ADVANTAGES OF THE MONASTIC SYSTEM.—The early establishment of the monastic system in the Church resulted in great advantages to the new world that was shaping itself out of the ruins of the old.
The monks became missionaries, and it was largely to their zeal and devotion that the Church owed her speedy and signal victory over the barbarians; they also became teachers, and under the shelter of the monasteries established schools which were the nurseries of learning during the Middle Ages; they became copyists, and with great care and industry gathered and multiplied ancient manuscripts, and thus preserved and transmitted to the modern world much classical learning and literature that would otherwise have been lost; they became agriculturists, especially the Benedictines, and by skilful labor converted the wilderness about their retreats into fair gardens, thus redeeming from barrenness some of the most desolate districts of Europe; they became further the almoners of the pious and the wealthy, and distributed alms to the poor and needy. Everywhere the monasteries opened their hospitable doors to the weary, the sick, and the discouraged. In a word, these retreats were the inns, the asylums, and the hospitals, mediæval Europe. Nor should we fail to mention how the asceticism of the monks checked those flagrant social evils that had sapped the strength of the Roman race, and which uncounteracted would have contaminated and weakened the purer peoples of the North; nor how, through its requirements of self-control and self- sacrifice, it gave prominence to the inner life of the spirit.
CONCLUSION.—With a single word or two respecting the general consequences of the conversion to Christianity of the Teutonic tribes, we will close the present chapter.
The adoption of a common faith by the European peoples drew them together into a sort of religious brotherhood, and rendered it possible for the continent to employ its undivided strength, during the succeeding centuries, in staying the threatening progress toward the West of the colossal Mohammedan power of the East. The Christian Church set in the midst of the seething, martial nations and races of Europe an influence that fostered the gentler virtues, and a power that was always to be found on the side of order, and usually of mercy. It taught the brotherhood of man, the essential equality in the sight of God of the high and the low, and thus pleaded powerfully and at last effectually for the freedom of the slave and the serf. It prepared the way for the introduction among the barbarians of the arts, the literature, and the culture of Rome, and contributed powerfully to hasten the fusion into a single people of the Latins and Teutons, of which important matter we shall treat in the following chapter.
INTRODUCTORY.—Having seen how the Hebrew element, that is, the ideas, beliefs, and sentiments of Christianity, became the common possession of the Latins and Teutons, it yet remains to notice how these two races, upon the soil of the old empire, intermingled their blood, their language, their laws, their usages and customs, to form new peoples, new tongues, and new institutions.
THE ROMANCE NATIONS.—In some districts the barbarian invaders and the Roman provincials were kept apart for a long time by the bitter antagonism of race, and a sense of injury on the one hand and a feeling of disdainful superiority on the other. But for the most part the Teutonic intruders and the Latin-speaking inhabitants of Italy, Spain, and Gaul very soon began freely to mingle their blood by family alliances. It is quite impossible to say what proportion the Teutons bore to the Romans. Of course the proportion varied in the different countries. In none of the countries named, however, was it large enough to absorb the Latinized population; on the contrary, the barbarians were themselves absorbed, yet not without changing very essentially the body into which they were incorporated. By the close of the ninth century the two elements had become quite intimately blended, and a century or two later Roman and Teuton have alike disappeared, and we are introduced to Italians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen. These we call Romance nations, because at base they are Roman. [Footnote: Britain did not become a Romance nation on account of the nature of the barbarian conquest of that island. The Romanized provincials, as has been seen, were there almost destroyed by the fierce Teutonic invaders.]
THE FORMATION OF THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES.—During the five centuries of their subjection to Rome, the natives of Spain and Gaul forgot their barbarous dialects and came to speak a corrupt Latin. Now in exactly the same way that the dialects of the Celtic tribes of Gaul and of the Celtiberians of Spain had given way to the more refined speech of the Romans, did the rude languages of the Teutons yield to the more cultured speech of the Roman provincials. In the course of two or three centuries after their entrance into the empire, Goths, Lombards, Burgundians, and Franks had, in a large measure, dropped their own tongue, and were speaking that of the people they had subjected. But of course this provincial Latin underwent a great change upon the lips of the mixed descendants of the Romans and Teutons. Owing to the absence of a common popular literature, the changes that took place in one country did not exactly correspond to those going on in another. Hence, in the course of time, we find different dialects springing up, and by about the ninth century the Latin has virtually disappeared as a spoken language, and its place been usurped by what will be known as the Italian, Spanish, and French languages, all more or less resembling the ancient Latin, and all called Romance tongues, because children of the old Roman speech.
PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THE TEUTONIC LEGISLATION.—The legislation of the barbarians was generally personal instead of territorial, as with us; that is, instead of all the inhabitants of a given country being subject to the same laws, there were different ones for the different classes of society. The Latins, for instance, were subject in private law only to the old Roman code, while the Teutons lived under the rules and regulations which they had brought with them from beyond the Rhine.
Even among themselves the Teutons knew nothing of the modern legal maxim that all should stand equal before the law. The penalty inflicted upon the evil-doer depended, not upon the nature of his crime, but upon his rank, or that of the party injured. Thus slaves and serfs could be beaten and put to death for minor offences, while a freeman might atone for any crime, even for murder, by the payment of a fine, the amount of the penalty being determined by the rank of the victim. Among the Saxons the life of a king's thane was worth 1200 shillings, while that of a common free man was valued only one-sixth as high.
ORDEALS.—The modes by which guilt or innocence was ascertained show in how rude a state was the administration of justice among the barbarians. One very common method of proof was by what were called ordeals, in which the question was submitted to the judgment of God. Of these the chief were theordeal by fire, theordeal by water, and theordeal by battle.
Theordeal by fireconsisted in taking in the hand a red-hot iron, or in walking blindfolded with bare feet over a row of hot ploughshares laid lengthwise at irregular distances. If the person escaped without serious harm, he was held to be innocent. Another way of performing the fire ordeal was by running through the flame of two fires built close together, or by walking over live brands; hence the phrase "to haul over the coals."
Theordeal by waterwas of two kinds, by hot water and cold. In the hot-water ordeal the accused person thrust his arm into boiling water, and if no hurt was visible upon the arm three days after the operation, the person was considered guiltless. When we speak of one's being "in hot water," we use an expression which had its origin in this ordeal.
In the cold-water trial the suspected person was thrown into a stream or pond: if he floated, he was held guilty; if he sank, innocent. The water, it was believed, would reject the guilty, but receive the innocent into its bosom. The practice common in Europe until a very recent date of trying supposed witches by weighing them, or by throwing them into a pond of water to see whether they would sink or float, grew out of this superstition.
Thetrial by combat, orwager of battle, was a solemn judicial duel. It was resorted to in the belief that God would give victory to the right. Naturally it was a favorite mode of trial among a people who found their chief delight in fighting. Even religious disputes were sometimes settled in this way. The modern duel may probably be regarded as a relic of this form of trial.
The ordeal was frequently performed by deputy, that is, one person for hire or for the sake of friendship would undertake it for another; hence the expression "to go through fire and water to serve one." Especially was such substitution common in the judicial duel, as women and ecclesiastics were generally forbidden to appear personally in the lists. The champions, as the deputies were called, became in time a regular class in society, like the gladiators in ancient Rome. Religious houses and chartered towns hired champions at a regular salary to defend all the cases to which they might become a party.
