(G. G. C.)
2. Political History
The origin of the name of Europe has been dealt with above, and the difficulty of any exact definition of the geographical limits covered by this term has been pointed out. A similar difficulty meets us when we come to deal with European history. We know what we mean when we speak of European civilization, though in its origins, as in its modern developments, this was not confined to Europe. In one sense the history of Europe is the history of this civilization and of the forces by which it was produced, preserved and developed; for a separate history of Europe could never have been written but for the alien powers by which this civilization was for centuries confined within the geographical limits of the European continent. Moreover, within these geographical limits the tradition of the Roman empire, and above all the organization of the Catholic Church, gave to the European nations, and the states based upon them, a homogeneity which without them could not have survived. The name of Europe, indeed, remained until modern times no more than “a geographical expression”; its diplomatic use, in the sense of a group of states having common interests and duties, is, indeed, no older than the 19th century; in the middle ages its place was taken by the conceptions of the Church and the Empire, which, though theoretically universal, were practically European. Yet the history of the states system of Europe, though enormously influenced by outside forces, possesses from the first a character of its own, which enables it to be treated as a separate unit. This historical Europe, however, has never been exactly commensurate with Europe considered as a geographical division. Russia, though part of Europe geographically—even if we set the limits of Asia at the Don with certain old geographers—had but slight influence on European history until the time of Peter the Great. The Ottoman empire, though its influence on the affairs of Europe was from the first profound, was essentially an Asiatic power, and was not formally introduced into the European system until the treaty of Paris of 1856. It still remains outside European civilization.
Europe, then, as we now conceive the term in its application to the political system and the type of culture established in this part of the world, may, broadly speaking, be traced to four principal origins: (1) The Aegean civilization (Hellenic and pre-Hellenic); (2) the Roman empire; (3) Christianity; (4) the break-up of the Roman empire by the Teutonic invasions. All these forces helped in the development of Europe as we now know it. To the Aegean civilization, whether transformed by contact with Rome, and again transformed by the influence of Christianity and the religious genius of the middle ages—or rediscovered during the classical Renaissance—Europe owes the characteristic qualities of its thought and of its expression in literature and art. From republican Rome it largely draws its conceptions of law and of administrative order. From the Roman empire it inherited a tradition of political unity which survived, in visible form, though but as a shadowy symbol, until the last Holy Roman emperor abdicated in 1806; survived also, more fruitfully, in the rules of the Roman lawyers which developed into modern international law. Yet more does Europe owe to Christianity, an Asiatic religion, but modified by contact with Greek thought and powerfully organized on the lines of the Roman administrative system. The Roman Church remained a reality when the Roman empire had become little more than a name, and was throughout the period of chaos and transformation that followed the collapse of the Roman empire the most powerful instrument for giving to the heterogeneous races of Europe a common culture and a certain sense of common interests.
The history of Europe, then, might well begin with the origins of Greece and Rome, and trace the rise of the Roman empire and the successive influence upon it of Hellenism and Christianity. These subjects are, however, very fully dealt with elsewhere (seeAegean Civilization;Greece;Rome;Church History); and it will, therefore, be more convenient to begin this account with the Teutonic invasions and the break-up of the Roman empire, events which mark the definite beginning of the modern European states system.
In a sense the Roman empire had been already “barbarized” before the invasions of the barbariansen masse. Land left vacant by the dwindling of the population was colonized by immigrants, Teutonic and other, from beyond the frontiers; the Roman legions were largely recruited from Germans and other non-Romans, some of whom even rose to the imperial purple. Thus, in the end, the Roman emperor, with his guard and his household, ruling over an empire mercilessly exploited to fill his treasury, was essentially indistinguishable from those barbarian chiefs, with theirantrustionsand their primitive fiscal methods, who entered into portions of his inheritance and carried on the traditions of his rule.
The history of the Teutonic peoples prior to their organized invasions of the empire is dealt with elsewhere (seeTeutonic Peoples). It was in the 4th century that the pressure of their advance was first felt on the frontiers, and this led to a change in the government of the empire which was to have notable consequences. InA.D.330 Constantine had transferred the capital from Rome to Byzantium (Constantinople), but the empire, from the Forth to the Tigris, continued to be administered successfully from a single centre. Not, however, for long: the increasing perils from without made a closer supervision essential, and after the death of Theodosius I. (395) the empire was dividedbetween emperors of the East and West. It was the beginning not only of the break-up of the empire, but of that increasing divergence between the eastern and western types of European religion and culture which has continued to this day.
The pressure of the Teutonic invasions became increasingly strong during the reigns of the emperor Valens and his successors. These invasions were of two types, (1) migrations of whole peoples with their old German patriarchal organization complete, (2) bands, larger or smaller, of emigrants in search of land to settle on, without tribal cohesion, but organized under the leadership of military chiefs. The earlier invaders, Goths and Vandals, and later the Burgundians and Lombards were of the first type; to the second belonged the Franks, “free” men from the Saxon plain, and the Saxon invaders of Britain. The distinction was a vital one; for the Goths, Vandals, Burgundians and Lombards never took root in the soil, and succumbed in turn, while the Frankish and Saxon immigrants, each man lord in his own estate, not only maintained themselves, but set up at the cost of the Roman organization and of the power of their own kings a wholly new polity, based on the independence of the territorial unit, which later on was to develop into feudalism.
