ^^^--Ov^XiCj A / 0^» SC|^^J"S 7^^ V / ^H^il!il=i^ 1 1 ^^^c^ / \ / i 1 °S "g s SAEACEN CIVILIZATION 49 happened that the native population was looked upon by the Greek bishops as heretics on the question of Christ's humanity. The natives had suffered so much from persecution, as well as from the imperial tax-gatherers, that they opened their cities to the Arabian armies. Alexandria was taken by assault in 641. Farther west, in north Africa, the Berbers had always been rest- less under Eoman rule and readily joined the Mohammedans in the attacks upon the strongholds of the Empire. The Berbers made up the bulk of the Moslem army that early in the eighth century crossed into Spain. The Visigothic monarchy had long been weak. The poorer people were crushed under the tyranny of the great, whether these were Visigoths or descendants of the ancient Roman provincials, so that there was no national resistance, and the whole peninsula except the northwest was soon overrun. The tide of conquest was not checked until it reached the plains of Tours. Here, near Poitiers, the Franks under Charles Martel gathered, in 732, to withstand the invader. The fierce charges of the Moslem cavalry could not break the ranks of the Frankish spearmen. The Moslem leader, Abd-er-Eahman, was killed in the fray. When the next morning the Franks advanced to battle, they found nothing but the deserted camp of the enemy. This did not end the struggle. For years the south was deso- lated by Moslem expeditions. Gradually strife broke out in north Africa, and the stream of plunderers was dried at its source. 50. Saracen Civilization. — This victory of the Franks, generally called the battle of Tours, was as important to west- ern civilization as the triumph of Aetius at Maurica three hun- dred years before. The Moslems, it is true, after their conquest of the ancient seats of knowledge in Egypt and Syria, learned much from their Greek subjects. Their scholars sought to carry the sciences of geography, astronomy, and mathematics still farther than the Greeks had brought them. They gave the race name to the " Arabic " numerals, which greatly sim- plified arithmetical calculation. They perfected algebra and 50 THE CnURCn AND THE MOHAMMEDANS introduced it in Europe. They also studied entliusiastically the Greek philosopliers, especially Aristotle. It was through a translation from an Arabic version that western scholars first studied Aristotle. The Saracens, as the eastern Moslems came to be called, had been deeply influenced by the Persians, a Mosque of Cordova. Begun by Abd-er-Rahman I., founder in 755 of the emirate of Cordova. Some of its twelve hundred columns, of porphyry, jasper, and rare mar- bles, were taken from Nimes and Narbonne ; others were given by the emperor at Constantinople. After Cordova was captured by Ferdinand III. of Castile in 1236 the mosque was transformed into a Christian church. people which had rivalled the Greeks not only in war but also in the arts of peace. Arab merchants traded with China, with India, and the Spice Islands. Like the ancient Phoenicians, they quickly acquired what was known by each people and were often able to surpass their teachers, so that later they taught much to western peoples. In the days of Harun-al- SUMMARY 51 Eashid, who reigned from 786 to 809, famous through the stories of the Arabian Nights, Bagdad was the capital of a world superior in civilization to western Europe and rivalled only by Constantinople. Nevertheless, it was better for the new peoples of the West to control their own future and to build slowly and painfully a civilization sounder than that of the Saracens. SUMMARY I. The Church. — 1. Service to civilization: (a) perpetuates Roman methods and culture ; (h) extends the borders of civilization. 2. Organization : (a) power of bishops ; (&) the pope as a ruler and as head of the western Church. 3. Monasticism : (a) motive ; (&) the hermits ; (c) the monastic life ; (d) Rule of Benedict. 4. Missionary enterprises : {a) in north Britain ; (h) among the Angles and Saxons ; (c) among the Germans. II. Islam. — 1. Origin : (a) condition of Arabia ; (6) career of Mo- hammed ; (c) Koran. 2. Mohammedan conquests, east and west. 3. Saracen civilization. Special Points of View : — 1. Compare the frontiers of the Christendom of the undivided Roman Empire under Theodosius with the boundaries of Christendom after they had been extended by the missionaries but had been narrowed on the east and south by Moslem victories. 2. The great men of the period, — Benedict of Nursia, Gregory the Great, Boniface, Mohammed. IMPORTANT DATES 528. Benedict founds monastery of Monte Casino. 590. Gregory I. becomes pope ; (597, Augustine lands in Britain). 622. September 24, — the Hegira. 732. Battle of Tours. 755. Death of Boniface. FURTHER STUDY General Reading : see Ch. I. Paragraphs : — 38. The Bishops, their influence, see Dill, 179-186 ; Alzog, I., 659-668,. II., 125-137 ; Cunningham, 20-23. On "Defender," see 10. 62 THE CHURCH AND THE MOHAMMEDANS Pakagraphs : — 39. The Papacy: Adams, Ch. 6 ; Alzog, I., 663-677, 11., 138-141; for contemporary views of the origin of papal power, see Kobinson, Ch. 4. 40-41. Monasticism : the Rule of Benedict, in Henderson, 274-314, sig- nificant paragraphs, 23, 27, 33, 39, 48, 55, 58 ; Thatcher-McNeal, Nos. 251-264 ; a briefer selection in Jones, No. 6 ; selections from monastic writings, Robinson, Nos. 32-34 ; see also Jessopp, Ch. 3 ; Alzog, I., 744-755 ; Munro and Sellery, 129-158 ; Emerton, Ch. 11. 42. Missionaries : Munro and Sellery, 114-128 ; Milman, II., 236-259 ; Alzog, II., 96-120. 43-44. Conversion of the English, from Bede, in Robinson, Nos. 39- 42 ; briefer selections in Colby, No. 6 ; Kendall, No. 4. 45. Letters of the Pope, Boniface's oath, accounts from contemporary lives of Boniface, in Robinson, Nos. 43-47. To understand one of the results of such labors, see a map of Germany in the Middle Ages showing the amount of territory ruled by bishops or abbots, especially Droysen's Handatlas, pp. 30-31. 47-50. Selections from Koran, in Jones, No. 3 ; briefer in Robinson, No. 48. See, further, Muir, Bury, Vol. 2, 258-273 ; Oilman, Burke, I., 121-132; Lane-Poole; Oman's Byzantine Empire, Ch. 12. The triumph of the Moslems wrested from European civilization those parts of the Mediterranean basin which the Oreeks and the Romans had won, chiefly from the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. See map 4. Additional Reading : Hatch, Growth of Church Institutions ; Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars; Montalembert, Monks of the West, 7 vols. ; Muir, Mahomet, also The Goran, its Composition and Teaching ; Lane, Selections from the Ku-an; Lane-Poole, The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammed ; The Ara- bian Nights'' Entertainment; Oilman, Saracens; Lane- Poole. Moors in Spain; Milman, History of Latin Christianity, 8 vole CHAPTER IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW PEOPLES 51. The New Home of Civilization. — Nearly two centuries lay between the later German invasions and the Moslem defeat on the plains of Tours. During this period the distinction between German conqueror and conquered Koman was slowly disappearing, and in its place came those differences of locality, dialect, customs, and feelings which marked the beginnings of new nations. The rights which the strong had exercised over the weak in spite of the Eoman laws became characteristic and pointed to a new organization of society called feudalism, which, after a century, was to supersede Eoman society in the West. In the East the Empire had become more Greek. Many of its provinces had been conquered by the Moslems. The Danube frontier had also been overpassed by Slavic and Bulgarian invaders. The increasing weakness of the Empire and the loss to Christendom of the southern shore of the Mediterranean showed that the new civilization, unlike the ancient, was not to be centred about the Mediterranean, but was to lie farther north and west. 52. Quarrels over the Frankish Heritage. — The growth of a single nation composed of Franks and Gallo-Eomans was hindered by the custom of dividing territory, like ordinary property, among the heirs of the royal house. After the death of Chlodwig, in 511, there was a long and bloody series of wars. Each son or grandson or great-grandson wished a share of the heritage larger than those of his brothers or of his cousins. When they were not fighting for territory, they were trying to capture one another's treasures, their hoarded gold, or their 53 54 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW PEOPLES jewels. It is true they retained a notion that their power was really one, and often their capitals lay near together. When the kingdom was divided between the four sons of Chlodwig, the royal cities were Rheims, Soissons, Paris, and Orleans. Occasion- ally one would arise who better understood the need of substitut- ing for equal rights of inheritance the right of the eldest to the whole patrimony, and who desired to revive the Eoman ideas of authority and to restore the Roman system of taxation. Such a one was Brunehaut, a Visigothic princess, who, in 567, brought to her Frankish husband, King Sigebert, the traditions of Eoman civilization which still lingered in Spain. Her long life was j&lled by terrible feuds either with her rival Fredegond, the low-born wife of Sigebert's brother Chilperic, or Avith her nobles. In her old age the nobles triumphed and wreaked upon her a frightful vengeance. They tied her to the tails of wild horses, lashed these to fury, and so tore her limb from limb. Such horrible crimes were sometimes followed by equally terrifying remorse. The story is told of a Burgundian king, who, maddened by the suspicions with which his second wife filled his mind against his first wife's son, caused the young man to be strangled. Overcome by remorse he hastened to a monastery, drove from the neighborhood all the inhabitants so that its devotions might not be disturbed by worldly sounds or temptations, and ordered the monks to plead night and day for his pardon. Such races of kings were at length worn out by passion and violence. They were incapable of uniting Franks and Gallo-Bomans for a great career. 53. The Mayors of the Palace. — Among the royal officers there was a steward or overseer called the major domus, or mayor of the palace. At first his duties were scarcely more important than those performed by any nobleman's steward, but eventually, because he stood so near the king's person and managed his estates, he succeeded in gathering into his own hands the reins of power, even the command of the army. After a time the king lost the right of selecting his mayor of the palace and the position was taken by the man who was THE FOUNDATIONS OF ENGLAND 55 leader of the nobles. Each of the Frankish kingdoms had an official of this sort. Pepin, one of those who overthrew Brune- haut, became mayor of the palace in Austrasia, or eastern Frankland. The long civil wars resulted in sowing permanent enmity between Austrasia and the western country or Neustria. This has given rise to the tradition that there was some real difference between the peoples of the two regions. In their rivalry Austrasia was to triumph through the energy of Pepin's grandson, a second Pepin, who, with the aid of discontented Neustrian nobles, conquered the Neustrian mayor of the palace at Testry, in 687, and gained firm control over both kingdoms. From this time on the Merovingian house, as the descendants of Chlodwig were called, ceased to rule and merely reigned, for power passed into the hands of Pepin. There were for many years no more divisions made of the kingdom. Pepin recog- nized the king who ruled in Neustria as sole king of the Franks. It was over half a century before his family dared depose the Merovingians and take the crown. 54. The Limits of Francia. — During this period the Franks ceased to look chiefly to the south for land to conquer. They turned about and sought to bring under their rule the tribes which had occupied the abandoned homes of the first invaders. These included the Germans on both sides of the Main in the region later called Franco nia, and the Thuringians between the Weser and the Saale. They also attacked the Saxons whose haunts lay farther northwest. On the east their authority was acknowledged by the Bavarians on the banks of the Lech. This tribe had lived in Bohemia, a region named from the Celtic Boil, whom Caesar mentions. When forced to retire before the advancing Slavs the tribe retained the name, trans- formed into Baiowarii, or Bavarians. 