History for ready reference, Volume 2, El Dorado to Greaves (part 5 of 10)
Fought successfully by the Britons with the West Saxons, on the border of Cheshire, A. D. 583.
J. R. Green, The Making of England, page 206.
FAENZA, Battle of (A. D. 542).
See ROME: A. D. 535-553.
FÆSULÆ.
See FLORENCE, ORIGIN AND NAME.
FAGGING.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. ENGLAND.--THE GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
FAGGIOLA, Battle of (1425).
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
FAINÉANT KINGS.
See FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.
FAIR OAKS, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY: VIRGINIA).
FAIRFAX AND THE PARLIAMENTARY ARMY.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JANUARY-APRIL), and (JUNE); 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST); 1648 (NOVEMBER); 1649 (FEBRUARY).
FALAISE.
"The Castle [in Normandy] where legend fixes the birth of William of Normandy, and where history fixes the famous homage of William of Scotland, is a vast donjon of the eleventh or twelfth century. One of the grandest of those massive square keeps which I have already spoken of as distinguishing the earliest military architecture of Normandy crowns the summit of a precipitous rock, fronted by another mass of rock, wilder still, on which the cannon of England were planted during Henry's siege. To these rocks, these 'felsen,' the spot owes its name of Falaise. ... Between these two rugged heights lies a narrow dell. ... The den is crowded with mills and tanneries, but the mills and tanneries of Falaise have their share in the historic interest of the place. ... In every from which the story has taken in history or legend, the mother of the Conqueror appears as the daughter of a tanner of Falaise."
E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest, chapter 8, section 1.
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FALAISE, Peace of (1175).
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1174-1189.
FALK LAWS, The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1873-1887.
FALKIRK, Battles of (1298 and 1746).
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305; and 1745-1746.
FAMAGOSTA: A. D. 1571. Taken by the Turks.
See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.
FAMILIA.
The slaves belonging to a master were collectively called familia among the Romans.
E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 100.
FAMILY COMPACT,
The First Bourbon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1733.
The Second.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).
The Third.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).
FAMILY COMPACT IN CANADA, The.
See CANADA: A. D.1820-1837.
FAMINE, The Cotton.
See, ENGLAND: A. D. 1861-1865,
FAMINE, The Irish.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1845-1847.
FANARIOTS.
See PHANARIOTS.
FANEUIL HALL.
"The fame of Faneuil Hall [Boston, Mass.] is as wide as the country itself. It has been called the 'Cradle of Liberty,' because dedicated by that early apostle of freedom, James Otis, to the cause of liberty, in a speech delivered in the hall in March, 1763. ... Its walls have echoed to the voices of the great departed in times gone by, and in every great public exigency the people, with one accord, assembled together to take counsel within its hallowed precincts. ... The Old Market-house ... existing in Dock Square in 1734, was demolished by a mob in 1736-37. There was contention among the people as to whether they would be served at their houses in the old way, or resort to fixed localities, and one set of disputants took this summary method of settling the question. ... In 1740, the question of the Market-house being revived, Peter Faneuil proposed to build one at his own cost on the town's land in Dock Square, upon condition that the town should legally authorize it, enact proper regulations, and maintain it for the purpose named. Mr. Faneuil's noble offer was courteously received, but such was the division of opinion on the subject that it was accepted by a majority of only seven votes, out of 727 persons voting. The building was completed in September, 1742, and three days after, at a meeting of citizens, the hall was formally accepted and a vote of thanks passed to the donor. ... The town voted that the hall should be called Faneuil Hall forever. ... The original size of the building was 40 by 100 feet, just half the present width; the hall would contain 1,000 persons. At the fire of January 13, 1763, the whole interior was destroyed, but the town voted to rebuild in March, and the State authorized a lottery in aid of the design. The first meeting after the rebuilding was held on the 14th March, 1763, when James Otis delivered the dedicatory address. In 1806 the Hull was enlarged in width to 80 feet, and by the addition of a third story."
S. A. Drake, Old Landmarks of Boston, chapter 4.
FANNIAN LAW, The.
See ORCHIAN, FANNIAN, DIDIAN LAWS.
FARM.
See FERM.
FARMERS' ALLIANCE.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1877-1891.
FARMER'S LETTERS, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1767-1768.
FARNESE, Alexander, Duke of Parma, in the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581, to 1588-1593.
FARNESE, The House of.
See PARMA: A. D. 1545-1592.
FARRAGUT, Admiral David G. Capture of New Orleans.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
Attack on Vicksburg.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
Victory in Mobile Bay.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1864 (AUGUST: ALABAMA).
FARSAKH, OR FARSANG, The.
See PARASANG.
FASCES.
See LICTORS.
FASTI.
"Dies Fasti were the days upon which the Courts of Justice [in ancient Rome] were open, and legal business could be transacted before the Praetor; the Dies Nefasti were those upon which the Courts were closed. ... All days consecrated to the worship of the Gods by sacrifices, feasts or games, were named Festi. ... For nearly four centuries and a-half after the foundation of the city the knowledge of the Calendar was confined to the Pontifices alone. ... These secrets which might be, and doubtless often were, employed for political ends, were at length divulged in the year B. C. 314, by Cn. Flavius, who drew up tables embracing all this carefully-treasured information, and hung them up in the Forum for the inspection of the public. From this time forward documents of this description were known by the name of Fasti. ... These Fasti, in fact, corresponded very closely to a modern Almanac. ... The Fasti just described have, to prevent confusion, been called Calendaria, or Fasti Calendares, and must be carefully distinguished from certain compositions also named Fasti by the ancients. These were regular chronicles in which were recorded each year the names of the Consuls and other magistrates, together with the remarkable events, and the days on which they occurred. The most important were the Annales Maximi, kept by the Pontifex Maximus."
W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquities, chapter 11.
FATIMITE CALIPHS, The.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 908-1171;
Also, ASSASSINS.
FAVILA, King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, A. D. 737-739.
FEAST OF LIBERTY.
See GREECE: B. C. 479: PERSIAN WARS. PLATÆA.
FEAST OF REASON, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (NOVEMBER).
FEAST OF THE FEDERATION, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791.
FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (NOVEMBER-JUNE).
FECIALES.--FETIALES.
See FETIALES.
FEDELI.
See CATTANI.
FEDERAL CITY, The.
See WASHINGTON (CITY): A. D. 1791.
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF SWITZERLAND.
See CONSTITUTION OF THE SWISS CONFEDERATION.
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FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
See CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.--FEDERATIONS.
"Two requisites seem necessary to constitute a Federal Government in ... its most perfect form. On the one hand, each of the members of the Union must be wholly independent in those matters which concern each member only. On the other hand, all must be subject to a common power in those matters which concern the whole body of members collectively. Thus each member will fix for itself the laws of its criminal jurisprudence, and even the details of its political constitution. And it will do this, not as a matter of privilege or concession from any higher power, but as a matter of absolute right, by virtue of its inherent powers as an independent commonwealth. But in all matters which concern the general body, the sovereignty of the several members will cease. Each member is perfectly independent within its own sphere; but there is another sphere in which its independence, or rather its separate existence, vanishes. It is invested with every right of sovereignty on one class of subjects, but there is another class of subjects on which it is as incapable of separate political action as any province or city of a monarchy or of an indivisible republic. ... Four Federal Commonwealths ... stand out, in four different ages of the world, as commanding, above all others, the attention of students of political history. Of these four, one belongs to what is usually known as 'ancient,' another to what is commonly called 'mediæval' history; a third arose in the period of transition between mediæval and modern history; the creation of the fourth may have been witnessed by some few of those who are still counted among living men, ... These four Commonwealths are, First, the Achaian League [see GREECE: B. C. 280-146] in the later days of Ancient Greece, whose most flourishing period comes within the third century before our era. Second, the Confederation of the Swiss Cantons [see CONSTITUTION OF THE SWISS CONFEDERATION], which, with many changes in its extent and constitution, has lasted from the thirteenth century to our own day. Third, the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581, and after], whose Union arose in the War of Independence against Spain, and lasted, in a republican form, till the war of the French Revolution. Fourth, the United States of North America [see CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA], which formed a Federal Union after their revolt from the British Crown under George the Third, and whose destiny forms one of the most important, and certainly the most interesting, of the political problems of our own time. Of these four, three come sufficiently near to the full realization of the Federal idea to be entitled to rank among perfect Federal Governments. The Achaian League, and the United States since the adoption of the present Constitution, are indeed the most perfect developments of the Federal principle which the world has ever seen. The Swiss Confederation, in its origin a Union of the loosest kind, has gradually drawn the Federal bond tighter and tighter, till, within our own times, it has assumed a form which fairly entitles it to rank beside Achaia and America. The claim of the United Provinces is more doubtful; their union was at no period of their republican being so close as that of Achaia, America, and modern Switzerland."
E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, volume 1, pages 3-6.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Classification of Federal Governments.
"To the classification of federal governments publicists have given great attention with unsatisfactory results. History shows a great variety of forms, ranging from the lowest possible organization, like that of the Amphictyonic Council [see AMPHIKTYONIC COUNCIL] to the highly centralized and powerful German Empire. Many writers deny that any fixed boundaries can be described. The usual classification is, however, into three divisions,--the Staatenstaat, or state founded on states; the Staatenbund, or union of states--to which the term Confederacy nearly corresponds; and the Bundesstaat, or united state, which answers substantially to the term federation as usually employed. The Staatenstaat is defined to be a state in which the units are not individuals, but states, and which, therefore, has no operation directly on individuals, but deals with and legislates for its corporate members; they preserve undisturbed their powers of government over their own subjects. The usual example of a Staatenstaat is the Holy Roman Empire [see ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY]. This conception ... is, however, illogical in theory, and never has been carried out in practice. ... Historically, also, the distinction is untenable. The Holy Roman Empire had courts, taxes, and even subjects not connected with the states. In theory it had superior claims upon all the individuals within the Empire; in practice it abandoned control over the states. The second category is better established. Jellinek says: "When states form a permanent political alliance, of which common defence is at the very least the purpose, with permanent federal organs, there arises a Staatenbund.' This form of government is distinguished from an alliance by the fact that it has permanent federal organs; from a commercial league by its political purpose; from a Bundesstaat by its limited purpose. In other words, under Staatenbund are included the weaker forms of true federal government, in which there is independence from other powers, and, within the purposes of the union, independence from the constituent states. ... The Staatenbund form includes most of the federal governments which have existed. The Greek confederations (except perhaps the Lycian and Achæan) and all the mediæval leagues were of this type: even the strong modern unions of the United States, Germany, and Switzerland, have gone through the Staatenbund stage in their earlier history. Between the Staatenbund and the more highly developed form, the Bundesstaat, no writer has described an accurate boundary. There are certain governments, notably those of Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, in which is found an elaborate and powerful central organism, including federal courts; to this organism is assigned all or nearly all the common concerns of the nation; within its exclusive control are war, foreign affairs, commerce, colonies, and national finances; and there is an efficient power of enforcement against states. Such governments undoubtedly are Bundesstaaten."
A. B. Hart, Introduction to the Study of Federal Government (Harvard Historical Monographs, number 2), chapter 1.
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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Greek Federations.
"Under the conditions of the Græco-Roman civic life there were but two practicable methods of forming a great state and diminishing the quantity of warfare. The one method was conquest with incorporation, the other method was federation. ... Neither method was adopted by the Greeks in their day of greatness. The Spartan method of extending its power was conquest without incorporation: when Sparta conquered another Greek city, she sent a harmost to govern it like a tyrant; in other words she virtually enslaved the subject city. The efforts of Athens tended more in the direction of a peaceful federalism. In the great Delian confederacy [see GREECE: B. C. 478-477, and ATHENS: B. C. 466-454], which developed into the maritime empire of Athens, the Ægean cities were treated as allies rather than subjects. As regards their local affairs they were in no way interfered with, and could they have been represented in some kind of a federal council at Athens, the course of Grecian history might have been wonderfully altered. As it was, they were all deprived of one essential element of sovereignty,--the power of controlling their own military forces. ... In the century following the death of Alexander, in the closing age of Hellenic independence, the federal idea appears in a much more advanced stage of elaboration, though in a part of Greece which had been held of little account in the great days of Athens and Sparta. Between the Achaian federation, framed in 274 B. C., and the United States of America, there are some interesting points of resemblance which have been elaborately discussed by Mr. Freeman, in his 'History of Federal Government.' About the same time the Ætolian League [see ÆTOLIAN LEAGUE] came into prominence in the north. Both these leagues were instances of true federal government, and were not mere confederations; that is, the central government acted directly upon all the citizens and not merely upon the local governments. Each of these leagues had for its chief executive officer a General elected for one year, with powers similar to those of an American President. In each the supreme assembly was a primary assembly at which every citizen from every city of the league had a right to be present, to speak, and to vote; but as a natural consequence these assemblies shrank into comparatively aristocratic bodies. In Ætolia, which was a group of mountain cantons similar to Switzerland, the federal union was more complete than in Achaia, which was a group of cities. ... In so far as Greece contributed anything towards the formation of great and pacific political aggregates, she did it through attempts at federation. But in so low a state of political development as that which prevailed throughout the Mediterranean world in pre-Christian times, the more barbarous method of conquest with incorporation was more likely to be successful on a great scale. This was well illustrated in the history of Rome,--a civic community of the same generic type with Sparta and Athens, but presenting specific differences of the highest importance. ... Rome early succeeded in freeing itself from that insuperable prejudice which elsewhere prevented the ancient city from admitting aliens to a share in its franchise. And in this victory over primeval political ideas lay the whole secret of Rome's mighty career."
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Mediæval Leagues in Germany.
"It is hardly too much to say that the Lombard League led naturally to the leagues of German cities. The exhausting efforts of the Hohenstaufen Emperors to secure dominion in Italy compelled them to grant privileges to the cities in Germany; the weaker emperors, who followed, bought support with new charters and privileges. The inability of the Empire to keep the peace or to protect commerce led speedily to the formation of great unions of cities, usually commercial in origin, but very soon becoming political forces of prime importance. The first of these was the Rhenish League, formed in 1254. The more important cities of the Rhine valley, from Basle to Cologne, were the original members; but it eventually had seventy members, including several princes and ruling prelates. The league had Colloquia, or assemblies, at stated intervals; but, beyond deciding upon a general policy, and the assignment of military quotas, it had no legislative powers. There was, however, a Kommission, or federal court, which acted as arbiter in disputes between the members. The chief political service of the league was to maintain peace during the interregnum in the Empire (1256-1273). During the fourteenth century it fell apart, and many of its members joined the Hansa or Suabian League. ... In 1377 seventeen Suabian cities, which had been mortgaged by the Emperor, united to defend their liberties. They received many accessions of German and Swiss cities; but in 1388 they were overthrown by Leopold III. of Austria, and all combinations of cities were forbidden. A federal government they cannot be said to have possessed; but political, almost federal relations continued during the fifteenth century. The similar leagues of Frankfort and Wetterau were broken up about the same time. Other leagues of cities and cantons were in a like manner formed and dissolved,--among them the leagues of Hauenstein and Burgundy; and there was a confederation in Franche Comté, afterward French territory. All the mediæval leagues thus far mentioned were defensive, and had no extended relations beyond their own borders. The great Hanseatic League [see HANSA TOWNS], organized as a commercial union, developed into a political and international power, which negotiated and made war on its own account with foreign and German sovereigns; and which was for two centuries one of the leading powers of Europe."
A. B. Hart, Introduction to the Study of Federal Government (Harvard Historical Monographs, number 2), chapter 3.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Mediæval League of Lombardy.
When Frederick Barbarossa entered Italy for the fifth time in 1163, to enforce the despotic sovereignty over that country which the German kings, as emperors, were then claiming (see ITALY: A. D. 961-1039), a league of the Lombard cities was formed to resist him. "Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso, the most powerful towns of the Veronese marches, assembled their consuls in congress, to consider of the means of putting an end to a tyranny which overwhelmed them. The consuls of these four towns pledged themselves by oath in the name of their cities to give mutual support to each other in the assertion of their former rights, and in the resolution to reduce the imperial prerogatives to the point at which they were fixed under the reign of Henry IV. Frederick, informed of this association; returned hastily into Northern Italy, to put it down ... but he soon perceived that the spirit of liberty had made progress in the Ghibeline cities as well as in those of the Guelphs. ... {1110} Obliged to bend before a people which he considered only as revolted subjects, he soon renounced a contest so humiliating, and returned to Germany, to levy an army more submissive to him. Other and more pressing interests diverted his attention from this object till the autumn of 1166. ... When Frederick, in the month of October, 1166, descended the mountains of the Grisons to enter Italy by the territory of Brescia, he marched his army directly to Lodi, without permitting any act of hostility on the way. At Lodi, he assembled, towards the end of November, a diet of the kingdom of Italy, at which he promised the Lombards to redress the grievances occasioned by the abuses of power by his podestas, and to respect their just liberties; ... to give greater weight to his negotiation, he marched his army into Central Italy. ... The towns of the Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass without daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new diet, in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida, between Milan and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo, of Brescia, of Mantua and Ferrara met there, and joined those of the marches. The union of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, for the common liberty, was hailed with universal joy. The deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages in imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city of Milan. This confederation was called the League of Lombardy. The consuls took the oath, and their constituents afterwards repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for the recovery of the common liberty; that the league for this purpose should last twenty years; and, finally, that they should aid each other in repairing in common any damage experienced in this sacred cause, by any one member of the confederation: extending even to the past this contract for reciprocal security, the league resolved to rebuild Milan. ... Lodi was soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the oath to the league; while the towns of Venice, Placentia, Parma, Modena, and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined the association."
J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 2.
In 1226 the League was revived or renewed against Frederick II.
See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250.
"Milan and Bologna took the lead, and were followed by Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Faenza, Mantua, Vercelli, Lodi, Bergamo, Turin, Alessandria, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso. ... Nothing could be more unlike, than the First and the Second Lombard Leagues, that of 1167, formed against Frederick the First after the most cruel provocation, was sanctioned by the Pope, and had for its end the deliverance of Lombardy. That of 1226, formed against Frederick the Second, after no provocation received, was discountenanced by the Pope, and resulted in the frustration of the Crusade and in sowing the germ of endless civil wars. This year is fixed upon by the Brescian Chronicler as the beginning of 'those plaguy factions of Guelf and Ghibelline, which were so engrained into the minds of our forefathers, that they have handed them down as an heir-loom to their posterity, never to come to an end.'"
T. L. Kington, History of Frederick the Second, volume 1, pages 265-266.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Modern Federations.
"A remarkable phenomenon of the last hundred years is the impetus that has been given to the development of Federal institutions. There are to-day contemporaneously existing no less than eight distinct Federal Governments. First and foremost is the United States of America, where we have an example of the Federal Union in the most perfect form yet attained. Then comes Switzerland, of less importance than the United States of America, but most nearly approaching it in perfection. Again we have the German Empire [see CONSTITUTION OF GERMANY], that great factor in European politics, which is truly a Federal Union, but a cumbrous one and full of anomalies. Next in importance comes the Dominion of Canada [see CONSTITUTION OF CANADA], which is the only example of a country forming a Federal Union and at the same time a colony. Lastly come the Argentine Republic, Mexico, and the States of Colombia and Venezuela [see CONSTITUTIONS]. This is a very remarkable list when we consider that never before the present century did more than two Federal Unions ever coexist, and that very rarely, and that even those unions were far from satisfying the true requirements of Federation. Nor is this all. Throughout the last hundred years we can mark a growing tendency in countries that have adopted the Federal type of Government to perfect that Federal type and make it more truly Federal than before. In the United States of America, for instance, the Constitution of 1789 was more truly Federal than the Articles of Confederation, and certainly since the Civil War we hear less of State Rights, and more of Union. It has indeed been remarked that the citizens of the United States have become fond of applying the words 'Nation' and 'National' to themselves in a manner formerly unknown. We can mark the same progress in Switzerland. Before 1789, Switzerland formed a very loose system of Confederated States--in 1815, a constitution more truly Federal was devised; in 1848, the Federal Union was more firmly consolidated; and lastly, in 1874, such changes were made in the Constitution that Switzerland now presents a very fairly perfect example of Federal Government. In Germany we may trace a similar movement. In 1815, the Germanic Confederation was formed; but it was only a system of Confederated States, or what the Germans call Staatenbund; but after various changes, amongst others the exclusion of Austria in 1866, it became, in 1871, a composite State or, in German language, a Bundestaat. Beyond this, we have to note a further tendency to Federation. In the year 1886, a Bill passed the Imperial Parliament to permit of the formation of an Australasian Council for the purposes of forming the Australasian Colonies into a Federation. Then we hear of further aspirations for applying the Federal system, as though there were some peculiar virtue or talismanic effect about it which rendered it a panacea for all political troubles. There has, also, been much talk about Imperial Federation. Lastly, some people think they see a simple solution of the Irish Question in the application of Federation, particularly the Canadian form of it, to Ireland."
Federal Government (Westminster Rev., May, 1888, pages 573-574).
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"The federal is one of the oldest forms of government known, and its adaptability to the largest as well as to the smallest states is shown in all political formations of late years. States in the New and in the Old World, all in their aggregation, alike show ever a stronger tendency to adopt it. Already all the central states of Europe are federal--Switzerland, Germany, Austria [see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867, and 1866-1887]; and if ever the various Sclav principalities in south-eastern Europe--the Serb, the Albanian, the Rouman, the Bulgar, and the Czech--are to combine, it will probably be (as Mr. Freeman so long ago as 1862 remarked) under a federal form,--though whether under Russian or Austrian auspices, or neither, remains to be seen. ... In the German lands from early ages there has existed an aggregation of tribes and states, some of them even of non-German race, each of which preserved for domestic purposes its own arrangements and laws, but was united with the rest under one supreme head and central authority as regards its relation to all external powers. Since 1871 all the states of Germany 'form an eternal union for the protection of the realm and the care of the welfare of the German people.' For legislative purposes, under the Emperor as head, are the two Houses of Assembly; first, the Upper House of the Federated States, consisting of 62 members, who represent the individual States, and thus as the guardian of State rights, answers very closely to the Senate of the American Union, except that the number of members coming from each state is not uniform, but apportioned. ... Each German state has its own local constitution and home rule for its internal affairs. Generally there are two chambers, except in some of the smallest states, the population of which does not much exceed in some cases that of our larger towns. ... Since 1867 the Austro-Hungarian monarchy has been a political Siamese twin, of which Austria is the one body, and Hungary the other; the population of the Austrian half is 24 millions, and that of Hungary about 16 millions. Each of the two has its own parliament; the connecting link is the sovereign (whose civil list is raised half by one and half by the other) and a common army, navy, and diplomatic service, and another Over-parliament of 120 members, one-half chosen by the legislature of Hungary, and the other half by the legislature of Austria (the Upper House of each twin returns twenty, and the Lower of each forty delegates from their own number, who thus form a kind of Joint Committee of the Four Houses). The jurisdiction of this Over-parliament is limited to foreign affairs and war. ... The western or Austrian part of the twin ... is a federal government in itself. ... Federated Austria consists of seventeen distinct states. The German element constitutes 36 per cent. of the inhabitants of these, and the Sclav 57 per cent. There are a few Magyars, Italians, and Roumanians. Each of these seventeen states has its own provincial parliament of one House, partly composed of ex-officio members (the bishops and archbishops of the Latin and Greek Churches, and the chancellors of the universities), but chiefly of representatives chosen by all the inhabitants who pay direct taxation. Some of these are elected by the landowners, others by the towns, others by the trade-guilds and boards of commerce; the representatives of the rural communes, however, are elected by delegates, as in Prussia. They legislate concerning all local matters, county taxation, land laws and farming, education, public worship, and public works. ... Turning next to the oldest federation in Europe, that of Switzerland, which with various changes has survived from 1308, though its present constitution dates only from 1874, we find it now embraces three nationalities--German, French, Italian. The original nucleus of the State, however, was German, and even now three-fourths of the population are German. The twenty-two distinct states are federated under one president elected annually, and the Federal Assembly of two chambers. ... Each of the cantons is sovereign and independent, and has its own local parliament, scarcely any two being the same, but all based on universal suffrage. Each canton has its own budget of revenue and expenditure, and its own public debt."
_J. N. Dalton, The Federal States of the World (Nineteenth Century, July, 1884)._
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Canadian Federation.
"A convention of thirty-three representative men was held in the autumn of 1864 in the historic city of Quebec, and after a deliberation of several weeks the result was the unanimous adoption of a set of seventy-two resolutions embodying the terms and conditions on which the provinces through their delegates agreed to a federal union in many respects similar in its general features to that of the United States federation, and in accordance with the principles of the English constitution. These resolutions had to be laid before the various legislatures and adopted in the shape of addresses to the queen whose sanction was necessary to embody the wishes of the provinces in an imperial statute. ... In the early part of 1867 the imperial parliament, without a division, passed the statute known as the 'British North America Act, 1867,' which united in the first instance the province of Canada, now divided into Ontario and Quebec, with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and made provisions for the coming in of the other provinces of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, British Columbia, and the admission of Rupert's Land and the great North-west. Between 1867 and 1873 the provinces just named, with the exception of Newfoundland, which has persistently remained out of the federation, became parts of the Dominion and the vast Northwest Territory was at last acquired on terms eminently satisfactory to Canada and a new province of great promise formed out of that immense region, with a complete system of parliamentary government. ... When the terms of the Union came to be arranged between the provinces in 1864, their conflicting interest had to be carefully considered and a system adopted which would always enable the Dominion to expand its limits and bring in new sections until it should embrace the northern half of the continent, which, as we have just shown, now constitutes the Dominion. It was soon found, after due deliberation, that the most feasible plan was a confederation resting on those principles which experience of the working of the federation of the United States showed was likely to give guarantees of elasticity and permanency. The maritime provinces had been in the enjoyment of an excellent system of laws and representative institutions for many years, and were not willing to yield their local autonomy in its entirety. The people of the province of Quebec, after experience of a union that lasted from 1841 to 1867, saw decidedly great advantages to themselves and their institutions in having a provincial government under their own control. The people of Ontario recognized equal advantages in having a measure of local government, apart from French Canadian influences and interference. The consequence was the adoption of the federal system, which now, after twenty-six years' experience, we can truly say appears on the whole well devised and equal to the local and national requirements of the people."
J. G. Bourinot, Federal Government in Canada (Johns Hopkins University Studies, 7th Series, numbers 10-13), lectures 1-2.
{1112}
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Britannic Federation, Proposed.
"The great change which has taken place in the public mind in recent years upon the importance to the Empire of maintaining the colonial connection found expression at a meeting held at the Westminster Palace Hotel in July 1884, under the guidance of the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, who occupied the chair. At that meeting--which was attended by a large number of members of Parliament of both parties, and representatives of the colonies--it was moved by the Right Hon. W. H. Smith: 'That, in order to secure the permanent unity of the Empire, some form of federation is essential.' That resolution was seconded by the Earl of Rosebery, and passed unanimously. In November of the same year the Imperial Federation League was formed to carry out the objects of that resolution; and the subject has received considerable attention since. ... I believe all are agreed that the leading objects of the Imperial Federation League are to find means by which the colonies, the outlying portions of the Empire, may have a certain voice and weight and influence in reference to the foreign policy of this country, in which they are all deeply interested, and sometimes more deeply interested than the United Kingdom itself. In the next place, that measures may be taken by which all the power and weight and influence that these great British communities in Australasia, in South Africa, and in Canada possess shall be brought into operation for the strengthening and defence of the Empire. The discussion of these questions has led to a great deal of progress. We have got rid of a number of fallacies that obtained in the minds of a good many persons in relation to the means by which those objects are to be attained. Most people have come to the conclusion stated by Lord Rosebery at the Mansion House, that a Parliamentary Federation, if practicable, is so remote, that during the coming century it is not likely to make any very great advance. We have also got rid of the fallacy that it was practicable to have a common tariff throughout the Empire. It is not, in my opinion, consistent with the constitution either of England or of the autonomous colonies. The tariff of a country must rest of necessity mainly with the Government of the day, and involves such continual change and alteration as to make uniformity impracticable. ... I regard the time as near at hand when the great provinces of Australasia will be confederated under one Government. ... When that has been done it will be followed, I doubt not, at a very early day, by a similar course on the part of South Africa, and then we shall stand in the position of having three great dominions, commonwealths, or realms, or whatever name is found most desirable on the part of the people who adopt them--three great British communities, each under one central and strong Government. When that is accomplished, the measure which the Marquis of Lorne has suggested, of having the representatives of these colonies during the term of their office here in London, practically Cabinet Ministers, will give to the Government of England an opportunity of learning in the most direct and complete manner the views and sentiments of each of those great British communities in regard to all questions of foreign policy affecting the colonies. I would suggest that the representatives of those three great British communities here in London should be leading members of the Cabinet of the day of the country they represent, going out of office when their Government is changed. In that way they would always represent the country, and necessarily the views of the party in power in Canada, in Australasia, and in South Africa. That would involve no constitutional change; it would simply require that whoever represented those dominions in London should have a seat in their own Parliament, and be a member of the Administration."
_C. Tupper, Federating the Empire (Nineteenth Century, October, 1891)._
"Recent expensive wars at the Cape, annexations of groups of islands in the neighbourhood of Australia, the Fishery and other questions that have arisen, and may arise, on the North American continent, have all compelled us to take a review of our responsibilities in connection with our Colonies and to consider how far, in the event of trouble, we may rely upon their assistance to adequately support the commercial interests of our scattered Empire. It is remarkable that, although the matters here indicated are slowly coming to the surface, and have provoked discussion, they have not been forced upon the public attention suddenly, or by any violent injury or catastrophe. The review men are taking of our position, and the debates as to how best we can make our relationships of standing value, have been the natural outcome of slowly developing causes and effects. Politicians belonging to both of the great parties in the State have joined the Federation League. The leaders have expressly declared that they do not desire at the present moment to propound any definite theories, or to push any premature scheme for closer union of the Empire. The society has been formed for the purpose of discussing any plans proposed for such objects. The suggestions actually made have varied in importance from comprehensive projects of universal commercial union and common contributions for a world-wide military and naval organization, to such a trivial proposal as the personal recognition of distinguished colonists by a nomination to the peerage."
The Marquis of Lorne, Imperial Federation, chapter 1.
{1113}
"Many schemes of federation have been propounded, and many degrees of federal union are possible. Lord Rosebery has not gone further, as yet, than the enunciation of a general principle. 'The federation we aim at (he has said) is the closest possible union of the various self-governing States ruled by the British Crown, consistently with that free development which is the birthright of British subjects all over the world--the closest union in sympathy, in external action, and in defence.' ... The representation of the Colonies in the Privy Council has been viewed with favour, both by statesmen and by theoretical writers. Earl Grey has proposed the appointment of a Federal Committee, selected from the Privy Council, to advise with the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The idea thus shadowed forth has been worked out with greater amplitude of detail by Mr. Creswell, in an essay to which the prize offered by the London Chamber of Commerce was awarded. 'The Imperial assembly which we want,' says Mr. Creswell, 'must be an independent body, constitutional in its origin, representative in its character, and supreme in its decisions. Such a body we have already in existence in the Privy Council. Its members are chosen, irrespective of party considerations, from among the most eminent of those who have done service to the State. To this body colonists of distinguished public service could be elected. In constituting the Imperial Committee of the Privy Council, representation might be given to every part of the empire, in proportion to the several contributions to expenditure for Imperial defence.' The constitution of a great Council of the Empire, with similar functions in relation to foreign affairs to those which are exercised in the United States by a Committee of the Senate, is a step for which public opinion is not yet prepared. In the meanwhile the utmost consideration is being paid at the Foreign Office to Colonial feelings and interests. No commitments or engagements are taken which would not be approved by Colonial opinion. Another proposal which has been warmly advocated, especially by the Protectionists, is that for a customs-union between the Mother-country and the Colonies. It cannot be said that at the present time proposals for a customs-union are ripe for settlement, or even for discussion, at a conference of representatives from all parts of the empire. The Mother-country has been committed for more than a generation to the principle of Free-trade. By our policy of free imports of food and raw materials we have so cheapened production that we are able to compete successfully with all comers in the neutral markets of the world. ... It would be impossible to entertain the idea of a reversal of our fiscal policy, in however restricted a sense, without careful and exhaustive inquiry. ... Lord Rosebery has recently declared that in his opinion it is impracticable to devise a scheme of representation for the Colonies in the House of Commons and House of Lords, or in the Privy Council. The scheme of an Imperial customs-union, ably put forward by Mr. Hoffmeyer at the last Colonial Conference, he equally rejects. Lord Rosebery would limit the direct action of the Imperial Government for the present to conferences, summoned at frequent intervals. Our first conference was summoned by the Government at the instance of the Imperial Federation League. It was attended by men of the highest distinction in the Colonies. Its deliberations were guided by Lord Knutsford with admirable tact and judgment; it considered many important questions of common interest to the different countries of the empire; it arrived at several important decisions, and it cleared the air of not a few doubts and delusions. The most tangible, the most important, and the most satisfactory result of that conference was the recognition by the Australian colonies of the necessity for making provision for the naval defence of their own waters by means of ships, provided by the Government of the United Kingdom, but maintained by the Australian Governments. Lord Rosebery holds that the question of Imperial Federation depends for the present on frequent conferences. In his speech at the Mansion House he laid down the conditions essential to the success of conferences in the future. They must be held periodically and at stated intervals. The Colonies must send the best men to represent them. The Government of the Mother-country must invest these periodical congresses with all the authority and splendour which it is in their power to give. The task to be accomplished will not be the production of statutes, but the production of recommendations. Those who think that a congress that only meets to report and recommend has but a neutral task before it, have a very inadequate idea of the influence which would be exercised by a conference representing a quarter of the human race, and the immeasurable opulence and power that have been garnered up by the past centuries of our history. If we have these conferences, if they are allowed to discuss, as they must be allowed to discuss, all topics which any parties to these conferences should recommend to be discussed, Lord Rosebery cannot apprehend that they would be wanting in authority or in weight. Lord Salisbury, in his speeches recently delivered in reply to the Earl of Dunraven in the House of Lords, and in reply to the deputation of the Imperial Federation League at the Foreign Office, has properly insisted on the chief practical obstacle to a policy of frequent conferences. Attendance at conferences involves grave inconvenience to Colonial statesmen. ... In appealing to the Imperial Federation League for some practical suggestions as to the means by which the several parts of the British Empire may be more closely knit together, Lord Salisbury threw out some pregnant hints. To make a united empire both a Zollverein and a Kriegsverein must be formed. In the existing state of feeling in the Mother-country a Zollverein would be a serious difficulty. The reasons have been already stated. A Kriegsverein was, perhaps, more practicable, and certainly more, urgent. The space which separates the Colonies from possible enemies was becoming every year less and less a protection. We may take concerted action for defence without the necessity for constitutional changes which it would be difficult to carry out."
_Lord Brassey, Imperial Federation: An English View (Nineteenth Century, September., 1891)._
"The late Mr. Forster launched under the high-sounding title of the 'Imperial Federation League,' a scheme by which its authors proposed to solve all the problems attending the administration of our colonial empire. From first to last the authors of this scheme have never condescended on particulars. 'Imperial federation,' we were always told, was the only specific against the disintegration of the Empire, but as to what this specific really was, no information was vouchsafed. ... It is very natural that the citizens of a vast but fragmentary empire, whose territorial atoms (instead of forming, like those of the United States, a 'ring-fence' domain) are scattered over the surface of the globe, should cast about for some artificial links to bind together the colonies we have planted, and 'the thousand tribes nourished on strange religions and lawless slaveries' which we have gathered under our rule. {1114} This anxiety has been naturally augmented by a chronic agitation for the abandonment of all colonies as expensive and useless. For though there may be little to boast of in the fact that Great Britain has in the course of less than three centuries contrived by war, diplomacy, and adventure, to annex about a fifth of the globe, it can hardly be expected that she should relinquish without an effort even the nominal sway she still holds over her colonial empire. Hence it comes to pass that any scheme which seems to supply the needed links is caught up by those who, possessing slight acquaintance with the past history or the present aspirations of our colonists, are simply looking out for some new contrivance by which they may hope that an enduring bond of union may be provided. 'Imperial federation' is the last new 'notion' which has cropped up in pursuance of this object. ... Some clue ... to its objects and aims may be gained by a reference to the earliest exposition by Mr. Forster of his motives contained in his answer five years ago to the question, 'Why was the League formed at all?' 'For this reason,' says Mr. Forster, 'because in giving self-government to our colonies we have introduced a principle which must eventually shake off from Great Britain, Greater Britain, and divide it into separate states, which must, in short, dissolve the union unless counteracting measures be taken to preserve it.' Believing, as we do, that it has only been by conceding to our larger groups of colonies absolute powers of self-government that we have retained them at all, and that the secret of our protracted empire lies in the fact of this abandonment of central arbitrary power, the retention of which has caused the collapse of all the European empires which preceded us in the path of colonisation, we are bound to enter our emphatic protest against an assumption so utterly erroneous as that propounded by Mr. Forster. So far from believing that the permanent union of the British Empire is to be secured by 'measures which may counteract the workings of colonial self-government,' we are convinced that the only safety for our Empire lies in the unfettered action of that self-government which we have ourselves granted to our colonies. It would almost seem that for Lord Rosebery and his fellow workers the history of the colonial empires of Portugal, Spain, Holland, and France had been written in vain. For if we ask why these colonial empires have dwindled and decayed, the answer is simply because that self-government which is the life of British colonies was never granted to their dependencies. There was a time when one hundred and fifty sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of Lisbon. For two hundred years, more than half the South American continent was an appanage of Spain. Ceylon, the Cape, Guiana, and a vast cluster of trade factories in the East were at the close of the seventeenth century colonies of Holland; while half North America, comprising the vast and fertile valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Ohio, obeyed, a little more than a century ago, the sceptre of France. Neither Portugal, nor Spain, nor Holland, nor France, has lacked able rulers or statesmen, but the colonial empire of all these states has crumbled and decayed. The exceptional position of Great Britain in this respect can only be ascribed to the relinquishment of all the advantages, political and commercial, ordinarily presumed to result to dominant states from the possession of dependencies. ... The romantic dreams of the Imperial Federation League were in fact dissipated beforehand by the irrevocable grant of independent legislatures to all our most important colonies, and Lord Rosebery may rest assured that, charm he never so wisely, they will not listen to his blandishments at the cost of one iota of the political privileges already conferred on them."
_Imperial Federation (Edinburgh Review, July, 1889)._
"'Britannic Confederation' is defined to be an union of 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British North America, 'British South Africa, and Australasia.' The West Indies and one or two other British Dependencies seem here to be shut out; but, at any rate, with this definition we at least know where we are. The terms of the union we are not told; but, as the word 'confederation' is used, I conceive that they are meant to be strictly federal. That is to say, first of all, the Parliament of the United Kingdom will give up its right to legislate for British North America, British South Africa, and Australasia. Then the United Kingdom, British North America, British South Africa and Australasia will enter into a federal relation with one another. They may enter either as single members (States or Cantons) 'or as groups of members. That is, Great Britain and Ireland might enter as a single State of the Confederation, or England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales--or possibly smaller divisions again--might enter as separate States. Or Great Britain, Australia, Canada, &c., might enter as themselves Leagues, members of a greater League, as in the old state of things in Graubünden. I am not arguing for or against any of these arrangements. I am only stating them as possible. But whatever the units are to be--Great Britain and Australia, England and Victoria, or anything larger or smaller--if the confederation is to be a real one, each State must keep some powers to itself, and must yield some powers to a central body. That Central body, in which all the States must be represented in some way or other, will naturally deal with all international matters, all matters that concern the Britannic Confederation as a whole. The legislatures of Great Britain and Australia, England and Victoria, or whatever the units fixed on may be, will deal only with the internal affairs of those several cantons. Now such a scheme as this is theoretically possible. That is, it involves no contradiction in terms, as the talk about Imperial Federation does. It is purely federal; there is nothing 'imperial' about it. It is simply applying to certain political communities a process which has been actually gone through by certain other political communities. It is proposing to reconstruct a certain political constitution after the model of certain other political constitutions which are in actual working. It is therefore something better than mere talk and theory. But, because it is theoretically possible, it does not follow that it is practically possible, that is, that it is possible in this particular case. ... Of the federations existing at this time the two chief are Switzerland and the United States of America. They differ in this point, that one is very large and the other very small; they agree in this, that the territory of both is continuous. But the proposed Britannic Confederation will be scattered, scattered over every part of the world. {1115} I know of no example in any age of a scattered confederation, a scattered Bundesstaat. The Hanse Towns were not a Bundesstaat; they were hardly a Staatenbund. Of the probable working of such a body as that which is now proposed the experience of history can teach us nothing; we can only guess what may be likely. The Britannic Confederation will have its federal congress sitting somewhere, perhaps at Westminster, perhaps at Melbourne, perhaps at some Washington called specially into being at some point more central than either. ... For a while their representatives will think it grand to sit at Westminster; presently, as the spirit of equality grows, they are not unlikely to ask for some more central place; they may even refuse to stir out of their own territory. That is to say, they will find that the sentiment of national unity, which they undoubtedly have in no small measure, needs some physical and some political basis to stand on. It is hard to believe that States which are united only by a sentiment, which have so much, both political and physical, to keep them asunder, will be kept together for ever by a sentiment only. And we must further remember that that sentiment is a sentiment for the mother-country, and not for one another. ... Canada and Australia care a great deal for Great Britain; we may doubt whether, apart from Great Britain, Canada and Australia care very much for one another. There may be American States which care yet less for one another; but in their case mere continuity produces a crowd of interests and relations common to all. We may doubt whether the confederation of States so distant as the existing colonies of Great Britain, whether the bringing them into closer relations with one another as well as with Great Britain, will at all tend to the advance of a common national unity among them. We may doubt whether it will not be likely to bring out some hidden tendencies to disunion among them. ... In the scattered confederation all questions and parties are likely to be local. It is hard to see what will be the materials for the formation of great national parties among such scattered elements."
_E. A. Freeman, The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity (Britannic Confederation, edited by A. S. White)._
"I have the greatest respect for the aspirations of the Imperial Federationists, and myself most earnestly desire the moral unity of our race and its partnership in achievement and grandeur. But an attempt at formal Federation, such as is now proposed, would in the first place exclude the people of the United States, who form the largest portion of the English-speaking race, and in the second place it would split us all to pieces. It would, I am persuaded, call into play centrifugal forces against which the centripetal forces could not contend for an hour. What interests of the class with which a Federal Parliament would deal have Australia and Canada in common? What enemy has either of them whom the other would be inclined to fight? Australia, it seems, looks forward to a struggle with the Chinese for ascendency in that quarter of the globe. Canada cares no more about a struggle between the Australians and the Chinese at the other extremity of the globe than the Australians would care about a dispute between Canada and her neighbours in the United States respecting Canadian boundaries or the Fisheries Question. The circumstances of the two groups of colonies, to which their policy must conform, are totally different. Australia lies in an ocean by herself: Canada is territorially interlocked and commercially bound up, as well as socially almost fused, with the great mass of English-speaking population which occupies the larger portion of her continent. Australia again is entirely British. Canada has in her midst a great block of French population, constituting a distinct nationality, which instead of being absorbed is daily growing in intensity; and she would practically be unable to take part in any enterprise or support any policy, especially any policy entailing an increase of taxation, to which the French Canadians were opposed. Of getting Canada to contribute out of her own resources to wars or to the maintenance of armaments, for the objects of British diplomacy in Europe or in the East, no one who knows the Canadians can imagine that there would be the slightest hope. The very suggestion, at the time of the Soudan Expedition, called forth emphatic protests on all sides. The only results of an experiment in formal Federation, I repeat, would be repudiation of Federal demands, estrangement and dissolution."
_Goldwin Smith, Straining the Silken Thread (Macmillan's Magazine. August, 1888)._
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: European Federation.
"While it is obvious that Imperial Federation of the British Empire would cover many of the defects in our relationship with the colonies, it is equally apparent that it is open to the fatal objection of merely making us a more formidable factor in the field of international anarchy. Suppose the colonies undertook to share equitably the great cost of imperial defence in the present state of things throughout Europe--and that is a very large assumption--England would be entirely dependent, in case of war, for the supply of food on the fleet, any accident to which would place us at the enemy's mercy. Even without actual hostilities, however, our additional strength would cause another increase of foreign armaments to meet the case of war with us. This process has taken place invariably on the increase of armaments of any European state, and may be taken to be as certain as that the sun will rise to-morrow. But all the benefits accruing from Imperial Federation may be secured by European Federation, plus a reduction of military liability, which Imperial Federation would not only not reduce, but increase. There is nothing to prevent the self-governing colonies from joining in a European Federation, and thus enlarging the basis of that institution enormously, and cutting off in a corresponding degree the chance of an outbreak of violence in another direction, which could not fail to have serious consequences to the colonies at any rate."
C. D. Farquharson, Federation, the Polity of the Future (Westminster Review, December, 1891), pages 602-603.
----------FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: End----------
FEDERALIST, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.
FEDERALISTS; The party of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; also 1812; and 1814 (DECEMBER): THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.
FEDS.--CONFEDS.
See BOYS IN BLUE.
FEE.
See FEUDALISM.
FEHDERECHT.
The right of private warfare, or diffidation, exercised in mediæval Germany.
See LANDDFRIEDE.
{1116}
FEHRBELLIN, Battle of (1675).
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688; and SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.
FEIS OF TARA.
See TARA.
FELICIAN HERESY.
See ADOPTIANISM.
FELIX V., Pope, A. D. 1439-1449 Elected by the Council of Basle.
FENIAN MOVEMENT, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867; and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
FENIAN: Origin of the Name.
An Irish poem of the ninth century called the Duan Eireannach, or Poem of Ireland, preserves a mythical story of the origin of the Irish people, according to which they sprang from one Fenius Farsaidh who came out of Scythia. Nel, or Niul, the son of Fenius, travelled into Egypt and married Scota, a daughter of Forann (Pharaoh). "Niul had a son named Gaedhuil Glas, or Green Gael; and we are told that it is from him the Irish are called Gaedhil (Gael) or Gadelians, while from his mother is derived the name of Scoti, or Scots, and from Fenius that of Feni or Fenians."
M. Haverty, History of Ireland, page 10.
From this legend was derived the name of the Fenian Brotherhood, organized in Ireland and America for the liberation of the former from British rule, and which played a disturbing but unsuccessful part in Irish affairs from about 1865 to 1871.
FEODORE.
See THEODORE.
FEODUM.
See FEUDALISM.
FEOF.
See FEUDALISM.
FEORM FULTUM.
See FERM.
FERDINAND, King of Portugal, A. D. 1367-1383.
Ferdinand 1., Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1835-1848.
Ferdinand I., Germanic Emperor, 1558-1564; Archduke of Austria, and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1526-1564; King of the Romans, 1531-1558.
Ferdinand I., King of Aragon and Sicily, 1412-1416.
Ferdinand I., King of Castile, 1035-1065; King of Leon, 1037-1065.
Ferdinand I., King of Naples, 1458-1494.
Ferdinand II., Germanic Emperor and King of Bohemia and Hungary, 1619-1637.
Ferdinand II., King of Aragon, 1479-1516; V. of Castile (King-Consort of Isabella of Castile and Regent), 1474-1516; II. of Sicily, 1479-1516; and III. of Naples, 1503-1516.
Ferdinand II., King of Leon, 1157-1188.
Ferdinand II., King of Naples, 1495-1496.
Ferdinand II., called Bomba, King of the Two Sicilies, 1830-1859.
Ferdinand III., Germanic Emperor, and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1637-1657.
Ferdinand III., King of Castile, 1217-1230; King of Leon and Castile, united, 1230-1252.
Ferdinand IV., King of Leon and Castile, 1295-1312.
Ferdinand IV., King of Naples, and I. of the Two Sicilies, 1759-1806; and 1815-1825.
Ferdinand VI., King of Spain, 1746-1759.
Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, 1808; and 1814-1833.
FERIÆ.
See LUDI.
FERM.--FIRMA.--FARM.
"A sort of composition for all the profits arising to the king [in England, Norman period] from his ancient claims on the land and from the judicial proceedings of the shire-moot; the rent of detached pieces of demesne land, the remnants of the ancient folk-land; the payments due from corporate bodies and individuals for the primitive gifts, the offerings made in kind, or the hospitality--the feorm-fultum--which the kings had a right to exact from their subjects, and which were before the time of Domesday generally commuted for money; the fines, or a portion of the fines, paid in the ordinary process of the county courts, and other small miscellaneous incidents. These had been, soon after the composition of Domesday, estimated at a fixed sum, which was regarded as a sort of rent or composition at which the county was let to the sheriff and recorded in the 'Rotulus Exactorious'; for this, under the name of ferm, he answered annually; if his receipts were in excess, he retained the balance as his lawful profit, the wages of his service; if the proceeds fell below the ferm, he had to pay the difference from his own purse. ... The farm, ferm, or firma, the rent or composition for the ancient feorm-fultum, or provision payable in kind to the Anglo-Saxon kings. The history of the word in its French form would be interesting. The use of the word for a pecuniary payment is traced long before the Norman Conquest."
W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11, section 126, and note.
FERNANDO.
See FERDINAND.
FEROZESHUR, Battle of (1845)
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
FERRARA: The House of Este.
See ESTE.
FERRARA: A. D. 1275. Sovereignty of the Pope confirmed by Rodolph of Hapsburg.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
FERRARA: A. D. 1597. Annexation to the states of the Church. End of the house of Este. Decay of the city and duchy.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
FERRARA: A. D. 1797. Joined to the Cispadine Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
----------FERRARA: End----------
FERRY BRIDGE, Battle of (1461).
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471,
FETIALES.--FECIALES.
"The duties of the feciales, or fetiales [among the Romans]. extended over every branch of international law. They gave advice on all matters of peace or war, and the conclusion of treaties and alliances. ... They fulfilled the same functions as heralds, and, as such, were frequently entrusted with important communications. They were also sent on regular embassies. To them was entrusted the reception and entertainment of foreign envoys. They were required to decide on the justice of a war about to commence, and to proclaim and consecrate it according to certain established formalities. ... The College of Feciales consisted of nearly twenty members, with a president, who was called Pater Patratus, because it was necessary that he should have both father and children living, that he might be supposed to take greater interest in the welfare of the State, and look backwards as well as forwards. ... The name of Feciales ... still existed under the emperors, as well as that of Pater Patratus, though only as a title of honour, while the institution itself was for ever annihilated; and, after the reign of Tiberius, we cannot find any trace of it."
E. C. G. Murray, Embassies and Foreign Courts, pages 8-10.
See, also, AUGURS.
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FEUDAL TENURES.
"After the feudal system of tenure had been fully established, all lands were held subject to certain additional obligations, which were due either to the King (not as sovereign, but as feudal lord) from the original grantees, called tenants-in-chief (tenentes in capite), or to the tenants-in-chief themselves from their under tenants. Of these obligations the most honourable was that of knight-service. This was the tenure by which the King granted out fiefs to his followers, and by which they in turn provided for their own military retainers. The lands of the bishops and dignified ecclesiastics, and of most of the religious foundations, were also held by this tenure. A few exceptions only were made in favour of lands which had been immemorially held in frankalmoign, or free-alms. On the grant of a fief, the tenant was publicly invested with the land by a symbolical or actual delivery, termed livery of seisin. He then did homage, so called from the words used in the ceremony: 'Je deveigne votre homme' ['I become your man']. ... In the case of a sub-tenant (vavassor), his oath of fealty was guarded by a reservation of the faith due to his sovereign lord the King. For every portion of land of the annual value of £20, which constituted a knight's fee [in England], the tenant was bound, whenever required, to render the services of a knight properly armed and accoutred, to serve in the field forty days at his own expense. ... Tenure by knight-service was also subject to several other incidents of a burdensome character. ... There was a species of tenancy in chief by Grand Serjeanty, ... whereby the tenant was bound, instead of serving the King generally in his wars, to do some special service in his own proper person, as to carry the King's banner or lance, or to be his champion, butler, or other officer at his coronation. ... Grants of land were also made by the King to his inferior followers and personal attendants, to be held by meaner services. ... Hence, probably, arose tenure by Petit Serjeanty, though later on we find that term restricted to tenure 'in capite' by the service of rendering yearly some implement of war to the King. ... Tenure in Free Socage (which still subsists under the modern denomination of Freehold, and may be regarded as the representative of the primitive alodial ownership) denotes, in its most general and extensive signification, a tenure by any certain and determinate service, as to pay a fixed money rent, or to plough the lord's land for a fixed number of days in the year. ... Tenure in Burgage was a kind of town socage. It applied to tenements in any ancient borough, held by the burgesses, of the King or other lord, by fixed rents or services. ... This tenure, which still subsists, is subject to a variety of local customs, the most remarkable of which is that of borough-English, by which the burgage tenement descends to the youngest instead of to the eldest son. Gavelkind is almost confined to the county of Kent. ... The lands are held by suit of court and fealty, a service in its nature certain. The tenant in Gavelkind retained many of the properties of alodial ownership: his lands were devisable by will; in case of intestacy they descended to all his sons equally; they were not liable to escheat for felony ... and they could be aliened by the tenant at the age of fifteen. Below Free Socage was the tenure in Villeinage, by which the agricultural labourers, both free and servile, held the land which was to them in lieu of money wages."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, pages 58-65.
FEUDALISM.
