Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 05 - (From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa)
Author: Johnson, Rossiter, 1840-1931 [Editor], Austin, Walter F. (Walter Forward), 1872- [Editor], Horne, Charles F. (Charles Francis), 1870-1942 [Editor], Rudd, John [Editor]
Language: English
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HISTORIANS, VOLUME 5***


THE GREAT EVENTS

BY

FAMOUS HISTORIANS


A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY. EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS


NON-SECTARIAN    NON-PARTISAN     NON-SECTIONAL


ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE. INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES. CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING


SUPERVISING EDITOR

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.


LITERARY EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.

JOHN RUDD, LL.D.


DIRECTING EDITOR

WALTER F. AUSTIN, LL.M.


With a staff of specialists


CONTENTS

VOLUME V

An Outline Narrative of the Great Events
CHARLES F. HORNE

Feudalism: Its Frankish Birth and English Development
(9th to 12th Century)
WILLIAM STUBBS

Decay of the Frankish Empire
Division into Modern France, Germany, and Italy
(A.D. 843-911)
FRANÇOIS P. G. GUIZOT

Career of Alfred the Great (A.D. 871-901)
THOMAS HUGHES
JOHN R. GREEN

Henry the Fowler Founds the Saxon Line of German Kings
Origin of the German Burghers or Middle Classes (A.D. 911-936)
WOLFGANG MENZEL

Conquest of Egypt by the Fatimites (A.D. 969)
STANLEY LANE-POOLE

Growth and Decadence of Chivalry (10th to 15th Century)
LÉON GAUTIER

Conversion of Vladimir the Great
Introduction of Christianity into Russia (A.D. 988-1015)
A. N. MOURAVIEFF

Leif Ericson Discovers America (A.D. 1000)
CHARLES C. RAFN
SAGA OF ERIC THE RED

Mahometans In India
Bloody Invasions under Mahmud (A.D. 1000)
ALEXANDER DOW

Canute Becomes King of England (A.D. 1017)
DAVID HUME

Henry III Deposes the Popes (A.D. 1048)
The German Empire Controls the Papacy
FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS
JOSEPH DARRAS

Dissension and Separation of the Greek and Roman
Churches (A.D. 1054)
HENRY F. TOZER
JOSEPH DEHARBE

Norman Conquest of England
Battle of Hastings (A.D. 1066)
SIR EDWARD S. CREASY

Triumphs of Hildebrand
"The Turning-point of the Middle Ages"
Henry IV Begs for Mercy at Canossa (A.D. 1073-1085)
ARTHUR R. PENNINGTON
ARTAUD DE MONTOR

Completion of the Domesday Book (A.D. 1086)
CHARLES KNIGHT

Decline of the Moorish Power in Spain
Growth and Decay of the Almoravide and Almohade
Dynasties (A.D. 1086-1214)
S.A. DUNHAM

The First Crusade (A.D. 1096-1099)
SIR GEORGE W. COX

Foundation of the Order of Knights Templars (A.D. 1118)
CHARLES G. ADDISON

Stephen Usurps the English Crown
His Conflicts with Matilda
Decisive Influence of the Church (A.D. 1135-1154)
CHARLES KNIGHT

Antipapal Democratic Movement
Arnold of Brescia
St. Bernard and the Second Crusade (A.D. 1145-1155)
JOHANN A. W. NEANDER

Decline of the Byzantine Empire
Ravages of Roger of Sicily (A.D. 1146)
GEORGE FINLAY

Universal Chronology (A.D. 843-1161)
JOHN RUDD



AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE GREAT EVENTS

(FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO FREDERICK BARBAROSSA)

CHARLES F. HORNE


The three centuries which follow the downfall of the empire of
Charlemagne laid the foundations of modern Europe, and made of it a
world wholly different, politically, socially, and religiously, from
that which had preceded it. In the careers of Greece and Rome we saw
exemplified the results of two sharply opposing tendencies of the Aryan
mind, the one toward individualism and separation, the other toward
self-subordination and union.

In the time of Charlemagne's splendid successes it appeared settled that
the second of these tendencies was to guide the Teutonic Aryans, that
the Europe of the future was to be a single empire, ever pushing out its
borders as Rome had done, ever subduing its weaker neighbors, until the
"Teutonic peace" should be substituted for the shattered "Roman peace,"
soldiers should be needed only for the duties of police, and a whole
civilized world again obey the rule of a single man.

Instead of this, the race has since followed a destiny of separation.
Europe is divided into many countries, each of them a vast camp
bristling with armies and arsenals. Civilization has continued
hag-ridden by war even to our own day, and, during at least seven
hundred of the years that followed Charlemagne, mankind made no greater
progress in the arts and sciences than the ancients had sometimes
achieved in a single century. We do indeed believe that at last we have
entered on an age of rapid advance, that individualism has justified
itself. The wider personal liberty of to-day is worth all that the race
has suffered for it. Yet the retardation of wellnigh a thousand years
has surely been a giant price to pay.


DOWNFALL OF CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE

This mighty change in the course of Teutonic destiny, this breakdown of
the Frankish empire, was wrought by two destroying forces, one from
within, one from without. From within came the insubordination, the
still savage love of combat, the natural turbulence of the race. It is
conceivable that, had Charlemagne been followed on the throne by a son
and then a grandson as mighty as he and his immediate ancestors, the
course of the whole broad earth would have been altered. The Franks
would have grown accustomed to obey; further conquest abroad would have
insured peace at home; the imperial power would have become strong as in
Roman days, when the most feeble emperors could not be shaken. But the
descendants of Charlemagne sank into a decline. He himself had directed
the fighting energy of the Franks against foreign enemies. His son and
successor had no taste for war, and so allowed his idle subjects time to
quarrel with him and with one another. The next generation, under the
grandsons of Charlemagne, devoted their entire lives to repeated and
furious civil wars, in which the empire fell apart, the flower of the
Frankish race perished, and the strength of its dominion was sapped to
nothingness.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Decay of Frankish Empire_, page 22.]

There were three of these grandsons, and, when their struggle had left
them thoroughly exhausted, they divided the empire into three. Their
treaty of Verdun (843) is often quoted as beginning the modern kingdoms
of Germany, France, and Italy. The division was in some sense a natural
one, emphasized by differences of language and of race. Italy was
peopled by descendants of the ancient Italians, with a thin
intermingling of Goths and Lombards; France held half-Romanized Gauls,
with a very considerable percentage of the Frankish blood; while Germany
was far more barbaric than the other regions. Its people, whether Frank
or Saxon, were all pure Teuton, and still spoke in their Teutonic or
German tongue.

The Franks themselves, however, did not regard this as a breaking of
their empire. They looked on it as merely a family affair, an
arrangement made for the convenience of government among the descendants
of the great Charles. So firm had been that mighty hero's grasp upon the
national imagination, that the Franks accepted as matter of course that
his family should bear rule, and rallied round the various worthless
members of it with rather pathetic loyalty, fighting for them one
against the other, reuniting and redividing the various fragments of the
empire, until the feeble Carlovingian race died out completely.

It is thus evident that there was a strong tendency toward union among
the Franks. But there was also an outside influence to disrupt their
empire. Charlemagne had not carried far enough their career of conquest.
He subdued the Teutons within the limits of Germany, but he did not
reach their weaker Scandinavian brethren to the north, the Danes and
Norsemen. He chastised the Avars, a vague non-Aryan people east of
Germany, but he could not make provision against future Asiatic swarms.
He humbled the Arabs in Spain, but he did not break their African
dominion. From all these sources, as the Franks grew weaker instead of
stronger, their lands became exposed to new invasion.


THE LAST INVADERS

Let us take a moment to trace the fortunes of these outside races,
though the main destiny of the future still lay with Teutonic Europe.

In speaking of the followers of Mahomet, we might perhaps at this period
better drop the term Arabs, and call them Saracens. They were thus known
to the Christians; and their conquests had drawn in their train so many
other peoples that in truth there was little pure Arab blood left among
them. The Saracens, then, had begun to lose somewhat of their intense
fanaticism. Feuds broke out among them. Different chiefs established
different kingdoms or "caliphates," whose dominion became political
rather than religious. Spain had one ruler, Egypt[2] another, Asia a
third. In the eleventh century an army of Saracens invaded India[3] and
added that strange and ancient land to their domain. Europe they had
failed to conquer; but their fleets commanded the Mediterranean. They
held all its islands, Sicily, Crete, Sardinia, and Corsica. They
plundered the coast towns of France and Italy. There was a Saracenic
ravaging of Rome.

[Footnote 2: See _Conquest of Egypt by the Fatimites_, page 94.]

[Footnote 3: See _Mahometans in India_, page 151.]

On the whole, however, the wave of Mahometan conquest receded. In Spain
the remnants of the Christian population, Visigoths, Romans, and still
older peoples, pressed their way down from their old-time, secret
mountain retreats and began driving the Saracens southward.[4] The
decaying Roman Empire of the East still resisted the Mahometan attack;
Constantinople remained a splendid city, type and picture of what the
ancient world had been.

[Footnote 4: See _Decline of the Moorish Power in Spain_, page 296.]

While the Saracens were thus laying waste the Frankish empire along its
Mediterranean coasts, a more dangerous enemy was assailing it from the
east. Toward the end of the ninth century the Magyars, an Asiatic,
Turanian people, burst on Europe, as the Huns had done five centuries
before. Indeed, the Christians called these later comers Huns also, and
told of them the same extravagant tales of terror. The land which the
Magyars settled was called Hungary. They dwell there and possess it even
to this day, the only instance of a Turanian people having permanently
established themselves in an Aryan continent and at the expense of Aryan
neighbors.

From Hungary the Magyars soon advanced to the German border line, and
made fierce plundering inroads upon the more civilized regions beyond.
They came on horseback, so that the slower Teutons could never gather
quickly enough to resist them. The marauding parties, as they learned
the wealth and weakness of this new land, grew bigger, until at length
they were armies, and defeated the German Franks in pitched battles, and
spread desolation through all the country. They returned now every year.
Their ravages extended even to the Rhine and to the ancient Gallic land
beyond. The Frankish empire seemed doomed to reënact, in a smaller, far
more savage way, the fate of Rome.

Yet more widespread in destruction, more important in result than the
raids of either Saracens or Magyars, were those of the Scandinavians or
Northmen. These, the latest, and perhaps therefore the finest, flower of
the Teutonic stock, are closer to us and hence better known than the
early Goths or Franks. Shut off in their cold northern peninsulas and
islands, they had grown more slowly, it may be, than their southern
brethren. Now they burst suddenly on the world with spectacular dramatic
effect, wild, fierce, and splendid conquerors, as keen of intellect and
quick of wit as they were strong of arm and daring of adventure.

We see them first as sea-robbers, pirates, venturing even in
Charlemagne's time to plunder the German and French coasts. One tribe of
them, the Danes, had already been harrying England and Ireland. Only
Alfred,[5] by heroic exertions, saved a fragment of his kingdom from
them. Later, under Canute,[6] they become its kings. The Northmen
penetrate Russia and appear as rulers of the strange Slavic tribes
there; they settle in Iceland, Greenland, and even distant and unknown
America.[7]

[Footnote 5: See _Career of Alfred the Great_.]

[Footnote 6: See _Canute Becomes King of England_.]

[Footnote 7: _Leif Ericson Discovers America_.]

Meanwhile, after Charlemagne's death they become a main factor in the
downfall of his empire. Year after year their little ships plunder the
undefended French coast, until it is abandoned to them and becomes a
desert. They build winter camps at the river mouths, so that in the
spring they need lose less time and can hurry inland after their
retreating prey. Sudden in attack, strong in defence, they venture
hundreds of miles up the winding waterways. Paris is twice attacked by
them and must fight for life. They penetrate so far up the Loire as to
burn Orleans.

It was under stress of all these assaults that the Franks, grown too
feeble to defend themselves as Charlemagne would have done, by marching
out and pursuing the invaders to their own homes, developed instead a
system of defence which made the Middle Ages what they were. All central
authority seemed lost; each little community was left to defend itself
as best it might. So the local chieftain built himself a rude fortress,
which in time became a towered castle; and thither the people fled in
time of danger. Each man looked up to and swore faith to this, his own
chief, his immediate protector, and took little thought of a distant and
feeble king or emperor. Occasionally, of course, a stronger lord or king
bestirred himself, and demanded homage of these various petty
chieftains. They gave him such service as they wished or as they must.
This was the "feudal system."[8]

[Footnote 8: See _Feudalism: Its Frankish Birth and English
Development_.]

The inclination of each lesser lord was obviously to assert as much
independence as he could. He naturally objected to paying money or
service without benefit received; and he could see no good that this
"overlord" did for him or for his district. It seemed likely at this
time that instead of being divided into three kingdoms, the Frankish
empire would split into thousands of little castled states.

That is, it seemed so, after the various marauding nations were disposed
of. The Northmen were pacified by presenting them outright with the
coast lands they had most harried. Their great leader, Rolf, accepted
the territory with some vague and ill-kept promise of vassalage to the
French King, and with a very firmly held determination that he would let
no pirates ravage his land or cross it to reach others. So the French
coast became Normandy, and the Northmen learned the tongue and manners
of their new home, and softened their harsh name to "Norman," even as
they softened their harsh ways, and rapidly became the most able and
most cultured of Frenchmen.

As for the Saracens, being unprogressive and no longer enthusiastic,
they grew ever feebler, while the Italian cities, being Aryan and left
to themselves, grew strong. At length their fleets met those of the
Saracens on equal terms, and defeated them, and gradually wrested from
them the control of the Mediterranean. Invaders were thus everywhere met
as they came, locally. There was no general gathering of the Frankish
forces against them.

The repulse of the Huns proved the hardest matter of all. Fortunately
for the Germans, their line of Carlovingian emperors died out. So the
various dukes and counts, practically each an independent sovereign, met
and elected a king from among themselves, not really to rule them, but
to enable them to unite against the Huns. After their first elected king
had been soundly beaten by one of his dukes, he died, and in their next
choice they had the luck to light upon a leader really great. Henry the
Fowler, more honorably known as Henry the City-builder,[9] taught them
how to defeat their foe.

[Footnote 9: See _Henry the Fowler Founds the Saxon Line of German
Kings_.]

Much to the disgust of his simple and war-hardened comrades, he first
sent to the Hungarians and purchased peace and paid them tribute. Having
thus secured a temporary respite, Henry encouraged and aided his people
in building walled cities all along the frontier. He also planned to
meet the invaders on equal terms by training his warriors to fight on
horseback. He instituted tournaments and created an order of knighthood,
and is thus generally regarded as the founder of chivalry, that fairest
fruit of mediaeval times, which did so much to preserve honor and
tenderness and respect for womankind.[10]

[Footnote 10: See _Growth and Decadence of Chivalry_.]

When he felt all prepared, Henry deliberately defied and insulted the
Hungarians, and so provoked from them a combined national invasion,
which he met and completely overthrew in the battle of Merseburg (933).
A generation later the Huns felt themselves strong enough to try again;
but Henry's son, Otto the Great, repeated the chastisement. He then
formed a boundary colony or "East-mark" from which sprang Austria; and
this border kingdom was always able to keep the weakened Huns in check.

At the same time there was growing up in Russia a Slavic civilization,
which received Christianity[11] from the South as it had received
Teutonic dominion from the North, and so developed along very similar
lines to Western Europe. The Russian states served as a barrier against
later Asiatic hordes; and this, combined with the civilizing of the last
remnants of the Scandinavians in the North, and the fading of Saracenic
power in the South, left the tottering civilization of the West free
from further barbarian invasion. We shall find destruction threatened
again in later ages by Tartar and by Turk; but the intruders never reach
beyond the frontier. The Teutons and the half-Romanized ancients with
whom they had assimilated were left to work out their own problems. All
the ingredients, even to the last, the Northmen, had been poured into
the caldron. There remains to see what the intermingling has brought
forth.

[Footnote 11: See _Conversion of Vladimir the Great_.]


FEUDAL EUROPE

We have here, then, somewhere about the middle of the tenth century, a
date which may be regarded as marking a distinctly new era. The
ceaseless work of social organization and improvement, which seems so
strong an instinct of the Aryan mind, had been recommenced again and
again from under repeated deluges of barbarism. To-day for nearly a
thousand years it has progressed uninterrupted, except by disturbances
from within; nor does it appear possible, with our present knowledge of
science and of the remoter corners of the globe, that our civilization
will ever again be even menaced by the other races.

Chronologists frequently adopt as a convenient starting-point for this
modern development the year 962, in which Otto the Great, conqueror of
the Huns, felt himself strong enough to march a German army to Rome and
assume there the title of emperor, which had been long in abeyance. To
be sure, there was still an Emperor of the East in Constantinople, but
nobody thought of him; and, to be sure, the power of Otto and the later
emperors was purely German, with scarce a pretence of extending beyond
their own country and sometimes Italy. Yet here was at least one
restored influence that made toward unity and, by its own devious and
erratic ways, toward peace.

It must not be supposed, of course, that there was no more war. But, as
it became a private affair between relatives, or at least acquaintances,
its ravages were greatly reduced. It was accepted as the "pastime of
gentlemen," "the sport of kings;" and though we may quote the phrases
to-day with kindling sarcasm, yet they open a very different vision from
that of the older inroads by unknown hordes, frenzied with the passion
and the purpose of the brute. The usefulness of the common people was
recognized, and they were allowed to continue to live and cultivate the
ground; while all the great dukes and even the lesser nobles, having
secured as many castles as possible, intrenched themselves in their
strongholds and defied all comers.

They asserted their right of "private war" and attacked each other upon
every conceivable provocation, whether it were the disputed succession
to some vast estate or the ravage spread by a reckless cow in a foreign
field. Indeed, it is not always easy to distinguish these private wars
from mere robberies or plundering expeditions; and it is not probable
that the wild barons exercised any very delicate discrimination. Even
Otto the Great had little real influence or authority over such lords as
these. His immediate successors found themselves with even less.

In short, it was the golden age of feudalism, of the individual feudal
lords. In Italy there was no central authority whatever, nor among the
little Christian states gradually arising in Spain. In France and
England the title of king was but a name. France was really composed of
a dozen or more independent counties and dukedoms. For a while its lords
elected a king as the Germans did; and gradually the title became
hereditary in the Capet family, the counts of Paris, who had fought most
valiantly against the Northmen. But the entire power of these so-called
kings lay in their own estates, in the fact that they were counts of
Paris, and by marriage or by force were slowly adding new possessions to
their old. Any other noble might have been equally fortunate in his
investments, and wrested from them their purely honorary title. In fact,
there was more than once a king of Aquitaine.

Yet, in 1066, William the Conqueror was able to form for a moment a
strong and centralized monarchy in England.[12] With him we reach the
period of the second Northmen, or now Norman, outbreak. The marauders
had grown polished, but not peaceful, in their French home. They had
become more numerous and more restless, until we find them again taking
to their ships and seeking newer lands to master. Only they go now as a
civilizing as well as a devastating influence.

[Footnote 12: See _Norman Conquest of England_.]

Most famed of their undertakings, of course, was William's Conquest of
England. But we find them also sailing along the Spanish coast, entering
the Mediterranean, seizing the Balearic Isles, making out of Sicily and
most of Southern Italy a kingdom which lasted until 1860, and finally
ravaging the Eastern Empire, and entering Constantinople itself.[13]
Last and mightiest of the wandering races, they accomplished what all
their predecessors had failed to do.

[Footnote 13: See _Decline of the Byzantine Empire_, page 353.]

In England, William, with the shrewdness of his race, recognized the
tendencies of the age, and erected a state so planned that there could
be no question as to who was master. He gave fiefs liberally to his
followers; but he took care that the gifts should be in small and
scattered parcels. No one man controlled any region sufficiently
extensive to give him the faintest chance of defying the King. William
had the famous _Domesday Book_[14] compiled, that he might know just
what every freeman in his dominions owned and for what he could be held
accountable. The England of the later days of the Conqueror seemed far
advanced upon our modern ways.

[Footnote 14: See _Completion of the Domesday Book_, page 242.]

But what can one man, however able and advanced, do against the current
of his age? History shows us constantly that the great reformers have
been those who felt and followed the general feeling of their times, who
became mouthpieces for the great mass of thought and effort behind them,
not those who struggled against the tide. William's successors failed to
comprehend what he had done, or why. By the time of Stephen (1135)[15]
we find the barons of England wellnigh as powerful as those of other
lands. A civil war arises in which Stephen and his rival Matilda are
scarce more than pawns upon the board. The lords shift sides at will,
retreat to safety in their strong castles, plunder the common folk, and
make private war quite as they please.

[Footnote 15: See _Stephen Usurps the English Crown_, page 317.]

If any sage before the reign of the Emperor Barbarossa, that is, before
the middle of the twelfth century, had studied to predict the course of
society, he would probably have said that the empire was wholly
destroyed, and that the principle of separation was becoming ever more
insistent, that even kings were mere fading relics of the past, and that
the future world would soon see every lordship an independent state.


THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY UNDER FEUDALISM

Amid all this turmoil of the upper classes, one would like much to know
what was the condition, what the lives, of the common people.
Unfortunately, the data are very slight. We see dimly the peasant
staring from his field as the armed knights ride by; we see him fleeing
to the shelter of the forests before more savage bandits. We see the
people of the cities drawing together, building walls around their
towns, and defying in their turn their so-called "overlords." We see
Henry the City-builder thus become champion of the lower classes,
despite the strenuous warning of his conservative and not wholly
disinterested barons. We see shadowy troops of armed merchants drift
along the unsafe roads. And, most interesting perhaps of all, we see one
Arnold of Brescia,[16] an Italian monk, advocating a democracy, actually
urging a return to what he supposed early Rome to have been, a
government by the masses. Arnold, too, you see, was in advance of his
time. He was executed by the advice of even so good and wise a man as
St. Bernard. But the principle of modern life was there, the germ seems
to have been planted. These humble people of the cities, "citizens,"
grow to be rulers of the world.

[Footnote 16: See _Antipapal Democratic Movement_ page 340.]

There was a revival, too, of learning in this quieter age. Schools and
universities become clearly visible. Abelard teaches at the great
University of Paris, lectures to "forty thousand students," if one
chooses to believe in such carrying power of his voice, or such
radiating power of his influence at second hand through those who heard.

The arts spring up, great cathedrals are begun, the wonder and despair
of even twentieth-century resources. Royal ladies work on tapestries,
queer things in their way, but certainly not barbaric. Musical notation
is improved. Manuscripts are gorgeously illumined. Paintings and
mosaics, though of the crudest, reappear on long-barren walls.
Civilization begins to advance with increasing stride.


THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

Of all the influences that through these wandering and desolate ages had
sustained humanity and helped it onward, the mightiest has been left to
speak of last. It was Christianity, a Christianity which had by now
taken definite form as the Roman Catholic Church. Strongest of all the
institutions bequeathed by the ancient empire to her conquerors was this
Church. Indeed, it has been said that Rome had influenced Christianity
quite as much as Christianity did Rome. The legal-minded Romans insisted
on the laying out of exact doctrines and creeds, on the building of a
definite organization, a priesthood, a hierarchy. They lent the weight
of law to what had been but individual belief and impulse. Thus the
Church grew hard and strong.

In the same manner that the early emperors had ordered the persecution
of Christianity, so the later ones ordered the persecution of
heathendom, nor had the Church grown civilized or Christian enough to
oppose this method of conversion. Luckily for all parties, however, the
heathen were scarce sufficiently enthusiastic to insist on martyrdom,
and so the persecuting spirit which man ultimately imparted to even the
purest of religions remained latent.

With the downfall of Rome there came another interval in which the
Church was weak, and was trampled on by barbarians, and was heroic. Then
the bishops of Rome joined forces with Pépin and Charlemagne.
Christianity became physically powerful again. The Saxons were converted
by the sword. So, also, in Henry the Fowler's time, were the Slavic
Wends. These Roman bishops, or "popes," were accepted unquestioned
throughout Western Europe as the leaders of a militant Christianity, a
position never after denied them until the sixteenth century. In the
East, however, the bishops of Constantinople insisted on an equal, if
not higher, authority, and so the two churches broke apart.[17]

[Footnote 17: See _Dissension and Separation of the Greek and Roman
Churches_.]

In the West, Christianity undoubtedly did great good. Its teachings,
though applied by often fallible instruments and in blundering ways, yet
never completely lost sight of their own higher meanings of mercy and
peace. From the Abbey of Cluny originated that quaint mediaeval idea of
the "truce of God," by which nobles were very widely persuaded to
restrict their private wars to the middle of the week, and reserve at
least Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as days of brotherly love and
religious devotion. The Church also, from very early days, founded
monasteries, wherein learning and the knowledge of the past were kept
alive, where pity continued to exist, where the oppressed found refuge.
It is from these monasteries that all the arts and scholarship of the
eleventh century begin dimly to emerge.

Moreover, the fact that the Teutons were all of a common religion
undoubtedly held them much closer together, made them more merciful
among themselves, more nearly a unit against the outside world. Perhaps
in this respect more important even than the religion was the Church;
that is, the hierarchy, the vast army of monks and priests, abbots and
bishops, spread over all kingdoms, yet looking always toward Rome. Here
at least was one common centre for Western civilization, one mighty
influence that all men acknowledged, that all to some faint extent
obeyed.


THE GROWTH OF THE PAPACY

The power thus concentrating in the Roman papacy made the office one to
attract eager ambition. It has a political history of its own. At first
the Christian populace that continued to dwell in Rome despite the
repeated spoliations, elected, from among themselves, their own pope or
bishop, regarding him not only as their spiritual guide, but as their
earthly leader and protector also. Naturally, in their distress, they
chose the very ablest man they could, their wisest and their noblest. It
was no pleasant task being pope in those dark days; and sometimes the
bravest shrank from the position.

But centuries of war and self-defence developed a Roman populace more
fierce and savage and degenerate, while the growing importance of their
pope beyond the city's walls brought wealth and splendor to his office.
The result was that some very unsaintly popes were elected amid unseemly
squabbles. The conditions surrounding the high office became so bad that
they were felt as a disgrace throughout all Christendom; and in 1046 the
German emperor Henry III took upon himself to depose three fiercely
contending Romans, each claiming to be pope. He appointed in their stead
a candidate of his own, not a dweller in the city at all, but a German.
Henry, therefore, must have considered the duties of the pope as bishop
of the Romans to be far less important than his duties as head of the
Church outside of Rome.[18]

[Footnote 18: See _Henry III Deposes the Popes_.]

So necessary had this interference by the Emperor become that it was
everywhere approved. Yet as he continued to appoint pope after pope,
churchmen realized that in the hands of an evil emperor this method of
securing their head might prove quite as dangerous and unsatisfactory as
the former one. So the Church took the matter in hand and declared that
a conclave of its own highest officials should thereafter choose the man
who was to lead them.

Under this surely more suitable arrangement, the papal office rose at
once in dignity. It was held for a time by true leaders, earnest
prelates of the highest worth and ability. We have said that the rank of
the bishop of Rome as head of the Church had never been seriously
questioned among the Teutons; but now the popes asserted a political
authority as well. They regarded themselves, theoretically, as supreme
heads of the entire Christian world. They claimed and even partly
exercised the right to create and depose kings and emperors. To such a
supremacy as this, however, the Teutons were still too rude and warlike
to submit. Much is made of the fact that the Emperor Henry IV was
compelled to come as a suppliant to Pope Gregory at Canossa, 1077.[19]
But this submission was only forced on him by quarrels with his barons,
who welcomed the Pope as a chance ally. It proved the power of feudalism
rather than that of religion. Still we may trace here the beginnings of
a later day when spirit was really to dominate bodily force, when ideas
should prove stronger than swords.

[Footnote 19: See _Triumphs of Hildebrand_.]


THE FIRST CRUSADE

Under these aroused and able popes, the Western world was stirred to the
first widespread religious enthusiasm since the ancient days of
persecution. Jerusalem, long in the hands of a tolerant sect of Saracens
who welcomed the coming of Christian worshippers as a source of revenue,
was captured in 1075 by another more fanatic Mahometan sect, and word
came back to Europe that pilgrimage was stopped.

The crusades followed. A great mass of warriors from every nation of the
West, men who certainly had never intended to go on pilgrimage
themselves, were roused to what seems a somewhat perverse anger of
religious devotion. Under the lead of Godfrey of Bouillon they marched
eastward, saw the wonders of Constantinople, marvellous indeed to their
ruder eyes, defeated the sultans of Asia Minor and of Antioch, and ended
by storming Jerusalem, and erecting there a Christian kingdom where
Mahometanism had ruled for nearly five hundred years.[20]

[Footnote 20: See _The First Crusade_, page 276.]

Of course, a great flow of pilgrims followed them. Religious orders of
knighthood were formed[21] to help defend the shrine of Christ and to
extend Christian conquest farther through the surrounding regions.
Travel began again. Europe, after having forgotten Asia for seven
centuries, was introduced once more to its languor, its splendor, and
its vices. The Aryan peoples had at last filled full their little world
of Western Europe. They had reached among themselves a state of law and
union, confused and weak, perhaps, yet secure enough to enable them once
more to overflow their boundaries and become again the aggressive,
intrusive race we have seen them in earlier days.

[Footnote 21: See _Foundation of the Order of Knights Templars_, page
301.]



FEUDALISM: ITS FRANKISH BIRTH AND ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT

NINTH TO TWELFTH CENTURY

WILLIAM STUBBS


(That social system--however varying in different times and places--in
which ownership of land is the basis of authority is known in history as
feudalism. From the time of Clovis, the Frankish King, who died in A.D.
511, the progress of the Franks in civilization was slow, and for more
than two centuries they spent their energies mainly in useless wars. But
Charles Martel and his son, Pépin the Short--the latter dying in
768--built up a kingdom which Charlemagne erected into a powerful
empire. Under the predecessors of Charlemagne the beginnings of
feudalism, which are very obscure, may be said vaguely to appear.
Charles Martel had to buy the services of his nobles by granting them
lands, and although he and Pépin strengthened the royal power, which
Charlemagne still further increased, under the weak rulers who followed
them the forces of the incipient feudalism again became active, and the
State was divided into petty countships and dukedoms almost independent
of the king.

The gift of land by the king in return for feudal services was called a
feudal grant, and the land so given was termed a "feud" or "fief." In
the course of time fiefs became hereditary. Lands were also sometimes
usurped or otherwise obtained by subjects, who thereby became feudal
lords. By a process called "subinfeudation," lands were granted in
parcels to other men by those who received them from the king or
otherwise, and by these lower landholders to others again; and as the
first recipient became the vassal of the king and the suzerain of the
man who held next below him, there was created a regular descending
scale of such vassalage and suzerainty, in which each man's allegiance
was directly due to his feudal lord, and not to the king himself. From
the king down to the lowest landholder all were bound together by
obligation of service and defence; the lord to protect his vassal, the
vassal to do service to his lord.

These are the essential features of the social system which, from its
early growth under the later Carlovingians in the ninth century, spread
over Europe and reached its highest development in the twelfth century.
At a time midway between these periods it was carried by the Norman
Conquest into England. The history of this system of distinctly Frankish
origin--a knowledge of which is absolutely essential to a proper
understanding of history and the evolution of our present social
system--is told by Stubbs with that discernment and thoroughness of
analysis which have given him his rank as one of the few masterly
writers in this field.)


Feudalism had grown up from two great sources--the _beneficium_, and the
practice of commendation--and had been specially fostered on Gallic soil
by the existence of a subject population which admitted of any amount of
extension in the methods of dependence.

The beneficiary system originated partly in gifts of land made by the
kings out of their own estates to their kinsmen and servants, with a
special undertaking to be faithful; partly in the surrender by
land-owners of their estates to churches or powerful men, to be received
back again and held by them as tenants for rent or service. By the
latter arrangement the weaker man obtained the protection of the
stronger, and he who felt himself insecure placed his title under the
defence of the church.

By the practice of commendation, on the other hand, the inferior put
himself under the personal care of a lord, but without altering his
title or divesting himself of his right to his estate; he became a
vassal and did homage. The placing of his hands between those of his
lord was the typical act by which the connection was formed; and the
oath of fealty was taken at the same time. The union of the beneficiary
tie with that of commendation completed the idea of feudal obligation--
the twofold engagement: that of the lord, to defend; and that of the
vassal, to be faithful. A third ingredient was supplied by the grants of
immunity by which in the Frank empire, as in England, the possession of
land was united with the right of judicature; the dwellers on a feudal
property were placed under the tribunal of the lord, and the rights
which had belonged to the nation or to its chosen head were devolved
upon the receiver of a fief. The rapid spread of the system thus
originated, and the assimilation of all other tenures to it, may be
regarded as the work of the tenth century; but as early as A.D. 877
Charles the Bald recognized the hereditary character of all benefices;
and from that year the growth of strictly feudal jurisprudence may be
held to date.

The system testifies to the country and causes of its birth. The
beneficium is partly of Roman, partly of German origin; in the Roman
system the usufruct--the occupation of land belonging to another
person--involved no diminution of status; in the Germanic system he who
tilled land that was not his own was imperfectly free; the reduction of
a large Roman population to dependence placed the two classes on a
level, and conduced to the wide extension of the institution.

Commendation, on the other hand, may have had a Gallic or Celtic origin,
and an analogy only with the Roman clientship. The German _comitatus_,
which seems to have ultimately merged its existence in one or other of
these developments, is of course to be carefully distinguished in its
origin from them. The tie of the benefice or of commendation could be
formed between any two persons whatever; none but the king could have
_antrustions_. But the comitatus of Anglo-Saxon history preserved a more
distinct existence, and this perhaps was one of the causes that
distinguished the later Anglo-Saxon system most definitely from the
feudalism of the Frank empire.

The process by which the machinery of government became feudalized,
although rapid, was gradual.

The weakness of the Carlovingian kings and emperors gave room for the
speedy development of disruptive tendencies in a territory so extensive
and so little consolidated. The duchies and counties of the eighth and
ninth centuries were still official magistracies, the holders of which
discharged the functions of imperial judges or generals. Such officers
were of course men whom the kings could trust, in most cases Franks,
courtiers or kinsmen, who at an earlier date would have been _comites_
or antrustions, and who were provided for by feudal benefices. The
official magistracy had in itself the tendency to become hereditary, and
when the benefice was recognized as heritable, the provincial
governorship became so too. But the provincial governor had many
opportunities of improving his position, especially if he could identify
himself with the manners and aspirations of the people he ruled. By
marriage or inheritance he might accumulate in his family not only the
old allodial estates which, especially on German soil, still continued
to subsist, but the traditions and local loyalties which were connected
with the possession of them. So in a few years the Frank magistrate
could unite in his own person the beneficiary endowment, the imperial
deputation, and the headship of the nation over which he presided. And
then it was only necessary for the central power to be a little
weakened, and the independence of duke or count was limited by his
homage and fealty alone, that is, by obligations that depended on
conscience only for their fulfilment.

It is in Germany that the disruptive tendency most distinctly takes the
political form; Saxony and Bavaria assert their national independence
under Swabian and Saxon dukes who have identified the interests of their
subjects with their own. In France, where the ancient tribal divisions
had been long obsolete, and where the existence of the allod involved
little or no feeling of loyalty, the process was simpler still; the
provincial rulers aimed at practical rather than political sovereignty;
the people were too weak to have any aspirations at all. The disruption
was due more to the abeyance of central attraction than to any
centrifugal force existing in the provinces. But the result was the
same; feudal government, a graduated system of jurisdiction based on
land tenure, in which every lord judged, taxed, and commanded the class
next below him, of which abject slavery formed the lowest, and
irresponsible tyranny the highest grade, and private war, private
coinage, private prisons, took the place of the imperial institutions of
government.

This was the social system which William the Conqueror and his barons
had been accustomed to see at work in France. One part of it--the feudal
tenure of land--was perhaps the only kind of tenure which they could
understand; the king was the original lord, and every title issued
mediately or immediately from him. The other part, the governmental
system of feudalism, was the point on which sooner or later the duke and
his barons were sure to differ. Already the incompatibility of the
system with the existence of the strong central power had been
exemplified in Normandy, where the strength of the dukes had been tasked
to maintain their hold on the castles and to enforce their own high
justice. Much more difficult would England be to retain in Norman hands
if the new king allowed himself to be fettered by the French system.

On the other hand the Norman barons would fain rise a step in the social
scale answering to that by which their duke had become a king; and they
aspired to the same independence which they had seen enjoyed by the
counts of Southern and Eastern France. Nor was the aspiration on their
part altogether unreasonable; they had joined in the Conquest rather as
sharers in the great adventure than as mere vassals of the duke, whose
birth they despised as much as they feared his strength. William,
however, was wise and wary as well as strong. While, by the insensible
process of custom, or rather by the mere assumption that feudal tenure
of land was the only lawful and reasonable one, the Frankish system of
tenure was substituted for the Anglo-Saxon, the organization of
government on the same basis was not equally a matter of course.

The Conqueror himself was too strong to suffer that organization to
become formidable in his reign, but neither the brutal force of William
Rufus nor the heavy and equal pressure of the government of Henry I
could extinguish the tendency toward it. It was only after it had, under
Stephen, broken out into anarchy and plunged the whole nation in misery;
when the great houses founded by the barons of the Conquest had suffered
forfeiture or extinction; when the Normans had become Englishmen under
the legal and constitutional reforms of Henry II--that the royal
authority, in close alliance with the nation, was enabled to put an end
to the evil.

William the Conqueror claimed the crown of England as the chosen heir of
Edward the Confessor. It was a claim which the English did not admit,
and of which the Normans saw the fallacy, but which he himself
consistently maintained and did his best to justify. In that claim he
saw not only the justification of the Conquest in the eyes of the
church, but his great safeguard against the jealous and aggressive host
by whose aid he had realized it; therefore, immediately after the battle
of Hastings he proceeded to seek the national recognition of its
validity. He obtained it from the divided and dismayed _witan_ with no
great trouble, and was crowned by the archbishop of York--the most
influential and patriotic among them--binding himself by the
constitutional promises of justice and good laws. Standing before the
altar at Westminster, "in the presence of the clergy and people he
promised with an oath that he would defend God's holy churches and their
rulers; that he would, moreover, rule the whole people subject to him
with righteousness and royal providence; would enact and hold fast right
law and utterly forbid rapine and unrighteous judgments." The form of
election and acceptance was regularly observed and the legal position of
the new King completed before he went forth to finish the Conquest.

Had it not been for this the Norman host might have fairly claimed a
division of the land such as the Danes had made in the ninth century.
But to the people who had recognized William it was but just that the
chance should be given them of retaining what was their own.
Accordingly, when the lands of all those who had fought for Harold were
confiscated, those who were willing to acknowledge William were allowed
to redeem theirs, either paying money at once or giving hostages for the
payment. That under this redemption lay the idea of a new title to the
lands redeemed may be regarded as questionable. The feudal lawyer might
take one view, and the plundered proprietor another. But if charters of
confirmation or regrant were generally issued on the occasion to those
who were willing to redeem, there can be no doubt that, as soon as the
feudal law gained general acceptance, these would be regarded as
conveying a feudal title. What to the English might be a mere payment of
_fyrdwite_, or composition for a recognized offence, might to the
Normans seem equivalent to forfeiture and restoration.

But however this was, the process of confiscation and redistribution of
lands under the new title began from the moment of the coronation. The
next few years, occupied in the reduction of Western and Northern
England, added largely to the stock of divisible estates. The tyranny of
Odo of Bayeux and William Fitzosbern, which provoked attempts at
rebellion in 1067; the stand made by the house of Godwin in Devonshire
in 1068; the attempts of Mercia and Northumbria to shake off the Normans
in 1069 and 1070; the last struggle for independence in 1071, in which
Edwin and Morcar finally fell; the conspiracy of the Norman earls in
1074, in consequence of which Waltheof perished--all tended to the same
result.

After each effort the royal hand was laid on more heavily; more and more
land changed owners, and with the change of owners the title changed.
The complicated and unintelligible irregularities of the Anglo-Saxon
tenures were exchanged for the simple and uniform feudal theory. The
fifteen hundred tenants-in-chief of _Domesday Book_ take the place of
the countless land-owners of King Edward's time, and the loose,
unsystematic arrangements which had grown up in the confusion of title,
tenure, and jurisdiction were replaced by systematic custom. The change
was effected without any legislative act, simply by the process of
transfer under circumstances in which simplicity and uniformity were an
absolute necessity. It was not the change from allodial to feudal so
much as from confusion to order. The actual amount of dispossession was
no doubt greatest in the higher ranks; the smaller owners may to a large
extent have remained in a mediatized position on their estates; but even
_Domesday_, with all its fulness and accuracy, cannot be supposed to
enumerate all the changes of the twenty eventful years that followed the
battle of Hastings. It is enough for our purpose to ascertain that a
universal assimilation of title followed the general changes of
ownership. The king of _Domesday_ is the supreme landlord; all the land
of the nation, the old folkland, has become the king's; and all private
land is held mediately or immediately of him; all holders are bound to
their lords by homage and fealty, either actually demanded or understood
to be demandable, in every case of transfer by inheritance or otherwise.

The result of this process is partly legal and partly constitutional or
political. The legal result is the introduction of an elaborate system
of customs, tenures, rights, duties, profits, and jurisdictions. The
constitutional result is the creation of several intermediate links
between the body of the nation and the king, in the place of or side by
side with the duty of allegiance.

On the former of these points we have very insufficient data; for we are
quite in the dark as to the development of feudal law in Normandy before
the invasion, and may be reasonably inclined to refer some at least of
the peculiarities of English feudal law to the leaven of the system
which it superseded. Nor is it easy to reduce the organization described
in _Domesday_ to strict conformity with feudal law as it appears later,
especially with the general prevalence of military tenure.

The growth of knighthood is a subject on which the greatest obscurity
prevails, and the most probable explanation of its existence in
England--the theory that it is a translation into Norman forms of the
_thegnage_ of the Anglo-Saxon law--can only be stated as probable.

Between the picture drawn in _Domesday_ and the state of affairs which
the charter of Henry I was designed to remedy, there is a difference
which the short interval of time will not account for, and which
testifies to the action of some skilful organizing hand working with
neither justice nor mercy, hardening and sharpening all lines and points
to the perfecting of a strong government.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate here all the points in which the
Anglo-Saxon institutions were already approaching the feudal model; it
may be assumed that the actual obligation of military service was much
the same in both systems, and that even the amount of land which was
bound to furnish a mounted warrior was the same however the conformity
may have been produced. The _heriot_ of the English earl or _thegn_ was
in close resemblance with the _relief_ of the Norman count or knight.
But however close the resemblance, something was now added that made the
two identical. The change of the heriot to the relief implies a
suspension of ownership, and carries with it the custom of "livery of
seisin." The heriot was the payment of a debt from the dead man to his
lord; his son succeeded him by allodial right. The relief was paid by
the heir before he could obtain his father's lands; between the death of
the father and livery of seisin to the son the right of the "overlord"
had entered; the ownership was to a certain extent resumed, and the
succession of the heir took somewhat of the character of a new grant.
The right of wardship also became in the same way a reëntry, by the
lord, on the profits of the estate of the minor, instead of being, as
before, a protection, by the head of the kin, of the indefeasible rights
of the heir, which it was the duty of the whole community to maintain.

There can be no doubt that the military tenure--the most prominent
feature of historical feudalism--was itself introduced by the same
gradual process which we have assumed in the case of the feudal usages
in general. We have no light on the point from any original grant made
by the Conqueror to a lay follower, but judging by the grants made to
the churches we cannot suppose it probable that such gifts were made on
any expressed condition, or accepted with a distinct pledge to provide a
certain contingent of knights for the king's service. The obligation of
national defence was incumbent, as of old, on all land-owners, and the
customary service of one fully armed man for each five hides of land was
probably the rate at which the newly endowed follower of the king would
be expected to discharge his duty. The wording of the _Domesday_ survey
does not imply that in this respect the new military service differed
from the old; the land is marked out, not into knights' fees, but into
hides, and the number of knights to be furnished by a particular
feudatory would be ascertained by inquiring the number of hides that he
held, without apportioning the particular acres that were to support the
particular knight.

It would undoubtedly be on the estates of the lay vassals that a more
definite usage would first be adopted, and knights bound by feudal
obligations to their lords receive a definite estate from them. Our
earliest information, however, on this as on most points of tenure, is
derived from the notices of ecclesiastical practice. Lanfranc, we are
told, turned the _drengs_, the rent-paying tenants of his archiepiscopal
estates, into knights for the defence of the country; he enfeoffed a
certain number of knights who performed the military service due from
the archiepiscopal barony. This had been done before the _Domesday_
survey, and almost necessarily implies that a like measure had been
taken by the lay vassals. Lanfranc likewise maintained ten knights to
answer for the military service due from the convent of Christ Church,
which made over to him, in consideration of the relief, land worth two
hundred pounds annually. The value of the knight's fee must already have
been fixed at twenty pounds a year.

In the reign of William Rufus the abbot of Ramsey obtained a charter
which exempted his monastery from the service of ten knights due from it
on festivals, substituting the obligation to furnish three knights to
perform service on the north of the Thames--a proof that the lands of
that house had not yet been divided into knights' fees. In the next
reign, we may infer--from the favor granted by the King to the knights
who defended their lands _per loricas_ (that is, by the hauberk) that
their demesne lands shall be exempt from pecuniary taxation--that the
process of definite military infeudation had largely advanced. But it
was not even yet forced on the clerical or monastic estates. When, in
1167, the abbot of Milton, in Dorset, was questioned as to the number of
knights' fees for which he had to account, he replied that all the
services due from his monastery were discharged out of the demesne; but
he added that in the reign of Henry I, during a vacancy in the abbacy,
Bishop Roger, of Salisbury, had enfeoffed two knights out of the abbey
lands. He had, however, subsequently reversed the act and had restored
the lands, whose tenure had been thus altered, to their original
condition of rent-paying estate or "socage."

The very term "the new feoffment," which was applied to the knights'
fees created between the death of Henry I and the year in which the
account preserved in the _Black Book_ of the exchequer was taken, proves
that the process was going on for nearly a hundred years, and that the
form in which the knights' fees appear when called on by Henry II for
"scutage" was most probably the result of a series of compositions by
which the great vassals relieved their lands from a general burden by
carving out particular estates, the holders of which performed the
services due from the whole; it was a matter of convenience and not of
tyrannical pressure. The statement of Ordericus Vitalis that the
Conqueror "distributed lands to his knights in such fashion that the
kingdom of England should have forever sixty thousand knights, and
furnish them at the king's command according to the occasion," must be
regarded as one of the many numerical exaggerations of the early
historians. The officers of the exchequer in the twelfth century were
quite unable to fix the number of existing knights' fees.

It cannot even be granted that a definite area of land was necessary to
constitute a knight's fee; for although at a later period and in local
computations we may find four or five hides adopted as a basis of
calculation, where the extent of the particular knight's fee is given
exactly, it affords no ground for such a conclusion. In the _Liber
Niger_ we find knights' fees of two hides and a half, of two hides, of
four, five, and six hides. Geoffrey Ridel states that his father held
one hundred and eighty-four _carucates_ and a _virgate_, for which the
service of fifteen knights was due, but that no knights' fees had been
carved out of it, the obligation lying equally on every carucate. The
archbishop of York had far more knights than his tenure required. It is
impossible to avoid the conclusion that the extent of a knight's fee was
determined by rent or valuation rather than acreage, and that the common
quantity was really expressed in the twenty _librates_, the twenty
pounds' worth of annual value which until the reign of Edward I was the
qualification for knighthood.

It is most probable that no regular account of the knights' fees was
ever taken until they became liable to taxation, either in the form of
_auxilium militum_ under Henry I, or in that of scutage under his
grandson. The facts, however, which are here adduced, preclude the
possibility of referring this portion of the feudal innovations to the
direct legislation of the Conqueror. It may be regarded as a secondary
question whether the knighthood here referred to was completed by the
investiture with knightly arms and the honorable accolade. The
ceremonial of knighthood was practised by the Normans, whereas the
evidence that the English had retained the primitive practice of
investing the youthful warrior is insufficient; yet it would be rash to
infer that so early as this, if indeed it ever was the case, every
possessor of a knight's fee received formal initiation before he assumed
his spurs. But every such analogy would make the process of transition
easier and prevent the necessity of any general legislative act of
change.

It has been maintained that a formal and definitive act, forming the
initial point of the feudalization of England, is to be found in a
clause of the laws, as they are called, of the Conqueror; which directs
that every freeman shall affirm, by covenant and oath, that "he will be
faithful to King William within England and without, will join him in
preserving his lands and honor with all fidelity, and defend him against
his enemies." But this injunction is little more than the demand of the
oath of allegiance which had been taken to the Anglo-Saxon kings and is
here required not of every feudal dependent of the King, but of every
freeman or freeholder whatsoever.

In that famous council of Salisbury of 1086, which was summoned
immediately after the making of the _Domesday_ survey, we learn from the
_Chronicle_ that there came to the King "all his witan, and all the
landholders of substance in England whose vassals soever they were, and
they all submitted to him, and became his men and swore oaths of
allegiance that they would be faithful to him against all others." In
this act have been seen the formal acceptance and date of the
introduction of feudalism, but it has a very different meaning. The oath
described is the oath of allegiance, combined with the act of homage,
and obtained from all land-owners, whoever their feudal lord might be.
It is a measure of precaution taken against the disintegrating power of
feudalism, providing a direct tie between the sovereign and all
freeholders which no inferior relation existing between them and the
mesne lords would justify them in breaking. The real importance of the
passage as bearing on the date of the introduction of feudal tenure is
merely that it shows the system to have already become consolidated; all
the land-owners of the kingdom had already become, somehow or other,
vassals, either of the king or of some tenant under him. The lesson may
be learned from the fact of the _Domesday_ survey.

The introduction of such a system would necessarily have effects far
wider than the mere modification of the law of tenure; it might be
regarded as a means of consolidating and concentrating the whole
machinery of government; legislation, taxation, judicature, and military
defence were all capable of being organized on the feudal principle, and
might have been so had the moral and political results been in harmony
with the legal. But its tendency when applied to governmental machinery
is disruptive. The great feature of the Conqueror's policy is his defeat
of that tendency. Guarding against it he obtained recognition as the
King of the nation and, so far as he could understand them and the
attitude of the nation allowed, he maintained the usages of the nation.
He kept up the popular institutions of the hundred court and the shire
court. He confirmed the laws which had been in use in King Edward's
days, with the additions which he himself made for the benefit, as he
especially tells us, of the English.

We are told, on what seems to be the highest legal authority of the next
century, that he issued in his fourth year a commission of inquiry into
the national customs, and obtained from sworn representatives of each
county a declaration of the laws under which they wished to live. The
compilation that bears his name is very little more than a reissue of
the code of Canute; and this proceeding helped greatly to reconcile the
English people to his rule. Although the oppressions of his later years
were far heavier than the measures taken to secure the immediate success
of the Conquest, all the troubles of the kingdom after 1075, in his
sons' reigns as well as in his own, proceeded from the insubordination
of the Normans, not from the attempts of the English to dethrone the
king. Very early they learned that, if their interest was not the
king's, at least their enemies were his enemies; hence they are
invariably found on the royal side against the feudatories.

This accounts for the maintenance of the national force of defence, over
and above the feudal army. The _fyrd_ of the English, the general
armament of the men of the counties and hundreds, was not abolished at
the Conquest, but subsisted even through the reigns of William Rufus and
Henry I, to be reformed and reconstituted under Henry II; and in each
reign it gave proof of its strength and faithfulness. The _witenagemot_
itself retained the ancient form, the bishops and abbots formed a chief
part of it, instead of being, as in Normandy, so insignificant an
element that their very participation in deliberation has been doubted.
The king sat crowned three times in the year in the old royal towns of
Westminster, Winchester, and Gloucester, hearing the complaints of his
people, and executing such justice as his knowledge of their law and
language and his own imperious will allowed. In all this there is no
violent innovation, only such gradual essential changes as twenty
eventful years of new actors and new principles must bring, however
insensibly the people themselves--passing away and being replaced by
their children--may be educated to endurance.

It would be wrong to impute to the Conqueror any intention of deceiving
the nation by maintaining its official forms while introducing new
principles and a new race of administrators. What he saw required change
he changed with a high hand. But not the less surely did the change of
administrators involve a change of custom, both in the church and in the
state. The bishops, ealdormen, and sheriffs of English birth were
replaced by Normans; not unreasonably, perhaps, considering the
necessity of preserving the balance of the state. With the change of
officials came a sort of amalgamation or duplication of titles; the
ealdorman or earl became the _comes_ or count; the sheriff became the
_vicecomes_; the office in each case receiving the name of that which
corresponded most closely with it in Normandy itself. With the
amalgamation of titles came an importation of new principles and
possibly new functions; for the Norman count and viscount had not
exactly the same customs as the earls and sheriffs. And this ran up into
the highest grades of organization; the King's court of counsellors was
composed of his feudal tenants; the ownership of land was now the
qualification for the witenagemot, instead of wisdom; the earldoms
became fiefs instead of magistracies, and even the bishops had to accept
the status of barons. There was a very certain danger that the mere
change of persons might bring in the whole machinery of hereditary
magistracies, and that king and people might be edged out of the
administration of justice, taxation, and other functions of supreme or
local independence.

Against this it was most important to guard; as the Conqueror learned
from the events of the first year of his reign, when the severe rule of
Odo and William Fitzosbern had provoked Herefordshire. Ralph Guader,
Roger Montgomery, and Hugh of Avranches filled the places of Edwin and
Morcar and the brothers of Harold. But the conspiracy of the earls in
1074 opened William's eyes to the danger of this proceeding, and from
that time onward he governed the provinces through sheriffs immediately
dependent on himself, avoiding the foreign plan of appointing hereditary
counts, as well as the English custom of ruling by viceregal ealdormen.
He was, however, very sparing in giving earldoms at all, and inclined to
confine the title to those who were already counts in Normandy or in
France.

To this plan there were some marked exceptions, which may be accounted
for either on the ground that the arrangements had been completed before
the need of watchfulness was impressed on the King by the treachery of
the Normans, or on that of the exigencies of national defence. In these
cases he created, or suffered the continuance of, great palatine
jurisdictions; earldoms in which the earls were endowed with the
superiority of whole counties, so that all the land-owners held feudally
of them, in which they received the whole profits of the courts and
exercised all the "regalia" or royal rights, nominated the sheriffs,
held their own councils, and acted as independent princes except in the
owing of homage and fealty to the King. Two of these palatinates, the
earldom of Chester and the bishopric of Durham, retained much of their
character to our own days. A third, the palatinate of Bishop Odo in
Kent, if it were really a jurisdiction of the same sort, came to an end
when Odo forfeited the confidence of his brother and nephew. A fourth,
the earldom of Shropshire, which is not commonly counted among the
palatine jurisdictions, but which possessed under the Montgomery earls
all the characteristics of such a dignity, was confiscated after the
treason of Robert of Belesme by Henry I. These had been all founded
before the conspiracy of 1074; they were also, like the later lordships
of the marches, a part of the national defence; Chester and Shropshire
kept the Welsh marches in order, Kent was the frontier exposed to
attacks from Picardy, and Durham, the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, lay as
a sacred boundary between England and Scotland; Northumberland and
Cumberland were still a debatable ground between the two kingdoms.
Chester was held by its earls as freely by the sword as the King held
England by the crown; no lay vassal in the county held of the King, all
of the earl. In Shropshire there were only five lay tenants _in capite_
besides Roger Montgomery; in Kent, Bishop Odo held an enormous
proportion of the manors, but the nature of his jurisdiction is not very
clear, and its duration is too short to make it of much importance. If
William founded any earldoms at all after 1074 (which may be doubted),
he did it on a very different scale.

The hereditary sheriffdoms he did not guard against with equal care. The
Norman viscounties were hereditary, and there was some risk that the
English ones would become so too; and with the worst consequences, for
the English counties were much larger than the bailiwicks of the Norman
viscount, and the authority of the sheriff, when he was relieved from
the company of the ealdorman, and was soon to lose that of the bishop,
would have no check except the direct control of the King. If William
perceived this, it was too late to prevent it entirely; some of the
sheriffdoms became hereditary, and continued to be so long after the
abuse had become constitutionally dangerous.

The independence of the greater feudatories was still further limited by
the principle, which the Conqueror seems to have observed, of avoiding
the accumulation in any one hand of a great number of contiguous
estates. The rule is not without some important exceptions, and it may
have been suggested by the diversity of occasions on which the fiefs
were bestowed, but the result is one which William must have foreseen.
An insubordinate baron whose strength lay in twelve different counties
would have to rouse the suspicions and perhaps to defy the arms of
twelve powerful sheriffs, before he could draw his forces to a head. In
his manorial courts, scattered and unconnected, he could set up no
central tribunal, nor even force a new custom upon his tenants, nor
could he attempt oppression on any extensive scale. By such limitation
the people were protected and the central power secured.

Yet the changes of ownership, even thus guarded, wrought other changes.
It is not to be supposed that the Norman baron, when he had received his
fief, proceeded to carve it out into demesne and tenants' land as if he
were making a new settlement in an uninhabited country. He might indeed
build his castle and enclose his chase with very little respect to the
rights of his weaker neighbors, but he did not attempt any such radical
change as the legal theory of the creation of manors seems to presume.
The name "manor" is of Norman origin: but the estate to which it was
given existed, in its essential character, long before the Conquest; it
received a new name as the shire also did, but neither the one nor the
other was created by this change. The local jurisdictions of the thegns
who had grants of _sac_ and _soc_, or who exercised judicial functions
among their free neighbors, were identical with the manorial
jurisdictions of the new owners.

It may be conjectured with great probability that in many cases the
weaker freemen, who had either willingly or under constraint attended
the courts of their great neighbors, were now, under the general
infusion of feudal principle, regarded as holding their lands of them as
lords; it is not less probable that in a great number of grants the
right to suit and service from small land-owners passed from the king to
the receiver of the fief as a matter of course; but it is certain that
even before the Conquest such a proceeding was not uncommon; Edward the
Confessor had transferred to St. Augustine's monastery a number of
allodiaries in Kent, and every such measure in the case of a church must
have had its parallel in similar grants to laymen. The manorial system
brought in a number of new names; and perhaps a duplication of offices.
The _gerefa_ of the old thegn, or of the ancient township, was replaced,
as president of the courts, by a Norman steward or seneschal; and the
_bydel_ of the old system by the bailiff of the new; but the gerefa and
bydel still continued to exist in a subordinate capacity as the _grave_
or reeve and the _bedell_; and when the lord's steward takes his place
in the county court, the reeve and four men of the township are there
also. The common of the township may be treated as the lord's waste, but
the townsmen do not lose their customary share.

The changes that take place in the state have their resulting analogies
in every village, but no new England is created; new forms displace but
do not destroy the old, and old rights remain, although changed in title
and forced into symmetry with a new legal and pseudo-historical theory.
The changes may not seem at first sight very oppressive, but they opened
the way for oppression; the forms they had introduced tended, under the
spirit of Norman legality and feudal selfishness, to become hard
realities, and in the profound miseries of Stephen's reign the people
learned how completely the new theory left them at the mercy of their
lords; nor were all the reforms of his successor more stringent or the
struggles of the century that followed a whit more impassioned than were
necessary to protect the English yeoman from the men who lived upon his
strength.

In attempting thus to estimate the real amount of change introduced by
the feudalism of the Conquest, many points of further interest have been
touched upon, to which it is necessary to recur only so far as to give
them their proper place in a more general view of the reformed
organization. The Norman king is still the king of the nation. He has
become the supreme landlord; all estates are held of him mediately or
immediately, but he still demands the allegiance of all his subjects.
The oath which he exacted at Salisbury in 1086, and which is embodied in
the semi-legal form already quoted, was a modification of the oath taken
to Edmund, and was intended to set the general obligation of obedience
to the king in its proper relation to the new tie of homage and fealty
by which the tenant was bound to his lord.

All men continued to be primarily the king's men, and the public peace
to be his peace. Their lords might demand their service to fulfil their
own obligations, but the king could call them to the _fyrd_, summon them
to his courts, and tax them without the intervention of their lords; and
to the king they could look for protection against all foes. Accordingly
the king could rely on the help of the bulk of the free people in all
struggles with his feudatories, and the people, finding that their
connection with their lords would be no excuse for unfaithfulness to the
king, had a further inducement to adhere to the more permanent
institutions.

In the department of law the direct changes introduced by the Conquest
were not great. Much that is regarded as peculiarly Norman was developed
upon English soil, and although originated and systematized by Norman
lawyers, contained elements which would have worked in a very different
way in Normandy. Even the vestiges of Carlovingian practice which appear
in the inquests of the Norman reigns are modified by English usage. The
great inquest of all, the _Domesday_ survey, may owe its principle to a
foreign source; the oath of the reporters may be Norman, but the
machinery that furnishes the jurors is native; "the king's barons
inquire by the oath of the sheriff of the shire, and of all the barons
and their Frenchmen, and of the whole hundred, the priest, the reeve,
and six _ceorls_ of every township."

The institution of the collective Frank pledge, which recent writers
incline to treat as a Norman innovation, is so distinctly colored by
English custom that it has been generally regarded as purely indigenous.
If it were indeed a precaution taken by the new rulers against the
avoidance of justice by the absconding or harboring of criminals, it
fell with ease into the usages and even the legal terms which had been
common for other similar purposes since the reign of Athelstan. The
trial by battle, which on clearer evidence seems to have been brought in
by the Normans, is a relic of old Teutonic jurisprudence, the absence of
which from the Anglo-Saxon courts is far more curious than its
introduction from abroad.

The organization of jurisdiction required and underwent no great change
in these respects. The Norman lord who undertook the office of sheriff
had, as we have seen, more unrestricted power than the sheriffs of old.
He was the king's representative in all matters judicial, military, and
financial in his shire, and had many opportunities of tyrannizing in
each of those departments: but he introduced no new machinery. From him,
or from the courts of which he was the presiding officer, appeal lay to
the king alone; but the king was often absent from England and did not
understand the language of his subjects. In his absence the
administration was intrusted to a _judiciar_, a regent, or lieutenant,
of the kingdom; and the convenience being once ascertained of having a
minister who could in the whole kingdom represent the king, as the
sheriff did in the shire, the judiciar became a permanent functionary.
This, however, cannot be certainly affirmed of the reign of the
Conqueror, who, when present at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, held
great courts of justice as well as for other purposes of state; and the
legal importance of the office belongs to a later stage. The royal
court, containing the tenants-in-chief of the crown, both lay and
clerical, and entering into all the functions of the witenagemot, was
the supreme council of the nation, with the advice and consent of which
the King legislated, taxed, and judged.

In the one authentic monument of William's jurisprudence, the act which
removed the bishops from the secular courts and recognized their
spiritual jurisdictions, he tells us that he acts "with the common
council and counsel of the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and all the
princes of the kingdom." The ancient summary of his laws contained in
the _Textus Roffensis_ is entitled "_What William, King of the English,
with his Princes enacted after the Conquest of England_"; and the same
form is preserved in the tradition of his confirming the ancient laws
reported to him by the representatives of the shires. The _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_ enumerates the classes of men who attended his great courts:
"There were with him all the great men over all England, archbishops and
bishops, abbots and earls, thegns and knights."

The great suit between Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury and Odo as
Earl of Kent, which is perhaps the best reported trial of the reign, was
tried in the county court of Kent before the King's representative,
Gosfrid, bishop of Coutances; whose presence and that of most of the
great men of the kingdom seem to have made it a witenagemot. The
archbishop pleaded the cause of his Church in a session of three days on
Pennenden Heath; the aged South-Saxon bishop, Ethelric, was brought by
the King's command to declare the ancient customs of the laws; and with
him several other Englishmen skilled in ancient laws and customs. All
these good and wise men supported the archbishop's claim, and the
decision was agreed on and determined by the whole county. The sentence
was laid before the King, and confirmed by him. Here we have probably a
good instance of the principle universally adopted; all the lower
machinery of the court was retained entire, but the presence of the
Norman justiciar and barons gave it an additional authority, a more
direct connection with the king, and the appearance at least of a joint
tribunal.

The principle of amalgamating the two laws and nationalities by
superimposing the better consolidated Norman superstructure on the
better consolidated English substructure, runs through the whole policy.

The English system was strong in the cohesion of its lower organism, the
association of individuals in the township, in the hundred, and in the
shire; the Norman system was strong in its higher ranges, in the close
relation to the Crown of the tenants-in-chief whom the King had
enriched. On the other hand, the English system was weak in the higher
organization, and the Normans in England had hardly any subordinate
organization at all. The strongest elements of both were brought
together.



DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE

DIVISION INTO MODERN FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ITALY

A.D. 843-911

FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT


(The period with which the following article deals may be said to mark
the end of distinctively Frankish history. A striking mixture of races
entered into the formation of this people, and the beginnings of the
great modern nations into which the Frankish empire was divided brought
to them varied elements of strength and a diversity of constituents that
were to be commingled in new national characters and careers.

In 840 Charles the Bald became King of France, and his reign, both as
king and afterward as emperor, continued for thirty-seven years, during
which he proved himself to be lacking in those qualities which his
responsibilities and the wants of his people demanded. He had great
obstacles to contend against; for besides the ambitions of various
districts for separate nationality, which led to insurrections in many
quarters, Greek pirates ravaged the South, where the Saracens also
wrought havoc, while in the North and West the Northmen burned and
pillaged, laying waste a wide region and leaving many towns in ruins.

It was an age of turbulence in Europe, and the violence of predatory
invaders brought woes upon many peoples. On the east of Charles' empire
the Hungarians, successors of the Huns, began to threaten. In the midst
of all these distractions and dangers, assailed by enemies without and
within, Charles found it a task far beyond his abilities to construct a
state upon foundations of unity. He bore many titles and held several
crowns, but his actual dominion was narrowly restricted, and his nominal
subjects were in a state of political subdivision almost amounting to
dismemberment. After various futile efforts during his later years to
unify his empire, Charles died from an illness which seized him in 877,
on his return to France from a fruitless campaign of subjugation and
pillage in Italy. In the subsequent division of the empire, according to
the terms of the treaty of Verdun, the several portions included Italy,
the nucleus of France, and that of the present Germany.

Already suffering from the devastating expeditions of the Norse or
Northmen, the Carlovingian empire, now weakened by division, became an
easier prey for the invaders. Emboldened by success, the Northmen at
length commenced to settle in the regions they invaded, no longer
returning, as formerly, to their northern homes in winter. Among
chieftains of the early Norman invaders who settled in France was
Hastings, who became Count of Chartres; later came Rou, Rolf, or Rollo
the Rover, to whom Charles the Simple of France gave Normandy, whence
sprang the conquerors and rulers of England, who laid the foundation of
the English-speaking nations of today.)


The first of Charlemagne's grand designs, the territorial security of
the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, was accomplished. In the East
and the North, the Germanic and Asiatic populations, which had so long
upset it, were partly arrested at its frontiers, partly incorporated
regularly in its midst. In the South, the Mussulman populations which,
in the eighth century, had appeared so near overwhelming it, were
powerless to deal it any heavy blow. Substantially France was founded.
But what had become of Charlemagne's second grand design, the
resuscitation of the Roman Empire at the hands of the barbarians that
had conquered it and become Christians?

Let us leave Louis the Debonair his traditional name, although it is not
an exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries.
They called him Louis the Pious. And so, indeed, he was, sincerely and
even scrupulously pious; but he was still more weak than pious, as weak
in heart and character as in mind; as destitute of ruling ideas as of
strength of will, fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions or
surrounding influences or positional embarrassments. The name of
_Débonnaire_ is suited to him; it expresses his moral worth and his
political incapacity both at once.

As king of Aquitaine in the time of Charlemagne, Louis made himself
esteemed and loved; his justice, his suavity, his probity, and his piety
were pleasing to the people, and his weaknesses disappeared under the
strong hand of his father. When he became emperor, he began his reign by
a reaction against the excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding
reign. Charlemagne's morals were far from regular, and he troubled
himself but little about the license prevailing in his family or his
palace. At a distance, he ruled with a tight and heavy hand. Louis
established at his court, for his sisters as well as his servants,
austere regulations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the
rights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywhere
his commissioners with orders to listen to complaints and redress
grievances, and to mitigate his father's rule, which was rigorous in its
application and yet insufficient to repress disturbance, notwithstanding
its preventive purpose and its watchful supervision.

Almost simultaneously with his accession, Louis committed an act more
serious and compromising. He had, by his wife Hermengarde, three sons,
Lothair, Pépin, and Louis, aged respectively nineteen, eleven, and
eight. In 817, Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly of
his dominions; and there, while declaring that "neither to those who
were wisely minded nor to himself did it appear expedient to break up,
for the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, the unity of the
empire, preserved by God himself," he had resolved to share with his
eldest son, Lothair, the imperial throne. Lothair was in fact crowned
emperor; and his two brothers, Pépin and Louis, were crowned king, "in
order that they might reign, after their father's death and under their
brother and lord, Lothair, to wit: Pépin, over Aquitaine and a great
part of Southern Gaul and of Burgundy; Louis, beyond the Rhine, over
Bavaria and the divers peoples in the east of Germany." The rest of Gaul
and of Germany, as well as the kingdom of Italy, was to belong to
Lothair, Emperor and head of the Frankish monarchy, to whom his brothers
would have to repair year by year to come to an understanding with him
and receive his instructions. The last-named kingdom, the most
considerable of the three, remained under the direct government of Louis
the Debonair, and at the same time of his son Lothair, sharing the title
of emperor. The two other sons, Pépin and Louis, entered,
notwithstanding their childhood, upon immediate possession, the one of
Aquitaine and the other of Bavaria, under the superior authority of
their father and their brother, the joint emperors.

Charlemagne had vigorously maintained the unity of the empire, for all
that he had delegated to two of his sons, Pépin and Louis, the
government of Italy and Aquitaine with the title of king. Louis the
Debonair, while regulating beforehand the division of his dominion,
likewise desired, as he said, to maintain the unity of the empire. But
he forgot that he was no Charlemagne.

It was not long before numerous mournful experiences showed to what
extent the unity of the empire required personal superiority in the
emperor, and how rapid would be the decay of the fabric when there
remained nothing but the title of the founder.

In 816 Pope Stephen IV came to France to consecrate Louis the Debonair
emperor. Many a time already the popes had rendered the Frankish kings
this service and honor. The Franks had been proud to see their King,
Charlemagne, protecting Adrian I against the Lombards; then crowned
emperor at Rome by Leo III, and then having his two sons, Pépin and
Louis, crowned at Rome, by the same Pope, kings respectively of Italy
and of Aquitaine. On these different occasions Charlemagne, while
testifying the most profound respect for the Pope, had, in his relations
with him, always taken care to preserve, together with his political
greatness, all his personal dignity. But when, in 816, the Franks saw
Louis the Pious not only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV, but
prostrate himself, from head to foot, and rise only when the Pope held
out a hand to him, the spectators felt saddened and humiliated at the
sight of their Emperor in the posture of a penitent monk.

Several insurrections burst out in the empire; the first among the
Basques of Aquitaine; the next in Italy, where Bernard, son of Pépin,
having, after his father's death, become king in 812, with the consent
of his grandfather Charlemagne, could not quietly see his kingdom pass
into the hands of his cousin Lothair at the orders of his uncle Louis.
These two attempts were easily repressed, but the third was more
serious. It took place in Brittany among those populations of Armorica
who were still buried in their woods, and were excessively jealous of
their independence. In 818 they took for king one of their principal
chieftains, named Morvan; and, not confining themselves to a refusal of
all tribute to the King of the Franks, they renewed their ravages upon
the Frankish territories bordering on their frontier. Louis was at that
time holding a general assembly of his dominions at Aix-la-Chapelle; and
Count Lantbert, commandant of the marches of Brittany, came and reported
to him what was going on. A Frankish monk, named Ditcar, happened to be
at the assembly: he was a man of piety and sense, a friend of peace,
and, moreover, with some knowledge of the Breton king Morvan, as his
monastery had property in the neighborhood. Him the Emperor commissioned
to convey to the King his grievances and his demands. After some days'
journey the monk passed the frontier and arrived at a vast space
enclosed on one side by a noble river, and on all the others by forests
and swamps, hedges and ditches. In the middle of this space was a large
dwelling, which was Morvan's. Ditcar found it full of warriors, the King
having, no doubt, some expedition on hand. The monk announced himself as
a messenger from the Emperor of the Franks. The style of announcement
caused some confusion at first, to the Briton, who, however, hastened to
conceal his emotion under an air of good-will and joyousness, to impose
upon his comrades. The latter were got rid of; and the King remained
alone with the monk, who explained the object of his mission. He
descanted upon the power of the emperor Louis, recounted his complaints,
and warned the Briton, kindly and in a private capacity, of the danger
of his situation, a danger so much the greater in that he and his people
would meet with the less consideration, seeing that they kept up the
religion of their pagan forefathers. Morvan gave attentive ear to this
sermon, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his foot tapping it from
time to time. Ditcar thought he had succeeded; but an incident
supervened. It was the hour when Morvan's wife was accustomed to come
and look for him ere they retired to the nuptial couch. She appeared,
eager to know who the stranger was, what he had come for, what he had
said, what answer he had received. She preluded her questions with
oglings and caresses; she kissed the knees, the hands, the beard, and
the face of the King, testifying her desire to be alone with him. "O
King and glory of the mighty Britons, dear spouse of mine! what tidings
bringeth this stranger? Is it peace, or is it war?"

"This stranger," answered Morvan, with a smile, "is an envoy of the
Franks; but bring he peace or bring he war is the affair of men alone;
as for thee, content thee with thy woman's duties." Thereupon Ditcar,
perceiving that he was countered, said to Morvan: "Sir King, 'tis time
that I return; tell me what answer I am to take back to my sovereign."

"Leave me this night to take thought thereon," replied the Breton chief,
with a wavering air. When the morning came, Ditcar presented himself
once more to Morvan, whom he found up, but still half drunk and full of
very different sentiments from those of the night before. It required
some effort, stupefied and tottering as he was with the effects of wine
and the pleasures of the night, to say to Ditcar: "Go back to thy King,
and tell him from me that my land was never his, and that I owe him
naught of tribute or submission. Let him reign over the Franks; as for
me, I reign over the Britons. If he will bring war on me, he will find
me ready to pay him back."

The monk returned to Louis the Debonair and rendered account of his
mission. War was resolved upon, and the Emperor collected his
troops--Alemannians, Saxons, Thuringians, Burgundians, and Aquitanians,
without counting Franks or Gallo-Romans. They began their march, moving
upon Vannes; Louis was at their head, and the Empress accompanied him,
but he left her, already ill and fatigued, at Angers. The Franks entered
the country of the Britons, searched the woods and morasses, found no
armed men in the open country, but encountered them in scattered and
scanty companies, at the entrance of all the defiles, on the heights
commanding pathways, and wherever men could hide themselves and await
the moment for appearing unexpectedly. The Franks heard them, from amid
the heather and the brushwood, uttering shrill cries, to give warning
one to another or to alarm the enemy. The Franks advanced cautiously,
and at last arrived at the entrance of the thick wood which surrounded
Morvan's abode. He had not yet set out with the pick of the warriors he
had about him; but, at the approach of the Franks, he summoned his wife
and his domestics, and said to them: "Defend ye well this house and
these woods; as for me, I am going to march forward to collect my
people; after which to return, but not without booty and spoils." He put
on his armor, took a javelin in each hand, and mounted his horse. "Thou
seest," said he to his wife, "these javelins I brandish: I will bring
them back to thee this very day dyed with the blood of Franks.
Farewell." Setting out he pierced, followed by his men, through the
thickness of the forest, and advanced to meet the Franks.

The battle began. The large numbers of the Franks who covered the ground
for some distance dismayed the Britons, and many of them fled, seeking
where they might hide themselves. Morvan, beside himself with rage and
at the head of his most devoted followers, rushed down upon the Franks
as if to demolish them at a single stroke; and many fell beneath his
blows. He singled out a warrior of inferior grade, toward whom he made
at a gallop, and, insulting him by word of mouth, after the ancient
fashion of the Celtic warriors, cried: "Frank, I am going to give thee
my first present, a present which I have been keeping for thee a long
while, and which I hope thou wilt bear in mind;" and launched at him a
javelin which the other received on his shield. "Proud Briton," replied
the Frank, "I have received thy present, and I am going to give thee
mine." He dug both spurs into his horse's sides and galloped down upon
Morvan, who, clad though he was in a coat of mail, fell pierced by the
thrust of a lance. The Frank had but time to dismount and cut off his
head when he fell himself, mortally wounded by one of Morvan's young
warriors, but not without having, in his turn, dealt the other his
deathblow. It spreads on all sides that Morvan is dead; and the Franks
come thronging to the scene of the encounter. There is picked up and
passed from hand to hand a head all bloody and fearfully disfigured.
Ditcar the monk is called to see it, and to say whether it is that of
Morvan; but he has to wash the mass of disfigurement, and to partially
adjust the hair, before he can pronounce that it is really Morvan's.
There is then no more doubt; resistance is now impossible; the widow,
the family and the servants of Morvan arrive, are brought before Louis
the Debonair, accept all the conditions imposed upon them, and the
Franks withdraw with the boast that Brittany is henceforth their
tributary.

On arriving at Angers, Louis found the empress Hermengarde dying; and
two days afterward she was dead. He had a tender heart which was not
proof against sorrow; and he testified a desire to abdicate and turn
monk. But he was dissuaded from his purpose; for it was easy to
influence his resolutions. A little later, he was advised to marry
again, and he yielded. Several princesses were introduced; and he chose
Judith of Bavaria, daughter of Count Welf (Guelf), a family already
powerful and in later times celebrated. Judith was young, beautiful,
witty, ambitious, and skilled in the art of making the gift of pleasing
subserve the passion for ruling. Louis, during his expedition into
Brittany, had just witnessed the fatal result of a woman's empire over
her husband; he was destined himself to offer a more striking and more
long-lived example of it. In 823, he had, by his new empress Judith, a
son, whom he called Charles, and who was hereafter to be known as
Charles the Bald. This son became his mother's ruling, if not exclusive,
passion, and the source of his father's woes. His birth could not fail
to cause ill-temper and mistrust in Louis' three sons by Hermengarde,
who were already kings. They had but a short time previously received
the first proof of their father's weakness. In 822, Louis, repenting of
his severity toward his nephew, Bernard of Italy, whose eyes he had
caused to be put out as a punishment for rebellion, and who had died in
consequence, considered himself bound to perform at Attigny, in the
church and before the people, a solemn act of penance; which was
creditable to his honesty and piety, but the details left upon the minds
of the beholders an impression unfavorable to the Emperor's dignity and
authority. In 829, during an assembly held at Worms, he, yielding to his
wife's entreaties, and doubtless also to his own yearnings toward his
youngest son, set at naught the solemn act whereby, in 817, he had
shared his dominions among his three elder sons; and took away from two
of them, in Burgundy and Alemannia, some of the territories he had
assigned to them, and gave them to the boy Charles for his share.
Lothair, Pépin, and Louis thereupon revolted. Court rivalries were added
to family differences. The Emperor had summoned to his side a young
southron, Bernard by name, duke of Septimania and son of Count William
of Toulouse, who had gallantly fought the Saracens. He made him his
chief chamberlain and his favorite counsellor. Bernard was bold,
ambitious, vain, imperious, and restless. He removed his rivals from
court, and put in their places his own creatures. He was accused not
only of abusing the Emperor's favor, but even of carrying on a guilty
intrigue with the empress Judith. There grew up against him, and, by
consequence, against the Emperor, the Empress, and their youngest son, a
powerful opposition, in which certain ecclesiastics, and, among them,
Wala, abbot of Corbie, cousin-german and but lately one of the privy
counsellors of Charlemagne, joined eagerly. Some had at heart the unity
of the empire, which Louis was breaking up more and more; others were
concerned for the spiritual interests of the Church, which Louis, in
spite of his piety and by reason of his weakness, often permitted to be
attacked. Thus strengthened, the conspirators considered themselves
certain of success. They had the empress Judith carried off and shut up
in the convent of St. Radegonde at Poitiers; and Louis in person came to
deliver himself up to them at Compiègne, where they were assembled.
There they passed a decree to the effect that the power and title of
emperor were transferred from Louis to Lothair, his eldest son; that the
act whereby a share of the empire had but lately been assigned to
Charles was annulled; and that the act of 817, which had regulated the
partition of Louis' dominions after his death, was once more in force.
But soon there was a burst of reaction in favor of the Emperor;
Lothair's two brothers, jealous of his late elevation, made overtures to
their father; the ecclesiastics were a little ashamed at being mixed up
in a revolt; the people felt pity for the poor, honest Emperor; and a
general assembly, meeting at Nimeguen, abolished the acts of Compiègne,
and restored to Louis his title and his power. But it was not long
before there was revolt again, originating this time with Pépin, King of
Aquitaine. Louis fought him, and gave Aquitaine to Charles the Bald. The
alliance between the three sons of Hermengarde was at once renewed; they
raised an army; the Emperor marched against them with his; and the two
hosts met between Colmar and Bâle, in a place called _le Champ rouge_
("the Field of Red"). Negotiations were set on foot; and Louis was
called upon to leave his wife Judith and his son Charles, and put
himself under the guardianship of his elder sons. He refused; but, just
when the conflict was about to commence, desertion took place in Louis'
army; most of the prelates, laics, and men-at-arms who had accompanied
him passed over to the camp of Lothair; and the "Field of Red" became
the "Field of Falsehood" (_le Champ du Mensonge_). Louis, left almost
alone, ordered his attendants to withdraw, "being unwilling," he said,
"that any one of them should lose life or limb on his account," and
surrendered to his sons. They received him with great demonstrations of
respect, but without relinquishing the prosecution of their enterprise.
Lothair hastily collected an assembly, which proclaimed him Emperor,
with the addition of divers territories to the kingdoms of Aquitaine and
Bavaria: and, three months afterward, another assembly, meeting at
Compiègne, declared the emperor Louis to have forfeited the crown, "for
having, by his faults and incapacity, suffered to sink so sadly low the
empire which had been raised to grandeur and brought into unity by
Charlemagne and his predecessors." Louis submitted to this decision;
himself read out aloud, in the Church of St. Médard at Soissons, but not
quite unresistingly, a confession, in eight articles, of his faults,
and, laying his baldric upon the altar, stripped off his royal robe, and
received from the hands of Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims, the gray vestment
of a penitent.

Lothair considered his father dethroned for good, and himself henceforth
sole Emperor; but he was mistaken. For years longer the scenes which
have just been described kept repeating themselves again and again;
rivalries and secret plots began once more between the three victorious
brothers and their partisans; popular feeling revived in favor of Louis;
a large portion of the clergy shared it; several counts of Neustria and
Burgundy appeared in arms, in the name of the deposed Emperor; and the
seductive and able Judith came afresh upon the scene, and gained over to
the cause of her husband and her son a multitude of friends. In 834, two
assemblies, one meeting at St. Denis and the other at Thionville,
annulled all the acts of the assembly of Compiègne, and for the third
time put Louis in possession of the imperial title and power. He
displayed no violence in his use of it; but he was growing more and more
irresolute and weak, when, in 838, the second of his rebellious sons,
Pépin, king of Aquitaine, died suddenly. Louis, ever under the sway of
Judith, speedily convoked at Worms, in 839, once more and for the last
time, a general assembly, whereat, leaving his son Louis of Bavaria
reduced to his kingdom in Eastern Europe, he divided the rest of his
dominions into two nearly equal parts, separated by the course of the
Meuse and the Rhone. Between these two parts he left the choice to
Lothair, who took the eastern portion, promising at the same time to
guarantee the western portion to his younger brother Charles. Louis the
Germanic protested against this partition, and took up arms to resist
it. His father, the Emperor, set himself in motion toward the Rhine, to
reduce him to submission; but, on arriving close to Mayence, he caught a
violent fever, and died on the 20th of June, 840, at the castle
Ingelheim, on a little island in the river. His last acts were a fresh
proof of his goodness toward even his rebellious sons and of his
solicitude for his last-born. He sent to Louis the Germanic his pardon,
and to Lothair the golden crown and sword, at the same time bidding him
fulfil his father's wishes on behalf of Charles and Judith.

There is no telling whether, in the credulousness of his good nature,
Louis had, at his dying hour, any great confidence in the appeal he made
to his son Lothair, and in the impression which would be produced on his
other son, Louis of Bavaria, by the pardon bestowed. The prayers of the
dying are of little avail against violent passions and barbaric manners.
Scarcely was Louis the Debonair dead, when Lothair was already
conspiring against young Charles, and was in secret alliance, for his
despoilment, with Pépin II, the late King of Aquitaine's son, who had
taken up arms for the purpose of seizing his father's kingdom, in the
possession of which his grandfather Louis had not been pleased to
confirm him. Charles suddenly learned that his mother Judith was on the
point of being besieged in Poitiers by the Aquitanians; and, in spite of
the friendly protestations sent to him by Lothair, it was not long
before he discovered the plot formed against him. He was not wanting in
shrewdness or energy; and, having first provided for his mother's
safety, he set about forming an alliance, in the cause of their common
interests, with his other brother, Louis the Germanic, who was equally
in danger from the ambition of Lothair. The historians of the period do
not say what negotiator was employed by Charles on this distant and
delicate mission; but several circumstances indicate that the empress
Judith herself undertook it; that she went in quest of the King of
Bavaria; and that it was she who, with her accustomed grace and address,
determined him to make common cause with his youngest against their
eldest brother. Divers incidents retarded for a whole year the outburst
of this family plot, and of the war of which it was the precursor. The
position of the young king Charles appeared for some time a very bad
one; but "certain chieftains," says the historian Nithard, "faithful to
his mother and to him, and having nothing more to lose than life or
limb, chose rather to die gloriously than to betray their King." The
arrival of Louis the Germanic with his troops helped to swell the forces
and increase the confidence of Charles; and it was on the 21st of June,
841, exactly a year after the death of Louis the Debonair, that the two
armies, that of Lothair and Pépin on the one side, and that of Charles
the Bald and Louis the Germanic on the other, stood face to face in the
neighborhood of the village of Fontenailles, six leagues from Auxerre,
on the rivulet of Audries. Never, according to such evidence as is
forthcoming, since the battle on the plains of Châlons against the Huns,
and that of Poitiers against the Saracens, had so great masses of men
been engaged. "There would be nothing untruthlike," says that scrupulous
authority, M. Fauriel, "in putting the whole number of combatants at
three hundred thousand; and there is nothing to show that either of the
two armies was much less numerous than the other." However that may be,
the leaders hesitated for four days to come to blows; and while they
were hesitating, the old favorite, not only of Louis the Debonair, but
also, according to several chroniclers, of the empress Judith, held
himself aloof with his troops in the vicinity, having made equal promise
of assistance to both sides, and waiting, to govern his decision, for
the prospect afforded by the first conflict. The battle began on the
25th of June, at daybreak, and was at first in favor of Lothair; but the
troops of Charles the Bald recovered the advantage which had been lost
by those of Louis the Germanic, and the action was soon nothing but a
terribly simple scene of carnage between enormous masses of men,
charging hand to hand, again and again, with a front extending over a
couple of leagues. Before midday the slaughter, the plunder, the
spoliation of the dead--all was over; the victory of Charles and Louis
was complete; the victors had retired to their camp, and there remained
nothing on the field of battle but corpses in thick heaps or a long
line, according as they had fallen in the disorder of flight or steadily
fighting in their ranks.... "Accursed be this day!" cries Angilbert, one
of Lothair's officers, in rough Latin verse; "be it unnumbered in the
return of the year, but wiped out of all remembrance! Be it unlit by the
light of the sun! Be it without either dawn or twilight! Accursed, also,
be this night, this awful night in which fell the brave, the most expert
in battle! Eye ne'er hath seen more fearful slaughter: in streams of
blood fell Christian men; the linen vestments of the dead did whiten the
champaign even as it is whitened by the birds of autumn!"

In spite of this battle, which appeared a decisive one, Lothair made
zealous efforts to continue the struggle; he scoured the countries
wherein he hoped to find partisans; to the Saxons he promised the
unrestricted reëstablishment of their pagan worship, and several of the
Saxon tribes responded to his appeal. Louis the Germanic and Charles the
Bald, having information of these preliminaries, resolved to solemnly
renew their alliance and, seven months after their victory at
Fontenailles, in February, 842, they repaired both of them, each with
his army, to Argentaria, on the right bank of the Rhine, between Bâle
and Strasburg, and there, at an open-air meeting, Louis first,
addressing the chieftains about him in the German tongue, said: "Ye all
know how often, since our father's death, Lothair hath attacked us, in
order to destroy us, this my brother and me. Having never been able, as
brothers and Christians, or in any just way, to obtain peace from him,
we were constrained to appeal to the judgment of God. Lothair was beaten
and retired, whither he could, with his following; for we, restrained by
paternal affection and moved with compassion for Christian people, were
unwilling to pursue them to extermination. Neither then nor aforetime
did we demand aught else save that each of us should be maintained in
his rights. But he, rebelling against the judgment of God, ceaseth not
to attack us as enemies, this my brother and me; and he destroyeth our
peoples with fire and pillage and the sword. That is the cause which
hath united us afresh; and, as we trow that ye doubt the soundness of
our alliance and our fraternal union, we have resolved to bind ourselves
afresh by this oath in your presence, being led thereto by no prompting
of wicked covetousness, but only that we may secure our common advantage
in case that, by your aid, God should cause us to obtain peace. If,
then, I violate--which God forbid--this oath that I am about to take to
my brother, I hold you all quit of submission to me and of the faith ye
have sworn to me."

Charles repeated this speech, word for word, to his own troops, in the
Romance language, in that idiom derived from a mixture of Latin and of
the tongues of ancient Gaul, and spoken, thenceforth, with varieties of
dialect and pronunciation, in nearly all parts of Frankish Gaul. After
this address, Louis pronounced and Charles repeated after him, each in
his own tongue, the oath couched in these terms: "For the love of God,
for the Christian people and for our common weal, from this day forth
and so long as God shall grant me power and knowledge, I will defend
this my brother and will be an aid to him in everything, as one ought to
defend his brother, provided that he do likewise unto me; and I will
never make with Lothair any covenant which may be, to my knowledge, to
the damage of this my brother."