55. The Foundations of England. — In Britain hindrances to unity were greater than in Gaul. The tribes who crossed the North Sea as conquerors possessed no unity. They had been less influenced by Roman ideas than other Germans. Nor did these ideas reach them through the conquered Britons, for 56 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW PEOPLES the British population was almost wholly swept away, especially in the eastern part of the island. Moreover, Christianity had made no converts among them until over a century after their first settlements. The early history of these settlements is a dreary catalogue of battles with Britons or conflicts with each other. Now one tribal king and now another would gain the mastery and take the lead against the stubborn foe. The names of several of these little kingdoms have been preserved in English county names, — Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Kent. Gradually the kingdoms along the east- ern and southeastern shore became more peaceful, con- tenting themselves with the lands they held. The interminable task of war passed to those farther west and north. Since these tribes also were not in great need of land, they gradually ceased to drive the Britons from their homes and sought only to conquer or enslave them. Among the fighting western kingdoms supremacy belonged to Northumberland, particularly in the first half of the seventh century, or Mercia, in the eighth century, but finally to Wessex, which early in the ninth century was to give to the English their first real king, Egbert. After Christianity had won over the English, the newly organized Church did much to bring the scattered peoples to a feeling of unity. In Gaul the tendency toward division was so strong that, by and by, there were held no councils at which all the Frankish bishops could be present ; but in England, partly because there were so many little kingdoms, the Church triumphed over this obstacle, and gave Ruins of the Roman Wall at Leicester In Roman times called Ratse, an im- portant station on the Fosse road. THE OLD ORDER CHANGES 57 tlie English in its councils their first example of organized unity. This was another fortunate consequence of the victory of the Eoman party over the British party at the synod of Whitby. 56. The Lombards, the Empire, and the Papacy. — In Italy the Lombards were unable to conquer the domains of the Empire and unite the peninsula under a single rule like that of Theodoric. Had they succeeded, the course of Italian history would have been like that of Frankish or English history. Italy would not have remained for more than a thousand years simply a " geographical expression." Their failure was not due to their early conversion to Arianism, for this they aban- doned and became zealous protectors of the Church. It was due, at first, to the stout defence of the Roman towns ; but, afterward, to the determination of the popes not to have a master so energetic, so ambitious, and so near at hand as the Lombard king. The emperor had been distant and his repre- sentative, the exarch, had been the pope's rival rather than his ruler. 57. The Old Order Changes. — Meanwhile, all through the West, Eoman methods of government had been generally abandoned. The territorial city, especially in the northern part of Gaul, was subdivided. In both Gaul and Italy, includ- ing Greek as well as Lombard Italy, all the local governmental powers were gradually put into the hands of a count or duke or tribune. Occasionally in Gaul several of these divisions under counts were united under a duke. In eastern Gaul there came to be a duke of Champagne, a duke of Alsace, and a duke of Burgundy. Beyond the Rhine these dukes were really tribal chiefs or kings. The only way the king could restrain the count was by sending emissaries or inspectors called missi, but as yet they appeared too infrequently to serve the purpose. When the count was a tyrant, treating brutally those in his power, it often happened that the richer landowners in the region asked of the king the privilege of having their estate free or immune from the intrusion of the 58 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW PEOPLES count or Ins officers. If the king made such a grant of immu- nity, the one who received it administered justice and collected taxes within his own domain, and the king alone had the right to interfere with him. At first he turned over the proceeds of the taxes to the royal officers, but a time came when the old system of taxation disappeared or lingered in other forms. In this case sometimes the landowner continued to collect from the serfs or coloni on his estate the land tax as a yearly charge due him personally. The same might be done by a count or duke himself did he have estates in the locality. After the beginning of the seventh century it was customary in Gaul to choose counts from among the local landowners and to give them as salary the use of certain estates. The result of all these things was that the common people could hardly tell what powers the counts had as royal officers and what as rich landowners. The two, land and power, began to go together. 58. The New Nobility. — The richer landlords and the royal officers had another source of influence. Much as the early German war chiefs gathered about them youths ambitious of winning glory in fighting, so these new nobles admitted into their families boys or young men who wished to seek honors or places of power. In return for this favor they felt bound to serve faithfully their patron. Others sought the same privileges for still more practical reasons, either because the law gave them little protection against their enemies or because they hoped for some privilege beyond their reach unless they were supported by a great name. To be received in this way by a noble was called recommendation, somewhat as in the case of the petty landowners of the later Eoman Empire. Such agreements were not enforced by law, but they were supported by custom, and the custom of one day may become the next day's law. So common was this arrangement that names began to be found for the patron and for his followers. The patron was called a senior, a word which was to develop in France into the mediaeval seigneur. His man or follower was named a vassus, or vassal, in England a gesitli, later THE PEOPLE 59 a tliegn. There were even beginnings of a gradation in sncli patronage, for tlie count might be specially recommended to the duke, and he to the king. 59. Land. — Before the middle of the eighth century another thing became common, which also looked toward the new so- ciety which was forming. When the Franks first came into Gaul, the kings had given much land to their followers without any expectation of taking it again. The Church, into whose hands land also passed, but from which it did not return, devised a way to use its surplus land without losing the title to it. A landless man would ask the bishop or abbot that the use of a piece of land be granted him as a favor or benefit (jper beneficium). This land was granted either for a definite number of years or for one or two lifetimes. It did not be- come hereditary. It was quite naturally called a benefice, for it was a real favor. The later Merovingian kings, or the mayors of the palace, thought it a good plan to grant out Church lands in this way with or without the consent of the Church, and, finally, they began to make the same use of their own lands. Such grants of benefices might or might not be made to those who had recommended themselves. As yet there was no connection between the two acts. Had the acceptance of a piece of land as a benefice necessarily carried with it the performance of definite duties as a vassal, the feudal system would already have been in existence. 60. The People. — Although the number of those who still owned small farms was decreasing as the process of recommen- dation went on, there were still the same classes of men which were found in the later Empire, — slaves, freedmen, coloni, and free farmers, mechanics, or merchants. In England the num- ber of freemen was relatively large because the British popu- lation had been exterminated rather than enslaved, and because the proportion of slaves and freemen among the Germans was smaller than in an old Roman community like Gaul. The European cities had lost so many of their inhabit- ants that crops could occasionally be raised within their walls. 60 TUB BEGINNINGS OF NEW PEOPLES Other crops could be cultivated in lands lying close at hand, so that there came to be little traffic between country and town. The villas or villages of the great landowners gathered within their own limits the few simple industries that were necessary. This, in turn, injured the towns, depriving them of their market. In only a few towns did the greater industries succeed in maintaining a show of their former activity. The Italian cities were stronger than those in Gaul, although many of them had been forever ruined by the Lombard wars. The nobility which grew up never could free themselves altogether from the influence of these towns. They became to a greater degree than the Frankish lords a city nobility. 61. The Byzantine Empire from 565 to 717. — The Empire's losses had been great, but its lands were still imposing in extent. Although the northern frontier had been pushed back to the Balkans by the Bulgarians, and Slavic settlers were finding homes everywhere in the Balkan peninsula, the imperial domain included what is now Servia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. It extended westward around the northern end of the Adriatic and halfway down the eastern coast of Italy. From Kavenna it controlled a strip leading toward Eome by way of Perusia, although this cut the southern Lombards from those in the north. The territory about Eome and Naples, the southern ends of the peninsula, and the three islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica made up the western territories, while Greece, and Asia Minor formed those on the south and east. The hold upon the more distant part of this Empire must always have been uncertain ; but the central regions were steadily moulded into a practically homogeneous people, which, in its sympathies, its institutions, and its religious beliefs, was strongly Greek. The bond of union was not race but religion. In the Empire, still more than in the West, the Church exerted an irresistible unifying force. Although the emperors were regarded as the successors of Augustus and Constantine, the heirs of the Eoman name, they were fast becoming simply Greek or Byzantine. They forgot how to speak Latin. Even before Justinian's century NEW INVADERS 61 closed tliey liad ceased to publish their laws and ordinances in the old imperial tongue. To their titles were added Greek titles, like despotes and basileus. The divisions of the Empire were called themes instead of provinces. 62. New Invaders. — In Syria and Africa it was the Moslems who robbed the Empire of territory. About 673 they had directly attacked Constantinople. The siege lasted for several years, but the Arab fleet was finally beaten off, largely by the aid of swift fire-ships, which possibly used the deadly compound known as G-reek fire. In Europe the Slavs had taken the place of the Germans as the northern foe. Before their ear- liest emigrations the Slavs lived along the Don, the Dnieper, and the Vistula, their settlements stretching no farther north than the fifty-fifth degree of north latitude. On the south they were cut off by other tribes from the shores of the Black Sea. They were called by the Germans Wends, or people of the prairie, and they named themselves Serbs. Later they took the name Slavs, the original meaning of which is even more uncertain than that of Serbs. It was not until the sixth century, after the Ostrogoths had left the Danube valley for the conquest of Italy, that great masses of Slavs moved south- ward, although many scattered groups had already settled within the Empire. There was a tradition that the emperor Justinian was descended from Slavic peasants. The lands from which they set out are now called Transylvania and Rumania. At first, as they had no strong national organiza- tion, they became tributary to the Empire, so that their presence did not change the line of the frontier. They penetrated farther and farther southward and westward until they reached the southern point of ancient Hellas, the slopes of the Alps, and the borders of southeastern Germany. In these new homes they remained, and many a modern Greek is descended, not from the people of Herodotus or Pericles, but from a race of barbarians of which the ancient Greeks never heard. The Servians, another group of Slavs, retained one of the race names. Still another came to be called Slovenian and dwelt 62 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW PEOPLES SUMMABY 63 in southern Hungary. Those who settled immediately south of the Danube were in the last part of the seventh century conquered by an Asiatic people called Bulgars or Bulgarians, and, although they soon absorbed their conquerors, they were by them formed into a strong state which threw off the yoke of the Greeks at Constantinople. 