When we seek for the peculiar benefits monasticism provided for women, they are found to be two. The universally recognized sanctity of the cloister provided, in an age of exceeding brutality, a sanctuary where woman might take refuge, and where something at least of the spirituality of her nature might be neither outraged nor obliterated. It may be that, after all unfavorable judgments have been passed, if it had not been for the veneration of cloistered virginity, in so rude an age the world might have forgotten what modesty and purity are. Also, it is not favorable to the highest development of womanhood to be absolutely restricted to the one vocation of marriage. If, to-day, women are not better wives, they surely are more self-respecting for the fact that there is a possibility of their being independent and yet remain unmarried. What business now does for woman, in the olden times was done by the female monastery: it provided examples of the sex, who were glorious, and yet unmarried. The woman crossed in love, or the girl threatened with a union repugnant to her feelings, could say: "I will be a nun," and thereby gain the highest esteem of the world.
The Empire had forfeited its right to take its title from the ancient city on the Tiber long before its final dismemberment. Constantine had removed his court and capital to the Bosphorus, and there the metropolis of the East remained. The Western emperors established their courts in various parts of Europe, their locations being usually determined by the exigences of rivalry and the territorial success of their usurpation. Roman citizenship had become universal and at the same time meaningless: it represented no privileges other than the bare fact that its owner was not a slave. The freedom it conferred was only relative and, to a very great extent, merely theoretical; practically, all were the slaves of the emperor. The race of Romulus had degenerated into a pretentious but pusillanimous aristocracy, who desired no title to glory save that found in pedigree. There was not left in them sufficient virility to set up, much less to maintain, an emperor of their own race; their rulers were of barbarian extraction. The Roman army was a cosmopolitan aggregation, in which Italy was the least represented of the provinces. Ammianus Marcellinus, the historian, writing late in the fourth century, says: "The modern nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the loftiness of their chariots and the weighty magnificence of their dress. Their long robes of silk and purple float in the wind; and as they are agitated by art or accident, they occasionally discover the under-garments, the rich tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals." Gibbon notes that the more pious coxcombs substituted the figure of some favorite saint. Ammianus goes on to describe how, "followed by a train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets with the same impetuous speed as if they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs. Whenever these persons of high distinction condescend to visit the public baths, they assume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate to their exclusive use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman people. If, in these places of mixed and general resort, they meet any of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they express their affection by a tender embrace; while they proudly disdain the salutation of their fellow-citizens who are not permitted to aspire above the honor of kissing their hands or their knees. As soon as they have indulged themselves in the refreshment of the bath, they resume their rings and the other ensigns of their dignity, select from their private wardrobe (of the finest linen, and of a quantity such as might suffice for a dozen persons), the garments most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain till their departure the same haughty demeanor.... The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the attention of nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the advantages of study. The libraries which they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from the light of day. The art of obtaining the signature of a favorable testament, and sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly understood; and it has happened that in the same house, though in different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable design of over-reaching each other, have summoned their respective lawyers, to declare, at the same time, their mutual but contradictory wishes."
It is probable that Ammianus, with the disdain which students are apt to affect toward the unphilosophic multitude, has exaggerated the disregard of the Roman nobility for books. We have seen that many of the female friends of Jerome were most ardent lovers of literature; and the Christian Fathers constantly evince an expectation of finding among their female followers an enthusiastic reading public. These women read theological works; it is not unreasonable to suppose that their less heavenly-minded sisters were as assiduous students of the classical secular books.
We have the names and somewhat of the history of a few of the women who lived in this period, but they are all from the highest and most conspicuous society. History loves a shining mark. If the chroniclers of the time had favored us with a detailed descriptive account of the life of the common people, it would have been of more value than that of many nobles.
The population of Rome at this time has been estimated at between one million two hundred thousand and two million. This, of course, includes the vast army of slaves, which remained undiminished after the change of the national religion. But there was also a great horde of free, poor plebeians, who were the perpetual paupers of the government. These lived in the same careless, indigent idleness as had the same class in preceding centuries. They inhabited tenements not unlike those known to the great cities of modern times. These houses were of several stories, each tenement sheltering a number of families. That they were exceedingly uncomfortable is easy to believe, seeing that even the wealthy of ancient times, notwithstanding the architectural grandeur which they could command, were ignorant of the ordinary modern domestic conveniences. The free working class of the present day was then practically unknown: that place was taken by the slaves. So the poverty-stricken Roman citizen was both necessarily and willingly unemployed. Generally, however, corn, wine, and oil were supplied him with little or no expense to himself. Each morning, at a set time, his wife would repair to a prescribed station in the district, and there, on showing a citizen's ticket, she would receive a three-pound loaf of bread. So indulgent was the government, that it ground and baked the allowance which at one time was made in the shape of corn. During five months in the year there was also distributed, to the poorer people, an allowance of pork; the annual consumption of this kind of meat in Rome was three million six hundred and twenty-eight thousand pounds. When the populace had clamored before Augustus for free wine as well as bread, that wise and firm ruler reminded them that since his friend Agrippa had brought into the city a bountiful supply of pure water, no Roman need complain of thirst. But those emperors who denuded Roman citizenship entirely of its right of suffrage yet had an interest in keeping the populace quiet and contented; hence, in the fourth century there existed public cellars from whence was dispensed, at a small cost to the inhabitants of Rome, the fermented vintage of Campania.
It was also necessary, the people being idle, that they should be amused. There were the magnificent public baths where they could while away the time in luxury and gossip. But the amusement with which the multitude was never satiated was found in the exhibitions of the circus. On special occasions, many would sleep in the porticoes near by, in order to be the first on hand to obtain seats in the morning. The immense amphitheatre would accommodate four hundred thousand. Christianity abolished the gladiatorial combat of former times; but there still remained the exciting and perilous chariot race and the hunting and fighting of wild beasts. Nor had Christianity been able to purify the stage to any great extent. The Muses of Tragedy and a statelier comedy were entirely abandoned for licentious farces. No fewer than three thousand female dancers were occupied in the theatres of Rome. At a time of famine when all strangers were banished from the city, and also the teachers of the liberal arts, these dancers were exempted by the edict.
The people of Rome were afforded an additional source of interest in the ecclesiastical contentions which were aroused by the ambitions and the theological disputes of the clergy. Before the close of the fourth century the bishopric of Rome had become an office more fitted to be sought after by the worldly-minded than by the imitator of the humble Galilean fishermen. Its vacation was the signal for a contention in which rival candidates were not averse to employing the violence of the common people as well as the influence of noble Christian ladies. Ammianus describes how "the ardor of Damasus and Ursinus to seize the episcopal seat surpassed the ordinary measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers; and the prefect, unable to resist or appease the tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies were found in the Basilica of Sicininus, where the Christians held their religious assemblies; and it was long before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most obstinate contests. The successful candidate is confident that he will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; that, as soon as his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may proceed in his chariot through the streets of Rome; and that the sumptuousness of the imperial table will not equal the profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste and expense of the Roman bishops."