"Feudalism, the comprehensive idea which includes the whole governmental policy of the French kingdom, was of distinctly Frank growth. The principle which underlies it may be universal; but the historic development of it with which the constitutional history of Europe is concerned may be traced step by step under Frank influence, from its first appearance on the conquered soil of Roman Gaul to its full development in the jurisprudence of the Middle Ages. In the form which it has reached at the Norman Conquest, it may be described as a complete organisation of society through the medium of land tenure, in which from the king down to the lowest landowner all are bound together by obligation of service and defence: the lord to protect his vassal, the vassal to do service to his lord; the defence and service being based on and regulated by the nature and extent of the land held by the one of the other. In those states which have reached the territorial stage of development, the rights of defence and service are supplemented by the right of jurisdiction. The lord judges as well as defends his vassal; the vassal does suit as well as service to his lord. In states in which feudal government has reached its utmost growth, the political, financial, judicial, every branch of public administration, is regulated by the same conditions. The central authority is a mere shadow of a name. This institution had grown up from two great sources--the beneficium, and the practice of commendation,--and had been specially fostered on Gallic soil by the existence of a subject population which admitted of any amount of extension in the methods of dependence. The beneficiary system originated partly in gifts of land made by the kings out of their own estates to their kinsmen and servants, with a special undertaking to be faithful; partly in the surrender by landowners of their estates to churches or powerful men, to be received back again and held by them as tenants for rent or service. By the latter arrangement the weaker man obtained the protection of the stronger, and he who felt himself insecure placed his title under the defence of the church. By the practice of commendation, on the other hand, the inferior put himself under the personal care of a lord, but without altering his title or divesting himself of his right to his estate; he became a vassal and did homage. ... The union of the beneficiary tie with that of commendation completed the idea of feudal obligation; the two-fold hold on the land, that of the lord and that of the vassal, was supplemented by the two-fold engagement, that of the lord to defend, and that of the vassal to be faithful. A third ingredient was supplied by the grants of immunity by which in the Frank empire, as in England, the possession of land was united with the right of judicature: the dwellers on a feudal property were placed under the tribunal of the lord, and the rights which had belonged to the nation or to its chosen head were devolved upon the receiver of a fief. The rapid spread of the system thus originated, and the assimilation of all other tenures to it, may be regarded as the work of the tenth century; but as early as A. D. 877 Charles the Bald recognised the hereditary character of all benefices; and from that year the growth of strictly feudal jurisprudence may be held to date. The system testifies to the country and causes of its birth. {1118} The beneficium is partly of Roman, partly of German origin. ... Commendation on the other hand may have had a Gallic or Celtic origin, and an analogy only with the Roman clientship. ... The word feudum, fief, or fee, is derived from the German word for cattle (Gothic 'faihu'; Old High German 'fihu'; Old Saxon 'fehu'; Anglo-Saxon 'feoh'); the secondary meaning being goods, especially money: hence property in general. The letter d is perhaps a mere insertion for sound's sake; but it has been interpreted as part of a second root, od, also meaning property, in which case the first syllable has a third meaning, that of fee or reward, and the whole word means property given by way of reward for service. But this is improbable. ... The word feodum is not found earlier than the close of the ninth century."
W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 9, section 93, and notes (volume 1).
"The regular machinery and systematic establishment of feuds, in fact, may be considered as almost confined to the dominions of Charlemagne, and to those countries which afterwards derived it from thence. In England it can hardly be thought to have existed in a complete state, before the Conquest. Scotland, it is supposed, borrowed it soon after from her neighbour. The Lombards of Benevento had introduced feudal customs into the Neapolitan provinces, which the Norman conquerors afterwards perfected. Feudal tenures were so general in the kingdom of Aragon, that I reckon it among the monarchies which were founded upon that basis. Charlemagne's empire, it must be remembered, extended as far as the Ebro. But in Castile and Portugal they were very rare, and certainly could produce no political effect. Benefices for life were sometimes granted in the kingdoms of Denmark and Bohemia. Neither of these, however, nor Sweden, nor Hungary, come under the description of countries influenced by the feudal system."
H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 2.
"Hardly any point in the whole history of European institutions has been the subject of so violent controversy as this of the origin of Feudalism. It was formerly supposed that Feudalism was only a somewhat more developed form of the ancient Germanic 'following' transplanted to Roman soil, but a more critical examination of the documents of the early period soon showed that there was more to it than this. It became evident that Feudalism was not so simple as had at first appeared. ... When, however, scholars had come to see this, they then found themselves at variance upon the details of the process by which the popular monarchical arrangements of the early Franks were converted into the aristocratic forms of the later Feudalism. While they agreed upon the essential fact that the Germans, at the time of their emergence from their original seats and their occupation of the Roman lands, were not mere wandering groups of freebooters, as the earlier school had represented them, but well-organized nations, with a very distinct sense of political organization, they found themselves hopelessly divided on the question how this national life had, in the course of time, come to assume forms so very different from those of the primitive German. The first person to represent what we may call the modern view of the feudal system was Georg Waitz, in the first edition of his History of the German Constitution, in the years 1844-47. Waitz presented the thing as a gradual growth during several centuries, the various elements of which it was composed growing up side by side without definite chronological sequence. This view was met by Paul Roth in his History of the Institution of the Benefice, in the year 1850. He maintained that royal benefices were unknown to the Merovingian Franks, and that they were an innovation of the earliest Carolingians. They were, so he believed, made possible by a grand confiscation of the lands of the Church, not by Charles Martel, as the earlier writers had believed, but by his sons, Pippin and Karlmann. The first book of Roth was followed in the year 1863 by another on Feudalism and the Relation of the Subject to the State, (Feudalität und Unterthanenverband), in which he attempted to show that the direct subjection of the individual to the government was not a strange idea to the early German, but that it pervaded all forms of Germanic life down to the Carolingian times, and that therefore the feudal relation was a something entirely new, a break in the practice of the Germans. In the years 1880-1885 appeared a new edition of Waitz's History of the German Constitution, in which, after acknowledging the great services rendered by Roth to the cause of learning, he declares himself unable to give up his former point of view, and brings new evidence in support of it. Thus for more than thirty years this question has been before the world of scholars, and may be regarded as being quite as far from a settlement as ever."
E. Emerton, An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, page 236 (foot-note).
ALSO IN: _F. P. Guizot, History of Civilization: Second Course, lecture 2._
See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 987-1327.
FEUILLANTS, Club and Party of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1790, and 1791 (OCTOBER).
FEZ: Founding of the city and kingdom.
See EDRISITES.
FIANNA EIRINN.
The ancient militia of Erin, famous in old Irish romance and song.
T. Moore, History of Ireland, volume 1, chapter 7.
FIDENÆ.
An ancient city on the left bank of the Tiber, only five miles from Rome, originally Latin, but afterwards containing a mixed Latin and Etruscan population. It was at war with Rome until the latter destroyed it, B. C. 426.
W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 15.
FIEFS.
See FEUDAL TENURES; and FEUDALISM.
FIELD OF LIES, The.
Ludwig, or Louis, the Pious, son and successor of Charlemagne, was a man of gentle character, and good intentions--too amiable and too honest in his virtues for the commanding of a great empire in times so rude. He lost the control of his state, and his family, alike. His own sons headed a succession of revolts against his authority. The second of these insurrections occurred in the year 833. Father and sons confronted one another with hostile armies, on the plain of Rothfeld, not far from Colmar in Alsace. Intrigue instead of battle settled the controversy, for the time being. The adherents of the old emperor were all enticed away from him, and he found himself wholly deserted and alone. To signify the treacherous methods by which this defection was brought about, the "Rothfeld" (Red-field) on which it occurred received the name of "Lügenfeld," or Field of Lies.
J. C. L. de Sismondi, The French under the Carlovingians; translated by Bellingham, chapter 7.
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FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, The.
The place of the famous meeting of Henry VIII. of England with Francis I. of France, which took place in the summer of 1520 [see FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523], is notable in history, from the magnificence of the preparations made for it, as The Field of the Cloth of Gold. It was at Guisnes, or between Guisnes and Arde, near Calais (then English territory). "Guisnes and its castle offered little attraction, and if possible less accommodation, to the gay throng now to be gathered within its walls. ... But on the castle green, within the limits of a few weeks, and in the face of great difficulties, the English artists of that day contrived a summer palace, more like a vision of romance, the creation of some fairy dream (if the accounts of eye-witnesses of all classes may be trusted), than the dull every-day reality of clay-born bricks and mortar. No 'palace of art' in these beclouded climates of the West ever so truly deserved its name. ... The palace was an exact square of 328 feet. It was pierced on every side with oriel windows and clerestories curiously glazed, the mullions and posts of which were overlaid with gold. An embattled gate, ornamented on both sides with statues representing men in various attitudes of war, and flanked by an embattled tower, guarded the entrance. From this gate to the entrance of the palace arose in long ascent a sloping daïs or hall-pace, along which were grouped 'images of sore and terrible countenances,' in armour of argentine or bright metal. At the entrance, under an embowed landing place, facing the great doors, stood 'antique' (classical) figures girt with olive branches. The passages, the roofs of the galleries from place to place and from chamber to chamber, were ceiled and covered with white silk, fluted and embowed with silken hanging of divers colours and braided cloths, 'which showed like bullions of fine burnished gold.' The roofs of the chambers were studded with roses, set in lozenges, and diapered on a ground of fine gold. Panels enriched with antique carving and gilt bosses covered the spaces between the windows; whilst all along the corridors and from every window hung tapestry of silk and gold, embroidered with figures. ... To the palace was attached a spacious chapel, still more sumptuously adorned. Its altars were hung with cloth of gold tissue embroidered with pearls; cloth of gold covered the walls and desks. ... Outside the palace gate, on the greensward, stood a gilt fountain, of antique workmanship, with a statue of Bacchus 'birlying the wine.' Three runlets, fed by secret conduits hid beneath the earth, spouted claret, hypocras, and water into as many silver cups, to quench the thirst of all comers. ... In long array, in the plain beyond, 2,800 tents stretched their white canvas before the eyes of the spectator, gay with the pennons, badges, and devices of the various occupants; whilst miscellaneous followers, in tens of thousands, attracted by profit or the novelty of the scene, camped on the grass and filled the surrounding slopes, in spite of the severity of provost-marshal and reiterated threats of mutilation and chastisement. ... From the 4th of June, when Henry first entered Guisnes, the festivities continued with unabated splendour for twenty days. ... The two kings parted on the best of terms, as the world thought."
J. S. Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII., chapter 12.
ALSO IN: Lady Jackson, The Court of France in the 16th Century, volume 1, chapters 11-12.
Miss Pardoe, The Court and Reign of Francis I., volume 1, chapter 14.
FIESCO, Conspiracy of.
See GENOA: A. D. 1528-1559.
FIESOLE.
See FLORENCE: ORIGIN AND NAME.
FIFTEEN, The (Jacobite Rebellion),
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.
FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1869-1870.
FIFTH MONARCHY MEN.
One of the most extremely fanatical of the politico-religious sects or factions which rose in England during the commonwealth and the Protectoral reign of Cromwell, was that of the so-called Fifth Monarchy Men, of whom Major-General Harrison was the chief. Their belief is thus described by Carlyle: "The common mode of treating Universal History, ... not yet entirely fallen obsolete in this country, though it has been abandoned with much ridicule everywhere else for half a century now, was to group the Aggregate Transactions of the Human Species into Four Monarchies: the Assyrian Monarchy of Nebuchadnezzar and Company; the Persian of Cyrus and ditto; the Greek of Alexander; and lastly the Roman. These I think were they; but am no great authority on the subject. Under the dregs of this last, or Roman Empire, which is maintained yet by express name in Germany, 'Das heilige Römische Reich,' we poor moderns still live. But now say Major-General Harrison and a number of men, founding on Bible Prophecies, Now shall be a Fifth Monarchy, by far the blessedest and the only real one,--the Monarchy of Jesus Christ, his Saints reigning for Him here on Earth,--if not He himself, which is probable or possible,--for a thousand years, &c., &c.--O Heavens, there are tears for human destiny; and immortal Hope itself is beautiful because it is steeped in Sorrow, and foolish Desire lies vanquished under its feet! They who merely laugh at Harrison take but a small portion of his meaning with them."
T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 8, speech 2.
The Fifth Monarchy fanaticism, sternly repressed by Oliver Cromwell, gave some signs of turbulence during Richard Cromwell's protectorate, and broke out in a mad way the year after the Restoration. The attempted insurrection in London was headed by one Venner, and was called Venner's Insurrection. It was easily put down. "It came as the expiring flash of a fanatical creed, which had blended itself with Puritanism, greatly to the detriment of the latter; and, dying out rather slowly, it left behind the quiet element of Millenarianism."
J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 3, chapter 4.
ALSO IN: D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 5, page 16.
"FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT."
See OREGON: A. D. 1844-1846.
FILI.
A class of poets among the early Irish, who practiced originally certain rites of incantation. Their art was called Filidecht. "The bards, who recited poems and stories, formed at first a distinct branch from the Fili. According as the true Filidecht fell into desuetude, and the Fili became simply a poet, the two orders practically coalesced and the names Fili and bard became synonymous. ... In Pagan times and during the Middle Ages the Irish bards, like the Gaulish ones, accompanied their recitation of poems on a stringed instrument called a crut. ... The bard was therefore to the Fili, or poet, what the Jogler was to the Troubadour."
_W. K. Sullivan, Article, Celtic Literature, Encyclopedia Brittanica._
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FILIBUSTER.
"The difference between a filibuster and a freebooter is one of ends rather than of means. Some authorities say that the words have a common etymology; but others, including Charlevoix, maintain that the filibuster derived his name from his original occupation, that of a cruiser in a 'flibote,' or 'Vly-boat,' first used on the river Vly, in Holland. Yet another writer says that the name was first given to the gallant followers of Dominique de Gourgues, who sailed from Finisterre, or Finibuster, in France, on the famous expedition against Fort Caroline in 1567 [see FLORIDA: A. D. 1567-1568]. The name, whatever its origin, was long current in the Spanish as 'filibustero' before it became adopted into the English. So adopted, it has been used to describe a type of adventurer who occupied a curious place in American history during the decade from 1850 to 1860."
J. J. Roche, The Story of the Filibusters, chapter 1.
See, also, AMERICA: A: D. 1639-1700.
FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITIONS OF LOPEZ AND WALKER.
See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860; and NICARAGUA: A. D. 1855-1860.
FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY, The.
"The Council of Toledo, held under King Reccared, A. D. 589, at which the Visigothic Church of Spain formally abjured Arianism and adopted the orthodox faith, put forth a version of the great creed of Nicæa in which they had interpolated an additional clause, which stated that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father 'and from the Son' (Filioque). Under what influence the council took upon itself to make an addition to the creed of the universal Church is unknown. It is probable that the motive of the addition was to make a stronger protest against the Arian denial of the co-equal Godhead of the Son. The Spanish Church naturally took a special interest in the addition it had made to the symbol of Nicæa, and sustained it in subsequent councils. ... The Frankish Church seems to have early adopted it from their Spanish neighbours. ... The question was brought before a council held at Aix in A. D. 809. ... The council formally approved of the addition to the creed, and Charles [Charlemagne] sent two bishops and the abbot of Corbie to Rome to request the pope's concurrence in the decision. Leo, at a conference with the envoys, expressed his agreement with the doctrine, but strongly opposed its insertion into the creed. ... Notwithstanding the pope's protest, the addition was adopted throughout the Frankish Empire. When the Emperor Henry V. was crowned at Rome, A. D. 1014, he induced Pope Benedict VIII. to allow the creed with the filioque to be chanted after the Gospel at High Mass; so it came to be generally used in Rome; and at length Pope Nicholas I. insisted on its adoption throughout the West. At a later period the controversy was revived, and it became the ostensible ground of the final breach (A. D. 1054) between the Churches of the West and those of the East."
E. L. Cutts, Charlemagne, chapter 23.
"The Filioque controversy relates to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, and is a continuation of the trinitarian controversies of the Nicene age. It marks the chief and almost the only important dogmatic difference between the Greek and Latin churches, ... and has occasioned, deepened, and perpetuated the greatest schism in Christendom. The single word Filioque keeps the oldest, largest and most nearly related churches divided since the ninth century, and still forbids a reunion."
P. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, volume 4, chapter 11, section 107.
ALSO IN: _G. B. Howard, The Schism between the Oriental and Western Churches._
See, CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 330-1054.
FILIPPO MARIA, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1412-1447.
FILLMORE, Millard. Vice-Presidential Election. Succession to the Presidency. Administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848 to 1852.
FINÉ, The.
A clan or sept division of the tribe in ancient Ireland.
FINGALL.
See NORMANS. NORTHMEN: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES; also, IRELAND: 9TH-10TH CENTURIES.
FINLAND: A. D. 1808-1810. Conquest by and peculiar annexation to Russia. Constitutional independence of the Finnish grand duchy confirmed by the Czar.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.
FINN GALLS.
See IRELAND: 9TH-10TH CENTURIES.
FINNS.
See HUNGARIANS.
FIODH-INIS.
See IRELAND, THE NAME.
FIRBOLGS, The.
One of the races to which Irish legend ascribes the settlement of Ireland; said to have come from Thrace.
See NEMEDIANS, and IRELAND: THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS.
FIRE LANDS, The.
See OHIO: A. D. 1786-1796.
FIRMA.
See FERM.
FIRST CONSUL OF FRANCE, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
FIRST EMPIRE (FRENCH), The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805, to 1815.
FIRST-FRUITS.
See ANNATES.
FIRST REPUBLIC (FRENCH), The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER), to 1804-1805.
FISCALINI.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: FRANCE.
FISCUS, The.
"The treasury of the senate [in the early period of the Roman empire] retained the old republican name of the ærarium; that of the emperor was denominated the fiscus, a term which ordinarily signified the private property of an individual. Hence the notion rapidly grew up, that the provincial resources constituted the emperor's private purse, and when in process of time the control of the senate over the taxes gave way to their direct administration by the emperor himself, the national treasury received the designation of fiscus, and the idea of the empire being nothing else than Cæsar's patrimony became fixed ineradicably in men's minds."
C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 32.
FISHER, Fort, The capture of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864-1865 (DECEMBER-JANUARY: NORTH CAROLINA).
FISHERIES, North American: A. D. 1501-1578. The Portuguese, Norman, Breton and Basque fishermen on the Newfoundland Banks.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
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FISHERIES: A. D. 1610-1655. Growth of the English interest.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1620. Monopoly granted to the Council for New England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1660-1688. The French gain their footing in Newfoundland.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1713. Newfoundland relinquished to England, with fishing rights reserved to France, by the Treaty of Utrecht.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1720-1745. French interests protected by the fortification of Louisbourg.
See CAPE BRETON: A. D. 1720-1745.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1748. St. Pierre and Michelon islands on the Newfoundland coast ceded to France.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1763.
Rights secured to France on the island of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by the Treaty of Paris.
Articles V. and VI. of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which transferred Canada and all its islands from France to England, are in the following language:
"The subjects of France shall have the liberty of fishing and drying, on a part of the coasts of the island of Newfoundland, such as it is specified in the 13th Article of the Treaty of Utrecht; which article is renewed and confirmed by the present treaty (except what relates to the island of Cape Breton, as well as to the other islands and coasts, in the mouth and in the gulph of St. Laurence): and his Britannic majesty consents to leave to the subjects of the most Christian king the liberty of fishing in the gulph of St. Laurence, on condition that the subjects of France do not exercise the said fishery, but at the distance of three leagues from all the coasts belonging to Great Britain, as well those of the continent, as those of the islands situated in the said gulph of St. Laurence. And as to what relates to the fishery on the coasts of the island of Cape Breton out of the said gulph, the subjects of the most Christian king shall not be permitted to exercise the said fishery, but at the distance of 15 leagues from the coasts of the island of Cape Breton; and the fishery on the coasts of Nova Scotia or Acadia, and everywhere else out of the said gulph, shall remain on the foot of former treaties.
Article VI. The King of Great Britain cedes the islands of St. Peter and Miquelon, in full right, to his most Christian majesty, to serve as a shelter to the French fishermen: and his said most Christian majesty engages not to fortify the said islands; to erect no buildings upon them, but merely for the convenience of the fishery; and to keep upon them a guard of 50 men only for the police."
Text of the Treaty (Parliamentary History, volume 15, page 1295).
FISHERIES: A. D. 1778. French fishery rights recognized in the treaty between France and the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (FEBRUARY).
FISHERIES: A. D. 1783. Rights secured to the United States by the Treaty of Paris.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).
FISHERIES: A. D. 1814-1818. Disputed rights of American fishermen after the War of 1812. Silence of the Treaty of Ghent. The Convention of 1818.
Under the Treaty of Paris (1783) "we claimed that the liberty which was secured to the inhabitants of the United States to take fish on the coasts of Newfoundland, under the limitation of not drying or curing the same on that island, and also on the other coasts, bays, and creeks, together with the limited rights of drying or curing fish on the coasts of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, were not created or conferred by that treaty, but were simply recognized by it as already existing. They had been enjoyed before the Revolution by the Americans in common with other subjects of Great Britain, and had, indeed, been conquered, from the French chiefly, through the valor and sacrifices of the colonies of New England and New York. The treaty was therefore considered analogous to a deed of partition. It defined the boundaries between the two countries and all the rights and privileges belonging to them. We insisted that the article respecting fisheries was therefore to be regarded as identical with the possession of land or the demarcation of boundary. We also claimed that the treaty, being one that recognized independence, conceded territory, and defined boundaries, belonged to that class which is permanent in its nature and is not affected by subsequent suspension of friendly relations. The English, however, insisted that this treaty was not a unity; that while some of its provisions were permanent, other stipulations were temporary and could be abrogated, and that, in fact, they were abrogated by the war of 1812; that the very difference of the language used showed that while the rights of deep-sea fishing were permanent, the liberties of fishing were created and conferred by that treaty, and had therefore been taken away by the war. These were the two opposite views of the respective governments at the conferences which ended in the treaty of Ghent, of 1814." No compromise appearing to be practicable, the commissioners agreed, at length, to drop the subject from consideration. "For that reason the treaty of Ghent is entirely silent as to the fishery question.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).
In consequence of conflicts arising between our fishermen and the British authorities, our point of view was very strongly maintained by Mr. Adams in his correspondence with the British Foreign Office, and finally, on October 20, 1818, Mr. Rush, then our minister at London, assisted by Mr. Gallatin, succeeded in signing a treaty, which among other things settled our rights and privileges by the first article, as follows: ... 'It is agreed between the high contracting parties that the inhabitants of the said United States shall have forever, in common with the subjects of his Britannic Majesty, the liberty of taking fish of any kind on that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameau Islands; on the western and northern coasts of Newfoundland from the said Cape Ray to the Qurpon Islands; on the shores of the Magdalen Islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks from Mont Joly, on the southern coast of Labrador, to and through the straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly indefinitely along the coast. And that the American fishermen shall have liberty forever to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks in the southern part of Newfoundland herein-before described, and of the coasts of Labrador; but as soon as the same, or any portion thereof, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such portion, so settled, without previous agreement for such purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground. {1122} And the United States hereby renounces forever any liberty heretofore enjoyed, claimed by the inhabitants thereof to take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in America not included in the above-mentioned limits. Provided, however, That the American fishermen shall be permitted to enter such bays or harbors for the purpose of shelter, of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as shall be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges hereby secured to them.' The American plenipotentiaries evidently labored to obtain as extensive a district of territory as possible for in-shore fishing, and were willing to give up privileges, then apparently of small amount, but now much more important, than of using other bays and harbors for shelter and kindred purposes. For that reason they acquiesced in omitting the word 'bait' in the first sentence of the proviso after water.' ... The power of obtaining bait for use in the deep-sea fisheries is one which our fishermen were afterward very anxious to secure. But the mackerel fisheries in those waters did not begin until several years later. The only contention then was about the cod fisheries."
E. Schuyler, American Diplomacy, chapter 8.
Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other Powers (edition of 1889), pages 415-418.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1854-1866. Privileges defined under the Canadian Reciprocity Treaty.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1871. Reciprocal privileges adjusted between Great Britain and the United States by the Treaty of Washington.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1871.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1877-1888. The Halifax award. Termination of the Fishery articles of the Treaty of Washington. The rejected Treaty of 1888.
In accordance with the terms of articles 22 and 23 of the Treaty of Washington (see ALABAMA CLAIMS: A.. D. 1871), a Commission appointed to award compensation to Great Britain for the superior value of the fishery privileges conceded to the citizens of the United States by that treaty, met at Halifax on the 5th of June, 1877. The United States was represented on the Commission by Hon. E. H. Kellogg, of Massachusetts, and Great Britain by Sir Alexander F. Gault, of Canada. The two governments having failed to agree in the selection of the third Commissioner, the latter was named, as the Treaty provided, by the Austrian Ambassador at London, who designated M. Maurice Delfosse, Belgian Minister at Washington. The award was made November 27, 1877, when, "by a vote of two to one, the Commissioners decided that the United States was to pay $5,500,000 for the use of the fishing privileges for 12 years. The decision produced profound astonishment in the United States." Dissatisfaction with the Halifax award, and generally with the main provisions of the Treaty of Washington relating to the fisheries, was so great in the United States that, when, in 1878, Congress appropriated money for the payment of the award, it inserted in the bill a clause to the effect that "Articles 18 and 21 of the Treaty between the United States and Great Britain concluded on the 8th of May, 1871, ought to be terminated at the earliest period consistent with the provisions of Article 33 of the same Treaty." "It is a curious fact that during the time intervening between the signing of the treaty of Washington and the Halifax award an almost complete change took place in the character of the fisheries. The method of taking mackerel was completely revolutionized by the introduction of the purse-seine, by means of which vast quantities of the fish were captured far out in the open sea by enclosing them in huge nets. ... This change in the method of fishing brought about a change in the fishing grounds. ... The result of this change was very greatly to diminish the value of the North-eastern Fisheries to the United States fishermen." On the 1st of July, 1883, "in pursuance of instructions from Congress, the President gave the required notice of the desire of the United States to terminate the Fishery Articles of the Treaty of Washington, which consequently came to an end the 1st of July, 1885. The termination of the treaty fell in the midst of the fishing season, and, at the suggestion of the British Minister, Secretary Bayard entered into a temporary arrangement whereby the American fishermen were allowed the privileges of the treaty during the remainder of the season, with the understanding that the President should bring the question before Congress at its next session and recommend a joint Commission by the Governments of the United States and Great Britain." This was done; but Congress disapproved the recommendation. The question of rights under former treaties, especially that of 1818, remained open, and became a subject of much irritation between the United States and the neighboring British American provinces. The local regulations of the latter were enforced with stringency and harshness against American fishermen; the latter solicited and procured retaliatory legislation from Congress. To end this unsatisfactory state of affairs, a treaty was negotiated at Washington in February, 1888, by Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, William L. Putnam and James B. Angell, plenipotentiaries on the part of the United States, and Joseph Chamberlain, M. P., Sir L. S. Sackville West and Sir Charles Tupper, plenipotentiaries on the part of Great Britain, which treaty was approved by the President and sent to the Senate, but rejected by that body on the 21st of August, by a negative vote of 30, against 27 in its favor.
C. B. Elliott, The United States and the North-eastern Fisheries, pages 79-100.
ALSO IN: E. Schuyler, American Diplomacy, chapter 8.
_J. H. De Ricci, The Fisheries Dispute (1888)._
Annual Cyclopedia, volume 13 (1888), pages 217-226.
Annual Report of United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries for 1886.
Correspondence relative to proposed Fisheries Treaty (Senate Ex. Doc., Number 113, 50th Congress, 1st Session).
Documents and Proceedings of Halifax Commission (H. R. Ex. Doc., Number 89, 45th. Congress, 2d Session).
----------FISHERIES: End----------
FISHER'S HILL, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: VIRGINIA).
FISHING CREEK, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).
{1123}
FITCH, John, and the beginnings of steam navigation.
See STEAM NAVIGATION.
FITZGERALD'S (LORD THOMAS) REBELLION IN IRELAND.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.
FIVE ARTICLES OF PERTH, The.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1618.
FIVE BLOODS, The.
See IRELAND; 13TH-14TH CENTURIES.
FIVE BOROUGHS, The.
A confederation of towns occupied by the Danes in England, including Derby, Lincoln, Leicester, Nottingham and Stamford, which played a part in the events of the tenth and eleventh centuries. It afterwards became Seven Boroughs by addition of York and Chester.
FIVE FORKS, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MARCH-APRIL: VIRGINIA).
FIVE HUNDRED, The French Council of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
FIVE HUNDRED AT ATHENS, The.
See ATHENS: B. C. 510-507.
FIVE MEMBERS, King Charles' attempt against the.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (JANUARY).
FIVE MILE ACT, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662-1665.
FIVE NATIONS OF INDIANS, The.
The five original tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy,--the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas,--were commonly called by the English the Five Nations. Subsequently, in 1715, a sixth tribe, the Tuscaroras, belonging to the same stock, was admitted to the confederacy, and its members were then known as the Six Nations.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, and IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH.
FIVE THOUSAND, The
See ATHENS: B. C. 413-411.
FIVE YEARS' TRUCE, The.
The hostilities between Athens and Sparta which preceded the Peloponnesian War, being opened by the battle of Tanagra, B. C. 457, were suspended B. C. 451, by a truce called the Five Years' Truce, arranged through the influence of the soldier-statesman Cimon.
Thucydides, History, book 1, section 112.
ALSO IN: E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 2.
FLAGELLANTS.
"Although the Church's forgiveness for sin might now [14th century] be easily obtained in other ways: Still Flagellation was not only greatly admired among the religious, but was also held in such high estimation by the common people, that in case of any calamity or plague, they thought they could propitiate the supposed wrath of God in no more effectual manner than by scourging, and processions of scourgers; just as though the Church's ordinary means of atonement were insufficient for extraordinary cases. A decided mistrust of the Church's intercession, and the clergy who dispensed it, prevailed among the societies of Flagellants; roused to action by the plague that past over from Asia into Europe in the year 1348, and spread devastation everywhere, ever since the beginning of the year 1349 they diffused themselves from the Hungarian frontier over the whole of Germany, and found entrance even into the neighbouring countries. ... They practised this penance according to a fixed rule, without the co-operation of the clergy, under the guidance of Masters, Magistri, and made no secret of the fact, that they held the Church's way of salvation in much lower estimation than the penance by the scourge. Clement VI. put an end to the public processions of Flagellants, which were already widely prevalent: but penance by the scourge was only thus forced into concealment. In Thuringia, Conrad Schmidt, one of their masters, gave the form of a connected system of heretical doctrine to their dislike of the Church. ... Thus there now rose heretical Flagellants, called also by the common name of Beghards; they existed down to the time of the Reformation, especially in Thuringia, as an heretical sect very dangerous to the Church. This warning example, as well as the mistrust natural to the Hierarchy of all spiritual impulses which did not originate from itself, decided the destiny of the later societies of Flagellants. When the Whitemen (Bianchi) [see WHITE PENITENTS], scourging themselves as they went, descended from the Alps into Italy, they were received almost everywhere with enthusiasm by the clergy and the people; but in the Papal territory death was prepared for their leader, and the rest accordingly dispersed themselves."
J. C. L. Gieseler, Compendium of Ecclesiastical History, section 123 (volume 4).
"Divided into companies of male and female devotees, under a leader and two masters, they stripped themselves naked to the waist, and publicly scourged themselves, or each other, till their shoulders were covered with blood. This expiatory ceremony was repeated every morning and afternoon for thirty-three days, equal in number to the years which Christ is thought to have lived upon earth; after which they returned to their former employments, cleansed from sin by the baptism of blood.' The flagellants appeared first in Hungary; but missionary societies were soon formed, and they hastened to impart the knowledge of the new gospel to foreign nations. They spread with rapidity over Poland, Germany and the Low Countries. From France they were excluded at the request of the pope, who had issued a severe constitution against them; but a colony reached England, and landed in London, to the number of 120 men and women. ... The missionaries made not a single proselyte."
J. Lingard, History of England, volume 4, chapter 1.
ALSO IN: _W. M. Cooper, Flagellation and the Flagellants._
G. Waddington, History of the Church, note appendix to chapter 23.
FLAMENS.--FLAMINES.
"The pontifices, like several other priestly brotherhoods [of ancient Rome] ... had sacrificial priests (flamines) attached to them, whose name was derived from 'flare' (to blow the fire). The number of flamines attached to the pontifices was fifteen, the three highest of whom, ... viz., the Flamen Dialis, Martialis, and Quirinalis, were always chosen from old patrician families. ... Free from all civil duties, the Flamen Dialis, with his wife and children, exclusively devoted himself to the service of the deity. His house ... lay on the Palatine hill. His marriage was dissoluble by death only; he was not allowed to take an oath, mount a horse, or look at an army. He was forbidden to remain a night away from his house, and his hand touched nothing unclean, for which reason he never approached a corpse or a burial-place. ... In the daytime the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to take off his head-dress, and he was obliged to resign his office in case it fell off by accident. In his belt he carried the sacrificial knife, and in his hand he held a rod, in order to keep off the people on his way to the sacrifice. For the same purpose he was preceded by a lictor, who compelled everybody on the way to lay down his work, the flamen not being allowed to see the business of daily life."
E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 103.
See AUGURS.
{1124}
FLAMINIAN WAY.
See ROME: B. C. 295-191.
FLAMINIUS, The defeat of.
See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.
FLANDERS: A. D. 863. Creation of the County.
Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, of France (not yet called France), and a twice widowed queen of England, though hardly yet out of her girlhood (she had wedded Ethelwulf and Ethelbald, father and son, in succession), took a mate, at last, more to her liking, by a runaway match with one of her father's foresters, named Baudouin, or Baldwin, Bras-de-fer. This was in 862. King Charles, in his wrath, caused the impudent forester to be outlawed and excommunicated, both; but after a year of intercession and mediation he forgave the pair and established them in a suitable fief. Baudouin was made Count or Marquis of Flanders. "Previously to Baudouin's era, Flanders or 'Flandria' is a designation belonging, as learned men conjecture, to a Gau or Pagus, afterwards known as the Franc de Bruges, and noticed only in a single charter. Popularly, the name of Flanders had obtained with respect to a much larger surrounding Belgic country. ... The name of 'Flanders' was thus given to the wide, and in a degree indefinite tract, of which the Forester Baudouin and his predecessors had the official range or care. According to the idiom of the Middle Ages, the term 'Forest' did not exactly convey the idea which the word now suggests, not being applied exclusively to wood-land, but to any wild and unreclaimed region. ... Any etymology of the name of Flamingia, or Flanders, which we can guess at, seems intended to designate that the land was so called from being half-drowned. Thirty-five inundations, which afflicted the country at various intervals from the tenth to the sixteenth century, have entirely altered the coast-line; and the interior features of the country, though less affected, have been much changed by the diversions which the river-courses have sustained. ... Whatever had been the original amplitude of the districts over which Baudouin had any control or authority, the boundaries were now enlarged and defined. Kneeling before Charles-le-Chauve, placing his hands between the hands of the Sovereign, he received his 'honour':--the Forester of Flanders was created Count or Marquis. All the countries between the Scheldt, the Somme and the sea, became his benefice; so that only a narrow and contested tract divided Baudouin's Flanders from Normandy. According to an antient nomenclature, ten counties, to wit, Theerenburch, Arras, Boulogne, Guisnes, Saint-Paul, Hesdin, Blandemont, Bruges, Harlebec, and Tournay, were comprehended in the noble grant which Baudouin obtained from his father-in-law."
Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and of England, book 1, chapter 4.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1096. The Crusade of Count Robert.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1201-1204. The diverted Crusade of Count Baldwin and the imperial crown he won at Constantinople.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1203; and BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1204-1205.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1214. Humbled at the battle of Bouvines.
See BOUVINES.
FLANDERS: 13th Century. The industry, commerce and wealth of the Flemings.
"In the 13th century, Flanders was the most populous and the richest country in Europe. She owed the fact to the briskness of her manufacturing and commercial undertakings, not only amongst her neighbours, but throughout Southern and Eastern Europe. ... Cloth, and all manner of woolen stuffs, were the principal articles of Flemish production, and it was chiefly from England that Flanders drew her supply of wool, the raw material of her industry. Thence arose between the two countries commercial relations which could not fail to acquire political importance. As early as the middle of the 12th century, several Flemish towns formed a society for founding in England a commercial exchange, which obtained great privileges, and, under the name of the Flemish hanse of London, reached rapid development. The merchants of Bruges had taken the initiative in it; but soon all the towns of Flanders--and Flanders was covered with towns--Ghent, Lille, Ypres, Courtrai, Furnes, Alost, St. Omer, and Douai, entered the confederation, and made unity as well as extension of liberties in respect of Flemish commerce the object of their joint efforts. Their prosperity became celebrated; and its celebrity gave it increase. It was a burgher of Bruges who was governor of the hanse of London, and he was called the Count of the Hanse. The fair of Bruges, held in the month of May, brought together traders from the whole world. 'Thither came for exchange,' says the most modern and most enlightened historian of Flanders (Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, 'Histoire de Flandre,' t. ii., page 300), 'the produce of the North and the South, the riches collected in the pilgrimages to Novgorod, and those brought over by the caravans from Samarcand and Bagdad, the pitch of Norway and the oils of Andalusia, the furs of Russia and the dates from the Atlas, the metals of Hungary and Bohemia, the figs of Granada, the honey of Portugal, the wax of Morocco, and the spice of Egypt; whereby, says an ancient manuscript, no land is to be compared in merchandise to the land of Flanders.' ... So much prosperity made the Counts of Flanders very puissant lords. 'Marguerite II., called "the Black," Countess of Flanders and Hainault, from 1244 to 1280, was extremely rich,' says a chronicler, 'not only in lands, but in furniture, jewels, and money; ... insomuch that she kept up the state of queen rather than countess.' Nearly all the Flemish towns were strongly organised communes, in which prosperity had won liberty, and which became before long small republics, sufficiently powerful not only for the defence of their municipal rights against the Counts of Flanders, their lords, but for offering an armed resistance to such of the sovereigns their neighbours as attempted to conquer them or to trammel them in their commercial relations, or to draw upon their wealth by forced contributions or by plunder."
F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 18.
ALSO IN: J. Hutton, James and Philip Van Arteveld, part 1, chapter 2.
{1125}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1299-1304. The war with Philip the Fair.
As the Flemings advanced in wealth and consequence, the feudal dependence of their country upon the French crown grew increasingly irksome and oppressive to them, and their attitude towards France became one of confirmed hostility. At the same time, they were drawn to a friendly leaning towards England by common commercial interests. This showed itself decisively on the occasion of the quarrel that arose (A. D. 1295) between Philip IV., called the Fair, and Edward I. of England, concerning the rule of the latter in Aquitaine or Guienne. The French king found allies in Scotland; the English king found allies in Flanders. An alliance of marriage, in fact, had been arranged to take place between king Edward and the daughter of Guy de Dampierre, count of Flanders; but Philip contrived treacherously to get possession of the persons of the count and his daughter and imprisoned them both at Paris, declaring the states of the count to be forfeited. In 1299 the two kings settled their quarrel and abandoned their allies on both sides--Scotland to the tender mercies of Edward, and Flanders to the vengeance of the malignant king Philip the Fair. The territory of the Flemings was annexed to the crown of France, and Jacques de Châtillon, uncle of the queen, was appointed governor. Before two years had passed the impatient Flemings were in furious revolt. The insurrection began at Bruges, May 18, 1302, and more than 3,000 Frenchmen in that city were massacred in the first rage of the insurgents. This massacre was called the Bruges Matins. A French army entered Flanders to put down the rising and was confronted at Courtrai (July 11, A. D. 1302) by the Flemish militia. The latter were led by young Guy of Dampierre and, a few knights, who dismounted to fight on equal terms with their fellows. "About 20,000 militia, armed only with pikes, which they employed also as implements of husbandry, resolved to abide the onset of 8,000 Knights of gentle blood, 10,000 archers, and 30,000 foot-soldiers, animated by the presence and directed by the military skill of Robert Count of Artois, and of Raoul de Nesle, Constable of France. Courtrai was the object of attack, and the Flemings, anxious for its safety, arranged themselves on a plain before the town, covered in front by a canal." An altercation which occurred between the two French commanders led to the making of a blind and furious charge on the part of the French horsemen, ignorant and heedless of the canal, into which they plunged, horses and riders together, in one inextricable mass, and where, in their helplessness, they were slain without scruple by the Flemings. "Philip had lost his most experienced Generals, and the flower of his troops; but his obstinacy was unbending." In repeated campaigns during the next two years, Philip strove hard to retrieve the disaster of Courtrai. He succeeded, at last (A. D. 1304), in achieving, with the help of the Genoese, a naval victory in the Zuruck-Zee, followed by a victory, personally his own, at Mons-en-Puelle, in September of the same year. Then, finding the Flemings as dauntlessly ready as ever to renew the fight, he gave up to their obstinacy and acknowledged the independence of the county. A treaty was signed, in which "the independence of Flanders was acknowledged under its Count, Robert de Bethune (the eldest son of Guy de Dampierre), who, together with his brothers and all the other Flemish prisoners, was to be restored to liberty. The Flemings, on the other hand, consented to surrender those districts beyond the Lys in which the French language was vernacularly spoken; and to this territory were added the cities of Douai, Lille, and their dependencies. They engaged, moreover, to furnish by instalments 200,000 livres in order to cover the expenses which Philip had incurred by their invasion."
E. Smedley, History of France, part 1, chapter 7.
ALSO IN: J. Hutton, James and Philip Van Arteveld, part 1, chapters 2-3.
J. Michelet, History of France, book 5, chapter 2.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1314. Dishonesty of Philip of France.
Philip was one of the most treacherous of princes, and his treaty with the Flemings did not secure them against him. "The Flemings, who had paid the whole of the money stipulated by the treaty of 1305, demanded the restitution of that part of Flanders which had been given up as a pledge; but Philippe refused to restore it on the plea that it had been given to him absolutely and not conditionally. He commenced hostilities [A. D. 1314] by seizing upon the counties of Nevers and Réthel, belonging to the count of Flanders and his eldest son, who replied by laying siege to Lille." Philippe was making great exertions to raise money for a vigorous prosecution of the war, when he died suddenly, Nov. 25, 1314, as the result of an accident in hunting.
T. Wright, History of France, volume 1, book 2, chapter 2.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1328. The Battle of Cassel.
The first act of Philip of Valois, King of France, after his coronation in 1328, was to take up the cause of his cousin, Louis de Nevers, Count of Flanders, who had been driven from his territories by the independent burghers of Bruges, Ypres, and other cities, and who had left to him no town save Ghent, in which he dared to appear. The French king "gathered a great host of feudal lords, who rejoiced in the thought of Flemish spoil, and marched to Arras, and thence onwards into Flanders. He pitched his tent under the hill of Cassel, 'with the fairest and greatest host in the world' around him. The Flemish, under Claus Dennequin, lay on the hill-top: thence they came down all unawares in three columns on the French camp in the evening, and surprised the King at supper and all but took him. The French soon recovered from the surprise; 'for God would not consent that lords should be discomfitted by such riffraff': they slew the Flemish Captain Dennequin, and of the rest but few escaped; 'for they deigned not to flee,' so stubborn were those despised weavers of Flanders. This little battle, with its great carnage of Flemish, sufficed to lay all Flanders at the feet of its count."
G. W. Kitchin, History of France, book 4, chapter 1.
"Sixteen thousand Flemings had marched to the attack in three divisions. Three heaps of slain were counted on the morrow in the French lines, amounting altogether to 13,000 corpses; and it is said that Louis ... inflicted death upon 10,000 more of the rebels."
E. Smedley, History of France, part 1, chapter 8.
ALSO IN: Froissart (Johnes), Chronicles, book 1, chapters 21-22.
{1126}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1335-1337. The revolt under Jacques Van Arteveld. The alliance with England.
The most important measure by which Edward III. of England prepared himself for the invasion of France, as a claimant of the French crown [See FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339] was the securing of an alliance with the Flemish burghers. This was made easy for him by his enemies. "The Flemings happened to have a count who was wholly French--Louis de Nevers--who was only count through the battle of Cassel and the humiliation of his country, and who resided at Paris, at the court of Philippe de Valois. Without consulting his subjects, he ordered a general arrest of all the English throughout Flanders; on which Edward had all the Flemings in England arrested. The commerce, which was the life-blood of each country, was thus suddenly broken off. To attack the English through Guyenne and Flanders was to wound them in their most sensible parts, to deprive them of cloth and wine. They sold their wool at Bruges, in order to buy wine at Bordeaux. On the other hand, without English wool, the Flemings were at a stand-still. Edward prohibited the exportation of wool, reduced Flanders to despair, and forced her to fling herself into his arms. At first, a crowd of Flemish workmen emigrated into England, whither they were allured at any cost, and by every kind of flattery and caress. ... I take it that the English character has been seriously modified by these emigrations, which went on during the whole of the fourteenth century. Previously, we find no indications of that patient industry which now distinguishes the English. By endeavouring to separate Flanders and England the French king only stimulated Flemish emigration, and laid the foundation of England's manufactures. Meanwhile, Flanders did not resign herself. The towns burst into insurrection. They had long hated the count, either because he supported the country against the monopoly of the towns, or because he admitted the foreigners, the Frenchmen, to a share of their commerce. The men of Ghent, who undoubtedly repented of having withheld their aid from those of Ypres and of Bruges at the battle of Cassel, chose, in 1337, as their leader, the brewer, Jacquemart Artaveld. Supported by the guilds, and, in particular, by the fullers and clothiers, Artaveld organized a vigorous tyranny. He assembled at Ghent the men of the three great cities, 'and showed them that they could not live without the king of England; for all Flanders depended on cloth-making, and, without wool, one could not make cloth; therefore he recommended them to keep the English king their friend.'"
J. Michelet, History of France, book 6, chapter 1.
ALSO IN F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 20.
J. Hutton, James and Philip Van Altevelde, part 3.
J. Froissart, Chronicles (Johnes's translation), book 1, chapter 29.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1345. The end of Jacques Van Artaveld.
"Jacob von Artaveld, the citizen of Ghent that was so much attached to the king of England, still maintained the same despotic power over all Flanders. He had promised the king of England, that he would give him the inheritance of Flanders, invest his son the prince of Wales with it, and make it a duchy instead of an earldom. Upon which account the king was, at this period, about St. John the Baptist's day, 1345, come to Sluys, with a numerous attendance of barons and knights. He had brought the prince of Wales with him, in order that Jacob von Artaveld's promises might be realized. The king remained on board his fleet in the harbour of Sluys, where he kept his court. His friends in Flanders came thither to see and visit him; and there were many conferences between the king and Jacob Von Artaveld on one side, and the councils from the different capital towns on the other, relative to the agreement before mentioned. ... When on his return he [Van Artaveld] came to Ghent about midday, the townsmen who were informed of the hour he was expected, had assembled in the street that he was to pass through; as soon as they saw him, they began to murmur, and put their heads close together, saying, 'Here comes one who is too much the master, and wants to order in Flanders according to his will and pleasure, which must not be longer borne.' With this they had also spread a rumour through the town, that Jacob von Artaveld had collected all the revenues of Flanders, for nine years and more. ... Of this great treasure he had sent part into England. This information inflamed those of Ghent with rage; and, as he was riding up the streets, he perceived that there was something in agitation against him; for those who were wont to salute him very respectfully, now turned their backs, and went into their houses. He began therefore to suspect all was not as usual; and as soon as he had dismounted, and entered his hotel, he ordered the doors and windows to be shut and fastened. Scarcely had his servants done this, when the street which he inhabited was filled from one end to the other with all sorts of people, but especially by the lowest of the mechanics. His mansion was surrounded on every side, attacked and broken into by force. Those within did all they could to defend it, and killed and wounded many: but at last they could not hold out against such vigorous attacks, for three parts of the town were there. When Jacob von Artaveld saw what efforts were making, and how hardly he was pushed, he came to a window; and, with his head uncovered, began to use humble and fine language. ... When Jacob von Artaveld saw that he could not appease or calm them, he shut the window, and intended getting out of his house the back way, to take shelter in a church adjoining; but his hotel was already broke into on that side, and upwards of four hundred were there calling out for him. At last he was seized by them, and slain without mercy: his death-stroke was given him by a sadler, called Thomas Denys. In this manner did Jacob von Artaveld end his days, who in his time had been complete master of Flanders. Poor men first raised him, and wicked men slew him."
J. Froissart (Johnes), Chronicles, book 1, chapter 115 (volume 1).
{1127}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1379-1381. The revolt of the White Hoods.
"We will ... speak of the war in Flanders, which began about this time [A. D. 1379]. The people were very murderous and cruel, and multitudes were slain or driven out of the country. The country itself was so much ruined, that it was said a hundred years would not restore it to the situation it was in before the war. Before the commencement of these wars in Flanders, the country was so fertile, and everything in such abundance, that it was marvellous to see; and the inhabitants of the principal towns lived in very grand state. You must know that this war originated in the pride and hatred that several of the chief towns bore to each other: those of Ghent against Bruges, and others, in like manner, vying with each other through envy. However, this could not have created a war without the consent of their lord, the earl of Flanders, who was so much loved and feared that no one dared anger him." It is in these words that the old court chronicler, Froissart, begins his fully detailed and graphic narrative of the miserable years, from 1379 to 1384, during which the communes of Flanders were at war with one another and at war with their worthless and oppressive count, Luis de Maele. The picturesque chronicle is colored with the prejudices of Froissart against the Flemish burghers and in favor of their lord; but no one can doubt that the always turbulent citizens were jealous of rights which the always rapacious lord never ceased to encroach upon. As Froissart tells the story, the outbreak of war began with an attempt on the part of the men of Bruges, to dig a canal which would divert the waters of the river Lys. When those of Ghent had news of this unfriendly undertaking, they took counsel of one John Yoens, or John Lyon, a burgher of much cunning, who had formerly been in favor with the count, but whom his enemies had supplanted. "When he [John Lyon] was prevailed on to speak, he said: 'Gentlemen, if you wish to risk this business, and put an end to it, you must renew an ancient custom that formerly subsisted in the town of Ghent: I mean, you must first put on white-hoods, and choose a leader, to whom everyone may look, and rally at his signal.' This harangue was eagerly listened to, and they all cried out, 'We will have it so, we will have it so! now let us put on white-hoods.' White-hoods were directly made, and given out to those among them who loved war better than peace, and had nothing to lose. John Lyon was elected chief of the White Hoods. He very willingly accepted of this office, to avenge himself on his enemies, to embroil the towns of Ghent and Bruges with each other and with the earl their lord. He was ordered, as their chief, to march against the pioneers and diggers from Bruges, and had with him 200 such people as preferred rioting to quiet."
Froissart (Johnes), Chronicles, book 2, chapters 36-102.
When the White Hoods had driven the ditchers of Bruges from their canal, they returned to Ghent, but not to disband. Presently the jealous count required them to lay aside the peculiar badge of their association, which they declined to do. Then Count Louis sent his bailiff into Ghent with 200 horsemen, to arrest John Lyon, and some others of his band. The White Hoods rallied, slew the bailiff and drove his posse from the town; after which unmistakable deed Ghent and the count were distinctly at war. The city of the White Hoods took prompt measures to secure the alliance and support of its neighbors. Some nine or ten thousand of its citizens marched to Bruges, and partly by persuasion, partly by force, partly by the help of the popular party in the town, they effected a treaty of friendship and alliance--which did not endure, however, very long. Courtray, Damme, Ypres and other cities joined the league and it soon presented a formidable array. Oudenarde, strongly fortified, by the count, became the key of the situation, and was besieged by the citizen-militia. In the midst of the siege, the Duke of Burgundy, son-in-law of the count, made successful efforts to bring about a peace (December 1379). "The count promised to forget the past and return to his residence in Ghent. This peace, however, was of short duration; and the count, after passing only two or three days in Ghent, alleged some cause of dissatisfaction and returned to Lille, to recommence hostilities, in the course of which, with the assistance of the richer citizens, he made himself master of Bruges. Another peace was signed in the August of 1380, which was no more durable than the former, and the count reduced Ypres; and, at the head of an army of 60,000 men, laid siege to Ghent itself, the chief and soul of the popular confederacy, in the month of September. But the citizens of Ghent defended themselves so well that he was obliged to raise the siege in the middle of November, and agree to a truce. This truce also was broken by the count's party, the war renewed in the beginning of the year 1381, and the men of Ghent experienced a disastrous defeat in the battle of Nevelle towards the middle of May. It was a war of extermination, and was carried on with extreme ferocity. ... Ghent itself, now closely blockaded by the count's troops, was only saved by the great qualities of Philip Van Artevelde [son of Jacques Van Arteveld, of the revolution of 1337], who, by a sort of peaceful revolution, was placed at the head of affairs [January 25, 1381]. The victory of Beverholt, in which the count was defeated with great slaughter, and only escaped with difficulty, made the town of Ghent again master of Flanders."
T. Wright, History of France, book 2, chapter 8.
ALSO IN J. Hutton, James and Philip Van Arteveld, chapters 14-16.
W. C. Taylor, Revolutions, Insurrections and Conspiracies of Europe, volume 2, chapters 7-9.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1382. The rebellion crushed.