When the two brothers had thus sworn, the two armies, officers and men,
took, in their turn, a similar oath, going bail, in a mass, for the
engagements of their kings. Then they took up their quarters, all of
them, for some time, between Worms and Mayence, and followed up their
political proceeding with military fêtes, precursors of the knightly
tournaments of the Middle Ages. "A place of meeting was fixed," says the
contemporary historian Nithard, "at a spot suitable for this kind of
exercises. Here were drawn up, on one side, a certain number of
combatants, Saxons, Vasconians, Austrasians, or Britons; there were
ranged, on the opposite side, an equal number of warriors, and the two
divisions advanced, each against the other, as if to attack. One of
them, with their bucklers at their backs, took to flight as if to seek,
in the main body, shelter against those who were pursuing them; then
suddenly, facing about, they dashed out in pursuit of those before whom
they had just been flying. This sport lasted until the two kings,
appearing with all the youth of their suites, rode up at a gallop,
brandishing their spears and chasing first one lot and then the other.
It was a fine sight to see so much temper among so many valiant folk,
for, great as was the number and the mixture of different nationalities,
no one was insulted or maltreated, though the contrary is often the case
among men in small numbers and known one to another."

After four or five months of tentative measures or of incidents which
taught both parties that they could not, either of them, hope to
completely destroy their opponents, the two allied brothers received at
Verdun, whither they had repaired to concert their next movement, a
messenger from Lothair, with peaceful proposals which they were
unwilling to reject. The principal was that, with the exception of
Italy, Aquitaine, and Bavaria, to be secured without dispute to their
then possessors, the Frankish empire should be divided into three
portions, that the arbiters elected to preside over the partition should
swear to make it as equal as possible, and that Lothair should have his
choice, with the title of emperor. About mid-June, 842, the three
brothers met on an island of the Saône, near Châlons, where they began
to discuss the questions which divided them; but it was not till more
than a year after, in August, 843, that assembling, all three of them,
with their umpires, at Verdun, they at last came to an agreement about
the partition of the Frankish empire, save the three countries which it
had been beforehand agreed to accept. Louis kept all the provinces of
Germany of which he was already in possession, and received besides, on
the left bank of the Rhine, the towns of Mayence, Worms, and Spire, with
the territory appertaining to them. Lothair, for his part, had the
eastern belt of Gaul, bounded on one side by the Rhine and the Alps, on
the other by the courses of the Meuse, the Saône, and the Rhone,
starting from the confluence of the two latter rivers, and, further, the
country comprised between the Meuse and the Scheldt, together with
certain countships lying to the west of that river. To Charles fell all
the rest of Gaul: Vasconia or Biscaye, Septimania, the marshes of Spain,
beyond the Pyrenees; and the other countries of Southern Gaul which had
enjoyed hitherto, under the title of the kingdom of Aquitaine, a special
government subordinated to the general government of the empire, but
distinct from it, lost this last remnant of their Gallo-Roman
nationality, and became integral portions of Frankish Gaul, which fell
by partition to Charles the Bald, and formed one and the same kingdom
under one and the same king.

Thus fell through and disappeared, in 843, by virtue of the treaty of
Verdun, the second of Charlemagne's grand designs, the resuscitation of
the Roman Empire by means of the Frankish and Christian masters of Gaul.
The name of _emperor_ still retained a certain value in the minds of the
people, and still remained an object of ambition to princes; but the
empire was completely abolished, and, in its stead, sprang up three
kingdoms, independent one of another, without any necessary connection
or relation. One of the three was thenceforth France.

In this great event are comprehended two facts: the disappearance of the
empire and the formation of the three kingdoms which took its place. The
first is easily explained. The resuscitation of the Roman Empire had
been a dream of ambition and ignorance on the part of a great man, but a
barbarian. Political unity and central, absolute power had been the
essential characteristics of that empire. They became introduced and
established, through a long succession of ages, on the ruins of the
splendid Roman Republic destroyed by its own dissensions, under favor of
the still great influence of the old Roman senate though fallen from its
high estate, and beneath the guardianship of the Roman legions and
Imperial praetorians. Not one of these conditions, not one of these
forces, was to be met with in the Roman world reigned over by
Charlemagne. The nation of the Franks and Charlemagne himself were but
of yesterday; the new Emperor had neither ancient senate to hedge at the
same time that it obeyed him, nor old bodies of troops to support him.
Political unity and absolute power were repugnant alike to the
intellectual and the social condition, to the national manners and
personal sentiments of the victorious barbarians. The necessity of
placing their conquests beyond the reach of a new swarm of barbarians
and the personal ascendency of Charlemagne were the only things which
gave his government a momentary gleam of success in the way of unity and
of factitious despotism under the name of empire. In 814 Charlemagne had
made territorial security an accomplished fact; but the personal power
he had exercised disappeared with him. The new Gallo-Frankish community
recovered, under the mighty but gradual influence of Christianity, its
proper and natural course, producing disruption into different local
communities and bold struggles for individual liberties, either one with
another, or against whosoever tried to become their master.

As for the second fact, the formation of the three kingdoms which were
the issue of the treaty of Verdun, various explanations have been given
of it. This distribution of certain peoples of Western Europe into three
distinct and independent groups, Italians, Germans, and French, has been
attributed at one time to a diversity of histories and manners; at
another to geographical causes and to what is called the rule of natural
frontiers; and oftener still to a spirit of nationality and to
differences of language. Let none of these causes be gainsaid; they all
exercised some sort of influence, but they are all incomplete in
themselves and far too redolent of theoretical system. It is true that
Germany, France, and Italy began at that time to emerge from the chaos
into which they had been plunged by barbaric invasion and the conquests
of Charlemagne, and to form themselves into quite distinct nations; but
there were, in each of the kingdoms of Lothair, of Louis the Germanic,
and of Charles the Bald, populations widely differing in race, language,
manners, and geographical affinity, and it required many great events
and the lapse of many centuries to bring about the degree of national
unity they now possess. To say nothing touching the agency of individual
and independent forces, which is always considerable, although so many
men of intellect ignore it in the present day, what would have happened,
had any one of the three new kings, Lothair, or Louis the Germanic, or
Charles the Bald, been a second Charlemagne, as Charlemagne had been a
second Charles Martel? Who can say that, in such a case, the three
kingdoms would have taken the form they took in 843?

Happily or unhappily, it was not so; none of Charlemagne's successors
was capable of exercising on the events of his time, by virtue of his
brain and his own will, any notable influence.

Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often and in
many parts of Gallo-Frankish territory during the whole duration of the
Carlovingian dynasty, and, even though they failed, they caused the
population of the kingdom to suffer from cruel ravages. Charlemagne,
even after his successes against the different barbaric invaders, had
foreseen the evils which would be inflicted on France by the most
formidable and most determined of them, the Northmen, coming by sea and
landing on the coast. The most closely contemporaneous and most given to
detail of his chroniclers, the monk of St. Gall, tells in prolix and
pompous but evidently heartfelt and sincere terms the tale of the great
Emperor's farsightedness.

"Charles, who was ever astir," says he, "arrived by mere hap and
unexpectedly in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul. While he was at
dinner and was as yet unrecognized of any, some corsairs of the Northmen
came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were
descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some,
African according to others, and British in the opinion of others; but
the gifted monarch, perceiving by the build and lightness of the craft,
that they bare not merchandise but foes, said to his own folk, 'These
vessels be not laden with merchandise, but manned with cruel foes.' At
these words all the Franks, in rivalry one with another, run to their
ships, but uselessly; for the Northmen, indeed, hearing that yonder was
he whom it was still their wont to call Charles the 'Hammer,'[22] feared
lest all their fleet should be taken or destroyed in the port, and they
avoided, by a flight of inconceivable rapidity, not only the glaives,
but even the eyes of those who were pursuing them.

"Pious Charles, however, a prey to well-grounded fear, rose up from
table, stationed himself at a window looking eastward, and there
remained a long while, and his eyes were filled with tears. As none
durst question him, this warlike prince explained to the grandees who
were about his person the cause of his movement and of his tears: 'Know
ye, my lieges, wherefore I weep so bitterly? Of a surety I fear not lest
these fellows should succeed in injuring me by their miserable piracies;
but it grieveth me deeply that, while I live, they should have been nigh
to touching at this shore, and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I
foresee what evils they will heap upon my descendants and their
people.'"

[Footnote 22: After his grandfather, Charles Martel.]

The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreasonable. It will
be found that there is special mention made, in the chronicles of the
ninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven incursions into France of
Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish pirates, all comprised under the
name of Northmen; and doubtless many other incursions of less gravity
have left no trace in history. "The Northmen," says Fauriel, "descended
from the north to the south by a sort of natural gradation or ladder.
The Scheldt was the first river by the mouth of which they penetrated
inland; the Seine was the second; the Loire the third. The advance was
threatening for the countries traversed by the Garonne; and it was in
844 that vessels freighted with Northmen for the first time ascended
this last river to a considerable distance inland, and there took
immense booty. The following year they pillaged and burnt Saintes. In
846 they got as far as Limoges. The inhabitants, finding themselves
unable to make head against the dauntless pirates, abandoned their
hearths, together with all they had not time to carry away. Encouraged
by these successes the Northmen reappeared next year upon the coasts and
in the rivers of Aquitaine, and they attempted to take Bordeaux, whence
they were valorously repulsed by the inhabitants; but in 848, having
once more laid siege to that city, they were admitted into it at night
by the Jews, who were there in great force; the city was given up to
plunder and conflagration; a portion of the people was scattered abroad,
and the rest put to the sword."

The monasteries and churches, wherein they hoped to find treasures, were
the favorite object of the Northmen's enterprises; in particular, they
plundered, at the gates of Paris, the abbey of St. Germain des Prés and
that of St. Denis, whence they carried off the abbot, who could not
purchase his freedom save by a heavy ransom. They penetrated more than
once into Paris itself, and subjected many of its quarters to
contributions or pillage. The populations grew into the habit of
suffering and fleeing; and the local lords, and even the kings, made
arrangement sometimes with the pirates either for saving the royal
domains from the ravages, or for having their own share therein. In 850
Pépin, King of Aquitaine, and brother of Charles the Bald, came to an
understanding with the Northmen who had ascended the Garonne and were
threatening Toulouse. "They arrived under his guidance," says Fauriel,
"they laid siege to it, took it and plundered it, not halfwise, not
hastily, as folks who feared to be surprised, but leisurely, with all
security, by virtue of a treaty of alliance with one of the kings of the
country. Throughout Aquitaine there was but one cry of indignation
against Pépin, and the popularity of Charles was increased in proportion
to all the horror inspired by the ineffable misdeed of his adversary.
Charles the Bald himself, if he did not ally himself, as Pépin did, with
the invaders, took scarce any interest in the fate of the populations
and scarcely more trouble to protect them, for Hincmar, archbishop of
Rheims, wrote to him in 859: 'Many folks say that you are incessantly
repeating that it is not for you to mix yourself up with these
depredations and robberies, and that everyone has but to defend himself
as best he may.'"

In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, a chief of
the Northmen, named Hastenc or Hastings, appeared several times over on
the coasts and in the rivers of France, with numerous vessels and a
following. He had also with him, say the chronicles, a young Norwegian
or Danish prince, Bioern, called "Ironsides," whom he had educated, and
who had preferred sharing the fortunes of his governor to living quietly
with the King, his father. After several expeditions into Western
France, Hastings became the theme of terrible and very probably fabulous
stories. He extended his cruises, they say, to the Mediterranean, and,
having arrived at the coasts of Tuscany, within sight of a city which in
his ignorance he took for Rome, he resolved to pillage it; but, not
feeling strong enough to attack it by assault, he sent to the bishop to
say he was very ill, felt a wish to become a Christian, and begged to be
baptized. Some days afterward his comrades spread a report that he was
dead, and claimed for him the honors of a solemn burial. The bishop
consented; the coffin of Hastings was carried into the church, attended
by a large number of his followers, without visible weapons; but, in the
middle of the ceremony, Hastings suddenly leaped up, sword in hand, from
his coffin; his followers displayed the weapons they had concealed,
closed the doors, slew the priests, pillaged the ecclesiastical
treasures, and reëmbarked before the very eyes of the stupefied
population, to go and resume, on the coasts of France, their incursions
and their ravages.

Whether they were true or false, these rumors of bold artifices and
distant expeditions on the part of Hastings aggravated the dismay
inspired by his appearance. He penetrated into the interior of the
country, took possession of Chartres, and appeared before Paris, where
Charles the Bald, intrenched at St. Denis, was deliberating with his
prelates and barons as to how he might resist the Northmen or treat with
them. The chronicle says that the barons advised resistance, but that
the King preferred negotiation, and sent the abbot of St. Denis, "the
which was an exceeding wise man," to Hastings, who, "after long parley
and by reason of large gifts and promises," consented to stop his
cruisings, to become a Christian, and to settle in the countship of
Chartres, "which the King gave him as an hereditary possession, with all
its appurtenances." According to other accounts, it was only some years
later, under the young king Louis III, grandson of Charles the Bald,
that Hastings was induced, either by reverses or by payment of money, to
cease from his piracies and accept in recompense the countship of
Chartres. Whatever may have been the date, he was, it is believed, the
first chieftain of the Northmen who renounced a life of adventure and
plunder, to become, in France, a great landed proprietor and a count of
the King's.

A greater chieftain of the Northmen than Hastings was soon to follow his
example, and found Normandy in France; but before Rolf, that is, Rollo,
came and gave the name of his race to a French province, the piratical
Northmen were again to attempt a greater blow against France and to
suffer a great reverse.

In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, after having, for
more than forty years, irregularly ravaged France, they resolved to
unite their forces in order at length to obtain possession of Paris,
whose outskirts they had so often pillaged without having been able to
enter the heart of the place. Two bodies of troops were set in motion:
one, under the command of Rollo, who was already famous among his
comrades, marched on Rouen; the other went right up the course of the
Seine, under the orders of Siegfried, whom the Northmen called their
king. Rollo took Rouen, and pushed on at once for Paris. Duke Renaud,
general of the Gallo-Frankish troops, went to encounter him on the banks
of the Eure, and sent to him, to sound his intentions, Hastings, the
newly made count of Chartres. "Valiant warriors," said Hastings to
Rollo, "whence come ye? What seek ye here? What is the name of your lord
and master? Tell us this; for we be sent unto you by the King of the
Franks." "We be Danes," answered Rollo, "and all be equally masters
among us. We be come to drive out the inhabitants of this land, and to
subject it as our own country. But who art thou, thou who speakest so
glibly?" "Ye have sometime heard tell of one Hastings, who, issuing
forth from among you, came hither with much shipping and made desert a
great part of the kingdom of the Franks?" "Yes," said Rollo, "we have
heard tell of him; Hastings began well and ended ill." "Will ye yield
you to King Charles?" asked Hastings. "We yield," was the answer, "to
none; all that we shall take by our arms we will keep as our right. Go
and tell this, if thou wilt, to the King, whose envoy thou boastest to
be."

Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish army, and Rollo prepared to
march on Paris. Hastings had gone back somewhat troubled in mind. Now
there was among the Franks one Count Tetbold (Thibault), who greatly
coveted the countship of Chartres, and he said to Hastings: "Why
slumberest thou softly? Knowest thou not that King Charles doth purpose
thy death by cause of all the Christian blood that thou didst aforetime
unjustly shed? Bethink thee of all the evil thou hast done him, by
reason whereof he purposeth to drive thee from his land. Take heed to
thyself that thou be not smitten unawares." Hastings, dismayed, at once
sold to Tetbold the town of Chartres, and, removing all that belonged to
him, departed to go and resume, for all that appears, his old course of
life.

On the 25th of November, 885, all the forces of the Northmen formed a
junction before Paris; seven hundred huge barks covered two leagues of
the Seine, bringing, it is said, more than thirty thousand men. The
chieftains were astonished at sight of the new fortifications of the
city, a double wall of circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers,
and in the environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St.
Germain solidly rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town so well
defended. He demanded to enter alone and have an interview with the
bishop, Gozlin. "Take pity on thyself and thy flock," said he to him;
"let us pass through the city; we will in no wise touch the town; we
will do our best to preserve, for thee and Count Eudes, all your
possessions." "This city," replied the bishop, "hath been confided unto
us by the emperor Charles, king and ruler, under God, of the powers of
the earth. He hath confided it unto us, not that it should cause the
ruin but the salvation of the kingdom. If peradventure these walls had
been confided to thy keeping as they have been to mine, wouldst thou do
as thou biddest me?"

"If ever I do so," answered Siegfried, "may my head be condemned to fall
by the sword and serve as food to the dogs! But if thou yield not to our
prayers, so soon as the sun shall commence his course our armies will
launch upon thee their poisoned arrows; and when the sun shall end his
course, they will give thee over to all the horrors of famine; and this
will they do from year to year."

The bishop, however, persisted, without further discussion; being as
certain of Count Eudes as he was of himself. Eudes, who was young and
but recently made Count of Paris, was the eldest son of Robert the
Strong, Count of Anjou, of the same line as Charlemagne, and but lately
slain in battle against the Northmen. Paris had for defenders two
heroes, one of the Church and the other of the empire: the faith of the
Christian and the fealty of the vassal; the conscientiousness of the
priest and the honor of the warrior.

The siege lasted thirteen months, whiles pushed vigorously forward with
eight several assaults, whiles maintained by close investment, and with
all the alternations of success and reverse, all the intermixture of
brilliant daring and obscure sufferings that can occur when the
assailants are determined and the defenders devoted. Not only a
contemporary but an eye-witness, Abbo, a monk of St. Germain des Près,
has recounted the details in a long poem, wherein the writer, devoid of
talent, adds nothing to the simple representation of events; it is
history itself which gives to Abbo's poem a high degree of interest. We
do not possess, in reference to these continual struggles of the
Northmen with the Gallo-Frankish populations, any other document which
is equally precise and complete, or which could make us so well
acquainted with all the incidents, all the phases of this irregular
warfare between two peoples, one without a government, the other without
a country. The bishop, Gozlin, died during the siege. Count Eudes
quitted Paris for a time to go and beg aid of the Emperor; but the
Parisians soon saw him reappear on the heights of Montmartre with three
battalions of troops, and he reëntered the town, spurring on his horse
and striking right and left with his battle-axe through the ranks of the
dumfounded besiegers. The struggle was prolonged throughout the summer;
and when, in November, 886, Charles the Fat at last appeared before
Paris, "with a large army of all nations," it was to purchase the
retreat of the Northmen at the cost of a heavy ransom, and by allowing
them to go and winter in Burgundy, "whereof the inhabitants obeyed not
the Emperor."

Some months afterward, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, at a diet
held on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of Germanic France; and
Arnulf, a natural son of Carloman, the brother of Louis III, was
proclaimed emperor in his stead. At the same time Count Eudes, the
gallant defender of Paris, was elected King at Compiègne, and crowned by
the archbishop of Sens. Guy, Duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagne
in the female line, hastened to France and was declared king at Langres
by the bishop of that town, but returned with precipitation to Italy,
seeing no chance of maintaining himself in his French kingship.
Elsewhere Boso, Duke of Arles, became King of Provence, and the
Burgundian Count Rudolph had himself crowned at St. Maurice, in the
Valais, King of transjuran Burgundy. There was still in France a
legitimate Carlovingian, a son of Louis the Stutterer, who was hereafter
to become Charles the Simple; but being only a child, he had been
rejected or completely forgotten, and, in the interval that was to
elapse ere his time should arrive, kings were being made in all
directions.

In the midst of this confusion the Northmen, though they kept at a
distance from Paris, pursued in Western France their cruising and
plundering. In Rollo they had a chieftain far superior to his vagabond
predecessors. Though he still led the same life that they had, he
displayed therein other faculties, other inclinations, other views. In
his youth he had made an expedition to England, and had there contracted
a real friendship with the wise king Alfred the Great. During a campaign
in Friesland he had taken prisoner Rainier, Count of Hainault; and
Alberade, Countess of Brabant, made a request to Rollo for her husband's
release, offering in return to set free twelve captains of the Northmen,
her prisoners, and to give up all the gold she possessed. Rollo took
only half the gold, and restored to the countess her husband. When, in
885, he became master of Rouen, instead of devastating the city after
the fashion of his kind, he respected the buildings, had the walls
repaired, and humored the inhabitants. In spite of his violent and
extortionate practices where he met with obstinate resistance, there
were to be discerned in him symptoms of more noble sentiments and of an
instinctive leaning toward order, civilization, and government. After
the deposition of Charles the Fat and during the reign of Eudes, a
lively struggle was maintained between the Frankish King and the
chieftain of the Northmen, who had neither of them forgotten their early
encounters. They strove, one against the other, with varied fortunes;
Eudes succeeded in beating the Northmen at Montfaucon, but was beaten in
Vermandois by another band, commanded, it is said, by the veteran
Hastings, sometime Count of Chartres.

Rollo, too, had his share at one time of success, at another of reverse;
but he made himself master of several important towns, showed a
disposition to treat the quiet populations gently, and made a fresh trip
to England, during which he renewed friendly relations with her King,
Athelstan, the successor of Alfred the Great. He thus became, from day
to day, more reputable as well as more formidable in France, insomuch
that Eudes himself was obliged to have recourse, in dealing with him, to
negotiations and presents. When, in 898, Eudes was dead, and Charles the
Simple, at hardly nineteen years of age, had been recognized sole King
of France, the ascendency of Rollo became such that the necessity of
treating with him was clear. In 911 Charles, by the advice of his
councillors and, among them, of Robert, brother of the late king Eudes,
who had himself become Count of Paris and Duke of France, sent to the
chieftain of the Northmen Franco, Archbishop of Rouen, with orders to
offer him the cession of a considerable portion of Neustria and the hand
of his young daughter Gisèle, on condition that he became a Christian
and acknowledged himself the King's vassal. Rollo, by the advice of his
comrades, received these overtures with a good grace and agreed to a
truce for three months, during which they might treat about peace. On
the day fixed Charles, accompanied by Duke Robert, and Rollo, surrounded
by his warriors, repaired to St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the opposite banks
of the river, and exchanged numerous messages. Charles offered Rollo
Flanders, which the Northman refused, considering it too swampy; as to
the maritime portion of Neustria he would not be contented with it; it
was, he said, covered with forests, and had become quite a stranger to
the ploughshare by reason of the Northmen's incessant incursions. He
demanded the addition of territories taken from Brittany, and that the
princes of that province, Bérenger and Alan, lords, respectively, of
Redon and Dol, should take the oath of fidelity to him. When matters had
been arranged on this basis, "the bishops told Rollo that he who
received such a gift as the duchy of Normandy was bound to kiss the
King's foot. 'Never,' quoth Rollo, 'will I bend the knee before the
knees of any, and I will kiss the foot of none.' At the solicitation of
the Franks he then ordered one of his warriors to kiss the King's foot.
The Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of the King's foot,
raised it to his mouth, and so made the King fall backward, which caused
great bursts of laughter and much disturbance among the throng. Then the
King and all the grandees who were about him, prelates, abbots, dukes,
and counts, swore, in the name of the Catholic faith, that they would
protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his members, and his folk, and
would guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to him and
his descendants forever; after which the King, well satisfied, returned
to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke Robert for the town of
Rouen."

The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well satisfied;
but the great political question which, a century before, caused
Charlemagne such lively anxiety was solved; the most dangerous, the most
incessantly renewed of all foreign invasions, those of the Northmen,
ceased to threaten France. The vagabond pirates had a country to
cultivate and defend; the Northmen were becoming French.



CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT

A.D. 871-901

T. HUGHES

J.R. GREEN


(Alfred the Great was the grandson of Egbert, King of the West Saxons,
who during a reign of thirty-seven years consolidated in the Saxon
heptarchy the seven Teutonic kingdoms into which Anglia or England had
been divided, since the expulsion of the Britons by the Saxons about
585. In the latter part of Egbert's reign the Danish Northmen appeared
in the estuaries and rivers of England, sacking and burning the towns
along their banks. Ethelwulf who had been made King of Kent in 828, and
succeeded his father Egbert as King of Anglia in 837, was early occupied
in resisting and repelling attacks along his coasts, and by several
successful pitched battles with the Danish invaders obtained comparative
freedom from their visits for eight years. Ethelwulf had married
Osburga, the daughter of Oslac his cup-bearer, and had a daughter and
five sons, of whom Alfred, the youngest, was born in 849. Part of
Alfred's childhood was spent in Rome. At Compiègne and Verberie among
his playmates were Charles, the boy king of Aquitaine, and Judith,
children of the French king Charles the Bald. Judith at fourteen years
of age became Ethelwulf's second wife, and when the old King died two
years later, to the amazement and scandal of the nation married her
stepson Ethelbald.

According to Ethelwulf's will, Ethelbald became King of Wessex,
Ethelbert, the second son, King of Kent, while Ethelred and Alfred were
to be in the line of succession to Ethelbald. Ethelbald died in 860, and
Judith returned to France, subsequently marrying Baldwin, Count of
Flanders. Ethelbert as successor joined the kingdoms of Wessex and Kent.
Alfred lived at the court of Ethelbert, and became noted for the
intelligence and studious activities which were to make his future reign
the conspicuous epoch in English history, so brilliantly commemorated a
thousand years after his death in 901, in the millenary celebrated in
Winchester and its neighborhood in 1901.

Ethelbert died in 866 and was succeeded by Ethelred. In 868 Alfred
married Elswitha, the daughter of Ethelred Mucil of Mercia. Meanwhile
the Danes had resumed their predatory excursions, and in the winter of
870-871 Ethelred accompanied by Alfred attacked them at Reading, but
after an initial victory was repulsed. Four days later, Ethelred and
Alfred with their forces were attacked on Ashdown near White Horse Hill;
after a heavy slaughter the Danes were out to flight. The Danes,
however, reinforced by Guthrum with new troops from over the sea, within
a fortnight resumed offensive operations, and at Merton, two months
later, Ethelred was mortally wounded. He died almost immediately after
the battle, and "at the age of twenty-three Alfred ascended the throne
of his fathers, which was tottering, as it seemed, to its fall.")


THOMAS HUGHES

The throne of the West Saxons was not an inheritance to be desired in
the year 871, when Alfred succeeded his gallant brother. It descended on
him without comment or ceremony, as a matter of course. There was not
even an assembly of the witan to declare the succession as in ordinary
times. With Guthrum and Hinguar in their intrenched camp at the
confluence of the Thames and Kennet, and fresh bands of marauders
sailing up the former river, and constantly swelling the ranks of the
pagan army during these summer months, there was neither time nor heart
among the wise men of the West Saxons for strict adherence to the letter
of the constitution, however venerable. The succession had already been
settled by the Great Council, when they formally accepted the provisions
of Ethelwulf's will, that his three sons should succeed, to the
exclusion of the children of any one of them.

The idea of strict hereditary succession has taken so strong a hold of
us English in later times that it is necessary constantly to insist that
our old English kingship was elective. Alfred's title was based on
election; and so little was the idea of usurpation, or of any wrong done
to the two infant sons of Ethelred, connected with his accession, that
even the lineal descendant of one of those sons, in his chronicle of
that eventful year, does not pause to notice the fact that Ethelred left
children. He is writing to his "beloved cousin Matilda," to instruct her
in the things which he had received from ancient traditions, "of the
history of our race down to these two kings from whom we have our
origin." "The fourth son of Ethelwulf," he writes, "was Ethelred, who,
after the death of Ethelbert, succeeded to the kingdom, and was also my
grandfather's grandfather. The fifth was Alfred, who succeeded after all
the others to the whole sovereignty, and was your grandfather's
grandfather." And so passes on to the next facts, without a word as to
the claims of his own lineal ancestor, though he had paused in his
narrative at this point for the special purpose of introducing a little
family episode.

When Alfred had buried his brother in the cloisters of Wimborne Minster,
and had time to look out from his Dorsetshire resting-place, and take
stock of the immediate prospects and work which lay before him, we can
well believe that those historians are right who have told us that for
the moment he lost heart and hope, and suffered himself to doubt whether
God would by his hand deliver the afflicted nation from its terrible
straits. In the eight pitched battles which we find by the _Saxon
Chronicle_ (Asser giving seven only) had already been fought with the
pagan army, the flower of the youth of these parts of the West Saxon
kingdom must have fallen. The other Teutonic kingdoms of the island, of
which he was overlord, and so bound to defend, had ceased to exist
except in name, or lay utterly powerless, like Mercia, awaiting their
doom. Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, which were now an integral part of the
royal inheritance of his own family, were at the mercy of his enemies,
and he without a hope of striking a blow for them. London had been
pillaged, and was in ruins. Even in Wessex proper, Berkshire and
Hampshire, with parts of Wilts and Dorset, had been crossed and
recrossed by marauding bands, in whose track only smoking ruins and dead
bodies were found. "The land was as the garden of Eden before them, and
behind them a desolate wilderness." These bands were at this very moment
on foot, striking into new districts farther to the southwest than they
had yet reached. If the rich lands of Somersetshire and Devonshire, and
the yet unplundered parts of Wilts and Dorset, are to be saved, it must
be by prompt and decisive fighting, and it is time for a king to be in
the field. But it is a month from his brother's death before Alfred can
gather men enough round his standard to take the field openly. Even
then, when he fights, it is "almost against his will," for his ranks are
sadly thin, and the whole pagan army are before him, at Wilton near
Salisbury. The action would seem to have been brought on by the
impetuosity of Alfred's own men, whose spirit was still unbroken, and
their confidence in their young King enthusiastic. There was a long and
fierce fight as usual, during the earlier part of which the Saxons had
the advantage, though greatly outnumbered.

But again we get glimpses of the old trap of a feigned flight and
ambuscade, into which they fell, and so again lose "possession of the
place of death," the ultimate test of victory. "This year," says the
_Saxon Chronicle_, "nine general battles were fought against the army in
the kingdom south of the Thames; besides which Alfred, the king's
brother, and single aldermen and king's thanes, oftentimes made attacks
on them, which were not counted; and within the year one king and nine
jarls [earls] were slain." Wilton was the last of these general actions,
and not long afterward, probably in the autumn, Alfred made peace with
the pagans, on condition that they should quit Wessex at once.

They were probably allowed to carry off whatever spoils they may have
been able to accumulate in their Reading camp, but I can find no
authority for believing that Alfred fell into the fatal and humiliating
mistake of either paying them anything or giving hostages or promising
tribute. This young King, who, as crown prince, led the West Saxons up
the slopes at Ashdown, when Bagsac, the two Sidrocs, and the rest were
killed, and who has very much their own way of fighting--going into the
clash of arms "when the hard steel rings upon the high helmets," and
"the beasts of prey have ample spoil," like a veritable child of
Odin--is clearly one whom it is best to let alone, at any rate so long
as easy plunder and rich lands are to be found elsewhere, without such
poison-mad fighting for every herd of cattle and rood of ground. Indeed,
I think the careful reader may trace from the date of Ashdown a decided
unwillingness on the part of the Danes to meet Alfred, except when they
could catch him at disastrous odds. They succeeded, indeed, for a time
in overrunning almost the whole of his kingdom, in driving him an exile
for a few wretched weeks to the shelter of his own forests; but whenever
he was once fairly in the field they preferred taking refuge in strong
places, and offering treaties and hostages to the actual arbitrament of
battle.

So the pagan army quitted Reading, and wintered in 872 in the
neighborhood of London, at which place they received proposals from
Buhred, King of the Mercians, Alfred's brother-in-law, and for a money
payment pass him and his people contemptuously by for the time, making
some kind of treaty of peace with them, and go northward into what has
now become their own country. They winter in Lincolnshire, gathering
fresh strength during 873 from the never-failing sources of supply
across the narrow seas. Again, however, in this year of ominous rest
they renew their sham peace with poor Buhred and his Mercians, who thus
manage to tide it over another winter. In 874, however, their time has
come. In the spring, the pagan army under the three kings, Guthrum,
Oskytal, and Amund, burst into Mercia. In this one only of the English
Teutonic kingdoms they find neither fighting nor suffering hero to cross
their way, and leave behind for a thousand years the memory of a noble
end, cut out there in some half-dozen lines of an old chronicler, but
full of life and inspiration to this day for all Englishmen. The whole
country is overrun, and reduced under pagan rule, without a blow struck,
so far as we know, and within the year.

Poor Buhred, titular King of the Mercians, who has made believe to rule
this English kingdom these twenty-two years--who in his time has marched
with his father-in-law Ethelwulf across North Wales--has beleaguered
Nottingham with his brothers-in-law, Ethelred and Alfred, six years
back, not without show of manhood--sees for his part nothing for it
under such circumstances but to get away as swiftly as possible, as many
so-called kings have done before him, and since. The West Saxon court is
no place for him, quite other views of kingship prevailing in those
parts. So the poor Buhred breaks away from his anchors, leaving his wife
Ethelswitha even, in his haste, to take refuge with her brother; or is
it that the heart of the daughter of the race of Cerdic swells against
leaving the land which her sires had won, the people they had planted
there, in the moment of sorest need? In any case Buhred drifts away
alone across into France, and so toward the winter to Rome. There he
dies at once--about Christmas-time, 874--of shame and sorrow probably,
or of a broken heart as we say; at any rate having this kingly gift left
in him, that he cannot live and look on the ruin of his people, as St.
Edmund's brother Edwold is doing in these same years, "near a clear well
at Carnelia, in Dorsetshire," doing the hermit business there on bread
and water.

The English in Rome bury away poor Buhred, with all the honors, in the
Church of St. Mary's, to which the English schools rebuilt by his
father-in-law Ethelwulf were attached. Ethelswitha visited, or started
to visit, the tomb years later, we are told, in 888, when Mercia had
risen to new life under her great brother's rule. Through these same
months Guthrum, Oskytal, and the rest are wintering at Repton, after
destroying there the cloister where the kingly line of Mercia lie;
disturbing perhaps the bones of the great Offa, whom Charlemagne had to
treat as an equal.

Neither of the pagan kings is inclined at this time to settle in Mercia;
so, casting about what to do with it, they light on "a certain foolish
man," a king's thane, one Ceolwulf, and set him up as a sort of King
Popinjay. From this Ceolwulf they take hostages for the payment of
yearly tribute--to be wrung out of these poor Mercians on pain of
dethronement--and for the surrender of the kingdom to them on whatever
day they would have it back again. Foolish king's thanes, turned into
King Popinjays by pagans, and left to play at government on such terms,
are not pleasant or profitable objects in such times as these of one
thousand years since--or indeed in any times, for the matter of that. So
let us finish with Ceolwulf, just noting that a year or two later his
pagan lords seem to have found much of the spoil of monasteries, and the
pickings of earl and churl, of folkland and bookland, sticking to his
fingers, instead of finding its way to their coffers. This was far from
their meaning in setting him up in the high places of Mercia. So they
strip him and thrust him out, and he dies in beggary.

This, then, is the winter's work of the great pagan army at Repton,
Alfred watching them and their work doubtless with keen eye--not without
misgivings too at their numbers, swollen again to terrible proportions
since they sailed away down Thames after Wilton fight. It will take
years yet before the gaps in the fighting strength of Wessex, left by
those nine pitched battles, and other smaller fights, will be filled by
the crop of youths passing from childhood to manhood. An anxious
thought, that, for a young king.

The pagans, however, are not yet ready for another throw for Wessex; and
so when Mercia is sucked dry for the present, and will no longer
suitably maintain so great a host, they again sever. Halfdene, who would
seem to have joined them recently, takes a large part of the army away
with him northward. Settling his head-quarters by the river Tyne, he
subdues all the land, and "ofttimes spoils the Picts and the Strathclyde
Britons." Among other holy places in those parts, Halfdene visits the
Isle of Lindisfarne, hoping perhaps in his pagan soul not only to commit
ordinary sacrilege in the holy places there, which is every-day work for
the like of him, but even to lay impious hands on, and to treat with
indignity, the remains of that holy man St. Cuthbert, who has become, in
due course, patron and guardian saint of hunters, and of that scourge of
pagans, Alfred the West Saxon. If such were his thoughts, he is
disappointed of his sacrilege; for Bishop Eardulf and Abbot
Eadred--devout and strenuous persons--having timely warning of his
approach, carry away the sainted body from Lindisfarne, and for nine
years hide with it up and down the distracted northern counties, now
here, now there, moving that sacred treasure from place to place until
this bitterness is overpast, and holy persons and things, dead or
living, are no longer in danger, and the bodies of saints may rest
safely in fixed shrines; the pagan armies and disorderly persons of all
kinds having been converted or suppressed in the mean time; for which
good deed the royal Alfred--in whose calendar St. Cuthbert, patron of
huntsmen, stands very high--will surely warmly befriend them hereafter,
when he has settled his accounts with many persons and things. From the
time of this incursion of Halfdene, Northumbria may be considered once
more a settled state, but a Danish, not a Saxon one.

The rest and greater part of the army, under Guthrum, Oskytal, and
Amund, on leaving Repton, strike southeast, through what was "Landlord"
Edmund's country, to Cambridge, where, in their usual heathen way, they
pass the winter of 875.

The downfall, exile, and death of his brother-in-law in 874 must have
warned Alfred, if he had any need of warning, that no treaty could bind
these foemen, and that he had nothing to look for but the same measure
as soon as the pagan leaders felt themselves strong enough to mete it
out to him and Wessex. In the following year we accordingly find him on
the alert, and taking action in a new direction. These heathen pirates,
he sees, fight his people at terrible advantage by reason of their
command of the sea. This enables them to choose their own point of
attack, not only along the sea-coast, but up every river as far as their
light galleys can swim; to retreat unmolested, at their own time,
whenever the fortune of war turns against them; to bring reinforcements
of men and supplies to the scene of action without fear of hindrance.
His Saxons have long since given up their seafaring habits. They have
become before all things an agricultural people, drawing almost
everything they need from their own soil. The few foreign tastes they
have are supplied by foreign traders. However, if Wessex is to be made
safe the sea-kings must be met on their own element; and so, with what
expenditure of patience and money and encouraging words and example we
may easily conjecture, the young King gets together a small fleet, and
himself takes command of it. We have no clew to the point on the south
coast where the admiral of twenty five fights his first naval action,
but know only that in the summer of 875 he is cruising with his fleet,
and meets seven tall ships of the enemy. One of these he captures, and
the rest make off after a hard fight--no small encouragement to the
sailor King, who has thus for another year saved Saxon homesteads from
devastation by fire and sword.

The second wave of invasion had now at last gathered weight and volume
enough, and broke on the King and people of the West Saxons.

The year 876 was still young when the whole pagan army, which had
wintered at and about Cambridge, marched to their ships and put to sea.
Guthrum was in command, with the other two kings, Anketel and Amund, as
his lieutenants, under whom was a host as formidable as that which had
marched across Mercia through forest and waste, and sailed up the Thames
five years before to the assault of Reading. There must have been some
few days of harassing suspense, for we cannot suppose that Alfred was
not aware of the movements of his terrible foes. Probably his new fleet
cruised off the south coast on the watch for them, and all up the Thames
there were gloomy watchings and forebodings of a repetition of the evil
days of 871. But the suspense was soon over. Passing by the Thames'
mouth, and through Dover Straits, the pagan fleet sailed, and westward
still past many tempting harbors and rivers' mouths, until they came off
the coast of Dorsetshire. There they land at Wareham, and seize and
fortify the neck of land between the rivers Frome and Piddle, on which
stood, when they landed, a fortress of the West Saxons and a monastery
of holy virgins. Fortress and monastery fell into the hands of the
Danes, who set to work at once to throw up earthworks and otherwise
fortify a space large enough to contain their army, and all spoil
brought in by marauding bands from this hitherto unplundered country.
This fortified camp was soon very strong, except on the western side,
upon which Alfred shortly appeared with a body of horsemen and such
other troops as could be gathered hastily together. The detachment of
the pagans, who were already out pillaging the whole neighborhood, fell
back apparently before him, concentrating on the Wareham camp. Before
its outworks Alfred paused. He is too experienced a soldier now to risk
at the outset of a campaign such a disaster as that which he and
Ethelred had sustained in their attempt to assault the camp at Reading
in 871. He is just strong enough to keep the pagans within their lines,
but has no margin to spare. So he sits down before the camp, but no
battle is fought, neither he nor Guthrum caring to bring matters to that
issue. Soon negotiations are commenced, and again a treaty is made.

On this occasion Alfred would seem to have taken special pains to bind
his faithless foe. All the holy relics which could be procured from holy
places in the neighborhood were brought together, that he himself and
his people might set the example of pledging themselves in the most
solemn manner known to Christian men. Then a holy ring or bracelet,
smeared with the blood of beasts sacrificed to Woden, was placed on a
heathen altar. Upon this Guthrum and his fellow kings and earls swore on
behalf of the army that they would quit the King's country and give
hostages. Such an oath had never been sworn by Danish leader on English
soil before. It was the most solemn known to them. They would seem also
to have sworn on Alfred's relics, as an extra proof of their sincerity
for this once, and their hostages "from among the most renowned men in
the army" were duly handed over. Alfred now relaxed his watch, even if
he did not withdraw with the main body of his army, leaving his horse to
see that the terms of the treaty were performed, and to watch the
Wareham camp until the departure of the pagan host. But neither oath on
sacred ring, nor the risk to their hostages, weighed with Guthrum and
his followers when any advantage was to be gained by treachery. They
steal out of the camp by night, surprise and murder the Saxon horsemen,
seize the horses, and strike across the country, the mounted men
leading, to Exeter, but leaving a sufficient garrison to hold Wareham
for the present. They surprise and get possession of the western
capital, and there settle down to pass the winter. Rollo, fiercest of
the vikings, is said by Asser to have passed the winter with them in
their Exeter quarters on his way to Normandy; but whether the great
robber himself were here or not, it is certain that the channel swarmed
with pirate fleets, who could put in to Wareham or Exeter at their
discretion, and find a safe stronghold in either place from which to
carry fire and sword through the unhappy country.

Alfred had vainly endeavored to overtake the march to Exeter in the
autumn of 876, and, failing in the pursuit, had disbanded his own troops
as usual, allowing them to go to their own homes until the spring.
Before he could be afoot again in the spring of 877 the main body of the
pagans at Exeter had made that city too strong for any attempt at
assault, so the King and his troops could do no more than beleaguer it
on the land side, as he had done at Wareham. But Guthrum could laugh at
all efforts of his great antagonist, and wait in confidence the sure
disbanding of the Saxon troops at harvest time, so long as his ships
held the sea.

Supplies were running short in Exeter, but the Exe was open and
communications going on with Wareham. It is arranged that the camp there
shall be broken up, and the whole garrison with their spoil shall join
head-quarters. One hundred and twenty Danish war-galleys are freighted,
and beat down channel, but are baffled by adverse winds for nearly a
month. They and all their supplies may be looked for any day in the Exe
when the wind changes. Alfred, from his camp before Exeter, sends to his
little fleet to put to sea. He cannot himself be with them as in their
first action, for he knows well that Guthrum will seize the first moment
of his absence to sally from Exeter, break the Saxon lines, and scatter
his army in roving bands over Devonshire, on their way back to the
eastern kingdom. The Saxon fleet puts out, manned itself, as some say,
partly with sea-robbers, hired to fight their own people. However
manned, it attacks bravely a portion of the pirates. But a mightier
power than the fleet fought for Alfred at this crisis. First a dense fog
and then a great storm came on, bursting on the south coast with such
fury that the pagans lost no less than one hundred of their chief ships
off Swanage, as mighty a deliverance perhaps for England--though the
memory of it is nearly forgotten--as that which began in the same seas
seven hundred years later, when Drake and the sea-kings of the sixteenth
century were hanging on the rear of the Spanish _armada_ along the Devon
and Dorset coasts, while the beacons blazed up all over England and the
whole nation flew to arms.

The destruction of the fleet decided the fate of the siege of Exeter.
Once more negotiations are opened by the pagans; once more Alfred,
fearful of driving them to extremities, listens, treats, and finally
accepts oaths and more hostages, acknowledging probably in sorrow to
himself that he can for the moment do no better. And on this occasion
Guthrum, being caught far from home, and without supplies or ships,
"keeps the peace well," moving as we conjecture, watched jealously by
Alfred, on the shortest line across Devon and Somerset to some ford in
the Avon, and so across into Mercia, where he arrives during harvest,
and billets his army on Ceolwulf, camping them for the winter about the
city of Gloster. Here they run up huts for themselves, and make some
pretense of permanent settlement on the Severn, dividing large tracts of
land among those who cared to take them.

The campaigns of 876-77 are generally looked upon as disastrous ones for
the Saxon arms, but this view is certainly not supported by the
chroniclers. It is true that both at Wareham and Exeter the pagans broke
new ground, and secured their position, from which no doubt they did
sore damage in the neighboring districts, but we can trace in these
years none of the old ostentatious daring and thirst for battle with
Alfred. Whenever he appears the pirate bands draw back at once into
their strongholds, and, exhausted as great part of Wessex must have been
by the constant strain, the West Saxons show no signs yet of falling
from their gallant King. If he can no longer collect in a week such an
army as fought at Ashdown, he can still, without much delay, bring to
his side a sufficient force to hem the pagans in and keep them behind
their ramparts.

But the nature of the service was telling sadly on the resources of the
kingdom south of the Thames. To the Saxons there came no new levies,
while from the north and east of England, as well as from over the sea,
Guthrum was ever drawing to his standard wandering bands of sturdy
Northmen. The most important of these reinforcements came to him from an
unexpected quarter this autumn. We have not heard for some years of
Hubba, the brother of Hinguar, the younger of the two vikings who
planned and led the first great invasion in 868. Perhaps he may have
resented the arrival of Guthrum and other kings in the following years,
to whom he had to give place. Whatever may have been the cause, he seems
to have gone off on his own account: carrying with him the famous raven
standard, to do his appointed work in these years on other coasts under
its ominous shade.

This "war flag which they call raven" was a sacred object to the
Northmen. When Hinguar and Hubba had heard of the death of their father,
Regnar Lodbrog, and had resolved to avenge him, while they were calling
together their followers, their three sisters in one day wove for them
this war-flag, in the midst of which was portrayed the figure of a
raven. Whenever the flag went before them into battle, if they were to
win the day the sacred raven would rouse itself and stretch its wings;
but if defeat awaited them, the flag would hang round its staff and the
bird remain motionless. This wonder had been proved in many a fight, so
the wild pagans who fought under the standard of Regnar's children
believed. It was a power in itself, and Hubba and a strong fleet were
with it.

They had appeared in the Bristol Channel in this autumn of 877, and had
ruthlessly slaughtered and spoiled the people of South Wales. Here they
propose to winter; but, as the country is wild mountain for the most
part, and the people very poor, they will remain no longer than they can
help. Already a large part of the army about Gloster are getting
restless. The story of their march from Devonshire, through rich
districts of Wessex yet unplundered, goes round among the new-comers.
Guthrum has no power, probably no will, to keep them to their oaths. In
the early winter a joint attack is planned by him and Hubba on the West
Saxon territory. By Christmas they are strong enough to take the field,
and so in midwinter, shortly after Twelfth Night, the camp at Gloster
breaks up, and the army "stole away to Chippenham," recrossing the Avon
once more into Wessex, under Guthrum. The fleet, after a short delay,
crosses to the Devonshire coast, under Hubba, in thirty war-ships.

And now at last the courage of the West Saxons gives way. The surprise
is complete. Wiltshire is at the mercy of the pagans, who, occupying the
royal burgh of Chippenham as headquarters, overrun the whole district,
drive many of the inhabitants "beyond the sea for want of the
necessaries of life," and reduce to subjection all those that remain.
Alfred is at his post, but for the moment can make no head against them.
His own strong heart and trust in God are left him, and with them and a
scanty band of followers he disappears into the forest of Selwood, which
then stretched away from the confines of Wiltshire for thirty miles to
the west. East Somerset, now one of the fairest and richest of English
counties, was then for the most part thick wood and tangled swamp, but
miserable as the lodging is it is welcome for the time to the King. In
the first months of 878 Selwood Forest holds in its recesses the hope of
England.

It is at this point, as is natural enough, that romance has been most
busy, and it has become impossible to disentangle the actual facts from
monkish legend and Saxon ballad. In happier times Alfred was in the
habit himself of talking over the events of his wandering life
pleasantly with his courtiers, and there is no reason to doubt that the
foundation of most of the stories still current rests on those
conversations of the truth-loving King, noted down by Bishop Asser and
others.

The best known of these is, of course, the story of the cakes. In the
depths of the Saxon forests there were always a few neatherds and
swineherds, scattered up and down, living in rough huts enough, we may
be sure, and occupied with the care of the cattle and herds of their
masters. Among these in Selwood was a neatherd of the King, a faithful
man, to whom the secret of Alfred's disguise was intrusted, and who kept
it even from his wife. To this man's hut the King came one day alone,
and, sitting himself down by the burning logs on the hearth, began
mending his bow and arrows. The neatherd's wife had just finished her
baking, and having other household matters to attend to, confided her
loaves to the King, a poor tired-looking body, who might be glad of the
warmth, and could make himself useful by turning the batch, and so earn
his share while she got on with other business. But Alfred worked away
at his weapons, thinking of anything but the good housewife's batch of
loaves, which in due course were not only done, but rapidly burning to a
cinder. At this moment the neatherd's wife comes back, and flying to the
hearth to rescue the bread, cries out: "Drat the man! never to turn the
loaves when you see them burning. I'ze warrant you ready enough to eat
them when they are done." But besides the King's faithful neatherd,
whose name is not preserved, there are other churls in the forest, who
must be Alfred's comrades just now if he will have any. And even here he
has an eye for a good man, and will lose no opportunity to help one to
the best of his power. Such a one he finds in a certain swineherd called
Denewulf, whom he gets to know, a thoughtful Saxon man, minding his
charge there in the oak woods. The rough churl, or thrall, we know not
which, has great capacity, as Alfred soon finds out, and desire to
learn. So the King goes to work upon Denewulf under the oak trees, when
the swine will let him, and is well satisfied with the results of his
teaching and the progress of his pupil.

But in those miserable days the commonest necessaries of life were hard
enough to come by for the King and his few companions, and for his wife
and family, who soon joined him in the forest, even if they were not
with him from the first. The poor foresters cannot maintain them, nor
are this band of exiles the men to live on the poor. So Alfred and his
comrades are soon out foraging on the borders of the forest, and getting
what subsistence they can from the pagans, or from the Christians who
had submitted to their yoke. So we may imagine them dragging on life
till near Easter, when a gleam of good news comes tip from the west, to
gladden the hearts and strengthen the arms of these poor men in the
depths of Selwood.

Soon after Guthrum and the main body of the pagans moved from Gloster,
southward, the viking Hubba, as had been agreed, sailed with thirty
ships-of-war from his winter quarters on the South Welsh coast, and
landed in Devon. The news of the catastrophe at Chippenham, and of the
disappearance of the King, was no doubt already known in the West; and
in the face of it Odda the alderman cannot gather strength to meet the
pagan in the open field. But he is a brave and true man, and will make
no terms with the spoilers; so, with other faithful thanes of King
Alfred and their followers, he throws himself into a castle or fort
called Cynwith, or Cynuit, there to abide whatever issue of this
business God shall send them. Hubba, with the war-flag Raven, and a host
laden with the spoil of rich Devon vales, appear in due course before
the place. It is not strong naturally, and has only "walls in our own
fashion," meaning probably rough earthworks. But there are resolute men
behind them, and on the whole Hubba declines the assault, and sits down
before the place. There is no spring of water, he hears, within the
Saxon lines, and they are otherwise wholly unprepared for a siege. A few
days will no doubt settle the matter, and the sword or slavery will be
the portion of Odda and the rest of Alfred's men; meantime there is
spoil enough in the camp from Devonshire homesteads, which brave men can
revel in round the war-flag Raven, while they watch the Saxon ramparts.
Odda, however, has quite other views than death from thirst, or
surrender. Before any stress comes, early one morning he and his whole
force sally out over their earthworks, and from the first "cut down the
pagans in great numbers": eight hundred and forty warriors--some say
twelve hundred--with Hubba himself are slain before Cynuit fort; the
rest, few in number, escape to their ships. The war-flag Raven is left
in the hands of Odda and the men of Devon.

This is the news which comes to Alfred, Ethelnoth the alderman of
Somerset, Denewulf the swineherd, and the rest of the Selwood Forest
group, some time before Easter. These men of Devonshire, it seems, are
still stanch, and ready to peril their lives against the pagan. No doubt
up and down Wessex, thrashed and trodden out as the nation is by this
time, there are other good men and true, who will neither cross the sea
nor the Welsh marches nor make terms with the pagan; some sprinkling of
men who will yet set life at stake, for faith in Christ and love of
England. If these can only be rallied, who can say what may follow? So,
in the lengthening days of spring, council is held in Selwood, and there
will have been Easter services in some chapel or hermitage in the
forest, or, at any rate, in some quiet glade. The "day of days" will
surely have had its voice of hope for this poor remnant. Christ is risen
and reigns; and it is not in these heathen Danes, or in all the Northmen
who ever sailed across the sea, to put back his kingdom or to enslave
those whom he has freed.

The result is that, far away from the eastern boundary of the forest, on
a rising ground--hill it can scarcely be called--surrounded by dangerous
marshes formed by the little rivers Thone and Parret, fordable only in
summer, and even then dangerous to all who have not the secret, a small
fortified camp is thrown up under Alfred's eye, by Ethelnoth and the
Somersetshire men, where he can once again raise his standard. The spot
has been chosen by the King with the utmost care, for it is his last
throw. He names it the Etheling's _eig_ or island, "Athelney." Probably
his young son, the Etheling of England, is there among the first, with
his mother and his grandmother Eadburgha, the widow of Ethelred Mucil,
the venerable lady whom Asser saw in later years, and who has now no
country but her daughter's. There are, as has been reckoned, some two
acres of hard ground on the island, and around vast brakes of
alder-bush, full of deer and other game.

Here the Somersetshire men can keep up constant communication with him,
and a small army grows together. They are soon strong enough to make
forays into the open country, and in many skirmishes they cut off
parties of the pagans and supplies. "For, even when overthrown and cast
down," says Malmesbury, "Alfred had always to be fought with; so, then
when one would esteem him altogether worn down and broken, like a snake
slipping from the hand of him who would grasp it, he would suddenly
flash out again from his hiding-places, rising up to smite his foes in
the height of their insolent confidence, and never more hard to beat
than after a flight."

But it was still a trying life at Athelney. Followers came in slowly,
and provender and supplies of all kinds are hard to wring from the
pagan, and harder still to take from Christian men. One day, while it
was yet so cold that the water was still frozen, the King's people had
gone out "to get them fish or fowl, or some such purveyance as they
sustained themselves withal." No one was left in the royal hut for the
moment but himself, and his mother-in-law Eadburgha. The King--after his
constant wont whensoever he had opportunity--was reading from the Psalms
of David, out of the Manual which he carried always in his bosom. At
this moment a poor man appeared at the door and begged for a morsel of
bread "for Christ his sake." Whereupon the King, receiving the stranger
as a brother, called to his mother-in-law to give him to eat. Eadburgha
replied that there was but one loaf in their store, and a little wine in
a pitcher, a provision wholly insufficient for his own family and
people. But the King bade her nevertheless to give the stranger part of
the last loaf, which she accordingly did. But when he had been served
the stranger was no more seen, and the loaf remained whole, and the
pitcher full to the brim. Alfred, meantime, had turned to his reading,
over which he fell asleep, and dreamt that St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
stood by him, and told him it was he who had been his guest, and that
God had seen his afflictions and those of his people, which were now
about to end, in token whereof his people would return that day from
their expedition with a great take of fish. The King awakening, and
being much impressed with his dream, called to his mother-in-law and
recounted it to her, who thereupon assured him that she too had been
overcome with sleep and had had the same dream. And while they yet
talked together on what had happened so strangely to them, their
servants come in, bringing fish enough, as it seemed to them, to have
fed an army.

The monkish legend goes on to tell that on the next morning the King
crossed to the mainland in a boat, and wound his horn thrice, which drew
to him before noon five hundred men. What we may think of the story and
the dream, as Sir John Spelman says, "is not here very much material,"
seeing that, whether we deem it natural or supernatural, "the one as
well as the other serves at God's appointment, by raising or dejecting
of the mind with hopes or fears, to lead man to the resolution of those
things whereof he has before ordained the event."

Alfred, we may be sure, was ready to accept and be thankful for any
help, let it come from whence it might, and soon after Easter it was
becoming clear that the time is at hand for more than skirmishing
expeditions. Through all the neighboring counties word is spreading that
their hero King is alive and on foot again, and that there will be
another chance for brave men ere long of meeting once more these
scourges of the land under his leading.

A popular legend is found in the later chroniclers which relates that at
this crisis of his fortunes Alfred, not daring to rely on any evidence
but that of his own senses as to the numbers, disposition, and
discipline of the pagan army, assumed the garb of a minstrel and with
one attendant visited the camp of Guthrum. Here he stayed, "showing
tricks and making sport," until he had penetrated to the King's tents,
and learned all that he wished to know. After satisfying himself as to
the chances of a sudden attack, he returns to Athelney, and, the time
having come for a great effort, if his people will but make it, sends
round messengers to the aldermen and king's thanes of neighboring
shires, giving them a tryst for the seventh week after Easter, the
second week in May.

On or about the 12th of May, 878, King Alfred left his island in the
great wood, and his wife and children and such household gods [sic] as
he had gathered round him there, and came publicly forth among his
people once more, riding to Egbert's Stone--probably Brixton--on the
east of Selwood, a distance of twenty-six miles. Here met him the men of
the neighboring shires--Odda, no doubt, with his men of Devonshire, full
of courage and hope after their recent triumph; the men of
Somersetshire, under their brave and faithful alderman Ethelnoth; and
the men of Wilts and Hants, such of them at least as had not fled the
country or made submission to the enemy. "And when they saw their King
alive after such great tribulation, they received him, as he merited,
with joy and acclamation." The gathering had been so carefully planned
by Alfred and the nobles who had been in conference or correspondence
with him at Athelney that the Saxon host was organized and ready for
immediate action on the very day of muster. Whether Alfred had been his
own spy we cannot tell, but it is plain that he knew well what was
passing in the pagan camp, and how necessary swiftness and secrecy were
to the success of his attack.

Local traditions cannot be much relied upon for events which took place
a thousand years ago, but where there is clearly nothing improbable in
them they are at least worth mentioning. We may note, then, that
according to Somersetshire tradition, first collected by Dr.
Giles--himself a Somersetshire man, and one who, besides his _Life of
Alfred_ and other excellent works bearing on the time, is the author of
the _Harmony of the Chroniclers_, published by the Alfred Committee in
1852--the signal for the actual gathering of the West Saxons at Egbert's
Stone was given by a beacon lighted on the top of Stourton hill, where
Alfred's Tower now stands. Such a beacon would be hidden from the Danes,
who must have been encamped about Westbury, by the range of the
Wiltshire hills, while it would be visible to the west over the low
country toward the Bristol Channel, and to the south far into
Dorsetshire.

Not an hour was lost by Alfred at the place of muster. The bands which
came together there were composed of men well used to arms, each band
under its own alderman, or reeve. The small army he had himself been
disciplining at Athelney, and training in skirmishes during the last few
months, would form a reliable centre on which the rest would have to
form as best they could. So after one day's halt he breaks up his camp
at Egbert's Stone and marches to Aeglea, now called Clay hill, an
important height, commanding the vale to the north of Westbury, which
the Danish army were now occupying. The day's march of the army would be
a short five miles. Here the annals record that St. Neot, his kinsman,
appeared to him, and promised that on the morrow his misfortunes would
end.

There are still traces of rude earthworks round the top of Clay hill,
which are said to have been thrown up by Alfred's army at this time. If
there had been time for such a work, it would undoubtedly have been a
wise step, as a fortified encampment here would have served Alfred in
good stead in case of a reverse. But the few hours during which the army
halted on Clay hill would have been quite too short time for such an
undertaking, which, moreover, would have exhausted the troops. It is
more likely that the earthworks, which are of the oldest type, similar
to those at White Horse hill, above Ashdown, were there long before
Alfred's arrival in May, 878. After resting one night on Clay hill,
Alfred led out his men in close order of battle against the pagan host,
which lay at Ethandune. There has been much doubt among the antiquaries
as to the site of Ethandune, but Dr. Giles and others have at length
established the claims of Edington, a village seven miles from Clay
hill, on the northeast, to the spot where the strength of the second
wave of pagan invasion was utterly broken and rolled back weak and
helpless from the rock of the West Saxon kingdom.

Sir John Spelman, relying apparently only on the authority of Nicholas
Harpesfeld's _Ecclesiastical History of England_, puts a speech into
Alfred's mouth, which he is supposed to have delivered before the battle
of Edington. He tells them that the great sufferings of the land had
been yet far short of what their sins had deserved. That God had only
dealt with them as a loving Father, and was now about to succor them,
having already stricken their foe with fear and astonishment, and given
him, on the other hand, much encouragement by dreams and otherwise. That
they had to do with pirates and robbers, who had broken faith with them
over and over again; and the issue they had to try that day was whether
Christ's faith or heathenism was henceforth to be established in
England.

There is no trace of any such speech in the _Saxon Chronicle_ or Asser,
and the one reported does not ring like that of Judas Maccabaeus. That
Alfred's soul was on fire that morning, on finding himself once more at
the head of a force he could rely on, and before the enemy he had met so
often, we may be sure enough, but shall never know how the fire kindled
into speech, if indeed it did so at all. In such supreme moments many of
the strongest men have no word to say--keep all their heat within.

Nor have we any clew to the numbers who fought on either side at
Ethandune, or indeed in any of Alfred's battles. In the _Chronicles_
there are only a few vague and general statements, from which little can
be gathered. The most precise of them is that in the _Saxon Chronicle_,
which gives eight hundred and forty as the number of men who were slain,
as we heard, with Hubba before Cynuit fort, in Devonshire, earlier in
this same year. Such a death-roll, in an action in which only a small
detachment of the pagan army was engaged, would lead to the conclusion
that the armies were far larger than one would expect. On the other
hand, it is difficult to imagine how any large bodies of men could find
subsistence in a small country, which was the seat of so devastating a
war, and in which so much land remained still unreclaimed. But whatever
the power on either side amounted to we may be quite sure that it had
been exerted to the utmost to bring as large a force as possible into
line at Ethandune.

Guthrum fought to protect Chippenham, his base of operations, some
sixteen miles in his rear, and all the accumulated plunder of the busy
months which had passed since Twelfth Night; and it is clear that his
men behaved with the most desperate gallantry. The fight began at
noon--one chronicler says at sunrise, but the distance makes this
impossible unless Alfred marched in the night--and lasted through the
greater part of the day. Warned by many previous disasters the Saxons
never broke their close order, and so, though greatly outnumbered,
hurled back again and again the onslaughts of the Northmen. At last
Alfred and his Saxons prevailed, and smote his pagan foes with a very
great slaughter, and pursued them up to their fortified camp on Bratton
hill or Edge, into which the great body of the fugitives threw
themselves. All who were left outside were slain, and the great spoil
was all recovered. The camp may still be seen, called Bratton Castle,
with its double ditches and deep trenches, and barrow in the midst sixty
yards long, and its two entrances guarded by mounds. It contains more
than twenty acres, and commands the whole country side. There can be
little doubt that this camp, and not Chippenham, which is sixteen miles
away, was the last refuge of Guthrum and the great northern army on
Saxon soil.

So, in three days from the breaking up of his little camp at Athelney,
Alfred was once more King of all England south of the Thames; for this
army of pagans, shut up within their earthworks on Bratton Edge, are
little better than a broken and disorderly rabble, with no supplies and
no chance of succor from any quarter. Nevertheless he will make sure of
them, and above all will guard jealously against any such mishap as that
of 876, when they stole out of Wareham, murdered the horsemen he had
left to watch them, and got away to Exeter. So Bratton camp is strictly
besieged by Alfred with his whole power.

Guthrum, the destroyer, and now the King of East Anglia, the strongest
and ablest of all the Northmen who had ever landed in England, is now at
last fairly in Alfred's power. At Reading, Wareham, Exeter, he had
always held a fortified camp, on a river easily navigable by the Danish
war-ships, where he might look for speedy succor or whence at the worst
he might hope to escape to the sea. But now he, with the remains of his
army, is shut up in an inland fort with no ships on the Avon, the
nearest river, even if they could cut their way out and reach it, and no
hopes of reinforcements overland. Halfdene is the nearest viking who
might be called to the rescue, and he, in Northumbria, is far too
distant. It is a matter of a few days only, for food runs short at once
in the besieged camp. In former years, or against any other enemy,
Guthrum would probably have preferred to sally out and cut his way
through the Saxon lines, or die sword in hand as a son of Odin should.
Whether it were that the wild spirit in him is thoroughly broken for the
time by the unexpected defeat at Ethandune, or that long residence in a
Christian land and contact with Christian subjects have shaken his faith
in his own gods, or that he has learned to measure and appreciate the
strength and nobleness of the man he had so often deceived, at any rate
for the time Guthrum is subdued. At the end of fourteen days he sends to
Alfred, suing humbly for terms of any kind; offering on the part of the
army as many hostages as may be required, without asking for any in
return; once again giving solemn pledges to quit Wessex for good; and,
above all, declaring his own readiness to receive baptism. If it had not
been for the last proposal, we may doubt whether even Alfred would have
allowed the ruthless foes with whom he and his people had fought so
often, and with such varying success, to escape now. Over and over again
they had sworn to him, and broken their oaths the moment it suited their
purpose; had given hostages, and left them to their fate. In all English
kingdoms they had now for ten years been destroying and pillaging the
houses of God and slaying even women and children. They had driven his
sister's husband from the throne of Mercia, and had grievously tortured
the martyr Edmund. If ever foe deserved no mercy, Guthrum and his army
were the men.

When David smote the children of Moab, he "measured them with a line,
casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put
to death, and with one full line to keep alive." When he took Rabbah of
the children of Ammon, "he brought forth the people that were therein,
and put them under saws and under harrows of iron, and under axes of
iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln." That was the old
Hebrew method, even under King David, and in the ninth century
Christianity had as yet done little to soften the old heathen custom of
"woe to the vanquished." Charlemagne's proselytizing campaigns had been
as merciless as Mahomet's. But there is about this English King a divine
patience, the rarest of all virtues in those who are set in high places.
He accepts Guthrum's proffered terms at once, rejoicing over the chance
of adding these fierce heathen warriors to the church of his Master, by
an act of mercy which even they must feel. And so the remnant of the
army are allowed to march out of their fortified camp, and to recross
the Avon into Mercia, not quite five months after the day of their
winter attack and the seizing of Chippenham. The northern army went away
to Cirencester, where they stayed over the winter, and then returning
into East Anglia settled down there, and Alfred and Wessex hear no more
of them. Never was triumph more complete or better deserved; and in all
history there is no instance of more noble use of victory than this. The
West Saxon army was not at once disbanded. Alfred led them back to
Athelney, where he had left his wife and children; and while they are
there, seven weeks after the surrender, Guthrum and thirty of the
bravest of his followers arrive to make good their pledge.

The ceremony of baptism was performed at Wedmore, a royal residence
which had probably escaped the fate of Chippenham, and still contained a
church. Here Guthrum and his thirty nobles were sworn in, the soldiers
of a greater King than Woden, and the white linen cloth, the sign of
their new faith, was bound round their heads. Alfred himself was
godfather to the viking, giving him the Christian name of Athelstan; and
the chrism-loosing, or unbinding of the sacramental cloths, was
performed on the eighth day by Ethelnoth, the faithful alderman of
Somersetshire. After the religious ceremony there still remained the
task of settling the terms upon which the victors and vanquished were
hereafter to live together side by side in the same island; for Alfred
had the wisdom, even in his enemy's humiliation, to accept the
accomplished fact, and to acknowledge East Anglia as a Danish kingdom.
The Witenagemot had been summoned to Wedmore, and was sitting there, and
with their advice the treaty was then made, from which, according to
some historians, English history begins.

We have still the text of the two documents which together contain
Alfred and Guthrum's peace, or the treaty of Wedmore; the first and
shorter being probably the articles hastily agreed on before the
capitulation of the Danish army at Chippenham; the latter the final
terms settled between Alfred and his witan, and Guthrum and his thirty
nobles, after mature deliberation and conference at Wedmore, but not
formally executed until some years later.

The shorter one, that made at the capitulation, runs as follows:

"ALFRED AND GUTHRUM'S PEACE.--This is the peace that King Alfred and
King Guthrum, and the witan of all the English nation, and all the
people that are in East Anglia have all ordained, and with oaths
confirmed, for themselves and their descendants, as well for born as
unborn, who reck of God's mercy or of ours.

"First, concerning our land boundaries. These are upon the Thames, and
then upon the Lea, and along the Lea unto its source, then straight to
Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street.

"Then there is this: if a man be slain we reckon all equally dear,
English and Dane, at eight half marks of pure gold, except the churl who
dwells on gavel land and their leisings, they are also equally dear at
two hundred shillings. And if a king's thane be accused of manslaughter,
if he desire to clear himself, let him do so before twelve king's
thanes. If any man accuse a man who is of less degree than king's thane,
let him clear himself with eleven of his equals and one king's thane.
And so in every suit which be for more than four mancuses; and if he
dare not, let him pay for it threefold, as it may be valued.

"_Of Warrantors_.--And that every man know his warrantor, for men, and
for horses, and for oxen.

"And we all ordained, on that day that the oaths were sworn, that
neither bondman nor freeman might go to the army without leave, nor any
of them to us. But if it happen that any of them from necessity will
have traffic with us, or we with them, for cattle or goods, that is to
be allowed on this wise: that hostages be given in pledge of peace, and
as evidence whereby it may be known that the party has a clean book."

By the treaty Alfred is thus established as King of the whole of England
south of the Thames; of all the old kingdom of Essex south of the Lea,
including London, Hertford, and St. Albans; of the whole of the great
kingdom of Mercia, which lay to the west of Watling Street, and of so
much to the east as lay south of the Ouse. That he should have regained
so much proves the straits to which he had brought the northern army,
who would have to give up all their new settlements round Gloster. That
he should have resigned so much of the kingdom which had acknowledged
his grandfather, father, and brothers as overlords proves how formidable
his foe still was, even in defeat, and how thoroughly the northeastern
parts of the island had by this time been settled by the Danes.

The remainder of the short treaty would seem simply to be provisional,
and intended to settle the relations between Alfred's subjects and the
army while it remained within the limits of the new Saxon kingdom. Many
of the soldiers would have to break up their homes in Glostershire; and,
with this view, the halt at Cirencester is allowed, where, as we have
already heard, they rest until the winter. While they remain in the
Saxon kingdom there is to be no distinction between Saxon and Dane. The
were-gild, or life-ransom, is to be the same in each case for men of
like rank; and all suits for more than four mancuses (about twenty-four
shillings) are to be tried by a jury of peers of the accused. On the
other hand, only necessary communications are to be allowed between the
northern army and the people; and where there must be trading, fair and
peaceful dealing is to be insured by the giving of hostages. This last
provision, and the clause declaring that each man shall know his
warrantor, inserted in a five-clause treaty, where nothing but what the
contracting parties must hold to be of the very first importance would
find place, are another curious proof of the care with which our
ancestors, and all Germanic tribes, guarded against social
isolation--the doctrine that one man has nothing to do with another--a
doctrine which the great body of their descendants, under the leading of
Schultze, Delitzsch, and others, seem likely to repudiate with equal
emphasis in these latter days, both in Germany and England.

Thus, in July, 878, the foundations of the new kingdom of England were
laid, for new it undoubtedly became when the treaty of Wedmore was
signed. The Danish nation, no longer strangers and enemies, are
recognized by the heir of Cerdic as lawful owners of the full half of
England. Having achieved which result, Guthrum and the rest of the new
converts leave the Saxon camp and return to Cirencester at the end of
twelve days, loaded with such gifts as it was still in the power of
their conquerors to bestow: and Alfred was left in peace, to turn to a
greater and more arduous task than any he had yet encountered.


JOHN RICHARD GREEN

Alfred was the noblest as he was the most complete embodiment of all
that is great, all that is lovable, in the English temper. He combined
as no other man has ever combined its practical energy, its patient and
enduring force, its profound sense of duty, the reserve and self-control
that steady in it a wide outlook and a restless daring, its temperance
and fairness, its frank geniality, its sensitiveness to action, its
poetic tenderness, its deep and passionate religion. Religion, indeed,
was the groundwork of Alfred's character. His temper was instinct with
piety. Everywhere throughout his writings that remain to us the name of
God, the thought of God, stir him to outbursts of ecstatic adoration.

But he was no mere saint. He felt none of that scorn of the world about
him which drove the nobler souls of his day to monastery or hermitage.
Vexed as he was by sickness and constant pain, his temper took no touch
of asceticism. His rare geniality, a peculiar elasticity and mobility of
nature, gave color and charm to his life. A sunny frankness and openness
of spirit breathe in the pleasant chat of his books, and what he was in
his books he showed himself in his daily converse. Alfred was in truth
an artist, and both the lights and shadows of his life were those of the
artistic temperament. His love of books, his love of strangers, his
questionings of travellers and scholars, betray an imaginative
restlessness that longs to break out of the narrow world of experience
which hemmed him in. At one time he jots down news of a voyage to the
unknown seas of the north. At another he listens to tidings which his
envoys bring back from the churches of Malabar.

And side by side with this restless outlook of the artistic nature he
showed its tenderness and susceptibility, its vivid apprehension of
unseen danger, its craving for affection, its sensitiveness to wrong. It
was with himself rather than with his reader that he communed as
thoughts of the foe without, of ingratitude and opposition within, broke
the calm pages of Gregory or Boethius.

"Oh, what a happy man was he," he cries once, "that man that had a naked
sword hanging over his head from a single thread; so as to me it always
did!" "Desirest thou power?" he asks at another time. "But thou shalt
never obtain it without sorrows--sorrows from strange folk, and yet
keener sorrows from thine own kindred." "Hardship and sorrow!" he breaks
out again; "not a king but would wish to be without these if he could.
But I know that he cannot!"

The loneliness which breathes in words like these has often begotten in
great rulers a cynical contempt of men and the judgments of men. But
cynicism found no echo in the large and sympathetic temper of Alfred. He
not only longed for the love of his subjects, but for the remembrance of
"generations" to come. Nor did his inner gloom or anxiety check for an
instant his vivid and versatile activity. To the scholars he gathered
round him he seemed the very type of a scholar, snatching every hour he
could find to read or listen to books read to him. The singers of his
court found in him a brother singer, gathering the old songs of his
people to teach them to his children, breaking his renderings from the
Latin with simple verse, solacing himself in hours of depression with
the music of the Psalms.

He passed from court and study to plan buildings and instruct craftsmen
in gold work, to teach even falconers and dog-keepers their business.
But all this versatility and ingenuity was controlled by a cool good
sense. Alfred was a thorough man of business. He was careful of detail,
laborious, methodical. He carried in his bosom a little handbook in
which he noted things as they struck him--now a bit of family genealogy,
now a prayer, now such a story as that of Ealdhelm playing minstrel on
the bridge. Each hour of the day had its appointed task; there was the
same order in the division of his revenue and in the arrangement of his
court.

Wide, however, and various as was the King's temper, its range was less
wonderful than its harmony. Of the narrowness, of the want of
proportion, of the predominance of one quality over another which go
commonly with an intensity of moral purpose Alfred showed not a trace.
Scholar and soldier, artist and man of business, poet and saint, his
character kept that perfect balance which charms us in no other
Englishman save Shakespeare. But full and harmonious as his temper was,
it was the temper of a king. Every power was bent to the work of rule.
His practical energy found scope for itself in the material and
administrative restoration of the wasted land.

His intellectual activity breathed fresh life into education and
literature. His capacity for inspiring trust and affection drew the
hearts of Englishmen to a common centre, and began the upbuilding of a
new England. And all was guided, controlled, ennobled by a single aim.
"So long as I have lived," said the King as life closed about him, "I
have striven to live worthily." Little by little men came to know what
such a life of worthiness meant. Little by little they came to recognize
in Alfred a ruler of higher and nobler stamp than the world had seen.
Never had it seen a king who lived solely for the good of his people.
Never had it seen a ruler who set aside every personal aim to devote
himself solely to the welfare of those whom he ruled. It was this grand
self-mastery that gave him his power over the men about him. Warrior and
conqueror as he was, they saw him set aside at thirty the warrior's
dream of conquest; and the self-renouncement of Wedmore struck the
keynote of his reign. But still more is it this height and singleness of
purpose, this absolute concentration of the noblest faculties to the
noblest aim, that lifts Alfred out of the narrow bounds of Wessex.

If the sphere of his action seems too small to justify the comparison of
him with the few whom the world owns as its greatest men, he rises to
their level in the moral grandeur of his life. And it is this which has
hallowed his memory among his own English people. "I desire," said the
King in some of his latest words, "I desire to leave to the men that
come after me a remembrance of me in good works."

His aim has been more than fulfilled. His memory has come down to us
with a living distinctness through the mists of exaggeration and legend
which time gathered round it. The instinct of the people has clung to
him with a singular affection. The love which he won a thousand years
ago has lingered round his name from that day to this. While every other
name of those earlier times has all but faded from the recollection of
Englishmen, that of Alfred remains familiar to every English child.

The secret of Alfred's government lay in his own vivid energy. He could
hardly have chosen braver or more active helpers than those whom he
employed both in his political and in his educational efforts. The
children whom he trained to rule proved the ablest rulers of their time.
But at the outset of his reign he stood alone, and what work was to be
done was done by the King himself. His first efforts were directed to
the material restoration of his realm. The burnt and wasted country saw
its towns built again, forts erected in positions of danger, new abbeys
founded, the machinery of justice and government restored, the laws
codified and amended. Still more strenuous were Alfred's efforts for its
moral and intellectual restoration. Even in Mercia and Northumbria the
pirate's sword had left few survivors of the schools of Egbert or Bede,
and matters were even worse in Wessex, which had been as yet the most
ignorant of the English kingdoms.

"When I began to reign," said Alfred, "I cannot remember one priest
south of the Thames who could render his service-book into English." For
instructors indeed he could find only a few Mercian prelates and
priests, with one Welsh bishop, Asser.

"Formerly," the King writes bitterly, "men came hither from foreign
lands to seek for instruction, and now when we desire it we can only
obtain it from abroad." But his mind was far from being prisoned within
his own island. He sent a Norwegian shipmaster to explore the White Sea,
and Wulfstan to trace the coast of Esthonia; envoys bore his presents to
the churches of India and Jerusalem, and an annual mission carried
Peter's pence to Rome.

But it was with the Franks that his intercourse was closest, and it was
from them that he drew the scholars to aid him in his work of education.
A scholar named Grimbald came from St. Omer to preside over his new
abbey at Winchester; and John, the old Saxon, was fetched from the abbey
of Corbey to rule a monastery and school that Alfred's gratitude for his
deliverance from the Danes raised in the marshes of Athelney. The real
work, however, to be done was done, not by these teachers, but by the
King himself. Alfred established a school for the young nobles in his
court, and it was to the need of books for these scholars in their own
tongue that we owe his most remarkable literary effort.

He took his books as he found them--they were the popular manuals of his
age--the _Consolation of Boethius_, the _Pastoral_ of Pope Gregory, the
compilation of Orosius, then the one accessible handbook of universal
history, and the history of his own people by Bede. He translated these
works into English, but he was far more than a translator, he was an
editor for the people. Here he omitted, there he expanded. He enriched
Orosius by a sketch of the new geographical discoveries in the north. He
gave a West Saxon form to his selections from Bede. In one place he
stops to explain his theory of government, his wish for a thicker
population, his conception of national welfare as consisting in a due
balance of priest, soldier, and churl. The mention of Nero spurs him to
an outbreak on the abuses of power. The cold providence of Boethius
gives way to an enthusiastic acknowledgment of the goodness of God.

As he writes, his large-hearted nature flings off its royal mantle, and
he talks as a man to men. "Do not blame me," he prays with a charming
simplicity, "if any know Latin better than I, for every man must say
what he says and do what he does according to his ability."

But simple as was his aim, Alfred changed the whole front of our
literature. Before him, England possessed in her own tongue one great
poem and a train of ballads and battle-songs. Prose she had none. The
mighty roll of the prose books that fill her libraries begins with the
translations of Alfred, and above all with the chronicle of his reign.
It seems likely that the King's rendering of Bede's history gave the
first impulse toward the compilation of what is known as the English or
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which was certainly thrown into its present
form during his reign. The meagre lists of the kings of Wessex and the
bishops of Winchester, which had been preserved from older times, were
roughly expanded into a national history by insertions from Bede; but it
is when it reaches the reign of Alfred that the chronicle suddenly
widens into the vigorous narrative, full of life and originality, that
marks the gift of a new power to the English tongue. Varying as it does
from age to age in historic value, it remains the first vernacular
history of any Teutonic people, and, save for the Gothic translations of
Ulfilas, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose.

But all this literary activity was only a part of that general
upbuilding of Wessex by which Alfred was preparing for a fresh contest
with the stranger. He knew that the actual winning back of the Danelagh
must be a work of the sword, and through these long years of peace he
was busy with the creation of such a force as might match that of the
Northmen. A fleet grew out of the little squadron which Alfred had been
forced to man with Frisian seamen.

The national _fyrd_ or levy of all freemen at the King's call was
reorganized. It was now divided into two halves, one of which served in
the field while the other guarded its own _burhs_ (burghs or boroughs)
and townships, and served to relieve its fellow when the men's forty
days of service were ended. A more disciplined military force was
provided by subjecting all owners of five hides of land to
"thane-service," a step which recognized the change that had now
substituted the _thegn_ for the _eorl_ and in which we see the beginning
of a feudal system. How effective these measures were was seen when the
new resistance they met on the Continent drove the Northmen to a fresh
attack on Britain.

In 893 a large fleet steered for the Andredsweald, while the sea-king
Hasting entered the Thames. Alfred held both at bay through the year
till the men of the Danelagh rose at their comrades' call. Wessex stood
again front to front with the Northmen. But the King's measures had made
the realm strong enough to set aside its old policy of defence for one
of vigorous attack. His son Edward and his son-in-law Ethelred, whom he
had set as ealdorman[23] over what remained of Mercia, showed themselves
as skilful and active as the King.

[Footnote 23: Primitive of alderman; in this period, a chieftain, lord,
or earl; subsequently, the chief magistrate of a territorial district,
as of a county or province.]

The aim of the Northmen was to rouse again the hostility of the Welsh,
but while Alfred held Exeter against their fleet, Edward and Ethelred
caught their army near the Severn and overthrew it with a vast slaughter
at Buttington. The destruction of their camp on the Lea by the united
English forces ended the war; in 897 Hasting again withdrew across the
Channel, and the Danelagh made peace. It was with the peace he had won
still about him that Alfred died in 901; and warrior as his son Edward
had shown himself, he clung to his father's policy of rest.



HENRY THE FOWLER FOUNDS THE SAXON LINE OF GERMAN KINGS

ORIGIN OF THE GERMAN BURGHERS OR MIDDLE CLASSES

A.D. 911-936

WOLFGANG MENZEL


(The famous treaty of Verdun [843] was the culmination of a series of
civil wars between the descendants of Charlemagne. By it the great
empire which Charlemagne had built up was divided among his three
grandsons, Lothair, Charles the Bald, and Louis. With this treaty the
history of the Franks closes, and Germany and France take their places,
along with Italy, as distinct and separate nations.

The Teutonic kingdom, or Germany, fell to Louis. On his death, in 876,
after an uneventful reign, he was succeeded by his sons Charles the Fat,
Carloman, and Louis. The latter two dying, Charles the Fat became sole
King of Germany. A little later he became ruler of Italy, and was
crowned emperor by the pope. Then he was invited by the West Franks to
become their king. Thus almost the whole empire of the great Charlemagne
was reunited in the hands of Charles the Fat. However, his people soon
became disgusted with his weak efforts in the treatment of a series of
invasions by the Northmen, and he was deposed in 887. He died the next
year, and the Carlovingian empire fell to pieces, never to be united
again.

Charles the Fat was succeeded in Germany by his nephew, Arnulf, who also
took possession of Italy and was crowned emperor by the pope, though his
power in Italy was merely nominal. On his death in 889 his second son,
Ludwig [Louis III] the child, became king in Germany.

The race of Charlemagne in Germany ended in 911 by the death of Ludwig.
Though a mere child he had been enthroned through the intrigues of Otto,
Duke of Saxony, and Hatto, Archbishop of Mayence, who virtually governed
the empire during Ludwig's short reign.

The empire at that time was composed of various nations, each under the
rule of a powerful duke. The bond of union between these nations was
slight. The dukes were constantly waging war against each other, and
these internal dissensions greatly weakened the central government.

At the same time the empire was exposed to the incursions of the Magyars
or Hungarians, whose wholesale depredations and cruelties so dismayed
the child-king that he concluded a treaty of peace with the invaders and
consented to pay them a ten-years' tribute.

The Germans were deeply sensible of the dishonor incurred by this
ignominious tribute, and of the dangers of their internal dissensions.
They longed for a stronger government, and on the death of Ludwig the
crown was offered to Otto of Saxony, the strongest of the dukes. He
declined in favor of Conrad, Duke of Franconia, a descendant in the
female line from Charlemagne. But Conrad's rule was weak, and during his
short reign of seven years civil war continued, part of the time with
Henry the Fowler, son of Duke Otto [who died in 912], owing to Conrad's
attempt to separate Thuringia from Saxony in order to weaken Henry's
ducal power. The empire also was again invaded by the Slavs and
Hungarians.

Conrad died without male issue in 918, whereupon the Germans elected as
emperor Henry the Fowler, who thus became the first of the Saxon dynasty
in Germany, and proved himself to be the wisest and most vigorous
sovereign who had ruled in Germany since the days of Charlemagne.)


The extinction of the Carlovingian line did not sever the bond of union
that existed between the different nations of Germany, although a
contention arose between them concerning the election of the new
emperor, each claiming that privilege for itself; and as the increase of
the ducal power had naturally led to a wider distinction between them,
the diet convoked for the purpose represented nations instead of
classes. There were consequently four nations and four votes: the Franks
under Duke Conrad, whose authority, nevertheless, could not compete with
that of the now venerable Hatto, Archbishop of Mayence, who may be said
to have been, at that period, the pope in Germany; the Saxons,
Frieslanders, Thuringians, and some of the subdued Slavi, under Duke
Otto; the Swabians, with Switzerland and Elsace, under different
_grafs_, who, as the immediate officers of the crown, were named
_kammerboten_, in order to distinguish them from the grafs nominated by
the dukes; the Bavarians, with the Tyrolese and some of the subdued
eastern Slavi, under Duke Arnulf the Bad, the son of the brave duke
Luitpold. The Lothringians formed a fifth nation, under their duke
Regingar, but were at that period incorporated with France.

The first impulse of the diet was to bestow the crown on the most
powerful among the different competitors, and it was accordingly offered
to Otto of Saxony, who not only possessed the most extensive territory
and the most warlike subjects, but whose authority, having descended to
him from his father and grandfather, was also the most firmly secured.
But both Otto and his ancient ally, the bishop Hatto, had found the
system they had hitherto pursued, of reigning in the name of an imbecile
monarch, so greatly conducive to their interest that they were
disinclined to abandon it. Otto was a man who mistook the prudence
inculcated by private interest for wisdom, and his mind, narrow as the
limits of his dukedom, and solely intent upon the interests of his
family, was incapable of the comprehensive views requisite in a German
emperor, and indifferent to the welfare of the great body of the nation.
The examples of Boso, of Odo, of Rudolph of Upper Burgundy, and of
Berenger, who, favored by the difference in descent of the people they
governed, had all succeeded in severing themselves from the empire, were
ever present to his imagination, and he believed that as, on the other
side of the Rhine, the Frank, the Burgundian, and the Lombard severally
obeyed an independent sovereign, the East Frank, the Saxon, the Swabian,
and the Bavarian, on this side of the Rhine, were also desirous of
asserting a similar independence, and that it would be easier and less
hazardous to found a hereditary dukedom in a powerful and separate state
than to maintain the imperial dignity, undermined, as it was, by
universal hostility.

The influence of Hatto and the consent of Otto placed Conrad, Duke of
Franconia, on the imperial throne. Sprung from a newly risen family, a
mere creature of the bishop, his nobility as a feudal lord only dating
from the period of the Babenberg feud, he was regarded by the Church as
a pliable tool and by the dukes as little to be feared. His weakness was
quickly demonstrated by his inability to retain the rich allods of the
Carlovingian dynasty as heir to the imperial crown, and his being
constrained to share them with the rest of the dukes; he was,
nevertheless, more fully sensible of the dignity and of the duties of
his station than those to whom he owed his election probably expected.
His first step was to recall Regingar of Lothringia, who was oppressed
by France, to his allegiance as vassal of the empire.

Otto died in 912, and his son Henry, a high-spirited youth, who had
greatly distinguished himself against the Slavi, ere long quarrelled
with the aged bishop Hatto. According to the legendary account, the
bishop sent him a golden chain so skilfully contrived as to strangle its
wearer. The truth is that the ancient family feud between the house of
Conrad and that of Otto, which was connected with the Babenbergers,
again broke out, and that the Emperor attempted again to separate
Thuringia, which Otto had governed since the death of Burkhard, from
Saxony, in order to hinder the overpreponderance of that ducal house.
Hatto, it is probable, counselled this step, as a considerable portion
of Thuringia belonged to the diocese of Mayence, and a collision between
him and the duke was therefore unavoidable. Henry flew to arms, and
expelled the adherents of the bishop from Thuringia, which forced the
Emperor to take the field in the name of the empire against his haughty
vassal. This unfortunate civil war was a signal for a fresh irruption of
the Slavi and Hungarians. During this year the Bohemians and Sorbi also
made an inroad into Thuringia and Bavaria, and in 913 the Hungarians
advanced as far as Swabia, but being surprised near Oetting by the
Bavarians under Arnulf, who on this occasion bloodily avenged his
father's death, and by the Swabians under the kammerboten Erchanger and
Berthold, they were all, with the exception of thirty of their number,
cut to pieces. Arnulf subsequently embraced a contrary line of policy,
married the daughter of Geisa, King of Hungary, and entered into a
confederacy with the Hungarian and the Swabian kammerboten, for the
purpose of founding an independent state in the south of Germany, where
he had already strengthened himself by the appointment of several
markgrafs, Rudiger of Pechlarn in Austria, Rathold in Carinthia, and
Berthold in the Tyrol. He then instigated all the enemies of the empire
simultaneously to attack the Franks and Saxons, at that crisis at war
with each other, in 915, and while the Danes under Gorm the Old, and the
Obotrites, destroyed Hamburg, immense hordes of Hungarians, Bohemians,
and Sorbi laid the country waste as far as Bremen.