The practice of taking advantage of the charity--or the sentiment--of wealthy ladies had become so prevalent among the clergy that the government had been compelled to regard it as an abuse to be severely legislated against. By his enemies, Bishop Damasus himself was nicknamed Auriscalpius Matronarum (the ladies' ear scratcher). An edict on the subject was addressed by Valentinian to this bishop who was directed to have it read in the churches of his diocese. It must have been a humiliating document for the clerics of the time to listen to in the presence of their congregations. It admonished them not to frequent the houses of virgins and widows. The habit had become popular for wealthy and devout ladies to choose some monk or priest as their individual and private spiritual director. That the confidence reposed in the latter was often abused is indicated by the edict which prohibited him from profiting by any gift or legacy from his spiritual protégée; the same abuse is also frankly acknowledged in the writings of the Fathers. As we have seen in the case of Jerome and Paula, such a relationship might be perfectly innocent, though somewhat hysterical. Human nature is the same in all ages; and, given a woman whose sentimental nature predisposed her to seek an indemnification in spiritual companionship for those ordinary delights which, by pious vows, she had denied herself; an ecclesiastic, frail in principle, but apt to cloak his designs with the sanctity of ghostly affection and disinterested charity, and the result is not unlikely to be disastrous to the reputation of the lady and, also, to the expectations of her heirs. The law of Valentinian, forbidding these women to make clerics their legatees, precluded the former from the comfort of an ostentatious guaranty of their piety, and stigmatized the disinterestedness of the latter.
Such, then, was the condition of the Roman Empire at the time when the causes leading to its decline were nearing their culmination. After Julian's death under the assassin's hand, Jovian followed in a brief reign. Then Valentinian came to the throne. In this emperor is witnessed that astonishing mixture of vice and virtue, barbarous cruelty and Christian belief which characterized that period. It was an age of bitter warfare; every human force was engaged in deadly contention; both the Church and the Empire were fighting for their lives. The latter could scarcely keep off the hordes of barbarians which were swarming and surging upon its borders, and at times it seemed as if the former had quite succumbed to the heresy of Arianism. It was the most deadly battle that the Church has ever had to wage. After the question of who should rule, theology was the most important item in the politics of the time. Varying metaphysical definitions which baffled the acumen of the wisest philosophers were confidently espoused in a spirit of partisanship by mechanics and ignorant persons of both sexes. It was the difference of an iota--homoousiosorhomoiousios.
Valentinian favored orthodoxy, not because of sturdy convictions (he said it was a question for bishops), but because the Church in the West was mainly Catholic; but in Justina, his wife, the Arians were compensated by a powerful champion. Socrates, the historian, describes the marriage of Justina as having taken place under most remarkable circumstances. The story is interesting, though of somewhat doubtful veracity: "Justus, the father of Justina, who had been governor of Picenum under the reign of Constantius, had a dream in which he seemed to himself to bring forth the imperial purple out of his right side. When this dream had been told to many persons, it at length came to the knowledge of Constantius, who conjecturing it to be a presage that a descendant of Justus would become emperor, caused him to be assassinated. Justina, being thus bereft of her father, still continued a virgin. Some time after, she became known to Severa, wife of the Emperor Valentinian, and had frequent intercourse with the empress, until their intimacy at length grew to such an extent that they were accustomed to bathe together. When Severa saw Justina in the bath she was greatly struck with the beauty of the virgin, and spoke of her to the emperor, saying that the daughter of Justus was so lovely a creature and possessed of such symmetry of form, that she herself, though a woman, was altogether charmed with her. The emperor, treasuring this description by his wife in his own mind, considered with himself how he could espouse Justina, without repudiating Severa, who had borne him Gratian, whom he had created Augustus a short time before. He accordingly framed a law, and caused it to be published throughout all the cities, by which any man was permitted to have two lawful wives. The law was promulgated and he married Justina, by whom he had Valentinian the younger, and three daughters--Justa, Grata, and Galla.... Galla was afterwards married to Theodosius the Great, who had by her a daughter named Placidia."
This story, romantic as it is, lacks all the hallmarks of credibility. In the first place, there is absolutely no trace of this remarkable law either in the codes or in other historians. Furthermore, the ancient Church was more severely opposed to bigamy and polygamy than it was to any other deviation from common morals. Also the Roman law strongly discountenanced plurality in marriage. Moreover, we have it on the authority of Ammianus, who is a most trustworthy witness, that Valentinian was remarkable for his chastity, both at home and abroad. Also in contradiction to what Socrates relates, Zosimus asserts that Justina had already been married to Magnentius, and that the emperor was joined to her in matrimony after the death of Severa, his first wife. Either this latter statement must be accepted as the fact in the case, or we must believe that the first empress was divorced, a procedure that was certainly not difficult and was extremely customary for the rulers of Rome. What is probably the truth of the matter is that this story of Justina being the partner of Valentinian in bigamy was a malicious invention; possibly the discredit of its promulgation should be laid at the door of some of the Unscrupulous among the orthodox, who were incensed at her support of heresy.
It was customary for the empress to accompany her imperial husband in his military expeditions about the Empire. Apart from other considerations, this was necessary to her safety and that of her offspring. Conspirators are apt to perpetrate their designs in the absence of the ruler against whom they are plotting; and in that case, the legitimate successor, with his protectors--if within reach--is the first victim of the ambition or precaution of his father's enemies. Consequently, it was usual for the emperors to take their families with them even in the most distant journeys. The advantage of this was illustrated in the death of Valentinian. He had marched against the Quadi who were vexing the frontier on the bank of the Danube. In his customary cruel manner, he put to death all who fell into his power, murdering even the women and children. The desperate people sent envoys begging for peace and forgiveness, but Valentinian broke out upon them in one of those paroxysms of rage to which he was subject, and, in the midst of his terrible invectives, ruptured a blood vessel in his lungs, which caused his death upon the spot.
At the moment, Justina was occupying a palace at a short distance from Bregetio, where the death of her husband occurred. Gratian, the son of Severa, had already been invested by his father with the imperial purple; but the court ministers, inspired probably with the thought of those advantages which such men enjoy during the reign of an infant, immediately planned to exalt to the throne of Valentinian the latter's four-year-old son, who bore the same name. Justina was sent for and placed by the ministers on a regal platform facing the troops. She held her young son in her arms; and the picture of a beautiful woman, endowed both with the fruit and the graces of motherhood, had its never failing effect of stirring the soldiers to an outburst of chivalric enthusiasm. The infant was there and then invested with the purple and the insignia of empire, which, it may be added, he never wore with greater effect than in the hour when his puny infant form was first arrayed in them. Whatever real influence his name had in the government was wielded by Justina. But Gratian was emperor. He it was who commanded the army and ruled the Empire, while Justina held court and engaged in petty domestic politics at Milan and Sirmium. One thing is certain and is remarkable enough to be mentioned--the two empress-mothers, Severa and Justina, lived as co-widows in that mutual harmony which Socrates would have us believe characterized them as co-wives.
Perhaps the principal event of the life of Justina was her controversy with Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who was one of the noblest men of the ancient Church, and who, by his courage and integrity, set an example for all succeeding bishops. Contemning the pomps and vanities of the world, he did not disdain to use the powers of his office for the political advantage of either the Church or the state; so, when Maximus usurped the imperial privilege in the Gallic provinces, Ambrose was sent as an ambassador by Justina to beg the clemency of the new emperor for herself and her son. Maximus reigned in the far West, while at his sufferance Valentinian II. was emperor in Italy.
