Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8

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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8 - "Chariot" to "Chatelaine"
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8 - "Chariot" to "Chatelaine"" ***

Transcriber's notes:

(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.

(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.

(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
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(5) The following typographical error has been corrected:

ARTICLE CHARLES ALBERT: "... made a savage demonstration against
him at the Palazzo Greppi, whence he escaped in the night with
difficulty and returned to Piedmont with his defeated army." 'army
amended from armp'.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME V, SLICE VIII

Chariot to Chatelaine

ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:

CHARIOT CHARLES MARTEL
CHARISIUS, FLAVIUS SOSIPATER CHARLESTON (Illinois, U.S.A)
CHARITON CHARLESTON (South Carolina, U.S.A.)
CHARITY AND CHARITIES CHARLESTON (West Virginia, U.S.A.)
CHARIVARI CHARLESTOWN
CHARKHARI CHARLET, NICOLAS TOUSSAINT
CHARLATAN CHARLEVILLE
CHARLEMAGNE CHARLEVOIX, PIERRE FRANÇOIS XAVIER DE
CHARLEMAGNE, JEAN ARMAND CHARLEVOIX
CHARLEMONT, JAMES CAULFEILD CHARLOTTE
CHARLEROI (town in Belgium) CHARLOTTENBURG
CHARLEROI (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) CHARLOTTESVILLE
CHARLES CHARLOTTETOWN
CHARLES II. (Roman emperor) CHARM
CHARLES III. (Roman emperor) CHARNAY, (CLAUDE JOSEPH) DÉSIRÉ
CHARLES IV. (Roman emperor) CHARNEL HOUSE
CHARLES V. (Roman emperor) CHARNOCK, JOB
CHARLES VI. (Roman emperor) CHARNOCK, ROBERT
CHARLES VII. (Roman emperor) CHARNOCKITE
CHARLES I. (king of Great Britain) CHARNWOOD FOREST
CHARLES II. (king of G. Britain) CHAROLLES
CHARLES I. and II. (of France) CHARON
CHARLES III. (king of France) CHARONDAS
CHARLES IV. (king of France) CHARPENTIER, FRANÇOIS
CHARLES V. (king of France) CHARRIÈRE, AGNÈS ISABELLE ÉMILIE DE
CHARLES VI. (king of France) CHARRON, PIERRE
CHARLES VII. (king of France) CHARRUA
CHARLES VIII. (king of France) CHART
CHARLES IX. (king of France) CHARTER
CHARLES X. (king of France) CHARTERED COMPANIES
CHARLES I. (king of Hungary) CHARTERHOUSE
CHARLES I. (king of Naples) CHARTER-PARTY
CHARLES II. (king of Naples) CHARTERS TOWERS
CHARLES II. (king of Navarre) CHARTIER, ALAIN
CHARLES III. (king of Navarre) CHARTISM
CHARLES (king of Rumania) CHARTRES
CHARLES II. (king of Spain) CHARTREUSE
CHARLES III. (king of Spain) CHARTREUSE, LA GRANDE
CHARLES IV. (king of Spain) CHARWOMAN
CHARLES IX. (king of Sweden) CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND
CHARLES X. (king of Sweden) CHASE, SAMUEL
CHARLES XI. (king of Sweden) CHASE, WILLIAM MERRITT
CHARLES XII. (king of Sweden) CHASE
CHARLES XIII. (king of Sweden) CHASING
CHARLES XIV. (king of Sweden) CHASLES, VICTOR EUPHÉMIEN PHILARÈTE
CHARLES XV. (king of Sweden) CHASSE
CHARLES (duke of Brittany) CHASSÉ
CHARLES (duke of Burgundy) CHASSELOUP-LAUBAT, FRANÇOIS
CHARLES (count of Flanders) CHASSEPOT
CHARLES I. (duke of Lorraine) CHASSÉSRIAU, THÉODORE
CHARLES II. (duke of Lorraine) CHASSIS
CHARLES III. or II. (duke of Lrn.) CHASTELARD, PIERRE DE BOCSOZEL DE
CHARLES IV. or III. (duke of Lrn.) CHASTELLAIN, GEORGES
CHARLES V. or IV. (duke of Lor.) CHASUBLE
CHARLES II. (duke of Parma) CHÂTEAU
CHARLES (archduke of Austria) CHATEAUBRIAND, FRANÇOIS RENÉ
CHARLES (cardinal of Lorraine) CHÂTEAUBRIANT
CHARLES (prince of Lorraine) CHÂTEAUDUN
CHARLES (count of Valois) CHÂTEAU-GONTIER
CHARLES (prince of Viana) CHÂTEAUNEUF, LA BELLE
CHARLES, ELIZABETH CHÂTEAU-RENAULT, DE ROUSSELET
CHARLES, JACQUES ALEXANDRE CÉSAR CHÂTEAUROUX, MARIE ANNE
CHARLES, THOMAS CHÂTEAUROUX
CHARLES ALBERT CHÂTEAU-THIERRY
CHARLES AUGUSTUS CHÂTELAIN
CHARLES EDWARD CHATELAINE
CHARLES EMMANUEL I.

CHARIOT (derived from an O. Fr. word, formed from _char_, a car), in
antiquity, a conveyance (Gr. [Greek: arma], Lat. _currus_) used in
battle, for the chase, in public processions and in games. The Greek
chariot had two wheels, and was made to be drawn by two horses; if a
third or, more commonly, two reserve horses were added, they were
attached on each side of the main pair by a single trace fastened to the
front of the chariot, as may be seen on two prize vases in the British
Museum from the Panathenaic games at Athens. On the monuments there is
no other sign of traces, from the want of which wheeling round must have
been difficult. Immediately on the axle ([Greek: axôn], _axis_), without
springs of any kind, rested the basket or body ([Greek: diphros]) of the
chariot, which consisted of a floor to stand on, and a semicircular
guard round the front about half the height of the driver. It was
entirely open at the back, so that the combatant might readily leap to
the ground and up again as was necessary. There was no seat, and
generally only room for the combatant and his charioteer to stand in.
The pole ([Greek: rumos], _temo_) was probably attached to the middle of
the axle, though it appears to spring from the front of the basket; at
the end of the pole was the yoke ([Greek: zygon], _jugum_), which
consisted of two small saddles fitting the necks of the horses, and
fastened by broad bands round the chest. Besides this the harness of
each horse consisted of a bridle and a pair of reins, mostly the same as
in use now, made of leather and ornamented with studs of ivory or metal.
The reins were passed through rings attached to the collar bands or
yoke, and were long enough to be tied round the waist of the charioteer
in case of his having to defend himself. The wheels and body of the
chariot were usually of wood, strengthened in places with bronze or
iron; the wheels had from four to eight spokes and tires of bronze or
iron. This description applies generally to the chariots of all the
nations of antiquity; the differences consisted chiefly in the
mountings. The chariots of the Egyptians and Assyrians, with whom the
bow was the principal arm of attack, were richly mounted with quivers
full of arrows, while those of the Greeks, whose characteristic weapon
was the spear, were plain except as regards mere decoration. Among the
Persians, again, and more remarkably among the ancient Britons, there
was a class of chariot having the wheels mounted with sharp,
sickle-shaped blades, which cut to pieces whatever came in their way.
This was probably an invention of the Persians; Cyrus the younger
employed these chariots in large numbers. Among the Greeks and Romans,
on the other hand, the chariot had passed out of use in war before
historical times, and was retained only for races in the public games,
or for processions, without undergoing any alteration apparently, its
form continuing to correspond with the description of Homer, though it
was lighter in build, having to carry only the charioteer. On two
Panathenaic prize vases in the British Museum are figures of racing
_bigae_, in which, contrary to the description given above, the driver
is seated with his feet resting on a board hanging down in front close
to the legs of his horses. The _biga_ itself consists of a seat resting
on the axle, with a rail at each side to protect the driver from the
wheels. The chariot was unsuited to the uneven soil of Greece and Italy,
and it is not improbable that these nations had brought it with them as
part of their original habits from their former seats in the East. In
the remains of Egyptian and Assyrian art there are numerous
representations of chariots, from which it may be seen with what
richness they were sometimes ornamented. The "iron" chariots in use
among the Jews appear to have been chariots strengthened or plated with
metal, and no doubt were of the form above described, which prevailed
generally among the other ancient nations. (See also CARRIAGE.)

The chief authorities are J.C. Ginzrot, _Die Wagen and Fahrwerke der
Griechen und Römer_ (1817); C.F. Grashof, _Über das Fuhrwerk bei Homer
und Hesiod_ (1846); W. Leaf in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, v.; E.
Buchholz, _Die homerischen Realien_ (1871-1885); W. Helbig, _Das
homerische Epos aus den Denkmälern erläutert_ (1884), and the article
"Currus" in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités_.

CHARISIUS, FLAVIUS SOSIPATER, Latin grammarian, flourished about the
middle of the 4th century A.D. He was probably an African by birth,
summoned to Constantinople to take the place of Euanthius, a learned
commentator on Terence. The _Ars Grammatica_ of Charisius, in five
books, addressed to his son (not a Roman, as the preface shows), has
come down to us in a mutilated condition, the beginning of the first,
part of the fourth, and the greater part of the fifth book having been
lost. The work, which is merely a compilation, is valuable as containing
excerpts from the earlier writers on grammar, who are in many cases
mentioned by name--Q. Remmius Palaemon, C. Julius Romanus, Cominianus.

The best edition is by H. Keil, _Grammatici Latini_, i. (1857); see
also article by G. Götz in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_, iii. 2
(1899); Teuffel-Schwabe, _Hist. of Roman Literature_ (Eng. trans.), §
419, I. 2; Fröhde, in _Jahr. f. Philol._, 18 Suppl. (1892), 567-672.

CHARITON, of Aphrodisias in Caria, the author of a Greek romance
entitled _The Loves of Chaereas and Callirrhoë_, probably flourished in
the 4th century A.D. The action of the story, which is to a certain
extent historical, takes place during the time of the Peloponnesian War.
Opinions differ as to the merits of the romance, which is an imitation
of Xenophon of Ephesus and Heliodorus.

Editions by J.P. D'Orville (1783), G.A. Hirschig (1856) and R. Hercher
(1859); there is an (anonymous) English translation (1764); see also
E. Rohde, _Der griechische Roman_ (1900).

CHARITY AND CHARITIES. The word "charity," or love, represents the
principle of the good life. It stands for a mood or habit of mind and an
endeavour. From it, as a habit of mind, springs the social and personal
endeavour which in the widest sense we may call charity. The two
correspond. Where the habit of mind has not been gained, the endeavour
fluctuates and is relatively purposeless. In so far as it has been
gained, the endeavour is founded on an intelligent scrutiny of social
conditions and guided by a definite purpose. In the one case it is
realized that some social theory must be found by us, if our action is
to be right and consistent; in the other case no need of such a theory
is felt. This article is based on the assumption that there are
principles in charity or charitable work, and that these can be
ascertained by a study of the development of social conditions, and
their relation to prevalent social aims and religious or philosophic
conceptions. It is assumed also that the charity of the religious life,
if rightly understood, cannot be inconsistent with that of the social
life.

Perhaps some closer definition of charity is necessary. The words that
signify goodwill towards the community and its members are primarily
words expressive of the affections of family life in the relations
existing between parents, and between parent and child. As will be
seen, the analogies underlying such phrases as "God the Father,"
"children of God," "brethren," have played a great part in the
development of charitable thought in pre-Christian as well as in
Christian days. The germ, if we may say so, of the words [Greek:
philia, agapê], _amor_, love; _amicitia_, friendship, is the sexual or
the parental relation. With the realization of the larger life in man
the meaning of the word expands. _Caritas_, or charity, strikes
another note--high price, and thus dearness. It is charity, indeed,
expressed in mercantile metaphor; and it would seem that it was
associated in thought with the word [Greek: charis], which has also a
commercial meaning, but signifies as well favour, gratitude, grace,
kindness. Partly thus, perhaps, it assumed and suggested a nobler
conception; and sometimes, as, for instance, in English ecclesiastical
documents, it was spelt _charitas_. [Greek: Agapê], which in the
Authorized Version of the Bible is translated charity, was used by St
Paul as a translation of the Hebrew word _hesed_, which in the Old
Testament is in the same version translated "mercy"--as in Hosea vi.
6, "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice." This word represents the
charity of kindness and goodness, as distinguished from almsgiving.
Almsgiving, _sedaqah_, is translated by the word [Greek: eleêmosunê]
in the Septuagint, and in the Authorized Version by the word
"righteousness." It represents the deed or the gift which is due--done
or made, not spontaneously, but under a sense of religious obligation.
In the earlier Christian period the word almsgiving has this meaning,
and was in that sense applied to a wide range of actions and
contracts, from a gift to a beggar at a church door to a grant and a
tenure of land. It also, in the word almoner, represented the
fulfilment of the religious obligation with the aid of an agent or
delegate. The words charity or love (_caritas_ or [Greek: agapê]), on
the other hand, without losing the tone with which the thought of
parental or family love inspires them, assume a higher meaning. In
religious thought they imply an ideal life, as represented by such
expressions as "love (_agape_) of God." This on the one side; and on
the other an ideal social relation, in such words as "love of man."
Thus in the word "charity" religious and social associations meet; and
thus regarded the word means a disciplined and habitual mood in which
the mind is considerate of the welfare of others individually and
generally, and devises what is for their real good, and in which the
intelligence and the will strive to fulfil the mind's purpose. Charity
thus has no necessary relation to relief or alms. To give a lecture,
or to nurse a sick man who is not in want or "poor," may be equally a
deed of charity; though in fact charity concerns itself largely with
the classes usually called "the poor," and with problems of distress
and relief. Relief, however, is not an essential part of charity or
charitable work. It is one of many means at its disposal. If the world
were so poor that no one could make a gift, or so wealthy that no one
needed it, charity--the charity of life and of deeds--would remain.