The Emperor was, meanwhile, engaged with the Saxons. On one occasion
Henry narrowly escaped being taken prisoner, being merely saved by the
stratagem of his faithful servant, Thiatmar, who caused the Emperor to
retreat by falsely announcing to him the arrival of a body of
auxiliaries. At length a pitched battle was fought near Merseburg, in
915, between Henry and Eberhard, the Emperor's brother, in which the
Franks[24] were defeated, and the superiority of the Saxons remained,
henceforward, unquestioned for more than a century. The Emperor was
forced to negotiate with the victor, whom he induced to protect the
northern frontiers of the empire while he applied himself in person to
the reëstablishment of order in the south.

[Footnote 24: So great a slaughter took place that the Saxons said on
the occasion:

  "'Twere difficult to find a hell
  Where so many Franks might dwell!"]

In Swabia, Salomon, Bishop of Constance, who was supported by the
commonalty, adhered to the imperial cause, while the kammerboten were
unable to palliate their treason, and were gradually driven to
extremities. Erchanger, relying upon aid from Arnulf and the Hungarians,
usurped the ducal crown and took the bishop prisoner. Salomon's extreme
popularity filled him with such rage that he caused the feet of some
shepherds, who threw themselves on their knees as the captured prelate
passed by, to be chopped off. His wife, Bertha, terror-stricken at the
rashness of her husband, and foreseeing his destruction, received the
prisoner with every demonstration of humility, and secretly aided his
escape. He no sooner reappeared than the people flocked in thousands
around him. "_Heil Herro! Heil Liebo!_" ("Hail, master! Hail, beloved
one!") they shouted, and in their zeal attacked and defeated the
traitors and their adherents. Berthold vainly defended himself in his
mountain stronghold of Hohentwiel. The people so urgently demanded the
death of these traitors to their country that the Emperor convoked a
general assembly at Albingen in Swabia, sentenced Erchanger and Berthold
to be publicly beheaded, and nominated Burkhard, in 917, whose father
and uncle had been assassinated by order of Erchanger, as successor to
the ducal throne. Arnulf withdrew to his fortress at Salzburg, and
quietly awaited more favorable times. His name was branded with infamy
by the people, who henceforth affixed to it the epithet of "the Bad,"
and the _Nibelungenlied_ has perpetuated his detested memory.

Conrad died in 918 without issue. On his death-bed, mindful only of the
welfare of the empire, he proved himself deserving even by his latest
act of the crown he had so worthily worn, by charging his brother
Eberhard to forget the ancient feud between their houses, and to deliver
the crown with his own hands to his enemy, the free-spirited Henry, whom
he judged alone capable of meeting all the exigencies of the State.
Eberhard obeyed his brother's injunctions, and the princes respected the
will of their dying sovereign.

The princes, with the exception of Burkhard and of Arnulf, assembled at
Fritzlar, elected the absent Henry king, and despatched an embassy to
inform him of their decision. It is said that the young duke was at the
time among the Harz Mountains, and that the ambassadors found him in the
homely attire of a sportsman in the fowling floor. He obeyed the call of
the nation without delay and without manifesting surprise. The error he
had committed in rebelling against the State, it was his firm purpose to
atone for by his conduct as emperor. Of a lofty and majestic stature,
although slight and youthful in form, powerful and active in person,
with a commanding and penetrating glance, his very appearance attracted
popular favor; besides these personal advantages, he was prudent and
learned, and possessed a mind replete with intelligence. The influence
of such a monarch on the progressive development of society in Germany
could not fail of producing results fully equalling the improvements
introduced by Charlemagne.

The youthful Henry, the first of the Saxon line, was proclaimed king of
Germany at Fritzlar, in 919, by the majority of votes, and, according to
ancient custom, raised upon the shield. The Archbishop of Mayence
offered to anoint him according to the usual ceremony, but Henry
refused, alleging that he was content to owe his election to the grace
of God and to the piety of the German princes, and that he left the
ceremony of anointment to those who wished to be still more pious.

Before Henry could pursue his more elevated projects, the assent of the
southern Germans, who had not acknowledged the choice of their northern
compatriots, had to be gained. Burkhard of Swabia, who had asserted his
independence, and who was at that time carrying on a bitter feud with
Rudolph, King of Burgundy, whom he had defeated, in 919, in a bloody
engagement near Winterthur, was the first against whom he directed the
united forces of the empire, in whose name he, at the same time, offered
him peace and pardon. Burkhard, seeing himself constrained to yield,
took the oath of fealty to the new-elected King at Worms, but continued
to act with almost his former unlimited authority in Swabia, and even
undertook an expedition into Italy in favor of Rudolph, with whom he had
become reconciled. The Italians, enraged at the wantonness with which he
mocked them, assassinated him. Henry bestowed the dukedom of Swabia on
Hermann, one of his relations, to whom he gave Burkhard's widow in
marriage. He also bestowed a portion of the south of Alemannia on King
Rudolph in order to win him over, and in return received from him the
holy lance with which the side of the Saviour had been pierced as he
hung on the cross. Finding it no longer possible to dissolve the
dukedoms and great fiefs, Henry, in order to strengthen the unity of the
empire, introduced the novel policy of bestowing the dukedoms, as they
fell vacant, on his relations and personal adherents, and of allying the
rest of the dukes with himself by intermarriage, thus uniting the
different powerful houses in the State into one family.

Bavaria still remained in an unsettled state. Arnulf the Bad, leagued
with the Hungarians, against whom Henry had great designs, had still
much in his power, and Henry, resolved at any price to dissolve this
dangerous alliance, not only concluded peace with this traitor on that
condition, but also married his son Henry to Judith, Arnulf's daughter,
in 921. Arnulf deprived the rich churches of great part of their
treasures, and was consequently abhorred by the clergy, the chroniclers
of those times, who, chiefly on that account, depicted his character in
such unfavorable colors.

In France, Charles the Simple was still the tool and jest of the
vassals. His most dangerous enemy was Robert, Count of Paris, brother to
Odo, the late King. Both solicited aid from Henry, but in a battle that
shortly ensued near Soissons, Count Robert losing his life and Charles
being defeated, Rudolph of Burgundy, one of Boso's nephews, set himself
up as king of France, and imprisoned Charles the Simple, who craved
assistance from the German monarch, to whom he promised to perform
homage as his liege lord. Henry, meanwhile, contented himself with
expelling Rudolph from Lotharingia, and, after taking possession of
Metz, bestowed that dukedom upon Gisilbrecht, the son of Regingar, and
reincorporated it with the empire. These successes now roused the
apprehensions of the Hungarians, who again poured their invading hordes
across the frontier. In 926 they plundered St. Gall, but were routed
near Seckingen by the peasantry, headed by the country people of
Hirminger, who had been roused by alarm fires; and again in Alsace, by
Count Liutfried: another horde was cut to pieces near Bleiburg, in
Carinthia, by Eberhard and the Count of Meran. The Hungarian King,
probably Zoldan, was, by chance, taken prisoner during an incursion by
the Germans, a circumstance turned by Henry to a very judicious use. He
restored the captured prince to liberty, and also agreed to pay him a
yearly tribute, on condition of his entering into a solemn truce for
nine years. The experience of earlier times had taught Henry that a
completely new organization was necessary in the management of military
affairs in Germany before this dangerous enemy could be rendered
innoxious, and, as an undertaking of this nature required time, he
prudently resolved to incur a seeming disgrace by means of which he in
fact secured the honor of the State. During this interval of nine years
he aimed at bringing the other enemies of the empire, more particularly
the Slavi, into subjection, and making preparations for an expedition
against Hungary by which her power should receive a fatal blow.

In the mean time Gisilbrecht, the youthful Duke of Lotharingia, again
rebelled, but was besieged and taken prisoner in Zuelpich by Henry, who,
struck by his noble appearance, restored to him his dukedom, and
bestowed upon him his daughter, Gerberga, in marriage. Rudolph of France
also sued for peace, being hard pressed by his powerful rival, Hugo the
Great or Wise, the son of Robert. Charles the Simple was, on Henry's
demand, restored to liberty, but quickly fell anew into the power of his
faithless vassals.

Peace was now established throughout the empire, and afforded Henry an
opportunity for turning his attention to the introduction of measures,
in the interior economy of the State, calculated to obviate for the
future the dangers that had hitherto threatened it from without. The
best expedient against the irruptions of the Hungarians appeared to him
to be the circumvallation of the most important districts, the erection
of forts and of fortified cities. The most important point, however, was
to place the garrisons immediately under him as citizens of the State,
commanded by his immediate officers, instead of their being indirectly
governed by the feudal aristocracy and by the clergy. As these garrisons
were intended not only for the protection of the walls, but also for
open warfare, he had them trained to fight in rank and file, and formed
them into a body of infantry, whose solid masses were calculated to
withstand the furious onset of the Hungarian horse. These garrisons were
solely composed of the ancient freemen, and the whole measure was, in
fact, merely a reform of the ancient _arrier-ban_, which no longer
sufficed for the protection of the State, and whose deficiency had long
been supplied by the addition of vassals under the command of their
temporal or spiritual lieges, and by the mercenaries or bodyguards of
the emperors. The ancient class of freemen, who originally composed the
arrier-ban, had been gradually converted into feudal vassals; but they
were at that time still so numerous as to enable Henry to give them a
completely new military organization, which at once secured to them
their freedom, hitherto endangered by the preponderating power of the
feudal aristocracy, and rendered them a powerful support to the throne.
By collecting them into the cities, he afforded them a secure retreat
against the attempts of the grafs, dukes, abbots, and bishops, and
created for himself a body of trusty friends, of whom it would naturally
be expected that they would ever side with the Emperor against the
nobility.

This new regulation appears to have been founded on the ancient mode of
division. At first, out of every nine freemen--which recalls the
_decania_--one only was placed within the new fortress, and the
remaining eight were bound--perhaps on account of their ancient
association into corporations or guilds--to nourish and support him; but
the remaining freemen, in the neighborhood of the new cities, appear to
have been also gradually collected within their walls, and to have
committed the cultivation of their lands in the vicinity to their
bondmen. However that may be, the ancient class of freemen completely
disappeared as the cities increased in importance, and it was only among
the wild mountains, where no cities sprang up, that the _centen_ or
cantons and whole districts or _gauen_ of free peasantry were to be met
with.

Henry's original intention in the introduction of this new system was,
it is evident, solely to provide a military force answering to the
exigencies of the State; still there is no reason to suppose him blind
to the great political advantage to be derived from the formation of an
independent class of citizens; and that he had in reality premeditated a
civil as well as a military reformation may be concluded from the fact
of his having established fairs, markets, and public assemblies, which,
of themselves, would be closely connected with civil industry, within
the walls of the cities; and, even if these trading warriors were at
first merely feudatories of the Emperor, they must naturally in the end
have formed a class of free citizens, the more so as, attracted within
the cities by the advantages offered to them, their number rapidly and
annually increased.

The same military reasons which induced the emperor Henry to enroll the
ancient freemen into a regular corps of infantry, and to form them into
a civil corporation, caused him also to metamorphose the feudal
aristocracy into a regular troop of cavalry and a knightly institution.
The wild disorder with which the mounted vassals of the empire, the
dukes, grafs, bishops, and abbots, each distinguished by his own banner,
rushed to the attack, or vied with each other in the fury of the
assault, was now changed by Henry, who was well versed in every knightly
art, to the disciplined manoeuvres of the line, and to that of fighting
in close ranks, so well calculated to withstand the furious onset of
their Hungarian foe. The discipline necessary for carrying these new
military tactics into practice among a nobility habituated to license
could alone be enforced by motives of honor, and Henry accordingly
formed a chivalric institution, which gave rise to new manners and to an
enthusiasm that imparted a new character to the age. The tournament--
from the ancient verb _turnen_, to wrestle or fight, a public contest in
every species of warfare, carried on by the knights in the presence of
noble dames and maidens, whose favor they sought to gain by their
prowess, and which chiefly consisted of tilting and jousting either
singly or in troops, the day concluding with a banquet and a dance--was
then instituted. In these tournaments the ancient heroism of the Germans
revived; they were in reality founded upon the ancient pagan legends of
the heroes who carried on an eternal contest in their Walhalla, in order
to win the smiles of the Walkyren, now represented by earth's well-born
dames.

The ancient spirit of brotherhood in arms, which had been almost
quenched by that of self-interest, by the desire of acquiring feudal
possessions, by the slavish subjection of the vassals under their
lieges, and by the intrigues of the bishops, who intermeddled with all
feudal matters, also reappeared. A great universal society of Christian
knights, bound to the observance of peculiar laws, whose highest aim was
to fight only for God--before long also for the ladies--and who swore
never to make use of dishonorable means for success, but solely to live
and to die for honor, was formed; an innovation which, although merely
military in its origin, speedily became of political importance, for, by
means of this knightly honor, the little vassal of a minor lord was no
longer viewed as a mere underling, but as a confederate in the great
universal chivalric fraternity. There were also many freemen who
sometimes gained their livelihood by offering their services to
different courts, or by robbing on the highways, and who were too proud
to serve on foot; Henry offered them free pardon, and formed them into a
body of light cavalry. In the cities the free citizens, who were
originally intended only to serve as foot soldiery, appear ere long to
have formed themselves into mounted troops, and to have created a fresh
body of infantry out of their artificers and apprentices. It is certain
that every freeman could pretend to knighthood.

Although the chivalric regulations ascribed to the emperor Henry, and to
his most distinguished vassals, may not be genuine, they offer
nevertheless infallible proofs of the most ancient spirit of knighthood.
Henry ordained that no one should be created a knight who either by word
or by deed injured the holy Church; the Pfalzgraf Conrad added, "no one
who either by word or by deed injured the holy German empire"; Hermann
of Swabia, "no one who injured a woman or a maiden"; Berthold, the
brother of Arnulf of Bavaria, "no one who had ever deceived another or
had broken his word"; Conrad of Franconia, "no one who had ever run away
from the field of battle." These appear to have been, in fact, the first
chivalric laws, for they spring from the spirit of the times, while all
the regulations concerning nobility of birth, the number of ancestors,
the exclusion of all those who were engaged in trade, etc., are, it is
evident from their very nature, of a much later origin.



CONQUEST OF EGYPT BY THE FATIMITES

A.D. 969

STANLEY LANE-POOLE


(It was the fate of the religion which Mahomet founded, as it has been
of other great systems, to undergo many sectarian divisions, and to be
used as the instrument of conquest and political power. When Islam had
somewhat departed from the character which it first manifested in moral
sternness and fiery zeal, and had established itself in various parts of
the world on a basis of commerce or of science, rather than that of its
original inspiration, various off shoots of the faith began to assume
prominence. Among the sects which sprang up was one that claimed to
represent the true succession of Mahomet. This sect was itself the
result of a schism among the adherents of one of the two principal
divisions of the Moslems--the Shiahs. They maintained that Ali, a
relation and the adopted son of Mahomet and husband of his daughter
Fatima, was the first legitimate imam or successor of the prophet. They
regarded the other and greater division--the Sunnites, who recognized
the first three caliphs, Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman--as usurpers. Ali
was the fourth caliph, and the Sunnites in turn looked upon his
followers, the Shiahs, as heretics.

The schism among the Shiahs grew out of the claim of the schismatics
that the legitimate imam or successor of the Prophet must be in the line
of descent from Ali. The sixth imam, Jaffer, upon the death of his
eldest son, Ismail, appointed another son, Moussa or Moses, his heir;
but a large body of the Shiahs denied the right of Jaffer to make a new
nomination, declaring the imamate to be strictly hereditary. They formed
a new party of Ismailians, and in 908 a chief of this sect, Mahomet,
surnamed el-Mahdi, or the Leader--a title of the Shiahs for their
imams--revolted in Africa. He called himself a descendant of Ismail and
claimed to be the legitimate imam. He aimed at the temporal power of a
caliph, and soon established a rival caliphate in Africa, where he had
obtained a considerable sovereignty. The dynasty thus begun assumed the
name of Fatimites in honor of Fatima. The fourth caliph of this line,
El-Moizz, conquered Egypt about 969, founded the modern Cairo, and made
it his capital. The claims of the Egyptian caliphate were heralded
throughout all Islam, and its rule was rapidly extended into Syria and
Arabia. It played an important part in the history of the Crusades, but
in 1171 was abolished by the famous Saladin, and Egypt was restored to
the obedience which it had formerly owned to Bagdad. The Bagdad caliphs,
called Abbassides--claiming descent from Abbas, the uncle of
Mahomet--remained rulers of Egypt until 1517, or until within twenty
years of the death of the last Abbasside.)


Three hundred and thirty years had passed since the Saracens first
invaded the valley of the Nile. The people, with traditional docility,
had liberally adopted the religion of their rulers, and the Moslems now
formed the great majority of the population. Arabs and natives had
blended into much the same race that we now call Egyptians; but so far
the mixture had not produced any conspicuous men. The few commanding
figures among the governors, Ibn-Tulun, the Ikshid, Kafur, were
foreigners, and even these were but a step above the stereotyped
official. They essayed no great extension of their dominions; they did
not try to extinguish their dangerous neighbors the schismatic
Fatimites; and though they possessed and used fleets, they ventured upon
no excursions against Europe.

The great revolution which had swept over North Africa, and now spread
to Egypt, arose out of the old controversy over the legitimacy of the
caliphate. The prophet Mahomet died without definitely naming a
successor, and thereby bequeathed an interminable quarrel to his
followers. The principle of election, thus introduced, raised the first
three caliphs, Abu-Bekr, Omar, Othman, to the _cathedra_ at Medina; but
a strong minority held that the "divine right" rested with Ali, the
"Lion of God," first convert to Islam, husband of the prophet's daughter
Fatima, and father of Mahomet's only male descendants. When Ali in turn
became the fourth caliph, he was the mark for jealousy, intrigue, and at
length assassination; his sons, the grandsons of the Prophet, were
excluded from the succession; his family were cruelly persecuted by
their successful rivals, the Ommiad usurpers; and the tragedy of Kerbela
and the murder of Hoseyn set the seal of martyrdom on the holy family
and stirred a passionate enthusiasm which still rouses intense
excitement in the annual representations of the Persian passion play.

The rent thus opened in Islam was never closed. The ostracism of Ali
"laid the foundation of the grand interminable schism which has divided
the Mahometan Church, and equally destroyed the practice of charity
among the members of their common creed and endangered the speculative
truths of doctrine."

The descendants of Ali, though almost universally devoid of the
qualities of great leaders, possessed the persistence and devotion of
martyrs, and their sufferings heightened the fanatical enthusiasm of
their supporters. All attempts to recover the temporal power having
proved vain, the Alides fell back upon the spiritual authority of the
successive candidates of the holy family, whom they proclaimed to be the
imams or spiritual leaders of the faithful. This doctrine of the imamate
gradually acquired a more mystical meaning, supported by an allegorical
interpretation of the _Koran_; and a mysterious influence was ascribed
to the imam, who, though hidden from mortal eye, on account of the
persecution of his enemies, would soon come forward publicly in the
character of the ever-expected _mahdi_, sweep away the corruptions of
the heretical caliphate, and revive the majesty of the pure lineage of
the prophet. All Mahometans believe in a coming mahdi, a messiah, who
shall restore right and prepare for the second advent of Mahomet and the
tribunal of the last day; but the Shiahs turned the expectation to
special account. They taught that the true Imam, though invisible to
mortal sight, is ever living; they predicted the mahdi's speedy
appearance, and kept their adherents on the alert to take up arms in his
service. With a view to his coming they organized a pervasive
conspiracy, instituted a secret society with carefully graduated stages
of initiation, used the doctrines of all religions and sects as weapons
in the propaganda, and sent missionaries throughout the provinces of
Islam to increase the numbers of the initiates and pave the way for the
great revolution. We see their partial success in the ravages of the
Karmathians, who were the true parents of the Fatimites. The leaders and
chief missionaries had really nothing in common with Mahometanism. Among
themselves they were frankly atheists. Their objects were political, and
they used religion in any form, and adapted it in all modes, to secure
proselytes, to whom they imparted only so much of their doctrine as they
were able to bear. These men were furnished with "an armory of
proselytism" as perfect, perhaps, as any known to history: they had
appeals to enthusiasm, and arguments for the reason, and "fuel for the
fiercest passions of the people and times in which they moved." Their
real aim was not religious or constructive, but pure nihilism. They used
the claim of the family of Ali, not because they believed in any divine
right or any caliphate, but because some flag had to be flourished in
order to rouse the people.

One of these missionaries, disguised as a merchant, journeyed back to
Barbary in 893, with some Berber pilgrims who had performed the sacred
ceremonies at Mecca. He was welcomed by the great tribe of the Kitama,
and rapidly acquired an extraordinary influence over the Berbers--a race
prone to superstition, and easily impressed by the mysterious rites of
initiation and the emotional doctrines of the propagandist, the wrongs
of the prophetic house, and the approaching triumph of the Mahdi.
Barbary had never been much attached to the caliphate, and for a century
it had been practically independent under the Aglabite dynasty, the
barbarous excesses of whose later sovereigns had alienated their
subjects. Alides, moreover, had established themselves, in the dynasty
of the Idrisides, in Morocco since the end of the eighth century. The
land was in every respect ripe for revolution, and the success of
Abu-Abdallah esh-Shii, the new missionary, was extraordinarily rapid. In
a few years he had a following of two hundred thousand armed men, and
after a series of battles he drove Ziyadat-Allah, the last Aglabite
prince, out of the country in 908. The missionary then proclaimed the
imam Obeid-Allah as the true caliph and spiritual head of Islam. Whether
this Obeid-Allah was really a descendant of Ali or not, he had been
carefully prepared for the role, and reached Barbary in disguise, with
the greatest mystery and some difficulty, pursued by the suspicions of
the Bagdad caliph, who, in great alarm, sent repeated orders for his
arrest. Indeed, the victorious missionary had to rescue his spiritual
chief from a sordid prison at Sigilmasa. Then humbly prostrating himself
before him, he hailed him as the expected mahdi, and in January, 910, he
was duly prayed for in the mosque of Kayrawan as "the Imam 'Obeid-Allah
el-Mahdi, Commander of the Faithful.'"

The missionary's Berber proselytes were too numerous to encourage
resistance, and the few who indulged the luxury of conscientious
scruples were killed or imprisoned. El-Mahdi, indeed, appeared so secure
in power that he excited the jealousy of his discoverer.

Abu-Abdallah, the missionary, now found himself nobody, where a month
before he had been supreme. The Fatimite restoration was to him only a
means to an end; he had used Obeid-Allah's title as an engine of
revolution, intending to proceed to the furthest lengths of his
philosophy, to a complete social and political anarchy, the destruction
of Islam, community of lands and women, and all the delight of
unshackled license. Instead of this, his creature had absorbed his
power, and all such designs were made void. He began to hatch treason
and to hint doubts as to the genuineness of the Mahdi, who, as he truly
represented, according to prophecy, ought to work miracles and show
other proofs of his divine mission. People began to ask for a "sign." In
reply, the Mahdi had the missionary murdered.

The first Fatimite caliph, though without experience, was so vigorous a
ruler that he could dispense with the dangerous support of his
discoverer. He held the throne for a quarter of a century and
established his authority, more or less continuously, over the Arab and
Berber tribes and settled cities from the frontier of Egypt to the
province of Fez (Fas) in Morocco, received the allegiance of the
Mahometan governor of Sicily, and twice despatched expeditions into
Egypt, which he would probably have permanently conquered if he had not
been hampered by perpetual insurrections in Barbary. Distant governors,
and often whole tribes of Berbers, were constantly in revolt, and the
disastrous famine of 928-929, coupled with the Asiatic plague which his
troops had brought back with them from Egypt, led to general
disturbances and insurrections which fully occupied the later years of
his reign. The western provinces, from Tahart and Nakur to Fez and
beyond, frequently threw off all show of allegiance. His authority was
founded more on fear than on religious enthusiasm, though zeal for the
Alide cause had its share in his original success. The new "Eastern
doctrines," as they were called, were enforced at the sword's point, and
frightful examples were made of those who ventured to tread in the old
paths. Nor were the freethinkers of the large towns, who shared the
missionary's esoteric principles, encouraged; for outwardly, at least,
the Mahdi was strictly a Moslem. When people at Kayrawan began to put in
practice the missionary's advanced theories, to scoff at all the rules
of Islam, to indulge in free love, pig's flesh, and wine, they were
sternly brought to order. The mysterious powers expected of a mahdi were
sedulously rumored among the credulous Berbers, though no miracles were
actually exhibited; and the obedience of the conquered provinces was
secured by horrible outrages and atrocities, of which the terrified
people dared not provoke a repetition at the hands of the Mahdi's savage
generals.

His eldest son Abul-Kasim, who had twice led expeditions into Egypt,
succeeded to the caliphate with the title of El-Kaim, 934-946. He began
his reign with warlike vigor. He sent out a fleet in 934 or 935, which
harried the southern coast of France, blockaded and took Genoa, and
coasted along Calabria, massacring and plundering, burning the shipping,
and carrying off slaves wherever it touched. At the same time he
despatched a third army against Egypt; but the firm hand of the Ikshid
now held the government, and his brother, Obeid-Allah, with fifteen
thousand horse, drove the enemy out of Alexandria and gave them a
crushing defeat on their way home. But for the greater part of his reign
El-Kaim was on the defensive, fighting for existence against the
usurpation of one Abu-Yezid, who repudiated Shiism, cursed the Mahdi and
his successor, stirred up most of Morocco and Barbary against El-Kaim,
drove him out of his capital, and went near to putting an end to the
Fatimite caliphate.

It was only after seven years of uninterrupted civil war that this
formidable insurrection died out, under the firm but politic management
of the third caliph, El-Mansur (946-953), a brave man who knew both when
to strike and when to be generous. Abu-Yezid was at last run to earth,
and his body was skinned and stuffed with straw, and exposed in a cage
with a couple of ludicrous apes as a warning to the disaffected.

The Fatimites so far wear a brutal and barbarous character. They do not
seem to have encouraged literature or learning; but this is partly
explained by the fact that culture belonged chiefly to the orthodox
caliphate; and its learned men could have no dealings with the heretical
pretender. The city of Kayrawan, which dates from the Arab conquest in
the eighth century, preserves the remains of some noble buildings, but
of their other capitals or royal residences no traces of art or
architecture remain to bear witness to the taste of their founders. Each
began to decay as soon as its successor was built.

With the fourth caliph, however, El-Moizz, the conqueror of Egypt,
953-975, the Fatimites entered upon a new phase.

El-Moizz was a man of politic temper, a born statesman, able to grasp
the conditions of success and to take advantage of every point in his
favor. He was also highly educated, and not only wrote Arabic poetry and
delighted in its literature, but studied Greek, mastered Berber and
Sudani dialects, and is even said to have taught himself Slavonic in
order to converse with his slaves from Eastern Europe. His eloquence was
such as to move his audience to tears. To prudent statesmanship he added
a large generosity, and his love of justice was among his noblest
qualities. So far as outward acts could show, he was a strict Moslem of
the Shiah sect, and the statement of his adversaries that he was really
an atheist seems to rest merely upon the belief that all the Fatimites
adopted the esoteric doctrines of the Ismailian missionaries.

When he ascended the throne in April, 953, he had already a policy, and
he lost no time in carrying it into execution. He first made a progress
through his dominions, visiting each town, investigating its needs, and
providing for its peace and prosperity. He bearded the rebels in their
mountain fastnesses, till they laid down their arms and fell at his
feet. He conciliated the chiefs and governors with presents and
appointments, and was rewarded by their loyalty.

At the head of his ministers he set Gawhar "the Roman," a slave from the
Eastern Empire, who had risen to the post of secretary to the late
Caliph, and was now by his son promoted to the rank of _wazir_ commander
of the forces. He was sent in 958 to bring the ever-refractory Maghreb
(Morocco) to allegiance. The expedition was entirely successful,
Sigilmasa and Fez were taken, and Gawhar reached the shore of the
Atlantic.

Jars of live fish and sea-weed reached the capital, and proved to the
Caliph that his empire touched the ocean, the "limitless limit" of the
world. All the African littoral, from the Atlantic to the frontier of
Egypt--with the single exception of Spanish Ceuta--now peaceably
admitted the sway of the Fatimite Caliph.

The result was due partly to the exhaustion caused by the long struggle
during the preceding reigns, partly to the politic concessions and
personal influence of the able young ruler. He was liberal and
conciliatory toward different provinces, but to the Arabs of the capital
he was severe. Kayrawan teemed with disaffected folk, sheiks, and
theologians bitterly hostile to the heretical "orientalism" of the
Fatimites, and always ready to excite a tumult. Moizz was resolved to
give them no chance, and one of his repressive measures was the curfew.
At sunset a trumpet sounded, and anyone found abroad after that was
liable to lose not only his way, but his head. So long as they were
quiet, however, he used the people justly, and sought to impress them in
his favor. In a singular interview, recorded by Makrisi, he exhibited
himself to a deputation of sheiks, dressed in the utmost simplicity, and
seated before his writing materials in a plain room, surrounded by
books. He wished to disabuse them of the idea that he led in private a
life of luxury and self-indulgence.

"You see what employs me when I am alone," he said; "I read letters that
come to me from the lands of the East and the West, and answer them with
my own hand; I deny myself all the pleasures of the world, and I seek
only to protect your lives, multiply your children, shame your rivals,
and daunt your enemies." Then he gave them much good advice, and
especially recommended them to keep to one wife.

"One woman is enough for one man. If you straitly observe what I have
ordained," he concluded, "I trust that God will, through you, procure
our conquest of the East in like manner as he has vouchsafed us the
West."

The conquest of Egypt was indeed the aim of his life. To rule over
tumultuous Arab and Berber tribes in a poor country formed no fit
ambition for a man of his capacity. Egypt, its wealth, its commerce, its
great port, and its docile population--these were his dream.

For two years he had been digging wells and building rest-houses on the
road to Alexandria. The West was now outwardly quiet, and between Egypt
and any hope of succor from the eastern caliphate stood the ravaging
armies of the Karmatis. Egypt itself was in helpless disorder. The great
Kafur was dead, and its nominal ruler was a child. Ibn-Furat, the
_wazir_, had made himself obnoxious to the people by arrests and
extortions. The very soldiery was in revolt, and the Turkish retainers
of the court mutinied, plundered the wazir's palace, and even opened
negotiations with Moizz. Hoseyn, the nephew of the Ikshid, attempted to
restore public order, but after three months of vacillating and
unpopular government he returned to his own province in Palestine to
make terms with the Karmatis. Famine, the result of the exceptionally
low Nile of 967, added to the misery of the country; plague, as usual,
followed in the steps of famine; over six hundred thousand people died
in and around Fustat, and the wretched inhabitants began in despair to
migrate to happier lands.

All these matters were fully reported to Moizz by the renegade Jew Yakub
Killis, a former favorite of Kafur, who had been driven from Egypt by
the jealous exactions of the wazir, Ibn-Furat, and who was perfectly
familiar with the political and financial state of the Nile valley. His
representations confirmed the Fatimite Caliph's resolve; the Arab tribes
were summoned to his standard; an immense treasure was collected, all of
which was spent in the campaign; gratuities were lavishly distributed to
the army, and at the head of over one hundred thousand men, all well
mounted and armed, accompanied by a thousand camels and a mob of horses
carrying money, stores, and ammunition, Gawhar marched from Kayrawan in
February, 969. The Caliph himself reviewed the troops. The marshal
kissed his hand and his horse's shoe. All the princes, emirs, and
courtiers passed reverently on foot before the honored leader of the
conquering army, who, as a last proof of favor, received the gift of his
master's own robes and charger. The governors of all the towns on the
route had orders to come on foot to Gawhar's stirrup, and one of them
vainly offered a large bribe to be excused the indignity.

The approach of this overwhelming force filled the Egyptian ministers
with consternation, and they thought only of obtaining favorable terms.
A deputation of notables, headed by Abu-Giafar Moslem, a _sherif_, or
descendant of the Prophet's family, waited upon Gawhar near Alexandria,
and demanded a capitulation. The general consented without reserve, and
in a conciliatory letter granted all they asked. But they had reckoned
without their host; the troops at Fustat would not listen to such
humiliation, and there was a strong war party among the citizens, to
which some of the ministers leaned. The city prepared for resistance,
and skirmishes took place with Gawhar's army, which had meanwhile
arrived at the opposite town of Giza in July. Forcing the passage of the
river, with the help of some boats supplied by Egyptian soldiers, the
invaders fell upon the imposing army drawn up on the other bank, and
totally defeated them. The troops deserted Fustat in a panic, and the
women of the city, running out of their houses, implored the sherif to
intercede with the conqueror.

Gawhar, like his master, always disposed to a politic leniency, renewed
his former promises, and granted a complete amnesty to all who
submitted. The overjoyed populace cut off the heads of some of the
refractory leaders, in their enthusiasm, and sent them to the camp in
pleasing token of allegiance. A herald, bearing a white flag, rode
through the streets of Fustat proclaiming the amnesty and forbidding
pillage, and on August the 5th the Fatimite army, with full pomp of
drums and banners, entered the capital.

That very night Gawhar laid the foundations of a new city, or rather
fortified palace, destined for the reception of his sovereign. He was
encamped on the sandy waste which stretched northeast of Fustat on the
road to Heliopolis, and there, at a distance of about a mile from the
river, he marked out the boundaries of the new capital. There were no
buildings, save the old "Convent of the Bones," nor any cultivation
except the beautiful park called "Kafur's Garden," to obstruct his
plans. A square, somewhat less than a mile each way, was pegged out with
poles, and the Maghrabi astrologers, in whom Moizz reposed extravagant
faith, consulted together to determine the auspicious moment for the
opening ceremony. Bells were hung on ropes from pole to pole, and at the
signal of the sages their ringing was to announce the precise moment
when the laborers were to turn the first sod. The calculations of the
astrologers were, however, anticipated by a raven, who perched on one of
the ropes and set the bells jingling, upon which every mattock was
struck into the earth, and the trenches were opened. It was an unlucky
hour; the planet Mars (El-Kahir) was in the ascendant; but it could not
be undone, and the place was accordingly named after the hostile planet,
El-Kahira, "the Martial" or "Triumphant," in the hope that the sinister
omen might be turned to a triumphant issue. Cairo, as Kahira has come to
be called, may fairly be said to have outlived all astrological
prejudices. The name of the Abbasside caliph was at once expunged from
the Friday prayers at the old mosque of Amr at Fustat; the black
Abbasside robes were proscribed, and the preacher, in pure white,
recited the Khutba for the imam Moizz, emir el-muminin, and invoked
blessings on his ancestors Ali and Fatima and all their holy family. The
call to prayer from the minarets was adapted to Shiah taste. The joyful
news was sent to the Fatimite Caliph on swift dromedaries, together with
the heads of the slain. Coins were struck with the special formulas of
the Fatimite creed--"Ali is the noblest of [God's] delegates, the wazir
of the best of apostles"; "the Imam Maadd calls men to profess the unity
of the Eternal"--in addition to the usual dogmas of the Mahometan faith.
For two centuries the mosques and the mint proclaimed the shibboleth of
the Shiahs.

Gawhar set himself at once to restore tranquillity and alleviate the
sufferings of the famine-stricken people. Moizz had providently sent
grain ships to relieve their distress, and as the price of bread
nevertheless remained at famine rates, Gawhar publicly flogged the
millers, established a central corn-exchange, and compelled everyone to
sell his corn there under the eye of a government inspector. In spite of
his efforts the famine lasted for two years; plague spread alarmingly,
insomuch that the corpses could not be buried fast enough, and were
thrown into the Nile; and it was not till the winter of 971-972 that
plenty returned and the pest disappeared. As usual, the viceroy took a
personal part in all public functions. Every Saturday he sat in court,
assisted by the wazir Ibn-Furat, the cadi, and skilled lawyers, to hear
causes and petitions and to administer justice. To secure impartiality,
he appointed to every department of state an Egyptian and a Maghrabi
officer. His firm and equitable rule insured peace and order; and the
great palace he was building, and the new mosque, the Azhar, which he
founded in 970 and finished in 972, not only added to the beauty of the
capital, but gave employment to innumerable craftsmen.

The inhabitants of Egypt accepted the new _regime_ with their habitual
phlegm. An Ikshidi officer in the Bashmur district of Lower Egypt did,
indeed, incite the people to rebellion, but his fate was not such as to
encourage others. He was chased out of Egypt, captured on the coast of
Palestine, and then, it is gravely recorded, he was given sesame oil to
drink for a month, till his skin stripped off, whereupon it was stuffed
with straw and hung up on a beam, as a reminder to him who would be
admonished. With this brief exception we read of no riots, no sectarian
risings, and the general surrender was complete when the remaining
partisans of the deposed dynasty, to the number of five thousand, laid
down their arms. An embassy sent to George, King of Nubia, to invite him
to embrace Islam, and to exact the customary tribute, was received with
courtesy, and the money, but not the conversion, was arranged. The holy
cities of Mecca and Medina in the Higaz, where the gold of Moizz had
been prudently distributed some years before, responded to his
generosity and success by proclaiming his supremacy in the mosques; the
Hamdanide prince who held Northern Syria paid similar homage to the
Fatimite Caliph at Aleppo, where the Abbassides had hitherto been
recognized. Southern Syria, however, which had formed part of the
Ikshid's kingdom, did not submit to the usurpers without a struggle.
Hoseyn was still independent at Ramla, and Gawhar's lieutenant, Giafar
ben Fellah, was obliged to give him battle. Hoseyn was defeated and
exposed bareheaded to the insults of the mob at Fustat, to be finally
sent, with the rest of the family of Ikshid, to a Barbary jail.
Damascus, the home of orthodoxy, was taken by Giafar, not without a
struggle, and the Fatimite doctrine was there published, to the
indignation and disgust of the Sunnite population.

A worse plague than the Fatimite conquest soon afflicted Syria. The
Karmati leader, Hasan ben Ahmad, surnamed El-Asam, finding the
blackmail, which he had lately received out of the revenues of Damascus,
suddenly stopped, resolved to extort it by force of arms. The Fatimites
indeed sprang from the same movement, and their founder professed the
same political and irreligious philosophy as Hasan himself; but this did
not stand in his way, and his knowledge of their origin made him the
less disposed to render homage to the sacred pretensions of the new
imams, whom he contemptuously designated as the spawn of the quacks,
charlatans, and the enemies of Islam. He tried to enlist the support of
the Abbasside Caliph, but El-Muti replied that Fatimis and Karmatis were
all one to him, and he would have nothing to do with either. The
Buweyhid prince of Irak, however, supplied Hasan with arms and money;
Abu-Taghlib, the Hamdanide ruler of Rahba on the Euphrates, contributed
men; and, supported by the Arab tribes of Okeyl, Tavy, and others, Hasan
marched upon Damascus, where the Fatimites were routed, and their
general, Giafar, killed. Moizz was forthwith publicly cursed from the
pulpit in the Syrian capital, to the qualified satisfaction of the
inhabitants, who had to pay handsomely for the pleasure.

Hasan next marched to Ramla, and thence, leaving the Fatimite army of
eleven thousand men shut up in Jaffa, invaded Egypt. His troops
surprised Kulzum at the head of the Red Sea, and Farama (Pelusium), near
the Mediterranean, at the two ends of the Egyptian frontier. Tinnis
declared against the Fatimites, and Hasan appeared at Heliopolis in
October, 971. Gawhar had already intrenched the new capital with a deep
ditch, leaving but one entrance, which he closed with an iron gate. He
armed the Egyptians as well as the African troops, and a spy was set to
watch the wazir Ibn-Furat, lest he should be guilty of treachery. The
sherifs of the family of Ali were summoned to the camp, as hostages for
the good behavior of the inhabitants. Meanwhile, the officers of the
enemy were liberally tempted with bribes. Two months they lay before
Cairo, and then, after an indecisive engagement, Hasan stormed the gate,
forced his way across the ditch, and attacked the Egyptians on their own
ground. The result was a severe repulse, and Hasan retreated, under
cover of night, to Kulzum, leaving his camp and baggage to be plundered
by the Fatimites, who were only balked of a sanguinary pursuit by the
intervention of night. The Egyptian volunteers displayed unexpected
valor in the fight, and many of the partisans of the late dynasty, who
were with the enemy, were made prisoners.

Thus the serious danger, which went near to cutting short the Fatimite
occupation of Egypt, was not only resolutely met, but even turned into
an advantage. There was no more intriguing on behalf of the Ikshidids;
Tinnis was recovered from its temporary defection and occupied by the
reinforcements which Moizz had hurriedly despatched under Ibn-Ammar to
the succor of Gawhar; and the Karmati fleet, which attempted to recover
this fort, was obliged to slip anchor, abandoning seven ships and five
hundred prisoners. Jaffa, which still held out resolutely against the
besieging Arabs, was now relieved by the despatch of African troops from
Cairo, who brought back the garrison, but did not dare to hold the post.
The enemy fell back upon Damascus, and the leaders fell out among
themselves.

The Karmati chief was not crushed, however, by his defeat. In the
following year he was collecting ships and Arabs for a fresh invasion.
Gawhar, who had long urged his master to come and protect his conquest,
now pointed out the extreme danger of a second attack from an enemy
which had already succeeded in boldly forcing his way to the gate of
Cairo. Moizz had delayed his journey, because he could not safely trust
his western provinces in his absence; but on the receipt of this grave
news, he appointed Yusuf Bulugin ben Zeyri, of the Berber tribe of
Sanhaga, to act as his deputy in Barbary, left Sardaniya--the
Fontainebleau of Kayrawan, as Mansuriya was its Versailles--in November,
972, and making a leisurely progress, by way of Kabis, Tripolis,
Agdabiya, and Barka, reached Alexandria in the following May. Here the
Caliph received a deputation, consisting of the cadi of Fustat and other
eminent persons, whom he moved to tears by his eloquent and virtuous
discourse. A month later he was encamped in the gardens of the monastery
near Giza, where he was reverently welcomed by his devoted servant,
Gawhar, content to efface himself in his master's shadow.

The entry of the new Caliph into his new capital was a solemn spectacle.
With him were all his sons and brothers and kinsfolk, and before him
were borne the coffins of his ancestors. Fustat was illuminated and
decked for his reception; but Moizz would not enter the old capital of
the usurping caliphs. He crossed from Roda by Gawhar's new bridge, and
proceeded direct to the palace-city of Cairo. Here he threw himself on
his face and gave thanks to God.

There was yet an ordeal to be gone through before he could regard
himself as safe. Egypt was the home of many undoubted sherifs or
descendants of Ali, and these, headed by a representative of the
distinguished Tabataba family, came boldly to examine his credentials.
Moizz must prove his title to the holy imamate inherited from Ali, to
the satisfaction of these experts in genealogy. According to the story,
the Caliph called a great assembly of the people, and invited the
sherifs to appear; then, half drawing his sword, he said:

"Here is my pedigree," and scattering gold among the spectators, added,
"and there is my proof."

It was perhaps the best argument he could produce. The sherifs could
only protest their entire satisfaction at this convincing evidence; and
it is at any rate certain that, whatever they thought of the Caliph's
claim, they did not contest it. The capital was placarded with his name,
and the praises of Ali and Moizz were acclaimed by the people, who
flocked to his first public audience. Among the presents offered him,
that of Gawhar was especially splendid, and its costliness illustrates
the colossal wealth acquired by the Fatimites. It included five hundred
horses with saddles and bridles encrusted with gold, amber, and precious
stones; tents of silk and cloth of gold, borne on Bactrian camels;
dromedaries, mules, and camels of burden; filigree coffers full of gold
and silver vessels; gold-mounted swords; caskets of chased silver
containing precious stones; a turban set with jewels, and nine hundred
boxes filled with samples of all the goods that Egypt produced.



GROWTH AND DECADENCE OF CHIVALRY

TENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURY

LÉON GAUTIER


(Writers on the history of chivalry are unable to refer its origin to
any definite time or place; and even specific definition of chivalry is
seldom attempted by careful students. They rather give us, as does
Gautier in the picturesque account which follows, some recognized
starting-point, and for definition content themselves with
characterization of the spirit and aims of chivalry, analysis of its
methods, and the story of its rise and fall.

Chivalry was not an official institution that came into existence by the
decree of a sovereign. Although religious in its original elements and
impulses, there was nothing in its origin to remind us of the foundation
of a religious order. It would be useless to search for the place of its
birth or for the name of its founder. It was born everywhere at once,
and has been everywhere at the same time the natural effect of the same
aspirations and the same needs. "There was a moment when people
everywhere felt the necessity of tempering the ardor of old German
blood, and of giving to their ill-regulated passions an ideal. Hence
chivalry!"

Yet chivalry arose from a German custom which was idealized by the
Christian church; and chivalry was more an ideal than an institution. It
was "the Christian form of the military profession; the knight was the
Christian soldier." True, the profession and mission of the church meant
the spread of peace and the hatred of war, she holding with her Master
that "they who take the sword shall perish with the sword." Her thought
was formulated by St. Augustine: "He who can think of war and can
support it without great sorrow is truly dead to human feelings." "It is
necessary," he says, "to submit to war, but to wish for peace." The
church did, however, look upon war as a divine means of punishment and
of expiation, for individuals and nations. And the eloquent Bossuet
showed the church's view of war as the terrestrial preparation for the
Kingdom of God, and described how empires fall upon one another to form
a foundation whereon to build the church. In the light of such
interpretations the church availed herself of the militant auxiliary
known as chivalry.

Along with the religious impulse that animated it, chivalry bore,
throughout its purer course, the character of knightliness which it
received from Teutonic sources. How the fine sentiments and ennobling
customs of the Teutonic nations, particularly with respect to the
gallantry and generosity of the male toward the female sex, grew into
beautiful combination with the rule of protecting the weak and
defenceless everywhere, and how these elements were blended with the
spirit of religious devotion which entered into the organization and
practices of chivalry, forms one of the most fascinating features in the
study of its development; and this gentler side, no less than its
sterner aspects, is faithfully presented in the brilliant examination of
Gautier. And the heroic sentiment and action which inspired and
accomplished the sacred warfare of the Crusades are not less admirably
depicted in these pages; while in his summary of the decline of chivalry
Gautier has perhaps never been surpassed for penetrating insight and
lucid exposition.)


There is a sentence of Tacitus--the celebrated passage in the
_Germania_--that refers to a German rite in which we really find all the
military elements of the future chivalry. The scene took place beneath
the shade of an old forest. The barbarous tribe is assembled, and one
feels that a solemn ceremony is in preparation. Into the midst of the
assembly advances a very young man, whom you can picture to yourself
with sea-green eyes, long fair hair, and perhaps some tattooing. A chief
of the tribe is present, who without delay places gravely in the hands
of the young man a _framea_ and a buckler. Failing a sovereign ruler, it
is the father of the youth, or some relative, who undertakes this
delivery of weapons. "Such is the 'virile robe' of these people," as
Tacitus well puts it; "such is the first honor of their youth. Till then
the young man was only one in a family; he becomes by this rite a member
of the Republic. _Ante hoc domus pars videtur: mox rei publicae_. This
sword and buckler he will never abandon, for the Germans in all their
acts, whether public or private, are always armed. So, the ceremony
finished, the assembly separates, and the tribe reckons a _miles_--a
warrior--the more. That is all!"

The solemn handing of arms to the young German--such is the first germ
of chivalry which Christianity was one day to animate into life.
"_Vestigium vetus creandi equites seu milites_." It is with reason that
Sainte-Palaye comments in the very same way upon the text of the
_Germania_, and that a scholar of our own days exclaims with more than
scientific exactness, "The true origin of _miles_ is this bestowal of
arms which among the Germans marks the entry into civil life."

No other origin will support the scrutiny of the critic, and he will not
find anyone now to support the theory of Roman origin with Sainte-Marie,
or that of the Arabian origin with Beaumont. There only remains to
explain in this place the term knight (chevalier), but it is well known
to be derived from _caballus_, which primarily signifies a beast of
burden, a pack-horse, and has ended by signifying a war-horse. The
knight, also, has always preserved the name of _miles_ in the Latin
tongue of the Middle Ages, in which chivalry is always called _militia_.
Nothing can be clearer than this.

We do not intend to go further, however, without replying to two
objections, which are not without weight, and which we do not wish to
leave behind us unanswered.

In a certain number of Latin books of the Middle Ages we find, to
describe chivalry, an expression which the "Romanists" oppose
triumphantly to us, and of which the Romish origin cannot seriously be
doubted. When it is intended to signify that a knight has been created,
it is stated that the individual has been girt with the _cingulum
militare_. Here we find ourselves in full Roman parlance, and the word
signified certain terms which described admission into military service,
the release from this service, and the degradation of the legionary.
When St. Martin left the militia, his action was qualified as _solutio
cinguli_, and at all those who act like him the insulting expression
_militaribus zonis discincti_ is cast. The girdle which sustains the
sword of the Roman officer--_cingulum zona_, or rather _cinctorium_--as
also the baldric, from _balteus_, passed over the shoulder and was
intended to support the weapon of the common soldier. "You perceive
quite well," say our adversaries, "that we have to do with a Roman
costume." Two very simple observations will, perhaps, suffice to get to
the bottom of such a specious argument: The first is that the Germans in
early times wore, in imitation of the Romans, "a wide belt ornamented
with bosses of metal," a baldric, by which their swords were suspended
on the left side; and the second is that the chroniclers of old days,
who wrote in Latin and affected the classic style, very naturally
adopted the word _cingulum_ in all its acceptations, and made use of
this Latin paraphrasis--_cingulo militari decorare_--to express this
solemn adoption of the sword. This evidently German custom was always
one of the principal rites of the collation of chivalry. There is then
nothing more in it than a somewhat vague reminiscence of a Roman custom
with a very natural conjunction of terms which has always been the habit
of a literary people.

To sum up, the word is Roman, but the thing itself is German. Between
the _militia_ of the Romans and the chivalry of the Middle Ages there is
really nothing in common but the military profession considered
generally. The official admittance of the Roman soldier to an army
hierarchically organized in no way resembled the admission of a new
knight into a sort of military college and the "pink of society." As we
read further the singularly primitive and barbarous ritual of the
service of knightly reception in the twelfth century, one is persuaded
that the words exhale a German odor, and have nothing Roman about them.
But there is another argument, and one which would appear decisive. The
Roman legionary could not, as a rule, withdraw from the service; he
could not avoid the baldric. The youthful knight of the Middle Ages, on
the contrary, was always free to arm himself or not as he pleased, just
as other cavaliers are at liberty to leave or join their ranks. The
principal characteristic of the knightly service, and one which
separates it most decidedly from the Roman _militia_, was its freedom of
action.

One very specious objection is made as regards feudalism, which some
clear-minded people obstinately confound with chivalry. This was the
favorite theory of Montalembert. Now there are two kinds of feudalism,
which the old feudalists put down very clearly in two words now out of
date--"fiefs of dignity" and "fiefs simple." About the middle of the
ninth century, the dukes and counts made themselves independent of the
central power, and declared that people owed the same allegiance to them
as they did to the emperor or the king. Such were the acts of the "fiefs
of dignity," and we may at once allow that they had nothing in common
with chivalry. The "fiefs simple," then, remained.

In the Merovingian period we find a certain number of small proprietors,
called _vassi_, commending themselves to other men more powerful and
more rich, who were called _seniores_. To his senior who made him a
present of land the _vassus_ owed assistance and fidelity. It is true
that as early as the reign of Charlemagne he followed him to war, but it
must be noted that it was to the emperor, to the central power, that he
actually rendered military service. There was nothing very particular in
this, but the time was approaching when things would be altered. Toward
the middle of the ninth century we find a large number of men falling
"on their knees" before other men! What are they about? They are
"recommending" themselves, but, in plainer terms, "Protect us and we
will be your men." And they added: "It is to you and to you only that we
intend in future to render military service; but in exchange you must
protect the land we possess--defend what you will in time concede to us;
and defend _us_ ourselves." These people on their knees were "vassals"
at the feet of their "lords"; and the fief was generally only a grant of
land conceded in exchange for military service.

Feudalism of this nature has nothing in common with chivalry.

If we consider chivalry in fact as a kind of privileged body into which
men were received on certain conditions and with a certain ritual, it is
important to observe that every vassal is not necessarily a cavalier.
There were vassals who, with the object of averting the cost of
initiation or for other reasons, remained _damoiseaux_, or pages, all
their lives. The majority, of course, did nothing of the kind; but all
could do so, and a great many did.

On the other hand we see conferred the dignity of chivalry upon
insignificant people who had never held fiefs, who owed to no one any
fealty, and to whom no one owed any.

We cannot repeat too often that it was not the cavalier (or knight), it
was the _vassal_ who owed military service, or _ost_, to the _seigneur_,
or lord; and the service _in curte_ or _court_: it was the vassal, not
the knight, who owed to the "lord" relief, "aid," homage.

The feudal system soon became hereditary. Chivalry, on the contrary, has
never been hereditary, and a special rite has always been necessary to
create a knight. In default of all other arguments this would be
sufficient.

But if, instead of regarding chivalry as an institution, we consider it
as an ideal, the doubt is not really more admissible. It is here that,
in the eyes of a philosophic historian, chivalry is clearly distinct
from feudalism. If the western world in the ninth century had _not_ been
feudalized, chivalry would nevertheless have come into existence; and,
notwithstanding everything, it would have come to light in Christendom;
for chivalry is nothing more than the Christianized form of military
service, the armed _force_ in the service of the unarmed Truth; and it
was inevitable that at some time or other it must have sprung, living
and fully armed, from the brain of the church, as Minerva did from the
brain of Jupiter.

Feudalism, on the contrary, is not of Christian origin at all. It is a
particular form of government, and of society, which has scarcely been
less rigorous for the church than other forms of society and government.
Feudalism has disputed with the church over and over again, while
chivalry has protected her a hundred times. Feudalism is force--chivalry
is the brake.

Let us look at Godfrey de Bouillon. The fact that he owed homage to any
suzerain, the fact that he exacted service from such and such vassals,
are questions which concern feudal rights, and have nothing to do with
chivalry. But if I contemplate him in battle beneath the walls of
Jerusalem; if I am a spectator of his entry into the Holy City; if I see
him ardent, brave, powerful and pure, valiant and gentle, humble and
proud, refusing to wear the golden crown in the Holy City where Jesus
wore the crown of thorns, I am not then anxious--I am not curious--to
learn from whom he holds his fief, or to know the names of his vassals;
and I exclaim, "There is the knight!" And how many knights, what
chivalrous virtues, have existed in the Christian world since feudalism
has ceased to exist!

The adoption of arms in the German fashion remains the true origin of
chivalry; and the Franks have handed down this custom to us--a custom
perpetuated to a comparatively modern period. This simple, almost rude
rite so decidedly marked the line of civil life in the code of manners
of people of German origin, that under the Carlovingians we still find
numerous traces of it. In 791 Louis, eldest son of Charlemagne, was only
thirteen years old, and yet he had worn the crown of Aquitaine for three
years upon his "baby brow." The king of the Franks felt that it was time
to bestow upon this child the military consecration which would more
quickly assure him of the respect of his people. He summoned him to
Ingelheim, then to Ratisbon, and solemnly girded him with the sword
which "makes men." He did not trouble himself about the framea or the
buckler--the sword occupied the first place. It will retain it for a
long time.

In 838 at Kiersy we have a similar scene. This time it is old Louis who,
full of sadness and nigh to death, bestows upon his son Charles, whom he
loved so well, the "virile arms"--that is to say, the sword. Then
immediately afterward he put upon his brow the crown of "Neustria."
Charles was fifteen years old.

These examples are not numerous, but their importance is decisive, and
they carry us to the time when the church came to intervene positively
in the education of the German _miles_. The time was rough, and it is
not easy to picture a more distracted period than that in the ninth and
tenth centuries. The great idea of the Roman Empire no longer, in the
minds of the people, coincided with the idea of the Frankish kingdom,
but rather inclined, so to speak, to the side of Germany, where it
tended to fix itself. Countries were on the way to be formed, and people
were asking to which country they could best belong. Independent
kingdoms were founded which had no precedents and were not destined to
have a long life. The Saracens were for the last time harassing the
southern French coasts, but it was not so with the Norman pirates, for
they did not cease for a single year to ravage the littoral which is now
represented by the Picardy and Normandy coasts, until the day it became
necessary to cede the greater part of it to them. People were fighting
everywhere more or less--family against family--man to man. No road was
safe, the churches were burned, there was universal terror, and everyone
sought protection. The king had no longer strength to resist anyone, and
the counts made themselves kings. The sun of the realm was set, and one
had to look at the stars for light. As soon as the people perceived a
strong man-at-arms, resolute, defiant, well established in his wooden
keep, well fortified within the lines of his hedge, behind his palisade
of dead branches, or within his barriers of planks; well posted on his
hill, against his rock, or on his hillock, and dominating all the
surrounding country--as soon as they saw this each said to him, "I am
your man"; and all these weak ones grouped themselves around the strong
one, who next day proceeded to wage war with his neighbors. Thence
supervened a terrible series of private wars. Everyone was fighting or
thinking of fighting.

In addition to this, the still green memory of the grand figure of
Charlemagne and the old empire, and I can't tell what imperial
splendors, were still felt in the air of great cities; all hearts
throbbed at the mere thought of the Saracens and the Holy Sepulchre; the
crusade gathered strength of preparation far in advance, in the rage and
indignation of all the Christian race; all eyes were turned toward
Jerusalem, and in the midst of so many disbandments and so much
darkness, the unity of the church survived fallen majesty!

It was then, it was in that horrible hour--the decisive epoch in our
history--that the church undertook the education of the Christian
soldier; and it was at that time, by a resolute step, she found the
feudal baron in his rude wooden citadel, and proposed to him an ideal.
This ideal was chivalry!

That chivalry may be considered a great military confraternity as well
as an eighth sacrament, will be conceded. But, before familiarizing
themselves with these ideals, the rough spirits of the ninth, tenth, and
eleventh centuries had to learn the principles of them. The chivalrous
ideal was not conceived "all of a piece," and certainly it did not
triumph without sustained effort; so it was by degrees, and very slowly,
that the church succeeded in inoculating the almost animal intelligence
and the untrained minds of our ancestors with so many virtues.

In the hands of the church, which wished to mould him into a Christian
knight, the feudal baron was a very intractable individual. No one could
be more brutal or more barbarous than he. Our more ancient
ballads--those which are founded on the traditions of the ninth and
tenth centuries--supply us with a portrait which does not appear
exaggerated. I know nothing in this sense more terrible than _Raoul de
Cambrai_, and the hero of this old poem would pass for a type of a
half-civilized savage. This Raoul was a kind of Sioux or other redskin,
who only wanted tattoo and feathers in his hair to be complete. Even a
redskin is a believer, or superstitious to some extent, while Raoul
defied the Deity himself. The savage respects his mother, as a rule; but
Raoul laughed at his mother, who cursed him. Behold him as he invaded
the Vermandois, contrary to all the rights of legitimate heirs. He
pillaged, burned, and slew in all directions: he was everywhere
pitiless, cruel, horrible. But at Origni he appears in all his ferocity.
"You will erect my tent in the church, you will make my bed before the
altar, and put my hawks on the golden crucifix." Now that church
belonged to a convent. What did that signify to him? He burned the
convent, he burned the church, he burned the nuns! Among them was the
mother of his most faithful servitor, Bernier--his most devoted
companion and friend--almost his brother! but he burned her with the
others. Then, when the flames were still burning, he sat himself down,
on a fast-day, to feast amid the scenes of his sanguinary
exploits--defying God and man, his hands steeped in blood, his face
lifted to heaven. That was the kind of soldier, the savage of the tenth
century, whom the church had to educate!

Unfortunately this Raoul de Cambrai is not a unique specimen; he was not
the only one who had uttered this ferocious speech: "I shall not be
happy until I see your heart cut out of your body." Aubri de Bourguignon
was not less cruel, and took no trouble to curb his passions. Had he the
right to massacre? He knew nothing about that, but meanwhile he
continued to kill. "Bah!" he would say, "it is always an enemy the
less." On one occasion he slew his four cousins. He was as sensual as
cruel. His thick-skinned savagery did not appear to feel either shame or
remorse; he was strong and had a weighty hand--that was sufficient.
Ogier was scarcely any better, but notwithstanding all the glory
attaching to his name, I know nothing more saddening than the final
episode of the rude poem attributed to Raimbert of Paris. The son of
Ogier, Baudouinet, had been slain by the son of Charlemagne, who called
himself Charlot. Ogier did nothing but breathe vengeance, and would not
agree to assist Christendom against the Saracen invaders unless the
unfortunate Charlot was delivered to him. He wanted to kill him, he
determined to kill him, and he rejoiced over it in anticipation. In vain
did Charlot humble himself before this brute, and endeavor to pacify him
by the sincerity of his repentance; in vain the old Emperor himself
prayed most earnestly to God; in vain the venerable Naimes, the Nestor
of our ballads, offered to serve Ogier all the rest of his life, and
begged the Dane "not to forget the Saviour, who was born of the Virgin
at Bethlehem." All their devotion and prayers were unavailing. Ogier,
pitiless, placed one of his heavy hands on the youthful head, and with
the other drew his sword, his terrible sword "Courtain." Nothing less
than the intervention of an angel from heaven could have put an end to
this terrible scene in which all the savagery of the German forests was
displayed.

The majority of these early heroes had no other shibboleth than "I am
going to separate the head from the trunk!" It was their war-cry. But if
you desire something more frightful still, something more "primitive,"
you have only to open the _Loherains_ at hazard, and read a few stanzas
of that raging ballad of "derring-do," and you will almost fancy you are
perusing one of those pages in which Livingstone describes in such
indignant terms the manners of some tribe in Central Africa. Read this:
"Begue struck Isore upon his black helmet through the golden circlet,
cutting him to the chine; then he plunged into his body his sword
Flamberge with the golden hilt; took the heart out with both hands, and
threw it, still warm, at the head of William, saying, 'There is your
cousin's heart; you can salt and roast it.'" Here words fail us; it
would be too tame to say with Goedecke, "These heroes act like the
forces of nature, in the manner of the hurricane which knows no pity."
We must use more indignant terms than these, for we are truly amid
cannibals. Once again we say, there was the warrior, there was the
savage whom the church had to elevate and educate!

Such is the point of departure of this wonderful progress; such are the
refractory elements out of which chivalry and the knight have been
fashioned.

The point of departure is Raoul of Cambrai burning Origni. The point of
arrival is Girard of Roussillon falling one day at the feet of an old
priest and expiating his former pride by twenty-two years of penitence.
These two episodes embrace many centuries between them.

A very interesting study might be made of the gradual transformation
from the redskin to the knight; it might be shown how, and at what
period of history, each of the virtues of chivalry penetrated
victoriously into the undisciplined souls of these brutal warriors who
were our ancestors; it might be determined at what moment the church
became strong enough to impose upon our knights the great duties of
defending it and of loving one another.

This victory was attained in a certain number of cases undoubtedly
toward the end of the eleventh century: and the knight appears to us
perfected, finished, radiant, in the most ancient edition of the
_Chanson of Roland_, which is considered to have been produced between
1066 and 1095.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that chivalry was no longer in
course of establishment when Pope Urban II threw with a powerful hand
the whole of the Christian West upon the East, where the Tomb of Christ
was in possession of the Infidel.

In legendary lore the embodiment of chivalry is Roland: in history it is
Godfrey de Bouillon. There are no more worthy names than these.

The decadence of chivalry--and when one is speaking of human
institutions, sooner or later this word must be used--perhaps set in
sooner than historians can believe. We need not attach too much
importance to the grumblings of certain poets, who complain of their
time with an evidently exaggerated bitterness, and we do not care for
our own part to take literally the testimony of the unknown author of
_La Vie de Saint Alexis_, who exclaims--about the middle of the eleventh
century--that everything is degenerate and all is lost! Thus: "In olden
times the world was good. Justice and love were springs of action in it.
People then had faith, which has disappeared from amongst us. The world
is entirely changed. The world has lost its healthy color. It is
pale--it has grown old. It is growing worse, and will soon cease
altogether."

The poet exaggerates in a very singular manner the evil which he
perceives around him, and one might aver that, far from bordering upon
old age, chivalry was then almost in the very zenith of its glory. The
twelfth century was its apogee, and it was not until the thirteenth that
it manifested the first symptoms of decay.

"_Li maus est moult want_" exclaims the author of _Godfrey de Bouillon_,
and he adds, sadly, "_Tos li biens est finés_."

He was more correct in speaking thus than was the author of _Saint
Alexis_ in his complainings, for the decadence of chivalry actually
commenced in his time. And it is not unreasonable to inquire into the
causes of its decay.

_The Romance of the Round Table_, which in the opinion of prepossessed
or thoughtless critics appears so profoundly chivalrous, may be
considered one of the works which hastened the downfall of chivalry. We
are aware that by this seeming paradox we shall probably scandalize some
of our readers, who look upon these adventurous cavaliers as veritable
knights. What does it matter? _Avienne que puet_. The heroes of our
_chansons de geste_ are really the authorized representatives and types
of the society of their time, and not those fine adventure-seeking
individuals who have been so brilliantly sketched by the pencil of
Crétien de Troyes.

It is true, however, that this charming and delicate spirit did not
give, in his works, an accurate idea of his century and generation. We
do not say that he embellished all he touched, but only that he
enlivened it. Notwithstanding all that one could say about it, this
school introduced the old Gaelic spirit into a poetry which had been
till then chiefly Christian or German. Our epic poems are of German
origin, and the _Table Round_ is of Celtic origin. Sensual and light,
witty and delicate, descriptive and charming, these pleasing romances
are never masculine, and become too often effeminate and effeminating.
They sing always, or nearly so, the same theme. By lovely pasturages
clothed with beautiful flowers, the air full of birds, a young knight
proceeds in search of the unknown, and through a series of adventures
whose only fault is that they resemble one another somewhat too closely.

We find insolent defiances, magnificent duels, enchanted castles, tender
love-scenes, mysterious talismans. The marvellous mingles with the
supernatural, magicians with saints, fairies with angels. The whole is
written in a style essentially French, and it must be confessed in
clear, polished, and chastened language--perfect!

But we must not forget, as we said just now, that this poetry, so
greatly attractive, began as early as the twelfth century to be the mode
universally; and let us not forget that it was at the same period that
the _Percevalde Gallois_ and _Aliscans, Cleomadès_, and the
_Couronnement Looys_ were written. The two schools have coexisted for
many centuries: both camps have enjoyed the favor of the public. But in
such a struggle it was all too easy to decide to which of them the
victory would eventually incline. The ladies decided it, and no doubt
the greater number of them wept over the perusal of _Erec_ or _Enid_
more than over that of the _Covenant Vivien_ or _Raoul de Cambrai_.

When the grand century of the Middle Ages had closed, when the blatant
thirteenth century commenced, the sentimental had already gained the
advantage over our old classic _chansons_; and the new school, the
romantic set of the _Table Round_, triumphed! Unfortunately, they also
triumphed in their manners; and they were the knights of the Round Table
who, with the Valois, seated themselves upon the throne of France.

In this way temerity replaced true courage; so good, polite manners
replaced heroic rudeness; so foolish generosity replaced the charitable
austerity of the early chivalry. It was the love of the unforeseen even
in the military art; the rage for adventure--even in politics. We know
whither this strategy and these theatrical politics led us, and that
Joan of Arc and Providence were required to drag us out of the
consequences.

The other causes of the decadence of the spirit of chivalry are more
difficult to determine. There is one of them which has not, perhaps,
been sufficiently brought to light, and this is--will it be
believed?--the exdevelopment of certain orders of chivalry! This
statement requires some explanation.

We must confess that we are enthusiastic, passionate admirers of these
grand military orders which were formed at the commencement of the
twelfth century. There have never been their like in the world, and it
was only given to Christianity to display to us such a spectacle. To
give to one single soul the double ideal of the soldier and the monk, to
impose upon him this double charge, to fix in one these two conditions
and in one only these two duties, to cause to spring from the earth I
cannot tell how many thousands of men who voluntarily accepted this
burden, and who were not crushed by it--that is a problem which one
might have been pardoned for thinking insoluble. We have not
sufficiently considered it. We have not pictured to ourselves with
sufficient vividness the Templars and the Hospitallers in the midst of
one of those great battles in the Holy Land in which the fate of the
world was in the balance.

No: painters have not sufficiently portrayed them in the arid plains of
Asia forming an incomparable squadron in the midst of the battle. One
might talk forever and yet not say too much about the charge of the
Cuirassiers at Reichshoffen; but how many times did the Hospitaller
knights and the Templars charge in similar fashion? Those soldier-monks,
in truth, invented a new idea of courage. Unfortunately they were not
always fighting, and peace troubled some of them. They became too rich,
and their riches lowered them in the eyes of men and before heaven. We
do not intend to adopt all the calumnies which have been circulated
concerning the Templars, but it is difficult not to admit that many of
these accusations had some foundation. The Hospitallers, at any rate,
have given no ground for such attacks. They, thank heaven, remained
undefiled, if not poor, and were an honor to that chivalry which others
had compromised and emasculated.

But when all is said, that which best became chivalry, the spice which
preserved it the most surely, was poverty!

Love of riches had not only attacked the chivalrous orders, but in a
very short space of time all knights caught the infection. Sensuality
and enjoyment had penetrated into their castles. "Scarcely had they
received the knightly baldric before they commenced to break the
commandments and to pillage the poor. When it became necessary to go to
war, their sumpter-horses were laden with wine, and not with weapons;
with leathern bottles instead of swords; with spits instead of lances.
One might have fancied, in truth, that they were going out to dinner,
and not to fight. It is true their shields were beautifully gilt, but
they were kept in a virgin and unused condition. Chivalrous combats were
represented upon their bucklers and their saddles, certainly; but that
was all!"

Now who is it who writes thus? It is not, as one might fancy, an author
of the fifteenth century--it is a writer of the twelfth; and the
greatest satirist, somewhat excessive and unjust in his statements, the
Christian Juvenal whom we have just quoted, was none other than Peter of
Blois.

A hundred other witnesses might be cited in support of these indignant
words. But if there is some exaggeration in them, we are compelled to
confess that there is a considerable substratum of truth also.

These abuses--which wealth engendered, which more than one poet has
stigmatized--attracted, in the fourteenth century, the attention of an
important individual, a person whose name occupies a worthy place in
literature and history. Philip of Mezières, chancellor of Cyprus under
Peter of Lusignan, was a true knight, who one day conceived the idea of
reforming chivalry. Now the way he found most feasible in accomplishing
his object, in arriving at such a difficult and complex reform, was to
found a new order of chivalry himself, to which he gave the
high-sounding title of "the Chivalry of the Passion of Christ."

The decadence of chivalry is attested, alas! by the very character of
the reformers by which this well-meaning Utopian attempted to oppose it.
The good knight complains of the great advances of sensuality, and
permits and advises the marriage of all knights. He complains of the
accursed riches which the Hospitallers themselves were putting to a bad
use, and forbade them in his _Institutions_; but nevertheless the
luxurious habits of his time had an influence upon his mind, and he
permitted his knights to wear the most extravagant costumes, and the
dignitaries of his order to adopt the most high-sounding titles. There
was something mystical in all this conception, and something theatrical
in all this agency. It is hardly necessary to add that the "Chivalry of
the Passion" was only a beautiful dream, originating in a generous mind.
Notwithstanding the adherence of some brilliant personages, the order
never attained to more than a theoretical organization, and had only a
fictitious foundation. The idea of the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre
from the Infidel was hardly the object of the fifteenth-century
chivalry; for the struggle between France and England then was engaging
the most courageous warriors and the most practised swords. Decay
hurried on apace!

This was not the only cause of such a fatal falling away. The portals of
chivalry had been opened to too many unworthy candidates. It had been
made vulgar! In consequence of having become so cheap the grand title of
"knight" was degraded. Eustace Deschamps, in his fine, straightforward
way, states the scandal boldly and "lashes" it with his tongue. He says:
"Picture to yourself the fact that the degree of knighthood is about to
be conferred now upon babies of eight and ten years old."

Well might this excellent man exclaim in another place: "Disorders
always go on gathering strength, and even incomparable knights like Du
Guesclin and Bayard cannot arrest the fatal course of the institution
toward ruin." Chivalry was destined to disappear.

It is very important that one should make one's self acquainted with the
true character of such a downfall. France and England in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries still boasted many high-bred knights. They
exchanged the most superb defiances, the most audacious challenges, and
proceeded from one country to another to run each other through the body
proudly. The Beaumanoirs, who drank their blood, abounded. It was a
question who would engage himself in the most incredible pranks; who
would commit the most daring folly! They tell us afterward of the
beautiful passages of arms, the grand feats performed, and the
inimitable Froissart is the most charming of all these narrators, who
make their readers as chivalrous as themselves.

But we must tell everything: among these knights in beautiful armor
there was a band of adventurers who never observed, and who could not
understand, certain commandments of the ancient chivalry. The laxity of
luxury had everywhere replaced the rigorous enactments of the old
manliness, and even warriors themselves loved their ease too much. The
religious sentiment was not the dominant one in their minds, in which
the idea of a crusade now never entered. They had not sufficient respect
for the weakness of the Church nor for other failings. They no longer
felt themselves the champions of the good and the enemies of evil. Their
sense of justice had become warped, as had love for their great native
land.

Again, what they termed "the license of camps" had grown very much
worse; and we know in what condition Joan of Arc found the army of the
King. Blasphemy and ribaldry in every quarter. The noble girl swept away
these pests, but the effect of her action was not long-lived. She was
the person to reestablish chivalry, which in her found the purity of its
now-effaced type; but she died too soon, and had not sufficient
imitators.

There were, after her time, many chivalrous souls, and, thank heaven,
there are still some among us; but the old institution is no longer with
us. The events which we have had the misfortune to witness do not give
us any ground to hope that chivalry, extinct and dead, will rise again
to-morrow to light and life.

In St. Louis' time, caricature and parody--they were low-class forces,
but forces nevertheless--had already commenced the work of destruction.
We are in possession of an abominable little poem of the thirteenth
century, which is nothing but a scatological pamphlet directed against
chivalry. This ignoble _Audigier_, the author of which is the basest of
men, is not the only attack which one may disinter from amid the
literature of that period. If one wishes to draw up a really complete
list it would be necessary to include the _jabliaux_--the _Renart_ and
the _Rose_, which constitute the most anti-chivalrous--I had nearly
written the most Voltairian--works that I am acquainted with. The thread
is easy enough to follow from the twelfth century down to the author of
_Don Quixote_--which I do not confound with its infamous predecessors--
to Cervantes, whose work has been fatal, but whose mind was elevated.

However that may be, parody and the parodists were themselves a cause of
decay. They weakened morals. Gallic-like, they popularized little
_bourgeois_ sentiments, narrow-minded, satirical sentiments; they
inoculated manly souls with contempt for such great things as one
performs disinterestedly. This disdain is a sure element of decay, and
we may regard it as an announcement of death.

Against the knights who, here and there, showed themselves unworthy and
degenerate, was put in practice the terrible apparatus of degradation.
Modern historians of chivalry have not failed to describe in detail all
the rites of this solemn punishment, and we have presented to us a scene
which is well calculated to excite the imagination of the most
matter-of-fact, and to make the most timid heart swell.

The knight judicially condemned to submit to this shame was first
conducted to a scaffold, where they broke or trod under foot all his
weapons. He saw his shield, with device effaced, turned upside down and
trailed in the mud. Priests, after reciting prayers for the vigil of the
dead, pronounced over his head the psalm, "_Deus laudem meam_," which
contains terrible maledictions against traitors. The herald of arms who
carried out this sentence took from the hands of the pursuivant of arms
a basin full of dirty water, and threw it all over the head of the
recreant knight in order to wash away the sacred character which had
been conferred upon him by the accolade. The guilty one, degraded in
this way, was subsequently thrown upon a hurdle, or upon a stretcher,
covered with a mortuary cloak, and finally carried to the church, where
they repeated the same prayers and the same ceremonies as for the dead.

This was really terrible, even if somewhat theatrical, and it is easy to
see that this complicated ritual contained only a very few ancient
elements. In the twelfth century the ceremonial of degradation was
infinitely more simple. The spurs were hacked off close to the heels of
the guilty knight. Nothing could be more summary or more significant.
Such a person was publicly denounced as unworthy to ride on horseback,
and consequently quite unworthy to be a knight. The more ancient and
chivalrous, the less theatrical is it. It is so in many other
institutions in the histories of all nations.

That such a penalty may have prevented a certain number of treasons and
forfeitures we willingly admit, but one cannot expect it to preserve all
the whole body of chivalry from that decadence from which no institution
of human establishment can escape.

Notwithstanding inevitable weaknesses and accidents, the Decalogue of
Chivalry has none the less been regnant in some millions of souls which
it has made pure and great. These ten commandments have been the rules
and the reins of youthful generations, who without them would have been
wild and undisciplined. This legislation, in fact--which, to tell the
truth, is only one of the chapters of the great Catholic Code--has
raised the moral level of humanity.

Besides, chivalry is not yet quite dead. No doubt, the ritual of
chivalry, the solemn reception, the order itself, and the ancient oaths,
no longer exist. No doubt, among these grand commandments there are many
which are known only to the erudite, and which the world is unacquainted
with. The Catholic Faith is no longer the essence of modern chivalry;
the Church is no longer seated on the throne around which the old
knights stand with their drawn swords; Islam is no longer the hereditary
enemy; we have another which threatens us nearer home; widows and
orphans have need rather of the tongues of advocates than of the iron
weapon of the knights; there are no more duties toward liege-lords to be
fulfilled; and we even do not want any kind of superior lord at all;
_largesse_ is now confounded with charity; and the becoming hatred of
evil-doing is no longer our chief, our best, passion!

But whatever we may do there still remains to us, in the marrow, a
certain leaven of chivalry which preserves us from death. There are
still in the world an immense number of fine souls--strong and upright
souls--who hate all that is small and mean, who know and who practise
all the delicate promptings of honor, and who prefer death to an
unworthy action or to a lie!

That is what we owe to chivalry, that is what it has bequeathed to us.
On the day when these last vestiges of such a grand past are effaced
from our souls--we shall cease to exist!



CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR THE GREAT

INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO RUSSIA

A.D. 988-1015

A. N. MOURAVIEFF


(According to early Greek and Roman writers, Russia in their time was
inhabited by Scythians and Sarmatians. The Greeks established commercial
relations with the most southerly tribes. In the fourth and fifth
centuries, during the migrations of the nations, Russia was invaded by
Goths, Alans, Huns, Avars, and Bulgarians, who, however, made no
settlements. They were followed by the Slavs, who are looked upon as the
Sarmatians already mentioned.

The Slavs settled as far north as the upper Volga. The chief settlements
were Novgorod and Kieff, which became the capitals of independent
principalities, Novgorod especially becoming an important commercial and
trading centre.

The commerce northward through the Baltic was subject to the attacks of
the Scandinavian Northmen, known as Varangians. They demanded tribute of
the Slavs, and on its refusal attacked and captured Novgorod. A little
later Novgorod established its independence as a republic; but within a
few years we find this section controlled by a Varangian tribe from Rus,
a district of Sweden. This tribe was led by three brothers, Ruric the
Peaceful, Sineous the Victorious, and Trouvor the Faithful, who settled
and ruled in different parts of the country.

In 864, on the death of his brothers, Ruric consolidated their
territories with his, assumed the title of grand prince, peaceably took
possession of Novgorod and made it his capital, naming the country
Russia, after his native place.

With the advent of the Varangians the authentic history of Russia
begins. The millenary of that event was celebrated in 1862 at Novgorod,
as the foundation of the Russian empire.

Ruric died in 879. In the next hundred years his successors conquered
many neighboring lands and added them to the empire. Kieff became the
capital. Numerous invasions into the territory of the Greek empire were
made and Constantinople was frequently attacked, resulting sometimes in
repulse, and at others in exacting heavy tribute from the Eastern
Emperor. Treaties were executed and a gradual growth of commerce and
intercourse between the Greeks and Russians took place. Olga, the famous
and popular widow of Ruric's son, Igor, became a Christian and was
baptized in Constantinople in 955, and during the rest of her life lent
her powerful influence to the spread of the faith. And though her son,
the emperor Sviatoslaf, remained a pagan throughout his reign,
Christianity continued to grow, and the general Christianization of
Russia during the reign of her grandson, Vladimir, was aided materially
by the great example of the good queen Olga.

In 970 Sviatoslaf divided his empire among his three sons, Iaropolk I,
Oleg, and Vladimir. After the death of Sviatoslaf in 972 civil war began
between the three brothers. Oleg was killed and Vladimir fled to Sweden.
In 980, supported by a force of Varangians, Vladimir returned, captured
Novgorod and Kieff, and put Iaropolk to death. Under Vladimir, later
known as Vladimir the Great, Russia increased in importance, and
civilization was enhanced by the spread of Christianity through the
missionary efforts of the Greek Church, now the Holy, Orthodox,
Catholic, Apostolic, Oriental Church. It is, therefore, not strange that
the Russian prelates were distinguished by their loyalty and fidelity to
the Greek Church throughout the continued conflicts between it and the
Roman Church which resulted in their separation in 1054.

In the fifteenth century, with the consent of the patriarchate of
Constantinople, the Orthodox Graeco-Russian Church assumed national
independence, and became the state church; and after the establishment
of Mahometanism in Constantinople, since its capture by Mahomet II in
1453, the reigning Czar of Russia has come to be regarded not only as
the temporal and spiritual head of the Greek Church by the great mass of
adherents which form the bulk of the population in Russia, but also as
the champion of all the followers of the church in Greece and throughout
the orient.

The story of the introduction of Christianity into Russia presents an
interesting psychological study of the growth and development of the
religious sentiment inherent in man--be he never so brutalized and
barbarous. Notwithstanding its display of national pride and bias,
pardonable in a native historian, Mouravieff's account is exceedingly
interesting.)


The Russian Church, like the other orthodox churches of the East, had an
apostle for its founder. St. Andrew, the first called of the Twelve,
hailed with his blessing long beforehand the destined introduction of
Christianity into our country; ascending up and penetrating by the
Dnieper into the deserts of Scythia, he planted the first cross on the
hills of Kieff. "See you," said he to his disciples, "these hills? On
these hills shall shine the light of divine grace. There shall be here a
great city, and God shall have in it many churches to his name."

Such are the words of the holy Nestor, the monk and annalist of the
Pechersky monastery, that point from whence Christian Russia has sprung.

But it was only after an interval of nine centuries that the rays of
divine light beamed upon Russia from the walls of Byzantium, in which
city the same apostle, St. Andrew, had appointed Stachys to be the first
bishop, and so committed, as it were, to him and to his successors, in
the spirit of prescience, the charge of that wide region in which he had
himself preached Christ. Hence the indissoluble connection of the
Russian with the Greek Church, and the dependence of her metropolitans
during six centuries upon the patriarchal throne of Constantinople,
until, with its consent, she obtained her own equality and independence
in that which was accorded to her native primates.

The Bulgarians of the Danube, the Moravians, and the Slavonians of
Illyria had been already enlightened by holy baptism about the middle of
the ninth century, during the reign of the Greek emperor Michael and the
patriarchate of the illustrious Photius. St. Cyril and St. Methodius,
two learned Greek brothers, translated into the Slavonic the New
Testament and the books used in divine service, and according to some
accounts even the whole Bible.

This translation of the Word of God became afterward a most blessed
instrument for the conversion of the Russians, for the missionaries were
by it enabled to expound the truths of the Gospel to the heathens in
their native dialect, and so win for them a readier entrance to their
hearts.

Oskold and Dir, two princes of Kieff and the companions of Ruric, were
the first of the Russians who embraced Christianity. In the year 866
they made their appearance in armed vessels before the walls of
Constantinople when the Emperor was absent, and threw the Greek capital
into no little alarm and confusion. Tradition reports that "The
patriarch Photius took the virginal robe of the Mother of God from the
Blachern Church, and plunged it beneath the waves of the strait, when
the sea immediately boiled up from underneath and wrecked the vessels of
the heathen. Struck with awe, they believed in that God who had smitten
them, and became the first-fruits of their people to the Lord." The hymn
of victory of the Greek Church, "To the protecting Conductress," in
honor of the most holy Virgin, has remained a memorial of this triumph,
and even now concludes the _Office for the First Hour_ in the daily
_Matins_; for that was, indeed, the first hour of salvation to the land
of Russia.

It is probable that on their return to their own country the princes of
Kieff sowed there the seeds of Christianity; for, eighty years
afterward, on occasion of a conference for peace between the prince Igor
and certain Byzantine ambassadors, we find mention already of a "Church
of the Prophet Elias" in Kieff where the Christian Varangians swore to
the observance of the treaty. Constantine Porphyrogenitus and other
Greek annalists even relate that in the lifetime of Oskold there was a
bishop sent to the Russians by the emperor Basil the Macedonian, and the
patriarch St. Ignatius, and that he made many converts, chiefly "in
consequence of the miraculous preservation of a volume of the Gospels,
which was thrown publicly into the flames and taken out after some time
unconsumed." Also in Condinus, _Catalogue of Sees Subject to the
Patriarch of Constantinople_, the metropolitical see of Russia appears
as early as the year 891.

Lastly, it is certain that many of the Varangians who served in the
imperial bodyguard were Christians, and that the Greek sovereigns never
lost sight of any opportunity of converting them to their own faith, by
which they hoped to soften their savage manners. When the emperor Leo
was concluding a peace with Oleg, he showed not only his own treasures
to the ambassadors of the Russian prince, but also the splendor of the
churches, the holy relics, the precious _icons_, and the "Instruments of
the Passion of our Lord," if by any means they might catch from them the
spirit of the faith.

Some such influences as these, while Christianity as yet was only
struggling for an uncertain existence at Kieff, produced in good time
their effect on the wisest of the daughters of the Slavonians, the
widowed princess Olga, who governed Russia during the minority of her
son Sviatoslaf. She undertook a voyage to Constantinople for no other
end than to obtain a knowledge of the true God, and there she received
baptism at the hands of the patriarch Polyeuctes; the emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself, who admired her wisdom, being her
godfather. Nestor draws an affecting picture of the patriarch
foretelling to the newly illumined princess the blessings which were to
descend by her means on future generations of the Russians, while Olga,
now become Helena by baptism--that she might resemble both in name and
deed the mother of Constantine the Great--stood meekly bowing down her
head and drinking in, as a sponge that is thirsty of moisture, the
instructions of the prelate concerning the canons of the Church,
fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and continence, all which she observed with
exactness on her return to her own country.

Although, in spite of all her entreaties, the fierce and warlike prince
Sviatoslaf persisted in refusing to humble his proud heart under the
meek yoke of Christ, he had still so much affection for his mother as
not to persecute such as agreed with her in religion, but even to allow
them freely to make open profession of their faith under the protection
of that princess. He confided his children to her care during his
incessant military expeditions, and so enabled her to confirm the saving
impressions of Christianity among the people who respected her, and to
instil them into the mind of her young grandson Vladimir; for nothing
sinks so deep into the heart as the simple-and affectionate words of a
mother. The princess had with her a priest named Gregory, whom she had
brought from Constantinople, and by him she was buried after her death
in the spot which she had herself appointed, without any of the usual
pagan ceremonies. The people, by whom she had been surnamed "the Wise"
during life, began to bless her for a saint after her death, when they
came themselves to follow the example of this "Morning Star" which had
risen and gone before to lead Russia into the path of salvation.

Nowhere has Christianity ever been less persecuted at its first
introduction than in our own country. The _Chronicle_ speaks of only two
Christian martyrs, the Varangians Theodore and John, who were put to
death by the fury of the people because one of them, from natural
affection, had refused to give up his son when he had been devoted by
the prince Vladimir to be offered as a sacrifice to Peroun.

Probably the very zeal of this prince for the heathen deities, to whom
he set up statues and multiplied altars, may have inspired the
neighboring nations with the desire of converting so powerful a ruler to
their respective creeds; and thus his blind impulse toward the Deity,
which was unknown to him, received a true direction. The Mahometan
Bulgarians were the first to send ambassadors to him, with the offer of
their faith; but the mercy of Providence--for so it plainly
was--inspired him to give them a decided refusal on the ground that he
did not choose to comply with some of their regulations; though else a
sensual religion might well have enticed a man who was given up to the
indulgence of his passions.

The Chazarian Jews flattered themselves with the hope of attracting the
Prince by boasting of their religion and the ancient glory of Jerusalem.
"But where," demanded the wise grandson of Olga, "is your country?"

"It is ruined by the wrath of God for the sins of our fathers," was
their answer. Vladimir then said that he had no mind to embrace the law
of a people whom God had abandoned. There came also western doctors from
Germany, who would have persuaded Vladimir to embrace Christianity, but
their Christianity seemed strange to him; for Russia had hitherto no
acquaintance but with Byzantium.

"Return home," he said; "our ancestors did not receive this religion
from you."

A Greek embassy had the best success of them all. A certain philosopher,
a monk named Constantine, after having exposed the insufficiency of
other religions, eloquently set before the Prince those judgments of God
which are in the world, the redemption of the human race by the blood of
Christ, and the retribution of the life to come. His discourse
powerfully affected the heathen monarch, who was burdened with the heavy
sins of a tumultuous youth; and this was particularly the case when the
monk pointed out to him on an icon, which represented the last judgment,
the different lot of the just and of the wicked.