It was owing to the pressure of Turanian invaders from the East that the Teutonic peoples were first forced to take refuge within the empire. In 378 the Goths defeated and slew the emperor Valens in a battle near Adrianople;The Teutonic Invasions.in 410 Alaric, king of the West Goths, sacked Rome; and shortly after his death the Goths passed into Gaul and Spain. In 429 Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, at the invitation, it is said, of the governor Bonifacius, passed over from Spain to Roman Africa, which became the centre of another Teutonic kingdom, soon established as a great naval power which for a while commanded the Mediterranean and devastated the coasts of Italy and Sicily with its piracies.
Meanwhile the Franks and Burgundians were pressing into Germany and Gaul, while from 449 onwards the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes invaded and occupied Britain. For a moment it was doubtful if the Aryan or Turanian races would be supreme, but in 451 Attila, king of the Huns, was decisively beaten in the battle of Châlons by a combination of Franks, Goths and Romans, under the Roman general Aetius and Theodosius, king of the Goths. This battle decided that Europe was to be Christian and independent of Asia and Africa. In 476 the succession of Western emperors came to an end with Odoacer’s occupation of Rome, and with the decision of the Roman senate that one emperor was enough, and that the Eastern emperor, Zeno, should rule the whole empire. For a time Theodoric, king of the East Goths, ruled Italy, Gaul and Spain; but after his death in 526 the empire of the East Goths was shattered, and changes took place which led to the rise of independent Teutonic kingdoms in Gaul and Spain. In Gaul Clovis (d. 511), the king of the Franks, had already established his power, and in Spain, the West Gothic kingdom, with its capital at Toledo, now asserted its Teutonic independence. Under the emperor Justinian (527-565), indeed, the Roman empire seemed in a fair way to recover its supremacy; the Vandal kingdom in Africa was destroyed; in 555 the Byzantine general Narses finally shattered the power of the East Goths in Italy, and the exarchate of Ravenna was established in dependence on the Eastern emperor; the West Goths were forced to give up the south of Spain; and the Persians were checked. But with the death of Justinian troubles began. In 568 the Lombards, under Alboin, appeared in Italy, which they overran as far south as the Tiber, establishing their kingdom on the ruins of the exarchate. Though in Asia the emperor Heraclius, in a series of victorious campaigns, broke the Persian power and succeeded even in extending the Roman dominion, Italy, save for a while Ravenna itself and a few scattered sea-coast towns, was thenceforth lost to the empire of which in theory it still formed a part.
This catastrophe produced one result the importance of which it is impossible to exaggerate; the development of the political power of the papacy. At the beginning of the 6th century Rome, under Theodoric the Goth, was still the city of the Caesars; the tradition of its ancient life was yet unbroken; at the end of the century Rome, under Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), had become the city of the popes. And with the city the popes entered into some of the inheritance of the Caesars; in the world-wide activity of Gregory we already have a foreshadowing of universal claims, often effectively asserted, which made the great medieval popes, in a truer sense than the medieval emperors, the representatives of the idea of Roman imperial unity (seeRome, sec. ii.Middle Ages;Papacy).
The next event that profoundly affected the history of Europe was the rise of Mahommedanism. InA.D.622, sixteen years after Gregory’s death, occurred the flight (Hijra) of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, which fixed theThe Hegira,A.D.622. Rise of Mahommedanism.memorable era of the Hegira. The full force of the militant religion founded by the Arab prophet was not felt till after his death (632). The emperor Heraclius, the vigour of his manhood passed, was unable to meet this new peril; the Arabs, strong in their hardy simplicity, and new-born religious fanaticism, and aided by the treason and cowardice of the decadent Roman governing classes, overran Asia Minor, conquered Egypt and the whole of northern Africa, overwhelmed the Gothic kingdom in Spain, and even penetrated beyond the Pyrenees to the conquest of the province of Narbonne. One of the chief effects of these Arab conquests was that Christian civilization became gradually confined to Europe, another was that the trade routes to the East were closed to the Western nations. The conquest of Narbonne marked the limit of the advance of Islam in western Europe, for in 732 the Arabs were overthrown by Charles Martel in the battle of Tours, and a few years later were driven out of Gaul. In Spain, however, they succeeded in maintaining themselves throughout the middle ages; developing a high type of civilization which had a considerable influence on the intellectual life of medieval Europe; and it was not till 1494 that Granada, their last possession in the peninsula, was conquered by the Christian monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella.
The battle of Tours emphasized and increased the power and reputation of Charles Martel. As a mayor of the palace to the decadent Merovingian successors of Clovis, he was virtually ruler of the Franks, and, after his death,The Carolingians.the last of therois fainéantsof the house of Merovech was deposed, and Pippin, Charles’s son, was elected king of the Franks. The prestige of the Carolingian house (to give it the name it was later known by) was increased when, at the urgent entreaty of Pope Stephen III., Pippin marched into Italy and saved Rome from the Lombards, who were endeavouring to extend their power southwards. Pippin’s son Charles (Charlemagne) finally conquered the Lombards in 774 and thus added part of northern Italy to his dominions.