THE REVIVAL OF THE ROMAN LAW.—Now the barbarian law-system, if such it can be called, the character of which we have simply suggested by the preceding illustrations, gradually displaced the Roman law in all those countries where the two systems at first existed alongside each other, save in Italy and Southern France, where the provincials greatly outnumbered the invaders. But the admirable jurisprudence of Rome was bound to assert its superiority. About the close of the eleventh century, there was a great revival in the study of the Roman law as embodied in theCorpus Juris Civilisof Justinian (see p. 358), and in the course of a century or two this became either the groundwork or a strong modifying element in the jurisprudence of almost all the peoples of Europe.
What took place may be illustrated by reference to the fate of the Teutonic languages in Gaul, Italy, and Spain. As the barbarian tongues, after maintaining a place in those countries for two or three centuries, at length gave place to the superior Latin, which became the basis of the new Romance languages, so now in the domain of law the barbarian maxims and customs, though holding their place more persistently, likewise finally give way, almost everywhere and in a greater or less degree, to the more excellent law-system of the empire. Rome must fulfil her destiny and give laws to the nations.
THE REIGN OF JUSTINIAN (A.D. 527-565).—During the fifty years immediately following the fall of Rome, the Eastern emperors struggled hard and doubtfully to withstand the waves of the barbarian inundation which constantly threatened to overwhelm Constantinople with the same awful calamities that had befallen the imperial city of the West. Had the new Rome—the destined refuge for a thousand years of Græco-Roman learning and culture—also gone down at this time before the storm, the loss to the cause of civilization would have been incalculable.
Fortunately, in the year 527, there ascended the Eastern throne a prince of unusual ability, to whom fortune gave a general of such rare genius that his name has been allotted a place in the short list of the great commanders of the world. Justinian was the name of the prince, and Belisarius that of the soldier. The sovereign has given name to the period, which is called after him the "Era of Justinian."
It will be recalled that it was during this reign that Africa was recovered from the Vandals and Italy from the Goths (see p. 372). These conquests brought once more within the boundaries of the empire some of the fairest lands of the West.
But that which has given Justinian's reign a greater distinction than any conferred upon it by brilliant military achievements, is the collection and publication, under the imperial direction, of theCorpus Juris Civilis, or "Body of the Roman Law." This work is the most precious legacy of Rome to the modern world. In causing its publication, Justinian earned the title of "The Lawgiver of Civilization" (see p. 358).
In the midst of this brilliant reign an awful pestilence, bred probably in Egypt, fell upon the empire, and did not cease its ravages until about fifty years afterwards. This plague was the most terrible scourge of which history has any knowledge, save perhaps the so called Black Death, which afflicted Europe in the fourteenth century. The number of victims of the plague has been estimated at 100,000,000.
THE REIGN OF HERACLIUS (A.D. 610-641).—For half a century after the death of Justinian, the annals of the Byzantine empire are unimportant. Then we reach the reign of Heraclius, a prince about whose worthy name gather matters of significance in world-history.
About this time Chosroes II., king of Persia, wrested from the empire the fortified cities that guarded the Euphratean frontier, and overran all Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor. What was known as the True Cross was torn from the church at Jerusalem and carried off in triumph to Persia. In order to compel Chosroes to recall his armies, which were distressing the provinces of the empire, Heraclius, pursuing the same plan as that by which the Romans in the Second Punic War forced the Carthaginians to call Hannibal out of Italy (see p. 264), with a small company of picked men marched boldly into the heart of Persia, and in revenge for the insults heaped by the infidels upon the Christian churches, overturned the altars of the fire-worshippers and quenched their sacred flames.
The struggle between the two rival empires was at last decided by a terrible combat known as the Battle of Nineveh (A.D. 627), which was fought around the ruins of the old Assyrian capital. The Persian army was almost annihilated. In a few days grief or violence ended the life of Chosroes. With him passed away the glory of the Second Persian Empire. The new Persian king negotiated a treaty of peace with Heraclius. The articles of this treaty left the boundaries of the two empires unchanged.
THE EMPIRE BECOMES GREEK.—The two combatants in the fierce struggle which we have been watching, were too much absorbed in their contentions to notice the approach of a storm from the deserts of Arabia,—a storm destined to overwhelm both alike in its destructive course. Within a few years from the date of the Battle of Nineveh, the Saracens entered upon their surprising career of conquest, which in a short time completely changed the face of the entire East, and set the Crescent, the emblem of a new faith, alike above the fire-altars of Persia and the churches of the Empire. Heraclius himself lived to see—so cruel are the vicissitudes of fortune—the very provinces which he had wrested from the hands of the fire-worshippers, in the hands of the more insolent followers of the False Prophet, and the Crescent planted within sight of the walls of Constantinople.
The conquests of the Saracens cut off from the empire those provinces that had the smallest Greek element and thus rendered the population subject to the emperor more homogeneous, more thoroughly Greek. The Roman element disappeared, and the court of Constantinople became Greek in tone, spirit, and manners. Hence, instead of longer applying to the empire the designationRoman, we shall from this on call it theGreek, or Byzantine empire.
We shall trace no further as a separate story the fortunes of the Eastern emperors. In the eighth century the so-called Iconoclastic controversy [Footnote: See p. 417.] will draw our attention to them; and then again in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Crusades will once more bring their affairs into prominence, and we shall see a line of Latin princes seated for a time (from 1204 to 1261) upon the throne of Constantine. [Footnote: See p. 446.] Finally, in the year 1453, we shall witness the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, [Footnote: See p. 462.] which disaster closes the long and checkered history of the Græco-Roman empire in the East.
[Illustration: AN ARAB RIDER.]
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT.—The Arabs, or Saracens, who are now about to play their surprising part in history, are, after the Hebrews, the most important people of the Semitic race. Secure in their inaccessible deserts, the Arabs have never as a people bowed their necks to a foreign conqueror, although portions of the Arabian peninsula have been repeatedly subjugated by different races.
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF ARABIA BEFORE MOHAMMED.—Before the reforms of Mohammed, the Arabs were idolaters. Their holy city was Mecca. Here was the ancient and most revered shrine of the Caaba, where was preserved a sacred black stone believed to have been given by an angel to Abraham.
But though the native tribes of the peninsula were idolaters, still there were many followers of other faiths; for Arabia at this time was a land of religious freedom. The altar of the fire-worshipper rose alongside the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church. The Jews especially were to be found everywhere in great numbers, having been driven from Palestine by the Roman persecutions. It was from the Jews and Christians, doubtless, that Mohammed learned many of the doctrines that he taught.
MOHAMMED.—Mohammed, the great prophet of the Arabs, was born in the holy city of Mecca, about the year 570 of our era. He sprang from the distinguished tribe of the Koreishites, the custodians of the sacred shrine of the Caaba. Like Moses, he spent many years of his life as a shepherd.
[Illustration: MOSQUE AND CAABA AT MECCA. (From a photograph.)]