The history of charity is a history of many social and religious
theories, influences and endeavours, that have left their mark alike
upon the popular and the cultivated thought of the present day. The
inconsistencies of charitable effort and argument may thus in part be
accounted for. To understand the problem of charity we have therefore
(1) to consider the stages of charitable thought--the primitive, pagan,
Greek and Roman, Jewish and Christian elements, that make up the modern
consciousness in regard to charity, and also the growth of the habit of
"charity" as representing a gradually educated social instinct. (2) We
have also to consider in their relation to charity the results of recent
investigations of the conditions of social life. (3) At each stage we
have to note the corresponding stage of practical administration in
public relief and private effort--for the division between public or
"poor-law" relief and charity which prevails in England is,
comparatively speaking, a novelty, and, generally speaking, the work of
charity can hardly be appreciated or understood if it be considered
without reference to public relief. (4) As to the present day, we have
to consider practical suggestions in regard to such subjects as charity
and economic thought, charity organization, friendly visiting and
almonership, co-operation with the poor-law, charity and thrift,
parochial management, hospitals and medical relief, exceptional distress
and the "unemployed," the utilization of endowments and their
supervision, and their adaptation to new needs and emergencies. (5) We
have also throughout to consider charitable help in relation to classes
of dependants, who appear early in the history of the question--widows
and orphans, the sick and the aged, vagrants and wayfarers.

First in the series come the charities of the family and of hospitality;
then the wider charities of religion, the charities of the community,
and of individual donors and of mutual help. These gradually assumed
importance in communities which consisted originally of self-supporting
classes, within which widows and orphans, for instance, would be rather
provided for, in accordance with recognized class obligations, than
relieved. Then come habitual almsgiving, the charitable endowment, and
the modern charitable institution and association. But throughout the
test of progress or decadence appears to be the condition of the family.
The family is the source, the home and the hearthstone of charity. It
has been created but slowly, and there is naturally a constant tendency
to break away from its obligations and to ignore and depreciate its
utility. Yet the family, as we now have it, is itself the outcome of
infinite thought working through social instinct, and has at each stage
of its development indicated a general advance. To it, therefore,
constant reference must be made.

PART I.--PRIMITIVE CHARITY

The study of early communities has brought to light the history of the
development of the family. "Marriage in its lowest phases is by no means
a matter of affection or companionship"; and only very slowly has the
position of both parents been recognized as implying different but
correlative responsibilities towards their child. Only very slowly,
also, has the morality necessary to the making of the family been won.
Charity at earlier stages is hardly recognized as a virtue, nor
infanticide as an evil. Hospitality--the beginning of a larger social
life--is non-existent. The self-support of the community is secured by
marriage, and when relations fail marriage becomes a provision against
poverty. Then by the tribal system is created another safeguard against
want. But apart also from these methods of maintenance, at a very early
stage there is charitable relief. The festivals of the solstices and
equinoxes, and of the seasons, are the occasions for sacrifice and
relief; and, as Christmas customs prove, the instinct to give help or
alms at such festival periods still remains. Charity is concerned
primarily with certain elemental forces of social life: the relation
between these primitive instincts and impulses that still influence
charity should not, therefore, be overlooked. The basis of social life
is also the basis of charitable thought and action.

The savage is the civilized man in the rough. "The lowest races have,"
Lord Avebury writes, "no institution of marriage." Many have no word
for "dear" or "beloved." The child belongs to the tribe rather than to
the parent. In these circumstances a problem of charity such as the
following may arise:--"Am I to starve, while my sister has children
whom she can sell?" a question asked of Burton by a negro. From the
point of view of the tribe, an able-bodied man would be more valuable
than dependent children, and the relationship of the larger family of
brothers and sisters would be a truer claim to help than that of
mother and child. Subsequently the child is recognized as related, not
to the father, but to the mother, and there is "a kind of bond which
lasts for life between mother and child, although the father is a
stranger to it." Slowly only is the relative position of both parents,
with different but correlative responsibilities, recognized. The first
two steps of charity have then been made: the social value of the bond
between the mother, and then between the father, and the child has
been recognized. Until this point is reached the morality necessary to
the making of the family is wanting, and for a long time afterwards it
is hardly won. The virtue of chastity--the condition precedent to the
higher family life--is unrecognized. Indeed, the set of such religious
thought as there may be is against it. Abstract conceptions, even in
the nobler races, are lacking. The religion of life is vaguely
struggling with its animality, and that which it at last learns to
rule it at first worships. In these circumstances there is little
charity for the child and little for the stranger. "There is," Dr
Schweinfurth wrote in his _Heart of Africa_, "an utter want of
wholesome intercourse between race and race. For any member of a tribe
that speaks one dialect to cross the borders of a tribe that speaks
another is to make a venture at the hazard of his life." The religious
obligations that fostered and sanctified family life among the Greeks
and Romans and Jews are unknown. Much later in development comes
charity for the child, with the abhorrence of infanticide--against
which the Jewish-Christian charity of 2000 years ago uttered its most
vigorous protests. If the child belonged primarily to the tribe or
state, its maintenance or destruction was a common concern. This
motive influenced the Greeks, who are historically nearer the earlier
forms of social life than ourselves. For the common good they exposed
the deformed child; but also "where there were too many, for in our
state population has a limit," as Aristotle says, "the babe or unborn
child was destroyed." And so, to lighten their own responsibilities,
parents were wont to do in the slow years of the degradation of the
Roman empire, though the interest of the state then required a
contrary policy. The transition to our present feeling of
responsibility for child-life has been very gradual and uncertain,
through the middle ages and even till the 18th century. Strictly it
may be said that all penitentiaries and other similar institutions are
concrete protests on behalf of a better family life. The movement for
the care of children in the 18th century naturally and instinctively
allied itself with the penitentiary movement. The want of regard for
child-life, when the rearing of children becomes a source of economic
pressure, suggests why in earlier stages of civilization all that
charitable apparatus which we now think necessary for the assistance
of children is wanting, even if the need, so far as it does arise, is
not adequately met by the recognized obligations of the clan-family or
brotherhood.

In the case of barbarous races charity and self-support may be
considered from some other points of view. Self-support is secured in
two ways--by marriage and by slavery. "For a man or woman to be
unmarried after the age of thirty is unheard of" (T.H. Lewin, _Wild
Races of South-East India_). On the other hand, if any one is without
a father, mother or other relative, and destitute of the necessaries
of life, he may sell himself and become a slave. Thus slavery becomes
a provision for poverty when relations fail. The clan-family may serve
the same purpose. David Livingstone describes the formation of the
clan-family among the Bakuena. "Each man, by virtue of paternity, is
chief of his own children. They build huts round his.... Near the
centre of each circle of huts is a spot called a 'kotla,' with a
fireplace; here they work, eat, &c. A poor man attaches himself to the
'kotla' of a rich one, and is considered a child of the latter." Thus
the clan-family is also a poor-relief association.

Studies in folklore bring to light many relations between the charity
of the old world and that of our own day.

The early community.

In regard to the charity of the early community, we may take the 8th
century B.C. as the point of departure. The _Odyssey_ (about 800 B.C.)
and Hesiod (about 700 B.C.) are roughly parallel with Amos (816-775),
and represent two streams of thought that meet in the early Christian
period. The period covered by the _Odyssey_ seems to merge into that of
Hesiod. We take the former first, dealing with the clan-family and the
phratry, which are together the self-maintaining unit of society, with
the general relief of the poor, with hospitality, and with vagrancy. In
Hesiod we find the customary law of charity in the earlier community
definitely stated, and also indications of the normal methods of
neighbourly help which were in force in country districts. First of the
family and brotherhood, or phratry. The family (_Od_. viii. 582)
included alike the wife's father and the daughter's husband. It was thus
a clanlike family. Out of this was developed the phratry or brotherhood,
in which were included alike noble families, peasants and craftsmen,
united by a common worship and responsibilities and a common customary
law (_themis_). Zeus, the god of social life, was worshipped by the
phratry. He was the father of the law (_themis_). He was god of host and
guest. Society was thus based on law, the brotherhood and the family.
The irresponsible man, the man worthy of no respect or consideration,
was one who belonged to no brotherhood, was subject to no customary law,
and had no hearth or family. The phratry was, and became afterwards
still more, "a natural gild." Outside the self-sustaining phratry was
the stranger, including the wayfarer and the vagrant; and partly merged
in these classes was the beggar, the recognized recipient of the alms of
the community. To change one's abode and to travel was assumed to be a
cause of reproach (_Il_. ix. 648). The "land-louper" was naturally
suspected. On the other hand, a stranger's first thought in a new
country was whether the inhabitants were wild or social ([Greek:
dikaioi]), hospitable and God-fearing (_Od_. xiii. 201). Hospitality
thus became the first public charity; Zeus sent all strangers and
beggars, and it was against all law ([Greek: themis]) to slight them.
Out of this feeling--a kind of glorified almsgiving--grew up the system
of hospitality in Greek states and also in the Roman world. The host
greeted the stranger (or the suppliant). An oath of friendship was taken
by the stranger, who was then received with the greeting, Welcome
([Greek: chaire]), and water was provided for ablution, and food and
shelter. In the larger house there was a guests' table. In the hut he
shared the peasant's meal. The custom bound alike the rich and the poor.
On parting presents were given, usually food for the onward journey,
sometimes costly gifts. The obligation was mutual, that the host should
give hospitality, and that the guest should not abuse it. From early
times tallies were exchanged between them as evidence of this formal
relationship, which each could claim again of the other by the
production of the token. And further, the relationship on either side
became hereditary. Thus individuals and families and tribes remained
linked in friendship and in the interchange of hospitalities.

Under the same patronage of Zeus and the same laws of hospitality were
vagrants and beggars. The vagrant and loafer are sketched in the
_Odyssey_--the vagrant who lies glibly that he may get entertainment,
and the loafer who prefers begging to work on a farm. These and the
winter idlers, whom Hesiod pictures--a group known to modern
life--prefer at that season to spend their time in the warmth of the
village smithy, or at a house of common resort ([Greek: leschê])--a
common lodging-house, we might say--where they would pass the night.
Apparently, as in modern times, the vagrants had organized their own
system of entertainment, and, supported by the public, were a class for
whom it was worth while to cater. The local or public beggars formed a
still more definite class. Their begging was a recognized means of
maintenance; it was a part of the method of poor relief. Thus of
Penelope it was said that, if Odysseus' tale were true, she would give
him better clothes, and then he might beg his bread throughout the
country-side. Feasts, too, and almsgiving were nearly allied, and feasts
have always been one resource for the relief of the poor. Thus naturally
the beggars frequented feasts, and were apparently a recognized and yet
inevitable nuisance. They wore, as part of their dress, scrips or
wallets in which they carried away the food they received, as later
Roman clients carried away portions of food in baskets (_sportula_) from
their patron's dinner. Odysseus, when he dresses up as a beggar, puts on
a wallet as part of his costume. Thus we find a system of voluntary
relief in force based on a recognition of the duty of almsgiving as
complete and peremptory as that which we shall notice later among the
Jews and the early Christians. We are concerned with country districts,
and not with towns, and, as social conditions that are similar produce
similar methods of administration, so we find here a general plan of
relief similar to that which was in vogue in Scotland till the Scottish
Poor Law Act of 1845.

In Hesiod the fundamental conceptions of charity are more clearly
expressed. He has, if not his ten, at least his four commandments, for
disobedience to which Zeus will punish the offender. They are: Thou
shalt do no evil to suppliant or guest; thou shalt not dishonour any
woman of the family; thou shalt not sin against the orphan; thou shalt
not be unkind to aged parents.

The laws of social life are thus duty to one's guest and duty to one's
family; and chastity has its true place in that relation, as the later
Greeks, who so often quote Hesiod (cf. the so-called _Economics_ of
Aristotle), fully realized. Also the family charities due to the
orphan, whose lot is deplored in the _Iliad_ (xxii. 490), and to the
aged are now clearly enunciated. But there is also in Hesiod the duty
to one's neighbour, not according to the "perfection" of "Cristes
lore," but according to a law of honourable reciprocity in act and
intent. "Love him who loves thee, and cleave to him who cleaveth to
thee: to him who would have given, give; to him who would not have
given, give not." The groundwork of Hesiod's charity outside the
family is neighbourly help (such as formed no small part of old
Scottish charity in the country districts); and he put his argument
thus: Competition, which is a kind of strife, "lies in the roots of
the world and in men." It is good, and rouses the idle "handless" man
to work. On one side are social duty ([Greek: dikê]) and work, done
briskly at the right season of the year, which brings a full barn. On
the other side are unthrift and hunger, and relief with the disgrace
of begging; and the relief, when the family can do no more, must come
from neighbours, to whose house the beggar has to go with his wife and
children to ask for victual. Once they may be helped, or twice, and
then they will be refused. It is better, Hesiod tells his brother, to
work and so pay off his debts and avoid hunger (see _Erga_, 391, &c.,
and elsewhere). Here indeed is a problem of to-day as it appeared to
an early Greek. The alternatives before the idler--so far as his own
community is concerned--are labour with neighbourly help to a limited
extent, or hunger.