By the marriage of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, to the daughter and heiress of the Count of Flanders, that powerful French prince had become interested in the suppression of the revolt of the Flemish burghers and the restoration of the count to his lordship. His nephew, the young king of France, Charles VI., was easily persuaded to undertake a campaign to that end, and an army of considerable magnitude was personally led northwards by the monarch of fourteen years. "The object of the expedition was not only to restore to the Count of Flanders his authority, but to punish the turbulent commons, who stirred up those of France to imitate their example. Froissart avows it to have been a war between the commons and the aristocracy. The Flemings were commanded by Artaveldt, son of the famous brewer, the ally of Edward III. The town of Ghent had been reduced to the extreme of distress and famine by the count and the people of Bruges, who supported him. Artaveldt led the people of Ghent in a forlorn hope against Bruges, defeated the army of the count, and broke into the rival town, which he took and plundered. After this disaster, the count had recourse to France. The passage of the river Lys, which defended Flanders, was courageously undertaken, and effected with some hazard by the French. {1128} The Flemings were rather dispirited by this first success: nevertheless, they assembled their forces; and the two armies of French knights and Flemish citizens met at Rosebecque [or Roosebeck], between Ypres and Courtray. The 27th of November, 1382, was the day of battle. Artaveldt had stationed his army on a height, to await the attack of the French, but their impatience forced him to commence. Forming his troops into one solid square, Artaveldt led them against the French centre. Froissart compares their charge to the headlong rush of a wild boar. It broke the opposite line, penetrating into its ranks: but the wings of the French turned upon the flank of the Flemings, which, not having the advantage of a charge or impulse, were beaten by the French men at arms. Pressed upon one another, the Flemings had not room to fight: they were hemmed in, surrounded, and slaughtered: no quarter was asked or given; nearly 30,000 perished. The 9,000 Ghentois that had marched under their banner were counted, to a man, amongst the slain: Artaveldt, their general, was among the foremost who had fallen. Charles ordered his body to be hung upon a tree. It was at Courtray, very near to the field where this battle was fought, that Robert of Artois, with a French army, had perished beneath the swords of the Flemings, nearly a century previous. The gilded spurs of the French knights still adorned the walls of the cathedral of Courtray. The victory of Rosebecque in the eyes of Charles had not sufficiently repaid the former defeat: the town of Courtray was pillaged and burnt; its famous clock was removed to Dijon, and formed the third wonder of this kind in France, Paris and Sens alone possessing similar ornaments. The battle of Rosebecque proved more unfortunate for the communes of France than for those of Flanders. Ghent, notwithstanding her loss of 9,000 slain, did not yield to the conqueror, but held out the war for two years longer; and did not finally submit until the Duke of Burgundy, at the death of their count, guaranteed to the burghers the full enjoyment of their privileges. The king avenged himself on the mutinous city of Paris; entered it as a conqueror; took the chains from the streets and unhinged the gates: one hundred of the citizens were sent to the scaffold; the property of the rich was confiscated; and all the ancient and most onerous taxes, the gabelle, the duty on sales, as well as that of entry, were declared by royal ordinance to be established anew. The principal towns of the kingdom were visited with the same punishments and exactions. The victory of Rosebecque overthrew the commons of France, which were crushed under the feet of the young monarch and his nobles."
E. E. Crowe, History of France, chapter 4.
ALSO IN Sir J. Froissart (Johnes), Chronicles, book 2, chapters 111-130.
J. Michelet, History of France, book 7, chapter 1 (volume 2).
F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 23 (volume 3).
FLANDERS: A. D. 1383. The Bishop of Norwich's Crusade.
The crushing defeat of the Flemings at Roosebeke produced alarm in England, where the triumph of the French was quickly felt to be threatening. "English merchants were expelled from Bruges, and their property was confiscated. Calais even was in danger. The French were at Dunkirk and Gravelines, and might by a sudden dash on Calais drive the English out." There had been aid from England promised to Van Artevelde, but the promise had only helped on the ruin of the Ghent patriot by misleading him. No help had come when he needed it. Now, when it was too late, the English bestirred themselves. For some months there had been on foot among them a Crusade, which Pope Urban VI. had proclaimed against the supporters of the rival Pope Clement VII.--the "Schismatics." France took the side of the latter and was counted among the Schismatics. Accordingly, Pope Urban's Crusade, so far as the English people could be moved to engage in it, was now directed against the French in Flanders. It was led by the Bishop of Norwich, who succeeded in rousing a very considerable degree of enthusiasm in the country for the movement, despite the earnest opposition of Wyclif and his followers. The crusading army assembled at Calais in the spring of 1383, professedly for a campaign in France; but the Bishop found excuses for leading it into Flanders. Gravelines was first attacked, carried by storm, and its male defenders slaughtered to a man. An army of French and Flemings, encountered near Dunkirk, was routed, with fearful carnage, and the whole coast, including Dunkirk, fell into the hands of the English. Then they laid siege to Ypres, and there their disasters began. The city held out with stubbornness from the 9th of June until the 10th of August, when the baffled besiegers--repulsed in a last desperate assault which they had made on the 8th--marched away. "Ypres might rejoice, but the disasters of the long siege proved final. Her stately faubourgs were not rebuilt, and she has never again taken her former rank among the cities of Flanders." In September a powerful French army entered Flanders, and the English crusaders could do nothing but retreat before it, giving up Cassel (which the French burned), then Bergues, then Bourbourg, after a siege, and, finally, setting fire to Gravelines and abandoning that place. "Gravelines was utterly destroyed, but the French soon began to rebuild it. It was repeopled from the surrounding country, and fortified strongly as a menace to Calais." The Crusaders returned to England "'dripping with blood and disgracing their country. Blessed be God who confounds the proud,' says one sharp critic, who appears to have been a monk of Canterbury."
_G. M. Wrong, The Crusade of MCCCLXXXIII._
ALSO IN Sir J. Froissart, (Johnes), Chronicles book 2, chapters 130-145 (volumes 1-2).
FLANDERS: A. D. 1383 Joined to the Dominions of the Duke of Burgundy.
"Charles V. [of France] had formed the design of obtaining Flanders for his brother Philip, Duke of Burgundy, afterwards known as Philip the Bold--by marrying him to Margaret [daughter and heiress of Louis de Maele, count of Flanders]. To gain the good will of the Communes, he engaged to restore the three bailiwicks of Lille, Douai, and Orchies as a substitute for the 10,000 livres a year promised to Louis de Maele and his successors in 1351, as well as the towns of Peronne, Crèvecœur, Arleux and Château-Chinon, assigned to him in 1358. ... On the 13th May, 1369, the 'Lion of Flanders' once more floated, after an interval of half a century, over the walls of Lille, Douai, and Orchies, and at the same time Flemish garrisons marched into St. Omer, Aire, Bethune and Hesdin. The marriage ceremony took place at Ghent on the 19th of June." The Duke of Burgundy waited fourteen years for the heritage of his wife. In January, 1383, Count Louis died, and Flanders was added to the great and growing dominion of the new Burgundian house.
J. Hutton, James and Philip van Arteveld, chapters 14 and 18.
See BURGUNDY (THE FRENCH DUKEDOM): A. D. 1364.
{1129}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1451-1453. Revolt against the Burgundian Gabelle.
See GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1477. Severance from Burgundy. Transference to the Austrian House by marriage of Mary of Burgundy.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1482-1488. Resistance to Maximilian.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1482-1493.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1494-1588. The Austro-Spanish sovereignty and its oppressions. The great revolt and its failure in the Flemish provinces.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1494-1519, and after.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1529. Pretensions of the king of France to Suzerainty resigned.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1539-1540. The unsupported revolt of Ghent.
See GHENT: A. D. 1539-1540.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1594-1884. Later history.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1609, to 1830-1884.
----------FLANDERS: End----------
FLATHEAD INDIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: FLATHEADS.
FLAVIA CÆSARIENSIS.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 323-337.
FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE, The.
See COLOSSEUM.
FLAVIAN FAMILY, The.
"We have designated the second period of the [Roman] Empire by the name of the Flavian family--the family of Vespasian [Titus Flavius Vespasian]. The nine Emperors who were successively invested with the purple, in the space of the 123 years from his accession, were not all, however, of Flavian race, even by the rites of adoption, which in Rome was become a second nature; but the respect of the world for the virtues of Flavius Vespasian induced them all to assume his name, and most of them showed themselves worthy of such an affiliation. Vespasian had been invested with the purple at Alexandria, on the 1st of July, A. D. 69; he died in 79. His two sons reigned in succession after him; Titus, from 79 to 81; Domitian, from 81 to 96. The latter having been assassinated, Nerva, then an old man, was raised to the throne by the Senate (A. D. 96-98). He adopted Trajan (98-117); who adopted Adrian (117-138). Adrian adopted Antoninus Pius (138-161); who adopted Marcus Aurelius (161-180); and Commodus succeeded his father, Marcus Aurelius (180-192). No period in history presents such a succession of good and great men upon any throne: two monsters, Domitian and Commodus, interrupt and terminate it."
J. C. L. Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 2.
FLEETWOOD, OR BRANDY STATION, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE: VIRGINIA).
FLEIX, The Peace of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.
FLEMINGS.--FLEMISH.
See FLANDERS.
FLEMISH GUILDS.
See GUILDS OF FLANDERS.
FLEURUS, Battle of (1622).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633.
FLEURUS, Battle of (1690).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.
FLEURUS, Battle of (1794).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).
FLODDEN, Battle of (A. D. 1513).
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1513.
FLORALIA, The.
See LUDI.
FLORÉAL, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).
FLORENCE: Origin and Name:
"Fæsulre was situated on a hill above Florence. Florentine traditions call it the metropolis of Florence, which would accordingly be a colony of Fæsulre; but a statement in Machiavelli and others describes Florence as a colony of Sulla, and this statement must have been derived from some local chronicle. Fæsulre was no doubt an ancient Etruscan town, probably one of the twelve. It was taken in the war of Sulla [B. C. 82-81]. ... My conjecture is, that Sulla not only built a strong fort on the top of the hill of Fæsulre, but also the new colony of Florentia below, and gave to it the 'ager Fæsulanus.'"
B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography. volume 2, page 228.
"We can reasonably suppose that the ancient trading nations may have pushed their small craft up the Arno to the present site of Florence, and thus have gained a more immediate communication with the flourishing city of Fiesole than they could through other ports of Etruria, from whatever race its people might have sprung. Admitting the high antiquity of Fiesole, the imagined work of Atlas, and the tomb of his celestial daughter, we may easily believe that a market was from very early times established in the plain, where both by land and water the rural produce could be brought for sale without ascending the steep on which that city stood. Such arrangements would naturally result from the common course of events, and a more convenient spot could scarcely be found than the present site of Florence, to which the Arno is still navigable by boats from its mouth, and at that time perhaps by two branches. ... 'There were,' says Villani, 'inhabitants round San Giovanni, because the people of Fiesole held their market there one day in the week, and it was called the Field of Mars, the ancient name: however it was always, from the first, the market of the Fiesolines, and thus it was called before Florence existed.' {1130} And again: 'The Pæetor Florinus, with a Roman army, encamped beyond the Arno towards Fiesole and had two small villages there, ... where the people of Fiesole one day in the week held a general market with the neighbouring towns and villages. ... On the site of this camp, as we are also assured by Villani, was erected the city of Florence, after the capture of Fiesole by Pompey, Cæsar, and Martius; but Leonardo Aretino, following Malespini, asserts that it was the work of Sylla's legions, who were already in possession of Fiesole. ... The variety of opinions almost equals the number of authors. ... It may be reasonably concluded that Florence, springing originally from Fiesole, finally rose to the rank of a Roman colony and the seat of provincial government; a miniature of Rome, with its Campus Martius, its Capitol, Forum, temple of Mars, aqueducts, baths, theatre and amphitheatre, all erected in imitation of the 'Eternal City;' for vestiges of all these are still existing either in name or substance. The name of Florence is as dark as its origin, and a thousand derivations have confused the brains of antiquarians and their readers without much enlightening them, while the beautiful Giagiolo or Iris, the city's emblem, still clings to her old grey walls, as if to assert its right to be considered as the genuine source of her poetic appellation. From the profusion of these flowers that formerly decorated the meads between the rivers Mugnone and Arno, has sprung one of the most popular opinions on the subject; for a white plant of the same species having shown itself amongst the rising fabrics, the incident was poetically seized upon and the Lily then first assumed its station in the crimson banner of Florence."
H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 1, chapter 1.
FLORENCE: A. D. 406. Siege by Radagaisus. Deliverance by Stilicho.
See ROME: A. D. 404-408.
FLORENCE: 12th Century. Acquisition of republican independence.
"There is ... an assertion by Villani, that Florence contained twenty-two thousand fighting men, without counting the old men and children,' about the middle of the sixth century; and modern statisticians have based on this statement an estimate which would make the population of the city at that period about sixty-one thousand. There are reasons too for believing that very little difference in the population took place during several centuries after that time. Then came the sudden increase arising from the destruction, more or less entire, of Fiesole, and the incorporation of its inhabitants with those of the newer city, which led to the building of the second walls. ... An estimate taking the inhabitants of the city at something between seventy and eighty thousand at the period respecting which we are inquiring [beginning of the 12th century] would in all probability be not very wide of the mark. The government of the city was at that time lodged in the hands of magistrates exercising both legislative and administrative authority, called Consuls, assisted by a senate composed of a hundred citizens of worth--buoni uomini. These Consuls 'guided everything, and governed the city, and decided causes, and administered justice.' They remained in office for one year. How long this form of government had been established in Florence is uncertain. It was not in existence in the year 897; but it was in activity in 1102. From 1138 we have a nearly complete roll of the names of the consuls for each year down to 1219. ... The first recorded deeds of the young community thus governed, and beginning to feel conscious and proud of its increasing strength, were characteristic enough of the tone of opinion and sentiment which prevailed within its walls, and of the career on which it was entering. 'In the year 1107,' says Malispini, 'the city of Florence being much increased, the Florentines, wishing to extend their territory, determined to make war against any castle or fortress which would not be obedient to them. And in that year they took by force Monte Orlando, which belonged to certain gentlemen who would not be obedient to the city. And they were defeated, and the castle was destroyed.' These 'gentlemen,' so styled by the civic historian who thus curtly records the destruction of their home, in contradistinction to the citizens who by no means considered themselves such, were the descendants or representatives of those knights and captains, mostly of German race, to whom the Emperors had made grants of the soil according to the feudal practice and system. They held directly of the Empire, and in no wise owed allegiance or obedience of any sort to the community of Florence. But they occupied almost all the country around the rising city; and the citizens' wanted to extend their territory.' Besides, these territorial lords were, as has been said, gentlemen, and lived as such, stopping wayfarers on the highways, levying tolls in the neighbourhood of their strongholds, and in many ways making themselves disagreeable neighbours to peaceable folks. ... The next incident on the record, however, would seem to show that peaceful townsfolk as well as marauding nobles were liable to be overrun by the car of manifest destiny, if they came in the way of it. 'In the same year,' says the curt old historian, 'the men of Prato rebelled against the Florentines; wherefore they went out in battle against it, and took it by siege and destroyed it.' Prato rebelled against Florence! It is a very singular statement; for there is not the shadow of a pretence put forward, or the smallest ground for imagining that Florence had or could have claimed any sort of suzerainty over Prato. ... The territorial nobles, however, who held castles in the district around Florence were the principal objects of the early prowess of the citizens; and of course offence against them was offence against the Emperor. ... In 1113, accordingly, we find an Imperial vicar residing in Tuscany at St. Miniato; not the convent-topped hill of that name in the immediate neighbourhood of Florence, but a little mountain city of the same name, overlooking the lower Valdarno, about half way between Florence and Pisa. ... There the Imperial Vicars perched themselves hawk-like, with their Imperial troops, and swooped down from time to time to chastise and bring back such cities of the plain as too audaciously set at naught the authority of the Emperor. And really these upstart Florentines were taking the bit between their teeth, and going on in a way that no Imperial Vicar could tolerate. ... So the indignant cry of the harried Counts Cadolingi, and of several other nobles holding of the Empire, whose houses had been burned over their heads by these audacious citizens, went up to the ears of 'Messer Ruberto,' the Vicar, in San Miniato. {1131} Whereupon that noble knight, indignant at the wrong done to his fellow nobles, as well as at the offence against the authority of his master the Emperor, forthwith put lance in rest, called out his men, and descended from his mountain fortress to take summary vengeance on the audacious city. On his way thither he had to pass through that very gorge where the castle of Monte Orlando had stood, and under the ruins of the house from which the noble vassals of the Empire had been harried. ... There were the leathern-jerkined citizens on the very scene of their late misdeed, come out to oppose the further progress of the Emperor's Vicar and his soldiers. And there, as the historian writes, with curiously impassible brevity, 'the said Messer Ruberto was discomfited and killed.' And nothing further is heard of him, or of any after consequences resulting from the deed. Learned legal antiquaries insist much on the fact, that the independence of Florence and the other Communes was never 'recognised' by the Emperors; and they are no doubt perfectly accurate in saying so. One would think, however, that that unlucky Vicar of theirs, Messer Ruberto, must have 'recognised' the fact, though somewhat tardily."
T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 1, chapter 1 (volume 1).
Countess Matilda, the famous friend of Pope Gregory VII., whose wide dominion included Tuscany, died in 1115, bequeathing her vast possessions to the Church.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.
"In reality she was only entitled thus to bequeath her allodial lands, the remainder being imperial fiefs. But as it was not always easy to distinguish between the two sorts, and the popes were naturally anxious to get as much as they could, a fresh source of contention was added to the constant quarrels between the Empire and the Church. 'Henry IV. immediately despatched a representative into Tuscany, who under the title of Marchio, Judex, or Praeses, was to govern the Marquisate in his name.' 'Nobody,' says Professor Villari, 'could legally dispute his right to do this: but the opposition of the Pope, the attitude of the towns which now considered themselves independent and the universal confusion rendered the Marquis's authority illusory. The imperial representatives had no choice but to put themselves at the head of the feudal nobility of the contado and unite it into a Germanic party hostile to the cities. In the documents of the period the members of this party are continually described as Teutonici.' By throwing herself in this juncture on the side of the Pope, and thus becoming the declared opponent of the empire and the feudal lords, Florence practically proclaimed her independence. The grandi, having the same interests with the working classes, identified themselves with these; became their leaders, their consuls in fact if not yet in name. Thus was the consular commune born, or, rather, thus did it recognize itself on reaching manhood; for born, in reality, it had already been for some time, only so quietly and unconsciously that nobody had marked its origin or, until now, its growth. The first direct consequence of this self-recognition was that the rulers were chosen out of a larger number of families. As long as Matilda had chosen the officers to whom the government of the town was entrusted, the Uberti and a few others who formed their clan, their kinsmen, and their connections had been selected, to the exclusion of the mass of the citizens. Now more people were admitted to a share in the administration: the offices were of shorter duration, and out of those selected to govern each family had its turn. But those who had formerly been privileged--the Uberti and others of the same tendencies and influence--were necessarily discontented with this state of things, and there are indications in Villani of burnings and of tumults such as later, when the era of faction fights had fairly begun, so often desolated the streets of Florence."
B. Duffy, The Tuscan Republics, chapter 6.
See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1215-1250. The beginning, the causes and the meaning of the strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.
Nearly from the beginning of the 13th century, all Italy, and Florence more than other Italian communities, became distracted and convulsed by a contest of raging factions. "The main distinction was that between Ghibellines and Guelphs--two names in their origin far removed from Italy. They were first heard in Germany in 1140, when at Winsberg in Suabia a battle was fought between two contending claimants of the Empire; the one, Conrad of Hohenstauffen, Duke of Franconia, chose for his battle-cry 'Waiblingen,' the name of his patrimonial castle in Würtemburg; the other, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, chose his own family name of 'Welf,' or 'Wölf.' Conrad proved victorious, and his kindred to the fourth ensuing generation occupied the imperial throne; yet both war-cries survived the contest which gave them birth, lingering on in Germany as equivalents of Imperialist and anti-Imperialist. By a process perfectly clear to philologists, they were modified in Italy into the forms Ghibellino and Guelfo; and the Popes being there the great opponents of the Emperors, an Italian Guelph was a Papalist. The cities were mainly Guelph; the nobles most frequently Ghibelline. A private feud had been the means of involving Florence in the contest."
M. F. Rossetti, A Shadow of Dante, chapter 3.
"The Florentines kept themselves united till the year 1215, rendering obedience to the ruling power, and anxious only to preserve their own safety. But, as the diseases which attack our bodies are more dangerous and mortal in proportion as they are delayed, so Florence, though late to take part in the sects of Italy, was afterwards the more afflicted by them. The cause of her first division is well known, having been recorded by Dante and many other writers; I shall, however, briefly notice it. Amongst the most powerful families of Florence were the Buondelmonti and the Uberti; next to these were the Amidei and the Donati. Of the Donati family there was a rich widow who had a daughter of exquisite beauty, for whom, in her own mind, she had fixed upon Buondelmonti, a young gentleman, the head of the Buondelmonti family, as her husband; but either from negligence, or because she thought it might be accomplished at any time, she had not made known her intention, when it happened that the cavalier betrothed himself to a maiden of the Amidei family. This grieved the Donati widow exceedingly; but she hoped, with her daughter's beauty, to disturb the arrangement before the celebration of the marriage; and from an upper apartment, seeing Buondelmonti approach her house alone, she descended, and as he was passing she said to him, 'I am glad to learn you have chosen a wife, although I had reserved my daughter for you'; and, pushing the door open, presented her to his view. {1132} The cavalier, seeing the beauty of the girl, ... became inflamed with such an ardent desire to possess her, that, not thinking of the promise given, or the injury he committed in breaking it, or of the evils which his breach of faith might bring upon himself, said, 'Since you have reserved her for me, I should be very ungrateful indeed to refuse her, being yet at liberty to choose'; and without any delay married her. As soon as the fact became known, the Amidei and the Uberti, whose families were allied, were filled with rage," and some of them, lying in wait for him, assassinated him as he was riding through the streets. "This murder divided the whole city; one party espousing the cause of the Buondelmonti, the other that of the Uberti; and ... they contended with each other for many years, without one being able to destroy the other. Florence continued in these troubles till the time of Frederick II., who, being king of Naples, endeavoured to strengthen himself against the church; and, to give greater stability to his power in Tuscany, favoured the Uberti and their followers, who, with his assistance, expelled the Buondelmonti; thus our city, as all the rest of Italy had long time been, became divided into Guelphs and Ghibellines."
N. Machiavelli, History of Florence, book 2, chapter 1.
"Speaking generally, the Ghibellines were the party of the emperor, and the Guelphs the party of the Pope; the Ghibellines were on the side of authority, or sometimes of oppression, the Guelphs were on the side of liberty and self-government. Again, the Ghibellines were the supporters of an universal empire of which Italy was to be the head, the Guelphs were on the side of national life and national individuality. ... If these definitions could be considered as exhaustive, there would be little doubt as to the side to which our sympathies should be given. ... We should ... expect all patriots to be Guelphs, and the Ghibelline party to be composed of men who were too spiritless to resist despotic power, or too selfish to surrender it. But, on the other hand, we must never forget that Dante was a Ghibelline."
O. Browning, Guelphs and Ghibellines, chapter 2.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1215.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278. The wars of a generation of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.
In 1248, the Ghibellines, at the instigation of Frederick II., and with help from his German soldiery, expelled the Guelfs from the city, after desperate fighting for several days, and destroyed the mansions of their chiefs, to the number of 38. In 1250 there was a rising of the people--of the under-stratum which the cleavage of parties hardly penetrated--and a popular constitution of government was brought into force. At the same time, the high towers, which were the strongholds of the contending nobles, were thrown down. An attempt was then made by the leaders of the people to restore peace between the Ghibellines and the Guelfs, but the effort was vain; whereupon the Guelfs (in January, 1251) came back to the city, and the Ghibellines were either driven away or were shut up in their city castles, to which they had retired when the people rose. In 1258 the restless Ghibellines plotted with Manfred, King of the Two Sicilies, to regain possession of Florence. The plot was discovered, and the enraged people drove the last lingerers of the faction from their midst and pulled down their palaces. The great palace of the Uberti family, most obnoxious of all, was not only razed, but a decree was made that no building should ever stand again on its accursed site. The exiled Ghibellines took refuge at Siena, and there plotted again with King Manfred, who sent troops to aid them. The Florentines did not wait to be attacked, but marched out to meet them on Sienese territory, and suffered a terrible defeat at Montaperti (September 4, 1260), in the battle that Dante refers to, "which coloured the river Arbia red." "'On that day,' says Villani, ... 'was broken and destroyed the old popular government of Florence, which had existed for ten years with so great power and dignity, and had won so many victories.' Few events have ever left a more endurable impression on the memory of a people than this great battle between two cities and parties animated both of them by the most unquenchable hatred. The memory of that day has lasted through 600 years, more freshly perhaps in Siena than in Florence." As a natural consequence of their defeat at Montaperti, the Guelfs were again forced to fly into exile from Florence, and this expatriation included a large number of even the commoner people. "So thorough had been the defeat, so complete the Ghibelline ascendency resulting from it, that in every city the same scene on a lesser scale was taking place. Many of the smaller towns, which had always been Guelph in their sympathies, were now subjected to Ghibelline despotism. One refuge alone remained in Tuscany--Lucca. ... And thither the whole body of the expatriated Guelphs betook themselves. ... The Ghibellines entered Florence in triumph on the 16th of September, three days after their enemies had left it. ... The city seemed like a desert. The gates were standing open and unguarded; the streets were empty; the comparatively few inhabitants who remained, almost entirely of the lowest class of the populace, were shut up in their obscure dwellings, or were on their knees in the churches. And what was worse, the conquerors did not come back alone. They had invited a foreign despot to restore order;" and so King Manfred's general, Giordano da Anglona, established Count Guido Novello in Florence as Manfred's vicar. "All the constitutional authorities established by the people, and the whole frame-work of the former government, were destroyed, and the city was ruled entirely by direction transmitted from the King's Sicilian court." There were serious proposals, even, that Florence itself should be destroyed, and the saving of the noble city from that untimely fate is credited to one patriotic noble, of the Uberti family, who withstood the proposition, alone. "The Ghibelline army marched on Lucca, and had not much more difficulty in reducing that city. The government was put into Ghibelline hands, and Lucca became a Ghibelline city like all the rest of Tuscany. The Lucchese were not required by the victors to turn their own Guelphs out of the city. But it was imperatively insisted on that every Guelph not a native citizen should be thrust forth from the gates." The unfortunate Florentines, thus made homeless again, now found shelter at Bologna, and presently helped their friends at Modena and Reggio to overcome the Ghibellines in those cities and recover control. But for five years their condition was one of wretchedness. Then Charles of Anjou was brought into Italy (1265) by the Pope, to snatch the crown of the Two Sicilies from King Manfred, and succeeded in his undertaking.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.
{1133}
The prop of the Ghibellines was broken. Guido Novello and his troopers rode away from Florence; 800 French horsemen, sent by the new Angevine king, under Guy de Montfort, took their places; the Guelfs swarmed in again--the Ghibellines swarmed out; the popular constitution was restored, with new features more popular than before. In 1273 there was a great attempt made by Pope Gregory X. in person, to reconcile the factions in Florence; but it had so little success that the Holy Father left the city in disgust and pronounced it under interdict for three years. In 1278 the attempt was renewed with somewhat better success. "'And now, says Villani, 'the Ghibellines were at liberty to return to Florence, they and their families. ... And the said Ghibellines had back again their goods and possessions; except that certain of the leading families were ordered, for the safety of the city, to remain for a certain time beyond the boundaries of the Florentine territory.' In fact, little more is heard henceforward of the Ghibellines as a faction within the walls of Florence. The old name, as a rallying cry for the Tory or Imperialist party, was still raised here and there in Tuscany; and Pisa still called herself Ghibelline. But the stream of progress had run past them and left them stranded."
T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 1, chapters 4-5, and book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN N. Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, book 1.
J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 4.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293. Development of the popular constitution of the Commonwealth.
When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforth untrammelled by imperial interference, the people [in 1250] divided themselves into six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, who administered the government in concert with the Potestà and the Captain of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Roman municipal organization. ... The body of the citizens, or the popolo, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a parlamento for delegating their own power to each successive government. Their representatives, again, arranged in two councils, called the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, under the presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potestà, ratified the measures which had previously been proposed and carried by the executive authority or signoria. Under this simple State system the Florentines placed themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, fought the battles of the Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing the golden florin of the republic, and flourished until 1266. In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. The whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles or Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of working people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there were seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all being the Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls for meeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consoli or Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the administration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly in the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companies became the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city who had not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds could exercise any function of burghership. To be scioperato, or without industry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour in the State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogether from the government. ... In 1293, after the Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, a series of severe enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, were decreed against the unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken from them; the severest penalties were attached to their slightest infringement of municipal law; their titles to land were limited; the privilege of living within the city walls was allowed them only under galling restrictions; and last not least, a supreme magistrate, named the Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for the special purpose of watching them and carrying out the penal code against them. Henceforward Florence was governed exclusively by merchants and artisans. The Grandi hastened to enroll themselves in the guilds, exchanging their former titles and dignities for the solid privilege of burghership. The exact parallel to this industrial constitution for a commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes, holding haughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to subject cities, cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in history. It is as unique as the Florence of Dante and Giotto is unique."
_J. A. Symonds, Florence and the Medici (Sketches and Studies in Italy, chapter 5)._
ALSO IN C. Balbo, Life and Times of Dante, volume 1, Introduction.
A. Von Reumont, Lorenzo de Medici, book 1, chapter 1.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1284-1293. War with Pisa.
See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1289. The victory of Campaldino, and the jealousy among its heroes.
In 1289 the Ghibellines of Arezzo having expelled the Guelfs from that city, the Florentines made war in the cause of the latter and won a great victory at Campaldino. This "raised the renown and the military spirit of the Guelf party, for the fame of the battle was very great; the hosts contained the choicest chivalry of either side, armed and appointed with emulous splendour. The fighting was hard, there was brilliant and conspicuous gallantry, and the victory was complete. It sealed Guelf ascendency. The Ghibelline warrior-bishop of Arezzo fell, with three of the Uberti, and other Ghibelline chiefs. ... In this battle the Guelf leaders had won great glory. The hero of the day was the proudest, handsomest, craftiest, most winning, most ambitious, most unscrupulous Guelf noble in Florence--one of a family who inherited the spirit and recklessness of the proscribed Uberti, and did not refuse the popular epithet of 'Malefami'--Corso Donati. {1134} He did not come back from the field of Campaldino, where he had won the battle by disobeying orders, with any increased disposition to yield to rivals, or court the populace, or respect other men's rights. Those rivals, too--and they also had fought gallantly in the post of honour at Campaldino--were such as he hated from his soul--rivals whom he despised, and who yet were too strong for him [the family of the Cerchi]. His blood was ancient, they were upstarts; he was a soldier, they were traders; he was poor, they the richest men in Florence. ... They had crossed him in marriages, bargains, inheritances. ... The glories of Campaldino were not as oil on these troubled waters. The conquerors flouted each other all the more fiercely in the streets on their return, and ill-treated the lower people with less scruple."
R. W. Church, Dante and Other Essays, pages 27-31.
ALSO IN C. Balbo, Life and Times of Dante, part 1, chapter 6 (volume 1).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300. New factions in the city, and Dante's relations to them. The Bianchi and the Neri (Whites and Blacks).
Among the Nobles "who resisted the oppression of the people, Corso Donati must have been the chief, but he did not at first come forward; with one of his usual stratagems, however, he was the cause of a new revolution [January, 1295], which drove Giano della Bella, the leader of the people, from the city. ... Notwithstanding the fall of Giano, the Nobles did not return into power. He was succeeded as a popular leader by one much his inferior, one Pecora, surnamed, from his trade, the Butcher. New disputes arose between the nobles and the people, and between the upper and lower ranks of the people itself. Villani tells us that, in the year 1295, 'many families, who were neither tyrannical nor powerful, withdrew from the order of the nobles, and enrolled themselves among the people, diminishing the power of the nobles and increasing that of the people.' Dante must have been precisely one of those nobles 'who were neither tyrannical nor powerful;' and ... it is certain that he was among those who passed over from their own order to that of the Popolani, by being matriculated in one of the Arts. In a register from 1297 to 1300, of the Art of the physicians and druggists, the fifth of the seven major Arts, he is found matriculated in these words: 'Dante d'Aldighiero degli Aldighieri poeta fiorentino.' ... Dante, by this means, obtained office under the popular government. ... The new factions that arose in Florence, in almost all Tuscany, and in some of the cities in other parts of Italy, were merely subdivisions of the Guelf party; merely what, in time, happens to every faction after a period of prosperity, a division of the ultras and of the moderates, or of those who hold more or less extravagant views. ... All this happened to the Guelf party in a very few years, and the Neri and Bianchi, the names 'Of the two divisions of that party, which had arisen in 1300, were no longer mentioned ten years afterwards, but were again lost in the primitive appellations of Guelfs and Ghibellines. Thus this episode would possess little interest, and would be scarcely mentioned in the history of Italy, or even of Florence, had not the name of our sublime Poet been involved in it; and, after his love, it is the most important circumstance of his life, and the one to which he most frequently alludes in his Commedia. It thus becomes a subject worthy of history. ... Florentine historians attribute Corso Donati's hatred towards Vieri de Cerchi to envy. ... This envy arose to such a height between Dante's neighbours in Florence that he has rendered it immortal. 'Through envy,' says Villani, 'the citizens began to divide into factions, and one of the principal feuds began in the Sesto dello Scandalo, near the gate of St. Pietro, between the families of the Cerchi and the Donati [from which latter family came Dante's wife]. ... Messer Vieri was the head of the House of the Cerchi, and he and his house were powerful in affairs, possessing a numerous kindred; they were very rich merchants, for their company was one of the greatest in the world.'" The state of animosity between these two families "was existing in Florence in the beginning of 1300, when it was increased by another rather similar family quarrel that had arisen in Pistoia. . . . 'There was in Pistoia a family which amounted to more than 100 men capable of bearing arms; it was not of great antiquity, but was powerful, wealthy, and numerous; it was descended from one Cancellieri Notaio, and from him they had preserved Cancellieri as their family name. From the children of the two wives of this man were descended the 107 men of arms that have been enumerated; one of the wives having been named Madonna Bianca, her descendants were called Cancellieri Bianchi (White Cancellieri); and the descendants of the other wife, in opposition, were called Cancellieri Neri (Black Cancellieri).'" Between these two branches of the family of the Cancellieri there arose, some time near the end of the thirteenth century, an implacable feud. "Florence ... exercised a supremacy over Pistoia ... and fearing that these internal dissensions might do injury to the Guelf party, she took upon herself the lordship or supremacy of that city. The principal Cancellieri, both Bianchi and Neri, were banished to Florence itself; 'the Neri took up their abode in the house of the Frescobaldi, beyond the Arno; the Bianchi at the house of the Cerchi, in the Garbo, from being connected with them by kindred. But as one sick sheep infects another, and is injurious to the flock, so this cursed seed of discord, that had departed from Pistoia and had now entered Florence, corrupted all the Florentines, and divided them into two parties.' ... The Cerchi, formerly called the Forest party (parte selvaggia), now assumed the name of Bianchi; and those who followed the Donati were now called Neri. ... 'There sided with [the Bianchi, says Villani] the families of the Popolani and petty artisans, and all the Ghibellines, whether Nobles or Popolani.' ... Thus the usual position in which the two parties stood was altered; for hitherto the Nobles had almost always been Ghibellines, and the Popolani Guelfs; but now, if the Popolani were not Ghibellines, they were at least not such strong Guelfs as the nobles. Sometimes these parties are referred to as White Guelfs and Black Guelfs."
C. Balbo, Life and Times of Dante, chapter 10.
ALSO IN H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 1, chapter 14 (volume l).
N. Machiavelli, The Florentine Histories, book 2.
{1135}
FLORENCE: A. D. 1301-1313. Triumph of the Neri. Banishment of Dante and his party. Downfall and death of Corso Donati.
"In the year 1301, a serious affray took place between the two parties [the Bianchi and the Neri]; the whole city was in arms; the law, and the authority of the Signoria, among whom was the poet Dante Alighieri, was set at naught by the great men of each side, while the best citizens looked on with fear and trembling. The Donati, fearing that unaided they would not be a match for their adversaries, proposed that they should put themselves under a ruler of the family of the king of France. Such a direct attack on the independence of the state was not to be borne by the Signoria, among whom the poet had great influence. At his instigation they armed the populace, and with their assistance compelled the heads of the contending parties to lay down their arms, and sent into exile Messer Donati and others who had proposed the calling in of foreigners. A sentence of banishment was also pronounced against the most violent men of the party of the Bianchi, most of whom, however, were allowed, under various pretences, to return to their country. The party of the Donati in their exile carried on those intrigues which they had commenced while at home. They derived considerable assistance from the king of France's brother, Charles of Valois, whom Pope Boniface had brought into Italy. That prince managed, by means of promises, which he subsequently violated, to get admission for himself, together with several of the Neri, and the legate of the pope, into Florence. He then produced letters, generally suspected to be forgeries, charging the leaders of the Bianchi with conspiracy. The popularity of the accused party had already been on the wane, and after a violent tumult, the chief men among them, including Dante, were obliged to leave the city; their goods were confiscated, and their houses destroyed. ... From this time Corso Donati, the head of the faction of the Neri, became the chief man at Florence. The accounts of its state at this period, taken from the most credible historians, warrant us in thinking that the severe invectives of Dante are not to be ascribed merely to indignation or resentment at the harsh treatment he had received. ... The city was rent by more violent dissensions than ever. There were now three distinct sources of contention--the jealousy between the people and the nobles, the disputes between the Bianchi and the Neri, and those between the Ghibellines and the Guelfs. It was in vain that the legate of Pope Benedict, a man of great piety, went thither for the sake of trying to restore order. The inhabitants showed how little they respected him by exhibiting a scandalous representation of hell on the river Arno; and, after renewing his efforts without success, he cursed the city and departed [1302]. The reign of Corso Donati ended like that of most of those who have succeeded to power by popular violence. Six years after the banishment of his adversaries he was suspected, not without reason, of endeavouring to make himself independent of constitutional restraints. The Signori declared him guilty of rebellion. After a protracted resistance he made his escape from the city, but was pursued and taken at Rovesca [1308]. When he was led captive by those among whom his authority had lately been paramount, he threw himself under his horse, and, after having been dragged some distance, he was dispatched by one of the captors. ... The party that had been raised by Corso Donati continued to hold the chief power at Florence even after the death of their chief. The exiled faction, in the words of one of their leaders, ... had not learned the art of returning to their country as well as their adversaries. Four years after the events alluded to, the Emperor, Henry VII., made some negotiations in their favour, which but imperfectly succeeded. The Florentines, however, were awed when he approached their city at the head of his army; and in the extremity of their danger they implored the assistance of King Robert of Naples, and made him Lord of their city for the space of five years. The Emperor's mysterious death [August 24, 1313], at Buonconvento freed them from their alarm."
W. P. Urquhart, Life and Times of Francesco Sforza, book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).
ALSO IN Mrs. Oliphant, The Makers of Florence, chapter 2.
B. Duffy, The Tuscan Republics, chapter 12.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1310-1313. Resistance to the Emperor, Henry VII. Siege by the imperial army.
See ITALY: A. D, 1310-1313,
FLORENCE: A. D. 1313-1328. Wars with Pisa and with Castruccio Castracani, of Lucca. Disastrous battles of Montecatini and Altopascio.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1336-1338. Alliance with Venice against Mastino della Scala.
See VERONA: A. D. 1260-1338.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1341-1343. Defeat by the Pisans before Lucca. The brief tyranny of the Duke of Athens.
In 1341, Mastino della Scala, of Verona, who had become master of Lucca in 1335 by treachery, offered to sell that town to the Florentines. The bargain was concluded; "but it appeared to the Pisans the signal of their own servitude, for it cut off all communication between them and the Ghibelines of Lombardy. They immediately advanced their militia into the Lucchese states to prevent the Florentines from taking possession of the town; vanquished them in battle, on the 2d of October, 1341, under the walls of Lucca; and, on the 6th of July following, took possession of that city for themselves. The people of Florence attributed this train of disasters to the incapacity of their magistrates. ... At this period, Gauttier [Walter] de Brienne, duke of Athens, a French noble, but born in Greece, passed through Florence on his way from Naples to France; The duchy of Athens had remained in his family from the conquest of Constantinople till it was taken from his father in 1312. ... It was for this man the Florentines, after their defeat at Lucca, took a sudden fancy. ... On the 1st of August, 1342, they obliged the signoria to confer on him the title of captain of justice, and to give him the command of their militia." A month later, the duke, by his arts, had worked such a ferment among the lower classes of the population that they "proclaimed him sovereign lord of Florence for his life, forced the public palace, drove from it the gonfalonier and the priori, and installed him there in their place. ... Happily, Florence was not ripe for slavery: ten months sufficed for the duke of Athens to draw from it 400,000 golden florins, which he sent either to France or Naples; but ten months sufficed also to undeceive all parties who had placed any confidence in him," and by a universal rising, in July, 1343, he was driven from the city.
J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 6.
ALSO IN: T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2).
{1136}
FLORENCE: 14th Century. Industrial Prosperity of the City.
"John Villani has given us an ample and precise account of the state of Florence in the earlier part of the 14th century. The revenue of the Republic amounted to 300,000 florins, a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals, was at least equivalent to 600,000 pounds sterling; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth--a larger sum than, according to any computation which we have seen, the Grand Duke of Tuscany now derives from a territory of much greater extent. The manufacture of wool alone employed 200 factories and 30,000 workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average, for 1,200,000 florins; a sum fairly equal, in exchangeable value, to two millions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only, but of all Europe. The transactions of these establishments were sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward the Third of England upwards of 300,000 marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver than 50 shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The city and its environs contained 170,000 inhabitants. In the various schools about 10,000 children were taught to read; 1,200 studied arithmetic; 600 received a learned education. The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to that of the public prosperity. ... Early in the 14th century came forth the Divine Comedy, beyond comparison the greatest work of imagination which had appeared since the poems of Homer. The following generation produced indeed no second Dante: but it was eminently distinguished by general intellectual activity. The study of the Latin writers had never been wholly neglected in Italy. But Petrarch introduced a more profound, liberal, and elegant scholarship; and communicated to his countrymen that enthusiasm for the literature, the history, and the antiquities of Rome, which divided his own heart with a frigid mistress and a more frigid Muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to the more sublime and graceful models of Greece."
_Lord Macaulay, Machiavelli (Essays, volume 1)._
FLORENCE: A. D. 1348. The Plague.
"In the year then of our Lord 1348, there happened at Florence, the finest city in all Italy, a most terrible plague; which, whether owing to the influence of the planets, or that it was sent from God as a just punishment for our sins, had broken out some years before in the Levant, and after passing from place to place, and making incredible havoc all the way, had now reached the west. There, spite of all the means that art and human foresight could suggest, such as keeping the city clear from filth, the exclusion of all suspected persons, and the publication of copious instructions for the preservation of health; and notwithstanding manifold humble supplications offered to God in processions and otherwise; it began to show itself in the spring of the aforesaid year, in a sad and wonderful manner. Unlike what had been seen in the east, where bleeding from the nose is the fatal prognostic, here there appeared certain tumours in the groin or under the armpits, some as big as a small apple, others as an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of the body; in some cases large and but few in number, in others smaller and more numerous--both sorts the usual messengers of death. To the cure of this malady, neither medical knowledge nor the power of drugs was of any effect. ... Nearly all died the third day from the first appearance of the symptoms, some sooner, some later, without any fever or other accessory symptoms. What gave the more virulence to this plague, was that, by being communicated from the sick to the hale, it spread daily, like fire when it comes in contact with large masses of combustibles. Nor was it caught only by conversing with, or coming near the sick, but even by touching their clothes, or anything that they had before touched. ... These facts, and others of the like sort, occasioned various fears and devices amongst those who survived, all tending to the same uncharitable and cruel end; which was, to avoid the sick, and everything that had been near them, expecting by that means to save themselves. And some holding it best to live temperately, and to avoid excesses of all kinds, made parties, and shut themselves up from the rest of the world. ... Others maintained free living to be a better preservative, and would baulk no passion or appetite they wished to gratify, drinking and revelling incessantly from tavern to tavern, or in private houses (which were frequently found deserted by the owners, and therefore common to everyone), yet strenuously avoiding, with all this brutal indulgence, to come near the infected. And such, at that time, was the public distress, that the laws, human and divine, were no more regarded; for the officers to put them in force being either dead, sick, or in want of persons to assist them, everyone did just as he pleased. ... I pass over the little regard that citizens and relations showed to each other; for their terror was such that a brother even fled from a brother, a wife from her husband, and, what is more uncommon, a parent from his own child. ... Such was the cruelty of Heaven, and perhaps of men, that between March and July following, according to authentic reckonings, upwards of 100,000 souls perished in the city only; whereas, before that calamity, it was not supposed to have continued so many inhabitants. What magnificent dwellings, what noble palaces, were then depopulated to the last inhabitant!"
G. Boccaccio, The Decameron, introd.
See, also, BLACK DEATH.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1358. The captains of the Guelf Party and the "Ammoniti."
"The magistracy called the 'Capitani di Parte Guelfa,'--the Captains of the Guelph party,--was instituted in the year 1267; and it was remarked, when the institution of it was recorded, that the conception of a magistracy avowedly formed to govern a community, not only by the authority of, but in the interest of one section only of its members, was an extraordinary proof of the unfitness of the Florentines for self-government, and a forewarning of the infallible certainty that the attempt to rule the Commonwealth on such principles would come to a bad ending. In the year 1358, a little less than a century after the first establishment of this strange magistracy, it began to develop the mischievous capabilities inherent in the nature of it, in a very alarming manner. ... {1137} In 1358 this magistracy consisted of four members. ... These men, 'born,' says Ammirato, 'for the public ruin, under pretext of zeal for the Guelph cause' ... caused a law to be passed, according to which any citizen or Florentine subject who had ever held, or should thereafter hold, any office in the Commonwealth, might be either openly or secretly accused before the tribunal of the Captains of the Guelph Party of being Ghibelline, or not genuine Guelph. If the accusation was supported by six witnesses worthy of belief, the accused might be condemned to death or to fine at the discretion of the Captains. ... It will be readily conceived that the passing of such a law, in a city bristling with party hatreds and feuds, was the signal for the commencement of a reign of terror." The citizens proscribed were "said to be 'admonished'; and the condemnations were called 'admonitions'; and henceforward for many years the 'ammonizioni' [or 'ammoniti'] play a large part in the domestic history and political struggles of Florence."
T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 3, chapter 7 (volume 2).
ALSO IN: H. E. Napier, Florentine History, chapter 23 (volume 2).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1359-1391. The Free Company of Sir John Hawkwood and the wars with Pisa, with Milan, and with the Pope.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1375-1378. War with the Pope in support of the oppressed States of the Church. The Eight Saints of War. A terrible excommunication.
In 1375, the Florentines became engaged in war with Pope Gregory XI., supporting a revolt of the States of the Church, which were heavily oppressed by the representatives of their papal sovereign
See PAPACY: A. D. 1352-1378.
"Nevertheless, so profoundly reverenced was the church that even the sound of war against a pope appeared to many little less than blasphemy: numbers opposed on this pretence, but really from party motives alone." But "a general council assembled and declared the cause of liberty paramount to every other consideration; the war was affirmed to be rather against the injustice and tyranny of foreign governors than the church itself. ... All the ecclesiastical cities then groaning under French oppression were to be invited to revolt and boldly achieve their independence. These spirited resolutions were instantly executed, and on the 8th of August 1375 Alessandro de' Bardi [and seven other citizens] ... were formed into a supreme council of war called 'Gli Otto della Guerra'; and afterwards, from their able conduct, 'Gli Otto Santi della Guerra' [The Eight Saints of War]; armed with the concentrated power of the whole Florentine nation in what regarded war." A terrible sentence of excommunication was launched against the Florentines by the Pope. "Their souls were solemnly condemned to the pains of hell; fire and water were interdicted; their persons and property outlawed in every Christian land, and they were finally declared lawful prey for all who chose to sell, plunder, or kill them as though they were mere slaves or infidels."
H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 1, chapter 26 (volume 2).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1378-1427. Complete democratizing of the commonwealth. The Tumult of the Ciompi. First appearance of the Medici in Florentine history.
Though the reign of the Duke of Athens lasted rather less than a year, "it bore important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the favour of the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts at the expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by enlarging the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence was, first, that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, involving exiles and proscriptions, and, secondly, that it lost its primitive social hierarchy of classes. ... Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy merchants. It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First of all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction of the Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own ends by the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its very foundation by the great plague of 1348 ... nor had 30 years sufficed to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by an overwhelming calamity. ... Rising in a mass to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from the Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the mob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcely known before this epoch, now come for one moment to the front. Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when the tumult first broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, and became the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did more than extend a sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there is no doubt that the attachment of the working classes to the house of Medici dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in Florentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompi strictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, and that the largest, gave its title to the whole body of the labourers. For some months these craftsmen governed the republic, appointing their own Signory and passing laws in their own interest; but, as is usual, the proletariate found itself incapable of sustained government. The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamed themselves away, and industrious workingmen began to see that trade was languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last they restored the government to the Priors of the Greater Arti. Still the movement had not been without grave consequences. It completed the levelling of classes, which had been steadily advancing from the first in Florence. After the Ciompi riot there was no longer not only any distinction between noble and burgher, but the distinction between greater and lesser guilds was practically swept away. ... The proper political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous adventurers. Florence had become a democracy without social organisation. ... The time was come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and for the Medici to begin the enslavement of the State. {1138} The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin not a political but an industrial organisation--a simple group of guilds invested with the sovereign authority. ... It had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice, no fixed senate like the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the Signory, were elected for short periods of two months, and their mode of election was open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen by lot, they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions in power from time to time. These factions contrived to exclude the names of all but their adherents from the bags, or 'borse,' in which the burghers eligible for election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, it was not possible for this shifting Signory to conduct affairs requiring sustained effort and secret deliberation; therefore recourse was being continually had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, summoned in parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called Balia [see BALIA OF FLORENCE], who proceeded to do what they chose in the State; and who retained power after the emergency for which they were created passed away. ... It was through these [and other specified] defects that the democracy merged gradually into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a scientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic use of them for their own purposes, and a steady opposition to any attempts made to substitute a stricter system. ... Florence, in the middle of the 14th century, was a vast beehive of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to vote and hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, of more than princely wealth, spent their time in shops and counting-houses, and trained their sons to follow trades. Military service at this period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferred to pay mercenary troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, as in Venice, any outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence had no navy, no great port--she only kept a small fleet for the protection of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was concentrated on itself; while the influence of citizens, through their affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and agents, extended like a network over Europe. ... Accordingly we find that out of the very bosom of the people a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. ... These nobles of the purse obtained the name of 'Popolani Nobili'; and it was they who now began to play at high stakes for the supreme power. ... The opening of the second half of the 14th century had been signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci." The Albizzi triumphed, in the conflict of the two houses, and became all-powerful for a time in Florence; but the wars with the Visconti, of Milan, in which they engaged the city, made necessary a heavy burden of taxation, which they rendered more grievous by distributing it unfairly. "This imprudent financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. It caused a clamour in the city for a new system of more just taxation, which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of the people made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasion sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427. It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in the future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici did not belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro who favoured the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adopted the same popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed on his death-bed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the cause of the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the arts of factious and ambitious leaders."
_J. A. Symonds, Florence and the Medici (Sketches and Studies in Italy, chapter 5)._
ALSO IN: A. von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, book 1, chapter 2 (volume l).
T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, books 4-5 (volume 2).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1390-1402. War with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan.
"Already in 1386, the growing power of Giangaleazzo Visconti, the tenth duke of Milan of that family, began to give umbrage, not only to all the sovereign princes: his neighbours, but also to Florence [see MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447]. ... Florence ... had cause enough to feel uneasy at the progress of such a man in his career of successful invasion and usurpation;--Florence, no more specially than other of the free towns around her, save that Florence seems always to have thought that she had more to lose from the loss of her liberty than any of the other cities ... and felt always called upon to take upon herself the duty of standing forward as the champion and supporter of the principles of republicanism and free government. ... The Pope, Urban VI., added another element of disturbance to the condition of Italy. For in his anxiety to recover sundry cities mainly in Umbria and Romagna ... he was exceedingly unscrupulous of means, and might at any moment be found allying himself with the enemies of free government and of the old Guelph cause in Italy. Venice, also, having most improvidently and unwisely allied herself with Visconti, constituted another element of danger, and an additional cause of uneasiness and watchfulness to the Florentine government. In the spring of 1388, therefore, a board of ten, 'Dieci di Balia,' was elected for the general management of 'all those measures concerning war and peace which should be adopted by the entire Florentine people.'" The first war with Visconti was declared by the republic in May, 1390, and was so successfully conducted for the Florentines by Sir John Hawkwood that it terminated in a treaty signed January 26, 1392, which bound the Duke of Milan not to meddle in any way with the affairs of Tuscany. For ten years this agreement seems to have been tolerably well adhered to; but in 1402 the rapacious Duke entered upon new encroachments, which forced the Florentines to take up arms again. Their only allies were Bologna and Padua (or Francesco Carrara of Padua), and the armies of the three states were defeated in a terribly bloody battle fought near Bologna on the 26th of June. "Bologna fell into the hands of Visconti. Great was the dismay and terror in Florence when the news ... reached the city. It was neither more nor less than the fall, as the historian says, of the fortress which was the bulwark of Florence. Now she lay absolutely open to the invader." But the invader did not come. He was stricken with the plague and died, in September, and Florence and Italy were saved from the tyranny which he had seemed able to extend over the whole.