While this young emperor--who died at the age of twenty-one--reigned, his mother ruled. Justina, however, appears to have been an easy-going woman. She does not seem to have been possessed of much ambition, and there is no indication that she interfered very strenuously in the affairs of the Empire. She found herself in the position which she occupied, and endeavored to preserve herself and her son in safety. Tolerance was marked in all that she did, and there was a very evident willingness to leave others unmolested, provided she and her son were allowed to maintain their position in security. Of course, while they retained the names of empress-mother and emperor, their real power was but slight. Valentinian II. was never more than a boy, and Justina possessed no military command. Nevertheless, it does seem as if she were endowed with some real ability, or she could not have maintained herself in comparative security during seventeen years of such troublous and changeful times.
Justina's controversy with Saint Ambrose seems to have been the one point on which she had serious difficulty with her subjects, and this appears to have affected only the people of Milan. Gibbon, in his inimitable manner, thus describes the incident: "The government of Italy and of the young emperor naturally devolved to his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but who, in the midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune of professing the Arian heresy, which she endeavored to instil into the mind of her son. Justina was persuaded that a Roman emperor might claim, in his own dominions, the public exercise of his religion; and she proposed to the archbishop, as a moderate and reasonable concession, that he should resign the use of a single church, either in the city or suburbs of Milan. But the conduct of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. The palaces of earth might indeed belong to Cæsar, but the churches were the houses of God; and, within the limits of his diocese, he himself, as the lawful successor of the apostles, was the only minister of God. The privileges of Christianity, temporal as well as spiritual, were confined to the true believers; and the mind of Ambrose was satisfied that his own theological opinions were the standard of truth and orthodoxy. The archbishop, who refused to hold any conference or negotiation with the instruments of Satan, declared with modest firmness his resolution to die a martyr rather than to yield to the impious sacrilege; and Justina, who resented the refusal as an act of insolence and rebellion, hastily determined to exert the imperial prerogative of her son."
Under ordinary circumstances, in a like situation, it is very probable that the bishop's reiterated desire for martyrdom would have been gratified. But Ambrose was secure, owing to the intense orthodoxy of all Justina's subjects. In an attack on religion, there was no one to carry out her commands. "As she desired to perform her public devotions on the approaching festival of Easter, Ambrose was ordered to appear before the council. He obeyed the summons with the respect of a faithful subject, but he was followed, without his consent, by an innumerable people: they pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the palace; and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead of pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of Milan, humbly requested that he would interpose his authority, to protect the person of the emperor, and to restore the tranquillity of the capital."
In the end the bishop prevailed. There are extant certain letters written by the saint to his sister, Marcellina, in which he describes the circumstances of this dispute with Justina. He recounts how soldiers were sent to occupy the church which the empress desired for her own heretical use, and how they fraternized with the Catholic people who refused to give up the sacred building. The bishop asserts that in the midst of all this tumult and public inharmony, he gave utterance only to "freer groans." But there is evidence in bis own letters that Ambrose took a more active and also a more effective course than mere pious groaning; indeed, he showed a remarkable boldness of decision, as well as astuteness, in his political methods. He met the occasion with a sermon on the trials of Job, which could hardly have aroused pleasant reflections in the mind of Justina. "But Job was tried by accumulated tidings of evils, he was also tried by his wife, who said, 'Speak a word against God and die.' You see what terrible things are of a sudden stirred up, the Goths, armed men, the heathen.... You observe what was commanded when the order was given: 'Surrender the Basilica!' that is, speak a word against God and die.... So, then, we are prepared by the imperial commands, but are strengthened by the words of Scripture, which replies: 'Thou hast spoken as one of the foolish.' That temptation then is no light one, for we know that those temptations are more severe which arise through women. For even Adam was overthrown by Eve, whereby it came to pass that he erred from the divine commandments.... Why should I relate that Jezebel, also, persecuted Elijah after a bloodthirsty fashion? Or that Herodias caused John the Baptist to be slain?... Of women change follows on change, their hatreds alternate, their falsehoods vary, elders assemble together, wrong done to the emperor is made a pretence."
This homiletic punishment of the empress by the intrepid saint was opportunely followed by the discovery of certain holy and potent relics. By means of these, the sick were healed and the blind restored, and thus the people were convinced that God was on their side. The empress derided these marvels with an incredulity which would do credit to the present time; but she was compelled to take the wise counsel of Theodosius and surrender her purpose. She took her revenge, however, by publishing a decree that the Arian worship should be lawful throughout the dominions of her son, Valentinian II.
During this time, Maximus, the usurper of Gaul, had acted toward the empress and her feeble son with apparent friendliness; but he had not in reality set bounds to the range of his ambition. In 377, his first hostile operations commenced. Justina was not prepared for warfare. She fled with the emperor and her daughter, Galla, to Theodosius, the great ruler of the East, who first married Galla, and then took up successfully the cause of her mother and her brother. Of this marriage was born Placidia whose strange adventures we shall shortly relate. It is probable that Justina died during the war waged by Theodosius against Maximus. Of her character nothing derogatory is recorded with the exception of her heresy. It is hardly remarkable that, in an ecclesiastical dispute, she should be unable to cope with the man who, later, had the strength and the courage to close the door of the cathedral in the face of the great Theodosius, after his crime at Thessalonica.
Events so moved that, by the year 394, Theodosius had become the sole ruler of the Empire; but four months later he died at Milan, leaving the dominion of the East and the West to his sons Arcadius and Honorius respectively. Honorius was of a weakly constitution, and too young to take part in public matters. Flavius Stilicho, a Vandal, and the ablest man both in court and in camp that those times produced, defended the Empire in the attacks of the barbarians who poured over the Danube and over the Rhine.
Stilicho had married the beautiful and accomplished Serena, the favorite niece of Theodosius. Claudian, in a poem devoted to the praise of Serena, has portrayed her excellences of mind and person as being of the most attractive quality. To her devotion to her husband the modern historian pays this tribute: "The arts of calumny might have been successful, if the tender and vigilant Serena had not protected her husband against his domestic foes, while he vanquished in the field the enemies of the empire."
The daughter of Serena, whose name was Maria, was made the wife of Honorius when that emperor was in his fourteenth year. Claudian wrote an epithalamium and some fescennine verses for the occasion, after the ancient manner; nothing else of this kind could ever have been quite so ridiculously conventional, for, on the authority of Zosimus, we learn that Maria died a virgin after she had been ten years a wife. The debility of her husband's constitution rendered the continence, which the ecclesiastic of that time so greatly admired, uncommonly easy. Honorius sat on the Roman throne through a period of twenty-eight years, with little more influence or effect upon the history of his time than would have been exerted if his place had been filled by a wooden image.
In the meantime, those commotions had taken place in the interior of Asia which were to result in the flooding and overthrowing of the Roman Empire by hordes of migrating barbarians. The most formidable of these were the Huns, a Mongol race which had roamed the steppes from time immemorial. The Huns were the more terrible because of their extreme ugliness. Their appearance was a fearful visitation for the women of the civilized nations which they overran. These hardy and vicious savages suddenly swarmed out from their own country, and, driving the Ostrogoths before them, with devastating persistence rolled, a human wave, to the westward. The Goths were between "the devil and the deep sea." But, while the Huns were an irresistible force, the Romans were not an immovable body. Steadily the Goths gained ground westward with the Huns surging after them. Rome was doomed. The effeminating arts of civilization prepared a prey for the necessities of virile barbarism. A brave ruler like Theodosius, who was not of the enervated Roman race, might stem the tide for a while; but the disintegration of the Empire was as inevitable as is that of a pile of lumber when caught in the flooding of a river.