Mohammed possessed a deeply religious nature, and it was his wont often to retire to a cave a few miles from Mecca, and there spend long vigils in prayer. He declared that here he had visions, in which the angel Gabriel appeared to him, and made to him revelations which he was commanded to make known to his fellow-men. The sum of the new faith which he was to teach was this: "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet."
Mohammed communicated the nature of his visions to his wife, and she became his first convert. At the end of three years his disciples numbered forty persons.
THE HEGIRA (622).—The teachings of Mohammed at last aroused the anger of a powerful party among the Koreishites, who feared that they, as the guardians of the national idols of the Caaba, would be compromised in the eyes of the other tribes by allowing such heresy to be openly taught by one of their number, and accordingly plots were formed against his life. Barely escaping assassination, he fled to the city of Medina.
This Hegira, or Flight, as the word signifies, occurred in the year 622, and was considered by the Moslems as such an important event in the history of their religion that they adopted it as the beginning of a new era, and from it still continue to reckon their dates.
THE FAITH EXTENDED BY THE SWORD.—His cause being warmly espoused by the inhabitants of Medina, Mohammed threw aside the character of an exhorter, and assumed that of a warrior. He declared it to be the will of God that the new faith should be spread by the sword. Accordingly, the year following the Hegira, he began to attack and plunder caravans. The flames of a sacred war were soon kindled. The reckless enthusiasm of his wild converts was intensified by the assurance of the Apostle that death met in fighting those who resisted the true faith ensured the martyr immediate entrance upon the joys of Paradise. Within ten years from the time of the assumption of the sword by Mohammed, Mecca had been conquered, and the new creed established among all the tribes of Arabia.
Mohammed died in the year 632. No character in all history has been the subject of more conflicting speculations than the Arabian Prophet. By some he has been called a self-deluded enthusiast, while others have denounced him as the boldest of impostors. We shall, perhaps, reconcile these discordant views, if we bear in mind that the same person may, in different periods of a long career, be both.
THE KORAN AND THE DOCTRINES OF ISLAM.—Before going on to trace the conquests of the successors of Mohammed, we must form some acquaintance with the religion of the great Prophet.
The doctrines of Mohammedanism, or Islam, which means "submission," are contained in the Koran, the sacred book of the Moslems. They declare that God has revealed himself through four holy men: to Moses he gave the Pentateuch; to David, the Psalms; to Jesus, the Gospels; and to Mohammed, the last and greatest of all the prophets, he gave the Koran.
"There is no God save Allah," is the fundamental doctrine of Islamism, and to this is added the equally binding declaration that "Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah." The faithful Moslem must also believe in the sacredness and infallibility of the Koran. He is also required to believe in the resurrection and the day of judgment, and an after-state of happiness and of misery. Also he must believe in the absoluteness of the decrees of God,—that he foreordains whatsoever comes to pass, and that nothing man can do can change his appointments.
The Koran, while requiring assent to the foregoing creed, inculcates the practice of four virtues. The first is prayer; five times each day must the believer turn his face towards Mecca and engage in devotion. The second requirement is almsgiving. The third is keeping the Fast of Ramadan, which lasts a whole month. The fourth duty is making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
ABUBEKR, FIRST SUCCESSOR OF MOHAMMED (632-634).—Upon the death of Mohammed a dispute at once arose as to his successor; for the Prophet left no children, nor had he designated upon whom his mantle should fall. Abubekr, the Apostle's father-in-law, was at last chosen to the position, with the title of Caliph, or Vicar, of the Prophet, although many thought that the place belonged to Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, and one of his first and most faithful companions. This question of succession was destined at a later period to divide the Mohammedan world into two sects, animated by the most bitter and lasting hostility towards each other. [Footnote: The Mohammedans of Persia, who are known as Shiites, are the leaders of the party of Ali; while the Turks, known as Sunnites, are the chief adherents of the opposite party.]
During the first part of his caliphate, Abubekr was engaged in suppressing revolts in different parts of the peninsula. These commotions quieted, he was free to carry out the last injunction of the Prophet to his followers, which enjoined them to spread his doctrines by the sword, till all men had confessed the creed of Islam, or consented to pay tribute to the Faithful.
THE CONQUEST OF SYRIA.—The country which Abubekr resolved first to reduce was Syria. A call addressed to all the Faithful throughout Arabia was responded to with the greatest alacrity and enthusiasm. From every quarter the warriors flocked to Medina, until the desert about the city was literally covered with their black tents, and crowded with men and horses and camels. After invoking the blessing of God upon the hosts, Abubekr sent them forward upon their holy mission.
Heraclius made a brave effort to defend the holy places against the fanatical warriors of the desert, but all in vain. His armies were cut to pieces. Seeing there was no hope of saving Jerusalem, he removed from that city to Constantinople the True Cross, which he had rescued from the Persians (see p. 390). "Farewell, Syria," were his words, as he turned from the consecrated land which he saw must be given up to the followers of the False Prophet.
THE CONQUEST OF PERSIA (632-641).—While one Saracen army was overrunning Syria, another was busy with the subjugation of Persia. Enervated as this country was through luxury, and weakened by her long wars with the Eastern emperors, she could offer but feeble resistance to the terrible energy of the Saracens.
Soon after the conquest of Persia, the Arabs crossed the mountains that wall Persia on the north, and spread their faith among the Turanian tribes of Central Asia. Among the most formidable of the clans that adopted the new religion were the Turks. Their conversion was an event of the greatest significance, for it was their swords that were destined to uphold and to spread the creed of Mohammed when the fiery zeal of his own countrymen should abate, and their arms lose the dreaded power which religious fanaticism had for a moment imparted to them.
THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT (638).—The reduction of Persia was not yet fully accomplished, when the Caliph Omar, the successor of Abubekr, commissioned Amrou, the chief whose valor had won many of the cities of Palestine, to carry the standard of the Prophet into the Valley of the Nile. Alexandria, after holding out against the arms of the Saracens for more than a year, was at length abandoned to the enemy. Amrou, in communicating the intelligence of the important event to Omar, wrote him also about the great Alexandrian Library, and asked him what he should do with the books. Omar is said to have replied: "If these books agree with the Koran, they are useless; if they disagree, they are pernicious: in either case they ought to be destroyed." Accordingly the books were distributed among the four thousand baths of the capital, and served to feed their fires for six months.
THE CONQUEST OF NORTHERN AFRICA (643-689).—The lieutenants of the Caliphs were obliged to do much and fierce fighting before they obtained possession of the oft-disputed shores of North Africa. They had to contend not only with the Græco-Roman Christians of the coast, but to battle also with the idolatrous Moors of the interior. Furthermore, all Europe had begun to feel alarm at the threatening advance of the Saracens; so now Roman soldiers from Constantinople, and Gothic warriors from Italy and Spain hastened across the Mediterranean to aid in the protection of Carthage, and to help arrest the alarming progress of these wild fanatics of the desert.