T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 4, chapters 4-5 (volume 2).
{1139}
FLORENCE: 14th-15th Centuries. Commercial enterprise, industrial energy, wealth and culture of the city.
"During the 14th and 15th centuries Florentine wealth increased in an extraordinary degree. Earlier generations had compelled the powerful barons of the district to live in the city; and even yet the exercise of the rights of citizenship was dependent on having a residence there. The influx of outsiders was, however, much more owing to the attractions offered by the city, whether in business, profession, or pleasure, than to compulsion. ... The situation of the city is not favorable to the natural growth of commerce, especially under the conditions which preceded the building of railroads. At a considerable distance from the sea, on a river navigable only for very small craft, and surrounded by hills which rendered difficult the construction of good roads,--the fact that the city did prosper so marvellously is in itself proof of the remarkable energy and ability of its people. They needed above all things a sea-port, and to obtain a good one they waged some of their most exhausting wars. Their principal wealth, however, came through their financial operations, which extended throughout Europe, and penetrated even to Morocco and the Orient. Their manufactures also, especially of wool and silk, brought in enormous returns, and made not only the fortunes but also, in one famous case at least, the name of the families engaged in them. Their superiority over the rest of Christendom in these pursuits was but one side of that remarkable, universal talent which is the most astonishing feature of the Florentine life of that age. With the hardihood of youth, they were not only ready but eager to engage in new enterprises, whether at home or abroad. ... As a result of their energy and ability, riches poured into their coffers,--a mighty stream of gold, in the use of which they showed so much judgment, that the after world has feasted to our day, and for centuries to come, will probably continue to feast without satiety on the good things which they caused to be made, and left behind them. Of all the legacies for which we have to thank Florence, none are so well known and so universally recognized as the treasures of art created by her sons, many of which yet remain within her walls, the marvel and delight of all who behold them. As the Florentines were ready to try experiments in politics, manufactures, and commerce, so also in all branches of the fine arts they tried experiments, left the old, beaten paths of their forefathers, and created something original, useful, and beautiful for themselves. Christian art from the time of the Roman Empire to Cimabue had made comparatively little progress; but a son of the Florentine fields was to start a revolution which should lead to the production of some of the most marvellous works which have proceeded from the hand of man. The idea that the fine arts are more successfully cultivated under the patronage of princes than under republican rule is very widespread, and is occasionally accepted almost as a dogma; but the history of Athens and of Florence teaches us without any doubt that the two most artistic epochs in the history of the world have had their rise in republics. ... Some writers, dazzled by the splendors of the Medici, entirely lose sight of the fact that both Dante and Petrarch were dead before the Medici were even heard of, and that the greatest works, at least in architecture, were all begun long before they were leaders in Florentine affairs. That family did much, yes very much, for the advancement of art and letters; but they did not do all or nearly all that was done in Florence. ... Though civil discord and foreign war were very frequent, Florentine life is nevertheless an illustration rather of what Herbert Spencer calls the commercial stage of civilization, than of the war-like period. Her citizens were above all things merchants, and were generally much more willing to pay to avoid a war than to conduct one. They strove for glory, not in feats of arms, but in literary contests and in peaceful emulation in the encouragement of learning and the fine arts."
W. B. Scaife, Florentine Life during the Renaissance, pages 16-19.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1405-1406. Purchase and conquest of Pisa.
See ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1409-1411. League against and war with Ladislas, King of Naples.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1386-1414.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1423-1447. War with the Duke of Milan. League with Venice, Naples, and other States.
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1433-1464. The ascendancy of Cosimo de' Medici.
In 1433, Cosmo, or Cosimo de' Medici, the son of Giovanni de' Medici, was the recognized leader of the opposition to the oligarchy controlled by Rinaldo de' Albizzi. Cosmo inherited from his father a large fortune and a business as a merchant and banker which he maintained and increased. "He lived splendidly; he was a great supporter of all literary men, and spent and distributed his great wealth amongst his fellow citizens. He was courteous and liberal, and was looked upon with almost unbounded respect and affection by a large party in the state. Rinaldo was bent upon his ruin, and in 1433, when he had a Signoria devoted to his party, he cited Cosmo before the Council, and shut him up in a tower of the Public Palace. Great excitement was caused by this violent step, and two days after the Signoria held a parliament of the people. The great bell of the city was tolled, and the people gathered round the Palace. Then the gates of the Palace were thrown open, and the Signoria, the Colleges of Arts, and the Gonfaloniere came forth, and asked the people if they would have a Balia. So a Balia was appointed, the names being proposed by the Signoria, to decide on the fate of Cosmo. At first it was proposed to kill him, but he was only banished, much against the will of Rinaldo, who knew that, if he lived, he would some day come back again. The next year the Signoria was favourable to him; another Balia was appointed; the party of the Albizzi was banished, and Cosmo was recalled. He was received with a greeting such as men give to a conqueror, and was hailed as the 'Father of his Country.' This triumphant return gave the Medici a power in the Republic which they never afterwards lost. The banished party fled to the court of the Duke of Milan, and stirred him up to war against the city."
W. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 6, section 5.
{1140}
"Cosimo de' Medici did not content himself with rendering his old opponents harmless; he took care also that none of his adherents should become too powerful and dangerous to him. Therefore, remarks Francesco Guicciardini, he retained the Signoria, as well as the taxes, in his hand, in order to be able to promote or oppress individuals at will. In other things the citizens enjoyed greater freedom and acted more according to their own pleasure than later, in the days of his grandson, for he let the reins hang loose if he was only sure of his own position. It was just in this that his great art lay, to guide things according to his will, and yet to make his partisans believe that he shared his authority with them. ... 'It is well known' remarks [Guicciardini] ... 'how much nobility and wealth were destroyed by Cosimo and his descendants by taxation. The Medici never allowed a fixed method and legal distribution, but always reserved to themselves the power of bearing heavily upon individuals according to their pleasure. ... He [Cosimo] maintained great reserve in his whole manner of life. For a quarter of a century he was the almost absolute director of the State, but he never assumed the show of his dignity. ... The ruler of the Florentine State remained citizen, agriculturist, and merchant. In his appearance and bearing there was nothing which distinguished him from others. ... He ruled the money market, not only in Italy, but throughout Europe. He had banks in all the western countries, and his experience and the excellent memory which never failed him, with his strong love of order, enabled him to guide everything from Florence, which he never quitted after 1438." The death of Cosimo occurred on the 1st day of August, 1464.
A. von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, book. 1, chapters 6 and 8 (volume 1).
"The last troubled days of the Florentine democracy had not proved quite unproductive of art. It was the time of Giotto's undisputed sway. Many works of which the 15th century gets the glory because it finished them were ordered and begun amidst the confusion and terrible agitation of the demagogy. ... Under the oligarchy, in the relative calm that came with oppression, a taste for art as well as for letters began to develop in Florence as elsewhere." But "Cosimo de' Medicis had rare good fortune. In his time, and under his rule, capricious chance united at Florence talents as numerous as they were diverse--the universal Brunelleschi, the polished and elegant Ghiberti, the rough and powerful Donatello, the suave Angelico, the masculine Masaccio. ... Cosimo lived long enough to see the collapse of the admirable talent which flourished upon the banks of the Arno, and soon spread throughout Italy, and to feel the void left by it. It is true his grandson saw a new harvest, but as inferior to that which preceded it, as it was to that which followed it."
F. T. Perrens, History of Florence, 1434-1531, book 1, chapter 6.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1450-1454. Alliance with Francesco Sforza, of Milan, and war with Venice, Naples, Savoy, and other States.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1458-1469. Lucas Pitti, and the building of the Pitti Palace. Piero de' Medici and the five agents of his tyranny.
Until 1455, Cosmo de' Medici shared the government of Florence in some degree with Neri Capponi, an able statesman, who had taken an eminent part in public affairs for many years--during the domination of the Albizzi, as well as afterwards.
"When Neri Capponi died, the council refused to call a new parliament to replace the balia, whose power expired on the 1st of July, 1455. ... The election of the signoria was again made fairly by lot, ... the contributions were again equitably apportioned,--the tribunals ceased to listen to the recommendations of those who, till then, had made a traffic of distributive justice." This recovery of freedom in Florence was enjoyed for about three years; but when, in 1458, Lucas Pitti, "rich, powerful, and bold," was named gonfalonier, Cosmo conspired with him to reimpose the yoke. "Pitti assembled the parliament; but not till he had filled all the avenues of the public square with soldiers or armed peasants. The people, menaced and trembling within this circle, consented to name a new balia, more violent and tyrannical than any of the preceding. It was composed of 352 persons, to whom was delegated all the power of the republic. They exiled a great number of the citizens who had shown the most attachment to liberty, and they even put some to death." When, in 1463, Cosmo's second son, Giovanni, on whom his hopes were centered, died, Lucas Pitti "looked on himself henceforth as the only chief of the state. It was about this time that he undertook the building of that magnificent palace which now [1832] forms the residence of the grand-dukes. The republican equality was not only offended by the splendour of this regal dwelling; but the construction of it afforded Pitti an occasion for marking his contempt of liberty and the laws. He made of this building an asylum for all fugitives from justice, whom no public officer dared pursue when once he [they?] took part in the labour. At the same time individuals, as well as communities, who would obtain some favour from the republic, knew that the only means of being heard was to offer Lucas Pitti some precious wood or marble to be employed in the construction of his palace. When Cosmo de' Medici died, at his country-house of Careggi, on the 1st of August, 1464, Lucas Pitti felt himself released from the control imposed by the virtue and moderation of that great citizen. ... His [Cosmo's] son, Pietro de' Medici, then 48 years of age, supposed that he should succeed to the administration of the republic, as he had succeeded to the wealth of his father, by hereditary right: but the state of his health did not admit of his attending regularly to business, or of his inspiring his rivals with much fear. To diminish the weight of affairs which oppressed him, he resolved on withdrawing a part of his immense fortune from commerce; recalling all his loans made in partnership with other merchants; and laying out this money in land. But this unexpected demand of considerable capital occasioned a fatal shock to the commerce of Florence; at the same time that it alienated all the debtors of the house of Medici, and deprived it of much of its popularity. The death of Sforza, also, which took place on the 8th of March, 1466, deprived the Medicean party of its firmest support abroad. ... The friends of liberty at Florence soon perceived that Lucas Pitti and Pietro de' Medici no longer agreed together; and they recovered courage when the latter proposed to the council the calling of a parliament, in order to renew the balia, the power of which expired on the 1st of September, 1465; his proposition was rejected. {1141} The magistracy began again to be drawn by lot from among the members of the party victorious in 1434. This return of liberty, however, was but of short duration. Pitti and Medici were reconciled: they agreed to call a parliament, and to direct it in concert; to intimidate it, they surrounded it with foreign troops. But Medici, on the nomination of the balia, on the 2d of September, 1466, found means of admitting his own partisans only, and excluding all those of Lucas Pitti. The citizens who had shown any zeal for liberty were all exiled. ... Lucas Pitti ruined himself in building his palace. His talents were judged to bear no proportion to his ambition: the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici, equally detested him; and he remained deprived of all power in a city which he had so largely contributed to enslave. Italy became filled with Florentine emigrants: every revolution, even every convocation of parliament, was followed by the exile of many citizens. ... At Florence, the citizens who escaped proscription trembled to see despotism established in their republic; but the lower orders were in general contented, and made no attempt to second Bartolomeo Coleoni, when he entered Tuscany, in 1467, at the head of the Florentine emigrants, who had taken him into their pay. Commerce prospered; manufactures were carried on with great activity; high wages supported in comfort all who lived by their labour; and the Medici entertained them with shows and festivals, keeping them in a sort of perpetual carnival, amidst which the people soon lost all thought of liberty. Pietro de' Medici was always in too bad a state of health to exercise in person the sovereignty he had usurped over his country; he left it to five or six citizens, who reigned in his name. ... They not only transacted all business, but appropriated to themselves all the profit; they sold their influence and credit; they gratified their cupidity or their vengeance; but they took care not to act in their own names, or to pledge their own responsibility; they left that to the house of Medici. Pietro, during the latter months of his life, perceived the disorder and corruption of his agents. He was afflicted to see his memory thus stained, and he addressed them the severest reprimands; he even entered into correspondence with the emigrants, whom he thought of recalling, when he died, on the 2d of December, 1469. His two sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, the elder of whom was not 21 years of age, ... given up to all the pleasures of their age, had yet no ambition. The power of the state remained in the hands of the five citizens who had exercised it under Pietro."
J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 11.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492. The conspiracy of the Pazzi. The government of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The death of liberty. The golden age of letters and art.
"Lorenzo inherited his grandfather's political sagacity and far surpassed him in talent and literary culture. In many respects too he was a very different man. Cosimo never left his business office; Lorenzo neglected it, and had so little commercial aptitude that he was obliged to retire from business, in order not to lose his abundant patrimony. Cosimo was frugal in his personal expenses and lent freely to others; Lorenzo loved splendid living, and thus gained the title of the Magnificent; he spent immoderately for the advancement of literary men; he gave himself up to dissipation which ruined his health and shortened his days. His manner of living reduced him to such straits, that he had to sell some of his possessions and obtain money from his friends. Nor did this suffice; for he even meddled with the public money, a thing that had never happened in Cosimo's time. Very often, in his greed of unlawful gain, he had the Florentine armies paid by his own bank; he also appropriated the sums collected in the Monte Comune or treasury of the public debt, and those in the Monte delle Fanciulle where were marriage portions accumulated by private savings--money hitherto held sacred by all. Stimulated by the same greed, he, in the year 1472 joined the Florentine contractors for the wealthy alum mines of Volterra, at the moment in which that city was on the verge of rebellion in order to free itself from a contract which it deemed unjust. And Lorenzo, with the weight of his authority, pushed matters to such a point that war broke out, soon to be followed by a most cruel sack of the unhappy city, a very unusual event in Tuscany. For all this he was universally blamed. But he was excessively haughty and cared for no man; he would tolerate no equals, would be first in everything--even in games. He interfered in all matters, even in private concerns and in marriages: nothing could take place without his consent. In overthrowing the powerful and exalting men of low condition, he showed none of the care and precaution so uniformly observed by Cosimo. It is not then surprising if his enemies increased so fast that the formidable conspiracy of the Pazzi broke out on the 26th April 1478. In this plot, hatched in the Vatican itself where Sixtus IV. was Lorenzo's determined enemy, many of the mightiest Florentine families took part. In the cathedral, at the moment of the elevation of the Host, the conspirators' daggers were unsheathed. Giuliano dei Medici was stabbed to death, but Lorenzo defended himself with his sword and saved his own life. The tumult was so great that it seemed as though the walls of the church were shaken. The populace rose to the cry of 'Palle! Palle!' the Medici watchword, and the enemies of the Medici were slaughtered in the streets or hung from the windows of the Palazzo Veechio. There, among others, were seen the dangling corpses of Archbishop Salviati and of Francesco Pazzi, who in their last struggles had gripped each other with their teeth and remained thus for some time. More than seventy persons perished on that day, and Lorenzo, taking advantage of the opportunity, pushed matters to extremity by his confiscations, banishments, and sentences of death. Thereby his power would have been infinitely increased if Pope Sixtus IV., blinded by rage, had not been induced to excommunicate Florence, and make war against it, in conjunction with Ferdinand of Aragon. On this Lorenzo, without losing a moment, went straight to Naples, and made the king understand how much better it served his interests that Florence should have but one ruler instead of a republican government, always liable to change and certainly never friendly to Naples. So he returned with peace re-established and boundless authority and popularity. Now indeed he might have called himself lord of the city, and it must have seemed easy to him to destroy the republican government altogether. {1142} With his pride and ambition it is certain that he had an intense desire to stand on the same level with the other princes and tyrants of Italy; the more so as at that moment success seemed entirely within his grasp. But Lorenzo showed that his political shrewdness was not to be blinded by prosperity, and knowing Florence well, he remained firm to the traditional policy of his house, that of dominating the Republic, while apparently respecting it. He was well determined to render his power solid and durable; but to that end he had recourse to a most ingenious reform, by means of which, without abandoning the old road, he thoroughly succeeded in his object. In place of the usual five-yearly Balia, he instituted, in 1480, the Council of Seventy, which renewed itself and was like a permanent Balia with still wider power. This, composed of men entirely devoted to his cause, secured the government to him forever. By this Council, say the chroniclers of the time, liberty was wholly buried and undone, but certainly the most important affairs of the State were carried on in it by intelligent and cultivated men, who largely promoted its material prosperity. Florence still called itself a republic, nominally the old institutions were still in existence, but all this seemed and was nothing but an empty mockery. Lorenzo, absolute lord of all, might certainly be called a tyrant, surrounded by lackeys and courtiers. ... Yet he dazzled all men by the splendour of his rule, so that [Guicciardini] observes, that though Lorenzo was a tyrant, 'it would be impossible to imagine a better and more pleasing tyrant.' Industry, commerce, public works had all received a mighty impulse. In no city in the world had the civil equality of modern States reached the degree to which it had attained not merely in Florence itself, but in its whole territory and throughout all Tuscany. Administration and secular justice proceeded regularly enough in ordinary cases, crime was diminished, and, above all, literary culture had become a substantial element of the new State. Learned men were employed in public offices, and from Florence spread a light that illuminated the world. ... But Lorenzo's policy could found nothing that was permanent. Unrivalled as a model of sagacity and prudence, it promoted in Florence the development of all the new elements of which modern society was to be the outcome, without succeeding in fusing them together; for his was a policy of equivocation and deceit, directed by a man of much genius, who had no higher aim than his own interest and that of his family, to which he never hesitated to sacrifice the interests of his people."
P. Villari, Machiavelli and his Times, chapter 2, section 2 (volume 1).
"The state of Florence at this period was very remarkable. The most independent and tumultuous of towns was spellbound under the sway of Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Cosimo who built San Marco; and scarcely seemed even to recollect its freedom, so absorbed was it in the present advantages conferred by 'a strong government,' and solaced by shows, entertainments, festivals, pomp, and display of all kinds. It was the very height of that classic revival so famous in the later history of the world, and the higher classes of society, having shaken themselves apart with graceful contempt from the lower, had begun to frame their lives according to a pagan model, leaving the other and much bigger half of the world to pursue its superstitions undisturbed. Florence was as near a pagan city as it was possible for its rulers to make it. Its intellectual existence was entirely given up to the past; its days were spent in that worship of antiquity which has no power of discrimination, and deifies not only the wisdom but the trivialities of its golden epoch. Lorenzo reigned in the midst of a lettered crowd of classic parasites and flatterers, writing poems which his courtiers found better than Alighieri's, and surrounding himself with those eloquent slaves who make a prince's name more famous than arms or victories, and who have still left a prejudice in the minds of all literature-loving people in favour of their patron. A man of superb health and physical power, who can give himself up to debauch all night without interfering with his power of working all day, and whose mind is so versatile that he can sack a town one morning and discourse upon the beauties of Plato the next, and weave joyous ballads through both occupations--gives his flatterers reason when they applaud him. The few righteous men in the city, the citizens who still thought of Florence above all, kept apart, overwhelmed by the tide which ran in favour of that leading citizen of Florence, who had gained the control of the once high-spirited and freedom-loving people. Society had never been more dissolute, more selfish, or more utterly deprived of any higher aim. Barren scholarship, busy over grammatical questions, and elegant philosophy, snipping and piecing its logical systems, formed the top dressing to that half-brutal, half-superstitious ignorance which in such communities is the general portion of the poor. The dilettante world dreamed hazily of a restoration of the worship of the pagan gods; Cardinal Bembo bade his friend beware of reading St. Paul's epistles, lest their barbarous style should corrupt his taste; and even such a man as Pico della Mirandola declared the 'Divina Commedia' to be inferior to the 'Canti Carnascialeschi' of Lorenzo de' Medici. ... Thus limited intellectually, the age of Lorenzo was still more hopeless morally, full of debauchery, cruelty, and corruption, violating oaths, betraying trusts, believing in nothing but Greek manuscripts, coins, and statues, caring for nothing but pleasure. This was the world in which Savonarola found himself."
Mrs. Oliphant, The Makers of Florence, chapter 9.
"Terrible municipal enmities had produced so much evil as to relax ancient republican energy. After so much destruction repose was necessary. To antique sobriety and gravity succeed love of pleasure and the quest of luxury. The belligerent class of great nobles were expelled and the energetic class of artisans crushed. Bourgeois rulers were to rule, and to rule tranquilly. Like the Medicis, their chiefs, they manufacture, trade, bank and make fortunes in order to expend them in intellectual fashion. War no longer fastens its cares upon them, as formerly, with a bitter and tragic grasp; they manage it through the paid bands of condottieri, and these as cunning traffickers, reduce it to cavalcades; when they slaughter each other it is by mistake; historians cite battles in which three, and sometimes only one soldier remains on the field. Diplomacy takes the place of force, and the mind expands as character weakens. Through this mitigation of war and through the establishment of principalities or of local tyrannies, it seems that Italy, like the great European monarchies, had just attained to its equilibrium. {1143} Peace is partially established and the useful arts germinate in all directions upon an improved social soil like a good harvest on a cleared and well-ploughed field. The peasant is no longer a serf of the glebe, but a metayer; he nominates his own municipal magistrates, possesses arms and a communal treasury; he lives in enclosed bourgs, the houses of which, built of stone and cement, are large, convenient, and often elegant. Near Florence he erects walls, and near Lucca he constructs turf terraces in order to favor cultivation. Lombardy has its irrigations and rotation of crops; entire districts, now so many deserts around Lombardy and Rome, are still inhabited and richly productive. In the upper class the bourgeois and the noble labor since the chiefs of Florence are hereditary bankers and commercial interests are not endangered. Marble quarries are worked at Carrara, and foundry fires are lighted in the Maremmes. We find in the cities manufactories of silk, glass, paper, books, flax, wool and hemp; Italy alone produces as much as all Europe and furnishes to it all its luxuries. Thus diffused commerce and industry are not servile occupations tending to narrow or debase the mind. A great merchant is a pacific general, whose mind expands in contact with men and things. Like a military chieftain he organizes expeditions and enterprises and makes discoveries. ... The Medicis possess sixteen banking-houses in Europe; they bind together through their business Russia and Spain, Scotland and Syria; they possess mines of alum throughout Italy, paying to the Pope for one of them a hundred thousand florins per annum; they entertain at their court representatives of all the powers of Europe and become the councillors and moderators of all Italy. In a small state like Florence, and in a country without a national army like Italy, such an influence becomes ascendant in and through itself; a control over private fortunes leads to a management of the public funds, and without striking a blow or using violence, a private individual finds himself director of the state. ... These banking magistrates are liberal as well as capable. In thirty-seven years the ancestors of Lorenzo expend six hundred and sixty thousand florins in works of charity and of public utility. Lorenzo himself is a citizen of the antique stamp, almost a Pericles, capable of rushing into the arms of his enemy, the king of Naples, in order to avert, through personal seductions and eloquence, a war which menaces the safety of his country. His private fortune is a sort of public treasury, and his palace a second hotel-de-ville. He entertains the learned, aids them with his purse, makes friends of them, corresponds with them, defrays the expenses of editions of their works, purchases manuscripts, statues and medals, patronizes promising young artists, opens to them his gardens, his collections, his house and his table, and with that cordial familiarity and that openness, sincerity and simplicity of heart which place the protected on a footing of equality with the protector as man to man and not as an inferior in relation to a superior. This is the representative man whom his contemporaries all accept as the accomplished man of the century, no longer a Farinata or an Alighieri of ancient Florence, a spirit rigid, exalted and militant to its utmost capacity, but a balanced, moderate and cultivated genius, one who, through the genial sway of his serene and beneficent intellect, binds up into one sheaf all talents and all beauties. It is a pleasure to see them expanding around him. On the one hand writers are restoring and, on the other, constructing. From the time of Petrarch Greek and Latin manuscripts are sought for, and now they are to be exhumed in the convents of Italy, Switzerland, Germany and France. They are deciphered and restored with the aid of the savants of Constantinople. A decade of Livy or a treatise by Cicero, is a precious gift solicited by princes; some learned man passes ten years of travel in ransacking distant libraries in order to find a lost book of Tacitus, while the sixteen authors rescued from oblivion by the Poggios are counted as so many titles to immortal fame. ... Style again becomes noble and at the same time clear, and the health, joy and serenity diffused through antique life re-enters the human mind with the harmonious proportions of language and the measured graces of diction. From refined language they pass to vulgar language, and the Italian is born by the side of the Latin. ... Here in the restored paganism, shines out Epicurean gaiety, a determination to enjoy at any and all hours, and that instinct for pleasure which a grave philosophy and political sobriety had thus far tempered and restrained. With Pulci, Berni, Bibiena, Ariosto, Bandelli, Aretino, and so many others, we soon see the advent of voluptuous debauchery and open skepticism, and later a cynical unbounded licentiousness. These joyous and refined civilizations based on a worship of pleasure and intellectuality--Greece of the fourth century, Provence of the twelfth, and Italy of the sixteenth--were not enduring. Man in these lacks some checks. After sudden outbursts of genius and creativeness he wanders away in the direction of license and egotism; the degenerate artist and thinker makes room for the sophist and the dilettant. But in this transient brilliancy his beauty was charming. ... It is in this world, again become pagan, that painting revives, and the new tastes she is to gratify show beforehand the road she is to follow; henceforth she is to decorate the houses of rich merchants who love antiquity and who desire to live daintily."
H. Taine, Italy, Florence and Venice, book 3, chapter 2.
ALSO IN: _A. von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici._
_W. Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo de' Medici._
F. T. Perrens, History of Florence, 1434-1531, book 2, chapters 2-6.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1490-1498. The preaching of Savonarola. The coming of Charles VII. of France, and expulsion of the Medici. The great religious revival and Christianization of the Commonwealth. Conflict with the Church and fall of Savonarola.
Girolamo, or Jerome Savonarola, a Dominican monk, born at Ferrara in 1452, educated to be a physician, but led by early disgust with the world to renounce his intended profession and give himself to the religious life, was sent to the convent of St. Mark, in Florence, in 1490, when he had reached the age of 37. "He began his career as a reader and lecturer, and his lectures, though only intended for novices, drew a large audience. He then lectured in the garden of the cloister, under a large rosebush, where many intellectual men came from the city to hear him. {1144} At length he began to preach in the Church of St. Mark's, and his subject was the Apocalypse, out of which he predicted the restoration of the Church in Italy, which he declared God would bring about by a severe visitation. Its influence upon his hearers was overpowering; there was no room in the church for the brethren; his fame spread abroad, and he was next appointed to preach the sermons in the cathedral. ... Amid the luxurious, æsthetic, semi-pagan life of Florence, in the ears of the rich citizens, the licentious youth, the learned Platonists, he denounced the revival of paganism, the corruptions of the Church; the ignorance and consequent slavery of the people, and declared that God would visit Italy with some terrible punishment, and that it would soon come. He spoke severe words about the priests, declared to the people that the Scriptures were the only guides to salvation; that salvation did not come from external works, as the Church taught, but from faith in Christ, from giving up the heart to Him, and if He forgave sin, there was no need for any other absolution. Scarcely had he been a year in Florence when he was made prior of the monastery. There was a custom in vogue, a relic of the old times, for every new prior to go to the king or ruler and ask his favour. This homage was then due to Lorenzo di Medici, but Savonarola declared he would never submit to it, saying--'From whom have I received my office, from God or Lorenzo? Let us pray for grace to the Highest.' Lorenzo passed over this slight, being anxious to acquire the friendship of one whom he clearly saw would exert great influence over the Florentines. Burlamachi, his contemporary biographer, tells us that Lorenzo tried all kinds of plans to win the friendship of Savonarola: he attended the church of St. Mark; listened to his sermons; gave large sums of money to him for the poor; loitered in the garden to attract his attention--but with little success. Savonarola treated him with respect, gave his money away to the poor, but avoided him and denounced him. Another plan was tried: five distinguished men waited on Savonarola, and begged him to spare such elevated persons in his sermons, to treat more of generalities; and not to foretell the future. They received a prophetic answer: 'Go tell your master, Lorenzo, to repent of his sins, or God will punish him and his. Does he threaten me with banishment? Well, I am but a stranger, and he is the first citizen in Florence, but let him know that I shall remain and he must soon depart!' What happened shortly after caused the people to begin to regard Savonarola as a prophet, and won him that terrible fame which caused his downfall. ... Lorenzo died on the 8th April, 1492, and from that time Savonarola becomes more prominent. He directed his exertions to the accomplishment of three objects--the reformation of his monastery, the reformation of the Florentine State, and the reformation of the Church. He changed the whole character of his monastery. ... Then he proceeded to State matters, and in this step we come to the problem of his life--was he a prophet or a fanatic? Let the facts speak for themselves. Lorenzo was succeeded by his son Pietro, who was vastly inferior to his father in learning and statesmanship. His only idea appears to have been a desire to unite Florence and Naples into one principality; this created for him many enemies, and men began to fancy that the great house of Medici would terminate with him. So, it appears, thought Savonarola, and announced the fact at first privately amongst his friends; in a short time, however, he began to prophecy their downfall publicly. During the years 1492 and 1494, he was actively engaged in preaching. In Advent of the former year, he began his thirteen sermons upon Noah's Ark. In 1493 he preached the Lent sermons at Bologna, and upon his return he began preaching in the cathedral. In these sermons he predicted the approaching fall of the State to the astonishment of all his hearers, who had not the slightest apprehension of danger: 'The Lord has declared that His sword shall come upon the land swiftly and soon.' This was the burden of a sermon preached on Advent Sunday, 1492. At the close of 1493, and as the new year approached, he spoke out more plainly and definitely. He declared that one should come over the Alps who was called, like Cyrus, of whom Jeremiah wrote; and he should, sword in hand, wreak vengeance upon the tyrants of Italy. ... His preaching had always exerted a marvellous influence upon people, as we shall hereafter note, but they could not understand the cause of these predictions. The city was at peace; gay and joyous as usual, and no fear was entertained; but towards the end of the year came the fulfilment. Charles VIII., King of France, called into Italy by Duke Ludovico of Milan, came over the Alps with an immense army, took Naples, and advanced on Florence. The expulsion of the Medici from Florence soon followed: Pietro, being captured, signed an agreement to deliver up all his strongholds to Charles VIII., and to pay him 200,000 ducats.
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
The utmost indignation seized the Florentines when they heard of this treaty. The Signori sent heralds to Charles, to negotiate for milder terms, and their chief was Savonarola, who addressed the King like a prophet, begged him to take pity on Italy, and save her. His words had the desired effect. Charles made more easy terms, and left it to the Florentine people to settle their own State. In the meantime Pietro returned, but he found Florence in the greatest excitement--the royal palace was closed; stones were thrown at him; he summoned his guards, but the people took to arms, and he was compelled to fly to his brothers Giovanni and Giuliano. The Signori declared them to be traitors, and set a price upon their heads. Their palace and its treasures fell into the hands of the people. The friends of the Medici, however, were not all extinct; and as a discussion arose which was likely to lead to a struggle, Savonarola summoned the people to meet under the dome of St. Mark. ... In fact, the formation of the new State fell upon Savonarola, for the people looked up to him as an inspired prophet. He proposed that 3,200 citizens should form themselves into a general council. Then they drew lots for a third part, who for six months were to act together as an executive body and represent the general council, another one-third for the next three months, and so on; so that every citizen had his turn in the council every eighteen months. They ultimately found it convenient to reduce the number to 80--in fact, Savonarola's Democracy was rapidly becoming oligarchic. Each of these 80 representatives was to be 40 years of age; they voted with black and white beans, six being a legal majority. {1145} But the Chief of the State was to be Christ; He was to be the new monarch. His next step was to induce them to proclaim a general amnesty, in which he succeeded only through vigorously preaching to them that forgiveness was sweeter than vengeance--that freedom and peace were more loving than strife and hatred. ... He was now at the height of his power; his voice ruled the State; he is the only instance in Europe of a monk openly leading a republic. The people regarded him as something more than human: they knew of his nights spent in prayer; of his long fasts; of his unbounded charity. ... Few preachers ever exerted such influence upon the minds of crowds, such a vitalizing influence; he changed the whole character of Florentine society. Libertines abandoned their vices; the theatres and taverns were empty; there was no card playing, nor dice throwing; the love of fasting grew so general, that meat could not be sold; the city of Florence was God's city, and its government a Theocracy. There was a custom in Florence, during Carnival time, for the children to go from house to house and bid people give up their cherished pleasures; and so great was the enthusiasm at this period that people gave up their cards, their dice and backgammon boards, the ladies their perfumed waters, veils, paint-pots, false hair, musical instruments, harps, lutes, licentious tales, especially those of Boccaccio, dream books, romances, and popular songs. All this booty was gathered together in a heap in the market place, the people assembled, the Signori took their places, and children clothed in white, with olive branches on their heads, received from them the burning torches, and set fire to the pile amid the blast of trumpets and chant of psalms, which were continued till the whole was consumed. ... His fame had now reached other countries; foreigners visited Florence solely for the purpose of seeing and hearing him. The Sultan of Turkey allowed his sermons to be translated and circulated in his dominions. But in the midst of his prosperity his enemies were not idle: as he progressed their jealousy increased: his preaching displeased them, terrified them, and amongst these the most bitter and virulent were the young sons of the upper classes: they called his followers 'howlers' (piagnoni), and so raged against him that they gained the name, now immortalised in history, of the Arrabiati (the furies): this party was increased by the old friends of the Medici, who called him a rebel and leader of the lower classes. Dolfo Spini, a young man of position and wealth, commanded this party, and used every effort to destroy the reputation of Savonarola, to incite the people against him, and to ruin him. They bore the name of 'Compagnacci'; they wrote satires about the Piagnoni; they circulated slanders about the monk who was making Florence the laughing stock of Europe: but Savonarola went on his way indifferent to the signs already manifesting themselves amongst his countrymen, ever most sensitive to ridicule. He also strove to reform the Church: he delineated the Apostolic Church as a model upon which he would build up that of Florence. ... By this time, the intelligence of his doings, and the gist of his preaching and writing, which had been carefully transmitted to Rome by his enemies, began to attract the attention of the Pope, Alexander VI., who tried what had frequently proved an infallible remedy, and offered Savonarola a Cardinal's hat, which he at once refused. He was then invited to Rome, but thought it prudent to excuse himself. When the controversy between him and the Pope appeared to approach a crisis, Savonarola took a step which somewhat hurried the catastrophe. He wrote to the Kings of France and Spain, and the Emperor of Germany, to call a General Council to take into consideration the Reform of the Church. One of these letters reached the Pope, through a spy of Duke Ludovico Moro, of Milan, whom Savonarola had denounced. The result was the issue of a Breve (October, 1496), which forbade him to preach. The Pope then ordered the Congregation of St. Mark to be broken up and amalgamated with another. For a time Savonarola, at the advice of his friends, remained quiet; but at this last step, to break up the institution he had established, he was aroused to action. He denounced Rome as the source of all the poison which was undermining the constitution of the Church; declared that its evil fame stunk in men's nostrils. The Pope then applied to the Signori to deliver up this enemy of the Church, but to no purpose. The Franciscans were ordered to preach against him, but they made no impression. Then came the last thunderbolt: a Bann was issued (12th May, 1497), which was announced by the Franciscans. During the time of his suspension and his excommunication, many things happened which tended to his downfall, although his friends gathered round him, the rapid change of ministry brought in turn friends of the Medici to the helm; they introduced the young, Compagnacci into the Council, and gradually his enemies were increasing in the Government to a strong party." The fickle Florentine mob now took sides with them against the monk whom it had recently adored, and on the 7th of April, 1498, in the midst of a raging tumult, Savonarola was taken into custody by the Signori of the city. With the assent of the Pope, he was subjected seven times to torture upon the rack, to force from him a recantation of all that he had taught and preached, and on the 23d of May he was hanged and burned, in company with two of his disciples.
_O. T. Hill, Introduction to Savonarola's "Triumph of the Cross."_
ALSO IN: _P. Villari, History of Savonarola and his times._
_Mrs. Oliphant, The Makers of Florence._
_H. H. Milman, Savonarola, Erasmus, and other Essays._
_George Eliot, Romola._
H. Grimm, Life of Michael Angelo, volume 1, chapters 3-4.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1494-1509. The French deliverance of Pisa and the long war of reconquest.
See PISA: A. D. 1404-1509.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1498-1500. Threatened by the Medici, on one side, and Cæsar Borgia on the other. A new division of parties.
"After the death of Savonarola things changed with such a degree of rapidity that the Arrabbiati had not time to consider in what manner they could restrict the government; but they soon became convinced that the only salvation for the Republic was to adopt the course which had been recommended by the Friar. Piero and Giuliano dei Medici were in fact already in the neighbourhood of Florence, supported by a powerful Venetian army. It became, therefore, absolutely necessary for the Arrabbiati to unite with the Piagnoni, in order to defend themselves against so many dangers and so many enemies. {1146} By great good fortune, the Duke of Milan, from jealousy of the Venetians, came to their assistance to ward off the danger; but who could trust to his friendship--who could place any reliance on his fidelity? As to Alexander Borgia, he who had held out such great hopes, and had made so many promises, in order to get Savonarola put to death, no sooner was his object attained than he gave full sway to his unbridled passions. It seemed as if the death of the poor Friar had released both the Pope and his son, Duke Valentino, from all restraints upon their lusts and ambition. The Pope formed intimate alliances with Turks and Jews, a thing hitherto unheard of. He, in one year, set up twelve cardinals' hats for sale. The history of the incests and murders of the family of Borgia is too well known to render it necessary for us to enter into any detailed account of them here. The great object of the Pope was to form a State for his son in the Romagna; and so great was the ambition of Duke Valentino, that he contemplated extending his power over the whole of Italy, Tuscany being the first part he meant to seize upon. With that view he was always endeavouring to create new dangers to the Republic; at one time he caused Arezzo to rise against it; at another time he threatened to bring back Piero de' Medici; and he was continually ravaging their territory. The consequence was, that the Florentines were obliged to grant him an annual subsidy of 36,000 ducats, under the name of condotta (military pay); but even that did not restrain him from every now and then, under various pretexts, overrunning and laying waste their territory. Thus did Alexander Borgia fulfil those promises to the Republic by which they had been induced to murder Savonarola. The Arrabbiati were at length convinced that to defend themselves against the Medici and Borgia, their only course was to cultivate the alliance with France, and unite in good faith with the Piagnoni. Thus they completely adopted the line of policy which Savonarola had advised; and the consequence was, that their affairs got order and their exertions were attended with a success far beyond what could have been anticipated."
P. Villari, History of Savonarola and of his Times, volume 2, conclusion.
"A new division of parties may be said to have taken place under the three denominations of 'Palleschi' [a name derived from the watchword of the Mediceans, 'palle, palle,' which alluded to the well-known balls in the coat of arms of the Medici family], 'Ottimati,' and 'Popolani.' The first ... were for the Medici and themselves. ... The 'Ottomati' were in eager search for a sort of visionary government where a few of the noblest blood, the most illustrious connexions and the greatest riches, were to rule Florence without any regard to the Medici. ... The Popolani, who formed the great majority, loved civic liberty, therefore were constantly watching the Medici and other potent and ambitious men."
H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book. 2, chapter 8 (volume 4).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569. Ten years under Piero Soderini. Restoration of the Medici and their second expulsion. Siege of the city by the imperial army. Final surrender to Medicean tyranny. Creation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
"In 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold office for life--should be in fact a Doge. To this important post of permanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his hands were placed the chief affairs of the republic. ... During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, Piero Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of great prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreign policy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. Meanwhile the young princes of the house of Medici had grown to manhood in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was 37 in 1512. His brother Giuliano was 33. Both of these men were better fitted than their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. Giovanni, in particular, had inherited no small portion of the Medicean craft. During the troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very quiet, cementing his connection with powerful men in Rome, but making no effort to regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking a decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the French were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan [see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513]; the Spanish troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the country. Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici entered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medici to be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, resolved to resist to the uttermost. ... Yet their courage failed on August 29th, when news reached them of the capture and the sack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant from the walls of Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, the richness of its gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gem of cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now impossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering. Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in bloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild and voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand for him at the door of Florence. The Florentines were paralysed with terror. They deposed Soderini and received the Medici. Giovanni and Giuliano entered their devastated palace in the Via Larga, abolished the Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as they listed. ... It is not likely that they would have succeeded in maintaining their authority--for they were poor and ill-supported by friends outside the city--except for one most lucky circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medici to the Papacy in 1513. The creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. ... Florence shared in the general rejoicing. ... It seemed as though the Republic, swayed by him, might make herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her Guelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There was now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to govern the city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brother Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man of 21), occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For Lorenzo, Leo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received the French title of Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of Savoy. ... {1147} Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, was made cardinal. ... To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was committed the government of Florence. ... Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in her midst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact her master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. ... But this prosperity was no less brief than it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the chiefs of the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a bastard son, Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son, Alessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen of France. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no legitimate male descendants from the stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions of the Medici devolved upon three bastards,--on the Cardinal Giulio, and the two boys, Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a mulatto, his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities were the Medici reduced. ... Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. ... In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from which he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, and, by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be elected with the title of Clement VII." Then followed the strife of France and Spain--of Francis I. and Charles V.--for the possession of Italy, and the barbarous sack of Rome in 1527.
See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527, 1527, and 1527-1529.
"When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and forced the Cardinal Passerini [whom the Pope had appointed to act as his vicegerent in the government of Florence] to depart with the Medicean bastards from the city. ... The whole male population was enrolled in a militia. The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored upon the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. The name of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth--to such an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular imagination. The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege--Michel Angelo Buonarroti and Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts and ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden decision, because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with the Emperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to be marched on Florence. ... On September 4 [1529], the Prince of Orange appeared before the walls, and opened the memorable siege. It lasted eight months, at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, divided among themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines capitulated. ... The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of the Florentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but a flash in the pan--a final flare up of the dying lamp. ... What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, now the undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of Cività di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. Ippolito was made a cardinal." Ippolito was subsequently poisoned by Alessandro, and Alessandro was murdered by another kinsman, who suffered assassination in his turn. "When Alessandro was killed in 1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus the whole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, Queen of France [daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the son of Piero de' Medici], was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck root so firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of tyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo," a descendant from Lorenzo, brother of the Cosimo who founded the power of the House. "He it was who obtained [1569] the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope--a title confirmed by the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and transmitted through his heirs to the present century."
J. A. Symonds, Sketches and studies in Italy, chapter 5 (Florence and the Medici).
ALSO IN: H. Grimm, Life of Michael Angelo, chapters 8-15 (volumes 1-2).
T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 9, chapter 10, book 10 (volume 4).
H. E. Napier, Florentine History, volumes 4-5.
W. Roscoe, Life and Pontificate of Leo X, chapters 9-23 (volumes 1-2).
P. Villari, Machiavelli and his Times, volumes 3-4.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1803. Becomes the capital of the kingdom of Etruria.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1865. Made temporarily the capital of the kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.
----------FLORENCE: End----------
FLORIANUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 276.
FLORIDA: The aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APALACHES; MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY; SEMINOLES; TIMUQUANAN FAMILY.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1512. Discovery and Naming by Ponce de Leon.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1512.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542. The expeditions of Narvaez and Hernando de Soto. Wide Spanish application of the name Florida.
"The voyages of Garay [1519-1523] and Vasquez de Ayllon [1520-1526] threw new light on the discoveries of Ponce, and the general outline of the coasts of Florida became known to the Spaniards. Meanwhile, Cortes had conquered Mexico, and the fame of that iniquitous but magnificent exploit rang through all Spain. Many an impatient cavalier burned to achieve a kindred fortune. To the excited fancy of the Spaniards the unknown land of Florida seemed the seat of surpassing wealth, and Pamphilo de Narvaez essayed to possess himself of its fancied treasures. Landing on its shores [1528], and proclaiming destruction to the Indians unless they acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope and the Emperor, he advanced into the forests with 300 men. Nothing could exceed their sufferings. Nowhere could they find the gold they came to seek. The village of Appalache, where they hoped to gain a rich booty, offered nothing but a few mean wigwams. The horses gave out and the famished soldiers fed upon their flesh. {1148} The men sickened, and the Indians unceasingly harassed their march. At length, after 280 leagues of wandering, they found themselves on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and desperately put to sea in such crazy boats as their skill and means could construct. Cold, disease, famine, thirst, and the fury of the waves, melted them away. Narvaez himself perished, and of his wretched followers no more than four escaped, reaching by land, after years of vicissitude, the Christian settlements of New Spain. ... Cabeça de Vaca was one of the four who escaped, and, after living for years among the tribes of Mississippi, crossed the River Mississippi near Memphis, journeyed westward by the waters of the Arkansas and Red River to New Mexico and Chihuahua, thence to Cinaloa on the Gulf of California, and thence to Mexico. The narrative is one of the most remarkable of the early relations. ... The interior of the vast country then comprehended under the name of Florida still remained unexplored. ... Hernando de Soto ... companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru ... asked and obtained permission [1537] to conquer Florida. While this design was in agitation, Cabeça de Vaca, one of those who had survived the expedition of Narvaez, appeared in Spain, and for purposes of his own spread abroad the mischievous falsehood that Florida was the richest country yet discovered. De Soto's plans were embraced with enthusiasm. Nobles and gentlemen contended for the privilege of joining his standard; and, setting sail with an ample armament, he landed [May, 1539] at the Bay of Espiritu Santo, now Tampa Bay, in Florida, with 620 chosen men, a band as gallant and well appointed, as eager in purpose and audacious in hope, as ever trod the shores of the New World. ... The adventurers began their march. Their story has been often told. For month after month and year after year, the procession of priests and cavaliers, cross-bowmen, arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden with the baggage, still wandered on through wild and boundless wastes, lured hither and thither by the ignis-fatuus of their hopes. They traversed great portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, everywhere inflicting and enduring misery, but never approaching their phantom El Dorado. At length, in the third year of their journeying, they reached the banks of the Mississippi, 132 years before its second [or third?] discovery by Marquette. ... The Spaniards crossed over at a point above the mouth of the Arkansas. They advanced westward, but found no treasures,--nothing indeed but hardships, and an Indian enemy, furious, writes one of their officers, 'as mad dogs.' They heard of a country towards the north where maize could not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle devoured it. They penetrated so far that they entered the range of the roving prairie-tribes. ... Finding neither gold nor the South Sea, for both of which they had hoped, they returned to the banks of the Mississippi. De Soto ... fell into deep dejection, followed by an attack of fever, and soon after died miserably [May 21, 1542]. To preserve his body from the Indians his followers sunk it at midnight in the river, and the sullen waters of the Mississippi buried his ambition and his hopes. The adventurers were now, with few exceptions, disgusted with the enterprise, and longed only to escape from the scene of their miseries. After a vain attempt to reach Mexico by land, they again turned back to the Mississippi, and labored, with all the resources which their desperate necessity could suggest, to construct vessels in which they might make their way to some Christian settlement. ... Seven brigantines were finished and launched; and, trusting their lives on board these frail vessels, they descended the Mississippi, running the gauntlet between hostile tribes who fiercely attacked them. Reaching the Gulf, though not without the loss of eleven of their number, they made sail for the Spanish settlement on the River Panuco, where they arrived safely, and where the inhabitants met them with a cordial welcome. Three hundred and eleven men thus escaped with life, leaving behind them the bones of their comrades, strewn broadcast through the wilderness. De Soto's fate proved an insufficient warning, for those were still found who begged a fresh commission for the conquest of Florida; but the Emperor would not hear them. A more pacific enterprise was undertaken by Cancello [or Cancer], a Dominican monk, who with several brother-ecclesiastics undertook to convert the natives to the true faith, but was murdered in the attempt. ... Not a Spaniard had yet gained foothold in Florida. That name, as the Spaniards of that day understood it, comprehended the whole country extending from the Atlantic on the east to the longitude of New Mexico on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico and the River of Palms indefinitely northward towards the polar Sea. This vast territory was claimed by Spain in right of the discoveries of Columbus, the grant of the Pope, and the various expeditions mentioned above. England claimed it in light of the discoveries of Cabot, while France could advance no better title than might be derived from the voyage of Verrazano and vague traditions of earlier visits of Breton adventurers."
F. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, chapter 1.
ALSO IN: _T. Irving, Conquest of Florida by De Soto._
Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida; written by a Gentleman of Elvas (Hakluyt Society).
J. W. Monette, Discovery and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley, chapters 1-4.
J. G. Shea, Ancient Florida (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 2, chapter 4).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1562-1563. First colonizing attempt of the French Huguenots.
About the middle of the 16th century, certain of the Protestants of France began to turn their thoughts to the New World as a possible place of refuge from the persecutions they were suffering at home. "Some of the French sea-ports became strong-holds of the Huguenots. Their most prominent supporter, Coligny, was high admiral of France. These Huguenots looked toward the new countries as the proper field in which to secure a retreat from persecution, and to found a new religious commonwealth. Probably many of the French 'corsarios' following the track of the Portuguese and Spaniards to the West Indies and the coasts of Brazil, were Huguenots. ... The first scheme for a Protestant colony in the new world was suggested by Admiral Coligny in 1554, and intended for the coast of Brazil, to which an expedition, under Durand de Villegagnon, was sent with ships and colonists. This expedition arrived at the Bay of Rio de Janeiro in 1555, and founded there the first European settlement. {1149} It was followed the next year by another expedition. But the whole enterprise came to an end by divisions among the colonists, occasioned by the treacherous, despotic, and cruel proceedings of its commander, a reputed Catholic. The colony was finally subverted by the Portuguese, who, in 1560, sent out an armament against it, and took possession of the Bay of Rio de Janeiro. ... After the unfortunate end of the French enterprise to South America, Admiral Coligny, who may be styled the Raleigh of France, turned his attention to the eastern shores of North America; the whole of which had become known in France from the voyage of Verrazano, and the French expeditions to Canada and the Banks of Newfoundland." In February, 1562, an expedition, fitted out by Coligny, sailed from Havre de Grace, under Jean Ribault, with Réné de Laudonnière forming one of the company. Ribault arrived on the Florida coast in the neighborhood of the present harbor of St. Augustine, and thence sailed north. "At last, in about 32° 30' North he found an excellent broad and deep harbor, which he named Port Royal, which probably is the present Broad River, or Port Royal entrance. ... He found this port and the surrounding country so advantageous and of such 'singular beauty,' that he resolved to leave here a part of his men in a small fort. ... A pillar with the arms of France was therefore erected, and a fort constructed, furnished with cannon, ammunition, and provisions, and named 'Charlesfort.' Thirty volunteers were placed in it, and it became the second European settlement ever attempted upon the east coast of the United States. Its position was probably not far from the site of the present town of Beaufort, on Port Royal River. Having accomplished this, and made a certain captain, Albert de la Pieria, 'a soldier of great experience,' commander of Charlesfort, he took leave of his countrymen, and left Port Royal on the 11th day of June," arriving in France on the 20th of July. "On his arrival in France, Ribault found the country in a state of great commotion. The civil war between the Huguenots and the Catholics was raging, and neither the king nor the admiral had time to listen to Ribault's solicitations, to send relief to the settlers left in 'French Florida.' Those colonists remained, therefore, during the remainder of 1562, and the following winter, without assistance from France; and after many trials and sufferings, they were at last forced, in 1563, to abandon their settlement and the new country." Having constructed a ship, with great difficulty, they put to sea; but suffered horribly on the tedious voyage, from want of food and water, until they were rescued by an English vessel and taken to England.
J_. G. Kohl, History of the Discovery of Maine (Maine Historical Society Collection, 2d series, volume 1), chapter 11._
ALSO IN: F. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, chapter 3.
Father Charlevoix, History of New France; translated by J. G. Shea, book 3 (volume 1).
_T. E. V. Smith, Villegaignon (American Society of Church History, volume 3)._
FLORIDA: A. D. 1564-1565. The second Huguenot colony, and the cry in Spain against it.