Hesiod was a farmer in Boeotia. Some 530 years afterwards a pupil of
Aristotle thus describes the district and its community of farmers.
"They are," he says, "well to do, but simple in their way of life.
They practise justice, good faith, and hospitality. To needy townsmen
and vagabonds they give freely of their substance; for meanness and
covetousness are unknown to them." The charitable method of Homeric
and Hesiodic days still continued.

PART II.--CHARITY AMONG THE GREEKS

The Greek state.

Society in a Greek state was divided into two parts, citizens and
slaves. The citizens required leisure for education, war and government.
The slaves were their ministers and servants to enable them to secure
this leisure. We have therefore to consider, on the one hand, the
position of the family and the clan-family, and the maintenance of the
citizen from public funds and by public and private charities; and on
the other hand the condition of the slaves, and the relation between
slavery and charity.

The slaves formed the larger part of the population. The census of
Attica, made between 317 and 307 B.C., gives their numbers at 400,000
out of a population of about 500,000; and even if this be considered
excessive, the proportion of slaves to citizens would certainly be very
large. The citizens with their wives and children formed some 12% of the
community. Thus, apart from the resident aliens, returned in the census
at 10,000, and their wives and children, we have two divisions of
society: the citizens, with their own organization of relief and
charities; and the slaves, permanently maintained by reason of their
dependence on individual members of the civic class. Thus, there is no
poverty but that of the poor citizens. Poverty is limited to them. The
slaves--that is to say, the bulk of the labouring population--are
provided for.

From times relatively near to Hesiod's we may trace the growth and
influence of the clan-family as the centre of customary charity within
the community, the gradual increase of a class of poor either outside
the clan-family or eventually independent of it, and the development of
a new organization of relief introduced by the state to meet newer
demands. We picture the early state as a group of families, each of
which tends to form in time a separate group or clan. At each expansion
from the family to the clan the members of the clan retain rights and
have to fulfil duties which are the same as, or similar to, those which
prevailed in the family. Thus, in Attica the clan-families (_genos_) and
the brotherhoods (_phratria_) were "the only basis of legal rights and
obligations over and above the natural family." The clan-family was "a
natural guild," consisting of rich and poor members--the well-born or
noble and the craftsman alike. Originally it would seem that the land
was divided among the families of the clan by lot and was inalienable.
Thus with the family was combined the means of supporting the family. On
the other hand, every youth was registered in his phratry, and the
phratry remained till the reforms of Cleisthenes (509 B.C.) a political,
and even after that time a social, organization of importance.

First, as to the family--the mother and wife, and the father. Already
before the age of Plato and Xenophon (450-350 B.C.) we find that the
family has suffered a slow decline. The wife, according to later Greek
usage, was married as a child, hardly educated, and confined to the
house, except at some festival or funeral. But with the decline came
criticism and a nobler conception of family life. "First, then, come
laws regarding the wife," writes the author of the so-called _Economics_
of Aristotle, and the law, "thou shalt do no wrong; for, if we do no
wrong, we shall not be wronged." This is the "common law," as the
Pythagoreans say, "and it implies that we must not wrong the wife in the
least, but treat her with the reverence due to a suppliant, or one taken
from the altar." The sanctity of marriage is thus placed among the
"commandments" of Hesiod, beside the duty towards the stranger and the
orphan. These and other references to the Pythagoreans suggest that
they, possibly in common with other mystics, preached the higher
religion of marriage and social life, and thus inspired a deeper social
feeling, which eventually allied itself with the Christian movement.

Next, as to parents and children: the son was under an obligation to
support his father, subject, after Solon's time, to the condition that
he had taught him a trade; and after Solon's time the father had no
claim for support from an illegitimate son. "The possession of
children," it was said (Arist. _Econ._), "is not by nature for the
public good only, but also for private advantage. For what the strong
may gain by their toil for the weak, the weak in their old age receive
from the strong... Thus is the nature of each, the man and the woman,
prearranged by the Divine Being for a life in common." Honour to parents
is "the first and greatest and oldest of all debts" (Plato, _Laws_,
717). The child has to care for the parent in his old age. "Nemesis, the
minister of justice ([Greek: dikê]), is appointed to watch over all
these things." And "if a man fail to adorn the sepulchre of his dead
parents, the magistrates take note of it and inquire" (Xen. _Mem._ ii.
14). The heightened conception of marriage implies a fuller
interpretation of the mutual relations of parent and child as well; both
become sacred.

Then as to orphans. Before Solon's time (594 B.C.) the property of any
member of the clan-family who died without children went to the clan;
and after his time, when citizens were permitted to leave their property
by will, the property of an intestate fell to the clan. This arrangement
carried with it corresponding duties. Through the clan-family provision
was made for orphans. Any member of the clan had the legal right to
claim an orphan member in marriage; and, if the nearest agnate did not
marry her, he had to give her a dowry proportionate to the amount of his
own property. Later, there is evidence of a growing sense of
responsibility in regard to orphans. Hippodamus (about 443 B.C.), in his
scheme of the perfected state (Arist. _Pol._ 1268), suggested that there
should be public magistrates to deal with the affairs of orphans (and
strangers); and Plato, his contemporary, writes of the duty of the state
and of the guardian towards them very fully. Orphans, he proposes
(_Laws_, 927), should be placed under the care of public guardians. "Men
should have a fear of the loneliness of orphans ... and of the souls of
the departed, who by nature take a special care of their own
children.... A man should love the unfortunate orphan (boy or girl) of
whom he is guardian as if he were his own child; he should be as careful
and diligent in the management of the orphan's property as of his
own--or even more careful still."

To relieve the poverty of citizens and to preserve the citizen-hood were
objects of public policy and of charity. In Crete and Sparta the
citizens were wholly supported out of the public resources. In Attica
the system was different. The citizens were aided in various ways, in
which, as often happens, legal or official and voluntary or private
methods worked on parallel lines. The means were (1) legal enactment for
release of debts; (2) emigration; (3) the supply of corn; (4) poor
relief for the infirm, and relief for the children of those fallen in
war; (5) emoluments; (6) voluntary public service, separate gifts and
liberality; (7) loan societies.

(1) In 594 B.C. the labouring class in Attica were overwhelmed with
debts and mortgages, and their persons pledged as security. Only by a
sharp reform was it possible to preserve them from slavery. This Solon
effected. He annulled their obligations, abolished the pledge of the
person, and gave the labourers the franchise (but see under SOLON).
Besides the laws above mentioned, he gave power to the Areopagus to
inquire from what sources each man obtained the necessaries of life,
and to punish those who did not work. His action and that of his
successor, Peisistratus (560 B.C.), suggest that the class of poor
([Greek: aporoi]) was increasing, and that by the efforts of these two
men the social decline of the people was avoided or at least
postponed. Peisistratus lent the poor money that they might maintain
themselves in husbandry. He wished, it is said (Arist. _Ath. Pol._
xvi.), to enable them to earn a moderate living, that they might be
occupied with their own affairs, instead of spending their time in the
city or neglecting their work in order to visit it. As rent for their
land they paid a tenth of the produce.

(2) Akin to this policy was that of emigration. Athenians, selected in
some instances from the two lowest political classes, emigrated,
though still retaining their rights of citizenship. In 570-565 B.C.
Salamis was annexed and divided into lots and settled, and later
Pericles settled more than 2750 citizens in the Chersonese and
elsewhere--practically a considerable section of the whole body of
citizens. "By this means," says Plutarch, "he relieved the state of
numerous idle agitators and assisted the necessitous." In other states
this expedient was frequently adopted.

(3) A third method was the supply of corn at reduced rates--a method
similar to that adopted, as we shall see, at Rome, Constantinople and
elsewhere. The maintenance of the mass of the people depended on the
corn fleets. There were public granaries, where large stores were laid
up at the public expense. A portion of all cargoes of corn was
retained at Athens and in other ways importation was promoted.
Exportation was forbidden. Public donations and distributions of corn
were frequent, and in times of scarcity rich citizens made large
contributions with that object. The distributions were made to adult
citizens of eighteen years of age and upwards whose names were on the
registers.

(4) In addition to this there was a system of public relief for those
who were unable to earn a livelihood on account of bodily defects and
infirmities. The qualification was a property test. The property of
the applicant had to be shown to be of a value of not more than three
minae (say £12). Socrates, it may be noted, adopts the same method of
estimating his comparative poverty (Xen. _Econ._ 2. 6), saying that
his goods would realize about five minae (or about twenty guineas).
The senate examined the case, and the ecclesia awarded the bounty,
which amounted to 1 or 2 obols a day, rather more than 1½d. or
3d.--out-door relief, as we might say, amounting at most to about 1s.
9d. a week. There was also a fund for the maintenance of the children
of those who had fallen in war, up to the age of eighteen.

(5) But the main source of support was the receipt of emoluments for
various public services. This was not relief, though it produced in
the course of time the effect of relief. It was rather the Athenian
method of supporting a governing class of citizens.

The inner political history of Athens is the history of the extension
of the franchise to the lower classes of citizens, with the privileges
of holding office and receiving emoluments. In early times, either by
Solon (q.v.) or previously, the citizens were classified on the basis
of property. The rich retained the franchise and the right of holding
office; the middle classes obtained the franchise; the fourth or
lowest class gained neither. By the reforms of Cleisthenes (509 B.C.)
the clan-family and the phratry were set aside for the _deme_ or
parish, a geographical division superseding the social. Finally, about
478 B.C., when all had acquired the franchise, the right to hold
office also was obtained by the third class. These changes coincided
with a period of economic progress. The rate of interest was high,
usually 12%; and in trading and bottomry the returns were much higher.
A small capital at this interest soon produced comparative wealth; and
simultaneously prices were falling. Then came the reaction. "After the
Peloponnesian war" (432-404 B.C.), writes Professor Jebb, "the wealth
of the country ceased to grow, as population had ceased to grow about
50 years sooner. The rich went on accumulating: the poor, having no
means of enriching themselves by enterprise, were for the most part
occupied in watching for some chance of snatching a larger share of
the stationary total." Thus the poorer classes in a time of prosperity
had won the power which they were able to turn to their own account
afterwards. A period of economic pressure followed, coupled with a
decline in the population; no return to the land was feasible, nor was
emigration; the people had become town-folk inadaptable to new uses;
decreasing vitality and energy were marked by a new temper, the
"pauper" temper, unsettled, idle and grasping, and political power was
utilized to obtain relief. The relief was forthcoming, but it was of
no avail to stop the general decline. The state, it might almost be
said, in giving scope to the assertion of the spirit of dependence,
had ruined the self-regarding energy on which both family and state
alike depended. The emoluments were diverse. The number of citizens
was not large; the functions in which citizens could take part were
numerous; and when payment was forthcoming the poorer citizens pressed
in to exercise their rights (cf. Arist. _Pol._ 1293 a). All Athenian
citizens could attend the public assembly or _ecclesia_. Probably the
attendance at it varied from a few hundred to 5000 persons. In 395
B.C. the payment for attendance was fixed at 3 obols, or little more
than 4½d. a day--for the system of payment had probably been
introduced a few years before (but see ECCLESIA and refs.). A juror or
_dicast_ would receive the same sum for attendance, and the courts or
juries often consisted of 500 persons. If the estimate (Böckh, _Public
Economy of Athens_, Eng. trans. pp. 109, 117) holds good that in the
age of Demosthenes (384-323 B.C.) the member of a poor family of four
free persons could live (including rent) on about 3.3d. or between 2
and 3 obols a day, the pay of the citizen attending the assembly or
the court would at least cover the expenses of subsistence. On the
other hand, it would be less than the pay of a day labourer, which was
probably about 4 obols or 6d. a day. In any case many citizens--they
numbered in all about 20,000--in return for their participation in
political duties would receive considerable pecuniary assistance.
Attending a great public festival also, the citizen would receive 2
obols or 3d. a day during the festival days; and there were besides
frequent public sacrifices, with the meal or feast which accompanied
them. But besides this there were confiscations of private property,
which produced a surplus revenue divisible among the poorer citizens.
(Some hold that there were confiscations in other Greek states, but
not in Athens.) In these circumstances it is not to be wondered that
men like Isocrates should regret that the influence of the Areopagus,
the old court of morals and justice in Athens, had disappeared, for it
"maintained a sort of censorial police over the lives and habits of
the citizens; and it professed to enforce a tutelary and paternal
discipline, beyond that which the strict letter of the law could mark
out, over the indolent, the prodigal, the undutiful, and the deserters
of old rite and custom."