In 797 an event of the highest importance to the European world took place. The emperor Constantine VI. was deposed by his mother Irene, who seized the throne. Thereupon Pope Leo and the Roman people definitely threwThe coronation of Charles the Great as emperor. 800.off the authority of the emperors of Constantinople, on the ground that a woman could not hold the position of Caesar. In 800 Leo crowned Charlemagne emperor at Rome, and henceforth till 1453, when Constantinople was conquered by the Turks, there was an Eastern and a Western empire. Till his death in 814 Charlemagne was king of the Franks as well as emperor. His kingdom embraced not only all German and modern France, but included a large part of Italy and Spain as far as the Ebro. Under his rule western Europe was united in a powerful empire, in the organization of which the principles of Roman and Teutonic administration were blended; and, after his death, he left to his successors, the Frankish and German kings, the tradition of a centralized government which survived the chaos of the period that followed, and the prescriptive right to the title and prestige of Roman emperors—a tradition and a claim that were to exercise a notable effect on the development of European history for centuries to come. (SeeFrance:HistoryandCharlemagne.)
The period from the death of Charlemagne (814) to the 12th century is characterized in western Europe by the general weakening of the idea of central government and by the rise of feudalism. During the same period theEurope after the death of Charlemagne.East Roman or Byzantine empire escaped disruption and, preserving the traditions of Roman civil and military administration, formed an effective barrier for Europe and Christendom against the advancing tide of Islam. At the same time, however, the growing divergence between the Eastern and Western Churches, which had been accentuated by the iconoclastic controversy (seeIconoclasts), and was destined in 1053 to culminate in a definite schism, was gradually widening the breach between the two types of European civilization, which came into violent conflict at the beginning of the 13th century, when crusaders from western Europe captured Constantinople and set up a Latin empire in the East (seeRoman Empire, Later;Church History;Crusades). In western Europe, meanwhile, the unity of the empire did not long survive Charlemagne. Its definite break-up dates from the treaty of Verdun (843), by which Charles the Bald received Neustria, Aquitaine and western Burgundy, Louis the German Bavaria, Swabia, Saxony and Thuringia, and the emperor Lothair the middle kingdom known by his name, theregnum Lothariior Lotharingia (seeLorraine). By the partition of Mersen (870) Lotharingia itself was divided between the West and East Frankish realms—France and Germany, terms which from this time begin to represent true national divisions. With the treaties of Verdun and Mersen the history of the European state system may be said to begin.
At first, indeed, it seemed as though the nascent states were about to be dissolved by disruption from within and attacks from without. All alike were subject to the attacks of the Norse sea-rovers, hardy pirates who not onlyRise of feudalism.scourged all the coasts of Europe but penetrated, burning and harrying, far inland up the great waterways. Meanwhile, the weakening of central government due to dynasticstruggles had led to the growth of independent or semi-independent powers within the states themselves. The Frank landowners had successfully asserted their independence of the jurisdiction of the king (or emperor) and his officials; the imperial officials themselves, dukes or counts, had received grants of lands with similar immunities (beneficia), and these had become hereditary. Thus sprang up a class of great territorial nobles to whom, amid the growing anarchy, men looked for protection rather than to the weak and remote central power; and so, out of the chaos that followed the break-up of the empire of Charlemagne, was born the feudal system of the middle ages (seeFeudalism). This organization was admirable for defence; and with its aid, before the close of the first decade of the 10th century, the frontiers of France and Germany had been made safe against the northern barbarians, who had either been driven off and barriers erected against their return—e.g.the marks established by Henry the Fowler along the middle Elbe—or, as in the case of the Normans, absorbed into a system well adapted for such a process. By the treaty of St Claire-sur-Epte (911) between Charles the Simple and Rollo, chief of the Norsemen, the Normans were established in the country since known as Normandy (q.v.), as feudatories of the French crown. In England, by the treaty of Wedmore (878) between Alfred and the Danish king Guthrum, the Danes had already been established in a large part of England.