"Good to these on the right hand, but woe to those on the left!"
exclaimed Vladimir, deeply affected. But sensual nature still struggled
in him against heavenly truth. Having dismissed the missionary, or
ambassador, with presents, he still hesitated to decide, and wished
first to examine further concerning the faith, in concert with the
elders of his council, that all Russia might have a share in his
conversion. The council of the Prince decided to send chosen men to make
their observations on each religion on the spot where it was professed;
and this public agreement explains in some degree the sudden and general
acceptance of Christianity which shortly after followed in Russia. It is
probable that not only the chiefs, but the common people also, were
expecting and ready for the change.

The Greek emperors did not fail to profit by this favorable opportunity,
and the patriarch himself in person celebrated the divine liturgy in the
Church of St. Sophia with the utmost possible magnificence before the
astonished ambassadors of Vladimir. The sublimity and splendor of the
service struck them; but we do not ascribe to the mere external
impression that softening of the hearts of these heathens, on which
depended the conversion of a whole nation. From the very earliest times
of the Church, extraordinary signs of God's power have constantly gone
hand-in-hand with that apparent weakness of man by which the Gospel was
preached; and so also the _Byzantine Chronicle_ relates of the Russian
ambassadors, "That during the Divine liturgy, at the time of carrying
the Holy Gifts in procession to the throne or altar and singing the
cherubic hymn, the eyes of their spirits were opened, and they saw, as
in an ecstasy, glittering youths who joined in singing the hymn of the
'Thrice Holy.'"

Being thus fully persuaded of the truth of the orthodox faith, they
returned to their own country already Christians in heart, and without
saying a word before the Prince in favor of the other religions, they
declared thus concerning the Greek: "When we stood in the temple we did
not know where we were, for there is nothing else like it upon earth:
there in truth God has his dwelling with men; and we can never forget
the beauty we saw there. No one who has once tasted sweets will
afterward take that which is bitter; nor can we now any longer abide in
heathenism."

Then the _boyars_ said to Vladimir: "If the religion of the Greeks had
not been good, your grandmother Olga, who was the wisest of women, would
not have embraced it."

The weight of the name of Olga decided her grandson, and he said no more
in answer than these words: "Where shall we be baptized?"

But Vladimir, led by a sense which had not yet been purged by Greece,
thought it best to follow the custom of his ancestors, who made warlike
descents upon Constantinople, and so win to himself, sword in hand, his
new religion. He embarked his warriors on board their vessels and
attacked Cherson in the Taurid, a city which was subject to the emperors
Basil and Constantine.

After a long and unsuccessful siege a certain priest, named Anastasius,
by means of an arrow shot from the town, informed the Prince that the
fate of the besieged depended upon his cutting off the aqueducts, which
supplied them with water. Vladimir in great joy made a vow that he would
be baptized if he gained possession of the town; and he did gain
possession of it. Then he sent to Constantinople to demand from the
Greek Emperor the hand of their sister Anna, and they in answer proposed
as a condition that he should embrace Christianity; for though they
themselves desired an alliance with so powerful a prince, they at the
same time took care to follow the prudent and pious policy of their
predecessors, who had ever sought to bring their fierce neighbors under
the humanizing influence of the faith. The Prince declared his consent;
because, in his own words, he had "long since examined and conceived a
love for the Greek law."

It was her faith alone which influenced the princess to sacrifice
herself at once for the temporal interests of her own country and for
the eternal welfare of a strange people. Accompanied by a venerable body
of clergy, she sailed for Cherson, and on her arrival induced the Prince
to hasten his baptism. "For it was so ordered," says the pious annalist,
"by the wisdom of God, that the sight of the Prince was at that time
much affected by a complaint of the eyes, but at the moment that the
Bishop of Cherson laid his hands upon him, when he had risen up out of
the bath of regeneration, Vladimir suddenly received not only spiritual
illumination, but also the bodily sight of his eyes, and cried out, 'Now
I have seen the true God!'"

Many of the Prince's suite were so struck by his miraculous recovery
that they followed his example and were baptized in like manner; and
these were doubtless afterward zealous for the introduction of
Christianity into their country. The baptism and marriage of Vladimir
were both celebrated in the Church of the Most Holy Mother of God; and
hence, no doubt, arose his peculiar zeal for the most pure Virgin, to
whose honor he afterward erected a cathedral church in his own city of
Kieff. In Cherson itself he built a church, in the name of his angel or
patron St. Basil; and taking with him the relics of St. Clement, Bishop
of Rome, and his disciple Thebas, with church vessels and ornaments and
icons, he restored the city to be again under the power of the emperors,
and returned to Kieff, accompanied by the princess, their daughter, and
her Greek ecclesiastics.

Nestor makes no mention of any of the bishops and priests from
Constantinople and Cherson who followed in the train of the Prince,
excepting only of one, Anastasius, the priest who had rendered him such
good service during the siege; but the _Books of the Genealogies_ give
the name of Michael, a Syrian by birth, and of six other bishops who
were sent together with him to Cherson by the patriarch Nicholas
Chrysoberges. Some have ventured to suppose that Michael was the name of
the bishop of the times of Oskold; but Nestor says nothing about him,
and this much only is certain, that he stands the first in the list of
the metropolitans of Russia.

After his return to Kieff the "Great Prince" caused his twelve sons to
be baptized, and proceeded to destroy the monuments of heathenism. He
ordered Peroun to be thrown into the Dnieper. The people at first
followed their idol, as it was borne down the stream, but were soon
quieted when they saw that the statue had no power to help itself.

And now Vladimir, being surrounded and supported by believers in his own
domestic circle, and encouraged by seeing that his boyars and suite were
prepared and ready to embrace the faith, made a proclamation to the
people, "That whoever, on the morrow, should not repair to the river,
whether rich or poor, he should hold him for his enemy." At the call of
their respected lord all the multitude of the citizens in troops, with
their wives and children, flocked to the Dnieper; and without any manner
of opposition received holy baptism as a nation from the Greek bishops
and priests. Nestor draws a touching picture of this baptism of a whole
people at once: "Some stood in the water up to their necks, others up to
their breasts, holding their young children in their arms; the priests
read the prayers from the shore, naming at once whole companies by the
same name." He who was the means of thus bringing them to salvation,
filled with a transport of joy at the affecting sight, cried out to the
Lord, offering and commending into his hands himself and his people: "O
great God! who hast made heaven and earth, look down upon these thy new
people. Grant them, O Lord, to know thee the true God, as thou hast been
made known to Christian lands, and confirm in them a true and unfailing
faith; and assist me, O Lord, against my enemy that opposes me, that,
trusting in thee and in thy power, I may overcome all his wiles."

Vladimir erected the first church--that of St. Basil, after whom he was
named--on the very mount which had formerly been sacred to Peroun,
adjoining his own palace. Thus was Russia enlightened.

So sudden and ready a conversion of the inhabitants of Kieff might well
seem improbable--that is, unless effected by violence--did we not attend
to the fact that the Russians had been gradually becoming enlightened
ever since the times of Oskold, for more than a hundred years, by means
of commerce, treaties of peace, and relations of every kind with the
Greeks, as well as with the Bulgarians and Slavonians of kindred origin
with ourselves, who had already been long in possession of the Holy
Scriptures in their own language. The constant endeavors of the Greek
emperors for the conversion of the Russians by means of their
ambassadors and preachers, the tolerance of the princes, the example and
protection of Olga, and the very delay and hesitation of Vladimir in
selecting his religion must have favorably disposed the minds of the
people toward it; especially if it be true, as has been asserted, that
Russia had already had a bishop in the time of Oskold. In a similar way,
though under different circumstances, in the vast Roman Empire, the
conversion of Constantine the Great suddenly rendered Christianity the
dominant religion, because, in fact, it had long before penetrated among
all ranks of his subjects.

Vladimir engaged zealously in building churches throughout the towns and
villages of his dominions, and sent priests to preach in them. He also
founded many towns all around Kieff, and so propagated and confirmed the
Christian religion in the neighborhood of the capital, from whence the
new colonies were sent forth. Neither was he slow in establishing
schools, into which he brought together the children of the boyars,
sometimes even in spite of the unwillingness of their rude parents. In
the mean time the Metropolitan with his bishops made progresses into the
interior of Russia, to the cities of Rostoff and Novgorod, everywhere
baptizing and instructing the people. Vladimir himself, for the same
good end, went in company with other bishops to the district of Souzdal
and to Volhynia. The boyars on the Volga and some of the Pechenegian
princes embraced the gospel of salvation together with his subjects, and
rejoiced to be admitted to holy baptism.

The pious Prince wished to see in his own capital a magnificent temple
in honor of the birth of the most holy Virgin, to be a likeness and
memorial of that at Cherson, in which he himself had been baptized; and
the year after his conversion he sent to Greece for builders, and laid
the foundation of the first stone cathedral in Russia, on the very same
spot where the Varangian martyrs had suffered. But the first
metropolitan was not to live to its completion; only his holy remains
were buried in it, and were thence translated afterward to the Pechersky
Lavra. Another metropolitan, Leontius, a Greek by birth, sent by the
same patriarch Nicholas, consecrated the new temple, to the great
satisfaction of Vladimir, who made a vow to endow it with the tenth part
of all his revenues; and from hence it was called "the Cathedral of the
Tithes."

These tithes, according to the ordinance ascribed to Prince Vladimir,
consisted of the fixed quota of corn, cattle, and the profits of trade,
for the support of the clergy and the poor; and besides this there was a
further tithe collected from every cause which was tried; for the right
of judging causes was granted to the bishops and the metropolitan, and
they judged according to the Nomocanon. The canons of the holy councils
and the Greek ecclesiastical laws, together with the Holy Scriptures,
were taken, from the very first, as the basis of all ecclesiastical
administration in Russia; and together with them there came into use
some portions also of the civil law of the Greeks, through the influence
of the Church. The care of the new temple and the collection of tithes
for its support were intrusted to a native of Cherson named Anastasius,
who enjoyed the confidence of Vladimir and his successors.

The light of Christianity had now been diffused throughout the whole of
Russia; but still the faith was nowhere as yet firmly established,
because there were no bishops regularly settled in the towns. The
metropolitan Leontius formed the first five dioceses, and appointed
Joachim of Cherson to be Bishop of Novgorod, Theodorus of Rostoff,
Neophytus of Chernigoff, Stephen the Volhynian of Vladimir, and Nicetas
of Belgorod. Assisted by Dobrina, the uncle of the "Great Prince," who
had long governed in Novgorod, the new bishop Joachim threw the statue
of Peroun into the Volkoff, and broke down the idolatrous altars without
any opposition on the part of the citizens; for they, too, like the
inhabitants of Kieff, from their comparative degree of civilization and
from their relations of intercourse with the Greeks, were in all
probability already favorably disposed for the reception of
Christianity. Tradition asserts that even as far back as the time of St.
Olga the hermits Sergius and Germanus lived upon the desolate island of
Balaam in the lake Ladoga, and that from thence St. Abramius went forth
to preach Christ to the savage inhabitants of Rostoff.

The attempt to found a diocese at Rostoff was less successful. The first
two bishops, Theodore and Hilarion, were driven away by the fierce
tribes of the forest district of Meri, who held obstinately to their
idols in spite of the zeal of St. Abramius. It cost the two succeeding
bishops, St. Leontius and St. Isaiah, many years of extraordinary labor
and exertion, attended frequently by persecutions, before they at length
succeeded in establishing Christianity in that savage region, from
whence it spread itself by degrees into all the surrounding districts.

Thus Vladimir, having piously observed the commandments of Christ during
the course of his long reign, had the consolation of seeing before his
death the fruits of his own conversion in all the wide extent of his
dominions. He departed this life in peace at Kieff, and was soon
reckoned with his grandmother Olga among the guardian saints of Russia.
John, the third metropolitan, who had been sent from Constantinople upon
the death of Leontius, buried the Prince in the Church of the Tithes,
which he had built, near the tomb of the Grecian princess, his wife, and
the uncorrupted relics of St. Olga were translated to the same spot.



LEIF ERICSON DISCOVERS AMERICA

A.D. 1000

CHARLES C. RAFN

SAGA OF ERIC THE RED


(Besides the Northmen or Norsemen, those ancient Scandinavians
celebrated in history for their adventurous exploits at sea, the Chinese
and the Welsh have laid claim to the discovery of North America at
periods much earlier than that of Columbus and the Cabots. But to the
Norse sailors alone is it generally agreed that credit for that
achievement is probably due. Associated with their supposed arrival and
sojourn on the coast of what is now New England, about A.D. 1000, the
"Round Tower" or "Old Stone Mill" at Newport, R.I., the mysterious
inscription on the "Dighton Rock" in Massachusetts, and the "Skeleton in
Armor" dug up at Fall River, Mass., and made the subject of a ballad by
Longfellow, have figured prominently in the discussion of this
pre-Columbian discovery. But these conjectural evidences are no longer
regarded as having any connection with historical probability or as
dating back to the time of the Northmen.

It is considered, however, to be pretty certain that at the end of the
tenth century or at the beginning of the eleventh the Northmen reached
the shores of North America. About that time, it is known, they settled
Iceland, and from there a colony went to Greenland, where they long
remained. From there, either by design or by accident, some of them, it
is supposed, may have reached the coast of Labrador, and thence sailed
down until they came to the region which they named Vinland. From there
they sent home glowing accounts to their countrymen in the northern
lands, who came in larger numbers to join them in the New World.

About the middle of the nineteenth century great interest among students
of this subject was aroused by a work written by Prof. C.C. Rafn, of the
Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, Copenhagen. In this work--
_Antiquitates Americanae_--the proofs of this visit of the Northmen to
the shores of North America were convincingly set forth. In the same
work the Icelandic sagas, written in the fourteenth century, and
containing the original accounts of the Northmen's voyages to Vinland,
were first brought prominently before modern scholars. Although many
other writings on the voyages have since appeared, the great work of
Rafn still holds its place of authority, very little in the way of new
material having been brought to light. The portion of his narrative
which follows covers the main facts of the history, and the translation
from the saga furnishes an excellent example of its quaint and simple
narration.)


CHARLES C. RAFN

Eric The Red, in the spring of 986, emigrated from Iceland to Greenland,
formed a settlement there, and fixed his residence at Brattalid in
Ericsfiord. Among others who accompanied him was Heriulf Bardson, who
established himself at Heriulfsnes.

Biarne, the son of the latter, was at that time absent on a trading
voyage to Norway; but in the course of the summer returning to Eyrar, in
Iceland, and finding that his father had taken his departure, this bold
navigator resolved "still to spend the following winter, like all the
preceding ones, with his father," although neither he nor any of his
people had ever navigated the Greenland sea.

They set sail, but met with northerly winds and fogs, and, after many
days' sailing, knew not whither they had been carried. At length when
the weather again cleared up, they saw a land which was without
mountains, overgrown with wood, and having many gentle elevations. As
this land did not correspond to the descriptions of Greenland, they left
it on the larboard hand, and continued sailing two days, when they saw
another land, which was flat and overgrown with wood.

From thence they stood out to sea, and sailed three days with a
southwest wind, when they saw a third land, which was high and
mountainous and covered with icebergs (glaciers). They coasted along the
shore and saw that it was an island.

They did not go on shore, as Biarne did not find the country to be
inviting. Bearing away from this island, they stood out to sea with the
same wind, and, after four days' sailing with fresh gales, they reached
Heriulfsnes, in Greenland.

Some time after this, probably in the year 994, Biarne paid a visit to
Eric, Earl of Norway, and told him of his voyage and of the unknown
lands he had discovered. He was blamed by many for not having examined
these countries more accurately.

On his return to Greenland there was much talk about undertaking a
voyage of discovery. Leif, a son of Eric the Red, bought Biarne's ship,
and equipped it with a crew of thirty-five men, among whom was a German,
of the name of Tyrker, who had long resided with his father, and who had
been very fond of Leif in his childhood. In the year 1000 they commenced
the projected voyage, and came first to the land which Biarne had seen
last. They cast anchor and went on shore. No grass was seen; but
everywhere in this country were vast ice mountains (glaciers), and the
intermediate space between these and the shore was, as it were, one
uniform plain of slate (_hella_). The country appearing to them
destitute of good qualities, they called it Hellu-Land.

They put out to sea, and came to another land, where they also went on
shore. The country was very level and covered with woods; and
wheresoever they went there were cliffs of white sand (_sand-ar
hvitir_), and a low coast (_o-soe-bratt_). They called the country Mark
Land (woodland). From thence they again stood out to sea, with a
northeast wind, and continued sailing for two days before they made land
again. They then came to an island which lay to the eastward of the
mainland. They sailed westward in waters where there was much ground
left dry at ebb tide.

Afterward they went on shore at a place where a river, issuing from a
lake, fell into the sea. They brought their ship into the river, and
from thence into the lake, where they cast anchor. Here they constructed
some temporary log huts; but later, when they had made up their mind to
winter there, they built large houses, afterward called Leifs-Budir
(Leif's-booths).

When the buildings were completed Leif divided his people into two
companies, who were by turns employed in keeping watch at the houses,
and in making small excursions for the purpose of exploring the country
in the vicinity. His instructions to them were that they should not go
to a greater distance than that they might return in the course of the
same evening, and that they should not separate from one another.

Leif took his turn also, joining the exploring party the one day, and
remaining at the houses the other.

It so happened that one day the German, Tyrker, was missing. Leif
accordingly went out with twelve men in search of him, but they had not
gone far from their houses when they met him coming toward them. When
Leif inquired why he had been so long absent, he at first answered in
German, but they did not understand what he said. He then said to them
in the Norse tongue: "I did not go much farther, yet I have a discovery
to acquaint you with: I have found vines and grapes."

He added by way of confirmation that he had been born in a country where
there were plenty of vines. They had now two occupations: namely, to hew
timber for loading the ship, and collect grapes; with these last they
filled the ship's longboat. Leif gave a name to the country, and called
it Vinland (Vineland). In the spring they sailed again from thence, and
returned to Greenland.

Leif's Vineland voyage was now a subject of frequent conversation in
Greenland, and his brother Thorwald was of opinion that the country had
not been sufficiently explored. He, accordingly, borrowed Leif's ship,
and, aided by his brother's counsel and directions, commenced a voyage
in the year 1002. He arrived at Leif's-booths, in Vineland, where they
spent the winter, he and his crew employing themselves in fishing. In
the spring of 1003 Thorwald sent a party in the ship's long-boat on a
voyage of discovery southward. They found the country beautiful and well
wooded, with but little space between the woods and the sea; there were
likewise extensive ranges of white sand, and many islands and shallows.

They found no traces of men having been there before them, excepting on
an island lying to westward, where they found a wooden shed. They did
not return to Leif's-booths until the fall. In the following summer,
1004, Thorwald sailed eastward with the large ship, and then northward
past a remarkable headland enclosing a bay, and which was opposite to
another headland. They called it Kial-Ar-Nes (Keel Cape).

From thence they sailed along the eastern coast of the land, into the
nearest firths, to a promontory which there projected, and which was
everywhere overgrown with wood. There Thorwald went ashore with all his
companions. He was so pleased with this place that he exclaimed: "This
is beautiful! and here I should like well to fix my dwelling!"
Afterward, when they were preparing to go on board, they observed on the
sandy beach, within the promontory, three hillocks, and repairing hither
they found three canoes, under each of which were three Skrellings
(Esquimaux). They came to blows with the latter and killed eight, but
the ninth escaped with his canoe. Afterward a countless number issued
forth against them from the interior of the bay.

They endeavored to protect themselves by raising battle-screens on the
ship's side. The Skrellings continued shooting at them for a while and
then retired. Thorwald was wounded by an arrow under the arm, and
finding that the wound was mortal he said: "I now advise you to prepare
for your departure as soon as possible, but me ye shall bring to the
promontory, where I thought it good to dwell; it may be that it was a
prophetic word that fell from my mouth about my abiding there for a
season; there shall ye bury me, and plant a cross at my head, and
another at my feet, and call the place Kross-a-Ness (Crossness) in all
time coming." He died, and they did as he had ordered. Afterward they
returned to their companions at Leif's-booths, and spent the winter
there; but in the spring of 1005 they sailed again to Greenland, having
important intelligence to communicate to Leif.

Thorstein, Eric's third son, had resolved to proceed to Vine-land to
fetch his brother's body. He fitted out the same ship, and selected
twenty-five strong and able-bodied men for his crew; his wife, Gudrida,
also went along with him. They were tossed about the ocean during the
whole summer, and knew not whither they were driven; but at the close of
the first week of winter they landed at Lysufiord, in the western
settlement of Greenland.

There Thorstein died during the winter; and in the spring Gudrida
returned again to Ericsfiord.


SAGA OF ERIC THE RED

There was a man named Thorwald; he was a son of Asvald, Ulf's son,
Eyxna-Thori's son. His son's name was Eric. He and his father went from
Jaederen to Iceland, on account of manslaughter, and settled on
Hornstrandir, and dwelt at Draugar. There Thorwald died, and Eric then
married Thorheld, a daughter of Jorund, Atli's son, and Thorbiorg the
sheep-chested, who had been married before to Thorbiorn of the Haukadal
family.

Eric then removed from the north, and cleared land in Haukadal, and
dwelt at Ericsstadir, by Vatnshorn. Then Eric's thralls caused a
landslide on Valthiof's farm, Valthiofsstadir. Eyiolf the Foul,
Valthiof's kinsman, slew the thralls near Skeidsbrekkur, above
Vatnshorn. For this Eric killed Eyiolf the Foul, and he also killed
Duelling-Hrafn, at Leikskalar.

Geirstein and Odd of Jorva, Eyiolf's kinsmen, conducted the prosecution
for the slaying of their kinsmen, and Eric was in consequence banished
from Haukadal. He then took possession of Brokey and Eyxney, and dwelt
at Tradir on Sudrey the first winter. It was at this time that he loaned
Thorgest his outer dais-boards. Eric afterward went to Eyxney, and dwelt
at Ericsstad. He then demanded his outer dais-boards, but did not obtain
them.

Eric then carried the outer dais-boards away from Breidabolstad, and
Thorgest gave chase. They came to blows a short distance from the farm
of Drangar. There two of Thorgest's sons were killed, and certain other
men besides. After this each of them retained a considerable body of men
with him at his home. Styr gave Eric his support, as did also Eyiolf of
Sviney, Thorbiorn, Vifil's son, and the sons of Thorbrand of Alptafirth;
while Thorgest was backed by the sons of Thord the Yeller, and Thorgeir
of Hitardal, Aslak of Langadal, and his son, Illugi. Eric and his people
were condemned to outlawry at Thorsness-thing. He equipped his ship for
a voyage in Ericsvag; while Eyiolf concealed him in Dimunarvag, when
Thorgest and his people were searching for him among the islands. He
said to them that it was his intention to go in search of that land
which Gunnbiorn, son of Ulf the Crow, saw when he was driven out of his
course, westward across the main, and discovered Gunnviorns-skerries.

He told them that he would return again to his friends if he should
succeed in finding that country. Thorbiorn and Eyiolf and Styr
accompanied Eric out beyond the islands, and they parted with the
greatest friendliness. Eric said to them that he would render them
similar aid, so far as it might be within his power, if they should ever
stand in need of his help.

Eric sailed out to sea, from Snaefells-iokul, and arrived at that ice
mountain which is called Blacksark. Thence he sailed to the southward
that he might ascertain whether there was habitable country in that
direction. He passed the first winter at Ericsey, near the middle of the
western settlement.

In the following spring he proceeded to Ericsfirth, and selected a site
there for his homestead. That summer he explored the western uninhabited
region, remaining there for a long time, and assigning many local names
there. The second winter he spent at Ericsholms, beyond Hvarfsgnipa. But
the third summer he sailed northward to Snaefell, and into Hrafnsfirth.
He believed then that he had reached the head of Ericsfirth; he turned
back then, and remained the third winter at Ericsey, at the mouth of
Ericsfirth.

The following summer he sailed to Iceland and landed in Breidafirth. He
remained that winter with Ingolf at Holmlatr. In the spring he and
Thorgest fought together, and Eric was defeated; after this a
reconciliation was effected between them.

That summer Eric set out to colonize the land which he had discovered,
and which he called Greenland, because, he said, men would be the more
readily persuaded thither if the land had a good name. Eric was married
to a woman named Thorhild, and had two sons; one of these was named
Thorstein, and the other Leif. They were both promising men. Thorstein
lived at home with his father, and there was not at that time a man in
Greenland who was accounted of so great promise as he.

Leif had sailed to Norway, where he was at the court of King Olaf
Tryggvason. When Leif sailed from Greenland, in the summer, they were
driven out of their course to the Hebrides. It was late before they got
fair winds thence, and they remained there far into the summer.

Leif became enamoured of a certain woman, whose name was Thorgunna. She
was a woman of fine family, and Leif observed that she was possessed of
rare intelligence. When Leif was preparing for his departure, Thorgunna
asked to be permitted to accompany him. Leif inquired whether she had in
this the approval of her kinsmen. She replied that she did not care for
it. Leif responded that he did not deem it the part of wisdom to abduct
so high-born a woman in a strange country, "and we so few in number."
"It is by no means certain that thou shalt find this to be the better
decision," said Thorgunna. "I shall put it to the proof,
notwithstanding," said Leif. "Then I tell thee," said Thorgunna, "that I
foresee that I shall give birth to a male child; and though thou give
this no heed, yet will I rear the boy, and send him to thee in Greenland
when he shall be fit to take his place with other men. And I foresee
that thou will get as much profit of this son as is thy due from this
our parting; moreover, I mean to come to Greenland myself before the end
comes."

Leif gave her a gold finger-ring, a Greenland Wadmal mantle, and a belt
of walrus tusk.

This boy came to Greenland, and was called Thorgils. Leif acknowledged
his paternity, and some men will have it that this Thorgils came to
Iceland in the summer before the Froda-wonder. However, this Thorgils
was afterward in Greenland, and there seemed to be something not
altogether natural about him before the end came. Leif and his
companions sailed away from the Hebrides, and arrived in Norway in the
autumn.

Leif went to the court of King Olaf Tryggvason. He was well received by
the King, who felt that he could see that Leif was a man of great
accomplishments. Upon one occasion the King came to speech with Leif,
and asked him, "Is it thy purpose to sail to Greenland in the summer?"

"It is my purpose," said Leif, "if it be your will."

"I believe it will be well," answered the King, "and thither thou shalt
go upon my errand, to proclaim Christianity there."

Leif replied that the King should decide, but gave it as his belief that
it would be difficult to carry this mission to a successful issue in
Greenland. The King replied that he knew of no man who would be better
fitted for this undertaking; "and in thy hands the cause will surely
prosper."

"This can only be," said Leif, "if I enjoy the grace of your
protection."

Leif put to sea when his ship was ready for the voyage. For a long time
he was tossed about upon the ocean, and came upon lands of which he had
previously had no knowledge. There were self-sown wheat-fields and vines
growing there. There were also those trees there which are called
"mansur," and of all these they took specimens. Some of the timbers were
so large that they were used in building. Leif found men upon a wreck,
and took them home with him, and procured quarters for them all during
the winter. In this wise he showed his nobleness and goodness, since he
introduced Christianity into the country, and saved the men from the
wreck; and he was called Leif "the Lucky" ever after.

Leif landed in Ericsfirth, and then went home to Brattahlid; he was well
received by everyone. He soon proclaimed Christianity throughout the
land, and the Catholic faith, and announced King Olaf Tryggvason's
messages to the people, telling them how much excellence and how great
glory accompanied this faith.

Eric was slow in forming the determination to forsake his old belief,
but Thiodhild embraced the faith promptly, and caused a church to be
built at some distance from the house. This building was called
Thiodhild's church, and there she and those persons who had accepted
Christianity--and there were many--were wont to offer their prayers.

At this time there began to be much talk about a voyage of exploration
to that country which Leif had discovered. The leader of this expedition
was Thorstein Ericsson, who was a good man and an intelligent, and
blessed with many friends. Eric was likewise invited to join them, for
the men believed that his luck and foresight would be of great
furtherance. He was slow in deciding, but did not say nay when his
friends besought him to go. They thereupon equipped that ship in which
Thorbiorn had come out, and twenty men were selected for the expedition.
They took little cargo with them, naught else save their weapons and
provisions.

On that morning when Eric set out from his home he took with him a
little chest containing gold and silver; he hid this treasure and then
went his way. He had proceeded but a short distance, however, when he
fell from his horse and broke his ribs and dislocated his shoulder,
whereat he cried, "Ai, ai!" By reason of this accident he sent his wife
word that she should procure the treasure which he had concealed--for to
the hiding of the treasure he attributed his misfortune. Thereafter they
sailed cheerily out of Ericsfirth, in high spirits over their plan. They
were long tossed about upon the ocean, and could not lay the course they
wished.

They came in sight of Iceland, and likewise saw birds from the Irish
coast. Their ship was, in sooth, driven hither and thither over the sea.
In autumn they turned back, worn out by toil and exposure to the
elements, and exhausted by their labors, and arrived at Ericsfirth at
the very beginning of winter.

Then said Eric: "More cheerful were we in the summer, when we put out of
the firth, but we still live, and it might have been much worse."

Thorstein answers: "It will be a princely deed to endeavor to look well
after the wants of all these men who are now in need, and to make
provision for them during the winter." Eric answers: "It is ever true,
as it is said, that 'It is never clear ere the winter comes,' and so it
must be here. We will act now upon thy counsel in this matter."

All of the men who were not otherwise provided for accompanied the
father and son. They landed thereupon, and went home to Brattahlid,
where they remained throughout the winter.



MAHOMETANS IN INDIA

BLOODY INVASIONS UNDER MAHMUD A.D. 1000

ALEXANDER DOW


(While Buddhism was giving place to Hinduism in India a new faith had
arisen in Arabia. Mahomet, born A.D. 570, created a conquering religion,
and died in 632. Within a hundred years after his death, his followers
had invaded the countries of Asia as far as the Hindu Kush. Here their
progress was stayed, and Islam had to consolidate itself during three
more centuries before it grew strong enough to grasp the rich prize of
India. But almost from the first the Arabs had fixed eager eyes upon
that wealthy empire, and several premature inroads foretold the coming
storm.

About fifteen years after the death of the Prophet, Othman sent a naval
expedition to Thana and Broach on the Bombay coast. Other raids toward
Sind took place in 662 and 664, with no lasting results.

Hinduism was for a time submerged, but never drowned, by the tide of
Mahometan conquest, which set steadily toward India about A.D. 1000. At
the present day the south of India remains almost entirely Hindu. By far
the greater number of the Indian feudatory chiefs are still under
Brahman influence. But in the northwest, where the first waves of
invasion have always broken, about one-third of the population now
profess Islam. The upper valley of the Ganges boasts a succession of
Mussulman capitals; and in the swamps of Lower Bengal the bulk of the
non-Aryan or aboriginal population have become converts to the Mahometan
religion. The Mussulmans now make fifty-seven millions of the total of
two hundred and eighty-eight millions in India.

The armies of Islam had carried the crescent throughout Asia west of the
Hindu Kush, and through Africa and Southern Europe, to distant Spain and
France, before they obtained a foothold in the Punjab.

The brilliant attempt in 711 to found a lasting Mahometan dynasty in
Sind failed. Three centuries later, the utmost efforts of a series of
Mussulman invaders from the northwest only succeeded in annexing a small
portion of the frontier Punjab provinces.

The popular notion that India fell an easy prey to the Mussulmans is
opposed to the historical facts. Mahometan rule in India consists of a
series of invasions and partial conquests, during eleven centuries from
Othman's raid, about A.D. 647, to Ahmad Shah's tempest of devastation in
1761.

At no time was Islam triumphant throughout all India. Hindu dynasties
always ruled over a large area.

The first collision between Hinduism and Islam on the Punjab frontier
was the act of the Hindus. In 977 Jaipal, the Hindu chief of Lahore,
annoyed by Afghan raids, led his troops through the mountains against
the Mahometan kingdom of Ghazni, in Afghanistan. Subuktigin, the
Ghaznivide prince, after severe fighting, took advantage of a hurricane
to cut off the retreat of the Hindus through the pass. He allowed them,
however, to return to India, on the surrender of fifty elephants and the
promise of one million _dirhams_ [about $125,000].

In 997 Subuktigin died, and was succeeded by his son, Mahmud of Ghazni,
aged sixteen. This valiant monarch, surnamed "the Great," reigned for
thirty-three years, and extended his father's little Afghan kingdom into
a great Mahometan sovereignty, stretching from Persia on the west to far
within the Punjab on the east.)


Mahmud was born about the year 357 of the Hegira--or 350, according to
some authorities--and, as astrologers say, with many happy omens
expressed in the horoscope of his life. Subuktigin, being asleep at the
time of his birth, dreamed that he beheld a green tree springing forth
from his chimney, which threw its shadow over the face of the earth and
screened from the storms of heaven the whole animal creation. This
indeed was verified by the justice of Mahmud; for, if we can believe the
poet, in his reign the wolf and the sheep drank together at the same
brook.

When Mahmud had settled his dispute with his brother Ismail, he hastened
to Balik, from whence he sent an ambassador to Munsur, Emperor of
Bokhara, to whom the family of Ghazni still pretended to owe allegiance,
complaining of the indignity which he met with in the appointment of
Buktusin to the government of Khorassan, a country so long in possession
of his father. It was returned to him for answer that he was already in
possession of the territories of Balik, Turmuz, and Herat, which was
part of the empire, and that there was a necessity to divide the favors
of Bokhara among her friends. Buktusin, it was also insinuated, had been
a faithful and good servant; which seemed to throw a reflection upon the
family of Ghazni, who had rendered themselves independent in the
governments they held of the royal house of Samania. Mahmud, not
discouraged by this answer, sent Hasan Jemmavi with rich presents to the
court of Bokhara, and a letter in the following terms: "That he hoped
the pure spring of friendship, which had flowed in the time of his
father, should not now be polluted with the ashes of indignity, nor
Mahmud be reduced to the necessity of divesting himself of that
obedience which he had hitherto paid to the imperial family of Samania."

When Hasan delivered his embassy, his capacity and elocution appeared so
great to the Emperor, that, desirous to gain him over to his interest by
any means, he bribed him at last with the honors of the wazirate, but
never returned an answer to Mahmud. That prince having received
information of this transaction, through necessity turned his face
toward Nishapur, and marched to Murgab. Buktusin, in the mean time,
treacherously entered into a confederacy with Faek, and, forming a
conspiracy in the camp of Munsur, seized upon the person of that prince
and cruelly put out his eyes. Abdul, the younger brother of Munsur, who
was but a boy, was advanced by the traitors to the throne. Being,
however, afraid of the resentment of Mahmud, the conspirators hastened
to Merv, whither they were pursued by the King with great expedition.
Finding themselves, upon their march, hard pressed in the rear by
Mahmud, they halted and gave him battle. But the sin of ingratitude had
darkened the face of their fortune, so that the breeze of victory blew
upon the standards of the King of Ghazni.

Faek carried off the young King, and fled to Bokhara, and Buktusin was
not heard of for some time, but at length he found his way to his
fellows in iniquity and began to collect his scattered troops. Faek, in
the mean time, fell ill and soon afterward expired. Elak, the Usbek
King, seizing upon the opportunity offered him by that event, marched
with an army from Kashgar to Bokhara and deprived Abdul-Mallek and his
adherents of life and empire at the same time. Thus perished the last of
the house of Samania, which had reigned for the space of one hundred and
twenty-seven years.

The Emperor of Ghazni, at this juncture, employed himself in settling
the government of the provinces of Balik and Khorassan, the affairs of
which he regulated in such an able manner that the fame thereof reached
the ears of the Caliph of Bagdad, the illustrious Al-Kadar Balla, of the
noble house of Abbas. The Caliph sent him a rich dress of honor, such as
he had never before bestowed on any king, and dignified Mahmud with the
titles of the Protector of the State and Treasurer of Fortune. In the
end of the month Zikada, in the year of the Hegira 390, Mahmud hastened
from the city of Balak to Herat, and from Herat to Sistan, where he
defeated Khaliph, the son of Achmet, the governor of that province of
the extinguished family of Bokhara, and returned to Ghazni. He then
turned his face toward India, took many forts and provinces, in which,
having appointed his own governors, he returned to his dominions where
he "spread the carpet of justice so smoothly upon the face of the earth
that the love of him, and loyalty, gained a place in every heart."

Having negotiated a treaty with Elak the Usbek, the province of
Maver-ul-nere was ceded to him, for which he made an ample return in
presents of great value; and the closest friendship and familiarity, for
a long time, existed between the kings.

Mahmud made a vow to heaven that if ever he should be blessed with
tranquillity in his own dominions he would turn his arms against the
idolaters of Hindustan. He marched in the year 391 (Ad Hegira) from
Ghazni with ten thousand of his chosen horse, and came to Peshawur,
where Jipal, the Indian prince of Lahore, with twelve thousand horse and
thirty thousand foot, supported by three hundred chain-elephants,
opposed him. On Saturday, the 8th of the month Mohirrim, in the year 392
of the Hegira, an obstinate battle ensued, in which the Emperor was
victorious; Jipal, with fifteen of his principal officers, was taken
prisoner, and five thousand of his troops lay dead upon the field.
Mahmud in this action acquired great wealth and fame, for round the neck
of Jipal alone were found sixteen strings of jewels, each of which was
valued at one hundred and eighty thousand rupees.

After this victory, the Emperor marched from Peshawur, and investing the
fort of Batandi, reduced it, releasing his prisoners upon the payment of
a large ransom, and the further stipulation of an annual tribute, then
returned to Ghazni. It was in those days a custom of the Hindus that
whatever rajah was twice defeated by the Moslems should be, by that
disgrace, rendered ineligible for further command. Jipal, in compliance
with this custom, having raised his son to the government, ordered a
funeral pile to be prepared, upon which he sacrificed himself to his
gods.

A year later, Mahmud again marched into Sistan, and brought Kaliph, who
had mismanaged his government, prisoner to Ghazni. Finding that the
tribute from Hindustan had not been paid, in the year A.H. 395 he
directed his march toward the city of Battea, and, leaving the
boundaries of Multan, arrived at Tahera, which was fortified with an
exceeding high wall and a deep, broad ditch. Tahera was at that time
governed by a prince called Bakhera, who had, in the pride of power and
wealth, greatly troubled the Mahometan governors whom Mahmud had
delegated to rule in Hindustan. Bakhera had also refused to pay his
proportion of the tribute to Annandpal, the son of Jipal, of whom he
held his authority.

When Mahmud entered the territories of Bakhera, that prince called out
his troops to receive him, and, taking possession of a strong position,
engaged the Mahometan army for the space of three days; in which time
they suffered so much that they were on the point of abandoning the
attack. But on the fourth day, Mahmud appeared at the head of his
troops, and addressed them at length, encouraging them to win glory. He
concluded by telling them that this day he had devoted himself to
conquest or to death. Bakhera, on his part, invoked the gods at the
temple, and prepared, with his former resolution, to repel the enemy.
The Mahometans charged with their usual impetuosity, but were repulsed
with great slaughter; yet returning with fresh courage and redoubled
rage, the attack was continued until the evening, when Mahmud, turning
his face to the holy Kaaba, invoked the aid of the Prophet in the
presence of his army.

"Advance! advance!" cried then the King. "Our prayers have found favor
with God!"

Immediately a great shout arose among the host, and the Moslems,
pressing forward as if they courted death, obliged the enemy to give
ground, and pursued them in full retreat to the gates of the city.

The Emperor having next morning invested the place, gave orders to make
preparations for filling up the ditch, which task in a few days was
nearly completed. Bakhera, finding he could not long defend the city,
determined to leave only a small garrison for its defence; and
accordingly, one night, he marched out with the rest of his troops, and
took position in a wood on the banks of the Indus. Mahmud, being
informed of his retreat, detached part of his army to pursue him.
Bakhera, by this time, was deserted by fortune and consequently by most
of his friends; he found himself surrounded by the Mahometans and
attempted in vain to force his way through them. When just on the point
of being taken prisoner, he turned his sword against his breast, while
the most of his adherents were slaughtered in attempting to avenge his
death. Mahmud, in the mean time, had taken Tahera by assault; and found
there one hundred and twenty elephants, many slaves, and much plunder.
He annexed the town and its dependencies to his own dominions, and
returned victorious to Ghazni.

In the year A.H. 396 he formed the design of reconquering Multan, which
had revolted from his rule. Achmet Lodi, the regent of Multan, had
formerly acknowledged the suzerainty of Mahmud, and after him his
grandson Daud, till the expedition against Bakhera, when Daud withdrew
his allegiance. The King marched in the beginning of the spring, with a
great army from Ghazni, and was met by Annandpal, the son of Jipal,
Prince of Lahore, in the hills of Peshawur, whom he defeated and obliged
to fly into Cashmere. Annandpal had entered into an alliance with Daud;
and as there were two passes only by which the Mahometans could enter
Multan, Annandpal had taken upon himself to secure that by the way of
Peshawur, which Mahmud chanced to take. The Sultan, returning from the
pursuit, entered Multan by the way of Betanda, which was his first
intention. When Daud received intelligence of the fate of Annandpal,
thinking himself too weak to keep the field, he shut himself up in his
fortified place and humbly solicited forgiveness for his fault,
promising to pay a large tribute and in the future to obey implicitly
the Sultan's command. Mahmud received him again as a vassal, and
prepared to return to Ghazni, when news was brought to him from
Arsallah, who commanded at Herat, that Elak, the King of Kashgar, had
invaded his realm with an army. The King hastened to settle the affairs
of Hindustan, which he put into the hands of Shokpal, a Hindu prince who
had resided with Abu-Ali, governor of Peshawur, and had turned
Mussulman, taking the name of Zab Sais.

The particulars of the war of Mahmud with Elak are these: It has already
been mentioned that an uncommon friendship had existed between this
Elak, the Usbek king of Kashgar, a kingdom in Tartary, and Mahmud. The
Emperor himself was married to the daughter of Elak, but some factious
men about the two courts, by misrepresentations of the princes to one
another, changed their former friendship to enmity. When Mahmud
therefore marched into Hindustan, and had left the field of Khorassan
almost destitute of troops, Elak took advantage of the opportunity, and
resolved to appropriate that province to himself. To accomplish his
design he ordered his general-in-chief Sapastagi, with a large force, to
enter Khorassan; and Jaffir Taghi at the same time was appointed to
command in the territory of Balak. Arsallah, the governor of Herat,
being informed of these motions, hastened to Ghazni, that he might
secure the capital. In the mean time the chiefs of Khorassan, finding
themselves deserted and being in no condition to oppose the enemy,
submitted themselves to Sapastagi, the general of Elak.

But Mahmud, having by great marches reached Ghazni, flowed onward like a
torrent with his army toward Balak. Taghi, who had by this time
possessed himself of the place, fled toward Turmuz at his approach. The
Emperor then detached Arsallah with a great part of his army to drive
Sapastagi out of Khorassan; and he also, upon the approach of the troops
of Ghazni, abandoned Herat, and marched toward Maber-ul-nere.

The King of Kashgar, seeing the bad state of his affairs, solicited the
aid of Kudar, King of Chuton, a province of Tartary, on the confines of
China, and that prince marched to join him with fifty thousand horse.
Strengthened by this alliance, he crossed, with the confederate armies,
the river Gaon, which was five parasangs from Balak, and opposed himself
to the camp of Mahmud. That monarch immediately drew up his army in
order of battle, giving the command of the centre to his brother, the
noble Nasir, supported by Abu-Nasir, governor of Gorgan, and by
Abdallah, a chief of reputation in arms. The right wing he committed to
the care of Alta Sash, an old experienced officer, while the left was
the charge of the valiant Arsallah, a chief of the Afghans. The front of
his line he strengthened with five hundred chain-elephants, with open
spaces behind them, to facilitate their retreat in case of a defeat.

The King of Kashgar posted himself in the centre, the noble Kudir led
the right, and Taghi the left. The armies advanced to the charge. The
shouts of warriors, the neighing of horses, and the clashing of arms
reached the broad arch of heaven, while dust obscured the face of day.

Elak, advancing with some chosen squadrons, threw the centre of Mahmud's
army into disorder. Mahmud, perceiving the enemy's progress, leaped from
his horse, and, kissing the ground, invoked the aid of the Almighty. He
then mounted an elephant-of-war, encouraged his troops, and made a
violent assault upon Elak. The elephant seizing the standard-bearer of
the enemy, folded his trunk around him and tossed him aloft in the air.
He then surged forward like a mountain removed from its base by an
earthquake, and trod the enemy under his feet like locusts. When the
troops of Ghazni saw their King forcing his way alone through the
enemy's ranks they rushed forward with headlong impetuosity and drove
the enemy with great slaughter before them. Elak, abandoned by fortune
and his army, turned his face to fly. He crossed the river with a few of
his surviving friends, never afterward appearing in the field to dispute
the victory with Mahmud.

The King after this triumph marched two days after the runaways. On the
third night a great storm of wind and snow overtook the Ghaznian army in
the desert. The King's tents were pitched with much difficulty, while
the army was obliged to lie in the snow. Mahmud, having ordered great
fires to be kindled around his tents, they became so warm that many of
the courtiers began to take off their upper garments; when a facetious
chief, whose name was Dalk, came in shivering with the cold, at which
the King, observing, said: "Go out, Dalk, and tell the Winter that he
may burst his cheeks with blustering, for here we value not his
resentment." Dalk went out accordingly, and, returning in a short time,
kissed the ground, and thus addressed the King: "I have delivered the
King's message to Winter, but the Surly Season replied that if his hands
cannot tear the skirts of Royalty and hurt the attendants of the King,
yet he will so use his power to-night on his army that in the morning
Mahmud will be obliged to saddle his own horses."

The King smiled at this reply, but it presently rendered him more
thoughtful and he determined to proceed no farther. In the morning some
hundreds of men and horses were found to have perished with the cold.
Mahmud at the same time received advices from India, that Zab Sais, the
renegade Hindu, had thrown off his allegiance, and, returning to his
former religion, expelled all the officers who had been appointed by the
King, from their respective departments. The King immediately determined
to punish this renegade, and with great expedition advanced toward
India. He sent on a part of his cavalry in front, which, coming
unexpectedly upon Zab Sais, defeated him and brought him prisoner to the
King. The rebel was fined four lacs of rupees, of which Mahmud made a
present to his treasurer, and made Zab Sais a prisoner for life.

Mahmud, having thus settled his affairs in India, returned in autumn to
Ghazni, where he remained for the winter in peace. But in the spring of
the year A.H. 399 Annandpal, sovereign of Lahore, began to raise
disturbance in Multan, so that the King was obliged to undertake another
expedition into those parts, with a great army, to correct the Indians.
Annandpal, hearing of his intentions, sent ambassadors everywhere to
request the assistance of the other princes of Hindustan, who considered
the extirpation of the Moslems from India as a meritorious and political
as well as a religious action.

Accordingly the princes of Ugin, Gualier, Callinger, Kannoge, Delhi, and
Ajmere entered into a confederacy, and, collecting their forces,
advanced toward the heads of the Indus, with the greatest army that had
been for some centuries seen upon the field in India. The two armies
came in sight of one another in a great plain near the confines of the
province of Peshawur. They remained there encamped forty days without
action: but the troops of the idolaters daily increased in number. They
were joined by the Gakers, and other tribes with their armies, and
surrounded the Mahometans, who, fearing a general assault, were obliged
to intrench themselves.

The King, having thus secured himself, ordered a thousand archers to the
front, to endeavor to provoke the enemy to advance to the intrenchments.
The archers accordingly were attacked by the Gakers, who,
notwithstanding all the King could do, pursued the retreating bowmen
within the trenches, where a dreadful scene of carnage ensued on both
sides, in which five thousand Moslems in a few minutes were slain. The
enemy's soldiers being now cut down as fast as they advanced, the attack
grew weaker, when suddenly the elephant which carried the Prince of
Lahore, who was chief in command, took fright at the report of a gun
(_sic_), and turned tail in flight.

This circumstance struck the Hindus with a panic, for, thinking they
were deserted by their general, they immediately followed the example.
Abdallah, with six thousand Arabian horse, and Arsallah, with ten
thousand Turks, Afghans, and Chilligis, pursued the enemy for two days
and nights; so that twenty thousand Hindus were killed in their
flight--in addition to the great multitude that fell on the field of
battle.

Thirty elephants, with much rich plunder, were brought to the King, who,
to establish the faith, marched against the Hindus of Nagrakot, breaking
down their idols and destroying their temples. There was at that time,
in the territory of Nagrakot, a strong fort called Bima, which Mahmud
invested after having destroyed the country round about with fire and
sword. Bima was built by a prince of the same name, on the top of a
steep mountain; and here the Hindus--on account of its strength--had
deposited the wealth consecrated to their idols in all the neighboring
kingdoms; so that in this fort, it was said, there was a greater
quantity of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls than ever had been
collected in the royal treasury of any prince on earth.

Mahmud invested the place with such expedition that the Hindus had not
time to send troops into it for its defence--the greater part of the
garrison having been sent to the field. Those within consisted, for the
most part, of priests, who being adverse to the bloody business of war,
in a few days solicited permission to capitulate. Their request being
granted, they opened the gates and fell upon their faces before Mahmud,
who with a few of his officers and attendants immediately entered and
took possession of the place.

In Bima were found: seven hundred thousand _dinars_; seven hundred
maunds of gold and silver plate; forty maunds of pure gold in ingots;
two thousand maunds of silver bullion, and twenty maunds of various
jewels set, which had been collecting from the time of Bima. With this
immense treasure the King returned to Ghazni, and in the year A.H. 400
held a magnificent festival, where he displayed to the people his wealth
in golden thrones, and in other rich receptacles, in a great plain
without the city of Ghazni; and after the feast every individual
received a princely gift.

In the following year Mahmud led his army toward Ghor. The native prince
of that country, Mahomet of the Sur tribe of Afghans, with ten thousand
troops, opposed him. The King, finding that the troops of Ghor defended
themselves in their intrenchments with such obstinacy, commanded his
army to make a feint of retreating, to lure the enemy out of their
fortified camp, which manoeuvre proved successful. The Ghorians, being
deceived, pursued the army of Ghazni to the plain, where the King,
facing round with his troops, attacked them with great impetuosity.
Mahomet was taken prisoner and brought to the King; but in his despair
he had taken poison, which he always kept under his ring, and died in a
few hours. His country was annexed to the dominion of Ghazni. Some
historians affirm that neither the sovereigns of Ghor nor its
inhabitants were Mussulmans till after this victory; while others of
good credit assure us that they were converted many years before, even
so early as the time of the famous Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet.

Mahmud, in the same year, was under the necessity of marching again to
Multan, which had revolted; but having soon reduced it, and cut off a
great number of the chiefs, he brought Daud, the son of Nazir, the
rebellious governor, prisoner to Ghazni, and imprisoned him in the fort
of Gorci for life.

In the year A.H. 402, the passion of war fermenting in the mind of
Mahmud, he resolved upon the conquest of Tannasar, in the kingdom of
Hindustan. It had reached the ears of the King that Tannasar was held in
the same veneration by idolaters as Mecca was by the Mahometans; that
there they had set up a great number of idols, the chief of which they
called Jug Sum. This Jug Sum, they pretended to say, existed when as yet
the world existed not. When the King reached the country about the five
branches of the Indus, he desired that--according to the treaty that
existed between himself and Annandpal--he should not be disturbed by his
march through that country. He accordingly sent an embassy to Annandpal,
advising him of his intentions, and desiring him to send guards for the
protection of his towns and villages, which he, the King, would take
care should not be molested by the followers of his camp.

Annandpal agreed to this proposal, and prepared an entertainment for the
reception of the King, issuing an order for all his subjects to supply
the royal camp with every necessary of life. In the mean time he sent
his brother with two thousand horse to meet the King and deliver this
message:

"That he was the subject and slave of the King; but that he begged
permission to acquaint his Majesty that Tannasar was the principal place
of worship of the inhabitants of that country; that if it was a virtue
required by the religion of Mahmud to destroy the religion of others, he
had already acquitted himself of that duty to his God in the destruction
of the temple of Nagracot; but if he should be pleased to alter his
resolution against Tannasar, Annandpal would undertake that the amount
of the revenues of that country should be annually paid to Mahmud, to
reimburse the expense of his expedition: that besides, he, on his own
part, would present him with fifty elephants, and jewels to a
considerable amount."

The King replied: "That in the Mahometan religion it was an established
tenet that the more the glory of the Prophet was exalted, and the more
his followers exerted themselves in the subversion of idolatry, the
greater would be their reward in heaven; that therefore it was his firm
resolution, with the assistance of God, to root out the abominable
worship of idols from the land of India: why then should he spare
Tannasar?"

When this news reached the Indian king of Delhi, he prepared to oppose
the invaders, sending messages all over Hindustan to acquaint the rajahs
that Mahmud, without any reason or provocation, was marching with an
innumerable army to destroy Tannasar, which was under his immediate
protection: that if a dam was not expeditiously raised against this
roaring torrent, the country of Hindustan would soon be overwhelmed in
ruin, and the tree of prosperity rooted up; that therefore it was
advisable for them to join their forces at Tannasar, to oppose with
united strength the impending danger. But Mahmud reached Tannasar before
they could take any measure for its defence, plundered the city and
broke the idols, sending Jug Sum to Ghazni, where he was soon stripped
of his ornaments. He then ordered his head to be struck off and his body
to be thrown on the highway. According to the account of the historian
Hago Mahomet of Kandahar, there was a ruby found in one of the temples
which weighed four hundred and fifty miskals!

Mahmud, after these transactions at Tannasar, proceeded to Delhi, which
he also took, and wanted greatly to annex to his dominions, but his
nobles told him that it was impossible to keep the rajahship of Delhi
till he had entirely subjected Multan to Mahometan rule, destroyed the
power and exterminated the family of Annandpal, Prince of Lahore, which
lay between Delhi and the northern dominions of Mahmud. The King
approved of this counsel, and immediately determined to proceed no
further against that country, till he had accomplished the reduction of
Multan and Annandpal. But that prince behaved with so much policy and
hospitality that he changed the purpose of the King, who returned to
Ghazni. He brought to Ghazni forty thousand captives and much wealth, so
that that city could now be hardly distinguished in riches from India
itself.



CANUTE BECOMES KING OF ENGLAND

A.D. 1017

DAVID HUME


(After the success of King Alfred over the Danes in the last quarter of
the ninth century, England enjoyed a considerable respite from the
invasions of the bold ravagers who had caused great suffering and loss
to the country. This immunity of England seems to have been partly due
to the fact that the Danish adventurers had gained a foothold in the
north of France, where they found all the employment they needed in
maintaining their establishments. Under the reign of Edward the
Elder--chosen to succeed Alfred--the English enjoyed an interval of
comparative peace and industry. During this time and under the following
reigns, known as those of the Six Boy-Kings, the social side of life had
an opportunity to develop from a semi-barbarous to a more civilized
state. The bare and rough walls of hall and court were screened by
tapestry hangings, often of silk, and elaborately ornamented with birds
and flowers or scenes from the battlefield or the chase. Chairs and
tables were skilfully carved and inlaid with different woods and, among
the wealthier nobility, often decorated with gold and silver. Knives and
spoons were now used at table--the fork was to come many long years
later; golden ornaments were worn; and a variety of dishes were
fashioned, often of precious metals, brass, and even bone. The bedstead
became a household article, no longer looked upon with superstitious
awe; and musical instruments--principally of the harp pattern--began to
find favor in their eyes, and were passed round from hand to hand, like
the drinking-bowl, at their rude festivals.

But toward the end of a century following the victories of Alfred the
Danes again threatened an invasion, and in 981-991 they made several
landings, in the latter year overrunning much territory. King Ethelred
[the "Unready"] procured their departure by bribery, which led the Danes
to repeat their visit the next year, following it up by a descent in
force under King Sweyn of Denmark and Olaf of Norway. They defeated the
English in battle and ravaged a great part of the country, exacting as
before ruinous contributions from the already impoverished people. After
the siege and taking of London, 1011-1013, the flight of the cowardly
Ethelred to the court of Normandy, the sudden death of Sweyn, who had
been but a few months before proclaimed King of England, and the return
of Ethelred to his throne, Canute, the son of Sweyn, claimed the crown
and ravaged the land in the manner and custom of his race. The
complications and strife engendered by the rival claims of the Dane and
Edmund ["Ironside"], son of Ethelred, and which ended in the triumph of
Canute and the complete subjugation of England, are hereinafter narrated
by Hume, the English historian.)


The Danes had been established during a longer period in England than in
France; and though the similarity of their original language to that of
the Saxons invited them to a more early coalition with the natives, they
had hitherto found so little example of civilized manners among the
English that they retained all their ancient ferocity, and valued
themselves only on their national character of military bravery. The
recent as well as more ancient achievements of their countrymen tended
to support this idea; and the English princes, particularly Athelstan
and Edgar, sensible of that superiority, had been accustomed to keep in
pay bodies of Danish troops, who were quartered about the country and
committed many violences upon the inhabitants. These mercenaries had
attained to such a height of luxury, according to the old English
writers, that they combed their hair once a day, bathed themselves once
a week, changed their clothes frequently; and by all these arts of
effeminacy, as well as by their military character, had rendered
themselves so agreeable to the fair sex that they debauched the wives
and daughters of the English and dishonored many families. But what most
provoked the inhabitants was that, instead of defending them against
invaders, they were ever ready to betray them to the foreign Danes, and
to associate themselves with all straggling parties of that nation.

The animosity between the inhabitants of English and Danish race had,
from these repeated injuries, risen to a great height, when Ethelred
(1002), from a policy incident to weak princes, embraced the cruel
resolution of massacring the latter throughout all his dominions. Secret
orders were despatched to commence the execution everywhere on the same
day, and the festival of St. Brice, which fell on a Sunday, the day on
which the Danes usually bathed themselves, was chosen for that purpose.
It is needless to repeat the accounts transmitted concerning the
barbarity of this massacre: the rage of the populace, excited by so many
injuries, sanctioned by authority, and stimulated by example,
distinguished not between innocence and guilt, spared neither sex nor
age, and was not satiated without the tortures as well as death of the
unhappy victims. Even Gunhilda, sister to the King of Denmark, who had
married Earl Paling and had embraced Christianity, was, by the advice of
Edric, Earl of Wilts, seized and condemned to death by Ethelred, after
seeing her husband and children butchered before her face. This unhappy
princess foretold, in the agonies of despair, that her murder would soon
be avenged by the total ruin of the English nation.

Never was prophecy better fulfilled, and never did barbarous policy
prove more fatal to the authors. Sweyn and his Danes, who wanted but a
pretence for invading the English, appeared off the western coast, and
threatened to take full revenge for the slaughter of their countrymen.
Exeter fell first into their hands, from the negligence or treachery of
Earl Hugh, a Norman, who had been made governor by the interest of Queen
Emma. They began to spread their devastations over the country, when the
English, sensible what outrages they must now expect from their
barbarous and offended enemy, assembled more early and in greater
numbers than usual, and made an appearance of vigorous resistance. But
all these preparations were frustrated by the treachery of Duke Alfric,
who was intrusted with the command, and who, feigning sickness, refused
to lead the army against the Danes, till it was dispirited and at last
dissipated by his fatal misconduct. Alfric soon after died, and Edric, a
greater traitor than he, who had married the King's daughter and had
acquired a total ascendant over him, succeeded Alfric in the government
of Mercia and in the command of the English armies. A great famine,
proceeding partly from the bad seasons, partly from the decay of
agriculture, added to all the other miseries of the inhabitants. The
country, wasted by the Danes, harassed by the fruitless expeditions of
its own forces, was reduced to the utmost desolation, and at last
submitted (1007) to the infamy of purchasing a precarious peace from the
enemy by the payment of thirty thousand pounds.

The English endeavored to employ this interval in making preparations
against the return of the Danes, which they had reason soon to expect. A
law was made, ordering the proprietors of eight hides of land to provide
each a horseman and a complete suit of armor, and those of three hundred
and ten hides to equip a ship for the defence of the coast. When this
navy was assembled, which must have consisted of near eight hundred
vessels, all hopes of its success were disappointed by the factions,
animosities, and dissensions of the nobility. Edric had impelled his
brother Brightric to prefer an accusation of treason against Wolfnoth,
governor of Sussex, the father of the famous earl Godwin; and that
nobleman, well acquainted with the malevolence as well as power of his
enemy, found no means of safety but in deserting with twenty ships to
the Danes. Brightric pursued him with a fleet of eighty sail; but his
ships being shattered in a tempest, and stranded on the coast, he was
suddenly attacked by Wolfnoth, and all his vessels burned and destroyed.
The imbecility of the King was little capable of repairing this
misfortune. The treachery of Edric frustrated every plan for future
defence; and the English navy, disconcerted, discouraged, and divided,
was at last scattered into its several harbors.

It is almost impossible, or would be tedious, to relate particularly all
the miseries to which the English were henceforth exposed. We hear of
nothing but the sacking and burning of towns; the devastation of the
open country; the appearance of the enemy in every quarter of the
kingdom; their cruel diligence in discovering any corner which had not
been ransacked by their former violence. The broken and disjointed
narration of the ancient historians is here well adapted to the nature
of the war, which was conducted by such sudden inroads as would have
been dangerous even to a united and well-governed kingdom, but proved
fatal where nothing but a general consternation and mutual diffidence
and dissension prevailed. The governors of one province refused to march
to the assistance of another, and were at last terrified from assembling
their forces for the defence of their own province. General councils
were summoned; but either no resolution was taken or none was carried
into execution. And the only expedient in which the English agreed was
the base and imprudent one of buying a new peace from the Danes, by the
payment of forty-eight thousand pounds.

This measure did not bring them even that short interval of repose which
they had expected from it. The Danes, disregarding all engagements,
continued their devastations and hostilities; levied a new contribution
of eight thousand pounds upon the county of Kent alone; murdered the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who had refused to countenance this exaction;
and the English nobility found no other resource than that of submitting
everywhere to the Danish monarch, swearing allegiance to him, and
delivering him hostages for their fidelity. Ethelred, equally afraid of
the violence of the enemy and the treachery of his own subjects, fled
into Normandy (1013), whither he had sent before him Queen Emma and her
two sons, Alfred and Edward. Richard received his unhappy guests with a
generosity that does honor to his memory.

The King had not been above six weeks in Normandy when he heard of the
death of Sweyn, who expired at Gainsborough before he had time to
establish himself in his new-acquired dominions. The English prelates
and nobility, taking advantage of this event, sent over a deputation to
Normandy, inviting Ethelred to return to them, expressing a desire of
being again governed by their native prince, and intimating their hopes
that, being now tutored by experience, he would avoid all those errors
which had been attended with such misfortunes to himself and to his
people. But the misconduct of Ethelred was incurable; and on his
resuming the government, he discovered the same incapacity, indolence,
cowardice, and credulity which had so often exposed him to the insults
of his enemies. His son-in-law Edric, notwithstanding his repeated
treasons, retained such influence at court as to instil into the King
jealousies of Sigefert and Morcar, two of the chief nobles of Mercia.
Edric allured them into his house, where he murdered them; while
Ethelred participated in the infamy of the action by confiscating their
estates and thrusting into a convent the widow of Sigefert. She was a
woman of singular beauty and merit; and in a visit which was paid her,
during her confinement, by Prince Edmund, the King's eldest son, she
inspired him with so violent an affection that he released her from the
convent, and soon after married her without the consent of his father.

Meanwhile the English found in Canute, the son and successor of Sweyn,
an enemy no less terrible than the prince from whom death had so lately
delivered them. He ravaged the eastern coast with merciless fury, and
put ashore all the English hostages at Sandwich, after having cut off
their hands and noses. He was obliged, by the necessity of his affairs,
to make a voyage to Denmark; but, returning soon after, he continued his
depredations along the southern coast. He even broke into the counties
of Dorset, Wilts, and Somerset, where an army was assembled against him,
under the command of Prince Edmund and Duke Edric. The latter still
continued his perfidious machinations, and, after endeavoring in vain to
get the prince into his power, he found means to disperse the army, and
he then openly deserted to Canute with forty vessels.

Notwithstanding this misfortune Edmund was not disconcerted, but,
assembling all the force of England, was in a condition to give battle
to the enemy. The King had had such frequent experience of perfidy among
his subjects that he had lost all confidence in them: he remained at
London, pretending sickness, but really from apprehensions that they
intended to buy their peace by delivering him into the hands of his
enemies. The army called aloud for their sovereign to march at their
head against the Danes; and, on his refusal to take the field, they were
so discouraged that those vast preparations became ineffectual for the
defence of the kingdom. Edmund, deprived of all regular supplies to
maintain his soldiers, was obliged to commit equal ravages with those
which were practised by the Danes; and, after making some fruitless
expeditions into the north, which had submitted entirely to Canute's
power, he retired to London, determined there to maintain to the last
extremity the small remains of English liberty. He here found everything
in confusion by the death of the King, who expired after an unhappy and
inglorious reign of thirty-five years (1016). He left two sons by his
first marriage, Edmund, who succeeded him, and Edwy, whom Canute
afterward murdered. His two sons by the second marriage, Alfred and
Edward, were, immediately upon Ethelred's death, conveyed into Normandy
by Queen Emma.

Edmund, who received the name of "Ironside" from his hardy valor,
possessed courage and abilities sufficient to have prevented his country
from sinking into those calamities, but not to raise it from that abyss
of misery into which it had already fallen. Among the other misfortunes
of the English, treachery and disaffection had crept in among the
nobility and prelates; and Edmund found no better expedient for stopping
the further progress of these fatal evils than to lead his army
instantly into the field, and to employ them against the common enemy.
After meeting with some success at Gillingham, he prepared himself to
decide, in one general engagement, the fate of his crown; and at
Scoerston, in the county of Gloucester, he offered battle to the enemy,
who were commanded by Canute and Edric. Fortune, in the beginning of the
day, declared for him; but Edric, having cut off the head of one Osmer,
whose countenance resembled that of Edmund, fixed it on a spear, carried
it through the ranks in triumph, and called aloud to the English that it
was time to fly; for, behold! the head of their sovereign. And though
Edmund, observing the consternation of the troops, took off his helmet,
and showed himself to them, the utmost he could gain by his activity and
valor was to leave the victory undecided. Edric now took a surer method
to ruin him, by pretending to desert to him; and as Edmund was well
acquainted with his power, and probably knew no other of the chief
nobility in whom he could repose more confidence, he was obliged,
notwithstanding the repeated perfidy of the man, to give him a
considerable command in the army. A battle soon after ensued at
Assington, in Essex, where Edric, flying in the beginning of the day,
occasioned the total defeat of the English, followed by a great
slaughter of the nobility. The indefatigable Edmund, however, had still
resources. Assembling a new army at Gloucester, he was again in
condition to dispute the field, when the Danish and English nobility,
equally harassed with those convulsions, obliged their kings to come to
a compromise and to divide the kingdom between them by treaty. Canute
reserved to himself the northern division, consisting of Mercia, East
Anglia, and Northumberland, which he had entirely subdued. The southern
parts were left to Edmund. This prince survived the treaty about a
month. He was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices
of Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to
the crown of England.

The English, who had been unable to defend their country and maintain
their independency under so active and brave a prince as Edmund, could
after his death expect nothing but total subjection from Canute, who,
active and brave himself, and at the head of a great force, was ready to
take advantage of the minority of Edwin and Edward, the two sons of
Edmund. Yet this conqueror, who was commonly so little scrupulous,
showed himself anxious to cover his injustice under plausible pretences.
Before he seized the dominions of the English princes, he summoned a
general assembly of the states in order to fix the succession of the
kingdom. He here suborned some nobles to depose that, in the treaty of
Gloucester, it had been verbally agreed, either to name Canute, in case
of Edmund's death, successor to his dominions or tutor to his
children--for historians vary in this particular; and that evidence,
supported by the great power of Canute, determined the states
immediately to put the Danish monarch in possession of the government.
Canute, jealous of the two princes, but sensible that he should render
himself extremely odious if he ordered them to be despatched in England,
sent them abroad to his ally, the King of Sweden, whom he desired, as
soon as they arrived at his court, to free him, by their death, from all
further anxiety. The Swedish monarch was too generous to comply with the
request; but being afraid of drawing on himself a quarrel with Canute,
by protecting the young princes, he sent them to Solomon, King of
Hungary, to be educated in his court. The elder, Edwin, was afterward
married to the sister of the King of Hungary; but the English prince
dying without issue, Solomon gave his sister-in-law, Agatha, daughter of
the emperor Henry II, in marriage to Edward, the younger brother; and
she bore him Edgar, Atheling, Margaret, afterward Queen of Scotland, and
Christina, who retired into a convent.

Canute, though he had reached the great point of his ambition in
obtaining possession of the English crown, was obliged at first to make
great sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief of the nobility, by
bestowing on them the most extensive governments and jurisdictions. He
created Thurkill Earl or Duke of East Anglia--for these titles were then
nearly of the same import--Yric of Northumberland, and Edric of Mercia;
reserving only to himself the administration of Wessex. But seizing
afterward a favorable opportunity, he expelled Thurkill and Yric from
their governments, and banished them the kingdom; he put to death many
of the English nobility, on whose fidelity he could not rely, and whom
he hated on account of their disloyalty to their native prince. And even
the traitor Edric, having had the assurance to reproach him with his
services, was condemned to be executed and his body to be thrown into
the Thames; a suitable reward for his multiplied acts of perfidy and
rebellion.

Canute also found himself obliged, in the beginning of his reign, to
load the people with heavy taxes in order to reward his Danish
followers: he exacted from them at one time the sum of seventy-two
thousand pounds, besides eleven thousand which he levied on London
alone. He was probably willing, from political motives, to mulct
severely that city, on account of the affection which it had borne to
Edmund and the resistance which it had made to the Danish power in two
obstinate sieges.[25] But these rigors were imputed to necessity; and
Canute, like a wise prince, was determined that the English, now
deprived of all their dangerous leaders, should be reconciled to the
Danish yoke, by the justice and impartiality of his administration. He
sent back to Denmark as many of his followers as he could safely spare;
he restored the Saxon customs in a general assembly of the states; he
made no distinction between Danes and English in the distribution of
justice; and he took care, by a strict execution of law, to protect the
lives and properties of all his people. The Danes were gradually
incorporated with his new subjects; and both were glad to obtain a
little respite from those multiplied calamities from which the one, no
less than the other, had, in their fierce contest for power, experienced
such fatal consequences.

[Footnote 25: In one of these sieges Canute diverted the course of the
Thames, and by that means brought his ships above London bridge.]

The removal of Edmund's children into so distant a country as Hungary
was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security to
his government: he had no further anxiety, except with regard to Alfred
and Edward, who were protected and supported by their uncle Richard,
Duke of Normandy. Richard even fitted out a great armament, in order to
restore the English princes to the throne of their ancestors; and though
the navy was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw the danger to which he was
exposed from the enmity of so warlike a people as the Normans. In order
to acquire the friendship of the duke, he paid his addresses to Queen
Emma, sister of that prince, and promised that he would leave the
children whom he should have by that marriage in possession of the Crown
of England. Richard complied with his demand and sent over Emma to
England, where she was soon after married to Canute. The English, though
they disapproved of her espousing the mortal enemy of her former husband
and his family, were pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they
were accustomed, and who had already formed connections with them; and
thus Canute, besides securing, by this marriage, the alliance of
Normandy, gradually acquired, by the same means, the confidence of his
own subjects. The Norman prince did not long survive the marriage of
Emma; and he left the inheritance of the duchy to his eldest son of the
same name, who, dying a year after him without children, was succeeded
by his brother Robert, a man of valor and abilities.

Canute, having settled his power in England beyond all danger of a
revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, in order to resist the attacks of
the King of Sweden; and he carried along with him a great body of the
English, under the command of Earl Godwin. This nobleman had here an
opportunity of performing a service, by which he both reconciled the
King's mind to the English nation and, gaining to himself the friendship
of his sovereign, laid the foundation of that immense fortune which he
acquired to his family. He was stationed next the Swedish camp, and
observing a favorable opportunity, which he was obliged suddenly to
seize, he attacked the enemy in the night, drove them from their
trenches, threw them into disorder, pursued his advantage, and obtained
a decisive victory over them. Next morning Canute, seeing the English
camp entirely abandoned, imagined that those disaffected troops had
deserted to the enemy: he was agreeably surprised to find that they were
at that time engaged in pursuit of the discomfited Swedes. He was so
pleased with this success, and with the manner of obtaining it, that he
bestowed his daughter in marriage upon Godwin, and treated him ever
after with entire confidence and regard.

In another voyage, which he made afterward to Denmark, Canute attacked
Norway, and, expelling the just but unwarlike Olaus, kept possession of
his kingdom till the death of that prince. He had now by his conquests
and valor attained the utmost height of grandeur: having leisure from
wars and intrigues, he felt the unsatisfactory nature of all human
enjoyments; and equally weary of the glories and turmoils of this life,
he began to cast his view toward that future existence, which it is so
natural for the human mind, whether satiated by prosperity or disgusted
with adversity, to make the object of its attention. Unfortunately, the
spirit which prevailed in that age gave a wrong direction to his
devotion: instead of making compensation to those whom he had injured by
his former acts of violence, he employed himself entirely in those
exercises of piety which the monks represented as the most meritorious.
He built churches, he endowed monasteries, he enriched the
ecclesiastics, and he bestowed revenues for the support of chantries at
Assington and other places, where he appointed prayers to be said for
the souls of those who had there fallen in battle against him. He even
undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, where he resided a considerable time:
besides obtaining from the pope some privileges for the English school
erected there, he engaged all the princes through whose dominions he was
obliged to pass to desist from those heavy impositions and tolls which
they were accustomed to exact from the English pilgrims. By this spirit
of devotion, no less than by his equitable and politic administration,
he gained, in a good measure, the affections of his subjects.

Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign of
Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of meeting
with adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is liberally paid
even to the meanest and weakest princes. Some of his flatterers,
breaking out one day in admiration of his grandeur, exclaimed that
everything was possible for him; upon which the monarch, it is said,
ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore while the tide was rising;
and as the waters approached, he commanded them to retire, and to obey
the voice of him who was lord of the ocean. He feigned to sit some time
in expectation of their submission; but when the sea still advanced
toward him, and began to wash him with its billows, he turned to his
courtiers, and remarked to them that every creature in the universe was
feeble and impotent, and that power resided with one Being alone, in
whose hands were all the elements of nature; who could say to the ocean,
"Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," and who could level with his
nod the most towering piles of human pride and ambition.

The only memorable action which Canute performed after his return from
Rome was an expedition against Malcolm, King of Scotland. During the
reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been imposed on all
the lands of England. It was commonly called _danegelt_; because the
revenue had been employed either in buying peace with the Danes or in
making preparations against the inroads of that hostile nation. That
monarch had required that the same tax should be paid by Cumberland,
which was held by the Scots; but Malcolm, a warlike prince, told him
that as he was always able to repulse the Danes by his own power, he
would neither submit to buy peace of his enemies nor pay others for
resisting them. Ethelred, offended at this reply, which contained a
secret reproach on his own conduct, undertook an expedition against
Cumberland; but though he committed ravages upon the country, he could
never bring Malcolm to a temper more humble or submissive. Canute, after
his accession, summoned the Scottish King to acknowledge himself a
vassal for Cumberland to the Crown of England; but Malcolm refused
compliance, on pretence that he owed homage to those princes only who
inherited that kingdom by right of blood. Canute was not of a temper to
bear this insult; and the King of Scotland soon found that the sceptre
was in very different hands from those of the feeble and irresolute
Ethelred. Upon Canute's appearing on the frontiers with a formidable
army, Malcolm agreed that his grandson and heir, Duncan, whom he put in
possession of Cumberland, should make the submissions required, and that
the heirs of Scotland should always acknowledge themselves vassals to
England for that province.

Canute passed four years in peace after this enterprise, and he died at
Shaftesbury; leaving three sons, Sweyn, Harold, and Hardicanute. Sweyn,
whom he had by his first marriage with Alfwen, daughter of the Earl of
Hampshire, was crowned in Norway; Hardicanute, whom Emma had borne him,
was in possession of Denmark; Harold, who was of the same marriage with
Sweyn, was at that time in England.



HENRY III DEPOSES THE POPE

THE GERMAN EMPIRE CONTROLS THE PAPACY

A.D. 1048

FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS

JOSEPH E. DARRAS


(After the extinction of the Carlovingian line, A.D. 887, and the
division of the empire, the Church of Rome and the Christian world fell
into a highly demoralized state, attributable to the destitution to
which ecclesiastical bodies were reduced by the frequent predations of
bands of robbers, the immorality of the priesthood, and the power of
electing the popes falling into the hands of intriguing and licentious
patrician females, whom aspirants to the holy see were not ashamed to
bribe for their favors. So depraved had the general spirit of the age
become that Pope Boniface VII, A.D. 974, robbed St. Peter's Church and
its treasury and fled to Constantinople; while Pope John XVIII, A.D.
1003, was prevented, by general indignation only, from accepting a sum
of money from Emperor Basil to recognize the right of the Greek
patriarch to the title of "Universal Bishop."

A child, son of one of the old noble houses, was consecrated pope as
Benedict IX, A.D. 1033, according to some authorities, at the age of ten
or twelve years. He became noted for his profligacy and was driven from
his throne, the Romans electing, as Pope Sylvester III, John, Bishop of
Sabina, who is said to have paid a high price for the dignity. Benedict,
however, regained the papal seat shortly afterward, and drove Sylvester
into a refuge, but later sold the office to John Gratianus, Arch-priest
of Rome, who as Gregory VI made laudable attempts to effect a general
reformation. He failed in his efforts, and a chaotic state ensued; three
popes claiming the triple tiara and reigning in Rome: Gregory at the
Vatican, Benedict in the Lateran, and Sylvester in the Church of Santa
Maria Maggiore.

On the invitation of the Roman people, Henry the Black, the young and
zealous Emperor of Germany, repaired to Italy in 1045 and summoned a
great ecclesiastical council at Sutri, which passed a decree deposing
the three papal claimants. The same council elected to the tiara the
German bishop of Bamberg, who reigned in the holy see as Clement II. One
of his first ceremonies, carried out with all the gorgeous pomp of the
Roman Church, was the imperial coronation of Henry and his wife Agnes.

But Henry's action, while "it dragged the Church out of the slough it
had fallen into," startled the ecclesiastical world, and was a prelude
to the struggle between pope and emperor which, under St. Hildebrand,
Pope Gregory VII, culminated in the independent establishment of the
pontificate and papal power.)


FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS

Henry III, the son and successor of Conrad, was young, vigorous, and
God-fearing; a noble prince called, like Charles and Otto the Great, to
restore Rome, to deliver it from tyrants, and to reform the almost
annihilated Church. For the papacy had been still further dishonored by
Benedict IX. It seemed as if a demon from hell, in the disguise of a
priest, occupied the chair of Peter and profaned the sacred mysteries of
religion by his insolent courses.

Benedict IX, restored in 1038, protected by his brother Gregory, who
ruled the city as senator of the Romans, led unchecked the life of a
Turkish sultan in the palace of the Lateran. He and his family filled
Rome with robbery and murder; all lawful conditions had ceased. Toward
the end of 1044, or in the beginning of the following year, the populace
at length rose in furious revolt; the Pope fled, but his vassals
defended the Leonina against the attacks of the Romans. The
Trasteverines remained faithful to Benedict, and he summoned friends and
adherents; Count Gerard of Galeria advanced with a numerous body of
horse to the Saxon gate and repulsed the Romans. An earthquake added to
the horrors in the revolted city. The ancient chronicle which relates
these events does not tell us whether Trastevere was taken by assault
after a three-days' struggle, but merely relates that the Romans
unanimously renounced Benedict, and elected Bishop John of the Sabina to
the papacy as Sylvester III. John also owed his elevation to the gold
with which he bribed the rebels and their leader, Girardo de Saxo. This
powerful Roman had first promised his daughter in marriage to the Pope,
and afterward refused her; for the Pope had not hesitated, in all
seriousness, to sue for the hand of a Roman lady, a relative of his own.
Her father lured him on with the hope of winning her, but required that
Benedict should in the first place resign the tiara.

The Pope, burning with passion, consented and fulfilled his promise
during the revolt of the Romans. He was mastered by the demon of
sensuality; it was reported by the superstitious that he associated with
devils in the woods and attracted women by means of spells. It was
asserted that books of magic, with which he had conjured demons, had
been found in the Lateran. His banishment meanwhile aroused the haughty
spirit of his house, and anger at Gerard's treacherous conduct proved a
further incentive to revenge. His numerous adherents still held St.
Angelo, and his gold acquired him new friends. After a forty-nine days'
reign, Sylvester III was driven from the apostolic chair, which the
Tusculan reascended in March, 1045.

Benedict now ruled for some time in Rome, while Sylvester III found
safety either within some fortified monument in the city or in some
Sabine fortress, and continued to call himself pope. A beneficent
darkness veils the horrors of this year. Hated by the Romans, insecure
on his throne, in constant terror of the renewal of the revolution,
Benedict eventually found himself obliged to abdicate. The abbot
Bartholomew of Grotta Ferrata urged him to the step, but he unblushingly
sold the papacy for money like a piece of merchandise. In exchange for a
considerable income, that is to say, for the revenue of "Peter's pence"
from England, he made over his papal dignities by a formal contract to
John Gratianus, a rich archpriest of the Church of St. John at the Latin
gate, on May 1, 1045.

Could the holiest office in Christendom be more deeply outraged than by
a sale such as this? And yet so general was the traffic in
ecclesiastical dignities throughout the world that when a pope finally
sold the chair of Peter the scandal did not strike society as specially
heinous.

John Gratian, or Gregory VI, set aside the canon law with a defiant
courage which perhaps was only understood by the minority of his
compatriots; he bought the papacy in order to wrest it from the hands of
a criminal, and this remarkable Pope, although regarded as an idiot in
that terrible period, was possibly an earnest and high-minded man.
Scarcely had Peter Damian knowledge of this traffic when he wrote to
Gregory VI on his elevation, rejoicing that the dove with the olive
branch had returned to the ark. The Saint may have known the Pope
personally and have been persuaded of his spiritual virtues. Even the
chroniclers of the time, who represent him--assuredly with injustice--as
so rude and simple that he was obliged to appoint a representative, are
unable to fasten any crime upon him. The Cluniacs in France and the
congregations of Italy all hailed his elevation as the beginning of a
better time, and side by side with this simonist Pope a young and brave
monk suddenly appears, who, after the heroic exertions of a lifetime,
was to raise the degenerate papacy to a height hitherto undreamed of.
Hildebrand first issues from obscurity by the side of Gregory VI; he
became the Pope's chaplain, and this fact alone proves that Gregory was
no idiot. How far Hildebrand's activity already extended, whether he had
any share in Gregory's illegal elevation, we do not know; but in the
"representative" spoken of by the chronicles, we may easily recognize
the gifted young monk who was Gregory's counsellor, and who later took
the name of Gregory VII in grateful recollection of his predecessor.

While Benedict IX pursued his wild career in Tusculum or Rome, Gregory
VI remained Pope for nearly two years. His desire was to save the
Church, which stood in need of a drastic reform--and which soon
afterward obtained it. The papacy, lately a hereditary fief of the
counts of Tusculum, was utterly ruined; the _dominium temporale_, the
ominous gift of the Carlovingians, the box of Pandora in the hands of
the Pope from which a thousand evils had arisen, had disappeared, since
the Church could scarcely command the fortresses in the immediate
neighborhood of the city. A hundred lords, the captains or vassals of
the Pope, stood ready to fall upon Rome; every road was infested with
robbers, every pilgrim was robbed; within the city the churches lay in
ruins, while the priests caroused. Daily assassinations made the streets
insecure. Roman nobles, sword in hand, forced their way into St. Peter's
itself to snatch the gifts which pious hands still placed upon the
altar.

The chronicler who describes this state of things extols Gregory for
having repressed it. The captains, it is true, besieged the city, but
the Pope boldly assembled the militia, restored a degree of order, and
even conquered several fortresses in the district. Sylvester had
apparently made an attempt on Rome; he was, however, defeated by
Gregory's energy. The short and dark period of Gregory's pontificate was
terrible, and his severity toward the robbers soon made him hated by the
nobles and even by the equally rapacious cardinals.

Whatever he may have done under the influence of French and Italian
monks to rescue the Church from its state of barbarous confusion, it
was--as in the time of Otto the Great--by the German dictatorship alone
that it could be saved. The exertions of Gregory VI soon ceased to bear
any result; his means were exhausted, and his opponents gradually
overpowered him. So utter was the state of anarchy that it is said that
all three popes lived in the city at the same time: one in the Lateran,
a second in St. Peter's, and a third in Santa Maria Maggiore.

The eyes of the better citizens at length turned to the King of Germany.
The archdeacon Peter convoked a synod without consulting Gregory, and it
was here resolved urgently to invite Henry to come and take the imperial
crown and raise the Church from the ruin into which it had fallen.

Henry, coming from Augsburg, crossed the Brenner, and arrived at Verona
in September, 1046, accompanied by a great army and filled with the
ardent desire of becoming the reformer of the Church. No enemy opposed
him, the bishops and dukes, among them the powerful margrave Boniface of
Tuscany, did homage without delay. The Roman situation was provisionally
discussed at a great synod in Pavia. Gregory VI now hastened to meet the
King at Piacenza, where he hoped to gain the monarch to his side. Henry,
however, dismissed him with the explanation that his fate and that of
the antipopes would be canonically decided by a council.

Shortly before Christmas he assembled one thousand and forty-six bishops
and Roman clergy at Sutri. The three popes were summoned, and Gregory
and Sylvester III actually appeared. Sylvester was deposed from his
pontificate and condemned to penance in a monastery. Gregory VI,
however, gave the council cause to doubt its competence to judge him.
Gregory, who was an upright man, or one at least conscious of good
intentions, consented publicly to describe the circumstances of his
elevation, and was thereby forced to condemn himself as guilty of simony
and unworthy of the papal office. He quietly laid down the insignia of
the papacy, and his renunciation did him honor. Henry, with the bishops
and the margrave Boniface, immediately started for the city, which did
not shut its gates against him; for Benedict II had hid himself in
Tusculum, and his brothers did not venture on any resistance. Rome,
weary of the Tusculum horrors, joyfully accepted the German King as her
deliverer. Never afterward was a king of Germany received with such glad
acclamations by the Roman people; never again did any other effect such
great results or achieve the like changes. With the Roman expedition of
Henry III begins a new epoch in the history of the city, and more
especially of the Church. It seemed as if the waters of the deluge had
subsided, and as if men from the ark had landed on the rock of Peter to
give new races and new laws to a new world. What law, that stern and
terrible power which kills, binds, and holds together, signifies in
human affairs, has indeed been experienced by few periods so fully as by
that with which we have now to deal.

A synod, assembled in St. Peter's on December 23d, again pronounced all
three popes deposed, and a canonical pope had consequently to be
elected. Like Otto III before his coronation, Henry had also at his side
a man who was to wear the tiara and to confer the crown upon himself.

Adalbert of Hamburg and Bremen having refused the papacy, the King chose
Suidger of Bamberg. The royal command was all that was required to place
the candidate on the sacred chair. Henry, however, would not violate any
of the canonical forms. As King of Germany he possessed no right either
over that city or yet over the papal election. The right must first be
conferred upon him, and this was done by a treaty which he had already
concluded with the Romans at Sutri. "Roman Signors," said Henry at the
second sitting of the synod on December 24th, "however thoughtless your
conduct may hitherto have been, I still accord you liberty to elect a
pope according to ancient custom; choose from among this assembly whom
you will."

The Romans replied: "When the royal majesty is present, the assent to
the election does not belong to us, and, when it is lacking, you are
represented by your _patricius_. For in the affairs of the republic the
patricius is not patricius of the pope, but of the emperor. We admit
that we have been so thoughtless as to appoint idiots as popes. It now
behooves your imperial power to give the Roman republic the benefit of
law, the ornament of manners, and to lend the arm of protection to the
Church."

The senators of the year 1046, who so meekly surrendered the valuable
right to the German King, heeded not the shades of Alberic and the three
Crescentii; since these--their patricians--would have accused them of
treason.

The Romans of these days were, however, ready for any sacrifice so that
they obtained freedom from the Tusculum tyranny. Nothing more clearly
shows the utter depth of their exhaustion and the extent of their
sufferings than the light surrender of a right which it had formerly
cost Otto the Great such repeated efforts to extort from the city. Rome
made the humiliating confession that she possessed no priest worthy of
the papacy, that the clergy in the city were rude and utter simonists.
All other circumstances, moreover, forbade the election of a Roman or
even of an Italian to the papacy.

The Romans besought Henry to give them a good pope; he presented the
Bishop of Bamberg to the assenting clergy, and led the reluctant
candidate to the apostolic chair. Clement II, consecrated on Christmas
Day, 1046, immediately placed the imperial crown on Henry's head and on
that of his wife Agnes. There were still many Romans who had been
eye-witnesses of like transactions--that is to say, of papal election
and imperial coronation following one the other in immediate
succession--in the case of Otto III and Henry V; who, as they now saw
the second German pope mount the chair of Peter, may have recalled the
fact that the first had only lived a few sad years in Rome and had died
in misery.

The coronation of Henry III was performed under such significant
conditions and in such perfect tranquillity that it offers the most
fitting opportunity for describing in a few sentences the ceremonial of
the imperial coronation.

Since Charles the Great, these repeated ceremonies, with the more
frequent coronations or Lateran processions of the popes, formed the
most brilliant spectacle in Rome.

When the Emperor-elect approached with his wife and retinue, he first
took an oath to the Romans, at the little bridge on the Neronian Field,
faithfully to observe the rights and usages of the city. On the day of
the coronation he made his entrance through the Porta Castella close to
St. Angelo and here repeated the oath. The clergy and the corporations
of Rome greeted him at the Church of Santa Maria Traspontina, on a
legendary site called the Terebinthus of Nero. The solemn procession
then advanced to the steps of the cathedral. Senators walked by the side
of the King, the prefect of the city carried the naked sword before him,
and his chamberlains scattered money.