(6) In addition to public emoluments and relief there was much private
liberality and charity. Many expensive public services were undertaken
honorarily by the citizens under a kind of civic compulsion. Thus in a
trial about 425 B.C. (Lysias, _Or._ 19. 57) a citizen submitted
evidence that his father expended more than £2000 during his life in
paying the expenses of choruses at festivals, fitting out seven
triremes for the navy, and meeting levies of income tax to meet
emergencies. Besides this he had helped poor citizens by portioning
their daughters and sisters, had ransomed some, and paid the funeral
expenses of others (cf. for other instances Plutarch's _Cimon_,
Theophrastus, _Eth._, and Xen. _Econ._).

(7) There were also mutual help societies ([Greek: eranoi]). Those for
relief would appear to have been loan societies (cf. Theoph. _Eth._),
one of whose members would beat up contributions to help a friend, who
would afterwards repay the advance.

The criticisms of Aristotle (384-321 B.C.) suggest the direction to
which he looked for reform. He (_Pol._ 1320 a) passes a very
unfavourable judgment on the distribution of public money to the
poorer citizens. The demagogues (he does not speak of Athens
particularly) distributed the surplus revenues to the poor, who
received them all at the same time; and then they were in want again.
It was only, he argued, like pouring water through a sieve. It were
better to see to it that the greater number were not so entirely
destitute, for the depravity of a democratic government was due to
this. The problem was to contrive how plenty ([Greek: euporia], not
poverty, [Greek: aporia]) should become permanent. His proposals are
adequate aid and voluntary charity. Public relief should, he urges, be
given in large amounts so as to help people to acquire small farms or
start in business, and the well-to-do ([Greek: euporoi]) should in the
meantime subscribe to pay the poor for their attendance at the public
assemblies. (This proves, indeed, how the payments had become poor
relief.) He mentions also how the Carthaginian notables divided the
destitute amongst them and gave them the means of setting to work, and
the Tarentines ([Greek: koina poiountes]) shared their property with
the poor. (The Rhodians also may be mentioned (Strabo xiv. c. 652),
amongst whom the well-to-do undertook the relief of the poor
voluntarily.) The later word for charitable distribution was a sharing
([Greek: koinonia], Ep. Rom. xv. 26), which would seem to indicate
that after Aristotle's time popular thought had turned in that
direction. But the chief service rendered by Aristotle--a service
which covered indeed the whole ground of social progress--was to show
that unless the purpose of civil and social life was carefully
considered and clearly realized by those who desired to improve its
conditions, no change for the better could result from individual or
associated action.

Two forms of charity have still to be mentioned: charity to the stranger
and to the sick. It will be convenient to consider both in relation to
the whole classical period.

With the growth of towns the administration of hospitality was
elaborated.

The stranger.

(1) There was hospitality between members of families bound by the
rites of host and guest. The guest received as a right only shelter
and fire. Usually he dined with the host the first day, and if
afterwards he was fed provisions were supplied to him. There were
large guest-chambers ([Greek: xenon]) or small guest-houses,
completely isolated on the right or left of the principal house; and
here the guest was lodged. (2) There were also, e.g. at Hierapolis
(Sir W.M. Ramsay's _Phrygia_, ii. 97), brotherhoods of hospitality
([Greek: xenoi tekmêreioi], bearers of the sign), which made
hospitality a duty, and had a common chest and Apollo as their
tutelary god. (3) There were inns or resting-places ([Greek:
katagogia]) for strangers at temples (Thuc. iii. 68; Plato, _Laws_,
953 A) and places of resort ([Greek: lesche]) at or near the temples
for the entertainment of strangers--for instance, at a temple of
Asclepius at Epidaurus (Pausanias ii. 174); and Pausanias argues that
they were common throughout the country. Probably also at the temples
hospitable provision was made for strangers. The evidence at present
is not perhaps sufficiently complete, but, so far as it goes, it tends
to the conclusion that in pre-Christian times hospitality was provided
to passers-by and strangers in the temple buildings, as later it was
furnished in the monasteries and churches. (4) There were also in
towns houses for strangers ([Greek: xenon]) provided at the public
cost. This was so at Megara; and in Crete strangers had a place at the
public meals and a dormitory. Xenophon suggested that it would be
profitable for the Athenian state to establish inns for traders
([Greek: katagogia dêmusia]) at Athens. Thus, apart from the official
hospitality of the proxenus or "consul," who had charge of the affairs
of foreigners, and the hospitality which was shown to persons of
distinction by states or private individuals, there was in Greece a
large provision for strangers, wayfarers and vagrants based on the
charitable sentiment of hospitality. Among the Romans similar customs
of private and public hospitality prevailed; and throughout the empire
the older system was altered, probably very slowly. In Christian times
(cf. Ramsay above) Pagan temples were (about A.D. 408) utilized for
other purposes, including that of hospitality to strangers.

The sick.

Round the temples, at first probably village temples, the organization
of medical relief grew up. Primitive medicine is connected with dreams,
worship, and liturgical "pollution," punishment and penitence, and an
experimental practice. Finally, systematic observation and science (with
no knowledge of chemistry and little of physiology) assert themselves,
and a secular administration is created by the side of the older
religious organization.

Sickness among primitive races is conceived to be a material substance
to be extracted, or an evil spirit to be driven away by incantation.
Religion and medicine are thus at the beginning almost one and the
same thing. In Anatolia, in the groups of villages (cf. Ramsay as
above, i. 101) under the theocratic government of a central [Greek:
ieron] or temple, the god Men Karou was the physician and saviour
([Greek: soter] and [Greek: sozon]) of his people. Priests, prophets
and physicians were his ministers. He punished wrong-doing by diseases
which he taught the penitent to cure. So elsewhere pollution, physical
or moral, was chastened by disease and loss of property or children,
and further ills were avoided by sacrifice and expiation and public
warning. In the temple and out of this phase of thought grew up
schools of medicine, in whose practice dreams and religious ritual
retained a place. The newer gods, Asclepius and Apollo, succeeded the
older local divinities; and the "sons" of Asclepius became a
profession, and the temple with its adjacent buildings a kind of
hospital. There were many temples of Asclepius in Greece and
elsewhere, placed generally in high and salubrious positions. After
ablution the patient offered sacrifices, repeating himself the words
of the hymn that was chanted. Then, when night came on, he slept in
the temple. In the early dawn he was to dream "the heavenly dream"
which would suggest his cure; but if he did not dream, relations and
others--officials at the temple--might dream for him. At dawn the
priests or sons of Asclepius came into the temple and visited the
sick, so that, in a kind of drama, where reality and appearance seemed
to meet, the patients believed that they saw the god himself. The next
morning the prescription and treatment were settled. At hand in the
inn or guest-chambers of the temple the patient could remain, sleeping
again in the temple, if necessary, and carrying out the required
regimen. In the temple were votive tablets of cases, popular and
awe-inspiring, and records and prescriptions, which later found their
way into the medical works of Galen and others. At the temple of
Asclepius at Epidaurus was an inn ([Greek: katagogion]) with four
courts and colonnades, and in all 160 rooms. (Cf. Pausanias ii. 171;
and _Report, Archaeol. in Greece_, R.C. Bosanquet, 1899, 1900.)

At three centres more particularly, Rhodes, Cnidos and Cos, were the
medical schools of the Asclepiads. If one may judge from an inscription
at Athens, priests of Asclepius attended the poor gratuitously. And
years afterwards, in the 11th century, when there was a revival of
medicine, we find (Daremberg, _La Médecine: histoire et doctrines_) at
Salerno the Christian priest as doctor, a simple and less palatable
pharmacy for the poor than for the rich, and gratuitous medical relief.

Besides the temple schools and hospitals there was a secular
organization of medical aid and relief. States appointed trained medical
men as physicians, and provided for them medical establishments ([Greek:
iatreia], "large houses with large doors full of light") for the
reception of the sick, and for operations there were provided beds,
instruments, medicines, &c. At these places also pupils were taught. A
lower degree of medical establishment was to be found at the barbers'
shops. Out-patients were seen at the _iatreia_. They were also visited
at home. There were doctors' assistants and slave doctors. The latter,
apparently, attended only slaves (Plato, _Laws_, 720); they do "a great
service to the master of the house, who in this manner is relieved of
the care of his slaves." It was a precept of Hippocrates that if a
physician came to a town where there were sick poor, he should make it
his first duty to attend to them; and the state physician attended
gratuitously any one who applied to him. There were also travelling
physicians going rounds to heal children and the poor. These methods
continued, probably all of them, to Christian times.

It has been argued that medical practice was introduced into Italy by
the Greeks. But the evidence seems to show that there was a quite
independent Latin tradition and school of medicine (René Brian,
"Médecine dans le Latium et à Rome," _Rev. Archéol._, 1885). In Rome
there were consulting-rooms and dispensaries, and houses in which the
sick were received. Hospitals are mentioned by Roman writers in the 1st
century A.D. There were infirmaries--detached buildings--for sick
slaves; and in Rome, as at Athens, there were slaves skilled in
medicine. In Rome also for each _regio_ there was a chief physician who
attended to the poorer people.

Slavery.

Slavery was so large a factor in pre-Christian and early Christian
society that a word should be said on its relation to charity.
Indirectly it was a cause of poverty and social degradation. Thus in the
case of Athens, with the achievement of maritime supremacy the number of
slaves increased greatly. Manual arts were despised as unbecoming to a
citizen, and the slaves carried on the larger part of the agricultural
and industrial work of the community; and for a time--until after the
Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.)--slavery was an economic success. But by
degrees the slave, it would seem, dispossessed the citizen and rendered
him unfit for competition. The position of the free artisan thus became
akin to that of the slave (Arist. _Pol._ 1260 a, &c.), and slavery
became the industrial method of the country. Though Greeks, Romans, Jews
and Christians spent money in ransoming individual slaves and also
enfranchised many, no general abolition of slavery was possible. At
last through economic changes the new status of _coloni_, who paid as
rent part of the produce of the land they tilled, superseded the status
of slavery (cf. above; the system turned to account by Peisistratus).
But this result was only achieved much later, when a new society was
being created, when the slaves from the slave prisons (_ergastula_) of
Italy joined its invaders, and the slave-owner or master, as one may
suppose, unable any longer to work the gangs, let them become _coloni_.

In Greece the feeling towards the slave became constantly more humane.
Real slavery, Aristotle said, was a cast of mind, not a condition of
life. The slave was not to be ordered about, but to be commanded and
persuaded like a child. The master was under the strongest obligation to
promote his welfare. In Rome, on the other hand, slavery continued to
the end a massive, brutal, industrial force--a standing danger to the
state. But alike in Greece and Rome the influence of slavery on the
family was pernicious. The pompous array of domestic slaves, the
transfer of motherly duties to slave nurses, the loss of that homely
education which for most people comes only from the practical details of
life--all this in later Greece and Italy, and far into Christian times,
prevented that permanent invigoration and reform of family life which
Jewish and Christian influences might otherwise have produced.

PART III.--CHARITY IN ROMAN TIMES

The words that suggest most clearly the Roman attitude towards what we
call charity are _liberalitas_, _beneficentia_ and _pietas_. The two
former are almost synonymous (Cicero, _De Offic._ i. 7, 14). Liberality
lays stress on the mood--that of the _liber_, the freeborn, and so in a
sense the independent and superior; beneficence on the deed and its
purpose (Seneca, _De Benef._ vi. 10). The conditions laid down by
Cicero, following Panaetius the Stoic (185-112 B.C.) are three: not to
do harm to him whom one would benefit, not to exceed one's means, and to
have regard to merit. The character of the person whom we would benefit
should be considered, his feelings towards us, the interest of the
community, our social relations in life, and services rendered in the
past. The utility of the deed or gift graded according to social
relationship and estimated largely from the point of view of ultimate
advantage to the doer or donor seems to predominate in the general
thought of the book, though (cf. Aristotle, _Eth._ viii. 3) the idea
culminates in the completeness of friendship where "all things are in
common." _Pietas_ has the religious note which the other words lack,
loving dutifulness to gods and home and country. Not "piety" only but
"pity" derive from it: thus it comes near to our "charity." Both books,
the _De Officiis_ and the _De Beneficiis_, represent a Roman and Stoical
revision of the problem of charity and, as in Stoicism generally, there
seems to be a half-conscious attempt to feel the way to a new social
standpoint from this side.

Roman times.

As from the point of view of charity the well-being of the community
depends upon the vigour of the deep-laid elemental life within it, so in
passing to Roman times we consider the family first. The Roman family
was unique in its completeness, and by some of its conditions the world
has long been bound. The father alone had independent authority (_sui
juris_), and so long as he lived all who were under his power--his wife,
his sons, and their wives and children, and his unmarried
daughters--could not acquire any property of their own. Failing father
or husband, the unmarried daughters were placed under the guardianship
of the nearest male members of the family. Thus the family, in the
narrower sense in which we commonly use the word, as meaning descendants
of a common father or grandfather, was, as it were, a single point of
growth in a larger organism, the _gens_, which consisted of all those
who shared a common ancestry.