Feudalism, by the time the Northmen had been subdued by its aid, was quite firmly established in the western part of Europe. During the 11th century it was carried by the Normans into England, into Sicily and southern Italy, and by theRoyalty and feudalism.nobles of the first crusade into the newly established kingdom of Jerusalem (1099). By the kings of France, England and Germany, however, who saw themselves in danger of being stripped of all but the semblance of power by its delegation to their more or less nominal vassals, the feudal organization was early recognized as impossible as a form of state government, if the state was to be preserved; and the history of the three great European powers during the succeeding centuries is mainly that of the struggle of the sovereigns against the disruptive ambitions of the great feudal nobles. In England the problem was, from the outset, simplified; for though William the Conqueror introduced the system of feudal land tenure into England in 1066 he refused to set it up as his system of government, retaining alongside of it the old English national policy. In France, on the other hand, feudalism as a system of government had become firmly established; and it was not till the days of Philip Augustus (1180-1223) and Louis IX. (1226-1270) that the monarchy began to get the upper hand. From this time until the 17th century the power of the French monarchy, in spite of occasional lapses, grew steadily stronger. The reverse was the case with the German kingship. Its association with the undefined claims involved in the title of Roman emperor, traditionally attached to it, and notably those to authority in Italy, necessitated concession after concession to the feudal nobles, in order to purchase their support for their assertion. The kingship, moreover, became elective; the imperial title was obtainable only at Rome at the hands of the pope; and the German kings thus became entangled in contests, not only with their own vassals, but with the tremendous spiritual force of the medieval papacy by which, for its own ends, the spirit of feudal insubordination was from time to time fomented. Thus in Germany the feudal nobles gradually acquired a sovereign status which, in some cases, has survived the territorial rearrangements of the 19th century and left its mark on the federal constitution of modern Germany; while the kingship and the imperial title grew more and more shadowy till in 1806 it vanished altogether. (SeeEnglish History;France:History,Germany:History.)
In France the process by which a strong hereditary monarchy was established was a slow one. During the greater part of the 10th century the Carolingians, stripped of the vast domains which had been the basis of the power ofThe rise of the house of Capet.Pippin, owed their continued existence to the forbearance of Hugh the Great, count of Paris. In 987, however, the last Carolingian king died, and Hugh Capet, son of Hugh the Great, the most powerful of the territorial magnates, was chosen king of France. With his election dates the real beginning of the French monarchy, and under him and his successors Paris became the capital of France. Hugh’s election, however, was the work of the great feudatories, and France remained divided among a number of great fiefs, of which the chief were Brittany, Anjou, Flanders, Vermandois, Champagne, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Poitou, Gascony, Toulouse and Normandy.
While the central power in France advanced slowly but steadily, the development of the royal authority in Germany was in the 10th and 11th centuries more rapid. In 911 the German magnates had elected Conrad theThe royal power in Germany.Franconian to reign over them, and in 919 Henry “the Fowler” of Saxony, “whose reign forms one of the great turning-points in the history of the German nation.” He defeated the Hungarians, the Slavs and the Danes, and by encouraging the growth and development of towns he contributed greatly to the formation of the German kingdom. His immediate successors, Otto the Great and Otto II., continued his work, which was only interrupted for a short time during the reign of the idealist Otto III., whose “cosmopolitan imperialism” brought him into collision with the German Church and to some extent with the German nobles. Henry II. (1002-1025) asserted with success his authority over Germany, and his successor Conrad II., who belonged to the Salian or Franconian line, did much to secure unity and prosperity to the Empire. His son and successor Henry III. (1039-1056) governed Germany wisely, and his reign witnessed the culminating point of the Holy Roman Empire. At the time of his death it seemed probable that Germany, like England and France, would gradually escape from the thraldom of the great feudatories. The future of the German monarchy depended upon the ability of future kings to suppress the forces of feudal disintegration in Germany, and to withstand the temptation of struggling to establish their influence over Italy. Unfortunately for German kingship Henry IV. (1056-1106) was only six years old on his accession, and when he became a man he found that the papacy under Hildebrand’s influence was practically independent of the emperor. Had Henry confined his efforts to coercing the German barons he might, like the Normans and Angevins in England, and like the Capetians in France, have proved successful. Unfortunately for Germany Henry entered upon the famous contest with the papacy under Gregory VII. (1073-1080), which ended in the 13th century in the defeat of the Empire in the person of Frederick II. The struggle began in 1073 over the question of investiture (q.v.), and widened into a duel between the spiritual and temporal powers. During the early years of the contest the influence of the papacy reached a high pitch and made itself felt in the crusading movement, which received its first impetus from Pope Urban II., who appealed to Europe at the council of Clermont in 1095 to recover the Holy Places from the Turks.
During the 11th century the Eastern Empire was attacked by the Russians, the Normans and the Seljuks. The emperor Alexius Comnenus found himself on his accession in 1081 threatened by the Seljuks (the victors in the decisiveThe eastern Empire and the Crusades.battle of Manzikert in 1071) and by the Sicilian Normans who in 1081 besieged Durazzo. In 1083 he defeated the Normans in the battle of Durazzo, and with the death of Robert Guiscard in 1085 all danger from a fresh Norman invasion passed away. But the first crusade brought new anxieties to Alexius, for he feared that the crusaders might attack Constantinople. That fear removed, he took advantage of the increased connexion between eastern and western Europe by bestowing commercial privileges upon the Italian trading republics, who thus gained access to the ports of the Empire on easy terms.