In the year 402, Alaric the Goth for the first time broke into the Western empire. He carried his conquering arms into Italy, spreading a pathway of devastation and misery wherever he went. In modern times, it is impossible to estimate the suffering which an invasion brought upon the women of that fated country. The old and those deficient in personal attractions were robbed and, as likely as not, murdered; the young and the beautiful were outraged and enslaved. All this wretchedness and more, the barbarians visited upon Rome; but Alaric's first exploit was ended at Pollentia by the brave generalship of Stilicho, though the goodwill of the barbarian was purchased by tribute. As soon as this danger was, for the time, averted, a new and not less fearful invasion spread over the Empire. Horde after horde of Vandals, Alani, Burgundians, and Alemannians crossed the frontiers in search of plunder and adventure. They, too, were held in check by the able minister; but gratitude for public service rendered is never so potential as is envy of the high position of the one giving it, and the sole defender of the Empire fell a victim to political machinations at the precise moment when the peril of Rome was greatest.
With Alaric pounding on the gates of the capital, the Romans, with the consent of Honorius, murdered the only man in the world who had proved himself the barbarian's match. Nor did they stop with the death of Stilicho; as Gibbon says: "Perhaps in the person of Serena, the Romans might have respected the niece of Theodosius, the aunt, nay, even the adoptive mother of the reigning emperor; but they abhorred the widow of Stilicho; and they listened with credulous passion to the tale of calumny which accused her of maintaining a secret and criminal correspondence with the Gothic invader. Actuated, or overawed, by the same popular frenzy, the senate, without requiring any evidence of her guilt, pronounced the sentence of her death. Serena was ignominiously strangled; and the infatuated multitude were astonished to find that this cruel act of injustice did not immediately produce the retreat of the barbarians, and the deliverance of the city." One offence alleged against Serena was that she had taken a necklace from the statue of Vesta--it was then the fashion to clothe and adorn the statues, whether in the interest of modesty or ostentation we cannot say.
The description which the great student of ancient history just now quoted gives of the siege which Rome at that time endured is entirely in keeping with our subject. "That unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread was reduced to one-half, to one-third, to nothing.... The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich; and for a while the public misery was alleviated by the humanity of Lasta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, who had fixed her residence at Rome, and consecrated to the use of the indigent the princely revenue which she annually received from the grateful successors of her husband. But these private and temporary donatives were insufficient to appease the hunger of a numerous people; and the progress of famine invaded the marble palaces of the senators themselves. The persons of both sexes, who had been educated in the enjoyment of ease and luxury, discovered how little is requisite to supply the demands of nature; and lavished their unavailing treasures of gold and silver, to obtain the coarse and scanty sustenance which they would formerly have rejected with disdain."
The outbreak of a pestilence soon added to the horrors of famine. Rome again suffered the loss of thousands of her citizens through disease. If the extent of this calamity was less than during the Great Plague, a century and a half before, mourning was nevertheless almost universal. Gibbon says, "many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets, for want of sustenance." But the almost unending funeral procession of the former period was now lacking, as the public sepulchres without the walls were within the circle of the invading horde.
FAMINE AND PESTILENCEAfter the painting by A. Hirschl.
The outbreak of a pestilence soon added to the horrors of famine. Rome again suffered the loss of thousands of her citizens through disease. If the extent of this calamity was less than during the Great Plague, a century and a half before, mourning was nevertheless almost universal. Gibbon says, "many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets, for want of sustenance." But the almost unending funeral procession of the former period was now lacking, as the public sepulchres without the walls were within the circle of the invading horde.
There was no relief. When ambassadors pleaded with Alaric for the great multitude of the people against whom he was contending, his sole reply was: "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." When he stipulated the ransom by which alone the city could be saved, and the ministers of the senate humbly inquired what he purposed to leave to them, he haughtily replied: "Your lives." The promise of five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds of silver, four thousand robes of silk, three thousand pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and three thousand pounds of pepper suspended for a time the vengeance which centuries of oppression by Rome had accumulated in barbarian hearts.
The Roman courtiers, however, had neither the wisdom nor the honesty to keep faith with the enemy whom they could not resist and on whose good graces depended their safety. The patience of Alaric became exhausted. He threw off all restraint, determining to take the fate and also the resources of the Empire into his own hands. The year 410 saw the city, which had for a millennium been the proud mistress of the world, captured and at the mercy of the barbaric nations which for so many centuries had furnished her wealth and slaves.
The conqueror declared that he waged war with the Romans and not with the Apostles. Consequently, while he encouraged his soldiers to seize the opportunity to enrich themselves and enjoy the fruits of victory, he gave commands that the sanctity of the churches should be observed. The ecclesiastical writers recount instances of seemingly remarkable protection vouchsafed to the holy virgins, who were at the mercy of a licentious soldiery. But there is every evidence that the customary fate of the conquered in those savage times was abundantly meted out. It is on record that many Christian women, in order to save themselves from what they dreaded still more, sought death in the waters of the Tiber. Others were more fortunate in being able to find protection in flight. "The most illustrious of these fugitives," says Gibbon, "was the noble and pious Proba, the widow of the prefect, Petronius. After the death of her husband, the most powerful subject of Rome, she had remained at the head of the Anician family, and successively supplied, from her private fortune, the expense of the consulships of her three sons. When the city was besieged and taken by the Goths, Proba supported, with Christian resignation, the loss of immense riches; embarked in a small vessel, from which she beheld, at sea, the flames of her burning palace, and fled with her daughter, Læta, and her grand-daughter, the celebrated virgin, Demetrias, to the coast of Africa. The benevolent profusion with which the matron distributed the fruits or the price of her estates contributed to alleviate the misfortunes of exile and captivity. But the family of Proba herself was not exempt from the rapacious oppression of Count Heraclian, who basely sold, in matrimonial prostitution, the noblest maidens of Rome to the lust or avarice of Syrian merchants."
Alaric died shortly after his conquest, and the sceptre of the Gothic kingdom passed to the hand of Adolphus, his brother-in-law. The latter was a brave and able general, and seems to have possessed a nature not discreditable to the time in which he lived. He proposed--the proposal had all the effect of a command--a treaty of alliance with Honorius. It practically amounted to annexation; but the Roman emperor was not in a position to refuse any proposition which the Goth might see fit to make. Nor could the Romans prevent Adolphus from strengthening his own interest, as well as consulting his passion, in taking to wife the half-sister of Honorius, Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius and Galla.
Placidia was just ripening into womanhood when Alaric first appeared before Rome. She was taken as a hostage by the Gothic conqueror, and, though reduced to the indignity of being a prisoner in a barbarian camp, was treated with great consideration. Her beauty and her mental gifts won the regard of Adolphus: and no sooner had he succeeded to the kingship, than he requested of Honorius her hand. Such an alliance was repugnant to the Romans, but, as in other matters, the request was only a polite form of command. Placidia herself does not appear to have been unwilling to accept the situation, and her nuptials were celebrated in splendid state. The exploits of his army in Italy had enabled Adolphus to present his bride with a magnificent wedding gift. The historian Olympiodorus recounts that fifty handsome boys were employed to carry this present. They came before her, carrying a bowl in each hand. One bowl was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious gems. Adolphus always manifested a strong and tender affection for his wife; nor did he ever lose an opportunity to honor her birth, seating her above himself on state occasions.