But all was of no avail. Destiny had allotted to the followers of the Apostle the land of Hannibal and Augustine. Carthage was taken and razed to the ground, and the entire coast from the Nile to the Atlantic, was forced to acknowledge the authority of the Caliphs. By this conquest all the countries of Northern Africa, whose history for a thousand years had been intertwined with that of the opposite shores of Europe, and which at one time seemed destined to share in the career of freedom and progress opening to the peoples of that continent, were drawn back into the fatalism, the despotism, and the stagnation of the East. From being an extension of Europe, they became once more an extension of Asia.
ATTACKS UPON CONSTANTINOPLE.—Only fifty years had now passed since the death of Mohammed, but during this short time his standard had been carried by the lieutenants of his successors through Asia to the Hellespont on the one side, and across Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar on the other. From each of these two points, so remote from each other, the fanatic warriors of the desert were casting longing glances across those narrow passages of water which alone separated them from the single continent that their swift coursers had not yet traversed, or whence the spoil of the unbelievers had not yet been borne to the feet of the Vicar of the Prophet of God. We may expect to see the Saracens at one or both of these points attempt the invasion of Europe.
The first attempt was made in the East (in 668), where the Arabs endeavored to gain control of the Bosporus, by wresting Constantinople from the hands of the Eastern emperors. But the capital was saved through the use, by the besieged, of a certain bituminous compound, called Greek Fire. In 716, the city was again besieged by a powerful Moslem army; but its heroic defence by the Emperor Leo III. saved the capital for several centuries longer to the Christian world.
THE CONQUEST OF SPAIN (711).—While the Moslems were thus being repulsed from Europe at its eastern extremity, the gates of the continent were opened to them by treachery at the western, and they gained a foothold in Spain. At the great battle of Xeres (711), Roderic, the last of the Visigothic kings, was hopelessly defeated, and all the peninsula, save some mountainous regions in the northwest, quickly submitted to the invaders. Thus some of the fairest provinces of Europe were lost to Christendom for a period of nearly eight hundred years.
No sooner had the subjugation of the country been effected than multitudes of colonists from Arabia, Syria, and North Africa crowded into the peninsula, until in a short time the provinces of Seville, Cordova, Toledo, and Granada became Arabic in dress, manners, language, and religion.
INVASION OF FRANCE: BATTLE OF TOURS (732).—Four or five years after the conquest of Spain, the Saracens crossed the Pyrenees, and established themselves upon the plains of Gaul. This advance of the Moslem hosts beyond the northern wall of Spain was viewed with the greatest alarm by all Christendom. It looked as though the followers of Mohammed would soon possess all the continent. As Draper pictures it, the Crescent, lying in a vast semi-circle upon the northern shore of Africa and the curving coast of Asia, with one horn touching the Bosporus and the other the Straits of Gibraltar, seemed about to round to the full and overspread all Europe.
In the year 732, exactly one hundred years after the death of the great Prophet, the Franks, under their renowned chieftain, Charles, and their allies met the Moslems upon the plains of Tours in the centre of Gaul, and committed to the issue of a single battle the fate of Christendom and the future course of history. The desperate valor displayed by the warriors of both armies was worthy of the prize at stake. Abderrahman, the Mohammedan leader, fell in the thick of the fight, and night saw the complete discomfiture of the Moslem hordes. The loss that the sturdy blows of the Germans had inflicted upon them was enormous, the accounts of that age swelling the number killed to the impossible figures of 375,000. The disaster at all events was too overwhelming to permit the Saracens ever to recover from the blow, and they soon retreated behind the Pyrenees.
The young civilization of Europe was thus delivered from an appalling danger, such as had not threatened it since the fearful days of Attila and the Huns. The heroic Duke Charles who had led the warriors of Christendom to the glorious victory was given the surnameMartel, the "Hammer," in commemoration of the mighty blows of his huge battle-axe.
CHANGES IN THE CALIPHATE.—During the century of conquests we have traced, there were many changes in the caliphate. Abubekr was followed by Omar (634-644), Othman (644-655), and Ali (655-661), all of whom fell by the hands of assassins, for from the very first dissensions were rife among the followers of the Prophet. Ali was the last of the four so-called "Orthodox Caliphs," all of whom were relatives or companions of the Prophet.
Moawiyah, a usurper, was now recognized as Caliph (661). He succeeded in making the office hereditary, instead of elective, as it hitherto had been, and thus established what is known as the dynasty of the Ommiades [Footnote: So called from Ommaya, an ancestor of Moawiyah.], the rulers of which family for nearly a century issued their commands from the city of Damascus.
The house of the Ommiades was overthrown by the adherents of the house of Ali, who established a new dynasty (750), known as that of the Abbassides, so called from Abbas, an uncle of Mohammed. The new family, soon after coming to power, established the seat of the royal residence on the lower Tigris, and upon the banks of that river founded the renowned city of Bagdad, which was destined to remain the abode of the Abbasside Caliphs for a period of five hundred years,—until the subversion of the house by the Tartars of the North.
The golden age of the caliphate of Bagdad covers the latter part of the eighth and the ninth century of our era, and was illustrated by the reign of the renowned Haroun-al-Raschid (786-809), the hero of the Arabian Nights. During this period science, philosophy, and literature were most assiduously cultivated by the Arabian scholars, and the court of the Caliphs presented in culture and luxury a striking contrast to the rude and barbarous courts of the kings and princes of Western Christendom.
THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE CALIPHATE.—"At the close of the first century of the Hegira," writes Gibbon, "the Caliphs were the most potent and absolute monarchs of the globe. The word that went forth from the palace at Damascus was obeyed on the Indus, on the Jaxartes, and on the Tagus." Scarcely less potent was the word that at first went forth from Bagdad. But in a short time the extended empire of the Abbassides, through the quarrels of sectaries and the ambitions of rival aspirants for the honors of the caliphate, was broken in fragments, and from three capitals—Bagdad upon the Tigris, Cairo upon the Nile, and Cordova upon the Guadalquivir— were issued the commands of three rival Caliphs, each of whom was regarded by his adherents as the sole rightful spiritual and civil successor of the Apostle. All, however, held the great Arabian Prophet in the same reverence, all maintained with equal zeal the sacred character of the Koran, and all prayed with their faces turned toward the holy city of Mecca.
SPREAD OF THE RELIGION AND LANGUAGE OF THE ARABS.—Just as the Romans Romanized the peoples they conquered, so did the Saracens Saracenize the populations of the countries subjected to their authority. Over a large part of Spain, over North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, Persia, Northern India, and portions of Central Asia, were spread—to the more or less perfect exclusion of native customs, speech, and worship—the manners, the language, and the religion of the Arabian conquerors. [Footnote: Beyond the eastern edge of Mesopotamia, the Arabs failed to impress their language upon the subjected peoples, or in any way, save in the matter of creed, to leave upon them any important permanent trace of their conquests.]
In Arabia no religion was tolerated save the faith of the Koran. But in all the countries beyond the limits of the peninsula, freedom of worship was allowed (save toidolaters, who were to be "rooted out"); unbelievers, however, must purchase this liberty by the payment of a moderate tribute. Yet notwithstanding this toleration, the Christian and Zoroastrian religions gradually died out almost everywhere throughout the domains of the Caliphs. [Footnote: The number of Guebers, or fire- worshippers, in Persia at the present time is estimated at from 50,000 to 100,000. About the same number may be counted in India, the descendants of the Guebers who fled from Persia at the time of the Arabian invasion. They are there called Parsees, from the land whence they came.]