With the era of the Crusades, which lasted till the middle of the 13th century, Europe entered upon a period of change, the importance of which is realized by contrasting the condition of western Christendom in the 11th with its condition in the 13th century. Between the opening and close of the crusadingThe Crusades and the Hildebrandine reformation.movement Europe underwent a complete revolution. While theCrusades tended to enhance the prestige and authority of the papacy and the power of European monarchs, they also led to increased knowledge of the East, to the rapid development of commerce, to the introduction of new industries, to the rapid decline of the influence of the feudal nobility, and to the rapid development of town life (seeCommune). At the same time the Hildebrandine reformation was having an immense influence upon the intellectual condition of Europe. The 12th century saw the establishment of many new monastic orders (seeMonasticism), and at the same time a remarkable speculative and literary revival (seeScholasticism). This movement owed not a little of its success to the influence of the Crusades, which stirred up intellectual as well as commercial activity. This intellectual activity, as well as the fruits of commercial expansion, were—since learning was still a monopoly of the clerical order—weapons in the hands of the papacy, which in the 12th century attained the height of its power, if not of its pretensions. It is, indeed, impossible to exaggerate the influence of the Roman Church upon the development of Europe at this period. The popes, in fact, represented Europe in a sense that could not be predicated of the emperors; the terror of their spiritual power, their vast wealth derived from the tribute of all the West, their unique experience of international affairs, and—in the case of the great popes of this epoch—the superiority of their minds and characters, made them not only the spiritual rulers of Europe, but the effective centres of whatever political unity it possessed. As a Byzantine observer was to observe of Innocent III., they had become the successors of the Caesars rather than of Peter (seePapacy).
Nowhere were the beneficial effects of the Crusades seen more clearly than in France. The smaller fiefs were steadily absorbed by the greater lordships, which in their turn fell victims to the royal power. It might almost be saidGrowth of the royal power in France.that “modern France is a creation of the Crusades.” The effects of the crusading movement were felt in France as early as the reign of Louis VI. (1108-1137). Aided by his able minister Suger, Louis managed before his death to add to the possessions of his house the Île de France and a prospective claim to Poitou and Aquitaine. Under his successor Louis VII. (1137-1180) the consolidation movement was checked owing to the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine (after her divorce from Louis VII.) to Henry II of England. By the addition of his wife’s lands (Gascony and Guienne) to those which he had already inherited from his father and mother (Normandy, Anjou, Touraine and Maine) Henry was enabled to form the powerful though short-lived Angevin empire. But the lost ground was rapidly recovered by Philip Augustus (1180-1223), who took advantage of the weakness and folly of John of England, and before 1215 had united firmly to France Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Touraine. Louis VIII. and Louis IX. adhered firmly to the policy of Philip IV., and in 1258, by the treaty of Paris, Henry III. of England recognized the loss of Poitou. There thus remained to England out of the vast continental domains of Henry II. only Gascony and Guienne.
The rest of Europe was also in various degrees affected by the Crusades. While Spain was occupied in a crusade of her own against the Moors and gradually driving them into Granada, Germany, Italy, and to some extent England,General results of the Crusades.were interested in, and influenced by, the Crusades against the Turks. During the absence of many of the nobles in the East the growth of towns and the development of the mercantile class proceeded without interruption. The trading classes demanded strong governments and equal justice, and vigorously supported the monarchs in their suppression of feudalism.
During the 12th and 13th centuries the Crusades thus proved a large factor in the commercial prosperity of the Italian maritime states, an “open door” between East and West was secured, and reinforcements from Europe were poured into Syria as long as the peoples of the West regarded the stability of the Latin kingdom of Syria as a matter of prime importance. During the crusading period a check was placed to the tide of Mahommedan conquest, while to the caliphate the Crusades proved a perpetual drain upon its material resources. To the Mahommedans the possession of the Holy Places by the Christians was as great a humiliation as their desecration by the Mahommedans was to the crusaders. Unfortunately the Crusades led to a disastrous schism between the Byzantine empire and western Christendom, which had calamitous results. The decay of the crusading spirit was a necessary result of the growth of the consolidation of the European nations, but the price paid was the fall of Constantinople and the establishment of the Turks in eastern Europe. The Crusades thus not only postponed the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks for some two hundred years, but led, as had already been said, to a vast expansion of commerce, as seen in the rapid growth and development of the Italian cities, and to a striking development of town life.
The Crusades had enormously strengthened the power and prestige of the papacy, and indirectly contributed to its victory over the Empire in the person of Frederick II. From the reign of the emperor Henry IV. to the death ofThe struggle between the Empire and the papacy.Frederick II. in 1250 the struggle between the Empire and the papacy continued, and is coincident in point of time with the Crusades. The reign of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190) saw that struggle at its height, and during that reign it became apparent that the emperor’s efforts to unite Italy and Germany under one crown were doomed to failure. The rise and success of the alliance of Italian republics known as the Lombard League no doubt contributed to the success of the papacy, but in their contest with the popes the emperors never had any chance of gaining a permanent victory. Frederick II continued with great energy to attempt the hopeless task of dominating the papacy, but his possession of Sicily only made the popes more determined than ever to establish their predominance in Italy. Frederick’s death in 1250 marked not only the triumph of the papacy in Italy, but also that of feudalism in Germany. He has been called the “most dazzling of the long line of imperial failures,” and with him ends the Empire as it was originally conceived. Henceforward the Holy Roman Empire, which implied the unity of Italy and Germany, and the close alliance of pope and emperor, no longer exists save in name, and its place is taken by a glorified German kingship presiding over a confederation of turbulent German nobles.
