II. THE TEUTONIC MIGRATIONS AND KINGDOMS…

II. THE TEUTONIC MIGRATIONS AND KINGDOMS

THE GOTHS: THEODOSIUS I.--Towards the close of the fourth century, when Valens (364-378) was reigning in the East, the Huns moved from their settlements north of the Caspian, defeated the Alans, a powerful nation, and, compelling them to enter their service, invaded the empire of the Ostrogoths, then ruled by Hermanric. The Huns belonged to one branch of the Scythian race. They had migrated in vast numbers from Central Asia. Repulsive in form and visage, with short, thick bodies, and small, fierce eyes, living mostly on horseback or in their wagons, these terrible warriors, with their slings and bone-pointed arrows, struck terror into the nations whom they approached. The Gothic Empire fell. The Ostrogoths submitted, and Hermanric died, it is thought by his own hand. The Visigoths crowded down to the Danube, and implored Valens to give them an asylum upon Roman territory. They had previously been converted to Christianity, mainly by the labors of Ulphilas, who had framed for them an alphabet, and translated nearly the whole Bible into their tongue. Fragments of this Moeso-Gothic version are the oldest written monument in the Teutonic languages. Christianity was taught to them by Ulphilas in the Arian type; and this circumstance was very important, since it was the occasion of the spread of Arianism among many other Teutonic peoples. Valens granted their request to cross the Danube, and, under Fritigern and Alavivus, to settle in Moesia (376). By the connivance of the officers of Valens, they were allowed to retain their arms. The avarice of corrupt imperial governors provoked them to revolt; and, in the battle of Adrianople, Valens was defeated. The house into which the wounded emperor was carried was set on fire, and he perished. Gratian, who, since the death of Valentinian I. (375), had been the ruler of the West, summoned the valiant Theodosius from his estate in Spain, to which he had been banished, to sustain the tottering empire. Gratian made him regent in the East. His father had cleared Britain of the Picts and Scots, and restored it to the empire. Under him the son had learned to be a soldier. He had been driven into retirement by court intrigues. He now accomplished, as well as it could be done, the mighty task laid upon him. He checked the progress of the Goths, divided them, incorporated some of them in the army, and dispersed the rest in Thrace, Moesia, and Asia Minor (382). Four years later forty-thousand Ostrogoths were received into the imperial service. Once Rome had conquered the barbarians, and planted its colonies among them; now, after they had proved their power, and gained boldness by victory, it received them within its own borders. The indolence and vice of Gratian produced a revolution in the West. Maximus was proclaimed imperator by the legions of Britain, and Gratian was put to death by his cavalry (383). After sanguinary conflicts, Theodosius obtained, also, supreme power in the West. He gave to orthodoxy, in the strife with Arianism, the supremacy in the East; and, under his auspices, the General Council of Constantinople re-affirmed the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity (381). In the ancient church he had a glory second only to that of Constantine. With the exception of his harsh and inquisitorial laws for the forcible suppression of Arianism and paganism, his legislation was generally wise and beneficent.

ARCADIUS: HONORIUS.--Theodosius left the government of the East to his son Arcadius, then eighteen years of age, and that of the West to a younger son, Honorius. The empire of the East continued ten hundred and fifty-eight years after this division; that of the West, only eighty-one years. The Eastern Empire was defended by the barriers of the Danube and the Balkan mountains, by the strength of Constantinople, together with the care taken to protect it, and by the general tendency of the barbarian invasions westward. Rome, in the course of a half-century, was the object of four terrible attacks,--that of Alaric and the Visigoths; of Radagaisus with the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans; of Genseric with the Vandals; of Attila with the Huns.

ALARIC IN ITALY.--The Visigoths made Alaric--the head of their most illustrious family, the Balti--their leader. Honorius was controlled by the influence of Stilicho, a brave soldier, by birth a Vandal; Arcadius was ruled by a Goth, Rufinus, a cunning and faithless diplomatist. Alaric and his followers were enraged at the withholding of the pay which was due to them yearly from Arcadius. Rufinus, in order to keep up his sway, and out of hostility to Stilicho, arranged that they should invade Eastern Illyricum, a province on which each of the emperors had claims, and which he feared that Stilicho would seize. They ravaged Thrace and Macedonia, passed through the undefended strait of Thermopylae, spared Athens, but devastated the rest of Greece. The only protector of the empire now was Stilicho, to whom Theodosius had committed the care of his two sons, and whose power was exercised in the West. He caused the perfidious Rufinus to be put to death by Gainas, one of the Gothic allies of Arcadius. The place of the minister was taken by Eutropius, an Armenian who had been a slave. Stilicho fought the Goths in two campaigns, but, perhaps from policy, suffered them to escape by the Strait of Naupactus (Lepanto). To prevent further ravages, Arcadius had no alternative but to appoint Alaric master-general or duke of Illyricum. This obliged Stilicho to retire. Raised upon the shield, and thus made king by his followers, Alaric led them to the conquest of Italy. Honorius fled for refuge from Milan to the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. Stilicho came to his relief, and defeated the Visigoths at Pollentia (402). But Honorius copied the example of Arcadius, made Alaric a general, and gave him the commission to conquer Illyricum for the Western Empire. After his defeat, he was moving against Rome with his cavalry, when his retreat was purchased by a pension. It was when Honorius was celebrating his triumph at Rome that a monk named Telemachus leaped into the arena to separate the gladiators. He was stoned to death by the spectators, but the result of his self-devotion was an edict putting a final stop to the gladiatorial shows. The emperor now fixed his residence, which had been at Milan, at Ravenna, a city that was covered on the land side by a wide and impassable morass, over which was an artificial causeway, easily destroyed in case it could not be defended. It had served him as an asylum during the invasion of Alaric.

RADAGAISUS.--The empire was not long left in peace. Alaric was a Christian, and partially civilized. Radagaisus was a Goth, but a heathen and a barbarian. The Suevi under his command, took their course southward from the neighborhood of the Baltic, and, drawing after them the Burgundians, Vandals, and Alans,--tribes which began to be alarmed by the hordes of Huns that were gathering behind them,--advanced to the pillage of the empire. Leaving the bulk of their companions on the borders of the Rhine, two hundred thousand of them crossed the Alps, and made their way as far as Florence. Stilicho once more saved Rome and the empire by forcing them back into the Apennines, where most of them perished from famine. Radagaisus surrendered, and was beheaded. The news of this disaster moved the host which had been left behind, joined by the remainder of the army of Radagaisus, to make an attack upon Gaul. Despite the resistance of the Ripuarian Franks, to whom Rome had committed the defense of the Rhine, they crossed that river on the last day of the year 406. For two years Gaul was a prey to their ravages, until the Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals, sought for fresh booty on the south of the Pyrenees (409). In Gaul they "destroyed the cities, ravaged the fields, and drove before them in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars." Brief as was this period of devastation, it marks the severance of Gaul from the empire.

ALARIC AGAIN IN ITALY.--Stilicho had kept up friendly relations with Alaric, and had retained in Italy thirty thousand barbarians in the pay of the empire. The brave general became an object of suspicion to Honorius, who caused him to be assassinated, and the wives and children of the barbarian troops to be massacred. The men fled to Alaric. He came back with them to avenge them. He appeared under the walls of Rome. "It was more than six hundred years since a foreign enemy had been there, and Hannibal had advanced so far, only to retreat." When the envoys of the Senate represented to Alaric how numerous was the population, he answered, "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." But he consented to accept an enormous ransom, and retired to winter quarters in Tuscany. The court at Ravenna refused to assign lands to the Visigoths for a permanent settlement in Northern Italy. Alaric demanded the post of master-general of the Western armies. Once more he advanced to Rome, seized the "Port" of Ostia, and compelled the Senate to appoint Attalus, the prefect of the city, emperor. He besieged Ravenna without effect, quarreled with Attalus, and deposed him, and for the third time marched upon Rome. Slaves within the city opened the Salarian gate to their countrymen, and on the 24th of August, 410, the sack of the city began. To add to the horrors of the scene, a terrific thunderstorm was raging. For three days Rome was given up to pillage. Only the Christian temples were respected, which were crowded by those who sought within them an asylum. Rome had been the center of Paganism. The scattering and destruction of its patrician families was the ruin of the old religion. Alaric did not long survive his victory. He died at Consentia in Bruttium. He was buried under the little river Basentius, which was turned out of its course while the sepulcher was constructing, and then restored to its former channel. The slaves employed in the work were put to death, that the place of his burial might remain a secret (410).

ATHAULF: WALLIA.--Athaulf (called Adolphus), the brother and successor of Alaric, was an admirer of the empire. He enlisted in the service of Honorius, and married his sister, Placidia, who was in the hands of the Goths, either as a captive or as a hostage. He put down usurpers in the south of Gaul who had set themselves up as emperors, and entered Spain, in order to drive out the barbarians from that country. But he was assassinated (415). His successor, Wallia, carried forward his plans, in the name of Honorius, against the Alans, the Suevi, and the Vandals. He partly exterminated the Alans, chased the Suevi into the mountains on the north-west, and the Vandals into the district called after them, Andalusia.

THREE BARBARIAN KINGDOMS.--The kingdom of the Suevi thus established (419), under the kings reigning from 438 to 455 conquered Lusitania, and would have subdued all Spain had they not been checked by the Visigoths. As a reward for their services, the latter received from Honorius, Aquitaine in Gaul, as far as the Loire and the Rhone, with Toulouse for their capital. They conquered the Suevi in 456, and in 585 subjugated them; in 507 the Franks had driven them out of Gaul. Early in the fifth century the Burgundian kingdom grew up in South-eastern Gaul. At the end of that century the Rhone was a Burgundian river. Lyons and Vienne were Burgundian cities. Thus in the first twenty years of the fifth century there arose three barbarian kingdoms. Of these, that of the Suevi soon vanished (585), being absorbed by the Visigoths; that of the Burgundians continued until 534; while that of the Visigoths in Spain lasted until the conquest by the Arabs in 711.

CONQUEST OF AFRICA BY THE VANDALS.--Honorius died in 423. He had shown himself a zealous defender of the Church against heresy, and was the author of edicts for the suppression of heathenism, and for the destruction of heathen temples and idols. But he had proved himself inefficient in the defense of the empire. His nephew Valentinian III., the son of Placidia and of the general Constantius, whom she had married in 417, succeeded him; but he was only six years old, and for twenty-five years the government was carried on in his name by his unworthy mother. She had two able generals, Aëtius and Boniface, whose discord was fatal in its effects. At the same time in the East, the government was managed by Pulcheria for her brother, Theodosius II., who had succeeded Arcadias in 408. Aëtius, who was a Hun, by insidious arts persuaded Placidia to recall Boniface, who was governor of Africa, at the same time that he advised Boniface to disobey the order which he represented as a sentence of death. Boniface sent to Gonderic, king of the Vandals in Spain,--who, after the retreat of the Visigoths, were strong in that country,--an offer of an alliance. Genseric, the Vandal leader, the brother and successor of Gonderic, landed in Africa in 429 with fifty thousand men. Too late the treachery of Aëtius was explained to Boniface. Genseric, with his allies, tribes of nomad Moors, defeated him in a bloody battle, and besieged Hippo for fourteen months. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, animated the courage of its defenders until his death in 430, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Boniface was again defeated, and Hippo was taken. The Vandals pushed on their conquest, but eight years passed before Carthage was reduced (439). Valentinian had recognized by treaty the kingdom of the Vandals. Genseric was characterized by genius and energy as well as by cruelty and avarice. He built up a navy, and made himself master of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles. He was able to defy Constantinople, on account of his control of the Mediterranean. At the same time he entered into relations with the barbarians in the north, in order that Aëtius, who endeavored to bring in some degree of order and obedience in the empire, might be checked and restrained on all sides. The Vandals were Arians, and made full use of the difference in faith as a motive for plundering and maltreating the orthodox Christians in Africa, whom their arms had subdued.

ATTILA: CHALONS.--The enemy whom Genseric invoked to make a diversion in his favor against the combined rulers of the East and of the West, was Attila. For a half-century the Huns had halted, in their migration, in the center of Europe, and held under their sway the Ostrogoths, the Gepids, the Marcomanni, and other tribes. The empire of Attila extended from the Baltic to the north of the Danube, and as far east as the Volga. His name inspired terror wherever it was heard. He was styled "the scourge of God." The "sword of Mars"--the point of an ancient sword which, it was said, was discovered by supernatural means, and was presented to him--was deemed the symbol of his right to the dominion of the world. Yet, notwithstanding his fierce visage and haughty mien, he was an indulgent ruler of his own people, and not without pity and other generous traits. Such was the dread of him that it was said that no blade of grass grew on the path which his armies had traversed. First, he attacked Theodosius II. in the East, to force him to recall the troops which he had sent against Genseric. He crossed the Danube, destroyed seventy cities, and forced the Eastern emperor not only to pay a tribute heavier than he had paid before, but also to cede to the Huns the right bank of the river. Theodosius failed in a treacherous attempt to assassinate him through Attila's ambassador, Edecon, whom he had bribed. Attila discovered the plot, but pardoned with disdain the ambassadors of the emperor who went to him in his wooden palace in Pannonia. He contented himself with reproaching Theodosius with "conspiring, like a perfidious slave, against the life of his master." Regarding Constantinople as impregnable, he turned to the West. He demanded of the Western emperor the half of his states; and, moving to the Rhine with six hundred thousand barbarians, he crossed that river and the Moselle, advanced on his devastating path into the heart of Gaul, crossed the Seine, and laid siege to Orleans. Everywhere the inhabitants fled before him. The courage of the people in Orleans was sustained by their bishop, who at length, as the city was just falling into the hands of the assailants, saw a cloud of dust, and cried, "It is the help of God." It was Aëtius, who, on the death of Boniface, had thought it prudent to fly to the Huns, had come back to Italy at the head of sixty thousand men, obtained forgiveness of Placidia, and been made master-general of her forces. He had united to the Roman troops the barbarians who had occupied Gaul, the Visigoths under Theodoric, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Ripuarian and the Salian Franks. On the Catalaunian fields, a vast plain near Chalons, whither Attila now retreated to find room for the effective use of his cavalry, the two multitudinous armies, each composed of a motley collection of nations, met. It was, like the conflict at Marathon, one of the decisive battles of history. It was to determine whether the Aryan or the Scythian was to be supreme in Europe. The battle-field was strewn, it was said, with the bodies of a hundred and sixty thousand men,--an exaggeration indicating that the carnage was too great to be estimated. Attila was worsted. He encircled his camp with a rampart of wagons; and in the morning the victors saw him standing on the top of a mound composed of the trappings of horsemen, which was to serve as his funeral-pile, with torch-bearers at hand ready to light it in case of defeat. Aëtius was weakened by the withdrawal of the Visigoths: the allies did not venture to attack the lion standing thus at bay, but suffered him to return to Germany (451).

ATTILA IN ITALY.--The next year Attila invaded Upper Italy. He destroyed Aquileia, the inhabitants of which fled to the lagoons of the Adriatic, where their descendants founded Venice. Padua, Verona, and other cities were reduced to ashes. At Milan he saw a painting which represented the emperor on his throne, and the chiefs of the Huns prostrate before him. He ordered a picture to be painted in which the king of the Huns sat on the throne, and the emperor was at his feet. The Italians were without the means of defense. Leo I. (Leo the Great), bishop of Rome, at the risk of his life accompanied the emperor's ambassadors to Attila's camp. Their persuasions, with rich gifts and the promise of a tribute, availed. The army of Attila was weakened by sickness, and Aëtius was approaching. The king of the Huns decided to retire to his forests. The apparition of the two apostles, Peter and Paul, threatening the barbarian with instant death if he did not comply with the prayer of their successor, is the subject of one of the paintings of Raphael. Some months after he left Italy Attila died at the royal village near the Danube, probably from the bursting of an artery during the night (453). The nations which he had subjugated regained their freedom. The chiefs of the Huns contended for the crown in conflicts which dissipated their strength. The expeditions of Attila were like a violent tempest,-- destructive for the moment, the traces of which soon disappear.

About the name of Attila, there gathered cycles of traditions, Gallo-Roman or Italian, East German or Gothic, West German and Scandinavian, and Hungarian. Such traditions in Germany formed, later, the germ of the national epic, the Nibelungen-lied. They testify to the powerful impression which the hero of the Huns made on the memory and imagination of the different nations.

GENSERIC.--Attila did not see Rome; but Genseric, his ally, visited it with fire and sword (455). The emperor was Petronius Maximus, a senator, who had slain Valentinian III. as the penalty for a mortal offense. The weakness of Maximus as a ruler caused him to be destroyed by the populace. Eudoxia, the widow of Valentinian, whom Maximus had compelled to marry the author of her husband's death, had secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals. Once more Leo showed his fearless spirit by going into the camp of the Vandal king, and interceding for Rome. He only succeeded, however, in mitigating to a limited extent the horrors that attended the pillage of the city by the fierce and greedy soldiers, the Vandals and Moors, who followed Genseric, For fourteen days (June 15-29, 455) Rome was given up to carnage and robbery. The conqueror carried off every thing of value that was capable of being transported. Eudoxia was rudely stripped of her jewels, and with her two daughters, descendants of the great Theodosius, was conveyed away with the conqueror to Carthage. For twenty years longer Genseric ruled over the Mediterranean in spite of the hostility of both empires. An expedition sent against him at the instigation of Ricimer, the Sueve, by the Eastern emperor Leo, was ill commanded by Basiliscus, and failed. But after the Vandal king died (477), his kingdom was torn by civil and religious disorders, and by the revolts of the Moors, and, fifty-seven years after the death of its founder, was conquered by the general of the Eastern Empire.

FALL OF ROME: ODOACER.--After the death of Maximus, Avitus was appointed emperor by the king of the Visigoths in Gaul. The barbarians hesitated to assume the purple themselves, but they determined on whom it should be bestowed. Of the emperors that succeeded, Majorian (457-461)--who was raised to the throne by Ricimer, military leader of the German mercenaries in the Roman army--presents an instance of a worthy character in a corrupt time. At last another leader of mercenaries (Orestes, a Pannonian) made his son emperor,--a boy six years old, called Romulus Augustulus (475). Odoacer, who commanded the Heruli, Rugii, and other federated tribes,--mercenaries to whom Orestes refused to grant a third part of the lands of Italy,--made himself ruler of that country. The Senate of Rome, in pursuance of his wishes, in an address to the Eastern emperor Zeno, declared that an emperor in the West was no longer necessary, and asked him to make Odoacer patrician, and prefect of the diocese of Italy. It was in this character--not as king, but in nominal subordination to Zeno, the head of the united Roman Empire--that Odoacer governed (476). For more than a half-century people had been accustomed to see the barbarians exercise supreme control, so that the extinguishment of the Western Empire was an event less marked in their eyes than it seemed to the view of subsequent ages.