THE DEFECTS OF ISLAM.—Civilization certainly owes a large debt to the Saracens. They preserved and transmitted much that was valuable in the science of the Greeks and the Persians (see p. 472). They improved trigonometry and algebra, and from India they borrowed the decimal system of notation and introduced it into the West.
Many of the doctrines of Islam, however, are most unfavorable to human liberty, progress, and improvement. It teaches fatalism, and thus discourages effort and enterprise. It allows polygamy and pelts no restraint upon divorce, and thus destroys the sanctity of the family life. It permits slavery and fosters despotism. It inspires a blind and bigoted hatred of race and creed, and thus puts far out of sight the salutary truth of the brotherhood of man. Because of these and other scarcely less prominent defects in its teachings, Islam has proved a blight and curse to almost every race embracing its sterile doctrines.
Mohammedism is vastly superior, however, either to fetichism or idolatry, and consequently, upon peoples very low in the scale of civilization, it has an elevating influence. Thus, upon the negro tribes of Central Africa, where it is to-day spreading rapidly, it is acknowledged to have a civilizing effect.
GENERAL REMARKS.—In the foregoing chapter we traced the rise and decline of the power of the Saracens. We saw the Semitic East roused for a moment to a life of tremendous energy by the miracle of religious enthusiasm, and then beheld it sinking rapidly again into inaction and weakness, disappointing all its early promises. Manifestly the "Law" is not to go forth from Mecca. The Semitic race is not to lead the civilization of the world.
But returning again to the West, we discover among the Teutonic barbarians indications of such youthful energy and life, that we are at once persuaded that to them has been given the future. The Franks, who, with the aid of their confederates, withstood the advance of the Saracens upon the field of Tours, and saved Europe from subjection to the Koran, are the people that first attract our attention. It is among them that a man appears who makes the first grand attempt to restore the laws, the order, the institutions of the ancient Romans. Charlemagne, their king, is the imposing figure that moves amidst all the events of the times; indeed, is the one who makes the events, and renders the period in which he lived an epoch in universal history. The story of this era affords the key to very much of the subsequent history of Europe.
HOW DUKE PEPIN BECAME KING OF THE FRANKS—Charles Martel, whose tremendous blows at Tours earned for him his significant surname (see p. 399), although the real head of the Frankish nation, was nominally only an officer of the Merovingian court. He died without ever having borne the title of king, notwithstanding he had exercised all the authority of that office.
But Charles's son Pepin, calledle Bref(the Short), on account of his diminutive stature, aspired to the regal title and honors. He resolved to depose his titular master, and to make himself king. Not deeming it wise, however, to do this without the sanction of the Pope, he sent an embassy to represent to him the state of affairs, and to solicit his advice. Mindful of recent favors that he had received at the hands of Pepin, the Pope gave his approval to the proposed scheme by replying that it seemed altogether reasonable that the one who was king in power should be king also in name. This was sufficient. Chilperic—such was the name of the Merovingian king—was straightway deposed, and placed in a monastery; while Pepin, whose own deeds together with those of his illustrious father had done so much for the Frankish nation and for Christendom, was anointed and crowned king of the Franks (752), and thus became the first of the Carolingian line, the name of his illustrious son Charlemagne giving name to the house.
BEGINNING OF THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES.—In the year 754 Pope Stephen II., who was troubled by the Lombards (see p. 374), besought Pepin's aid. Quick to return the favor which the head of the Church had rendered him in the establishment of his power as king, Pepin straightway crossed the Alps with a large army, expelled the Lombards from their recent conquests, and made a donation to the Pope of these captured cities and provinces (755).
This famous gift may be regarded as having laid the basis of the temporal power of the Popes; for though Pepin probably did not intend to convey to the Papal See the absolute sovereignty of the transferred lands, after a time the Popes claimed this, and finally came to exercise within the limits of the donated territory all the rights and powers of independent temporal rulers. So here we have the beginning of the celebratedPapal States, and of the story of the Popes as temporal princes.
ACCESSION OF CHARLEMAGNE.—Pepin died in the year 768, and his kingdom passed into the hands of his two sons, Carloman and Charles; but within three years the death of Carloman and the free votes of the Franks conferred the entire kingdom upon Charles, better known as Charlemagne, or "Charles the Great."
HIS CAMPAIGNS.—Charlemagne's long reign of nearly half a century—he ruled forty-six years—was filled with military expeditions and conquests, by which he so extended the boundaries of his dominions, that at his death they embraced the larger part of Western Europe. He made fifty-two military campaigns, the chief of which were against the Lombards, the Saracens, and the Saxons. Of these we will speak briefly.
Among Charlemagne's first undertakings was a campaign against the Lombards, whose king, Desiderius, was troubling the Pope. Charlemagne wrested from Desiderius all his possessions, shut up the unfortunate king in a monastery, and placed on his own head the iron crown of the Lombards. While in Italy he visited Rome, and, in return for the favor of the Pope, confirmed the donation of his father, Pepin (774).
[Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE. (Head of a bronze equestrian statuette.)]
In the ninth year of his reign Charlemagne gathered his warriors for a crusade against the Saracens in Spain. He crossed the Pyrenees, and succeeded in wresting from the Moslems all the northeastern corner of the peninsula. As he was leading his victorious bands back across the Pyrenees, the rear of his army under the lead of the renowned paladin Roland, while hemmed in by the walls of the Pass of Roncesvalles, was set upon by the wild mountaineers (the Gascons and Basques), and cut to pieces before Charlemagne could give relief. Of the details of this event no authentic account has been preserved; but long afterwards it formed the favorite theme of the tales and songs of the Troubadours of Southern France.
But by far the greater number of the campaigns of Charlemagne were directed against the pagan Saxons, who almost alone of the German tribes still retained their ancient idolatry. Thirty years and more of his reign were occupied in these wars across the Rhine. Reduced to submission again and again, as often did the Saxons rise in desperate revolt. The heroic Witikind was the "second Arminius" (see p. 308) who encouraged his countrymen to resist to the last the intruders upon their soil. Finally, Charlemagne, angered beyond measure by the obstinacy of the barbarians, caused 4500 prisoners in his hands to be massacred in revenge for the contumacy of the nation. The Saxons at length yielded, and accepted Charlemagne as their sovereign, and Christianity as their religion.
RESTORATION OF THE EMPIRE IN THE WEST (800).—An event of seemingly little real moment, yet, in its influence upon succeeding affairs, of the very greatest importance, now claims our attention. Pope Leo III. having called upon Charlemagne for aid against a hostile faction at Rome, the king soon appeared in person at the capital, and punished summarily the disturbers of the peace of the Church. The gratitude of Leo led him at this time to make a most signal return for the many services of the Frankish king. To understand his act a word of explanation is needed.