Thus with the later years of the 13th century Europe had arrived at the definite close of one epoch and the beginning of another. The period of the Crusades was over, theEurope in the 14th and 15th centuries.theory of the Holy Roman Empire had broken down. The period from the beginning of the 14th to the close of the 15th century might well be styled the latter days of medieval Europe.
During the 14th and 15th centuries the idea of regarding Europe as one state in which emperor and pope presided over a number of subordinate kings gave way before the spirit of nationalism and particularism. England, France and Spain were rapidly becoming strong centralized monarchies which stood in striking contrast to the weakened Empire. Partly no doubt owing to the failure of the Empire and papacy to work together, a great impetus had been given to the formation of national monarchies. While Frederick II. had failed, Louis IX. and Philip IV. of France, Ferdinand III. of Castile (1217-1252), James the Conqueror, king of Aragon (1213-1276) and Edward I. of England (1239-1307) succeeded in laying the foundations of strong monarchies which after two centuries of struggles with the dying efforts of feudalism were established on a firm basis. In spite of the intellectual activity and political developments which characterized the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries it remains true that the later middle ages were marked by the decay of those remarkable social and political forces which had been such striking characteristics of the earlier period (seeMiddle Ages).
Thus the 14th and 15th centuries have characteristics which differentiate them from all preceding and succeeding centuries,The triumph of the papacy over the Empire had been short-lived. Owing to the disturbed state of Italy, Clement V. was in 1305 compelled to take refuge at Avignon, and till 1377—aSummary of the characteristics of the 14th and 15th centuries.period known as the Babylonish captivity—the popes remained in France. While the Empire and papacy steadily decline, while the Byzantine empire falls before the Turks, strong monarchies are gradually formed in England, France, Spain, and Portugal, and in Italy the Renaissance movement covers the later years of the 15th century with glory (seeRenaissance). During these centuries there is common to Europe no one principle which is to be found in all kingdoms. But while the old system, founded on belief in the unity of Europe under the Empire and papacy, declines amid chaos and turbulence, there is much intellectual and political activity which portends the appearance of an entirely new state of things. The 14th and 15th centuries may truly be styled a period of transition.
From the death of Conrad IV., the son of Frederick II., in 1254 to 1273, when Rudolph of Habsburg became king, chaos reigned in Germany, and the period is known as the Great Interregnum. The forces of decentralizationThe decline of the Empire, 1254-1519.strengthened themselves, and the emperors found that the formation of a strong and united German kingdom was an impossibility. Rudolph of Habsburg (1273-1291), realizing what were the limits of his power in Germany and the futility of attempting to establish his hold upon Italy, began that policy of family aggrandizement which was continued so notably by successive members of his house. His reign witnessed the firm establishment of the house of Anjou in Naples, and, after the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, the supremacy of the house of Aragon in Sicily. Refusing to follow the example of Frederick II. and to take part in distant expeditions, Rudolph conquered Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, Vienna became the capital of the Habsburg dominions in Germany, and his son Albert of Austria, who was king from 1298 to 1308, was careful to continue the policy of his father. Though no Habsburg was again elected to the imperial throne till 1438, when the long succession of emperors began which continued unbroken till 1742, the establishment of the Habsburgs in Austria by Rudolph proved an event of European importance. From that time the leading members of the Habsburg family never lost an opportunity of aggrandizement. In 1335 they received Carinthia, in 1363 the Tirol. While, however, the Habsburgs, the Wittelsbachs and later the house of Brandenburg were strengthening themselves, the Empire was steadily declining in power and influence. The 14th century saw Switzerland shake itself free from the Austrian house and establish its independence, which was, however, not formally acknowledged till the treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
During the 14th century the weakness of the Empire became more and more accentuated under the weak rule of Louis IV. On his death in 1346 his successor Charles of Luxemburg, known as the emperor Charles IV., made a celebrated attempt to form a strong centralized German monarchy. With that object he issued in 1356 the Golden Bull, by which it was hoped that all matters connected with the imperial election would be settled. The number of imperial electors was settled, and henceforth they were to consist of the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier, and of the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg and the count palatine of the Rhine. Charles hoped to concentrate gradually in his house all the chief German provinces, and having by the Golden Bull endeavoured to check the growth of the towns, he expected to establish firmly the imperial influence in Germany. But the towns were too strong to be coerced, and during his reign the Swabian cities formed a union; and though the marriage of his son Sigismund to the heiress of the king of Hungary and Poland, and the possession of Brandenburg, which fell to him in 1373, seemed steps towards the realization of his hopes, his death in 1378 left his work unfinished. Moreover, his son and successor Wenceslaus (1378-1400) proved, like Richard II. of England and Charles VI. of France, unequal to the task of checking the growing independence of the nobles and the cities. The Hanseatic League (q.v.) was at the height of its power, and in 1381 the Rhenish towns formed a confederation. Wenceslaus, like Richard II., had fallen upon evil times. The advance westwards by the Turks occupied the attention of his brother Sigismund, now king of Hungary; he was himself unpopular in Bohemia, and at the same time was exposed to the intrigues of his cousin Jobst of Moravia, who had secured Brandenburg. In 1400 Wenceslaus was formally deposed by the electors, and spent the rest of his life in Bohemia, where he died in 1419. His successor Rupert of the palatinate reigned from 1400 to 1410, and during his reign the council of Pisa endeavoured to bring to an end the great schism which had followed upon the return of Pope Urban VI. from Avignon to Rome in 1377. Two popes had been elected, one living at Rome, the other at Avignon, and Christian Europe was scandalized at the sight of two rival pontiffs. On Rupert’s death the electors chose Sigismund the brother of Wenceslaus, and he ruled as emperor from 1411 to 1437.
