History of the fall of the Roman Empire

Preface

The longest, the most universal, the most important of all the convulsions to which the human race has been exposed, is that which destroyed the whole fabric of ancient civilization, and prepared the elements out of wliich the structure of modern social life is composed.

It found men at the hig-hest point of perfection which they had as yet attained to, whether in the career of social organization and of legislation, or in those of philosophy, literature, or art; and hurled them down by reiterated shocks, each more terrific than the last, into the deepest night of barbarism. Its influence embraced aU that portion of the human race which had any consciousness of its present condition, any power of preserving the memory of its past existence; consequently, all that portion, whose thoughts have come down to us by means of written records. Dating its commencement from the reign of the Antonines, — the period at wliich the human race seemed to have reached its highest point of prosperity, — and tracing its progress, through each succeeding shock, to the almost total dissolution of all the old-established associations of men, and to the reconstruction of society from its very foundations, this revolution continued through at least eight centuries.

The Roman empire, which then extended over the whole of what was believed to be the habitable earth, was invaded, ravaged, depopulated, dismembered, by the various tribes of barbarians who rushed in upon all its borders. The conquering nations which had possessed themselves of its ruins, made repeated attempts to found monarchies upon its antique soil. All, after two or three generations, vanished; their imperfect and barbaric institutions were insufficient to the preservation of national life. Two great men arose — Mahommed in the East, Charlemagne in the West, — each of whom tried to put himself at the head of a new order of society. Each of them founded an empire, which, for a time, rivalled the ancient power of Rome. But the moment of reorganization was not yet come. The throne of the Khaliphs, the empire of the Carlovingians, soon crumbled into dust. The nations of the earth then seemed in a state of general dissolution; the various races of men were intermingled; a violent and short-lived power was seized by kings, dukes, emirs, who were not chiefs of the people, but accidental masters of a fraction of territory whose boundaries were marked by chance alone.

No man could feel that he was bound to any land, as a son to his mother; no man could feel himself the lawful subject of any government; society could no longer afford protection to its members, and could no longer claim their allegiance in return.

At length the moment arrived, in which the proprietors of land built themselves here and there strong holds, in which cities surrounded themselves with walls, in which all men armed for their own defence. Each individual was compelled to take a share of the government into liis own hands, and thus to begin society anew from its very elements.

IV PREFACE.

Such was the tremendous revolution which took place between the third and the tenth centuries of our era; and yet, from its very universality and duration, it is impossible to find one common name under which to designate it. If we would g-rasp one comprehensive idea of this gigantic catastrophe, we must, so to speak, collect its several incidents into one focus; we must reject all those circumstances which dissipate the attention; we must confine ourselves to the grand movements of each people and of each age; we must show the co-operation of the barbarian conquerors, who were themselves unconscious that they acted in concert; we must trace the moral histoiy of the world, regardless of the details of wars and of crimes; we must seek, in an enlightened appreciation of causes, that unity of design which it were impossible to find in a scene so full of rapid and varied movement. The earlier half of the middle ages appears to our eyes like a chaos; but this chaos conceals beneath its ruins most important subjects for reflection.

After having devoted many years to the study of the revival of European civilization, it appeared to me that a work presenting to the reader the prominent features of this grand overthrow of ancient culture, collected into one picture, would not be without its advantages. Fifteen years have elapsed since I attempted to trace the course of this terrible revolution in a series of lectures, pronounced before a small audience at Geneva. Encouraged by the interest they appeared to excite, I preserved this vast picture, under the idea that, at some future day, 1 might exhibit it in one of the capitals of the world of letters. Advancing years warn me no longer to reckon on the possibility of oval instruction. Having, moreover, already laid before the public a view of the history of the Italian republics, compressed into one of the small volumes of this series,* I thought that it might be useful to offer this also to a far more numerous class of readers than voluminous works can hope to obtain; and for this purpose to lay before them the results only of more extensive researches.

I then undertook to compress within the limits of this volume, the earlier portion of the histoiy of the Middle Ages: that is, the history of the fall of the Roman empire; of the invasions of the barbarians, and their establishment among its ruins. It is more than the history of the destruction of ancient civilization, or of the first attempts at the reconstruction of society, according to its modem forms; — it is the history of the sufferings of the human race, from the third century of the Christian era, to the close of the tenth.

In this volume, even more than in the one which preceded it, I have been compelled to pass rapidly over events, and to dwell only on results; to abstain from all critical discussion, from all reference to authorities.

I venture to indulge the hope, that among my readers, some will be found, who will examine the labours by which I prepared myself for the composition of this summary. They will see, more especially in the early volumes of the histoiy of the French, that facts and results, which may appear to be lightly asserted or hastily deduced here, have been collected and matured by a long course of conscientious research.

* Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia,

ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL

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