Arrived at the steps he dismounted from his horse and, accompanied by
his retinue, ascended to the platform where the Pope, surrounded by the
higher clergy, awaited him sitting. The King stooped to kiss the Pope's
foot, tendered the oath to be an upright protector of the Church,
received from the Pope the kiss of peace, and was adopted by him as the
son of the Church. With solemn song both King and Pope entered the
Church of Santa Maria in Turri, beside the steps of St. Peter's, and
here the King was formally made canon of the cathedral. He then
advanced, conducted by the Lateran count of the palace and by the
_primicerius_ of the judges, to the silver door of the cathedral, where
he prayed, and the Bishop of Albano delivered the first oration.

Innumerable mystic ceremonies awaited the King in St. Peter's itself.
Here, a short way from the entrance, was the _rota porphyretica_, a
round porphyry stone inserted in the pavement, on which the King and
Pope knelt. The imperial candidate here made his profession of faith,
the Cardinal-bishop of Portus placed himself in the middle of the rota
and pronounced the second oration. The King was then draped in new
vestments, was made a cleric in the sacristy by the Pope, was clad with
tunic, dalmatica, pluviale, mitre and sandals, and was then led to the
altar of St. Maurice, whither his wife, after similar but less fatiguing
ceremonies, accompanied him. The Bishop of Ostia here anointed the King
on the right arm and neck and delivered the third oration.

If the Emperor-elect were fitted by the dignity of his calling, then the
solemnity of the function, the mystic and tedious pomp, the magnificent
monotone of prayer and song in the ancient cathedral, hallowed by so
many exalted memories, must have stirred his inmost soul. The pinnacle
of all human ambition, the crown of Charles the Great, lay glittering
before his longing eyes on the altar of the Prince of the Apostles. The
Pope, however, first placed a ring on the finger of the Anointed, as
symbol of the faith, the permanence and strength of his Catholic rule;
with similar formulæ girt him with the sword, and finally placed the
crown upon his head. "Take," he said, "the symbol of fame, the diadem of
royalty, the crown, the empire, in the name of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost; renounce the archfiend and all sins, be upright
and merciful, and live in such pious love that thou mayest hereafter
receive the everlasting crown in company with the saints, from our Lord
Jesus Christ."

The church resounded with the Gloria and the Laudes: "Life and victory
to the Emperor, to the Roman and the German army," and with the endless
acclamations of the rude soldiers who hailed their King in German, Slav,
and Romance tongues.

The Emperor divested himself of the symbols of the empire, and now
ministered to the Pope as subdeacon at mass. The Count Palatine
afterward removed the sandals, and put the red imperial boots with the
spurs of St. Maurice upon him. Whereupon the entire procession,
accompanied by the Pope, left the church and advanced along the
so-called "Triumphal Way," through the flower-bedecked city, amid the
ringing of all the bells, to the Lateran. At special stations were
posted clergy singing praises, and the _scholæ_ or guilds placed to
salute the Emperor as he passed. Chamberlains scattered money before and
behind the procession, and all the scholæ and the officials of the
palace received the _presbyterium_ or customary present of money. A
banquet closed the solemnities in the papal palace.

Such are merely the barest outlines of an imperial coronation of this
period. The ceremonies, borrowed from Byzantine pomp, had been
established since Charles the Great, and had remained essentially the
same, although, in the course of time, many details had been altered and
others had been introduced. The magnificence of these spectacles is no
longer rivalled by the pageantry of our days. The multitudes of dukes
and counts, of bishops and abbots, knights and nobles with their
retinues, the splendor of their attire, the strangeness of their faces
and their tongues, the martial array of warriors, the mystic
magnificence of the papacy with all its orders in such picturesque
costume, the aspect of secular Rome, of judges and senators, of consuls
and _duces_, of the militia with their banners, in curious, motley,
fantastic attire; lastly, as the sublime scene of the drama, the stern,
gloomy, ruinous city, through which the procession solemnly
advanced--all combined to produce a picture of such mighty and universal
historic interest that even a Roman accustomed to the pomp of Trajan's
period could not have beheld it without feelings of astonishment.

These coronation processions restored to the city its character of
metropolis. The Romans of the time might flatter themselves that the
emperors whom they elected still ruled the universe. The strangers who
flocked to the city freely distributed their gold, and the hungry
populace could live for weeks on the proceeds of the coronation.


J.E. DARRAS

The accession of Gregory VI was the harbinger of an epoch of moral
renaissance. The wise Pontiff, whose glory it had been to free the
Church from a disgraceful yoke, proved himself worthy of the sovereign
power, as much by the zeal with which he wielded as by the noble
disinterestedness with which he resigned it. He found the temporal
domains of the Church so far diminished that they hardly furnished the
Pope with the means of an honorable maintenance. As guardian of the
rights of the Church, he hurled an excommunication against the usurpers.
The infuriated plunderers marched upon Rome with an armed force. The
Pope also raised troops, took possession of St. Peter's church, drove
out the wretches who stole the offerings laid upon the tombs of the
Apostles, took back several estates belonging to the domain of the
Church, and secured the safety of the roads, upon which pilgrims no
longer ventured to travel except in caravans. This policy displeased the
Romans, who had now become habituated to plunder. Their complaints
induced Henry III, King of Germany, to hurry to Italy, and to summon a
council at Sutri, during the Christmas festival, to inquire whether the
election of Gregory should be regarded as simoniacal. The Pope and the
clergy entertained the sincere conviction that they were justified in
bringing about, even by means of money, the abdication of the unworthy
Benedict, thus to end the scandal which so foully disgraced the Holy
See. As opinions were divided on this point, Gregory VI, to set all
doubts at rest, stripped himself, with his own hands, of the Pontifical
vestments, and gave up to the bishops his pastoral staff. Having given
to the world this noble example of self-denial, Gregory withdrew to the
monastery of Cluny, bearing with him the consciousness of a great duty
done. He died in that holy solitude in the odor of sanctity.

The see left vacant by the magnanimous humility of Gregory VI was
bestowed, by general consent, upon Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, whom King
Henry had brought with him to Rome. The new Pope, whose elevation was
due only to universally known and acknowledged virtues, took the name of
Clement II, and was crowned on Christmas-Day (A.D. 1046); in the same
solemnity he bestowed the imperial title and crown upon Henry III, and
his queen, Agnes, daughter of William, duke of Aquitaine.

The Emperor Henry, during his sojourn in Rome, sent for St. Peter Damian
to assist the Pope by his counsels. The illustrious religious thus wrote
to the Pontiff, in excuse for not complying: "Notwithstanding the
Emperor's request, so expressive of his benevolence in my regard, I
cannot devote to journeys the time which I have promised to consecrate
to God in solitude. I send the imperial letter in order that your
Holiness may decide, if it become necessary. My soul is weighed down
with grief when I see the churches of our provinces plunged into
shameful confusion through the fault of bad bishops and abbots. What
does it profit us to learn that the Holy See has been brought out from
darkness into the light, if we still remain buried in the same gloom of
ignominy? But we hope that you are destined to be the savior of Israel.
Labor then, Most Holy Father, once more to raise up the kingdom of
justice, and use the vigor of discipline to humble the wicked and to
raise the courage of the good."

On his return to Germany, Henry took the Pope with him. The city of
Beneventum refused to open its gates to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, at
the Emperor's request, pronounced against it a sentence of
excommunication. Clement made but a short visit to his native land, and
hastened back to Rome. His apostolic zeal led him to visit, in person,
the churches of Umbria, the deplorable condition of which he had learned
from the letter of St. Peter Damian. On reaching the monastery of St.
Thomas of Aposello, he was seized with a mortal disease, before having
accomplished the object of his journey. His last thought was for his
beloved church of Bamberg, to which he sent, from his dying couch, a
confirmation of all its former privileges, assuring it, in the most
touching terms, of his unchanging affection.



DISSENSION AND SEPARATION OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES

A.D. 1054

HENRY FANSHAWE TOZER

JOSEPH DEHARBE


(In the division of the Greek Catholic Church from that at Rome,
Protestant writers see a very natural and legitimate separation of two
equal powers. Roman Catholics, regarding the Papal supremacy as
established from the beginning, treat the division as a plot by evil and
malignant men. Both viewpoints are here given.

The Eastern--or Greek Christian--Church, now known as the Holy Orthodox,
Catholic, Apostolic, Oriental Church, first assumed individuality at
Ephesus, and in the catechetical school of Alexandria, which flourished
after A.D. 180. It early came into conflict with the Western or Roman
Church: "the Eastern Church enacting creeds, and the Western Church
discipline."

In the third century, Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, accused the Patriarch
of Alexandria of error in points of faith, but the Patriarch vindicated
his orthodoxy. Eastern monachism arose about 300; the Church of Armenia
was founded about the same year; and the Church of Georgia or Iberia in
340.

Constantine the Great caused Christianity to be recognized throughout
the Roman Empire, and in 325 convened the first ecumenical or general
Council at Nicaea [Nice], when Arius, excommunicated for heresy by a
provincial synod at Alexandria in 321, defended his views, but was
condemned. Arianism long maintained a theological and political
importance in the East and among the Goths and other nations converted
by Arian missionaries. In A.D. 330, Constantine removed the capital of
the Roman Empire to Constantinople, and thence dates the definite
establishment of the Greek Church and the serious rivalry with the Roman
Church over claims of preeminence, differences of doctrine and ritual,
charges of heresy and inter-excommunications, which ended in the final
separation of the churches in 1054.

In A.D. 461, the churches of Egypt, Syria, and Armenia separated from
the Church of Constantinople, over the Monophysite controversy on the
single divine or single compound nature of the Son; in 634 the struggle
with Mahometanism began; in 676 the Maronites of Lebanon formed a strong
sect, which, in 1182, joined the Roman Church. In 988, Vladimir the
Great of Russia founded the Græco-Russian Church, in which the Greek
Church found a refuge, when Mahometanism was established at
Constantinople, after its capture by the Turks in 1453.)


HENRY FANSHAWE TOZER

The separation of the Eastern and Western churches, which finally took
place in the year 1054, was due to the operation of influences which had
been at work for several centuries before. From very early times a
tendency to divergence existed, arising from the tone of thought of the
dominant races in the two, the more speculative Greeks being chiefly
occupied with purely theological questions, while the more practical
Roman mind devoted itself rather to subjects connected with the nature
and destiny of man. In differences such as these there was nothing
irreconcilable: the members of both communions professed the same forms
of belief, rested their faith on the same divine persons, were guided by
the same standard of morals, and were animated by the same hopes and
fears; and they were bound by the first principles of their religion to
maintain unity with one another. But in societies, as in individuals,
inherent diversity of character is liable to be intensified by time, and
thus counteracts the natural bonds of sympathy, and prevents the two
sides from seeing one another's point of view. In this way it coöperates
with and aggravates the force of other causes of disunion, which adverse
circumstances may generate. Such causes there were in the present
instance, political, ecclesiastical, and theological; and the nature of
these it may be well for us to consider, before proceeding to narrate
the history of the disruption.

The office of bishop of Rome assumed to some extent a political
character as early as the time of the first Christian emperors. By them
this prelate was constituted a sort of secretary of state for Christian
affairs, and was employed as a central authority for communicating with
the bishops in the provinces; so that after a while he acted as minister
of religion and public instruction. As the civil and military power of
the Western Empire declined, the extent of this authority increased; and
by the time when Italy was annexed to the Empire of the East, in the
reign of Justinian, the popes had become the political chiefs of Roman
society. Nominally, indeed, they were subject to the exarch of Ravenna,
as vicegerent of the Emperor at Constantinople, but in reality the
inhabitants of Western Europe were more disposed to look to the
spiritual potentate in the Imperial city as representing the traditions
of ancient Rome.

The political rivalry that was thus engendered was sharpened by the
traditional jealousy of Rome and Constantinople, which had existed ever
since the new capital had been erected on the shores of the Bosporus.
Then followed struggles for administrative superiority between the popes
and the exarchs, culminating in the shameful maltreatment and banishment
of Martin I by the emperor Constans--an event which the See of Rome
could never forget.

The attempt to enforce iconoclasm in Central Italy was influential in
causing the loss of that province to the Empire; and even after the
Byzantine rule had ceased there, the controversy about images tended to
keep alive the antagonism, because, although that question was once and
again settled in favor of the maintenance of images, yet many of the
emperors, in whose persons the power of the East was embodied, were
foremost in advocating their destruction. Indeed, from first to last,
owing to the close connection of church and state in the Byzantine
empire, the unpopularity of the latter in Western Europe was shared by
the former. To this must be added the contempt for one another's
character which had arisen among the adherents of the two churches, for
the Easterns had learned to regard the people of the West as ignorant
and barbarous, and were esteemed by them in turn as mendacious and
unmanly.

In ecclesiastical matters also the differences were of long standing.
These related to questions of jurisdiction between the two
patriarchates. Up to the eighth century, the patriarchate of the West
included a number of provinces on the eastern side of the
Adriatic--Illyricum, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece. But Leo the Isaurian,
who probably foresaw that Italy would ere long cease to form part of his
dominions, and was unwilling that these important territories should own
spiritual allegiance to one who was not his subject, altered this
arrangement, and transferred the jurisdiction over them to the Patriarch
of Constantinople. Against this measure the bishops of Rome did not fail
to protest, and demands for their restoration were made up to the time
of the final schism. A further ecclesiastical question, which in part
depended on this, was that of the Church of the Bulgarians. The prince
Bogoris had swayed to and fro in his inclinations between the two
churches, and had ultimately given his allegiance to that of the East;
but the controversy did not end there. According to the ancient
territorial arrangement the Danubian provinces were made subject to the
archbishopric of Thessalonica, and that city was included within the
Western patriarchate; and on this ground Bulgaria was claimed by the
Roman see as falling within that area. The matter was several times
pressed on the attention of the Greek Church, especially on the occasion
of the council held at Constantinople in 879, but in vain. The Eastern
prelates replied evasively, saying that to determine the boundaries of
dioceses was a matter which belonged to the sovereign. The Emperor, for
his part, had good reason for not yielding, for by so doing he would not
only have admitted into a neighboring country an agency which would soon
have been employed for political purposes to his disadvantage, but would
have justified the assumption on which the demand rested, viz., that the
pope had a right to claim the provinces which his predecessors had lost.
Thus this point of difference also remained open, as a source of
irritation between the two churches.

But behind these questions another of far greater magnitude was coming
into view, that of the papal supremacy. From being in the first instance
the head of the Christian church in the old Imperial city, and afterward
Patriarch of the West, and _primus inter pares_ in relation to the other
spiritual heads of Christendom, the bishop of Rome had gradually
claimed, on the strength of his occupying the _cathedra Petri_, a
position which approximated more and more to that of supremacy over the
whole Church. This claim had never been admitted in the East, but the
appeals which were made from Constantinople to his judgment and
authority, both at the time of the iconoclastic controversy and
subsequently, lent some countenance to its validity.

But the great advance was made in the pontificate of Nicholas I
(858-867), who promulgated, or at least recognized, the _False
Decretals_. This famous compilation, which is now universally
acknowledged to be spurious, and can be shown to be the work of that
period, contains, among other documents, letters and decrees of the
early bishops of Rome, in which the organization and discipline of the
Church from the earliest time are set forth, and the whole system is
shown to have depended on the supremacy of the popes. The newly
discovered collection was recognized as genuine by Nicholas, and was
accepted by the Western Church. The effect of this was at once to
formulate all the claims which had before been vaguely asserted, and to
give them the authority of unbroken tradition. The result to Christendom
at large was in the highest degree momentous. It was impossible for
future popes to recede from them, and equally impossible for other
churches which valued their independence to acknowledge them. The last
attempt on the part of the Eastern Church to arrange a compromise in
this matter was made by the emperor Basil II, a potentate who both by
his conquests and the vigor of his administration might rightly claim to
negotiate with others on equal terms. By him it was proposed (A.D. 1024)
that the Eastern Church should recognize the honorary primacy of the
Western patriarch, and that he in turn should acknowledge the internal
independence of the Eastern Church. These terms were rejected, and from
that moment it was clear that the separation of the two branches of
Christendom was only a question of time.

Already in the papacy of Nicholas I a rupture had occurred in connection
with the dispute between the rival patriarchs of Constantinople,
Ignatius and Photius. The former of these prelates, who was son of the
emperor Michael I, and a man of high character and a devout opponent of
iconoclasm, was appointed, through the influence of Theodora, the
restorer of images, in the reign of her son, Michael the Drunkard. But
the uncle of the Emperor, the Caesar Bardas, who was a man of flagrantly
immoral life, had divorced his own wife, and was living publicly with
his son's widow. For this incestuous connection Ignatius repelled him
from the communion. Fired with indignation at this insult, the Caesar
determined to ruin both the Patriarch and his patroness, the
Empress-mother, and with this view persuaded the Emperor to free himself
from the trammels of his mother's influence by forcing her to take
monastic vows. To this step Ignatius would not consent, because it was
forbidden by the laws of the Church that any should enter on the
monastic life except of their own free will. In consequence of his
resistance a charge of treasonable correspondence was invented against
him, and when he refused to resign his office he was deposed (857).
Photius, who was chosen to succeed him, was the most learned man of his
age, and like his rival, unblemished in character and a supporter of
images, but boundless in ambition. He was a layman at the time of his
appointment, but in six days he passed through the inferior orders which
led up to the patriarchate. Still, the party that remained faithful to
Ignatius numbered many adherents, and therefore Photius thought it well
to enlist the support of the Bishop of Rome on his side. An embassy was
therefore sent to inform Pope Nicholas that the late Patriarch had
voluntarily retired, and that Photius had been lawfully chosen, and had
undertaken the office with great reluctance. In answer to this appeal
the Pope despatched two legates to Constantinople, and Ignatius was
summoned to appear before a council at which they were present. He was
condemned, but appealed to the Pope in person.

On the return of the legates to Rome it was discovered that they had
received bribes, and thereupon Nicholas, whose judgment, however
imperious, was ever on the side of the oppressed, called together a
synod of the Roman Church, and refused his consent to the deposition of
Ignatius. To this effect he wrote to the authorities of the Eastern
Church, calling upon them at the same time to concur in the decrees of
the apostolic see; but subsequently, having obtained full information as
to the harsh treatment to which the deposed Patriarch had been
subjected, he excommunicated Photius, and commanded the restoration of
Ignatius "by the power committed to him by Christ through St. Peter."

These denunciations produced no effect on the Emperor and the new
Patriarch, and a correspondence between Michael and Nicholas, couched in
violent language, continued at intervals for several years. At last, in
consequence of a renewed demand on the part of the Pope that Ignatius
and Photius should be sent to Rome for judgment, the latter prelate,
whose ability and eloquence had obtained great influence for him,
summoned a council at Constantinople in the year 867, to decree the
counter-excommunication of the Western Patriarch. Of the eight articles
which were drawn up on this occasion for the incrimination of the Church
of Rome, all but two relate to trivial matters, such as the observance
of Saturday as a fast, and the shaving of their beards by the clergy.
The two important ones deal with the doctrine of the Procession of the
Holy Spirit, and the enforced celibacy of the clergy.

The condemnation of the Western Church on these grounds was voted, and a
messenger was despatched to bear the defiance to Rome; but ere he
reached his destination he was recalled, in consequence of a revolution
in the palace at Constantinople. The author of this, Basil the
Macedonian, the founder of the most important dynasty that ever occupied
the throne of the Eastern Empire, had for some time been associated in
the government with the emperor Michael; but at length, being fearful
for his own safety, he resolved to put his colleague out of the way, and
assassinated him during one of his fits of drunkenness.

It is said that in consequence of this crime Photius refused to admit
him to the communion; anyhow, one of the first acts of Basil was to
depose Photius. A council, hostile to him, was now assembled, and was
attended by the legates of the new pope, Hadrian II (869). By this
Ignatius was restored to his former dignity, while Photius was degraded
and his ordinations were declared void. So violent was the animosity
displayed against him that he was dragged before the assembly by the
Emperor's guard, and his condemnation was written in the sacramental
wine. During the ten years which elapsed between his restoration and his
death Ignatius continued to enjoy his high position in peace, but for
Photius other vicissitudes were in store.

On the removal of his rival, so strangely did opinion sway to and fro at
this time in the empire, the current of feeling set strongly in favor of
the learned exile. He was recalled, and his reinstatement was ratified
by a council (879). But with the death of Basil the Macedonian (886), he
again fell from power, for the successor of that Emperor, Leo the
Philosopher, ignominiously removed him, in order to confer the dignity
on his brother Stephen. He passed the remainder of his life in honorable
retirement, and by his death the chief obstacle in the way of
reconcilement with the Roman Church was removed. It is consoling to
learn, when reading of the unhappy rivalry of the two men so superior to
the ordinary run of Byzantine prelates, that they never shared the
passions of their respective partisans, but retained a mutual regard for
one another.

We have now to consider the doctrinal questions which were in dispute
between the two churches. Far the most important of these was that
relating to the addition of the _Filioque_ clause to the Nicene Creed.
In the first draft of the Creed, as promulgated by the council of
Nicaea, the article relating to the Holy Spirit ran simply thus: "I
believe in the Holy Ghost." But in the Second General Council, that of
Constantinople, which condemned the heresy of Macedonius, it was thought
advisable to state more explicitly the doctrine of the Church on this
subject, and among other affirmations the clause was added, "who
proceedeth from the Father." Again, at the next general council, at
Ephesus, it was ordered that it should not be lawful to make any
addition to the Creed, as ratified by the Council of Constantinople. The
followers of the Western Church, however, generally taught that the
Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father, while those of
the East preferred to use the expression, "the Spirit of Christ,
proceeding from the Father, and receiving of the Son," or, "proceeding
from the Father through the Son." It was in the churches of Spain and
France that the _Filioque_ clause was first introduced into the Creed
and thus recited in the services, but the addition was not at once
approved at Rome. Pope Leo III, early in the ninth century, not only
expressed his disapproval of this departure from the original form, but,
in order to show his sense of the importance of adhering to the
traditional practice, caused the Creed of Constantinople to be engraved
on silver plates, both in Greek and Latin, and thus to be publicly set
forth in the Church. The first pontiff who authorized the addition was
Nicholas I, and against this Photius protested, both during the lifetime
of that Pope and also in the time of John VIII, when it was condemned by
the council held at Constantinople in 879, which is called by the Greeks
the Eighth General Council. It is clear from what we have already seen
that Photius was prepared to seize on _any_ point of disagreement in
order to throw it in the teeth of his opponents, but in this matter the
Eastern Church had a real grievance to complain of. The Nicene Creed was
to them what it was not to the Western Church, their only creed, and the
authority of the councils, by which its form and wording were
determined, stood far higher in their estimation. To add to the one and
to disregard the other were, at least in their judgment, the violation
of a sacred compact.

The other question, which, if not actually one of doctrine, had come to
be regarded as such, was that of the _azyma_, that is, the use of
unfermented bread in the celebration of the eucharist. As far as one can
judge from the doubtful evidence on the subject, it seems probable that
ordinary, that is, leavened bread, was generally used in the church for
this purpose until the seventh or eighth century, when unleavened bread
began to be employed in the West, on the ground that it was used in the
original institution of the sacrament, which took place during the Feast
of the Passover. In the Eastern Church this change was never admitted.
It seems strange that so insignificant a matter of observance should
have been erected into a question of the first importance between the
two communions, but the reason of this is not far to seek. The fact is
that, whereas the weighty matters of dispute--the doctrine of the
Procession of the Holy Spirit, and the papal claims to supremacy--
required some knowledge and reflection in order rightly to understand
their bearings, the use of leavened or unleavened bread was a matter
within the range of all, and those who were on the lookout for a ground
of antagonism found it here ready to hand.

In the story of the conversion of the Russian Vladimir we are told that
the Greek missionary who expounded to him the religious views of the
Eastern Church, when combating the claims of the emissaries of the Roman
communion, remarked: "They celebrate the mass with unleavened bread;
therefore they have not the true religion." Still, even Photius, when
raking together the most minute points of difference between him and his
adversaries, did not introduce this one. It was reserved for a
hot-headed partisan at a later period to bring forward as a subject of
public discussion.

This was Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, with whose
name the Great Schism will forever be associated.

The circumstances which led up to that event are as follows: For a
century and a half from the death of Photius the controversy slumbered,
though no advance was made toward an understanding with respect to the
points at issue. In Italy, and even at Rome, churches and monasteries
were tolerated in which the Greek rite was maintained, and similar
freedom was allowed to the Latins resident in the Greek empire. But this
tacit compact was broken in 1053 by the patriarch Michael, who, in his
passionate antagonism to everything Western, gave orders that all the
churches in Constantinople in which worship was celebrated according to
the Roman rite should be closed. At the same time--aroused, perhaps, in
some measure by the progress of the Normans in conquering Apulia, which
tended to interfere with the jurisdiction still exercised by the Eastern
Church in that province--he joined with Leo, the archbishop of Achrida
and metropolitan of Bulgaria, in addressing a letter to the Bishop of
Trani in Southern Italy, containing a violent attack on the Latin
Church, in which the question of the azyma was put prominently forward.

Directions were further given for circulating this missive among the
Western clergy. It happened that at the time when the letter arrived at
Trani, Cardinal Humbert, a vigorous champion of ecclesiastical rights,
was residing in that city, and he translated it into Latin and
communicated it to Pope Leo IX. In answer, the Pope addressed a
remonstrance to the Patriarch, in which, without entering into the
specific charges that he had brought forward, he contrasted the security
of the Roman See in matters of doctrine, arising from the guidance which
was guaranteed to it through St. Peter, with the liability of the
Eastern Church to fall into error, and pointedly referred to the more
Christian spirit manifested by his own communion in tolerating those
from whose opinions they differed. Afterward, at the commencement of
1054, in compliance with a request from the emperor Constantine
Monomachus, who was anxious on political grounds to avoid a rupture, he
sent three legates to Constantinople to arrange the terms of an
agreement. These were Frederick of Lorraine, Chancellor of the Roman
Church; Peter, Archbishop of Amalfi, and Cardinal Humbert.

The legates were welcomed by the Emperor, but they unwisely adopted a
lofty tone toward the haughty Patriarch, who thenceforward avoided all
communication with them, declaring that on a matter which so seriously
affected the whole Eastern Church he could take no steps without
consulting the other patriarchs. Humbert now published an argumentative
reply to Michael's letter to the Pope, in the form of a dialogue between
two members of the Greek and Latin churches, in which the charges
brought against his own communion were discussed _seriatim_, and
especially those relating to fasting on Saturday and the use of
unleavened bread in the eucharist. A rejoinder to this appeared from the
pen of a monk of the monastery of Studium, Nicetas Pectoratus, in which
the enforced celibacy of the Western clergy, on which Photius had before
animadverted, was severely criticised. The Cardinal retorted in
intemperate language, and so entirely had the legates secured the
support of Constantine that Nicetas' work was committed to the flames,
and he was forced to recant what he had said against the Roman Church.
But the Patriarch was immovable, and for the moment he occupied a
stronger position than the Emperor, who desired to conciliate him. At
last the patience of the legates was exhausted, and on July 16, 1054,
they proceeded to the Church of St. Sophia, and deposited on the altar,
which was prepared for the celebration of the eucharist, a document
containing a fierce anathema, by which Michael Cerularius and his
adherents were condemned. After their departure they were for a moment
recalled, because the Patriarch expressed a desire to confer with them;
but this Constantine would not permit, fearing some act of violence on
the part of the people. They then finally left Constantinople, and from
that time to the present all communion has been broken off between the
two great branches of Christendom.

The breach thus made was greatly widened at the period of the crusades.
However serious may have been the alienation between the East and West
at the time of their separation, it is clear that the Greeks were not
regarded by the Latins as a mere heretical sect, for one of the primary
objects with which the First Crusade was undertaken was the deliverance
of the Eastern Empire from the attacks of the Mahometans. But the
familiarity which arose from the presence of the crusaders on Greek soil
ripened the seeds of mutual dislike and distrust. As long as
negotiations between the two parties took place at a distance, the
differences, however irreconcilable they might be in principle, did not
necessarily bring them into open antagonism, whereas their more intimate
acquaintance with one another produced personal and national ill-will.
The people of the West now appeared more than ever barbarous and
overbearing, and the Court of Constantinople more than ever senile and
designing. The crafty policy of Alexius Comnenus in transferring his
allies with all speed into Asia, and declining to take the lead in the
expedition, was almost justified by the necessity of delivering his
subjects from these unwelcome visitors and avoiding further
embarrassments. But the iniquitous Fourth Crusade (1204) produced an
ineradicable feeling of animosity in the minds of the Byzantine people.
The memory of the barbarities of that time, when many Greeks died as
martyrs at the stake for their religious convictions, survives at the
present day in various places bordering on the Aegean, in legends which
relate that they were formerly destroyed by the Pope of Rome.

Still, the anxiety of the Eastern emperors to maintain their position by
means of political support from Western Europe brought it to pass that
proposals for reunion were made on several occasions. The final attempt
at reconciliation was made when the Greek empire was reduced to the
direst straits, and its rulers were prepared to purchase the aid of
Western Europe against the Ottomans by almost any sacrifice.
Accordingly, application was made to Pope Eugenius IV, and by him the
representatives of the Eastern Church were invited to attend the council
which was summoned to meet at Ferrara in 1438. The Emperor, John
Palaeologus and the Greek patriarch Joseph proceeded thither.

The Emperor, however, on his return home, soon discovered that his
pilgrimage to the West had been lost labor. Pope Eugenius, indeed,
provided him with two galleys and a guard of three hundred men, equipped
at his own expense, but the hoped-for succors from Western Europe did
not arrive. His own subjects were completely alienated by the betrayal
of their cherished faith; the clergy who favored the union were regarded
as traitors. John Palaeologus himself did not survive to see the final
catastrophe; but Constantinople was captured by the Turks, and the
Empire of the East ceased to exist.


JOSEPH DEHARBE

The bonds so often and so painfully knit between the Eastern and Western
churches were destined at last to be completely torn asunder, and the
truth of our Lord's words, "Who is not for Me, is against Me," was again
to be proved. The Greek schism places strikingly before our eyes the
fate of such churches as supinely yield their rights and independence,
and submit willingly to State tyranny. In the year 857 the wicked
Bardas, uncle to the reigning Emperor, who wielded an almost absolute
power and disregarded all laws, human and divine, unjustly banished from
his See, Ignatius, the rightful patriarch of Constantinople, and placed
in his stead the learned, but worthless, Photius. Such bishops as
refused to recognize the intruder (who had received all the orders in
six days from an excommunicated bishop) were deposed, imprisoned and
exiled.

Photius tried, by cruel ill-treatment, to force the aged Ignatius to
abdicate, and by a well-contrived fabrication endeavored to obtain the
support of Pope Nicholas I. When, however, this great Pope learned the
true facts of the case from the imprisoned Ignatius, he assembled a
synod in Rome in 864, by which Photius and all the bishops whom he had
consecrated were deposed. Fired by ambition, Photius now threw off all
concealments. He summoned the bishops of his own party, laid various
charges against the Roman Church, and in his inconsiderate rage ended by
anathematising the holy Father. Pope Nicholas, in a most powerful
letter, exhorted the Emperor Michael III to set bounds to the disorders
of Photius, warning him that a fearful judgment would await him if the
faithful were misled and so many believers caused to swerve from the
right path. It was not, however, till the reign of his successor that
Photius was banished and the much-tried St. Ignatius restored to his
rights.

To remedy the evil brought about by Photius, the eighth general council
was held in Constantinople, at the desire of St. Ignatius and the
Emperor, and presided over by the legates of Pope Adrian. Photius, when
called upon to answer for himself, having nothing to say in his own
defence, excused his silence by the example of our Lord, who also was
silent when accused. The fathers were filled with indignation at this
blasphemous speech, and his guilt having been fully proved, they cried
unanimously: "Anathema on Photius, promoted through court favor!
Anathema to the tyrant Photius, to the inventor of lies, to the new
Judas! Anathema on all his followers and protectors! Everlasting glory
to the most holy Roman Pope Nicholas! Long life to Adrian, the holy
Father in Rome!" At the next sitting of the council, a collection of
spurious and falsified writings, together with the acts of the synod
which Photius had held against Pope Nicholas, and which were filled with
lies and invective and had forged signatures appended to them, were
publicly burned in the church. But hardly had Ignatius died in the year
879, when the crafty Photius, who knew well how to ingratiate himself
with the Emperor, reascended the ill-fated chair and began afresh his
old courses. His rule did not last long. He was again deposed and
banished to a monastery, where he died about the year 891. His death,
however, in nowise healed the wounds which he had inflicted on the
Eastern Church. His party survived him. He had filled most of the Greek
sees with men of his own cast, and had illegally bestowed benefices on
great numbers of priests. These all harbored a deep-seated dislike
towards Rome, and only awaited a favorable opportunity to renew the
breach with her. Thus that sectarian spirit which Photius had kindled
continued to smoulder on like a spark beneath the ashes, and spread
itself wider and wider, as well among the worst sort of the clergy as
among the fickle and discontented population.

It was after all this that the patriarchs of Constantinople attempted to
make themselves fully independent of the West. The splendor of the
imperial city of Byzantium was a constant incitement to their desire for
freedom, and they were certain for the most part of being supported in
their endeavors by the emperors. As early as the time of Pope Gregory
the Great, the patriarch John the Faster had taken on himself the title
of "Oecumenical," or universal bishop, whilst Gregory, in apostolic
humility, chose that of "Servant of the servants of God." It was in the
middle of the eleventh century that a complete separation was
accomplished. The universally recognized precedence of the See of Peter
was intolerable to the ambitious spirit of the patriarch Michael
Cerularius. To aid him in casting off the hated yoke, he circulated,
like Photius, a document in which the Western Church was loaded with
invective and all manner of accusations laid to her charge. The celibacy
of the secular clergy, the use of unleavened bread for the sacrifice,
fasting on Saturdays, the shaving of beards, the omission of the
Alleluia in Lent, were all brought forward as causes of offence. These
complaints were at once answered by Pope St. Leo IX, who tried, in a
most eloquent letter, to bring the deluded patriarch to reason. He
reminded him of the sanctity and inviolability of the unity of Christ's
Church, the folly and presumption of his attempting to direct the
successor of Peter, whom Christ had Himself confirmed in the faith, and
pointed out to him with what ingratitude and contempt he was treating
the Roman Church, the mother and guardian of all the churches. Lastly,
he urged upon the patriarch to set aside all discord and pride, and to
allow divine mercy and peace to prevail instead of strife. But the
paternal words were spoken in vain, and the legates also who were sent
by the Pope to Constantinople were powerless to move the obduracy of the
patriarch. He persistently refused all communication with them by speech
or writing. Having therefore formally laid their complaints in the most
distinct terms before the Emperor and Senate, they proceeded to
extremities. On the 16th of July, 1054, they appeared in the church of
St. Sophia at the beginning of divine service, and declared solemnly
that all their endeavors to re-establish peace and union had been
defeated by Cerularius. They then laid the bull of excommunication on
the high altar and left the church, shaking, as they did so, the dust
from off their feet, and exclaiming in the deepest grief, "God sees it;
He will judge." Thus was the unhappy schism between the East and the
West accomplished.



NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND

BATTLE OF HASTINGS

A.D. 1066

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY


(Toward the end of the reign of Edward the Confessor the claims of three
rival competitors for the English crown were persistently urged. These
claimants were Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, whose claim was based
upon an alleged compact of King Hardicanute with King Magnus, Harald's
predecessor; Duke William of Normandy, and the Saxon Harold, son of
Godwin, Earl of Wessex. This Harold, born about 1022, became Earl of
East Anglia about 1045; was banished with his father by Edward the
Confessor in 1051, and restored with his father in 1052; succeeded his
father as Earl of Wessex in 1053--relinquishing the earldom of East
Anglia--and from 1053 to 1066 was chief minister of Edward.

Harold--probably in 1064--being shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy,
became a guest and virtual prisoner of William, Duke of Normandy, by
whom the Saxon was forced to take an oath that he would marry William's
daughter and assist him in obtaining the crown of England; William then
allowed Harold to return to his country. Upon the death of Edward the
Confessor--January 5, 1066--an assembly of thanes and prelates and
leading citizens of London declared that Harold should be their king.
His accession as Harold II dates from the day after Edward's death.
Harold justified himself on the ground that his oath to William of
Normandy was taken under constraint.

William published his protest against what he called the bad faith of
Harold, and proclaimed his purpose to assert his rights by the sword. He
also obtained the countenance of the Pope, whose authority Harold
refused to recognize. A banner, blessed by the Pope for the invasion of
England, was sent to William from the Holy See, and the clergy of the
Continent upheld his enterprise as being the Cause of God. Thus
supported by the spiritual power, then wielding vast influence, William
proceeded to gather "the most remarkable and formidable armament which
the western nations had witnessed." With this following he entered upon
an undertaking the speedy and complete success of which, in the single
and decisive battle of Hastings, was fruitful in historic results such
as are seldom so traceable to definite causes and events. "No one who
appreciates the influence of England and her empire upon the destinies
of the world will ever rank that victory as one of secondary
importance.")


All the adventurous spirits of Christendom flocked to the holy banner,
under which Duke William, the most renowned knight and sagest general of
the age, promised to lead them to glory and wealth in the fair domains
of England. His army was filled with the chivalry of Continental Europe,
all eager to save their souls by fighting at the Pope's bidding, eager
to signalize their valor in so great an enterprise, and eager also for
the pay and the plunder which William liberally promised. But the
Normans themselves were the pith and the flower of the army, and William
himself was the strongest, the sagest, and the fiercest spirit of them
all.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1066 all the seaports of Normandy,
Picardy, and Brittany rang with the busy sound of preparation. On the
opposite side of the Channel King Harold collected the army and the
fleet with which he hoped to crush the southern invaders. But the
unexpected attack of King Harald Hardrada of Norway upon another part of
England disconcerted the skilful measures which the Saxon had taken
against the menacing armada of Duke William.

Harold's renegade brother, Earl Tostig, had excited the Norse King to
this enterprise, the importance of which has naturally been eclipsed by
the superior interest attached to the victorious expedition of Duke
William, but which was on a scale of grandeur which the Scandinavian
ports had rarely, if ever, before witnessed. Hardrada's fleet consisted
of two hundred warships and three hundred other vessels, and all the
best warriors of Norway were in his host. He sailed first to the
Orkneys, where many of the islanders joined him, and then to Yorkshire.
After a severe conflict near York he completely routed Earls Edwin and
Morcar, the governors of Northumbria. The city of York opened its gates,
and all the country, from the Tyne to the Humber, submitted to him.

The tidings of the defeat of Edwin and Morcar compelled Harold to leave
his position on the southern coast and move instantly against the
Norwegians. By a remarkably rapid march he reached Yorkshire in four
days, and took the Norse King and his confederates by surprise.
Nevertheless, the battle which ensued, and which was fought near
Stamford Bridge, was desperate, and was long doubtful. Unable to break
the ranks of the Norwegian phalanx by force, Harold at length tempted
them to quit their close order by a pretended flight. Then the English
columns burst in among them, and a carnage ensued the extent of which
may be judged of by the exhaustion and inactivity of Norway for a
quarter of a century afterward. King Harald Hardrada and all the flower
of his nobility perished on the 25th of September, 1066, at Stamford
Bridge, a battle which was a Flodden to Norway.

Harold's victory was splendid; but he had bought it dearly by the fall
of many of his best officers and men, and still more dearly by the
opportunity which Duke William had gained of effecting an unopposed
landing on the Sussex coast. The whole of William's shipping had
assembled at the mouth of the Dive, a little river between the Seine and
the Orne, as early as the middle of August. The army which he had
collected amounted to fifty thousand knights and ten thousand soldiers
of inferior degree. Many of the knights were mounted, but many must have
served on foot, as it is hardly possible to believe that William could
have found transports for the conveyance of fifty thousand war-horses
across the Channel.

For a long time the winds were adverse, and the Duke employed the
interval that passed before he could set sail in completing the
organization in and improving the discipline of his army, which he seems
to have brought into the same state of perfection as was seven centuries
and a half afterward the boast of another army assembled on the same
coast, and which Napoleon designed for a similar descent upon England.

It was not till the approach of the equinox that the wind veered from
the northeast to the west, and gave the Normans an opportunity of
quitting the weary shores of the Dive. They eagerly embarked and set
sail, but the wind soon freshened to a gale, and drove them along the
French coast to St. Valery, where the greater part of them found
shelter; but many of their vessels were wrecked, and the whole coast of
Normandy was strewn with the bodies of the drowned.

William's army began to grow discouraged and averse to the enterprise,
which the very elements thus seemed to fight against; though, in
reality, the northeast wind, which had cooped them so long at the mouth
of the Dive, and the western gale, which had forced them into St.
Valery, were the best possible friends to the invaders. They prevented
the Normans from crossing the Channel until the Saxon King and his army
of defence had been called away from the Sussex coast to encounter
Harald Hardrada in Yorkshire; and also until a formidable English fleet,
which by King Harold's orders had been cruising in the Channel to
intercept the Normans, had been obliged to disperse temporarily for the
purpose of refitting and taking in fresh stores of provisions.

Duke William used every expedient to reanimate the drooping spirits of
his men at St. Valery; and at last he caused the body of the patron
saint of the place to be exhumed and carried in solemn procession, while
the whole assemblage of soldiers, mariners, and appurtenant priests
implored the saint's intercession for a change of wind. That very night
the wind veered, and enabled the mediaeval Agamemnon to quit his Aulis.

With full sails, and a following southern breeze, the Norman armada left
the French shores and steered for England. The invaders crossed an
undefended sea, and found an undefended coast. It was in Pevensey Bay,
in Sussex, at Bulverhithe, between the castle of Pevensey and Hastings,
that the last conquerors of this island landed on the 29th of September,
1066.

Harold was at York, rejoicing over his recent victory, which had
delivered England from her ancient Scandinavian foes, and resettling the
government of the counties which Harald Hardrada had overrun, when the
tidings reached him that Duke William of Normandy and his host had
landed on the Sussex shore. Harold instantly hurried southward to meet
this long-expected enemy. The severe loss which his army had sustained
in the battle with the Norwegians must have made it impossible for many
of his veteran troops to accompany him in his forced march to London,
and thence to Sussex. He halted at the capital only six days, and during
that time gave orders for collecting forces from the southern and
midland counties, and also directed his fleet to reassemble off the
Sussex coast. Harold was well received in London, and his summons to
arms was promptly obeyed by citizen, by thane, by socman, and by ceorl,
for he had shown himself, during his brief reign, a just and wise king,
affable to all men, active for the good of his country, and, in the
words of the old historian, sparing himself from no fatigue by land or
by sea. He might have gathered a much more numerous army than that of
William; but his recent victory had made him overconfident, and he was
irritated by the reports of the country being ravaged by the invaders.
As soon, therefore, as he had collected a small army in London he
marched off toward the coast, pressing forward as rapidly as his men
could traverse Surrey and Sussex, in the hope of taking the Normans
unawares, as he had recently, by a similar forced march, succeeded in
surprising the Norwegians. But he had now to deal with a foe equally
brave with Harald Hardrada and far more skilful and wary.

The old Norman chroniclers describe the preparations of William on his
landing with a graphic vigor, which would be wholly lost by transfusing
their racy Norman couplets and terse Latin prose into the current style
of modern history. It is best to follow them closely, though at the
expense of much quaintness and occasional uncouthness of expression.
They tell us how Duke William's own ship was the first of the Norman
fleet. It was called the _Mora_, and was the gift of his duchess
Matilda. On the head of the ship, in the front, which mariners call the
prow, there was a brazen child bearing an arrow with a bended bow. His
face was turned toward England, and thither he looked, as though he was
about to shoot. The breeze became soft and sweet, and the sea was smooth
for their landing. The ships ran on dry land, and each ranged by the
other's side. There you might see the good sailors, the sergeants, and
squires sally forth and unload the ships; cast the anchors, haul the
ropes, bear out shields and saddles, and land the war-horses and the
palfreys. The archers came forth and touched land the first, each with
his bow strung, and with his quiver full of arrows slung at his side.
All were shaven and shorn; and all clad in short garments, ready to
attack, to shoot, to wheel about and skirmish. All stood well equipped
and of good courage for the fight; and they scoured the whole shore, but
found not an armed man there. After the archers had thus gone forth, the
knights landed all armed, with their hauberks on, their shields slung at
their necks, and their helmets laced. They formed together on the shore,
each armed and mounted on his war-horse; all had their swords girded on,
and rode forward into the country with their lances raised. Then the
carpenters landed, who had great axes in their hands, and planes and
adzes hung at their sides. They took counsel together, and sought for a
good spot to place a castle on. They had brought with them in the fleet
three wooden castles from Normandy in pieces, all ready for framing
together, and they took the materials of one of these out of the ships,
all shaped and pierced to receive the pins which they had brought cut
and ready in large barrels; and before evening had set in they had
finished a good fort on the English ground, and there they placed their
stores. All then ate and drank enough, and were right glad that they
were ashore.

When Duke William himself landed, as he stepped on the shore he slipped
and fell forward upon his two hands. Forthwith all raised a loud cry of
distress. "An evil sign," said they, "is here." But he cried out
lustily: "See, my lords, by the splendor of God,[26] I have taken
possession of England with both my hands. It is now mine, and what is
mine is yours."

[Footnote 26: William's customary oath.]

The next day they marched along the sea-shore to Hastings. Near that
place the Duke fortified a camp, and set up the two other wooden
castles. The foragers, and those who looked out for booty, seized all
the clothing and provisions they could find, lest what had been brought
by the ships should fail them. And the English were to be seen fleeing
before them, driving off their cattle, and quitting their houses. Many
took shelter in burying-places, and even there they were in grievous
alarm.

Besides the marauders from the Norman camp, strong bodies of cavalry
were detached by William into the country, and these, when Harold and
his army made their rapid march from London southward, fell back in good
order upon the main body of the Normans, and reported that the Saxon
King was rushing on like a madman. But Harold, when he found that his
hopes of surprising his adversary were vain, changed his tactics, and
halted about seven miles from the Norman lines. He sent some spies, who
spoke the French language, to examine the number and preparations of the
enemy, who, on their return, related with astonishment that there were
more priests in William's camp than there were fighting men in the
English army. They had mistaken for priests all the Norman soldiers who
had short hair and shaven chins, for the English laymen were then
accustomed to wear long hair and mustaches. Harold, who knew the Norman
usages, smiled at their words, and said, "Those whom you have seen in
such numbers are not priests, but stout soldiers, as they will soon make
us feel."

Harold's army was far inferior in number to that of the Normans, and
some of his captains advised him to retreat upon London and lay waste
the country, so as to starve down the strength of the invaders. The
policy thus recommended was unquestionably the wisest, for the Saxon
fleet had now reassembled, and intercepted all William's communications
with Normandy; and as soon as his stores of provisions were exhausted,
he must have moved forward upon London, where Harold, at the head of the
full military strength of the kingdom, could have defied his assault,
and probably might have witnessed his rival's destruction by famine and
disease, without having to strike a single blow. But Harold's bold blood
was up, and his kindly heart could not endure to inflict on the South
Saxon subjects even the temporary misery of wasting the country. "He
would not burn houses and villages, neither would he take away the
substance, of his people."

Harold's brothers, Gurth and Leofwine, were with him in the camp, and
Gurth endeavored to persuade him to absent himself from the battle. The
incident shows how well devised had been William's scheme of binding
Harold by the oath on the holy relics.

"My brother," said the young Saxon prince, "thou canst not deny that
either by force or free will thou hast made Duke William an oath on the
bodies of saints. Why then risk thyself in the battle with a perjury
upon thee? To us, who have sworn nothing, this is a holy and a just war,
for we are fighting for our country. Leave us then alone to fight this
battle, and he who has the right will win."

Harold replied that he would not look on while others risked their lives
for him. Men would hold him a coward, and blame him for sending his best
friends where he dared not go himself. He resolved, therefore, to fight,
and to fight in person; but he was still too good a general to be the
assailant in the action; and he posted his army with great skill along a
ridge of rising ground which opened southward, and was covered on the
back by an extensive wood. He strengthened his position by a palisade of
stakes and osier hurdles, and there he said he would defend himself
against whoever should seek him.

The ruins of Battle Abbey at this hour attest the place where Harold's
army was posted; and the high altar of the abbey stood on the very spot
where Harold's own standard was planted during the fight, and where the
carnage was the thickest. Immediately after his victory William vowed to
build an abbey on the site; and a fair and stately pile soon rose there,
where for many ages the monks prayed and said masses for the souls of
those who were slain in the battle, whence the abbey took its name.
Before that time the place was called Senlac. Little of the ancient
edifice now remains; but it is easy to trace in the park and the
neighborhood the scenes of the chief incidents in the action; and it is
impossible to deny the generalship shown by Harold in stationing his
men, especially when we bear in mind that he was deficient in cavalry,
the arm in which his adversary's main strength consisted.

William's only chance of safety lay in bringing on a general engagement;
and he joyfully advanced his army from their camp on the hill over
Hastings, nearer to the Saxon position. But he neglected no means of
weakening his opponent, and renewed his summonses and demands on Harold
with an ostentatious air of sanctity and moderation.

"A monk, named Hugues Maigrot, came in William's name to call upon the
Saxon King to do one of three things--either to resign his royalty in
favor of William, or to refer it to the arbitration of the pope to
decide which of the two ought to be king, or let it be determined by the
issue of a single combat. Harold abruptly replied, 'I will not resign my
title, I will not refer it to the pope, nor will I accept the single
combat.' He was far from being deficient in bravery; but he was no more
at liberty to stake the crown which he had received from a whole people
in the chance of a duel than to deposit it in the hands of an Italian
priest. William, not at all ruffled by the Saxon's refusal, but steadily
pursuing the course of his calculated measures, sent the Norman monk
again, after giving him these instructions: 'Go and tell Harold that if
he will keep his former compact with me, I will leave to him all the
country which is beyond the Humber, and will give his brother Gurth all
the lands which Godwin held. If he still persist in refusing my offers,
then thou shalt tell him, before all his people, that he is a perjurer
and a liar; that he and all who shall support him are excommunicated by
the mouth of the Pope, and that the bull to that effect is in my hands.'

"Hugues Maigrot delivered this message in a solemn tone; and the Norman
chronicle says that at the word _excommunication_ the English chiefs
looked at one another as if some great danger were impending. One of
them then spoke as follows: 'We must fight, whatever may be the danger
to us; for what we have to consider is not whether we shall accept and
receive a new lord, as if our king were dead; the case is quite
otherwise. The Norman has given our lands to his captains, to his
knights, to all his people, the greater part of whom have already done
homage to him for them: they will all look for their gift if their duke
become our king; and he himself is bound to deliver up to them our
goods, our wives, and our daughters: all is promised to them beforehand.
They come, not only to ruin us, but to ruin our descendants also, and to
take from us the country of our ancestors. And what shall we do--whither
shall we go, when we have no longer a country?' The English promised, by
a unanimous oath, to make neither peace nor truce nor treaty with the
invader, but to die or drive away the Normans."

The 13th of October was occupied in these negotiations, and at night the
Duke announced to his men that the next day would be the day of battle.
That night is said to have been passed by the two armies in very
different manners. The Saxon soldiers spent it in joviality, singing
their national songs, and draining huge horns of ale and wine round
their campfires. The Normans, when they had looked to their arms and
horses, confessed themselves to the priests, with whom their camp was
thronged, and received the sacrament by thousands at a time.

On Saturday, the 14th of October, was fought the great battle.

It is not difficult to compose a narrative of its principal incidents
from the historical information which we possess, especially if aided by
an examination of the ground. But it is far better to adopt the
spirit-stirring words of the old chroniclers, who wrote while the
recollections of the battle were yet fresh, and while the feelings and
prejudices of the combatants yet glowed in the bosoms of living men.

Robert Wace, the Norman poet, who presented his _Roman de Rou_ to Henry
II, is the most picturesque and animated of the old writers, and from
him we can obtain a more vivid and full description of the conflict than
even the most brilliant romance-writer of the present time can supply.
We have also an antique memorial of the battle more to be relied on than
either chronicler or poet (and which confirms Wace's narrative
remarkably) in the celebrated Bayeux tapestry, which represents the
principal scenes of Duke William's expedition and of the circumstances
connected with it, in minute though occasionally grotesque details, and
which was undoubtedly the production of the same age in which the battle
took place, whether we admit or reject the legend that Queen Matilda and
the ladies of her court wrought it with their own hands in honor of the
royal Conqueror.

Let us therefore suffer the old Norman chronicler to transport our
imaginations to the fair Sussex scenery northwest of Hastings, as it
appeared on that October morning. The Norman host is pouring forth from
its tents, and each troop and each company is forming fast under the
banner of its leader. The masses have been sung, which were finished
betimes in the morning; the barons have all assembled round Duke
William; and the Duke has ordered that the army shall be formed in three
divisions, so as to make the attack upon the Saxon position in three
places.

The Duke stood on a hill where he could best see his men; the barons
surrounded him, and he spake to them proudly. He told them how he
trusted them, and how all that he gained should be theirs, and how sure
he felt of conquest, for in all the world there was not so brave an army
or such good men and true as were then forming around him. Then they
cheered him in turn, and cried out: "'You will not see one coward; none
here will fear to die for love of you, if need be.' And he answered
them: 'I thank you well. For God's sake, spare not; strike hard at the
beginning; stay not to take spoil; all the booty shall be in common, and
there will be plenty for everyone. There will be no safety in asking
quarter or in flight; the English will never love or spare a Norman.
Felons they were, and felons they are; false they were, and false they
will be. Show no weakness toward them, for they will have no pity on
you; neither the coward for running well, nor the bold man for smiting
well, will be the better liked by the English, nor will any be the more
spared on either account. You may fly to the sea, but you can fly no
farther; you will find neither ships nor bridge there; there will be no
sailors to receive you, and the English will overtake you there and slay
you in your shame. More of you will die in flight than in battle. Then,
as flight will not secure you, fight and you will conquer. I have no
doubt of the victory; we are come for glory; the victory is in our
hands, and we may make sure of obtaining it if we so please.'

"As the Duke was speaking thus and would yet have spoken more, William
Fitzosbern rode up with his horse all coated with iron. 'Sire,' said he,
'we tarry here too long; let us all arm ourselves. _Allons! allons!_'

"Then all went to their tents and armed themselves as they best might;
and the Duke was very busy, giving everyone his orders; and he was
courteous to all the vassals, giving away many arms and horses to them.
When he prepared to arm himself, he called first for his hauberk, and a
man brought it on his arm and placed it before him, but in putting his
head in, to get it on, he unawares turned it the wrong way, with the
back part in front. He soon changed it; but when he saw that those who
stood by were sorely alarmed, he said: 'I have seen many a man who if
such a thing had happened to him would not have borne arms or entered
the field the same day; but I never believed in omens, and I never will.
I trust in God, for he does in all things his pleasure, and ordains what
is to come to pass according to his will. I have never liked
fortune-tellers, nor believed in diviners, but I commend myself to Our
Lady. Let not this mischance give you trouble. The hauberk which was
turned wrong, and then set right by me, signifies that a change will
arise out of the matter which we are now stirring. You shall see the
name of duke changed into king. Yea, a king shall I be, who hitherto
have been but duke.'

"Then he crossed himself, and straightway took his hauberk, stooped his
head and put it on aright, and laced his helmet, and girt on his sword,
which a varlet brought him. Then the Duke called for his good horse--a
better could not be found. It had been sent him by a king of Spain, out
of very great friendship. Neither arms nor the press of fighting men did
it fear if its lord spurred it on. Walter Giffard brought it. The Duke
stretched out his hand, took the reins, put foot in stirrup, and
mounted, and the good horse pawed, pranced, reared himself up, and
curvetted.

"The Viscount of Toarz saw how the Duke bore himself in arms and said to
his people that were around him: 'Never have I seen a man so fairly
armed, nor one who rode so gallantly, or bore his arms or became his
hauberk so well; neither any one who bore his lance so gracefully or sat
his horse and managed him so nobly. There is no such knight under
heaven! a fair count he is, and fair king he will be. Let him fight and
he shall overcome; shame be to the man who shall fail him!'

"Then the Duke called for the standard which the Pope had sent him, and,
he who bore it having unfolded it, the Duke took it and called to Raoul
de Conches. 'Bear my standard,' said he, 'for I would not but do you
right; by right and by ancestry your line are standard-bearers of
Normandy, and very good knights have they all been.' But Raoul said that
he would serve the Duke that day in other guise, and would fight the
English with his hand as long as life should last.

"Then the Duke bade Walter Giffard bear the standard. But he was old and
white-headed, and bade the Duke give the standard to some younger and
stronger man to carry. Then the Duke said fiercely, 'By the splendor of
God, my lords, I think you mean to betray and fail me in this great
need.' 'Sire,' said Giffart, 'not so! we have done no treason, nor do I
refuse from any felony toward you; but I have to lead a great chivalry,
both hired men and the men of my fief. Never had I such good means of
serving you as I now have; and, if God please, I will serve you; if need
be I will die for you, and will give my own heart for yours.'

"'By my faith,' quoth the Duke, 'I always loved thee, and now I love
thee more; if I survive this day, thou shalt be the better for it all
thy days.' Then he called out a knight, whom he had heard much praised,
Tosteins Fitz-Rou le Blanc by name, whose abode was at Bec-en-Caux. To
him he delivered the standard; and Tosteins took it right cheerfully,
and bowed low to him in thanks, and bore it gallantly and with good
heart. His kindred still have quittance of all service for their
inheritance on this account, and their heirs are entitled so to hold
their inheritance forever.

"William sat on his war-horse, and called out Rogier, whom they call De
Montgomeri. 'I rely much on you,' said he; 'lead your men thitherward
and attack them from that side. William, the son of Osbern the
seneschal, a right good vassal, shall go with you and help in the
attack, and you shall have the men of Boilogne and Poix and all my
soldiers. Alain Fergert and Ameri shall attack on the other side; they
shall lead the Poitevins and the Bretons and all the barons of Maine;
and I, with my own great men, my friends and kindred, will fight in the
middle throng, where the battle shall be the hottest.'

"The barons and knights and men-at-arms were all now armed; the
foot-soldiers were well equipped, each bearing bow and sword; on their
heads were caps, and to their feet were bound buskins. Some had good
hides which they had bound round their bodies; and many were clad in
frocks, and had quivers and bows hung to their girdles. The knights had
hauberks and swords, boots of steel, and shining helmets; shields at
their necks, and in their hands lances. And all had their cognizances,
so that each might know his fellow, and Norman might not strike Norman,
nor Frenchman kill his countryman by mistake. Those on foot led the way,
with serried ranks, bearing their bows. The knights rode next,
supporting the archers from behind. Thus both horse and foot kept their
course and order of march as they began, in close ranks at a gentle
pace, that the one might not pass or separate from the other. All went
firmly and compactly, bearing themselves gallantly.

"Harold had summoned his men, earls, barons, and vavasors, from the
castles and the cities, from the ports, the villages and boroughs. The
peasants were also called together from the villages, bearing such arms
as they found; clubs and great picks, iron forks and stakes. The English
had enclosed the place where Harold was with his friends and the barons
of the country whom he had summoned and called together.

"Those of London had come at once, and those of Kent, of Hertfort, and
of Essesse; those of Surée and Susesse, of St. Edmund and Sufoc; of
Norwis and Norfoc; of Cantorbierre and Stanfort, Bedefort and Hundetone.
The men of Northanton also came; and those of Eurowic and Bokinkeham, of
Bed and Notinkeham, Lindesie and Nichole. There came also from the west
all who heard the summons; and very many were to be seen coming from
Salebiere and Dorset, from Bat and from Sumerset. Many came, too, from
about Glocestre, and many from Wirecestre, from Wincestre, Hontesire and
Brichesire; and many more from other counties that we have not named,
and cannot, indeed, recount. All who could bear arms, and had learned
the news of the Duke's arrival, came to defend the land. But none came
from beyond Humbre, for they had other business upon their hands, the
Danes and Tosti having much damaged and weakened them.

"Harold knew that the Normans would come and attack him hand to hand, so
he had early enclosed the field in which he had placed his men. He made
them arm early and range themselves for the battle, he himself having
put on arms and equipments that became such a lord. The Duke, he said,
ought to seek him, as he wanted to conquer England; and it became him to
abide the attack who had to defend the land. He commanded the people,
and counselled his barons to keep themselves all together and defend
themselves in a body, for if they once separated, they would with
difficulty recover themselves. 'The Normans,' said he, 'are good
vassals, valiant on foot and on horseback; good knights are they on
horseback and well used to battle; all is lost if they once penetrate
our ranks. They have brought long lances and swords, but you have
pointed lances and keen-edged bills; and I do not expect that their arms
can stand against yours. Cleave whenever you can; it will be ill done if
you spare aught.'

"The English had built up a fence before them with their shields and
with ash and other wood, and had well joined and wattled in the whole
work, so as not to leave even a crevice; and thus they had a barricade
in their front through which any Norman who would attack them must first
pass. Being covered in this way by their shields and barricades, their
aim was to defend themselves; and if they had remained steady for that
purpose, they would not have been conquered that day; for every Norman
who made his way in lost his life in dishonor, either by hatchet or
bill, by club or other weapon.

"They wore short and close hauberks, and helmets that hung over their
garments. King Harold issued orders, and made proclamation round, that
all should be ranged with their faces toward the enemy, and that no one
should move from where he was, so that whoever came might find them
ready; and that whatever anyone, be he Norman or other, should do, each
should do his best to defend his own place. Then he ordered the men of
Kent to go where the Normans were likely to make the attack; for they
say that the men of Kent are entitled to strike first; and that whenever
the king goes to battle, the first blow belongs to them. The right of
the men of London is to guard the king's body, to place themselves
around him, and to guard his standard; and they were accordingly placed
by the standard to watch and defend it.

"When Harold had made all ready, and given his orders, he came into the
midst of the English and dismounted by the side of the standard;
Leofwine and Gurth, his brothers, were with him; and around him he had
barons enough, as he stood by his standard, which was, in truth, a noble
one, sparkling with gold and precious stones. After the victory William
sent it to the Pope, to prove and commemorate his great conquest and
glory. The English stood in close ranks, ready and eager for the fight;
and they, moreover, made a fosse, which went across the field, guarding
one side of their army.

"Meanwhile the Normans appeared advancing over the ridge of a rising
ground, and the first division of their troops moved onward along the
hill and across a valley. And presently another division, still larger,
came in sight, close following upon the first, and they were led toward
another part of the field, forming together as the first body had done.
And while Harold saw and examined them, and was pointing them out to
Gurth, a fresh company came in sight, covering all the plain; and in the
midst of them was raised the standard that came from Rome.

"Near it was the Duke, and the best men and greatest strength of the
army were there. The good knights, the good vassals, and brave warriors
were there; and there were gathered together the gentle barons, the good
archers, and the men-at-arms, whose duty it was to guard the Duke, and
range themselves around him. The youths and common herd of the camp,
whose business was not to join in the battle, but to take care of the
harness and stores, moved off toward a rising ground. The priests and
the clerks also ascended a hill, there to offer up prayers to God, and
watch the event of the battle.

"The English stood firm on foot in close ranks, and carried themselves
right boldly. Each man had his hauberk on, with his sword girt, and his
shield at his neck. Great hatchets were also slung at their necks, with
which they expected to strike heavy blows.

"The Normans brought on the three divisions of their army to attack at
different places. They set out in three companies, and in three
companies did they fight. The first and second had come up, and then
advanced the third, which was the greatest; with that came the Duke with
his own men, and all moved boldly forward.

"As soon as the two armies were in full view of each other, great noise
and tumult arose. You might hear the sound of many trumpets, of bugles,
and of horns; and then you might see men ranging themselves in line,
lifting their shields, raising their lances, bending their bows,
handling their arrows, ready for assault and defence.

"The English stood steady to their post, the Normans still moved on; and
when they drew near, the English were to be seen stirring to and fro;
were going and coming; troops ranging themselves in order; some with
their color rising, others turning pale; some making ready their arms,
others raising their shields; the brave man rousing himself to fight,
the coward trembling at the approach of danger.

"Then Taillefer, who sang right well, rode, mounted on a swift horse,
before the Duke, singing of Charlemagne and of Roland, of Oliver, and
the peers who died in Roncesvalles. And when they drew nigh to the
English,

"'A boon, sire!' cried Taillefer; 'I have long served you, and you owe
me for all such service. To-day, so please you, you shall repay it. I
ask as my guerdon, and beseech you for it earnestly, that you will allow
me to strike the first blow in the battle!' And the Duke answered, 'I
grant it.'

"Then Taillefer put his horse to a gallop, charging before all the rest,
and struck an Englishman dead, driving his lance below the breast into
his body, and stretching him upon the ground. Then he drew his sword,
and struck another, crying out, 'Come on, come on! What do ye, sirs? lay
on, lay on!' At the second blow he struck the English pushed forward,
and surrounded, and slew him. Forthwith arose the noise and cry of war,
and on either side the people put themselves in motion.

"The Normans moved on to the assault, and the English defended
themselves well. Some were striking, others urging onward; all were bold
and cast aside fear. And now, behold, that battle was gathered whereof
the fame is yet mighty.

"Loud and far resounded the bray of the horns and the shocks of the
lances, the mighty strokes of maces and the quick clashing of swords.
One while the Englishmen rushed on, another while they fell back; one
while the men from over sea charged onward, and again at other times
retreated. The Normans shouted, '_Dex Aie_,' the English people, 'Out.'
Then came the cunning manoeuvres, the rude shocks and strokes of the
lance and blows of the swords, among the sergeants and soldiers, both
English and Norman.

"When the English fall, the Normans shout. Each side taunts and defies
the other, yet neither knoweth what the other saith; and the Normans say
the English bark, because they understand not their speech.

"Some wax strong, others weak: the brave exult, but the cowards tremble,
as men who are sore dismayed. The Normans press on the assault, and the
English defend their post well; they pierce the hauberks and cleave the
shields, receive and return mighty blows. Again, some press forward,
others yield; and thus, in various ways, the struggle proceeds. In the
plain was a fosse, which the Normans had now behind them, having passed
it in the fight without regarding it. But the English charged and drove
the Normans before them till they made them fall back upon this fosse,
overthrowing into it horses and men. Many were to be seen falling
therein, rolling one over the others, with their faces to the earth, and
unable to rise. Many of the English also, whom the Normans drew down
along with them, died there. At no time during the day's battle did so
many Normans die as perished in that fosse. So those said who saw the
dead.

"The varlets who were set to guard the harness began to abandon it as
they saw the loss of the Frenchmen when thrown back upon the fosse
without power to recover themselves. Being greatly alarmed at seeing the
difficulty in restoring order, they began to quit the harness, and
sought around, not knowing where to find shelter. Then Duke William's
brother, Odo, the good priest, the Bishop of Bayeux, galloped up and
said to them: 'Stand fast! stand fast! be quiet and move not! fear
nothing; for, if God please, we shall conquer yet.' So they took courage
and rested where they were; and Odo returned galloping back to where the
battle was most fierce, and was of great service on that day. He had put
a hauberk on over a white aube, wide in the body, with the sleeve tight,
and sat on a white horse, so that all might recognize him. In his hand
he held a mace, and wherever he saw most need he held up and stationed
the knights, and often urged them on to assault and strike the enemy.

"From nine o'clock in the morning, when the combat began, till three
o'clock came, the battle was up and down, this way and that, and no one
knew who would conquer and win the land. Both sides stood so firm and
fought so well that no one could guess which would prevail. The Norman
archers with their bows shot thickly upon the English; but they covered
themselves with their shields, so that the arrows could not reach their
bodies nor do any mischief, how true so ever was their aim or however
well they shot. Then the Normans determined to shoot their arrows upward
into the air, so that they might fall on their enemies' heads and strike
their faces. The archers adopted this scheme and shot up into the air
toward the English; and the arrows, in falling, struck their heads and
faces and put out the eyes of many; and all feared to open their eyes or
leave their faces unguarded.

"The arrows now flew thicker than rain before the wind; fast sped the
shafts that the English call 'wibetes.' Then it was that an arrow, that
had been thus shot upward, struck Harold above his right eye, and put it
out. In his agony he drew the arrow and threw it away, breaking it with
his hands; and the pain to his head was so great that he leaned upon his
shield. So the English were wont to say, and still say to the French,
that the arrow was well shot which was so sent up against their King,
and that the archer won them great glory who thus put out Harold's eye.

"The Normans saw that the English defended themselves well, and were so
strong in their position that they could do little against them. So they
consulted together privily, and arranged to draw off, and pretend to
flee, till the English should pursue and scatter themselves over the
field; for they saw that if they could once get their enemies to break
their ranks, they might be attacked and discomfited much more easily. As
they had said, so they did. The Normans by little and little fled, the
English following them. As the one fell back, the other pressed after;
and when the Frenchmen retreated, the English thought and cried out that
the men of France fled and would never return.

"Thus they were deceived by the pretended flight, and great mischief
thereby befell them; for if they had not moved from their position, it
is not likely that they would have been conquered at all; but, like
fools, they broke their lines and pursued.

"The Normans were to be seen following up their stratagem, retreating
slowly so as to draw the English farther on. As they still flee, the
English pursue; they push out their lances and stretch forth their
hatchets, following the Normans as they go, rejoicing in the success of
their scheme, and scattering themselves over the plain. And the English
meantime jeered and insulted their foes with words. 'Cowards,' they
cried, 'you came hither in an evil hour, wanting our lands and seeking
to seize our property; fools that ye were to come! Normandy is too far
off, and you will not easily reach it. It is of little use to run back;
unless you can cross the sea at a leap or can drink it dry, your sons
and daughters are lost to you.'

"The Normans bore it all; but, in fact, they knew not what the English
said: their language seemed like the baying of dogs, which they could
not understand. At length they stopped and turned round, determined to
recover their ranks; and the barons might be heard crying, '_Dex Aie_!'
for a halt. Then the Normans resumed their former position, turning
their faces toward the enemy; and their men were to be seen facing round
and rushing onward to a fresh _mêlée_, the one party assaulting the
other; this man striking, another pressing onward. One hits, another
misses; one flies, another pursues; one is aiming a stroke, while
another discharges his blow. Norman strives with Englishman again, and
aims his blows afresh. One flies, another pursues swiftly: the
combatants are many, the plain wide, the battle and the _mêlée_ fierce.
On every hand they fight hard, the blows are heavy, and the struggle
becomes fierce.

"The Normans were playing their part well, when an English knight came
rushing up, having in his company a hundred men furnished with various
arms. He wielded a northern hatchet with the blade a full foot long, and
was well armed after his manner, being tall, bold, and of noble
carriage. In the front of the battle, where the Normans thronged most,
he came bounding on swifter than the stag, many Normans falling before
him and his company.

"He rushed straight upon a Norman who was armed and riding on a
war-horse, and tried with his hatchet of steel to cleave his helmet; but
the blow miscarried, and the sharp blade glanced down before the
saddle-bow, driving through the horse's neck down to the ground, so that
both horse and master fell together to the earth. I know not whether the
Englishman struck another blow; but the Normans who saw the stroke were
astonished and about to abandon the assault, when Roger de Montgomeri
came galloping up, with his lance set, and, heeding not the long-handled
axe which the Englishman wielded aloft, struck him down and left him
stretched on the ground. Then Roger cried out, 'Frenchmen, strike! the
day is ours!' And again a fierce _mêlée_ was to be seen, with many a
blow of lance and sword; the English still defending themselves, killing
the horses and cleaving the shields.

"There was a French soldier of noble mien who sat his horse gallantly.
He spied two Englishmen who were also carrying themselves boldly. They
were both men of great worth and had become companions in arms and
fought together, the one protecting the other. They bore two long and
broad bills and did great mischief to the Normans, killing both horses
and men.

"The French soldier looked at them and their bills and was sore alarmed,
for he was afraid of losing his good horse, the best that he had, and
would willingly have turned to some other quarter if it would not have
looked like cowardice. He soon, however, recovered his courage, and,
spurring his horse, gave him the bridle and galloped swiftly forward.
Fearing the two bills, he raised his shield, and struck one of the
Englishmen with his lance on the breast, so that the iron passed out at
his back. At the moment that he fell the lance broke, and the Frenchman
seized the mace that hung at his right side, and struck the other
Englishman a blow that completely fractured his skull.

"On the other side was an Englishman who much annoyed the French,
continually assaulting them with a keen-edged hatchet. He had a helmet
made of wood, which he had fastened down to his coat and laced round his
neck, so that no blows could reach his head. The ravage he was making
was seen by a gallant Norman knight, who rode a horse that neither fire
nor water could stop in its career when its master urged it on. The
knight spurred, and his horse carried him on well till he charged the
Englishman, striking him over the helmet so that it fell down over his
eyes; and as he stretched out his hand to raise it and uncover his face,
the Norman cut off his right hand, so that his hatchet fell to the
ground. Another Norman sprang forward and eagerly seized the prize with
both his hands, but he kept it little space and paid dearly for it, for
as he stooped to pick up the hatchet an Englishman with his long-handled
axe struck him over the back, breaking all his bones, so that his
entrails and lungs gushed forth. The knight of the good horse meantime
returned without injury; but on his way he met another Englishman and
bore him down under his horse, wounding him grievously and trampling him
altogether under foot.

"And now might be heard the loud clang and cry of battle and the
clashing of lances. The English stood firm in their barricades, and
shivered the lances, beating them into pieces with their bills and
maces. The Normans drew their swords and hewed down the barricades, and
the English, in great trouble, fell back upon their standard, where were
collected the maimed and wounded.

"There were many knights of Chauz who jousted and made attacks. The
English knew not how to joust, or bear arms on horseback, but fought
with hatchets and bills. A man, when he wanted to strike with one of
their hatchets, was obliged to hold it with both his hands, and could
not at the same time, as it seems to me, both cover himself and strike
with any freedom.

"The English fell back toward the standard, which was upon a rising
ground, and the Normans followed them across the valley, attacking them
on foot and horseback. Then Hue de Mortemer, with the Sires D'Auviler,
D'Onebac, and St. Cler, rode up and charged, overthrowing many.

"Robert Fitz Erneis fixed his lance, took his shield, and, galloping
toward the standard, with his keen-edged sword struck an Englishman who
was in front, killed him, and then drawing back his sword, attacked many
others, and pushed straight for the standard, trying to beat it down;
but the English surrounded it and killed him with their bills. He was
found on the spot, when they afterward sought for him, dead and lying at
the standard's foot.

"Duke William pressed close upon the English with his lance, striving
hard to reach the standard with the great troop he led, and seeking
earnestly for Harold, on whose account the whole war was. The Normans
follow their lord, and press around him; they ply their blows upon the
English, and these defend themselves stoutly, striving hard with their
enemies, returning blow for blow.

"One of them was a man of great strength, a wrestler, who did great
mischief to the Normans with his hatchet; all feared him, for he struck
down a great many Normans. The Duke spurred on his horse, and aimed a
blow at him, but he stooped, and so escaped the stroke; then jumping on
one side, he lifted his hatchet aloft, and as the Duke bent to avoid the
blow, the Englishman boldly struck him on the head and beat in his
helmet, though without doing much injury. He was very near falling,
however; but, bearing on his stirrups, he recovered himself immediately;
and when he thought to have revenged himself upon the churl by killing
him, he had escaped, dreading the Duke's blow. He ran back in among the
English, but he was not safe even there; for the Normans, seeing him,
pursued and caught him, and having pierced him through and through with
their lances, left him dead on the ground.

"Where the throng of the battle was greatest, the men of Kent and Essex
fought wondrously well, and made the Normans again retreat, but without
doing them much injury. And when the Duke saw his men fall back and the
English triumphing over them, his spirit rose high, and he seized his
shield and his lance, which a vassal handed to him, and took his post by
his standard.

"Then those who kept close guard by him and rode where he rode, being
about a thousand armed men, came and rushed with closed ranks upon the
English, and, with the weight of their good horses, and the blows the
knights gave, broke the press of the enemy, and scattered the crowd
before them, the good Duke leading them on in front. Many pursued and
many fled; many were the Englishmen who fell around, and were trampled
under the horses, crawling upon the earth, and not able to rise. Many of
the richest and noblest men fell in the rout, but still the English
rallied in places, smote down those whom they reached, and maintained
the combat the best they could, beating down the men and killing the
horses. One Englishman watched the Duke, and plotted to kill him; he
would have struck him with his lance, but he could not, for the Duke
struck him first, and felled him to the earth.

"Loud was now the clamor and great the slaughter; many a soul then
quitted the body it inhabited. The living marched over the heaps of
dead, and each side was weary of striking. He charged on who could, and
he who could no longer strike still pushed forward. The strong struggled
with the strong; some failed, others triumphed; the cowards fell back,
the brave pressed on; and sad was his fate who fell in the midst, for he
had little chance of rising again; and many in truth fell who never rose
at all, being crushed under the throng.

"And now the Normans had pressed on so far that at last they had reached
the standard. There Harold had remained, defending himself to the
utmost; but he was sorely wounded in his eye by the arrow, and suffered
grievous pain from the blow. An armed man came in the throng of the
battle, and struck him on the ventail of his helmet, and beat him to the
ground; and as he sought to recover himself a knight beat him down
again, striking him on the thick of his thigh, down to the bone.

"Gurth saw the English falling around, and that there was no remedy. He
saw his race hastening to ruin, and despaired of any aid; he would have
fled, but could not, for the throng continually increased. And the Duke
pushed on till he reached him, and struck him with great force. Whether
he died of that blow I know not, but it was said that he fell under it
and rose no more.

"The standard was beaten down, the golden standard was taken, and Harold
and the rest of his friends were slain; but there was so much eagerness,
and throng of so many around, seeking to kill him, that I know not who
it was that slew him.

"The English were in great trouble at having lost their King and at the
Duke's having conquered and beat down the standard; but they still
fought on, and defended themselves long, and in fact till the day drew
to a close. Then it clearly appeared to all that the standard was lost,
and the news had spread throughout the army that Harold, for certain,
was dead; and all saw that there was no longer any hope, so they left
the field, and those fled who could.

"William fought well; many an assault did he lead, many a blow did he
give, and many receive, and many fell dead under his hand. Two horses
were killed under him, and he took a third when necessary, so that he
fell not to the ground and lost not a drop of blood. But whatever anyone
did, and whoever lived or died, this is certain that William conquered
and that many of the English fled from the field, and many died on the
spot. Then he returned thanks to God, and in his pride ordered his
standard to be brought and set up on high, where the English standard
had stood; and that was the signal of his having conquered, and beaten
down the standard. And he ordered his tent to be raised on the spot
among the dead, and had his meat brought thither, and his supper
prepared there.

"Then he took off his armor; and the barons and knights, pages and
squires came, when he had unstrung his shield; and they took the helmet
from his head and the hauberk from his back, and saw the heavy blows
upon his shield and how his helmet was dinted in. And all greatly
wondered and said: 'Such a baron (_ber_) never bestrode war-horse nor
dealt such blows nor did such feats of arms; neither has there been on
earth such a knight since Rollant and Oliver.'

"Thus they lauded and extolled him greatly and rejoiced in what they
saw, but grieving also for their friends who were slain in the battle.
And the Duke stood meanwhile among them, of noble stature and mien, and
rendered thanks to the King of Glory, through whom he had the victory,
and thanked the knights around him, mourning also frequently for the
dead. And he ate and drank among the dead, and made his bed that night
upon the field.

"The morrow was Sunday; and those who had slept upon the field of
battle, keeping watch around and suffering great fatigue, bestirred
themselves at break of day and sought out and buried such of the bodies
of their dead friends as they might find. The noble ladies of the land
also came, some to seek their husbands, and others their fathers, sons,
or brothers. They bore the bodies to their villages and interred them at
the churches; and the clerks and priests of the country were ready, and
at the request of their friends took the bodies that were found, and
prepared graves and lay them therein.

"King Harold was carried and buried at Varham; but I know not who it was
that bore him thither, neither do I know who buried him. Many remained
on the field, and many had fled in the night."

Such is a Norman account of the battle of Hastings, which does full
justice to the valor of the Saxons as well as to the skill and bravery
of the victors. It is indeed evident that the loss of the battle by the
English was owing to the wound which Harold received in the afternoon,
and which must have incapacitated him from effective command. When we
remember that he had himself just won the battle of Stamford Bridge over
Harald Hardrada by the manoeuvre of a feigned flight, it is impossible
to suppose that he could be deceived by the same stratagem on the part
of the Normans at Hastings. But his men, when deprived of his control,
would very naturally be led by their inconsiderate ardor into the
pursuit that proved so fatal to them. All the narratives of the battle,
however much they vary as to the precise time and manner of Harold's
fall, eulogize the generalship and the personal prowess which he
displayed until the fatal arrow struck him. The skill with which he had
posted his army was proved both by the slaughter which it cost the
Normans to force the position, and also by the desperate rally which
some of the Saxons made after the battle in the forest in the rear, in
which they cut off a large number of the pursuing Normans. This
circumstance is particularly mentioned by William of Poictiers, the
Conqueror's own chaplain. Indeed, if Harold or either of his brothers
had survived, the remains of the English army might have formed again in
the wood, and could at least have effected an orderly retreat and
prolonged the war. But both Gurth and Leofwine, and all the bravest
thanes of Southern England, lay dead on Senlac, around their fallen King
and the fallen standard of their country. The exact number that perished
on the Saxons' side is unknown; but we read that, on the side of the
victors, out of sixty thousand men who had been engaged, no less than a
fourth perished; so well had the English billmen "plyed the ghastly
blow," and so sternly had the Saxon battle-axe cloven Norman's casque
and mail. The old historian Daniel justly as well as forcibly remarks:
"Thus was tried, by the great assize of God's judgment in battle, the
right of power between the English and Norman nations; a battle the most
memorable of all others, and, however miserably lost, yet most nobly
fought on the part of England."

Many a pathetic legend was told in after years respecting the discovery
and the burial of the corpse of our last Saxon King. The main
circumstances, though they seem to vary, are perhaps reconcilable. Two
of the monks of Waltham Abbey, which Harold had founded a little time
before his election to the throne, had accompanied him to the battle. On
the morning after the slaughter they begged and gained permission of the
Conqueror to search for the body of their benefactor. The Norman
soldiery and camp followers had stripped and gashed the slain, and the
two monks vainly strove to recognize from among the mutilated and gory
heaps around them the features of their former King. They sent for
Harold's mistress, Edith, surnamed "the Fair," and "the Swan-necked," to
aid them. The eye of love proved keener than the eye of gratitude, and
the Saxon lady even in that Aceldama knew her Harold.

The King's mother now sought the victorious Norman, and begged the dead
body of her son. But William at first answered, in his wrath and the
hardness of his heart, that a man who had been false to his word and his
religion should have no other sepulchre than the sand of the shore. He
added, with a sneer: "Harold mounted guard on the coast while he was
alive; he may continue his guard now he is dead." The taunt was an
unintentional eulogy; and a grave washed by the spray of the Sussex
waves would have been the noblest burial-place for the martyr of Saxon
freedom. But Harold's mother was urgent in her lamentations and her
prayers; the Conqueror relented: like Achilles, he gave up the dead body
of his fallen foe to a parent's supplications, and the remains of King
Harold were deposited with regal honors in Waltham Abbey.

On Christmas Day in the same year William the Conqueror was crowned, at
London, King of England.



TRIUMPHS OF HILDEBRAND

"THE TURNING-POINT OF THE MIDDLE AGES:"

HENRY IV BEGS FOR MERCY AT CANOSSA

A.D. 1073-1085

ARTHUR R. PENNINGTON

ARTAUD DE MONTOR


(If during the pontificate of Innocent III [1198-1216] the papal power
attained its greatest height, yet under one of his predecessors the
chair of St. Peter became a throne of almost absolute supremacy. This
mighty pontiff, Gregory VII, whose real name, Hildebrand, indicates his
German descent, was born--the son of a carpenter--in Tuscany, about
1020. He became a monk of the Benedictine order, and was educated at the
abbey of Cluny in France. In 1044 he went to Rome, called by a papal
election, and there saw abuses which from that moment he fixed his mind
upon striving to abolish. In 1048 he was again in Rome and soon rose to
the rank of cardinal.

For many years Hildebrand was the real director of papal policy, and
long before his election as pope, in 1073, he worked to accomplish the
reforms that distinguish his pontificate, which continued till his
death, in 1085.

As a part of the Holy Roman Empire, Italy held a dual relation to the
emperor and the pope. Between the Roman pontiffs and the secular heads
of the Empire the struggle for supremacy had been long and often bitter.
At the time of Hildebrand's active appearance the papacy was in a state
of degradation which demoralized the Church itself.

Long before his elevation to the papal chair Hildebrand's efforts had
met with much success, and the power of the holy see was gradually
increased. Independently of the Emperor, whose will had hitherto
governed the papal elections, in 1058--chiefly through the influence of
Hildebrand--Pope Nicholas II was chosen by a new method, and from that
time the choice of popes has been made by the sacred college of
cardinals.

Hildebrand reluctantly accepted the office of pope; but having entered
upon the task which he knew to be so formidable, he pursued it with such
energy, courage, and success as to make his pontificate one of the most
memorable in the annals of the Church. Of his greatest contests within
the ecclesiastical jurisdiction--over the celibacy of the clergy and
simony--as well as of those with the Imperial power represented by Henry
IV--the "War of Investitures"--the following account will be found to
present the essential features with a clearness and comprehensiveness
which are seldom seen in the relation of matter so complex and in a
narrative so concise. The differing viewpoints are also instructive, as
presented by Pennington of the Church of England, and Artaud, the
standard Roman Catholic authority.)


ARTHUR R. PENNINGTON

The time had come when Hildebrand was to receive the reward of the
important services which he had rendered to the holy see. He had been
the ruling spirit under five popes--Leo, Victor, Stephen, Nicholas, and
Alexander--four of whom were indebted to him for their election. But now
he must himself be raised to the papal throne.

The clergy were assembled in the Lateran Church to celebrate the
obsequies of Alexander. Hildebrand, as archdeacon, was performing the
service. Suddenly, in the midst of the requiem for the departed, a shout
was heard which seemed to come as if by inspiration from the assembled
multitude: "Hildebrand is Pope! St. Peter chooses the archdeacon
Hildebrand!"

From the funeral procession Hildebrand flew to the pulpit, and with
impassioned gestures seemed to be imploring silence. The storm, however,
did not cease till one of the cardinals, in the name of the sacred
college, declared that they had unanimously elected him whom the people
had chosen. Arrayed in scarlet robes, crowned with the papal tiara,
Gregory VII ascended the chair of St. Peter.

The Pope very soon made known the course which he should pursue. He
issued a prohibition against the marriage of the clergy, and in a
council at Rome abolished the right of investiture.[27] He was
determined to redress the wrongs of society. He had seen oppression
laying waste the fairest provinces of Europe, he had seen many princes,
goaded on by the revengeful passions of their nature, flinging wide
their standard to the winds, and dipping their hands in the blood of
those who, if Christianity be not a fable, were their very brothers. A
magnificent vision rose up before him. He would rule the world by
religion; he would be the caesar of the spiritual monarchy. He and a
council of prelates, annually assembled at Rome, would constitute a
tribunal from whose judgment there should be no appeal, empowered to
hold the supreme mediation in matters relating to the interests of the
body politic, to settle contested successions to kingdoms; and to compel
men to cease from their dissensions.

[Footnote 27: That is, the right of the civil power to grant church
offices at will, and to invest ecclesiastics with symbols of their
offices and receive their oaths of fealty.]

The civil power was to pledge itself to be prompt in the execution of
their decrees against those who despised their authority. But if the
decisions of those judges were to carry weight, they must be men of
unblemished integrity. The purity of their ermine must be altogether
unsullied. The sale of the highest spiritual offices by the prince, who
had deprived the clergy and people of their right to elect them, which
had stained the hands of the Church and undermined its power, must be
altogether forbidden. Elections must be free. The custom of investiture
by sovereigns with the ring and crozier, which had rendered the
hierarchy and clergy the creatures of their will, must be forbidden.

The clergy must possess an absolute exemption from the criminal justice
of the state. They must recognize but one ruler, the pope, who disposed
of them indirectly through the bishops or directly in cases of
exemption, and used them as tools for the execution of his behests. In
fact, they were to constitute a vast army, exclusively devoted to the
service of an ecclesiastical monarch.

They must be unconnected by marriage with the world around them, that
they might be bound more closely to one another and to their head; that
they might be saved from the temptation of restless projects for the
advancement of their families, which have caused so much scandal in the
world; and that they might give an exalted idea of their sanctity,
inasmuch as, in order that they might give themselves to prayer and the
ministry of the Word, they would forego that connubial bliss, the
portion of those,

                     "The happiest of their kind,
   Whom gentler stars unite and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes,
   and their beings blend."

The marriage of the clergy was everywhere more or less repugnant to the
general feeling of Christendom. The rise and progress of asceticism in
the Church had their source in human nature, and its growth was
quickened by a reaction from the immorality of paganism. The general
effect on the position of the clergy was to compel them to keep progress
with the prevailing movement. Men consecrated to the service of Jehovah
must rise superior to the common herd of their fellow-creatures.

By a decree of Pope Siricius at the end of the fourth century marriage
was interdicted to all priests and deacons. This decree was, however,
very imperfectly observed during the following centuries. The general
feeling was, however, at this time very strongly against the married
clergy. But throughout the spiritual realm of Hildebrand in Italy, from
Calabria to the Alps, the clergy had risen up in rebellion against him
and the popes his predecessors when they attempted to coerce them into
celibacy. We believe that this opposition, much more than the strife as
to investitures, was the cause of the strong feeling, almost
unprecedented, which existed against Gregory VII.