Thus at the beginning of the 15th century the papacy was seen to have fallen from the high position which it occupied at the time of the death of Frederick II. The AvignonDecline of the papacy.captivity followed by the great schism weakened its temporal as well as its spiritual power and prestige, while national developments and dynastic ambitions, such as led to the Hundred Years’ War, diverted men’s minds from religious to purely temporal concerns. The work of Wycliffe and Hus illustrated not only the decline of papal prestige but also the general opinion that reform in the papacy was necessary. Sigismund’s reign as emperor was renderedSigismund, emperor, 1411-1437.noteworthy by the part which he took in the council of Constance (q.v.), and by his successful efforts to suppress the Hussite movement in Bohemia (seeHussites). That country on the death of Wenceslaus in 1419 fell to Sigismund, but it was not till 1431, after a long and sanguinary war, that the opposition to the union of Bohemia with the Empire was suppressed. Led by Žižka and other able chiefs, the Bohemians who were Slavs utilized the Hussite movement in a vigorous attempt to secure their independence. In 1436 Sigismund was formally acknowledged king of Bohemia. In 1431, the year of the final overthrow of the Bohemians and the Hussites, he opened the council of Basel (q.v.), being resolved to establish a religious peace in Europe and to prevent the Hussite doctrines from spreading into Germany. In 1438 Sigismund died, leaving Germany involved in a quarrel with the papacy, but having successfully withstood the efforts of the Bohemians to acquire independence. Sigismund’s death marks an epoch in the history of the Empire, for his successor Albert of Austria proved to be the first of a long line of Habsburg emperors. Albert himself reigned only from 1438 to 1440, but on his death the imperial dignity was conferred upon another member of the Habsburg house, Frederick, duke of Styria and Carinthia, known as the emperor Frederick III. With his accession the imperial throne became practically hereditary in the Habsburg family. Frederick’s long reign, which lasted from 1440 to 1493, was of little benefit to Germany; for he showed no administrative skill and proved a weak and incapable ruler. Undoubtedly his lot fell upon evil days, for not only were the Turks at the height of their power, but both Bohemia andThe taking of Constantinople by the Turks.Hungary gave him much anxiety. The imminent fall of Constantinople, the last barrier of Christendom against Islam in the East, was a threat not only to the Empire, but to all Christian Europe. But western Europe was too much occupied with internecine feuds to unite effectively against the common enemy. In vain the emperor John VI. had gone in person to solicit aid at the various courts of the West; in vain he had humbled himself to pay the price asked, by subscribing to the abnegation of the distinctive tenets of the Orthodox Church, which secured the ephemeral reunion of Christendom at the council of Florence (1438). The crusading spirit was dead; the European powers stirred no finger to save the imperial city; and in 1453 Sultan Mahommed II. rode through the breach over the body of the last of the EasternCaesars, and planted the crescent on the dome of the metropolitan church, of Eastern Christendom (seeTurkey, andRoman Empire, Later).
The fall of Constantinople marked the definite establishment on European soil of a power alien and hostile to all that was characteristic of European civilization. It was a power, moreover, which could live only by expanding; and for over two hundred years to come the dread of Ottoman aggression was a dominant factor in the politics of eastern Europe. The tide of Turkish advance could have been arrested by a union of Europe; but the appeals of Pope Nicholas V. fell unheeded upon a sceptical age, intent only on its dynastic and particularist ambitions. To the emperor the ousting of the Ottomans from the Balkan peninsula seemed of less importance than the consolidation of the Habsburg power in Germany, and its extension over the neighbouring kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. France was exhausted by the long agony of the Hundred Years’ War, which came to an end the very year of the fall of Constantinople, and the French kings—especially Louis XI. (1461-1483)—were busy for the rest of the century crushing out the remnants of feudalism and consolidating the power of the monarchy. As for Italy, with its petty tyrants and itscondottieri, there was no hope of uniting it for any purpose whatever, least of all a religious purpose, and Spain was busy with her own crusades against the Moors. The exploits of John Hunyadi, king of Hungary, against the Turks, therefore, remained isolated and unsupported. In 1456 he checked their advance northwards by a brilliant victory which led to the relief of Belgrade; but he died the same year, and his death was followed by a struggle for the succession between Hungarians and Bohemians. The racial and religious quarrels of the Balkan peoples had made it possible for the Turks to obtain a foothold in Europe; the jealousies and internecine struggles of the Christian states made possible the vast expansion of the Ottoman power, which in the 17th century was to advance the frontiers of Islam to those of Germany and to reduce the emperors, in their relations with the Porte, to the status of tributary princes.