OSTROGOTHIC KINGDOM OF THEODORIC.--When Odoacer had reigned twelve years, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths in Moesia,--who in his youth had lived at the court of Constantinople, had defended the Eastern emperor, but had been provoked to hostility to him,--was authorized by Zeno to move upon Italy. A host consisting of two hundred thousand fighting-men, together with their families and goods, followed the Gothic leader. Defeated at Verona (489), Odoacer was forced to make a treaty for a division of power, and to surrender Ravenna, where he had taken refuge; but very soon, in the tumult of a banquet, he was slain by Theodoric's own hand, either from fear of a rival, or because he suspected that Odoacer was plotting against him. From this time the long reign of Theodoric was one of justice and of peace. More by negotiation than by war, he extended his dominion so that it embraced Illyricum, Pannonia, Noricum, and Rhoetia, and, in the West, Southeastern Gaul (Provence). The Bavarians paid him tribute; the Alemanni invoked his assistance against the Franks, against whom he afforded succor to the Goths of Aquitaine. In his administration he showed reverence for the old imperial system, and for its laws and institutions. He fostered agriculture, manufactures, and trade. Although he could not write, he encouraged learning; and a learned Roman, Cassiodorus, he appointed to high offices. He permitted the Goths alone to bear arms. He caused to be compiled from the Roman law a collection of statutes for the Goths and for his new subjects, and established mixed tribunals for causes in which both were parties. Cassiodorus ascribes to Theodoric the words, "Let other kings seek to procure booty, or the downfall of conquered cities: our purpose is, with God's help, so to conquer that our subjects shall lament that they have too late come under our rule." He did what he could to promote peace among other barbarian nations. The prosperity of Italy, and the increase of its population, were a proof of the good government which it enjoyed. An Arian, he respected the Catholics, confirmed the immunities enjoyed by the churches, and generally allowed the Romans to elect their own bishop. He also protected the Jews. The persecution of the Arians in the East (524) by Justin I., awakened in his mind the belief that a conspiracy was forming against him. He accused Boethius of being a partner in it, and adjudged him to death (524). While in prison at Pavia, this cultivated man, whom Theodoric had highly esteemed, composed a work on the "Consolations of Philosophy," which has made his name immortal in literature. The course of Theodoric at this time drew upon him the severe displeasure of his orthodox subjects. Soon after his death (526) his ashes were taken out of the tomb, and scattered to the winds. Hence nothing remains of his sepulcher at Ravenna but his empty mausoleum.

Before the close of the century, as we shall see, another German tribe, the Lombards, founded a powerful state in Italy, which continued for more than two hundred years (568-774).

THE FRANKS: CLOVIS.--When Clovis (481-511), a warlike and ambitious chief of the Merovingian family of princes, became king of the Franks, they numbered but a few thousand warriors. The remnant of the Roman dominion on the Seine and the Loire he annexed, after having put to death Syagrius, the Roman governor, who was delivered up to him by the Visigoths. He made Soissons, and then Paris, the seat of his authority. A Salian Frank himself, he joined to himself the Ripuarian Franks on the Lower Rhine, and made war on the Alemanni, who were planted on both sides of the river. Before a battle (formerly thought to have been at Tolbiac), he vowed, that, if the victory were given him, he would worship the God of the Christians, of whom his wife Clotilde was one. Clotilde was the niece of the Burgundian king, who was an Arian; but she was orthodox. The victory was won. Clovis, with three thousand of his nobles, was baptized by Remigius (St. Remi), Archbishop of Rheims. Hearing a sermon on the crucifixion, Clovis exclaimed, that, if he and his faithful Franks had been there, vengeance would have been taken on the Jews. He was a barbarian still, and the new faith imposed little restraint on his ambition and cruelty. But his conversion was an event of the highest importance. The Gallic church and clergy lent him their devoted support. The Franks were destined to become the dominant barbarian people. It was now settled that power was to be in the hands of Catholic--as distinguished from heretical Arian--Christianity. Clovis forced Gundobald, the Burgundian king, to become tributary, and to embrace the Catholic faith. He extended his kingdom to the Rhone on the east, and on the south (507-511), confined the Visigoths in Gaul to the strip of territory called Septimania, which they held for three centuries longer. Brittany alone remained independent under its king. Clovis was hailed as the "most Christian king" and the second Constantine, and was made patrician and consul by the Eastern emperor Anastasius, in which titles, with their insignia, he rejoiced. In the closing part of his life he took care to destroy other Frank chieftains who might possibly undertake to dispute or divide with him his sovereignty.

DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBES.--If we look at the map at the close of the fifth century, we find that all the western dominions of Rome are subject to Teutonic kings. The Franks, still retaining Western and Central Germany, rule in Northern Gaul, and are soon to extend their sway to the Pyrenees, and to conquer Burgundy. The West Goths are the masters in Spain, and still hold Aquitaine, the most of which, however, is soon to be lost to the Franks. Italy and the lands north of the Alps and the Adriatic form the East Gothic kingdom of Theodoric. Africa is governed by the Arian Vandals. To the north of the Franks, the tribes of Germany, which were never subject to Rome, have already begun their conquests in Britain. With the exception of Britain, which is falling under the power of the Saxons, and Africa, these countries are still nominally parts of the Roman Empire, of which Constantinople is the capital. In the east, the boundaries of the empire, notwithstanding the aggressions and insults which it has suffered, are but little altered.

THE MEROVINGIANS.--The dominion of Clovis was partitioned among his four sons (511). Theodoric, the eldest, in Rheims, ruled the Eastern Franks, in what soon after this time began to be called Austrasia, on both banks of the Rhine. Neustria, or the rest of the kingdom north of the Loire, was governed in parts by the other three. Theodoric gained by conquest the land of the Thuringians, whose king, Hermanfrid, he treacherously destroyed. A part of this land was given to the Saxons. The history of the Franks for half a century lacks unity. The several rulers rarely acted in concert. They made expeditions against the Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Ostrogoths. Twice they attacked the Burgundians. The last time, in 534, they conquered them, deprived them of their national kings, and forced them to become Catholic. In 531 they made war on the Visigoths to avenge the wrongs inflicted on Clotilde, a princess of their family who suffered indignities at the hands of the Arian king Amalaric. They crossed the Pyrenees, and brought away Clotilde. A second division of the kingdom was made in 561 among the grandsons of Clovis, and consummated in 567. Austrasia, having Rheims for its capital, had a population chiefly German. Neustria, where the Gallo-Roman manners were adopted, had Soissons for its capital; and Burgundy had its capital at Orleans. The population in both these last dominions was more predominantly Romano-Celtic, or "Romance." Family contests, and wars full of horrors,--in which the tragic feud of two women, Brunhilde of Austrasia, a daughter of Athanagild, king of the Visigoths, and Fredegunde of Neustria, played a prominent part,--ensued. In 613 Clotaire II. of Neustria united the entire kingdom. Brunhilde was captured, and put to death in a barbarous manner. The son of Clotaire, Dagobert, was a worthless king. The Frank sovereigns of the royal line are inefficient, and the virtual sovereignty is in the hands of the "Mayors of the Palace," the officers whose function it was to superintend the royal household, and who afterwards were leaders of the feudal retainers. The family of the Pipins, who were of pure German extraction, acquired the hereditary right to this office, first in Austrasia and later in Neustria. The descendants of Pipin of Heristal, as dukes of the Franks, had regal power, while the title of king was left to the Merovingian princes. The race of Pipin was afterwards called Carolingians, or Karlings. The preponderance of power at first had been with Neustria, but it shifted to the ruder and more energetic Austrasians. The battle of Testry, in which Pipin of Heristal at their head overcame the Neustrians, determined the supremacy of Germany over France (687). His son and successor, Charles Martel (715-741), made himself sole "Duke of the Franks;" and Pipin the Short (741-768), the son of Charles Martel, became king, supplanting the Merovingian line (752).

SAXON CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.--In the fourth century, when the power of Rome was declining, the Picts and Scots from the North began to make incursions into the Roman province of Britain. At the same time Teutonic tribes from the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, began to land as marauders upon the coast. Honorius withdrew the Roman troops from the island in 411; and it was conquered by these invading tribes, especially the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They became one people, called Anglo-Saxons, Angles or English. They were fierce barbarians, who drove the Celts whom they did not kill or enslave--and whom they called Welsh, or strangers--into Wales and Cornwall. They formed kingdoms, the first of which, Kent, was the result of the coming of Hengist and Horsa, whom Vortigern, the native prince, had invited to help him against the Picts (449). There were seven of these Saxon kingdoms (the Heptarchy), not all of which were at any one time regular communities. They were almost constantly at war with one another and with the natives. They had a king elected from the royal family. Freemen were either Earls or Churls, the "gentle" or the "simple." The churl was attached to some one lord whom he followed in war. The thanes were those who devoted themselves to the service of the king or some other great man. The thanes of the king became gentlemen and nobles. There were thralls, or slaves, either prisoners in war, or made slaves for debt or for crime. Connected with the king was a sort of Parliament, called the Witenagemôt, or Meeting of the Wise, composed originally of all freemen, and then of the great men, the Ealdormen, the king's thanes. After the Saxons were converted, the bishops and abbots belonged to it. In minor affairs, the "mark," or township, governed itself.

CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS--The seven kingdoms, in the ninth century (828), were united under Egbert, who became king of Wessex in 802. He was called the king of England. Towards the Celtic Christians the heathen Saxons were hostile. The conversion of the Saxons was due to the labors of Augustine and forty monks, whom Gregory the Great (Gregory I.) sent to the island as missionaries in 597. Their first conversions were in Kent, whose king, Ethelbert, had married Bertha, the daughter of a Frankish king. Augustine, who had great success, became the first archbishop of Canterbury, and he consecrated a bishop of London. During the seventh century the other Saxon kingdoms were gradually converted. York became a seat of a second archbishopric. While Britain had been cut off from close relations with the continent, the Celtic Church there had failed to keep pace with the changes of rite and polity which had taken place among Christians beyond the channel. The consequence was a strife on these points between the converted Saxons, who were devoted to the holy see, and the "Culdees" or Old British Christians.

CONVERSION OF THE IRISH.--About the middle of the fifth century the gospel had been planted in Ireland, mainly by the labors of Patrick, who had been carried to that country from Scotland by pirates when he was a boy, and had returned to it as a missionary. The cloisters, and the schools connected with them, which he founded, flourished, became nurseries of study as well as of piety, and sent out missionaries to other countries of Western Europe.

CHARACTER OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS.--The Teutonic tribe was made up of freemen and of their dependents. The rights of freemen, such as the right to vote, continued; but these were modified as differences of rank and wealth arose. Their leaders in peace and war were the duke (dux), the count (comes, or graf), and the herzog (duke of higher grade) over larger provinces. The companions of the king and the local chiefs grew into a nobility. Once or twice in the year there was a gathering of the freemen in assemblies, to decree war or to sanction laws. Land was partly held in common, partly by individuals either as tenants of the community, or as individual owners. The soil was shared in proportions by the conquerors and the conquered.

THE CHURCH.--The Germanic tribes were generally more or less acquainted with the Romans, and were Christians by profession. They were subject to the influences of religion, of law, and of language, in the countries where they settled. Power passed from the Empire to the Church. The Church was strong in its moral force. Its bishops commanded the respect of the barbarians. They were moral and social leaders. In the period of darkness and of tempest, the voices of the Christian clergy were heard in accents of fearless rebuke and of tender consolation. In the cities of Italy and Gaul, the bishops, at the call of the people, informally took the first place in civil affairs. Remarkable men arose in the Church, who were conspicuous as ambassadors and peace-makers, as intercessors for the suffering, and courageous protectors of the injured. Such a man was Leo the Great. The barbarians were awed by the kingdom of righteousness, which, without exerting force, opposed to force and passion an undaunted front. There was often a conflict between their love of power and passionate impatience of control, and their reverence for the priest and for the gospel. They could not avoid feeling in some measure the softening and restraining influence of Christian teaching, and learning the lessons of the cross. Socially, the Church, as such, "was always on the side of peace, on the side of industry, on the side of purity, on the side of liberty for the slave, and protection for the oppressed. The monasteries were the only keepers of literary tradition: they were, still more, great agricultural colonies, clearing the wastes, and setting the example of improvement. They were the only seats of human labor which could hope to be spared in those lands of perpetual war." Nevertheless, the religious condition of the West, the condition of the Church and of the clergy, could not fail to be powerfully affected for the worse by the influx of barbarism, and the corrupting influence of the barbarian rulers. A great deterioration in the Church and in its ministry ensued after the first generation following the Germanic conquests passed away. This demoralization was more among the secular clergy than the monastic.

The "History of the Franks," by Gregory of Tours (540-594), is an instructive memorial of the times. He was himself an intrepid prelate, who did not quail before Chilperic I. and Fredegunde, but braved their wrath. Chilperic proposed to establish by his authority a new view of the Trinity of his own devising, but was resisted by Gregory, who told him that no one but a lunatic would embrace such an opinion. A still more crude reform of the alphabet, which the Frankish king contrived, and proposed to put in force by having existing books rewritten, Gregory effectually resisted.

ROMAN LAW.--The barbarians were profoundly impressed by the system of Roman law. This they recognized as the rule for the Roman population in the different countries. More and more they incorporated its exact provisions into their own codes. Among the West Goths in Spain the two elements were ultimately fused into one body of laws (642-701). Under the Franks, the Roman municipal system was not extinguished; the Teutonic count or bishop standing in the room of the Roman president or consular, and a more popular body taking the place of the restricted municipality. The Roman civil polity, with its definite enactments for every relation in life and every exigency, was always at hand, and exercised an increasing control.

STATE OF LEARNING.--The Latin language--the rustic Latin of the lower classes--was spoken by the conquered peoples. Latin was the language of the Church and of the Law. The consequence was, that the two languages, the tongue of the conquerors and of the Roman subjects, existed side by side in an unconscious struggle with one another. In the west and south of Europe, the victory was on the side of the Latin. The languages of these countries, the "Latin nations," grew out of the rustic dialects spoken in Roman times. In these nations the result of the mixture of the races was the final predominance of the Latin element in the civilization. In Gaul, the Franks yielded to Latin influences: France was the product. With the fall of the empire, classical culture died out. The cathedral and cloister schools preserved the records of literature. The study of language, and the mental discrimination and refinement which spring from it and from literary discipline, passed away. Centuries of comparative illiteracy--dark centuries--followed. Yet the monks were often active in their own rude style of composition; and among them were not only good men, but men of eminent natural abilities, who were unconsciously paving the way for a better time.

SAXON ENGLAND.--In England, by the Saxon conquest, a purely Teutonic kingdom was built up. The Saxons were heathen, who had never felt the civilizing influence of Rome. The traces of the earlier state of things in the province which had long been sundered from the empire, they swept away in the progress of their conquest.

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III. THE EASTERN EMPIRE

RELIGIOUS DISPUTES.--While the West was beginning to recover from the shock of the barbarian invasions, society in the Eastern Empire was growing more enervated and corrupt. For a considerable period the Byzantine government was managed by the influence of women. Thus Theodosius II., the successor of Arcadius (408-450), was governed during his whole reign by his sister Pulcheria. In the East, there was an intense interest felt in the abstruse questions of metaphysical theology. The Greek mind was speculative; and eager and often acrimonious debate on such questions as were raised by Nestorius respecting the two natures of the Saviour, was heard even in the shops and markets. The court meddled actively in these heated controversies, and was swayed to one party or the other by the theologians whom, for the time, it took into its favor. The emperors assumed the high prerogative of personally deciding in doctrinal disputes, and of dictating opinions to the clergy, who gradually lost their independence, and became abjectly subservient to the imperial will.

THE HIPPODROME.--The rage for doctrinal dispute in the sixth century was only exceeded by the passions kindled in connection with the circus, or hippodrome, at Constantinople. In old Rome the competitors in the chariot-races were organized, the drivers wore their respective badges,--red, white, blue, or green,--and emperors of the baser sort, like Caligula and Caracalla, visited the stables, and were enrolled on the lists of the rival factions. But in Constantinople the factions of the blue and the green, not content with the contest of the race-course, were violent political parties in which courtiers and the emperor himself took sides. The animosity of the blues and the greens broke out in frequent bloody conflicts in the streets. Their respective adherents spread into the provinces. On one occasion, under Justinian, they raised a sedition called Nika (from the watchword used by the combatants), which well-nigh subverted the throne. In this period the body-guard of the emperor played a part resembling that of the old praetorians at Rome.

JUSTINIAN.--A new dynasty began with Justin I., who succeeded Anastasius in 518. A peasant from Dardania (Bulgaria), who to the end of life was obliged to sign his name by means of an engraved tablet, but, from being prefect of the Guard, became emperor, Justin was still not without merit as a ruler. He educated his nephew, Justinian I. (527-565), and made him his successor. Justinian married Theodora, who had been a comedian and a courtesan, and was famous for her beauty. She was the daughter of Acacius, who had had the care of the wild beasts maintained by one of the factions of the circus. She joined the blues, and it was her brave spirit that prevented Justinian from taking flight when he was in imminent danger from the revolt of the Nika. The most important proceedings and decisions in affairs of state were determined by her will. Outwardly correct in her life, and zealous for orthodoxy, her vigor of mind and cleverness were not without service to the government; but her vindictive passions had full indulgence. Justinian's reign was the most brilliant period in the Byzantine history after the time of Constantine. Under his despotic rule the last vestiges of republican administration were obliterated. His love of pomp and of extravagant expenditure, in connection with his costly wars, subjected the people to a crushing weight of taxation.

WAR WITH PERSIA.--The brilliant achievements in war during Justinian's reign were owing to the skill and valor of his generals, especially of the hero Belisarius. After a hundred years of amity with Persia, war with that kingdom broke out once more under Anastasius and Justin. Belisarius saved the Asiatic provinces, and defended the empire on the east against Cobad, and against his successor, Chosroes I. (531-579), who was, perhaps, the greatest of the Persian kings of the Sassanid dynasty. The "endless peace" made with him in 533 lasted but seven years. Chosroes captured Antioch in 540. The worst consequences of this success were again averted by Belisarius, who was recalled from Italy in all haste. In the treaty of 562, Justinian ingloriously agreed to pay for the honor of being the protector of the Christians in Persia the annual tribute of thirty thousand pieces of gold.

CONQUEST OF AFRICA--From a military point of view the conquests of Justinian in Africa, in Italy, and in Spain, were the signal events of his reign. Victory proved fatal to the barbarian conquerors in those countries. They were weakened by the southern climate, by sensual indulgence, and by strife among themselves. Justinian was ready to profit by this diminished capacity of resistance. Gelimer, king of the Vandals, had put to death Hilderic, a kinsman of Theodosius I. The emperor made this an occasion of attacking the Vandal kingdom, which was distracted by religious differences and contention. Belisarius sailed to Africa with a fleet of six hundred vessels, manned with twenty thousand sailors and fifteen thousand troops. Three months after landing he gained a decisive victory, and took possession of Africa, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles (534). He carried Gelimer as a captive to Constantinople, and presented him to Justinian and Theodora, seated side by side in the hippodrome to receive the triumphal procession in honor of the victor. The captive ruler could only exclaim, "Vanity, vanity! All is vanity!"