"After the treacherous peace between Charles IX. and the Huguenots, Coligny renewed his solicitations for the colonization of Florida. The king gave consent; in 1564 three ships were conceded for the service; and Laudonnière, who, in the former voyage, had been upon the American coast, a man of great intelligence, though a seaman rather than a soldier, was appointed to lead forth the colony. ... A voyage of 60 days brought the fleet, by the way of the Canaries and the Antilles, to the shores of Florida in June. The harbor of Port Royal, rendered gloomy by recollections of misery, was avoided; and, after searching the coast, and discovering places which were so full of amenity that melancholy itself could not but change its humor as it gazed, the followers of Calvin planted themselves on the banks of the river May [now called the St. John's], near St. John's bluff. They sung a psalm of thanksgiving, and gathered courage from acts of devotion. The fort now erected was called Carolina. ... The French were hospitably welcomed by the natives; a monument, bearing the arms of France, was crowned with laurels, and its base encircled with baskets of corn. What need is there of minutely relating the simple manners of the red men, the dissensions of rival tribes, the largesses offered to the strangers to secure their protection or their alliance, the improvident prodigality with which careless soldiers wasted the supplies of food; the certain approach of scarcity; the gifts and the tribute levied from the Indians by entreaty, menace or force? By degrees the confidence of the red men was exhausted; they had welcomed powerful guests, who promised to become their benefactors, and who now robbed their humble granaries. But the worst evil in the new settlement was the character of the emigrants. Though patriotism and religious enthusiasm had prompted the expedition, the inferior class of the colonists was a motley group of dissolute men. Mutinies were frequent. The men were mad with the passion for sudden wealth; and in December a party, under the pretence of desiring to escape from famine, compelled Laudonnière to sign an order permitting their embarkation for New Spain. No sooner were they possessed of this apparent sanction of the chief than they began a career of piracy against the Spaniards. The act of crime and temerity was soon avenged. The pirate vessel was taken, and most of the men disposed of as prisoners or slaves. The few that escaped in a boat sought shelter at Fort Carolina, where Laudonnière sentenced the ringleaders to death. During these events the scarcity became extreme; and the friendship of the natives was forfeited by unprofitable severity. March of 1565 was gone, and there were no supplies from France; April passed away, and the expected recruits had not arrived; May brought nothing to sustain the hopes of the exiles, and they resolved to attempt a return to Europe. In August, Sir John Hawkins, the slave merchant, arrived from the West Indies. He came fresh from the sale of a cargo of Africans, whom he had kidnapped with signal ruthlessness; and he now displayed the most generous sympathy, not only furnishing a liberal supply of provisions, but relinquishing a vessel from his own fleet. The colony was on the point of embarking when sails were descried. Ribault had arrived to assume the command, bringing with him supplies of every kind, emigrants with their families, garden-seeds, implements of husbandry, and the various kinds of domestic animals. The French, now wild with joy, seemed about to acquire a home, and Calvinism to become fixed in the inviting regions of Florida. {1150} But Spain had never abandoned her claim to that territory, where, if she had not planted colonies, she had buried many hundreds of her bravest sons. ... There had appeared at the Spanish court a commander well fitted for reckless acts. Pedro Melendez [or Menendez] de Aviles ... had acquired wealth in Spanish America, which was no school of benevolence, and his conduct there had provoked an inquiry, which, after a long arrest, ended in his conviction. ... Philip II. suggested the conquest and colonization of Florida; and in May, 1565, a compact was framed and confirmed by which Melendez, who desired an opportunity to retrieve his honor, was constituted the hereditary governor of a territory of almost unlimited extent. On his part he stipulated, at his own cost, in the following May, to invade Florida with 500 men; to complete its conquest within three years; to explore its currents and channels, the dangers of its coasts, and the depth of its havens; to establish a colony of at least 500 persons, of whom 100 should be married men; with 12 ecclesiastics, besides four Jesuits. ... Meantime, news arrived, as the French writers assert through the treachery of the court of France, that the Huguenots had made a plantation in Florida, and that Ribault was preparing to set sail with re-enforcements. The cry was raised that the heretics must be extirpated; and Melendez readily obtained the forces which he required."
_G. Bancroft, History of the United States (author's last revision), part 1, chapter 4._
ALSO IN: G. R. Fairbanks, History of Florida, chapters 7-8.
W. G. Simms, History of South Carolina, book 1.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1565. The Spanish capture of Fort Caroline and massacre of the Huguenots. Founding of St. Augustine.
"The expedition under Menendez consisted of an army of 2,600 soldiers and officers. He sailed straight for Florida, intending to attack Fort Caroline with no delay. In fact he sighted the mouth of the port [Sept. 4, 1565] two months after starting; but, considering the position occupied by the French ships, he judged it prudent to defer the attack, and make it, if possible, from the land. A council of war was held in Fort Caroline, presided over by Ribaut. Laudonnière proposed that, while Ribaut held the fort with the ships, he, with his old soldiers, who knew the country well, aided by the Floridans as auxiliaries, should engage the Spaniards in the woods, and harass them by perpetual combats in labyrinths to which they were wholly unaccustomed. The advice was good, but it was not followed. Ribaut proposed to follow the Spanish fleet with his own--lighter and more easily handled--fall on the enemy when the soldiers were all disembarked, and, after taking and burning the ships, to attack the army. In the face of remonstrances from all the officers, he persisted in this project. Disaster followed the attempt. A violent gale arose. The French ships were wrecked upon the Floridan coast; the men lost their arms, their powder, and their clothes; they escaped with their bare lives. There was no longer the question of conquering the Spaniards, but of saving themselves. The garrison of Caroline consisted of 150 soldiers, of whom 40 were sick. The rest of the colony was composed of sick and wounded Protestant ministers, workmen, royal commissioners,' and so forth. Laudonnière was in command. They awaited the attack for several days, yet the Spaniards came not. They were wading miserably through the marshes in the forests, under tropical rains, discouraged, and out of heart." But when, at length, the exhausted and despairing Spaniards, toiling through the marshes, from St. Augustine, where they had landed and established their settlement, reached the French fort (Sept. 20), "there was actually no watch on the ramparts. Three companies of Spaniards simultaneously rushed from the forest, and attacked the fortress on the south, the west and the south-west. There was but little resistance from the surprised garrison. There was hardly time to grasp a sword. About 20 escaped by flight, including the Captain, Laudonnière; the rest were every one massacred. None were spared except women and children under fifteen; and, in the first rage of the onslaught, even these were murdered with the rest. There still lay in the port three ships, commanded by Jacques Ribaut, brother [son] of the unfortunate Governor. One of these was quickly sent to the bottom by the cannon of the fort; the other two cut their cables, and slipped out of reach into the roadstead, where they lay, waiting for a favourable wind, for three days. They picked up the fugitives who had been wandering half-starved in the woods, and then set sail from this unlucky land. ... There remained, however, the little army, under Ribaut, which had lost most of its arms in the wreck, and was now wandering along the Floridan shore." When Ribaut and his men reached Fort Caroline and saw the Spanish flag flying, they turned and retreated southward. Not many days later, they were intercepted by Menendez, near St. Augustine, to which post he had returned. The first party of the French who came up, 200 in number, and who were in a starving state, surrendered to the Spaniard, and laid down their arms. "They were brought across the river in small companies, and their hands tied behind their backs. On landing, they were asked if they were Catholics. Eight out of the 200 professed allegiance to that religion; the rest were all Protestants.' Menendez traced out a line on the ground with his cane. The prisoners were marched up one by one to the line; on reaching it, they were stabbed. Next day, Ribaut arrived with the rest of the army. The same pourparlers began. But this time a blacker treachery was adopted." An officer, sent by Menendez, pledged his honor to the French that the lives of all should be spared if they laid down their arms. "It is not clear how many of the French accepted the conditions. A certain number refused them, and escaped into the woods. What is certain is, that Ribaut, with nearly all his men, were tied back to back, four together. Those who said they were Catholics, were set on one side; the rest were all massacred as they stood. ... Outside the circle of the slaughtered and the slaughterers stood the priest, Mendoza, encouraging, approving, exhorting the butchers."
W. Besant, Gaspard de Coligny, chapter 7.
The long dispatch in which Menendez reported his fiendish work to the Spanish king has been brought to light in the archives at Seville, and there is this endorsement on it, in the hand-writing of Philip II.: "Say to him that, as to those he has killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys."
F. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, chapters 7-8.
{1151}
ALSO IN: C. W. Baird, History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, volume 1, introduction.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1567-1568. The vengeance of Dominic de Gourgues.
"As might have been expected, all attempts to rouse the French court into demanding redress were vain. Spain, above all other nations, knew the arts by which a corrupt court might be swayed, and the same intrigues which, fifty years later, sent Raleigh to the block and well-nigh ended the young colony of Virginia, now kept France quiet. But though the court refused to move, an avenger was not wanting. Dominic de Gourgues had already known as a prisoner of war the horrors of the Spanish galleys. Whether he was a Huguenot is uncertain. Happily in France, as the history of that and all later ages proved, the religion of the Catholic did not necessarily deaden the feelings of the patriot. Seldom has there been a deed of more reckless daring than that which Dominic de Gourgues now undertook. With the proceeds of his patrimony he bought three small ships, manned by eighty sailors and a hundred men-at-arms. He then obtained a commission as a slaver on the coast of Guinea, and in the summer of 1567 set sail. With these paltry resources he aimed at overthrowing a settlement which had already destroyed a force of twenty times his number, and which might have been strengthened in the interval. ... To the mass of his followers he did not reveal the true secret of his voyage till he had reached the West Indies. Then he disclosed his real purpose. His men were of the same spirit as their leader. Desperate though the enterprise seemed, De Gourgues' only difficulty was to restrain his followers from undue haste. Happily for their attempt, they had allies on whom they had not reckoned. The fickle savages had at first welcomed the Spaniards, but the tyranny of the new comers soon wrought a change, and the Spaniards in Florida, like the Spaniards in every part of the New World, were looked on as hateful tyrants. So when De Gourgues landed he at once found a ready body of allies. ... Three days were spent in making ready, and then De Gourgues, with a hundred and sixty of his own men and his Indian allies, marched against the enemy. In spite of the hostility of the Indians, the Spaniards seem to have taken no precaution against a sudden attack. Menendez himself had left the colony. The Spanish force was divided between three forts, and no proper precautions were taken for keeping up the communications between them. Each was successively seized, the garrison slain or made prisoners, and, as each fort fell, those in the next could only make vague guesses as to the extent of the danger. Even when divided into three the Spanish force outnumbered that of De Gourgues, and savages with bows and arrows would have counted for little against men with fire arms and behind walls. But after the downfall of the first fort a panic seemed to seize the Spaniards, and the French achieved an almost bloodless victory. After the death of Ribault and his followers nothing could be looked for but merciless retaliation, and De Gourgues copied the severity, though not the perfidy of his enemies. The very details of Menendez' act were imitated, and the trees on which the prisoners were hung bore the inscription: 'Not as Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers, and murderers.' Five weeks later De Gourgues anchored under the walls of Rochelle. ... His attack did not wholly extirpate the Spanish power in Florida. Menendez received the blessing of the Pope as a chosen instrument for the conversion of the Indians, returned to America and restored his settlement. As before, he soon made the Indians his deadly enemies. The Spanish settlement held on, but it was not till two centuries later that its existence made itself remembered by one brief but glorious episode in the history of the English colonies."
J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, &c., chapter 5.
ALSO IN: W. W. Dewhurst, History of St. Augustine, Florida, chapter 9.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1628. Claimed by France, and placed, with New France, under the control of the Company of the Hundred Associates.
See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1629. Claimed in part by England and embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1680. Attack on the English of Carolina.
See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1680.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1702. Adjustment of western boundary with the French of Louisiana.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1740. Unsuccessful attack on St. Augustine by the English of Georgia and Carolina.
See GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (February). Ceded to Great Britain by Spain in the Treaty of Paris.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (July). Possession taken by the English.
"When, in July [1763], possession was taken of Florida, its inhabitants, of every age and sex, men, women, children, and servants, numbered but 3,000; and, of these, the men were nearly all in the pay of the Catholic king. The possession of it had cost him nearly $230,000 annually; and now it was accepted by England as a compensation for Havana. Most of the people, receiving from the Spanish treasury indemnity for their losses, had migrated to Cuba, taking with them the bones of their saints and the ashes of their distinguished dead. The western province of Florida extended to the Mississippi, on the line of latitude of 31°. On the 20th of October, the French surrendered the post of Mobile, with its brick fort, which was fast crumbling to ruins. A month later, the slight stockade at Tombigbee, in the west of the Chocta country, was delivered up. In a congress of the Catawbas, Cherokees, Creeks, Chicasas, and Choctas, held on the 10th of November, at Augusta, the governors of Virginia and the colonies south of it were present, and the peace with the Indians of the South and South-west was ratified."
G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision.), volume 3, page 64.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (October). English provinces, East and West, constituted by the King's proclamation.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763.
{1152}
FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781. Reconquest of West Florida by the Spanish commander at New Orleans.
"In the summer of 1779 Spain had declared war against Great Britain. Galvez [the Spanish commander at New Orleans] discovered that the British were planning the surprise of New Orleans, and, under cover of preparations for defense, made haste to take the offensive. Four days before the time he had appointed to move, a hurricane destroyed a large number of houses in the town, and spread ruin to crops and, dwellings up and down the 'coast,' and sunk his gun flotilla. ... Repairing his disasters as best he could, and hastening his ostensibly defensive preparations, he marched, on the 22d of August, 1779, against the British forts on the Mississippi. His ... little army of 1,434 men was without tents, other military furniture, or a single engineer. The gun fleet followed in the river abreast of their line of march along its shores, carrying one 24-pounder, five 18-pounders, and four 4-pounders. With this force, in the space of about three weeks, Fort Bute on bayou Manchac, Baton Rouge and Fort Panmure. 8 vessels, 556 regulars, and a number of sailors, militia-men, and free blacks, fell into the hands of the Spaniards. The next year, 1780, re-enforced from Havana, Galvez again left New Orleans by way of the Balize with 2,000 men, regulars, militia, and free blacks, and on the 15th of March took Fort Charlotte on Mobile river. Galvez next conceived the much larger project of taking Pensacola. Failing to secure re-enforcements from Havana by writing for them, he sailed to that place in October, to make his application in person, intending to move with them directly on the enemy. After many delays and disappointments he succeeded, and early in March, 1781, appeared before Pensacola with a ship of the line, two frigates, and transports containing 1,400 soldiers well furnished with artillery and ammunition. Here he was joined by such troops as could be spared from Mobile, and by Don Estevan Mirò from New Orleans, at the head of the Louisiana forces, and on the afternoon of the 16th of March, though practically unsupported by the naval fleet, until dishonor was staring its jealous commanders in the face, moved under hot fire, through a passage of great peril, and took up a besieging position. ... It is only necessary to state that, on the 9th of May, 1781, Pensacola, with a garrison of 800 men, and the whole of West Florida, were surrendered to Galvez. Louisiana had heretofore been included under one domination with Cuba, but now one of the several rewards bestowed upon her governor was the captain-generalship of Louisiana and West Florida."
_G. E. Waring, Jr., and G. W. Cable, History of New Orleans (United States Tenth Census, volume 19)._
ALSO IN: C. Gayarré, History of Louisiana: Spanish Domination, chapter 3.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787. The question of boundaries between Spain and the United States, and the question of the navigation of the Mississippi.
"By the treaty of 1783 between Great Britain on the one part and the United States and her allies, France and Spain, on the other, Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the colonies, and recognized as a part of their southern boundary a line drawn due east from a point in the Mississippi River, in latitude 31° north, to the middle of the Appalachicola; and at the same time she ceded to Spain by a separate agreement the two Floridas, but without defining their northern boundaries. This omission gave rise to a dispute between Spain and the United States as to their respective limits. On the part of Spain it was contended that by the act of Great Britain, of 1764, the northern boundary of West Florida had been fixed at the line running due east from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chattahoochee, and that all south of that line had been ceded to her; whilst on the other hand, the United States as strenuously maintained that the act fixing and enlarging the limits of West Florida was superseded by the recent treaty, which extended their southern boundary to the 31st degree of north latitude, a hundred and ten miles further south than the line claimed by Spain. Spain, however, had possession of the disputed territory by right of conquest, and evidently had no intention of giving it up. She strengthened her garrisons at Baton Rouge and Natchez, and built a fort at Vicksburg, and subsequently one at New Madrid, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, just below the mouth of the Ohio; and of the latter she made a port of entry where vessels from the Ohio were obliged to land and declare their cargoes. She even denied the right of the United States to the region between the Mississippi and the Alleghany Mountains, which had been ceded to them by Great Britain, on the ground that the conquests made by Governor Galvez, of West Florida, and by Don Eugenio Pierre, of Fort St. Joseph, 'near the sources of the Illinois,' had vested the title to all this country in her; and she insisted that what she did not own was possessed by the Indians, and could not therefore belong to the United States. Even as late as 1795, she claimed to have bought from the Chickasaws the bluffs which bear their name, and which are situated on the east bank of the Mississippi some distance north of the most northerly boundary ever assigned by Great Britain to West Florida. Here, then, was cause for 'a very pretty quarrel,' and to add to the ill feeling which grew out of it, Spain denied the right of the people of the United States to the 'free navigation of the Mississippi,'--a right which had been conceded to them by Great Britain with all the formalities with which she had received it from France. ... What was needed to make the right of any value to the people of the Ohio valley was the additional right to take their produce into a Spanish port, New Orleans, and either sell it then and there, or else store it, subject to certain conditions, until such time as it suited them to transfer it to sea-going vessels. This right Spain would not concede; and as the people of the Ohio valley were determined to have it, cost what it might, it brought on a series of intrigues between the Spanish governors of Louisiana and certain influential citizens west of the Alleghanies which threatened the stability of the American Union almost before it was formed."
L. Carr, Missouri, chapter 4.
ALSO IN: E. Schuyler, American Diplomacy, chapter 6.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813. Continued occupation of West Florida by the Spaniards. Revolt of the inhabitants. Possession taken by the Americans from the Mississippi to the Perdido.
"The success of the French in Spain, and the probability of that kingdom being obliged to succumb, had given occasion to revolutionary movements in several of the Spanish American provinces. This example ... had been followed also in that portion of the Spanish province of West Florida bordering on the Mississippi. The inhabitants, most of whom were of British or American birth, had seized the fort at Baton Rouge, had met in convention, and had proclaimed themselves independent, adopting a single star for their flag, the same symbol afterward assumed by the republic of Texas. {1153} Some struggles took place between the adherents of the Spanish connection and these revolutionists, who were also threatened with attack from Mobile, still held by a Spanish garrison. In this emergency they applied, through Holmes, governor of the Mississippi Territory, for aid and recognition by the United States. ... The president, however, preferred to issue a proclamation, taking possession of the east bank of the Mississippi, occupation of which, under the Louisiana treaty, had been so long delayed, not, it was said, from any defect of title, but out of conciliatory views toward Spain. ... Claiborne, governor of the Orleans Territory, then at Washington, was dispatched post-haste to take possession." The following January Congress passed an act in secret session "authorizing the president to take possession as well of East as of West Florida, under any arrangement which had been or might be entered into with the local authorities; or, in case of any attempted occupation by any foreign government, to take and to maintain possession by force. Previously to the passage of this act, the occupation of the east bank of the Mississippi had been already completed by Governor Claiborne; not, however, without some show of resistance. ... Captain Gaines presently appeared before Mobile with a small detachment of American regulars, and demanded its surrender. Colonel Cushing soon arrived from New Orleans with several gun-boats, artillery, and a body of troops. The boats were permitted to ascend the river toward Fort Stoddard without opposition. But the Spanish commandant refused to give up Mobile, and no attempt was made to compel him." By an act of Congress passed in April, 1812, "that part of Florida recently taken possession of, as far east as Pearl River, was annexed to the new state [of Louisiana]. The remaining territory, as far as the Perdido, though Mobile still remained in the hands of the Spaniards, was annexed, by another act, to the Mississippi Territory." A year later, in April, 1813, General Wilkinson was instructed to take possession of Mobile, and to occupy all the territory claimed, to the Perdido, which he accordingly did, without bloodshed.
R. Hildreth, History of the United States, 2d series, chapters 23, 24, 26 (volume 3).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818. The fugitive negroes and the first Seminole War. Jackson's campaign.
"The tranquillity of Monroe's administration was soon seriously threatened by the renewal of trouble with the Southern Indians [the Seminoles, and the refugee Creeks]. ... The origin of the difficulty was twofold: first, the injustice which has always marked the treatment of Indian tribes whose lands were coveted by the whites; and secondly, the revival of the old grievance, that Florida was a refuge for the fugitive slaves of Georgia and South Carolina. ... The Seminoles had never withheld a welcome to the Georgia negro who preferred their wild freedom to the lash of an overseer on a cotton or rice plantation. The Georgians could never forget that the grand-children of their grandfathers' fugitive slaves were roaming about the Everglades of Florida. ... So long as there were Seminoles in Florida, and so long as Florida belonged to Spain, just so long would the negroes of Georgia find an asylum in Florida with the Seminoles. ... A war with the Indians of Florida, therefore, was always literally and emphatically a slave-hunt. A reclamation for fugitives was always repulsed by the Seminoles and the Spaniards, and, as they could be redeemed in no other way, Georgia was always urging the Federal Government to war."
W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the United States, volume 4, chapter 10.
During the War of 1812-14, the English, who were permitted by Spain to make use of Florida with considerable freedom, and who received no little assistance from the refugee negroes and Creek Indians, "had built a fort on the Appalachicola River, about 15 miles from its mouth, and had collected there an immense amount of arms and ammunition. ... When the war ended, the English left the arms and ammunition in the fort. The negroes seized the fort, and it became known as the 'Negro Fort.' The authorities of the United States sent General Gaines to the Florida frontier with troops, to establish peace on the border. The Negro Fort was a source of anxiety both to the military authorities and to the slave-owners of Georgia," and a pretext was soon found--whether valid or not seems uncertain--for attacking it. "A hot shot penetrated one of the magazines, and the whole fort was blown to pieces, July 27, 1816. There were 300 negro men, women and children, and 20 Choctaws in the fort; 270 were killed. Only three came out unhurt, and these were killed by the allied Indians. ... During 1817 there were frequent collisions on the frontiers between Whites and Indians. ... On the 20th of November, General Gaines sent a force of 250 men to Fowltown, the headquarters of the chief of the 'Redsticks,' or hostile Creeks. They approached the town in the early morning, and were fired on. An engagement followed. The town was taken and burned. ... The Indians of that section, after this, began general hostilities, attacked the boats which were ascending the Appalachicola, and massacred the persons in them. ... In December, on receipt of intelligence of the battle at Fowltown and the attack on the boats, Jackson was ordered to take command in Georgia. He wrote to President Monroe: 'Let it be signified to me through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished.' Much was afterwards made to depend on this letter. Monroe was ill when it reached Washington, and he did not see or read it until a year afterwards, when some reference was made to it. Jackson construed the orders which he received from Calhoun with reference to this letter. ... He certainly supposed, however, that he had the secret concurrence of the administration in conquering Florida. ... He advanced through Georgia with great haste and was on the Florida frontier in March, 1818. He ... immediately advanced to St. Mark's, which place he captured. On his way down the Appalachicola he found the Indians and negroes at work in the fields, and unconscious of any impending attack. Some of them fled to St. Mark's. His theory, in which he supposed that he was supported by the administration, was that he was to pursue the Indians until he caught them, wherever they might go; that he was to respect Spanish rights as far as he could consistently with that purpose; and that the excuse for his proceedings was that Spain could not police her own territory, or restrain the Indians. {1154} Jackson's proceedings were based on two positive but arbitrary assumptions: (1) That the Indians got aid and encouragement from St. Mark's and Pensacola. (This the Spaniards always denied, but perhaps a third assumption of Jackson might be mentioned: that the word of a Spanish official was of no value.) (2) That Great Britain kept paid emissaries employed in Florida to stir up trouble for the United States. This latter assumption was a matter of profound belief generally in the United States." Acting upon it with no hesitation, Jackson caused a Scotch trader named Arbuthnot, whom he found at St. Mark's, and an English ex-lieutenant of marines, Ambrister by name, who was taken prisoner among the Seminoles, to be condemned by court martial and executed, although no substantial evidence of their being in any way answerable for Indian hostilities was adduced. "It was as a mere incident of his homeward march that Jackson turned aside and captured Pensacola, May 24, 1818, because he was told that some Indians had taken refuge there. He deposed the Spanish government, set up a new one, and established a garrison. He then continued his march homewards. "Jackson's performances in Florida were the cause of grave perplexities to his government, which finally determined "that Pensacola and St. Mark's should be restored to Spain, but that Jackson's course should be approved and defended on the grounds that he pursued his enemy to his refuge, and that Spain could not do the duty which devolved on her."
W. G. Sumner, Andrew Jackson as a public man, chapter 3.
ALSO IN: J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, volume 2, chapters 31-39.
J. R. Giddings, The Exiles of Florida, chapters 1-4.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1819-1821. Cession by Spain to the United States.
"Jackson's vigorous proceedings in Florida would seem not to have been without effect. Pending the discussion in Congress on his conduct, the Spanish minister, under new instructions from home, signed a treaty for the cession of Florida, in extinction of the various American claims, for the satisfaction of which the United States agreed to pay to the claimants $5,000,000. The Louisiana boundary, as fixed by this treaty, was a compromise between the respective offers heretofore made, though leaning a good deal to the American side: the Sabine to the 32d degree of north latitude; thence a north meridian line to the Red River; the course of that river to the 100th degree of longitude east [? west] from Greenwich; thence north by that meridian to the Arkansas; up that river to its head, and to the 42d degree of north latitude; and along that degree to the Pacific. This treaty was immediately ratified by the Senate," but it was not until February, 1821, that the ratification of the Spanish government was received.
_R. Hildreth, History of the United States, 2d series, chapters 31-32 (volume 3)._
ALSO IN: J. T. Morse, John Quincy Adams, pages 109-125.
Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other countries (edition of 1880), pages 1016-1022.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1835-1843. The Second Seminole War.
"The conflict with the Seminoles was one of the legacies left by Jackson to Van Buren; it lasted as long as the Revolutionary War, cost thirty millions of dollars, and baffled the efforts of several generals and numerous troops, who had previously shown themselves equal to any in the world. ... As is usually the case in Indian wars there had been wrong done by each side; but in this instance we were the more to blame, although the Indians themselves were far from being merely harmless and suffering innocents. The Seminoles were being deprived of their lands in pursuance of the general policy of removing all the Indians [to] west of the Mississippi. They had agreed to go, under pressure, and influenced, probably, by fraudulent representations; but they declined to fulfill their agreement. If they had been treated wisely and firmly they might probably have been allowed to remain without serious injury to the surrounding whites. But no such treatment was attempted, and as a result we were plunged in one of the most harassing Indian wars we ever waged. In their gloomy, tangled swamps, and among the unknown and untrodden recesses of the everglades, the Indians found a secure asylum; and they issued from their haunts to burn and ravage almost all the settled parts of Florida, fairly depopulating five counties. ... The great Seminole leader, Osceola, was captured only by deliberate treachery and breach of faith on our part, and the Indians were worn out rather than conquered. This was partly owing to their remarkable capacities as bush-fighters, but infinitely more to the nature of their territory. Our troops generally fought with great bravery; but there is very little else in the struggle, either as regards its origin or the manner in which it was carried on, to which an American can look back with any satisfaction."
T. Roosevelt, Life of Thomas H. Benton, chapter 10.
ALSO IN: J. R. Giddings, The Exiles of Florida, chapters 7-21.
_J. T. Sprague, The Florida War._
See also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SEMINOLES.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1845. Admission into the Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY). Secession from the Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1862 (February-April). Temporary Union conquests and occupation. Discouragement of Unionists.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: GEORGIA--FLORIDA).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1864. Unsuccessful National attempt to occupy the State. Battle of Olustee.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: FLORIDA).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1865 (JULY). Provisional government set up under President Johnson's plan of Reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1865-1868. Reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), and after, to 1868-1870.
----------FLORIDA: End----------
FLORIN, The.
"The Republic of Florence, in the year 1252, coined its golden florin, of 24 carats fine, and of the weight of one drachm. It placed the value under the guarantee of publicity, and of commercial good faith; and that coin remained unaltered, as the standard for all other values, as long as the republic itself endured."
J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 4.
FLOTA, The.
See PERU: A. D. 1550-1816.
FLOYD, JOHN B., Treachery of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (DECEMBER).
FLUSHING: A. D. 1807. Ceded to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
{1155}
FLUSHING: A. D. 1809. Taken and abandoned by the English.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).
FOCKSHANI, Battle of (1789).
See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.
FODHLA.
See IRELAND: THE NAME.
FŒDERATI OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
The bodies of barbarians who were taken in the military service of the Roman empire, during the period of its decline, serving "under their hereditary chiefs, using the arms which were proper to them, from preserving their language, their manners and their customs, were designated by the name of frederati" (confederates or allies).
J. C. L. de Sismondi, The French under the Merovingians, chapter 2.
ALSO IN: T. Hodgkin, The dynasty of Theodosius, chapter 4.
FOIX, Rise of the Counts of.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1032.
FOIX, The house in Navarre.
See NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521.
FOLCLAND.--FOLKLAND.
Public land, among the early English. "It comprised the whole area that was not at the original allotment assigned to individuals or communities, and that was not subsequently divided into estates of bookland [bocland]. The folkland was the standing treasury of the country; no alienation of any part of it could be made without the consent of the national council; but it might be allowed to individuals to hold portions of it subject to rents and other services to the state."
W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5, section 36.
The theory here stated is questioned by Prof. Vinogradoff, who says: "I venture to suggest that folkland need not mean the land owned by the people. Bookland is land that is held by bookright; folkland is land that is held by folkright. The folkland is what our scholars have called ethel, and alod, and family-land, and yrfeland; it is land held under the old restrictive common-law, the law which keeps land in families, as contrasted with land which is held under a book, under a 'privilegium,' modelled on Roman precedents, expressed in Latin words, armed with ecclesiastical sanctions, and making for free alienation and individualism."
_P. Vinogradoff, Folkland (English History Rev., January, 1893)._
ALSO IN: J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, book 1, chapter 11.
See, also, ALOD.
FOLIGNO, Treaty of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).
FOLKLAND.
See FOLCLAND.
FOLKMOOT.
See HUNDRED: also SHIRE; also WITENAGEMOT; also TOWNSHIP AND TOWN-MEETING, THE NEW ENGLAND.
FOLKTHING.--FOLKETING, The.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK--ICELAND): A. D. 1849-1874.
FOLKUNGAS, The.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1018-1397.
FOMORIANS, OR FORMORIANS, The.
A people mentioned in Irish legends as sea-rovers. Mr. Sullivan, in his article on "Celtic Literature" in the Encyclopædia Britannica advances the opinion that the Romans were the people alluded to; but the general view is quite different.
See IRELAND: THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS; also, NEMEDIANS.
FONTAINE FRANĆAISE, Battle of (1595).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.
FONTAINEBLEAU: A. D. 1812-1814. Residence of the captive Pope.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
FONTAINEBLEAU, Treaties of (1807).
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807, and SPAIN: A. D.1807-1808.
FONTAINEBLEAU, Treaties of (1814).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (MARCH-APRIL).
FONTAINEBLEAU DECREE, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.
FONTARABIA, Siege and Battle (1638).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640.
FONTENAILLES, OR FONTENAY, Battle of, A. D. 841.
In the civil war between the three grandsons of Charlemagne, which resulted in the partition of his empire and the definite separation of Germany and France, the decisive battle was fought, June 25, 841, at Fontenailles, or Fontenay (Fontanetum), near Auxerre. It was one of the fiercest and bloodiest fights of mediæval times, and 80,000 men are said to have died on the field.
Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, book 1, chapter 2.
See FRANKS (CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE): A. D. 814-962.
FONTENOY, Battle of(1745).
See NETHERLANDS (AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D. 1745.
FOOT, The Roman.
"The unit of lineal measure [with the Romans] was the Pes, which occupied the same place in the Roman system as the Foot does in our own. According to the most accurate researches, the Pes was equal to, about 11.64 inches imperial measure, or .97 of an English foot. The Pes being supposed to represent the length of the foot in a well proportioned man, various divisions and multiples of the Pes were named after standards derived from the human frame. Thus: Pes=16 Digiti, i. e. finger-breadths, [or] 4 Palmi, i. e. hand-breadths; Sesquipes=l cubitus, i. e. length from elbow to extremity of middle finger. The Pes was also divided into 12 Pollices, i. e. thumb-joint-lengths, otherwise called Unciae (whence our word 'inch')."
W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 13.
FOOTE, Commodore. Gun-boat campaign on the western rivers.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE); (MARCH-APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
FORBACH, OR SPICHERN, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).
FORCE BILL, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1871 (APRIL).
FORESTS, Charter of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
FORLI, Battle of (1423).
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
FORMORIANS.
See FOMORIANS.
FORMOSUS, Pope, A. D. 891-896.
FORNUOVA, Battle of (1495).
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
FORT EDWARD.--FORT ERIE.--FORT FISHER, ETC.
See EDWARD, FORT; ERIE, FORT, ETC.
FORTRENN, Men of.
A Pictish people who figure in early Scottish history, and whom Mr. Rhys derives from the tribe known to the Romans as Verturiones. The western part of Fife was embraced in their kingdom.
J. Rhys, Celtic Britain, pages 158-159.
FORTUNATE ISLANDS.
See CANARY ISLANDS, DISCOVERY OF.
{1156}
FORTY-FIVE, The.
The Jacobite rebellion of 1745 is often referred to as "the Forty-five."
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1745.
FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.
FORUM, The Julian, and its extensions.
"From the entrance of the Suburra branched out the long streets which penetrated the hollows between the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline to the gates pierced in the mound of Servius. It was in this direction that Cæsar effected the first extension of the Forum, by converting the site of certain streets into an open space which he surrounded with arcades, and in the centre of which he erected his temple of Venus. By the side of the Julian Forum, or perhaps in its rear, Augustus constructed a still ampler inclosure, which he adorned with the temple of Mars the Avenger. Succeeding emperors ... continued to work out the same idea, till the Argiletum on the one hand, and the saddle of the Capitoline and Quirinal, excavated for the purpose, on the other, were both occupied by these constructions, the dwellings of the populace being swept away before them; and a space running nearly parallel to the length of the Roman Forum, and exceeding it in size, was thus devoted to public use, extending from the pillar of Trajan to the basilica of Constantine."
C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 40.
FORUM BOARIUM AND VELABRUM OF ANCIENT ROME, The.
"The Velabrum, the Forum Boarium, the Vicus Tuscus, and the Circus Maximus are names rich in reminiscences of the romantic youth and warlike manhood of the Roman people. The earliest dawn of Roman history begins with the union of the Capitoline and Palatine hills into one city. In those far-distant times, however, no population was settled in the Velabrum or Circus valley; for, as we have seen, until the drainage was permanently provided for by the cloacæ, these districts were uninhabited swamps; and the name Velabrum itself is said to have been derived from the boats used in crossing from one hill to the other. Perhaps such may not have been the case with the Forum Boarium, which lay between the Velabrum and the river. ... The limits of the Forum Boarium can be clearly defined. It was separated from the Velabrum at the Arch of the Goldsmiths. ... On the south-eastern side the Carceres of the Circus, and the adjoining temple on the site of S. Maria in Cosmedin, bounded the district, on the western the Tiber, and on the north western the wall of Servius. ... The immediate neighbourhood of the river, the Forum, the Campus Martius, and the Palace of the Cæsars would naturally render this quarter one of the most crowded thoroughfares of Rome. ... The Forum itself, which gave the name to the district, was probably an open space surrounded by shops and public buildings, like the Forum Romanum, but on a smaller scale. In the centre stood the bronze figure of a bull, brought from Ægina, either as a symbol of the trade in cattle to which the place owed its name, or, as Tacitus observes, to mark the supposed spot whence the plough of Romulus, drawn by a bull and a cow, first started in tracing out the Palatine pomœrium."
R. Burn, Rome and the Campagna, chapter 12.
FORUM GALLORUM, Battle of (B. C. 43).
See ROME: B. C. 44-42.
FORUM JULII.
A Roman colony and naval station (modern Frejus) founded on the Mediterranean coast of Gaul by Augustus.
FORUM ROMANUM, The.
"The older Forum, or Forum Romanum, as it was called, to distinguish it from the later Fora, which were named after their respective builders [Forum of Julius Cæsar, of Augustus, of Nerva, of Vespasian, of Trajan, etc.], was an open space of an oblong shape, which extended in a south-easterly direction from near the depression or intermontium between the two summits of the Capitoline hill to a point opposite the still extant temple of Antoninus and Faustina. ... Round this confined space were grouped the most important buildings of Republican Rome."
R. Burn, Rome and the Campagna, chapter 6, part 1.
"Forum, in the literal sense of the word merely a marketplace, derives its name 'á ferendo,' (from bringing, getting, purchasing). ... Narrow is the arena on which so great a drama was enacted in the Republican and Imperial City! the ascertainable measurements of this region, according to good authorities, being 671 English feet in the extreme length; 202 in the extreme breadth, and 117 feet at the narrower, the south-eastern, side. A wildly picturesque marshy vale, overshadowed by primæval forests, and shut in by rugged heights, was that low ground between the Palatine and Capitoline hills when the 'Roma Quadrata,' ascribed to Romulus, was founded about seven centuries and a half before our era. After the wars and finally confirmed alliance between Romans and Sabines ... the colonists agreed to unite under the same government, and to surround the two cities and two hills with a wider cincture of fortifying walls than those the still extant ruins of which are before us on the Palatine. Now was the swampy waste rendered serviceable for civic purposes; the forest was cut down; the stagnant marshes were drained, the clayey hollows filled up; the wild valley became the appointed arena for popular assemblage; though Dionysius tells us it was for some time on a spot sacred to Vulcan (the 'Vulcanale'), probably a terrace on the slope of the Palatine overlooking the Forum, that the people used to meet for political affairs, elections, etc. During many ages there were, it appears, no habitations save on the hills. ... The Forum, as an enclosed public place amidst buildings, and surrounded by graceful porticos, may be said to have owed its origin to Tarquinius Priscus, between the years 616 and 578 B. C. That king (Livius tells us) was the first who erected porticos around this area, and also divided the ground into lots, where private citizens might build for their own uses. Booths, probably wooden (the 'tabernæ veteres'), were the first rude description of shops here seen. ... Uncertain is the original place of the 'Rostra Veteres'--the ancient tribunal for orators. No permanent tribunal for such purpose is known to have been placed in the Forum till the year of the city 417. ... In the year 336 B. C., the Romans having gained a naval victory over the citizens' of Antium, several of those enemies' ships were burnt, others transported to the Roman docks, and the bronzed prows of the latter were used to decorate a pulpit, now raised for public speaking, probably near the centre of the Forum."
C. I. Hemans, Historic and Monumental Rome, chapter 6.
ALSO IN: R. Lanciani, Ancient Rome, pages 75-82.
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FORUM TREBONII, Battle of (A. D. 251).
See GOTHS, FIRST INVASIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
FOSI, The.
See CHAUCI.
FOSSA.
See CASTRA.
FOSSE, The.
One of the great Roman roads in Britain, which ran from Lincoln southwestwardly into Cornwall.
See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.
FOSTAT.
The original name of Cairo, Egypt, signifying "the Encampment."
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 640-646.
FOTHERINGAY CASTLE, Mary Stuart's execution at.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587.
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, Ponce de Leon's quest of the.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1512.
FOUR HUNDRED AND FIVE THOUSAND AT ATHENS.
See ATHENS: B. C. 413-411.
FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS, The.
See ATHENS: B. C. 594.
FOUR MASTERS, The.
Four Irish antiquaries of 17th century, who compiled the mixed collection of legend and history called the "Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland," are commonly known as the Four Masters. They were Michael O'Clery, a lay brother of the order of St. Francis; Conaire O'Clery, brother of Michael; Cucogry or Peregrine O'Clery, head of the Tirconnell sept of the O'Clerys, to which Michael and Conaire belonged; and Ferfeasa O'Mulconry, of whom nothing is known, except that he was a native of the county of Roscommon. The "Annals" of the Four Masters have been translated into English from the Irish tongue by John O'Donovan.
_J. O'Donovan, Introduction to Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters._
FOUR MILE STRIP, Cession of the.
See PONTIAC'S WAR.
FOURMIGNY, Battle of (1449).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453.
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (DECEMBER-APRIL); 1866 (JUNE); 1866-1867 (OCTOBER-MARCH).
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: The enforcement of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1871 (APRIL).
----------FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: End----------
FOURTH OF JULY.
The anniversary of the adoption of the American Declaration of Independence.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).
FOWEY, Essex's surrender at.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
FOWLTOWN, Battle of (1817).
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.
FOX AND NORTH COALITION, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1782; 1783; and 1783-1787.
FOX INDIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and SACS, &c.
For an account of the massacre of Fox Indians at Detroit in 1712,
See CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.
For an account of the Black Hawk War,
See ILLINOIS: A.. D. 1832.
FRANCE: Gallic and Roman.
See GAUL. A. D. 481-843.
FRANCE: Under the Franks, to the division of the Empire of Charlemagne.
See FRANKS.
FRANCE: A. D. 841-911. Ravages and settlements of the Northmen.
See NORMANS: A. D. 841 to 876-911.
FRANCE: 9th Century. Introduction of the modern name.
At the time of the division of the empire of Charlemagne between his three grand-sons, which was made a definite and lasting political separation by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, "the people of the West [western Europe] had come to be divided, with more and more distinctness, into two classes, those composed of Franks and Germans, who still adhered to the Teutonic dialects, and those, composed of Franks, Gallo-Romans, and Aquitanians, who used the Romance dialects, or the patois which had grown out of a corrupted Latin. The former clung to the name of Germans, while the latter, not to lose all share in the glory of the Frankish name, began to call themselves Franci, and their country Francia Nova, or New France. ... Francia was the Latin name of Frankenland, and had long before been applied to the dominions of the Franks on both sides of the Rhine. Their country was then divided into East and West Francia; but in the time of Karl the Great [Charlemagne] and Ludwig Pious, we find the monk of St. Gall using the terms Francia Nova, in opposition to the Francia, 'quæ dicitur antiqua.'"
P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapter 18, with note.
"As for the mere name of Francia, like other names of the kind, it shifted its geographical use according to the wanderings of the people from whom it was derived. After many such changes of meaning, it gradually settled down as the name for those parts of Germany and Gaul where it still abides. There are the Teutonic or Austrian [or Austrasian] Francia, part of which still keeps the name of Franken or Franconia, and the Romance or Neustrian Francia, which by various annexations has grown into modern France."
E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, volume 1, page 121.
"As late as the reign of Frederick Barbarossa, the name of Frank was still used, and used too with an air of triumph, as equivalent to the name of German. The Kings and kingdoms of this age had indeed no fixed titles, because all were still looked on as mere portions of the great Frankish realm. Another step has now been taken towards the creation of modern France; but the older state of things has not yet wholly passed away. Germany has no definite name; for a long time it is 'Francia Orientalis,' 'Francia Teutonica'; then it becomes 'Regnum Teutonicum,' 'Regnum Teutonicorum.' But it is equally clear that, within the limits of that Western or Latin France, Francia and Francus were fast getting their modern meanings of France and Frenchmen, as distinguished from Frank or German."
_E. A. Freeman, The Franks and the Gauls (Historical Essays, 1st series, number 7)._
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FRANCE: A. D. 843. The kingdom of Charles the Bald.
The first actual kingdom of France (Francia Nova--Francia Occidentalis), was formed in the partition of the empire of Charlemagne between his three grandsons, by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843. It was assigned to Charles, called "the Bald," and comprised the Neustria of the older Frank divisions, together with Aquitaine. It "had for its eastern boundary, the Meuse, the Saône and the Rhone; which, nevertheless, can only be understood of the Upper Meuse, since Brabant was certainly not comprised in it"; and it extended southwards beyond the Pyrenees to the Ebro.
H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 1, part 1, footnote.
"Charles and his successors have some claim to be accounted French. They rule over a large part of France, and are cut away from their older connexion with Germany. Still, in reality they are Germans and Franks. They speak German, they yearn after the old imperial name, they have no national feeling at all. On the other hand, the great lords of Neustria, as it used to be called, are ready to move in that direction, and to take the first steps towards a new national life. They cease to look back to the Rhine, and occupy themselves in a continual struggle with their kings. Feudal power is founded, and with it the claims of the bishops rise to their highest point. But we have not yet come to a kingdom of France. ... It was no proper French kingdom; but a dying branch of the Empire of Charles the Great. ... Charles the Bald, entering on his part of the Caroling Empire, found three large districts which refused to recognise him. These were Aquitaine, whose king was Pippin II.; Septimania, in the hands of Bernard; and Brittany under Nominoë. He attempted to reduce them; but Brittany and Septimania defied him, while over Aquitaine he was little more than a nominal suzerain."
G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 1, book 2, part 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 6, section 1.
See, also, FRANKS (CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE): A. D. 814-962.
----------------------------------------
A Logical Outline of French History
(Red) Physical or material. (Blue) Ethnologilcal. (Green) Social and political. (Brown) Intellectual, moral and religious. (Black) Foreign.
IN WHICH THE DOMINANT CONDITIONS AND INFLUENCES ARE DISTINGUISHED BY COLORS.
The country known anciently as Gaul, and in modern times as France, is distinguished by no physical characteristics that will go far towards explaining its history. Lying within the middle degrees of the northern temperate zone, greatly diversified in its superficial features, and varied in the qualities of its soil, it represents a fair average of the more favorable conditions of human life.
The Gauls.
The inhabitants of the land when the Romans subdued it were a Celtic people, belonging to the race which has survived to the present day with least admixture or modification in the Bretons, the Welsh, the Celtic Irish and the Highland Scotch. The peculiar traits of the race in mind and temper are so visible in French history as to show that the nation has never ceased to be essentially Gallic in blood.
B. C. 51-A. D. 406; Roman Gaul.
Under the control and the teaching of Rome for four centuries and a half, the Gauls were perfected in her civilization and corrupted by the vices of her decay.
5th Century; Frank Conquest.
When the invasion of Teutonic barbarism broke the barrier of the Rhine, they were easily but not quickly overwhelmed, and sank under a conquest more complete than that from Rome had been; since the whole body of the conquerors came to dwell within the land, and to be neighbors and masters, at once. For the most part, these invaders preferred country to town, and carved estates for themselves in all the districts that were fertile and fair. The Gallo-Romans, or Romanized Gauls, were left to more freedom in their cities than outside; but their cities were blighted in industry and in trade by the common ruin around them. In the rural districts, few liberties or rights were preserved for the subjugated race.
Feudalism.
The form of society which the German conquerors brought with them into Gaul was broken by the change of circumstance, quite as much as the form of society which they overthrew. The camp gave place to the castle; the wandering war-chief acquired the firmer superiority of a great land-proprietor and lord; his warriors slipped in station from free followers to dependents, in divers degrees; the greater chiefs won the title of kings; the fiercer kings destroyed their rivals; and four or five centuries shaped, by slow processes that are traceable, indistinctly, the military structure of society called Feudal, which organized lawlessness with picturesque and destructive effects.
A. D. 481-752. Merovingian monarchy. A. D. 768-814. Empire of Charlemagne.
All authority withered, except the spiritual authority of the Church, which steadily grew. The royalty that had thrived for a time upon the distribution of lands, dignities and powers, lost prestige when it had expended the domains at its disposal, and when offices and estates were clutched in hereditary possession. Before it actually expired, there arose a family of remarkable men--great in four successive generations--who put its crown upon their own heads and made it powerful again. The last and greatest of these expanded the Frank kingdom into a new Roman Empire; but the energy of the achievement was wholly his own, and his empire fell to pieces when he died.
A. D. 987. Kingdom of Hugh Capet. 11th-12th centuries. Enfranchisement of the Communes.
In the part which became France, royalty dwindled once more; the great dukes and counts nominally subject to it, in the feudal sense, renewed and increased their power; until one of their number took the throne, and bequeathed it to his heirs.
This new line of kings won back by degrees the ascendancy of the crown. The small actual dominion, surrounding Paris, with which they began, was widened slowly by the strong, authoritative arm. They made themselves, in rude fashion, the champions of order and law. They took the people of the towns into alliance with them; for the towns were beginning to catch the spirit of the free cities of Italy, and the sturdy temper of the Flemish burghers, and to assume the name of "communes," or commons, casting off the feudal yoke that had been laid upon them. The kings lent their countenance to the communes, and the communes strengthened the hands of the kings. Between them and much helped by the stir of the Crusades, they loosened the roots of feudalism, until its decay set in. The king's courts and the king's officers pushed their jurisdiction into a widening realm, until the king's authority had become supreme, in fact as well as in name.
Even the measureless misery of a hundred years of war with English kings brought power, in the end, to the crown, by weakening the greater lords, and by bringing into existence a fixed military force.
A. D. 1337-1453. Hundred Years War.
Happy accidents, shrewd marriages, and cunning intrigues gathered the great dukedoms, one by one, into the royal domain, and the solidarity of modern France was attained.
16th-17th centuries. Aggrandisement of the Monarchy.
But People and King stood no longer side by side. The league of King and Commons against the Lords had proved less happy than the alliance in England of Commons and Lords against the King. Royalty emerged from the patient struggle alone in possession of sovereign power. It had used the communes and then abused them, breaking their charters--their liberties--their courage--their hopes--and widening the distance between class and class. The "estates" of the realm became a memory and a name. During five hundred years, while the Parliament of England grew in majesty and might, the States-General of France were assembled but thirteen times.
The Court.
When royalty, at last, invented the fatal enchantments of a "Court," then the blighting of all other powers was soon complete. It drew within its spell, from all the provinces of France, their nobles, their men of genius, their aspiring spirits, and assembled them to corrupt and debase them together--to make them its pensioners and hirelings, its sycophants, its jesters, its knaves.
Suppression of the Huguenots.
Neither Renaissance nor Reformation could undo the spell. Ideas from the one and a great faith from the other joined in league for the liberty of both, and the thoughtful among the people were rallied to them with craving eagerness. But bigotry and frivolity ruled the Court, and the Court proved stronger than France. Freedom of conscience, and every species of freedom with it, were destroyed; by massacre, by civil war, by oppressive government, by banishment, by corrupting bribes.
18th century. The "Ancien Régime."
And always the grandeur of the monarchy increased; its rule grew more absolute; its Court sucked the life-blood of the State more remorselessly. The People starved, that the King might be magnificent; they perished in a thousand battles, that his name might be "glorious;" they went into exile, carrying away the arts of France, that the piety of the King might not be shocked by their heresies. But always, too, there was growing in the world, around France and in France, a knowledge,--an understanding,--a modern spirit,--that rebelled against these infamies.
A. D. 1789-1799. Revolution. A. D. 1799-1815. Napoleon.
In due time there came an end. Court, and King, and Church, and all that even seemed to be a part of the evil old regime, were whirled into a red gulf of Revolution and disappeared. The people, unused to Liberty, were made drunken by it, and went mad. In breaking the gyves of feudalism they broke every other restraint, and wrecked society in all its forms. Then, in the stupor of their debauch, they gave themselves to a new despot--mean, conscienceless, detestable, but transcendent in the genius and the energy of his selfishness--who devoured them like a dragon, in the hunger of his insatiate ambition, and persuaded them to be proud of their fate.
A. D. 1815-1830. Bourbon Restoration. A. D. 1830-1848. Louis Phillippe A. D. 1848-1851. Second Republic. A. D. 1852-1870. Second Empire. A. D. 1870-. Third Republic.
Europe suppressed the intolerable adventurer, and France, for three-fourths of a century since, has been under an apprenticeship of experience, slowly learning the art of self-government by constitutional modes. Two monarchies, one republic, and a sham empire are the spoiled samples of her work. A third republic, now in hand, is promising better success. It rests with seeming stability on the support of the great class of peasant landowners, which the very miseries of her misgoverned past have created for France. Trained to pinching frugality by the hard conditions of the old regime; unspoiled by any ruinous philanthropy, like that of the English poor-laws; stimulated to land-buying by opportunities which came, first, from the impoverishment of extravagant nobles, and, later, from revolutionary confiscations; encouraged to the same acquisition by favorable laws of transfer and equal inheritance,--the landowning peasants of France constitute a Class powerful in numbers, invincible in conservatism, an profoundly interested in the preservation of social order.
--------End: A Logical Outline of French History-----------
FRANCE: A. D. 861. Origin of the duchy and of the house of Capet.
In 861, Charles the Bald, king of that part of the dismembered empire of Charlemagne which grew into the kingdom of France, was struggling with many difficulties: defending himself against the hostile ambition of his brother, Louis the German; striving to establish his authority in Brittany and Aquitaine; harried and harassed by Norse pirates; surrounded by domestic treachery and feudal restiveness. All of his many foes were more or less in league against him, and the soul of their combination appears to have been a certain bold adventurer--a stranger of uncertain origin, a Saxon, as some say--who bore the name of Robert the Strong. In this alien enemy, King Charles, who never lacked shrewdness, discovered a possible friend. He opened negotiations with Robert the Strong, and a bargain was soon made which transferred the sword and the energy of the potent mercenary to the service of the king. "Soon after, a Placitum or Great Council was held at Compiègne. In this assembly, and by the assent of the Optimates, the Seine and its islands, and that most important island Paris, and all the country between Seine and Loire, were granted to Robert, the Duchy of France, though not yet so called, moreover the Angevine Marches, or County of Outre-Maine, all to be held by Robert-le-Fort as barriers against Northmen and Bretons, and by which cessions the realm was to be defended. Only a portion of this dominion owned the obedience of Charles: the Bretons were in their own country, the Northmen in the country they were making their own; the grant therefore was a license to Robert to win as much as he could, and to keep his acquisitions should he succeed. ... Robert kept the Northmen in check, yet only by incessant exertion. He inured the future kings of France, his two young sons, Eudes and Robert, to the tug of war, making them his companions in his enterprises. The banks of the Loire were particularly guarded by him, for here the principal attacks were directed." Robert the Strong fought valiantly, as he had contracted to do, for five years, or more, and then, in an unlucky battle with the Danes, one summer day in 866, he fell. "Thus died the first of the Capets." All the honors and possessions which he had received from the king were then transferred, not to his sons, but to one Hugh, Count of Burgundy, who became also Duke or Marquis of France and Count of Anjou. Twenty years later, however, the older son of Robert, Eudes, turns up in history again as Count of Paris, and nothing is known of the means by which the family, soon to become royal, had recovered its footing and its importance.
Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 877-987. The end of the Carolingian monarchy and the rise of the Capetian.