For a considerable time a variety of circumstances had been fostering a growing feeling of enmity between the Italians and the emperors at Constantinople. Disputes had arisen between the churches of the East and those of the West, and the Byzantine rulers had endeavored to compel the Italian churches to introduce certain changes and reforms in their worship, which had aroused the most determined opposition of the Roman bishops, who denounced the Eastern emperors as schismatics and heretics. Furthermore, while persecuting the orthodox churches of the West, these unworthy emperors had allowed the Christian lands of the East to fall a prey to the Arabian infidels.
Just at this time, moreover, by the crime of the Empress Irene, who had deposed her son Constantine VI., and put out his eyes, that she might have his place, the Byzantine throne was vacant, in the estimation of the Italians, who contended that the crown of the Cæsars could not be worn by a woman. Confessedly it was time that the Pope should exercise the power reposing in him as Head of the Church, and take away from the heretical and effeminate Greeks the Imperial crown, and bestow it upon some strong, orthodox, and worthy prince in the West.
Now, among all the Teutonic chiefs of Western Christendom, there was none who could dispute the claims to the honor with the king of the Franks, the representative of a most illustrious house, and the strongest champion of the young Christianity of the West against her pagan foes. Accordingly, as Charlemagne was participating in the festivities of Christmas Day in the Cathedral of St. Peter at Rome, the Pope approached the kneeling king,— who declared afterwards that he was wholly ignorant of the designs of his friend,—and placing a crown of gold upon his head, proclaimed him emperor of the Romans, and the rightful and consecrated successor of Cæsar Augustus and Constantine (800).
The intention of Pope Leo was, by a sort of reversal of the act of Constantine, to bring back from the East the seat of the Imperial court; but what he really accomplished was a restoration of the line of emperors in the West, which 324 years before had been ended by Odoacer, when he dethroned Romulus Augustus and sent the royal vestments to Constantinople (see p. 348). We say this was what he actually effected; for the Greeks of the East, disregarding wholly what the Roman people and the Pope had done, maintained their line of emperors just as though nothing had occurred in Italy. So now from this time on for centuries there were two emperors, one in the East, and another in the West, each claiming to be the rightful successor of Cæsar Augustus. [Footnote: From this time on it will be proper for us to use the termsWesternEmpire andEasternEmpire. These names should not, however, be employed before this time, for the two parts of the old Roman Empire were simply administrative divisions of a single empire; we may though, properly enough, speak of the Roman empireinthe West, and the Roman empireinthe East, or of the Western and Eastern emperors. See Bryce'sHoly Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire was destroyed by the Turks in 1453; the line of Western Teutonic emperors was maintained until the present century, when it was ended by the act of Napoleon in the dismemberment of Germany (1806).]
CHARLEMAGNE'S DEATH; HIS WORK.—Charlemagne enjoyed the Imperial dignity only fourteen years, dying in 814. Within the cathedral at Aachen, in a tomb which he himself had built, the dead monarch was placed upon a throne, with his royal robes around him, his good sword by his side, and the Bible open on his lap. It seemed as though men could not believe that his reign was over; and it was not.
By the almost universal verdict of students of the mediæval period, Charles the Great has been pronounced the most imposing personage that appears between the fall of Rome and the fifteenth century. His greatness has erected an enduring monument for itself in his name, the one by which he is best known—Charlemagne.
Charlemagne must not be regarded as a warrior merely. His most noteworthy work was that which he effected as a reformer and statesman. He founded schools, reformed the laws, collected libraries, and extended to the Church a patronage worthy of a Constantine. In a word, he laid "the foundation of all that is noble and beautiful and useful in the history of the Middle Ages."
DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE; TREATY OF VERDUN (843).—Like the kingdom of Alexander, the mighty empire of Charlemagne fell to pieces soon after his death. "His sceptre was the bow of Ulysses which could not be drawn by any weaker hand." After a troublous period of dissension arid war, the empire was divided, by the important Treaty of Verdun, among Charlemagne's three grandchildren,—Charles, Lewis, and Lothair. To Charles was given France; to Lewis, Germany; and to Lothair, Italy and the valley of the Rhone, together with a narrow strip of land extending from Switzerland to the mouth of the Rhine. With these possessions of Lothair went also the Imperial title.
[Illustration: THE WESTERN EMPIRE As Divided at Verdun (843)]
This treaty is celebrated, not only because it was the first great treaty among the European states, but also on account of its marking the divergence from one another, and in some sense the origin, of three of the great nations of modern Europe,—of France, Germany, and Italy.
CONCLUSION.—After this dismemberment of the dominions of Charlemagne, the annals of the different branches of the Carolingian family become intricate, wearisome, and uninstructive. A fate as dark and woeful as that which, according to Grecian story, overhung the royal house of Thebes, seemed to brood over the house of Charlemagne. In all its different lines a strange and adverse destiny awaited the lineage of the great king. The tenth century witnessed the extinction of the family.
THE PEOPLE.—Northmen, Norsemen, Scandinavians, are different names applied in a general way to the early inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. These people formed the northern branch of the Teutonic family. We cannot be certain when they took possession of the northern peninsulas, but it is probable that they had entered those countries long before Cæsar invaded Gaul.
THE NORTHMEN AS PIRATES AND COLONIZERS.—For the first eight centuries of our era the Norsemen are hidden from our view in their remote northern home; but with the opening of the ninth century their black piratical crafts are to be seen creeping along all the coasts of Germany, Gaul, and the British Isles, and even venturing far up their inlets and creeks. Every summer these dreaded sea-rovers made swift descents upon the exposed shores of these countries, plundering, burning, murdering; then upon the approach of the stormy season, they returned to winter in the sheltered fiords of the Scandinavian peninsula. After a time the bold corsairs began to winter in the lands they had harried during the summer; and soon all the shores of the countries visited were dotted with their stations or settlements.
These marauding expeditions and colonizing enterprises of the Northmen did not cease until the eleventh century was far advanced. The consequences of this wonderful outpouring of the Scandinavian peoples were so important and lasting that the movement has well been compared to the great migration of their German kinsmen in the fifth and sixth centuries. Europe is a second time inundated by the Teutonic barbarians.
The most noteworthy characteristic of these Northmen was the readiness with which they laid aside their own manners, habits, ideas, and institutions, and adopted those of the country in which they established themselves. "In Russia they became Russians; in France, Frenchmen; in England, Englishmen."
COLONIZATION OF ICELAND AND GREENLAND.—Iceland was settled by the Northmen in the ninth century, [Footnote: Iceland became the literary centre of the Scandinavian world. There grew up here a class of scalds, or bards, who, before the introduction of writing, preserved and transmitted orally the sagas, or legends, of the Northern races. About the twelfth century these poems and legends were gathered into collections known as the Elder, or poetic, Edda, and the Younger, or prose, Edda. These are among the most interesting and important of the literary memorials that we possess of the early Teutonic peoples. They reflect faithfully the beliefs, manners, and customs of the Norsemen, and the wild, adventurous spirit of their Sea-Kings.] and about a century later Greenland was discovered and colonized. In 1874 the Icelanders celebrated the thousandth anniversary of the settlement of their island, an event very like our Centennial of 1876.
America was reached by the Northmen as early as the beginning of the eleventh century: the Vineland of their traditions was possibly some part of the New England coast. It is believed that these first visitors to the continent made settlements in this new land; but no certain remains of these exist.