63. Westward Advance and Retreat. — The Slavs also moved directly westward from their early homes, and did not stop until they had advanced beyond the river Elbe. They expelled the Germans from Bohemia. There they were named Czechs, while farther east they were called Poles, Moravians, and Slovacs. At the end of the seventh century this move- ment stopped, for on its western edges it met the firm obsta- cle of German advance organized by the Frankish leaders. Slowly the Slavs were forced backward toward the Vistula. They also lost a part of the conquests in Bohemia. But the expanding vitality of the race was not exhausted ; this simply took a new direction and marched northward into what came to be called Great Russia. Thus far the Slavs had remained heathen. It was not until the ninth and tenth centuries that they were converted to Christianity. Even then part of them accepted a Christianity which was no longer in sympathy with western Christendom. SUMMARY I. The West. — 1. The Franks: (a) quarrels over the heritage of Chlodwig, personal feuds ; (&) rise to power of the mayors of the palace ; (c) the victory of Pepin ; (d) extent of Trankish rule. 2. England : (a) results of the manner of the conquest ; (6) strug- gles for supremacy among the tribal kingdoms ; (c) influence of the Church toward unification. 3. Italy: (a) failure of the Lombards to conquer the peninsula ; (6) attitude of the popes in the struggle. 4. Results for civilization : (a) growing power of local nobles ; (6) immunity from interference of royal officers ; (c) the new nobles and their followers or vassals ; {d) land granted as a benefice ; (e) the people in the country grouped about the noble, the towns impoverished with the decrease of trade. 64 THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW PEOPLES II. The East. — 1. Size of the Empire. 2. It becomes Greek in cus- toms, language, and spirit. 3. New attacks on its frontiers. 4. The Slavs : (a) period of their emigration ; (6) given organi- zation by the Bulgars ; (c) their movement westward to the Elbe ; {d) the different peoples of Slavic origin. FURTHEK STUDY General Reading : Histories of separate countries mentioned in Ch. 1. Paragraphs : — 52-53. Wars Among the Franks : Kitchin, I., 81-98 ; Emerton, 68-72. 55. Growth of the English Nation : Church, 132-177 ; Green, Short History, 14-44. 56, The Lombards and the Papacy : Bury, II., 439-449 ; Oman, Dark Ages, Ch. IG. 57-60. Compare paragraphs 7-13, in order to note changes in gov- ernment and society since the later Roman Empire. 61. Byzantine Empire, character: Bury, II., 167-174; Oman, Byzan- tine Empire, Ch. 11. 62, 63. The Slavs : Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, Bury ed. (see Index) ; Rambaud, Chs. 2, 3 ; Kovalevsky, Ch. 1. Additional Reading : Rambaud, History of Bussia, 3 vols. ; Kovalev- sky, Bussian Political Institutions ; Morfill, Bussia and Poland. For Review, Chs. 1-4 : 395-732, the fall of the Roman Empire and the transformation of Europe. Changes : 1. In the geography of Europe : (a) boundaries of the Em- pire in 395 and at the end of the seventh century ; (&) boundaries of Christendom at these dates ; (c) kingdoms which had sup- planted the Empire, particularly in the west and north ; (d) ter- ritory lost to the Empire by 732 ; (e) lands under Slavic rule. 2. In population : (a) German element within the Empire before the invasions began ; (b) German tribes which had found perma- nent homes within the boundaries of the old Empire ; (c) German tribes, conquerors at first, afterward exterminated ; (d) the Slavs within the Empire and the independent Slavs, their contact with the Germans ; (e) the Sai'acen invasion as an emigration or as the conversion of conquered tribes to Mohammedanism. 3. In gov- ernment : contrast between old imperial government, its officers, its system of taxes, its vast expenditures, and the new monarchies SUMMARY 65 of the West with nobles hecoming independent and collecting the taxes for themselves. 4. In society : (a) the noble, with his villa, his slaves and his tenant fanners, his increasing power; (6) the ordinary freeman in town and country ; (c) the land question, effect of the invasions on the great estates, growth of the custom of granting land as benefices. 5. In religion : (a) Chris- tianity, the state religion ; (6) organization of the Church in the East and the West ; (c) growth of the papacy ; (d) monasticism ; (e) missionary work ; (/) Mohammedanism, its origin, teachings, and conquests. CHAPTER V. THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE 64. What Three Great Franks accomplished, 714-814. — Dur- ing the century which followed the defeat of the Moslems at Tours all petty tribal conflicts, even the movements of emigrant peoples, were pressed into the background by several events which influenced still more deeply the succeeding history of Europe. It was this century that saw the Greeks lose their hold on central Italy and the popes take their place as rulers. The dream of a united Lombard kingdom of Italy was finally dispelled and instead there was a crude revival of the Eoman Empire with a Erankish king as emperor. These events were brought about largely by three remarkable Franks, — Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charles the Great, who had supplanted the Merovingian kings and had made a close alliance with the Church. The opportunity which the times offered them was unique, but only such men were equal to the emergency. Had their strong arms not held in subjection their nobles and all the ambitious chieftains of dependent tribes, the dark disorder of later days would have hastened on. When they were gone not even their example nor the magic of the new imperial name could keep anarchy from overshadowing all Europe and the true dark ages from beginning. 65. Pepin becomes King, 751. — Charles Martel was the son of that mayor of the palace who at Testry had gained control over both parts of the Erankish monarchy. Like his father he had fought his way to power. He not only forced the nobles to obey, but also forced border peoples like the Bava- rians and the Saxons to recognize his supremacy. When the 66 ENMITY BETWEEN EMPIRE AND PAPACY 67 country through, which the Garonne flows, and which was called Aquitaine, tried to break away and establish its inde- pendence, he subdued the revolt. Although in order to gain adherents he did not hesitate to grant to them as benefices the use of Church lands, he supported heartily the work of Boni- face as the organizer of churches in Germany and as the reformer of the Frankish Church, The valuable help that he gave caused the pope to think he might be used to beat off the Lombards, who were just then more seriously threatening what was left of the Empire in Italy. Meantime, though Charles was really sovereign and though for several years before his death there was no king, he did not take the crown. His son Pepin also waited ten years more before he ventured to sup- plant the phantom Merovingian monarchs. Finally, he sent an embassy to the pope to ask whether they should be kings who bore the name but did not have royal authority. The pope wisely replied that it was better that he who had the power should also have the name of king. The Frankish chiefs assented in their assembly and so the last Merovingian was shorn of his royal locks and shut up in a monastery, while Pepin was crowned, probably by the great bishop Boniface. A little over two years afterward the pope himself crossed the Alps, solemnly anointed Pepin king, and obtained from him the promise to march into Italy to deliver the imperial cities, which, with the exception of Rome, had fallen into the hands of the Lombards. This consecration of the monarch by the Church gave the crown a new sanctity. Henceforward the Frankish kings were the " Lord's anointed," upon whom it was sacrilege as well as treason to lay violent hands. -^ 66. Enmity between Empire and Papacy. — If Eome was not to surrender to the Lombards, help must be gained from some one besides the emperor. He had made no successful effort to save the other cities. The pope had another reason to find fault with him. This was the dispute about the use in the Church of pictures and images of Christ and the saints. The ancient Greeks had not been content with a simple wor- 68 THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE ship of those spirits of mountain or river or the ancestral hearth in wliom they trusted j they sought to portray their ideas of the gods in painting and sculpture. This artistic impulse, which had produced forms of such beauty and strength, naturally led them to paint pictures or carve images of the saints who had replaced the gods and heroes. The common people of the day supposed that such images pos- sessed marvellous powers. After the rise of Mohammedanism the eastern Christians were often embarrassed to explain the difference between their religion and idolatry. A few of the bishops desired to restore worship to its earlier and simpler forms. A successful soldier, Leo the Isaurian, who, in 717, before he had been on the throne six months, had saved Con- stantinople from a new attack of the Arabs, eagerly took up the cause of reform and even attempted to reduce the power of the monks, zealous advocates of the use of images. By his enemies he was called the Iconoclast or image-breaker. His policy was continued by his immediate successors. So persist- ent were these emperors that they lost the sympathy of both Greek and Italian peoples, who were angry at the dishonor done their patron saints. In Italy the papacy led the opposition. 67. States of the Church. — Pepin did not find it easy to keep his promise, for his lords were loath to make war upon the Lombards. He was obliged to lead two expeditions into Italy, the second in 756, before Aistulf, the Lombard king, would finally surrender his conquests. These Pepin did not restore to the emperor. He took the keys of the cities and laid them upon the tomb of St. Peter. At the same time he drew up a document, called a donation, giving the pope pos- session of these cities. Both king and pope felt instinctively that in days when power rested upon control of vast estates and strong cities the papacy could not maintain or extend its influence unless it was lord of visible domains. This was the beginning of the States of the Church, which remained a separate territory until the unification of Italy under Victor Emmanuel in 1870. CONQUEST OF THE SAXONS 69 68. Pepin's Greatness. — Next to his campaigns against the Lombards the most important achievement of Pepin was the conquest of Aquitaine. The people, chiefly the old Gallo- Eoman stock, were restless under Frankish rule and readily listened to their duke, who urged them to fight for indepen- dence. Pepin resolved to subdue them thoroughly. In a campaign, resumed year after year from 760 to 768, he broke the power of resistance. As his army advanced he built for- tresses and placed the government of counties under Franks or trustworthy Aquitanians. So well was this work done that it taught his great son Charles how to subdue the Saxons and how to organize the Bavarians. Indeed, had this son not been so great, Pepin would have been counted oftener among the most famous princes of Europe. 69. Charlemagne in Italy. — Charles is commonly called Charlemagne, which is the French form of Carolus Magnus, or Charles the Great. From the beginning of his reign in 768 until his death, forty-six years later, he was ceaselessly occupied, not only with the administration of the kingdom, but with the extension of its frontiers. He was early called into Italy to compel the new Lombard king, Desiderius, to surrender the cities which he had seized in spite of Pepin's donation. Desiderius did not attempt to resist him in the field, but shut himself up in Pavia. While the siege was being pushed forward Charles made a journey to Eome. The pope would have been better pleased had he recrossed the Alps after forcing the Lombards to give up the cities. Charles had other intentions. He. renewed the donation of Pepin and returned to capture Pavia. King Desiderius, many of whose nobles had been won over by Charles, was forced in 774 to sur- render and to pass the remainder of his days in a monastery. Charles was crowned king of the Lombards. He had also been given the title "patrician of Eome" by the pope, but this was a vague honor which Pepin had also received. 