Charles the Bald died in 877 and was succeeded by his son Louis, called "the Stammerer," who reigned only two years. His two sons, Louis and Carloman, were joint kings for a short space, struggling with the Northmen and losing the provinces out of which Duke Boson of Provence, brother-in-law of Charles the Bald, formed the kingdom of Arles. Louis died in 882 and Carloman two years afterwards; thereupon Charles, surnamed "the Fat," king of Lombardy and Germany, and also emperor (nephew of Charles the Bald), became likewise king of France, and briefly reunited under his feebly handled sceptre the greater part of the old empire of Charlemagne: When he died, in 888, a party of the nobles, tired of his race, met and elected Count Eudes (or Odo), the valiant Count of Paris, who had just defended his city with obstinate courage against the Northmen, to be their king. The sovereignty of Eudes was not acknowledged by the nation at large. His opponents found a Carling to set up against him, in the person of the boy Charles,--youngest son of Louis "the Stammerer," born after his father's death,--who appears in history as Charles "the Simple." Eudes, after some years of war, gave up to Charles a small domain, between the Seine and the Meuse, acknowledged his feudal superiority and agreed that the whole kingdom should be surrendered to him on his (Eudes') death. In accordance with this agreement, Charles the Simple became sole king in 898, when Eudes died, and the country which acknowledged his nominal sovereignty fell into a more distracted state than ever. The Northmen established themselves in permanent occupation of the country on the lower Seine, and Charles, in 911, made a formal cession of it to their duke, Rollo, thus creating the great duchy of Normandy. In 922 the nobles grew once more disgusted with the feebleness of their king and crowned Duke Robert, brother of the late king Eudes, driving Charles into his stronghold of Laon. The Normans came to Charles' help and his rival Robert was killed in a battle. {1159} But Charles was defeated, was inveigled into the hands of one of the rebel Lords.--Herbert of Venmandois--and kept a prisoner until he died, in 929. One Rodolf of Burgundy had been chosen king, meantime, and reigned until his death, in 936. Then legitimacy triumphed again, and a young son of Charles the Simple, who had been reared in England, was sent for and crowned. This king--Louis IV.--his son, Lothair, and his grandson, Louis V., kept possession of the shaking throne for half-a-century; but their actual kingdom was much of the time reduced to little more than the royal city of Laon and its immediate territories. When Louis died, in 987, leaving no nearer heir than his uncle, Charles, Duke of Lorraine, there was no longer any serious attempt to keep up the Carolingian line. Hugh, Duke of France--whose grandfather Robert, and whose grand-uncle Eudes had been crowned kings, before him, and whose father, "Hugh the Great," had been the king-maker of the period since--was now called to the throne and settled himself firmly in the seat which a long line of his descendants would hold. He was known as Hugh Capet to his contemporaries, and it is thought that he got the name from his wearing of the hood, cap, or cape of St. Martin--he being the abbot of St. Martin at Tours, in addition to his other high dignities.
G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 1, book 2, part 2, chapter 5; book 3, chapter 1.
ALSO IN: Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, book 1, chapter 5 (volume l).
C. F. Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom, chapters 11 and 13-15.
See, also, LAON.
FRANCE: A. D. 987. Accession of Hugh Capet. The kingdom of the early Capetians.
"On the accession of the third race [the Capetians], France, properly so called, only comprised the territory between the Somme and the Loire; it was bounded by the counties of Flanders and Vermandois on the north; by Normandy and Brittany on the west; by the Champagne on the east; by the duchy of Aquitaine on the south. The territory within these bounds was the duchy of France, the patrimonial possession of the Capets, and constituted the royal domain. The great fiefs of the crown, in addition to the duchy of France, were the duchy of Normandy, the duchy of Burgundy, nearly the whole of Flanders, formed into a county, the county of Champagne, the duchy of Aquitaine, and the county of Toulouse. ... The sovereigns of these various states were the great vassals of the crown and peers of France; Lorraine and a portion of Flanders were dependent on the Germanic crown, while Brittany was a fief of the duchy of Normandy. ... The county of Barcelona beyond the Alps was also one of the great fiefs of the crown of France."
E. de Bonnechose, History of France: second epoch, book 1, chapter 2.
"With the exception of the Spanish March and of part of Flanders, all these states have long been fully incorporated with the French monarchy. But we must remember that, under the earlier French Kings, the connexion of most of these provinces with their nominal suzerain was even looser than the connexion of the German princes after the Peace of Westphalia with the Viennese Emperors. A great French Duke was as independent within his own dominions as an Elector of Saxony or Bavaria, and there were no common institutions, no Diet or assembly of any kind, to bring him into contact either with his liege lord or with his fellow-vassals. Aquitaine and Toulouse ... seem almost to have forgotten that there was any King of the French at all, or at all events that they had anything to do with him. They did not often even pay him the compliment of waging war upon him, a mode of recognition of his existence which was constantly indulged in by their brethren of Normandy and Flanders."
_E. A. Freeman, The Franks and the Gauls (Historical Essays, 1st series, number 7)._
"When France was detached from the Empire in the ninth century, of all three imperial regions she was the one which seemed least likely to form a nation. There was no unity in the country west of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhone. Various principalities, duchies, or counties were here formed, but each of them was divided into secular fiefs and ecclesiastical territories. Over these fiefs and territories the authority of the duke or the count, which was supposed to represent that of the king, was exercised only in case these seigneurs had sufficient power, derived from their own personal estates. Destitute of domains and almost starving, the king, in official documents, asked what means he might find on which to live with some degree of decency. From time to time, amid this chaos, he discussed the theory of his authority. He was a lean and solemn phantom, straying about among living men who were very rude and energetic. The phantom kept constantly growing leaner, but royalty did not vanish. People were accustomed to its existence, and the men of those days could not conceive of a revolution. By the election of Hugh Capet, in 987, royalty became a reality, because the king, as Duke of Francia, had lands, money, and followers. It would be out of place to seek a plan of conduct and a methodical line of policy in the actions of the Capetians, for they employed simultaneously every sort of expedient. During more than three centuries they had male offspring; thus the chief merit of the dynasty was that it endured. As always happens, out of the practice developed a law; and this happy accident produced a lawful hereditary succession, which was a great element of strength. Moreover the king had a whole arsenal of rights: old rights of Carolingian royalty, preserving, the remembrance of imperial power, which the study of the Roman law was soon to resuscitate, transforming these apparitions into formidable realities; old rights conferred by the coronation, which were impossible to define, and hence incontestable; and rights of suzerainty, newer and more real, which were definitely determined and codified as feudalism developed and which, joined to the other rights mentioned above, made the king proprietor of France. These are the elements that Capetian royalty contributed to the play of fortuitous circumstances."
E. Lavisse, General View of the Political History of Europe, chapter 3.
See, also, TWELVE PEERS OF FRANCE.
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FRANCE: A. D. 987-1327. The Feudal Period.
"The period in the history of France, of which we are about to write, began with the consecration of Hugues Capet, at Reims, the 3rd of July, 987, but it is a period which would but improperly take its name from the Capetians; for throughout this time royalty was, as it were, annihilated in France; the social bond was broken, and the country which extends from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, and from the English Channel to the Gulf of Lyon, was governed by a confederation of princes rarely under the influence of a common will, and united only by the Feudal System. While France was confederated under feudal administration, the legislative power was suspended. Hugues Capet and his successors, until the accession of St. Louis, had not the right of making laws; the nation had no diet, no regularly constituted assemblies whose authority it acknowledged. The Feudal System, tacitly adopted, and developed by custom, was solely acknowledged by the numerous sovereigns who divided the provinces among themselves. It replaced the social bond, the monarch, and the legislator. ... The period ... is therefore like a long interregnum, during which the royal authority was suspended, although the name of king was always preserved. He who bore this title in the midst of a republic of princes was only distinguished from them by some honorary prerogative, and he exercised over them scarcely any authority. Until very near the end of the 11th century, these princes were scarcely less numerous than the castles which covered France. No authority was acknowledged at a distance, and every fortress gave its lord rank among the sovereigns. The conquest of England by the Normans broke the equilibrium between the feudal lords; one of the confederate princes, become a king in 1066, gradually extended, until 1179, his domination over more than half of France; and although it was not he who bore the title of king of the French, it may be imagined that in time the rest of the country would also pass under his yoke. Philip the August and his son, during the forty-six last years of the same period, reconquered almost all the fiefs which the English kings had united, brought the other great vassals back to obedience, and changed the feudal confederation which had ruled France into a monarchy, which incorporated the Feudal System in its constitution."
_J. C. L. de Sismondi, France Under the Feudal System (translated by W. Bellingham), chapter 1._
"The feudal period, that is, the period when the feudal system was the dominant fact of our country, ... is comprehended between Hugh Capet and Philippe de Valois, that is, it embraces the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. ... At the end of the 10th century, royalty and the commons were not visible, or at all events scarcely visible. At the commencement of the 14th century, royalty was the head of the state, the commons were the body of the nation. The two forces to which the feudal system was to succumb had then attained, not, indeed, their entire development, but a decided preponderance. ... With the 14th century, the character of war changed. Then began the foreign wars; no longer a vassal against suzerain, or vassal against vassal, but nation against nation, government against government. On the accession of Philippe de Valois, the great wars between the French and the English broke out--the claims of the kings of England, not upon any particular fief, but upon the whole land, and upon the throne of France--and they continued up to Louis XI. They were no longer feudal, but national wars; a certain proof that the feudal period stopped at this limit, that another society had already commenced."
_F. P. Guizot, History of Civilization, 2d course, lecture 1._
FRANCE: A. D. 996. Accession of King Robert II.
FRANCE: A. D. 1031. Accession of King Henry I.
FRANCE: A. D. 1060. Accession of King Philip I.
FRANCE: A. D. 1070-1125. Enfranchisement of Communes.
"The establishment of the commune of Mans, towards the year 1070, was not a fact, isolated, and without respect to what passed in the rest of France; it was, on the contrary, a symptom of the great revolution which was working in the opinions, the manners, and the condition of the mass of the people; a symptom which, bearing a certain date, must serve to establish the epoch of a crowd of analogous efforts made in the other towns of France. History has not preserved the memory of these different efforts, but it has shown us the results. During the two following centuries, the cities ceased not to obtain charters, to found or secure by legitimate authority, the immunities and franchises which constituted the communal rights. ... All, or nearly all had, however, already conquered liberty; they had experienced how advantageous it was to be governed by themselves, and the high price which they put upon the favor they solicited, bears witness to their experience. The enfranchisement of the communes is almost universally reported in the ... reign ... of Louis the Fat; and the honor of this great revolution, which created the third estate [tiers-état], and liberty in France, has been given either to the generosity or the wise policy of that prince. There is doubtless some truth in this opinion, since we find in France no communal charter anterior to the reign of Louis VI., and he is also the first king who was seen to ally himself with the burgesses, to make war on the nobility. However, the idea which is formed of this event, when one attributes it to the act of the monarch's will, or the effect of his system, is completely erroneous. The French people owed whatever degree of liberty it enjoyed in the middle ages, to its own valor; it acquired it as liberty must always be acquired, at the sword's point; it profitted by the divisions, the imprudence, the weakness, or the crimes of its lords, lay or ecclesiastic, to seize it from and in spite of them. ... The origin of every commune was, as indicated by the different names by which they are designated, a communion, a conjuration, or confederation, of the inhabitants of a town who were mutually engaged to defend each other. The first act of the commune was the occupation of a tower in which was set up a clock or belfry; and the first clause of the oath of all the communers, was to repair in arms, when the bell sounded, at the place assigned them, to defend each other. From this first engagement resulted that of submitting to magistrates named by the communers: it was the mayors, echevins, and juries, in northern France, and consuls or syndics in southern France, to whom the consent of all abandoned the sole right of directing the common efforts. Thus the militia was first created; the magistracy came afterwards. ... The reign of Phillip I. had been but a long anarchy. During those forty-eight years the royal government had not existed, and no other had efficaciously taken its place. At the same time, greatly differing from the other feudal monarchies, all legislative power was suspended in France. There were no diets like those of the kingdoms of Germany and Italy, no parliament like that of England, no cortes like those of Spain, no field of March like that of the antient Frankish kings, no assemblages, in fine, which bound by their acts the great vassals and their subjects, and which could submit them to common laws. {1161} The French had not desired a participation in the sovereignty which they could only acquire by sacrificing their independence. Thus, two great vassals, or the subjects of two great vassals, could scarcely believe themselves compatriots. ... The anarchy which was found in the great state of the French monarchy, because all the relations between the king and the count were relaxed, was found also in the petty state of the county of Paris, or of the duchy of France; for the lords and barons of the crown's domains no better obeyed or respected more the prerogatives of their lord, than the great vassals those of the suzerain. The anarchy was complete, the disorder seemed carried to its height, and never had the social bond in France been nearer to being broken: yet never had France made so real a progress as during these forty-eight years. Phillip, at his death, left his son quite another people to that which he had received from his father: the most active monarch would never have done so much for France as she had without him done for herself during his sleep. The towns were more numerous, more populous, more opulent, and more industrious; property had acquired a security unknown in the preceding centuries; justice was distributed between equals, and by equals; and the liberty of the burgesses, conquered by arms, was defended with energy."
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, France under the Feudal System, chapters 9 and 12.
"Liberty ... was to have its beginning in the towns, in the towns of the centre of France, which were to be called privileged towns, or communes, and which would either receive or extort their franchises. ... All coveted a few franchises or privileges, and offered to purchase them; for, needy and wretched as they were, poor artisans, smiths and weavers, suffered to cluster for shelter at the foot of a castle, or fugitive serfs crowding round a church, they could manage to find money; and men of this stamp were the founders of our liberties. They willingly starved themselves to procure the means of purchase; and king and barons rivalled each other in selling charters which fetched so high a price. This revolution took place all over the kingdom under a thousand different forms, and with but little disturbance; so that it has only attracted notice with regard to some towns of the Oise and the Somme, which, placed in less favorable circumstances, and belonging to two different lords, one a layman, the other ecclesiastical, resorted to the king for a solemn guarantee of concessions often violated, and maintained a precarious liberty at the cost of several centuries of civil war. To these towns the name of communes has been more particularly applied; and the wars they had to wage form a slight but dramatic incident in this great revolution, which was operating silently and under different forms in all the towns of the north of France. 'Twas in brave and choleric Picardy, whose commons had so soundly beaten the Normans--in the country of Calvin, and of so many other revolutionary spirits--that these explosions took place. Noyon, Beauvais, Laon, three ecclesiastical lordships, were the first communes; to these may be added St. Quentin. Here the Church had laid the foundations of a powerful democracy. ... The king has been said to be the founder of the communes; but the reverse is rather the truth: it is the communes that established the king. Without them, he could not have beaten off the Normans; and these conquerors of England and the Two Sicilies would probably have conquered France. It was the communes, or, to use a more general and exact term, the bourgeoisies, which, under the banner of the saint of the parish, enforced the common peace between the Oise and the Loire; while the king, on horseback, bore in front the banner of the abbey of St. Denys."
M. Michelet, History of France, book 4, chapter 4.
See, also, COMMUNES.
The following comments on the passages quoted above are made by a good authority: "The general view taken of this subject of the enfranchisement of the communes by historians who wrote at the middle of the century is now being seriously modified. The studies of Luchaire have shown, I think, that such statements as Sismondi's, which attribute everything to the people, are exaggerations. 'Liberty,' as it existed in the communes, was only corporate or aristocratic privilege. As for the national assemblages, there were great councils held, such as those which existed under the Norman monarchs in England, and they issued the 'assizes,' which was a common form of legislation in the Middle Ages. It was not, of course, legislation, in its modern sense. Michelet is quite too flowery, poetical, democratic, to be safely followed."
FRANCE: A. D. 1096. Departure of the First Crusaders.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.
FRANCE: A. D. 1100. The extent of the kingdom.
"When Louis [VI.] was adopted by his father in 1100, the crown had as its own domain only the county of Paris, Hurepoix, the Gatinais, the Orléanis, half the county of Sens, the French Vexin, and Bourges, together with some ill-defined rights over the episcopal cities of Rheims, Beauvais, Laon, Noyon, Soissons, Amiens. And even within these narrow limits the royal power was but thinly spread over the surface. The barons in their castles were in fact independent, and oppressed the merchants and poor folk as they would. The king had also acknowledged rights of suzerainty over Champagne, Burgundy, Normandy, Brittany, Flanders, and Boulogne; but, in most cases, the only obedience the feudal lords stooped to was that of duly performing the act of homage to the king on first succession to a fief. He also claimed suzerainty, which was not conceded, over the South of France; over Provence and Lorraine he did not even put forth a claim of lordship."
G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 1, book 3, chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1101. Disastrous Crusade of French princes and knights.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1101-1102.
FRANCE: A. D. 1106-1119. War with Henry I. of England and Normandy.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1087-1135.
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FRANCE: A. D. 1108-1180. The reigns of Louis VI., Louis VII. and accession of Philip II. Gain and loss of Aquitaine.
"Louis VI., or 'the Fat' was the first able man whom the line of Hugh Capet had produced since it mounted the throne. He made the first attempt at curbing the nobles, assisted by Suger, the Abbot of St. Denys. The only possibility of doing this was to obtain the aid of one party of nobles against another; and when any unusually flagrant offence had been committed, Louis called together the nobles, bishops, and abbots of his domain, and obtained their consent and assistance in making war on the guilty man, and overthrowing his castle, thus, in some degree, lessening the sense of utter impunity which had caused so many violences and such savage recklessness. He also permitted a few of the cities to purchase the right of self-government. ... The royal authority had begun to be respected by 1137, when Louis VI. died, having just effected the marriage of his son, Louis VII., with Eleanor, the heiress of the Dukes of Aquitaine--thus hoping to make the crown really more powerful than the great princes who owed it homage. At this time lived the great St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, who had a wonderful influence over men's minds. ... Bernard roused the young king Louis VII., to go on the second crusade [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149], which was undertaken by the Emperor and the other princes of Europe to relieve the distress of the kingdom of Palestine. ... Though Louis did reach Palestine, it was with weakened forces; he could effect nothing by his campaign, and Eleanor, who had accompanied him, seems to have been entirely corrupted by the evil habits of the Franks settled in the East. Soon after his return, Louis dissolved his marriage; and Eleanor became the wife of Henry, Count of Anjou, who soon after inherited the kingdom of England as our Henry II., as well as the duchy of Normandy, and betrothed his third son to the heiress of Brittany [see AQUITAINE: A. D. 1137-1152]. Eleanor's marriage seemed to undo all that Louis VI. had done in raising the royal power; for Henry completely overshadowed Louis, whose only resource was in feeble endeavours to take part against him in his many family quarrels. The whole reign of Louis the Young, the title that adhered to him on account of his simple, childish nature, is only a record of weakness and disaster, till he died in 1180. ... Powerful in fact as Henry II. was, it was his gathering so large a part of France under his rule which was, in the end, to build up the greatness of the French kings. What had held them in check was the existence of the great fiefs or provinces, each with its own line of dukes or counts, and all practically independent of the king. But now nearly all the provinces of southern and western France were gathered into the hand of a single ruler; and though he was a Frenchman in blood, yet, as he was King of England, this ruler seemed to his French subjects no Frenchman, but a foreigner. They began therefore to look to the French king to free them from a foreign ruler; and the son of Louis VII., called Philip Augustus, was ready to take advantage of their disposition."
_C. M. Yonge, History of France (History Primers), chapter 1, sections 6-7._
FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224. The kingdom extended by Philip Augustus. Normandy, Maine and Anjou recovered from the English kings.
"Louis VII. ascended the throne [A. D. 1137] with better prospects than his father. He had married Eleanor, heiress of the great duchy of Guienne [or Aquitaine]. But this union, which promised an immense accession of strength to the crown, was rendered unhappy by the levities of that princess. Repudiated by Louis, who felt rather as a husband than a king, Eleanor immediately married Henry II. of England, who, already inheriting Normandy from his mother and Anjou from Ins father, became possessed of more than one-half of France, and an over-match for Louis, even if the great vassals of the crown had been always ready to maintain its supremacy. One might venture perhaps to conjecture that the sceptre of France would eventually have passed from the Capets to the Plantagenets, if the vexatious quarrel with Becket at one time, and the successive rebellions fomented by Louis at a later period, had not embarrassed the great talents and ambitious spirit of Henry. But the scene quite changed when Philip Augustus, son of Louis VII., came upon the stage [A. D. 1180]. No prince comparable to him in systematic ambition and military enterprise had reigned in France since Charlemagne. From his reign the French monarchy dates the recovery of its lustre. He wrested from the count of Flanders the Vermandois (that part of Picardy which borders on the Isle of France and Champagne), and, subsequently, the County of Artois. But the most important conquests of Philip were obtained against the kings of England. Even Richard I., with all his prowess, lost ground in struggling against an adversary not less active, and more politic, than himself: But when John not only took possession of his brother's dominions, but confirmed his usurpation by the murder, as was very probably surmised, of the heir, Philip, artfully taking advantage of the general indignation, summoned him as his vassal to the court of his peers. John demanded a safe-conduct. Willingly, said Philip; let him come unmolested. And return? inquired the English envoy. If the judgment of his peers permit him, replied the king. By all the saints of France, he exclaimed, when further pressed, he shall not return unless acquitted. The bishop of Ely still remonstrated that the duke of Normandy could not come without the king of England; nor would the barons of that country permit their sovereign to run the risk of death or imprisonment. What of that, my lord bishop? cried Philip. It is well known that my vassal the duke of Normandy acquired England by force. But if a subject obtains any accession of dignity, shall his paramount lord therefore lose his rights? ... John, not appearing at his summons, was declared guilty of felony, and his fiefs confiscated. The execution of this sentence was not intrusted to a dilatory arm. Philip poured his troops into Normandy, and took town after town, while the king of England, infatuated by his own wickedness and cowardice, made hardly an attempt at defence. In two years [A. D. 1203-1204] Normandy, Maine, and Anjou were irrecoverably lost. Poitou and Guienne resisted longer; but the conquest of the first was completed [A. D. 1224] by Louis VIII., successor of Philip."
H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 1, part 1.
ALSO IN: K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings, volume 2, chapter 9.
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1205; and ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.
FRANCE: A. D. 1188-1190. Crusade of Philip Augustus.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.
FRANCE: A. D. 1201-1203. The Fifth Crusade, and its diversion against Constantinople.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1203.
A. D. 1209-1229. The Albigensian wars and their effects.
See ALBIGENSES.
FRANCE: A. D. 1212. The Children's Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1212.
FRANCE: A. D. 1214. Nationalizing effects of the Battle of Bouvines.
See BOUVINES.
FRANCE: A. D. 1223. Accession of King Louis VIII.
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FRANCE: A. D. 1226-1270. Reign and character of Louis IX. (Saint Louis). His great civilizing work and influence.
"Of the forty-four years of St. Louis' reign, nearly fifteen, with a long interval of separation, pertained to the government of Queen Blanche of Castille, rather than that of the king her son. Louis, at his accession in 1226, was only eleven; and he remained a minor up to the age of twenty-one, in 1236, for the time of majority in the case of royalty was not yet specially and rigorously fixed. During those ten years Queen Blanche governed France; not at all, as is commonly asserted, with the official title of regent, but simply as guardian of the king her son. With a good sense really admirable in a person so proud and ambitious, she saw that official power was ill suited to her woman's condition, and would weaken rather than strengthen her; and she screened herself from view behind her son. He it was who, in [1236], wrote to the great vassals bidding them to his consecration; he it was who reigned and commanded; and his name alone appeared on royal decrees and on treaties. It was not until twenty-two years had passed, in 1248, that Louis, on starting for the crusade, officially delegated to his mother the kingly authority, and that Blanche, during her son's absence, really governed with the title of regent. ... During the first period of his government, and so long as her son's minority lasted, Queen Blanche had to grapple with intrigues, plots, insurrections, and open war; and, what was still worse for her, with the insults and calumnies of the crown's great vassals, burning to seize once more, under a woman's government, the independence and power which had been effectually disputed with them by Philip Augustus. Blanche resisted their attempts, at one time with open and persevering energy, at another dexterously with all the tact, address, and allurements of a woman. Though she was now forty years of age she was beautiful, elegant, attractive, full of resources and of grace. ... The malcontents spread the most odious scandals about her. ... Neither in the events nor in the writings of the period is it easy to find anything which can authorize the accusations made by the foes of Queen Blanche. ... She continued her resistance to the pretensions and machinations of the crown's great vassals, whether foes or lovers, and she carried forward, in the face and in the teeth of all, the extension of the domains and the power of the kingship. We observe in her no prompting of enthusiasm, of sympathetic charitableness, or of religious scrupulousness; that is, none of those grand moral impulses which are characteristic of Christian piety and which were predominant in St. Louis. Blanche was essentially politic and concerned with her temporal interests and successes; and it was not from her teaching or her example that her son imbibed those sublime and disinterested feelings which stamped him the most original and the rarest on the roll of glorious kings. What St. Louis really owed to his mother, and it was a great deal, was the steady triumph which, whether by arms or by negotiation, Blanche gained over the great vassals, and the preponderance which, amidst the struggles of the feudal system, she secured for the kingship of her son in his minority. ... When Louis reached his majority, his entrance upon personal exercise of the kingly power produced no change in the conduct of public affairs. ... The kingship of the son was a continuance of the mother's government. Louis persisted in struggling for the preponderance of the crown against the great vassals; succeeded in taming Peter Mauclerc, the turbulent count of Brittany; wrung from Theobald IV., count of Champagne, the rights of suzerainty in the countships of Chartres, Blois, and Sancerre, and the viscountship of Châteaudun; and purchased the fertile countship of Mâcon from its possessor. It was almost always by pacific procedure, by negotiations ably conducted, and conventions faithfully executed, that he accomplished these increments of the kingly domain; and when he made war on any of the great vassals, he engaged therein only on their provocation, to maintain the rights or honour of his crown, and he used victory with as much moderation as he had shown before entering upon the struggle. ... When war was not either a necessity or a duty, this brave and brilliant knight, from sheer equity and goodness of heart, loved peace rather than war. The successes he had gained in his campaign of 1242 [against the count of La Marche and Henry III., of England, whose mother had become the wife of La Marche] were not for him the first step in an endless career of glory and conquest; he was anxious only to consolidate them whilst securing, in Western Europe, for the dominions of his adversaries as well as for his own, the benefits of peace. He entered into negotiations, successively, with the count of la Marche, the king of England, the count of Toulouse, the king of Aragon, and the various princes and great feudal lords who had been more or less engaged in the war; and in January, 1243, says the latest and most enlightened of his biographers [M. Felix Faure], 'the treaty of Lorris marked the end of feudal troubles for the whole duration of St. Louis' reign. He drew his sword no more, save only against the enemies of the Christian faith and Christian civilization, the Mussulmans.'"
G. Masson, Saint Louis and the Thirteenth Century, pages 44-56.
"St. Louis ... by this war of 1242 finished those contests for the crown with its vassals which had been going on since the time of his ancestor, Louis the Fat. But it was not by warfare that he was to aid in breaking down the strongholds of feudalism. The vassals might have been beaten time and again, and yet the spirit of feudalism, still surviving, would have raised up new champions to contend against the crown. St. Louis struck at the spirit of the Middle Age, and therein insured the downfall of its forms and whole embodiment. He fought the last battles against feudalism, because, by a surer means than battling, he took, and unconsciously, the life-blood from the opposition to the royal authority. Unconsciously, we say; he did not look on the old order of things as evil, and try to introduce a better; he did not selfishly contend for the extension of his own power; he was neither a great reformer, nor a (so-called) wise king. He undermined feudalism, because he hated injustice; he warred with the Middle Age, because he could not tolerate its disregard of human rights; and he paved the way for Philip-le-bel's struggle with the papacy, because he looked upon religion and the church as instruments for man's salvation, not as tools for worldly aggrandizement. {1164} He is, perhaps, the only monarch on record who failed in most of what he undertook of active enterprise, who was under the control of the prejudices of his age, who was a true conservative, who never dreamed of effecting great social changes,--and who yet, by his mere virtues, his sense of duty, his power of conscience, made the mightiest and most vital reforms. One of these reforms was the abolition of the trial by combat. ... It is not our purpose to follow Louis either in his first or second crusade. If the great work of his life was not to be done by fighting at home, still less was it to be accomplished by battles in Egypt or Tunis. His mission was other and greater than he dreamed of, and his service to Christendom was wholly unlike that which he proposed to himself. ... In November, 1244, he took the cross; but it was June of 1248 before he was able to leave Paris to embark upon his cherished undertaking. ...
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1248-1254.
On the fifth of June, 1249, he landed in Egypt, which was to be conquered before Palestine could be safely attacked. On the seventh of June, Damietta was entered, and there the French slept and feasted, wasting time, strength, and money, until the twentieth of the following November. Then came the march southward; the encampment upon the Nile; the terrors of the Greek fire; the skirmishes which covered the plain with dead; the air heavy with putridity and pestilence; the putrid water; the fish fat with the flesh of the dead; sickness, weakness, retreat, defeat, captivity. On the sixth of April, 1250, Louis and his followers were prisoners to the Mussulmans; Louis might have saved himself, but would not quit his followers; he had been faithful thus far, and would be till death. ... On the eighth of May, 1250, Louis was a freeman, and it was not until the twenty-fifth of April, 1254, that he set sail to return to his native shores, where Blanche, who had been regent during his absence, had some months since yielded up her breath. On the seventh of September, he entered Paris, sad and worn. ... And scarce had he landed, before he began that course of legislation which continued until once more he embarked upon the crusade. ... In his first legislative action, Louis proposed to himself these objects,--to put an end to judicial partiality, to prevent needless and oppressive imprisonment for debt, to stop unfounded criminal prosecutions, and to mitigate the horrors of legalized torture. In connection with these general topics, he made laws to bear oppressively upon the Jews, to punish prostitution and gambling, and to diminish intemperance. And it is worthy of remark, that this last point was to be attained by forbidding innkeepers to sell to any others than travellers,--a measure now (six hundred years later) under discussion in some parts of our Union, with a view to the same end. But the wish which this rare monarch had to recompense all who had been wronged by himself and forefathers was the uppermost wish of his soul. He felt that to do justice himself was the surest way to make others willing to do it. Commissioners were sent into every province of the kingdom to examine each alleged case of royal injustice, and with power in most instances to make instant restitution. He himself went forth to hear and judge in the neighborhood of his capital, and as far north as Normandy. ... As he grew yet older, the spirit of generosity grew stronger daily in his bosom. He would have no hand in the affairs of Europe, save to act, wherever he could, as peacemaker. Many occasions occurred where all urged him to profit by power and a show of right, a naked legal title, to possess himself of valuable fiefs; but Louis shook his head sorrowfully and sternly, and did as his inmost soul told him the law of God directed. ... There had been for some reigns back a growing disposition to refer certain questions to the king's tribunals, as being regal, not baronial, questions. Louis the Ninth gave to this disposition distinct form and value, and, under the influence of the baron-hating legists, he so ordained, in conformity with the Roman law, that, under given circumstances, almost any case might be referred to his tribunal. This, of course, gave to the king's judgment-seat and to him more of influence than any other step ever taken had done. It was, in substance, an appeal of the people from the nobles to the king, and it threw at once the balance of power into the royal hands. ... It became necessary to make the occasional sitting of the king's council or parliament, which exercised certain judicial functions, permanent; and to change its composition, by diminishing the feudal and increasing the legal or legist element. Thus everywhere, in the barons' courts, the king's court, and the central parliament, the Roman, legal, organized element began to predominate over the German, feudal, barbaric tendencies, and the foundation-stones of modern society were laid. But the just soul of Louis and the prejudices of his Romanized counsellors were not arrayed against the old Teutonic barbarism alone, with its endless private wars and judicial duels; they stood equally opposed to the extravagant claims of the Roman hierarchy. ... The first calm, deliberate, consistent opposition to the centralizing power of the great see was that offered by its truest friend and most honest ally, Louis of France. From 1260 to 1268, step by step was taken by the defender of the liberties of the Gallican church, until, in the year last named, he published his 'Pragmatic Sanction' [see below], his response, by advice of his wise men, to the voice of the nation, the Magna Charta of the freedom of the church of France, upon whose vague articles, the champions of that freedom could write commentaries, and found claims, innumerable. ... But the legislation of Louis did not stop with antagonism to the feudal system and to the unauthorized claims of the church; it provided for another great grievance of the Middle Age, that lying and unequal system of coinage which was a poison to honest industry and commercial intercourse. ... And now the great work of Louis was completed; the barons were conquered, the people protected, quiet prevailed through the kingdom, the national church was secured in her liberties. The invalid of Egypt, the sojourner of Syria, had realized his dreams and purposes of good to his own subjects, and once again the early vision of his manhood, the recovery of Palestine, haunted his slumbering and his waking hours. ... On the sixteenth of March, 1270, he left Paris for the seashore; on the first of July, he sailed from France. The sad, sad story of this his last earthly doing need not be here repeated."
See CRUSADES: A.. D. 1270-1271.
_Saint Louis of France (North American Review, April, 1846)._
On the part performed by Louis IX. in the founding of absolutism in France,
See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.
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FRANCE: A. D. 1252. The Crusading movement of the Pastors.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1252.
FRANCE: A. D. 1266. Acquisition of the kingdom of Naples or the Two Sicilies by Charles of Anjou, the king's brother.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.
FRANCE: A. D. 1268. The Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis. Assertion of the rights of the Gallican Church.
"The continual usurpations of the popes produced the celebrated Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis [about A.. D. 1268]. This edict, the authority of which, though probably without cause, has been sometimes disputed, contains three important provisions; namely, that all prelates and other patrons shall enjoy their full rights as to the collation of benefices, according to the canons; that churches shall possess freely their rights of election; and that no tax or pecuniary exaction shall be levied by the pope, without consent of the king and of the national church. We do not find, however, that the French government acted up to the spirit of this ordinance."
H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 7, part 2.
"This Edict appeared either during the last year of Clement IV., ... or during the vacancy in the Pontificate. ... It became the barrier against which the encroachments of the ecclesiastical power were destined to break; nor was it swept away till a stronger barrier had arisen in the unlimited power of the French crown." It "became a great Charter of Independence to the Gallican Church."
H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 11, chapter 4 (volume 5).
FRANCE: A. D. 1270-1285. The sons of St. Louis. Origin of the Houses of Valois and Bourbon.
St. Louis left several sons, the elder of whom succeeded him as Philippe III., and his youngest son was Robert, Count of Clermont and Lord of Bourbon, the ancestor of all the branches of the House of Bourbon. Philippe III. died in 1285, when he was succeeded by his son, Philippe IV. A younger son, Charles, Count of Valois, was the ancestor of the Valois branch of the royal family.
FRANCE: A. D. 1285-1314. Reign of Philip IV. His conflict with the Pope and his destruction of the Templars.
Philippe IV., called "le Bel" (the Handsome), came to the throne on the death of his father, Philippe "le Hardi," in 1285. He was presently involved in war with Edward I. of England, who crossed to Flanders in 1297, intending to invade France, but was recalled by the revolt in Scotland, under Wallace, and peace was made in 1303. The Flemings, who had provoked Philippe by their alliance with the English, were thus left to suffer his resentment. They bore themselves valiantly in a war which lasted several years, and inflicted upon the knights of France a fearful defeat at Courtrai, in 1302. In the end, the French king substantially failed in his designs upon Flanders.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1299-1304.
"It is probable that this long struggle would have been still protracted, but for a general quarrel which had sprung up some time before its close, between the French king and Pope Boniface VIII., concerning the [taxation of the clergy and the] right of nomination to vacant bishoprics within the dominions of Philippe. The latter, on seeing Bernard Saissetti thrust into the Bishopric of Pamiers by the pontiff's sole authority, caused the Bishop to be arrested by night, and, after subjecting him to various indignities, consigned him to prison on a charge of treason, heresy, and blasphemy. Boniface remonstrated against this outrage and violence in a bull known in history, by its opening words 'Ausculta, fili,' in which he asserted his power 'over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant,' and concluded by informing Philippe that he had summoned all the superior clergy of France to an assembly at Rome on the 1st of the following November, in order to deliberate on the remedies for such abuses as those of which the king had been guilty. Philippe, by no means intimidated by this measure, convoked a full and early assembly of the three estates of his kingdom, to decide upon the conduct of him whom the orthodox, up to that time, had been in the habit of deeming infallible. This (10th April 1302) was the first meeting of a Parliament, properly so called, in France. ... The chambers unanimously approved and applauded the conduct of the king, and resolved to maintain the honour of the crown and the nation from foreign insult or domination; and to mark their decision more conclusively, they concurred with the sovereign in prohibiting the clergy from attending the Pope's summons to Rome. The papal bull was burned as publicly as possible. ... The Pope, alarmed at these novel and bold proceedings, sought instantly to avert their consequences by soothing explanations; but Philippe would not now be turned aside from his course. He summoned a convocation of the Gallican prelates, in which by the mouth of William de Nogaret, his chancellor, he represented the occupier of St. Peter's chair as the father of lies and an evil-doer; and he demanded the seizure of this pseudo-pope, and his imprisonment until he could be brought before a legitimate tribunal to receive the punishment due to his numerous crimes. Boniface now declared that the French king was excommunicated, and cited him by his confessor to appear in the papal court at Rome within three months, to make submission and atonement for his contumacy. ... While this unseemly quarrel ... seemed to be growing interminable in its complexities, the daring of a few men opened a shorter path to its end than could have been anticipated. William of Nogaret associating to him Sciarra Colonna, a noble Roman, who, having been driven from his native city by Boniface and subjected to various hardships, had found refuge in Paris, passed, with a train of three hundred horsemen, and a much larger body of picked infantry, secretly into Italy, with the intention of surprising the Pope at his summer residence in his native town of Anagni. ... The papal palace was captured after a feeble resistance, and the cardinals and personal attendants of the Pontiff fled for their lives. ... The Condottieri ... dragged the Pope from his throne, and conveying him into the street, mounted him upon a lean horse without saddle or bridle, with his head to the animal's tail, and thus conducted him in a sort of pilgrimage through the town. He was then consigned prisoner to one of the chambers of his palace and placed under guard; while the body of his captors dispersed themselves through the splendid apartments in eager pursuit of plunder. Three days were thus occupied; but at the end of that time the ... people of Anagni ... took arms in behalf of their fellow-townsman and spiritual father, and falling upon the French while still indulging in the licence of the sack, drove Nogaret and Colonna from their quarters, and either expelled or massacred the whole of their followers." {1166} The Pope returned to Rome in so great a rage that his reason gave way, and soon afterwards he was found dead in his bed. "The scandal of these proceedings throughout Christendom was immense; and Philippe adopted every precaution to avert evil consequences from himself by paying court to Benedict XI. who succeeded to the tiara. This Pope, however, though he for some time temporised, could not be long deaf to the loud voices of the clergy which called for punishment upon the oppressors of the church. Ere he had reigned nine months he found himself compelled to excommunicate the plunderers of Anagni; and a few days afterwards he perished, under circumstances which leave little doubt of his having been poisoned. ... The king of France profitted largely by the crime; since, besides gaining time for the subsidence of excitement, he was subsequently enabled, by his intrigues, to procure the election of a person pledged not only to grant him absolution for all past offences, but to stigmatise the memory of Boniface, to restore the deposed Colonna to his honours and estates, to nominate several French ecclesiastics to the college of cardinals, and to grant to the king the tenths of the Gallican church for a term of five years. The pontiff who thus seems to have been the first of his race to lower the pretensions of his office, was Bertrand de Goth, originally a private gentleman of Bazadors, and subsequently promoted to the Archiepiscopal See of Bordeaux. He assumed the title of Clement V., and after receiving investiture at Lyons, fixed the apostolic residence at Avignon, where it continued, under successive occupants, for a period, the length of which caused it to be denominated by the Italians the Babylonian captivity. This quarrel settled, Philippe engaged in another undertaking, the safe-conduct of which required all his skill and unscrupulousness. This important enterprise was no less than the destruction and plunder of the military order of Knights Templars. ... Public discontent ... had, by a variety of circumstances, been excited throughout the realm. Among the number of exactions, the coin had been debased to meet the exigencies of the state, and this obstructing the operations of commerce, and inflicting wrongs to a greater or less extent upon all classes, everyone loudly complained of injustice, robbery and oppression, and in the end several tumults occurred, in which the residence of the king himself was attacked, and the whole population were with difficulty restrained from insurrection. In Burgundy, Champagne, Artois and Forez, indeed, the nobles, and burgess class having for the first time made common cause of their grievances, spoke openly of revolt against the royal authority, unless the administration should be reformed, and equity be substituted in the king's courts for the frauds, extortions and malversations, which prevailed. The sudden death of Philippe--owing to a fall from his horse while hunting the wild boar in the forest of Fontainebleau--on the 29th of November, 1314, delivered the people from their tyrant, and the crown from the consequences of a general rebellion. Pope Clement, the king's firm friend, had gone to his last account on the 20th of the preceding April. Louis X., le Hutin (the Quarrelsome), ascended the throne at the mature age of twenty-five."
G. M. Bussey and T. Gaspey, Pictorial History of France, volume 1, chapter 4.
See, also, PAPACY: A.D. 1294-1348, and TEMPLARS: A.D. 1307-1314.
FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1328. Louis X., Philip V., Charles IV. Feudal reaction.
Philip-le-Bel died in 1314. "With the accession of his son, Louis X., so well surnamed Hutin (disorder, tumult), comes a violent reaction of the feudal, local, provincial spirit, which seeks to dash in pieces the still feeble fabric of unity, demands dismemberment, and claims chaos. The Duke of Brittany arrogates the right of judgment without appeal; so does the exchequer of Rouen. Amiens will not have the king's sergeants subpœna before the barons, or his provosts remove any prisoner from the town's jurisdiction. Burgundy and Nevers require the king to respect the privileges of feudal justice. ... The common demand of the barons is that the king shall renounce all intermeddling with their men. ... The young monarch grants and signs all; there are only three points to which he demurs, and which he seeks to defer. The Burgundian barons contest with him the jurisdiction over the rivers, roads, and consecrated places. The nobles of Champagne doubt the king's right to lead them to war out of their own province. Those of Amiens, with true Picard impetuosity, require without any circumlocution, that all gentlemen may war upon each other, and not enter into securities, but ride, go, come, and be armed for war, and pay forfeit to one another. ... The king's reply to these absurd and insolent demands is merely: 'We will order examination of the registers of my lord St. Louis, and give to the said nobles two trustworthy persons, to be nominated by our council, to verify and inquire diligently into the truth of the said article.' The reply was adroit enough. The general cry was for a return to the good customs of St. Louis: it being forgotten that St. Louis had done his utmost to put a stop to private wars. But by thus invoking the name of St. Louis, they meant to express their wish for the old feudal independence--for the opposite of the quasi-legal, the venal, and pettifogging government of Philippe-le-Bel. The barons set about destroying, bit by bit, all the changes introduced by the late king. But they could not believe him dead so long as there survived his Alter Ego, his mayor of the palace, Enguerrand de Marigny, who, in the latter years of his reign, had been coadjutor and rector of the kingdom, and who had allowed his statue to be raised in the palace by the side of the king's. His real name was Le Portier; but along with the estates he bought the name of Marigny. ... It was in the Temple, in the very spot where Marigny had installed his master for the spoliation of the Templars, that the young king Louis repaired to hear the solemn accusation brought against him. His accuser was Philippe-le-Bel's brother, the violent Charles of Valois, a busy man, of mediocre abilities, who put himself at the head of the barons. ... To effect his destruction, Charles of Valois had recourse to the grand accusation of the day, which none could surmount. {1167} It was discovered, or presumed, that Marigny's wife or sister, in order to effect his acquittal, or bewitch the king, had caused one Jacques de Lor to make certain small figures: 'The said Jacques, thrown into prison, hangs himself in despair, and then his wife, and Enguerrand's sisters are thrown into prison, and Enguerrand himself, condemned before the knights ... is hung at Paris on the thieves' gibbet.' ... Marigny's best vengeance was that the crown, so strong in his care, sank after him into the most deplorable weakness. Louis-le-Hutin, needing money for the Flemish war, treated as equal with equal, with the city of Paris. The nobles of Champagne and Picardy hastened to take advantage of the right of private war which they had just reacquired, and made war on the countess of Artois, without troubling themselves about the judgment rendered by the king, who had awarded this fief to her. All the barons had resumed the privilege of coining; Charles of Valois, the king's uncle, setting them the example. But instead of coining for their own domains only, conformably to the ordinances of Philippe-le-Hardi and Philippe-le-Bel, they minted coin by wholesale, and gave it currency throughout the kingdom. On this, the king had perforce to arouse himself, and return to the administration of Marigny and of Philippe-le-Bel. He denounced the coinage of the barons, (November the 19th, 1315;) ordained that it should pass current on their own lands only; and fixed the value of the royal coin relatively to thirteen different coinages, which thirty-one bishops or barons had the right of minting on their own territories. In St. Louis's time, eighty nobles had enjoyed this right. The young feudal king, humanized by the want of money, did not disdain to treat with serfs and with Jews. ... It is curious to see the son of Philippe-le-Bel admitting serfs to liberty [see SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: FRANCE]; but it is trouble lost. The merchant vainly swells his voice and enlarges on the worth of his merchandise; the poor serfs will have none of it. Had they buried in the ground some bad piece of money, they took care not to dig it up to buy a bit of parchment. In vain does the king wax wroth at seeing them dull to the value of the boon offered. At last, he directs the commissioners deputed to superintend the enfranchisement, to value the property of such serfs as preferred 'remaining in the sorriness (chétiveté) of slavery,' and to tax them 'as sufficiently and to such extent as the condition and wealth of the individuals may conveniently allow, and as the necessity of our war requires.' But with all this it is a grand spectacle to see proclamation made from the throne itself of the imprescriptible right of every man to liberty. The serfs do not buy this right, but they will remember both the royal lesson, and the dangerous appeal to which it instigates against the barons. The short and obscure reign of Philippe-le-Long [Philip V., 1316-1322] is scarcely less important as regards the public law of France, than even that of Philippe-le-Bel. In the first place, his accession to the throne decides a great question. As Louis Hutin left his queen pregnant, his brother Philippe is regent and guardian of the future infant. This child dies soon after its birth, and Philippe proclaims himself king to the prejudice of a daughter of his brother's; a step which was the more surprising from the fact that Philippe-le-Bel had maintained the right of female succession in regard to Franche-Comté and Artois. The barons were desirous that daughters should be excluded from inheriting fiefs, but that they should succeed to the throne of France; and their chief, Charles of Valois, favored his grand-niece against his nephew Philippe. Philippe assembled the States, and gained his cause, which, at bottom, was good, by absurd reasons. He alleged in his favor the old German law of the Franks, which excluded daughters from the Salic land; and maintained that the crown of France was too noble a fief to fall into hands used to the distaff ('pour tomber en quenouille')--a feudal argument, the effect of which was to ruin feudality. ... By thus rejecting the right of the daughters at the very moment it was gradually triumphing over the fiefs, the crown acquired its character of receiving always without ever giving; and a bold revocation, at this time, of an donations made since St. Louis's day, seems to contain the principle of the inalienableness of the royal domain. Unfortunately, the feudal spirit which resumed strength under the Valois in favor of private wars, led to fatal creations of appanages, and founded, to the advantage of the different branches of the royal family, a princely feudality as embarrassing to Charles VI. and Louis XI., as the other had been to Philippe-le-Bel. This contested succession and disaffection of the barons force Philippe-le-Long into the paths of Philippe-le-Bel. He flatters the cities, Paris, and, above all, the University,--the grand power of Paris. He causes his barons to take the oath of fidelity to him, in presence of the masters of the university, and with their approval. He wishes his good cities to be provided with armories; their citizens to keep their arms in a sure place; and appoints them a captain in each bailiwick or district, (March the 12th, 1316). ... Praiseworthy beginnings of order and of government brought no relief to the sufferings of the people. During the reign of Louis Hutin, a horrible mortality had swept off, it was said, the third of the population of the North. The Flemish war had exhausted the last resources of the country. ... Men's imaginations becoming excited, a great movement took place among the people. As in the days of St. Louis, a multitude of poor people, of peasants, of shepherds or pastoureaux, as they were called, flock together and say that they seek to go beyond the sea, that they are destined to recover the Holy Land. ... They wended their way towards the South, everywhere massacring the Jews; whom the king's officers vainly tried to protect. At last, troops were got together at Toulouse, who fell upon the Pastoureaux, and hanging them up by twenties and thirties the rest dispersed. ... Philippe-le-Long ... was seized with fever in the course of the same year, (A. D. 1321,) in the month of August, without his physicians being able to guess its cause. He languished five months, and died. ... His brother Charles [Charles IV., 1322-1328] succeeded him, without bestowing a thought more on the rights of Philippe's daughter; than Philippe had done to those of Louis's daughter. The period of Charles's reign is as barren of facts with regard to France, as it is rich in them respecting Germany, England, and Flanders. The Flemings imprison their count. The Germans are divided between Frederick of Austria and Lewis of Bavaria, who takes his rival prisoner at Muhldorf. In the midst of the universal divisions, France seems strong from the circumstance of its being one. Charles-le-Bel interferes in favor of the count of Flanders. {1168} He attempts, with the pope's aid, to make himself emperor; and his sister, Isabella, makes herself actual queen of England by the murder of Edward II. ... Charles-le-Bel ... died almost at the same time as Edward, leaving only a daughter; so that he was succeeded by a cousin of his. All that fine family of princes who had sat near their father at the Council of Vienne was extinct. In the popular belief, the curses of Boniface had taken effect. ... This memorable epoch, which depresses England so low, and in proportion, raises France so high, presents, nevertheless, in the two countries two analogous events: In England, the barons have overthrown Edward II. In France, the feudal party places on the throne the feudal branch of the Valois."
J. Michelet, History of France, books 5-6 (volume l).
See, also, VALOIS, THE HOUSE OF.
FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1347. The king's control of the Papacy in its contest with the emperor.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328. The extent of the royal domain. The great vassals. The possessions of foreign princes in France.
On the accession of the House of Valois to the French throne, in the person of Philip VI. (A. D. 1328), the royal domain had acquired a great increase of extent. In the two centuries since Philip I. it had gained, "by conquest, by confiscation, or by inheritance, Berry, or the Viscounty of Bourges, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Valois, Vermandois, the counties of Auvergne, and Boulogne, a part of Champagne and Brie, Lyonnais, Angoumois, Marche, nearly the whole of Languedoc, and, lastly, the kingdom of Navarre, which belonging in her own right to queen Jeanne, mother of the last three Capetians [Jeanne, heiress of the kingdom of Navarre and of the counties of Champagne and Brie, was married to Philip IV., and was the mother of Louis X., Philip V. and Charles IV.], Charles IV. united with the crown. But the custom among the kings of giving apanages or estates to the princes of their house detached afresh from the domain a great part of the reunited territories, and created powerful princely houses, of which the chiefs often made themselves formidable to the monarchs. Among these great houses of the Capetian race, the most formidable were: the house of Burgundy, which traced back to king Robert; the house of Dreux, issue of a son of Louis the Big, and which added by a marriage the duchy of Brittany to the county of that name; the house of Anjou, issue of Charles, brother of Saint Louis, which was united in 1290 with that of Valois; the house of Bourbon, descending from Robert, Count of Clermont, sixth son of Saint Louis; and the house of Alençon, which traced back to Philip III., and possessed the duchy of Alençon and Perche. Besides these great princely houses of Capetian stock, which owed their grandeur and their origin to their apanages, there were many others which held considerable rank in France, and of which the possessions were transmissible to women; while the apanages were all masculine fiefs. The most powerful of these houses were those of Flanders, Penthièvre, Châtillon, Montmorency, Brienne, Coucy, Vendôme, Auvergne, Foix, and Armagnac. The vast possessions of the two last houses were in the country of the Langue d'Oc. The counts of Foix were also masters of Bearn, and those of Armagnac possessed Fezensac, Rouergue, and other large seigniories. Many foreign princes, besides, had possessions in France at the accession of the Valois. The king of England was lord of Ponthieu, of Aunis, of Saintonge, and of the duchy of Aquitaine; the king of Navarre was count of Evreux, and possessor of many other towns in Normandy; the king of Majorca was proprietor of the seigniory of Montpellier; the duke of Lorraine, vassal of the German empire, paid homage to the king of France for many fiefs that he held in Champagne; and, lastly, the Pope possessed the county Venaissin, detached from Provence."
E. de Bonnechose, History of France, volume 1, page 224.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328. Accession of King Philip VI.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328. The splendor of the Monarchy on the eve of the calamitous wars.
"Indisputably, the king of France [Philip VI., or Philip de Valois] was at this moment [A. D. 1328] a great king. He had just reinstated Flanders in its state of dependence on him. The king of England had done him homage for his French provinces. His cousins reigned at Naples and in Hungary. He was protector of the king of Scotland. He was surrounded by a court of kings--by those of Navarre, Majorca, Bohemia; and the Scottish monarch was often one of the circle. The famous John of Bohemia, of the house of Luxembourg, and father to the emperor Charles IV., declared that he could not live out of Paris, 'the most chivalrous residence in the world.' He fluttered over all Europe, but ever returned to the court of the great king of France--where was kept up one constant festival, where jousts and tournaments ever went on, and the romances of chivalry, king Arthur and the round table, were realized."
J. Michelet, History of France, book 6, chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339. The claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown.