THE NORSEMEN IN RUSSIA.—While the Norwegians were sailing boldly out into the Atlantic and taking possession of the isles and coasts of the western seas, the Swedes were pushing their crafts across the Baltic and troubling the Slavonian tribes that dwelt upon the eastern shore of that sea. Either by right of conquest or through the invitation of the contentious Slavonian clans, the renowned Scandinavian chieftain Ruric acquired, in the year 862, kingly dignity, and became the founder of the first royal line of Russia, the successive kings of which family gradually consolidated the monarchy which was destined to become one of the foremost powers of Europe.
THE DANISH CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.—The Danes began to make descents upon the English coast about the beginning of the ninth century. These sea-rovers spread the greatest terror through the island; for they were not content with plunder, but being pagans, they took special delight in burning the churches and monasteries of the now Christian Anglo-Saxons, or English, as we shall hereafter call them. After a time the Danes began to make permanent settlements in the land. The wretched English were subjected to exactly the same treatment that they had inflicted upon the Celts. Much need had they to pray the petition of the Litany of those days, "From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord, deliver us." Just when it began to look as though they would be entirely annihilated or driven from the island by the barbarous intruders, the illustrious Alfred (871-901) came to the throne of Wessex.
For six years the youthful king fought heroically at the head of his brave thanes; but each succeeding year the possessions of the English grew smaller, and finally Alfred and his few remaining followers were driven to take refuge in the woods and morasses.
After a time, however, the affairs of the English began to brighten. The Danes were overpowered, and though allowed to hold the northeastern half of the land, still they were forced nominally to acknowledge the authority of the English king.
For a full century following the death of Alfred, his successors were engaged in a constant struggle to hold in subjection the Danes already settled in the land, or to protect their domains from the plundering inroads of fresh bands of pirates from the northern peninsulas. In the end, the Danes got the mastery, and Canute, king of Denmark, became king of England (1016). For eighteen years he reigned in a wise and parental way.
Altogether the Danes ruled in England about a quarter of a century (from 1016 to 1042), and then the old English line was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor.
The great benefit which resulted to England from the Danish conquest, was the infusion of fresh blood into the veins of the English people, who through contact with the half-Romanized Celts, and especially through the enervating influence of a monastic church, had lost much of that bold, masculine vigor which characterized their hardy ancestors.
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN IN GAUL.—The Northmen began to make piratical descents upon the coasts of Gaul before the end of the reign of Charlemagne. Tradition tells how the great king, catching sight one day of some ships of the Northmen, burst into tears as he reflected on the sufferings that he foresaw the new foe would entail upon his country.
The record of the raids of the Northmen in Gaul, and of their final settlement in the north of the country, is simply a repetition of the tale of the Danish forays and settlement in England. At last, in the year 918, Charles the Simple did exactly what Alfred the Great had done across the Channel only a very short time before. He granted the adventurous Rollo, the leader of the Northmen that had settled at Rouen, a considerable section of country in the north-west of Gaul, upon condition of homage and conversion.
In a short time the barbarians had adopted the language, the manners, and the religion of the French, and had caught much of their vivacity and impulsiveness of spirit, without, however, any loss of their own native virtues. This transformation in their manners and life we may conceive as being recorded in their transformed name—Northmenbecoming softened intoNorman. As has been said, they were simply changed from heathen Vikings, delighting in the wild life of sea-rover and pirate, into Christian knights, eager for pilgrimages and crusades.
INTRODUCTION.—In an early chapter of our book we told how Christianity as a system of beliefs and precepts took possession of the different nations and tribes of Europe. We purpose in the present chapter to tell how the Christian Church grew into a great spiritual monarchy, with the bishop of Rome as its head.
It must be borne in mind that the bishops of Rome put forth a double claim, namely, that they were the supreme head of the Church, and also the rightful, divinely appointed suzerain of all temporal princes, the "earthly king of kings." Their claim to supremacy in all spiritual matters was very generally acknowledged throughout at least the West as early as the sixth century, and continued to be respected by almost every one until the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, when the nations of Northern Europe revolted, denied the spiritual authority of the Pope, and separated themselves from the ancient ecclesiastical empire.
The papal claim to supremacy in temporal affairs was never fully and willingly allowed by the secular rulers of Europe; yet during a considerable part of the Middle Ages, particularly throughout the thirteenth century, the Pope was very generally acknowledged by kings and princes as their superior and suzerain in temporal as well as in spiritual matters.
EARLY ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH.—The Christian Church very early in its history became an organized body, with a regular gradation of officers, such as presbyters, bishops, metropolitans or archbishops, and patriarchs. There were at first four regular patriarchates, that is, districts superintended by patriarchs. These centred in the great cities of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Jerusalem was also made an honorary patriarchate.
PRIMACY OF THE BISHOP OF ROME.—It is maintained by some that the patriarchs at first had equal and coordinate powers; that is, that no one of the patriarchs had preeminence or authority over the others. But others assert that the bishop of Rome from the very first was regarded as above the others in dignity and authority, and as the divinely appointed head of the visible Church on earth.
However this may be, the pontiffs of Rome began very early toclaimsupremacy over all other bishops and patriarchs. This claim of the Roman pontiffs was based on several alleged grounds, the chief of which was that the Church at Rome had been founded by St. Peter himself, the first bishop of that capital, to whom Christ had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and had further invested with superlative authority as a teacher and interpreter of the Word by the commission, "Feed my Sheep;… feed my Lambs," thus giving into his charge the entire flock of the Church. This authority and preeminence conferred by the great Head of the Church upon Peter was held to be transmitted to his successor in the holy office.
ADVANTAGE TO THE ROMAN BISHOPS OF THE MISFORTUNES OF THE EMPIRE.—The claims of the Roman bishops were greatly favored from the very first by the spell in which the world was held by the name and prestige of imperial Rome. Thence it had been accustomed to receive its commands in all temporal matters; how very natural, then, that thither it should turn for command and guidance in spiritual affairs. The Roman bishops in thus occupying the geographical and political centre of the world enjoyed a great advantage over all other bishops and patriarchs.
Nor was this advantage lost when misfortune befell the imperial city. Thus the removal by Constantine the Great of the seat of government to the Bosporus (see p. 332), instead of diminishing the power and dignity of the Roman bishops, tended powerfully to promote their claims and authority. In the phrase of Dante, it "gave the Shepherd room." It left the pontiff the foremost personage of Rome.
Again, when the barbarians came, there came another occasion for the Roman bishops to increase their influence, and to raise themselves to a position of absolute supremacy throughout the West. Rome's extremity was their opportunity. Thus it will be recalled how, mainly through the intercession of Leo the Great, the fierce Attila was persuaded to turn back and leave Rome unpillaged; and how, through the intercession of the same pious bishop, the savage Genseric was prevailed upon to spare the lives of the inhabitants of the city at the time of its sack by the Vandals (see pp. 346, 347). So when the emperors, the natural defenders of the capital, were unable to protect it, the unarmed pastor was able, through the awe and reverence inspired by his holy office, to render services that could not but result in bringing increased honor and dignity to the Roman See.