CONQUEST OF ITALY.--Professedly to avenge the wrongs of Amalasontha, the ambitious and intriguing daughter of Theodoric, who had been killed as a consequence of the disaffection of the Goths, Belisarius was sent to Italy. Sicily was conquered (535), and Naples and Rome were taken (536). Vitiges, the new king of the Goths, united the forces of the nation; but he was driven to shut himself up in Ravenna, and Ravenna surrendered (540). The Goths had offered the sovereignty of the country to Belisarius. The jealousy of Justinian, and war with Persia, led to the recall of Belisarius before he could complete the work of conquest. The Goths under Totila, a nephew of the late king, regained the greater part of Italy. Belisarius (544-549) was sent for the second time to conquer that country. He gained important successes, and recaptured Rome; but he was feebly supported by the suspicious and envious ruler at Constantinople, and was at length called home. Narses, a eunuch, insignificant in person, but as crafty as he was brave, was commissioned to accomplish what Belisarius had not been allowed to effect. He entered Italy at the head of an army, made up mostly of Huns, Heruli, and other barbarians, and defeated Totila, who died of his wounds (552). The Ostrogothic kingdom fell. The Gothic warriors who survived had leave to quit the country with their property, they having taken an oath never to return. The Ostrogoths, as a nation, vanish from history. The EXARCHATE, or vice-royalty of the Eastern Empire, was established, with its seat at Ravenna. In Spain, Justinian obtained Corduba, Assidona, Segontia (554), in reward of the assistance which he had rendered to Athanagild against a competitor for the throne. Constantinople was saved by Belisarius from a threatened attack of the Bulgarians, who had crossed the Danube on the ice (559). This great general, whose form and stature and benign manners attracted the admiration of the people, as his noble but poorly requited services gave him a right to the gratitude of the sovereign, was accused, in 563, of conspiracy against the life of Justinian. His property was confiscated, but his innocence was finally declared. The story that he was deprived of his eyes, and compelled to beg his bread, is not credited. He died in 565. A few months later Justinian himself died at the age of eighty-three. He has been aptly compared, as to his personal character and the character of his reign, to Louis XIV. of France. Among the many structures which he reared was the temple of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and countless fortresses for the defense of the capital, of the Danube, and of other parts of the exposed frontier.

THE CIVIL LAW.--Justinian's principal distinction in history grows out of his relation to legislation, and to the study of the law. He caused a famous lawyer, Tribonian, with the aid of a body of jurists, to make those collections of ancient law which are still in force in many countries. The Code included the imperial constitutions and edicts in twelve books (527, 528). This was followed (533) by the Institutes, embracing the principles of Roman jurisprudence, which was to be studied in the schools of Constantinople, Berytus, and Rome; and the Digest, or Pandects, comprising the most valuable passages from the writings of the old jurists, that were deemed of authority. In this last work three million lines were reduced to a hundred and fifty thousand. Finally a fourth work, The Novels, embraced the laws of Justinian after the publication of the code (534-565). These works, taken together, form the Civil Law,--the Corpus Juris Civilis. They are the legacy of Rome to later times. Humane principles are incorporated into the civil law, but, likewise, the despotic system of imperialism.

THE LOMBARDS IN ITALY.--In the great "Wandering of the Nations," the German tribe of Lombards, or Langobards, had made their way into Pannonia. To the east of them, in Dacia, there had arisen the kingdom of the Gepidae, a people akin to the Goths. In that region, also, were the Turanian Avars, with whom the Lombards allied themselves, and overthrew the kingdom of the Gepidæ. After the conquest of Italy, Narses had established there the Byzantine system of rule and of grinding taxation. Discontent was the natural result. The enemies of Narses at Constantinople persuaded Justin II. and his queen Sophia, who had great influence over him, that prudence demanded the recall of the able, but avaricious and obnoxious, governor. The queen was reported to have said, that "he should leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the women of the palace, where a distaff should be placed in the eunuch's hand." "I will spin her such a thread," Narses is said to have replied, "as she shall not unravel her life long." He forthwith invited the Lombards into Italy, an invitation which they were not both to accept. Alboin was their leader, who had married the beautiful Rosamond, daughter of the Gepid king whom he had slain. Narses repented of his rash proceeding, but he died before he could organize a resistance to the invaders. These founded the great Lombard kingdom in the north of Italy, and the smaller Lombard states of Spoleto and Beneventum. Ravenna,--the residence of the Exarchs,--Rome, Naples, and the island city of Venice, were centers of districts still remaining subject to the Greek emperor, as were also the southern points of the two peninsulas of Southern Italy, and, for the time, the three main islands. Alboin was killed in 574 at the instigation of Rosamond, to whom, it was said, at a revel he had sent wine to drink in the skull of Cunimund, her father. The Lombards were not like the Goths. They formed no treaties, but seized on whatever lands they wanted, reserving to themselves all political rights. The new-comers were Arian in religion, and partly heathen. There was little intermixture by marriage between the two classes of inhabitants. Lombard and Roman was each governed by his own system of law. Later, especially under the kings Liutprand, Rachis, and Aistulf (749-756), this antagonism was much lessened, and the Roman law gained a preponderating influence in the Lombard codes. Gradually the power of the independent Lombard duchies increased. The strength of the Lombard kingdom was thus reduced. The Lombards more and more learned the arts of civilized life from the Romans, and shared in the trading and industrial pursuits of the cities. Their gradual conversion to Catholic Christianity brought the two peoples still nearer together. It was within half a century of the Lombard conquest that Gregory I. (Gregory the Great) held the papal office (590-604).

AFTER JUSTINIAN.--During the century and a half that followed the death of Justinian, the history of the Byzantine court and empire is an almost unbroken tale of crime and degeneracy. The cruelty of such emperors as Phocas (602-610) and Justinian II. surpasses the brutality of Nero and Domitian. The reign of Heraclius is the only refreshing passage in this dreary and repulsive record. He led his armies in person in a series of campaigns against Chosroes II., the Persian king. At the very time when Constantinople was besieged in vain by a host of Persians and Avars, he conducted his forces into the heart of the Persian Empire; and in a great battle near Nineveh in 627, he won a decisive victory. With the reign of Heraclius, the transient prosperity of the Greek Empire comes to an end. It was exhausted, even by its victories. Overwhelmed with taxation, it was ruined in its trade and industry. Despotism in the rulers, sensuality and baseness in rulers and subjects, undermined public and private virtue. In addition to other enemies on every side, it was attacked by the Arabians; and Heraclius lived to see the loss of Syria and of Egypt, and the capture of Alexandria, by these new assailants.

CONTROVERSY ON IMAGE WORSHIP.--The period of theological debate, when at its height in the fourth and fifth centuries, whatever extravagances of doctrinal zeal attended it, dealt with themes of grave importance; and controversy was often waged by men of high ability and moral worth. After that time, there succeeded to the tempest an intellectual stagnation, under the blighting breath of despotism, coupled with the effect of a lassitude, the natural sequel of the long-continued disputation. But, in the eighth and ninth centuries, a new controversy took place, which convulsed the Eastern Empire, and extended to the West. The matter in dispute was the use of images in worship. Pictorial representations had been gradually introduced in the earlier centuries, but had been opposed, especially in Egypt and in the African Church. After the time of Constantine, they came by degrees into universal use. This formed a ground of reproach on the part of the Mohammedans. The warfare upon images was begun by Leo III., the Isaurian (717-741), a rough soldier with no appreciation of art, who issued an edict against them. The party of "image-breakers," or iconoclasts, had numerous adherents; and the opposite party of "image-worshipers," who had a powerful support from the monks in the convents, were ardent and inflexible in withstanding the imperial measures. Neither the remonstrances of John of Damascus, the last of the Greek Fathers, nor of the Roman bishop, made an impression on Leo. The agitation spread far and wide. Subsequent emperors followed in his path. At length, however, the Empress Irene (780-802) restored image-worship; and, in 842, the Empress Theodora finally confirmed this act. In the controversy, religious motives were active, but they were mingled on both sides with political considerations. The alienation of feeling on the part of the Roman bishops was one cause of the separation of Italy from the Greek Empire.

LITERATURE AND CULTURE.--While there was a prevalence of illiteracy in the West, there continued in the Eastern Empire an interest in letters, and a respect for classical literature. Devoted Greek monks taught the Gospel to the Bulgarians and to the Slavonian tribes on its borders. Cyril and Methodius, faithful missionaries, gave the Bible to the Moravians in their own tongue. In the seventh century, John of Damascus compiled from the Greek Fathers a celebrated treatise on theology. But the period of original thought in theology, as elsewhere, had passed by. This work of the Damascene was made up chiefly of excerpts from the Fathers before him. In earlier days the church in the East had been served by erudite theologians of great talents and of great excellence, such as Basil the Great (328-379), Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzum (326-390); all of whom were liberal-minded men, strenuous defenders of orthodox doctrine, and yet not unfriendly to philosophical study. Of even wider fame was John Chrysostom (347-407), a preacher of captivating eloquence and of an earnest Christian spirit, whose censure of the vices of the Byzantine court provoked the wrath of the Empress Eudoxia, and twice drove him into banishment. In the declining days of the empire, literary effort was mainly confined to compilations and comments. Eusebius, in the fourth century, had written a History of the Church, and a Chronicle, or General History; and, a century later (about 432), Zosimus composed a History in a spirit of antipathy to Christianity and of sympathy with the old religion. To Procopius (who died about 565) we owe an interesting history of the times of Justinian. After the seventh century, all traces of life and spirit vanish from the pages of the Byzantine historians. In mathematics and astronomy, in architecture and mechanics, the Byzantine Greeks were the teachers of the Arabians and of the new peoples of the West. The Byzantine style of architecture was of a distinct type, and was widely diffused.

THE SLAVONIC TRIBES.--In the sixth century the Slavonian tribes come into view. The Avars stirred up such a commotion among those tribes as the Huns had created among the Germans. The Slaves were driven to the northwest, where later they came into relations with Germany; and to the southwest, where, as conquerors and as learners, they stood, in some degree, in relation to the Eastern Empire, in the same position as that of the Germans in reference to the Western. North and East of the Adriatic arose Slavonian States, as Servia, Croatia, Carinthia. Istria and Dalmatia, except the cities on the coast, became Slavonic. The Slaves displaced the old Illyrian race. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Macedonia and Greece were largely occupied by Slavonians. The Bulgarians were a Turanian people, who mixed with the Slavonians, and adopted their language. In 895 the Magyars, a Turanian people, crowded into Dacia and Pannonia; and thus the Bulgarians were confined to the lands south of the Danube. The Magyars formed the kingdom of Hungary. The Slavonian Russians were cut off from the Southern tribes of the same race.

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IV. MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE ARABIC CONQUESTS

CONDITION OF ARABIA.--In the sixth century the influence of the Greek and of the Persian Empires, especially of the Persian, was prevalent in Arabia. It was then inhabited mostly by tribes either distinct or loosely bound together, and contained no independent state of any considerable importance. The Arabs of that day had "all the virtues and vices of the half-savage state, its revenge and its rapacity, its hospitality and its bounty." In the Hejaz district--situated between fertile and more civilized Yemen, or Arabia Felix, in the south-west of the peninsula and the Sinaitic region,--and in Nejd to the east of Hejaz, which were the two districts in which Islam and the Arabian Empire took their rise, dwelt tribes whose common sanctuary was the Kaaba at Mecca, in the wall of which was the quadrangular black stone kissed by all devotees, and supposed to have been received from the angel Gabriel. The religion of the Arabs was polytheism in many different forms, in which idol-worship was prominent; but all agreed in acknowledging one supreme God, Allah, in whose name solemn oaths were taken. Once in the year the tribes gathered in Mecca for their devotions; and a great fair in the vicinity, attended by a poetical contest, made the city prosperous. The town was made up of separate Septs, or patriarchal families, each under its own head, of which septs the Omayyads were of principal importance, and had charge of the Kaaba. Mohammed belonged to the Hashimites, another and poorer branch of the leading tribe of Koreish. The Koreishites, by their trading-journeys to Syria, had acquired more culture then others, whether Bedouins, or residents of Medina. At the time when Mohammed was born, which was probably in 572, the religion of the Arabs had sunk into idolatry or indifference. There were three hundred and sixty images in the Kaaba. But there were some who were called hanifs, who were serious and earnest, and turned away from idolatrous worship. Besides the Sabian religion of the Persian sun-worshipers, the leading tenets and rites of Christianity and of Judaism, both in the degenerate types which they assumed on the Syrian borders, were not unfamiliar to Arabs dwelling in the caravan routes on the borders of the Red Sea.

CAREER OF MOHAMMED.--Mohammed was early left an orphan under the care of his uncle Abu Talib. In his youth he tended sheep, and gathered wild berries in the desert. In his twenty-fifth year he became the commercial agent of a wealthy widow, Khadija, made journeys for her into Palestine and Syria,--where he may have received religious knowledge and impressions from Christian monks and Jewish rabbis,--and, after a time, married her. He is described as having a commanding presence, with piercing eyes, fluent in speech, and with pleasing ways. Eventually he came into close contact with the hanifs. He followed the custom of retiring for meditation and prayer to the lonely and desolate Mount Hira. A vivid sense of the being of one Almighty God and of his own responsibility to God, entered into his soul. A tendency to hysteria in the East a disease of men as well as of women--and to epilepsy helps to account for extraordinary states of body and mind of which he was the subject. At first he ascribed his strange ecstasies, or hallucinations, to evil spirits, especially on the occasion when an angel directed him to begin the work of prophesying. But he was persuaded by Khadija that their source was from above. He became convinced that he was a prophet inspired with a holy truth and charged with a sacred commission. His wife was his first convert. His faith he called Islam, which signifies "resignation to the divine will." His cousin Ali, his friend Abubekr, and a few others, believed in him. There is no doubt that the materials of Mohammed's creed were drawn from Jewish and Christian sources: Abraham was the hanif, whose pure monotheism he claimed to re-assert; but the animating spirit was from within. The sum of his doctrine was, that there is only one God, and that Mohammed is the apostle of God.

AFTER THE HEGIRA.--The Koreishites, the rulers and the elders, persecuted him. They flung out the reproach, that his adherents were from the poor or from the rank of slaves. This provoked him to denounce them, and to threaten them with the Divine judgment and with perdition. He lost his uncle in 619: his wife had died before. He had found sympathy with his claims from pious men from Medina. They offered him an asylum. Thither he went in 622, the date of his Hijira, or flight from Mecca, from which the Mohammedan calendar is reckoned. At Medina he won influence: he was frequently resorted to as an adviser, and as a judge to settle disputes. His activity in this direction was beneficent. His injunctions respecting the rights of property, and the protection due to women, were, in the main, discreet and wholesome. Naturally and speedily he became a political leader as well as a religious reformer. This new course on which he entered made a breach between him and the Jews, whom he had hoped to conciliate. He drew off from fellowship with them, made Friday the principal day of public worship, and Mecca its principal seat. For the Jewish fast he substituted the month of Ramadan. His plan was to cement together the Arab tribes, superseding the old tie of blood by the new bond of fellowship in adherence to him. The project of a holy war to conquer and to crush the idolaters, and to establish his own authority, was the means to this end. Mecca was the first object of assault. He attacked and plundered a Meccan caravan in 623. The next year he defeated the Koreishites in the battle of Bedr. In the battle of Ohod (625) his followers were worsted. Other conflicts ensued, with attacks on the Jews in the intervals, until, in 630, he entered Mecca at the head of ten thousand men, and destroyed all the idols. This event secured the adhesion of the Arabian tribes, together with the chiefs of Yemen and of the other more civilized districts. Hearing that the Emperor Heraclius was proposing to attack him, he went forth to meet him, but found that the rumor was false. He was preparing a new expedition against the Greeks when he died, in 632.

CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED.--From the time of the flight of Mohammed to Medina, the prophet turned more and more into the politician. Under the circumstances, this was, perhaps, an almost inevitable change. But one consequence was the bringing out of his natural vindictiveness, and the transformation of the enthusiast into the fanatic. Beginning as the prophet of Arabia, he came to think that he was the prophet of the whole world. There was a call to a wider warfare against idolatry. A crusade, partly political and partly religious, involved a mixture of craft and cruelty which exhibit his character in a new light. Yet it is probable that he always sincerely felt that his work in general was one to which he was called of God. Even the prosaic regulations and "orders of the day," which are placed in the Koran, if not the reproduction, in cataleptic visions, of his previous thoughts, may have been regarded by him as having a divine sanction. The extent of possible self-deception in so extraordinary a combination of qualities, it is not easy to define. His conduct was, for the most part, on a level with his precepts. There was one exception; he allowed not more than four wives to a disciple: he himself, at one time, had eleven. While Khadija lived he was wedded to her alone.

THE KORAN.--The Koran is regarded as the word of God by a hundred millions of disciples. It is very unequal in style. In parts it is vigorous, and here and there imaginative, but generally its tone is prosaic. Its narrative portions are chiefly about scriptural persons, especially those of the Old Testament. Mohammed's acquaintance with these must have been indirect, from rabbinical and apocryphal sources. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ are acknowledged as prophets. The deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity are repudiated. The miracles of Jesus are acknowledged. Mohammed does not claim for himself miraculous power. Predestination is taught, but this became a conspicuous tenet of Moslems after the death of the founder. The immortality of the soul is admitted, the pains of hell are threatened to the wicked and to "infidels;" and a sensual paradise is promised to the faithful, although it is declared that higher spiritual joys are the lot of the most favored. The faith of Mohammed was, in substance, Judaism, the religion of the Old Testament; power being set before holiness, however, in the conception of God, and the supernatural mission of Mohammed substituted for the future Messianic reign of righteousness and peace, and coupled with the emphatic proclamation of the last judgment. The law in the Koran is a civil as well as a moral code. Notwithstanding his countenance of sensuality by his own practice, as well as by his legalizing of polygamy, and his notion of paradise, Mohammed elevated the condition of woman among the Arabs. Before there was unbridled profligacy: now there was a regulated polygamy. Severe prohibitions are uttered against thieving, usury, fraud, false witness; and alms-giving is emphatically enjoined. Strong drink and gambling were prohibited.

The gem of the Koran is "The Lord's Prayer of the Moslems:" "In the name of God, the compassionate Compassioner, the Sovereign of the day of judgment. Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way; in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, in whom there is no wrath, and who go not astray."