The victory of Ladislaus, son of Casimir, king of Poland, who succeeded in uniting in his own person the crowns of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, threatened to result in the permanent independence of those countries of the house of Habsburg. But in 1490 Ladislaus was compelled by Maximilian, son of Frederick III., to sign the treaty of Pressburg, providing for the eventual succession of the Habsburgs to Hungary and Bohemia.
In other ways the reign of Frederick III. laid the foundations of the greatness of his family. In 1477 Maximilian married Mary, duchess of Burgundy and heiress of Charles the Bold, and through her the Habsburgs obtained FrancheConsolidation of the Habsburg power.Comté and the Netherlands. The line,Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube, well described the method by which the house of Habsburg increased its possessions and established its fortunes. A.E.I.O.U. (Austriae est imperare orbi universo), was the device invented for his house at that time by Frederick III. and it proved no idle boast. Maximilian I, the son of Frederick III., reigned from 1493 to 1519, and during his reign Europe passed from medieval to modern times. Some reforms in the Empire were carried out, but the events of his reign made it apparent that it was impossible to set up a centralized monarchy in Germany (seeMaximilian I.;GermanyandAustria:History).
Far different developments were taking place during the 14th and 15th centuries in France, Spain, the Scandinavian north and in England. During the greater part of the 14th century France was engaged in foreign wars andFrance in the 13th and 14th centuries.in internal complications, and it seemed doubtful if a strong centralized monarchy would be firmly established. The failure of Philip VI. (1328-1350) and John (1350-1364) in their contest with England weakened the central power in France, and, though Charles V. (1364-1389), owing to his own sagacity and the weakness of the English government, managed to regain for France many of her lost provinces, the French power both at home and abroad again declined under the rule of the incapable Charles VII. (1380-1422). In fact the year 1422 may be said to mark the lowest stage in the history of the French monarchy. From that year an improvement gradually set in. A national sentiment, as exemplified in the career of Joan of Arc (q.v.), was developed; an alliance, essential for the successful expulsion of the English from France, was made in 1435 between the king of France and the duke of Burgundy; and in 1439 the famous ordinance empowering the king to maintain a standing army and to raise money for its maintenance was passed at Orleans by the states-general. These measures proved successful; in 1453 the Hundred Years’ War came to an end, and Louis XI. managed between 1461 and 1483 to establish an absolutism in France on sure foundations. Under his successor Charles VIII. (1483-1498), Brittany was annexed, and France, secure from all danger of a feudal reaction, entered with the invasion of Italy in 1494 by Charles VIII. upon modern times. A similar process is observable in England and Spain. In England the Wars of the Roses were followed by the establishment of a strong monarchy under Henry VII., while in Spain Ferdinand and Isabella established in place of anarchy the royal authority, and during their reign suppressed all attempts at provincial independence. In 1491 the consolidation of Spain was completed by the conquest of Granada. In 1397, by the union of Calmar, the three kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark were united under Eric XIII. This union was, however, short-lived, and in the early years of the 16th century came definitely to an end (seeNorway;Sweden;Denmark).
The close of the middle ages and the beginning of modern times was marked by several noteworthy events. The invention of printing, the discovery of America and the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. all occurred before the endThe close of the middle ages.of the 15th century, while in the early years of the 16th century the ideal of civil and ecclesiastical unity was finally shattered by the Reformation and by the development of the modern states system, accompanied by the prominence henceforward attached to the question of the balance of power.
During the whole of the 15th century Europe had been affected by what is known as the Renaissance movement, which marked the transition from the medieval to the modern order. This movement, caused by the growth of learning,The Renaissance.had its first home in Italy, which had witnessed a marvellous revival of interest in classical antiquity, in painting and in sculpture, accompanied by a keen intellectual activity in religious and political, no less than in literary matters. Criticism of existing beliefs was developed, knowledge became widely diffused, and, while the way was prepared for the substitution of individualism for the old ecclesiastical system, the development of commerce coincident with the discovery of America and the establishment of monarchical systems destroyed feudalism (seeRenaissance). The later years of the 15th, and the early years of the 16th, centuries may be described as the transition from medievalism to modern times, from feudalism to individualism, from the idea of a world church and a world empire to one in which national consolidation was the chief feature and monarchical government a necessity.
From the beginning of the 16th century Europe entered upon modern times. Many events marked the close of the middle ages. The discovery of America, the decay of Venice, the development of the European states system, the riseSummary of European history from 1500.of diplomacy as a permanent international system (seeDiplomacy), the wars of religion—all these are the general characteristics of the new period upon which Europe now enters. With the growth of monarchies arises the belief in the divine right of kings, the development of territorial sovereignty, and wars of ambition like those waged by Louis XIV.
With the 18th century democratic ideas first begin to appear side by side with the rule of the enlightened despots such as Frederick the Great, Catherine II. and Joseph II. The outbreak of the French Revolution brings to an end the old European system, upsets the ideas on which it was founded, and leads to important territorial changes.