This union, however, was destined to be short-lived. Adolphus was stricken down by the hand of an assassin; his enemy was seated upon his throne; and Placidia, being brutally and of purpose made one of a number of common captives, was compelled to run for twelve miles before the horse of the barbarian chieftain, the murderer of a husband whom she had sincerely loved. Possibly it was her sufferings which aroused the people; however, her persecutor was himself assassinated a few days after his own murderous act; and Placidia was restored to her brother, her ransom being six hundred thousand measures of wheat.
Placidia would have been willing, in accordance with the Christian teaching of the time, to have lamented the loss of Adolphus in continual widowhood. But another marriage was arranged for her, without her consent: she was awarded as a prize to Constantius the general for his services to Honorius. The results of this marriage were the birth of Honoria and of Valentinian III., and, probably through the schemes of Placidia, the promotion of her husband to the title of Augustus. But it was not long before the princess again found herself a widow; and though mischievous tongues magnified the caresses of childish affection on the part of Honorius to signs of a fondness warmer than their kinship would warrant, a quarrel between these two caused Placidia to go with her children to Constantinople.
At the death of Honorius, Valentinian, though no more than six years of age, was invested with the purple. But his mother was empress; the policy of the Empire was directed by her; and for twenty-five years she maintained her power. Gibbon speaks slightingly of her ability; but it could not have been little, else how did she retain a rule which any chance military adventurer might be tempted to seize? The historian refers to Cassiodorus, who compares the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha, to the disadvantage of the former.
The life of the Roman empress had been filled with more adventures and changes of fortune than were wont to fall to the lot of woman, even in those troublous times, but her story is less strange and is certainly happier than that of her daughter, Honoria. There is in existence a medal bearing the countenance of Honoria, and it is a fair face; it bears the inscription Augusta. The young princess was invested with this honor and rank in order that she might be above the aspirations of any subject. As early as her sixteenth year, however, she chafed against the isolation to which she was doomed. Denied legitimate love, she abandoned herself to an illicit relationship with one of the domestic officers of the palace, the fact of which was soon revealed by her pregnancy. She was exiled by her mother to Constantinople, where she spent several years in close restraint and great unhappiness. Attila the Hun was at that time the particular barbarian who was harassing the Empire; and suddenly he announced that he had received the betrothal of the princess Honoria, and that he claimed her as his bride. Then her astonished relatives learned that she really had been in correspondence with Attila, and had besought him to claim her in marriage. It is probable that a spirit of mischief actuated Honoria in this; for no educated woman could in reality desire to be joined in marriage with the Hun, unless it were from motives very different from love. The king had at first disdained her advances, and was willing to act upon them only when it suited the policy dictated by his ambition. But Placidia steadfastly refused to countenance her daughter's procedure; and Honoria, being first married to a man of mean extraction, in order that the question of her matrimonial disposal might never again be a source of trouble, was shut up in a close prison for the rest of her days. It is not unlikely that her misfortunes arose rather from her position than her character. That her life with Attila, had she attained her object, would have proved more desirable than perpetual imprisonment is difficult to believe. His respect for woman may be estimated from the fact that he was a polygamist, and also from the fact that he watched his soldiers amuse themselves with the awful death agonies of two hundred maidens, whom they tore limb from limb with wild horses and crushed under the wheels of heavy wagons.
Placidia died in the year 450. She was buried at Ravenna; and, with some ambiguity of meaning, it is said that there her corpse, seated in a chair of cypress wood, was preserved for ages. Her son perished by the avenging hand of a senator whose wife he had perfidiously violated. He was the last emperor of the house of Theodosius; and his mother was the last woman, with a name in history, who was worthy of mention in the records of the perishing Western Empire.
With the death of Placidia, we arrive at the end of a cycle in the evolution of the human race. It was contemporaneous with the terminus of ancient Aryan civilization--it was during a climacteric in human history. Again the world was to revert to the rudeness necessarily accompanying the vigorous strength which characterizes the setting forth of a new race. The world began again--polished manners and social order gave place to strenuosity and individualism. The strong hand again became the one thing needful. Literature was silent, and art was forgotten. Of the glory of classic civilization there remained only a memory; and even this grew faint, for the struggle for existence became exacting. Nevertheless, from all that Rome had done and had been there remained an imperishable deposit. From the ruins of one civilization there is gathered the foundations for the succeeding. Rome left, among other contributions to absolute progress, the idea of nationality and a belief in the necessity of popular law. In these two respects, woman shared in the determined progress of the world. The Roman woman manifested the capacity of her sex to place a steady hand on the helm of the state; she wrested for herself some of those legal rights to which, by virtue of her humanity at least, she is indubitably entitled.
We may now consider ourselves to have nearly passed the transition period between the Classic and the Middle Ages, and to have begun to enter that indefinite range of history known as Mediævalism--indefinite as to character rather than extent of period. A new world opens to our view; a world which we examine under the influence of the romanticist more than under that of the philosopher. In the age to which our researches have now brought us we find that the life of woman has wholly changed. Evolution has taken a new beginning. In place of the state as the symbol and the object of power and progress individualism has come to the front and asserted itself. There is now more play for personal initiation on the part of the multitude. The activity of the individual is more directly attributable to his personal motives and culminates more fully in his own desires. Consequently, though woman is still held down to an inferior level, and is hampered by unequal laws, she has more room in which to assert herself, and she plays a stronger part in historical events. Practically, though not theoretically, she is still given in marriage without her consent; but she is no longer regarded as a mere possession. Her surroundings also have wonderfully changed. In place of the porticoed villa with its marble floor and beautiful statuary, its highly decorated atrium and sparkling fountains, she is now seen in what was the rudiment of the turreted castle with its rough hall and rush-strewn floor. She has lost the learning by which she was wont to delight her idle hours with classic poetry and Greek philosophy; if she can read at all, her accomplishment is a rare one, and the most powerful stimulus to her imagination is the song of illiterate bards who recite the heroic achievements of her race. In this she has reverted to literature in its embryonic condition. Her religion has gained morality, though emphatically more in theory than in practice, but it has distinctly lost in poetry. Elegance has disappeared from every phase of her life. When she rides abroad it is no longer in a splendidly equipped litter, but, in hardier fashion, upon horseback. While for her to lead men-at-arms is an extreme rarity, she is far likelier to attain ruling authority than she was under the refined civilization of older times. With the Franks, however, supreme rule by a woman, in any direct manner, was rendered impossible by the ancient Salic law which prescribed that "no portion of really Salic land (that is to say, in the full territorial ownership of the head of the family) should pass into the possession of women, but it should belong altogether to the virile sex."
To us the early Mediæval life seems more remote and less intelligible than that of the classic age. We are more at home in the villas of Rome than in the castles of Charlemagne. This is partly because the literature of the latter age has not presented such a satisfying picture as have the immortal productions of the former; but more largely because the genius of modern civilization has its counterpart in the social ideas of classic times, rather than in the individualistic motive of mediævalism.