We must now show that Gregory enforced his views as to investitures.
This part of our subject is important, because it gave occasion for the
assertion that the pope could depose the Holy Roman emperor and the king
of Italy, if he should find him morally or physically disqualified for
fulfilling the condition on which his appointment depended--that he
should defend him from his enemies. Henry IV, at the beginning of his
reign only ten years of age, was at this time Emperor.[28]

[Footnote 28: That is, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which included
the German-speaking people of Europe, and also, in theory at least,
Italy.]

One day, as he was standing by the Rhine, a galley with silken streamers
appeared, into which he was invited to enter. After he had been gliding
for some time down the stream, he found that he was a prisoner. The
archbishops of Milan and Cologne, with other powerful lords, having
consigned him to a degrading captivity, administered, in his name, the
government of the empire. By affording him every means of vicious
indulgence, they were only too successful in corrupting a noble and
generous nature. Very soon he was guilty of crimes, and plunged into
excesses which seemed to cry aloud for vengeance.

The Pope saw that the time had come for the execution of his designs.
Henry had been guilty of the grossest simony. The spiritual dignities
had been openly sold to the highest bidder. He saw also that, while the
clergy took the oath of fealty to the monarch and were invested by him
with the ring and crozier, he could not establish the superiority of the
spiritual to the temporal jurisdiction. He therefore summoned a council
at the Lateran (1075), which issued a decree against lay investitures.
The Pope, having thus declared war against the Emperor, proceeded to
fill up certain vacant bishoprics, and to suspend bishops, both in
Germany and Italy, who had been guilty of simony. He also cited Henry
before him to answer for his simony, crimes, and excesses.

This citation is alleged to have given occasion for an attempted crime,
supposed to have been sanctioned by Henry, which may show us that while
the Pope was asserting a right to rule over the nations, he could not
rule in his own city. On Christmas Eve, 1075, the city of Rome was
visited with a violent tempest. Darkness brooded over the land. The
inhabitants thought that the day of judgment was at hand. In the midst
of this war of the elements two processions were seen advancing toward
the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. At the head of one of them was
Hildebrand, leading his priests to worship at a shrine. At the head of
the other was Cencius, a Roman noble. In one of the pauses in the roar
of the tempest, when the Pope was heard blessing his flock, the arm of
Cencius grasped his person, and the sword of a ruffian inflicted a wound
on his forehead. Bound with cords, the Pope was removed to a mansion in
the city, from which he was the next day to be removed to exile or to
death. A sword was aimed at the Pontiff's bosom, when the cries of a
fierce multitude, threatening to burn down the house, arrested the arm
of the assassin. An arrow, discharged from below, reached and slew the
latter. Cencius fell at the Pope's feet, a suppliant for pardon and for
life. The Pontiff immediately pardoned him. Then, amid the acclamations
of the Roman people, Gregory proceeded to complete the interrupted
solemnities at Santa Maria Maggiore.

The war between Henry and the Pope continued. Henry summoned a synod at
Worms in January, 1076, which decreed the deposition of the Pope. The
envoy charged to convey this sentence appeared in the council chamber of
the Lateran in February, before an assembly consisting of the mightiest
in the land, whom the Pope had summoned to sit in judgment on Henry.
With flashing eyes and in a voice of thunder he directed the Pope to
descend from the chair of St. Peter. Cries of indignation rang through
the hall, and a hundred swords were seen leaping from their scabbards to
inflict vengeance on the daring intruder. The Pope, with difficulty,
stilled the angry tumult. Then, rising with calm dignity, amid the
breathless silence of the assembled multitude, he uttered that dread
anathema which "shuts paradise and opens hell," and absolved the
subjects of Henry from their allegiance.

The inhabitants of Europe were struck dumb with amazement when they
witnessed this exercise of papal prerogative. They thought that the
powerful arm of Henry would have been raised to smite down the audacious
Hildebrand. The Pope, however, well knew that Henry had by his excesses
alienated from himself the affections of his subjects. The sentence gave
a pretext to many of his nobility to withdraw from their allegiance.
Awed by spiritual terrors, his attendants fell away from him as if he
had been smitten by a leprosy. An assembly was now summoned at Trebur,
in obedience to a requisition from the Pope, at which it was decreed
that, if the Emperor continued excommunicate on the 23d of February,
1077, his crown should be given to another. The theory of the Holy Roman
Empire had thus become a practical reality. The vassal of Otho had
reduced the successor of Otho to vassalage. A great pope had wrung from
the superstition and reverence of mankind a spiritual empire, which, it
was hoped, would extend its sway to earth's remotest boundaries.


ARTAUD DE MONTOR

Gregory made it an invariable rule to act at the outset with gentleness.
"No one," says he, "reaches the highest rank at a single spring; great
edifices rise gradually." Certain of his strength, he chose to employ
conciliation. He especially sought to convince Henry, but the excesses
in which that prince wallowed were so abominable that his subjects in
all parts, and especially the great, revolted against him. In 1076,
Gregory assembled a council, which pronounced the excommunication of the
King, with all the terrible consequences attendant upon it.

History shows several emperors of the East excommunicated by preceding
popes: Arcadius, by Innocent I; Anastasius, by Saint Symmachus; and Leo
the Isaurian, by Gregory II and Gregory III.

The decree of the same council set forth that the throne vacated by
Henry was adjudged to Rudolph, duke of Swabia, already created king of
Germany by the electors of the empire.

Before the election of Rudolph, Gregory had declared that he would
repair to Germany. King Henry, on his part, promised to come into Italy.
The Pope left Rome with an escort furnished by the countess of Tuscany,
daughter of Boniface, marquis of Tuscany. The march of Gregory was a
triumph. Amidst that escort he reached Vercelli. It was feared by some
that Henry would make his appearance at the head of an army, but he had
not that intention. The Pope, nevertheless, deemed it best to retire
into the fortress of Canossa, belonging to the Countess Matilda, in
order that he might be secure from all violence.

Henry had spent nearly two months at Spires in a profound and melancholy
solitude. The weight of the excommunication oppressed him with a
thousand griefs. Weary of that state of uncertainty, and still, as ever,
tricky and hypocritical, he conceived the idea of winning over the Pope
by an apparent piety, and of satisfying his requirements by a brief
humiliation; moreover, the decree of excommunication declared that it
should be withdrawn if the King appeared before the Pope within a year
from the date of the decree. The winter was severe. After running a
thousand dangers, the King and his queen arrived at Turin, and proceeded
to Placentia. Thence the prince announced that he would proceed to
Canossa, by way of Reggio.

The Countess Matilda met him with Hugo, Bishop of Cluny. She wished to
restore harmony between the Pope and the King. Gregory seemed to desire
that Henry should return to Augsburg, to be judged by the Diet. The
envoys of the King at Canossa replied: "Henry does not fear being
judged; he knows that the Pope will protect innocence and justice; but
the anniversary of the excommunication is at hand, and if the
excommunication be not removed, the King, _according to the laws of the
land_, will lose his right to the crown. The prince humbly requests the
Holy Father to raise the interdict, and to restore him to the communion
of the Church. He is ready to give every satisfaction that the Pope
shall require; to present himself at such place and at such time as the
Pope shall order; to meet his accusers, and to commit himself entirely
to the decision of the head of the Church."

Henry, says Voigt, having received permission to advance, was not long
on the way. The fortress had triple inclosures; Henry was conducted into
the second; his retinue remained outside the first. He had laid aside
the insignia of royalty; nothing announced his rank. All day long,
Henry, bareheaded, clad in penitential garb, and fasting from morning
till night, awaited the sentence of the sovereign pontiff. He thus
waited during a second and a third day. During the intervening time he
had not ceased to negotiate. On the morrow, Matilda interceded with the
Pope on behalf of Henry, and the conditions of the treaty were settled.
The prince promised to give satisfaction to the complaints made against
him by his subjects, and he took an oath, in which his sureties joined.
When those oaths were taken, the pontiff gave the King the benediction
and the apostolic peace, and celebrated Mass.

After the consecration of the host, the Pope called Henry and all
present, and still holding the host in his hand, said to the King: "We
have received letters from you and those of your party, in which we are
accused of having usurped the Holy See by simony, and of having, both
before and since our episcopacy, committed crimes which, according to
the canons, excluded us from holy orders.

"Although we could justify ourselves by the testimony of those who have
known our manner of life from our childhood, and who were the authors of
our promotion to the episcopacy, nevertheless, to do away with all kind
of scandal, we will appeal to the judgment, not of men, but of God. Let
the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we are about to take, be this
day a proof of our innocence. We pray the Almighty to dispel all
suspicion, if we are innocent, and to cause us suddenly to die, if we
are guilty."

Then turning towards the King, Gregory again spoke: "Dear son, do also
as you have seen us do. The German princes have daily accused you to us
of a great number of crimes, for which those nobles maintain that you
ought to be interdicted, during your whole life, not only from royalty
and all public function, but also from all ecclesiastical communion, and
from all commerce of civil life. They urgently demand that you be
judged, and you know how uncertain are all human judgments. Do, then, as
we advise, and if you feel that you are innocent, deliver the Church
from this scandal, and yourself from this embarrassment. Take this other
portion of the host, that this proof of your innocence may close the
lips of your enemies, and engage us to be your most ardent defender, to
reconcile you with the nobles, and forever to terminate the civil war."

This address astonished the King. Going apart with his confidants, he
tremblingly consulted as to what he could do to avoid so terrible a
test. At length, having somewhat recovered his calmness, he said to the
Pope, that as those nobles who remained faithful were, for the most
part, absent, as well as those who accused him, the latter would give
little faith to what he might do in his own justification, unless it
were done in their presence. For that reason, he asked that the test
should be postponed to the day of the sitting of the general diet, and
the Pope consented.

When the Pope had finished Mass, he invited the King to dinner, treated
him with much attention, and dismissed him in peace to his own people,
who had remained outside the castle. Henry, on his return to his nobles,
was not well received. Henry, as Voigt shows, soon became alarmed at
their disapprobation, which originated only in a feeling of wounded
complicity and ambitious views, which could not hope for success after
the victory gained by Gregory.

Henry, hearing himself accused of weakness, thought to deliver himself
from so much annoyance by a bold perjury; and he endeavored to draw
Gregory and Matilda into a snare. Warned by faithful friends, they did
not visit the King as had been agreed; and that new wrong determined
Gregory to suspend his departure for the Diet of Augsburg. No one, not
even the pious Matilda, now dared to speak of a reconciliation.

Henry held at Brescia, in 1080, a pseudo council of the bishops devoted
to him; and there he caused Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna, an avowed
enemy of Gregory, to be elected as Pope; and he deposed Gregory,
although he was recognized as the legitimate pope by the whole Catholic
world, with the exception of the bishops in revolt, under the direction
of Henry. On learning this, Gregory celebrated at Rome, in the year
1080, a regular council, in which he again excommunicated Henry, and
especially the antipope, whom he would never absolve.


ARTHUR PENNINGTON

The war continued. Henry's rival for the empire, Rudolph of Swabia, was
supported by many German partisans, especially by the Saxons. He was
defeated with great loss at Fladenheim. The skill and courage of the
Saxon commander, however, turned a defeat into a victory. Emboldened by
this victory, Gregory excommunicated Henry, and "gave, granted, and
conceded" that Rudolph might rule the Italian and German empires. With
the sanction of thirty bishops, an antipope, Guibert, was elected at
Brixen. The war raged with undiminished violence. The Saxons, the only
power in alliance with the Romans, gained a victory over Henry in
Germany at the very same time when Matilda's forces fled before his army
in the Mantuan territory. Matilda had lately granted all her hereditary
states to Gregory and his successors forever. Before the summer of the
year 1080 the citizens of Rome saw the forces of Henry in the Campagna.
The siege of Rome continued for three years. The capture of the city was
imminent, when the forces of Robert Guiscard, the Norman, came to the
rescue of the Pope.

Nicholas II had bestowed on Robert Guiscard the investiture of the
duchies of Apulia and Calabria; Sicily also, the conquest of which his
brother Richard was meditating, being prospectively added to Robert's
dominions. The oath taken by Robert Guiscard on this occasion bound him
to be the devoted defender of the pontificate. He now became a friend
indeed. A hasty retreat saved the forces of Henry from the impending
danger. The Pope returned in triumph to the Lateran. But within a few
hours he heard from the streets the clash of arms and the loud shouts of
the combatants. A fierce contest was raging between the soldiers of
Robert and the citizens who espoused the cause of Henry. A conflagration
was kindled, which at length destroyed three-fourths of the city.
Gregory, perhaps conscience-stricken when he thought of the wars he had
kindled, sought, in the castle of Salerno, from the Normans the security
which he could no longer expect among his own subjects. He soon found
that the hand of death was upon him. He summoned round his bed the
bishops and cardinals who had accompanied him in his flight from Rome.
He maintained the truth of the principles for which he had always
contended. He forgave and blessed his enemies, with the exception of the
antipope and the Emperor. He had received the transubstantiated
elements. The final unction had been given to him. He then prepared
himself to die. Anxious to catch the last words from that tongue, to the
utterances of which they had always listened with intense delight, his
followers were bending over him, when, collecting his powers for one
last effort, he said, in an indignant tone, "I have loved righteousness
and hated iniquity, and, therefore, I die in exile."



COMPLETION OF THE DOMESDAY BOOK

A.D. 1086

CHARLES KNIGHT


(When William the Conqueror had been some years established in his
English realm, he found himself confronted with a feudal baronage
largely composed of men who had gone with him from Normandy, where many
of them had reluctantly bowed to his command. They were jealous of the
royal power and eager for military and judicial independence within
their own manors. The Conqueror met this situation with the skill of
political genius. He granted large estates to the nobles, but so widely
scattered as to render union of the great land-owners and hereditary
attachment of great areas of population to separate feudal lords
impossible. He caused under-tenants to be bound to their lords by the
same conditions of service which bound the lords to the crown, to which
each sub-tenant swore direct fealty. William also strengthened his
position as king by means of a new military organization and by his
control of the judicial and administrative systems of the kingdom. By
the abolition of the four great earldoms of the realm he struck a final
blow at the ambition of the greater nobles for independent power. By
this stroke he made the shire the largest unit of local government. By
his control of the national revenues he secured a great financial power
in his own hands.

A large part of the manors were burdened with special dues to the crown,
and for the purpose of ascertaining and recording these William sent
into each county commissioners to make a survey, whose inquiries were
recorded in the _Domesday Book_, so called because its decision was
regarded as final. This book, in Norman-French, contains the results of
his survey of England made in 1085-1086, and consists of two volumes in
vellum, a large folio of three hundred and eighty-two pages, and a
quarto of four hundred and fifty pages. For a long time it was kept
under three locks in the exchequer with the King's seal, and is now kept
in the Public Record Office. In 1783 the British Government issued a
fac-simile edition of it, in two folio volumes, printed from types
specially made for the purpose. It is one of the principal sources for
the political and social history of the time.

The _Domesday Book_ contains a record of the ownership, extent, and
value of the lands of England at the time of the survey, at the time of
their bestowal when granted by the King, and at the time of a previous
survey under Edward the Confessor. Of the detailed registrations of
tenants, defendants, live stock, etc., as well, as of contemporary
social features of the English people, the following account presents
interesting pictures.)


The survey contained in the _Domesday Book_ extended to all England,
with the exception of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and
Durham. All the country between the Tees and the Tyne was held by the
Bishop of Durham; and he was reputed a count palatine, having a separate
government. The other three northern counties were probably so
devastated that they were purposely omitted. Let us first see, from the
information of _Domesday Book_, by "what men" the land was occupied.

First, we have barons and we have thanes. The barons were the Norman
nobles; the thanes, the Saxon. These were included under the general
designation of _liberi homines_, free men; which term included all the
freeholders of a manor. Many of these were tenants of the King "_in
capite_"--that is, they held their possessions direct from the Crown.
Others of these had placed themselves under the protection of some lord,
as the defender of their persons and estates, they paying some stipend
or performing some service. In the _Register_ there are also _liberae
feminae_, free women. Next to the free class were the _sochemanni_ or
"socmen," a class of inferior land-owners, who held lands under a lord,
and owed suit and service in the lord's court, but whose tenure was
permanent. They sometimes performed services in husbandry; but those
services, as well as their payments, were defined.

Descending in the scale, we come to the _villani_. These were allowed to
occupy land at the will of the lord, upon the condition of performing
services, uncertain in their amount and often of the meanest nature. But
they could acquire no property in lands or goods; and they were subject
to many exactions and oppressions. There are entries in _Domesday Book_
which show that the villani were not altogether bondmen, but represented
the Saxon "churl." The lowest class were _servi_, slaves; the class
corresponding with the Saxon _theow_. By a degradation in the condition
of the villani, and the elevation of that of the servi, the two classes
were brought gradually nearer together; till at last the military
oppression of the Normans, thrusting down all degrees of tenants and
servants into one common slavery, or at least into strict dependence,
one name was adopted for both of them as a generic term, that of
_villeins regardant_.

Of the subdivisions of these great classes, the _Register_ of 1085
affords us some particulars. We find that some of the nobles are
described as _milites_, soldiers; and sometimes the milites are classed
with the inferior orders of tenantry. Many of the chief tenants are
distinguished by their offices. We have among these the great regal
officers, such as they existed in the Saxon times--the _camerarius_ and
_cubicularius_, from whom we have our lord chamberlain; the _dapifer_,
or lord steward; the _pincerna_, or chief butler; the constable, and the
treasurer. We have the hawkkeepers, and the bowkeepers; the providers of
the king's carriages, and his standard-bearers. We have lawmen, and
legates, and mediciners. We have foresters and hunters.

Coming to the inferior officers and artificers, we have carpenters,
smiths, goldsmiths, farriers, potters, ditchers, launders, armorers,
fishermen, millers, bakers, salters, tailors, and barbers. We have
mariners, moneyers, minstrels, and watchmen. Of rural occupations we
have the beekeepers, ploughmen, shepherds, neatherds, goatherds, and
swineherds. Here is a population in which there is a large division of
labor. The freemen, tenants, villeins, slaves, are laboring and deriving
sustenance from arable land, meadow, common pasture, wood, and water.
The grain-growing land is, of course, carefully registered as to its
extent and value, and so the meadow and pasture. An equal exactness is
bestowed upon the woods. It was not that the timber was of great
commercial value, in a country which possessed such insufficient means
of transport; but that the acorns and beech-mast, upon which great herds
of swine subsisted, were of essential importance to keep up the supply
of food. We constantly find such entries as "a wood for pannage of fifty
hogs." There are woods described which will feed a hundred, two hundred,
three hundred hogs; and on the Bishop of London's demesne at Fulham a
thousand hogs could fatten. The value of a tree was determined by the
number of hogs that could lie under it, in the Saxon time; and in this
survey of the Norman period, we find entries of useless woods, and woods
without pannage, which to some extent were considered identical. In some
of the woods there were patches of cultivated ground, as the entries
show, where the tenant had cleared the dense undergrowth and had his
corn land and his meadows. Even the fen lands were of value, for their
rents were paid in eels.

There is only mention of five forests in this record, Windsor,
Gravelings (Wiltshire), Winburn, Whichwood, and the New Forest.
Undoubtedly there were many more, but being no objects of assessment
they are passed over. It would be difficult not to associate the memory
of the Conqueror with the New Forest, and not to believe that his
unbridled will was here the cause of great misery and devastation.
Ordericus Vitalis says, speaking of the death of William's second son,
Richard: "Learn now, my reader, why the forest in which the young prince
was slain received the name of the New Forest. That part of the country
was extremely populous from early times, and full of well-inhabited
hamlets and farms. A numerous population cultivated Hampshire with
unceasing industry, so that the southern part of the district
plentifully supplied Winchester with the products of the land. When
William I ascended the throne of Albion, being a great lover of forests,
he laid waste more than sixty parishes, compelling the inhabitants to
emigrate to other places, and substituted beasts of the chase for human
beings, that he might satisfy his ardor for hunting." There is probably
some exaggeration in the statement of the country being "extremely
populous from early times." This was an old woody district, called
Ytene. No forest was artificially planted, as Voltaire has imagined; but
the chases were opened through the ancient thickets, and hamlets and
solitary cottages were demolished.

It is a curious fact that some woodland spots in the New Forest have
still names with the terminations of _ham_ and _ton_. There are many
evidences of the former existence of human abodes in places now
solitary; yet we doubt whether this part of the district plentifully
supplied Winchester with food, as Ordericus relates; for it is a sterile
district, in most places, fitted for little else than the growth of
timber. The lower lands are marsh, and the upper are sand. The
Conqueror, says the _Saxon Chronicle_, "so much loved the high deer as
if he had been their father." The first of the Norman kings, and his
immediate successors, would not be very scrupulous about the
depopulation of a district if the presence of men interfered with their
pleasures. But Thierry thinks that the extreme severity of the Forest
Laws was chiefly enforced to prevent the assemblage of Saxons in those
vast wooded spaces which were now included in the royal demesnes.

All these extensive tracts were, more or less, retreats for the
dispossessed and the discontented. The Normans, under pretence of
preserving the stag and the hare, could tyrannize with a pretended
legality over the dwellers in these secluded places; and thus William
might have driven the Saxon people of Ytene to emigrate, and have
destroyed their cottages, as much from a possible fear of their
association as from his own love of "the high deer." Whatever was the
motive, there were devastation and misery. _Domesday_ shows that in the
district of the New Forest certain manors were afforested after the
Conquest; cultivated portions, in which the Sabbath bell was heard.
William of Jumièges, the Conqueror's own chaplain, says, speaking of the
deaths of Richard and Rufus: "There were many who held that the two sons
of William the King perished by the judgment of God in these woods,
since for the _extension_ of the forest he had destroyed many inhabited
_places (villas) and churches within its circuit_." It appears that in
the time of Edward the Confessor about seventeen thousand acres of this
district had been afforested; but that the cultivated parts remaining
had then an estimated value of three hundred and sixty-three pounds.
After the afforestation by the Conqueror, the cultivated parts yielded
only one hundred and twenty-nine pounds.

The grants of land to huntsmen (_venatores_) are common in Hampshire, as
in other parts of England; and it appears to have been the duty of an
especial officer to stall the deer--that is, to drive them with his
troop of followers from all parts to the centre of a circle, gradually
contracting, where they were to stand for the onslaught of the hunters.
In the survey many parks are enumerated. The word hay (_haia_), which is
still found in some of our counties, meant an enclosed part of a wood to
which the deer were driven.

In the seventeenth century this mode of hunting upon a large scale, by
stalling the deer--this mimic war--was common in Scotland. Taylor,
called the "Water Poet," was present at such a gathering, and has
described the scene with a minuteness which may help us to form a
picture of the Norman hunters: "Five or six hundred men do rise early in
the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways; and seven,
eight, or ten miles' compass, they do bring or chase in the deer in many
herds--two, three, or four hundred in a herd--to such a place as the
noblemen shall appoint them; then, when the day is come, the lords and
gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes
wading up to the middle through bourns and rivers; and then they being
come to the place, do lie down on the ground till those foresaid scouts,
which are called the 'tinkhelt,' do bring down the deer. Then, after we
had stayed there three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer
appear on the hills round about us--their heads making a show like a
wood--which being followed close by the tinkhelt, are chased down into
the valley where we lay; then all the valley on each side being waylaid
with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as
occasion serves upon the herd of deer, that with dogs, guns, arrows,
dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours fourscore fat deer were
slain."

_Domesday_ affords indubitable proof of the culture of the vine in
England. There are thirty-eight entries of vineyards in the southern and
eastern counties. Many gardens are enumerated. Mills are registered with
great distinctness; for they were invariably the property of the lords
of the manors, lay or ecclesiastical; and the tenants could only grind
at the lord's mill. Wherever we find a mill specified in _Domesday_,
there we generally find a mill now. At Arundel, for example, we see what
rent was paid by a mill; and there still stands at Arundel an old mill
whose foundations might have been laid before the Conquest. Salt works
are repeatedly mentioned. They were either works upon the coast for
procuring marine salt by evaporation, or were established in the
localities of inland salt springs. The salt works of Cheshire were the
most numerous, and were called "wiches." Hence the names of some places,
such as Middlewich and Nantwich. The revenue from mines offers some
curious facts. No mention of tin is to be found in Cornwall. The ravages
of Saxon and Dane, and the constant state of hostility between races,
had destroyed much of that mineral industry which existed in the Roman
times. A century and a half after the Conquest had elapsed before the
Norman kings had a revenue from the Cornish iron mines. Iron forges were
registered, and lumps of hammered iron are stated to have been paid as
rent. Lead works are found only upon the king's demesne in Derbyshire.

Fisheries are important sources of rent. Payments of eels are enumerated
by hundreds and thousands. Herrings appear to have been consumed in vast
numbers in the monasteries. Sandwich yielded forty thousand annually to
Christ Church in Canterbury. Kent, Sussex, and Norfolk appear to have
been the great seats of this fishery. The Severn and the Wye had their
salmon fisheries, whose produce king, bishop, and lord were glad to
receive as rent. There was a weir for Thames fish at Mortlake. The
religious houses had their _piscinae_ and _vivaria_--their stews and
fish-pools.

_Domesday_ affords us many curious glimpses of the condition of the
people in cities and burghs. For the most part they seem to have
preserved their ancient customs. London, Winchester, and several other
important places are not mentioned in the record. We shall very briefly
notice a few indications of the state of society. Dover was an important
place, for it supplied the king with twenty ships for fifteen days in a
year, each vessel having twenty-one men on board. Dover could therefore
command the service of four hundred and twenty mariners. Every burgess
in Lewes compounded for a payment of twenty shillings when the king
fitted out a fleet to keep the sea.

At Oxford the king could command the services of twenty burgesses
whenever he went on an expedition; or they might compound for their
services by a payment of twenty pounds. Oxford was a considerable place
at this period. It contained upward of seven hundred houses; but four
hundred and seventy-eight were so desolated that they could pay no dues.
Hereford was the king's demesne; and the honor of being his immediate
tenants appears to have been qualified by considerable exactions. When
he went to war, and when he went to hunt, men were to be ready for his
service. If the wife of a burgher brewed his ale, he paid tenpence. The
smith who kept a forge had to make nails from the king's iron. In
Hereford, as in other cities, there were moneyers, or coiners. There
were seven at Hereford, who were bound to coin as much of the king's
silver into pence as he demanded. At Cambridge the burgesses were
compelled to lend the sheriff their ploughs. Leicester was bound to find
the king a hawk or to pay ten pounds; while a sumpter or baggage-horse
was compounded for at one pound.

At Warwick there were two hundred and twenty-five houses on which the
king and his barons claimed tax; and nineteen houses belonged to free
burgesses. The dues were paid in honey and corn. In Shrewsbury there
were two hundred and fifty-two houses belonging to burgesses; but the
burgesses complained that they were called upon to pay as much tax as in
the time of the Confessor, although Earl Roger had taken possession of
extensive lands for building his castle. Chester was a port in which the
king had his dues upon every cargo, and where he had fines whenever a
trader was detected in using a false measure. The fraudulent female
brewer of adulterated beer was placed in the cucking-stool, a
degradation afterward reserved for scolds.

This city has a more particular notice as to laws and customs in the
time of the Confessor than any other place in the survey. Particular
care seems to have been taken against fire. The owner of a house on fire
not only paid a fine to the king, but forfeited two shillings to his
nearest neighbor. Marten skins appear to have been a great article of
trade in this city. No stranger could cart goods within a particular
part of the city without being subjected to a forfeiture of four
shillings or two oxen to the bishop. We find, as might be expected, no
mention of that peculiar architecture of Chester called the "Rows,"
which has so puzzled antiquarian writers. The probability is that in a
place so exposed to the attacks of the Welsh they were intended for
defence. The low streets in which the Rows are situated have the road
considerably beneath them, like the cutting of a railway; and from the
covered way of the Rows an enemy in the road beneath might be assailed
with great advantage.

In the civil wars of Charles I the possession of the Rows by the
Royalists, or Parliamentary troops, was fiercely contested. Of their
antiquity there is no doubt. They probably belong to the same period as
the Castle. The wall of Chester and the bridge were kept in repair,
according to the survey, by the service of one laborer for every hide of
land in the county. It is to be remarked that in all the cities and
burghs the inhabitants are described as belonging to the king or a
bishop or a baron. Many, even in the most privileged places, were
attached to particular manors.

The _Domesday_ survey shows that in some towns there was an admixture of
Norman and English burgesses; and it is clear that they were so settled
after the Conquest, for a distinction is made between the old customary
dues of the place and those the foreigner should pay. The foreigner had
to bear a small addition to the ancient charge. No doubt the Norman
clung to many of the habits of his own land; and the Saxon unwillingly
parted with those of the locality in which his fathers had lived. But
their manners were gradually assimilated. The Normans grew fond of the
English beer, and the English adopted the Norman dress.

The survey of 1085 affords the most complete evidence of the extent to
which the Normans had possessed themselves of the landed property of the
country. The ancient demesnes of the crown consisted of fourteen hundred
and twenty-two manors. But the king had confiscated the properties of
Godwin, Harold, Algar, Edwin, Morcar, and other great Saxon earls; and
his revenues thus became enormous. Ordericus Vitalis states, with a
minuteness that seems to imply the possession of official information,
that "the king himself received daily one-and-sixty pounds thirty
thousand pence and three farthings sterling money from his regular
revenues in England alone, independently of presents, fines for
offences, and many other matters which constantly enrich a royal
treasury." The numbers of manors held by the favorites of the Conqueror
would appear incredible, if we did not know that these great nobles were
grasping and unscrupulous; indulging the grossest sensuality with a
pretence of refinement; limited in their perpetration of injustice only
by the extent of their power; and so blinded by their pride as to call
their plunder their inheritance. Ten Norman chiefs who held under the
crown are enumerated in the survey as possessing two thousand eight
hundred and twenty manors.

This enormous transfer of property did not take place without the most
formidable resistance, but when a period of tranquillity arrived came
the era of castle-building. The Saxons had their rude fortresses and
intrenched earthworks. But solid walls of stone, for defence and
residence, were to become the local seats of regal and baronial
domination. _Domesday_ contains notices of forty-nine castles; but only
one is mentioned as having existed in the time of Edward the Confessor.
Some which the Conqueror is known to have built are not noticed in the
survey. Among these is the White Tower of London. The site of Rochester
Castle is mentioned. These two buildings are associated by our old
antiquaries as being erected by the same architect. Stow says: "I find
in a fair register-book of the acts of the bishops of Rochester, set
down by Edmund of Hadenham, that William I, surnamed Conqueror, builded
the Tower of London, to wit, the great white and square tower there,
about the year of Christ 1078, appointing Gundulph, then Bishop of
Rochester, to be principal surveyor and overseer of that work, who was
for that time lodged in the house of Edmere, a burghess of London." The
chapel in the White Tower is a remarkable specimen of early Norman
architecture.

The keep of Rochester Castle, so picturesquely situated on the Medway,
was not a mere fortress without domestic convenience. Here we still look
upon the remains of sculptured columns and arches. We see where there
were spacious fireplaces in the walls, and how each of four floors was
served with water by a well. The third story contains the most
ornamental portions of the building. In the _Domesday_ enumeration of
castles, we have repeated mention of houses destroyed and lands wasted,
for their erection. At Cambridge twenty-seven houses are recorded to
have been thus demolished. This was the fortress to overawe the fen
districts. At Lincoln a hundred and sixty-six mansions were destroyed,
"on account of the castle."

In the ruins of all these castles we may trace their general plan. There
were an outer court, an inner court, and a keep. Round the whole area
was a wall, with parapets and loopholes. The entrance was defended by an
outwork or barbacan. The prodigious strength of the keep is the most
remarkable characteristic of these fortresses; and thus many of these
towers remain, stripped of every interior fitting by time, but as
untouched in their solid construction as the mounts upon which they
stand. We ascend the steep steps which lead to the ruined keep of
Carisbrook, with all our historical associations directed to the
confinement of Charles I in this castle. But this fortress was
registered in _Domesday Book_. Five centuries and a half had elapsed
between William I and James I. The Norman keep was out of harmony with
the principles of the seventeenth century, as much as the feudal
prerogatives to which Charles unhappily clung.

We have thus enumerated some of the more prominent statistics of this
ancient survey, which are truly as much matter of history as the events
of this beginning of the Norman period. There is one more feature of
this _Domesday Book_ which we cannot pass over. The number of parish
churches in England in the eleventh century will, in some degree,
furnish an indication of the amount of religious instruction. By some
most extraordinary exaggeration, the number of these churches has been
stated to be above forty-five thousand. In _Domesday_ the number
enumerated is a little above seventeen hundred. No doubt this
enumeration is extremely imperfect. Very nearly half of all the churches
put down are found in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk. The
_Register_, in some cases, gives the amount of land with which the
church was endowed. Bosham, in Sussex, the estate of Harold, had, in the
time of King Edward, a hundred and twelve hides of land. At the date of
the survey it had sixty-five hides. This was an enormous endowment. Some
churches had five acres only; some fifty; some a hundred. Some are
without land altogether. But, whether the endowment be large or small,
here is the evidence of a church planted upon the same foundation as the
monarchy, that of territorial possessions.

The politic ruler of England had, in the completion of _Domesday Book_,
possessed himself of the most perfect instrument for the profitable
administration of his government. He was no longer working in the dark,
whether he called out soldiers or levied taxes. He had carried through a
great measure, rapidly, and with a minuteness which puts to shame some
of our clumsy modern statistics. But the Conqueror did not want his
books for the gratification of official curiosity. He went to work when
he knew how many tenants-in-chief he could command, and how many men
they could bring into the field. He instituted the great feudal
principle of knight-service. His ordinance is in these words: "We
command that all earls, barons, knights, sergeants, and freemen be
always provided with horses and arms as they ought, and that they be
always ready to perform to us their whole service, in manner as they owe
it to us of right for their fees and tenements, and as we have appointed
to them by the common council of our whole kingdom, and as we have
granted to them in fee with right of inheritance."

These words, "in fee, with right of inheritance," leave no doubt that
the great vassals of the crown were absolute proprietors, and that all
their subvassals had the same right of holding in perpetuity. The
estate, however, reverted to the crown if the race of the original
feoffee became extinct, and in cases, also, of felony and treason. When
Alain of Bretagne, who commanded the rear of the army at the battle of
Hastings, and who had received four hundred and forty-two manors, bowed
before the King at Salisbury, at the great council in 1085, and swore to
be true to him against all manner of men, he also brought with him his
principal _land-sittende_ men (land-owners), who also bowed before the
King and became his men. They had previously taken the oath of fealty to
Alain of Bretagne, and engaged to perform all the customs and services
due to him for their lands and tenements. Alain, and his men, were
proprietors, but with very unequal rights. Alain, by his tenure, was
bound to provide for the King as many armed horsemen as the vast extent
of his estates demanded. But all those whom he had enfeoffed, or made
proprietors, upon his four hundred and forty-two manors, were each bound
to contribute a proportionate number. When the free service of forty
days was to be enforced, the great earl had only to send round to his
vassals, and the men were at his command.

By this organization, which was universal throughout the kingdom, sixty
thousand cavalry could, with little delay, be called into the field.
Those who held by this military service had their allotments divided
into so many knights' fees, and each knight's fee was to furnish one
mounted and armed soldier. The great vassals retained a portion of their
land as their demesnes, having tenants who paid rents and performed
services not military. But, under any circumstances, the vassal of the
crown was bound to perform his whole free service with men and horses
and arms. It is perfectly clear that this wonderful organization
rendered the whole system of government one great confederacy, in which
the small proprietors, tenants, and villeins had not a chance of
independence; and that their condition could only be ameliorated by
those gradual changes which result from a long intercourse between the
strong and the weak, in which power relaxes its severity and becomes
protection.

In the ordinance in which the King commanded "free service" he also
says, "we will that all the freemen of the kingdom possess their lands
in peace, free from all tallage and unjust exaction." This, unhappily
for the freemen, was little more than a theory under the Norman kings.
There were various modes of making legal exaction the source of the
grossest injustice. When the heir of an estate entered into possession
he had to pay a "relief," or _heriot_, to the lord. This soon became a
source of oppression in the crown; and enormous sums were exacted from
the great vassals. The lord was not more sparing of his men. He had
another mode of extortion. He demanded "aid" on many occasions, such as
the marriage of his eldest daughter, or when he made his eldest son a
knight. The estate of inheritance, which looks so generous and equitable
an arrangement, was a perpetual grievance; for the possessor could
neither transmit his property by will nor transfer it by sale. The heir,
however remote in blood, was the only legitimate successor.

The feudal obligation to the lord was, in many other ways, a fruitful
source of tyranny, which lasted up to the time of the Stuarts. If the
heir were a minor, the lord entered into possession of the estate
without any accountability. If it descended to a female, the lord could
compel her to marry according to his will, or could prevent her
marrying. During a long period all these harassing obligations connected
with property were upheld. The crown and the nobles were equally
interested in their enforcement; and there can be little doubt that,
though the great vassals sometimes suffered under these feudal
obligations to the king, the inferior tenants had a much greater amount
of oppression to endure at the hands of their immediate lords. But if
the freemen were oppressed in the tenure of their property, we can
scarcely expect that the landless man had not much more to suffer. If he
committed an offence in the Saxon time, he paid a "mulct"; if in the
Norman, he was subjected to an _amerciament_. His whole personal estate
was at the mercy of the lord.

Having thus obtained a general notion of the system of society
established in less than twenty years after the Conquest, we see that
there was nothing wanting to complete the most entire subjection of the
great body of the nation. What had been wanting was accomplished in the
practical working out of the theory that the entire land of the country
belonged to the King. It was now established that every tenant-in-chief
should do homage to the king; that every superior tenant should do
homage to his lord; that every villein should be the bondman of the
free; and that every slave should, without any property however limited
and insecure, be the absolute chattel of some master. The whole system
was connected with military service. This was the feudal system. There
was some resemblance to it in parts of the Saxon organization; but under
that organization there was so much of freedom in the allodial or free
tenure of land that a great deal of other freedom went with it. The
casting-off of the chains of feudality was the labor of six centuries.



DECLINE OF THE MOORISH POWER IN SPAIN

GROWTH AND DECAY OF THE ALMORAVIDE AND ALMOHADE DYNASTIES

A.D. 1086-1214

S.A. DUNHAM


(During the early part of the eleventh century the western caliphate,
which with its splendid capital of Cordova had flourished for almost
three hundred years, entered upon a decline that was the beginning of
its final dissolution. By A.D. 1020 the local governors openly asserted
their independence of Cordova and assumed the title of kings.
Conspicuous among them was Mahomet ben Ismail ben Abid, the _wali_ of
Seville.

While these petty rulers were determined to renounce allegiance to
Cordova, it was resolved at that capital to elect a sovereign to subdue
them and restore the ancient splendor of the empire. The choice fell
upon Gehwar ben Mahomet, who soon established a degree of tranquillity
and commercial prosperity unknown for many years. But he failed to
reëstablish the supremacy of Cordova, which capital Mahomet of Seville
was preparing to invade when he died. His son, Mahomet Almoateded,
having subdued Southern Andalusia, became the ally of Mahomet, son and
successor of Gehwar on the throne of Cordova; but he betrayed the latter
under pretence of aiding him against his enemies, and usurped the
sovereignty.

On the death of Mahomet Almoateded, his son Mahomet succeeded him at
Cordova. He was already King of Seville, and as he soon occupied many
other cities he became the most independent and powerful sovereign of
Mahometan Spain. His chief rival, Yahia Alkadia, King of Toledo, was so
contemptible to his people that they expelled him. He appealed for aid
to Alfonso VI, King of Leon [Alfonso of Castile]; but that Christian
soldier was persuaded by Mahomet to oppose, instead of assisting, Yahia.
The latter was restored to his throne by the King of Badajoz, but
Alfonso invested Toledo and, after a three-years' siege, reduced the
city, in A.D. 1085. In the history of the events directly following the
capitulation it is shown how costly to himself was the alliance of
Mahomet with Alfonso, and how it played its part in the coming of his
coreligionists from Africa to his assistance, and finally, as it proved,
to his own undoing and the supplanting of the power he represented in
the Mahometan government of Spain.)


The fall of Toledo, however it might have been foreseen by the
Mahometans, filled them with equal dismay and indignation. As Mahomet
was too formidable to be openly assailed, they turned their
vociferations of anger against his _hagib_, whom they accused of
betraying the faith of Islam. Alarmed at the universal outcry, Mahomet
was not sorry that he could devolve the heavy load of responsibility on
the shoulders of his minister. The latter fled; but though he procured a
temporary asylum from several princes, he was at length seized by the
emissaries of his offended master; was brought, first to Cordova, next
to Seville; confined within the walls of a dungeon; and soon beheaded by
the royal hand of Mahomet. Thus was a servant of the King sacrificed for
no other reason than that he had served that King too well.

The conquest of Toledo was far from satisfying the ambition of Alfonso:
he rapidly seized on the fortresses of Madrid, Maqueda, Guadalaxara, and
established his dominion on both banks of the Tagus. Mahomet now began
seriously to repent his treaty with the Christian, and to tremble even
for his own possessions. He vainly endeavored to divert his ally from
the projects of aggrandizement which that ally had evidently formed. The
kings of Badajoz and Saragossa became tributaries to the latter; nay, if
any reliance is to be placed on either Christian or Arabic
historians,[29] the King of Seville himself was subjected to the same
humiliation. However this may have been, Mahomet saw that unless he
leagued himself with those whose subjugation had hitherto been his
constant object--the princes of his faith--his and their destruction was
inevitable. The magnitude of the danger compelled him to solicit their
alliance.

[Footnote 29: Condé gives the translation of two letters--one from
Alfonso to Mahomet, distinguished for a tone of superiority and even of
arrogance, which could arise only from the confidence felt by the writer
in his own strength; the other from Mahomet to Alfonso, containing a
defiance. The latter begins:

"To the proud enemy of Allah, Alfonso ben Sancho, who calls himself lord
of both nations and both laws. May God confound his arrogance, and
prosper those who walk in the right way!"

One passage of the same letter says: "Fatigued with war, we were willing
to offer thee an annual tribute; but this does not satisfy thee: thou
wishest us to deliver into thine hands our towns and fortresses; but are
we thy subjects, that thou makest such demands, or hast thou ever
subdued us? Thine injustice has roused us from our lethargy," etc.]

As the King of Saragossa was too much in fear of the Christians to enter
into any league against them, and as the one of Valencia (Yahia) reigned
only at the pleasure of Alfonso, the sovereigns of Badajoz, Almeria, and
Granada were the only powers on whose coöperation he could calculate (he
had annihilated the authority of several petty kings). He invited those
princes to send their representatives to Seville, to consult as to the
measures necessary to protect their threatened independence. The
invitation was readily accepted. On the day appointed, Mahomet, with his
son Al Raxid and a considerable number of his _wazirs_ and _cadis_, was
present at the deliberations. The danger was so imminent--the force of
the Christians was so augmented, and that of the Moslems so weakened--
that such resistance as Mahometan Spain alone could offer seemed
hopeless. With this conviction in their hearts, two of the most
influential cadis proposed an appeal to the celebrated African
conqueror, Yussef ben Taxfin, whose arm alone seemed able to preserve
the faith of Islam in the Peninsula.

The proposal was received with general applause by all present: they did
not make the very obvious reflection that when a nation admits into its
bosom an ally more powerful than itself, it admits at the same time a
conqueror. The wali of Malaga alone, Abdallah ben Zagut, had courage to
oppose the dangerous embassy under consideration: "You mean to call in
the aid of the Almoravides! Are you ignorant that these fierce
inhabitants of the desert resemble their own native tigers? Suffer them
not, I beseech you, to enter the fertile plains of Andulasia and
Granada! Doubtless they would break the iron sceptre which Alfonso
intends for us; but you would still be doomed to wear the chains of
slavery. Do you not know that Yussef has taken all the cities of
Almagreb; that he has subdued the powerful tribes of the east and west;
that he has everywhere substituted despotism for liberty and
independence?" The aged Zagut spoke in vain: he was even accused of
being a secret partisan of the Christian; and the embassy was decreed.

But Zagut was not the only one who foresaw the catastrophe to which that
embassy must inevitably lead: Al Raxid shared the same prophetic
feeling. In reply to his father, who, after the separation of the
assembly, expatiated on the absolute necessity of soliciting the
alliance of Aben Taxfin as the only measure capable of saving the rest
of Mahometan Spain from the yoke of Alfonso, he said: "This Aben Taxfin,
who has subdued all that he pleased, will serve us as he has already
served the people of Almagreb and Mauritania--he will expel us from our
country!"

"Anything," rejoined the father, "rather than Andalusia should become
the prey of the Christians! Dost thou wish the Mussulmans to curse me? I
would rather become an humble shepherd, a driver of Yussef's camels,
than reign dependent on these Christian dogs! But my trust is in Allah."

"May Allah protect both thee and thy people!" replied Al Raxid,
mournfully, who saw that the die of fate was cast.

The course of this history must be interrupted for a moment, while the
origin and exploits of this formidable African are recorded.

Beyond the chain of Mount Atlas, in the deserts of ancient Getulia,
dwelt two tribes of Arabian descent--both, probably, of the greater one
of Zanhaga, so illustrious in Arabian history. At what time they had
been expelled, or had voluntarily exiled themselves, from their native
Yemen, they knew not; but tradition taught them that they had been
located in the African deserts from ages immemorial. Their life was
passed under the tent; their only possessions were their camels and
their freedom. Yahia ben Ibrahim, belonging to one of these tribes--that
of Gudala--made the pilgrimage of Mecca. On his return through the
province of Cairwan he became acquainted with Abu-Amram, a famous
_alfaqui_, originally of Fez. Being questioned by his new friend as to
the religion and manners of his countrymen, he replied that they were
sunk in ignorance, both from their isolated situation in the desert and
from their want of teachers; he added, however, that they were strangers
to cruelty, and that they would be willing enough to receive instruction
from any quarter. He even entreated the alfaqui to allow some one of his
disciples to accompany him into his native country; but none of those
disciples was willing to undertake so long and perilous a journey, and
it was not without considerable difficulty that Abdallah ben Yassim, the
disciple of another alfaqui, was persuaded to accompany the patriotic
Yahia.

Abdallah was one of those ruling minds which, fortunately for the peace
of society, nature so seldom produces. Seeing his enthusiastic reception
by the tribe of Gudala, and the influence he was sure of maintaining
over it, he formed the design of founding a sovereignty in the heart of
these vast regions. Under the pretext that to diffuse a holy religion
and useful knowledge was among the most imperative of duties, he
prevailed on his obedient disciples to make war on the kindred tribe of
Lamtuna. That tribe submitted, acknowledging his spiritual authority,
and zealously assisted him in his great purpose of gaining proselytes by
the sword. His ambition naturally increased with his success: in a short
time he had reduced, in a similar manner, the isolated tribes around
him. To his valiant followers of Lamtuna he now gave the name of
_Muraditins_, or _Almoravides_,[30] which signifies men consecrated to
the service of God.

[Footnote 30: This Moslem dynasty, founded about 1050, ruled in Africa,
and afterward in Spain, until 1147, when it was overthrown and succeeded
by that of the Almohades.]

The whole country of Darah was gradually subdued by this new apostle,
and his authority was acknowledged over a region extensive enough to
form a respectable kingdom. But though he exercised all the rights of
sovereignty, he prudently abstained from assuming the title: he left to
the emir of Lamtuna the ostensible exercise of temporal power; and when,
in A.D. 1058, that emir fell in battle, he nominated Abu-Bekr ben Omar
to the vacant dignity. His own death, which was that of a warrior, left
Abu-Bekr in possession of an undivided sovereignty. The power and
consequently the reputation of the emir, spread far and wide, and
numbers flocked from distant provinces to share in the advantages of
religion and plunder. His native plains were now too narrow for the
ambition of Abu-Bekr, who crossed the chain of Mount Atlas, and fixed
his residence in the city of Agmat, between those mountains and the sea.

But even this place was soon too confined for his increased subjects,
and he looked round for a site on which he might lay the foundations of
a great city, the destined metropolis of a great empire. One was at
length found; and the city of Morocco began to rear its head from the
valley of Eylana. Before, however, his great work was half completed, he
received intelligence that the tribe of Gudala had declared a deadly war
against that of Lamtuna; and that the ruin of one at least of the
hostile people was to be apprehended. As he belonged to the latter, he
naturally trembled for the fate of his kindred; and at the head of his
cavalry he departed for his native deserts, leaving the superintendence
of the buildings and the command of the army, during his absence, to his
cousin, Yussef ben Taxfin.

The person and character of Yussef are drawn in the most favorable
colors by the Arabian writers. We are told that his stature was tall and
noble, his countenance prepossessing, his eye dark and piercing, his
beard long, his tone of voice harmonious, his whole frame, which no
sickness ever assailed, strong, robust, and familiar with fatigue; that
his mind corresponded with his outward appearance, his generosity, his
care of the poor, his sobriety, his justice, his religious zeal, yet
freedom from intolerance, rendering him the admiration of foreigners and
the love of his own people. But whatever were his other virtues, it will
be seen that gratitude, honor, and good faith were not among the number.
Scarcely had his kinsman left the city, than, in pursuance of the design
he had formed of usurping the supreme authority, he began to win the
affection of the troops, partly by his gifts and partly by that winning
affability of manner which he could easily assume. How well he succeeded
will soon appear. Nor was his success in war less agreeable to so fierce
and martial a people as the Almoravides. The Berbers who inhabited the
defiles of Mount Atlas, and who, animated by the spirit of independence
so characteristic of mountaineers, endeavored to vindicate their natural
liberty, were quickly subdued by him.

But his policy was still superior. He had long loved, or at least long
aspired to the hope of marrying, the beautiful Zainab, sister of
Abu-Bekr; but the fear of a repulse from the proud chief of his family
had caused him to smother his inclination. He now disdained to
supplicate for that chief's consent: he married the lady, and from that
moment proceeded boldly in his projects of ambition. Having put the
finishing touch to his magnificent city of Morocco, he transferred
thither the seat of his empire; and by the encouragement he afforded to
individuals of all nations who chose to settle there, he soon filled it
with a prosperous and numerous population. The augmentation of his army
was his next great object; and so well did he succeed in it that on his
departure, in a hostile expedition against Fez, he found his troops
exceeded one hundred thousand. With so formidable a force, he had little
difficulty in rapidly extending his conquests.

Yussef had just completed the subjugation of Fez when Abu-Bekr returned
from the desert and encamped in the vicinity of Agmat. He was soon made
acquainted--probably common report had acquainted him long before--with
the usurpation of his kinsman. With a force so far inferior to his
rival's, and still more with the conviction that the hearts of the
people were weaned from him, he might well hesitate as to the course he
should adopt. His greatest mortification was to hear his own horsemen,
whom curiosity drew into Morocco, loud in the praises of Yussef, whose
liberality to the army was the theme of universal admiration, and whose
service for that reason many avowed their intention of embracing. He now
feared that his power was at an end, yet he resolved to have an
interview with his cousin.

The two chiefs met about half-way between Morocco and Agmat,[31] and
after a formal salutation took their seats on the same carpet. The
appearance of Yussef's formidable guard, the alacrity with which he was
obeyed, and the grandeur which surrounded him convinced Abu-Bekr that
the throne of the usurper was too firmly established to be shaken. The
poor emir, so far from demanding the restitution of his rights, durst
not even utter one word of complaint; on the contrary, he pretended that
he had long renounced empire, and that his only wish was to pass the
remainder of his days in the retirement of the desert. With equal
hypocrisy Yussef humbly thanked him for his abdication; the sheiks and
walis were summoned to witness the renewed declaration of the emir,
after which the two princes separated. The following day, however,
Abu-Bekr received a magnificent present from Yussef,[32] who, indeed,
continued to send him one every year to the period of his death.

[Footnote 31: The distance is about ten or twelve leagues.]

[Footnote 32: This present is made to consist of twenty-five thousand
crowns of gold, seventy horses of the best breed, all splendidly
accoutred, one hundred and fifty mules, one hundred magnificent turbans
with as many costly habits, four hundred common turbans, two hundred
white mantles, one thousand pieces of rich stuffs, two hundred pieces of
fine linen, one hundred and fifty black slaves, twenty beautiful young
maidens, with a considerable quantity of perfumes, corn, and cattle.
Such a gift was worthy of royalty. In a similar situation a modern
English sovereign would probably have sent--one hundred pounds.]

Yussef, who, though he had refused to receive the title of _almumenin_,
which he considered as properly belonging to the Caliph of the East, had
just exchanged his humble one of emir for those of _almuzlemin_, or
prince of the believers, and of _nazaradin_, or defender of the faith,
when the letters of Mahomet reached him. A similar application from
Omar, King of Badajoz, he had disregarded, not because he was
indifferent to the glory of serving his religion, still less to the
advantage of extending his conquests, but because he had not then
sufficiently consolidated his power. Now, however, he was in peaceful
possession of an extended empire, and he assembled his chiefs to hear
their sentiments on an expedition which he had resolved to undertake.
All immediately exclaimed that war should be undertaken in defence of
the tottering throne of Islam. Before, however, he returned a final
answer to the King of Seville, he insisted that the fortress of
Algeziras should be placed in his hands, on the pretence that if fortune
were unpropitious he should have some place to which he might retreat.
That Mahomet should have been so blind as to not perceive the designs
involved in the insidious proposal is almost enough to make one agree
with the Arabic historians that destiny had decreed he should fall by
his own measures. The place was not only surrendered to the artful Moor,
but Mahomet himself went to Morocco to hasten the departure of Yussef.
He was assured of speedy succor and induced to return. He was soon
followed by the ambitious African, at the head of a mighty armament.

Alfonso was besieging Saragossa, which he had every expectation of
reducing, when intelligence reached him of Yussef's disembarkation. He
resolved to meet the approaching storm. At the head of all the forces he
could muster he advanced toward Andalusia, and encountered Yussef on the
plains of Zalaca, between Badajoz and Merida. As the latter was a strict
observer of the outward forms of his religion, he summoned the Christian
King by letter to embrace the faith of the Prophet or consent to pay an
annual tribute or prepare for immediate battle. "I am told," added the
writer, "that thou wishest for vessels to carry the war into my kingdom;
I spare thee the trouble of the voyage. Allah brings thee into my
presence that I may punish thy presumption and pride!" The indignant
Christian trampled the letter under foot, and at the same time said to
the messenger: "Tell thy master what thou hast seen! Tell him also not
to hide himself during the action: let him meet me face to face!" The
two armies engaged the 13th day of the moon Regeb, A.H. 479.[33]

[Footnote 33: October 23, A.D. 1086.]

The onset of Alfonso at the head of the Christian cavalry was so fierce
that the ranks of the Almoravides were thrown into confusion; not less
successful was Sancho, King of Navarre, against the Andalusians, who
retreated toward Badajoz. But the troops of Seville kept the field, and
fought with desperate valor: they would, however, have given way, had
not Yussef at this critical moment advanced with his reserve and his own
guard, consisting of his bravest troops, and assailed the Christians in
the rear and flanks. This unexpected movement decided the fortune of the
day. Alfonso was severely wounded and compelled to retreat, but not
until nightfall, nor until he had displayed a valor worthy of the
greatest heroes. Though his own loss was severe, amounting, according to
the Arabians, to twenty-four thousand men, that of the enemy could
scarcely be inferior, when we consider that this victory had no result;
Yussef was evidently too much weakened to profit by it.

Not long after the battle, Yussef being called to Africa by the death of
a son, the command of the Almoravides devolved on Syr ben Abu-Bekr, the
ablest of his generals. That general advanced northward, and seized some
insignificant fortresses; but the advantage was but temporary, and was
more than counterbalanced by the disasters of the following year. The
King of Saragossa, Abu-Giafar, had hoped that the defeat of Zalaca would
prevent the Christians from attacking him; but that of his allies, the
Mahometan princes, in the neighborhood, and the taking of Huesca by the
King of Navarre, convinced him how fallacious was his fancied security.
Seeing that no advantage whatever had accrued from his former
expedition, Yussef now proclaimed the Alhiged, or holy war, and invited
all the Andalusian princes to join him. In A.D. 1088, he again
disembarked at Algeziras and joined the confederates. But this present
demonstration of force proved as useless as the preceding: it ended in
nothing; owing partly to the dissensions of Mahometans, and partly to
the activity of the Christians, who not only rendered abortive the
measures of the enemy, but gained some signal advantages over them.
Yussef was forced to retreat on Almeida. Whether through the distrust of
the Mahometan princes, who appear to have penetrated his intention of
subjecting them to his empire, or through his apprehension of Alfonso,
he again returned to Africa, to procure new and more considerable
levies. In A.D. 1091 he landed a third time at Algeziras, not so much
with the view of humbling the Christian King as of executing the
perfidious design he had so long harbored. For form's sake, indeed, he
invested Toledo, but he could have entertained no expectation of
reducing it; and when he perceived that the Andalusian princes refused
to join him, he eagerly left that city, and proceeded to secure far
dearer and easier interests: he openly threw off the mask, and commenced
his career of spoliation.

The King of Granada, Abdallah ben Balkin, was the first victim to
African perfidy. In the conviction that he must be overwhelmed if
resistance were offered, he left his city to welcome Yussef. His
submission was vain: he was instantly loaded with chains, and with his
family sent to Agmat. Timur ben Balkin, brother of Abdallah, was in the
same violent manner despoiled of Malaga. Mahomet now perceived the
grievous error which he had committed, and the prudent foresight of his
son Al Raxid. "Did not I tell thee," said the latter, mournfully, "what
the consequences would be; that we should be driven from our palace and
country?"

"Thou wert indeed a true prophet," replied the self-accused father; "but
what power could avert the decrees of fate?"

It seemed as if fate had indeed resolved that this well-meaning but
misguided prince should fall by his own obstinacy; for though his son
advised him to seek the alliance of Alfonso, he refused to do so until
that alliance could no longer avail him. He himself seemed to think that
the knell of his departing greatness was about to sound; and the most
melancholy images were present to his fancy, even in sleep. "One night,"
says an Arabic historian, "he heard in a dream his ruin predicted by one
of his sons: he awoke, and the same verses were repeated:

"'Once, Fortune carried thee in her car of triumph and thy name was by
renown spread to the ends of the earth. Now, the same renown conveys
only thy sighs. Days and nights pass away, and like them the enjoyments
of the world; thy greatness has vanished like a dream!'"

But if Mahomet was superstitious--if he felt that fate had doomed him,
and that resistance would be useless--he resolved not to fall ignobly.
His defence was indeed heroic; but it was vain, even though Alfonso sent
him an aid of twenty thousand men: his cities fell one by one; Seville
was constrained to capitulate: he and his family were thrown into prison
until a ship was prepared to convey them into Africa, whither their
perfidious ally had retired some weeks before. His conduct in this
melancholy reverse of fortune is represented as truly great. Not a sigh
escaped him, except for the innocent companions of his misfortune,
especially for his son, Al Raxid, whose virtues and talents deserved a
better destiny. Surrounded by the best beloved of his wives, by his
daughters, and his four surviving sons, he endeavored to console them as
they wept on seeing his royal hands oppressed with fetters, and still
more when the ship conveyed all from the shores of Spain. "My children
and friends," said the suffering monarch, "let us learn to support our
lot with resignation! In this state of being our enjoyments are but lent
us, to be resumed when heaven sees fit. Joy and sorrow, pleasure and
pain, closely follow each other; but the noble heart is above the
inconstancy of fortune!"

The royal party disembarked at Ceuta, and were conveyed to Agmat, to be
confined in a fortress. We are told that on their journey a
compassionate poet presented the fallen King with a copy of verses
deploring his misfortunes, and that he rewarded the poet with thirty-six
pieces of gold--the only money he had left, from his once exhaustless
riches. He had little apprehension of what was to follow--that Yussef
would leave him without support; that his future life was to be passed
in penury; nay, that his daughters would be compelled to earn his
subsistence and their own by the labor of their hands. Yet even in that
indigent condition, says Aben Lebuna, and through the sadness which
covered their countenances, there was something about them which
revealed their high origin. The unfortunate monarch outlived the loss of
his crown and liberty about four years.

After the fall of Mahomet, the general of Yussef had little difficulty
in subduing the princes of Andalusia. Valencia next received the African
yoke. The King of Saragossa was more fortunate. He sent ambassadors to
Yussef, bearing rich presents, and proposing an alliance with a common
league against the Christians. "My dominions," said Abu-Giafar, "are the
only barrier between thee and the Christian princes. Hitherto my
predecessors and myself have withstood all their efforts; with thy
succor I shall fear them still less." Yussef accepted the proposal; a
treaty of alliance was made; and the army of Abu-Giafar was reinforced
by a considerable body of Amoravides, A.H. 486, with whom he repelled an
invasion of Sancho, King of Aragon. A third division of the Africans,
which marched to destroy the sovereignty of Algarve and Badajoz, was no
less successful. Badajoz capitulated; but, in violation of the treaty,
the dethroned Omar, with two of his sons, was surrounded and
assassinated by a body of cavalry, as he was unsuspiciously journeying
from the scene of his past prosperity in search of another asylum. A
third son was placed in close confinement.

Thus ended the petty kingdoms of Andalusia, after a stormy existence of
about sixty years.

For some years after the usurpation of Yussef, peace appears to have
existed in Spain between the Mahometans and the Christians. Fearing a
new irruption of Africans, Alfonso contented himself with fortifying
Toledo; and Yussef felt little inclination to renew the war with one
whose prowess he had so fatally experienced. But Christian Spain was, at
one moment, near the brink of ruin. The passion for the crusades was no
less ardently felt by the Spaniards than by other nations of Europe;
thousands of the best warriors were preparing to depart for the Holy
Land, as if there were more merit in contending with the infidels, in a
remote region, for a barren sepulchre, than at home for the dearest
interests of man--for honor, patriotism, and religion. Fortunately for
Spain, Pope Pascal II, in answer to the representations of Alfonso,
declared that the proper post of every Spaniard was at home, and there
were his true enemies. Soon afterward Yussef returned to Morocco, where
he died on the 3d day of the moon Muharram, A.H. 500, after living one
hundred Arabian or about ninety-seven Christian years.

In A.H. 514 the empire of the Almoravides was tottering to its fall. It
had never been agreeable to the Mahometans of Spain, whose manners, from
their intercourse with a civilized people, were comparatively refined.
The sheiks of Lamtuna were so many insupportable tyrants; the Jews, the
universal agents for the collection of the revenues, were here, as in
Poland, the most pitiless extortioners; every savage from the desert
looked with contempt on the milder inhabitant of the Peninsula. The
domination of these strangers was indeed so odious that, except for the
divisions between Alfonso and his ambitious queen Donna Urraca, who was
sovereign in her own right, all Andalusia might speedily have been
subjected to Christian rule. Alfonso, the King of Aragon, fell at the
siege of Fraga about A.D. 1109, but the Almoravides met an equally
valiant foe in his son and successor, Alfonso Raymond, King of Leon and
Castile.

After a period of about forty years, during which the Christians were
steadily increasing their dominions, Coria and Mora and other Mahometan
strongholds were acquired by Alfonso, now styled the "Emperor"; and
almost every contest between the two natural enemies had turned to the
advantage of the Christians. So long, indeed, as the walis were eager
only to preserve or to extend their authority, independent of each other
and of every superior, this success need not surprise us--we may rather
be surprised that the Mahometans were allowed to retain any footing in
the Peninsula. Probably they would at this time have been driven from it
but for the seasonable arrival of the victorious Almohades. Both
Christians and Africans now contended for the superiority. While the
troops of Alfonso reduced Baeza, and, with a Mahometan ally, even
Cordova, Malaga, and Seville acknowledged Abu Amram; Calatrava and
Almeria next fell to the Christian Emperor, about the same time that
Lisbon and the neighboring towns received Don Enrique, the new sovereign
of Portugal. Most of these conquests, however, were subsequently
recovered by the Almohades. Being reinforced by a new army from Africa,
the latter pursued their successes with greater vigor. They reduced
Cordova, which was held by an ally of Alfonso; defeated, and forever
paralyzed, the expiring efforts of the Almoravides; and proclaimed their
Emperor Abdelmumen as sovereign of all Mahometan Spain.

Notwithstanding the destructive wars which had prevailed for nearly a
century, neither Moors nor Christians had acquired much advantage by
them. From the reduction of Saragossa to the present time, the victory,
indeed, had generally declared for the Christians; but their conquests,
with the exception of Lisbon and a few fortresses in Central Spain, were
lost almost as soon as gained; and the same fate attended the equally
transient successes of the Mahometans. The reasons why the former did
not permanently extend their territories, were their internal
dissensions; while Leon was at war with Castile, or Castile with Leon,
or either with Aragon, we need not wonder that the united Almoravides,
or their successors the Almohades, should sometimes triumph; but those
triumphs were sure to be followed by reverses whenever not all, but any
one, of the Christian states was at liberty to assail its natural enemy.
The Christians, when at peace among themselves, were always too many for
their Mahometan neighbors, even when the latter were aided by the whole
power of Western Africa.

In A.H. 572 (about A.D. 1179) the King of Castile reduced Caenza, and
the Moors were defeated before Toledo. The following year the Portuguese
were no less successful before Abrantes, which the Africans had
besieged. These disasters roused the wrath of Yussef abu Yagur (son and
successor of Abdulmumen who died A.H. 558 = A.D. 1165); but as an
obscure rebellion required his presence at that time in Mauritania, he
did not land in Spain until A.H. 580. He marched without delay against
Santarem, which his soldiers had vainly besieged some years before.
Wishing to divide the Portuguese force, he one night sent an order to
his son Cid Abu Ishac, who lay encamped near him, to march with the
Andalusian cavalry on Lisbon. The officer who carried the order instead
of Lisbon named Seville; the whole Moslem army were sure that some
disaster was impending, and that the siege was to be raised; before
morning the camp was deserted, the guard alone of Yussef remaining.
While he despatched orders to recall the alarmed fugitives, the
Christians, who were soon aware of the retreat, issued from the walls,
surrounded and massacred the guard. Yussef defended himself like a hero:
six of the advancing assailants he laid low, before the same fate was
inflicted on himself. The merciless carnage of the Christians spared not
even his female attendants. At this moment two companies of cavalry
arrived, and, finding their monarch dying, furiously charged the
Christians, whom they soon put to flight. In a few hours the whole army
returned, and, inspired with the same hope of vengeance, they stormed
and took the place, and put every living creature to the sword.

Yacub ben Yussef, from his victories afterward named Almansor, who was
then in Spain, was immediately declared successor to his father. For
some years he was not personally opposed to the Christians, though his
walis carried on a desultory indecisive war; he was long detained in
Africa, first in quelling some domestic commotions, and afterward by
severe illness. He was scarcely recovered, when the intelligence that
the Christians were making insulting irruptions to the very outworks of
Algeziras made him resolve on punishing their audacity. His preparations
were of the most formidable description. In A.H. 591 he landed in
Andalusia, and proceeded toward Valencia, where the Christian army then
lay. There Alfonso VIII, King of Castile, was awaiting the expected
reinforcements from his allies, the kings of Leon and Navarre. Both
armies pitched their tents on the plains of Alarcon. The following day
the Christians commenced the attack, and with so much impetuosity that
the centre was soon broken. But an Andalusian chief conducted a strong
body of his men against Alfonso, who with the reserve occupied the hill
above the plain. While the struggle was in all its fury, Yacub and his
division took the Christians in flank. The result was fatal to the
Castilian army, which, discouraged at what it considered a new enemy,
gave way in every direction. Alfonso, preferring an honorable death to
the shame of defeat, prepared to plunge into the heart of the Mahometan
squadrons, when his nobles surrounded him and forced him from the field.
His loss must have been immense, amounting probably to twenty thousand
men. With a generosity very rare in a Mahometan, and still more in an
African, Yacub restored his prisoners to liberty--an action for which,
we are informed, he received few thanks from his followers. Alfonso
retreated to Toledo just as the King of Leon arrived with the promised
reinforcement.

After this signal victory Yacub rapidly reduced Calatrava, Guadalaxara,
Madrid and Esalona, Salamanca, etc. Toledo, too, he invested, but in
vain. He returned to Africa, caused his son Mahomet to be declared _wali
alhadi_, and died, the 22d day of the moon Regeb, A.H. 595.[34] He left
behind him the character of an able, a valiant, a liberal, a just, and
even magnanimous prince--of one who labored more for the real welfare of
his people than any other potentate of his age. He was, beyond doubt,
the greatest and best of the Almohades.

[Footnote 34: May 19, 1199.]

The character of Mahomet Abu Abdallah, surnamed Alnassir, was very
different from that of his great father. Absorbed in effeminate
pleasures, he paid little attention to the internal administration of
his empire or to the welfare of his people. Yet he was not insensible to
martial fame; and he accordingly showed no indisposition to forsake his
harem for the field. After quelling two inconsiderable rebellions, he
prepared to punish the audacity of Alfonso of Castile, who made
destructive inroads into Andalusia. Much as the world had been astounded
at the preparations of his grandfather Yussef, they were not surpassed
by his own, if, as we are credibly informed, one alone of the five
divisions of his army amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand men. It
is certain that a year was required for the assembling of this vast
armament, that two months were necessary to convey it across the
straits, and that all Christian Europe was filled with alarm at its
disembarkation. Innocent III proclaimed a crusade to Spain; and Rodrigo
of Toledo, the celebrated historian, accompanied by several prelates,
went from one court to another, to rouse the Christian princes. While
the kings of Aragon and Navarre[35] promised to unite their forces with
their brother of Castile to repel the common danger, great numbers of
volunteers from Portugal[36] and Southern France hastened to the general
rendezvous at Toledo, the Pope ordered fasting, prayers, and processions
to be made, to propitiate the favor of heaven, and to avert from
Christendom the greatest danger that had threatened it since the days of
the emir Abderahman.

[Footnote 35: Sancho, King of Navarre, is justly accused of backwardness
at least in joining the Christian alliance. He even sought that of Yacub
and Mahomet, on condition that his own states should be spared, or
perhaps amplified at the expense of his neighbors. If the Arabian
writers are correct, he privately waited on Mahomet in Seville; but the
result of the interview is unknown.]

[Footnote 36: The King of Portugal was not present in this campaign,
confidently as the contrary has been asserted by most historians.--_La
Cléde: Histoire Générale de Portugal_, ii.]

Mahomet opened the campaign of A.H. 608 by the siege of Salvatierra, a
strong but not important fortress of Estremadura, defended by the
knights of Calatrava. That he should waste his forces on objects so
incommensurate with their extent proves how little he was qualified to
wield them. The place stood out for several months, and did not
surrender until the Emperor had sustained a heavy loss, nor until the
season was too far advanced to permit any advantage to be derived from
this partial success. By suspending the execution of his great design
until the following season, he allowed Alfonso time to prepare for the
contest. The following June, the kings of Leon and Castile having
assembled at Toledo, and been joined by a considerable number of foreign
volunteers, the Christian army advanced toward the south. That of the
infidels lay in the neighborhood of Baeza, and extended to the Sierra
Morena.

On July 12th, A.H. 608, the crusaders reached the mountainous chain
which divides New Castile from Andalusia. They found not only the
passes, but the summits of the mountains, occupied by the Almohades. To
force a passage was impossible; and they even deliberated on retreating,
so as to draw out, if possible, the enemy from positions so formidable,
when a shepherd entered the camp of Alfonso and proposed to conduct the
Christian army, by a path unknown to both armies, to the summit of this
elevated chain--by a path, too, which would be invisible to the enemy's
outposts. A few companies having accompanied the man and found him
equally faithful and well informed, the whole army silently ascended and
intrenched themselves on the summit, the level of which was extensive
enough to contain them all. Below appeared the wide-spread tents of the
Moslems, whose surprise was great on perceiving the heights thus
occupied by the crusaders. For two days the latter, whose fatigues had
been harassing, kept their position; but on the third day they descended
into the plains of Tolosa, which were about to be immortalized by their
valor. Their right wing was led by the King of Navarre, their left by
the King of Aragon, while Alfonso took his station in the centre.
Mahomet had drawn up his army in a similar manner; but, with a strong
body of reserve, he occupied an elevation well defended besides by vast
iron chains, which surrounded his impenetrable guard.[37] In one hand he
held a useless scimitar, in the other the _Koran_. The attack was made
by the Christian centre against that of the Mahometans; and immediately
the two wings moved against those of the enemy. The African centre,
which consisted of the one hundred and sixty thousand volunteers, made a
determined stand; and though it was broken, it soon rallied, on being
reinforced from the reserve. At one time, indeed, the superiority of
numbers was so great on the part of the Moslems that the troops of
Alfonso appeared about to give way. At this moment that King, addressing
the archbishop Rodrigo, who was with him, said, "Let us die here,
prelate!" and he prepared to rush amid the dense ranks of the enemy. The
prelate, however, and a Castilian general, retained him by the bridle of
his horse, representing the rashness of his purpose, and advising him to
reinforce his weak points by new succors. Accordingly those succors,
among which were the vassals with the pennon of the archbishop, advanced
to support the sinking Castilians. This manoeuvre decided the fortune of
the day.[38] The Mahometan centre, after a sharp conflict, was again
broken, this time irretrievably, and a way opened to the intrenchments
of the Emperor. Seeing the success of their allies, the two wings
charged their opponents with double fury and triumphed likewise. But the
Africans[39] rallied round Mahomet, and presented a mass deep and
formidable to the conquerors. Rodrigo, with his brother prelate, the
Archbishop of Narbonne, now incited the Christians to overcome this last
obstacle: both intrepidly accompanied the van of the centre. The
struggle was terrific, but short; myriads of the barbarians fell; the
boundary was first broken down by the King of Navarre; the Castilians
and Aragonese followed; all opponents were massacred or fled; and the
victors began to ascend the eminence on which Mahomet still remained.
Seeing the total destruction or flight of his vast host, the Emperor
sorrowfully exclaimed, "Allah alone is just and powerful; the devil is
false and wicked!" Scarcely had he uttered the truism, when an Alarab
approached, leading by the hand a strong but nimble mule. "Prince of the
faithful!" said the African, "how long wilt thou remain here? Dost thou
not perceive that thy Moslems flee? The will of Allah be done! Mount
this mule, which is fleeter than the bird of heaven, or even the arrow
which strikes it; never yet did she fail her rider; away! for on thy
safety depends that of us all!" Mahomet mounted the beast, while the
Alarab ascended the Emperor's horse, and both soon outstripped not only
the pursuers but the fugitives. The carnage of the latter was dreadful
until darkness put an end to it. The victors now occupied the tents of
the Mahometans, while the two martial prelates sounded the _Te Deum_ for
the most splendid success which had shone on the banners of the
Christians since the time of Charles Martel. The loss of the Africans,
even according to the Arabian writers, who admit that the centre was
wholly destroyed, could not fall short of one hundred and sixty thousand
men.[40]

[Footnote 37: These chains are not mentioned by the Arabs; but what can
be expected from their brevity?]

[Footnote 38: The standard-bearer of Rodrigo, don Domingo Pasquel, canon
of Toledo, showed that he was well fitted to serve the church militant;
he twice carried his banner through the heart of the Mahometan forces.]

[Footnote 39: The Arabian account says that the Andalusians were the
first to flee.]

[Footnote 40: Of this great battle we have an account by four
eye-witnesses: 1, By King Alfonso, in a letter to the Pope; 2, by the
historian Rodrigo of Toledo; 3, by Arnaud, Archbishop of Narbonne; 4, by
the author of the _Annals of Toledo_.

The reduction of several towns, from Tolosa to Baeza, immediately
followed this glorious victory--a victory in which Don Alfonso nobly
redeemed his failure in the field of Zalaca--and which, in its immediate
consequences, involved the ruin of the Mahometan empire in Spain. After
an unsuccessful attempt on Ubeda, as the hot season was raging, the
allies returned to Toledo, satisfied that the power of Mahomet was
forever broken. That Emperor, indeed, did not long survive his disaster.
Having precipitately fled to Morocco, he abandoned himself to licentious
pleasures, left the cares of government to his son, or rather his
ministers, and died on the 10th day of the moon Shaffan, A.H. 610 (A.D.
1214), not without suspicion of poison.

By recent writers of Spain the number of slain on the part of the
Africans was two hundred thousand; on that of the Christians,
twenty-five individuals only. Of course the whole campaign is
represented as miraculous; and, indeed, actual miracles are
recorded--which we have neither space nor inclination to notice.]



THE FIRST CRUSADE

A.D. 1096-1099

SIR GEORGE W. COX


(Religious feeling in the eleventh century rose to a great pitch of
enthusiasm, and led men of various nations, with still more various
motives and aims in worldly affairs, to pursue one common end with their
whole heart. Between the years 1096 and 1270 these attempts of Christian
nations to rescue the Holy Land from the "Infidels," as the Mahometans
were called, added a wholly new character of human enterprise to the
world's history.

At the time--in the middle of the eleventh century--when the Seljuks, a
Turkish tribe of Western Asia, had overrun Syria and Asia Minor,
throwing the East into a state of anarchy, Europe was beginning to adopt
modes of settled order. Through the Byzantine empire great numbers of
pilgrims for centuries had passed to visit Palestine. With the improved
condition of the western nations, which led to an extension of commerce
in the East, the pilgrimage to that part of the world acquired a new
importance. As early as 1064 a caravan of seven thousand pilgrims made
their way to the neighborhood of Jerusalem, where they narrowly escaped
destruction by the Bedouins, their rescue being effected by a Saracen
emir.

In 1070 the Seljuks took possession of Jerusalem, inflicting hardships
on the pilgrims by intolerable exactions, insult, and plunder. Besides
outraging Christian sentiment, they ruined the commerce of the western
nations. Throughout Europe arose the cry for vengeance, and men's minds
were fully prepared for an attempt to conquer Palestine when their
leaders began to preach the sacred duty of delivering the Holy Sepulchre
from the hands of the infidels.

At the Council of Clermont, in 1094, Pope Urban II depicted the miseries
of Christians in Palestine, and, with a power of eloquence unsurpassed
in his day, called upon those who heard him to wipe off from the face of
the earth the impurities which caused them, and to lift their oppressed
fellow-Christians from the depths into which they had been trampled. He
urged them to take up arms in the service of the Cross, at the same time
setting before them the temporal, no less than the spiritual, advantages
that would accrue from the conquest of a land "flowing with milk and
honey," and which, he said, should be divided among them. He likewise
offered them full pardon for all their sins.

The enthusiasm of his hearers burst all bounds, and with one voice they
cried: "God wills it! God wills it!" To all parts of Europe the fervor
spread. The Pope was powerfully aided by an earnest and eloquent--if
ignorant--monk, Peter the Hermit, of Amiens, who declared that he would
rouse the martial spirit of Europe in the cause, and he himself was the
first--with whatsoever of misguided zeal--to lead the way to the Holy
Land.

The crusades are so called from the simple circumstance that the badge
chosen for the movement was the cross, which Pope Urban bade the
Christian warriors wear on their breasts or on their shoulders, as the
sign of Him who died for the salvation of their souls, and as the pledge
of a vow that could never be recalled.)


In the enterprise to which Latin Christendom stood committed, the
several nations or countries of Europe took equal parts; or, rather, no
_nation_, as such, took any part in it at all; and in this fact we have
the explanation of that want of coherent action, and even decent or
average generalship, which is commonly seen in national undertakings.
For the crusade there was no attempt at a commissariat, no care for a
base of supplies; and the crusading hosts were a collection of
individual adventurers who either went without making any provisions for
their journey or provided for their own needs and those of their
followers from their own resources. The number of these adventurers was
naturally determined by the political conditions of the country from
which they came. In Italy the struggle between the pope and the antipope
went far toward chilling enthusiasm; and the recruits for the crusading
army came chiefly from the Normans who had followed Robert Guiscard to
the sunny southern lands. The Spaniards were busied with a crusade
nearer home, and were already pushing back to the south the Mahometan
dominion which had once threatened to pass the barriers of the Pyrenees
and carry the Crescent to the shores of the Baltic Sea. About ten years
before the council of Clermont the Moslem dynasty of Toledo had been
expelled by Alfonso, King of Galicia: the kingdom of Cordova had fallen
twenty years earlier (1065), and while Peter the Hermit was hurrying
hither and thither through the countries of Northern Europe, the
Christians of Spain were winning victories in Murcia, and the land was
ringing with the exploits of the dauntless Cid, Ruy Diaz de Bivar. By
the Germans the summons to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre was received
with comparative coldness; the partisans of emperors, who had been
humbled to the dust by the predecessors of Urban, if not by himself,
were not vehemently eager to obey it. The bishops of Salzburg, Passau,
and Strasburg, the aged duke Guelph of Bavaria, had undertaken the
toilsome and perilous journey: not one of them saw their homes again,
and their death in the distant East was not regarded by their countrymen
as an encouragement to follow their example. In England the English were
too much weighed down by the miseries of the Conquest, the Normans too
much occupied in strengthening their position, and the King, William the
Red, more ready to take advantage of the needs of his brother Robert
than to incur any risks of his own. The great movement came from the
lands extending from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees. Franks and Normans
alike made ready with impetuous haste for the great adventure; and tens
of thousands, who could not wait for the formation of something like a
regular army, hurried away, under leaders as frantic as themselves, to
their inevitable doom.

Little more than half the time allowed for the gathering of the
crusaders had passed away, when a crowd of some sixty thousand men and
women, neither caring nor thinking about the means by which their ends
could be attained, insisted that the hermit Peter should lead them at
once to the Holy City. Mere charity may justify the belief that some
even among these may have been folk of decent lives moved by the earnest
conviction that their going to Jerusalem would do some good; that the
vast majority looked upon their vow as a license for the commission of
any sin, there can be no moral doubt; that they exhibited not a single
quality needed for the successful prosecution of their enterprise is
absolutely certain. With a foolhardiness equal to his ignorance Peter
undertook the task, in which he was aided by Walter the Penniless, a man
with some pretensions to the soldier-like character. But the utter
disorder of this motley host made it impossible for them to journey long
together. At Cologne they parted company; and fifteen thousand under the
penniless Walter made their way to the frontiers of Hungary, while Peter
led onward a host which swelled gradually on the march to about forty
thousand.

Another army or horde of perhaps twenty thousand marched under the
guidance of Emico, Count of Leiningen, a third under that of the monk
Gottschalk, a man not notorious for the purity or disinterestedness of
his motives. Behind these came a rabble, it is said, of two hundred
thousand men, women, and children, preceded by a goose and a goat, or,
as some have supposed, by banners on which, as symbols of the mysterious
faith of Gnostics and Paulicians, the likeness of these animals was
painted. In this vile horde no pretence was kept up of order or of
decency. Sinning freely, it would seem, that grace might abound, they
plundered and harried the lands through which they marched, while three
thousand horsemen, headed by some counts and gentlemen, were not too
dignified to act as their attendants and to share their spoil.

But if they had no scruple in robbing Christians, their delight was to
prove the reality of their mission as soldiers of the cross by
plundering, torturing, and slaying Jews. The crusade against the Turk
was interpreted as a crusade directed not less explicitly against the
descendants of those who had crucified the Redeemer. The streets of
Verdun and Treves and of the great cities on the Rhine ran red with the
blood of their victims; and if some saved their lives by pretended
conversions, many more cheated their persecutors by throwing their
property and their persons either into the rivers or into the consuming
fires.

A space of six hundred miles lay between the Austrian frontier and
Constantinople; and across the dreary waste the followers of Walter the
Penniless struggled on, destitute of money, and rousing the hostility of
the inhabitants whom they robbed and ill-used. In Bulgaria their
misdeeds provoked reprisals which threatened their destruction; and none
perhaps would have reached Constantinople if the imperial commander at
Naissos had not rescued them from their enemies, supplied them with
food, and guarded them through the remainder of their journey. These
succors involved some costs; and the costs were paid by the sale of
unarmed men among the pilgrims, and especially of the women and
children, who were seized to provide the necessary funds. Of those who
formed the train of the hermit Peter, seven thousand only, it is said,
reached Constantinople.

Of such a rabble rout the emperor Alexius[41] needed not to be afraid.
He had already seen and encountered far larger armies of Normans, Turks,
and Romans; and he now extended to this vanguard of the hosts of Latin
Christendom a hospitality which was almost immediately abused. They had
refused to comply with his request that they should quietly await the
arrival of their fellow-crusaders; and consulting the safety of his
people not less than his own, he induced them to cross the Bosporus, and
pitch their camp on Asiatic soil, the land which they had come to wrest
from the unbelievers.

[Footnote 41: Head of the Byzantine empire.]

Alexius wished simply to be rid of their presence: they had to deal with
an enemy still more crafty and formidable in the Seljukian sultan David.
The vagrants whom Peter and Walter had brought thus far on the road to
Jerusalem were scattered about the land in search of food; and it was no
hard task for David to cheat the main body with the false tidings that
their companions had carried the walls of Nice, and were revelling in
the pleasures and spoils of his capital. The doomed horde rushed into
the plain which fronts the city; and a vast heap of bones alone remained
to tell the story of the great catastrophe, when the forces which might
more legitimately claim the name of an army passed the spot where the
Seljukian had entrapped and crushed his victims. In this wild expedition
not less, it is said, than three hundred thousand human beings had
already paid the penalty of their lives.

Still the First Crusade was destined to accomplish more than any of the
seven or eight crusades which followed it; and this measure of success
it achieved probably because none of the great European sovereigns took
part in it. The task of setting up a Latin kingdom in Palestine was to
be achieved by princes of the second order.

Of these the foremost and the most deservedly illustrious was Godfrey,
of Bouillon in the Ardennes, a kinsman of the counts of Boulogne, and
Duke of Lotharingen (Lorraine). In the service of the emperor Henry IV,
the enemy or the victim of Hildebrand, he had been the first to mount
the walls of Rome and cleave his way into the city; he might now hope
that his crusading vow would be accepted as an atonement for his
sacrilege. Speaking the Frank and Teutonic dialects with equal ease, he
exercised by his bravery, his wisdom, and the uprightness of his life an
influence which brought to his standard, it is said, not less than
eighty thousand infantry and ten thousand horsemen, together with his
brothers Baldwin and Eustace, Count of Boulogne.

Among the most conspicuous of Godfrey's colleagues was Hugh, Count of
Vermandois. With him may be placed the Norman duke Robert, whose
carelessness had lost him the crown of England, and who had now pawned
his duchy for a pittance scarcely less paltry than that for which Esau
bartered away his birthright. The number of the great chiefs who led the
pilgrims from Northern Europe is completed with the names of Robert,
Count of Flanders, and of Stephen, Count of Chartres, Troyes, and Blois.

Foremost, by virtue of his title and office, among the leaders of the
southern bands was the papal legate Adhemar (Aymer) Bishop of Puy--a
leader rather as guiding the counsels of the army than as gathering
soldiers under his banner.

A hundred thousand horse and foot attested, we are told, the greatness,
the wealth, and the zeal of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, lord of Auvergne
and Languedoc, who had grown old in warfare.

Less tinged with the fanatical enthusiasm of his comrades, and certainly
more cool and deliberate in his ambition, Bohemond, son of Robert
Guiscard, looked to the crusade as a means by which he might regain the
vast regions extending from the Dalmatian coast to the northern shores
of the Aegean. Nay, if we are to believe William of Malmesbury, he urged
Urban to set forward the enterprise for the very purpose, partly, of
thus recovering what he was pleased to regard as his inheritance, and in
part of enabling the Pontiff to suppress all opposition in Rome.
Guiscard had left his Apulian domains to a younger son, and Bohemond was
resolved, it would seem, to add to his principality of Tarentum a
kingdom which would make him a formidable rival of the Eastern Emperor.

Far above Bohemond rises his cousin Tancred, the son of the marquis Odo,
surnamed the Good, and of Emma, the sister of Robert Guiscard.

In Tancred was seen the embodiment of those peculiar sentiments and
modes of thought which gave birth to the crusades, and to which the
crusades in their turn imparted marvellous strength and splendor.

The miserable remnant of three thousand men who escaped from the field
of blood before the city of the Seljukian sultan found a refuge in
Byzantine territory about the time when the better appointed armies of
the crusaders were setting off on their eastward journey. The most
disciplined of these troops set out with a vast following from the banks
of the Meuse and the Moselle under Godfrey of Bouillon, who led them
safely and without opposition to the Hungarian border. Here the armies
of Hungary barred the way against the advance of a host at whose hands
they dreaded a repetition of the havoc wrought by the lawless bands of
Peter the Hermit and his self-chosen colleagues. Three weeks passed away
in vain attempts to get over the difficulty. The Hungarian King demanded
as a hostage Baldwin, the brother of the general: the demand was
refused, and Godfrey put him to shame by surrendering himself. He asked
only for a free passage and a free market; but although these were
granted, it was not in his power to prevent some disorder and some
depredations as his army or horde passed through the country. The
mischief might have been much worse, had not the Hungarian cavalry,
acting professedly as a friendly escort, but really as cautious warders,
kept close to the crusading hosts.

At length they reached the gates of Philippopolis, and here Godfrey
learned that Hugh of Vermandois, whose coming had been announced to the
Greek emperor Alexius by four-and-twenty knights in golden armor, and
who styled himself the brother of the king of kings and lord of all the
Frankish hosts, was a prisoner within the walls of Constantinople. With
Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders, with Stephen of Chartres and
some lesser chiefs, Hugh had chosen to make his way through Italy; and
the charms of that voluptuous land had a greater effect, it seems, in
breaking up and corrupting their forces than the delights of Capua had
in weakening the soldiers of Hannibal.

With little regard to order, the chiefs determined to cross the sea as
best they might. Hugh embarked at Bari; and if we may believe Anna
Comnena, the historian and the worshipper of her father Alexius, his
fleet was broken by a tempest which shattered his own ship on the coast
between Palos and Dyrrhachium (Durazzo), of which John Comnenus, the
nephew of the Emperor, was at this time the governor. The Frank chief
was here detained until the good pleasure of Alexius should be known.
That wary and cunning prince saw at once how much might be made of his
prisoner, who was by his orders conducted with careful respect and
ceremony to the capital. Kept here really as a hostage, but welcomed to
outward seeming as a friend, Hugh was so completely won by the charm of
manner which Alexius well knew how and when to put on, that, paying him
homage and declaring himself his man, he promised to do what he could to
induce others to follow his example.