THE ARABIC CONQUESTS: SYRIA, PERSIA, EGYPT.--Mohammed made no provision for the succession. The Caliphs, or "successors," combined in themselves civil, military and religious authority. They united the functions of emperor and pope. Ali, the husband of Fatima, Mohammed's favorite daughter, had hoped to succeed him. But, by the older companions of the prophet, Abubekr, Mohammed's father-in-law was appointed. The Shiites were supporters of Ali, while the Sunnites, who adhered to "the traditions of the elders," were against him. These two parties have continued until the present day; the Persians being Shiites, and the Turks, Sunnites. Mohammed, before he died, was inflamed with the spirit of conquest. Full of the fire of fanaticism, mingled with a thirst for dominion and plunder, the Arabians rapidly extended their sway. These warriors, to their credit be it said, if terrible in attack, were mild in victory. Their two principal adversaries were the Eastern Empire and Persia. Mohammedanism snatched from the empire those provinces in which the Greek civilization had not taken deep root, and it made its way into Europe. It conquered Persia, and became the principal religion of those Asiatic nations with which history mainly has to do. Mohammed had made a difference in his injunctions between heathen, apostates, and schismatics, all of whom were to embrace Islam or to perish, and Jews and Christians, to both of whom was given the choice of the Koran, tribute, or death. They must buy the right to exercise their religion, if they refused to say that "Allah is God, and Mohammed is His prophet." Omar (634-644), the next caliph after Abubekr, and a leader distinguished alike for his military energy and his simplicity of manners and life, first brought all Arabia, which was impelled as much by a craving for booty as by religious zeal, into a cordial union under his banner. Then he carried the war beyond the Arabian borders. Palestine and Syria were wrested from the Greek Empire; the old cities of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Damascus fell into the hands of the impetuous Saracens. A mosque was erected on the site of Solomon's Temple. The Persian Empire was invaded, and, after a series of sanguinary battles, especially the battle of Cadesia (636), followed by the battle of Nehavend (641), was destroyed. Ctesiphon, with all its riches, was captured, and Persepolis was sacked. The last king of the line of Sassanids, Yezdegerd III., having lived for many years as a fugitive, perished by the hand of an assassin (652). Meantime Egypt had submitted to the irresistible invaders under Amr, who was aided by the Christian sect of the Copts, out of hostility to the Greek Orthodox Church. After a siege of fourteen months, Alexandria was taken; but it is probably not true that the library was burned by Omar's order. In the disorders of the times, the great collections of books had probably, for the most part, been dispersed and destroyed. Six friends of Mohammed, selected by Omar, chose Othman (644-656) for his successor, who stirred up enmity by his pride and avarice. Under him the Christian Berbers in Africa were won over to the faith of Islam, and paved the way for its further advance.

THE OMAYYADS: CONQUEST OF AFRICA AND SPAIN.--Othman was assassinated by three fanatics, and Ali was then raised to the caliphate; but Muawiyah, representing the family of the Omayyads, made himself the head of an opposing party, and, after the assassination of Ali, became sole caliph (661). He removed the seat of the caliphate to Damascus. He carried the Arabian conquests as far as the Indus and Bokhara. He created a fleet on the Mediterranean, under an "Admiral," that is, a commander on the sea. In seven successive years he menaced Constantinople with his navy. At a later time, in 717, under the caliph Soliman, another great attempt was made on the capital of the Greek Empire. With an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men, he traversed Asia Minor and the Hellespont, and was supported in his attack by a fleet of eighteen hundred sail. But the energetic defense, which was aided by the use of "the Greek fire,"--an artificial compound which exploded and burned with an unquenchable flame,--caused the grand expedition to fail; and the Eastern Empire had another long lease of life. The successors of Muawiyah accomplished the subjugation of Africa. They were invited by the native inhabitants, who groaned under the burdens of taxation laid on them by the Greek emperors. About A.D. 700 the Arab governor, Musa, completed the conquest of the African dominion of the Greeks as far as the Atlantic. The amalgamation of the Berbers with the other inhabitants of that region, and with the Arabs, resulted in the race called Moors. At this time the Spanish Visigothic kingdom, which had become Catholic (586-601), was much enfeebled, and a prey to discord. Under Tarik--from whom Gibraltar, or the mountain of Tarik near which he landed, is named--the Arabs crossed into Spain, and for the first time found themselves face to face with the barbarians of the North. In the great battle of Xeres de la Frontera, near the Guadalquivir, in 711, which lasted for three days, the fate of the Visigothic kingdom was decided. Eight years were occupied in conquering Spain. In 720 the Saracens occupied Septimania north of the Pyrenees, a dependency of the Gothic kingdom. Gaul now lay open before them. The Mohammedan power threatened to encircle Christendom, and to destroy the Church and Christianity itself. In the plains between Tours and Poitiers, the Saracens were met by the Austrasian Franks under Charles Martel (732). The impetuous charges of the Saracen cavalry were met and beaten back by the infantry of the Franks, which confronted them like an iron wall. The Mohammedan defeat saved Christian Europe from being trampled under foot by the Mussulman; it saved the Christian people of the Aryan nations from being subjugated by the Semitic disciples of the Koran. At the same time that Spain was overrun, the Turkish lands on the east of the Caspian were subdued. The old antipathy between the Iranians and Turanians, the Schiite Persians and the Sunnite Turks, was afterwards carried into Europe by the Ottoman Moslems.

THE ABBASSIDES: BAGDAD.--Misgovernment embittered the faithful against the rule of the Omayyads in Damascus, although Syria had become a source of higher culture for the Arabians: there they became acquainted with Greek learning. The adherents of Ali found vigorous champions in the Abbassides, who, as Hashimites, laid claim to the caliphate. One of them, Abul Abbas, was made caliph by the soldiers in 750. The fierce cruelty of his party against the Omayyads led to the murder of all of them except Abderrahman, who fled to Africa, and, in 755, founded an independent caliphate at Cordova. The Abbassides attached themselves to the Sunnite creed. Under Almansor, the brother and successor of Abbas, Bagdad, a city founded by Almansor (754-775) on the banks of the Tigris, was made the seat of the caliphate, and so continued until the great Mongolian invasion in 1258. Bagdad was built on the west bank of the Tigris, but, by means of bridges, stretched over to the other shore. It was protected by strong, double walls. It was not only the proud capital of the caliphate: it was, besides, the great market for the trade of the East, the meeting-place of many nations, where caravans from China and Thibet, from India, and from Ferghana in the modern Turkestan, met throngs of merchants from Armenia and Constantinople, from Egypt and Arabia. There trading-fleets gathered which carried the products of the North and West down the great rivers to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Bagdad was to the caliphs what Byzantium was to Constantine, or Alexandria to the Ptolemies. It became the grandest city in the world. Canals to the number of six hundred ran through it, and a hundred and five bridges bound its two parts together. It was furnished with many thousand mosques and as many baths. The palace of the caliphs comprised in itself all the splendor which Asiatic taste and extravagance could collect and combine in one edifice.

THE EASTERN CALIPHATE.--Deprived of the western extremity of their empire, the Abbassides still ruled over Asia and Africa. In their luxurious and splendid court, the caliphs, served by a vast retinue of officers with the Vizier at their head, copied the magnificence of the ancient Persians. The most famous of the caliphs of Bagdad is Harun-al-Rashid, or "Aaron the Just" (786-809). His name is familiar even to children as the wonderful hero of the "Arabian Nights." His reign, like that of Solomon in ancient Judæa, was considered in after times the golden age of the caliph dominion. As in the case of Charlemagne, poetry and romance invested his character and reign with all that can give glory and honor to a king and a sage. Brilliant pictures were drawn of the boundless wealth and luxury of his court, and of his admirable piety and wisdom. About him there was assembled a host of jurists, linguists, and poets. Three hundred scholars traveled at his expense through different lands. Righteous judgments were ascribed to him, and oracular sayings. He was made the ideal ruler of Oriental fancy. His real character fell much below the later popular conception. He behaved like an Eastern despot towards all his kindred who stood in his way. The Persian family of Barmecides he exterminated, when his passionate attachment to one of them turned to hatred on account of an obscure affair connected with the harem. Stories told by Western chroniclers of his relations with Charlemagne require to be sifted. The Greek emperor Nicephorus, who had rashly defied him, he addressed as the "Roman dog." Nine times Harun invaded the Greek Empire, left its provinces wasted as by a hurricane, and extorted from it a tribute which he obliged the emperors, who repented of their daring, to pay in coin stamped with his image. His best distinction is in the liberal patronage which he, no doubt, extended to learning. In this he was imitated by his son Al Mamun (813-833), who founded numerous schools, and expended vast sums in behalf of science and letters. The caliphate was weakened by the introduction of the Turks, somewhat as the Roman Empire fared from its relations with the Germans. Motasem (833-842), the eighth of the Abbassides, brought in a Turkish guard of forty thousand slaves, purchased in Tartary. These soldiers, instead of remaining servants, became lawless masters, and disposed of the throne as the prætorians at Rome had done. The palace of the caliphs was filled with violence. Revolution and anarchy, kept up during two centuries, broke the caliphate into fragments. Conspiracies and insurrections were the order of the day. Africa had detached itself in the time of Harun-al-Rashid. In Asia various independent dynasties arose, formed mostly by Turkish governors of provinces.

THE TURKISH EMIRS.--In the eleventh century, the Seljukian Turks despoiled the Arabs of their sovereignty in the East. The caliph at Bagdad gave up all his temporal power to Togrul Bey (1058), and retained simply the spiritual headship over orthodox Mussulmans. To the Turk who bore the title Emir al Omra, was given the military command. He was what the Mayor of the Palace had been among the Franks. In 1072 his son, Malek Shah, made Ispahan his capital, and governed Asia from China to the vicinity of Constantinople.

THE FATIMITE CALIPHATE.--In the ninth and tenth centuries the Aglabites (800-909), whose capital was Cairoan (in Tunis), were dominant in the Western Mediterranean, established themselves, in their marauding expeditions, in Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, and several times attacked Italy. In 909 they, with the Edrisites, adherents of Ali, in Fez, formed, under a Fatimite chief, Moez, with Egypt, the African Caliphate, the seat of which was at Cairo (968). The Fatimite caliphs extended their power over Syria. The most famous of the caliphs of Cairo was Hakem (996-1020), a monster of cruelty, who claimed to be the incarnation of Deity. These caliphs claimed to be the descendants of Ali and of Fatima. Their dynasty was extinguished by Saladin in 1171.

THE CALIPHS OF CORDOVA.--In Spain the caliphs of Cordova allowed to the Christians freedom of worship and their own laws and judges. The mingling of the conquerors with the conquered gave rise to a mixed Mozarabic population. The Franks conquered the country as far as the Ebro (812). Under Mohammed I. (852), the Saracen governors of the provinces sought to make themselves independent; but the most brilliant period of the caliphate of Cordova followed, under Abderrahman III. (912-961). In the eleventh century there was anarchy, produced by the African guard of the caliphs, which played a part like that of the Turkish guard at Bagdad, and by reason of the rebellion of the governors. In 1031 the last descendant of the Omayyads was deposed, and in 1060 the very title of caliph vanished. The caliphate gave place to numerous petty Moslem kingdoms. The African Mussulmans came to their help, and thus gave the name of Moors to the Spanish Mohammedans. Their language and culture, however, remained Arabic. The Arabian conquests had moved like a deluge to the Indus, to the borders of Asia Minor, and to the Pyrenees. In Syria they were not generally resisted by the people. Egypt, for the same reason, was an easy conquest. It took the Moslems sixty years to conquer Africa. In three years nearly all Spain was theirs; and it was not until seven hundred years after this time that they were utterly driven out of that country.

THE MOSLEM GOVERNMENT--The Moslem civilization rested on the Koran. Grammar, lexicography, theology, and law stood connected at first with the study and understanding of the Sacred Book. The Caliph was the fountain of authority. There was a fixed system of taxation, the poll-tax and land-tax being imposed only on non-Moslem subjects. All Moslems received a yearly pension, a definite sum determined by their rank. The empire was divided into provinces, each governed by a Prefect, who was a petty sovereign, subject only to the Caliph. The Generals were appointed by the caliph, by the prefects, or by the Vizier, who was the prime minister. The Judges (cadis) were appointed by the same officers. There was a court of appeal over which the caliph presided. There were inspectors of the markets, who were also censors of morals. The Imam had for his function to recite the public prayers in the mosque. The leader of the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca was an officer of the highest dignity.

THEOLOGY: LAW: LITERATURE.--The Mohammedans entered into discussions of theology, which gave rise to differences, and to schools and sects. The nature of the Deity, predestination, the future life, were subjects of profound and subtle inquiry. More than once, pantheistic doctrine was broached by speculative minds, such as Avicenna and Averrhoes. In Persia, Súfism, a form of mysticism, made great progress. It extolled the unselfish love of God, and a contemplative and ascetic life. Law was studied; and on the basis of the Koran, and of reasonings upon it, systems of jurisprudence were created. Science and Literature kept pace with legal studies. Poetry flourished through the whole period of the Eastern caliphate. There were, also, Persian poets who hold an important place in the history of literature, of whom Firdousi (about 940 to 1020) and Saadi (who died in 1291) are the most eminent. Under the Abbassides in Syria, through Christian scholars and by translations, the Arabians became acquainted with the Greek authors. They cultivated geography. The Moslems were students of astronomy, and carried the study of mathematics, which they learned from the Greeks and Hindus, very far. But they apparently felt no interest in the poets, orators, and historians of antiquity. In the study of Aristotle, and in metaphysical philosophy, they were proficients. Medicine, also, they cultivated with success. They delved in Alchemy in the search for the transmutation of metals.

COMMERCE AND THE ARTS.--The Moslems engaged actively in commerce. They acquired much skill in various branches of mechanical art. The weapons of Damascus and of Toledo, the silks of Granada, the saddles of Cordova, the muslins, silks, and carpets of the Moslem dominions in the East, were highly prized in Christian countries. They manufactured paper. Forbidden to represent the human form in painting and sculpture, their distinction in the fine arts is confined to architecture. Peculiar to them is the Arabesque ornamentation found in their edifices: the idea of the arch was borrowed from the Byzantine style. One of their most famous monuments is the mosque at Cordova. The ruins of the Alhambra, in Spain, a palace and a fortress, illustrate the richness and elegance of the Saracenic style of building.

THE ARABIAN MIND.--Neither in architecture, nor in any other department, were the Arabs in a marked degree original. They invented nothing. They were quick to learn, and to assimilate what they learned. They were apt interpreters and critics, but they produced no works marked by creative genius. Many of the scholars at the court of the caliphs were Christians and Jews. Yet Bagdad, Samarcand, Cairo, Grenada, Cordova, were centers of intellectual activity and of learning when the nations of Western Europe had not escaped from the barbarism resulting from the Teutonic invasions.

LITERATURE.--Lives of Mohammed by MUIR, SPRENGER (German), Irving: Encycl. Brit., Art. Mohammedanism; Kuenen, _National Religions and Universal Religions;_ Nöldeke, Gesch. d. Quorans (1860); Muir, The Corân (1878); R. B. Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism (1875); Stobart, Islam and its Founder; Ockley, History of the Saracens (sixth edition, 1857); FREEMAN, _History and Conquests of the Saracens_ (1870).

THE CARLOVINGIAN HOUSE

PIPIN of Heristal, d. 714. | +--Charles Martel, d. 741. | +--PIPIN the Short, king 752-768. | +--CHARLEMANGE, 768-814 (emperor 800). | | | +--Pipin, King of Italy, d. 810. | | | | | +--BERNARD, d. 818. | | | +--Charles, King of Franconia. | | | +--LOUIS the Pious, 814-840. | | | | LOTHARINGIA | | | +--LOTHAR I, 843-855. | | | | | +--LOUIS II, 855-875 | | | | | | | +--Hermingarde, m. | | | BOSO I, King of Provence, 879-887 | | | | | | | +--LOUIS, 887-905 (emperor 901) m. Eadgifu, | | | daughter of Edward the Elder | | | | | +--Lothar II, d. 869. | | | | | +--Charles, d. 863 | | | | GERMANY | | | +--LOUIS the German, 843-876. | | | | | +--CARLOMAN, d. 880. | | | | | | | +--ARNULF, King of Germany, 887-899 (emperor 896). | | | | | | | +--LOUIS the Child, 900-911. | | | | | +--LOUIS the Younger. d 880. | | | | | +--CHARLES the Fat (emperor 881-887), d. 888. | | | | FRANCE | | | +--CHARLES the Bald, 843-877 (emperor 875). | | | +--LOUIS II, 877-879. | | | +--LOUIS III, 879-882 | | | +--Carloman, 879-884 | | | +--CHARLES the Simple, m. Eadgifu, | daughter of Edward the Elder | | | +--LOUIS IV (D'Outremer), 936-954. | | | +--Matilda, m. CONRAD the Peaceful. | | | | | +--RUDOLPH III, 993-1032 | | | +--LOTHAR, 954-986. | | | | | +--LOUIS V, 986-987. | | | +--Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, d. 994. | +--Carloman, 768-771.

RIVAL KINGS OF FRANCE NOT OF THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE.

Robert the Strong, d. 866. | +--EUDES, king 887-893. | +--ROBERT, king 922-923. | +--Emma, m. RUDOLPH of Burgundy; king 923-926. | +--Hugh the Great (father of Hugh Capet).

PERIOD II. FROM THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE OF FRANK KINGS TO THE ROMANO-GERMANIC EMPIRE. (A.D. 751-962.)

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I. THE CARLOVINGIAN EMPIRE TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE (A.D. 814)

PIPIN THE SHORT.--The great event of the eighth century was the organization and spread of the dominion of the Franks, and the transfer to them of the Roman Empire of the West. Three Frank princes--Charles Martel, Pipin the Short, and Charlemagne, or Karl the Great--were the main instruments in bringing in this new epoch in European history. They followed a similar course, as regards the wars which they undertook, and their general policy. Charles Martel, the conqueror of the Saracens at Poitiers, rendered great services to the Church; but he provoked the lasting displeasure of the ecclesiastics by his seizures of church property. He rewarded his soldiers with archbishoprics. Pipin, however, was earnestly supported by the clergy. He had the confidence and favor of the Franks, and in 751, with the concurrence of Pope Zacharias, deposed Childeric III., and assumed the title of king. The long hair of Childeric, the badge of the Frank kings, was shorn, and he was placed in a monastery. In 752 Pipin was anointed and crowned at Soissons by Boniface, the bishop of Mentz, who exerted himself to restore order and discipline in the Frank Church, which had fallen into disorder in the times of Charles Martel.

PIPIN IN ITALY.--The controversy with the Greeks about the use of images had alienated the popes from the Eastern Empire. The encroachments of the Lombards threatened Rome itself, and were a constant menace to the independence of its bishops. Pope Stephen III. resorted to Pipin for help against these aggressive neighbors; and, in 754, Stephen solemnly repeated, in the cathedral of St. Denis, the ceremony of his coronation. The Carlovingian usurpation was thus hallowed in the eyes of the people by the sanction of the Church. The alliance between the Papacy and the Franks, so essential to both, was cemented. Pipin crossed the Alps in 754, and humbled Aistulf, the Lombard king; but, as Aistulf still kept up his hostility to the Pope, Pipin once more led his forces into Italy, and compelled him to become tributary to the Frank kingdom, and to cede to him the territory which he had won from the Greek Empire,--the exarchate of Ravenna and the Pentapolis, or the lands and cities between the Apennines and the Adriatic, from Ferrara to Ancona. This territory the Frank king formally presented to St. Peter. Thus there was founded the temporal kingdom of the popes in Italy. Pipin was called Patricius of Rome, which made him its virtual sovereign, although the office and title implied the continued supremacy of the Eastern Empire. He united under him all the conquests which had been made by Clovis and his successors. His sway extended over Aquitaine and as far as the Pyrenees. It was the rule of the Teutonic North over the more Latin South, which had no liking for the Frank sovereignty.