The wife, though in law the property of her husband, held a position
of honour and influence higher than that of the Greek wife, at least
in historic times. She seems to come nearer to the ideal of Xenophon:
"the good wife should be the mistress of everything within the house."
"A house of his own and the blessing of children appeared to the Roman
citizen as the end and essence of life" (Mommsen, _Hist. Rome_). The
obligation of the father to the sons was strongly felt. The family,
past, present and future, was conceived as one and indivisible. Each
succeeding generation had a right to the care of its predecessor in
mind, body and estate. The training of the sons was distinctly a home
and not a school training. Brought up by the father and constantly at
his side, they learnt spontaneously the habits and traditions of the
family. The home was their school. By their father they were
introduced into public life, and though still remaining under his
power during his lifetime, they became citizens, and their relation to
the state was direct. The nation was a nation of yeomen. Only
agriculture and warfare were considered honourable employments. The
father and sons worked outdoors on the farm, employing little or no
slave labour; the wife and daughters indoors at spinning and weaving.
The drudgery of the household was done by domestic slaves. The father
was the working head of a toiling household. Their chief gods were the
same as those of early Greece--Zeus-Diovis and Hestia-Vesta, the
goddess of the hearth and home. Out of this solid, compact family
Roman society was built, and so long as the family was strong
attachment to the service of the state was intense. The _res publica_,
the common weal, the phrase and the thought, meet one at every turn;
and never were citizens more patient and tenacious combatants on their
country's behalf. The men were soldiers in an unpaid militia and were
constantly engaged in wars with the rivals of Rome, leaving home and
family for their campaigns and returning to them in the winter. With a
hardness and closeness inconsistent with--indeed, opposed to--the
charitable spirit, they combined the strength of character and sense
of justice without which charity becomes sentimental and unsocial. In
the development of the family, and thus, indirectly, in the
development of charity, they stand for settled obligation and
unrelenting duty.

Under the protection of the head of the family "in dependent freedom"
lived the clients. They were in a middle position between the freemen
and the slaves. The relation between patron and client lasted for
several generations; and there were many clients. Their number increased
as state after state was conquered, and they formed the _plebs_, in Rome
the _plebs urbana_, the lower orders of the city.

In relation to our subject the important factors are the family, the
_plebs_ and slavery.

Two processes were at work from an early date, before the first agrarian
law (486 B.C.): the impoverishment of the _plebs_ and the increase of
slavery. The former led to the _annona civica_, or the free supply of
corn to the citizens, and to the _sportula_ or the organized food-supply
for poor clients, and ultimately to the _alimentarii pueri_, the
maintenance of children of citizens by voluntary and imperial bounty.
The latter (slavery) was the standing witness that, as self-support was
undermined, the task of relief became hopeless, and the impoverished
citizen, as the generations passed, became in turn dependant, beggar,
pauper and slave.

The great patrician families--"an oligarchy of warriors and
slaveholders"--did not themselves engage in trade, but, entering on
large speculations, employed as their agents their clients, _libertini_
or freedmen, and, later, their slaves. The constant wars, for which the
soldiers of a local militia were eventually retained in permanent
service, broke up the yeomanry and very greatly reduced their number.
Whole families of citizens became impoverished, and their lands were in
consequence sold to the large patrician families, members of which had
acquired lucrative posts, or prospered in their speculations, and
assumed possession of the larger part of the land, the _ager publicus_,
acquired by the state through conquest. The city had always been the
centre of the patrician families, the patron of the trading _libertini_
and other dependants. To it now flocked as well the _metoeci_, the
resident aliens from the conquered states, and the poorer citizens,
landless and unable for social reasons to turn to trade. There was thus
in Rome a growing multitude of aliens, dispossessed yeomen and dependent
clients. Simultaneously slavery increased very largely after the second
Punic War (202 B.C.). Every conquest brought slaves into the market, for
whom ready purchasers were found. The slaves took the place of the
freemen upon the old family estates, and the free country people became
extinct. Husbandry gave place to shepherding. The estates were thrown
into large domains (_latifundia_), managed by bailiffs and worked by
slaves, often fettered or bound by chains, lodged in cells in houses of
labour (_ergastula_), and sometimes cared for when ill in infirmaries
(_valetudinaria_). In Crete and Sparta the slaves toiled that the mass
of citizens might have means and leisure. In Rome the slave class was
organized for private and not for common ends. In Athens the citizens
were paid for their services; at Rome no offices were paid. Thus the
citizen at Rome was, one might almost say, forced into a dependence on
the public corn, for as the large properties swallowed up the smaller,
and the slave dispossessed the citizen, a population grew up unfit for
rural toil, disinclined to live by methods that pride considered sordid,
unstable and pleasure-loving, and yet a serious political factor, as
dependent on the rich for their enjoyments as they were on their patrons
or the prefect of the corn in the city for their food.

It is estimated, from extremely difficult and uncertain data, that the
population of Rome in the time of Augustus was about 1,200,000 or
1,500,000. At that time the_ plebs urbana_ numbered 320,000. If this
be multiplied by three, to give a low average of dependants, wives and
children, this section of the population would number 960,000. The
remainder of the 1,500,000, 540,000, would consist of (a) slaves, and
(b) those, the comparatively few, who would be members of the great
clan-families (_gentes_). Proportionately to Attica this seems to
allow too small a population of slaves. But however this be, we may
picture the population of Rome as consisting chiefly of a few
patrician families ministered to by a very large number of slaves, and
a populace of needy citizens, in whose ranks it was profitable for an
outsider to find a place in order that he might participate in the
advantages of state maintenance.

The annona civica.

In Rome the clan-family became the dominant political factor. As in
England and elsewhere in the middle ages, and even in later times, the
family, in these circumstances, assumes an influence which is out of
harmony with the common good. The social advantage of the family lies in
its self-maintenance, its home charities, and its moral and educational
force, but if its separate interests are made supreme, it becomes
uncharitable and unsocial. In Rome this was the line of development. The
stronger clan-families crushed the weaker, and became the "oligarchy of
warriors and slaveholders." In the same spirit they possessed themselves
of the _ager publicus_. The land obtained by the Romans by right of
conquest was public. It belonged to the state, and to a yeoman state it
was the most valuable acquisition. At first part of it was sold and part
was distributed to citizens without property and destitute (cf.
Plutarch, _Tib. Gracchus_). At a very early date, however, the patrician
families acquired possession of much of it and held it at a low rental,
and thus the natural outlet for a conquering farmer race was monopolized
by one class, the richer clan-families. This injustice was in part
remedied by the establishment of colonies, in which the emigrant
citizens received sufficient portions of land. But these colonies were
comparatively few, and after each conquest the rich families made large
purchases, while the smaller proprietors, whose services as soldiers
were constantly required, were unable to attend to their lands or to
retain possession of them. To prevent this (367 B.C.) the Licinian law
was passed, by which ownership in land was limited to 500 _jugera_,
about 312 acres. This law was ignored, however, and more than two
centuries later the evil, the double evil of the dispossession of the
citizen farmer and of slavery, reached a crisis. The slave war broke out
(134 B.C.) and (133 B.C.) Tiberius Gracchus made his attempt to re-endow
the Roman citizens with the lands which they had acquired by conquest.
He undertook what was essentially a charitable or philanthropic
movement, which was set on foot too late. He had passed through Tuscany,
and seen with resentment and pity the deserted country where the foreign
slaves and barbarians were now the only shepherds and cultivators. He
had been brought up under the influence of Greek Stoical thought, with
which, almost in spite of itself, there was always associated an element
of pity. The problem which he desired to solve, though larger in scale,
was essentially the same as that with which Solon and Peisistratus had
dealt successfully. At bottom the issue lay between private property,
considered as the basis of family life for the great bulk of the
community, with personal independence, and pauperism, with the _annona_
or slavery. In 133 B.C. Tiberius Gracchus became tribune. To expand
society on the lines of private property, he proposed the enforcement of
"the Licinian Rogations"; the rich were to give up all beyond their
rightful 312 acres, and the remainder was to be distributed amongst the
poor. The measure was carried by the use of arbitrary powers, and
followed by the death of Tiberius at the hands of the patricians, the
dominant clan-families. In 132 B.C. Caius Gracchus took up his brother's
quarrel, and adopting, it would seem, a large scheme of political and
social reform, proposed measures for emigration and for relief. The
former failed; the latter apparently were acceptable to all parties, and
continued in force long after C. Gracchus had been slain (121 B.C.).
Already, at times, there had been sales of corn at cheap prices. Now, by
the _lex frumentaria_ he gave the citizens--those who had the Roman
franchise--the right to purchase corn every month from the public stores
at rather more than half-price, 6-1/3 _asses_ or about 3.3d. the peck.
This, the fatal alternative, was accepted, and henceforth there was no
possibility of a reversion to better social conditions.

The provisioning of Rome was, like that of Athens, a public service.
There were public granaries (267 B.C.), and there was a quaestor to
supervise the transit of the corn from Sicily and, later, from Spain and
Africa, and an elaborate administration for collecting and conveying it.
The _lex frumentaria_ of Caius was followed by the _lex Octavia_,
restricting the monthly sale to citizens settled in Rome, and to 5
_modii_ (1¼ bushels). According to Polybius, the amount required for the
maintenance of a slave was 5 _modii_ a month, and of a soldier 4. Hence
the allowance, if continued at this rate, was practically a maintenance.
The _lex Clodia_ (58 B.C.) made the corn gratuitous to the _plebs
urbana_.

Julius Caesar (5 B.C.) found the number of recipients to be 320,000,
and reduced them to 150,000. In Augustus's time they rose to 200,000.
There seems, however, to be some confusion as to the numbers. From the
_Ancyranum Monumentum_ it appears that the _plebs urbana_ who received
Augustus's dole of 60 _denarii_ (37s. 6d.) in his eighth consulship
numbered 320,000. And (Suet. _Caes._ 41) it seems likely that in
Caesar's time the lists of the recipients were settled by lot;
further, probably only those whose property was worth less than
400,000 _sesterces_ (£3541) were placed on the lists. It is probable,
therefore, that 320,000 represents a maximum, reduced for purposes of
administration to a smaller number (a) by a property test, and (b) by
some kind of scrutiny. The names of those certified to receive the
corn were exposed on bronze tablets. They were then called _aerarii_.
They had tickets (_tesserae_) for purposes of identification, and they
received the corn or bread in the time of the republic at the temple
of Ceres, and afterwards at steps in the several (14) regions or wards
of Rome. Hence the bread was called _panis gradilis_. In the middle of
the 2nd century there were state bakeries, and wheaten loaves were
baked for the people perhaps two or three times a week. In Aurelian's
time (A.D. 270) the flour was of the best, and the weight of the loaf
(one _uncia_) was doubled. To the gifts of bread were added pork, oil
and possibly wine; clothes also--white tunics with long sleeves--were
distributed. In the period after Constantine (cf. _Theod. Code_, xiv.
15) three classes received the bread--the palace people (_palatini_),
soldiers (_militares_), and the populace (_populares_). No
distribution was permitted except at the steps. Each class had its own
steps in the several wards. The bread at one step could not be
transferred to another step. Each class had its own supply. There were
arrangements for the exchange of stale loaves. Against
misappropriation there were (law of Valentinian and Valens) severe
penalties. If a public prosecutor (_actor_), a collector of the
revenue (_procurator_), or the slave of a senator obtained bread with
the cognizance of the clerk, or by bribery, the slave, if his master
was not a party to the offence, had to serve in the state bakehouse in
chains. If the master were involved, his house was confiscated. If
others who had not the right obtained the bread, they and their
property were placed at the service of the bakery (_pistrini exercitio
subjugari_). If they were poor (_pauperes_) they were enslaved, and
the delinquent client was to be put to death.

The right to relief was dependent on the right of citizenship. Hence it
became hereditary and passed from father to son. It was thus in the
nature of a continuous endowed charity, like the well-known family
charity of Smith, for instance, in which a large property was left to
the testator's descendants, of whom it was said that as a result no
Smith of that family could fail to be poor. But the _annona civica_ was
an endowed charity, affecting not a single family, but the whole
population. Later, when Constantinople was founded, the right to relief
was attached to new houses as a premium on building operations. Thus it
belonged not to persons only, but also to houses, and became a species
of "immovable" property, passing to the purchaser of the house or
property, as would the adscript slaves. The bread followed the house
(_aedes sequantur annonae_). If, on the transfer of a house, bread
claims were lost owing to the absence of claimants, they were
transferred to the treasury (_fisci viribus vindicentur_). But the
savage law of Valentinian, referred to above, shows to what lengths such
a system was pushed. Early in its history the _annona civica_ attracted
many to Rome in the hope of living there without working. For the 400
years since the _lex Clodia_ was enacted constant injury had been done
by it, and now (A.D. 364) people had to be kept off the civic bounty as
if they were birds of prey, and the very poor man (_pauperrimus_), who
had no civic title to the food, if he obtained it by fraud, was
enslaved. Thus, in spite of the abundant state relief, there had grown
up a class of the very poor, the Gentiles of the state, who were outside
the sphere of its ministrations. The _annona civica_ was introduced not
only into Constantinople, but also into Alexandria, with baleful
results, and into Antioch. When Constantinople was founded the
corn-ships of Africa sailed there instead of to Rome. On charitable
relief, as we shall see, the _annona_ has had a long-continued and fatal
influence.