70. Conquest of the Saxons, 772-803. — Even before he de- scended into Italy, Charles had begun his efforts to subdue 70 THE AGE OF CHABLEMAGNE and christianize the fierce Saxons, who had been attacked also by Charles Martel and Pepin. The lands of the Saxons com- menced a few leagues beyond the right bank of the Rhine and stretched northward to the borders of what is now Denmark. Their southern boundary could be roughly traced by a line running from Cologne toward Leipsic until it touched the MANY FRONTIERS 71 river Saale, which, with the Elbe formed the lower eastern boundary. Again and again Charles invaded the Saxon country- only to find that after he was gone revolt burst out. The Saxons were not united in a kingdom nor were they organized well for defence, but they were fighting for their religion as well as for their independence. The only chieftain who ap- pears to have exercised great influence over them was Widu- kind. Until he surrendered and was baptized no measures, however savage, subdued the spirit of resistance. At one time Charles, exasperated by a new revolt and unable to seize Widukind himself, ordered forty -five hundred of his followers to be beheaded. This massacre of Verden was followed by a decree which threatened with death any one who kept up the old religious rites or refused baptism or did not observe the fasts proclaimed by the Church. Companies of missionary priests and monks went about with the army. As one part of Saxony after another was forced to submit, counts were appointed to administer the districts, and bishoprics were founded. Many of the bishoprics, like Mlinster, Bremen, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt, founded either by Charlemagne or shortly after his death, were to become the centres of towns, so that all southern and western Germany was eventually covered with Church states which lasted until the days of Napoleon. Where Charles could not break the spirit of the Saxons he compelled them to emigrate to the land of the Franks. Tradition says that from a family of such emigrants sprang the Capetian kings who were to rule France for nearly a thousand years. Finally the conquest of Saxony was completed and the frontiers of the " Christian people " pushed as far north as Denmark and eastward to the Elbe. 71. Many Frontiers. — Duke Tassilo of Bavaria attempted, as had the duke of Aquitaine, to make himself independent, but, unlike Pepin, Charles had merely to make a display of force to compel his submission. The duke was deposed in 788, was shut up in a monastery, as was usual in such cases, and his domains were governed by counts. Still farther east. 72 THE AGE OF CIIAELEMAGNE Charles crushed the Avars, a people which were always threat- ening invasion and included the remnants of the earlier Huns. The Slavs beyond the Elbe were also forced to acknowledge his power, though he did not try to bring them directly under his rule. Quarrels between the Moslem chieftains in Spain aided, in 778, in conquering the region immediately south of the Pyrenees. There was already a little Christian kingdom, called Asturias, in the northwest, where the people had never been subdued by the Moslems. Out of this kingdom and of the new possessions of the Franks were to grow the kingdoms of Portugal, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon, which were to play an important part in the building up of Spain. Since on all the frontiers of the Prankish dominion there was constant danger of war, it was unsafe to leave these border lands or marches under ordinary counts, officers who at this time were frequently changed, and so the custom arose of uniting the whole of each border land under a count called the prefect of the frontier, who was left in command years at a time. In Germany such a man came to be called a markgraf or mar- grave, and in England a count of the march. 72. Charlemagne crowned Emperor. — The territory over which Charles ruled was now greater in extent than that under the government of the Greek emperors. His title was " king of the Franks, governing the Gauls, Germany, and Italy," but so great and so wisely used was his power that his peoples were not content with such a simple title. They began to call him " lord of the earth," " whom the Creator in his mercy has given to peoples as a defender and a father." It was natural to think that he was the true successor of the emperors who once brought peace and order to the western world. Learned men still believed in the Empire, for had not St. Jerome proved from the prophecy of Daniel that this Empire was the fourth monarchy, which could end only with the second coming of Christ ? Such thoughts also came to the mind of Charles. He desired to have the vague privileges suggested by the title " patrician " more exactly defined. It happened that just TBE LAWS 73 before the close of the century Irene, the mother of the young emperor, Constantine VI., put out her son's eyes, thrust him into a dungeon, and attempted to rule the Empire in his place. She was regarded as a usurper, and many in the West thought the Empire at Constantinople had come to an end. About the same time, Charles was obliged to go to Rome to protect Pope Leo III., who had been brutally treated by a Roman mob, and who had fled even into the Saxon country to find Charles. In November, 800, the cavalcade entered Rome. Some weeks were needed to settle the trouble between the pope and the Romans. Just what other questions were discussed we do not know. On Christmas Day Charles entered the church and knelt at the altar. Suddenly Leo placed a crown upon his head and the people cried out "To Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned of God, the great and peace-giving emperor, be life and victory." Apparently Charles was surprised by this act, for his friend and biographer, Einhard, afterward wrote that Charles " declared that he would not have set foot in the church, although it was a great feast day, if he could have foreseen the design of the pope." Many explanations have been given of the strange fact, because it is certain that Charles intended some day to take the title. Possibly he did not wish to be crowned by the pope in that way, lest the pope's successors should claim that they had a right to make and to unmake emperors. Einhard adds in his account that the " Roman emperors," that is the G-reeks, took this coronation very ill. At first Charles thought of marrying Irene and of reigning with her over both Empires. After she was over- thrown and driven into exile, he undertook to make a treaty with the Greek emperor, that his title might be recognized. The affair dragged on several years, but finally the Greek envoys hailed him as basileus, though the treaty was not ratified until after his death. 73. The Laws. — Charles was a lawgiver as well as a con- queror. Although he was too powerful for men to resist his will openly, he did nothing save through the advice of his 74 THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE nobles and by the consent of the great Frankish assemblies named the " Fields of May." These laws were called capitu- laries. Some of them were simple orders to his officers, others were directions for the management of his vast estates, and still others additions to the ordinary laws. He did not attempt, like Justinian and, in modern times, Bonaparte, to work over all the laws into a single code. In his reign every man con- tinued to live under his own law, be it Roman or Salic or Bur- gundian. Many merely local customs were also growing into laws. The whole Frankish territory was divided into about three hundred counties, some large and others small. The duchies disappeared. In managing county affaii-s it was not easy to draw the line between the duties of count and of bishop, for an offence which disturbed the peace and therefore should be judged by the count might also be a sin which the bishop must punish. The quarrels of counts and bishops often troubled Charles. In order to hold both to a strict account, after 802 he regularly sent emissaries, or missi, all over the Empire. Two were generally sent together, a count and a bishop. They were commanded to see that the laws were obeyed, and that no one " prevailed against the churches of God, or the poor-, or widows, or minors, or any Christian man." Some of them soon discovered that in certain counties justice was openly sold. 74. Lords and Vassals. — The efforts of Charles to make his rule just and fair to all were less successful because of the heavy burdens that the constant wars laid upon the freemen. Nowadays such burdens would come in the form of increased taxation, but the Roman system of taxation had almost disap- peared. As Charles could not raise money or borrow it in order to hire men and equip them, it had become the duty of each individual who was rich enough to arm and send a soldier at his own expense. Poorer freemen must combine either to arm one of their own number or to send some one else. Often a rich landowner would threaten to have a poorer neighbor sent off to the army unless he would give up his little farm, THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 75 holding it henceforth as a benefice. Since the number of free- men was not large enough to furnish the needed recruits, Charles was obliged to demand that those who held benefices of a certain size should furnish a man or go themselves. He also commanded that these men go to the rendezvous with either the count or their " senior." This Avas the first clear recognition in the law of the relation between the man who held a benefice and him from whom it had been received. To prevent these " seniors " from standing between him and his subjects, Charles compelled every man to take a solemn oath of allegiance. The very words of the oath showed that the obli- gations of men to seniors or lords were already held sacred. These words were, "I promise to be faithful ... as a man should be to his lord." 75. The Church. — The notion that the Church should be left to manage its own affairs would have seemed wrong to Charles. He dreamed of an Empire that should be Christian, and he thought it his duty to watch over the choice of bishops, to provide for a better educated clergy, and to see that no heresies nor pagan superstitions crept into the Church. He ordered a more accurate copy of Jerome's translation of the Bible to be made because the copies in use had been carelessly prepared. Alcuin, one of the scholars at his court, procured in the convents of southern Italy several Bibles copied in the days of Theodoric. With the aid of these an accurate text of the Latin Bible was completed and became the only version used in the West. 76. The Revival of Learning^. — Alcuin was an Anglo-Saxon, trained in the school of York, which was still under the influ- ence of a great scholar named Bede, who had died in 735. Charles had found him in Italy and had brought him to Aix-la-Chapelle in 782 to establish a school in the palace. Here youths were taught all the learning that had survived the ruin of the Eoman Empire. In such efforts Charles was aided by several energetic bishops, who founded free schools for the children living within their dioceses. For a time it 76 THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE seemed as if there was to be an intellectual renaissance, or revival of learning, and that the new Frankish civilization would produce poets and historians as did the elder Empire. Several biographies were written, and histories were begun, generally in the form of annals or brief statements of each year's events. But such a revival could not last long, for only the strong arms of the three great Franks kept western Europe from again falling into disorder. Moreover, Latin had ceased to be the language of the common people. Its place in the region of modern France was taken by the " Roman language," something halfway between Latin and French. In Italy and Spain the beginnings of Spanish and of Italian were similarly wrought out in daily speech. Along the Rhine it was German that was taking shape. 