From Philippopolis Godfrey sent ambassadors to Alexius, demanding the
immediate surrender of Hugh. The request was refused, and Godfrey
resumed his march, treating the land through which he passed as an
enemy's country, until by way of Adrianople he at length appeared before
the walls of the capital at Christmastide, 1096. The fears of Alexius
were aroused by the sight of a host so vast and so formidable: they
quickened into terror as he thought of the armies which were still on
their way under the command of Bohemond and Tancred. Of Godfrey, beyond
the fact of his mission as a crusader, he knew little or nothing; but in
Bohemond he saw one who claimed as his inheritance no small portion of
his empire. This gathering of myriads, whom a false step on his part
might convert into open enemies, was the result of his own entreaties
urged through his envoys before Urban II in the Council of Piacenza; and
his mind was divided between a feverish anxiety to hurry them on to
their destination and so to rid himself of their hateful presence, and
the desire to retain a hold not only on the crusading chiefs but on any
conquests which they might make in Syria.

Hugh was sent back to Godfrey's camp; but the quarrel was patched up,
rather than ended. It was easier to rouse suspicion and jealousy than to
restore friendship. But it was of the first importance for Alexius that
he should secure the homage of the princes already gathered round his
capital before the arrival of his ancient enemy Bohemond. In this he
succeeded, and a compact was made by which Alexius pledged them his word
that he would supply them with food and aid them in their eastward
march, and would protect all pilgrims passing through his dominions. On
the other hand the crusading chiefs, as already subjects of other
sovereigns, gave their fealty to the Emperor as their liege lord only
for the time during which they might remain within his borders, and
undertook to restore to him such of their conquests as had been recently
wrested from the empire.

The policy and the bribes of Alexius had overcome the opposition of
Bohemond. He was to experience a stouter resistance from Raymond of
Toulouse, who, though he had been the first to enlist, was the last to
set out on his crusade.

The Count of Toulouse scarcely regarded himself as the vassal even of
the French King. He was ready, he said, to be the friend of Alexius on
equal terms; but he would not declare himself to be his man. On this
point he was immovable, although Bohemond tried the effect of a threat
(which was never forgiven), that if the quarrel came to blows, he should
be found on the side of the Emperor. But Alexius soon saw that in
Raymond he had to deal with an enthusiast as sincere and persistent as
Godfrey. He took his measures accordingly, winning the heart of the old
warrior, although he failed to compel his obedience.

While Alexius was busied in dealing with Godfrey and Raymond, Bohemond
and Tancred, he was not less anxiously occupied with the task of sending
across the Bosporus the swarms which might soon become an army of
devouring locusts round his own capital. It was easier to give them a
welcome than to get rid of them: and more than two months had passed
since Christmas, when the followers of Godfrey found themselves on the
soil of Asia.

Godfrey's men had no sooner been landed on the eastern side of the
Bosporus than all the vessels which had transported them were brought
back to the western shore. With great astuteness, and at the cost of
large gifts, Alexius in like manner freed the neighborhood of his
capital from the invading multitudes. As fast as they came they were
hurried across, and the Emperor breathed more freely when, on the Feast
of Pentecost, not a single Latin pilgrim remained on the European shore.

The danger of conflict had throughout been imminent; and the danger
arose, not so much from the fact that the crusaders were armed men,
marching through the country of professed allies, but from the thorough
antagonism between Greeks and Latins in modes of thought and habits of
life. Nor must we forget the vast gulf which separated the Eastern from
the Western clergy. The clergy of the West despised their brethren of
the East for their cowardly submission to the secular arm. These, in
their turn, shrunk with horror from the sight of bishops, priests, and
monks riding with blood-stained weapons over fields of battle, and
exhibiting at other times an ignorance equal to their ferocity.

The strength and valor of the crusaders were soon to be tested. They
were now face to face with the Turks, on whose cowardice Urban II had
enlarged with so much complacency before the Council of Clermont. The
sultan David, or Kilidje Arslan, placed his family and treasures in his
capital city of Nice and retreated with fifty thousand horsemen to the
mountains, whence he swooped down from time to time on the outposts of
the Christians. By these his city was formally invested; and for seven
weeks it was assailed to little purpose by the old instruments of Roman
warfare, while some of the besiegers shot their weapons from the hill on
which were mouldering the bones of the fanatic followers of Peter. It
was protected to the west by the Askanian lake, and so long as the Turks
had command of this lake they felt themselves safe. But Alexius sent
thither on sledges a large number of boats, and the city, subjected to a
double blockade, submitted to the Emperor, who was in no way anxious to
see the crusaders masters of the place. The crusaders were making ready
for the last assault, when they saw the imperial banner floating on the
walls. Their disappointment at the escape of the miscreants, or
unbelievers, for so they delighted to speak of them, was vented in
threats which seemed to bode a renewal of the old troubles; but Alexius,
with gifts, which added force to his words, professed that his only
desire now, as it had been, was to forward them safely on their journey.
Nor had they to go many stages before they found themselves again
confronted with their adversary.

The conflict took place near the Phrygian Dorylaion, and seemed at first
to portend dire defeat to the crusaders. More than once the issue of the
day seemed to be turned by the indomitable personal bravery of the
Norman Robert, of Tancred, and of Bohemond; and when even those seemed
likely to be borne down, they received timely succors from Godfrey, and
Hugh of Vermandois, from Bishop Adhemar of Puy and from Raymond, Count
of Toulouse. Still the Turks held out, and it seemed likely that they
would long hold out, when the appearance of the last division of
Raymond's army filled them with the fear that a new host was upon them.

The crusaders had won a considerable victory. Three thousand knights
belonging to the enemy had been slain, and Kilidje Arslan was hurrying
away to enlist the services of his kinsmen. Meanwhile the Latin hosts
were sweeping onward. Hundreds died from the heat, and dogs or goats
took the place of the baggage-horses which had perished. At length
Tancred with his troop found himself before Tarsus, the birthplace and
the home of that single-hearted apostle who long ago had preached a
gospel strangely unlike the creed of the crusaders. Following rapidly
behind him, Baldwin saw with keen jealousy the banner of the Italian
chief floating on its towers, and insisted on taking the precedence.
Tancred pleaded the choice of the people and his own promise to protect
them; but the intrigues of Baldwin changed their humor, and the
rejection of Tancred by the men of Tarsus was followed by an attempt at
private war between Tancred and Baldwin, in which the troops of Tancred
were overborne. So early was the first harvest of murderous discord
reaped among the holy warriors of the Cross. It was ruin, however, to
stay where they were; and the main army again began its march, to
undergo once more the old monotony of hardship and peril.

A very small force would have sufficed to disorganize and rout them as
they clambered over the defiles of Mount Taurus; nor could Raymond,
recovering from a terrible illness, or Godfrey, suffering from wounds
inflicted by a bear, have done much to help them. But for the present
their enemies were dismayed; and Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, hastened
with eagerness to obey a summons which besought him to aid the Greek or
Armenian tyrant of Edessa. As Alexius had done to his brother, so this
chief welcomed Baldwin as his son; but Baldwin, having once entered into
the city, cared nothing for the means which had brought him thither, and
the death of his adoptive father was followed by the establishment at
Edessa of a Latin principality which lasted for fifty-four, or, as some
have thought, forty-seven years. Baldwin had anticipated the
unconditional surrender of Samosata; but the Turkish governor had some
of the Edessenes in his power, and he refused to give up the city except
on the payment of ten thousand gold pieces. The Turk shortly afterward
fell into Baldwin's hands, and was put to death.

Meanwhile the main army of the crusaders was advancing toward the Syrian
capital (Antioch), that ancient and luxurious city whose fame had gone
over the whole Roman world for its magnificence, its unbounded wealth,
its soft delights, and its unholy pleasures. The days of its greatest
splendor had passed away. Its walls were partially in ruins; its
buildings were in some parts crumbling away or had already fallen; but
against assailants utterly ignorant and awkward in all that relates to
the blockade of cities it was still a formidable position. Nor could
they invest it until they had passed the iron bridge--so called from its
iron-plated gates--of nine stone arches, which spanned the stream of the
Ifrin at a distance of nine miles from the city. This bridge was carried
by the impetuous charge of Robert of Normandy, aided by the more steady
efforts of Godfrey; and in the language of an age which delighted in
round numbers, a hundred thousand warriors hurried across to seize the
splendid prize which now seemed almost within their grasp.

But the city was in the hands of men who had been long accustomed to
despise the Greeks, and who had not yet learned to respect the valor of
the Latins. Preparing himself for a resolute defence, the Seljukian
governor Baghasian had sent away as useless, if not mischievous, most of
the Christians within the town; and the crusading chiefs had begun to
discuss the prudence of postponing all operations till the spring, when
Raymond of Toulouse with some other chiefs insisted that delay would
imply fear, and that the imputation of cowardice would insure the
paralysis of their enterprise. The city was therefore at once invested,
so far as the forces of the crusaders could suffice to encircle it; and
a siege began which in the eyes of the military historian must be
absolutely without interest, and of which the issue was decided by
paroxysms of fanatical vehemence on the one side, and by lack, not of
bravery, but of generalship on the other. Of the eastern and northern
walls the blockade was complete; of the west it was partial; and the
failure to invest a portion of the western wall, with two out of the
five gates of the city, left the movements of the Turks in this
direction free.

But the besiegers were in no hurry to begin the work of death. The
wealth of the harvest and the vintage spread before them its
irresistible temptations, and the herds feeding in the rich pastures
seemed to promise an endless feast. The cattle, the corn, and the wine
were alike wasted with besotted folly, while the Turks within the walls
received tidings, it is said, of all that passed in the crusading camp
from some Greek and Armenian Christians to whom they allowed free egress
and ingress. Of this knowledge they availed themselves in planning the
sallies by which they caused great distress to the besiegers, whose
clumsy engines and devices seemed to produce no result beyond the waste
of time, and who felt perhaps that they had done something when they
blocked up the gate of the bridge with huge stones dug from the
neighboring quarries.

Three months passed away, and the crusaders found themselves not
conquerors, but in desperate straits from famine. The winter rains had
turned the land round their camp into a swamp, and lack of food left
them more and more unable to resist the pestilential diseases which were
rapidly thinning their numbers. A foraging expedition under Bohemond and
Tancred filled the camp with food; it was again recklessly wasted. The
second famine scared away Tatikios, the lieutenant of the Greek emperor
Alexius; but the crusading chiefs were perhaps still more disgusted by
the desertion of William of Melun, called "the Carpenter," from the
sledgehammer blows which he dealt out in battle. Hunger obtained a
victory even over the hermit Peter, who was stealing away with William
of Melun, when he with his companion was caught by Tancred and brought
back to the tent of Bohemond.

For a moment the look of things was changed by the arrival of
ambassadors from Egypt. To the Fatimite caliph of that country the
progress of the crusading arms had thus far brought with it but little
dissatisfaction. The humiliation of the Seljukian Turks could not fail
to bring gain to himself, if the flood of Latin conquests could be
checked and turned back in time. His generals besieged Jerusalem and
Tyre; and when the Fatimite once more ruled in Palestine, his envoys
hastened to the crusaders' camp to announce the deliverance of the Holy
Land from its oppressors, to assure to all unarmed and peaceable
pilgrims a month's unmolested sojourn in Jerusalem, and to promise them
his aid during their march, on condition that they should acknowledge
his supremacy within the limits of his Syrian empire.

The arguments and threats of the Caliph were alike thrown away. The
Latin chiefs disclaimed all interest in the feuds and quarrels of rival
sultans and in the fortunes of Mahometan sects. God himself had destined
Jerusalem for the Christians, and if any held it who were not
Christians, these were usurpers whose resistance must be punished by
their expulsion or their death. The envoys departed not encouraged by
this answer, and still more perplexed by the appearance of plenty and by
the magnificence of a camp in which they had expected to see a terrible
spectacle of disorder and misery.

The resolute persistence of the besiegers convinced Baghasian of the
need of reinforcements. These were hastening to him from Caesarea,
Aleppo, and other places, when they were cut off by Bohemond and
Raymond, who sent a multitude of heads to the envoys of the Fatimite
Caliph, and discharged many hundreds from their engines into the city of
Antioch. The Turks had their opportunity for reprisals when the arrival
of some Pisan and Genoese ships at the mouth of the Orontes drew off the
greater part of the besieging army. The crusaders were returning with
provisions and arms, when their enemies started upon them from an
ambuscade. The battle was fierce; but the defeat of Raymond, which
threatened dire disaster, was changed into victory on the arrival of
Godfrey and the Norman Robert, whose exploits equalled or surpassed, if
we are to believe the story, even those of Arthur, Lancelot, or
Tristram. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Turks fell. Their bodies were
buried by their comrades in the cemetery without the walls: the
Christians dug them up, severed the heads from the trunks, and paraded
the ghastly trophies on their pikes, not forgetting to send a goodly
number to the Egyptian Caliph, by way of showing how his Seljukian
friends or enemies had fared. The picture is disgusting; but if we shut
our eyes to these loathsome details, the truth of the history is gone.
We are dealing with the wars of savages, and it is right that we should
know this.

The next scene exhibits Godfrey and Bohemond in fierce quarrel about a
splendid tent, which, being intended as a gift for the former, had been
seized by an Armenian chief and sent to the latter. But there was now
more serious business on hand. Rumor spoke of the near approach of a
Persian army, and the besieged, under the plea of wishing to arrange
terms of capitulation, obtained a truce which they sought probably only
for the sake of gaining time. The days passed by, but no offers were
made; and their disposition was shown by seizing a crusading knight in
the groves near the city and tearing his body in pieces. The Latins
returned with increased fury to the siege: but the defence, although
more feeble, was still protracted, and Bohemond began to feel not only
that fraud might succeed where force had failed, but that from fraud he
might reap, not safety merely, but wealth and greatness. His plans were
laid with a renegade Christian named Phirouz, high in the favor of the
governor, with whom he had come into contact either during the truce or
in some other way. By splendid promises he insured the zealous aid of
his new ally, and then came forward in the council with the assurance
that he could place the city in their hands, but that he could do this
only on condition that he should rule in Antioch as Baldwin ruled in
Edessa. His claim was angrily opposed by the Provençal Raymond; but this
opposition was overruled, and it was resolved that the plan should be
carried out at once.

There was need for so doing. Rumors spread within the city that some
attempt was to be made to betray the place to the besiegers, and hints
or open accusations pointed out Phirouz as the traitor. Like other
traitors, the renegade thought it best to anticipate the charge by
urging that the guards of the towers should on the very next day be
changed. His proposal was received as indubitable proof of his innocence
and his faithfulness; but he had made up his mind that Antioch should
fall that night, and that night by means of a rope ladder Bohemond with
about sixty followers (the ropes broke before more could ascend) climbed
up the wall. Seizing ten towers, of which all the guards were killed,
they opened a gate, and the Christian host rushed in. The banner of
Bohemond rose on one of the towers; the trumpets sounded for the onset,
and a carnage began in which at first the assailants took no heed to
distinguish between the Christian and the Turk. In the awful confusion
of the moment some of the besieged made their way to the citadel, and
there shut themselves in, ready to resist to the death. Of the rest few
escaped; ten thousand, it is said, were massacred. Baghasian with some
friends passed out beyond the besiegers' lines, but, fainting from loss
of blood, he fell from his horse, and his companions hurried on. A
Syrian Christian heard his groans, and striking off his head carried the
prize to the camp of the conquerors. Phirouz lived to be a second time a
renegade, and to close his career as a thief.

The victory was for the crusaders a change from famine to abundance; and
their feasting was accompanied by the wildest riot and the most filthy
debauchery. But if heedless waste may have been one of the most venial
of their sins, it was the greatest of their blunders. The reports which
spoke of the approach of the Persians were not false. The Turks within
the citadel suddenly found that they were rather besiegers than
besieged, and that the Christians' were hemmed in by the myriads of
Kerboga, Prince of Mosul, and the warriors of Kilidje Arslan. The old
horrors of famine were now repeated, but in greater intensity; and the
doom of the Latin host seemed now to be sealed.

Stephen, Count of Chartres, had deserted his companions before the fall
of the city; others now followed his example, and with him set out on
their return to Europe. In Phrygia, Stephen encountered the emperor
Alexius, who was marching to the aid of the crusaders, not only with a
Greek army, but with a force of well-appointed pilgrims who had reached
Constantinople after the departure of Godfrey and his fellows. The story
told by Stephen drove out of his head every thought except that of his
own safety. The order for retreat was given; and the pilgrim warriors,
not less than the Greeks, were compelled to turn their faces westward.

In Antioch the crusading soldiers were fast sinking into utter despair.
Discipline had well-nigh come to an end, and so obstinate was their
refusal to bear arms any longer that Bohemond resolved to burn them out
of their quarters. These were consumed by the flames, which spread so
rapidly as to fill him with fear that he had destroyed, not only their
dwellings, but his whole principality. His experiment brought the men
back to their duty; but so despondingly was their work done that but for
some signal succor the end, it was manifest, must soon come. In a
credulous age such succor at the darkest hour, if obtained at all, will
generally be obtained through miracle. A Lombard priest came forward, to
whom St. Ambrose of Milan had declared in a vision that the third year
of the crusade should see the conquest of Jerusalem; another had seen
the Saviour himself, attended by his Virgin Mother and the Prince of the
Apostles, had heard from his lips a stern rebuke of the crusaders for
yielding to the seductions of pagan women--as if the profession of
Christianity altered the color and the guilt of a vice--and lastly had
received the distinct assurance that in five days they should have the
help which they needed.

The hopes of the crusaders were roused; with hope came a return of
vigorous energy; and Peter Barthelemy, chaplain to Raymond of Toulouse,
seized the opportunity for recounting a vision which was to be something
more than a dream. To him St. Andrew had revealed the fact that in the
Church of St. Peter lay hidden the steel head of the spear which had
pierced the side of the Redeemer as he hung upon the cross; and that
Holy Lance should win them victory over all their enemies as surely as
the spear which imparted irresistible power to the Knight of the
Sangreal. After two days of special devotion they were to search for the
long-lost weapon; on the third day the workmen began to dig, but until
the sun had set they toiled in vain. The darkness of night made it
easier for the chaplain to play the part which Sir Walter Scott, in the
_Antiquary_, assigns to Herman Dousterswivel in the ruins of St. Ruth.
Barefooted and with a single garment the priest went down into the pit.
For a time the strokes of his spade were heard, and then the sacred
relic was found, carefully wrapped in a veil of silk and gold. The
priest proclaimed his discovery; the people rushed into the church; and
from the church throughout the city spread the flame of a fierce
enthusiasm.

Nine or ten months later Peter Barthelemy paid the penalty of his life
for his fraud or his superstition. A bribe taken by his master Raymond
brought that chief into ill odor with his comrades, and let loose
against his chaplain the tongue of Arnold, the chaplain of Bohemond.
Raymond had traded on fresh visions of his clerk; and Arnold boldly
attacked him in his citadel by denying the genuineness of the Holy
Lance. Peter appealed to the ordeal of fire. He passed through the
flames, as it seemed, unhurt. The bystanders pressed to feel his flesh,
and were vehement in their rejoicings at the result which vindicated his
integrity. He had really received fatal injuries. Twelve days afterward
he died, and Raymond suffered greatly in his dignity and his influence.

The infidel was doomed; but the crusaders resolved to give him one
chance of escape. Peter the Hermit was sent as their envoy to Kerboga to
offer the alternative of departure from a land which St. Peter had
bestowed on the faithful, or of baptism which should leave him master of
the city and territory of Antioch. The reply was short and decisive. The
Turk would not embrace an idolatry which he hated and despised, nor
would he give up soil which belonged to him by right of conquest. The
report of the hermit raised the spirit of the crusaders to fever heat;
and on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul they marched out in twelve
divisions, in remembrance of the mission of the Twelve Apostles, while
Raymond of Toulouse remained to prevent the escape of the Turks shut up
in the citadel. The Holy Lance was borne by the papal legate, Adhemar,
Bishop of Puy; and the morning air laden with the perfume of roses was
now regarded as a sign assuring them of the divine favor. They were
prepared to see good omens in everything; and they went in full
confidence that departed saints would, as they had been told, take part
in the battle and smite down the infidel. The fight--one of brute force
on the Christian side, of some little skill as well as strength on the
other--had gone on for some time when such help seemed to become
needful. Tancred had hurried to the aid of Bohemond, who was grievously
pressed by Kilidje Arslan; and Kerboga was bearing heavily on Godfrey
and Hugh of Vermandois, when, clothed in white armor and riding on white
horses, some human forms were seen on the neighboring heights. "The
saints are coming to your aid," shouted the Bishop of Puy, and the
people saw in these radiant strangers the martyrs St. George, St.
Maurice, and St. Theodore.

Without awaiting their nearer approach the crusaders turned on the enemy
with a force and fury which were now irresistible. Their cavalry could
do little. Two hundred horses only remained of the sixty thousand which
had filled the plain a few months before. But the hedge of spears
advanced like a wall of iron, and the Turks gave way, broke, and fled.
It was rout, not retreat; and with the crusaders victory was followed by
the massacre of men, women, and children. The garrison in the citadel at
once surrendered. Some declared themselves Christians and were baptized;
those who refused to abandon Islam were taken to the nearest Mohametan
territory. The city was the prize of Bohemond; and in his keeping it
remained, although Raymond of Toulouse had made an effort to seize it by
hoisting his banner on the walls. The work of pillage being ended, the
churches were cleansed and repaired, and their altars blazed with golden
spoils taken from the infidel. The Greek Patriarch was again seated on
his throne; but he held his office at the good pleasure of the Latins,
and two years later he was made to give place to Bernard, a chaplain of
the Bishop of Puy.

Ten months had passed away after the conquest of Antioch when the main
body of the crusading army set out on its march to Jerusalem. They had
wished to depart at once, but their chiefs dreaded to encounter
waterless wastes at the end of a Syrian summer, and for the present they
were content to send Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Hainault as
envoys to the Greek Emperor, to reproach him with his remissness or his
want of faith. But the miseries endured by Christians and Turks were the
pleasantest tidings in the ears of Alexius, for in the weakening of both
lay his own strength; and he saw with satisfaction the departure of
Hugh, not for Antioch, but for Europe, whither Stephen of Chartres had
preceded him.

Winter came, but the chiefs still lingered at Antioch. Some were
occupied in expeditions against neighboring cities; but a more pressing
care was the plague which punished the foulness and disorder of the
pilgrims. A band of fifteen hundred Germans, recently landed in strong
health and full equipments, were all, it is said, cut off; and among the
victims the most lamented perhaps was the papal legate Adhemar. A
feeling of discouragement was again spreading through the army
generally. The chiefs vainly entreated the Pope to visit the city where
the disciples of St. Peter first received the Christian name; the people
were disheartened by the animosities and the selfish or crooked policy
of their chiefs. Raymond still hankered after the principality of
Antioch, and insisted that Bohemond and his people should share in the
last great enterprise of the crusade. More disgraceful than these feuds
were the scenes witnessed during the siege and after the conquest of
Marra. Heedlessness and waste soon brought the assailants to devour the
flesh of dogs and of human beings. The bodies of Turks were torn from
their sepulchres, ripped up for the gold which they were supposed to
have swallowed, and the fragments cooked and eaten. Of the besieged many
slew themselves to avoid falling into the hands of the Christians; to
some Bohemond, tempted by a large bribe, gave an assurance of safety.
When the massacre had begun he ordered these to be brought forward. The
weak and old he slaughtered; the rest he sent to the slave markets of
Antioch.

A weak attempt made by Alexius to detain the crusaders only spurred them
to more vigorous efforts. They had already left Antioch, and Laodicea
was in their hands, when he desired them to await his coming in June.
The chiefs, remembering the departure of Tatikios with his Byzantine
troops for Cyprus, retorted that he had broken his compact, and had
therefore no further claims on their obedience. Hastening on their way,
they crossed the plain of Berytos (Beyrout), overlooked by the eternal
snows of Lebanon, along the narrow strip of land whence the great
Phoenician cities had sent their seamen and their colonists, with all
the wealth of the East, to the shores of the Adriatic and the gates of
the Mediterranean. Having reached Jaffa, they turned inland to Ramlah, a
town sixteen miles only from Jerusalem.

Two days later the crusaders came in sight of the Holy City, the object
of their long pilgrimage, the cause of wretchedness and death to
millions. As their eyes rested on the scene hallowed to them through all
the associations of their faith, the crusaders passed in an instant from
fierce enthusiasm to a humiliation which showed itself in sighs and
tears. All fell on their knees, to kiss the sacred earth and to pour
forth thanksgivings that they had been suffered to look upon the desire
of their eyes. Putting aside their armor and their weapons, they
advanced in pilgrim's garb and with bare feet toward the spot which the
Saviour had trodden in the hours of his agony and his passion.

But before their feelings of devotion could be indulged, there was other
work to be done. The chiefs took up their posts on those sides from
which the nature of the ground gave most hope of a successful assault.
On the northern side were Godfrey and Tancred, Robert of Flanders, and
Robert of Normandy; on the west Raymond with his Provençals. On the
fifth day, without siege instruments, with only one ladder, and trusting
to mere weight, the crusaders made a desperate assault upon the walls.
Some succeeded in reaching the summit, and the very rashness of their
attack struck terror for a moment into their enemies. But the garrison
soon rallied, and the invaders were all driven back or hurled from the
ramparts. The task, it was manifest, must be undertaken in a more formal
manner. Siege engines must be made, and the palm and olive of the
immediate neighborhood would not supply fit materials for their
construction.

These were obtained from the woods of Shechem, a distance of thirty
miles; and the work of preparation was carried on under the guidance of
Gaston of Beam by the crews of some Genoese vessels which had recently
anchored at Jaffa. So passed away more than thirty days, days of intense
suffering to the besiegers. At Antioch they had been distressed chiefly
by famine: in place of this wretchedness they had here the greater
miseries of thirst. The enemy had carefully destroyed every place which
might serve as a receptacle of water; and in seeking for it over miles
of desolate country they were exposed to the harassing attacks of Moslem
horsemen. Nor had visions and miracles improved the morals or discipline
of the camp; and the ghost of Adhemar of Puy appeared to rebuke the
horrible sins which were drawing down upon them the judgments of the
Almighty. Better service was done by the generosity of Tancred, who made
up his quarrel with Raymond: and the enthusiasm of the crusaders was
again roused by the preaching of Arnold and the hermit Peter. The
narrative of the siege of Jericho in the book of Joshua suggested
probably the procession in which the clergy singing hymns preceded the
laity round the walls of the city.

The Saracens on the ramparts mocked their devotions by throwing dirt
upon crucifixes; but they paid a terrible price for these insults. On
the next day the final assault began, and was carried on through the day
with the same monotony of brute force and carnage which marked all the
operations of this merciless war. The darkness of night brought no rest.
The actual combat was suspended, but the besieged were incessantly
occupied in repairing the breaches made by the assailants, while these
were busied in making their dispositions for the last mortal conflict.
In the midst of that deadly struggle, when it seemed that the Cross must
after all go down before the Crescent, a knight was seen on Mount
Olivet, waving his glistening shield to rouse the champions of the Holy
Sepulchre to the supreme effort. "It is St. George the Martyr who has
come again to help us," cried Godfrey, and at his words the crusaders
started up without a feeling of fatigue and carried everything before
them.

The day, we are told, was Friday, the hour was three in the afternoon--
the moment at which the last cry from the cross announced the
accomplishment of the Saviour's passion--when Letold of Tournay stood,
the first victorious champion of the Cross, on the walls of Jerusalem.
Next to him came, we are told, his brother Engelbert; the third was
Godfrey. Tancred with the two Roberts stormed the gate of St. Stephen;
the Provençals climbed the ramparts by ladders, and the conquest of
Jerusalem was achieved. The insults offered a little while ago to the
crucifixes were avenged by Godfrey's orders in the massacre of hundreds;
the carnage in the Mosque of Omar swept away the bodies of thousands in
a deluge of human blood. The Jews were all burnt alive in their
synagogues. The horses of the crusaders, who rode up to the porch of the
Temple, were--so the story goes--up to the knees in the loathsome
stream; and the forms of Christian knights hacking and hewing the bodies
of the living and the dead furnished a pleasant commentary on the sermon
of Urban at Clermont.

From the duties of slaughter these disciples of the Lamb of God passed
to those of devotion. Bareheaded and barefooted, clad in a robe of pure
white linen, in an ecstasy of joy and thankfulness mingled with profound
contrition, Godfrey entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and knelt
at the tomb of his Lord. With groans and tears his followers came, each
in his turn, to offer his praises for the divine mercy which had
vouchsafed this triumph to the armies of Christendom. With feverish
earnestness they poured forth the vows which bound them to sin no more,
and the excitement of prayer and slaughter, perhaps of both combined,
led them to see everything which might be needed to give effect to the
closing scene of this appalling tragedy. As the saints had arisen from
their graves when the Son of Man gave up the ghost on Calvary, so the
spirits of the pilgrims who had died on the terrible journey came to
take part in the great thanksgiving. Foremost among them was Adhemar of
Puy, rejoicing in the prayers for forgiveness and the resolutions of
repentance which promised a new era of peace upon earth and of good-will
toward all men.

With departed saints were mingled living men who deserved all the honor
which might be paid to them. The backsliding of the hermit Peter was
blotted out of the memory of those who remembered only the fiery
eloquence which had first called them to their now triumphant
pilgrimage, and the zeal which had stirred the heart of Christendom to
cut short the tyranny of the Unbeliever in the birthland of
Christianity. The assembled throng fell down at his feet, and gave
thanks to God, who had vouchsafed to them such a teacher. His task was
done, and in the annals of the time Peter is heard of no more.

On this dreadful day Tancred had spared three hundred captives to whom
he had given a standard as a pledge of his protection and a guarantee of
their safety. Such misplaced mercy was a crime in the eyes of the
crusaders. The massacre of the first day may have been aggravated by the
ungovernable excitement of victory; but it was resolved that on the next
day there should be offered up a more solemn and deliberate sacrifice.
The men whom Tancred had spared were all murdered; and the wrath of
Tancred was roused, not by their fate, but by an act which called his
honor into question. The butchery went on with impartial completeness,
old and young, decrepit men and women, mothers with their infants, boys
and girls, young men and maidens in the bloom of their vigor, all were
mowed down, and their bodies mangled until heads and limbs were tossed
together in awful chaos. A few were hidden away by Raymond of Toulouse;
his motive, however, was not mercy, but the prospects of gain in the
slave market. After this great act of faith and devotion the streets of
the Holy City were washed by Saracen prisoners; but whether these were
butchered when their work was ended we are not told.

Four centuries and a half had passed away, when these things were done,
since Omar had entered Jerusalem as a conqueror and knelt outside the
Church of Constantine, that his followers might not trespass within it
on the privileges of the Christians. The contrast is at the least marked
between the Caliph of the Prophet and the children of the Holy Catholic
Church.

When, the business of the slaughter being ended, the chiefs met to
choose a king for the realm which they had won with their swords, one
man only appeared to whom the crown could fitly be offered. Baldwin was
lord of Edessa; Bohemond ruled at Antioch; Hugh of Vermandois and
Stephen of Chartres had returned to Europe; Robert of Flanders cared not
to stay; the Norman Robert had no mind to forfeit the duchy which he had
mortgaged; and Raymond was discredited by his avarice, and in part also
by his traffic in the visions of Peter Barthelemy. But in the city where
his Lord had worn the thorny crown, the veteran leader who had looked on
ruthless slaughter without blanching and had borne his share in swelling
the stream of blood would wear no earthly diadem nor take the title of
king. He would watch over his Master's grave and the interests of his
worshippers under the humble guise of Baron and Defender of the Holy
Sepulchre; and as such, a fortnight after his election, Godfrey departed
to do battle with the hosts of the Fatimite Caliph of Egypt, who now
felt that the loss of Jerusalem was too high a price for the humiliation
of his rivals. The conflict took place at Ascalon, and the Fatimite army
was miserably routed. Godfrey returned to Jerusalem, to hang the sword
and standard of the Sultan before the Holy Sepulchre and to bid farewell
to the pilgrims who were now to set out on their homeward journey. He
retained, with three hundred knights under Tancred, only two thousand
foot soldiers for the defence of his kingdom; and so ended the first act
in the great drama of the crusades.



FOUNDATION OF THE ORDER OF KNIGHTS TEMPLARS

A.D. 1118

CHARLES G. ADDISON


(Among the military orders of past ages, that of the Knights Templars,
founded for the defence of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, with its
lofty motive, its superb organization and discipline, and its history
extending over nearly two centuries, is justly accounted one of the most
illustrious. At the period when this extraordinary and romantic order
came into existence, the contrasting spirits of warlike enterprise and
monastic retirement were drawing men, some from the field to the
cloister, others from the life of ascetic piety to the scenes of strife.
There appeared a strange blending of these two tendencies, which indeed
was the leading characteristic of the time. This union of the religious
with the militant spirit had been promoted by the enthusiasm of the
crusades which had already been undertaken, and among the crusaders
themselves the blended spiritual and military ideal of the holy war had
its complete development. Let us recall the reasons and the beginnings
of the crusades themselves.

Upon the legendary discovery of the Holy Sepulchre by Helena, the mother
of Constantine, about three hundred years after the death of Christ, and
the consequent erection, as it is said, by her great son--the first
Christian emperor of Rome--of the magnificent Church of the Holy
Sepulchre over the sacred spot, a tide of pilgrimage set in toward
Jerusalem which increased in strength as Christianity gradually spread
throughout Europe. When in A.D. 637 the Holy City was surrendered to the
Saracens, the caliph Omar gave guarantees for the security of the
Christian population. Under this safeguard the pilgrimages to Jerusalem
continued to increase, until in 1064 the Holy Sepulchre was visited by
seven thousand pilgrims, led by an archbishop and three bishops. But in
1065 Jerusalem was taken by the Turcomans, who massacred three thousand
citizens, and placed the command of the city in savage hands. Terrible
oppression of the Christians there followed; the Patriarch of Jerusalem
was dragged by the hair of his head over the sacred pavement of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre and cast into a dungeon for ransom;
extortion, imprisonment, and massacre were indiscriminately visited upon
the people.

Such were the conditions that aroused the indignant spirit of
Christendom and prepared it for the cry of Peter the Hermit, which awoke
the wild enthusiasm of the crusades. When Jerusalem was captured by the
crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099, the zeal of pilgrimage
burst forth anew. But although Jerusalem was delivered, Palestine was
still infested with the infidels, who made it as hazardous as before for
the pilgrims entering there. Some means for their protection must be
found, and out of this necessity grew the great military order of which
the following pages treat.)


To alleviate the dangers and distresses to which the pilgrim enthusiasts
were exposed; to guard the honor of the saintly virgins and matrons, and
to protect the gray hairs of the venerable palmers, nine noble knights
formed a holy brotherhood-in-arms, and entered into a solemn compact to
aid one another in clearing the highways of infidels and robbers, and in
protecting the pilgrims through the passes and defiles of the mountains
to the Holy City. Warmed with the religious and military fervor of the
day, and animated by the sacredness of the cause to which they had
devoted their swords, they called themselves the "Poor Fellow-soldiers
of Jesus Christ."

They renounced the world and its pleasures, and in the Holy Church of
the Resurrection, in the presence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, they
embraced vows of perpetual chastity, obedience, and poverty, after the
manner of monks. Uniting in themselves the two most popular qualities of
the age, devotion and valor, and exercising them in the most popular of
all enterprises, the protection of the pilgrims and of the road to the
Holy Sepulchre, they speedily acquired a vast reputation and a splendid
renown.

At first, we are told, they had no church and no particular place of
abode, but in the year of our Lord 1118--nineteen years after the
conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders--they had rendered such good and
acceptable service to the Christians that Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem,
granted them a place of habitation within the sacred enclosure of the
Temple on Mount Moriah, amid those holy and magnificent structures,
partly erected by the Christian emperor Justinian and partly built by
the caliph Omar, which were then exhibited by the monks and priests of
Jerusalem, whose restless zeal led them to practise on the credulity of
the pilgrims, and to multiply relics and all objects likely to be sacred
in their eyes, as the Temple of Solomon, whence the "Poor
Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ" came thenceforth to be known by the
name of "the Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon."

A few remarks in elucidation of the name "Templars," or "Knights of the
Temple," may not be unacceptable.

By the Mussulmans the site of the great Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah
has always been regarded with peculiar veneration. Mahomet, in the first
year of the publication of the _Koran_, directed his followers, when at
prayer, to turn their faces toward it, and pilgrimages have constantly
been made to the holy spot by devout Moslems. On the conquest of
Jerusalem by the Arabians, it was the first care of the caliph Omar to
rebuild "the Temple of the Lord." Assisted by the principal chieftains
of his army, the Commander of the Faithful undertook the pious office of
clearing the ground with his own hands, and of tracing out the
foundations of the magnificent mosque which now crowns with its dark and
swelling dome the elevated summit of Mount Moriah.

This great house of prayer, the most holy Mussulman temple in the world
after that of Mecca, is erected over the spot where "Solomon began to
build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord
appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in
the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite."

It remains to this day in a state of perfect preservation, and is one of
the finest specimens of Saracenic architecture in existence. It is
entered by four spacious doorways, each door facing one of the cardinal
points: the _Bab el D'Jannat_ (or "Gate of the Garden"), on the north;
the _Bab el Kebla_, (or "Gate of Prayer"), on the south; the _Bab ibn el
Daoud_ (or "Gate of the Son of David"), on the east; and the _Bab el
Garbi_, on the west. By the Arabian geographers it is called _Beit
Allah_ ("the House of God"), also _Beit Almokaddas_ or _Beit Almacdes_
("the Holy House"). From it Jerusalem derives its Arabic name, _El Kods_
("the Holy"), _El Schereef_ ("the Noble"), and _El Mobarek_ ("the
Blessed"); while the governors of the city, instead of the customary
high-sounding titles of sovereignty and dominion, take the simple title
of _Hami_ (or "Protectors").

On the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders, the crescent was torn
down from the summit of this famous Mussulman temple, and was replaced
by an immense golden cross, and the edifice was then consecrated to the
services of the Christian religion, but retained its simple appellation
of "the Temple of the Lord." William, Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor
of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, gives an interesting account of this famous
edifice as it existed in his time, during the Latin dominion. He speaks
of the splendid mosaic work, of the Arabic characters setting forth the
name of the founder and the cost of the undertaking, and of the famous
rock under the centre of the dome, which is to this day shown by the
Moslems as the spot whereon the destroying angel stood, "with his drawn
sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem." This rock, he informs
us, was left exposed and uncovered for the space of fifteen years after
the conquest of the Holy City by the crusaders, but was, after that
period, cased with a handsome altar of white marble, upon which the
priests daily said mass.

To the south of this holy Mussulman temple, on the extreme edge of the
summit of Mount Moriah, and resting against the modern walls of the town
of Jerusalem, stands the venerable Church of the Virgin, erected by the
emperor Justinian, whose stupendous foundations, remaining to this day,
fully justify the astonishing description given of the building by
Procopius. That writer informs us that in order to get a level surface
for the erection of the edifice, it was necessary, on the east and south
sides of the hill, to raise up a wall of masonry from the valley below,
and to construct a vast foundation, partly composed of solid stone and
partly of arches and pillars. The stones were of such magnitude that
each block required to be transported in a truck drawn by forty of the
Emperor's strongest oxen; and to admit of the passage of these trucks it
was necessary to widen the roads leading to Jerusalem. The forests of
Lebanon yielded their choicest cedars for the timbers of the roof; and a
quarry of variegated marble, seasonably discovered in the adjoining
mountains, furnished the edifice with superb marble columns.

The interior of this interesting structure, which still remains at
Jerusalem, after a lapse of more than thirteen centuries, in an
excellent state of preservation, is adorned with six rows of columns,
from whence spring arches supporting the cedar beams and timbers of the
roof; and at the end of the building is a round tower, surmounted by a
dome. The vast stones, the walls of masonry, and the subterranean
colonnade raised to support the southeast angle of the platform whereon
the church is erected are truly wonderful, and may still be seen by
penetrating through a small door and descending several flights of steps
at the southeast corner of the enclosure. Adjoining the sacred edifice
the Emperor erected hospitals, or houses of refuge, for travellers, sick
people, and mendicants of all nations; the foundations whereof, composed
of handsome Roman masonry, are still visible on either side of the
southern end of the building.

On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems this venerable church was
converted into a mosque, and was called D'Jame al Acsa; it was enclosed,
together with the great Mussulman "Temple of the Lord" erected by the
caliph Omar, within a large area by a high stone wall, which runs around
the edge of the summit of Mount Moriah and guards from the profane tread
of the unbeliever the whole of that sacred ground whereon once stood the
gorgeous Temple of the wisest of kings.

When the Holy City was taken by the crusaders, the D'Jame al Acsa, with
the various buildings constructed around it, became the property of the
kings of Jerusalem, and is denominated by William of Tyre "the Palace,"
or "Royal House to the south of the Temple of the Lord, vulgarly called
the 'Temple of Solomon.'" It was this edifice or temple on Mount Moriah
which was appropriated to the use of the "Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus
Christ," as they had no church and no particular place of abode, and
from it they derived their name of "Knights Templars."

James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre, who gives an interesting account of the
holy places, thus speaks of the temple of the Knights Templars: "There
is, moreover, at Jerusalem another temple of immense spaciousness and
extent, from which the brethren of the Knighthood of the Temple derive
their name of 'Templars,' which is called the 'Temple of Solomon,'
perhaps to distinguish it from the one above described, which is
specially called the 'Temple of the Lord.'" He moreover informs us in
his oriental history that "in the 'Temple of the Lord' there is an abbot
and canons regular; and be it known that the one is the 'Temple of the
_Lord_,' and the other the 'Temple of the _Chivalry_.' These are
_clerks_; the others are _knights_."

The canons of the "Temple of the Lord" conceded to the "Poor
Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ" the large court extending between that
building and the Temple of Solomon; the King, the Patriarch, and the
prelates of Jerusalem, and the barons of the Latin kingdom assigned them
various gifts and revenues for their maintenance and support, and, the
order being now settled in a regular place of abode, the knights soon
began to entertain more extended views and to seek a larger theatre for
the exercise of their holy profession.

Their first aim and object had been, as before mentioned, simply to
protect the poor pilgrims on their journey backward and forward from the
sea-coast to Jerusalem; but as the hostile tribes of Mussulmans, which
everywhere surrounded the Latin kingdom, were gradually recovering from
the stupefying terror into which they had been plunged by the successful
and exterminating warfare of the first crusaders, and were assuming an
aggressive and threatening attitude, it was determined that the holy
warriors of the temple should, in addition to the protection of
pilgrims, make the defence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, of the
Eastern Church, and of all the holy places a part of their particular
profession.

The two most distinguished members of the fraternity were Hugh de Payens
and Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, or St. Omer, two valiant soldiers of the
cross, who had fought with great credit and renown at the siege of
Jerusalem. Hugh de Payens was chosen by the knights to be superior of
the new religious and military society, by the title of "the Master of
the Temple"; and he has, in consequence, been generally called the
founder of the order.

The name and reputation of the Knights Templars speedily spread
throughout Europe, and various illustrious pilgrims of the Far West
aspired to become members of the holy fraternity. Among these was Fulk,
Count of Anjou, who joined the society as a married brother (1120), and
annually remitted the order thirty pounds of silver. Baldwin, King of
Jerusalem, foreseeing that great advantages would accrue to the Latin
kingdom by the increase of the power and numbers of these holy warriors,
exerted himself to extend the order throughout all Christendom, so that
he might, by means of so politic an institution, keep alive the holy
enthusiasm of the West, and draw a constant succor from the bold and
warlike races of Europe for the support of his Christian throne and
kingdom.

St. Bernard, the holy abbot of Clairvaux, had been a great admirer of
the Templars. He wrote a letter to the Count of Champagne, on his
entering the order (1123), praising the act as one of eminent merit in
the sight of God; and it was determined to enlist the all-powerful
influence of this great ecclesiastic in favor of the fraternity. "By a
vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible
world, by the refusal of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot of
Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe and the founder of one hundred and
sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his
apostolical censures; France, England, and Milan consulted and obeyed
his judgment in a schism of the Church; the debt was repaid by the
gratitude of Innocent II; and his successor, Eugenius III, was the
friend and disciple of the holy St. Bernard."

To this learned and devout prelate two Knights Templars were despatched
with the following letter:

"Baldwin, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, King of Jerusalem and
Prince of Antioch, to the venerable Father Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux;
health and regard.

"The Brothers of the Temple, whom the Lord hath deigned to raise up, and
whom by an especial providence he preserves for the defence of this
kingdom, desiring to obtain from the Holy See the confirmation of their
institution and a rule for their particular guidance, we have determined
to send to you the two knights, Andrew and Gondemar, men as much
distinguished by their military exploits as by the splendor of their
birth, to obtain from the Pope the approbation of their order, and to
dispose his holiness to send succor and subsidies against the enemies of
the faith, reunited in their design to destroy us and to invade our
Christian territories.

"Well knowing the weight of your mediation with God and his vicar upon
earth, as well as with the princes and powers of Europe, we have thought
fit to confide to you these two important matters, whose successful
issue cannot be otherwise than most agreeable to ourselves. The statutes
we ask of you should be so ordered and arranged as to be reconcilable
with the tumult of the camp and the profession of arms; they must, in
fact, be of such a nature as to obtain favor and popularity with the
Christian princes.

"Do you then so manage that we may, through you, have the happiness of
seeing this important affair brought to a successful issue, and address
for us to Heaven the incense of your prayers."

Soon after the above letter had been despatched to St. Bernard, Hugh de
Payens himself proceeded to Rome, accompanied by Geoffrey de St. Aldemar
and four other brothers of the order: namely, Brother Payen de
Montdidier, Brother Gorall, Brother Geoffrey Bisol, and Brother
Archambauld de St. Armand. They were received with great honor and
distinction by Pope Honorius, who warmly approved of the objects and
designs of the holy fraternity. St. Bernard had, in the mean time, taken
the affair greatly to heart; he negotiated with the pope, the legate,
and the bishops of France, and obtained the convocation of a great
ecclesiastical council at Troyes (1128), which Hugh de Payens and his
brethren were invited to attend. This council consisted of several
archbishops, bishops, and abbots, among which last was St. Bernard
himself. The rules to which the Templars had subjected themselves were
there described by the master, and to the holy abbot of Clairvaux was
confided the task of revising and correcting these rules, and of framing
a code of statutes fit and proper for the governance of the great
religious and military fraternity of the temple.

_The Rule of the Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ and of the Temple
of Solomon_, arranged by St. Bernard, and sanctioned by the holy Fathers
of the Council of Troyes, for the government and regulation of the
monastic and military society of the Temple, is principally of a
religious character and of an austere and gloomy cast. It is divided
into seventy-two heads or chapters, and is preceded by a short prologue
addressed "to all who disdain to follow after their own wills, and
desire with purity of mind to fight for the most high and true King,"
exhorting them to put on the armor of obedience, and to associate
themselves together with piety and humility for the defence of the Holy
Catholic Church; and to employ a pure diligence, and a steady
perseverance in the exercise of their sacred profession, so that they
might share in the happy destiny reserved for the holy warriors who had
given up their lives for Christ.

The rule enjoins severe devotional exercises, self-mortification,
fasting, and prayer, and a constant attendance at matins, vespers, and
on all the services of the Church, "that, being refreshed and satisfied
with heavenly food, instructed and stablished with heavenly precepts,
after the consummation of the divine mysteries," none might be afraid of
the _Fight_, but be prepared for the _Crown_.

If unable to attend the regular service of God, the absent brother is
for matins to say over thirteen _pater-nosters_, for every hour seven,
and for vespers nine. When any Templar draweth nigh unto death, the
chaplains and clerk are to assemble and offer up a solemn mass for his
soul; the surrounding brethren are to spend the night in prayer, and a
hundred pater-nosters are to be repeated for the dead brother.
"Moreover," say the holy Fathers, "we do strictly enjoin you, that with
divine and most tender charity ye do daily bestow as much meat and drink
as was given to that brother when alive, unto some poor man for forty
days."

The brethren are, on all occasions, to speak sparingly and to wear a
grave and serious deportment. They are to be constant in the exercise of
charity and almsgiving, to have a watchful care over all sick brethren,
and to support and sustain all old men. They are not to receive letters
from their parents, relations, or friends without the license of the
master, and all gifts are immediately to be taken to the latter or to
the treasurer, to be disposed of as he may direct. They are, moreover,
to receive no service or attendance from a woman, and are commanded,
above all things, to shun feminine kisses.

"This same year (1128) Hugh of the Temple came from Jerusalem to the
King in Normandy, and the King received him with much honor and gave him
much treasure in gold and silver, and afterward he sent him into
England, and there he was well received by all good men, and all gave
him treasure, and in Scotland also, and they sent in all a great sum in
gold and silver by him to Jerusalem, and there went with him and after
him so great a number as never before since the days of Pope Urban."
Grants of land, as well as of money, were at the same time made to Hugh
de Payens and his brethren, some of which were shortly afterward
confirmed by King Stephen on his accession to the throne (1135). Among
these is a grant of the manor of Bistelesham made to the Templars by
Count Robert de Ferrara, and a grant of the Church of Langeforde in
Bedfordshire made by Simon de Wahull and Sibylla his wife and Walter
their son.

Hugh de Payens, before his departure, placed a Knight Templar at the
head of the order in England, who was called the prior of the temple and
was the procurator and viceregent of the master. It was his duty to
manage the estates granted to the fraternity, and to transmit the
revenues to Jerusalem. He was also delegated with the power of admitting
members into the order, subject to the control and direction of the
master, and was to provide means of transport for such newly-admitted
brethren to the Far East, to enable them to fulfil the duties of their
profession. As the houses of the Temple increased in number in England,
subpriors came to be appointed, and the superior of the order in this
country was then called the "grand prior," and afterward master, of the
temple.

Many illustrious knights of the best families in Europe aspired to the
habit and vows, but, however exalted their rank, they were not received
within the bosom of the fraternity until they had proved themselves by
their conduct worthy of such a fellowship. Thus, when Hugh d'Amboise,
who had harassed and oppressed the people of Marmontier by unjust
exactions, and had refused to submit to the judicial decision of the
Count of Anjou, desired to enter the order, Hugh de Payens refused to
admit him to the vows until he had humbled himself, renounced his
pretensions, and given perfect satisfaction to those whom he had
injured. The candidates, moreover, previous to their admission, were
required to make reparation and satisfaction for all damage done by them
at any time to churches and to public or private property.

An astonishing enthusiasm was excited throughout Christendom in behalf
of the Templars; princes and nobles, sovereigns and their subjects, vied
with each other in heaping gifts and benefits upon them, and scarce a
will of importance was made without an article in it in their favor.
Many illustrious persons on their death-beds took the vows, that they
might be buried in the habit of the order; and sovereigns, quitting the
government of their kingdoms, enrolled themselves among the holy
fraternity, and bequeathed even their dominions to the master and the
brethren of the temple.

Thus, Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona and Provence, at a very
advanced age, abdicating his throne and shaking off the ensigns of royal
authority, retired to the house of the Templars at Barcelona, and
pronounced his vows (1130) before Brother Hugh de Rigauld, the prior.
His infirmities not allowing him to proceed in person to the chief house
of the order at Jerusalem, he sent vast sums of money thither, and
immuring himself in a small cell in the temple at Barcelona, he there
remained in the constant exercise of the religious duties of his
profession until the day of his death.

At the same period, the emperor Lothair bestowed on the order a large
portion of his patrimony of Supplinburg; and the year following (1131),
Alphonso I, King of Navarre and Aragon, also styled Emperor of Spain,
one of the greatest warriors of the age, by his will declared the
Knights of the Temple his heirs and successors in the crowns of Navarre
and Aragon, and a few hours before his death he caused this will to be
ratified and signed by most of the barons of both kingdoms. The validity
of this document, however, was disputed, and the claims of the Templars
were successfully resisted by the nobles of Navarre; but in Aragon they
obtained, by way of compromise, lands and castles and considerable
dependencies, a portion of the customs and duties levied throughout the
kingdom, and the contributions raised from the Moors.

To increase the enthusiasm in favor of the Templars, and still further
to swell their ranks with the best and bravest of the European chivalry,
St. Bernard, at the request of Hugh de Payens, took up his powerful pen
in their behalf. In a famous discourse, _In Praise of the New Chivalry_,
the holy abbot sets forth, in eloquent and enthusiastic terms, the
spiritual advantages and blessings enjoyed by the military friars of the
temple over all other warriors. He draws a curious picture of the
relative situations and circumstances of the _secular_ soldiery and the
soldiery of _Christ_, and shows how different in the sight of God are
the bloodshed and slaughter of the one from that committed by the other.

This extraordinary discourse is written with great spirit; it is
addressed "To Hugh, Knight of Christ, and Master of the Knighthood of
Christ," is divided into fourteen parts or chapters, and commences with
a short prologue. It is curiously illustrative of the spirit of the
times, and some of its most striking passages will be read with
interest.

The holy abbot thus pursues his comparison between the soldier of the
world and the soldier of Christ--the _secular_ and the _religious_
warrior: "As often as thou who wagest a secular warfare marchest forth
to battle, it is greatly to be feared lest when thou slayest thine enemy
in the body, he should destroy thee in the spirit, or lest peradventure
thou shouldst be at once slain by him both in body and soul. From the
disposition of the heart, indeed, not by the event of the fight, is to
be estimated either the jeopardy or the victory of the Christian. If,
fighting with the desire of killing another, thou shouldst chance to get
killed thyself, thou diest a manslayer; if, on the other hand, thou
prevailest, and through a desire of conquest or revenge killest a man,
thou livest a manslayer.... O unfortunate victory! when in overcoming
thine adversary thou fallest into sin, and, anger or pride having the
mastery over thee, in vain thou gloriest over the vanquished....

"What, therefore, is the fruit of this secular, I will not say
_militia_, but _malitia_, if the slayer committeth a deadly sin, and the
slain perisheth eternally? Verily, to use the words of the apostle, he
that plougheth should plough in hope, and he that thresheth should be
partaker of his hope. Whence, therefore, O soldiers, cometh this so
stupendous error? What insufferable madness is this--to wage war with so
great cost and labor, but with no pay except either death or crime? Ye
cover your horses with silken trappings, and I know not how much fine
cloth hangs pendent from your coats of mail. Ye paint your spears,
shields, and saddles; your bridles and spurs are adorned on all sides
with gold and silver and gems, and with all this pomp, with a shameful
fury and a reckless insensibility, ye rush on to death. Are these
military ensigns, or are they not rather the garnishments of women? Can
it happen that the sharp-pointed sword of the enemy will respect gold,
will it spare gems, will it be unable to penetrate the silken garment?

"As ye yourselves have often experienced, three things are indispensably
necessary to the success of the soldier: he must, for example, be bold,
active, and circumspect; quick in running, prompt in striking; ye,
however, to the disgust of the eye, nourish your hair after the manner
of women, ye gather around your footsteps long and flowing vestures, ye
bury up your delicate and tender hands in ample and wide-spreading
sleeves. Among you indeed naught provoketh war or awakeneth strife, but
either an irrational impulse of anger or an insane lust of glory or the
covetous desire of possessing another man's lands and possessions. In
such cases it is neither safe to slay nor to be slain.... But the
soldiers of Christ indeed securely fight the battles of their Lord, in
no wise fearing sin, either from the slaughter of the enemy or danger
from their own death. When indeed death is to be given or received for
Christ, it has naught of crime in it, but much of glory....

"And now for an example, or to the confusion of our soldiers fighting
not manifestly for God, but for the devil, we will briefly display the
mode of life of the Knights of Christ, such as it is in the field and in
the convent, by which means it will be made plainly manifest to what
extent the soldiery of God and the soldiery of the World differ from one
another.... The soldiers of Christ live together in common in an
agreeable but frugal manner, without wives and without children; and
that nothing may be wanting to evangelical perfection, they dwell
together without property of any kind, in one house, under one rule,
careful to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. You
may say that to the whole multitude there is but one heart and one soul,
as each one in no respect followeth after his own will or desire, but is
diligent to do the will of the Master. They are never idle nor rambling
abroad, but, when they are not in the field, that they may not eat their
bread in idleness, they are fitting and repairing their armor and their
clothing, or employing themselves in such occupations as the will of the
Master requireth or their common necessities render expedient. Among
them there is no distinction of persons; respect is paid to the best and
most virtuous, not the most noble. They participate in each other's
honor, they bear one anothers' burdens, that they may fulfil the law of
Christ.

"An insolent expression, a useless undertaking, immoderate laughter, the
least murmur or whispering, if found out, passeth not without severe
rebuke. They detest cards and dice, they shun the sports of the field,
and take no delight in the ludicrous catching of birds (hawking), which
men are wont to indulge in. Jesters and soothsayers and story-tellers,
scurrilous songs, shows, and games, they contemptuously despise and
abominate as vanities and mad follies. They cut their hair, knowing
that, according to the apostle, it is not seemly in a man to have long
hair. They are never combed, seldom washed, but appear rather with rough
neglected hair, foul with dust, and with skins browned by the sun and
their coats of mail.

"Moreover, on the approach of battle they fortify themselves with faith
within and with steel without, and not with gold, so that, armed and not
adorned, they may strike terror into the enemy, rather than awaken his
lust of plunder. They strive earnestly to possess strong and swift
horses, but not garnished with ornaments or decked with trappings,
thinking of battle and of victory, and not of pomp and show, studying to
inspire fear rather than admiration....

"Such hath God chosen for his own, and hath collected together as his
ministers from the ends of the earth, from among the bravest of Israel,
who indeed vigilantly and faithfully guard the Holy Sepulchre, all armed
with the sword, and most learned in the art of war....

"There is indeed a temple at Jerusalem in which they dwell together,
unequal, it is true, as a building, to that ancient and most famous one
of Solomon, but not inferior in glory. For truly the entire magnificence
of that consisted in corrupt things, in gold and silver, in carved
stone, and in a variety of woods; but the whole beauty of this resteth
in the adornment of an agreeable conversation, in the godly devotion of
its inmates, and their beautifully ordered mode of life. That was
admired for its various external beauties, this is venerated for its
different virtues and sacred actions, as becomes the sanctity of the
house of God, who delighteth not so much in polished marbles as in
well-ordered behavior, and regardeth pure minds more than gilded walls.
The face likewise of this temple is adorned with arms, not with gems,
and the wall, instead of the ancient golden chapiters, is covered around
with pendent shields.

"Instead of the ancient candelabra, censers, and lavers, the house is on
all sides furnished with bridles, saddles, and lances, all which plainly
demonstrate that the soldiers burn with the same zeal for the house of
God as that which formerly animated their great Leader, when, vehemently
enraged, he entered into the Temple, and with that most sacred hand,
armed not with steel, but with a scourge which he had made of small
thongs, drove out the merchants, poured out the changers' money, and
overthrew the tables of them that sold doves; most indignantly
condemning the pollution of the house of prayer by the making of it a
place of merchandise.

"The devout army of Christ, therefore, earnestly incited by the example
of its king, thinking indeed that the holy places are much more
impiously and insufferably polluted by the infidels than when defiled by
merchants, abide in the holy house with horses and with arms, so that
from that, as well as all the other sacred places, all filthy and
diabolical madness of infidelity being driven out, they may occupy
themselves by day and by night in honorable and useful offices. They
emulously honor the temple of God with sedulous and sincere oblations,
offering sacrifices therein with constant devotion, not indeed of the
flesh of cattle after the manner of the ancients, but peaceful
sacrifices, brotherly love, devout obedience, voluntary poverty.

"These things are done perpetually at Jerusalem, and the world is
aroused, the islands hear, and the nations take heed from afar...."

St. Bernard then congratulates Jerusalem on the advent of the soldiers
of Christ, and declares that the Holy City will rejoice with a double
joy in being rid of all her oppressors, the ungodly, the robbers, the
blasphemers, murderers, perjurers, and adulterers; and in receiving her
faithful defenders and sweet consolers, under the shadow of whose
protection "Mount Zion shall rejoice, and the daughters of Judah sing
for joy."



STEPHEN USURPS THE ENGLISH CROWN

HIS CONFLICTS WITH MATILDA: DECISIVE INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH

A.D. 1135-1154

CHARLES KNIGHT


(William the Conqueror, King of England, was succeeded by his sons
William Rufus and Henry--on account of his scholarship known as
Beauclerc. Prince William, Henry's only son, was drowned when starting
from Normandy for England in 1120. In the absence of male issue Henry
settled the English and Norman crowns upon his daughter Matilda, and
demanded an oath of fidelity to her from the barons.

Matilda had been married first to Emperor Henry V of Germany, who died
in 1125, and secondly to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou.

Stephen was the son of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, who had
married Stephen, Count of Blois. Stephen, with his brother Henry, had
been invited to the court of England by their uncle, and had received
honors, preferments, and riches. Henry becoming an ecclesiast was
created abbot of Glastonbury and bishop of Winchester. Stephen, among
other possessions, received the great estate forfeited by Robert Mallet
in England, and that forfeited by the Earl of Mortaigne in Normandy. By
his marriage with Matilda, daughter of the Earl of Boulogne, he had
succeeded also to the territories of his father-in-law. Stephen by
studied arts and personal qualities became a great favorite with the
English barons and the people.

The empress Matilda and her husband Geoffrey, unfortunately, were
unpopular both in England and Normandy, the English barons especially
viewing with disfavor the prospect of a woman occupying the throne.

Henry Beauclerc died in 1135 at his favorite hunting-seat, the Castle of
Lions, near Rouen, in Normandy. Stephen, ignoring the oath of fealty to
the daughter of his benefactor, hastened to England, and,
notwithstanding some opposition, with the help of his clerical brother
and other functionaries had himself proclaimed and crowned king. This
act involved England in years of civil war, anarchy, and wretchedness,
which ended only with the accession as Henry II of Empress Matilda's
son, Henry Plantagenet of Anjou.)


Of the reign of Stephen, Sir James Mackintosh has said, "It perhaps
contains the most perfect condensation of all the ills of feudality to
be found in history." He adds, "The whole narrative would have been
rejected, as devoid of all likeness to truth, if it had been hazarded in
fiction." As a picture of "all the ills of feudality," this narrative is
a picture of the entire social state--the monarchy, the Church, the
aristocracy, the people--and appears to us, therefore, to demand a more
careful examination than if the historical interest were chiefly centred
in the battles and adventures belonging to a disputed succession, and in
the personal characters of a courageous princess and her knightly rival.

Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, the nephew of King Henry I, was no stranger
to the country which he aspired to rule. He had lived much in England
and was a universal favorite. "From his complacency of manners, and his
readiness to joke, and sit and regale even with low people, he had
gained so much on their affections as is hardly to be conceived." This
popular man was at the death-bed of his uncle; but before the royal body
was borne on the shoulders of nobles from the Castle of Lions to Rouen,
Stephen was on his road to England. He embarked at Whitsand, undeterred
by boisterous weather, and landed during a winter storm of thunder and
lightning. It was a more evil omen when Dover and Canterbury shut their
gates against him. But he went boldly on to London. There can be no
doubt that his proceedings were not the result of a sudden impulse, and
that his usurpation of the crown was successful through a very powerful
organization. His brother Henry was Bishop of Winchester; and his
influence with the other dignitaries of the Church was mainly
instrumental in the election of Stephen to be king, in open disregard of
the oaths taken a few years before to recognize the succession of
Matilda and of her son. Between the death of a king and the coronation
of his successor there was usually a short interval, in which the form
of election was gone through. But it is held that during that suspension
of the royal functions there was usually a proclamation of "the king's
peace," under which all violations of law were punished as if the head
of the law were in the full exercise of his functions and dignities.
King Henry I died on the 1st of December, 1135. Stephen was crowned on
the 26th of December. The death of Henry would probably have been
generally known in England in a week after the event. There is a
sufficient proof that this succession was considered doubtful, and,
consequently, that there was an unusual delay in the proclamation of
"the king's peace." The Forest Laws were the great grievance of Henry's
reign. His death was the signal for their violation by the whole body of
the people. "It was wonderful how so many myriads of wild animals, which
in large herds before plentifully stocked the country, suddenly
disappeared, so that out of the vast number scarcely two now could be
found together. They seemed to be entirely extirpated." According to the
same authority, "the people also turned to plundering each other without
mercy"; and "whatever the evil passions suggested in peaceable times,
now that the opportunity of vengeance presented itself, was quickly
executed." This is a remarkable condition of a country which, having
been governed by terror, suddenly passed out of the evils of despotism
into the greater evils of anarchy. This temporary confusion must have
contributed to urge on the election of Stephen. By the Londoners he was
received with acclamations; and the _witan_ chose him for king without
hesitation, as one who could best fulfil the duties of the office and
put an end to the dangers of the kingdom.

Stephen succeeded to a vast amount of treasure. All the rents of Henry I
had been paid in money, instead of in necessaries; and he was rigid in
enforcing the payment in coin of the best quality. With this possession
of means, Stephen surrounded himself with troops from Flanders and
Brittany. The objections to his want of hereditary right appear to have
been altogether laid aside for a time, in the popularity which he
derived from his personal qualities and his command of wealth. Strict
hereditary claims to the choice of the nation had been disregarded since
the time of the Confessor. The oath to Matilda, it was maintained, had
been unwillingly given, and even extorted by force. It is easy to
conceive that, both to Saxon and Norman, the notion of a female
sovereign would be out of harmony with their ancient traditions and
their warlike habits. The king was the great military chief, as well as
the supreme dispenser of justice and guardian of property. The time was
far distant when the sovereign rule might be held to be most
beneficially exercised by a wise choice of administrators, civil and
military; and the power of the crown, being coördinate with other
powers, strengthening as well as controlling its final authority, might
be safely and happily exercised by a discreet, energetic, and just
female. King Stephen vindicated the choice of the nation at the very
outset of his reign. He went in person against the robbers who were
ravaging the country. The daughter of "the Lion of Justice" would
probably have done the same. But more than three hundred years had
passed since the Lady of Mercia, the sister of Alfred, had asserted the
courage of her race. Norman and Saxon wanted a king; for though ladies
defended castles, and showed that firmness and bravery were not the
exclusive possession of one sex, no thane or baron had yet knelt before
a queen, and sworn to be her "liege man of life and limb."

The unanimity which appeared to hail the accession of Stephen was soon
interrupted. David, King of Scotland, had advanced to Carlisle and
Newcastle, to assert the claim of Matilda which he had sworn to uphold.
But Stephen came against him with a great army, and for a time there was
peace. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry I, had
done homage to Stephen; but his allegiance was very doubtful; and the
general belief that he would renounce his fealty engendered secret
hostility or open resistance among other powerful barons. Robert of
Gloucester very soon defied the King's power. Within two years of his
accession the throne of Stephen was evidently becoming an insecure seat.
To counteract the power of the great nobles, he made a lavish
distribution of crown lands to a large number of tenants-in-chief. Some
of them were called earls; but they had no official charge, as the
greater barons had, but were mere titular lords, made by the royal
bounty. All those who held direct from the Crown were called barons; and
these new barons, who were scattered over the country, had permission
from the King to build castles. Such permission was extended to many
other lay barons. The accustomed manor-house of the land proprietor, in
which he dwelt amid the churls and serfs of his demesne, was now
replaced by a stone tower, surrounded by a moat and a wall. The wooden
one-storied homestead, with its thatched roof, shaded by the "toft" of
ash and elm and maple, was pulled down, and a square fortress with
loopholes and battlement stood in solitary nakedness upon some bleak
hill, ugly and defiant. There with a band of armed men--sometimes with a
wife and children, and not unfrequently with an unhappy victim of his
licentiousness--the baron lived in gloom and gluttony, till the love of
excitement, the approach of want, or the call to battle drove him forth.
His passion for hunting was not always free to be exercised. Venison was
not everywhere to be obtained without danger even to the powerful and
lawless. But within a ride of a few miles there was generally corn in
the barns and herds were in the pastures. The petty baron was almost
invariably a robber--sometimes on his own account, often in some
combined adventure of plunder. The spirit of rapine, always too
prevalent under the strongest government of those times, was now
universal when the government was fighting for its own existence. Bands
of marauders sallied forth from the great towns, especially from
Bristol; and of their proceedings the author of the _Gesta Stephani_
speaks with the precision of an eye-witness. The Bristolians, under the
instigation of the Earl of Gloucester, were partisans of the ex-empress
Matilda; and wherever the King or his adherents had estates they came to
seize their oxen and sheep, and carried men of substance into Bristol as
captives, with bandaged eyes and bits in their mouths. From other towns
as well as Bristol came forth plunderers, with humble gait and courteous
discourse; who, when they met with a lonely man having the appearance of
being wealthy, would bear him off to starvation and torture, till they
had mulcted him to the last farthing. These and other indications of an
unsettled government took place before the landing of Matilda to assert
her claims. An invasion of England, by the Scottish King, without regard
to the previous pacification, was made in 1138. But this attempt,
although grounded upon the oath which David had sworn to Henry, was
regarded by the Northumbrians as a national hostility which demanded a
national resistance. The course of this invasion has been minutely
described by contemporary chroniclers.

The author of the _Gesta Stephani_ says: "Scotland, also called Albany,
is a country overspread by extensive moors, but containing flourishing
woods and pastures, which feed large herds of cows and oxen." Of the
mountainous regions he says nothing. Describing the natives as savage,
swift of foot, and lightly armed, he adds, "A confused multitude of this
people being assembled from the lowlands of Scotland, they were formed
into an irregular army and marched for England." From the period of the
Conquest, a large number of Anglo-Saxons had been settled in the
lowlands; and the border countries of Westmoreland and Cumberland were
also occupied, to a considerable extent, by the same race. The people of
Galloway were chiefly of the original British stock. The historians
describe "the confused multitude" as exercising great cruelties in their
advance through the country that lies between the Tweed and the Tees;
and Matthew Paris uses a significant phrase which marks how completely
they spread over the land. He calls them the "Scottish Ants." The
Archbishop of York, Thurstan, an aged but vigorous man, collected a
large army to resist the invaders; and he made a politic appeal to the
old English nationality, by calling out the population under the banners
of their Saxon saints. The Bishop of Durham was the leader of this army,
composed of the Norman chivalry and the English archers. The opposing
forces met at Northallerton, on the 22d of August, 1138. The
Anglo-Norman army was gathered round a tall cross, raised on a car, and
surrounded by the banners of St. Cuthbert and St. Wilfred and St. John
of Beverley. From this incident the bloody day of Northallerton was
called "the Battle of the Standard." Hoveden has given an oration made
by Ralph, Bishop of Durham, in which he addresses the captains as "Brave
nobles of England, Normans by birth"; and pointing to the enemy, who
knew not the use of armor, exclaims, "Your head is covered with the
helmet, your breast with a coat of mail, your legs with greaves, and
your whole body with the shield." Of the Saxon yeomanry he says nothing.
Whether the oration be genuine or not, it exhibits the mode in which the
mass of the people were regarded at that time. Thierry appears to
consider that the bold attempt of David of Scotland was made in reliance
upon the support of the Anglo-Saxon race. But it is perfectly clear that
they bore the brunt of the English battle; and whatever might be their
wrongs, were not disposed to yield their fields and houses to a fierce
multitude who came for spoil and for possession. The Scotch fought with
darts and long spears, and attacked the solid mass of Normans and
English gathered round the standard. Prince Henry, the son of the King
of Scotland, made a vigorous onslaught with a body of horse, composed of
English and Normans attached to his father's household. These were,
without doubt, especial partisans of the claim to the English crown of
the ex-empress Matilda; and, as the King of Scotland himself is
described, were "inflamed with zeal for a just cause."[42] The issue of
the battle was the signal defeat of the Scottish army, with the loss of
eleven thousand men upon the field. A peace was concluded with King
Stephen in the following year.

[Footnote 42: Scott has given a picturesque account of the battle in his
_Tales of a Grandfather_. Writing, as he often did, from general
impressions, in describing the gallant charge of Prince Henry, he states
that he broke the English line "as if it had been a spider's web."
Hoveden, the historian to whom Scott alludes, applies this strong image
to the scattering of the men of Lothian: "For the Almighty was offended
at them, and their strength was rent like a cobweb."]

The issue of the battle of the Standard might have given rest to England
if Stephen had understood the spirit of his age. In 1139 he engaged in a
contest more full of peril than the assaults of Scotland or the
disturbances of Wales. He had been successful against some of the
disaffected barons. He had besieged and taken Hereford Castle and
Shrewsbury Castle. Dover Castle had surrendered to his Queen. Robert,
Earl of Gloucester, kept possession of the castles of Bristol and Leeds;
and other nobles held out against him in various strong places. London
and some of the larger towns appear to have steadily clung to his
government. The influence of the Church, by which he had been chiefly
raised to sovereignty, had supported him during his four years of
struggle. But that influence was now to be shaken.

The rapid and steady growth of the ecclesiastical power in England, from
the period of the Conquest, is one of the most remarkable
characteristics of that age. This progress we must steadily keep in view
if we would rightly understand the general condition of society. All the
great offices of the Church, with scarcely an exception, were filled by
Normans. The Conqueror sternly resisted any attempts of bishops or
abbots to control his civil government. The "Red King" misappropriated
their revenues in many cases. Henry I quarrelled with Anselm about the
right of investiture, which the Pope declared should not be in the hands
of any layman, but Henry compromised a difficult question with his usual
prudence. Whatever difficulties the Church encountered, during seventy
years, and especially during the whole course of Henry's reign, wealth
flowed in upon the ecclesiastics, from king and noble, from burgess and
socman; and every improvement of the country increased the value of
church possessions. It was not only from the lands of the Crown and the
manors of earls that bishoprics and monasteries derived their large
endowments. Henry I founded the Abbey of Reading, but the _mimus_ of
Henry I built the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew. This
"pleasant-witted gentleman," as Stow calls the royal mimus (which Percy
interprets "minstrel"), having, according to the legend, "diverted the
palaces of princes with courtly mockeries and triflings" for many years,
bethought himself at last of more serious matters, and went to do
penance at Rome. He returned to London; and obtaining a grant of land in
a part of the King's market of Smithfield, which was a filthy marsh
where the common gallows stood, there erected the priory, whose Norman
arches as satisfactorily attest its date as Henry's charter. The piety
of a court jester in the twelfth century, when the science of medicine
was wholly empirical, founded one of the most valuable medical schools
of the nineteenth century. The desire to raise up splendid churches in
the place of the dilapidated Saxon buildings was a passion with Normans,
whether clerics or laymen. Ralph Flambard, the bold and unscrupulous
minister of William II, erected the great priory of Christchurch, in his
capacity of bishop. But he raised the necessary funds with his usual
financial vigor. He took the revenues of the canons into his hands, and
put the canons upon a short allowance till the work was completed. The
Cistercian order of monks was established in England late in the reign
of Henry I. Their rule was one of the most severe mortification and of
the strictest discipline. Their lives were spent in labor and in prayer,
and their one frugal daily meal was eaten in silence. While other
religious orders had their splendid abbeys amid large communities, the
Cistercians humbly asked grants of land in the most solitary places,
where the recluse could meditate without interruption by his fellow-men,
amid desolate moors and in the uncultivated gorges of inaccessible
mountains. In such a barren district Walter l'Espée, who had fought at
Northallerton, founded Rievaulx Abbey. It was "a solitary place in
Blakemore," in the midst of hills. The Norman knight had lost his son,
and here he derived a holy comfort in seeing the monastic buildings rise
under his munificent care, and the waste lands become fertile under the
incessant labors of the devoted monks. The ruins of Tintern Abbey and
Melrose Abbey, whose solemn influences have inspired the poets of our
own age with thoughts akin to the contemplations of their Cistercian
founders, belong to a later period of ecclesiastical architecture; for
the dwellings of the original monks have perished, and the "broken
arches," and "shafted oriel," the "imagery," and "the scrolls that teach
thee to live and die," speak of another century, when the Norman
architecture, like the Norman character, was losing its distinctive
features and becoming "Early English." We dwell a little upon these
Norman foundations, to show how completely the Church was spreading
itself over the land, and asserting its influence in places where man
had seldom trod, as well as in populous towns, where the great cathedral
was crowded with earnest votaries, and the lessons of peace were
proclaimed amid the distractions of unsettled government and the
oppressions of lordly despotism. Whatever was the misery of the country,
the ordinary family ties still bound the people to the universal
Christian church, whether the priest were Norman or English. The
new-born infant was dipped in the great Norman font, as the children of
the Confessor's time had been dipped in the ruder Saxon. The same Latin
office, unintelligible in words, but significant in its import, was said
and sung when the bride stood at the altar and the father was laid in
his grave. The vernacular tongue gradually melted into one dialect; and
the penitent and the confessor were the first to lay aside the great
distinction of race and country--that of language.

The Norman prelates were men of learning and ability, of taste and
magnificence; and, whatever might have been the luxury and even vices of
some among them, the vast revenues of the great sees were not wholly
devoted to worldly pomp, but were applied to noble uses. After the lapse
of seven centuries we still tread with reverence those portions of our
cathedrals in which the early Norman architecture is manifest. There is
no English cathedral in which we are so completely impressed with the
massive grandeur of the round-arched style as by Durham. Durham
Cathedral was commenced in the middle of the reign of Rufus, and the
building went on through the reign of Henry I. Canterbury was commenced
by Archbishop Lanfranc, soon after the Conquest, and was enlarged and
altered in various details, till it was burned in 1174. Some portions of
the original building remain. Rochester was commenced eleven years after
the Conquest; and its present nave is an unaltered part of the original
building. Chichester has nearly the same date of its commencement; and
the building of this church was continued till its dedication in 1148.
Norwich was founded in 1094, and its erection was carried forward so
rapidly that in seven years there were sixty monks here located.
Winchester is one of the earliest of these noble cathedrals; but its
Norman feature of the round arch is not the general characteristic of
the edifice, the original piers having been recased in the pointed
style, in the reign of Edward III. The dates of these buildings, so
grand in their conception, so solid in their execution, would be
sufficient of themselves to show the wealth and activity of the Church
during the reigns of the Conqueror and his sons. But, during this period
of seventy years, and in part of the reign of Stephen, the erection of
monastic buildings was universal in England, as in Continental Europe.
The crusades gave a most powerful impulse to the religious fervor. In
the enthusiasm of chivalry, which covered many of its enormities with
outward acts of piety, vows were frequently made by wealthy nobles that
they would depart for the Holy Wars. But sometimes the vow was
inconvenient. The lady of the castle wept at the almost certain perils
of her lord, and his projects of ambition often kept the lord at home to
look after his own especial interests. Then the vow to wear the cross
might be commuted by the foundation of a religious house. Death-bed
repentance for crimes of violence and a licentious life increased the
number of these endowments. It has been computed that three hundred
monastic establishments were founded in England during the reigns of
Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II.

We have briefly stated these few general facts regarding the outward
manifestation of the power and the wealth of the Church at this period,
to show how important an influence it must have exercised upon all
questions of government. But its organization was of far greater
importance than the aggregate wealth of the sees and abbeys. The English
Church, during the troubled reign of Stephen, had become more completely
under the papal dominion than at any previous period of its history. The
King attempted, rashly perhaps, but honestly, to interpose some check to
the ecclesiastical desire for supremacy; but from the hour when he
entered into a contest with bishops and synods, his reign became one of
kingly trouble and national misery.

The Norman bishops not only combined in their own persons the functions
of the priest and of the lawyer, but were often military leaders. As
barons they had knight-service to perform; and this condition of their
tenures naturally surrounded them with armed retainers. That this
anomalous position should have corrupted the ambitious churchman into a
proud and luxurious lord was almost inevitable. The authority of the
Crown might have been strong enough to repress the individual
discontent, or to punish the individual treason, of these great
prelates; but every one of them was doubly formidable as a member of a
confederacy over which a foreign head claimed to preside. There were
three bishops whose intrigues King Stephen had especially to dread at
the time when an open war for the succession of Matilda was on the point
of bursting forth. Roger, the Bishop of Salisbury, had been promoted
from the condition of a parish priest at Caen, to be chaplain,
secretary, chancellor, and chief justiciary of Henry I. He was
instrumental in the election of Stephen to the throne; and he was
rewarded with extravagant gifts, as he had been previously rewarded by
Henry. Stephen appears to have fostered his rapacity, in the conviction
that his pride would have a speedier fall; the King often saying, "I
would give him half England, if he asked for it: till the time be ripe
he shall tire of asking ere I tire of giving." The time was ripe in
1139. The Bishop had erected castles at Devizes, at Sherborne, and at
Malmesbury. King Henry had given him the castle of Salisbury. This lord
of four castles had powerful auxiliaries in his nephews, the Bishop of
Lincoln and the Bishop of Ely. Alexander of Lincoln had built the
castles of Newark and Sleaford, and was almost as powerful as his uncle.
In July, 1139, a great council was held at Oxford; and thither came
these three bishops with military and secular pomp, and with an escort
that became "the wonder of all beholders." A quarrel ensued between the
retainers of the bishops and those of Alain, Earl of Brittany, about a
right to quarters; and the quarrel went on to a battle, in which men
were slain on both sides. The bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln were
arrested, as breakers of the king's peace. The Bishop of Ely fled to his
uncle's castle of Devizes. The King, under the advice of the sagacious
Earl Millent, resolved to dispossess these dangerous prelates of their
fortresses, which were all finally surrendered. "The bishops, humbled
and mortified, and stripped of all pomp and vainglory, were reduced to a
simple ecclesiastical life, and to the possessions belonging to them as
churchmen." The contemporary who writes this--the author of the _Gesta
Stephani_--although a decided partisan of Stephen, speaks of this event
as the result of mad counsels, and a grievous sin that resembled the
wickedness of the sons of Korah and of Saul. The great body of the
ecclesiastics were indignant at what they considered an offence to their
order. The Bishop of Winchester, the brother of Stephen, had become the
Pope's legate in England, and he summoned the King to attend a synod at
Winchester. He there produced his authority as legate from Pope
Innocent, and denounced the arrest of the bishops as a dreadful crime.
The King had refused to attend the council, but he sent Alberic de Vere,
"a man deeply versed in legal affairs," to represent him. This advocate
urged that the Bishop of Lincoln was the author of the tumult at Oxford;
that whenever Bishop Roger came to court, his people, presuming on his
power, excited tumults; that the Bishop secretly favored the King's
enemies, and was ready to join the party of the Empress. The council was
adjourned, but on a subsequent day came the Archbishop of Rouen, as the
champion of the King, and contended that it was against the canons that
the bishops should possess castles; and that even if they had the right,
they were bound to deliver them up to the will of the King, as the times
were eventful, and the King was bound to make war for the common
security. The Archbishop of Rouen reasoned as a statesman; the Bishop of
Winchester as the Pope's legate. Some of the bishops threatened to
proceed to Rome; and the King's advocate intimated that if they did so,
their return might not be so easy. Swords were at last unsheathed. The
King and the earls were now in open hostility with the legate and the
bishops. Excommunication of the King was hinted at; but persuasion was
resorted to. Stephen, according to one authority, made humble
submission, and thus "abated the rigor of ecclesiastical discipline." If
he did submit, his submission was too late. Within a month Earl Robert
and the empress Matilda were in England.

Matilda and the Earl of Gloucester landed at Arundel, where the widow of
Henry I was dwelling. They had a very small force to support their
pretensions. The Earl crossed the country to Bristol. "All England was
struck with alarm, and men's minds were agitated in various ways. Those
who secretly or openly favored the invaders were roused to more than
usual activity against the King, while his own partisans were terrified
as if a thunderbolt had fallen." Stephen invested the castle of Arundel.
But in the most romantic spirit of chivalry he permitted the Empress to
pass out, and to set forward to join her brother at Bristol, under a
safe-conduct. In 1140 the whole kingdom appears to have been subjected
to the horrors of a partisan warfare. The barons in their castles were
making a show of "defending their neighborhoods, but, more properly to
speak, were laying them waste." The legate and the bishops were
excommunicating the plunderers of churches, but the plunderers laughed
at their anathemas. Freebooters came over from Flanders, not to practise
the industrial arts as in the time of Henry I, but to take their part in
the general pillage. There was frightful scarcity in the country, and
the ordinary interchange of man with man was unsettled by the debasement
of the coin. "All things," says Malmesbury, "became venial in England;
and churches and abbeys were no longer secretly but even publicly
exposed to sale." All things become venial, under a government too weak
to repress plunder or to punish corruption. The strong aim to be rich by
rapine, and the cunning by fraud, when the confusion of a kingdom is
grown so great that, as is recorded of this period, "the neighbor could
put no faith in his nearest neighbor, nor the friend in his friend, nor
the brother in his own brother." The demoralization of anarchy is even
more terrible than its bloodshed.

The marches and sieges, the revolts and treacheries, of this evil time
are occasionally varied by incidents which illustrate the state of
society. Robert Fitz-Herbert, with a detachment of the Earl of
Gloucester's soldiers, surprised the castle of Devizes, which the King
had taken from the Bishop of Salisbury. Robert Fitz-Herbert varies the
atrocities of his fellow-barons, by rubbing his prisoners with honey,
and exposing them naked to the sun. But Robert, having obtained Devizes,
refused to admit the Earl of Gloucester to any advantage of its
possession, and commenced the subjection of the neighborhood on his own
account. Another crafty baron, John Fitz-Gilbert, held the castle of
Marlborough; and Robert Fitz-Herbert, having an anxious desire to be
lord of that castle also, endeavoring to cajole Fitz-Gilbert into the
admission of his followers, went there as a guest, but was detained as a
prisoner. Upon this the Earl of Gloucester came in force for revenge
against his treacherous ally, Fitz-Herbert, and, conducting him to
Devizes, there hanged him. The surprise of Lincoln Castle, upon which
the events of 1141 mainly turned, is equally characteristic of the age.
Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and William de Roumare, his half-brother, were
avowed friends of King Stephen. But their ambition took a new direction
for the support of Matilda. The garrison of Lincoln had no apprehension
of a surprise, and were busy in those sports which hardy men enjoy even
amid the rougher sport of war. The Countess of Chester and her
sister-in-law, with a politeness that the ladies of the court of Louis
le Grand could not excel, paid a visit to the wife of the knight who had
the defence of the castle. While there, at this pleasant morning call,
"talking and joking" with the unsuspecting matron, as Ordericus relates,
the Earl of Chester came in, "without his armor or even his mantle,"
attended only by three soldiers. His courtesy was as flattering as that
of his countess and her friend. But his men-at-arms suddenly mastered
the unprepared guards, and the gates were thrown open to Earl William
and his numerous followers. The earls, after this stratagem, held the
castle against the King, who speedily marched to Lincoln. But the Earl
of Chester contrived to leave the castle, and soon raised a powerful
army of his own vassals. The Earl of Gloucester joined him with a
considerable force, and they together advanced to the relief of the
besieged city. The battle of Lincoln was preceded by a trifling incident
to which the chroniclers have attached importance. It was the Feast of
the Purification; and at the mass which was celebrated at the dawn of
day, when the King was holding a lighted taper in his hand it was
suddenly extinguished. "This was an omen of sorrow to the King," says
Hoveden. But another chronicler, the author of the _Gesta Stephain_,
tells us, in addition, that the wax candle was suddenly relighted; and
he accordingly argues that this incident was "a token that for his sins
he should be deprived of his crown, but on his repentance, through God's
mercy, he should wonderfully and gloriously recover it." The King had
been more than a month laying siege to the castle, and his army was
encamped around the city of Lincoln. When it was ascertained that his
enemies were at hand he was advised to raise the siege and march out to
strengthen his power by a general levy. He decided upon instant battle.
He was then exhorted not to fight on the solemn festival of the
Purification. But his courage was greater than his prudence or his
piety. He set forth to meet the insurgent earls. The best knights were
in his army; but the infantry of his rivals was far more numerous.
Stephen detached a strong body of horse and foot to dispute the passage
of a ford of the Trent. But Gloucester by an impetuous charge obtained
possession of the ford, and the battle became general. The King's
horsemen fled. The desperate bravery of Stephen, and the issue of the
battle, have been described by Henry of Huntingdon with singular
animation: "King Stephen, therefore, with his infantry, stood alone in
the midst of the enemy. These surrounded the royal troops, attacking the
columns on all sides, as if they were assaulting a castle. Then the
battle raged terribly round this circle; helmets and swords gleamed as
they clashed, and the fearful cries and shouts reëchoed from the
neighboring hills and city walls. The cavalry, furiously charging the
royal column, slew some and trampled down others; some were made
prisoners. No respite, no breathing time, was allowed; except in the
quarter in which the King himself had taken his stand, where the
assailants recoiled from the unmatched force of his terrible arm. The
Earl of Chester seeing this, and envious of the glory the King was
gaining, threw himself upon him with the whole weight of his
men-at-arms. Even then the King's courage did not fail, but his heavy
battle-axe gleamed like lightning, striking down some, bearing back
others. At length it was shattered by repeated blows. Then he drew his
well-tried sword, with which he wrought wonders, until that too was
broken. Perceiving which, William de Kaims, a brave soldier, rushed on
him, and seizing him by his helmet, shouted, 'Here, here, I have taken
the King!' Others came to his aid, and the King was made prisoner."