1. If the government considers itself responsible for provisioning the
people it must fix the price of necessaries, and to meet distress or
popular clamour it will lower the price. It becomes thus a large
relief society for the supply of corn. In a time of distress, when the
corn laws were a matter of moment in England, a similar system was
adopted in the well-known Speenhamland scale (1795), by which a larger
or lesser allowance was given to a family according to its size and
the prevailing price of corn. A maintenance was thus provided for the
able-bodied and their families, at least in part, without any
equivalent in labour; though in England labour was demanded of the
applicant, and work was done more or less perfunctorily. In amount the
Roman dole seems to have been equivalent to the allowance provided for
a slave, but the citizen received it without having to do any labour
task. He received it as a statutory right. There could hardly be a
more effective method for degrading his manhood and denaturalizing his
family. He was also a voter, and the alms appealed to his weakness and
indolence; and the fear of displeasing him and losing his vote kept
him, socially, master of the situation, to his own ruin. If in England
now relief were given to able-bodied persons who retained their votes,
this evil would also attach to it.

2. The system obliged the hard-working to maintain the idlers, while
it continually increased their number. The needy teacher in Juvenal,
instead of a fee, is put off with a _tessera_, to which, not being a
citizen, he has no right. "The foreign reapers," it was said, "filled
Rome's belly and left Rome free for the stage and the circus." The
freeman had become a slave--"stupid and drowsy, to whom days of ease
had become habitual, the games, the circus, the theatre, dice,
eating-houses and brothels." Here are all the marks of a degraded
pauperism.

3. The system led the way to an ever more extensive slavery. The man
who could not live on his dole and other scrapings had the alternative
of becoming a slave. "Better have a good master than live so
distressfully"; and "If I were free I should live at my own risk; now
I live at yours," are the expressions suggestive of the natural
temptations of slavery in these conditions. The escaped slaves
returned to "their manger." The _annona_ did not prevent destitution.
It was a half-way house to slavery.

4. The effect on agriculture, and proportionally on commerce
generally, was ruinous. The largest corn-market, Rome, was withdrawn
from the trade--the market to which all the necessaries of life would
naturally have gravitated; and the supply of corn was placed in the
hands of producers at a few centres where it could be grown most
cheaply--Sicily, Spain and Africa. The Italian farmer had to turn his
attention to other produce--the cultivation of the olive and the vine,
and cattle and pig rearing. The greater the extension of the system
the more impossible was the regeneration of Rome. The Roman citizen
might well say that he was out of work, for, so far as the land was
concerned, the means of obtaining a living were placed out of his
reach. While not yet unfitted for the country by life in the town, he
at least could not "return to the land."

5. The method was the outcome of distress and political hopelessness.
Yet the rich also adopted it in distributing their private largess.
Cicero (_De Off._ ii. 16) writes as though he recognized its evil; but
though he expresses his disapprobation of the popular shows upon which
the _aediles_ spent large sums, he argues that something must be done
"if the people demand it, and if good men, though they do not wish it,
assent to it." Thus in a guarded manner he approves a distribution of
food--a free breakfast in the streets of Rome. One bad result of the
_annona_ was that it encouraged a special and ruinous form of
charitable munificence.

The sportula.

The _sportula_ was a form of charity corresponding to the _annona
civica_. Charity and poor relief run on parallel lines, and when the one
is administered without discrimination, little discrimination will
usually be exercised in the other. It was the charity of the patron of
the chiefs of the clan-families to their clients. Between them it was
natural that a relation, partly hospitable, partly charitable, should
grow up. The clients who attended the patron at his house were invited
to dine at his table. The patron, as Juvenal describes him, dined
luxuriously and in solitary grandeur, while the guests put up with what
they could get; or, as was usual under the empire, instead of the dinner
(_coena recta_) a present of food was given at the outer vestibule of
the house to clients who brought with them baskets (_sportula_) to carry
off their food, or even charcoal stoves to keep it warm. There was
endless trickery. The patron (or almoner who acted for him) tried to
identify the applicant, fearing lest he might get the dole under a false
name; and at each mansion was kept a list of persons, male and female,
entitled to receive the allowance. "The pilferer grabs the dole"
(_sportulam furunculus captat_) was a proverb. The _sportula_ was a
charity sufficiently important for state regulation. Nero (A.D. 54)
reduced it to a payment in money (100 _quadrantes_, about 1s.). Domitian
(A.D. 81) restored the custom of giving food. Subsequently both
practices--gifts in money and in food--appear to have been continued.

In these conditions the Roman family steadily decayed. Its "old
discipline" was neglected; and Tacitus (A.D. 75), in his dialogue on
Oratory, wrote (c. xxviii.) what might be called its epitaph. Of the
general decline the laws of Caesar and Augustus to encourage marriage
and to reward the parents of large families are sufficient evidence.

The destruction of the working-class family must have been finally
achieved by the imperial control of the _collegia_.

The collegia.

In old Rome there were corporations of craftsmen for common worship,
and for the maintenance of the traditions of the craft. These
corporations were ruined by slave labour, and becoming secret
societies, in the time of Augustus were suppressed. Subsequently they
were reorganized, and gave scope for much friendliness. They often
existed in connexion with some great house, whose chief was their
patron and whose household gods they worshipped. The gilds of the
poor, or rather of the lower orders (_collegia tenuiorum_), consisted
of artisans and others, and slaves also, who paid monthly
contributions to a common fund to meet the expenses of worship, common
meals, and funerals. They were not in Italy, it would seem (J.P.
Waltzing, _Études histor. sur les corporations professionnelles chez
les Romains_, i. 145, 300), though they may have been in Asia Minor
and elsewhere, societies for mutual help generally. They were chiefly
funeral benefit societies. Under Severus (A.D. 192) the _collegia_
were extended and more closely organized as industrial bodies. They
were protected and controlled, as in England in the 15th century the
municipalities affected the cause of the craft gilds and ended by
controlling them. Industrial disorder was thus prevented; the
government were able to provide the supplies required in Rome and the
large cities with less risk and uncertainty; and the workmen employed
in trade, especially the carrying trade, became almost slaves. In the
2nd century, and until the invasions, there were three groups of
_collegia_: (1) those engaged in various state manufactures; (2) those
engaged in the provision trade; and (3) the free trades, which
gradually lapsed into a kind of slavery. If the members of these gilds
fled they were brought back by force. Parents had to keep to the trade
to which they belonged; their children had to succeed them in it. A
slave caste indeed had been formed of the once free workmen.

Pueri alimentarii.

As a charitable protest against the destruction of children, in the
midst of a broken family life, and increasing dependence and poverty, a
special institution was founded (to use the Scottish word) for the
"alimentation" of the children of citizens, at first by voluntary
charity and afterwards by imperial bounty.

Nerva and Trajan adopted the plan. Pliny (_Ep._ vii. 18) refers to it.
There was a desire to give more lasting and certain help than an
allotment of food to parents. A list of children, whose names were on
the relief tables at Rome, was accordingly drawn up, and a special
service for their maintenance established. Two instances are recorded
in inscriptions--one at Veleia, one at Beneventum. The emperor lent
money for the purpose at a low percentage--2½ or 5% as against the
usual 10 or 12. At Veleia his loan amounted to 1,044,000
_sesterces_--about £8156, and 51 of the local landed proprietors
mortgaged land, valued at 13 or 14 million _sesterces_, as security
for the debt. The interest on the emperor's money at 5% was paid into
the municipal treasury, and out of it the children were relieved. The
figures seem small; at Veleia 300 children were assisted, of whom 36
were girls. The annual interest at 5% amounted to nearly £408, which
divided among 300 gives about 27s. a head. The figures suggest that
the money served as a charitable supplementation of the citizens'
relief in direct aid of the children. Apparently the scheme was widely
adopted. Curators of high position were the patrons; procurators acted
as inspectors over large areas; and _quaestores alimentarii_ undertook
the local management. Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138), and Marcus Aurelius
(A.D. 160), and subsequently Severus (A.D. 192) established these
bursaries for children in the names of their wives. In the 3rd century
the system fell into disorder. There were large arrears of payments,
and in the military anarchy that ensued it came to an end. It is of
special interest, as indicating a new feeling of responsibility
towards children akin to the humane Stoicism of the Antonines, and an
attempt to found, apart from temples or _collegia_, what was in the
nature of a public endowed charity.

PART IV.--JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHARITY

With Christianity two elements came into fusion, the Jewish and the
Greco-Roman. To trace this fusion and its results it is necessary to
describe the Jewish system of charity, and to compare it with that of
the early Christian church, to note the theory of love or friendship in
Aristotle as representing Greek thought, and of charity in St Paul as
representing Christian thought, and to mark the Roman influences which
moulded the administration of Ambrose and Gregory and Western
Christianity generally.

Hebrew charity.

In the early history of the Hebrews we find the family, clan-family and
tribe. With the Exodus (probably about 1390 B.C.) comes the law of Moses
(cf. Kittel, _Hist. of the Hebrews_, Eng. trans. i. 244), the central
and permanent element of Jewish thought. We may compare it to the
"commandments" of Hesiod. There is the recognition of the family and its
obligations: "Honour thy father and mother"; and honour included help
and support. There is also the law essential to family unity: "Thou
shalt not commit adultery"; and as to property there is imposed the
regulation of desire: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house."
Maimonides (A.D. 1135), true to the old conception of the family (x.
16), calls the support of adult children, "after one is exempt from
supporting them," and the support of a father or mother by a child,
"great acts of charity; since kindred are entitled to the first
consideration." To relief of the stranger the Decalogue makes no
reference, but in the Hebraic laws it is constantly pressed; and the
Levitical law (xix. 18) goes further. It first applies a new standard to
social life: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." This thought is
the outcome of a deep ethical fervour--the element which the Jews
brought into the work of charity. In Judges and Joshua, the "Homeric"
books of the Old Testament, the Hebrews appear as a passionately fierce
and cruel people. Subsequently against their oppression of the poor the
prophets protested with a vehemence as great as the evil was intense;
and their denunciations remained part of the national literature, a
standing argument that life without charity is nothing worth. Thus
schooled and afterwards tutored into discipline by the tribulation of
the exile (587 B.C.), they turned their fierceness into a zeal, which,
as their literature shows, was as fervent in ethics as it was in
religion and ceremonial. In the services at the synagogues, which
supplemented and afterwards took the place of the Temple, the
Commandments were constantly repeated and the Law and the Prophets read;
and as the Jews of the Dispersion increased in number, and especially
after the destruction of Jerusalem, the synagogues became centres of
social and charitable co-operation. Thus rightly would a Jewish rabbi
say, "On three things the world is stayed: on the Thorah (or the law),
and on worship, and on the bestowal of kindness." Also there was on the
charitable side an indefinite power of expansion. Rigid in its
ceremonial, there it was free. Within the nation, as the Prophets, and
after the exile, as the Psalms show, there was the hope of a universal
religion, and with it of a universally recognized charity. St Paul
accentuated the prohibitive side of the law and protested against it;
but, even while he was so doing, stimulated by the Jewish discipline, he
was moving unfettered towards new conceptions of charity and
life--charity as the central word of the Christian life, and life as a
participation in a higher existence--the "body of Christ."

To mark the line of development, we could compare--1. The family among
the Jews and in the early Christian church; 2. The sources of relief and
the tithe, the treatment of the poor and their aid, and the assistance
of special classes of poor; 3. The care of strangers; and, lastly, we
would consider the theory of almsgiving, friendship or love, and
charity.

1. As elsewhere, property is the basis of the family. Wife and children
are the property of the father. But the wife is held in high respect. In
the post-exilian period the virtuous wife is represented as laborious as
a Roman matron, a "lady bountiful" to the poor, and to her husband wife
and friend alike. Monogamy without concubinage is now the rule--is taken
for granted as right. There is no "exposure of children." The slaves are
kindly treated, as servants rather than slaves--though in Roman times
and afterwards the Jews were great slave-traders. The household is not
allowed to eat the bread of idleness. "Six days," it was said, "_must_
[not _mayest_] thou work." "Labour, if poor; but find work, if rich."
"Whoever does not teach his son business or work, teaches him robbery."
In Job xxxi., a chapter which has been called "an inventory of late Old
Testament morality," we find the family life developed side by side with
the life of charity. In turn are mentioned the relief of the widow, the
fatherless and the stranger--the classification of dependents in the
Christian church; and the whole chapter is a justification of the homely
charities of a good family. "The Jewish religion, more especially in the
old and orthodox form, is essentially a family religion" (C.G.
Montefiore, _Religion of Ancient Hebrews_).

In the early documents of the Church the fifth commandment is made the
basis of family life (cf. Eph. vi. 1; _Apost. Const._ ii. 32, iv. 11--if
we take the first six books of the _Apost. Const._ as a composite
production before A.D. 300, representing Judaeo-Christian or Eastern
church thought). But two points are prominent. Duties are insisted on as
reciprocal (cf. especially St Paul's Epistles), as, e.g. between husband
and wife, parent and child, master and servant. Charity is mutual; the
family is a circle of reciprocal duties and charities. This implies a
principle of the greatest importance in relation to the social utility
of charity. Further reference will be made to it later. Next the "thou
shalt love thy neighbour" is translated from its position as one among
many sayings to the chief place as a rule of life. In the _Didache_ or
_Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ (Jewish-Christian, c. 90-120 A.D.) the
first commandment in "the way of life" is adapted from St Matthew's
Gospel thus: "First, thou shalt love God who made thee; secondly, thy
neighbour as thyself; and all things whatsoever thou wouldst not have
done to thee, neither do thou to another." A principle is thus applied
which touches all social relations in which the "self" can be made the
standard of judgment. Of this also later. To touch on other points of
comparison: the earlier documents seem to ring with a reiterated cry for
a purer family life (cf. the second, the negative, group of commandments
in the _Didache_, and the judgment of the apocalyptic writings, such as
the Revelations of Peter, &c.); and, sharing the Jewish feeling, the
riper conscience of the Christian community formulates and accepts the
injunction to preserve infant life at every stage. It advocates, indeed,
the Jewish purity of family life with a missionary fervour, and it makes
of it a condition of church membership. The Jewish rule of labour is
enforced (_Ap. Const._ ii. 63). If a stranger settle (_Didache_, xii. 3)
among the brotherhood, "let him work and eat." And the father
(_Constit._ iv. 11) is to teach the children "such trades as are
agreeable and suitable to their need." And the charities to the widow,
the fatherless, are organized on Jewish lines.