CHARLEMAGNE: THE SAXONS AND SARACENS.--Pipin died in 768. By the death of his younger son, Carloman, his older son, Charles, in 771 became the sole king of the Franks. Charlemagne is more properly designated Karl the Great, for he was a German in blood and speech, and in all his ways. He stands in the foremost rank of conquerors and rulers. His prodigious energy and activity as a warrior may be judged by the number of his campaigns, in which he was uniformly successful. The eastern frontier of his dominions was threatened by the Saxons, the Danes, the Slaves, the Bavarians, the Avars. He made eighteen expeditions against the Saxons, three against the Danes, one against the Bavarians, four against the Slaves, four against the Avars. Adding to these his campaigns against the Saracens, Lombards, and other peoples, the number of his military expeditions is not less than fifty-three. In all but two of his marches against the Saxons, however, he accomplished his purpose without a battle. That he was ambitious of conquest and of fame, is evident. That he had the rough ways of his German ancestors, and was unsparing in war, is equally certain. Yet he was not less eminent in wisdom than in vigor; and his reign, on the whole, was righteous as well as glorious. The two most formidable enemies of Charlemagne were the Saxons and the Saracens. The Saxon war "was checkered by grave disasters, and pursued with undismayed and unrelenting determination, in which he spared neither himself nor others. It lasted continuously--with its stubborn and ever-recurring resistance, its cruel devastations, its winter campaigns, its merciless acts of vengeance--as the effort which called forth all Charles's energy for thirty-two years" (772-804). The Saxons were heathen. The conquest of them was the more difficult because it involved the forced introduction of Christianity in the room of their old religion. More than once, when they seemed to be subdued, they broke out in passionate and united revolt. Their fiercest leader in insurrection was Witikind. A last and terrible uprising, in consequence of the slaughter of forty-five hundred Saxons on the Aller as a punishment for breach of treaty, was put down in 785, when Witikind submitted, and consented to receive Christian baptism. During the progress of the Saxon war, at the call of the Arab governor of Saragossa for aid against the caliph Abderrahman, Charles marched into Spain, and conquered Saragossa and the whole land as far as the Ebro. On his return, in the valley of Ronceveaux, the Frank rear guard was surprised and destroyed by the Basques. There fell the Frank hero Roland, whose gallant deeds were a favorite subject of mediæval romances. The duchy of Bavaria was abolished after a second revolt of its duke, Tassilo (788). One of the most brilliant of Charlemagne's wars was that against the Hunnic Avars (791). Their land between the Ems and Raab he annexed to his empire. Bavarian colonists were planted in it. Enormous treasures which they had gathered, in their incursions, from all Europe, were captured, with their "Ring," or palace-camp. The Slavonic tribes were kept in awe. Brittany was subjugated in 811. In the closing years of Charles's reign, the Danes became more and more aggressive and formidable. He visited the northern coasts, made Boulogne and Ghent his harbors and arsenals, and built fleets for defense against the audacious invaders.

CHARLEMAGNE IN ITALY.--Some of the most memorable incidents in Charlemagne's career are connected with Italy. While he was busy in the Saxon war, he had been summoned to protect Pope Hadrian I. (772-795) from the attack of the Lombards. To please his mother, Charles had married, but he had afterwards divorced, the daughter of the Lombard king Desiderius. She was the first in the series of Charlemagne's wives, who, it is said, were nine in number. By the divorce he incurred the resentment of Desiderius, who required the Pope to anoint the sons of Carloman as kings of the Franks. In 772 Charlemagne crossed the Alps by the Mont Cenis and the St. Bernard, captured Pavia, and shut up Desiderius in a Frank monastery. The king of the Franks became king of the Lombards, and lord of all Italy, except the Venetian Islands and the southern extremity of Calabria, which remained subject to the Greeks. The German king and the Pope were now, in point of fact, dominant in the West. A woman, Irene, who had put out the eyes of her son that she herself might reign, sat on the throne at Constantinople. This was a fair pretext for throwing off the Byzantine rule, which afforded no protection to Italians. Once more Charles visited Italy, to restore to the papal chair Leo III., who had been expelled by an adverse party, and, at Charles's camp at Paderborn, had implored his assistance. On Christmas Day in the year 800, during the celebration of mass in the old Basilica of St. Peter, Leo III. advanced to Charlemagne, and placed a crown on his head, saluting him, amid the acclamations of the people, as Roman emperor.

MEANING OF CHARLES'S CORONATION.--The coronation of Charlemagne made him the successor of Augustus and of Constantine. It was not imagined that the empire had ever ceased to be. The Byzantine emperors had been acknowledged in form as the rulers of the West: not even now was it conceived that the empire was divided. In the imagination and feeling of men, the creation of the Caesars remained an indivisible unity. The new emperor in the West could therefore only be regarded as a rival and usurper by the Byzantine rulers; but Charlemagne professed a friendly feeling, and addressed them as his brothers,--as if they and he were exercising a joint sovereignty. In point of fact, there had come to be a new center of wide-spread dominion in Western Europe. The diversity in beliefs and rites between Roman Christianity and that of the Greeks had been growing. The popes and Charlemagne were united by mutual sympathy and common interests. The assumption by him of the imperial title at their instance, and by the call of the Roman people, was the natural issue of all the circumstances.

CHARLES'S SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.--Charlemagne showed himself a statesman bent on organization and social improvement. There was a system of local officers. The border districts of the kingdom were made into Marks, under Margraves or Marquesses, for defense against the outlying tribes. One of them, to the east of Bavaria, was afterwards called Austria. Dukes governed provinces, some of which afterwards became kingdoms. Their power the emperor tried to reduce. The empire was divided into districts, in each of which a Count (Graf) ruled, with inferior officers, either territorial or in cities. Bishops had large domains, and great privileges and immunities. The officers held their places at the king's pleasure: they became possessed of landed estates, and the tendency was, for the offices to become hereditary.

The old German word Graf is of uncertain derivation, but means the same as count (from the Latin comes). Mark is a word found in all the Teutonic languages. From the signification of boundary, it came to be applied, like its synonym march, to a frontier district. A margrave (Mark-Graf) was a mark-count, or an officer ruling for the king in such a district. A viscount (vicecomes) was an officer subordinate to a count. Pfalz, meaning originally palace (from the Latin palatium), was the term for any one of the king's estates. The palsgrave (Pfalz-Graf) was first his representative in charge of one of these domains. The stallgrave (Stall-Graf) corresponded to the constable (comes stabuli) in English and French. It signifies the officer in charge of the king's stables, the groom. He had a military command. A later designation of the same office is marshal (from two old German words, one of which means a horse, as seen in our word mare, having the same etymology, and the other means a servant).

Imperial deputies, or missi, lay and ecclesiastical together, visited all parts of the kingdom to examine and report as to their condition, to hold courts, and to redress wrongs. There were appeals from them to the imperial tribunal, over which the Palsgrave presided. Twice in the year great Assemblies were held of the chiefs and people, to give advice as to the framing of laws. The enactments of these assemblies are collected in the Capitularies of the Frank kings. In the Church, Charlemagne tried to secure order, which had sadly fallen away, and had given place to confusion and worldliness. He himself exercised high ecclesiastical prerogatives, especially after he became emperor.

LEARNING AND CULTURE.--One of the chief distinctions of Charlemagne is the encouragement which he gave to learning. In his own palace at Aachen (Aix), he collected scholars from different quarters. Of these the most eminent is Alcuin, from the school of York in England. He was familiar with many of the Latin writers, and while at the head of the school in the palace, and later, when abbot of St. Martin in Tours, exerted a strong influence in promoting study. Charlemagne himself spoke Latin with facility, but not until late in life did he try to learn to write. It was his custom to be read to while he sat at meals. Augustine's City of God was one of the books of which he was fond. In the great sees and monasteries, schools were founded, the benefits of which were very soon felt.

CHARLES'S PERSONAL TRAITS.--Charlemagne was seven feet in height, and of noble presence. His eyes were large and animated, and his voice clear, but not so strong as his frame would have led one to expect. His bearing was manly and dignified. He was exceedingly fond of riding, hunting, and of swimming. Eginhard, his friend and biographer, says of him, "In all his undertakings and enterprises, there was nothing he shrank from because of the toil, and nothing that he feared because of the danger." He died, at the age of seventy, on Jan. 28, 814. He had built at Aix la Chapelle a stately church, the columns and marbles of which were brought from Ravenna and Rome. Beneath its floor, under the dome, was his tomb. There he was placed in a sitting posture, in his royal robes, with the crown on his head, and his horn, sword, and book of the Gospels on his knee. In this posture his majestic figure was found when his tomb was opened by Otto III., near the end of the tenth century. The marble chair in which the dead monarch sat is still in the cathedral at Aix: the other relics are at Vienna. The splendor of Charlemagne's reign made it a favorite theme of romance among the poets of Italy: a mass of poetic legends gathered about it.

EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE.--Charlemagne's empire comprised all Gaul, and Spain to the Ebro, all that was then Germany, and the greater part of Italy. Slavonic nations along the Elbe were his allies. Pannonia, Dacia, Istria, Liburnia, Dalmatia,--except the sea-coast towns, which were held by the Greeks,--were subject to him. He had numerous other allies and friends. Even Harunal-Rashid, the famous Caliph of Bagdad, held him in high honor. Among the most valued presents which were said to have come from the Caliph were an elephant, and a curious water-clock, which was so made, that, at the end of the hours, twelve horsemen came out of twelve windows, and closed up twelve other windows. This gift filled the inmates of the palace at Aix with wonder.

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.--The number of free Franks diminished under Charlemagne. They were thinned out in the wars, or sunk into vassalage. The warnings and rebukes in the Capitularies, or body of laws, show that the upper clergy were often sensual and greedy of gain. The bishops would often lead in person their contingent of troops, until they were forbidden to do so by law. Nine-tenths of the population of Gaul were slaves. Charlemagne made Alcuin the present of an estate on which there were twenty thousand slaves. Especially in times of scarcity, as in 805 and 806, their lot was a miserable one. At such times, they fled in crowds to the monasteries. The social state was that of feudalism "in all but the development of that independence in the greater lords, which was delayed by the strength of Karl, but fostered, at the same time, by his wars and his policy towards the higher clergy."

CONVERSION OF GERMANY: BONIFACE.--The most active missionaries in the seventh and eighth centuries were, from the British islands. At first they were from Ireland and Scotland. Columban, who died in 615, and his pupil Gallus, labored, not without success, among the Alemanni. Gallus established himself as a hermit near Lake Constance. He founded the Abbey of St. Gall. The Saxon missionaries from England were still more effective. The most eminent of these was Winfrid, who received from Rome the name of Bonifacius (680-755). He converted the Hessians, and founded monasteries, among them the great monastery of Fulda. There his disciple, Sturm, "through a long series of years, directed the energies of four thousand monks, by whose unsparing labors the wilderness was gradually reclaimed, and brought into a state of cultivation." Boniface had proved the impotence of the heathen gods by felling with the axe an aged oak at Geismar, which was held sacred by their worshipers. Among the Thuringians, Bavarians, and other tribes, he extirpated paganism by peaceful means. He organized the German Church under the guidance of the popes, and, in 743, was made archbishop of Meniz, and primate. But his Christian ardor moved him to carry the gospel in person to the savage Frisians, by whom he was slain. He thus crowned his long career with martyrdom.

CONVERSION OF THE SCANDINAVIANS.--The apostle of the Scandinavians was Ansgar (801-865). The archbishopric of Hamburg was founded for him by Louis the Pious, with the papal consent; but, as Hamburg was soon plundered by pirates, he became bishop of Bremen (849). In that region he preached with success. Two visits he made to Sweden, the first with little permanent result; but, at the second visit (855), the new faith was tolerated, and took root. The triumph of the religion of the cross, which Ansgar had planted in Denmark, was secured there when Canute became king of England. The first Christian king in Sweden was Olaf Schooskonig (1008). In Norway, Christianity was much resisted; but when Olaf the Thick, who was a devoted adherent of the Christian faith, had perished in battle (1033), his people, who held him in honor, fell in with the church arrangements which he had ordained; and he became St. Olaf, the patron saint of Norway.

THE BENEDICTINES.--Benedict, born at Nursia, in Umbria, in 480, the founder of the monastery of Monte Cassino, north-west of Naples, was the most influential agent in organizing monasticism in Western Europe. He was too wise to adopt the extreme asceticism that had often prevailed in the East, and his judicious regulations combined manual labor with study and devotion. They not only came to be the law for the multitude of monasteries of his own order, but also served as the general pattern, on the basis of which numerous other orders in later times were constituted. His societies of monks were at first made up of laics, but afterwards of priests. The three vows of the monk were chastity, including abstinence from marriage; poverty, or the renunciation of personal possessions; and obedience to superiors. The Benedictine cloisters long continued to be asylums for the distressed, schools of education for the clergy, and teachers of agriculture and the useful arts to the people in the regions where they were planted. Their abbots rose to great dignity and influence, and stood on a level with the highest ecclesiastics.

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II. DISSOLUTION OP CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE: RISE OF THE KINGDOMS OF FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ITALY

DIVISIONS IN THE EMPIRE.--The influence of Charlemagne was permanent; not so his empire. It had one religion and one government, but it was discordant in language and in laws. The Gallo-Romans and the Italians spoke the Romance language, with variations of dialect. The Germans used the Teutonic tongue. Charlemagne left to the Lombards, to the Saxons, and to other peoples, their own special laws. The great bond of unity had been the force of his own character and the vigor of his administration. His death was, therefore, the signal for confusion and division. The tendency to dismemberment was aided by the ambition of the princes of the imperial family. The Austrasian Franks, to whom Charlemagne belonged, craved unity. The Gallo-Romans in the West, the Teutons in the East, aspired after independence.

Louis the Pious (814-840), Charlemagne's youngest son,--who, in consequence of the death of his elder brothers, was the sole successor of his father,--lacked the energy requisite for so difficult a place. He was better adapted to a cloister than to a throne. He had been crowned at Aix before his father's death; but he consented to be crowned anew by Pope Stephen IV. at Rheims, in 816. His troubles began with a premature division of his states between his sons, Lothar, Pipin, and Louis. His nephew, Bernhard, who was to reign in Italy in subordination to his uncle, rebelled, but was captured and killed (818). In order to provide for his son Charles the Bald, whose mother Judith he had married for his second wife, he made a new division in 829. The elder sons at once revolted against their father, and Judith and her son were shut up in a cloister (830). Louis the son repented, the Saxons and East Franks supported the emperor, and he was restored. In 833 he took away Aquitaine from Pipin, and gave it to Charles. The rebellious sons again rose up against him. In company with Pope Gregory IV., who joined them, they took their father prisoner on the plains of Alsace, his troops having deserted him. The place was long known as the "Field of Lies." He was compelled by the bishops to confess his sins in the cathedral at Soissons, reading the list aloud. Once more Louis was released, and forgave his sons; but partition after partition of territory, with continued discord, followed until his death. The quarrels of his surviving sons, Lothar, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald, brought on, in 841, the great battle of Fontenailles. The contest was occasioned by the ambition of Lothar, the eldest, who claimed for himself the whole imperial inheritance. There was great carnage, and Lothar was defeated. The bishops present saw in the result a verdict of God in favor of his two adversaries. The result was the Treaty of Verdun for the division of the empire.

TERMS OF THE TREATY OF VERDUN.--Louis the German took the Eastern and German Franks, and Charles the Bald the Western and Latinized Franks. Lothar, who retained the imperial title, received the middle portion of the Frank territory, including Italy and a long, narrow strip of territory between the dominions of his brothers, and extending to the North Sea. This land took later the name of Lotharingia, or Lorraine. It always had the character of a border-land. While Louis's share comprised only German-speaking peoples, Charles's kingdom was made up almost exclusively of Gallo-Roman inhabitants; while under Lothar the two races were mingled. This division marks the birth of the German and French nations as such. The German-speaking peoples in the East, who were affiliated in language, customs, and spirit, more and more grew together into a nation. In like manner, the subjects of the Western kingdom more and more were resolved into a Franco-Roman nationality. Lothar ruled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and was styled emperor; but each of the other kingdoms was independent, and the empire of Charlemagne was dissolved. Only for a short time, under Charles the Fat (881-887), nearly the whole monarchy of Charlemagne was united under one scepter. When he was deposed it was again broken in pieces; and four distinct kingdoms emerged,--those of the Eastern and Western Franks, "the forerunners of Germany and France," and the kingdoms of Italy and of Burgundy, in South-eastern Gaul, which were sometimes united and sometimes separate. Lotharingia was attached now to the Eastern and now to the Western Frank kingdom. In theory there was not a severance, but a sharing, of the common possession which had been the object of contention.

EASTERN CARLOVINGIANS.--Charles the Fat was a weak and sluggish prince. He offered no effectual resistance to the destructive ravages of the Normans, or Scandinavian Northmen. He was deposed in 887, and died in the following year on an island in the Lake of Constance. His successor, the grandson of Louis the German, Arnulf, duke of Carinthia, became king of the Germans, (887-899) and emperor; and, after his short reign, the line of Louis died out in Louis the Child, the weak son of Arnulf (900-911). The house of Charlemagne survived only among the Western Franks.

During the reign of Louis the Child, Hatto (I.), archbishop of Mentz and primate of Germany, was regent and guardian of the king. He was a bold defender of the unity of the empire. He was charged, truly or falsely, with taking the life of Adalbert, a Frank nobleman whom he had enticed into his castle. There was a popular tradition that the devil seized Hatto's corpse, and threw it into the crater of Mount Ætna. The mistake is often made of connecting the popular legend of the "Mouse-tower" at Bingen on the Rhine, with him. It was told of a later Hatto (Hatto II.), who was likewise archbishop of Mentz (968). He was charged with shutting up the poor in a barn, in a time of famine, and of burning them there. As the story runs, he called them "rats who ate the corn." Numberless mice swam to the tower which he had built in the midst of the stream, and devoured him. Southey has put the tale into a ballad,--"God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop."

KINGDOM OF FRANCE.--In 841 Rouen fell into the hands of the Normans, and Paris lay open to their attacks. In 861 Charles the Bald invested a brave soldier, Robert the Strong, whose descent is not known, with the county of Paris, that he might resist the invaders. He held the country between the Seine and the Loire, under the name of the Duchy of France. The other Francia, east of the Rhine, continued to be an important part of Germany, the district called Franconia. Robert was the greatgrandfather of Hugh Capet, the founder of the kingdom of France. Under the imbecile Charles the Fat, the audacious Northmen (885-886) laid siege to Paris. It was Odo, or Eudes, count of Paris, who led the citizens in their heroic and successful resistance. Him the nobles of France chose to be their king. His family were called "Dukes of the French." Their duchy--Western or Latin Francia--was the strongest state north of the Loire. The feudal lords were growing mightier, and the imperial or royal power was becoming weaker. After Odo of Paris was elected to the Western kingdom, there followed a period of about a hundred years during which there was a king sometimes from his house and sometimes from the family of the Carlovingians. The latter still spoke German, and, when they had the power, reigned at Laon in the northeastern corner of the kingdom. Odo ruled from 888 until 898. He had to leave the southern part of France independent. During the last five years of his life he was obliged to contend with Charles the Simple (893-929), who was elected king by the Carlovingian party of the north. The most noted of the Carlovingian kings at Laon was Louis "from beyond seas" (936-954), Charles's son, who had been carried to England for safety. His reign was a constant struggle with Hugh the Great, duke of the French, the nephew of King Odo. Hugh would not accept the crown himself. On the death of Louis V. (986-987), the direct line of Charlemagne became extinct. The only Carlovingian heir was his uncle, Charles, duke of Lorraine. His claim the barons would not recognize, but elected Hugh Capet, duke of France, to be king, who, on the 1st (or the 3d) of July, 987, was solemnly crowned in the cathedral of Noyon, by the archbishop of Rheims. Just at this juncture, when the contest was between the dukes of the French and Charles of Lorraine, the Carlovingian claimant to the sovereignty, the adhesion and support of Duke Richard of Normandy (943-996) was of decisive effect. The Normans had been on the side of Laon; now they turned the scale in favor of the elevation of the Duke of France. The German party at Laon could not withstand the combined power of Rouen and Paris. Thus with Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian line, the kingdom of France began, having Paris for its capital; and the name of France came gradually to be applied to the greater part of Gaul. But when Hugh Capet became king, the great feudal states were almost independent of the royal control. Eight were above the rest in power and extent. "The counts of Flanders, Champagne, and Vermandois, and the dukes of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, and Aquitaine, regarded themselves as the new king's peers or equals." Lorraine, Arles, and Franche Comté--parts of modern France--"held of the emperor, and were, in fact, German." Hugh Capet's dukedom was divided by the Seine. He was lay abbot of St. Denis, the most important church in France.