77. Charlemagne. — When a man has shown himself great we are eager to know how he looked, how he lived, and what distinguished him from other men. Tradition pictures Charles with a massive head, a long flowing beard, and clad in gar- ments heavy with jewels ; but Einhard gives a very different description. Charles was tall and broad, a little inclined to stoutness, with a rather short neck. His eyes were large and sparkling, his "nose a little long, hair fair, and face laughing and merry." He wore the ordinary Frankish dress, "despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed him- self to be robed in them except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes." Like all noble Franks he enjoyed hunting, but he delighted especially in swimming. Einhard says that he built his principal palace at Aix-la- Chapelle because of its baths. Although in his drinking he was temperate, detesting drunkenness, he was a hearty eater, so fond of roast venison that he disliked his physicians be- cause they urged him to eat boiled meat instead. While at table he listened to reading or music. The book he liked most to hear was Augustine's City of God. He studied astronomy with great interest, and he understood Greek ; but he never learned to write, although he " used to keep tablets CHARLEMAGNE'S SUCCESSORS 77 and blanks in bed under his pillow that at leisure hours he might accustom his hand to form the letters." He loved his children, keeping them always about him, and directing their Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen). Cathedral, of which the round church at the left was built by Charlemagne as a palace chapel. In the fourteenth century a Gothic choir was added to transform the whole into a cathedral. education, but he did not in all things set them a good example. 78. His Successors. — Charlemagne was succeeded in 814 by his son Louis, named the Pious because of his humility and religious zeal, and the Debonnair, or easy-going, because he was mild and easily influenced. Unfortunately those days re- quired a stout heart and a strong arm rather than a sweet 78 THE AGE OF CHABLEMAGNE disposition and a pure character. Troubles arose as soon as Louis began to carry out the old ruinous policy of dividing the territory among his sons. Charles had been saved from the consequences of a similar mistake by the death of all his sons save Louis. The sons of Louis again and again rose against him. They even thrust him into a monastery, and when he was dead quarrelled among themselves over a division of the Empire. A great battle was fought at Fontenet, south of Auxerre, but this was not decisive. Finally at Verdun, in 843, peace was made. According to the terms a long strip of country from Beneventiim in Italy to the North Sea was given to Lothair, the eldest, with the title of '' emperor." Beyond the Alps this strip was roughly outlined by the Rhine on the east and the Ehone, Saone, Meuse, and Scheldt on the west. To Louis, or Ludwig, the second son, was given the territory, east of this strip, and to Charles, the youngest son, all that lay to the west. The Emperor Lothair had no effective control over his brothers, so that the three parts of the " kingdom of the Franks," eastern, middle, and western Francia, became three separate kingdoms. Li the course of the war Charles and Louis had recognized that the inhabitants of eastern and western Francia were really distinct peoples. When they became allies against Lothair, and swore to support one an- other, Charles took the oath before the army of Louis in the lingua teudisca, or Tudesque, and Louis before the army of Charles in the " Roman " tongue. These oaths are the earliest monuments of French and German. There is a double reason, therefore, for taking the Treaty of Verdun as the historical beginning of France and Germany. EMPIRE OF CHABLEMAGNE 79 80 THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE SUMMAEY I. Charles Martel. — 1. Position as mayor of the palace. 2. Con- quests : (a) Saracens [Ch. 3] ; (6) Bavarians, Saxons, Aqui- tanians ; (c) aids Boniface [Ch. .3]. II. Pepin. — 1. Becomes king. 2. In Italy : (a) cause of enmity be- tween Empire and popes ; (h) Pepin's expeditions against the Lombards; (c) his "donation." 3. Conquest and organization of Aquitaine. III. Charlemagne. — 1. In Italy: (a) renews donation to papacy; (6) becomes king of Lombards. 2. Conquers Saxons : («) loca- tion of Saxons ; (6) why they resisted so stubbornly ; (c) mis- sionary priests and monks as organizers of conquered territory. 3. Other conquests : Bavarian Tassilo, the Avars, the Slavs, in Spain. 4. Emperor : («) attitude of people toward Charles ; C&) expedition to Rome ; (c) circumstances of coronation ; (d) at- titude of the Greeks toward new emperor. 5. Lawgiver: (a) Prankish assemblies ; (&) kinds of law ; (c) enforcement of law, especially through missi ; (d) effect of constant wars on con- dition of freemen ; (e) recognition of relation of lord and vassal ; (/) efforts to improve clergy. 6. Revival of learning : (a) Al- cuin, the Bible and the palace school ; (&) the writings of the day ; (c) changes in language. 7. Appearance and habits of Charles. IV. The Carolingians. — 1. Louis, his character and his misfortunes. 2. The sons of Louis : (a) their wars ; (6) treaty of Verdun and its meaning. For Comparison. — 1. The boundaries of the empire of Charles and the boundaries of the Roman Empire in 395. 2. Size of the empire of Charles and size of Byzantine Empire about 700. 3. DiiBculties of government confronting Charles compared with those of the later Roman Empire. IMPORTANT DATES 717. Accession of Leo the Isaurian at Constantinople ; the image contro- versy. 732. Defeat of the Saracens at Tours by Charles Martel. 751. P4pin becomes king. 768. Accession of Charles. 774. Charles becomes king of the Lombards. 800. Charles crowned Emperor at Rome. 814. Death of Charles. 843. Treaty of Verdun. SUMMARY 81 FURTHER STUDY General Reading: Eginhard (Einhard), Life of Charlemagne ; modern biographies by Mombert, Davis, Hodgkin ; Adams, Civilisation, Ch. 7 ; Bryce, Chs. 4 and 5 ; Emerton, Mediaeval Europe, 3-31 ; Kitchin, I., 118-162 ; Henderson, I., Ch. 2. Paragraphs : 65. Pepin : Robinson, Nos. 49-52. 66. Iconoclasm: Thatcher-McNeal, Nos. 41, 42; Bury, II., 428-438, 460-469, 494-498; Alzog, II., 206-218; briefer treatments in Oman's Byzantine Empire, Ch. 15. 67. 69. States of the Church : compare 38-39 ; Thatcher-McNeal, Nos. 43-48 ; Emerton, Introduction, 168-172, 186-189 ; Alzog, II., 141-147 ; see map 6. 70. Saxon War : Einhard, sections 7, 8 ; Robinson^ Nos. 54-55. Com- pare 45 on work of Boniface : for duration of bishoprics, see paragraph 374. 72. Charlemagne, Emperor : Thatcher-McNeal, Nos. 8, 13 ; especially Bryce, Ch. 5 ; Robinson, No. 56. Compare 26 on meaning of "Fall of Rome," in 476. 73. The Laws : extracts in Robinson, No. 62 ; longer selections in TV. and Bp., Vol. VI., No. 6. In Tr. and Bp., Vol. III., No. 2, p. 2-5, is the capitulary " de villis,''^ with an inventory of an estate. The capitulary of 802 is also in Henderson, Documents, 189-201. 74. Government and Lords : Compare 57-60, also condition in later Roman Empire, 7-13 ; see selections in Robinson, Nos. 58-60. 75. The Church : Emerton, Introduction, 222-227 ; Alzog, II., 218-222. 76. Revival of Learning : Einhard's Life of Charlemagne is an ex- ample of work in biography ; Charlemagne's attitude appears from his own words in Tr. and Bp., Vol. VI., No. 5, p. 12-16, and in Robinson, Nos. 63-64. See further, West, Alcuin, or Mombert or Hodgkin. 77. Description of Charlemagne in Einhard, sections 21-27, more briefly in Robinson, No. 53. 78. Strasburg Oaths, in 'Emerton, Mediaeval Europe, p. 27 ; Thatcher- McNeal, No. 16. Significance of the division of 843, Emerton, 28-30. Additional Reading : Guizot, History of France, 8 vols. CHAPTER VI. BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE 79. Origin of Feudal Society. — Within the century which followed the Treaty of Verdun (843) the central government, particularly in western Francia, lost its hold upon its subjects. They began to be controlled by force or through the gift of lands and privileges the acceptance of which bound them to the giver. The beginnings of this change reach back to the later Roman Empire, but it was hurried to completion in the struggles caused by the collapse of Charlemagne's empire and by the Norse and Hungarian invasions. Confusion and ruin were everywhere. It is true that territories like eastern and western Francia held together, mainly because of geographical position. Others, like the portion of Lothair, were tossed about, divided, and subdivided. No wonder that any man strong enough to protect or to menace his terrified neighbors was transformed into their actual ruler, either because they could not help themselves, or because they cared more for safety than for the form of government. 80. Fate of Lotharingia. — Of the three kingdoms marked out at Verdun, middle Francia, or Lotharingia, as it was named after its ruler, fell to pieces in about a generation. In the val- leys of the Saone and the Rhone was gradually formed a new Burgundy, which included all the older Burgundian kingdom except the northwestern part. This was to become the French duchy of Burgundy. The southern half was first a kingdom by itself called Provence because it included the old Roman Provincia. It was natural that this region should fall away from the more western Francia. It was separated not merely 82 LOTHARINGIA liOTHARINGlA NORTH or THE ALPS ACCORDING TO THE DIVISION OF S43 Lotharingia is indicated by dark li Lorraine, the two Burgundies, Savoy, Dauphine and Provence are indicated with their boundaries at the time of annexation to France. — ?-- The Kiut^dom of Provence is indicated by a heavy broken line, bounded on the north by a dotted line. The Kingdom of Burgundy, (933 - 1032) including the Kingdom of Provence, is indicated by a Longitude East 0° from Greenwich 84 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE by mountains but also by its civilization, which under the mild sway of the early Burgundian kings had retained more of the Roman laws and customs. After less than two centuries the new Burgundian kingdom was merged into the restored Roman, or German-Roman, Empire. It was its final destiny to be slowly recovered for France under the names of Dauphine, Provence, Franche-Comte, and Savoy, a process not completed until 1860. The northern part of Lotharingia was also at first united to east Francia. There was one region which remained a bone of contention. This was called Lorraine, a name which is a shortened form of Lotharingia, of which it was a part. Once during the period it became a little kingdom, but it soon was united to east Francia. Its later history is a part of the story of the wars between France and Germany down to 1871. When such a fate overtook the parts of Lotha- ringia north of the Alps, it was inevitable that Italy also would be separated from the rest of Charlemagne's empire. Two or three times east or west Frankish descendants of Charles w^ere crowned emperors, but they gained little con- trol of affairs. Italian nobles also contended for the throne. There was no hope for a restoration of order until the German Otto came down in 962 and restored the Empire. 81. East Francia. — East Francia, or Germany, was the most fortunate of the three kingdoms. When there were no more Carolingians, that is, descendants of Charles, to claim the throne, the families of the local nobles brought forward able men, under whose leadership the German kingdom might fairly boast of being the successor of the Frankish empire. Although Charles had placed Saxony and Bavaria under counts, these peoples and the other Germans as well — the Swabians, the Franconians, and the Thuringians- — were not absorbed into one great whole. As soon as the strong hand of the master was withdrawn some noble, a count or a margrave, rose to the position of duke. In this way were formed the duchies, — Saxony, Swabia, Franconia, and Bavaria. The first of the new kings of east Francia was a Franconian, who vainly WEST FRANCIA 85 sought to break down the power of the other dukes. His suc- cessor was his rival, the duke of Saxony. Henry the Fowler, as this king was named, because he was hunting with a falcon when in 919 his election was announced to him, changed the policy and sought to conciliate the other dukes. The kingship was not hereditary, but Henry persuaded the dukes to accept his son Otto as his successor. Otto became king in 936. The early years of his reign were spent in trying to overcome the ducal rivals and bring their peoples more directly under his rule. He was at first apparently successful. In the end the local nobles were to triumph so completely that the task of creating a united Germany remained unaccomplished for cen- turies. The principal reason for this failure was the waste of G-erman strength in trying to realize the dream of a renewed Roman Empire, where pope and emperor would unite to bring peace and right doing once more into a disordered world. This task Otto undertook when he was crowned emperor at Rome. 82. West Francia. — The hardest fate was re- served for west Francia, or France, partly because of disputes over the king- ship or contests between the kings and their great nobles, but mostly because the Northmen in expe- dition after expedition spread desolation every- where. Some of the kings would have been capable in other days of reigning worthily, but all the resources which able kings find at hand were gone. The system of taxation which would have furnished money for an army had disappeared; the royal officers could venture to make themselves practically A Ship of the Northmen, or Vikings. Found in 1880 near Gokstad, Norway, buried on the seashore. Its dimensions: 78 feet long, 16 feet wide, and 4 feet deep amidships. No deck, one mast, pierced for 16 oars on each side. Owner, a ninth century warrior named Anlaif. 