2. The sources of relief among the Jews were the three gifts of corn:
(1) the corners of the field (cf. Lev. xix. &c.), amounting to a
sixtieth part of it; (2) the gleanings, a definite minimum dropped in
the process of reaping (Maimonides, _Laws of the Hebrews relating to the
Poor_, iv. 1); (3) corn overlooked and left behind. So it was with the
grapes and with all crops that were harvested, as opposed, e.g. to
figs, that were gathered from time to time. These gifts were divisible
three times in the day, so as to suit the convenience of the poor (Maim.
ii. 17), and the poor had a right to them. They are indeed a poor-rate
paid in kind such as in early times would naturally spring up among an
agricultural people. Another gift "out of the seed of the earth," is the
tithe. In the post-exilian period the septenniad was in force. Each year
a fiftieth part of the produce (Maim. vi. 2, and Deut. xviii. 4) was
given to the priest (the class which in the Jewish state was supported
by the community). Of the remainder one-tenth went to the Levite, and
one-tenth in three years of the septennium was retained for pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, in two given to the poor. In the seventh year "all things
were in common." Supplementing these gifts were alms to all who asked;
"and he who gave less than a tenth of his means was a man of evil eye"
(Maim. vii. 5). All were to give alms, even the poor themselves who were
in receipt of relief. Refusal might be punished with stripes at the hand
of the Sanhedrim. At the Temple alms for distribution to the worthy poor
were placed by worshippers in the cell of silence; and it is said that
in Palestine at meal times the table was open to all comers. As the
synagogues extended, and possibly after the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70),
the collections of alms was further systematized. There were two
collections. In each city alms of the box or chest (_kupha_) were
collected for the poor of the city on each Sabbath eve (later, monthly
or thrice a year), and distributed in money or food for seven days. Two
collected, three distributed. Three others gathered and distributed
daily alms of the basket (_tamchui_). These were for strangers and
wayfarers--casual relief "for the poor of the whole world." In the
Jewish synagogue community from early times the president (_parnass_)
and treasurer were elected annually with seven heads of the congregation
(see Abraham's _Jewish Life in the Middle Ages_, p. 54), and sometimes
special officers for the care of the poor. A staff of almoners was thus
forthcoming. In addition to these collections were the _pruta_ given to
the poor before prayers (Maim. x. 15), and moneys gathered to help
particular cases (cf. _Jewish Life_, p. 322) by circular letter. There
were also gifts at marriages and funerals; and fines imposed for breach
of the communal ordinances were reserved for the poor. The distinctive
feature of the Jewish charity was the belief that "the poor would not
cease out of the land," and that therefore on charitable grounds a
permanent provision should be made for them--a poor-rate, in fact,
subject to stripes and distraint, if necessary (Maim. vii. 10; and
generally cf. articles on "Alms" and "Charity" in the _Jewish
Encyclopaedia_).

If we compare this with the early church we find the following sources
of relief: (1) The Eucharistic offerings, some consumed at the time,
some carried home, some reserved for the absent (see Hatch, _Early
Church_, p. 40). The ministration, like the Eucharist, was connected
with the love feast, and was at first daily (Acts ii. 42, vi. 1, and
the _Didache_). (2) Freewill offerings and first-fruits and voluntary
tithes (_Ap. Con._ ii. 25) brought to the bishop and used for the
poor--orphans, widows, the afflicted and strangers in distress, and
for the clergy, deaconesses, &c. (3) Collections in churches on
Sundays and week-days, alms-boxes and gifts to the poor by worshippers
as they entered church; also collections for special purposes (cf. for
Christians at Jerusalem). Apart from "the corners," &c., the sources
of relief in the Christian and Jewish churches are the same. The
separate Jewish tithe for the poor, which (Maim. vi. II, 13) might be
used in part by the donor as personal charity, disappears. A voluntary
tithe remains, in part used for the poor. We do not hear of stripes
and distraint, but in both bodies there is a penitential system and
excommunication (cf. _Jewish Life_, p. 52), and in both a settlement
of disputes within the body (Clem. _Hov_. iii. 67). In both, too,
there is the abundant alms provided in the belief of the permanence of
poverty and the duty of giving to all who ask. As to administration in
the early church (Acts vi. 3), we find seven deacons, the number of
the local Jewish council; and later there were in Rome seven
ecclesiastical relief districts, each in charge of a deacon. The
deacon acted as the minister of the bishop (_Ep._ Clem, to Jam. xii.),
reporting to him and giving as he dictated (_Ap. Con._ ii. 30, 31). He
at first combined disciplinary powers with charitable. The presbyters
also (Polycarp, _Ad Phil._ 6, A.D. 69-155), forming (Hatch, p. 69) a
kind of bishop's council, visited the sick, &c. The bishop was
president and treasurer. The bishop was thus the trustee of the poor.
By reason of the churches' care of orphans, responsibilities of
trusteeship also devolved on him. The temples were in pagan times
depositories of money. Probably the churches were also.

3. Great stress is laid by the Jews on the duty of gentleness to the
poor (Maim. x. 5). The woman was to have first attention (Maim. vi. 13).
If the applicant was hungry he was to be fed, and then examined to learn
whether he was a deceiver (Maim. vii. 6). Assistance was to be given
according to the want--clothes, household things, a wife or a
husband--and according to the poor man's station in life. For widows and
orphans the "gleanings" were left. Both are the recognized objects of
charity (Maim. x. 16,17). "The poor and the orphan were to be employed
in domestic affairs in preference to servants." The dower was a constant
form of help. The ransoming of slaves took precedence of relief to the
poor. The highest degree of alms-deed (Maim. x. 7) was "to yield support
to him who is cast down, either by means of gifts, or by loan, or by
commerce, or by procuring for him traffic with others. Thus his hand
becometh strengthened, exempt from the necessity of soliciting succour
from any created being."

If we compare the Christian methods we find but slight difference. The
absoluteness of "Give to him that asketh" is in the _Didache_ checked by
the "Woe to him that receives: for if any receives having need, he shall
be guiltless, but he that has no need shall give account, ... and coming
into distress ... he shall not come out thence till he hath paid the
last farthing." It is the duty of the bishop to know who is most worthy
of assistance (_Ap. Con._ ii. 3, 4); and "if any one is in want by
gluttony, drunkenness, or idleness, he does not deserve assistance, or
to be esteemed a member of the church." The widow assumes the position
not only of a recipient of alms, but a church worker. Some were a
private charge, some were maintained by the church. The recognized
"widow" was maintained: she was to be sixty years of age (cf. 1 Tim, v.
9 and _Ap. Con._ iii. 1), and was sometimes tempted to become a
bedes-woman and gossipy pauper, if one may judge from the texts.
Remarriage was not approved. Orphans were provided for by members of the
churches. The virgins formed another class, as, contrary to the earlier
feeling, marriage came to be held a state of lesser sanctity. They too
seem to have been also, in part at least, church workers. Thus round the
churches grew up new groups of recognized dependents; but the older
theory of charity was broad and practical--akin to that of Maimonides.
"Love all your brethren, performing to orphans the part of parents, to
widows that of husbands, affording them sustenance with all kindliness,
arranging marriages for those who are in their prime, and for those who
are without a profession the means of necessary support through
employment: giving work to the artificer and alms to the incapable"
(_Ep._ Clem, to James viii.).

4. The Jews in pre-Christian and Talmudic times supported the stranger
or wayfarer by the distribution of food (_tamchui_); the strangers were
lodged in private houses, and there were inns provided at which no money
was taken (cf. _Jewish Life_, p. 314). Subsequently, besides these
methods, special societies were formed "for the entertainment of the
resident poor and of strangers." There were commendatory letters also.
These conditions prevailed in the Christian church also. The
_Xenodocheion_, coming by direct succession alike from Jewish and Greek
precedents, was the first form of Christian hospital both for strangers
and for members of the Christian churches. In the Christian community
the endowment charity comes into existence in the 4th century, among the
Jews not till the 13th. The charities of the synagogue without separate
societies sufficed.

Greek, Jewish and Christian thought.

We may now compare the conceptions of Jews and Christians on charity
with those of the Greeks. There are two chief exponents of the diverse
views--Aristotle and St Paul; for to simplify the issues we refer to
them only. Thoughts such as Aristotle's, recast by the Stoic Panaetius
(185-112 B.C.), and used by Cicero in his _De Officiis_, became in the
hands of St Ambrose arguments for the direction of the clergy in the
founding of the medieval church; and in the 13th century Aristotle
reasserts his influence through such leaders of medieval thought as St
Thomas Aquinas. St Paul's chapters on charity, not fully appreciated
and understood, one is inclined to think, have perhaps more than any
other words prevented an absolute lapse into the materialism of
almsgiving. After him we think of St Francis, the greatest of a group of
men who, seeking reality in life, revived charity; but to the theory of
charity it might almost be said that since Aristotle and St Paul nothing
has been added until we come to the economic and moral issues which Dr
Chalmers explained and illustrated.

The problem turns on the conception (1) of purpose, (2) of the self, and
(3) of charity, love or friendship as an active force in social life. To
the Greek, or at least to Greek philosophic thought, purpose was the
measure of goodness. To have no purpose was, so far as the particular
act was concerned, to be simply irrational; and the less definite the
purpose the more irrational the act. This conception of purpose was the
touchstone of family and social life, and of the civic life also. In no
sphere could goodness be irrational. To say that it was without purpose
was to say that it was without reality. So far as the actor was
concerned, the main purpose of right action was the good of the soul
([Greek: psyche]); and by the soul was meant the better self, "the
ruling part" acting in harmony with every faculty and function of the
man. With faculties constantly trained and developed, a higher life was
gradually developed in the soul. We are thus, it might be said, what we
become. The gates of the higher life are within us. The issue is whether
we will open them and pass in.

Consistent with this is the social purpose. Love or friendship is not
conceived by Aristotle except in relation to social life. Society is
based on an interchange of services. This interchange in one series of
acts we call justice; in another friendship or love. A man cannot be
just unless he has acquired a certain character or habit of mind; and
hence no just man will act without knowledge, previous deliberation and
definite purpose. So also will a friend fulfil these conditions in his
acts of love or friendship. In the love existing between good men there
is continuance and equality of service; but in the case of benefactor
and benefited, in deeds of charity, in fact, there is no such equality.
The satisfaction is on one side but often not on the other. (The dilemma
is one that is pressed, though not satisfactorily, in Cicero and
Seneca.) The reason for this will be found, Aristotle suggests, in the
feeling of satisfaction which men experience in action. We realize
ourselves in our deeds--throw ourselves into them, as people say; and
this is happiness. What we make we like: it is part of us. On the other
hand, in the person benefited there may be no corresponding action, and
in so far as there is not, there is no exchange of service or the
contentment that arises from it. The "self" of the recipient is not
drawn out. On the contrary, he may be made worse, and feel the
uneasiness and discontent that result from this. In truth, to complete
Aristotle's argument, the good deed on one side, as it represents the
best self of the benefactor, should on the other side draw out the best
self of the person benefited. And where there is not ultimately this
result, there is not effective friendship or charity, and consequently
there is no personal or social satisfaction. The point may be pushed
somewhat further. In recent developments of charitable work the term
"friendly visitor" is applied to persons who endeavour to help families
in distress on the lines of associated charity. It represents the work
of charity in one definite light. So far as the relation is mutual, it
cannot at the outset be said to exist. The charitable friend wishes to
befriend another; but at first there may be no reciprocal feeling of
friendship on the other's part--indeed, such a feeling may never be
created. The effort to reciprocate kindness by becoming what the friend
desires may be too painful to make. Or the two may be on different
planes, one not really befriending, but giving without intelligence, the
other not really endeavouring to change his nature, but receiving help
solely with a view to immediate advantage. The would-be befriender may
begin "despairing of no man," expecting nothing in return; but if, in
fact, there is never any kind of return, the friendship actually fails
of its purpose, and the "friend's" satisfaction is lost, except in that
he may "have loved much." In any case, according to this theory
friendship, love and charity represent the mood from which spring social
acts, the value of which will depend on the knowledge, deliberation and
purpose with which they are done, and accordingly as they acquire value
on this account will they give lasting satisfaction to both parties.