THE GERMAN KINGDOM.--With the death of Louis the Child (911) the German branch of the Carlovingian line was extinguished. The Germans had to choose a king from another family. Germany, like France, was now composed of great fiefs. But there were two parties, differing from one another in their character and manners. The one consisted of the older Alemannic and Austrasian unions, where the traces of Roman influence continued, where the large cities were situated, and the principal sees. Here were formed the duchies of Swabia and Bavaria, and Franconia (Austrasian France). To the other, consisting chiefly of the duchy of Saxony, were attached Thuringia and a part of Frisia. In France the royal power, at the start, was so weak, that, not being dreaded, it was suffered to grow. In Germany the royal power was so strong that there was a constant effort to reduce it. Hence in France the result was centralization; in Germany the tendency was to division. In France the long continuance of the family of Hugh Capet made the monarchy hereditary. In Germany the frequent changes of dynasty helped to make it elective.

CONRAD I.--When Louis died, Conrad of Franconia (911-918) was chosen king by the clerical and secular nobles of the five duchies, in which the counts elevated themselves to the rank of dukes,--Franconia, Saxony, Lorraine, Swabia, and Bavaria. Germany thus became an elective kingdom; but since, as a rule, the sovereignty was continued in one family, the electoral principle was qualified by an hereditary element. Conrad began the struggle against the great feudatories, which went on through the Middle Ages. The dukes always chafed under the rule of a king; yet, for the glory of the nation and for their own safety against attacks from abroad, they were anxious to preserve it from extinction. The Hungarians, to whom Louis the Child had consented to pay tribute, renewed their incursions. They marched in force as far as Bremen. Conrad had wished to reduce the power of Saxony, and to detach from it Thuringia. He was constantly at war with his own subjects. Yet on his death-bed he showed his disinterested regard to the interests of the kingdom. He called to him his brother Eberhard, and charged him to carry his crown and crown jewels to his enemy Henry, duke of the Saxons, who was most capable of defending the country against the Hungarian invaders.

ITALY.--After the empire of Charles the Fat was broken up, a strong anti-German feeling was manifest in Italy. The people wanted the king of Italy, and, if possible, the emperor of the Romans, to be of their own nation. But they could not agree: there was a violent contest between the supporters of Berengar of Friuli and the supporters of Guido of Spoleto. Arnulf came twice into Italy to quell the disturbance, and on his second visit, in 896, was crowned emperor. Civil war soon broke out again. Within twenty years the crown had been given to five different aspirants. They were Germans, or were Italians only in name. Berengar I. (888-924) was crowned emperor by the Pope, but had to fight against a competitor, Rudolph, king of Burgundy, whom the turbulent nobles set up in his place. Berengar was finally defeated and assassinated. His grandson, Berengar II. (of Ivrea) (950-961), had to fly to Germany (943) to escape a competitor for the throne, Hugh, count of Provence, brother of Ermengarde, Berengar's step-mother, to whom she had given the crown. His relations with Otto I. (the Great) led to very important consequences, to be narrated hereafter.

STATE OF LEARNING IN THE TENTH CENTURY.--Under Charles the Bald, there were not wanting signs of intellectual activity. John Scotus Erigena,--or John Scot, Erinborn,--who was at the head of his palace-school, was an acute philosopher, who, in his speculations in the vein of New Platonism, tended to pantheistic doctrine. His opinions were condemned at the instance of Hincmar, the eminent archbishop of Rheims. But after the deposition of Charles the Fat (887), there followed a period of darkness throughout the West. The universal political disorder was enough to account for this prevalent ignorance. But, in addition, the Latin language ceased to be spoken by the people, while the new vernacular tongues were not reduced to writing. Latin could only be learned in the schools; and these fell more and more into decay, in the confusion of the times. The mental stimulus which the study of the Latin had communicated, there was nothing, as yet, in the new languages to replace.

THE PAPACY IN THE NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES.--While Italy was under the rule of Justinian and his successors, the popes were subject to the tyranny of the Eastern emperors. After the Lombard conquest, their position, difficult as it was on account of the small protection afforded them from Constantinople, was favorable to the growth of their influence and authority. By their connection with Pipin and Charlemagne, they were recognized as having a spiritual headship, the counterpart of the secular supremacy of the emperor. The election of the Pope was to be sanctioned by the emperor, and that of the emperor by the Pope. But Charlemagne was supreme ruler over all classes and persons in Italy, as in his own immediate dominions. In the disorder that ensued upon his death, the imperial authority in all directions was reduced. The Frank bishops were frequently appealed to as umpires among the contending Carolingian princes. The growth of the power of the great bishops carried in it the exaltation of the highest bishop of all, the Roman pontiff. A pallium, or mantle, was sent by the Pope to all archbishops on their accession, and was considered to be a badge of the papal authority. In the earlier part of the ninth century, there appeared what are called the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, consisting of forged ecclesiastical documents purporting to belong to the early Christian centuries, which afforded a sanction to the highest claims of the chief rulers of the Church. These are universally known to be an invention; but, in that uncritical day, this was not suspected. They contained not much in behalf of hierarchical claims which had not, at one time or another, been actually asserted and maintained. In the spirit of the decretals Pope Nicholas I. (858-867) acted, when this energetic pontiff overruled the iniquitous decision of two German synods, and obliged Lothar, king of Lotharingia, to take back his lawful wife, Theutberga, whom he had divorced out of regard to a mistress, Waldrada. In the tenth century (904-962), when Italy, in the absence of imperial restraint, was torn by violent factions, the Papacy was for half a century disposed of by the Tuscan party, and especially by two depraved women belonging to it, Theodora, and her daughter Maria (or Marozia). The scandals belonging to this dismal period in the history of the papal institution are to be ascribed to the anarchy prevailing in Italy, and to the vileness of the individuals who usurped power at Rome.

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III. INVASIONS OF THE NORTHMEN AND OTHERS: THE FEUDAL SYSTEM

INCURSIONS OF THE NORTHMEN.--The Scandinavians, or Northmen, were a Teutonic people, by whom were gradually formed the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Their incursions, prior to Charlemagne, were towards the Rhine, but at length assumed more the character of piracy. They coasted along the shores in their little fleets, and lay in wait for their enemies in creeks and bays; whence they were called vikings, or children of the bays. By degrees they ventured out farther on the sea, and became bolder in their depredations. They sent their light vessels along the rivers of France, and established themselves in bands of five or six hundred at convenient stations, whence they sallied out to plunder the neighboring cities and country places. They did not cause, but they hastened, the fall of the Frank Empire. In 841 they burned Rouen; in 843 they plundered Nantes, Saintes, and Bordeaux. Hastings, a famous leader of these hardy sea-robbers, sailed along the coast of the Spanish peninsula, took Lisbon and pillaged it, and burned Seville. Making a descent upon Tuscany, he captured, by stratagem, and plundered the city of Luna, which he at first mistook for Rome. In 853 the daring rovers captured Tours, and burned the Abbey of St. Martin; and, three years later, they appeared at Orleans. In 857 they burned the churches of Paris, and carried away as captive the abbot of St. Denis. As pagans they had no scruple about attacking churches and abbeys, to which fugitives resorted for safety and for the hiding of their treasures. Robert the Strong fell in fighting these marauders (866). Their devastations continued down to the year 911, in the reign of Charles the Simple; then the same arrangement was made which the Romans had adopted in relation to the Germanic invaders. By the advice of his nobles, Charles decided to abandon to the Northmen, territory where they could settle, and which they could cultivate as their own. Rolf, or Rollo, one of their most formidable chiefs, accepted the offer; and the Northmen established themselves (911) in the district known afterwards as Normandy. Rollo received baptism, wore the title of duke, and thus became the liege of King Charles, who reigned at Laon, and whom he loyally served. Later the Normans joined hands with ducal France, and helped Paris to throw off its dependence on royal France and the house of Charlemagne which had ruled at Laon. It was by Norman help that the duchy of France was raised to the rank of a kingdom, and Hugh Capet, in the room of being a vassal of kings of German lineage, became the founder of French sovereigns. Under the Normans, tillage flourished; and the feudal system was established with greater regularity than elsewhere.

THE DANES IN ENGLAND.--When, in 827, Egbert, the king of Wessex, united all the Saxons in England under his rule, the Danish attacks had already begun. In his later years these ravages increased. Alfred (871-901) was reduced to such straits in 878, that, with a few followers, he hid himself among the swamps and woods of Somersetshire. It was then, according to the legend, that he was scolded by the woman, who, not knowing him, had set him to watch her cakes, but found that he, absorbed in other thoughts, had allowed them to burn. Later, Alfred gained advantages over the Danes; but, in the treaty that was made with them, they received, as vassals of the West Saxon king, East Anglia, and part of Essex and Mercia. Already they had a lodgment in Northumberland, so that the larger part of England had fallen into Danish hands. The names of towns ending in by, as Whitby, are of Danish origin. Alfred compiled a body of laws called dooms, founded monasteries, and fostered learning. He himself translated many books from the Latin. His bravery in conflict with the Danes enabled him to spend his last years in quiet. Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred (925-940), was victorious over the Danes, and over the Scotch and Welsh of the North. Under Edgar (959-975), the power of England was at its height. He kept up a strong fleet; but, in the time of Aethelred II. (the Unready), the Danish invasions were renewed. He and his bad advisers adopted the practice of buying off the invaders at a large price. In 994 Swegen invaded the country. He had been baptized, but had gone back to heathenism. In 1013 England was completely conquered by him. Aethelred fled to Duke Richard the Good of Normandy.

CANUTE.--The son of Aethelred, Edmund, surnamed Ironside, after the death of Swegen, kept up the war with his son Cnut, or Canute. After fighting six pitched battles with him, Edmund consented to divide the kingdom with him; but in the same year (1016) the English king died. Canute (1017-1035) now became king of all England. He had professed Christianity, and unexpectedly proved himself, after his accession, to be a good ruler. One of the legends about him is, that he once had a seat placed for himself by the seashore, and ordered the rising tide not to dare to wet his feet. Not being obeyed by the dashing waves, he said, "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." After that he never wore his crown, but left it on the image of Jesus on the cross. Canute inherited the crown of Denmark, and won Norway and part of Sweden; so that he was the most powerful prince of his time. His sons, however, did not rule well; and in 1042 the English chose for king one of their own people, Edward, called the Confessor, the son of Aethelred. In the time of Canute, the power of the Danes, and of the Northmen generally, was at its height. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and England were ruled by them; and Scandinavian princes by descent governed in Normandy and in Russia. Although a most vigorous race, the Northmen showed a wonderful facility in adopting the language and manners of the people among whom they settled. The effect of their migrations was to diminish the strength and importance of their native countries which they had left.

OTHER SETTLEMENTS OF NORTHMEN.--The Northmen made many other voyages which have not yet been mentioned. As early as 852 there was a Scandinavian king in Dublin. They early conquered the Shetland Isles, the Orkneys, and the Hebrides. On the northern coast of Scotland, they founded the kingdom of Caithness, which they held to the end of the twelfth century. Iceland was discovered by the Northmen, and was settled by them in 874. About the same time Greenland was discovered, and towards the end of the tenth century a colony was planted there. This led to the discovery of the mainland of America, and to the occupation, for a time, of Vinland, which is supposed to have been the coast of New England. In Russia, where the Northmen were called Varangians, Rurik, one of their leaders, occupied Novgorod in 862, and founded a line of sovereigns, which continued until 1598.

INCURSIONS OF SARACENS.--The Saracens were marauders in Italy, as the Northmen were in France. From Cairoan (in Tunis), as we have seen, they sent out their piratical fleets, which ravaged Malta, Sicily, and other islands of the Mediterranean. These corsairs, checked for the moment by the fleets of Charlemagne, afterwards began anew their conquests. From Sicily, of which they made themselves masters in 831, they passed over to the Italian mainland. Among their deeds are included the burning of Ostia, Civita Vecchia, and the wealthy abbey of Monte Cassino, They landed on the shores of Provence, established a military colony there, pillaged Arles and Marseilles, and continued their depredations in Southern France and Switzerland.

INCURSIONS OF HUNGARIANS.--The Magyars, called by the Greeks Hungarians, a warlike people of the Turanian group of nations, crossed the Carpathian Mountains about 889. They overran the whole of Hungary and Transylvania. In 900, in the course of their predatory invasions, they penetrated into Bavaria, and the king of Germany paid them tribute. They carried their incursions into Lombardy and into Southern Italy. They even crossed the Rhine, and devastated Alsace, Lorraine, and Burgundy. Such terror did they excite that their name remained in France a synonym of detestable ferocity.

CHARACTER OF THE LATER INVASIONS.--The incursions in the ninth century differed from the great Germanic invasions which had subverted the Roman Empire. The Northmen and the Saracens moved in small bands, whose main object was plunder, and not either permanent conquest, or, as was the aim of the Arabians, the spread of a religion by the sword. The Hungarians alone established themselves in the valley of the Theiss and the Danube, after the manner of the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Goths; and there they remained. The great effect of the last invasion was to accelerate the breaking up of political unity, and the introduction of feudal organization, or the preponderance of local rule as opposed to centralized power.

THE NORTHMEN IN ENGLAND AND ITALY.

Later than the events narrated above, there were two great achievements of the Northmen, which it is most convenient to describe here, although they occurred in the eleventh century. They are the conquest of England, and the founding of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily.

I. THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.

The NORMAN INVASION.--The duchy of Normandy had become very strong and prosperous, and, under the French-speaking Northmen, or Normans, had grown to be one of the principal states in Western Europe. Edward, king of England, surnamed the Confessor, or Saint (1042-1066) had been brought up in Normandy, and favored his own Norman friends by lavish gifts of honors and offices. The party opposed to the foreigners was led by Godwin, earl of the West Saxons. After being once banished, he returned in arms; and Norman knights and priests were glad to escape from the country. Edward's wife was Edith, daughter of Godwin. They had no children; and on his death-bed he recommended that Earl Harold, the son of Godwin, should be his successor. The Normans claimed that he had promised that their duke, William, should reign after him. It was said that Harold himself, on a visit to William, had, either willingly or unwillingly, sworn to give him his support. Edward, who was devout in his ways, though a negligent ruler, was buried in the monastery called Westminster, which he had built, and which was the precursor of the magnificent church bearing the same name that was built afterwards by King Henry III. Harold was now crowned. Duke William, full of wrath, appealed to the sword; and, under the influence of the archdeacon Hildebrand, Pope Alexander II. took his side, and sanctioned his enterprise of conquest. At the same time the north of England was invaded by the king of the Norwegians, a man of gigantic stature, named Hardrada. The Norman invaders landed without resistance on the shore of Sussex, on the 28th of September, 1066, and occupied Hastings. Harold encamped on the heights of Senlac. On the 14th of October the great battle took place in which the Normans were completely victorious. The English stood on a hill in a compact mass, with their shields in front and a palisade before them. They repulsed the Norman charges. But the Normans pretended to retreat. This moved the Saxons to break their array in order to pursue. The Normans then turned back, and rushed through the palisade in a fierce onset. An arrow pierced the eye of Harold, and he was cut to pieces by four French knights. The Norman duke, William the Conqueror, was crowned king on Christmas Day; but it was four years before he overcame all resistance, and got full control over the country. The largest estates and principal offices in England he allotted to Normans and other foreigners. The crown of William was handed down to his descendants, and gradually the conquerors and the conquered became mingled together as one people.

EFFECT OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

CHARACTER OF THE SAXONS.--The Saxons at the time of the Conquest were a strong and hardy race, hospitable, and fond of good cheer, which was apt to run into gluttony and revels. Their dwellings were poor, compared with those of the better class of Normans. They were enthusiastic in out-door sports, such as wrestling and hunting. They fought on foot, armed with the shield and axe. The common soldier, however, often had no better weapon than a fork or a sharpened stick. The ordeals in vogue, as a test of guilt and innocence when one was accused of a crime, were, plunging the arm into boiling water, or holding a hot iron in the hand for three paces. London was fast growing to be the chief town, and eclipsing Winchester, the old Saxon capital. A king like Alfred, and scholars like Bede and Alcuin, not to speak of old chronicles and ballads, show that literature was valued; but the Danish invasions in Northumberland, where schools and letters had flourished, did much to blight the beginnings of literary progress.

THE NORMAN SPIRIT AND INFLUENCE.--The tapestry at Bayeux represents in a series of pictures the course of the Norman conquest. There we see the costume of the combatants. The Norman gentlemen were mounted, and fought with lance and sword. Of their bravery and military skill, their success affords abundant proof. Although the Normans were victors and masters in England, not only was the conquest gradual, but the result of it was the amalgamation of the one people with the other. The very title of conqueror, attached to William, was a legal term (conquaestor), and meant purchaser or acquirer. There was an observance of legal forms in the establishment and administration of his government. The folkland, or the public land, was appropriated by him, and became crown-land. So all the land of the English was considered to be forfeited, and estates were given out liberally to Norman gentlemen. The nobility became mainly Norman, and the same was true of the ecclesiastics and other great officers. All the land was held as a grant from the king. In 1085 the making of Domesday was decreed, which was a complete statistical survey of all the estates and property in England. The object was to furnish a basis for taxation. The Domesday Book is one of the most curious and valuable monuments of English history. Among the changes in law made by William was the introduction of the Norman wager of battle, or the duel, by the side of the Saxon methods of ordeal described above. In most of the changes, there was not so much an uprooting as a great transformation of former rules and customs.

ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT.--One of the most important results of the Norman Conquest was the bringing of England into much more intimate relations with the continent. The horizon of English thought and life was widened. One incidental consequence was the closer connection of the English Church with the Papacy. Foreign ecclesiastics, some of them men of eminence and of learning, were brought in. It was this connection with the continent that led England to take so important a part in the Crusades.