"History tells us that Philip, king of France, surnamed the Fair, had three sons, beside his beautiful daughter Isabella, married to the king of England [Edward II.]. These three sons were very handsome. The eldest, Lewis, king of Navarre during the lifetime of his father, was called Lewis Hutin [Louis X.]; the second was named Philip the Great, or the Long [Philip V.]; and the third, Charles [Charles IV.]. All these were kings of France, after their father Philip, by legitimate succession, one after the other, without having by marriage any male heirs; yet, on the death of the last king, Charles, the twelve peers and barons of France did not give the kingdom to Isabella, the sister, who was queen of England, because they said and maintained, and still do insist, that the kingdom of France is so noble that it ought not to go to a woman; consequently neither to Isabella, nor to her son, the king of England [Edward III.]; for they hold that the son of a woman cannot claim any right of succession, where that woman has none herself. For these reasons the twelve peers and barons of France unanimously gave the kingdom of France to the lord Philip of Valois, nephew to king Philip, and thus put aside the queen of England, who was sister to Charles, the late king of France, and her son. Thus, as it seemed to many people, the succession went out of the right line; which has been the occasion of the most destructive wars and devastations of countries, as well in France as elsewhere, as you will learn hereafter; the real object of this history being to relate the great enterprises and deeds of arms achieved in these wars, for from the time of good Charlemagne, king of France, never were such feats performed."
J. Froissart, Chronicles (Johnes'), book 1, chapter 4.
[Images: Maps of France]
France in 1154 At the Accession of Henry II. (Anjou) Showing how he Acquired his fiefs in France.
Acquired By Henry From Matilda.
Acquired By Henry From His Father Goeffrey Of Anjou.
Acquired By Henry From His Wife Eleanor Of Aquitaine
French Crown Lands
Other Vassal Lands.
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France in 1180 At The Accession Of Philip Augustus Showing The Lands Acquired By The Crown During His Reign.
Crown Lands At Accession Of Philip
Acquired During His Reign Form Angevins
Acquired During His Reign From Other Vassals
Angevin Lands (1223)
Other Vassal Lands
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France at the death of Philip IV (The Fair) 1314
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France at the Peace of Bretigny
-------End: Maps of France----------------
{1169}
"From the moment of Charles IV.'s death [A. D. 1328], Edward III. of England buoyed himself up with a notion of his title to the crown of France, in right of his mother Isabel, sister to the three last kings. We can have no hesitation in condemning the injustice of this pretension. Whether the Salic law were or were not valid, no advantage could be gained by Edward. Even if he could forget the express or tacit decision of all France, there stood in his way Jane, the daughter of Louis X., three [daughters] of Philip the Long, and one of Charles the Fair. Aware of this, Edward set up a distinction, that, although females were excluded from succession, the same rule did not apply to their male issue; and thus, though his mother Isabel could not herself become queen of France, she might transmit a title to him. But this was contrary to the commonest rules of inheritance; and if it could have been regarded at all, Jane had a son, afterwards the famous king of Navarre [Charles the Bad], who stood one degree nearer to the crown than Edward. It is asserted in some French authorities that Edward preferred a claim to the regency immediately after the decease of Charles the Fair, and that the States-General, or at least the peers of France, adjudged that dignity to Philip de Valois. Whether this be true or not, it is clear that he entertained projects of recovering his right as early, though his youth and the embarrassed circumstances of his government threw insuperable obstacles in the way of their execution. He did liege homage, therefore, to Philip for Guienne, and for several years, while the affairs of Scotland engrossed his attention, gave no signs of meditating a more magnificent enterprise. As he advanced in manhood, and felt the consciousness of his strength, his early designs grew mature, and produced a series of the most important and interesting revolutions in the fortunes of France."
H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 1, part l.
See, also, SALIC LAW: APPLICATION TO THE REGAL SUCCESSION IN FRANCE.
FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360. The beginning of the "Hundred Years War."
It was not until 1337 that Edward III. felt prepared to assert formally his claim to the French crown and to assume the title of King of France. In July of the following year he began undertakings to enforce his pretended right, by crossing with a considerable force to the continent. He wintered at Antwerp, concerting measures with the Flemings, who had espoused his cause, and arranging an alliance with the emperor-king of Germany, whose name bore more weight than his arms. In 1339 a formal declaration of hostilities was made and the long war--the Hundred Years War, as it has been called--of English kings for the sovereignty of France, began. "This great war may well be divided into five periods. The first ends with the Peace of Bretigny in 1360 (A. D. 1337-1360), and includes the great days of Crécy [1346] and Poitiers [1356], as well as the taking of Calais: the second runs to the death of Charles the Wise in 1380; these are the days of Du Guesclin and the English reverses: the third begins with the renewal of the war under Henry V. of England, and ends with the Regency of the Duke of Bedford at Paris, including the field of Azincourt [1415] and the Treaty of Troyes (A. D. 1415-1422): the fourth is the epoch of Jeanne Darc and ends with the second establishment of the English at Paris (A. D. 1428-1431): and the fifth and last runs on to the final expulsion of the English after the Battle of Castillon in 1453. Thus, though it is not uncommonly called the Hundred Years War, the struggle really extended over a period of a hundred and sixteen years."
G. W. Kitchin, History of France, book 4, chapters 1-7.
"No war had broken out in Europe, since the fall of the Roman Empire, so memorable as that of Edward III. and his successors against France, whether we consider its duration, its object, or the magnitude and variety of its events. It was a struggle of one hundred and twenty years, interrupted but once by a regular pacification, where the most ancient and extensive dominion in the civilised world was the prize, twice lost and twice recovered in the conflict. ... There is, indeed, ample room for national exultation at the names of Crecy, Poitiers and Azincourt. So great was the disparity of numbers upon those famous days, that we cannot, with the French historians, attribute the discomfiture of their hosts merely to mistaken tactics and too impetuous valour. ... These victories, and the qualities that secured them, must chiefly be ascribed to the freedom of our constitution, and to the superior condition of the people. Not the nobility of England, not the feudal tenants, won the battles of Crecy and Poitiers; for these were fully matched in the ranks of France; but the yeomen who drew the bow with strong and steady arms, accustomed to use it in their native fields, and rendered fearless by personal competence and civil freedom. ... Yet the glorious termination to which Edward was enabled, at least for a time, to bring the contest, was rather the work of fortune than of valour and prudence. Until the battle of Poitiers [A. D. 1356] he had made no progress towards the conquest of France. That country was too vast, and his army too small, for such a revolution. The victory of Crecy gave him nothing but Calais. ... But at Poitiers he obtained the greatest of prizes, by taking prisoner the king of France. Not only the love of freedom tempted that prince to ransom himself by the utmost sacrifices, but his captivity left France defenceless and seemed to annihilate the monarchy itself. ... There is no affliction which did not fall upon France during this miserable period. ... Subdued by these misfortunes, though Edward had made but slight progress towards the conquest of the country, the regent of France, afterwards Charles V., submitted to the peace of Bretigni [A. D. 1360]. By this treaty, not to mention less important articles, all Guienne, Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, the Limousin, and the Angoumois, as well as Calais, and the county of Ponthieu, were ceded in full sovereignty to Edward; a price abundantly compensating his renunciation of the title of France, which was the sole concession stipulated in return."
H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 1, part 2.
ALSO IN: J. Froissart, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 1, chapters 1-212.
W. Longman, History of Edward III., volume 1, chapters 6-22.
F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 20.
D. F. Jamison, Life and Times of Bertrand du Guesclin, volume 1, chapters 4-10.
See, also, POITIERS, BATTLE OF.
{1170}
FRANCE: A. D. 1347-1348. The Black Plague.
"Epochs of moral depression are those, too, of great motality. ... In the last years of Philippe de Valois' reign, the depopulation was rapid. The misery and physical suffering which prevailed were insufficient to account for it; for they had not reached the extreme at which they subsequently arrived. Yet, to adduce but one instance, the population of a single town, Narbonne, fell off in the space of four or five years from the year 1399, by 500 families. Upon this too tardy diminution of the human race followed extermination,--the great black plague, or pestilence, which at once heaped up mountains of dead throughout Christendom. It began in Provence, in the year 1347, on All Saints' Day, continued sixteen months, and carried off two-thirds of the inhabitants. The same wholesale destruction befell Languedoc. At Montpellier, out of twelve consuls, ten died. At Narbonne, 30,000 persons perished. In several places, there remained only a tithe of the inhabitants. All that the careless Froissart says of this fearful visitation, and that only incidentally, is--'For at this time there prevailed throughout the world generally a disease called epidemy, which destroyed a third of its inhabitants.' This pestilence did not break out in the north of the kingdom until August, 1348, where it first showed itself at Paris and St. Denys. So fearful were its ravages at Paris, that, according to some, 800, according to others, 500, daily sank under it. ... As there was neither famine at the time nor want of food, but, on the contrary great abundance, this plague was said to proceed from infection of the air and of the springs. The Jews were again charged with this, and the people cruelly fell upon them."
J. Michelet, History of France, book 6, chapter 1.
See BLACK DEATH.
FRANCE: A. D. 1350. Accession of King John II.
FRANCE: A. D. 1356-1358. The States-General and Etienne Marcel.
"The disaster of Poitiers [1356] excited in the minds of the people a sentiment of national grief, mixed with indignation and scorn at the nobility who had fled before an army so inferior in number. Those nobles who passed through the cities and towns on their return from the battle were pursued with imprecations and outrages. The Parisian bourgeoisie, animated with enthusiasm and courage, took upon itself at all risks the charge of its own defense; whilst, the eldest son of the king, a youth of only nineteen, who had been one of the first to fly, assumed the government as lieutenant of his father. It was at the summons of this prince that the states assembled again at Paris before the time which they had appointed. The same deputies returned to the number of 800, of whom 400 were of the bourgeoisie; and the work of reform, rudely sketched in the preceding session, was resumed under the same influence, with an enthusiasm which partook of the character of revolutionary impulse. The assembly commenced by concentrating its action in a committee of twenty-four members, deliberating, as far as appears, without distinction of orders; it then intimated its resolutions under the form of petitions, which were as follow: The authority of the states declared supreme in all affairs of administration and finance, the impeachment of all the counsellors of the king, the dismissal in a body of the officers of justice, and the creation of a council of reformers taken from the three orders; lastly, the prohibition to conclude any truce without the assent of the three states, and the right on their part to re-assemble at their own will without a royal summons. The lieutenant of the king, Charles Duke of Normandy, exerted in vain the resources of a precocious ability to escape these imperious demands: he was compelled to yield everything. The States governed in his name; but dissension, springing from the mutual jealousy of the different orders, was soon introduced into their body. The preponderating influence of the bourgeois appeared intolerable to the nobles, who, in consequence, deserted the assembly and retired home. The deputies of the clergy remained longer at their posts, but they also withdrew at last; and, under the name of the States-General, none remained but the representatives of the cities, alone charged with all the responsibilities of the reform and the affairs of the kingdom. Bowing to a necessity of central action, they submitted of their own accord to the deputation of Paris; and soon, by the tendency of circumstances, and in consequence of the hostile attitude of the Regent, the question of supremacy of the states became a Parisian question, subject to the chances of a popular émeute and the guardianship of the municipal power. At this point appears a man whose character has grown into historical importance in our days from our greater facilities of understanding it, Etienne [Stephen] Marcel, 'prévôt des marchands'--that is to say, mayor of the municipality of Paris. This échevin of the 14th century, by a remarkable anticipation, designed and attempted things which seem to belong only to recent revolutions. Social unity, and administrative uniformity; political rights, co-extensive and equal with civil rights; the principle of public authority transferred from the crown to the nation; the States-General changed, under the influence of the third order, into a national representation; the will of the people admitted as sovereign in the presence of the depositary of the royal power; the influence of Paris over the provinces, as the head of opinion and centre of the general movement; the democratic dictatorship, and the influence of terror exercised in the name of the common weal; new colours assumed and carried as a sign of patriotic union and symbol of reform; the transference of royalty itself from one branch of the family to the other, with a view to the cause of reform and the interest of the people--such were the circumstances and the scenes which have given to our own as well as the preceding century their political character. It is strange to find the whole of it comprised in the three years over which the name of the Prévôt Marcel predominates. His short and stormy career was, as it were, a premature attempt at the grand designs of Providence, and the mirror of the bloody changes of fortune through which those designs were destined to advance to their accomplishment under the impulse of human passions. Marcel lived and died for an idea--that of hastening on, by the force of the masses, the work of gradual equalisation commenced by the kings themselves; but it was his misfortune and his crime to be unrelenting in carrying out his convictions. To the impetuosity of a tribune who did not shrink even from murder he added the talent of organization; he left in the grand city, which he had ruled with a stern and absolute sway, powerful institutions, noble works, and a name which two centuries afterwards his descendants bore with pride as a title of nobility."
A. Thierry, Formation and Progress of the Tiers Etat, volume 1, chapter 2.
See, also, STATES-GENERAL OF FRANCE IN THE 14th CENTURY.
{1171}
FRANCE: A. D. 1358. The insurrection of the Jacquerie.
"The miseries of France weighed more and more heavily on the peasantry; and none regarded them. They stood apart from the cities, knowing little of them; the nobles despised them and robbed them of their substance or their labour. ... At last the peasantry (May, 1358), weary of their woes, rose up to work their own revenge and ruin. They began in the Beauvais country and there fell on the nobles, attacking and destroying castles, and slaying their inmates: it was the old unvarying story. They made themselves a kind of king, a man of Clermont in the Beauvoisin, named William Callet. Froissart imagines that the name 'Jacques Bonhomme' meant a particular person, a leader in these risings. Froissart however had no accurate knowledge of the peasant and his ways. Jacques Bonhomme was the common nickname, the 'Giles' or 'Hodge' of France, the name of the peasant generally; and from it such risings as this of 1358 came to be called the 'Jacquerie,' or the disturbances of the 'Jacques.' The nobles were soon out against them, and the whole land was full of anarchy. Princes and nobles, angry peasants with their 'iron shod sticks and knives,' free-lances, English bands of pillagers, all made up a scene of utter confusion: 'cultivation ceased, commerce ceased, security was at an end.' The burghers of Paris and Meaux sent a force to help the peasants, who were besieging the fortress at Meaux, held by the nobles; these were suddenly attacked and routed by the Captal de Buch and the Count de Foix, 'then on their return from Prussia.' The King of Navarre also fell on them, took by stratagem their leader Callet, tortured and hanged him. In six weeks the fire was quenched in blood."
G. W. Kitchin, History of France, chapter 2, section 3.
"Froissard relates the horrible details of the Jacquerie with the same placid interest which characterises his descriptions of battles, tournaments, and the pageantry of chivalry. The charm and brilliancy of his narrative have long popularised his injustice and his errors, which are self-apparent when compared with the authors and chroniclers of his time. ... The chronicles contemporary of the Jacquerie confine themselves to a few words on the subject, although, with the exception of the Continuator of Nangis, they were all hostile to the cause of the peasants. The private and local documents on the subject say very little more. The Continuator of Nangis has drawn his information from various sources. He takes care to state that he has witnessed almost all he relates. After describing the sufferings of the peasants, he adds that the laws of justice authorised them to rise in revolt against the nobles of France. His respected testimony reduces the insurrection to comparatively small proportions. The hundred thousand Jacques of Froissard are reduced to something like five or six thousand men, a number much more probable when it is considered that the insurrection remained a purely local one, and that, in consequence of the ravages we have mentioned, the whole open country had lost about two-thirds of its inhabitants. He states very clearly that the peasants killed indiscriminately, and without pity, men and children, but he does not say anything of those details of atrocity related by Froissard. He only alludes once to a report of some outrages offered to some noble ladies; he speaks of it as a vague rumour. He describes the insurgents, after the first explosion of their vindictive fury, as pausing--amazed at their own boldness, and terrified at their own crimes, and the nobles, recovering from their terror, taking immediate advantage of this sudden torpor and paralysis--assembling and slaughtering all, innocent and guilty, burning houses and villages. If we turn to other writers contemporary with the Jacquerie, we find that Louvet, author of the 'History of the District of Beauvais,' does not say much on the subject, and evinces also a sympathy for the peasants: the paucity of his remarks on a subject represented by Froissard as a gigantic, bloody tragedy, raises legitimate doubts as to the veracity of the latter. There is another authority on the events of that period, which may be considered as more weighty, in consequence of its ecclesiastical character; it is the 'cartulaire,' or journal of the Abbot of Beauvais. ... There is no trace in it of the horror and indescribable terror ... [the rising] must have inspired if the peasants had committed the atrocities attributed to them by the feudal historian, Froissard. On the contrary, the vengeance of the peasants falls into the shade, as it were, in contrast with the merciless reaction of the nobles, along with the sanguinary oppression of the English. The writer of the 'Abbey of Beauvais,' and the anonymous monk, 'Continuator of Nangis,' concur with each other in their account of the Jacquerie. Their judgments are similar, and they manifest the same moderation. Their opinions, moreover, are confirmed by a higher authority, a testimony that must be considered as indisputable, namely, the letters of amnesty of the Regent of France, which are all preserved; they bear the date of 10th August 1358, and refer to all the acts committed on the occasion of the Jacquerie. In these he proves himself more severe upon the reaction of the nobles than on the revolt of the peasants. ... There is not the slightest allusion to the monstrosities related by Froissard, which the Regent could not have failed to stigmatise, as he is well known for having entertained an unscrupulous hatred to any popular movement, or any claims of the people. The manner, on the contrary, in which the Jacquerie are represented in this official document, is full of signification; it represents the men of the open country assembling spontaneously in various localities, in order to deliberate on the means of resisting the English, and suddenly, as with a mutual agreement, turning fiercely on the nobles, who were the real cause of their misery, and of the disgrace of France, on the days of Crecy and Poitiers. ... It has also been forgotten that many citizens took an active part in the Jacquerie. The great chronicles of France state that the majority were peasants, labouring people, but that there were also among them citizens, and even gentlemen, who, no doubt, were impelled by personal hatred and vengeance. Many rich men joined the peasants, and became their leaders. The bourgeoisie, in its struggles with royalty, could not refuse to take advantage of such a diversion; and Beauvais, Senlis, Amiens, Paris, and Meaux accepted the Jacquerie. Moreover, almost all the poorer classes of the cities sympathised with the revolted peasants. {1172} The Jacquerie broke out on the 21st of May 1358, and not in November 1357, as erroneously stated by Froissard, in the districts around Beauvais and Clermont-sur-Oise. The peasants, merely armed with pikes, sticks, fragments of their ploughs, rushed on their masters, murdered their families, and burned down their castles. The country comprised between Beauvais and Melun was the principal scene of this war of extermination. ... The Jacquerie had commenced on the 21st of May. On the 9th of June ... it was already terminated. It was, therefore, in reality, an insurrection of less than three weeks' duration. The reprisals of the nobles had already commenced on the 9th of June, and continued through the whole of July, and the greater part of August. Froissard states that the Jacquerie lasted over six weeks, thus comprising in his reckoning three weeks of the ferocious vengeance of the nobles, and casting on Jacques Bonhomme the responsibility of the massacres of which he had been the victim, as well as those he had committed in his furious despair."
_Prof. De Vericour, The Jacquerie (Royal Historical Society, Transactions, volume 1)._
ALSO IN: _Sir J. Froissart, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 1, chapter 181._
FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380. English conquests recovered.
The Peace of Bretigny brought little peace to France or little diminution of the troubles of the kingdom. In some respects there was a change for the worse introduced. The armies which had ravaged the country dissolved into plundering bands which afflicted it even more. Great numbers of mercenaries from both sides were set free, who gathered into Free Companies, as they were called, under leaders of fit recklessness and valor, and swarmed over the land, warring on all prosperity and all the peaceful industries of the time, seeking booty wherever it might be found.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.
Civil war, too, was kept alive by the intrigues and conspiracies of the Navarrese king, Charles the Bad; and war in Brittany, over a disputed succession to the dukedom, was actually stipulated for, by French and English, in their treaty of general peace. But when the chivalric but hapless King John died, in 1364, the new king, Charles V., who had been regent during his captivity, developed an unexpected capacity for government. He brought to the front the famous Breton warrior Du Guesclin-rough, ignorant, unchivalric--but a fighter of the first order in his hard-fighting day. He contrived with adroitness to rid France, mostly, of the Free Companies, by sending them, with Du Guesclin at their head, into Spain, where they drove Peter the Cruel from the throne of Castile, and fought the English, who undertook, wickedly and foolishly, to sustain him. The Black Prince won a great battle, at Najara or Navarette (A. D. 1367), took Du Guesclin prisoner and restored the cruel Pedro to his throne. But it was a victory fatal to English interests in France. Half the army of the English prince perished of a pestilent fever before he led it back to Aquitaine, and he himself was marked for early death by the same malady. He had been made duke of Aquitaine, or Guienne, and held the government of the country. The war in Spain proved expensive; he taxed his Gascon and Aquitanian subjects heavily. He was ill, irritable, and treated them harshly. Discontent became widely spread, and the king of France subtly stirred it up until he felt prepared to make use of it in actual war. At last, in 1368, he challenged a rupture of the Peace of Bretigny by summoning King Edward, as his vassal, to answer complaints from Aquitaine. In April of the next year he formally declared war and opened hostilities the same day. His cunning policy was not to fight, but to waste and wear the enemy out. Its wisdom was well-proved by the result. Day by day the English lost ground; the footing they had gained in France was found to be everywhere insecure. The dying Black Prince achieved one hideous triumph at Limoges, where he fouled his brilliant fame by a monstrous massacre; and thence he was carried home to end his days in England. In 1376 he died, and one year later his father, King Edward, followed him to the grave, and a child of eleven (Richard II.) came to the English throne. But the same calamity befell France in 1380, when Charles the Wise died, leaving an heir to the throne only twelve years of age. In both kingdoms the minority of the sovereign gave rise to factious intrigues and distracting feuds. The war went on at intervals, with frequent truces and armistices, and with little result beyond the animosities which it kept alive. But the English possessions, by this time, had been reduced to Calais and Guines, with some small parts of Aquitaine adjoining the cities of Bordeaux and Bayonne. And thus, it may be said, the situation was prolonged through a generation, until Henry V. of England resumed afresh the undertaking of Edward III.
F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 22.
ALSO IN: J. Michelet, History of France, book 6, chapter 4.
T. Wright, History of France, book 2, chapter 6.
E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 9.
_D. F. Jamison, Life and Times of Du Guesclin._
Froissart, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 1.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1366-1369.
FRANCE: A. D. 1364. Accession of King Charles V.
FRANCE: A. D. 1378. Acquisitions in the Rhone valley legal conferred by the Emperor.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.
FRANCE: A. D. 1380. Accession of King Charles VI.
FRANCE: A. D. 1380-1415. The reign of the Dukes. The civil war of Armagnacs and Burgundians.
"Charles VI. had arrived at the age of eleven years and some months when his father died [A. D. 1380]. His three paternal uncles, the Dukes of Anjou, Berry, and Burgundy, and his maternal uncle, the Duke of Bourbon, disputed among themselves concerning his guardianship and the regency. They agreed to emancipate the young King immediately after his coronation, which was to take place during the year, and the regency was to remain until that period in the hands of the eldest, the Duke of Anjou." But the Duke of Anjou was soon afterwards lured into Italy by the fatal gift of a claim to the crown of Naples [see ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389.], and perished in striving to realize it. The surviving uncles misgoverned the country between them until 1389, when the young king was persuaded to throw off their yoke. The nation rejoiced for three years in the experience and the prospect of administrative reforms; but suddenly, in July, 1392, the young king became demented, and "then commenced the third and fatal epoch of that disastrous reign. The faction of the dukes again seized power," but only to waste and afflict the kingdom by dissensions among themselves. {1173} The number of the rival dukes was now increased by the addition of the Duke of Orleans, brother of the king, who showed himself as ruthless and rapacious as any. "Charles was still considered to be reigning; each one sought in turn to get possession of him, and each one watched his lucid moments in order to stand well in power. His flashes of reason were still more melancholy than his fits of delirium. Incapable of attending to his affairs, or of having a will of his own, always subservient to the dominant party, he appeared to employ his few glimmerings of reason only in sanctioning the most tyrannical acts and the most odious abuses. It was in this manner that the kingdom of France was governed during twenty-eight years." In 1404, the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, having died, the Duke of Orleans acquired supreme authority and exercised it most oppressively. But the new Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, made his appearance on the scene ere long, arriving from his county of Flanders with an army and threatening civil war. Terms of peace, however, were arranged between the two dukes and an apparent reconciliation took place. On the very next day the Duke of Orleans was assassinated (A. D. 1407), and the Duke of Burgundy openly proclaimed his instigation of the deed. Out of that treacherous murder sprang a war of factions so deadly that France was delivered by it to foreign conquest, and destroyed, we may say, for the time being, as a nation. The elder of the young princes of Orleans, sons of the murdered duke, had married a daughter of Count Bernard of Armagnac, and Count Bernard became the leader of the party which supported them and sought to avenge them, as against the Duke of Burgundy and his party. Hence the former acquired the name of Armagnacs; the latter were called Burgundians. Armagnac led an army of Gascons [A. D. 1410] and threatened Paris, "where John the Fearless caressed the vilest populace. Burgundy relied on the name of the king, whom he held in his power, and armed in the capital a corps of one hundred young butchers or horse-knackers, who, from John Caboche, their chief, took the name of Cabochiens. A frightful war, interrupted by truces violated on both sides, commenced between the party of Armagnac and that of Burgundy. Both sides appealed to the English, and sold France to them. The Armagnacs pillaged and ravaged the environs of Paris with unheard of cruelties, while the Cabochiens caused the capital they defended to tremble. The States-General, convoked for the first time for thirty years, were dumb--without courage and without strength. The Parliament was silent, the university made itself the organ of the populace, and the butchers made the laws. They pillaged, imprisoned and slaughtered with impunity, according to their savage fury, and found judges to condemn their victims. ... The reaction broke out at last. Tired of so many atrocities, the bourgeoisie took up arms, and shook off the yoke of the horse-knackers. The Dauphin was delivered by them. He mounted on horseback, and, at the head of the militia, went to the Hôtel de Ville, from which place he drove out Caboche and his brigands. The counter revolution was established. Burgundy departed, and the power passed to the Armagnacs. The princes re-entered Paris, and King Charles took up the oriflamme (the royal standard of France), to make war against John the Fearless, whose instrument he had been a short time before. His army was victorious. Burgundy submitted, and the treaty of Arras [A. D. 1415] suspended the war, but not the executions and the ravages. Henry V., King of England, judged this a propitious moment to descend upon France, which had not a vessel to oppose the invaders."
E. de Bonnechose, History of France, volume 1, pages 266-279.
ALSO IN: E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), volume 1, book 1, chapters 1-140.
T. Wright, History of France, book 2, chapters 8-9.
FRANCE: A. D. 1383. Pope Urban's Crusade against the Schismatics.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1383.
FRANCE: A. D. 1396. The sovereignty of Genoa surrendered to the king.
See GENOA: A. D. 1381-1422.
FRANCE: A. D. 1415. The Hundred Years War renewed by Henry V. of England.
"When Henry V. resolved to recover what he claimed as the inheritance of his predecessors, he had to begin, it may be said, the work of conquest over again. Allies, however, he had, whose assistance he was to find very useful. The dynasty of De Montfort had been established in possession of the dukedom of Britanny in a great measure by English help, and though the relations between the two countries had not been invariably friendly since that time, the sense of this obligation, and, still more powerfully, a jealous fear of the French king, inclined Britanny to the English alliance. The Dukes of Burgundy, though they had no such motives of gratitude towards England, felt a far stronger hostility towards France. The feud between the rival factions which went by the names of Burgundians and Armagnacs had now been raging for several years; and though the attitude of the Burgundians varied--at the great struggle of Agincourt they were allies, though lukewarm and even doubtful allies, of the French--they ultimately ranked themselves decidedly on Henry's side. In 1414, then, Henry formally demanded, as the heir of Isabella, mother of his great-grandfather Edward, the crown of France. This claim the French princes wholly refused to consider. Henry then moderated his demands so far, at least, as to allow Charles to remain in nominal possession of his kingdom; but ... France was to cede to England, no longer as a feudal superior making a grant to a vassal, but in full sovereignty, the provinces of Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, together with all that was comprised in the ancient duchy of Aquitaine. Half, too, of Provence was claimed, and the arrears of the ransom of King John, amounting to 1,200,000 crowns, were also to be paid. Finally, the French king was to give his youngest daughter, Katharine, in marriage to Henry, with a portion of 2,000,000 crowns. The French ministers offered, in answer, to yield the duchy of Aquitaine, comprising the provinces of Anjou, Gascony, Guienne, Poitou, and to give the hand of the princess Katharine with a dowry of 600,000 crowns. "Negotiations went on through several months, with small chance of success, while Henry prepared for war. His preparations were completed in the summer of 1415, and on the 11th of August in that year he set sail from Southampton, with an army of 6,000 men-at-arms and 24,000 archers, very completely equipped, and accompanied with cannon and other engines of war. {1174} Landing in the estuary of the Seine, the invaders first captured the important Norman seaport of Harfleur, after a siege of a month, and expelled the inhabitants from the town. It was an important acquisition; but it had cost the English heavily. They were ill-supplied with food; they had suffered from much rain; 2,000 had died of an epidemic of dysentery. The army was in no condition for a forward movement. "The safest course would now have been to return at once; and this seems to have been pressed upon the king by the majority of his counsellors. But this prudent advice did not approve itself to Henry's adventurous temper. ... He determined ... to make what may be called a military parade to Calais. This involved a march of not less than 150 miles through a hostile country, a dangerous, and, but that one who cherishes such designs as Henry's must make a reputation for daring, a useless operation; but the king's determined will overcame all opposition." Leaving a strong garrison at Harfleur, Henry set out upon his march. Arrived at the Somme, his further progress was disputed, and he was forced to make a long detour before he could effect a crossing of the river. On the 24th of October, he encountered the French army, strongly posted at the village of Azincour or Agincourt, barring the road to Calais; and there, on the morning of the 25th, after a night of drenching rain, the great battle, which shines with so dazzling a glory in English history, was fought. There seems to be no doubt that the English were greatly outnumbered by the French--according to Monstrelet they were but one to six; but the masses on the French side were unskilfully handled and no advantage was got from them. The deadly shafts of the terrible English archers built such a rampart of corpses in their front that it actually sheltered them from the charge of the French cavalry. "Everywhere the French were routed, slain, or taken. The victory of the English was complete. ... The French loss was enormous. Monstrelet gives a long list of the chief princes and nobles who fell on that fatal field. ... We are disposed to trust his estimate, which, including princes, knights and men-at-arms of every degree, he puts at 10,000. ... Only 1,600 are said to have been 'of low degree.' ... The number of knights and gentlemen taken prisoners was 1,500. Among them were Charles, Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Bourbon, both princes of the blood-royal. ... Brilliant as was the victory which Henry had won at Agincourt, it had, it may be said, no immediate results. ... The army resumed its interrupted march to Calais, which was about forty miles distant. At Calais a council of war was held, and the resolution to return to England unanimously taken. A few days were allowed for refreshment, and about the middle of November the army embarked."
A. J. Church, Henry the Fifth, chapters 6-10.
ALSO IN: E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), volume 1, book 1, chapters 140-149.
J. E. Tyler, Henry of Monmouth, chapters 19-23.
G M. Towle, History of Henry V., chapters 7-8.
Lord Brougham, History of England and France under the House of Lancaster.
C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History: second series, chapters 24-26.
FRANCE: A. D. 1415-1419. Massacre of Armagnacs. The murder of the Duke of Burgundy.
"The captivity of so many princes of the blood as had been taken prisoner at Agincourt might have seemed likely at least to remove some of the elements of discord; but it so happened that the captives were the most moderate and least ambitious men. The gentle, poetical Duke of Orleans, the good Duke of Bourbon, and the patriotic and gallant Arthur de Richemont, had been taken, while the savage Duke of Burgundy and the violent Gascon Count of Armagnac, Constable of France, remained at the head of their hostile factions. ... The Count d'Armagnac now reigned supreme; no prince of the blood came to the councils, and the king and dauphin were absolutely in his hands. ... The Duke of Burgundy was, however, advancing with his forces, and the Parisians were always far more inclined to him than to the other party. ... For a whole day's ride round the environs of the city, every farmhouse had been sacked or burnt. Indeed, it was said in Paris a man had only to be called a Burgundian, or anywhere else in the Isle of France an Armagnac, to be instantly put to death. All the soldiers who had been posted to guard Normandy and Picardy against the English were recalled to defend Paris against the Duke of Burgundy; and Henry V. could have found no more favourable moment for a second expedition." The English king took advantage of his opportunity and landed in Normandy August 1, 1417, finding nobody to oppose him in the field. The factions were employed too busily in cutting each other's throats,-- especially after the Burgundians had regained possession of Paris, which they did in the following spring. Thereupon the Parisian mob rose and ferociously massacred all the partisans of Armagnac, while the Burgundians looked and approved. "The prison was forced; Armagnac himself was dragged out and slain in the court. ... The court of each prison became a slaughter-house; the prisoners were called down one by one, and there murdered, till the assassins were up to their ankles in blood. The women were as savage as the men, and dragged the corpses about the streets in derision. The prison slaughter had but given a passion for further carnage; and the murderers broke open the houses in search of Armagnacs, killing not only men, but women, children, and even new-born babes, to whom in their diabolical frenzy they refused baptism, as being little Armagnacs. The massacre lasted from four o'clock on Sunday morning to ten o'clock on Monday. Some say that 3,000 perished, others 1,600, and the Duke of Burgundy's servants reported the numbers as only 400." Meantime Henry V. was besieging Rouen, and starving Paris by cutting off the supplies for which it depended on the Seine. In August there was another rising of the Parisian mob and another massacre. In January, 1419, Rouen surrendered, and attempts at peace followed, both parties making a truce with the English invader. The imperious demands of King Henry finally impelled the two French factions to draw together and to make a common cause of the deliverance of the kingdom. At least that was the profession with which the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy met, in July, and went through the forms of a reconciliation. Perhaps there were treacherous intentions on both sides. On one side the treachery was consummated a month later (September 10, 1419), when, a second meeting between Duke John the Fearless and the Dauphin taking place at the Bridge of Montereau, the Duke was basely assassinated in the Dauphin's presence. {1175} This murder, by which the Armagnacs, who controlled the young Dauphin, hoped to break their rivals down, only kindled afresh the passions which were destroying France and delivering it an easy prey to foreign conquest.
C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, second series, chapters 28-29.
ALSO IN: E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), volume 1, book 1, chapters 150-211.
J. Michelet, History of France, book 9, chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422. Burgundy's revenge. Henry the Fifth's triumph. Two kings in Paris. The Treaty of Troyes. Death of Henry.
"Whilst civil war was ... penetrating to the very core of the kingship, foreign war was making its way again into the kingdom. Henry V., after the battle of Agincourt, had returned to London, and had left his army to repose and reorganize after its sufferings and its losses. It was not until eighteen months afterwards, on the 1st of August, 1417, that he landed at Touques, not far from Honfleur, with fresh troops, and resumed his campaign in France. Between 1417 and 1419 he successively laid siege to nearly all the towns of importance in Normandy, to Caen, Bayeux, Falaise, Evreux, Coutances, Laigle, St. Lô, Cherbourg, &c., &c. Some he occupied after a short resistance, others were sold to him by their governors; but when, in the month of July, 1418, he undertook the siege of Rouen, he encountered there a long and serious struggle. Rouen had at that time, it is said, a population of 150,000 souls, which was animated by ardent patriotism. The Rouennese, on the approach of the English, had repaired their gates, their ramparts, and their moats; had demanded reinforcements from the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy; and had ordered every person incapable of bearing arms or procuring provisions for ten months to leave the city. Twelve thousand old men, women and children were thus expelled, and died either round the place or whilst roving in misery over the neighbouring country. ... Fifteen thousand men of city-militia, 4,000 regular soldiers, 300 spearmen and as many archers from Paris, and it is not quite known how many men-at-arms sent by the Duke of Burgundy, defended Rouen for more than five months amidst all the usual sufferings of strictly-besieged cities." On the 13th of January, 1419, the town was surrendered. "It was 215 years since Philip Augustus had won Rouen by conquest from John Lackland, King of England." After this great success there were truces brought about between all parties, and much negotiation, which came to nothing--except the treacherous murder of the Duke of Burgundy, as related above. Then the situation changed. The son and successor of the murdered duke, afterwards known as Philip the Good, took sides, at once, with the English king and committed himself to a war of revenge, indifferent to the fate of France. "On the 17th of October [1419] was opened at Arras a congress between the plenipotentiaries of England and those of Burgundy. On the 20th of November a special truce was granted to the Parisians, whilst Henry V., in concert with Duke Philip of Burgundy, was prosecuting the war against the dauphin. On the 2d of December the bases were laid of an agreement between the English and the Burgundians. The preliminaries of the treaty, which was drawn up in accordance with these bases, were signed on the 9th of April, 1420, by King Charles VI. [now controlled by the Burgundians], and on the 20th communicated at Paris by the chancellor of France to the parliament." On the 20th of May following, the treaty, definitive and complete, was signed by Henry V. and promulgated at Troyes. By this treaty of Troyes, Princess Catherine, daughter of the King of France, was given in marriage to King Henry; Charles VI. was guaranteed his possession of the French crown while he lived; on his death, "the crown and kingdom of France, with all their rights and appurtenances," were solemnly conveyed to Henry V. of England and his heirs, forever. "The revulsion against the treaty of Troyes was real and serious, even in the very heart of the party attached to the Duke of Burgundy. He was obliged to lay upon several of his servants formal injunctions to swear to this peace, which seemed to them treason. ... In the duchy of Burgundy the majority of the towns refused to take the oath to the King of England. The most decisive and the most helpful proof of this awakening of national feeling was the ease experienced by the dauphin, who was one day to be Charles VII., in maintaining the war which, after the treaty of Troyes, was, in his father's and his mother's name, made upon him by the King of England and the Duke of Burgundy. This war lasted more than three years. Several towns, amongst others, Melun, Crotoy, Meaux, and St. Riquier, offered an obstinate resistance to the attacks of the English and Burgundians. ... It was in Perche, Anjou, Maine, on the banks of the Loire, and in Southern France, that the dauphin found most of his enterprising and devoted partisans. The sojourn made by Henry V. at Paris, in December, 1420, with his wife, Queen Catherine, King Charles VI., Queen Isabel, and the Duke of Burgundy, was not, in spite of galas and acclamations, a substantial and durable success for him. ... Towards the end of August, 1422, Henry V. fell ill; and, too stout-hearted to delude himself as to his condition, he ... had himself removed to Vincennes, called his councillors about him, and gave them his last royal instructions. ... He expired on the 31st of August, 1422, at the age of thirty-four."
F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 23.
At Paris, "the two sovereigns [Henry V. and Charles VI.] kept distinct courts. That of Henry was by far the most splendidly equipped and numerously attended of the two. He was the rising sun, and all men looked to him. All offices of trust and profit were at his disposal, and the nobles and gentlemen of France flocked into his ante-chambers."
A. J. Church, Henry the Fifth, chapter 15.
ALSO IN: E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), volume 1, book 1, chapters 171-264.
J. Michelet, History of France, book 9, chapters 2-3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1422. Accession of King Charles VII.
{1176}
FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431. The Mission of the Maid.
"France divided--two kings, two regencies, two armies, two governments, two nations, two nobilities, two systems of justice--met face to face: father, son, mother, uncles, nephews, citizens, and strangers, fought for the right, the soil, the throne, the cities, the spoil and the blood of the nation. The King of England died at Vincennes [August 31, 1422], and was shortly followed [October 22] by Charles VI., father of the twelve children of Isabel, leaving the kingdom to the stranger and to ruin. The Duke of Bedford insolently took possession of the Regency in the name of England, pursued the handful of nobles who wished to remain French with the dauphin, defeated them at the battle of Verneuil [August 17,1424], and exiled the queen, who had become a burden to the government after having been an instrument of usurpation. He then concentrated the armies of England, France and Burgundy round Orleans, which was defended by some thousands of the partisans of the dauphin, and which comprised almost all that remained of the kingdom of France. The land was everywhere ravaged by the passing and repassing of these bands--sometimes friends, sometimes enemies--driving each other on, wave after wave, like the billows of the Atlantic; ravaging crops, burning towns, dispersing, robbing, and ill-treating the population. In this disorganization of the country, the young dauphin, sometimes awakened by the complaints of his people, at others absorbed in the pleasures natural to his age, was making love to Agnes Sorel in the castle of Loches. ... Such was the state of the nation when Providence showed it a savior in a child." The child was Jeanne D'Arc, or Joan of Arc, better known in history as the Maid of Orleans,--daughter of a peasant who tilled his own few acres at the village of Domrémy, in Upper Lorraine. Of the visions of the pious young maiden--of the voices she heard--of the conviction which came upon her that she was called by God to deliver her country--and of the enthusiasm of faith with which she went about her mission until all people bent to her as the messenger and minister of God--the story is a familiar one to all. In April, 1429, Joan was sent by the king, from Blois, with 10,000 or 12,000 men, to the succour of Orleans, where Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, was in command. She reformed the army, purged it of all vile followers, and raised its confidence to that frenzied pitch which nothing can resist. On the 8th of May the English abandoned the siege and Orleans was saved. "Joan wasted no time in vain triumphs. She brought back the victorious army to the dauphin, to assist him in reconquering city after city of his kingdom. The dauphin and the queens received her as the messenger of God, who had found and recovered the lost keys of the kingdom. 'I have only another year,' she remarked, with a sad presentiment, which seemed to indicate that her victory led to the scaffold; 'I must therefore set to work at once.' She begged the dauphin to go and be crowned at Rheims, although that city and the intermediate provinces were still in the power of the Burgundians, Flemings, and English." Counsellors and generals opposed; but the sublime faith of the Maid overcame all opposition and all difficulties. The king's route to Rheims was rapidly cleared of his enemies. At Patay (June 18, 1429) the English suffered a heavy defeat and their famous soldier, Lord Talbot, was taken prisoner. Troyes, Chalons and Rheims opened their gates. "The Duke of Bedford, the regent, remained trembling in Paris. 'All our misfortunes,' he wrote to the Cardinal of Winchester, 'are owing to a young witch, who, by her sorcery, has restored the courage of the French.' ... The king was crowned [July 17, 1429], and Joan's mission was accomplished. 'Noble king,' said she, embracing his knees in the Cathedral after the coronation, 'now is accomplished the will of God, which commanded me to bring you to this city of Rheims to receive your holy unction--now that you at last are king, and that the kingdom of France is yours.' ... From that moment a great depression, and a fatal hesitation seem to have come over her. The king, the people, and the army, to whom she had given victory, wished her to remain always their prophetess, their guide, and their enduring miracle. But she was now only a weak woman, lost amid courts and camps, and she felt her weakness beneath her armor. Her heart alone remained courageous, but had ceased to be inspired." She urged an attack on Paris (Sept. 8, 1429) and experienced her first failure, being grievously wounded in the assault. The following spring, Compiègne being besieged, she entered the town to take part in the defence. The same evening (May 24, 1430) she led a sortie which was repulsed, and she was taken prisoner in the retreat. Some think she was betrayed by the commandant of the town, who ordered the raising of the drawbridge just as her horse was being spurred upon it. Once in the hands of her enemies, the doom of the unfortunate Maid was sealed. Sir Lionel de Ligny, her captor, gave his prisoner to the count of Luxembourg, who yielded her to the Duke of Burgundy, who surrendered her to the English, who delivered her to the Inquisition, by which she was tried, condemned and burned to death, at Rouen, as a witch (May 30, 1431). "It was a complex crime, in which each party got rid of responsibility, but in which the accusation rests with Paris [the University of Paris was foremost among the pursuers of the wonderful Maid], the cowardice with Luxembourg, the sentence with the Inquisition, the blame and punishment with England, and the disgrace and ingratitude with France. This bartering about Joan by her enemies, of whom the fiercest were her countrymen, had lasted six months. ... During these six months, the influence of this goddess of war upon the troops of Charles VII.--her spirit, which still guided the camp and council of the king--the patriotic, though superstitious, veneration of the people, which her captivity only doubled,--and, lastly, the absence of the Duke of Burgundy, ... all these causes had brought reverse after reverse upon the English, and a series of successes to Charles VII. Joan, although absent, triumphed everywhere."
_A. de Lamartine, Memoirs of Celebrated Characters: Joan of Arc._
"It seems natural to ask what steps the King of France had taken ... to avert her doom. If ever there had been a sovereign indebted to a subject, that sovereign was Charles VII., that subject Joan of Arc. ... Yet, no sooner was she captive than she seems forgotten. We hear nothing of any attempt at rescue, of any proposal for ransom; neither the most common protest against her trial, nor the faintest threat of reprisals; nay, not even after her death, one single expression of regret! Charles continued to slumber in his delicious retreats beyond the Loire, engrossed by dames of a very different character from Joan's, and careless of the heroine to whom his security in that indolence was due. Her memory on the other hand was long endeared to the French people, and long did they continue to cherish a romantic hope that she might still survive. {1177} So strong was this feeling, that in the year 1436 advantage was taken of it by a female imposter, who pretended to be Joan of Arc escaped from her captivity. She fixed her abode at Metz, and soon afterwards married a knight of good family, the Sire des Armoises. Strange to say, it appears from a contemporary chronicle, that Joan's two surviving brothers acknowledged this woman as their sister. Stranger still, other records prove that she made two visits to Orleans, one before and one after her marriage, and on each occasion was hailed as the heroine returned. ... The brothers of Joan of Arc might possibly have hopes of profit by the fraud; but how the people of Orleans, who had seen her so closely, who had fought side by side with her in the siege, could be deceived as to the person, we cannot understand, nor yet what motive they could have in deceiving. The interest which Joan of Arc inspires at the present day extends even to the house where she dwelt, and to the family from which she sprung. Her father died of grief at the tidings of her execution; her mother long survived it, but fell into great distress. Twenty years afterwards we find her in receipt of a pension from the city of Orleans; three francs a month; 'to help her to live.' Joan's brothers and their issue took, the name of Du Lis from the Lily of France, which the King had assigned as their arms. ... It will be easy to trace the true character of Joan. ... Nowhere do modern annals display a character more pure--more generous--more humble amidst fancied visions and undoubted victories--more free from all taint of selfishness--more akin to the champions and martyrs of old times. All this is no more than justice and love of truth would require us to say. But when we find some French historians, transported by an enthusiasm almost equal to that of Joan herself, represent her us filling the part of a general or statesman--as skilful in leading armies, or directing councils--we must withhold our faith. Such skill, indeed, from a country girl, without either education or experience, would be, had she really possessed it, scarcely less supernatural than the visions which she claimed. But the facts are far otherwise. In affairs of state, Joan's voice was never heard; in affairs of war, all her proposals will be found to resolve themselves into two--either to rush headlong upon the enemy, often in the very point where he was strongest, or to offer frequent and public prayers to the Almighty. We are not aware of any single instance in which her military suggestions were not these, or nearly akin to these. ... Of Joan's person no authentic resemblance now remains. A statue to her memory had been raised upon the bridge at Orleans, at the sole charge ... of the matrons and maids of that city: this probably preserved some degree of likeness, but unfortunately perished in the religious wars of the sixteenth century. There is no portrait extant; the two earliest engravings are of 1606 and 1612, and they greatly differ."
Lord Mahon, Historical Essays, pages 53-57.
"A few days before her death, when urged to resume her woman's dress, she said: 'When I shall have accomplished that for which I was sent from God, I will take the dress of a woman.' Yet, in one sense her mission did end at Rheims. The faith of the people still followed her, but her enemies--not the English, but those in the heart of the court of Charles--began to be too powerful for her. We may, indeed, conceive what a hoard of envy and malice was gathering in the hearts of those hardened politicians at seeing themselves superseded by a peasant girl. They, accustomed to dark and tortuous ways, could not comprehend or coalesce with the divine simplicity of her designs and means. A successful intrigue was formed against her. It was resolved to keep her still in the camp as a name and a figure, but to take from her all power, all voice in the direction of affairs. So accordingly it was done. ... Her ways and habits during the year she was in arms are attested by a multitude of witnesses. Dunois and the Duke of Alençon bear testimony to what they term her extraordinary talents for war, and to her perfect fearlessness in action; but in all other things she was the most simple of creatures. She wept when she first saw men slain in battle, to think that they should have died without confession. She wept at the abominable epithets which the English heaped upon her; but she was without a trace of vindictiveness. 'Ah, Glacidas, Glacidas!' she said to Sir William Glasdale at Orleans, 'you have called me foul names; but I have pity upon your soul and the souls of your men. Surrender to the King of Heaven!' And she was once seen, resting the head of a wounded Englishman on her lap, comforting and consoling him. In her diet she was abstemious in the extreme, rarely eating until evening, and then for the most part, only of bread and water sometimes mixed with wine. In the field she slept in her armour, but when she came into a city she always sought out some honourable matron, under whose protection she placed herself; and there is wonderful evidence of the atmosphere of purity which she diffused around her, her very presence banishing from men's hearts all evil thoughts and wishes. Her conversation, when it was not of the war, was entirely of religion. She confessed often, and received communion twice in the week. 'And it was her custom,' says Dunois, 'at twilight every day, to retire to the church and make the bells be rung for half an hour, and she gathered the mendicant religious who followed the King's army, and made them sing an antiphon of the Blessed Mother of God.' From presumption, as from superstition, she was entirely free. When women brought her crosses and chaplets to bless, she said: 'How can I bless them? Your own blessing would be as good as mine.'"
J. O'Hagan, Joan of Arc, pages 61-66.
"What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that--like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea--rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good-will, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. {1178} The boy rose to a splendour, and a noonday prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a by-word amongst his posterity for a thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. ... This pure creature--pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious--never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints;--these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, that she heard for ever."
_T. De Quincey, Joan of Arc (Collected Writings, volume 5)._
A discussion of doubts that have been raised concerning the death of Joan at the stake will be found in
Octave Delepierre's Historical Difficulties and Contested Events, chapter 8.
ALSO IN: J. Michelet, History of France, book 10.
E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 2, chapters 57-105.
_H. Parr, Life and Death of Joan of Arc._
_J. Tuckey, Joan of Arc._
_Mrs. A. E. Bray, Joan of Arc._
FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453. The English expelled.
"In Joan of Arc the English certainly destroyed the cause of their late reverses. But the impulse had been given, and the crime of base vengeance could not stay it. Fortune declared every where and in every way against them. In vain was Henry VI. brought to Paris, crowned at Notre Dame, and made to exercise all the functions of royalty in court and parliament. The duke of Burgundy, disgusted with the English, became at last reconciled to Charles; who spared no sacrifice to win the support of so powerful a subject. The amplest possible amends were made for the murder of the late duke. The towns beyond the Somme were ceded to Burgundy, and the reigning duke [but not his successors] was exempted from all homage towards the king of France. Such was the famous treaty of Arras [September 21, 1435], which restored to Charles his throne, and deprived the English of all hopes of retaining their conquests in the kingdom. The crimes and misrule of the Orleans faction were forgotten; popularity ebbed in favour of Charles. ... One of the gates of Paris was betrayed by the citizens to the constable and Dunois [April, 1436]. Willoughby, the governor, was obliged to shut himself up in the Bastile with his garrison, from whence they retired to Rouen. Charles VII. entered his capital, after twenty years' exclusion from it, in November, 1437. Thenceforward the war lost its serious character. Charles was gradually established on his throne, and the struggle between the two nations was feebly carried on, broken merely by a few sieges and enterprises, mostly to the disadvantage of the English. ... There had been frequent endeavours and conferences towards a peace between the French and English. The demands on either side proved irreconcilable. A truce was however concluded, in 1444, which lasted four years; it was sealed by the marriage of Henry VI. with Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Réné, and granddaughter of Louis, who had perished while leading an army to the conquest of Naples. ... In 1449 the truce was allowed to expire. The quarrels of York and Lancaster had commenced, and England was unable to defend her foreign possessions. Normandy was invaded. The gallant Talbot could not preserve Rouen with a disaffected population, and Charles recovered without loss of blood [1449] the second capital of his dominions. The only blow struck by the English for the preservation of Normandy was at Fourmigny near Bayeux. ... Normandy was for ever lost to the English after this action or skirmish. The following year Guyenne was invaded by the count de Dunois. He met with no resistance. The great towns at that day had grown wealthy, and their maxim was to avoid a siege at all hazards." Lord Talbot was killed in an engagement at Castillon (1450), and "with that hero expired the last hopes of his country in regard to France. Guyenne was lost [A. D. 1453] as well as Normandy, and Calais remained to England the only fruit of so much blood spilt and so many victories achieved."
E. E. Crowe, History of France, volume 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN: J. Michelet, History of France, book 11.
E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 2, chapter 109, book 3, chapter 65.
See, also, AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453.
FRANCE: A. D. 1438. Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII. Reforming decrees of the Council of Basel adopted for the Gallican church.