But if the misfortunes of Rome tended to the enhancement of the reputation and influence of the Roman bishops, much more did the final downfall of the capital tend to the same end. Upon the surrender of the sovereignty of the West into the hands of the emperor of the East, the bishops of Rome became the most important persons in Western Europe, and being so far removed from the court at Constantinople, gradually assumed almost imperial powers. They became the arbiters between the barbarian chiefs and the Italians, and to them were referred for decision the disputes arising between cities, states, and kings. It is easy to understand how directly and powerfully these things tended to strengthen the authority and increase the influence of the Roman See.
THE MISSIONS OF ROME.—Again, the early missionary zeal of the church at Rome made her the mother of many churches, all of whom looked up to her with affectionate and grateful loyalty. Thus the Angles and Saxons, won to the faith by the missionaries of Rome, conceived a deep veneration for the Holy See and became her most devoted children. To Rome it was that they made their most frequent pilgrimages, and thither they sent their offering of "St. Peter's penny." And when the Saxons became missionaries to their pagan kinsmen of the continent, they transplanted into the heart of Germany these same feelings of filial attachment and love. Thus was Rome exalted in the eyes of the children of the churches of the West, until Gregory II. (715-731), writing the Eastern emperor, could say that to these peoples the very statue of the founder of the Roman church seemed "a god on earth."
THE ICONOCLASTS.—The dispute about the worship of images, known in church history as the Iconoclastic controversy, which broke out in the eighth century between the Greek churches of the East and the Latin churches of the West, drew after it far-reaching consequences as respects the growing power of the Roman pontiffs.
Even long before the seventh century, the churches both in the East and in the West had become crowded with images or pictures of the apostles, saints, and martyrs, which to the ignorant classes at least were objects of adoration and worship. A strong party opposed to the use of images [Footnote: The so-called images of the Greek Church were not statues, but mosaics, or paintings. The Eastern Church has at no period sanctioned the use of sculptures in worship.] at last arose in the East. These reformers were given the name of Iconoclasts (image-breakers).
Leo the Isaurian, who came to the throne of Constantinople in 717, was a most zealous Iconoclast. The Greek churches of the East having been cleared of images, the emperor resolved to clear also the Latin churches of the West of these symbols. To this end he issued a decree that they should not be used.
The bishop of Rome not only opposed the execution of the edict, but by the ban of excommunication cut off the emperor and all the iconoclastic churches of the East from communion with the true Catholic Church. Though images were permanently restored in the Eastern churches in 842, still by this time other causes of alienation had arisen, and the breach between the two sections of Christendom could not now be closed. The final outcome was the permanent separation, about the middle of the eleventh century, of the churches of the East from those of the West. The former became known as the Greek, Byzantine, or Eastern Church; the latter as the Latin, Roman, or Catholic Church.
The East was thus lost to the Roman See. But the loss was more than made good by fresh accessions of power in the West. In this quarrel with the Eastern emperors the Roman bishops cast about for an alliance with some powerful Western prince. We have already told the story of the friendship of the Carolingian kings and the Roman pontiffs, and of the favors they exchanged (see ch. xxxvii). Never did friends render themselves more serviceable to each other. The Popes made the descendants of Charles Martel kings and emperors; the grateful Frankish princes defended the Popes against all their enemies, imperial and barbarian, and dowering them with cities and provinces, laid the basis of their temporal sovereignty, which continued for more than a thousand years (until 1870).
ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION: APPEALS TO ROME.—Charlemagne had recognized the principle, held from early times by the Church, that ecclesiastics should be amenable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals, by freeing the whole body of the clergy from the jurisdiction of the temporal courts, in criminal as well as civil cases. Gradually the bishops acquired the right to try all cases relating to marriage, trusts, perjury, simony, or concerning widows, orphans, or crusaders, on the ground that such cases had to do with religion. Even the right to try all criminal cases was claimed on the ground that all crime is sin, and hence can properly be dealt with only by the Church. Persons convicted by the ecclesiastical tribunals were subjected to penance, imprisoned in the monasteries, or handed over to the civil authorities for punishment.
Thus by the end of the twelfth century the Church had absorbed, not only the whole criminal administration of the clergy, but in part that of the laity also. [Footnote: Hallam,Middle Ages, ch. vii.] Now the particular feature of this enormous extension of the jurisdiction of the Church tribunals which at present it especially concerns us to notice, is the establishment of the principle that all cases might be appealed or cited from the courts of the bishops and archbishops of the different European countries to the Papal See, which thus became the court of last resort in all cases affecting ecclesiastics or concerning religion. The Pope thus came to be regarded as the fountain of justice, and, in theory at least, the supreme judge of Christendom, while emperors and kings and all civil magistrates bore the sword simply as his ministers to carry into effect his sentences and decrees.
THE PAPACY AND THE EMPIRE.—We must now speak of the relation of the Popes to the Emperors. About the middle of the tenth century Otto the Great of Germany, like a second Charlemagne, restored once more the fallen Imperial power, which now became known as the Holy Roman Empire, the heads of which from this on were the German kings (see p. 502). Here now were two world- powers, the Empire and the Papacy, whose claims and ambitions were practically antagonistic and irreconcilable.
There were three different theories of the divinely constituted relation of the "World-King" and the "World-Priest." The first was that Pope and Emperor were each independently commissioned by God, the first to rule the spirits of men, the second to rule their bodies. Each reigning thus by original divine right, neither is set above the other, but both are to cooperate and to help each other. The special duty of the temporal power is to maintain order in the world and to be the protector of the Church.
The second theory, the one held by the Imperial party, was that the Emperor was superior to the Pope. Arguments from Scripture and from the transactions of history were not wanting to support this view of the relation of the two world-powers. Thus Christ's payment of tribute money was cited as proof that he regarded the temporal power as superior to the spiritual; and again, his submission to the jurisdiction of the Roman tribunal was held to be a recognition on his part of the supremacy of the civil authority. Further, the gifts of Pepin and Charlemagne to the Roman See made the Popes, it was maintained, the vassals of the Emperors.
The third theory, the one held by the Papal party, maintained that the ordained relation of the two powers was the subordination of the temporal to the spiritual authority. This view was maintained by such texts of Scripture as these: "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man;" [Footnote: 1 Cor. ii. 15.] "See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant." [Footnote: Jer. i. 10.] The conception was further illustrated by such comparisons as the following. As God has set in the heavens two lights, the sun and the moon, so has he established on earth two powers, the spiritual and the temporal; but as the moon is inferior to the sun and receives its light from it, so is the Emperor inferior to the Pope and receives all power from him. Again, the two authorities were likened to the soul and body; as the former rules over the latter, so is it ordered that the spiritual power shall rule over and subject the temporal.
The first theory was the impracticable dream of lofty souls who forgot that men are human. Christendom was virtually divided into two hostile camps, the members of which were respectively supporters of the Imperial and the Papal theory. The most interesting and instructive chapters of mediæval history after the tenth century are those that record the struggles between Pope and Emperor, springing from their efforts to reduce to practice these irreconcilable theories. [Footnote: For a most admirable presentation of this whole subject, consult Bryce'sThe Holy Roman Empire.]