The period covered by this chapter extends over four hundred years, from the end of the fifth century to the tenth. In our selection of characters from the successive generations during that term, we shall have an eye to their utility as representing types of the feminine, even more than to their aptitude for illustrating any special development in civilized habits. Evolution proceeded slowly in those days, and, consequently, a century or two did not greatly change social habits.
Somewhere about the middle of the fifth century, a Frankish chief named Childeric was driven from his own people by the varying fortunes of war. He took refuge among the Thuringians, and rewarded their kindness by seducing Basina, the wife of their king. After his return, she left her husband and joined her lover, becoming his recognized wife. Childeric's guilt in this affair is somewhat mitigated by the spirit of Basina, who declared that she chose the Frank solely because she knew no man who was wiser, stronger or handsomer, surely a frank admission of natural sentiment. The offspring of this free union was Clovis, the founder of the kingdom of the Franks, and the means whereby it became Christian.
While still a youth, though established in the chieftainship by his valor in marauding expeditions, Clovis heard of the beauty and the desirable character of Clotilde, the niece of Gondebaud, King of the Burgundians. She had been brought up amidst the most barbarous scenes which those times could produce. Her father and her two brothers had been put to death by her uncle, who had also caused her mother Agrippina to be thrown into the Rhone, with a stone fastened to her neck, and drowned. Clotilde and her sister Chrona, he permitted to live. The latter had become a nun, while Clotilde, no less religious, was living at Geneva where, as it is said, she employed her whole time in works of piety and charity. Clovis sent to Gondebaud asking the hand of his niece; but it appears that at first his suit was not favorably looked upon, for the Frank resorted to unusual measures whereby he gained his end and provided the material for an interesting story. It is told as follows by Fredegaire in his commentary on the history by Gregory of Tours: "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde, Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To ensure confidence in himself, he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and whilst she was washing his feet, Aurelian, bending toward her, said under his breath, 'Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee if thou deign to permit me secret revelation.' She consenting, replied, 'Say on.' 'Clovis, King of the Franks,' said he, 'hath sent me to thee: if it be the will of God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank by marriage; and that thou mayest be certified thereof, he sendeth thee this ring.' She accepted this ring with great joy, and said to Aurelian, 'Take for recompense of thy pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring of mine. Return promptly to thy lord; if he would fain unite me to him in marriage, let him send without delay messengers to demand me of my uncle Gondebaud, and let the messengers who shall come take me away in haste, so soon as they shall have obtained permission; if they haste not, I fear lest a certain sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople; and if he arrive beforehand, all this matter will by his counsel come to naught.'"
Aurelian returned and told Clovis all that had passed and the instructions he had received from Clotilde. "Clovis, pleased with his success and with Clotilde's notion, at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to demand his niece in marriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of making a friend of Clovis, promised to give her to him. Then the deputation, having offered the denier and the sou, according to the custom of the Franks, espoused Clotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to be married. Without any delay, the council was assembled at Chalons, and preparations were made for the nuptials. The Franks, having arrived with all speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud, put her into a covered carriage and escorted her to Clovis, together with much treasure. She, however, having already learned that Aridius was on his way back, said to the Frankish lords, 'If ye would take me into the presence of your lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me on horseback, and get you hence as fast as you may; for never in this carriage shall I reach the presence of your lord.'
"Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles; and Gondebaud, on seeing him, said, 'Thou knowest that we have made friends with the Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife.' 'This,' answered Aridius, 'is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of perpetual strife; thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst slay Clotilde's father, that thou didst drown her mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers' heads and cast their bodies into a well. If Clotilde become powerful, she will avenge the wrongs of her relatives. Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and have her brought back to thee. It will be easier for thee to bear the wrath of one person than to be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with all the Franks.' And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to fetch back Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure; but she, on approaching Villers (where Clovis was waiting for her), in the territory of Troyes, and before passing the Burgundian frontier, urged them who escorted her to disperse right and left over a space of twelve leagues in the country whence she was departing, to plunder and burn; and that having been done with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, 'I thank thee, God omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of vengeance for my parents and my brethren!'"
The kingdom to which Clovis welcomed his queen was not large. It comprised no more than the island of the Batavians, and the dioceses of Tournay and Arras. Nevertheless, this marriage was of exceeding importance in the history of Europe, for by virtue of his qualities Clovis was destined to go far in conquest, and to establish the beginning of a great nation; and the question of his conversion, whether to Arianism or to Catholicism, was fairly certain to be answered by his matrimonial alliance. The time had come when political wisdom provided the most effective argument against paganism.
It was not at once, however, that Clotilde was able to bring about the conversion of her husband. The most she could accomplish was to gain his consent, after the birth of their first son, to the baptism of the latter. The child dying a few days afterward, serious misgivings arose in the king's mind as to whether he had not been ill advised in permitting the Christian rite. But Clotilde's second son also was baptized, and fell sick. Said Clovis: "It cannot be otherwise with him than with his brother; baptized in the name of your Christ, he is going to die." The child lived, and thereby Clotilde was placed to better advantage in attacking her husband's mind with her Christian arguments. He was brought to the point of decision when, in his battle at Tolbiac against the Alemannians, the day seeming about to be lost, Aurelian cried: "My lord king, believe only on the Lord of heaven, whom the queen, my mistress, preacheth!" Clovis exclaimed: "Christ Jesus, Thou whom my queen Clotilde calleth the Son of the Living God, I have invoked my own gods, and they have withdrawn from me; I believe that they have no power, since they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, I invoke; if Thou give me victory over these foes; if I find in Thee the power the people proclaim of Thee, I will believe on Thee, and will be baptized in Thy name." The fortune of battle immediately turned in favor of the Franks.
On his return home, to make sure that her husband would fulfil his vow while his gratitude was warm, Clotilde sent for Saint Remi, the holy Bishop of Rheims, to perfect her own instructions and receive him into the Church. Clovis was baptized, as were also the majority of his subjects. To what extent the doctrines of Christianity had taken possession of his mind may be gathered from the anecdote which recounts how, after hearing from the bishop's lips the story of the sufferings of Christ, he shouted: "Had I been present at the head of my valiant Franks, I would have revenged his injuries!" As Gibbon says: "The savage conqueror of Gaul was incapable of examining the proofs of a religion which depended upon the laborious investigation of historic evidence and speculative theology. He was still more incapable of feeling the mild influence of the gospel, which persuades and purifies the heart of a genuine convert. His ambitious reign was a perpetual violation of moral and Christian duties: his hands were stained with blood in peace as well as in war." He took part in a synod of the Gallican Church, and immediately murdered in cold blood all the princes of the Merovingian race. Into what, a pit the Christianity of those times had fallen may be understood when we find Gregory of Tours, after calmly reciting the murders of Clovis, concluding with these words: "For God thus daily prostrated his enemies under his hands, and enlarged his kingdom, because he walked before him with an upright heart, and did that which was pleasing in his sight." Clovis was the only strictly orthodox sovereign of that day--a day when orthodoxy was permitted to cover a multitude of sins.