After the rupture between the reforming Council of Basel and Pope Eugenius IV. (see PAPACY: A. D. 1431-1448), Charles VII. of France "determined to adopt in his own kingdom such of the decrees of the Council as were for his advantage, seeing that no opposition could be made by the Pope. Accordingly a Synod was summoned at Bourges on May 1, 1438. The embassadors of Pope and Council urged their respective causes. It was agreed that the King should write to Pope and Council to stay their hands in proceeding against one another; meanwhile, that the reformation be not lost, some of the Basel decrees should be maintained in France by royal authority. The results of the synod's deliberation were laid before the King, and on July 7 were made binding as a pragmatic sanction on the French Church. The Pragmatic Sanction enacted that General Councils were to be held every ten years, and recognised the authority of the Council of Basel. The Pope was no longer to reserve any of the greater ecclesiastical appointments, but elections were to be duly made by the rightful patrons. Grants to benefices in expectancy, 'whence all agree that many evils arise,' were to cease, as well as reservations. In all cathedral churches, one prebend was to be given to a theologian who had studied for ten years in a university, and who was to lecture or preach at least once a week. Benefices were to be conferred in future, one-third on graduates, two-thirds on deserving clergy. Appeals to Rome, except for important causes, were forbidden. The number of Cardinals was to be 24, each of the age of 30 at least. Annates and first-fruits were no longer to be paid to the Pope, but only the necessary legal fees on institution. Regulations were made for greater reverence in the conduct of Divine service; prayers were to be said by the priest in an audible voice; mummeries in churches were forbidden, and clerical concubinage was to be punished by suspension for three months. Such were the chief reforms of its own special grievances, which France wished to establish. It was the first step in the assertion of the rights of national Churches to arrange for themselves the details of their own ecclesiastical organisation."
M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, book 3, chapter 9 (volume 2).
{1179}
FRANCE: A. D. 1447. Origin of the claims of the house of Orleans to the duchy of Milan.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
FRANCE: A. D. 1453-1461. The reconstructed kingdom. The new plant of Absolutism.
"At the expulsion of the English, France emerged from the chaos with an altered character and new features of government. The royal authority and supreme jurisdiction of the parliament were universally recognised. Yet there was a tendency towards insubordination left among the great nobility, arising in part from the remains of old feudal privileges, but still more from that lax administration which, in the convulsive struggles of the war, had been suffered to prevail. In the south were some considerable vassals, the houses of Foix, Albret, and Armagnac, who, on account of their distance from the seat of empire, had always maintained a very independent conduct. The dukes of Britany and Burgundy were of a more formidable character, and might rather be ranked among foreign powers than privileged subjects. The princes, too, of the royal blood, who, during the late reign, had learned to partake or contend for the management, were ill-inclined towards Charles VII., himself jealous, from old recollections of their ascendancy. They saw that the constitution was verging rapidly towards an absolute monarchy, from the direction of which they would studiously be excluded. This apprehension gave rise to several attempts at rebellion during the reign of Charles VII., and to the war, commonly entitled, for the Public Weal ('du bien public'), under Louis XI. Among the pretenses alleged by the revolters in each of these, the injuries of the people were not forgotten; but from the people they received small support. Weary of civil dissension, and anxious for a strong government to secure them from depredation, the French had no inducement to intrust even their real grievances to a few malcontent princes, whose regard for the common good they had much reason to distrust. Every circumstance favoured Charles VII. and his son in the attainment of arbitrary power. The country was pillaged by military ruffians. Some of these had been led by the dauphin to a war in Germany, but the remainder still infested the high roads and villages. Charles established his companies of ordonnance, the basis of the French regular army, in order to protect the country from such depredators. They consisted of about nine thousand soldiers, all cavalry, of whom fifteen hundred were heavy-armed; a force not very considerable, but the first, except mere body-guards, which had been raised in any part of Europe as a national standing army. These troops were paid out of the produce of a permanent tax, called the taille; an innovation still more important than the former. But the present benefit cheating the people, now prone to submissive habits, little or no opposition was made, except in Guienne, the inhabitants of which had speedy reason to regret the mild government of England, and vainly endeavoured to return to its protection. It was not long before the new despotism exhibited itself in its harshest character. Louis XI., son of Charles VII., who during his father's reign, had been connected with the discontented princes, came to the throne greatly endowed with those virtues and vices which conspire to the success of a king."
H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 1, part 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1458-1461. Renewed submission of Genoa to the King, and renewed revolt.
See GENOA: A. D. 1458-1464.
FRANCE: A. D. 1461. Accession of King Louis XI. Contemporary portrait of him by Commines.
"Of all the princes that I ever knew, the wisest and most dexterous to extricate himself out of any danger or difficulty in time of adversity, was our master King Louis XI. He was the humblest in his conversation and habit, and the most painful and indefatigable to win over any man to his side that he thought capable of doing him either mischief or service: though he was often refused, he would never give over a man that he wished to gain, but still pressed and continued his insinuations, promising him largely, and presenting him with such sums and honours as he knew would gratify his ambition; and for such as he had discarded in time of peace and prosperity, he paid dear (when he had occasion for them) to recover them again; but when he had once reconciled them, he retained no enmity towards them for what had passed, but employed them freely for the future. He was naturally kind and indulgent to persons of mean estate, and hostile to all great men who had no need of him. Never prince was so conversable, nor so inquisitive as he, for his desire was to know everybody he could; and indeed he knew all persons of any authority or worth in England, Spain, Portugal and Italy, in the territories of the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, and among his own subjects; and by those qualities he preserved the crown upon his head, which was in much danger by the enemies he had created to himself upon his accession to the throne. But above all, his great bounty and liberality did him the greatest service: and yet, as he behaved himself wisely in time of distress, so when he thought himself a little out of danger, though it were but by a truce, he would disoblige the servants and officers of his court by mean and petty ways, which were little to his advantage; and as for peace, he could hardly endure the thoughts of it. He spoke slightingly of most people, and rather before their faces, than behind their backs, unless he was afraid of them, and of that sort there were a great many, for he was naturally somewhat timorous. When he had done himself any prejudice by his talk, or was apprehensive he should do so, and wished to make amends, he would say to the person whom he had disobliged, 'I am sensible my tongue has done me a great deal of mischief; but, on the other hand, it has sometimes done me much good; however, it is but reason I should make some reparation for the injury.' And he never used this kind of apologies to any person, but he granted some favour to the person to whom he made it, and it was always of considerable amount. It is certainly a great blessing from God upon any prince to have experienced adversity as well as prosperity, good as well as evil, and especially if the good outweighs the evil, as it did in the king our master. {1180} I am of opinion that the troubles he was involved in, in his youth, when he fled from his father, and resided six years together with Philip Duke of Burgundy, were of great service to him; for there he learned to be complaisant to such as he had occasion to use, which was no slight advantage of adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly found the inconvenience of this, repented by degrees of his indiscretion, and made sufficient reparation for his folly and error, by regaining those he had injured, as shall be related hereafter. Besides, I am very confident that if his education had not been different from the usual education of such nobles as I have seen in France, he could not so easily have worked himself out of his troubles; for they are brought up to nothing but to make themselves ridiculous, both in their clothes and discourse; they have no knowledge of letters; no wise man is suffered to come near them, to improve their understandings; they have governors who manage their business, but they do nothing themselves."--Such is the account of Louis XI. which Philip de Commines gives in one of the early chapters of his delightful Memoirs. In a later chapter he tells naively of the king's suspicions and fears, and of what he suffered, at the end of his life, as the penalty of his cruel and crafty dealings with his subjects: "Some five or six months before his death, he began to suspect everybody, especially those who were most capable and deserving of the administration of affairs. He was afraid of his son, and caused him to be kept close, so that no man saw or discoursed with him, but by his special command. At last he grew suspicious of his daughter, and of his son-in-law the Duke of Bourbon, and required an account of what persons came to speak with them at Plessis, and broke up a council which the Duke of Bourbon was holding there, by his order. ... Behold, then, if he had caused many to live under him in continual fear and apprehension, whether it was not returned to him again; for of whom could he be secure when he was afraid of his son-in-law, his daughter, and his own son? I speak this not only of him, but of all other princes who desire to be feared, that vengeance never falls on them till they grow old, and then, as a just penance, they are afraid of everybody themselves; and what grief must it have been to this poor King to be tormented with such terrors and passions? He was still attended by his physician, Master James Coctier, to whom in five months' time he had given fifty-four thousand crowns in ready money, besides the bishopric of Amiens for his nephew, and other great offices and estates for himself and his friends; yet this doctor used him very roughly indeed; one would not have given such outrageous language to one's servants as he gave the King, who stood in such awe of him, that he durst not forbid him his presence. It is true he complained of his impudence afterwards, but he durst not change him as he had done all the rest of his servants; because he had told him after a most audacious manner one day, 'I know well that some time or other you will dismiss me from court, as you have done the rest; but be sure (and he confirmed it with a great oath) you shall not live eight days after it'; with which expression the King was so terrified, that ever after he did nothing but flatter and bribe him, which must needs have been a great mortification to a prince who had been humbly obeyed all his life by so many good and brave men. The King had ordered several cruel prisons to be made; some were cages of iron, and some of wood, but all were covered with iron plates both within and without, with terrible locks, about eight feet wide and seven high; the first contriver of them was the Bishop of Verdun, who was immediately put in the first of them that was made, where he continued fourteen years. Many bitter curses he has had since for his invention, and some from me as I lay in one of them eight months together in the minority of our present King. He also ordered heavy and terrible fetters to be made in Germany, and particularly a certain ring for the feet, which was extremely hard to be opened, and fitted like an iron collar, with a thick weighty chain, and a great globe of iron at the end of it, most unreasonably heavy, which engines were called the King's Nets. ... As in his time this barbarous variety of prisons was invented, so before he died he himself was in greater torment, and more terrible apprehension than those whom he had imprisoned; which I look upon as a great mercy towards him, and as it part of his purgatory; and I have mentioned it here to show that there is no person, of what station or dignity soever, but suffers some time or other, either publicly or privately, especially if he has caused other people to suffer. The King, towards the latter end of his days, caused his castle of Plessis-les-Tours to be encompassed with great bars of iron in the form of thick grating, and at the four corners of the house four sparrow-nests of iron, strong, massy, and thick, were built. The grates were without the wall on the other side of the ditch, and sank to the bottom. Several spikes of iron were fastened into the wall, set as thick by one another as was possible, and each furnished with three or four points. He likewise placed ten bow-men in the ditches, to shoot at any man that durst approach the castle before the opening of the gates; and he ordered they should lie in the ditches, but retire to the sparrow-nests upon occasion. He was sensible enough that this fortification was too weak to keep out an army, or any great body of men, but he had no fear of such an attack; his great apprehension was, that some of the nobility of his kingdom, having intelligence within, might attempt to make themselves masters of the castle by night. ... Is it possible then to keep a prince (with any regard to his quality) in a closer prison than he kept himself? The cages which were made for other people were about eight feet square; and he (though so great a monarch) had but a small court of the castle to walk in, and seldom made use of that, but generally kept himself in the gallery, out of which he went into the chambers on his way to mass, but never passed through the court. ... I have not recorded these things merely to represent our master as a suspicious and mistrustful prince; but to show, that by the patience which he expressed in his sufferings (like those which he inflicted on other people), they may be looked upon, in my judgment, as a punishment which our Lord inflicted upon him in this world, in order to deal more mercifully with him in the next, as well in regard to those things before-mentioned as to the distempers of his body, which were great and painful, and much dreaded by him before they came upon him; and, likewise, that those princes who may be his successors, may learn by his example to be more tender and indulgent to their subjects, and less severe in their punishments than our master had been: although I will not censure him, or say I ever saw a better prince; for though he oppressed his subjects himself he would never see them injured by anybody else."
Philip de Commines, Memoirs, book 1, chapter 10, and book 6, chapter 11.
{1181}
FRANCE: A. D. 1461-1468. The character and reign of Louis XI. The League of the Public Weal.
"Except St. Louis, he [Louis XI.] was the first, as, indeed (with the solitary exception of Louis Philippe), he is still the only king of France whose mind was ever prepared for the duties of that high station by any course of severe and systematic study. Before he ascended the throne of his ancestors he had profoundly meditated the great Italian authors, and the institutions and maxims of the Italian republics. From those lessons he had derived a low esteem of his fellowmen, and especially of those among them upon whom wealth, and rank, and power had descended as an hereditary birthright. ... He clearly understood, and pursued with inflexible steadfastness of purpose the elevation of his country and the grandeur of his own royal house and lineage; but he pursued them with a torpid imagination, a cold heart, and a ruthless will. He regarded mankind as a physiologist contemplates the living subjects of his science, or as a chess-player surveys the pieces on his board. ... It has been said of Louis XI., that the appearance of the men of the Revolution of 1789 first made him intelligible. ... Louis was the first of the terrible Ideologists of France--of that class of men who, to enthrone an idolized idea, will offer whole hecatombs of human sacrifices at the shrine of their idol. The Idea of Louis was that of levelling all powers in the state, in order that the administration of the affairs, the possession of the wealth, and the enjoyment of the honours of his kingdom might be grasped by himself and his successors as their solitary and unrivalled dominion. ... Before his accession to the throne, all the great fiefs into which France had been divided under the earlier Capetian kings had, with the exception of Bretagne, been either annexed to the royal domain, or reduced to a state of dependence on the crown. But, under the name of Apanages, these ancient divisions of the kingdom into separate principalities had reappeared. The territorial feudalism of the Middle Ages seemed to be reviving in the persons of the younger branches of the royal house. The Dukes of Burgundy had thus become the rulers of a state [see BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467] which, under the government of more politic princes, might readily, in fulfillment of their desires, have attained the rank of an independent kingdom. The Duke of Bretagne, still asserting the peculiar privileges of his duchy, was rather an ally than a subject of the king of France. Charles, Duke of Berri, the brother of Louis, aspired to the possession of the same advantages. And these three great territorial potentates, in alliance with the Duc de Bourbon and the Comte de St. Pol, the brothers-in-law of Louis and of his queen, united together to form that confederacy against him to which they gave the very inappropriate title of La Ligue du Bien Public. It was, however, a title which recognized the growing strength of the Tiers Étât, and of that public opinion to which the Tiers Étât at once gave utterance and imparted authority. Selfish ambition was thus compelled to assume the mask of patriotism. The princes veiled their insatiable appetite for their own personal advantages under the popular and plausible demands of administrative reforms--of the reduction of imposts--of the government of the people by their representatives--and, consequently, of the convocation of the States-General. To these pretensions Louis was unable to make any effectual resistance." An indecisive but bloody battle was fought at Montlehery, near Paris (July 16, 1465), from which both armies retreated with every appearance of defeat. The capital was besieged ineffectually for some weeks by the League; then the king yielded, or seemed to do so, and the Treaty of Conflans was signed. "He assented, in terms at least, to all the demands of his antagonists. He granted to the Duke of Berri the duchy of Normandy as an apanage transmissible in perpetuity to his male heirs. ... The confederates then laid down their arms. The wily monarch bided his time. He had bestowed on them advantages which he well knew would destroy their popularity and so subvert the basis of their power, and which he also knew the state of public opinion would not allow them to retain. To wrest those advantages from their hands, it was only necessary to comply with their last stipulation, and to convene the States-General. They met accordingly, at Tours, on the 6th of April, 1468." As Louis had anticipated--or, rather, as he had planned--the States-General cancelled the grant of Normandy to the Duke of Berri (which the king had been able already to recover possession of, owing to quarrels between the dukes of Berri and Brittany) and, generally, took away from the princes of the League nearly all that they had extorted in the Treaty of Conflans. On the express invitation of the king they appointed a commission to reform abuses in the government--which commission "attempted little and effected nothing"--and, then, having assisted the cunning king to overcome his threatening nobles, the States-General were dissolved, to meet no more while Louis XI. occupied the throne. In a desperate situation he had used the dangerous weapon against his enemies with effect; he was too prudent to draw it from the sheath a second time.
Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 11.
"The career of Louis XI. presents a curious problem. How could a ruler whose morality fell below that of Jonathan Wild yet achieve some of the greatest permanent results of patriotic statesmanship, and be esteemed not only by himself but by so calm an observer as Commines the model of kingly virtue? As to Louis's moral character and principles, or want of principle, not a doubt can be entertained. To say he committed the acts of a villain is to fall far short of the truth. ... He possessed a kind of religious belief, but it was a species of religion which a respectable heathen would have scorned. He attempted to bribe heaven, or rather the saints, just as he attempted to win over his Swiss allies--that is, by gifts of money. ... Yet this man, who was daunted by no cruelty, and who could be bound by no oath save one, did work which all statesmen must admire, and which French patriots must fervently approve. {1182} He was the creator of modern France. When he came to the throne it seemed more than likely that an utterly selfish and treacherous nobility would tear the country in pieces. The English still threatened to repeat the horrors of their invasions. The House of Burgundy overbalanced the power of the crown, and stimulated lawlessness throughout the whole country. The peasantry were miserably oppressed, and the middle classes could not prosper for want of that rule of law which is the first requisite for civilization. When Louis died, the existence of France and the power of the French crown was secured: 'He had extended the frontiers of his kingdom; Picardy, Provence, Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Roussillon had been compelled to acknowledge the immediate authority of the crown.' He had crushed the feudal oligarchy; he had seen his most dangerous enemy destroyed by the resistance of the Swiss; he had baffled the attempt to construct a state which would have imperilled the national existence of France; he had put an end to all risk of English invasion; and he left France the most powerful country in Europe. Her internal government was no doubt oppressive, but, at any rate, it secured the rule of law; and his schemes for her benefit were still unfinished. He died regretting that he could not carry out his plans for the reform of the law and for the protection of commerce; and, in the opinion of Commines, if God had granted him the grace of living five or six years more, he would greatly have benefited his realm. He died commending his soul to the intercession of the Virgin, and the last words caught from his lips were: 'Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.' Nor should this be taken as the expression of hopeless self-delusion or gratuitous hypocrisy. In the opinion of Commines, uttered after the king's death, 'he was more wise, more liberal, and more virtuous in all things than any contemporary sovereign.' The expressions of Commines were, it may be said, but the echo of the low moral tone of the age. This, no doubt, is true; but the fact that the age did not condemn acts which, taken alone, seem to argue the utmost depravity, still needs explanation. The matter is the more worthy of consideration because Louis represents, though in an exaggerated form, the vices and virtues of a special body of rulers. He was the incarnation, so to speak, of kingcraft. The word and the idea it represents have now become out of date, but for about two centuries--say, roughly, from the middle of the seventeenth century--the idea of a great king was that of a monarch who ruled by means of cunning, intrigue, and disregard of ordinary moral rules. We here come across the fact which explains both the career and the reputation of Louis and of others, such as Henry VII. of England, who were masters of kingcraft. The universal feeling of the time, shared by subjects no less than by rulers, was that a king was not bound by the rules of morality, and especially by the rules of honesty, which bind other men. Until you realize this fact, nothing is more incomprehensible than the adulation lavished by men such as Bacon or Casaubon on a ruler such as James I. ... The real puzzle is to ascertain how this feeling that kings were above the moral law came into existence. The facts of history afford the necessary explanation. When the modern European world was falling into shape the one thing required for national prosperity was the growth of a power which might check the disorders of the feudal nobility, and secure for the mass of the people the blessings of an orderly government. The only power which, in most cases, could achieve this end, was the crown. In England the monarchs put an end to the wars of the nobility. In France the growth of the monarchy secured not only internal quiet, but protection from external invasion. In these and in other cases the interest of the crown and the interest of the people became for a time identical. ... Acts which would have seemed villainous when done to promote a purely private interest, became mere devices of statesmanship when performed in the interest of the public. The maxims that the king can do no wrong, and that the safety of the people is the highest law, blended together in the minds of ambitious rulers. The result was the production of men like Louis XI."
_A. V. Dicey, Willert's Louis XI. (The Nation, December 7, 1876)._
"A careful examination of the reign of Louis the Eleventh has particularly impressed upon me one fact, that the ends for which he toiled and sinned throughout his whole life were attained at last rather by circumstances than by his labours. The supreme object of all his schemes was to crush that most formidable of all his foes, Burgundy. And yet had Charles confined his ambition within reasonable limits, had he possessed an ordinary share of statecraft, and, above all, could he have controlled those fiery passions, which drove him to the verge of madness, he would have won the game quite easily. Louis lacked one of the essential qualities of statecraft--patience; and was wholly destitute of that necessity of ambition--boldness. An irritable restlessness was one of the salient points of his character. His courtiers and attendants were ever intriguing to embroil him in war, 'because,' says Comines, 'the nature of the King was such, that unless he was at war with some foreign prince, he would certainly find some quarrel or other at home with his servants, domestics, or officers, for his mind must be always working.' His mood was ever changing, and he was by turns confiding, suspicious, avaricious, prodigal, audacious, and timid. He frequently nullified his most crafty schemes by impatience for the result. He would sow the seed with the utmost care, but he could not wait for the fructification. In this he was false to the practice of those Italian statesmen who were avowedly his models. It was this irritable restlessness which brought down upon him the hatred of all classes, from the noble to the serf; for we find him at one time cunningly bidding for popularity, and immediately afterwards destroying all he had gained by some rash and inconsiderate act. His extreme timidity hampered the execution of all his plans. He had not even the boldness of the coward who will fight when all the strength is on his own side. Constantly at war, during a reign of twenty-two years there were fought but two battles, Montlehéry and Guingette, both of which, strange to say, were undecided, and both of which were fought against his will and counsel. ... He left France larger by one-fourth than he had inherited it; but out of the five provinces which he acquired, Provence was bequeathed him, Roussillon was pawned to him by the usurping King of Navarre, and Burgundy was won for him by the Swiss. His triumphs were much more the result of fortune than the efforts of his own genius."
_Louis the Eleventh (Temple Bar, volume 46, pages 523-524)._
ALSO IN: J. Michelet, History of France, book 13.
_P. F. Willert, The Reign of Louis XI._
J. F. Kirk, History of Charles the Bold, book 1, chapters 4-6.
P. de Commines, Memoirs, book 1.
E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (Johnes' translation), book 3, chapters 99-153.
{1183}
FRANCE: A. D. 1467-1477. The troubles of Louis XI. with Charles the Bold, of Burgundy. Death of the Duke and Louis' acquisition of Burgundy.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467-1468, to 1477.
FRANCE: A. D. 1483. The kingdom as left by Louis XI.
Louis XI., who died Aug. 30, A. D. 1483, "had joined to the crown Berry, the apanage of his brother, Provence, the duchy of Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Ponthieu, the counties of Auxerre, of Mâcon, Charolais, the Free County, Artois, Marche, Armagnac, Cerdagne, and Roussilon. ... The seven latter provinces did not yet remain irrevocably united with France: one part was given anew in apanage, and the other part restored to foreign sovereigns, and only returned one by one to the crown of France. ... The principal work of Louis XI. was the abasement of the second feudality, which had raised itself on the ruins of the first, and which, without him, would have replunged France into anarchy. The chiefs of that feudality were, however, more formidable, since, for the most part, they belonged to the blood royal of France. Their powerful houses, which possessed at the accession of that prince a considerable part of the kingdom, were those of Orleans, Anjou, Burgundy, and Bourbon. They found themselves much weakened at his death, and dispossessed in great part, as we have seen in the history of the reign, by confiscations, treaties, gifts or heritages. By the side of these houses, which issued from that of France, there were others whose power extended still, at this period, in the limits of France proper, over vast domains. Those of Luxembourg and La Mark possessed great wealth upon the frontier of the north; that of Vaudemont had inherited Lorraine and the duchy of Bar; the house of La Tour was powerful in Auvergne; in the south the houses of Foix and Albert ruled, the first in the valley of Ariége, the second between the Adour and the Pyrenees. In the west the house of Brittany had guarded its independence; but the moment approached when this beautiful province was to be forever united with the crown. Lastly, two foreign sovereigns held possessions in France; the Pope had Avignon and the county Venaissin; and the Duke of Savoy possessed, between the Rhone and the Saône, Bugey and Valromey. The time was still distant when the royal authority would be seen freely exercised through every territory comprised in the natural limits of the kingdom. But Louis XI. did much to attain this aim, and after him no princely or vassal house was powerful enough to resist the crown by its own forces, and to put the throne in peril."
E. de Bonnechose, History of France, volume 1, pages 315-318, and foot-note.
FRANCE: A. D. 1483. Accession of King Charles VIII.
FRANCE: A. D. 1485-1487. The League of the Princes.
Charles VIII., son and successor of Louis XI., came to the throne at the age of thirteen, on the death of his father in 1483. His eldest sister, Anne, married to the Lord of Beaujeu, made herself practically regent of the kingdom, by sheer ability and force of character; and ruled during the minority, pursuing the lines of her father's policy. The princes of the blood-royal, with the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon at their head, formed a league against her. They were supported by many nobles, including Philip de Commines, the Count of Dunois and the Prince of Orange. They also received aid from the Duke of Brittany, and from Maximilian of Austria, who now controlled the Netherlands. Anne's general, La Trémouille, defeated the league in a decisive battle (A. D. 1487) near St. Aubin du Cormier, where the Duke of Orleans, the Prince of Orange, and many nobles and knights were made prisoners. The Duke and the Prince were sent to Anne, who shut them up in strong places, while most of their companions were summarily executed.
E. de Bonnechose, History of France, volume 1, book 3, chapter 3.
ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, ch. 26.
FRANCE: A. D. 1491. Brittany, the last of the great fiefs, united to the crown. The end of the Feudal System.
See BRITTANY: A. D. 1491.
FRANCE: A. D. 1492-1515. The reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. Their Italian Expeditions and Wars. The effects on France. Beginning of the Renaissance.
Louis XI. was succeeded by his son, Charles VIII., a boy of thirteen years, whose elder sister Anne governed the kingdom ably until he came of age. She dealt firmly with a rebellion of the nobles and suppressed it. She frustrated an intended marriage of Anne of Brittany with Maximilian of Austria, which would have drawn the last of the great semi-independent fiefs into a dangerous relationship, and she made Charles instead of his rival the husband of the Breton heiress. When Charles, who had little intelligence, assumed the government, he was excited with dreams of making good the pretensions of the Second House of Anjou to the Kingdom of Naples. Those pretensions, which had been bequeathed to Louis XI., and which Charles VIII. had now inherited, had the following origin: "In the eleventh century, Robert Guiscard, of the Norman family of Hauteville, at the head of a band of adventurers, took possession of Sicily and South Italy, then in a state of complete anarchy. Roger, the son of Robert, founded the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies under the Pope's suzerainty. In 1189 the Guiscard family became extinct, whereupon the German Emperor laid claim to the kingdom in right of his wife Constance, daughter of one of the Norman kings. The Roman Pontiffs, dreading such powerful neighbours, were adverse to the arrangement, and in 1254 King Conrad, being succeeded by his son Conradin, still a minor, furnished a pretext for bestowing the crown of the Two Sicilies on Charles d' Anjou, brother of St. Louis. Manfred, guardian of the boy Conradin, and a natural son of the Emperor Frederick II., raised an army against Charles d' Anjou, but was defeated, and fell in the encounter of 1266. Two years later, Prince Conradin was cruelly beheaded in Naples. Before his death, however, he made a will, by which he invested Peter III. of Aragon, son-in-law of Manfred, with full power over the Two Sicilies, exhorting him to avenge his death [see ITALY: A. D. 1250-1268]. {1184} This bequest was the origin of the rivalry between the houses of Aragon and Anjou, a rivalry which developed into open antagonism when the island of Sicily was given up to Peter of Aragon and his descendants, while Charles d' Anjou still held Naples for himself and his heirs [see ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300]. In 1435 Joan II., Queen of Naples, bequeathed her estates to Alfonso V. of Aragon, surnamed the Magnanimous, to the exclusion of Louis III. of Anjou. After a long and bloody struggle, Alfonso succeeded in driving the Anjou dynasty out of Naples [see ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389, and 1386-1414]. Louis III. was the last representative of this once-powerful family. He returned to France, survived his defeat two-and-twenty years, and by his will left all his rights to the Count of Maine, his nephew, who, on his death, transferred them to Louis XI. The wily Louis was not tempted to claim this worthless legacy. His successor, Charles VIII., less matter-of-fact, and more romantic, was beguiled into a series of brilliant, though sterile, expeditions, disastrous to national interests, neglecting the Flemish provinces, the liege vassals of France, and thoroughly French at heart. Charles VIII. put himself at the head of his nobles, made a triumphal entry into Naples and returned without having gained an inch of territory [see ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494, and 1494-1496]. De Commines judges the whole affair a mystery; it was, in fact, one of those dazzling and chivalrous adventures with which the French delighted to astonish Europe. Louis XII., like Charles VIII. [whom he succeeded in 1498], proclaimed his right to Naples, and also to the Duchy of Milan, inherited from his grandmother, Valentine de Visconti. These pretended rights were more than doubtful. The Emperor Wenceslas, on conferring the duchy on the Viscontis, excluded women from the inheritance, and both Louis XI. and Charles VIII. recognised the validity of the Salic law in Milan by concluding an alliance with the Sforzas. The seventeen years of Louis XII.'s reign was absorbed in these Italian wars, in which the French invariably began by victory, and as invariably ended in defeat. The League of Cambrai, the Battles of Agnadel, Ravenna, Novara, the Treaties of Grenada and Blois, are the principal episodes of this unlucky campaign."
C. Coignet, Francis the First and His Times, chapter 3.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.
"The warriors of France came back from Italy with the wonders of the South on their lips and her treasures in their hands. They brought with them books and paintings, they brought with them armour inlaid with gold and silver, tapestries enriched with precious metals, embroidered clothing, and even household furniture. Distributed by many hands in many different places, each precious thing became a separate centre of initiative power. The châteaux of the country nobles boasted the treasures which had fallen to the share of their lords at Genoa or at Naples; and the great women of the court were eager to divide the spoil. The contagion spread rapidly. Even in the most fantastic moment of Gothic inspiration, the French artist gave evidence that his right hand obeyed a national instinct for order, for balance, for completeness, and that his eye preferred, in obedience to a national predilection, the most refined harmonies of colour. Step by step he had been feeling his way; now, the broken link of tradition was again made fast; the workmen of Paris and the workmen of Athens joined hands, united by the genius of Italy. It must not, however, be supposed that no intercourse had previously existed between France and Italy. The roads by Narbonne and Lyons were worn by many feet. The artists of Tours and Poitiers, the artists of Paris and Dijon, were alike familiar with the path to Rome. But an intercourse, hitherto restricted, was rendered by the wars of Charles VIII. all but universal. ... Cruelly as the Italians had suffered at the hands of Charles VIII. they still looked to France for help; they knew that though they had been injured they had not been betrayed. But the weak and generous impulses of Charles VIII. found no place in the councils of his successors. ... The doom of Italy was pronounced. Substantially the compact was this. Aided by Borgia, the French were to destroy the free cities of the north, and in return France was to aid Borgia in breaking the power of the independent nobles who yet resisted Papal aggression in the south. In July 1499 the work began. At first the Italians failed to realise what had taken place. When the French army entered the Milanese territory the inhabitants fraternised with the troops, Milan, Genoa, Pavia opened their gates with joy. But in a few months the course of events, in the south, aroused a dread anxiety. There, Borgia, under the protection of the French king, and with the assistance of the French arms, was triumphantly glutting his brutal rage and lust, whilst Frenchmen were forced to look on helpless and indignant. Milan, justly terrified, made an attempt to throw herself on the mercy of her old ruler. To no purpose. Louis went back over the Alps, leaving a strong hand and a strong garrison in Milan, and dragging with him the unfortunate Louis Sforza, a miserable proof of the final destruction of the most brilliant court of Upper Italy. ... By the campaign of 1507, the work, thus begun, was consummated. The ancient spirit of independence still lingered in Genoa, and Venice was not yet crushed. There were still fresh laurels to be won. In this Holy War the Pope and the Emperor willingly joined forces with France. ... The deathblow was first given to Genoa. She was forced, Marot tells us, 'la corde au coul, la glaive sous la gorge, implorer la clémence de ce prince.' Venice was next traitorously surprised and irreparably injured. Having thus brilliantly achieved the task of first destroying the lettered courts, and next the free cities of Italy, Louis died, bequeathing to François I. the shame of fighting out a hopeless struggle for supremacy against allies who, no longer needing help, had combined to drive the French from the field. There was, indeed, one other duty to be performed. The shattered remains of Italian civilisation might be collected, and Paris might receive the men whom Italy could no longer employ. The French returned to France empty of honour, gorged with plunder, satiated with rape and rapine, boasting of cities sacked, and garrisons put to the sword. They had sucked the lifeblood of Italy, but her death brought new life to France. The impetus thus acquired by art and letters coincided with a change in political and social constitutions. The gradual process of centralisation which had begun with Louis XI. transformed the life of the whole nation. ... The royal court began to take proportions hitherto unknown. {1185} It gradually became a centre which gathered together the rich, the learned, and the skilled. Artists, who had previously been limited in training, isolated in life, and narrowed in activity by the rigid conservative action of the great guilds and corporations, were thus brought into immediate contact with the best culture of their day. For the Humanists did not form a class apart, and their example incited those with whom they lived to effort after attainments as varied as their own, whilst the Court made a rallying point for all, which gave a sense of countenance and protection even to those who might never hope to enter it. ... Emancipation of the individual is the watchword of the sixteenth century; to the artist it brought relief from the trammels of a caste thraldom, and the ceaseless efforts of the Humanists find an answer even in the new forms seen slowly breaking through the sheath of Gothic art."
Mrs. Mark Pattison, The Renaissance of Art in France, volume 1, chapter 1.
FRANCE: 16th Century. Renaissance and Reformation.
"The first point of difference to be noted between the Renaissance in France and the Renaissance in Italy is one of time. Roughly speaking it may be said that France was a hundred years behind Italy. ... But if the French Renaissance was a later and less rapid growth, it was infinitely hardier. The Renaissance literature in Italy was succeeded by a long period of darkness, which remained unbroken, save by fitful gleams of light, till the days of Alfieri. The Renaissance literature in France was the prelude to a literature, which, for vigour, variety, and average excellence, has in modern times rarely, if ever, been surpassed. The reason for this superiority on the part of France, for the fact that the Renaissance produced there more abiding and more far-reaching results, may be ascribed partly to the natural law that precocious and rapid growths are always less hardy than later and more gradual ones, partly to the character of the French nation, to its being at once more intellectual and less imaginative than the Italian, and therefore more influenced by the spirit of free inquiry than by the worship of beauty; partly to the greater unity and vitality of its political life, but in a large measure to the fact that in France the Renaissance came hand in hand with the Reformation. ... We must look upon the Reformation as but a fresh development of the Renaissance movement, as the result of the spirit of free inquiry carried into theology, as a revolt against the authority of the Roman Church. Now the Renaissance in Italy preceded the Reformation by more than a century. There is no trace in it of any desire to criticise the received theology. ... In France on the other hand the new learning and the new religion, Greek and heresy, became almost controvertible terms. Lefèvre d' Étaples, the doyen of French humanists, translated the New Testament into French in 1524: the Estiennes, the Hebrew scholar François Vatable, Turnèbe, Ramus, the great surgeon Ambroise Paré, the artists Bernard Palissy and Jean Goujon were all avowed protestants; while Clement Marot, Budé, and above all Rabelais, for a time at least, looked on the reformation with more or less favour. In fact so long as the movement appeared to them merely as a revolt against the narrowness and illiberality of monastic theology, as an assertion of the freedom of the human intellect, the men of letters and culture with hardly an exception joined hands with the reformers. It was only when they found that it implied a moral as well as an intellectual regeneration, that it began to wear for some of them a less congenial aspect. This close connexion between the Reformation and the revival of learning was, on the whole, a great gain to France. It was not as in Germany, where the stronger growth of the Reformation completely choked the other. In France they met on almost equal terms, and the result was that the whole movement was thereby strengthened and elevated both intellectually and morally. ... French humanism can boast of a long roll of names honourable not only for their high attainments, but also for their integrity and purity of life. Robert Estienne, Turnèbe, Ramus, Cujas, the Chancellor de l'Hôpital, Estienne Pasquier, Thou, are men whom any country would be proud to claim for her sons. And as with the humanists, so it was with the Renaissance generally in France. On the whole it was a manly and intelligent movement. ... The literature of the French Renaissance, though in point of form it is far below that of the Italian Renaissance, in manliness and vigour and hopefulness is far superior to it. It is in short a literature, not of maturity, but of promise. One has only to compare its greatest name, Rabelais, with the greatest name of the Italian Renaissance, Ariosto, to see the difference. How formless! how crude! how gross! how full of cumbersome details and wearisome repetitions is Rabelais! How limpid! how harmonious is Ariosto! what perfection of style, what delicacy of touch! He never wearies us, he never offends our taste. And yet one rises from the reading of Rabelais with a feeling of buoyant cheerfulness, while Ariosto in spite of his wit and gaiety is inexpressibly depressing. The reason is that the one bids us hope, the other bids us despair; the one believes in truth and goodness and in the future of the human race, the other believes in nothing but the pleasures of the senses, which come and go like many-coloured bubbles and leave behind them a boundless ennui. Rabelais and Ariosto are true types of the Renaissance as it appeared in their respective countries."
A. Tilley, The Literature of the French Renaissance, chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1501-1504. Treaty of Louis XII. with Ferdinand of Aragon for the partition of Naples. French and Spanish conquest. Quarrel of the confederates, and war. The Spaniards in possession of the Neapolitan domain.
See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.
FRANCE: A. D. 1504. Norman and Breton fishermen on the Newfoundland banks.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
FRANCE: A. D. 1504-1506. The treaties of Blois, with Ferdinand and Maximilian, and the abrogation of them. Relinquishment of claims on Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506.
FRANCE: A. D. 1507. Revolt and subjugation of Genoa.
See GENOA: A. D. 1500-1507.
FRANCE: A. D. 1508-1509. The League of Cambrai against Venice.
See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.
FRANCE: A. D. 1510-1513. The breaking up of the League of Cambrai. The Holy League formed by Pope Julius II. against Louis XII. The French expelled from Milan and all Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.
{1186}
FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515. English invasion under Henry VIII. The Battle of the Spurs. Marriage of Louis XII. with Mary of England. The King's death. Accession of Francis I.
"The long preparations of Henry VIII. of England for the invasion of France [in pursuance of the 'Holy League' against Louis XII., formed by Pope Julius II. and renewed by Leo X.,--see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513] being completed, that king, in the summer of 1513, landed at Calais, whither a great part of his army had already been transported. The offer of 100,000 golden crowns easily persuaded the Emperor to promise his assistance, at the head of a body of Swiss and Germans. But at the moment Henry was about to penetrate into France, he received the excuses of Maximilian, who, notwithstanding a large advance received from England, found himself unable to levy the promised succours. Nothing disheartened by this breach of faith, the King of England had already advanced into Artois; when the Emperor, attended by a few German nobles, appeared in the English camp, and was cordially welcomed by Henry, who duly appreciated his military skill and local knowledge. A valuable accession of strength was also obtained by the junction of a large body of Swiss, who, encouraged by the victory of Novara, had already crossed the Jura, and now marched to the seat of war. The poverty of the Emperor degraded him to the rank of a mercenary of England; and Henry consented to grant him the daily allowance of 100 crowns for his table. But humiliating as this compact was to Maximilian, the King of England reaped great benefit from his presence. A promiscuous multitude of Germans had flocked to the English camp, in hopes of partaking in the spoil; and the arrival of their valiant Emperor excited a burst of enthusiasm. The siege of Terouenne was formed: but the bravery of the besieged baffled the efforts of the allies; and a month elapsed, during which the English sustained severe loss from frequent and successful sorties. By the advice of the Emperor, Henry resolved to risk a battle with the French, and the plain of Guinegate was once more the field of conflict [August 18, 1513]. This spot, where Maximilian had formerly struck terror into the legions of Louis XI., now became the scene of a rapid and undisputed victory. The French were surprised by the allies, and gave way to a sudden panic; and the shameful flight of the cavalry abandoned the bravest of their leaders to the hands of their enemies. The Duke of Longueville, La Palisse, Imbercourt, and the renowned Chevalier Bayard, were made prisoners; and the ridicule of the conquerors commemorated the inglorious flight by designating the rout as the Battle of the Spurs. The capture of Terouenne immediately followed; and the fall of Tournay soon afterwards opened a splendid prospect to the King of England. Meanwhile the safety of France was threatened in another quarter. A large body of Swiss, levied in the name of Maximilian but paid with the gold of the Pope, burst into Burgundy; and Dijon was with difficulty saved from capture. From this danger, however, France was extricated by the dexterous negotiation of Trémouille; and the Swiss were induced to withdraw. ... Louis now became seriously desirous of peace. He made overtures to the Pope, and was received into favour upon consenting to renounce the Council of Pisa. He conciliated the Kings of Aragon and England by proposals of marriage; he offered his second daughter Renée to the young Charles of Spain; and his second Queen, Anne of Bretainy, being now dead, he proposed to unite himself with Mary of England, the favourite sister of Henry. ... But though peace was made upon this footing, the former of the projected marriages never took place: the latter; however, was magnificently solemnized, and proved fatal to Louis. The amorous King forgot his advanced age in the arms of his young and beautiful bride; his constitution gave way under the protracted festivities consequent on his nuptials; and on the 1st of January, 1515, Louis XII. was snatched from his adoring people, in his 53d year. He was succeeded by his kinsman and son-in-law, Francis, Count of Angoulême, who stood next in hereditary succession, and was reputed one of the most accomplished princes that ever mounted the throne of France."
Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapter 38 (volume 2).
ALSO IN: J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., chapter 1.
L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514, book 2, chapter 4, sections 7-8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1515. Accession of Francis I. His invasion of Italy. The Battle of Marignano.
"François I. was in his 21st year when he ascended the throne of France. His education in all manly accomplishments was perfect, and ... he manifested ... an intelligence which had been carefully cultivated. ... Unfortunately his moral qualities had been profoundly corrupted by the example of his mother, Louise of Savoy, a clever and ambitious woman, but selfish, unscrupulous, and above all shamelessly licentious. Louise had been an object of jealousy to Anne of Britany, who had always kept her in the shade, and she now snatched eagerly at the prospect of enjoying power and perhaps of reigning in the name of her son, whose love for his mother led him to allow her to exercise an influence which was often fatal to the interests of his kingdom. ... Charles duke of Bourbon, who was notoriously the favoured lover of Louise, was appointed to the office of constable, which had remained vacant since 1488; and one of her favourite ministers, Antoine Duprat, first president of the parliament of Paris, was entrusted with the seals. Both were men of great capacity; but the first was remarkable for his pride, and the latter for his moral depravity. The first cares of the new king of France were to prepare for war. ... Unfortunately for his country, François I. shared in the infatuation which had dragged his predecessors into the wars in Italy; and all these warlike preparations were designed for the reconquest of Milan. He had already intimated his design by assuming at his coronation the titles of king of France and duke of Milan. ... He entered into an alliance with Charles of Austria, prince of Castile, who had now reached his majority and assumed the government of the Netherlands. ... A treaty between these two princes, concluded on the 24th of March, 1515, guaranteed to each party not only the estates they held or which might subsequently descend to them, but even their conquests. ... The republic of Venice and the king of England renewed the alliances into which they had entered with the late king, but Ferdinand of Aragon refused even to prolong the truce unless the whole of Italy were included in it, and he entered into a separate alliance with the emperor, the duke of Milan, and the Swiss, to oppose the designs of the French king. {1187} The efforts of François I. to gain over the Swiss had been defeated by the influence of the cardinal of Sion. Yet the pope, Leo X., hesitated, and avoided compromising himself with either party. In the course of the month of July [1515], the most formidable army which had yet been led from France into Italy was assembled in the district between Grenoble and Embrun, and the king, after entrusting the regency to his mother, Louise, with unlimited powers, proceeded to place himself at its head."
T. Wright, History of France, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
"The passes in Italy had already been occupied by the Swiss under their captain general Galeazzo Visconti. Galeazzo makes their number not more than 6,000. ... They were posted at Susa, commanding the two roads from Mont Cenis and Geneva, by one of which the French must pass or abandon their artillery. In this perplexity it was proposed by Triulcio to force a lower passage across the Cottian Alps leading to Saluzzo. The attempt was attended with almost insurmountable difficulties. ... But the French troops with wonderful spirits and alacrity ... were not to be baffled. They dropped their artillery by cables from steep to steep; down one range of mountains and up another, until five days had been spent in this perilous enterprise, and they found themselves safe in the plains of Saluzzo. Happily the Swiss, secure in their position at Susa, had never dreamed of the possibility of such a passage. ... Prosper Colonna, who commanded in Italy for the Pope, was sitting down to his comfortable dinner at Villa Franca, when a scout covered with dust dashed into his apartment announcing that the French had crossed the Alps. The next minute the town was filled with the advanced guard, under the Sieur d'Ymbercourt and the celebrated Bayard. The Swiss at Susa had still the advantage of position, and might have hindered the passage of the main body of the French; but they had no horse to transport their artillery, were badly led, and evidently divided in their councils. They retired upon Novara," and to Milan, intending to effect a junction with the viceroy of Naples, who advanced to Cremona. On the morning of the 13th of September, Cardinal Scheimer harangued the Swiss and urged them to attack the French in their camp, which was at Marignano, or Melignano, twelve miles away. His fatal advice was acted on with excitement and haste. "The day was hot and dusty. The advanced guard of the French was under the command of the Constable of Bourbon, whose vigilance defeated any advantage the Swiss might otherwise have gained by the suddenness and rapidity of their movements. At nine o'clock in the morning, as Bourbon was sitting down at table, a scout, dripping with water, made his appearance. He had left Milan only a few hours before, had waded the canals, and came to announce the approach of the enemy. ... The Swiss came on apace; they had disencumbered themselves of their hats and caps, and thrown off their shoes, the better to fight without slipping. They made a dash at the French artillery, and were foiled after hard fighting. ... It was an autumnal afternoon; the sun had gone down; dust and night-fall separated and confused the combatants. The French trumpets sounded a retreat; both, armies crouched down in the darkness within cast of a tennis-ball of each other. ... Where they fought, there each man laid down to rest when darkness came on, within hand-grip of his foe." The next morning, "the autumnal mist crawled slowly away, and once more exposed the combatants to each other's view. The advantage of the ground was on the side of the French. They were drawn up in a valley protected by a ditch full of water. Though the Swiss had taken no refreshment that night, they renewed the fight with unimpaired animosity and vigour. ... Francis, surrounded by a body of mounted gentlemen, performed prodigies of valour. The night had given him opportunity for the better arrangement of his troops; and as the day wore on, and the sun grew hot, the Swiss, though 'marvellously deliberate, brave, and obstinate,' began to give way. The arrival of the Venetian general, D'Alviano, with fresh troops, made the French victory complete. But the Swiss retreated inch by inch with the greatest deliberation, carrying off their great guns on their shoulders. ... The French were too exhausted to follow. And their victory had cost them dear; for the Swiss, with peculiar hatred to the French gentry and the lance-knights, had shown no mercy. They spared none, and made no prisoners. The glory of the battle was great. ... The Swiss, the best troops in Europe, and hitherto reckoned invincible ... had been the terror and scourge of Italy, equally formidable to friend and foe, and now their prestige was extinguished. But it was not in these merely military aspects that the battle of Marignano was important. No one who reads the French chronicles of the times, can fail to perceive that it was a battle of opinions and of classes even more than of nations; of a fierce and rising democratical element, now rolled back for a short season, only to display itself in another form against royalty and nobility;--of the burgher classes against feudality. ... The old romantic element, overlaid for a time by the political convulsions of the last century, had once more gained the ascendant. It was to blaze forth and revive, before it died out entirely, in the Sydneys and Raleighs of Queen Elizabeth's reign; it was to lighten up the glorious imagination of Spenser before it faded into the dull prose of Puritan divinity, and the cold grey dawn of inductive philosophy. But its last great battle was the battle of Marignano."
J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., volume 1, chapter 3.
ALSO IN: Miss Pardoe, Court and Reign of Francis I., volume 1, chapters 6-7.
L. Larchey, History of Bayard, book 3, chapters 1-2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1518. Francis I. in possession of Milan. His treaties with the Swiss and the Pope. Nullification of the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII. The Concordat of Bologna.
"On the 15th of September, the day after the battle [of Marignano], the Swiss took the road back to their mountains. Francis I. entered Milan in triumph. Maximilian Sforza took refuge in the castle, and twenty days afterwards on the 4th of October, surrendered, consenting to retire to France, with a pension of 30,000 crowns, and the promise of being recommended for a cardinal's hat, and almost consoled for his downfall 'by the pleasure of being delivered from the insolence of the Swiss, the exactions of the Emperor Maximilian, and the rascalities of the Spaniards.' Fifteen years afterwards, in June, 1530, he died in oblivion at Paris. {1188} Francis I. regained possession of all Milaness, adding thereto, with the pope's consent, the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which had been detached from it. ... Two treaties, one of November 7, 1515, and the other of November 29, 1516, re-established not only peace, but perpetual alliance, between the King of France and the thirteen Swiss Cantons, with stipulated conditions in detail. Whilst these negotiations were in progress, Francis I. and Leo X., by a treaty published at Viterbo, on the 13th of October, proclaimed their hearty reconciliation. The pope guaranteed to Francis I. the duchy of Milan, restored to him those of Parma and Piacenza, and recalled his troops which were still serving against the Venetians." At the same time, arrangements were made for a personal meeting of the pope and the French king, which took place at Bologna in December, 1515. "Francis did not attempt to hide his design of reconquering the kingdom of Naples, which Ferdinand the Catholic had wrongfully usurped, and he demanded the pope's countenance. The pope did not care to refuse, but he pointed out to the king that everything foretold the very near death of King Ferdinand; and 'Your Majesty,' said he, 'will then have a natural opportunity for claiming your rights; and as for me, free, as I shall then be, from my engagements with the King of Arragon in respect of the crown of Naples, I shall find it easier to respond to your majesty's wish.' The pope merely wanted to gain time. Francis, putting aside for the moment the kingdom of Naples, spoke of Charles VII.'s Pragmatic Sanction [see above: A. D. 1438], and the necessity of putting an end to the difficulties which had arisen on this subject between the court of Rome and the Kings of France, his predecessors. 'As to that,' said the pope, 'I could not grant what your predecessors demanded; but be not uneasy; I have a compensation to propose to you which will prove to you how dear your interests are to me.' The two sovereigns had, without doubt, already come to an understanding on this point, when, after a three days' interview with Leo X., Francis I. returned to Milan, leaving at Bologna, for the purpose of treating in detail the affair of the Pragmatic Sanction, his chancellor, Duprat, who had accompanied him during all this campaign as his adviser and negotiator. ... The popes ... had all of them protested since the days of Charles VII. against the Pragmatic Sanction as an attack upon their rights, and had demanded its abolition. In 1461, Louis XI. ... had yielded for a moment to the demand of Pope Pius II., whose countenance he desired to gain, and had abrogated the Pragmatic; but, not having obtained what he wanted thereby, and having met with strong opposition in the Parliament of Paris to his concession, he had let it drop without formally retracting it. ... This important edict, then, was still vigorous in 1515, when Francis I., after his victory at Melegnano and his reconciliation with the pope, left Chancellor Duprat at Bologna to pursue the negotiation reopened on that subject. The 'compensation,' of which Leo X., on redemanding the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction, had given a peep to Francis I., could not fail to have charms for a prince so little scrupulous, and for his still less scrupulous chancellor. The pope proposed that the Pragmatic, once for all abolished, should be replaced by a Concordat between the two sovereigns, and that this Concordat, whilst putting a stop to the election of the clergy by the faithful, should transfer to the king the right of nomination to bishoprics and other great ecclesiastical offices and benefices, reserving to the pope the right of presentation of prelates nominated by the king. This, considering the condition of society and government in the 16th century, in the absence of political and religious liberty, was to take away from the church her own existence, and divide her between two masters, without giving her, as regarded either of them, any other guarantee of independence than the mere chance of their dissensions and quarrels. ... Francis I. and his chancellor saw in the proposed Concordat nothing but the great increment of influence it secured to them, by making all the dignitaries of the church suppliants at first and then clients of the kingship. After some difficulties as to points of detail, the Concordat was concluded and signed on the 18th of August, 1516. Five months afterwards, on the 5th of February, 1517, the king repaired in person to Parliament, to which he had summoned many prelates and doctors of the University. The Chancellor explained the points of the Concordat. ... The king ordered its registration, 'for the good of his kingdom and for quittance of the promise he had given the pope.'" For more than a year the Parliament of Paris resisted the royal order, and it was not until the 22d of March, 1518, that it yielded to the king's threats and proceeded to registration of the Concordat, with forms and reservations "which were evidence of compulsion. The other Parliaments of France followed with more or less zeal ... the example shown by that of Paris. The University was heartily disposed to push resistance farther than had been done by Parliament."
F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 28 (volume 4).
"The execution of the Concordat was vigorously contested for years afterwards. Cathedrals and monastic chapters proceeded to elect bishops and abbots under the provisions of the Pragmatic Sanction; and every such case became a fresh source of exasperation between the contending powers. ... But the Parliament, though clamouring loudly for the 'Gallican liberties,' and making a gallant stand for national independence as against the usurpations of Rome, was unable to maintain its ground against the overpowering despotism of the Crown. The monarchical authority ultimately achieved a complete triumph. In 1527 a peremptory royal ordinance prohibited the courts of Parliament from taking further cognisance of causes affecting elections to consistorial benefices and conventual priories; and all such matters were transferred to the sole jurisdiction of the Council of State. After this the agitation against the Concordat gradually subsided. But although, in virtue of its compulsory registration by the Parliament, the Concordat became part of the law of the land, it is certain that the Gallican Church never accepted this flagrant invasion of its liberties."
W. H. Jervis, History of the Church of France, volume 1, pages 109-110.
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FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1547. The institution of the Court. Its baneful influence.