86 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE independent in their counties; the treasure of lands and of privileges with which to attract followers was speedily ex- hausted, so that the last descendants of Charles had scarcely a city that they could call their own. Even before their family was set aside, lords of another house had twice occupied the throne. This new house was founded by Count Kobert, rightly called the Strong, because he was the hero of the fight against the Northmen and the Bretons during the reign of Charles, the favorite son of Louis the Pious. Robert's reward was a duchy, including the land between the Seine and the Loire. One of Robert's sons was king for ten years and another for a few months, but the time had not come when the family of Charles could be pushed aside permanently, so that Robert's grandson, Hugh the Great, was content to be a maker of kings and the real ruler of France. His son, Hugh Capet, played the same part for thirty years, but in 987 there hap- pened what had happened once before — he who held the power also received the name of king. Thus the Capetian family mounted the throne upon which they were to reign until the Revokition of 1789. The French have always looked back on Charles and his family as French kings, so that before Hugh was made king there had been three named Charles and five Louis. Several fared hard at the hands of the nick- namers, for Charles II. is known as the " Bald " and Charles III. as the " Simple." One Louis is called the " Stammerer " and another, " Outre-mer," or Over-sea, because he was brought over from England to take the crown. 83. England. — England suffered as sorely as did France from the Northmen, but otherwise there was less strife than on the Continent, for the descendants of Egbert of Wessex were able and warlike kings. The greatest of them, Alfred, who came to the throne in 871, when the Northmen seemed trium- phant, is one of the noblest figures in the history of England or of any nation. After he had forced the Danes to make peace and to accept the Christian faith, he tried to improve the condition of his own people. He brought scholars to his DANES IN ENGLAND 87 court from Wales and from Germany. In order to enrich, the English tongue, which was the language of the common people, he translated into it several important Latin books which ex- plained the ideas of the Eomans and the earlier history of the world. He also encouraged the monks to put together what was known about the English in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the first historical work of any modern people in their own tongue. 84. Danes in England. — The Northmen who first devas- tated and then occupied parts of England and France in the ninth and tenth centuries came from what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. During the same period Northmen also penetrated into E-ussia and founded a kingdom ; others emigrated to Iceland and formed settlements in Greenland. A little later they crossed the Atlantic and reached the shores of America. Some were also to found a principality in south- ern Italy. But they accomplished most in France and England. It was chiefly bands from the peninsula of Denmark that came to these lands. The English called them Danes and the French, Northmen. Their own country was too small and poor to offer all its restless warriors either food or adventures, and so they pushed out into the sea in their long boats and sailed for the rich shores far to the south. Their coming was often so sudden that the inhabitants were helpless. Monas- teries and churches were destroyed, towns were sacked or put to ransom. Emboldened by their successes, they came in larger numbers and ventured to attack the armies of the English or Frankish kings. They compelled the vassal kings to pay tribute and pressed hard upon Wessex itself. Alfred had not been long on the throne when he was driven to take refuge in the fens of Somerset. In 878 he gathered his war bands again, fell upon the Danes, and forced King Guthrum and his followers to be baptized as Christians and to make peace at Wedmore. By the terms of the treaty, the Danes were to control the country east of a line running from London north- west tp the Welsh border. Eight years later Alfred forced them to cede London and the surrounding district. Although 88 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE the kings of Wessex had for a time lost the overlordship of England, they actually gained strength, because they were obliged to give a better organization to the territories they still held. The Danish kingdom soon crumbled. As the Danes were of the same race as the English, they were grad- ually absorbed by the English population. This facilitated the reconquest of northeastern England by the successors of Alfred, — a task completed about fifty years after his death. 85. Danes become Normans in France. — The peace of Wedmore led those Danes who did not wish to settle quietly in England to seek other lands to plunder. The storm broke anew upon west Francia. Paris had often seen the Northmen, who rowed their ships up the winding Seine to the very walls. In 885 their fleet stretched for six miles below the city. For over a year they vainly attempted to capture the fortified bridges that connected the " City " with the north and south suburbs, or faubourgs. Finally they were persuaded to with- draw by offering them the chance to plunder Burgundy, and by the gift of a large sum of money. The hold of the North- men upon the lower Seine was fast becoming unshakable. In 911 Charles the Simple did hardly more than acknowledge this fact when he granted the whole region to Hrolf as duke. Like Gruthrum before Wedmore, Hrolf pledged himself, with his followers, to become Christians. He was baptized with great solemnity at Rouen, which became his capital. He was now as eager to rebuild monasteries and villages as he had pre- viously been to destroy them. It was said that property was so safe that a gold ring hung upon the branch of a tree for three years and yet no one dared to cast a covetous eye upon it. The Northmen or Normans soon forgot their own tongue and became the most active leaders of French civilization. Such a peace should be remembered as evidence of the good sense of Charles, in the same way that the peace of Wedmore is credited to the statesmanship of Alfred. 86. Hungarians. — The Hungarians, or Magyars, were a race akin to the Finns, the Avars, and the Huns. They came into IMMUNITY 89 western Europe by the road that the Huns had followed, and like them were bold horsemen and fierce plunderers. Western as well as eastern Francia was devastated by their invading hordes. Just before Charles made his treaty with Hrolf they raided Bavaria, and destroyed the Bavarian army, killing its duke. Their first serious repulse came from Henry the Fowler on the Unstrut in 938, over twenty years later. Another twenty years passed and Otto defeated them in Bavaria. By this time they had occupied the plains about the Theiss and the Danube, where they built up a kingdom, adopted Christianity, and long afterward were the bulwark of Europe against the Turkish invader. 87. Consequences. — It was such dangers and disorders that gave the nobles, great or small, chance after chance to seize for themselves powers that properly belonged to the government. All they had to do was to render more general the division, already common, of freemen into lords and vassals, and by virtue of grants of immunity to keep the officers of the central government out of their domains. Both these steps had been taken before Charlemagne's family ceased to rule. In 847, four years after the Treaty of Verdun, a capitulary or decree was issued at Mersen by his grandson Charles that " each free man may choose a lord, from us or our faithful, such a one as he wishes." About a century later a similar law was decreed in England. Only in this way could kings preserve any con- trol over men in a society which was rapidly breaking into small local groups. 88. Immunity. — At the same time kings were lavishly giving grants of immunity to counts, abbots, bishops, and even to influential men who held less important positions or merely great estates. The ordinary formula declared that the recipi- ent should hold his estate, with all the men upon it, " in entire immunity, and without the entrance of any one of the judges for the purpose of holding the pleas of any kind of causes." Great lords granted to their vassals similar freedom from their own or any other person's control. This practice in effect 90 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE divided the state into small fragments in which the subjects were not under direct obligations to the king. 89. Land. — If society was to hold together, some bond was needed more solid than oaths and more permanent than fear. In the earlier period rich noblemen had become patrons of ambitious youths or of persons who hoped much from their protection. The gain to the lords had been a few more pieces of land or a more imposing array of dependents. The situa- tion had changed. It was often er the nobleman who sought vassals than the freeman who sought a lord, for the noble could not save himself or his domains amid the wreck of society unless he had followers bound to bring him aid. As land was about the only stable property left, and as power and privileges generally went with it, the acceptance of a domain at least large enough to support a horseman would create an obligation strong enough to unite permanently vassal and lord. These gifts of land or benefices had at first been made without expec- tation that they would be returned. Afterward they were changed into grants for a lifetime or for a definite period. They had come to be called fiefs, a term derived, curiously enough, from a Frankish word which meant cattle. Kings, nobles, and monasteries had begun to give such benefices to those who already were, or who wished to be, their vassals. In this way the duties of vassalage were attached to pieces of land. The combination persisted, and after a time these duties were not arranged by a special bargain, but were determined by the nature of the fief which the vassal received. With different fiefs went different duties. The same man toight have a dozen titles, and might stand in a variety of different relations to as many lords. Even a king might for a certain fief be vassal of one of his own vassals. 90. Offices. — Counts and dukes had received for their work as officials the use of certain estates. These gradually came to be looked upon as benefices, and, by a natural confusion of thought, the office itself, which had been the cause of the grant was considered the consequence, that is, a part of the DUTIES OF VASSALS 91 fief. Public office ceased to be a means through, which the State could guard the subject, assure him justice, and furnish him with soine things which he could not procure so well for himself. It was transformed into a piece of property managed primarily for the benefit of the holder. Even abbeys and bishoprics were considered fiefs, because upon their election to such positions the clergy received many privileges which originally belonged to the government. In the end not only laud but everything the State ordinarily does for the citizen, and many other things, were turned into fiefs. Some declared that the king held his crown as a fief from God, which he must forfeit if he did not rule justly. There also took place a sub- division of fiefs, commonly called subinfeudation, so that in a county the citadel of a town might belong to one lord, several quarters to another, while the bishop might rule a quarter, and still other lords have the country-side. 91. Fief s Hereditary. — When the notion grew strong that all these governmental rights and the benefices to which they were attached were property, the lords of high or low degree endeavored to hand them down to their children. It was again Charles, the grandson of Charlemagne, who, by the Edict of Kiersy in 877, practically agreed that if a count died his county should go to his son. In doing this he did not start a new custom, but simply recognized as legal what ordinarily took place. 