After making himself sole monarch of the Frankish race, Clovis died in the year 511, and was buried in the church which had been erected by Clotilde. The queen survived her husband many years, but did not exercise any noticeable influence. She could not even save her two little grandsons from the ambitious cruelty of her sons--Clotaire and Childebert. These sent a message to Clotilde saying: "Send the children to us, that we may place them on the throne." Having sent them, there soon came to her another messenger, bearing a sword and a pair of shears. Unshorn locks were essential as a mark of the kingly race among the Franks; the messenger said therefore: "Most glorious queen, thy sons, our masters, desire to know thy will touching these children; wilt thou that they live with shorn hair or that they be put to death?" Clotilde, in her astonishment and despair, answered: "If they be not set upon the throne, I would rather know that they were dead than shorn." The messenger hastened back to the two kings and, with fatal and wilful inaccuracy, said: "Finish ye your work, for the queen favoring your plans, willeth that ye accomplish them." Forthwith the two children were murdered in the most cold-blooded fashion. The tale is rendered the more shocking by the addition of the fact that Guntheuque, the mother of the lads, had become the wife of that uncle who killed them.
The Merovingians allowed themselves as much license in love as they did freedom from restraint in regard to the sterner passions. Nominal Christians though they were, they felt no compunction of conscience as to polygamy, when the vagaries of their fancy could be satisfied only by its practice. Gregory of Tours records how: "King Clotaire I. had to wife Ingonde, and her only did he love, when she made to him the following request: 'My lord,' said she, 'hath made of his handmaid what seemeth to him good; and now, to crown his favors, let my lord deign to hear what his handmaid demandeth. I pray you be graciously pleased to find for my sister Aregonde, your slave, a man both capable and rich, so that I be rather exalted than abased thereby, and be enabled to serve you still more faithfully.' At these words, Clotaire, who was but too voluptuously disposed by nature, conceived a fancy for Aregonde, betook himself to the country house where she dwelt, and united her to him in marriage. When the union had taken place, he returned to Ingonde, and said to her, 'I have labored to procure for thee the favor thou didst so sweetly demand, and, on looking for a man of wealth and capability worthy to be united to thy sister, I could find none better than myself: know, therefore, that I have taken her to wife, and I trow that it will not displease thee.' 'What seemeth good in my master's eyes, that let him,' replied Ingonde; 'only let thy servant abide still in the king's grace.'"
From the above, it is noticeable that a servile manner of speech to their husbands was customary to the Frankish women of that time. It is possible that it was little more than an affectation. Doubtless the women of character and strength then, as ever, were not without means of holding their own. Chilperic, the King of Soissons, who was a son of Clotaire, added to the not brief list of his wives--we may give him the benefit of the doubt as to whether they were contemporaneous--Galsuinthe, daughter of the King of Spain. Her attractiveness consisted in no small measure of the wealth she brought him. But he became enamored of Fredegonde. Galsuinthe could not brook this, and she offered to willingly relinquish her dowry if he would send her back to her father. Chilperic adopted a solution of the difficulty that was more to his mind. The queen was found dead in her bed. She had been strangled by a slave. Chilperic mourned for a season which was more remarkable for its brevity than his sorrow was marked by its intensity, and then took Fredegonde for his wife. This queen exerted an influence upon the affairs of her time, both political and ecclesiastical. In her life and character was fully illustrated that strong mixture of viciousness and affected piety which occasions such a sad commentary on the Christianity of her time. She was the daughter of peasants, and owed her rise solely to her beauty and her mental gifts. Her numerous murders included her stepson, a king, and the Archbishop of Rouen. How much regard she entertained for her own personal chastity may be judged from the fact that she took a public oath, with three bishops and four hundred nobles as her vouchers, that her son was the true offspring of her husband, Chilperic. Whether the value of this great mass of testimony consisted in a personal denial of responsibility on the part of all the men whose position and character might be prejudicial to Chilperic's paternity is not made clear. And yet, despite all this, the following pious act is recorded to her: her child was ill; "he was a little brother, when his elder brother, Chlodebert, was attacked with the same symptoms. His mother, Fredegonde, seeing him in danger of death, and touched by tardy repentance, said to the king, 'Long hath divine mercy borne with our misdeeds; it hath warned us by fevers and other maladies, and we have not mended our ways, and now we are losing our sons; now the tears of the poor, the lamentations of widows, and the sighs of orphans are causing them to perish, and leaving us no hope of laying by for anyone. We heap up riches and know not for whom. Our treasures, all laden with plunder and curses, are like to remain without possessors. Our cellars are they not bursting with wine, and our granaries with corn? Our coffers were they not full to the brim with gold and silver and precious stones and necklaces and other imperial ornaments? And yet that which was our most beautiful possession we are losing! Come then, if thou wilt, and let us burn all these wicked lists!' Having thus spoken, and beating her breast, the queen had brought to her the rolls, which Mark had consigned to her of each of the cities that belonged to her, and cast them into the fire. Then, turning again to the king, 'What!' she cried, 'dost thou hesitate? Do thou even as I; if we lose our dear children, at least we escape everlasting punishment!'" It may be taken for granted that Fredegonde's "works meet for repentance" on this occasion have not suffered in the recital by Gregory of Tours. She may have exhorted her husband to acts of mercy; nevertheless she planned and saw executed the assassination of Chilperic, being fearful lest he discover the guilty connection which had sprung up between herself and an officer of her household. By this act, she became the sovereign guardian of her infant, and held this potential position during the last thirteen years of her life. Guizot thus summarizes her character: "She was a true type of the strong-willed, artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she started low down in the scale and rose very high without a corresponding elevation of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in deception as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool calculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of passion, and, for gratification of them, shrinking from no sort of crime. However, she died quietly at Paris in 597 or 598, powerful and dreaded, and leaving on the throne of Neustria her son, Clotaire II., who, fifteen years later, was to become sole king of all the Frankish dominions."
Contemporaneous with Fredegonde, and exerting a stronger and indeed more salutary influence upon her age, though scarcely superior in her moral character, was Brunehaut, Queen of the Franks of Austrasia. She was a younger sister of Galsuinthe, by the murder of whom the way was opened to Chilperic's bed and throne for Fredegonde. The King of Austrasia was Sigebert, brother of Chilperic. Among those fierce Merovingians kinship of the closest degree had no deterring influence on their passions. In a war between these two brothers, Sigebert was assassinated in his tent by the emissaries of Fredegonde. Brunehaut fell into the latter's power, and only the fact that she managed to make her way into the Cathedral of Paris, and thus claim right of asylum, saved her life. Thence she was sent to Rouen, where she met and married a son of Chilperic by a former wife. This so enraged Fredegonde that she persecuted her stepson until, in despair, he prevailed on a faithful servant to take his life. In the meantime, the Austrasians, who had the custody of Brunehaut's infant son, demanded their queen from Chilperic; she was surrendered to them, and was instated as queen-guardian of her son.