THEN NORMAN GOVERNMENT.--As regards feudalism, one vital feature of it--the holding of land by a military tenure, or on condition of military service--was reduced to a system by the conquest. But William took care not to be overshadowed or endangered by his great vassals. He levied taxes on all, and maintained the place of lord of all his subjects. He was king of the English, and sovereign lord of the Norman nobles. He summoned to the Witan, or Great Assembly, those whom he chose to call. This summons, and the right to receive it, became the foundation of the Peerage. Out of the old Saxon Witan, there grew in this way the House of Lords. The lower orders, when summoned at all, were summoned in a mass; afterwards we shall find that they were called by representatives; and, in--the end, when the privilege of appearing in this way was converted into a right, the House of Commons came into being. In like manner, the King's Court gradually came to be, in the room of the Assembly itself, a judicial and governing Committee of the Assembly. From this body of the king's immediate counselors emerged in time the Privy Council and the Courts of Law. Out of the Privy Council grew, in modern times, the Cabinet, composed of what are really "those privy councilors who are specially summoned." Committees of the National Assembly, in the course of English history, acquired "separate being and separate powers, as the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the government." Thus the English Constitution is the product of a steady growth.

MINGLING OF BLOOD AND LANGUAGES.--A multitude of Normans emigrated into England, especially to London. The Normans became Englishmen, as a natural consequence. But they affected the spirit and manners of the people by whom they were absorbed. By opening avenues for French influence, chivalry, with its peculiar ideas and ways, was brought into England. But it must never be forgotten that the Normans were kinsfolk of the Saxons. Both conquerors and conquered were Teutons. The conquest was very different, in this particular, from what the conquest of Germany by France, or of France by Germany, would be. The French language which the Normans spoke had been acquired by them in their adopted home across the channel. To this source the Latin element, or words of Latin etymology, in our English tongue is mainly due. The loss of the old Saxon inflections is another marked change; but this is not due, to so large an extent, solely to the influence of Norman speech. But the English language continued to be essentially Teutonic in its structure. For a long time the two tongues lived side by side. At the end of the twelfth century, if French was the language of polite intercourse, English was the language of common conversation and of popular writings. Learned men spoke, or could speak, and they wrote, in Latin.

NORMAN BUILDINGS.--The Normans built the cathedrals and castles. Down to the eleventh century, the Romanesque, or "round-arched" architecture, derived from Italy, had been the one prevalent style in Western Europe. In the modification of it, called the Norman style, we find the round arch associated with massive piers and narrow windows. Durham cathedral is an example of the Norman Romanesque type of building. The Norman conquerors covered England with castles, of which the White Tower of London, built by William, is a noted specimen. Sometimes they were square, and sometimes polygonal; but, except in the palaces of the kings, they afforded little room for artistic beauty of form or decoration. They were erected as fortresses, and were regarded by the people with execration as strongholds of oppression.

II. THE NORMANS IN ITALY AND SICILY.

THE NORMAN KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND SICILY.--Early in the eleventh century, knights from Normandy wandered into Southern Italy, and gave their aid to different states in battle against the Greeks and Saracens. In 1027 the ruler of Naples gave them a fertile district, where they built the city of Aversa. By the reports of their victories and good fortune, troops of pilgrims and warriors were attracted to join them. The valiant sons of the old count, Tancred of Hauteville, were among the number. They supported the Greek viceroy in an attack on the Arabs in Sicily; but, on his failing duly to reward them, they turned against him, and conquered Apulia for themselves. Under Robert Guiscard (1057-1085), they made themselves masters of all Southern Italy. They had already defeated Pope Leo IX. at Civitella, and received from him as fiefs their present and anticipated conquests in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. Twelve years after, Robert, with the help of his brother Roger, wrested Sicily, with its capital, Palermo, from the Saracens, who were divided among themselves (1072). The seaports of Otranto and Bari were also taken by Robert. He even entered on the grand scheme of conquering the Byzantine Empire, but his death frustrated this endeavor. His nephew Roger II. (1130-1154) took the remaining possessions of the Greeks in Southern Italy and Sicily, united them in the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, and received from the Pope the title of king. In this kingdom the feudal system was established, and trade and industry flourished. In culture and prosperity it surpassed all the other Italian communities. At Salerno was a famous school of medicine and natural science; at Amalfi and Naples were schools of law. But the Norman nobility was corrupted and enervated by the luxury of the South, and by the influence of Mohammedan customs, and modes of thought. During fifty-six years Roger and his two successors, William the Bad (1154-1166) and William the Good (1166-1189), ruled this flourishing kingdom, which then fell by inheritance to the Hohenstaufen German princes. On the mainland and in Sicily, numerous stately buildings and ruined castles and towers point back to the romantic period of Norman rule.

NORMAN TRAITS.--It is a remarkable fact, that the Normans, although so distinguished as rovers and conquerors, have vanished from the face of the earth. They were lost in the kingdoms which they founded. They adopted the languages of the nations which they subdued. But while in England they were merged in the English, and modified the national character, this effect was not produced in Italy and Sicily. In Sicily they found Greek-speaking Christians and Arabic-speaking Mussulmans; and Italians came into the island in the track of the conquerors. The Normans did not find there a nation as in England; and they created not a nation, but a kingdom of a composite sort, beneficent while it lasted, but leaving no permanent traces behind. "The Normans in Sicily," says Mr. Freeman, "so far as they did not die out, were merged, not in a Sicilian nation, for that did not exist, but in the common mass of settlers of Latin speech and rite, as distinguished from the older inhabitants, Greek and Saracen." Independent, enterprising, impatient of restraint, gifted with a rare imitative power which imparted a peculiar tinge and a peculiar grace to whatever they adopted from others, they lacked originality, and the power to maintain their own distinctive type of character and of speech.

Mr. Freeman has eloquently described the spread of the Normans, "the Saracens of Christendom," in all corners of the world. They fought in the East against the Turks. "North, south, east, the Norman lances were lifted." The Norman "ransacked Europe for scholars, poets, theologians, and artists. At Rouen, at Palermo, and at Winchester he welcomed merit in men of every race and every language." "And yet that race, as a race, has vanished." "The Scottish Brace or the Irish Geraldine passed from Scandinavia to Gaul, from Gaul to England, from England to his own portion of our islands; but at each migration, he ceased to be Scandinavian, French, or English: his patriotism was in each case transferred to his new country, and his historic being belongs to his last acquired home." Norman blood was in the veins of the Crusaders who first stood on the battlements of Jerusalem, and of the great German emperor, Frederic II.

THE NORMANS.

TANCRED OF HAUTEVILLE. | +--Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, d. 1085. | | SICILY | +--ROGER, the Great Count, d. 1101 | +--Roger (of Apulia, 1127; king, 1130), 1101-1154. | +--WILLIAM I the Bad, 1154-1166, | m. Margaret, daughter of Garcia IV of Navarre. | | | +--WILLIAM II the Good, 1166-1189, | m. Joanna, daughter of Henry II of England. | +--CONSTANCE (d. 1198), m. Emperor Henry VI.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.

ORIGIN OF FEUDALISM.--When the Franks conquered Gaul, they divided the land among themselves. This estate each free German held as allodial property, or as a free-hold. The king took the largest share. His palaces were dwellings connected with large farms or hunting-grounds, and he went with his courtiers from one to another. To his personal followers and officers he allotted lands. These benefices, it seems, were granted at first with the understanding that he might resume them at will. As holders of them, the recipients owed to him personal support. Other chiefs, and land-owners of a minor grade, took the same course. This was the germ of feudalism. More and more it grew to be the characteristic method of living and of government in Western Europe after the fall of Charlemagne's empire. The inheritors of his dominion were not the kings of France, of Germany, or of Italy, but the numerous feudal lords. Against the invasions of the Norman, Saracen, and Hungarian plunderers, the kings and the counts proved themselves incapable of defending territory or people. Meantime, the principle of heredity--the principle that benefices should go down from father to son, or to the next heir--had gained a firm footing. Another fact was that the royal offices became hereditary, and were transmitted to the heirs of allodial property. Thus the exercise of government and the possession of land were linked together. In times of danger, small proprietors more and more put themselves under the protection of the richer and stronger: that is, allodial property became feudal. This custom had begun long before, in the decadence of the Roman empire, when not only poor freemen, but also men of moderate means, ruined by taxation, put themselves under the protection of the great, and settled on their lands. They became thus colons (coloni). In the later times of disorder of which we are now speaking, farmhouses in the country gave place to fortified castles on hill-tops or other defensible sites, about which clustered in villages the dependents of the lord, who tilled his land, fought for him, and, in turn, were protected by him.

THE SUBSTANCE OF FEUDALISM.--"Feudality recognizes two principles, the land and the sword, riches and force,--two principles on which every thing depends, to which every thing is related, and which are united and identified with one another; since it is necessary to possess land in order to have the right to use the sword in one's own name (that is to say, to have the right of private war), and since the possession of land imposes the duty of drawing the sword for the suzerain, and in the name of the suzerain of whom the land is held." Feudalism is a social system in which there is a kind of hierarchy of lands in the hands of warriors, who hold of one another in a gradation. There is a chain reaching up from the tower of the simple gentleman to the royal chateau, or castle. In this social organization, there are the two grand classes of the seigneurs and the serfs; but the seigneur, even if he be a king, may also hold fiefs as a vassal.

SUZERAIN AND VASSAL.--The suzerain and the vassal, or liege, were bound together by reciprocal obligations. The vassal owed (1) military service on the demand of the lord; (2) such aid as the suzerain called for in the administration of justice within his jurisdiction; (3) other aids, such as, when he was a prisoner, to pay the ransom for his release; and pecuniary contributions when he armed his eldest son, and when he married his eldest daughter. These were legal or required aids. They took the place of taxation in modern states. There were other things that the vassal was expected to do which were gracious or voluntary. If the liege died without heirs, or forfeited the fief by a violation of the conditions on which it was held, it reverted to the lord. The liege was invested with the fief. He knelt before the suzerain, put his hands within the hands of the suzerain, and took an oath to be his man. This was homage,--from homo in the Latin, and homme in French, signifying man. The suzerain might at any time require its renewal. Under the feudal system, every thing was turned into a fief. The right to hunt in a forest, or to fish in a river, or to have an escort on the roads, might be granted as a fief, on the condition of loyalty, and of the homage just described.

PRIVATE WAR.--The vassal had the right to be tried by his peers; that is, by vassals on the same level as himself. He might, if treated with injustice, go to the superior: he might appeal to the suzerain of his immediate lord. But suzerains preferred to take justice into their own hands. Hence the custom of private war prevailed, and of judicial combats, or duels, so common in the middle ages.

ENTANGLEMENTS OF FEUDALISM.--Many suzerains were mutually vassals, each holding certain lands of the other. The same baron often held lands of different suzerains, who might be at war with each other, so that each required his service. The sovereign prince might be bound to do homage to a petty feudal lord on account of lands which the prince had inherited or otherwise acquired. The power of the suzerain depended on a variety of circumstances. The king might be weak, since feudalism grew out of the overthrow of royal power. The king of France, with the exception of titular prerogatives and some rights with regard to churches, which were often disputed, had no means of attack or defense beyond what the duchy of France furnished him. Yet logically and by a natural tendency, the king was the supreme suzerain. "Feudalism carried hid in its bosom the arms by which it was one day to be struck down."

ECCLESIASTICAL FEUDALISM.--The clergy were included in the feudal system. The bishop was often made the count, and, as such, was the suzerain of all the nobles in his diocese. Cities were often under the suzerainty of bishops. Besides their tithes, the clergy had immense landed possessions. The abbots and bishops often availed themselves of the protection of powerful vassals, of whom they were the suzerains. On the other hand, bishops, who were also themselves dukes or counts, sometimes did homage for their temporalities to lay suzerains, especially to the king. In France and in England, in the middle ages, the feudal clergy possessed a fifth of all the land; in Germany, a third. The church, through bequests of the dying and donations from the living, constantly increased its possessions. It might be despoiled, but it could defend itself by the terrible weapon of excommunication.

SERFS AND VILLAINS.--In the eleventh century Europe was thus covered with a multitude of petty sovereigns. Below the body of rulers, or the holders of fiefs, was the mass of the people. These were the serfs,--the tillers of the ground, who enjoyed some of the privileges of freemen, and who, since they were attached to the seigneurie, could not be sold as slaves. The villains were a grade above the serfs. The term (from villæ) originally meant villagers. They paid rent for the land which the proprietor allowed them to till; but they were subject, like the serfs, to the will of the suzerain; and the constant tendency was for them to sink into the inferior condition. Slavery, as distinguished from serfdom, gradually passed away under the emancipating spirit fostered by Christianity and the Church.

THE INHERITANCE OF FIEFS.--At first the Salic principle, which excluded females from inheriting fiefs, prevailed. But that gave way, and daughters were preferred in law to collateral male relatives. When a female inherited, the fief was occupied by the suzerain up to the time of her marriage. It never ceased to be under the protection of the sword. In France, the right of primogeniture was established, but with important qualifications, which varied in different portions of the country. The eldest, however, always had the largest portion. In Germany, the tendency to the division of fiefs was more prevalent. Among the _Normans _ in England, and under their influence in Palestine, the law of inheritance by the eldest was established in its full rigor.

SPIRIT OF FEUDALISM.--Feudalism had more vitality than the system of absorbing all the land by a few great proprietors, which existed in the period of the decline of the Roman Empire. Individuality, courage, the proud sense of belonging to an aristocratic order, were widely diffused among the numerous feudal landowners. The feeling of loyalty among them was a great advance upon the blind subjection of the slave to his master. But the weight of feudalism was heavy on the lower strata of society. The lord was an autocrat, whose will there was neither the power nor the right to resist, and who could lay hold of as much of the labor and the earnings of the subject as he might choose to exact. The petty suzerain, because his needs were greater, was often more oppressive than the prince. The serf could not change his abode, he could not marry, he could not bequeath his goods, without the permission of his lord.

THE SAXON, FRANCONIAN, AND HOHENSTAUFEN IMPERIAL HOUSES.

HENRY I [1] 918-936. | +--OTTO I, 936-973, Emperor, 962, m. | 1, Eadgyth, d. of Edward the Elder; | | | +--Liutgarde. | | 2, Adelheid, [2] d. of Rudolph II, King of Burgundy. | | | +--OTTO II, 973-983, m. | Theophania, daughter of Romanus II, Eastern Emperor. | | | +--OTTO III, 983-1002. | +--Henry the Wrangler, Duke of Bavaria. | +--Henry the Wrangler. | +--(St.) HENRY II, 1002-1024, m. Cunigunda of Luxemburg.

CONRAD I, [1] 911-918. | +--C. Werner (?) m. daughter. | +--Conrad the Red, (killed at the Lechfeld, 955) m. Liutgarde, daughter of Eadgyth and Otto I. | +--Otto. | +--Henry. | +--CONRAD II, the Salic, 1024-1039, m. Gisela, d. of Hermann II, Duke of Swabia. | +--HENRY III, 1039-1056, m. 1, Gunhilda, daughter of Cnut; 2, Agnes, daughter of William, Count of Poitiers. | +--HENRY IV, 1056-1106, m. 1, Bertha, daughter of Otto, Marquis of Susa; | +--HENRY V, 1106-1125, m. | Matilda, d. of Henry I of England. | +--Agnes, m. 1, Frederick of Hohenstaufen, Duke of Swabia, 1080-1105; | +--Frederick the One-eyed, Duke of Swabia, d. 1147, m. 1, Judith, daughter of Henry the Black. | +--FREDERICK I, Barbarossa, 1152-1190. | | | +--HENRY VI, 1190-1197, m. | | Constance of Sicily, d. 1198. | | | | | +--FREDERICK II, 1214-1250, m. | | 1, Constance, d. of | | Alfonso II of Aragon; | | | | | +--CONRAD IV, 1250-1254, m. | | | Elizabeth, daughter of | | | Otto II of Bavaria. | | | | | | | +--Conradin, d. 1268. | | | | | +--Manfred,[5] d. 1266. | | | | 2, Iolande de Brienne; | | | | 3, Isabella, d. of | | John of England. | | | +--PHILIP, 1198-1208, m. | Irene, d. of Isaac II, | Angelus, Eastern Emperor. | | | +--Beatrix, m. | OTTO IV,[4] 1208-1214, | d. 1218. | +--CONRAD III,[3] 1137-1152.

2, Leopold III, Marquis of Austria, d. 1136.

2, Adelaide, a Russian princess.

1 Conrad I and Henry I seem to have been related. By one account their mothers were the daughters of Emperor Arnulf.

2 Widow of Lothar, King of Italy.

3 Elected 1127 in opposition to Lotharl accepted as his successor.

4 Elected in opposition to Philip; accepted as his successor, 1208; ruined by battle of Bouvines.

5 King of Naples and Sicily after Conrad IV; killed in battle at Benevento against Charles of Anjou. Manfred's mother was Bianca Langia, daughter of a Lombard noble.

PERIOD III. FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROMANO-GERMANIC EMPIRE TO THE END OF THE CRUSADES. (A.D. 962-1270.)

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I. THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE: PREDOMINANCE OF THE EMPIRE: TO THE CRUSADES, A.D. 1096

I. KINGS AND EMPERORS OF THE SAXON HOUSE (918-1024).

HENRY THE FOWLER (918-936).--The envoys who carried to Duke Henry of Saxony the announcement of his election as king of Germany are said to have found him in the Hartz Mountains with a falcon on his wrist: hence he was called Henry the Fowler. He is a great figure in mediæval history, and did much to make Germany a nation. He won back Lorraine, which had broken off from the kingdom. With it the Netherlands--Holland, Flanders, etc.--came to Germany. He united all the five great dukedoms, and governed with wisdom and moderation. At the end of five years, the Hungarians poured in with irresistible force. There was no alternative but to conclude with them a truce for nine years, during which he was to pay tribute. He set to work at once, however, to strengthen the defenses of his kingdom. He built walled towns and fortresses in the eastern districts of Saxony and Thuringia, and drafted one out of nine of the men from the population in the marches for military service. The fortresses were to be kept stored with provisions. The oldest towns of Saxony and of Thuringia are of this date. Then he disciplined his soldiers, and trained them to fight, like the Hungarians, on horseback. He conquered the Slavonian Wends who dwelt east of the Elbe and the Saale, and established the margraviate of Meissen to repel their attacks. His victory over the Slaves at Lenzen (929) made the north-eastern frontiers of Germany secure. Eadgyth, the daughter of Edward, king of England, was given in marriage to his eldest son, Otto. Henry now felt himself strong enough to throw off the Hungarian yoke, and answered with defiance their demand for the annual tribute. The struggle with them was hard; but they were completely vanquished at Merseburg in 933, and their camp taken. Henry founded the mark of Schleswig as a defense against the Danes. This wise and vigorous monarch laid the foundations of the German Empire. He was not only a mighty warrior: he built up industry and trade. He was buried at Quedlinburg in the abbey which he had founded.