92. Duties of Vassals. — The duties of all vassals, from the duke of half a kingdom to the baron of a village, were similar, though they necessarily varied in number. When the vassal was invested with his fief he knelt, unarmed and bareheaded, be- fore his lord, placed his hands in his lord's hands, and declared himself to be " his man." After he had been raised to his feet and kissed, he took an oath of fidelity, and then received a twig or a clod of earth in token of the fief itself. He now was under obligation to follow his lord upon his expeditions, or fight for him in his petty wars, or guard his castle, or if need be sur- render his own castle for a time to his lord. If he had 92 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE succeeded to a fief, he was obliged to pay a " relief," which sometimes amounted to a whole year's revenue ; and if he had bought the fief, he must pay three years' revenue. On three or four special occasions he paid an aid, — when the lord's eldest son was knighted, when his daughter was married, and for the ransom when the lord was made prisoner. He was to furnish his lord, and a certain number of followers, with food and lodging when they passed through his fief. He must also attend the lord's court several times a year to give him advice or assist him in the settlement of quarrels or in the punishment of crimes. 93. General Character of Feudal Government. — Such was the system of fiefs or the feudal system. So far as government was concerned it seemed like an attempt to organize a country on a sort of cooperative scheme, without collecting large sums of money in taxes to pay officials, judges, and soldiers. The army was brought together by a summons from the king to his vassals, who in turn summoned their vassals, and they their retainers, and all at the expense of those who came in fulfilment of their feudal duties. Justice was not administered in tribunals maintained at great expense by the government, but in the rude courts of the lords, and in order that they might increase their income from the fees. The lords also controlled many of the roads and bridges, and levied tolls on passing merchants, often without expending any money to keep the highways in repair. 94. The People. — Lords and vassals made up only a small portion of the population. They were the aristocracy of the day, supported by the unpaid labor, or the dues in money or produce, of the villains or serfs, who were the descendants of the freemen, the coloni, and the slaves of the later Roman Empire. The most of the villains or serfs were farmers or farm laborers, some were artisans, a few were merchants. In the cities there were a few freemen, tradesmen, or mechanics, but their day of influence had not come. It became more and more difficult to cross the broad line that separated the lower PEASANT BURDENS 93 classes, chiefly composed of serfs, from the nobles, great or small, who drew from them the means of livelihood. Almost the only method was through the Church, where even a peas- ant's son might some day rise to be a powerful abbot, an arch- bishop, or pope. In the end, those above the line were to develop into the later aristocracies of Europe, while those below were to become the great laboring, manufacturing, and mercantile population, out of which were to grow the democra- cies of the nineteenth century. 95. The Serfs. — Although there were still many freemen, the majority of the people were serfs, who could not leave their estate, nor marry outside it without their lord's consent, nor leave their land to any one save their children. They were also obliged to pay a special tax. Their condition was better than that of the ancient slaves, for they could not be sold separate from the land, nor could their land be taken from them. If the fief was sold, they belonged to another lord, but this change did not necessarily injure them. Their marriages were recognized, so that they were really a part of the commu- nity and not mere beasts of burden. If their lord happened to be a just man, generous and peaceful, their lives might be quiet, prosperous, and happy. Unfortunately the lords were often quarrelsome and harsh, waging petty wars upon neighboring lords. In this case the lot of the peasant was terrible, for the best way to starve a lord out was to destroy the crops, burn the village, and kill the peasants. 96. Peasant Burdens. — The ordinary burdens which rested upon the peasants may be described as a rude sort of rent. Its nature appears in an example taken from one of the vil- lages of the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. " The tenants must fetch stone, mix mortar, and serve the masons. Toward the last of June, on demand, they must mow and t\irn hay and draw it to the manor-house. In August they must reap the convent's grain, put it in sheaves, and draw it in." They cannot put in their own grain until some one from the convent has marked out its share, and this has also been carted to the 94 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE convent barns, " On the eighth of September the villain owes his pork due, one pig in eight. . . . On the ninth of October he pays the cens [a sort of ground rent]. At Christ- mas he owes his chicken due, also the grain due of two meas- ures of barley and a quart of wheat. On Palm Sunday he owes his sheep due. ... At Easter ... he must plough, Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. Built on a rocky isle near the angle of the French coast made by Normandy and Brittany. Its walls were exceptionally strong, and were pierced by only one gate. The northern wall is over a hundred feet high. In the Hundred Years War this abbey-fortress was besieged by the English without success from 1428 to l'i44. sow, and harrow." His grain must be ground at the lord's mill, his bread baked at the lord's bake oven, and his grapes pressed at his winepress. Originally it was an advantage to the village that the lord built mill and bakery and winepress, because the peasants were too poor to provide them, but after a time the favor was transformed into the right to receive the profits of a monopoly. The lord also had the right to sell his FARMS 95 wine and other products first. He generally hired no laborers, for the peasants were obliged to work for him, often several days each week, or at least during certain seasons. Such work might be in the fields or about the castle, or upon the roads and bridges. At one time there had been no legal limit to the amount of this work, but custom and the efforts of the peasants themselves eventually made all rights and privileges definite. 97. Farms. — Outside the cities the land throughout western Europe was divided into great estates, often the size of an American township. In England they were called manors, and in France villas, from which the word " village " comes. Such an estate might be- long to a petty noble or to a count, or even to the king. The richest nobles possessed a great many, generally managed by stewards. Each estate was divided into two por- tions, one of which the lord retained for his own immediate use. The cul- tivated land which be- longed to the peasants was not divided into separate farms, but gen- erally into three great fields, and each field into half-acre strips. The division into three fields was occasioned by the general method of cul- tivation which allowed the land to rest or lie fallow every third year, a method adopted because the peasants did not know how to fertilize the soil, or properly to vary the crops. Every ^Ih % > ^^>J&|.r^r- . .'^^^IHI^H Castle of Montlh6ry. About fourteen miles south of Paris, built in the eleventh century. It is situated on a high hill above the village, and threatened the road from Paris to Orleans. The barons who possessed it were often at war with the early Capetian kings. In 1104 it came into possession of Philip I., and a little later it was dismantled by his son, Louis VI. 96 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE peasant had several strips in each field, it might be sixty or it might be thirty or even fewer. This curious system of divid- ing the farms into a number of parcels compelled the peasants to work together more than ordinary farmers do nowadays. Sometimes the lord's land also lay about in the three fields. The peasants did not live in houses scattered over the country- side, but in a closely built village. The manor-house of the lord or his steward might be in the midst of the village or at a little distance, surrounded by his lands. If this house was a castle, it was often placed upon a neighboring hill, from which its strong walls and lofty towers overawed the country for miles around. In addition to the cultivated fields there were mead- ows, pastures, and woods, to the use of which for their pigs or cattle the peasants had some rights. 98. Duration of Feudalism. — Feudal society reached its ear- liest and fullest development in France, although the same customs gradually appeared in Germany and England. In Italy the continued existence of many Eoman towns gave a peculiar turn to its growth. It remained the form of social order in western Europe until the fourteenth century. SUMMARY I. Anarchy in Western Europe. — 1. Lotharingia: («) situation; (6) why it fell to pieces so quickly and what separated it from West Francia ; (c) lands formed out of it and their final destiny. 2. East Francia : (a) boundaries ; (6) the great duchies ; (c) new reigning houses ; (d) Hungarian raids ; (e) dream of Empire, 3. West Francia : (a) why its monarchy was weak ; (h) the later Carolingians and their rivals ; (c) Danish attacks and their rela- tion to Danish invasions of England ; (d) origin of the duchy of Normandy. 4. England : (a) The kingdom of Wessex ; (fe) the Danish peril ; (c) Alfred as king ; (d) Alfred and the Danes, Wedmoi'e. II. Result, Feudalism, a New Organization of Society. — 1. The individual noble, heir of dying government: («) gathering about himself vassals, pledged to him by ties of honor and grants of benefices ; (b) treating the offices he holds as hereditary fiefs ; SUMMABY 97 (c) independent of royal officers by grants of immunity. 2. Duties of vassalage supersede obedience to law : (a) ceremony of homage ; (6) obligations toward the lord which result. 3. The people, a subject caste : (a) classes from which they are descended ; (6) serf- dom as a form of slavery ; (c) the dues paid by the peasants ; (d) their manner of life ; (e) their villages. For Comparison. — 1. The way by which in modern states the public work of government and war are provided for, in contrast to the method of the feudal system. 2. The present organization of work in town and country, contrasted with the feudal method. IMPORTANT DATES 843. Treaty of Verdun. 877. Capitulary of Kiersy. 878. Peace of Wedmore. 911. Creation of the duchy of Normandy. 936. Accession of Otto the Great. 962. Otto becomes emperor of the Holy Eoman Empire. 987. Accession of Hugh Capet. FURTHER STUDY General Reading : Tout, Europe from 918 to 1272 {Empire and Pa- pacy) ; Seignobos (Dow ed.), Feudal Begime ; Cheyney, Indus- trial and Social History of England; Keary, Vikings in Western Christendom. Paragraphs : — 80. Fate of Lotharingia : Emerton, Mediceval Europe, 30-35 ; for its subsequent history, see map 8 and paragraphs 134, 187, 212, 250, 275. 81. East Francia : Emerton, Ch. 3 ; Henderson, I., 38-46. 82. West Francia : Kitchin, I., 163-182 ; Adams, Growth of the French Nation, Ch. 5. See below for genealogy of later Carolingians. 83. Alfred : Gardiner, 60-62 ; Hughes, Alfred the Great; Colby, No. 8 ; selections from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Lee, No. 23 ; Kendall, No. 8 ; Anglo-Saxon Laws, Kendall, No. 6 ; Lee, Ch. 6. 84. Danes in England : Green, 44-61 ; Church, 199-214 ; Colby, No. 9. 85. The Normans in France : Kitchin, I., 171-179 ; in Italy, Emerton, 223-229. 86. The Hungarians : Emerton, 106-109, 130-133. 