Brunehaut was in every sense a born ruler. A princess by birth, she also possessed a mind that was capable of formulating plans which united her people with herself in the enjoyment of the fruits of success as well as in the labor of accomplishment. Faults she had in abundance. As callous in regard to bloodshed and as loose in her morals as were the barbarians of her time, she was not without conscience as to the opportunities of her position, and she labored in many ways for the public good. Brunehaut came from Spain, where the Visigoths retained much of the Roman civilization. She endeavored to introduce some of these advantages into Austrasia, which was peopled by the least cultivated of the Franks; but, though forcing her reforms by sheer strength of will and intellect, the result was her expulsion from the land. The history of her rule is thus epitomized by Guizot: "She clung stoutly to the efficacious exercise of the royal authority; she took a practical interest in the public works, highways, bridges, monuments, and the progress of material civilization; the Roman roads in a short time received and for a long while kept in Austrasia the name of Brunehaufs Causeways; there used to be shown, in a forest near Bourges, Brunehaufs castle, Brunehaufs tower at Etampes, Brunehaufs stone near Tournay, and Brunehaufs fort near Cahors. In the royal domains, and wheresoever she went, she showed abundant charity to the poor, and many ages after her death the people of those districts still spoke of Brunehaufs Alms. She liked and protected men of letters, rare and mediocre indeed at that time, but the only beings, such as they were, with the notion of seeking and giving any kind of intellectual enjoyment; and they in turn took pleasure in celebrating her name and her deserts. The most renowned of all during that age, Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, dedicated nearly all his little poems to two queens: one, Brunehaut, plunging amidst all the struggles and pleasures of the world; the other, Saint Radegonde, sometime wife of Clotaire I, who had fled in all haste from a throne to bury herself at Poitiers, in a convent she had founded there. To compensate, Brunehaut was detested by the majority of the Austrasian chiefs, those Leudes, land owners and warriors, whose sturdy and turbulent independence she was continually fighting against. She supported against them, with indomitable courage, the royal officers, the servants of the palace, her agents, and frequently her favorites."
Brunehaut maintained her power under the reigns of her son and her grandson in Austrasia, the capital of which was Metz. In 599, however, she was expelled from this kingdom, and went to that of Burgundy, where her other grandson, Theodoric II., reigned, having his capital at Orleans. In a letter written to Theodoric by Gregory the Great, the latter says: "And this in you among other things is enough to call for praise and admiration, that in such things as you know that our daughter, your most excellent grandmother, desires for the love of God, in these you make haste most earnestly to lend your aid, so that thereby you may reign both happily here, and in a future life with the angels." It is evident from this that in Burgundy the veteran queen was not denied the opportunity to exercise that executive talent of which the Austrasians had wearied. If the accounts given by Frankish historians may be relied upon, Brunehaut's influence upon her grandson was not in all respects calculated to fit him for a life among the angels. They accuse her of having encouraged him in licentious living, in order that her own power might not be undermined by the introduction into his court of a lawful queen.
There are several letters extant which were written to her by Pope Gregory. They all, in that polite manner in which Church dignitaries treat worldly potentates, speak of her virtuous acts and ignore all mention of her frailties. Brunehaut would be an exceedingly estimable woman if nothing more of her were known than what is to be gathered from these epistles. Gregory was a severe moralist, but he allowed his condemnation of many faults to be silenced by his gratitude for the piety of the queen in erecting "the Church of Saint Martin in the suburbs of Augustodunum (Autun), and a monastery for handmaidens of God, and also a hospital in the same city." There is also a letter to Thalassia, the first abbess of this convent, ordaining that the property donated shall never be alienated from her and her successors; also, that "on the death of an abbess of the aforementioned monastery, no other shall be ordained by means of any kind of craftiness or secret scheming, but that such a one as the king of the same province, with the consent of the nuns, shall have chosen in the fear of God, and provided for the ordination of." This also is evidence regarding the interior politics of the nunneries of that time.
Brunehaut lived a stormy life. Gentleness and modesty, the qualities most esteemed in feminine character, were the least noticeable in her nature; they would not have been consonant with either her ambitions or her methods. She was ever striving with the chieftains of her realm, endeavoring, with no little success, to force their independence into submission to regal authority. With the clerics, also, she had her quarrels. Saint Didier, Bishop of Vienne, was at her instigation brutally murdered. Saint Columba, even, was visited with her displeasure because he refused to connive at her faults with the award of his blessing. In 614, after thirty-nine years of the most strenuous political life and the most extreme vicissitudes of personal fortune that ever fell to the lot of any queen, she perished most miserably at the hands of Clotaire II., the son of her old enemy, Fredegonde. He caused the venerable queen, now eighty years of age, to be paraded before the army on the back of a camel; and then, by his order, she was bound by the hair, one hand, and one foot, to the tail of an unbroken steed by which she was kicked and dashed to pieces. Thus lived, and thus died a "Christian" queen who had received high encomiums from one of the greatest bishops of history.
It must not be supposed, however, that feminine modesty, faithful love, and the gentleness which is ever venerated in womankind, were entirely unknown to that rough and licentious age. What could be more pleasing than the romantic story of Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards? In the year 584, Authari succeeded to that kingdom. He asked in marriage the beautiful and pious daughter of Garibald, King of the Bavarians. In order that he might ascertain whether the attractions of this damsel were in reality equal to their reputation, and also that he might hasten matters in case he should be satisfied on this point, Authari impersonated his own ambassador and visited the court of Garibald in this guise. He there stated that he was the trusted friend of the Lombard king, and that Authari had charged him to bring back a minute report of the charm of his expected bride. Theodelinda submitted to the inspection; and the supposed ambassador, being at once enamored of her grace and beauty, hailed her as Queen of the Lombards, and requested that, according to the custom of his people, she present a cup of wine to him, her first subject. As she did this, he slyly touched her hand and then his own lips. This familiarity astonished the maiden, but, advised by her nurse, she said nothing, and Authari, before leaving the court, succeeded in gaining her affections. As he left to return home, he revealed his rank to her by saying, as he drove his huge battle-ax into the trunk of a tree, "Thus strikes the king of the Langobardi." After his departure, influenced by the Franks, Garibald withdrew his consent to his daughter's marriage; whereupon Theodelinda took the matter into her own hands and fled across the Alps to her lover and was married to him at Verona. Although she was early left a widow, she had so completely gained the love and the confidence of the Lombards, that they intrusted her with the privilege of raising to the throne whomsoever she might favor with her hand in marriage. Her choice fell upon a handsome Thuringian named Agilulf. He knew not of his fortune until it was announced to him by the queen herself in this fashion: one day, as he bent to kiss her hand in faithful homage, she blushingly said, "You have the right to kiss my cheek, for you are my king!" So great was Theodelinda's influence over her people that at her request the whole nation simultaneously became Christian; and in view of that event, it is no wonder that she was on the most friendly terms with Pope Gregory the Great, whose letters to her may still be read. Under her happy reign, the kingdom of Lombardy was strengthened, and its constitution established. Agilulf died, and his son and successor, Adelwald, rendering himself obnoxious, was murdered by some of his subjects; but to make amends to her for this act, the Lombards placed the husband of her daughter Gerberga on the throne. Boccaccio, by making Theodelinda the subject of one of his amorous tales, has taken an unwarranted and reprehensible liberty with a good queen of whom her age was justly proud.
It is to these times, also, that the pathetic story of Saint Genevieve belongs. She was the wife of Count Siegfried of Andernach. He, setting out against the Moors who were then invading the land, intrusted her to the care of Golo, his principal servant. This man, having failed in his repeated attempts on her conjugal faithfulness, accused her of the fault which he would fain have persuaded her to commit, and procured her condemnation to death. Her executioners being merciful, spared her life by having her conveyed far into the recesses of a forest. There she, with her little daughter, lived for several years in absolute solitude. They were sheltered by a cave; and a doe, whose tameness was regarded as a miraculous providence, supplied them with milk. It was no less regarded as a divine interposition which eventually led Siegfried to the grotto while following the chase; her innocence being proved, she was happily reinstated as his wife, and has ever since been honored as a saint, which doubtless she was.