OTTO I.: THE PALSGRAVES.--Otto I. (936-973) carried forward with equal energy the work which his father had begun. Having been chosen king by the German princes and chiefs at Aix, he was presented to the people in the church by the archbishop of Mentz; and they gave their assent to the election by raising the hand. Otto had a contest before him to maintain the unity of the kingdom. He aimed to make the office of duke an office to be allotted by the king, and thus to sap the power of his turbulent lieges. The dukes of Bavaria and Franconia, with Lorraine, and with the support of Louis IV., king of France, rose in arms against him. He subdued them; and the great duchies which had revolted against him becoming vacant, he placed in them members of his own family. He confirmed his authority by extending the power of the palsgraves, or counts palatine,--royal officers who superintended the domains of the king in the several duchies, and dispensed justice in his name. He favored the great ecclesiastics as a check to the aspiring lay lords. He invested the bishops and abbots with ring and staff, and they took the oath of fealty to him.

WARS OF OTTO I--Against the Hungarians, Otto achieved a triumph. He gained a victory over them at Augsburg in 955, in which they were said to have lost a hundred thousand men. This put an end to their incursions into Germany. He was likewise the victor in conflict with Slavonians. He subdued Boleslav I. of Bohemia, who had thrown off the German suzerainty, and obliged him to pay a tribute. Under the pious Boleslav II., Christianity was established there, and a bishopric founded at Prague (967). The Duke of Poland was forced to do homage to him, and to permit the founding of the bishopric of Posen. Against the Danish king, Harold the Blue-toothed, he carried his arms to the sea, the northern boundary of Jutland. He erected three new bishoprics among the Danes, and founded the archbishopric of Magdeburg, with subordinate sees in the valleys of the Elbe and the Oder. These achievements gave Otto great renown in Western Europe. The kings sent ambassadors to him, and presents came from the sovereigns at Constantinople and Cordova.

OTTO I. IN ITALY.--Otto now turned his eyes to Italy. After Arnulf, the Carlovingian emperor, left Italy (in 896), that country had been left to sixty years of anarchy. The demoralization and disorder of Italy, the profligacy of the Romans and of the pontiffs,-- every thing being then subject to the riotous aristocratic factions, --rendered unity impossible. For a time (926-945) Hugh of Provence was called king: then followed his son Lothar (945-950). The next Italian king, Berengar II. of Ivrea (950), who, like his two predecessors, was an offshoot of the Carlovingian house, tried to force Adelheid, the beautiful young widow of Lothar, into a marriage with his son Adalbert. She (being then nineteen years of age) escaped with great difficulty from the prison where she was confined, took refuge in the castle of Canossa, and appealed to the great Otto, king of the Germans, for help,--to Otto, "that model of knightly virtue which was beginning to show itself after the fierce brutality of the last age." He descended into Italy, married the injured queen, and obliged Berengar to own him as suzerain (951). Berengar proved faithless and rebellious. Once more Otto entered Italy with an overpowering force, and was proclaimed king of the Lombards at Pavia. Pope John XII. had proposed to him to assume the imperial office. He was crowned, with his queen, in St. Peter's, in 962. He had engaged to confirm the gifts of previous emperors to the popes. When John XII. reversed his steps, allied himself with Berengar, and tried to stir up the Greeks, and even the Hungarians, against the emperor, Otto came down from Lombardy, and captured Rome. He caused John to be deposed by a synod for his crimes, and Leo VIII. to be appointed in his place (963). But, while Otto was again absent, Leo was driven out by the Romans, and John returned; but, soon after, he died. The Romans then elected Benedict pope. Otto captured Rome once more, deposed him, and restored Leo. Benedict was held in custody, and died in Hamburg. On a third journey to Italy, in 966, Otto crushed the factions which had so long degraded Rome and the Church. On this occasion, he negotiated a marriage between Theophano, a Greek princess, and his son, also named Otto. Thus he acquired the southern extremity of Italy.

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.--Otto had taken Charlemagne for his model. The "Holy Roman Empire of the German nation," the great political institution of the middle ages, was now established. In theory it was the union of the world-state and the world-church,--an undivided community under Emperor and Pope, its heaven-appointed secular and spiritual heads. As an actual political fact, it was the political union of Germany and Italy, in one sovereignty, which was in the hands of the German king. The junction of the two peoples was not without its advantages to both. It was, however, fruitful of evils. The strength of Germany was spent in endless struggles abroad, which stood in the way of the building up of a compact kingdom at home. For Italy it was the rule of foreigners, of which she might feel the need, but to which she was never reconciled.

OTTO II.: OTTO III.: HENRY II.--Otto II. (973-983) was highly gifted intellectually, but lacked his father's energy and decision. Henry the Quarrelsome, duke of Bavaria, revolted, but was put down, and deprived of his duchy. Otto obliged Lothar, the West Frankish king, to give up his claim to Lotharingia, which he attempted to seize. Otto, in 980, went to Italy, and, in the effort to conquer Southern Italy from the Greeks and Saracens, barely escaped with his life. This was in 982. He never returned to Germany. While Otto III. (983-1002) was a child, his mother, Theophano, was regent for a time in Germany, and his grandmother, Adelheid, in Italy. One of Otto's tutors was Gerbert, an eminent scholar and theologian. The proficiency of the young prince caused him to be styled the "Wonder of the World." He was crowned emperor in Rome in 996, when he was only sixteen years old. He dreamed of making Rome once more the center of the world, for his interest was chiefly in Italy. But his schemes were ended by his early death. At this time and afterward, there was deep agitation manifested in Europe, owing to the general expectation that before long the world would come to an end. On this account pilgrims flocked to Rome. Henry II. (1002-1024), as nearest of kin to the Saxon house, was the next emperor. Besides waging war with his own insurgent lieges, he had to carry on a contest for fourteen years with Bokslav, king of Poland, who had to give up Bohemia and Meissen. He founded the bishopric of Bamberg (1007). From this time the German kings, before their coronation as emperors, took the title of King of the Romans. The highest nobles were styled "Princes." The nobles lived in the castles, which were built for strongholds, as the power of the lords grew, and private wars became more common.

II. THE FRANCONIAN OR SALIAN EMPERORS (1024-1125).

CONRAD II.: BURGUNDY: the POLES.--At a great assembly of dukes, counts, and prelates at Oppenheim on the Rhine, Conrad, a Franconian nobleman (Conrad II.), was elected emperor (1024-1039). He was in the prime of life, and went to work vigorously to repress disorder in his kingdom. He had the support of the cities, which were now increasing in importance. At his coronation in Rome, in 1027, there were two kings present, Canute of England and Denmark, and Rudolph III. of Burgundy (or Arles, as the kingdom was called which had been formed by Rudolph II., by uniting Burgundy with a great part of Provence). After the death of Rudolph, who had appointed Conrad his successor, the emperor was crowned king of Arles, which remained thus attached to Germany. But at a later time the Romance, or non-German portions, were absorbed by France. The Duchy of Burgundy, a fief of the French king, was not included in the kingdom. The Poles invaded Germany in great force. Miesko, their leader, was repelled, and obliged to do homage for his crown, and to give up Lusatia, which had been received by Boleslav from Henry II. In Italy, Conrad issued an edict making the smaller fiefs there hereditary. He seems to have designed to do away with dukes, and to make the allegiance of all vassals to the king immediate.

HENRY III.: THE TRUCE OF GOD.--With Henry III. (1039-1056) the imperial power reached its height. He was for a time duke of Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia, as well as emperor. In Hungary he conquered the enemies of Peter the king, and restored him to the throne, receiving his homage as vassal of the empire. He had great success in putting down private war. In 1043 he proclaimed a general peace in his kingdom. He favored the attempt to bring in the Truce of God. This originated in Aquitaine, where the bishops, in 1041, ordered that no private feuds should be prosecuted between the sunset of Wednesday and the sunrise of Monday, the period covered by the most sacred events in the life of Jesus. This "truce," which was afterwards extended to embrace certain other holy seasons and festivals, spread from land to land. It shows the influence of Christianity in those dark and troublous times. Although it was imperfectly carried out, it was most beneficent in its influence, and specially welcome to the classes not capable of defending themselves against violence.

SYNOD OF SUTRI.--In 1046 Henry was called into Italy by the well-disposed of all parties, to put an end to the reign of vice and disorder at Rome. He caused the three rival popes to be deposed by a synod at Sutri, and a German prelate, Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, to be appointed under the name of Clement II., by whom he was crowned emperor. After Clement died, Henry raised to the Papacy three German popes in succession. While in the full exercise of his great authority, and when he was not quite forty years of age, he died.

HENRY IV.: HIS CONTESTS IN GERMANY.--Henry IV. (1056-1106), at his father's death, was but six years old. He had been crowned king at the age of four. Agnes of Poitou, his mother, the regent, had no ability to curb the princes, who were now released from restraint, and eager for independence. By a bold stratagem, an ambitious prelate, Hanno, archbishop of Cologne, carried off the young king, and assumed the guardianship over him. He had a rival in the person of Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, whom Henry liked best, as being more indulgent and complaisant, and who at length became his chosen guide. But in 1066 the princes caused Adalbert to be banished from court. They obliged Henry to marry Bertha, the daughter of the margrave of Turin, to whom he had been betrothed by his father. The union was repugnant to him, and he sought a divorce; although her patience eventually won the victory, and she became a cherished wife. Henry, arrived at man's estate, was involved in a contest with three of the great dukes. It was evident that he meant to tread in the footsteps of his father, and to reduce the princes to submission. Hostility arose, especially between the young king and the Saxons, who did not relish the transfer of the imperial office to the Franconian line. The passionate and wilful disposition of Henry, and his sensual propensities, were his worst enemies. The strongholds which he erected among the Saxons, in themselves a menace, were made haunts of his boon companions and comrades in the chase. The extortion and depredations to which the Saxons were a prey provoked a great insurrection, which at first prevailed; but the excesses of the elated insurgents--as seen, for example, in the plundering and burning of churches--caused a reaction. Henry suppressed the revolt, and dealt with the Saxons with the utmost harshness, treating their dukedom as conquered territory. The Saxon chiefs were now in durance: his enemies on every side had willingly yielded, or were prostrate. The hour seemed to have come for Henry to exercise that sovereignty as Roman emperor over Church and State which his father had wielded; but he found himself confronted by a new and powerful antagonist in the celebrated Pope Hilde-brand, or Gregory VII. (1073-1085).

HILDEBRAND: INVESTITURES.--The state of affairs in the Roman Church had called into existence a party of reform, the life and soul of which was Hildebrand. He was the son of a carpenter of Soano, a small town in Tuscany, and was born in 1018. He was educated in a monastery in Rome, and spent some time in France, in the great monastery of Cluny. He became the influential adviser of the popes who immediately preceded him. The great aim of Hildebrand and of his supporters--one of the most prominent of whom was the zealous Peter Damiani, bishop of Ostia--was to abolish simony and the marriage of priests. By simony was meant the purchase and sale of benefices, which had come to prevail in the different countries. The old church laws requiring celibacy had been disregarded, and great numbers of the inferior clergy were living with their wives. In Hildebrand's view, there could be no purity and no just discipline in the Church without a strict enforcement of the neglected rule. The priests must put away their wives. Connected with these reforms was the broader design of wholly emancipating the Church from the control of the secular power, and of subordinating the State to the Church. For this end there must be an abolition of investiture by lay hands. This demand it was that kindled a prolonged and terrible controversy between the emperors and the popes. The great ecclesiastics had temporal estates and a temporal jurisdiction, which placed them in a feudal relation, and made them powerful subjects. It was the custom of the kings to invest them with these temporalities by giving to them the ring and the staff. This enabled the kings to keep out of the benefices persons not acceptable to them, who might be elected by the clergy. On the other hand, it was complained that this custom put the bishops and other high ecclesiastics into a relation of dependence on the lay authority; and, moreover, that, the ring and staff being badges of a spiritual function, it was sacrilegious for a layman to bestow them.

CONTEST OF HILDEBRAND AND HENRY IV.--In the period of lawlessness at Rome, Hildebrand had welcomed the intervention of Henry III., and even of Henry IV., at the beginning of his reign. But this he regarded as only a provisional remedy made necessary by a desperate disorder. On acceding to the Papacy, he began to put in force his leading ideas. The attempt to abolish the marriage of priests was resisted, and stirred up great commotion in all the countries. The legates of the Pope set themselves to stem the tide of opposition by inveighing, in addresses to the common people, against the married clergy, as unfit to minister at the altar. By this means, a popular party in favor of the reform was created. In 1075, in a synod at Rome, Hildebrand pronounced the ban against five councilors of Henry IV. for simony. At the same time he threatened Philip of France with a similar penalty. He forbade princes to invest with any spiritual office. To oaths of allegiance he did not object, but to any investiture of a spiritual kind. Gregory selected Henry IV. as the antagonist with whom to fight out the battle. Henry's ecclesiastical appointments were not simoniacal in fact, although they violated the papal decrees against simony. His real offense was his determination to make the appointments himself. Moreover, in 1075, he ventured to name Germans to the sees of Ferno and Spoleto. Unfortunately he was weakened by the disaffection of the German princes, and, most of all, of the Saxons. The fire of rebellion in Saxony had not been quenched: it was still smouldering. Gregory summoned Henry to Rome to answer to the charges made against him. In three German synods held in 1076, the incensed emperor caused empty accusations to be brought against the Pope, and a declaration to be passed deposing him. He sent to the pontiff a letter filled with denunciation, and addressed "to the false monk, Hildebrand." Gregory issued decrees excommunicating Henry, deposing him, and declaring his subjects free from their obligation of allegiance. It was the received doctrine, that a heretic or a heathen could not reign over Christian people. The discontented German princes took sides with Gregory. In an assembly at Tribur in 1076, they invited the Pope to come to Augsburg, and to judge in the case of Henry: he was to live as a private man; and, if he remained excommunicate for a year, he was to cease to be king altogether.

HUMILIATION OF HENRY IV.--Henry was now as anxious for reconciliation with the Pope as before he had been bold in his defiance. In the midst of winter, with his wife and child and a few attendants, he crossed the Mt. Cenis pass, undergoing extreme difficulty and hardship, and presented himself as a penitent before Gregory, who had arrived, on his way to Augsburg, at the strongly fortified castle of Canossa. The Pope kept him waiting long, it is said, barefoot and bareheaded in the court-yard of the castle. Finally he was admitted and absolved, but only on the condition that Gregory was to adjust the matters in dispute between the emperor and his subjects.

CONTINUED CONFLICT.--When Henry found that his imperial rights were still withheld, his fiery spirit rebounded from this depth of humiliation. The Lombards, with whom Gregory was unpopular, joined him. A majority of the German princes, adhering to the Pope, in 1077 elected Rudolph, duke of Swabia, emperor. The Pope took up his cause, and in 1080 once more excommunicated and deposed Henry. The emperor proclaimed anew, through synods, the Pope's deposition, and things were back in the former state. The emperor's party appointed a counter-pope, Guibert, archbishop of Ravenna, under the name of Clement III. Rudolph was killed in battle (1080). Henry's power now vastly increased. He invaded Italy (1081), and laid waste the territory of Matilda, countess of Tuscany, a fast friend of Gregory. In 1084 he captured Rome. The Pope had found a defender in Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke of Lower Italy, whom he had excommunicated, but whom (in 1080) he forgave, and took into his service. Robert released Gregory, who had been besieged in the Castle of St. Angelo. Hildebrand died at Salerno, May 25, 1085. When near his end he uttered the words which are inscribed on his tomb: "I have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore do I die in exile." Of the rectitude of his intentions, there is no room for doubt, whatever view is taken of the expediency of his measures. He united with an unbending will the power of accommodating himself to circumstances, as is witnessed in his treatment of Robert Guiscard, and in his forbearance towards William the Conqueror, king of England, with whom he did not wish to break.

Of this great pontiff, Sir James Stephen says: "He found the Papacy dependent on the empire: he sustained it by alliances almost commensurate with the Italian peninsula. He found the Papacy electoral by the Roman people and clergy: he left it electoral by a college of papal nomination. He found the emperor the virtual patron of the holy see: he wrested that power from his hands. He found the secular clergy the allies and dependants of the secular power: he converted them into the inalienable auxiliaries of his own. He found the higher ecclesiastics in servitude to the temporal sovereigns: he delivered them from that yoke to subjugate them to the Roman tiara. He found the patronage of the Church the mere desecrated spoil and merchandise of princes: he reduced it within the dominion of the supreme pontiff. He is celebrated as the reformer of the impure and profane abuses of his age: he is more justly entitled to the praise of having left the impress of his own gigantic character on the history of all the ages which have succeeded him."

LAST DAYS OF HENRY IV.--In 1085 Henry IV. returned to Germany, having been crowned emperor by his Pope, Clement III. The Saxons were tired of strife; and, on the assurance that their ancient privileges should be restored, they were pacified. Hermann of Luxemburg, whom they had recognized as their king, had resigned the crown (1088). The last days of Henry were clouded by the rebellion of his sons, first of Conrad (1093), and then of Henry (1104), who was supported by the Pope, Paschal II. The emperor was taken prisoner, and obliged to sign his own abdication at Ingelheim in 1105. The duke of Lotharingia and others came to his support, and a civil war was threatened; but Henry died at Lüttich in 1106. His body was placed in a stone coffin, where it lay in an unconsecrated chapel, at Spires, until the removal of the excommunication (1111).

CONCORDAT OF WORMS.--Henry V. (1106-1125) was not in the least disposed to yield up the right of investiture. Hence he was soon engaged in a controversy with Paschal II. Henry went to Rome with an army in 1110, and obliged the Pope to crown him emperor, and to concede to him the right in question. When he went back to Germany, the Pope revoked the concession, and excommunicated him. The German princes, as might be expected, sided with the pontiff. The conflict in Germany went on. The emperor's authority, which was established in the South by means of his powerful supporters, was not secured in the North; but, during the last three years of his life, he was at peace with the Church. By the Concordat of Worms in 1122, it was agreed that investiture should take place in the presence of the emperor or of his deputies; that the emperor should first invest with the scepter, and then consecration should take place by the Church, with the bestowal of the ring and the staff. All holders of secular benefices were to perform feudal obligations.

LOTHAR OF SAXONY.--The princes over whom Henry V. had exercised a severe control opposed the elevation of Frederick of Hohenstaufen, the son of his sister Agnes. At a brilliant assembly at Mentz, Lothar of Saxony was chosen emperor (1125-1137). He allowed all the Pope's claims, and was crowned at Rome by Innocent II., accepting the allodial possessions of Matilda of Tuscany, as a fief from the pontiff. He carried on a war with the Hohenstaufen princes, Frederick of Swabia, and his brother Conrad, who finally yielded. Lothar was helped in the conflict by Henry the Proud, the duke of Bavaria, who also became duke of Saxony. Germany under Lothar extended its influence in the north and east.

CULTURE IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.--The tenth century, owing to causes which have been explained, was a dark age. In the eleventh century circumstances were more favorable for culture. Under the Saxon emperors, intercourse was renewed with the Greek Empire. There was some intercourse with the Arabs in Spain, among whom several of the sciences were cultivated, especially mathematics, astronomy, and medicine (p. 232). The study of the Roman law was revived in the Lombard cities, and this had a disciplinary value. The restoration of order in the Church, after the synod of Sutri (1046), had likewise a wholesome influence in respect to culture. There were several schools of high repute in France, especially those at Rheims, Chartres, Tours, and in the monastery of Bec, in Normandy, where Lanfranc, an Italian by birth, a man of wisdom and piety, was the abbot.

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