87-98. Consequences, The Feudal System : The distresses of the age, see Robinson, Ch. 8 ; best general description in Seignobos, see 98 BEGINNINGS OF FEUDAL EUROPE also Emerton, Ch. 4 ; Adams, Civilization, Ch. 9 ; the selections from European writers in Munro and Sellery, 159-211 ; Cheyney, Ch. 2 ; for illustrations of each phase of feudal society including the edicts of Kiersy and Mersen, see Tr. and Up. Vol. IV., No. 3 ; Thatcher-McNeal, Nos. 180-230 ; Eobinson, Ch. 9 and No. 157 ; Jones, No. 5. Additional Reading: Seebohm, English Village Communities, with plans of the mediaeval manor. Principal Descendants of Charlemagne Charlemagne, 1 814 Louis, 814-840 I Lothair E. 840-855 Ludwig (K. of East Francia) 843-ST6 Charles {The Fai) E. 881-888 Charles II. (The Bald) K. 840-877 ; E. 875-87T Louis II. {The Stammerer) K. 877-879 I Louis III 879-882 Charles III. {The Simple) K. 898-929 I Louis IV. ( Outre-Mer) K. 93t>-954 I Lothair, 954-986 Louis V. 986-987 Charles, duke of Lorraine Hugh Capet's Family Eudes, K. 888-89 Robert ( T/ie Strong), + 867 I Robert, duke of France, t 928 (K. a few months) Hugh {The Great), i 956 Duke of France Emma, m. Rudolf K. 923-936 Hugh Capet Duke of France K. in 987 Eudes-Henry Duke of Burgundy E.=Emperor ; K.=King of West Francia or France. CHAPTER VII. THE NEW EUROPE, ITS RULERS AND ITS FOES 99. From 936 to 1154. — The years that saw the breaking down of the old system of government saw also the extension of the boundaries of Christendom, until almost all that was to become the new Europe was brought within its limits. This was accomplished either by direct missionary work or by the increasing intercourse between the countries of the north and east with the older lands of the south. The triumph of feu- dalism was not lasting. It had hardly become the recognized system of western society before it was attacked from above by the kings and mined from below by the people. The Church also felt the danger when its bishops and abbots became hardly distinguishable from ordinary nobles, and at- tempted to find a remedy in withdrawing the ecclesiastics almost wholly from the control of princes and in subjecting them to the rule of the pope. Europe gained a new sense of unity in the crusades, which were prompted by religious enthusiasm and the love of adventure, and which checked for two or three centuries the Moslem attack on Europe, and particularly on Constantinople. 100. The Border-lands. — The conquests of Charlemagne on the north and east had brought the Christian Frank into rude contact with the pagan Slav. There were two ways in which this half-barbarous Christendom might be extended, — one by driving back the Slav and organizing the captured lands, an- other by converting the Slav and allowing his tribes to exist as members of the growing family of Christian peoples. The border-lands or marks which under Charlemagne had been 99 100 THE NEW EUROPE, ITS BULEES AND ITS FOES the advance guard of Prankish civilization were reorganized by Otto I., by his son, and his grandson. The Elbe ceased to be the northern frontier. Beyond it lay parts of three great marks, one of which, the Northmark, was, as the mark of Brandenburg, to become the nucleus of the later Prussian kingdom. The Slavs were steadily pushed back toward the Oder. Their lands were partially resettled by German colo- nists, and new bishoprics were founded under the control of the archbishopric of Magdeburg. Still farther east on the Danube the old Eastmark was strengthened. This was to grow into Austria. A solid bulwark of marks thus stretched from northeastern Italy to the Danish lands. 101. Conversion of the Slavs. — It was only through Chris- tianity that the Slavs could hope to strengthen themselves against their western foes, for with Christianity would come some of those traditions of orderly government which were indispensable in the struggle. Moreover, if the Slavs were con- verted, one motive for the interminable wars would be gone. They vaguely realized this, but their hearts were not touched by the rough missionary monks and priests who followed the German hosts and who seemed more eager to gain lands and revenues than to preach the gospel. One of the Moravian chiefs who had succeeded in gathering nearly all the western Slavs under his rule sent to the emperor at Constantinople in 862 for missionaries of another sort. In response came Cyril and Methodius, two brothers, natives of Thessalonica. They were so successful that ever since they have been regarded as apostles to the Slavs, just as Boniface was the apostle to the Germans. To them the Slavs owed their alphabet and the beginnings of their literature. Bohemia also received its lessons in Christianity from Methodius. The Moravian empire soon collapsed, but the influence of the two missionaries was strengthened even in its ruin, for many of their Slavic converts fled eastward into Bulgaria and assisted in converting this mixed people to Christianity. The strongest barrier against German advance was the Poles, so named because they dwelt ENGLAND'S DANISH KINGS 101 on great plains. Their power of resistance was due largely to the strong organization which the Church gave them. The popes also supported them when they were exposed to German encroachments, so that, centuries afterward, when the Ger- mans threw oif papal control, they found few imitators in Poland. In this earlier missionary movement Greek and Latin Christians had worked together. Their rivalry first appeared in the case of Bulgaria, and Prince Boris long hesi- tated between the Greek and the Roman forms of worship, but in 870 he chose the Greek. The Russian Slavs received Christianity directly from Constantinople toward the year 1000. Their princes were Northmen from the Scandinavian peninsula, but about the time when Prince Vladimir decided to be bap- tized he determined to surround himself with Slavs. The new religion became a bond between prince and people. Since it was brought from Constantinople, where more of the ancient civilization lingered than in the West, the civilization of Russia in the eleventh century was more advanced than that of western Europe. 102. The Hungarians. — During this period the Magyars, or Hungarians, accepted Christianity. Their great prince, Stephen, was so devoted to the Church that the pope in the year 1000 sent him a royal crown. Since he was the real founder of the Hungarian monarchy, the crown of Hungary has ever been called the crown of St. Stephen. 103. The Northmen. — The frontier of Christianity was pushed northward among the Danes and their wilder kindred in the Scandinavian peninsula. In Denmark the work was completed during the reign of Cnut, who was also king of England. He brought over many English priests to help him, and tried to make of Denmark a new England. The conver- sion of the Northmen and their organization into Christian kingdoms put an end to their piratical raids. 104. England's Danish Kings. — Cnut had owed his English crown to a new series of Danish invasions. At first the Danes were bought off with the proceeds of a tax called the Danegeld. 102 TEE NEW EUROPE, ITS RULERS AND ITS FOES It was no Alfred who had suggested such a scheme, but ^thel- red, nicknamed the Rede-less, or unadvised, who became king in 978. Afterward he sought to terrify the invaders by order- ing a massacre of all their kindred who had recently settled in the country. Svend, Cnut's father, had avenged this mas- sacre and had made himself king. 105. The English Earls. — During Cnut's reign the great lords, or earldermen, were first called earls, a Danish title. They ruled territories often as large as several counties. In 1042 when Cnut and his sons were dead and the English chose as king a son of ^thelred, the weak Edward the Con- fessor, who had been living in Normandy, the real power be- longed to the earls, and chiefly to Earl Godwine. Godwine's lands included the older kingdom of Wessex, together with Sussex and Kent. To counteract his influence. King Edward looked to his ISTorman friends, one of whom he made archbishop of Canterbury. Another was William, duke of Normandy, who paid him a visit and who afterward asserted that Edward promised him the crown of England. Although the crown was not Edward's to give, for the lords, bishops, abbots, and other notable men assembled in the council, or Witenagemot, had the right to choose the kings, William went back to Normandy cherishing this promise as a real claim to the throne. Soon afterward Godwine drove away the Norman archbishop of Canterbury. When he died his earldom went to his son Harold. 106. The Duke of Normandy. — Duke William had already shown that he knew how to rule men. As a child he had been left in the midst of jealous barons by his father, who in 1035 went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He had finally subdued his enemies and had made Normandy more orderly than any other region, at least within the limits of France. At first he had been helped by the Capetian kings, for his ancestors had faithfully served the Capetians as their lords even before Hugh became king. But it was hard for a king at Paris to allow the lower course of the Seine to be held by so powerful a vassal. THE NORMAN CONQUEST 103 Twice William had defeated the king before he seized a crown which made him an even more dangerous rival. 107. The Norman Conquest — In 1066 Edward the Con- fessor died, and the Witenagemot chose Harold king. William determined to conquer the crown, which he declared rightfully r : : I ^ ' '^ ■■ : :i ' — '\' 1 ^m^ ■■' '^' \.^^j ; d Wl ; t^-y~f. s,-"*^^ ■■ ■*, ^0^mm • . , ■■ •« _ i'*-^ ..- * ^'Ja.^^-.* ^^^^^^IhP B^; t^ , Wr :■■■■.::■ Sfc*ji ^^B Castle of Falaise. The birthplace, in 1027, of William the Conqueror, son of Duke Robert the Devil and of Arlette a tanner's daughter. belonged to him. From every side came warriors eager for a share in the spoil. He received a consecrated banner from the pope, who had been offended by the English treatment of the Norman archbishop, and who thought that such a conquest would make England more obedient to the papacy. Harold could get no aid from the jealous earls. His own brother took the opportunity to invade England with an army of Norwegians. 104 THE NEW EUROPE, ITS RULERS ANB ITS FOES Victorious over this enemy, he hastened southward to meet William, who had already landed. The decisive battle was fought at Senlac near Hastings. Harold was killed and his army scattered. The English had no choice save submission to William, the " Conqueror." 108. William as King. — Although William was cruel to all who resisted him, his triumph vyas an advantage to England, henceforward more closely united to the Continent, which was already stirred by a new religious, intellectual, and artistic life. Several of England's most imposing cathedrals, built by Nor- man architects, still stand as witnesses to this influence. William also gave the country a stronger government. In Normandy there had been few great lords to thwart his efforts and all men had held their fiefs directly of him. He applied the same system in England, breaking up the great earldoms and scattering the lands of the richer earls, so that they could not easily bring together their followers to dispute his authority. He held them in check also by increasing the power of the sheriffs. He insisted that all landowners swear fealty to him. Who they were he knew, for he had caused an exact statement of all property to be set down in Domesday Book, so named, perhaps, because its records could no more be questioned than " dooms " of the Judgment Day. In his effort to check unruly nobles he was aided by the old English county courts, where lords, bishops, abbots, and dele- gates from the towns met to settle cases too important to be decided by the manorial or town courts. Here was administered by the freemen themselves the old English law, and not the will of some great noble. Such meetings foreshadowed a day when the same classes of men would unite to wrest from William's successors stronger safeguards for their laws and their liberties. 109. The Holy Roman Empire. — None of the German kings before Otto had ventured to march into Italy, and, like another Charlemagne, win the imperial crown. The papacy had not gained by the withdrawal of such a protector, troublesome THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 105 though he occasionally was, for without him it might be degraded into a local bishopric fought over by the rude lords of Eome or the neighboring towns. It was at the call of the pope for protection that Otto came in 962. He was crowned ■^\ -ffa.e^.in. car Ifi^nw.e^ uiO^V.Uitti -r ^ut-U^cu.,,. :