After the capture of King Stephen, at this brief but decisive battle, he
was kept a close prisoner at Bristol Castle. Then commenced what might
be called the reign of Queen Matilda, which lasted about eight months.
The defeat of Stephen was the triumph of the greater ecclesiastics. On
the third Sunday in Lent, 1141, there was a conference on the plain in
the neighborhood of Winchester--a day dark and rainy, which portended
disasters. The Bishop of Winchester came forth from his city with all
the pomp of the pope's legate; and there Matilda swore that in all
matters of importance, and especially in the bestowal of bishoprics and
abbeys, she would submit to the Church; and the Bishop and his
supporters pledged their faith to the Empress on these conditions. After
Easter, a great council was held at Winchester, which the Bishop called
as the Pope's vicegerent. The unscrupulous churchman boldly came
forward, and denounced his brother, inviting the assembly to elect a
sovereign; and, with an amount of arrogance totally unprecedented, thus
asserted the notorious untruth that the right of electing a king of
England principally belonged to the clergy: "The case was yesterday
agitated before a part of the higher clergy of England, to whose right
it principally pertains to elect the sovereign, and also to crown him.
First, then, as is fitting, invoking God's assistance, we elect the
daughter of that peaceful, that glorious, that rich, that good, and in
our times incomparable king, as sovereign of England and Normandy, and
promise her fidelity and support." The Bishop then said to the
applauding assembly: "We have despatched messengers for the Londoners,
who, from the importance of their city in England, are almost nobles, as
it were, to meet us on this business." The next day the Londoners came.
They were sent, they said, by their fraternity to entreat that their
lord, the King, might be liberated from captivity. The legate refused
them, and repeated his oration against his brother. It was a work of
great difficulty to soothe the minds of the Londoners; and St. John's
Day had arrived before they would consent to acknowledge Matilda. Many
parts of the kingdom had then submitted to her government, and she
entered London with great state. Her nature seems to have been rash and
imperious. Her first act was to demand subsidies of the citizens; and
when they said that their wealth was greatly diminished by the troubled
state of the kingdom, she broke forth into insufferable rage. The
vigilant queen of Stephen, who kept possession of Kent, now approached
the city with a numerous force, and by her envoys demanded her husband's
freedom. Of course her demand was made in vain. She then put forth a
front of battle. Instead of being crowned at Westminster, the daughter
of Henry I fled in terror; for "the whole city flew to arms at the
ringing of the bells, which was the signal for war, and all with one
accord rose upon the Countess [of Anjou] and her adherents, as swarms of
wasps issue from their hives."

William Fitzstephen, the biographer of Thomas à Becket, in his
_Description of London_, supposed to be written about the middle of the
reign of Henry II, says of this city, "ennobled by her men, graced by
her arms, and peopled by a multitude of inhabitants," that "in the wars
under King Stephen there went out to a muster of armed horsemen,
esteemed fit for war, twenty thousand, and of infantry, sixty thousand."
In general, the _Description of London_ appears trustworthy, and in some
instances is supported by other authorities. But this vast number of
fighting men must, unquestionably, be exaggerated: unless, as Lyttelton
conjectures, such a muster included the militia of Middlesex, Kent, and
other counties adjacent to London. Peter of Blois, in the reign of Henry
II, reckons the inhabitants of the city at forty thousand. That the
citizens were trained to warlike exercises, and that their manly sports
nurtured them in the hardihood of military habits, we may well conclude
from Fitzstephen's account of this community at a little later period
than that of which we are writing. To the north of the city were pasture
lands, with streams on whose banks the clack of many mills was pleasing
to the ear; and beyond was an immense forest, with densely wooded
thickets, where stags, fallow-deer, boars, and wild bulls had their
coverts. We have seen that in the charter of Henry I the citizens had
liberty to hunt through a very extensive district, and hawking was also
among their free recreations. Football was the favorite game; and the
boys of the schools, and the various guilds of craftsmen, had each their
ball. The elder citizens came on horseback to see these contests of the
young men. Every Sunday in Lent a company with lances and shields went
out to joust. In the Easter holidays they had river tournaments. During
the summer the youths exercised themselves in leaping, archery,
wrestling, stone-throwing, slinging javelins, and fighting with
bucklers. When the great marsh which washed the walls of the city on the
north was frozen over, sliding, sledging, and skating were the sports of
crowds. They had sham fights on the ice, and legs and arms were
sometimes broken. "But," says Fitzstephen, "youth is an age eager for
glory and desirous of victory, and so young men engage in counterfeit
battles, that they may conduct themselves more valiantly in real ones."
That universal love of hardy sports, which is one of the greatest
characteristics of England, and from which we derive no little of that
spirit which keeps our island safe, is not of modern growth. It was one
of the most important portions of the education of the people seven
centuries ago.

It was this community, then, so brave, so energetic, so enriched by
commerce above all the other cities of England, that resolutely abided
by the fortunes of King Stephen. They had little to dread from any
hostile assaults of the rival faction; for the city was strongly
fortified on all sides except to the river; but on that side it was
secure, after the Tower was built. The palace of Westminster had also a
breastwork and bastions. After Matilda had taken her hasty departure,
the indignant Londoners marched out, and they sustained a principal part
in what has been called "the rout of Winchester," in which Robert, Earl
of Gloucester, was taken prisoner. The ex-Empress escaped to Devizes.
The capture of the Earl of Gloucester led to important results. A
convention was agreed to between the adherents of each party that the
King should be exchanged for the Earl. Stephen was once more "every inch
a king." But still there was no peace in the land.

The Bishop of Winchester had again changed his side. In the hour of
success the empress Matilda had refused the reasonable request that
Prince Eustace, the son of Stephen, should be put in possession of his
father's earldom of Boulogne. Malmesbury says, "A misunderstanding arose
between the legate and the Empress which may be justly considered as the
melancholy cause of every subsequent evil in England." The chief actors
in this extraordinary drama present a curious study of human character.
Matilda, resting her claim to the throne upon her legitimate descent
from Henry I, who had himself usurped the throne--possessing her
father's courage and daring, with some of his cruelty--haughty,
vindictive--furnishes one of the most striking portraits of the proud
lady of the feudal period, who shrank from no danger by reason of her
sex, but made the homage of chivalry to woman a powerful instrument for
enforcing her absolute will. The Earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate
brother of Matilda, brave, steadfast, of a free and generous nature, a
sagacious counsellor, a lover of literature, appears to have had few of
the vices of that age, and most of its elevating qualities. Of Stephen
it has been said, "He deserves no other reproach than that of having
embraced the occupation of a captain of banditti." This appears rather a
harsh judgment from a philosophical writer. Bearing in mind that the
principle of election prevailed in the choice of a king, whatever was
the hereditary claim, and seeing how welcome was the advent of Stephen
when he came, in 1135, to avert the dangers of the kingdom, he merits
the title of "a captain of banditti" no more than Harold or William the
Conqueror. After the contests of six years--the victories, the defeats,
the hostility of the Church, his capture and imprisonment--the
attachment of the people of the great towns to his person and government
appears to have been unshaken. When he was defeated at Lincoln, and led
captive through the city, "the surrounding multitude were moved with
pity, shedding tears and uttering cries of grief." Ordericus says: "The
King's disaster filled with grief the clergy and monks and the common
people; because he was condescending and courteous to those who were
good and quiet, and if his treacherous nobles had allowed it, he would
have put an end to their rapacious enterprises, and been a generous
protector and benevolent friend of the country." The fourth and not
least remarkable personage of this history is Henry, the Bishop of
Winchester, and the Pope's legate. At that period, when the functions of
churchman and statesman were united, we find this man the chief
instrument for securing the crown for his brother. He subsequently
becomes the vicegerent of the papal see. Stephen, with more justice than
discretion, is of opinion that bishops are not doing their duty when
they build castles, ride about in armor, with crowds of retainers, and
are not at all scrupulous in appropriating some of the booty of a
lawless time. From the day when he exhibited his hostility to fighting
bishops, the Pope's legate was his brother's deadly enemy. But he found
that the rival whom he had set up was by no means a pliant tool in his
hands, and he then turned against Matilda. When Stephen had shaken off
the chains with which he was loaded in Bristol Castle, the Bishop
summoned a council at Westminster, on his legatine authority; and there
"by great powers of eloquence, endeavored to extenuate the odium of his
own conduct"; affirming that he had supported the Empress, "not from
inclination, but necessity." He then "commanded on the part of God and
of the Pope, that they should strenuously assist the King, appointed by
the will of the people, and by the approbation of the Holy See."
Malmesbury, who records these doings, adds that a layman sent from the
Empress affirmed that "her coming to England had been effected by the
legate's frequent letters"; and that "her taking the King, and holding
him in captivity, had been done principally by his connivance." The
reign of Stephen is not only "the most perfect condensation of all the
ills of feudality," but affords a striking picture of the ills which
befall a people when an ambitious hierarchy, swayed to and fro at the
will of a foreign power, regards the supremacy of the Church as the one
great object to be attained, at whatever expense of treachery and
falsehood, of national degradation and general suffering.

In 1142 the civil war is raging more fiercely than ever. Matilda is at
Oxford, a fortified city, protected by the Thames, by a wall, and by an
impregnable castle. Stephen, with a body of veterans, wades across the
river and enters the city. Matilda and her followers take refuge in the
keep. For three months the King presses the siege, surrounding the
fortress on all sides. Famine is approaching to the helpless garrison.
It is the Christmas season. The country is covered with a deep snow. The
Thames and the tributary rivers are frozen over. With a small escort
Matilda contrives to escape, and passes undiscovered through the royal
posts, on a dark and silent night, when no sound is heard but the clang
of a trumpet or the challenge of a sentinel. In the course of the night
she went to Abingdon on foot, and afterwards reached Wallingford on
horseback. The author of the _Gesta Stephani_ expresses his wonder at
the marvellous escapes of this courageous woman. The changes of her
fortune are equally remarkable. After the flight from Oxford the arms of
the Earl of Gloucester are again successful. Stephen is beaten at
Wilton, and retreats precipitately with his military brother, the Bishop
of Winchester. There are now in the autumn of 1142 universal turmoil and
desolation. Many people emigrate. Others crowd round the sanctuary of
the churches, and dwell there in mean hovels. Famine is general. Fields
are white with ripened corn, but the cultivators have fled, and there is
none to gather the harvest. Cities are deserted and depopulated. Fierce
foreign mercenaries, for whom the barons have no pay, pillage the farms
and the monasteries. The bishops, for the most part, rest supine amid
all this storm of tyranny. When they rouse themselves they increase
rather than mitigate the miseries of the people. Milo, Earl of Hereford,
has demanded money of the Bishop of Hereford to pay his troops. The
Bishop refuses, and Milo seizes his lands and goods. The Bishop then
pronounces sentence of excommunication against Milo and his adherents,
and lays an interdict upon the country subject to the Earl's authority.
We might hastily think that the solemn curse pronounced against a
nation, or a district, was an unmeaning ceremony, with its "bell, book,
and candle," to terrify only the weakminded. It was one of the most
outrageous of the numerous ecclesiastical tyrannies. The consolations of
religion were eagerly sought for and justly prized by the great body of
the people, who earnestly believed that a happy future would be a reward
for the patient endurance of a miserable present. As they were admitted
to the holy communion, they recognized an acknowledgment of the equality
of men before the great Father of all. Their marriages were blessed and
their funerals were hallowed. Under an interdict all the churches were
shut. No knell was tolled for the dead, for the dead remained unburied.
No merry peals welcomed the bridal procession, for no couple could be
joined in wedlock. The awe-stricken mother might have her infant
baptized, and the dying might receive extreme unction. But all public
offices of the Church were suspended. If we imagine such a condition of
society in a village devastated by fire and sword, we may wonder how a
free government and a Christian church have ever grown up among us.

If Stephen had quietly possessed the throne, and his heir had succeeded
him, the crowns of England and Normandy would have been disconnected
before the thirteenth century. Geoffrey of Anjou, while his duchess was
in England, had become master of Normandy, and its nobles had
acknowledged his son Henry as their rightful duke. The boy was in
England, under the protection of the Earl of Gloucester, who attended to
his education. The great Earl died in 1147. For a few years there had
been no decided contest between the forces of the King and the Empress.
After eight years of terrible hostility, and of desperate adventure,
Matilda left the country. Stephen made many efforts to control the
license of the barons, but with little effect. He was now engaged in
another quarrel with the Church. His brother had been superseded as
legate by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, in consequence of the
death of the Pope who had supported the Bishop of Winchester. Theobald
was Stephen's enemy, and his hostility was rendered formidable by his
alliance with Bigod, the Earl of Norfolk. The Archbishop excommunicated
Stephen and his adherents, and the King was enforced to submission. In
1150 Stephen, having been again reconciled to the Church, sought the
recognition of his son Eustace as the heir to the kingdom. This
recognition was absolutely refused by the Archbishop, who said that
Stephen was regarded by the papal see as an usurper. But time was
preparing a solution of the difficulties of the kingdom. Henry of Anjou
was grown into manhood. Born in 1133, he had been knighted by his uncle,
David of Scotland, in 1149. His father died in 1151, and he became not
only Duke of Normandy, but Earl of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine. In 1152
he contracted a marriage of ambition with Eleanor, the divorced wife of
Louis of France, and thus became Lord of Aquitaine and Poitou, which
Eleanor possessed in her own right. Master of all the western coast of
France, from the Somme to the Pyrenees, with the exception of Brittany,
his ambition, thus strengthened by his power, prepared to dispute the
sovereignty of England with better hopes than ever waited on his
mother's career. He landed with a well-appointed band of followers in
1153, and besieged various castles. But no general encounter took place.
The King and the Duke had a conference, without witnesses, across a
rivulet, and this meeting prepared the way for a final pacification. The
negotiators were Henry, the Bishop, on the one part, and Theobald, the
Archbishop, on the other. Finally Stephen led the Prince in solemn
procession through the streets of Winchester, "and all the great men of
the realm, by the King's command, did homage, and pronounced the fealty
due to their liege lord, to the Duke of Normandy, saving only their
allegiance to King Stephen during his life." Stephen's son Eustace had
died during the negotiations. The troublesome reign of Stephen was soon
after brought to a close. He died on the 25th of October, 1154. His
constant and heroic queen had died three years before him.



ANTIPAPAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT: ARNOLD OF BRESCIA

ST. BERNARD AND THE SECOND CRUSADE

A.D. 1145-1155

JOHANN A.W. NEANDER


(During the first half of the twelfth century--a period marked by
conflicting spiritual tendencies--in Italy began a work of political and
religious reform, which has ever since been associated with the name of
its chief originator and apostle, Arnold of Brescia, so called from his
native city in Lombardy. He was born about the year 1100, became a
disciple of Abelard--whose teachings fired him with enthusiasm--and
entered the priesthood.

Although quite orthodox in doctrine, he rebelled against the
secularization of the Church--which had given to the pope almost supreme
power in temporal affairs--and against the worldly disposition and life
then prevalent among ecclesiastics and monks. His own life was sternly
simple and ascetic, and this habit had been strongly confirmed by the
ethical passion which burned in the religious and philosophical
instructions of Abelard. With the popular religion Arnold had earnest
sympathy, but he would reduce the clergy to their primitive and
apostolic poverty, depriving them of individual wealth and of all
temporal power.

The inspiring idea of Arnold's movement was that of a holy and pure
church, a renovation of the spiritual order after the pattern of the
apostolic church. He conformed in dress as well as in his mode of life
to the principles he taught. The worldly and often corrupt clergy, he
maintained, were unfit to discharge the priestly functions--they were no
longer priests, and the secularized Church was no longer the house of
God.

Arnold dreamed of a great Christian republic and labored to establish
it, insomuch that his ideal, never realized in concrete form, either in
church or state, took, and in history has kept, the name of republic.
His eloquence and sincerity brought him powerful popular support, and
even a large part of the nobility were won to his side. But of course,
among those whom his aims condemned or antagonized, there were many who
spared no pains to place him in an unfavorable light and to bring his
labors to naught. In the simple story of his career, as here told by the
great church historian, his figure appears in an attitude of heroism,
which the pathos of his end can only make the reader more deeply
appreciate. Through all this agitation is heard the voice of St. Bernard
urging the religious conscience and better aspiration of the time,
preaching the Second Crusade, and speeding its eastward march with
earnest expectation--his high hope doomed to perish with its inglorious
result.)


Arnold's discourses were directly calculated by their tendency to find
ready entrance into the minds of the laity, before whose eyes the
worldly lives of the ecclesiastics and monks were constantly present,
and to create a faction in deadly hostility to the clergy. Superadded to
this was the inflammable matter already prepared by the collision of the
spirit of political freedom with the power of the higher clergy. Thus
Arnold's addresses produced in the minds of the Italian people, quite
susceptible to such excitements, a prodigious effect, which threatened
to spread more widely, and Pope Innocent felt himself called upon to
take preventive measures against it. At the Lateran Council, in the year
1139, he declared against Arnold's proceedings, and commanded him to
quit Italy--the scene of the disturbances thus far--and not to return
again without express permission from the Pope. Arnold, moreover, is
said to have bound himself by an oath to obey this injunction, which
probably was expressed in such terms as to leave him free to interpret
it as referring exclusively to the person of Pope Innocent. If the oath
was not so expressed, he might afterward have been accused of violating
that oath. It is to be regretted that the form in which the sentence was
pronounced against Arnold has not come down to us; but from its very
character it is evident that he could not have been convicted of any
false doctrine, since otherwise the Pope would certainly not have
treated him so mildly--would not have been contented with merely
banishing him from Italy, since teachers of false doctrine would be
dangerous to the Church everywhere.

Bernard, moreover, in his letter directed against Arnold, states that he
was accused before the Pope of being the author of a very bad schism.
Arnold now betook himself to France, and here he became entangled in the
quarrels with his old teacher Abelard, to whom he was indebted for the
first impulse of his mind toward this more serious and free bent of the
religious spirit. Expelled from France, he directed his steps to
Switzerland, and sojourned in Zurich. The abbot Bernard thought it
necessary to caution the Bishop of Constance against him; but the man
who had been condemned by the Pope found protection there from the papal
legate, Cardinal Guido, who, indeed, made him a member of his household
and companion of his table. The abbot Bernard severely censured the
prelate, on the ground that Arnold's connection with him would
contribute, without fail, to give importance and influence to that
dangerous man. This deserves to be noticed on two accounts, for it makes
it evident what power he could exercise over men's minds, and that no
false doctrines could be charged to his account.

But independent of Arnold's personal presence, the impulse which he had
given continued to operate in Italy, and the effects of it extended even
to Rome. By the papal condemnation, public attention was only more
strongly drawn to the subject.

The Romans certainly felt no great sympathy for the religious element in
that serious spirit of reform which animated Arnold; but the political
movements, which had sprung out of his reforming tendency, found a point
of attachment in their love of liberty, and their dreams of the ancient
dominion of Rome over the world. The idea of emancipating themselves
from the yoke of the Pope, and of reestablishing the old Republic,
flattered their Roman pride. Espousing the principles of Arnold, they
required that the Pope, as spiritual head of the Church, should confine
himself to the administration of spiritual affairs; and they committed
to a senate the supreme direction of civil affairs.

Innocent could do nothing to stem such a violent current; and he died in
the midst of these disturbances, in the year 1143. The mild Cardinal
Guido, the friend of Abelard and Arnold, became his successor, and
called himself, when pope, Celestine II. By his gentleness, quiet was
restored for a short time. Perhaps it was the news of the elevation of
this friendly man to the papal throne that encouraged Arnold himself to
come to Rome. But Celestine died after six months, and Lucius II was his
successor. Under his reign the Romans renewed the former agitations with
more violence; they utterly renounced obedience to the Pope, whom they
recognized only in his priestly character, and the restored Roman
Republic sought to strike a league in opposition to the Pope and to
papacy with the new Emperor, Conrad III.

In the name of the "senate and Roman people," a pompous letter was
addressed to Conrad. The Emperor was invited to come to Rome, that from
thence, like Justinian and Constantine, in former days, he might give
laws to the world.

Caesar should have the things that are Caesar's; the priest the things
that are the priest's, as Christ ordained when Peter paid the tribute
money. Long did the tendency awakened by Arnold's principles continue to
agitate Rome. In the letters written amidst these commotions, by
individual noblemen of Rome to the Emperor, we perceive a singular
mixing together of the Arnoldian spirit with the dreams of Roman vanity;
a radical tendency to the separation of secular from spiritual things
which if it had been capable enough in itself, and if it could have
found more points of attachment in the age, would have brought
destruction on the old theocratical system of the Church. They said that
the Pope could claim no political sovereignty in Rome; he could not even
be consecrated without the consent of the Emperor--a rule which had in
fact been observed till the time of Gregory VII. Men complained of the
worldliness of the clergy, of their bad lives, of the contradiction
between their conduct and the teachings of Scripture.

The popes were accused as the instigators of the wars. "The popes," it
was said, "should no longer unite the cup of the eucharist with the
sword; it was their vocation to preach, and to confirm what they
preached by good works. How could those who eagerly grasped at all the
wealth of this world, and corrupted the true riches of the Church, the
doctrine of salvation obtained by Christ, by their false doctrines and
their luxurious living, receive that word of our Lord, 'Blessed are the
poor in spirit,' when they were poor themselves neither in fact nor in
disposition?" Even the donative of Constantine to the Roman bishop
Silvester was declared to be a pitiable fiction. This lie had been so
clearly exposed that it was obvious to the very day-laborers and to
women, and that these could put to silence the most learned men if they
ventured to defend the genuineness of this donative; so that the Pope,
with his cardinals, no longer dared to appear in public. But Arnold was
perhaps the only individual in whose case such a tendency was deeply
rooted in religious conviction; with many it was but a transitory
intoxication, in which their political interests had become merged for
the moment.

The pope Lucius II was killed as early as 1145, in the attack on the
Capitol. A scholar of the great abbot Bernard, the abbot Peter Bernard
of Pisa, now mounted the papal chair under the name of Eugene III. As
Eugene honored and loved the abbot Bernard as his spiritual father and
old preceptor, so the latter took advantage of his relation to the Pope
to speak the truth to him with a plainness which no other man would
easily have ventured to use. In congratulating him upon his elevation to
the papal dignity, he took occasion to exhort him to do away with the
many abuses which had become so widely spread in the Church by worldly
influences. "Who will give me the satisfaction," said he in his letter,
"of beholding the Church of God, before I die, in a condition like that
in which it was in ancient days, when the apostles threw out their nets,
not for silver and gold, but for souls? How fervently I wish thou
mightest inherit the word of that apostle whose episcopal seat thou hast
acquired, of him who said, 'Thy gold perish with thee.' Oh that all the
enemies of Zion might tremble before this dreadful word, and shrink back
abashed! This, thy mother indeed expects and requires of thee, for this
long and sigh the sons of thy mother, small and great, that every plant
which our Father in heaven has not planted may be rooted up by thy
hands." He then alluded to the sudden deaths of the last predecessors of
the Pope, exhorting him to humility, and reminding him of his
responsibility. "In all thy works," he wrote, "remember that thou art a
man; and let the fear of Him who taketh away the breath of rulers be
ever before thine eyes."

Eugene was soon forced to yield, it is true, to the superior force of
the insurrectionary spirit in Rome, and in 1146 to take refuge in
France; but, like Urban and Innocent, he too, from this country,
attained to the highest triumph of the papal power. Like Innocent, he
found there, in the abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, a mightier instrument
for operating on the minds of the age than he could have found in any
other country; and like Urban, when banished from the ancient seat of
the papacy, he was enabled to place himself at the head of a crusade
proclaimed in his name, and undertaken with great enthusiasm; an
enterprise from which a new impression of sacredness would be reflected
back upon his own person.

The news of the success which had attended the arms of the Saracens in
Syria, the defeat of the Christians, the conquest of the ancient
Christian territory of Edessa, the danger which threatened the new
Christian kingdom of Jerusalem and the Holy City, had spread alarm among
the Western nations, and the Pope considered himself bound to summon the
Christians of the West to the assistance of their hard-pressed brethren
in the faith and to the recovery of the holy places. By a letter
directed to the abbot Bernard he commissioned him to exhort the Western
Christians in his name, that, for penance and forgiveness of sins, they
should march to the East, to deliver their brethren, or to give up their
lives for them. Enthusiastic for the cause himself Bernard communicated,
through the power of the living word and by letters, his enthusiasm to
the nations. He represented the new crusade as a means furnished by God
to the multitudes sunk in sin, of calling them to repentance, and of
paving the way, by devout participation in a pious work, for the
forgiveness of their sins. Thus, in his letter to the clergy and people
in East Frankland (Germany), he exhorts them eagerly to lay hold on this
opportunity; he declares that the Almighty condescended to invite
murderers, robbers, adulterers, perjurers, and those sunk in other
crimes, into his service, as well as the righteous. He calls upon them
to make an end of waging war with one another, and to seek an object for
their warlike prowess in this holy contest. "Here, brave warrior," he
exclaims, "thou hast a field where thou mayest fight without danger,
where victory is glory and death is gain. Take the sign of the cross,
and thou shalt obtain the forgiveness of all the sins which thou hast
never confessed with a contrite heart." By Bernard's fiery discourses
men of all ranks were carried away. In France and in Germany he
travelled about, conquering by an effort his great bodily infirmities,
and the living word from his lips produced even mightier effects than
his letters.

A peculiar charm, and a peculiar power of moving men's minds, must have
existed in the tones of his voice; to this must be added the
awe-inspiring effect of his whole appearance, the way in which his whole
being and the motions of his bodily frame joined in testifying of that
which seized and inspired him. Thus it admits of being explained how, in
Germany, even those who understood but little, or in fact nothing, of
what he said, could be so moved as to shed tears and smite their
breasts; could, by his own speeches in a foreign language, be more
strongly affected and agitated than by the immediate interpretation of
his words by another. From all quarters sick persons were conveyed to
him by the friends who sought from him a cure; and the power of his
faith, the confidence he inspired in the minds of men, might sometimes
produce remarkable effects. With this enthusiasm, however, Bernard
united a degree of prudence and a discernment of character such as few
of that age possessed, and such qualities were required to counteract
the multiform excitements of the wild spirit of fanaticism which mixed
in with this great ferment of minds.

Thus, he warned the Germans not to suffer themselves to be misled so far
as to follow certain independent enthusiasts, ignorant of war, who were
bent on moving forward the bodies of the crusaders prematurely. He held
up as a warning the example of Peter the Hermit, and declared himself
very decidedly opposed to the proposition of an abbot who was disposed
to march with a number of monks to Jerusalem; "for," said he, "fighting
warriors are more needed there than singing monks." At an assembly held
at Chartres it was proposed that he himself should take the lead of the
expedition; but he rejected the proposition at once, declaring that it
was beyond his power and contrary to his calling. Having, perhaps,
reason to fear that the Pope might be hurried on, by the shouts of the
many, to lay upon him some charge to which he did not feel himself
called, he besought the Pope that he would not make him a victim to
men's arbitrary will, but that he would inquire, as it was his duty to
do, how God had determined to dispose of him.

With the preaching of this Second Crusade, as with the invitation to the
First, was connected an extraordinary awakening. Many who had hitherto
given themselves up to their unrestrained passions and desires, and
become strangers to all higher feelings, were seized with compunction.
Bernard's call to repentance penetrated many a heart; people who had
lived in all manner of crime were seen following this voice and flocking
together in troops to receive the badge of the cross. Bishop Otto of
Freisingen, the historian, who himself took the cross at that time,
expresses it as his opinion "that every man of sound understanding would
be forced to acknowledge so sudden and uncommon a change could have been
produced in no other way than by the right hand of the Lord." The
provost Gerhoh of Reichersberg, who wrote in the midst of these
movements, was persuaded that he saw here a work of the Holy Spirit,
designed to counteract the vices and corruptions which had got the upper
hand in the Church.

Many who had been awakened to repentance confessed what they had taken
from others by robbery or fraud, and hastened, before they went to the
holy war, to seek reconciliation with their enemies. The Christian
enthusiasm of the German people found utterance in songs in the German
tongue; and even now the peculiar adaptation of this language to sacred
poetry began to be remarked. Indecent songs could no longer venture to
appear abroad.

While some were awakened by Bernard's preaching from a life of crime to
repentance, and by taking part in the holy war strove to obtain the
remission of their sins, others again, who though hitherto borne along
in the current of ordinary worldly pursuits, yet had not given
themselves up to vice, were filled by Bernard's words with loathing of
the worldly life, inflamed with a vehement longing after a higher stage
of Christian perfection, after a life of entire consecration to God.
They longed rather to enter upon the pilgrimage to the heavenly than to
an earthly Jerusalem; they resolved to become monks, and would fain have
the man of God himself, whose words had made so deep an impression on
their hearts, as their guide in the spiritual life, and commit
themselves to his directions, in the monastery of Clairvaux. But here
Bernard showed his prudence and knowledge of mankind; he did not allow
all to become monks who wished to do so. Many he rejected because he
perceived they were not fitted for the quiet of the contemplative life,
but needed to be disciplined by the conflicts and cares of a life of
action.

As contemporaries themselves acknowledge, these first impressions, in
the case of many who went to the crusades, were of no permanent
duration, and their old nature broke forth again the more strongly under
the manifold temptations to which they were exposed, in proportion to
the facility with which, through the confidence they reposed in a
plenary indulgence, without really laying to heart the condition upon
which it was bestowed, they could flatter themselves with security in
their sins.

Gerhoh of Reichersberg, in describing the blessed effects of that
awakening which accompanied the preaching of the crusader, yet says: "We
doubt not that among so vast a multitude some became in the true sense
and in all sincerity soldiers of Christ. Some, however, were led to
embark in the enterprise by various other occasions, concerning whom it
does not belong to us to judge, but only to Him who alone knows the
hearts of those who marched to the contest either in the right or not in
the right spirit. Yet this we do confidently affirm, that to this
crusade many were called, but few were chosen." And it was said that
many returned from this expedition, not better, but worse than they
went. Therefore the monk Cesarius of Heisterbach, who states this, adds:
"All depends on bearing the yoke of Christ not _one_ year or _two_
years, but daily, if a man is really intent on doing it in truth, and in
that sense in which our Lord requires it to be done, in order to follow
him."

When it turned out, however, that the event did not answer the
expectations excited by Bernard's enthusiastic confidence, but the
crusade came to that unfortunate issue which was brought about
especially by the treachery of the princes and nobles of the Christian
kingdom in Syria, this was a source of great chagrin to Bernard, who had
been so active in setting it in motion, and who had inspired such
confident hopes by his promises. He appeared now in the light of a bad
prophet, and he was reproached by many with having incited men to engage
in an enterprise which had cost so much blood to no purpose; but
Bernard's friends alleged, in his defence, that he had not excited such
a popular movement single-handed, but as the organ of the Pope, in whose
name he acted; and they appealed to the facts by which his preaching of
the cross was proved to be a work of God--to the wonders which attended
it. Or they ascribed the failure of the undertaking to the bad conduct
of the crusaders themselves, to the unchristian mode of life which many
of them led, as one of these friends maintained, in a consoling letter
to Bernard himself, adding, "God, however, has turned it to good.
Numbers who, if they had returned home, would have continued to live a
life of crime, disciplined and purified by many sufferings, have passed
into the life eternal."

But Bernard himself could not be staggered in his faith by this event.
In writing to Pope Eugene on this subject, he refers to the
incomprehensibleness of the divine ways and judgments; to the example of
Moses, who, although his work carried on its face incontestable evidence
of being a work of God, yet was not permitted himself to conduct the
Jews into the Promised Land. As this was owing to the fault of the Jews
themselves, so too the crusaders had none to blame but themselves for
the failure of the divine work. "But," says he, "it will be said,
perhaps, how do we know that this work came from the Lord? What miracle
dost thou work that we should believe thee? To this question I need not
give an answer; it is a point on which my modesty asks to be excused
from speaking. Do you answer," says he to the Pope, "for me and for
yourself, according to that which you have seen and heard." So firmly
was Bernard convinced that God had sustained his labors by miracles.

Eugene was at length enabled, in the year 1149, after having for a long
time excited against himself the indignation of the cardinals by his
dependence on the French abbot, with the assistance of Roger, King of
the Sicilies, to return to Rome; where, however, he still had to
maintain a struggle with the party of Arnold.

The provost Gerhoh finds something to complain of in the fact that the
Church of St. Peter wore so warlike an aspect that men beheld the tomb
of the apostle surrounded with bastions and the implements of war.

As Bernard was no longer sufficiently near the Pope to exert on him the
same immediate personal influence as in times past, he addressed to him
a voice of admonition and warning, such as the mighty of the earth
seldom enjoy the privilege of hearing. With the frankness of a love
which, as he himself expresses it, knew not the master, but recognized
the son, even under the pontifical robes, he set before him, in his four
books _On Meditation_, which he sent to him singly at different times,
the duties of his office, and the faults against which, in order to
fulfil these duties, he needed especially to guard.

Bernard was penetrated with a conviction that to the Pope, as St.
Peter's successor, was committed by God a sovereign power of church
government over all, and responsible to no other tribunal; that to this
church theocracy, guided by the Pope, the administration even of the
secular power, though independent within its own peculiar sphere, should
be subjected, for the service of the kingdom of God; but he also
perceived, with the deepest pain, how very far the papacy was from
corresponding to this its idea and destination; what prodigious
corruption had sprung and continued to spring from the abuse of papal
authority; he perceived already, with prophetic eye, that this very
abuse of arbitrary will must eventually bring about the destruction of
this power. He desired that the Pope should disentangle himself from the
secular part of his office, and reduce that office within the purely
spiritual domain; and that, above all, he should learn to govern and
restrict himself.

But to the close of his life, in the year 1153, Pope Eugene had to
contend with the turbulent spirit of the Romans and the influences of
the principles disseminated by Arnold; and this contest was prolonged
into the reign of his second successor, Adrian IV. Among the people and
among the nobles, a considerable party had arisen who would concede to
the Pope no kind of secular dominion. And there seems to have been a
shade of difference among the members of this party. A mob of the people
is said to have gone to such an extreme of arrogance as to propose the
choosing of a new emperor from among the Romans themselves, the
restoration of a Roman empire independent of the Pope. The other party,
to which belonged the nobles, were for placing the emperor Frederick I
at the head of the Roman Republic, and uniting themselves with him in a
common interest against the Pope. They invited him to receive the
imperial crown, in the ancient manner, from the "senate and Roman
people," and not from the heretical and recreant clergy and false monks,
who acted in contradiction to their calling, exercising lordship despite
of the evangelical and apostolical doctrine; and in contempt of all
laws, divine and human, brought the Church of God and the kingdom of the
world into confusion. Those who pretend that they are the
representatives of Peter, it was said, in a letter addressed in the
spirit of this party to the emperor Frederick I, "act in contradiction
to the doctrines which that apostle teaches in his epistles. How can
they say with the apostle Peter, 'Lo, we have left all and followed
thee,' and, 'Silver and gold have I none'? How can our Lord say to such,
'Ye are the light of the world,' 'the salt of the earth'? Much rather is
to be applied to them what our Lord says of the salt that has lost its
savor. 'Eager after earthly riches, they spoil the true riches, from
which the salvation of the world has proceeded.' How can the saying be
applied to them, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit'? for they are neither
poor in spirit nor in fact."

Pope Adrian IV was first enabled, under more favorable circumstances,
and assisted by the Emperor Frederick I, to deprive the Arnold party of
its leader, and then to suppress it entirely. It so happened that, in
the first year of Adrian's reign, 1155, a cardinal, on his way to visit
the Pope, was attacked and wounded by followers of Arnold. This induced
the Pope to put all Rome under the interdict, with a view to force the
expulsion of Arnold and his party. This means did not fail of its
effect. The people who could not bear the suspension of divine worship,
now themselves compelled the nobles to bring about the ejection of
Arnold and his friends. Arnold, on leaving Rome, found protection from
Italian nobles. By the order, however, of the emperor Frederick, who had
come into Italy, he was torn from his protectors and surrendered up to
the papal authority. The Prefect of Rome then took possession of his
person and caused him to be hanged. His body was burned, and its ashes
thrown into the Tiber, lest his bones might be preserved as the relics
of a martyr by the Romans, who were enthusiastically devoted to him.
Worthy men, who were in other respects zealous defenders of the church
orthodoxy and of the hierarchy--as, for example, Gerhoh of
Reichersberg--expressed their disapprobation, first, that Arnold should
be punished with death on account of the errors which he disseminated;
secondly, that the sentence of death should proceed from a spiritual
tribunal, or that such a tribunal should at least have subjected itself
to that bad appearance.

But on the part of the Roman court it was alleged, in defence of this
proceeding, that "it was done without the knowledge and contrary to the
will of the Roman curia." "The Prefect of Rome had forcibly removed
Arnold from the prison where he was kept, and his servants had put him
to death in revenge for injuries they had suffered from Arnold's party.
Arnold, therefore, was executed, not on account of his doctrines, but in
consequence of tumults excited by himself." It may be a question whether
this was said with sincerity, or whether, according to the proverb, a
confession of guilt is not implied in the excuse. But Gerhoh was of the
opinion that in this case they should at least have done as David did,
in the case of Abner's death, and, by allowing Arnold to be buried, and
his death to be mourned over, instead of causing his body to be burned,
and the remains thrown into the Tiber, washed their hands of the whole
transaction.

But the idea for which Arnold had contended, and for which he died,
continued to work in various forms, even after his death--the idea of a
purification of the Church from the foreign worldly elements with which
it had become vitiated, of its restoration to its original spiritual
character.



DECLINE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE: RAVAGES OF ROGER OF SICILY

A.D. 1146

GEORGE FINLAY


(From the enthronement of the Commenian dynasty in A.D. 1081, which was
accomplished through a successful rebellion, attended by shameful
treachery and rapine, the Byzantine empire, and especially
Constantinople, its capital, passed through many vicissitudes; but the
sack of the city by Alexius Commenus, the founder of the line, was
remembered by the populace to the disadvantage of all his successors;
the last of whom, Andronicus I, ended his reign in 1185. John, the son
of Alexius [1118-1143], ruled with discretion and ability, and recovered
some territory from the Turks.

Manuel I, the son of John [1143-1181], ruled during a period of almost
constant war, and for a time he held the enemies of the empire in check.
But he appears to have been more endowed with courage and the spirit of
enterprise than with good judgment, and his conduct of the empire
coincided with events that, as seen in history, contributed to its
decline, which after his death followed rapidly. As this decline is to
be dated especially from the passing but not ineffectual invasion of
Roger II, King of Sicily, in 1146, some account of that, together with a
view of conditions immediately preceding, becomes important in a work
like this.

The century and a half before Roger's invasion had been a period of
tranquillity for the distinctively Greek people of the empire, who had
increased rapidly in numbers and wealth, and were in possession of an
extensive commerce and many manufactures. Therefore they were perhaps
the greatest sufferers from the adverse events which befell the State.)


The emperor Alexius I had concluded a commercial treaty with Pisa toward
the end of his reign. Manuel renewed this alliance, and he appears to
have been the first of the Byzantine emperors who concluded a public
treaty with Genoa. The pride of the emperors of the Romans--as the
sovereigns of Constantinople were styled--induced them to treat the
Italian republics as municipalities still dependent on the Empire of the
Caesars, of which they had once formed a part; and the rulers both of
Pisa and Genoa yielded to this assumption of supremacy, and consented to
appear as vassals and liegemen of the Byzantine emperors, in order to
participate in the profits which they saw the Venetians gained by
trading in their dominions.

Several commercial treaties with Pisa and Genoa, as well as with Venice,
have been preserved. The obligations of the republics are embodied in
the charter enumerating the concessions granted by the Emperor, and the
document is called a _chrysobulum_, or golden bull, from the golden seal
of the Emperor attached to it as the certificate of its authenticity.

In Manuel's treaties with the Genoese and Pisans, the republics bind
themselves never to engage in hostilities against the empire; but, on
the contrary, all the subjects of the republics residing in the
Emperor's dominions become bound to assist him against all assailants;
they engage to act with their own ships, or to serve on board the
imperial fleet, for the usual pay granted to Latin mercenaries. They
promise to offer no impediment to the extension of the empire in Syria,
reserving to themselves the factories and privileges they already
possess in any place that may be conquered. They submit their civil and
criminal affairs to the jurisdiction of the Byzantine courts of justice,
as was then the case with the Venetians and other foreigners in the
empire. Acts of piracy and armed violence, unless the criminals were
taken in the act, were to be reported to the rulers of the republic
whose subjects had committed the crime, and the Byzantine authorities
were not to render the innocent traders in the empire responsible for
the injuries inflicted by these brigands. The republicans engaged to
observe all the stipulations in their treaties, in defiance of
ecclesiastical excommunication or the prohibition of any individual,
crowned or not crowned.

Manuel, in return, granted to the republicans the right of forming a
factory, erecting a quay for landing their goods, and building a church;
and the Genoese received their grant in an agreeable position on the
side of the port opposite Constantinople, where in after-times their
great colony of Galata was formed. The Emperor promised to send an
annual of from four hundred to five hundred gold bezants, with two
pieces of a rich brocade then manufactured only in the Byzantine empire,
to the republican governments, and sixty bezants, with one piece of
brocade, to their archbishops. These treaties fixed the duty levied on
the goods imported or exported from Constantinople by the Italians at 4
per cent.; but in the other cities of the empire, the Pisans and Genoese
were to pay the same duties as other Latin traders, excepting, of
course, the privileged Venetians. These duties generally amounted to 10
per cent. The republics were expressly excluded, by the Genoese treaty,
from the Black Sea trade, except when they received a special license
from the Emperor. In case of shipwreck, the property of the foreigners
was to be protected by the imperial authorities and respected by the
people, and every assistance was to be granted to the unfortunate
sufferers. This humane clause was not new in Byzantine commercial
treaties, for it is contained in the earliest treaty concluded by
Alexius I with the Pisans. On the whole, the arrangements for the
administration of justice in these treaties prove that the Byzantine
empire still enjoyed a greater degree of order than the rest of Europe.

The state of civilization in the Eastern Empire rendered the public
finances the moving power of the government, as in the nations of modern
Europe. This must always tend to the centralization of political
authority, for the highest branch of the executive will always endeavor
to dispose of the revenues of the State according to its views of
necessity. This centralizing policy led Manuel to order all the money
which the Greek commercial communities had hitherto devoted to
maintaining local squadrons of galleys for the defence of the islands
and coasts of the Aegean to be remitted to the treasury at
Constantinople. The ships were compelled to visit the imperial dockyard
in the capital to undergo repairs and to receive provisions and pay.

A navy is a most expensive establishment; kings, ministers, and people
are all very apt to think that when it is not wanted at any particular
time, the cost of its maintenance may be more profitably applied to
other objects. Manuel, after he had secured the funds of the Greeks for
his own treasury, soon left their ships to rot, and the commerce of
Greece became exposed to the attacks of small squadrons of Italian
pirates who previously would not have dared to plunder in the
Archipelago. It may be thought by some that Manuel acted wisely in
centralizing the naval administration of his empire; but the great
number, the small size, and the relative position of many of the Greek
islands with regard to the prevailing winds render the permanent
establishment of naval stations at several points necessary to prevent
piracy.

Manuel and Otho ruined the navy of Greece by their unwise measures of
centralization; Pericles, by prudently centralizing the maritime forces
of the various states, increased the naval power of Athens, and gave
additional security to every Greek ship that navigated the sea.

The same fiscal views which induced Manuel to centralize the naval
administration when it was injurious to the interests of the empire,
prompted him to act diametrically opposite with regard to the army. The
emperor John had added greatly to the efficiency of the Byzantine
military force by improving and centralizing its administration, and he
left Manuel an excellent army, which rendered the Eastern Empire the
most powerful state in Europe. But Manuel, from motives of economy,
abandoned his father's system. Instead of assembling all the military
forces of the empire annually in camps, where they received pay and were
subjected to strict discipline, toward the end of his reign he
distributed even the regular army in cities and provinces, where they
were quartered far apart, in order that each district, by maintaining a
certain number of men, might relieve the treasury from the burden of
their pay and subsistence while they were not on actual service. The
money thus retained in the central treasury was spent in idle festivals
at Constantinople, and the troops, dispersed and neglected, became
careless of their military exercises, and lived in a state of relaxed
discipline. Other abuses were quickly introduced; resident yeomen,
shopkeepers, and artisans were enrolled in the legions, with the
connivance of the officers. The burden of maintaining the troops was in
this way diminished, but the army was deteriorated.

In other districts, where the divisions were exposed to be called into
action, or were more directly under central inspection, the effective
force was kept up at its full complement, but the people were compelled
to submit to every kind of extortion and tyranny. The tendency of
absolute power being always to weaken the power of the law, and to
increase the authority of the executive agents of the sovereign, soon
manifested its effects in the rapid progress of administrative
corruption. The Byzantine garrisons in a few years became prototypes of
the shopkeeping janizaries of the Ottoman empire, and bore no
resemblance to the feudal militia of Western Europe, which Manuel had
proposed as the model of his reform. This change produced a rapid
decline in the military strength of the Byzantine army and accelerated
the fall of the empire.

For a considerable period the Byzantine emperors had been gradually
increasing the proportion of foreign mercenaries in their service; this
practice Manuel carried further than any of his predecessors. Besides
the usual Varangian, Italian, and German guards, we find large corps of
Patzinaks, Franks, and Turks enrolled in his armies, and officers of
these nations occupying situations of the highest rank. A change had
taken place in the military tactics, caused by the heavy armor and
powerful horses which the crusaders brought into the field, and by the
greater personal strength and skill in warlike exercises of the Western
troops, who had no occupation from infancy but gymnastic exercises and
athletic amusements. The nobility of the feudal nations expended more
money on arms and armor than on other luxuries; and this becoming the
general fashion, the Western troops were much better armed than the
Byzantine soldiers. War became the profession of the higher ranks, and
the expense of military undertakings was greatly increased by the
military classes being completely separated from the rest of society.
The warlike disposition of Manuel led him to favor the military nobles
of the West who took service at his court; while his confidence in his
own power, and in the political superiority of his empire, deluded him
with the hope of being able to quell the turbulence of the Franks, and
set bounds to the ambition and power of the popes.

The wars of Manuel were sometimes forced on him by foreign powers, and
sometimes commenced for temporary objects; but he appears never to have
formed any fixed idea of the permanent policy which ought to have
determined the constant employment of all the military resources at his
command, for the purpose of advancing the interest of his empire and
giving security to his subjects. His military exploits may be considered
under three heads: His wars with the Franks, whether in Asia or Europe;
his wars with the Hungarians and Servians; and his wars with the Turks.

His first operations were against the principality of Antioch. The death
of John II caused the dispersion of the fine army he had assembled for
the conquest of Syria; but Manuel sent a portion of that army, and a
strong fleet, to attack the principality. One of the generals of the
land forces was Prosuch, a Turkish officer in high favor with his
father. Raymond of Antioch was no longer the idle gambler he had shown
himself in the camp of the emperor John; but though he was now
distinguished by his courage and skill in arms, he was completely
defeated, and the imperial army carried its ravages up to the very walls
of Antioch, while the fleet laid waste the coast. Though the Byzantine
troops retired, the losses of the campaign convinced Raymond that it
would be impossible to defend Antioch should Manuel take the field in
person. He therefore hastened to Constantinople, as a suppliant, to sue
for peace; but Manuel, before admitting him to an audience, required
that he should repair to the tomb of the emperor John and ask pardon for
having violated his former promises. When the Hercules of the Franks, as
Raymond was called, had submitted to this humiliation, he was admitted
to the imperial presence, swore fealty to the Byzantine empire as Prince
of Antioch, and became the vassal of the emperor Manuel. The conquest of
Edessa by the Mahometans, which took place in the month of December,
1144, rendered the defence of Antioch by the Latins a doubtful
enterprise, unless they could secure the assistance of the Greeks.

Manuel involved himself in a war with Roger, King of Sicily, which
perhaps he might have avoided by more prudent conduct. An envoy he had
sent to the Sicilian court concluded a treaty, which Manuel thought fit
to disavow with unsuitable violence. This gave the Sicilian King a
pretext for commencing war, but the real cause of hostilities must be
sought in the ambition of Roger and the hostile feelings of Manuel.
Roger was one of the wealthiest princes of his time; he had united under
his sceptre both Sicily and all the Norman possessions in Southern
Italy; his ambition was equal to his wealth and power, and he aspired at
eclipsing the glory of Robert Guiscard and Bohemund by some permanent
conquests in the Byzantine empire. On the other hand, the renown of
Roger excited the envy of Manuel, who, proud of his army and confident
of his own valor and military skill, hoped to reconquer Sicily. His
passion made him forget that he was surrounded by numerous enemies, who
would combine to prevent his employing all his forces against one
adversary. Manuel consequently acted imprudently in revealing his
hostile intentions; while Roger could direct all his forces against one
point, and avail himself of Manuel's embarrassments. He commenced
hostilities by inflicting a blow on the wealth and prosperity of Greece,
from which it never recovered.

At the commencement of the Second Crusade, when the attention of Manuel
was anxiously directed to the movements of Louis VII of France, and
Conrad, Emperor of Germany, Roger, who had collected a powerful fleet at
Brindisi, for the purpose either of attacking the Byzantine empire or
transporting the crusaders to Palestine, availed himself of an
insurrection in Corfu to conclude a convention with the inhabitants, who
admitted a garrison of one thousand Norman troops into their citadel.
The Corfutes complained with great reason of the intolerable weight of
taxation to which they were subjected; of the utter neglect of their
interests by the central government, which consumed their wealth, and of
the great abuses which prevailed in the administration of justice; but
the remedy they adopted, by placing themselves under the rule of foreign
masters, was not likely to alleviate these evils.

The Sicilian admiral, after landing the Norman garrison at Corfu, sailed
to Monembasia, then one of the principal commercial cities in the East,
hoping to gain possession of it without difficulty; but the maritime
population of this impregnable fortress gave him a warm reception and
easily repulsed his attack. After plundering the coasts of Euboea and
Attica, the Sicilian fleet returned to the West, and laid waste
Acarnania and Etolia; it then entered the Gulf of Corinth, and debarked
a body of troops at Crissa. This force marched through the country to
Thebes, plundering every town and village on the way. Thebes offered no
resistance and was plundered in the most deliberate and barbarous
manner. The inhabitants were numerous and wealthy. The soil of Boeotia
is extremely productive, and numerous manufactures established in the
city of Thebes gave additional value to the abundant produce of
agricultural industry.

A century had elapsed since the citizens of Thebes had gone out
valiantly to fight the army of Slavonian rebels in the reign of Michael
IV (the Paphlagonian), and that defeat had long been forgotten. But all
military spirit was now dead, and the Thebans had so long lived without
any fear of invasion that they had forgotten the use of arms. The
Sicilians found them not only unprepared to offer any resistance, but so
surprised that they had not even adopted any effectual measures to
secure or conceal their movable property. The conquerors, secure against
all danger of interruption, plundered Thebes at their leisure. Not only
gold, silver, jewels, and church plate were carried off, but even the
goods found in the warehouses, and the rarest articles of furniture in
private houses, were transported to the ships. Bales of silk and dyed
leather were sent off to the fleet as deliberately as if they had been
legally purchased in time of peace. When all ordinary means of
collecting booty were exhausted, the citizens were compelled to take an
oath on the Holy Scriptures that they had not concealed any portion of
their property; yet many of the wealthiest were dragged away captive, in
order to profit by their ransom; and many of the most skilful workmen in
the silk manufactories, for which Thebes had long been famous, were
pressed on board the fleet to labor at the oar.

From Boeotia the army passed to Corinth. Nicephorus Caluphes, the
governor, retired into the Acro-Corinth, but the garrison appeared to
his cowardly heart not strong enough to defend this impregnable
fortress, and he surrendered it to George Antiochenus, the Sicilian
admiral, on the first summons. On examining the fortress of which he had
thus unexpectedly gained possession, the admiral could not help
exclaiming that he fought under the protection of heaven, for if
Caluphes had not been more timid than a virgin, Corinth should have
repulsed every attack.

Corinth was sacked as cruelly as Thebes; men of rank, beautiful women,
and skilful artisans, with their wives and families, were carried away
into captivity. Even the relics of St. Theodore were taken from the
church in which they were preserved; and it was not until the whole
Sicilian fleet was laden with as much of the wealth of Greece as it was
capable of transporting that the admiral ordered it to sail. The
Sicilians did not venture to retain possession of the impregnable
citadel of Corinth, as it would have been extremely difficult for them
to keep up their communications with the garrison. This invasion of
Greece was conducted entirely as a plundering expedition, having for its
object to inflict the greatest possible injury on the Byzantine empire,
while it collected the largest possible quantity of booty for the
Sicilian troops. Corfu was the only conquest of which Roger retained
possession.

The ruin of the Greek commerce and manufactures has been ascribed to the
transference of the silk trade from Thebes and Corinth to Palermo, under
the judicious protection it received from Roger; but it would be more
correct to say that the injudicious and oppressive financial
administration of the Byzantine emperors destroyed the commercial
prosperity and manufacturing industry of the Greeks; while the wise
liberality and intelligent protection of the Norman kings extended the
commerce and increased the industry of the Sicilians.

When the Sicilian fleet returned to Palermo, Roger determined to employ
all the silk manufacturers in their original occupations. He
consequently collected all their families together, and settled them at
Palermo, supplying them with the means of exercising their industry with
profit to themselves, and inducing them to teach his own subjects to
manufacture the richest brocades and to rival the rarest productions of
the East.

Roger, unlike most of the monarchs of his age, paid particular attention
to improving the wealth of his dominions by increasing the prosperity of
his subjects. During his reign the cultivation of the sugar-cane was
introduced into Sicily. The conduct of Manuel was very different; when
he concluded peace with William, the son and successor of Roger, in
1158, he paid no attention to the commercial interests of his Greek
subjects; the silk manufactures of Thebes and Corinth were not reclaimed
and reinstated in their native seats; they were left to exercise their
industry for the profit of their new prince, while their old sovereign
would have abandoned them to perish from want. Under such circumstances
it is not remarkable that the commerce and the manufactures of Greece
were transferred in the course of another century to Sicily and Italy.



CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY

EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME

A.D. 843-1161

JOHN RUDD, LL.D.


Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
following give volume and page.

Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page
references showing where the several events are fully treated.

A.D.

843. Messina in Sicily captured by the Saracens.

Feudalism may be said to become an actuality from about this time. See
"FEUDALISM: ITS FRANKISH BIRTH AND ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT," v, 1.

The Danes--called by Arabian writers "_Magioges_," people of Gog and
Magog--land at Lisbon from fifty-four ships and carry off a rich booty.

The treaty of Verdun, between the three sons of Louis _le Débonnaire_.
See "DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE," v, 22.

844. Lothair gives the title king of Italy to his son Louis, who is
crowned at Rome.

Abderrahman fits out a fleet to resist the Danes who have infested the
neighborhood of Cadiz and Seville.

845. Paris is pillaged for the first time by the Danes or Northmen. See
"DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE," v, 22.

Hamburg is looted and destroyed by the Danes.

846. Rome is attacked by the Saracens, who, after plundering the
country, lay siege to Gaeta.

Spain afflicted by a great drought and swarms of locusts.

847. A violent storm drives the Saracens from the siege of Gaeta. The
distress in Spain is relieved by Abderrahman, who remits the taxes and
constructs aqueducts and fountains.

848. Louis, King of Italy, drives the Saracens out of Beneventum.

Bordeaux is assailed by the Northmen, but they are vigorously repulsed.
See "DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE," v, 22.

Pope Leo IV adds a new quarter to the city of Rome by surrounding the
Vatican with walls.

849. Birth of Alfred the Great. See "CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT," v, 49.

Gottschalk, a German bishop who preached the doctrine of twofold
predestination, sentenced by the Council of Quincy to be flogged and
suffer perpetual imprisonment.

The Saracens range at will through the Mediterranean; they are defeated
at the mouth of the Tiber by the combined fleets of Naples, Gaeta, and
Amalphi.

On Gallic soil the _benificium_ and practice of commendation is
specially fostered. See "FEUDALISM: ITS FRANKISH BIRTH AND ENGLISH
DEVELOPMENT," v, 1.

850. Roric, a nephew of Harold, collects a piratical armament in
Friesland and attacks adjacent coasts; Lothair grants Durstadt to him to
secure his own lands.

Pépin strengthens himself in Aquitaine by leagues with the Northmen. See
"DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE," v, 22.

851. Danes ascend the Rhine with 252 ships and plunder Ghent, Cologne,
Treves, and Aix-la-Chapelle.

Roric, with 350 sail, proceeds up the Thames and pillages Canterbury and
London, after defeating the King of Mercia; he is at last defeated by
Ethelwulf, with great slaughter, at Ockley.

852. A revolt against the Moslems in Armenia.

853. Hastings' (the Danish chief) ruse at Tuscany. See "DECAY OF THE
FRANKISH EMPIRE," v, 22.

855. Death of Lothair, Emperor of the Franks; civil war between his
sons.

A band of Danes keep the Isle of Sheppey through the winter; their first
foothold in England.

860. Iceland discovered by the Northmen.

862. Rurik, the Varangian chief, conquers Novgorod and Kiov and lays the
foundation of the Russian empire.

863. Cyril and Methodius, the "apostles of the Slavs," undertake the
conversion of the Moravians.

Pope Nicholas deposes Photius and declares Ignatius to be the patriarch
of Constantinople; Photius in turn excommunicates the Pope.

Charles the Bald founds the County of Flanders.

864. Pope Nicholas asserts his exclusive right to appoint and depose
bishops; the sovereigns and prelates of France and Germany resist his
claim.

Christianity first introduced into Russia; it makes little progress.

865. First naval expedition of the Varangians or Russians against
Constantinople; their fleet is dispersed by a storm.

866. East Anglia invaded by a numerous body of Danes.

Accession of Alfonso the Great of Asturias.

868. Nottingham captured by the Danes; they are besieged by Burhred,
Alfred, and his brother, who allow them to return to York with their
booty. See "CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT," v, 49.

869. Eighth general council held at Constantinople; the deposition of
Photius confirmed and all iconoclasts anathematized.

870. Malta captured by the Saracens.

East Anglia captured by the Danes; Edmund, titular king of the country,
is treacherously slain by them; is afterward canonized.

871. Hincmar, a French prelate, encourages Charles the Bald to resist the
authority assumed by the Pope over the church of France.

Bari, a Saracen fortress in Southern Italy, is surrendered to the Franks
and Greeks.

Alfred ascends the throne of Wessex. See "CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT,"
v, 49.

872. Louis of Germany relinquishes to Emperor Louis his portion of
Lorraine.

873. On the approach of Emperor Louis with an army the Saracens, who
were besieging Salerno, retire; they land in Calabria and commit great
depredations.

Locusts lay waste Italy, France, and Germany.

Organs introduced into the churches of Germany.

874. Mercia is conquered by the Danes, who set up Ceolwulf as their
king.

Iceland is settled by the Danes.

875. Death of Emperor Louis; Charles the Bald and Louis of Germany
contend for the succession. The former, by granting new privileges to
the Church of Rome, obtains the support of the Pope, and is acknowledged
as the king of Italy and emperor of the West.

Alfred, King of Wessex, fits out a fleet and conquers the Danes in a
great sea battle. See "CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT," v, 49.

876. Death of Louis of Germany; division of his kingdom among his three
sons: Bavaria to Carloman; Saxony to Louis the Stammerer; and East
France (Franconia and Swabia) to Charles the Fat. Their uncle, Charles
the Bald, attempts to dispossess them, but is defeated by Louis at
Andernach.

Rollo, at the head of the Northmen, enters the Seine and makes his first
settlement in Normandy. See "DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE," v, 22.

877. No emperor of the West for three years.

Carloman acquires the crown of Italy; the Pope, who opposes him, is
driven from Rome by Lambert, Duke of Spoleto, and takes refuge in
France.

A large traffic in slaves carried on by the Venetians.

Count Boso founds the kingdom of Florence.

878. Alfred defeats a great host of the Danes at Eddington. See "CAREER
OF ALFRED THE GREAT," v, 49.

Syracuse captured by the Saracens, who become the masters of Sicily.

879. Methodius forbidden by the Pope to perform the services of the
Church for the Slavonians in their own language.

The kingdom of Cisjurane, Burgundy, founded; it included Provence,
Dauphiné, and the southern part of Savoy.

880. Germany is ravaged by the Northmen.

Alfred, the English King, defeats the Danes at the battle of Ethandun;
by treaty he gives them equal rights, and they acknowledge his
supremacy. See "CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT," v, 49.

881. Methodius gets leave to use the Slavonic tongue in the churches.
Charles the Fat ascends the throne of Italy and Germany; is emperor of
the West.

882. Albategni, the Arabian astronomer, observes the autumnal equinox,
September 19th.

883. Alfred sends Singhelm and Athelstan on missions to Rome and the
Christian church in India.

884. Charles the Fat reunites the Frankish empire of Charlemagne.

885. Siege of Paris by the Northmen. See "DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE,"
v, 22.

886. Alfred the Great said to have founded the University of Oxford.

887. Deposition of Charles the Fat; Arnulf, natural son of Carloman of
Bavaria, elected by the nobles.

888. Death of Charles the Fat; final disruption of the Frankish empire;
the crown of France in dispute between the Count of Paris, Eudes, and
Charles the Simple. See "DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE," v, 22.

Founding of the kingdom of Transjurane, Burgundy, which includes the
northern part of Savoy and all Switzerland between the Reuss and the
Jura.

Alfred the Great begins his translations from Latin into Anglo-Saxon.
See "AUGUSTINE'S MISSIONARY WORK IN ENGLAND," iv, 182.

890. Southern Italy constituted a province of the Greek empire and
called Lombardia.

891. King Arnulf, of Germany, defeats the Northmen or Danes at Louvain.

894. Arnulf becomes emperor of Germany.

Hungarians (Magyars) cross the Carpathians and occupy the plains of the
Theiss.

895. Rome is captured by Emperor Arnulf of Germany; he is crowned
emperor of the West.

896. Pope Stephen VII declares the election of his predecessor,
Formosus, invalid; disinters his body and has it thrown in the Tiber.

897. Pope Stephen imprisoned and strangled.

Alfred constructs a powerful navy and defeats Hastings the Dane. See
"CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT," v, 49.

899. Accession of Louis the Child, on the death of Arnulf, to the German
throne.

900. Hungarians ravage Northern Italy.

901. Death of Alfred the Great, King of England; his son, Edward the
Elder, succeeds.

904. Russians, with a large naval force, attack Constantinople, and the
Saracens Thessalonica.

907. Bavaria desolated by the Hungarians.

909. Founding of the Fatimite caliphate in Africa. See "CONQUEST OF
EGYPT BY THE FATIMITES," v, 94.

911. End of the Carlovingian line in Germany. See "HENRY THE FOWLER
FOUNDS THE SAXON LINE OF GERMAN KINGS," v, 82.

912. Rollo, converted to Christianity, takes the name of Robert and
receives from Peter the Simple the province afterward called Normandy,
of which he is the first duke. See "DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE," v,
22.

913. Igor, son of Rurik, by the death of his guardian, Oleg, is invested
with the government of Russia.

Bodies of Hungarians and Slavs make inroads on German territory. See
"HENRY THE FOWLER FOUNDS THE SAXON LINE OF GERMAN KINGS," v, 82.

914. John X elected pope through the intrigues of Theodora.

916. Berengar is crowned emperor of the West, in Italy.

918. Death of Conrad, the King of Germany. See "HENRY THE FOWLER FOUNDS
THE SAXON LINE OF GERMAN KINGS," v, 82.

919. Founding of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, Ireland. "HENRY THE
FOWLER FOUNDS THE SAXON LINE OF GERMAN KINGS." See v, 82.

923. Rudolph of Burgundy disputes with Charles the Simple for the crown
of France.

924. Germany is overrun and devastated by the Hungarians. Death of
Berengar, upon which the imperial title lapses.

925. Edward the Elder is succeeded by his son Athelstan, in England.

926. Henry the Fowler conquers the Slavonians; he establishes the
margravate of Brandenburg.

928. Guido and Marozia usurp supreme temporal power in Rome and confine
Pope John X in prison, where he dies. (Date uncertain.)

929. Charles the Simple dies in captivity at Péronne.

Abu Taher, the Carmathian leader, plunders Mecca and massacres the
pilgrims.

930. Prague is besieged by Henry the Fowler, who becomes superior lord
of Bohemia; his son, Otho, marries Eadgith, sister of Athelstan, King of
England.

931. Marozia still rules in Rome; she makes her son pope John XI.

932. Hugh marries Marozia and is expelled from Rome by her son Alberic,
who confines his mother, and his brother, Pope John, in St. Angelo and
governs the city.

933. Henry the Fowler is victorious over the Hungarians at Merseburg.
See "HENRY THE FOWLER FOUNDS THE SAXON LINE OF GERMAN KINGS," v, 82.

Union of Cis- and Transjurane Burgundy into one realm, the kingdom of
Arles.

Saracens invade Castile and are defeated at Uxama.

936. Death of Henry the Fowler; accession of Otho the Great in Germany
and of Louis _d'Outre-Mer_ in France. Louis was given the surname for
having been in exile in England, whence he was recalled to the crown.

From this time chivalry may be said to arise. See "GROWTH AND DECADENCE
OF CHIVALRY," v, 109.

937. Confederation of Scots and Irish with the Danes of Northumberland,
totally defeated by Athelstan, at Brunanburh.

France is invaded by the Hungarians.

939. The Marquis of Istria levies imposts on Venetian merchants, the
repeal of which is enforced by the Doge suspending all intercourse
between the two states.

940. Death of King Athelstan; his brother Edmund succeeds to the English
throne.

941. Constantinople attacked by the Russians under Igor; they are
repelled by Romanus.

945. Death of Igor; his widow, Olga, governs the Russians during the
minority of their son Swatoslaus.

Cumberland and Westmoreland, England, granted as a fief to Malcolm, King
of Scotland.

946. Edmund, who had conquered Mercia and the "Five Boroughs" of the
Danish confederacy, England, slain by an outlaw; his brother Edred
succeeds.

951. Otho the Great marches an army in to Italy; he dethrones Berengar
for cruelly ill-treating Adelaide.

952. Otho restores Italy to Berengar and his son; they do homage to him
at the Diet of Augsburg.

955. Otho vanquishes the Hungarians on the Lech; he afterward conquers
the Slavonians.

Olga, the Russian Princess, baptized at Constantinople; she carries back
into her own country some beginnings of civilization.

956. Many provinces, including Armenia, recovered from the Saracens by
the Eastern Empire.

959. St. Dunstan made archbishop of Canterbury on the accession of
Edgar.

961. Berengar finally dethroned by Otho the Great; the sovereignty of
Italy passes from Charlemagne's descendants to German rulers.

962. Otho the Great, master of Italy; his coronation as emperor of the
Romans by Pope John XII; establishment of the Holy Roman Empire of the
German nation.

963. Nicephorus Phocas defeats the Saracens and recovers the former
provinces of the empire as far as the Euphrates.

Al Hakem, Caliph of Cordova, famous as a patron of literature and
learning, and who is said to have collected a library of 600,000
volumes, employs agents in Africa and Arabia to purchase or copy
manuscripts.

King Edgar, England, defeats the Welsh and exacts an annual tribute of
three hundred wolves' heads.

964. Pope Leo VIII is expelled; John XII reinstated, he dies soon after;
Rome is besieged and captured by the Emperor, after a revolt encouraged
by Berengar.

966. After 328 years' subjection Antioch is recovered from the Saracens.

Bulgaria invaded by the Russians, who also extend their dominion to the
Black Sea.

Miecislas, ruler of Poland, embraces Christianity.

969. Kahira (now Cairo) built by the Fatimites, who establish a
caliphate in Egypt. See "CONQUEST OF EGYPT BY THE FATIMITES," v, 94.

Nicephorus Phocas, Emperor of the East, murdered by John Zimisces, who
succeeds.

971. All munitions of war and arms are by the Venetians forbidden to be
sold by their merchants to the Saracens.

973. On the death of his father, Otho the Great, Otho II ascends the
throne of the German empire. His Empress, Theophania, introduces Greek
customs and manners into Germany.

976. Henry, Duke of Bavaria, defeated by Otho II and deposed, takes
refuge in Bohemia.

Death of Al Hakem; his reign the most glorious of the Saracenic dominion
in Spain.

Commotion in Venice; the Doge attempts to introduce mercenary troops and
is slain; his palace, St. Mark's, and other churches burned.

978. Otho II makes a victorious movement into France.

979. King Edward the Martyr assassinated by command of his
mother-in-law, Elfrida; Ethelred the Unready succeeds. (Date uncertain.)

980. Theophania urges her husband, Otho II, to claim the Greek provinces
in Italy; he advances with his army to Ravenna.

Vladimir obtains the assistance of the sea-kings, defeats his brother,
Jaropolk, puts him to death, and becomes sole ruler of Russia.

982. Saracens of Africa are invited by the Greek emperors to join them
in opposing Otho; battle of Basientello, total defeat of Otho; he is
taken prisoner, but escapes by swimming.

983. Eric the Red, a Norseman, first visits Greenland, which he thus
names, and afterward settles. See "LEIF ERICSON DISCOVERS AMERICA," v,
141.

Death of Otho II; Otho III succeeds to the throne of Germany under the
regency of his mother, Theophania.

987. Death of Louis V, the last of the Carlovingian line; Hugh Capet is
elected king of France; this inaugurates the Capetian dynasty.

988. Vladimir the Great of Russia embraces Christianity. See "CONVERSION
OF VLADIMIR THE GREAT," v, 128.

989. Sedition in Rome; Empress Theophania arrives there and suppresses
it.

In Germany rural counts and barons commence their depredations on the
properties of their neighbors.

Learned men from all parts of the East flock to Cordova, Almansor, the
Saracen regent, having set apart a fund to promote literature.

991. Archbishop Gerbert, of Rheims, introduces the use of Arabic
numerals, which he had learned at Cordova.

Ipswich and Maldon, England, ravaged by the Danes; a tribute raised for
them by means of the "Danegild" tax.

994. Hugh Capet maintains Gerbert in the see of Rheims, against the
opposition of the Pope.

With a fleet of ninety-four ships the kings of Norway and Denmark attack
London; they are beaten off by the citizens.

996. Death of Hugh Capet; his son Robert succeeds.

997. Venetians conquer the coast and islands of the Adriatic as far as
Ragusa; their Doge styles himself duke of Dalmatia.

Death of Gejza, first Christian prince of Hungary.

Insurrection of peasants in Normandy.

998. Crescentius, having usurped power in Rome and expelled the Pope, is
defeated, captured, and put to death by Otho III.

1000. Leif Ericson and Biorn discover America. See "LEIF ERICSON
DISCOVERS AMERICA," v, 141.

Otho III and Boleslas the Valiant, King of Poland, meet at Gnesen.

Expectation of the end of the world causes the sowing of seed and other
agricultural work to be neglected; famine ensues therefrom.

Duke Stephen of Hungary receives the royal title from Pope Sylvester II.

First invasion of India by Mahmud. See "MAHOMETANS IN INDIA," v, 151.

1002. Massacre of Danes in England; the Day of St. Brice.

Henry, Duke of Bavaria, elected king of Germany on the death of Otho
III.

1003. Sweyn of Denmark invades England to avenge the massacre of his
people.

1013. After various repulses and successes Sweyn takes nearly the whole
of England; King Ethelred and his Queen flee to her brother Richard,
Duke of Normandy.

Imperial coronation of Henry II.

1014. Death of Sweyn. Ethelred returns to England; he battles with the
Danes, under Sweyn's son, Canute, who is driven from the country.

King Brian, the Brian Boroimhe or Boru, the most famous of Irish kings,
defeats the Danes at the battle of Clontarf, but perishes in the
conflict.

1016. Pope Benedict VIII repulses the Saracens at Luni, Tuscany; they
besiege Salerno and are defeated by the aid of a band of Norman pilgrims
returning from Jerusalem.

Edmund "Ironsides," the English King, assassinated. See "CANUTE BECOMES
KING OF ENGLAND," v, 164.

1017. Swatopolk, Grand Duke of Russia, defeated by his brother,
Jaroslav, Prince of Novgorod, seeks an asylum in Poland.

All England acknowledges Canute as king. See "CANUTE BECOMES KING OF
ENGLAND," v, 164.

1018. Complete destruction of the Bulgarian realm by the Eastern emperor
Basil II.

Swatopolk finally expelled from Russia by Jaroslav, who becomes ruler.

1020. Death of Firdusi, a famous Persian poet.

1022. Guido Aretinus invents the staff, and is the first to adopt as
names for the notes of the musical scale the initial syllables of the
hemistichs of a hymn in honor of St. John the Baptist.

1024. Death of the emperor Henry II of Germany; the Franconian dynasty
inaugurated by Conrad II.

1027. Conrad II crowned emperor at Rome; Canute of England and Rudolph
of Burgundy attend the ceremony.

Schleswig is formally ceded to Denmark by Conrad II.

1028. Canute invades Norway; he conquers King Olaf and annexes his
dominions. See "CANUTE BECOMES KING OF ENGLAND," v, 164.

1031. End of the Ommiad caliphate of Cordova; Spain divided by the
Moorish chiefs into many states.

1033. Institution of the "Truce of God." A suspension of private feuds
observed in England, France, Italy, and elsewhere. Such a truce provided
that these feuds should cease on all the more important church festivals
and fasts, from Thursday evening to Monday morning, during Lent, or
similar occasions.

Castile created an independent kingdom by Sancho the Great, King of
Navarre.

Conrad II extends his dominion over the Arletan territories.

1035. Death of King Canute; his sons, Hardicanute in Denmark, Harold in
England, and Sweyn in Norway, succeed him. See "CANUTE BECOMES KING OF
ENGLAND," v, 164.

Aragon created an independent kingdom.

1037. Avicenna, Arabian physician and scholar, dies. (Date uncertain.)

Harold becomes king of all England.

1039. Murder of King Duncan, of Scotland, by Macbeth, who succeeds.

1042. End of the Danish rule in England; Hardicanute succeeded by Edward
the Confessor.

1045. Ferdinand of Castile exacts tribute from his Moorish neighbors.

1046. Henry III holds a council at Sutri on the question of the papacy.
See "HENRY III DEPOSES THE SIMONIACAL POPES," v, 177.

1047. Count Guelf given the duchy Carinthia by Emperor Henry III.

1048. On the death of Clement II, the deposed Pope again intrudes
himself. See "HENRY III DEPOSES THE SIMONIACAL POPES," v, 177.

1049. Hildebrand, the monk, assumes charge of the patrimony of St.
Peter, at Rome.

1050. Bérenger of Tours condemned and imprisoned for denying the
doctrine of transubstantiation.

1051. William of Normandy visits England; he confers with Edward the
Confessor.

1052. Archbishop Robert, with the Norman bishops and nobles, driven out
of England.

1053. In Italy the Norman conquests of that country are conferred on
them as a fief of the Church.

1054. Separation of the Greek and Latin churches. See "DISSENSION AND
SEPARATION OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES," v, 189.

1055. Togrul Beg drives the Buyides from Bagdad and establishes his
authority there.

1056. Death of Emperor Henry III; his son, Henry IV, is elected king
under the regency of his mother, Agnes.

Malcolm defeats Macbeth, King of Scotland, at Dunsinane.

1057. Harold, son of Earl Godwin, is designated heir to the throne of
England. See "NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND," v, 204.

1059. Nicholas II and the Council of Rome decree that future popes shall
be elected by the college of cardinals, but confirmed by the people and
clergy of Rome and the emperor.

1060. King Andrew slain in battle by his brother, Bela, who ascends the
throne of Hungary.

1061. Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger, at the head of the Normans,
engage in the conquest of Sicily from the Saracens.

1062. The Archbishop of Cologne, Anno, assumes the reins of government
after seizing the young emperor Henry IV.

1066. Death of Edward the Confessor, who is succeeded by Harold II. The
Norwegians invade England; they are defeated by Harold. William, Duke of
Normandy, invades and conquers England. See "NORMAN CONQUEST OF
ENGLAND," v, 204.

1067. Council of Mantua; Hildebrand denies the imperial right to
interfere in the election of a pope.

1068. Carrier pigeons are employed by the Saracens to convey
intelligence to the besieged in Palermo.

1069. Morocco founded by Abu-Bekr, Ameer of Lantuna.

1071. Alp Arslan, the Seljuk Sultan, defeats and captures the Eastern
Emperor, Romanus Diogenes.

1072. Palermo is taken by the Normans, who reduce the whole of Sicily.

1073. Lissa, taken by the Normans, is recovered by the Venetians.

Hildebrand elected pope; he takes the name of Gregory VII; the sale of
church benefices in Germany forbidden by him. See "TRIUMPHS OF
HILDEBRAND," v, 231.

1074. Gregory VII suggests the first idea of a general crusade against
the Turks.

1075. Lay investiture prohibited by a council called by Gregory VII. See
"TRIUMPHS OF HILDEBRAND," v, 231.

1076. Atziz, Malek Shah's lieutenant, conquers Syria from the Fatimites
of Egypt, and takes Jerusalem.

Christian pilgrims are persecuted by the Seljukian Turks.

Henry IV, Emperor of Germany, holds a council at Rome which deposes
Gregory VII. In union with the German princes the Pope deposes the
Emperor.

1077. Pope Gregory exacts an annual tribute from Alfonso, King of
Castile.

At Canossa Henry IV humbles himself before the Pope and is absolved. See
"TRIUMPHS OF HILDEBRAND," v, 231.

1079. Boleslas of Poland excommunicated by Gregory and expelled by his
subjects.

1080. Henry IV convenes a council which deposes Gregory VII; it elects
Guibert, Antipope Clement III, in his stead.

End of the war between Henry and Rudolph of Saxony caused by the death
of the latter.

1081. Constantinople captured by Alexis Comnenus, who is placed by his
soldiers on the Byzantine throne.

1084. Gregory VII is besieged in the castle of St. Angelo; Robert
Guiscard delivers the Pope. See "TRIUMPHS OF HILDEBRAND," v, 231.

1085. Death of Gregory VII, in exile at Salerno; the papacy vacant till
the following year.

Conquest of Toledo from the Moors by Alfonso of Castile.

1086. "COMPLETION OF THE DOMESDAY BOOK." See v, 242.

The Mahometans of Spain invite the chief of the Almoravides to assist
them. See "DECLINE OF THE MOORISH POWER IN SPAIN," v, 256.

1087. King William of England invades France; he dies at Rouen. His
eldest son, Robert, inherits Normandy; his second son, William Rufus,
secures the throne of England.

1088. Yussef is called into Spain by the Moorish princes; their
jealousies and discords render his assistance unavailing. See "DECLINE
OF THE MOORISH POWER IN SPAIN," v, 256.

1089. Henry IV excommunicated by Pope Urban II. A violent earthquake in
England.

The disease known as St. Anthony's fire breaks out in Lorraine.

1090. Hasan, Subah of Nishapur, collects a band of Carmathians who are
named after him, "Assassins."

William Rufus, King of England, invades Normandy and captures St.
Valery.

1091. Yussef conquers Seville and Almeria, sends Almoatamad to Africa,
and becomes supreme ruler in Mahometan Spain. See "DECLINE OF THE
MOORISH POWER IN SPAIN," v, 256.

1092. Guibert's party hold the castle of St. Angelo; Guibert's title to
the papacy is still asserted by Henry IV.

Complete disruption of the empire of the Seljuks follows the death of
Shah Malek.

1093. King Malcolm of Scotland invades England; he is killed near
Alnwick, by Roger de Mowbray.

1094. Sancho, King of Aragon and Navarre, falls in battle; he is
succeeded by his son Pedro.

Peter the Hermit goes on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. See "THE FIRST
CRUSADE," v, 276.

1095. Philip and Henry again excommunicated by Pope Urban II.

Henry of Besangon marries Theresa, daughter of Alfonso the Valiant, who
erects Portugal into a county for his son-in-law.

1096. Aphdal, the Fatimite, expels the sons of Ortok from Jerusalem.

Movement of the first crusading armies; massacre of Jews in Europe. See
"THE FIRST CRUSADE," v, 276.

1097. William Rufus expels Archbishop Anselm, from England in defiance
of the papal legate.

Emperor Henry IV protects the German Jews.

Death of Albert Azzo, Marquis of Lombardy, more than 100 years old; he
was father of Guelf IV, the progenitor of the Brunswick family,
afterward one of the English royal lines.

The crusaders take Nicaea; the Eastern emperor Alexius, suspicious of
the crusaders, obtains the city of Nicasa for himself. See "THE FIRST
CRUSADE," v, 276.

1098. Edgar, son of Malcolm, seated on the throne of Scotland by Edgar
Atheling with an English army.

Pope Urban II holds a council at Bari to condemn the doctrines of the
Greek Church.

1099. Jerusalem captured by the crusaders. See "THE FIRST CRUSADE," v,
276.

Founding of the order of the Knights Hospitallers; Gerard of Jerusalem
the first provost or grand master.

Coronation of Henry V, second son of the Emperor, as king of the Romans.

1100. New antipopes arise on the death of Guibert (Clement III), one of
whom assumes the name of Sylvester IV.

William Rufus accidentally slain; Henry I becomes king of England; he
renews the laws of Edward the Confessor and unites the Saxon and Norman
races by his marriage with Matilda, granddaughter of Edmund "Ironside."

1101. Robert, Duke of Normandy, invades England and makes war on his
brother, Henry I.

Guelf, Duke of Bavaria, and William, Duke of Aquitaine, conduct a large
body of crusaders to the East. United with those who set out in the
preceding year, they are met by Kilidsch Arslan, on entering Asia Minor,
and are cut to pieces or dispersed.

1102. Pope Paschal II obtains from Matilda a deed of gift of all her
states to the Church.

Coloman, King of Hungary, conquers Croatia and Dalmatia.

1103. Yussef's son Ali recognized as heir to the thrones of Spain and
Africa.

1104. Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, defeats the Turks and captures Acre.

Emperor Henry IV faces a rebellion of his son, incited by the papal
party.

1105. Interview between Emperor Henry and his son at Elbingen; a diet is
called to be held at Mainz for the settlement of their dispute.

The English, under King Henry, take Caen and Bayeux in Normandy.

Defeat of the Turks in an attempt to retake Jerusalem; Bohemond, Prince
of Tarentum, who had taken Antioch from the Turks, made prisoner.

1106. King Henry I overthrows Duke Robert, who is captured, and secures
Normandy.

Death of Henry IV and accession of his son Henry V to the German throne;
the new Emperor asserts his right to appoint bishops.

1108. Death of Philip, King of France; Louis VI, the Fat, succeeds.

1109. Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, assisted by a Venetian fleet, captures
Tripoli.

Portugal declared independent and the hereditary succession established
in Count Henry's family.

1111. Emperor Henry V enters Rome; bloody contests between his soldiers
and the people. Pope Paschal II, a prisoner, resigns the right of
investiture and crowns the Emperor.

1113. Death of Swatopolk, Duke of Russia; his brother Vladimir succeeds.

1114. War in Wales; King Henry I erects castles there to secure his
conquests.

1117. The Doge of Venice falls at Zara in defending Dalmatia against the
Hungarians.

1118. "FOUNDATION OF THE ORDER OF KNIGHTS TEMPLAR." See v, 301.

On the death of Paschal II the cardinals elect Gelasius II; the Emperor
appoints the Archbishop of Braga to assume the papal dignity under the
name of Gregory VIII. The factions afterward known as the Guelfs and
Ghibellines arose from this event.

1119. Battle of Noyon, by which Henry I reestablishes his ascendency in
Normandy.

Defeat of the Turks at Antioch by King Baldwin II and the Knights
Hospitallers.

Henry I resists the papal claim to investiture in England; banishment of
Thurstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.

1120. Sinking of the White Ship (_La Blanche Nef_), in which Prince
William, son of Henry I, was lost. The King is said to have "never
smiled again" after the receipt of the news.

1121. Siege of Sutri by the army of Pope Calixtus II, and surrender of
Antipope Gregory.

1122. Henry V and Calixtus II compromise, at the Diet of Worms, the
dispute respecting the right of investiture.

Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, and Jocelyn de Courtenay made prisoners by
the Turks.

Abelard, a noted French theologian, accused of heresy at the Council of
Soissons, is condemned to burn his writings.

1123. Ninth general council; First Lateran Council.

War renewed in Normandy by the rebellion of certain powerful barons;
Henry I, King of England, takes their castles.

1124. A rich Pisan convoy, on its voyage from Sardinia, captured by the
Genoese.

1125. Death of the emperor Henry V of Germany, which ends the Franconian
dynasty; the Duke of Saxony, Lothair II, elected his successor; he
declares war against the Hohenstaufens.

Punishment of the mintmen in England for issuing base coin.

1126. King Henry leaves Normandy and takes his prisoners to England.

1127. Marriage of Henry's daughter, Matilda, to Geoffrey Plantagenet;
she is acknowledged by the English barons as heiress to her father's
throne. See "STEPHEN USURPS THE ENGLISH CROWN," v, 317.

Death of William, Duke of Apulia; Roger II, Great Count of Sicily,
succeeds. This unites the Norman conquests in Italy with Sicily; the
Pope excommunicates him.

1128. Conrad, Duke of Franconia, of the Hohenstaufen house, crowned king
of Italy at Milan, in opposition to Lothair II; he is excommunicated by
the Pope.

Roger II overcomes the papal resistance and is formally acknowledged
duke of Apulia and Calabria.

1129. King Henry of England releases his Norman prisoners and restores
their lands to them.

1130. On the death of Pope Honorius II the cardinals divide into two
factions, one of which elects Innocent II, and the other the antipope
Anacletus II. The latter gains possession of the Lateran and is there
consecrated; Innocent takes refuge in France.

1131. Birth of Maimonides, who, next to Moses, is believed to have had
the greatest influence on Jewish thought. (Date uncertain.)

1132. Lothair II goes to Rome in support of Pope Innocent II against
Antipope Anacletus II; he expels Conrad.

Wool-spinning is introduced into England by the Flemings at Worstead;
hence the name "worsted."

1133. Lothair conducts Innocent to Rome and is there crowned emperor by
him.

1134. Aragon and Navarre choose separate sovereigns, who are protected
by Alfonso the Noble, King of Castile.

1135. Death of Henry I of England; Stephen usurps the throne. See
"STEPHEN USURPS THE ENGLISH CROWN," v, 317.

A copy of Justinian's _Pandects_ said to have been discovered at Amalfi.

The house of Hohenstaufen forced into submission by Lothair.

1136. Lothair marches into Italy with a large army; the cities make
submission.

Matilda resists Stephen's usurpation of the English crown, and invades
Normandy.

1137. Death of Louis VI; his son, Louis VII, succeeds to the French
crown.

1138. David I of Scotland defeated at the Battle of the Standard. See
"STEPHEN USURPS THE ENGLISH CROWN," v, 317.

Conrad, Duke of Franconia, elected emperor of Germany; he founds the
Hohenstaufen dynasty. From his castle of Wiblingen his party takes the
name of Ghibellines; his opponent, Henry Guelf, is put under the ban of
the empire, hence the papal party were called Guelfs.

1139. Pope Innocent II taken prisoner by Roger; a treaty of peace
confirms Roger's title. Arnold of Brescia is banished Italy. See
"ANTI-PAPAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT," v, 340.

Robert, Earl of Gloucester, a natural son of Henry I, promises
assistance to Matilda in her war against King Stephen of England. See
"STEPHEN USURPS THE ENGLISH CROWN," v, 317.

1140. Conrad III defeats the forces of Guelf VI, uncle of Henry the
Lion, while attempting to gain possession of Bavaria.

1141. Battle of Lincoln; King Stephen defeated and carried prisoner to
Bristol. See "STEPHEN USURPS THE ENGLISH CROWN," v, 317.

1142. Henry the Lion is invested with the duchy of Saxony by Conrad III.
His rival, Albert the Bear, created margrave of Brandenburg.

1143. Geisa, King of Hungary, invites German emigrants to join the
colony of that people in Transylvania.

1144. Edessa, Turkey, stormed and captured by Zenghi, Sultan of Aleppo.

1145. Arnold of Brescia initiates the antipapal democratic movement. See
"ANTIPAPAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT," v, 340.

Disruption of the Almoravide kingdom in Spain.

1146. Prince Henry inherits Anjou and Maine; Normandy submits to him.

St. Bernard, at the instance of Pope Eugenius, preaches a crusade for
the protection of the Holy Land against Noureddin, Sultan of Aleppo.

Byzantium is ravaged by Roger, King of Sicily. See "DECLINE OF THE
BYZANTINE EMPIRE," v, 353.

Crusaders and mobs massacre Jews in Germany.

1147. Louis VII of France and Emperor Conrad III lead the Second
Crusade.

Lisbon, after being taken from the Moors, is made the capital of
Portugal.

Moscow, Russia, is founded by the Prince of Suzdal, Dolgoucki.

1148. Unsuccessful sieges of Damascus and Ascalon by the crusaders.

1149. Louis, returning by sea from his crusade, is captured by the
Greeks, and rescued by the Sicilian fleet.

1150. Victory of Manuel, the Byzantine Emperor, over the Servians, who
become vassals of that empire.

1151. Manuel invades Hungary, crosses the Danube, grants a truce to
Geisa, and carries a large booty to Constantinople.

1152. Death of Conrad III; Frederick I, Barbarossa, elected emperor.

1153. Treaty by King Stephen and Henry Plantagenet concerning the
succession of the English crown. See "STEPHEN USURPS THE ENGLISH CROWN,"
v, 317.

1154. A large portion of France united with the crown of England on the
accession of Henry II, who founds the Plantagenet line, following
Stephen's death.

The first Italian expedition of Frederick Barbarossa.

Pope Adrian IV, by a bull, grants Ireland to the English crown.

1155. Frederick reëstablishes the papal rule in Rome. Pope Adrian IV
orders the execution of Arnold. See "ANTIPAPAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT," v,
340.

1156. Henry the Lion, of the Guelf line, has Bavaria restored to him.
Austria erected into a duchy.

1157. Pope Adrian, in a letter to the German Emperor, asserts Germany to
be a papal benefice; Frederick resists the claim.

Poland is compelled by Emperor Frederick I to pay him homage.

1158. Eric IX of Sweden conquers the coast of Finland and builds Abo.

Frederick I, Barbarossa, a second time invades Italy; he captures Milan.

1159. Election of Pope Alexander III; Frederick I creates an anti-pope,
Victor IV.

War ensues between Henry II of England and Louis VII of France; the
former claiming the county of Toulouse, Southern France.

1160. Emperor Frederick I calls the Council of Pavia; it declares Victor
to be pope; Alexander excommunicates them all.

1161. Peace concluded between Henry II and Louis VII; they acknowledge
Alexander as pope. The kings of Denmark, Norway, Bohemia, and Hungary
declare in favor of Victor.

Henry II limits the papal authority in England.

END OF VOLUME V





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