St Paul's position is different. He seems at first sight to ignore the
state and social life. He lays stress on motive force rather than on
purpose. He speaks as an outsider to the state, though technically a
citizen. His mind assumes towards it the external Judaic position, as
though he belonged to a society of settlers ([Greek: paroikoi]). Also,
as he expects the millennium, social life and its needs are not
uppermost in his thoughts. He considers charity in relation to a
community of fellow-believers--drawn together in congregations. His
theory springs from this social base, though it over-arches life itself.
He is intent on creating a spiritual association. He conceives of the
spirit ([Greek: pneuma]) as "an immaterial personality." It transcends
the soul ([Greek: psychê]), and is the Christ life, the ideal and
spiritual life. Christians participate in it, and they thus become part
of "the body of Christ," which exists by virtue of love--love akin to
the ideal life, [Greek: agapê]. The word represents the love that is
instinct with reverence, and not love [Greek: philia] which may have in
it some quality of passion. This love is the life of "the body of
Christ." Therefore no act done without it is a living act--but, on the
contrary, must be dead--an act in which no part of the ideal life is
blended. On the individual act or the purpose no stress is laid. It is
assumed that love, because it is of this intense and exalted type, will
find the true purpose in the particular act. And, when the expectation
of the millennium passed away, the theory of this ideal charity remained
as a motive force available for whatever new conditions, spiritual or
social, might arise. Nevertheless, no sooner does this charity touch
social conditions, than the necessity asserts itself of submitting to
the limitations which knowledge, deliberation and purpose impose. This
view had been depreciated or ignored by Christians, who have been
content to rely upon the strength of their motives, or perhaps have not
realized what the Greeks understood, that society was a natural organism
(Arist. _Pol._ 1253A), which develops, fails or prospers in accordance
with definite laws. Hence endless failure in spite of some success. For
love, whether we idealize it as [Greek: agapê] or consider it a social
instinct as [Greek: philia], cannot be love at all unless it quickens
the intelligence as much as it animates the will. It cannot, except by
some confusion of thought, be held to justify the indulgence of emotion
irrespective of moral and social results. Yet, though this fatal error
may have dominated thought for a long time, it is hardly possible to
attribute it to St Paul's theory of charity when the very practical
nature of Judaism and early Christianity is considered. In his view the
misunderstanding could not arise. And to create a world or "body" of men
and women linked together by love, even though it be outside the normal
life of the community, was to create a new form of religious
organization, and to achieve for it (so far as it was achieved) what,
_mutatis mutandis_, Aristotle held to be the indispensable condition of
social life, friendship ([Greek: philia]), "the greatest good of
states," for "Socrates and all the world declare," he wrote, that "the
unity of the state" is "created by friendship" (Arist. _Pol._ ii. 1262
b).

It should, however, be considered to what extent charity in the
Christian church was devoid of social purpose, (1) The Jewish
conceptions of charity passed, one might almost say, in their
completeness into the Christian church. Prayer, the petition and the
purging of the mind, fasting, the humiliation of the body, and alms,
as part of the same discipline, the submissive renunciation of
possessions--all these formed part of the discipline that was to
create the religious mood. Alms henceforth become a definite part of
the religious discipline and service. Humility and poverty hereafter
appear as yoked virtues, and many problems of charity are raised in
regard to them. The non-Christian no less than the Christian world
appreciated more and more the need of self-discipline ([Greek:
askêsis]); and it seems as though in the first two centuries A.D.
those who may have thought of reinvigorating society searched for the
remedy rather in the preaching and practice of temperance than in the
application of ideas that were the outcome of the observation of
social or economic conditions. Having no object of this kind as its
mark, almsgiving took the place of charity, and, as Christianity
triumphed, the family life, instead of reviving, continued to decay,
while the virtues of the discipline of the body, considered apart from
social life, became an end in themselves, and it was desired rather to
annihilate instinct than to control it. Possibly this was a necessary
phase in a movement of progress, but however that be, charity, as St
Paul understood it, had in it no part. (2) But the evil went farther.
Jewish religious philosophy is not elaborated as a consistent whole by
any one writer. It is rather a miscellany of maxims; and again and
again, as in much religious thought, side issues assume the principal
place. The direct effect of the charitable act, or almsgiving, is
ignored. Many thoughts and motives are blended. The Jews spoke of the
poor as the means of the rich man's salvation. St Chrysostom
emphasizes this: "If there were no poor, the greater part of your sins
would not be removed: they are the healers of your wounds" (_Hom._
xiv., Timothy, &c., St Cyprian on works and alms). Alms are the
medicine of sin. And the same thought is worked into the penitential
system. Augustine speaks of "penance such as fasting, almsgiving and
prayer for breaches of the Decalogue" (Reichel, _Manual of Canon Law_,
p. 23); and many other references might be cited. "Pecuniary penances
(Ib. 154), in so far as they were relaxations of, or substitutes for,
bodily penances, were permitted because of the greater good thereby
accruing to others" (and in this case they were--A.D. 1284--legally
enforceable under English statute law). The penitential system takes
for granted that the almsgiving is good for others and puts a premium
on it, even though in fact it were done, not with any definite object,
but really for the good of the penitent. Thus almsgiving becomes
detached from charity on the one side and from social good on the
other. Still further is it vulgarized by another confusion of thought.
It is considered that the alms are paid to the credit of the giver,
and are realized as such by him in the after-world; or even that by
alms present prosperity may be obtained, or at least evil accident
avoided. Thus motives were blended, as indeed they now are, with the
result that the gift assumed a greater importance than the charity, by
which alone the gift should have been sanctified, and its actual
effect was habitually overlooked or treated as only partially
relevant.

(3) The Christian maxim of "loving ([Greek: agapê]) one's neighbour as
one's self" sets a standard of charity. Its relations are idealized
according as the "self" is understood; and thus the good self becomes
the measure of charity. In this sense, the nobler the self the
completer the charity; and the charity of the best men, men who love
and understand their neighbours best, having regard to their chief
good, is the best, the most effectual charity. Further, if in what we
consider "best" we give but a lesser place to social purpose or even
allow it no place at all, our "self" will have no sufficient social
aim and our charity little or no social result. For this "self,"
however, religion has substituted not St Paul's conception of the
spirit ([Greek: pneuma]), but a soul, conceived as endowed with a
substantial nature, able to enjoy and suffer quasi-material rewards
and punishments in the after-life; and in so far as the safeguard of
this soul by good deeds or almsgiving has become a paramount object,
the purpose of charitable action has been translated from the actual
world to another sphere. Thus, as we have seen, the aid of the poor
has been considered not an object in itself, but as a means by which
the almsgiver effects his own ulterior purpose and "makes God his
debtor." The problem thus handled raises the question of reward and
also of punishment. Properly, from the point of view of charity, both
are excluded. We may indeed act from a complexity of motives and
expect a complexity of rewards, and undoubtedly a good act does
refresh the "self," and may as a result, though not as a reward, win
approval. But in reality reward, if the word be used at all, is
according to purpose; and the only reward of a deed lies in the
fulfilment of its purpose. In the theory of almsgiving which we are
discussing, however, act and reward are on different planes. The
reward is on that of a future life; the act related to a distressed
person here and now. The interest in the act on the doer's part lies
in its post-mortal consequences to himself, and not either wholly or
chiefly in the act itself. Nor, as the interest ends with the act--the
giving--can the intelligence be quickened by it. The questions "How?
by whom? with what object? on what plan? with what result?" receive no
detailed consideration at all. Two general results follow. In so far
as it is thus practised, almsgiving is out of sympathy with social
progress. It is indeed alien to it. Next also the self-contained,
self-sustained poverty that will have no relief and does without it,
is outside the range of its thought and understanding. On the other
hand, this almsgiving is equally incapable of influencing the weak and
the vicious; and those who are suffering from illness or trouble it
has not the width of vision to understand nor the moral energy to
support so that they shall not fall out of the ranks of the
self-supporting. It believes that "the poor" will not cease out of the
land. And indeed, however great might be the economic progress of the
people, it is not likely that the poor will cease, if the alms given
in this spirit be large enough in amount to affect social conditions
seriously one way or the other. When we measure the effects of
charity, this inheritance of divided thought and inconsistent counsels
must be given its full weight.

The organization of the parish and endowed charities.

The sub-apostolic church was a congregation, like a synagogue, the
centre of a system of voluntary and personal relief, connected with the
congregational meals (or [Greek: agapai]) and the Eucharist, and under
the supervision of no single officer or bishop. Out of this was
developed a system of relief controlled by a bishop, who was assisted
chiefly by deacons or presbyters, while the [Greek: agapai], consisting
of offerings laid before the altar, still remained. Subsequently the
meal was separated from the sacrament, and became a dole of food, or
poor people's meal--e.g. in St Augustine's time in western Africa--and
it was not allowed to be served in churches (A.D. 391). As religious
asceticism became dominant, the sacrament was taken fasting; it appeared
unseemly that men and women should meet together for such purposes, and
the [Greek: agapai] fell out of repute. Simultaneously it would seem
that the parish [Greek: paroikia] became from a congregational
settlement a geographical area.

The organization of relief at Rome illustrates both a type of
administration and a transition. St Gregory's reforms (A.D. 590) largely
developed it. The first factor in the transition was the church fund of
the second period of Christianity, about A.D. 150 to after 208
(Tertullian, _Apol_. 39). It served as a friendly fund, was supported by
voluntary gifts, and was used to succour and to bury the poor, to help
destitute and orphaned children, old household slaves and those who
suffered for the faith. This fund is quite different from the _collegia
tenuiorum_ or _funeratica_ of the Romans, which were societies to which
the members paid stipulated sums at stated periods, for funeral benefits
or for common meals (J.P. Waltzing, _Corporations professionnelles chez
les Romains_, i. 313). It represents the charitable centre round which
the parochial system developed. That system was adopted probably about
the middle of the 3rd century, but in Rome the diaconate probably
remained centralized. At the end of the 4th century Pope Anastasius had
founded deaconries in Rome, and endowed them largely "to meet the
frequent demands of the diaconate." Gregory two hundred years later
reorganized the system. He divided the fourteen old "regions" into seven
ecclesiastical districts and thirty "titles" (or parishes). The parishes
were under the charge of sixty-six priests; the districts were
eleemosynary divisions. Each was placed under the charge of a deacon,
not (Greg. _Ep_. xi. and xxviii.) under the priests (_presbyteri
titularii_). Over the deacons was an archdeacon. It was the duty of the
deacons to care for the poor, widows, orphans, wards, and old people of
their several districts. They inquired in regard to those who were
relieved, and drew up under the guidance of the bishop the register of
poor (_matricula_). Only these received regular relief. In each district
was an hospital or office for alms, of which the deacon had charge,
assisted by a steward (or _oeconomus_). Here food was given and meals
were taken, the sick and poor were maintained, and orphan or foundling
children lodged. The churches of Rome and of other large towns possessed
considerable estates, "the patrimony of the patron saints," and to Rome
belonged estates in Sicily which had not been ravaged by the invaders,
and they continued to pay to it their tenth of corn, as they had done
since Sicily was conquered. Four times a year (Milman, _Lat. Christ_,
ii. 117) the shares of the (1) clergy and papal officers, (2) churches
and monasteries, and (3) "hospitals, deaconries and ecclesiastical wards
for the poor," were calculated in money and distributed; and the first
day in every month St Gregory distributed to the poor in kind corn,
wine, cheese, vegetables, bacon, meal, fish and oil. The sick and infirm
were superintended by persons appointed to inspect every street. Before
the pope sat down to his own meal a portion was separated and sent out
to the hungry at his door. The Roman _plebs_ had thus become the poor of
Christ (_pauperes Christi_), and under that title were being fed by
_civica annona_ and _sportula_ as their ancestors had been; and the
deaconries had superseded the "regions" and the "steps" from which the
corn had been distributed. The _hospitium_ was now part of a common
organization of relief, and the sick were visited according to Jewish
and early Christian precedent. How far kindly Romans visited the sick of
their day we do not know. Alms and the _annona_ were now, it would seem,
administered concurrently; and there was a system of poor relief
independent of the churches and their alms (unless these, organized, as
in Scottish towns, on the ancient ecclesiastical lines, were paid wholly
or in part to a central diaconate fund). Much had changed, but in much
Roman thought still prevailed.

On lines similar to these the organization of poor relief in the middle
ages was developed. In the provinces in the later empire the senate or
_ordo decurionum_ were responsible for the public provisioning of the
towns (Fustel de Coulanges, _La Gaule romaine_, p. 251), and no doubt
the care of the poor would thus in some measure devolve on them in times
of scarcity or distress. On the religious side, on the other hand, the
churches would probably be constant centres of almsgiving and relief;
and then, further, when the Roman municipal system had decayed, each
citizen (as in Charlemagne's time, 742-814) was required to support his
own dependants--a step suggestive of much after-history.

The change in sentiment and method could hardly be more strongly
marked than by a comparison of "the _Teaching_" with St Ambrose's
(334-397) "Duties of the Clergy" (_De Officiis Ministrorum_). For the
old instinctive obedience to a command there is now an endeavour to
find a reasoned basis for charitable action. Pauperism is recognized.
"Never was the greed of beggars greater than it is now.... They want
to empty the purses of the poor, to deprive them of the means of
support. Not content with a little, they ask for more.... With lies
about their lives they ask for further sums of money." "A method in
giving is necessary." But in the suggestions made there is little
consistency. Liberality is urged as a means of gaining the love of the
people; a new and a false issue is thus raised. The relief is neither
to be "too freely given to those who are unsuitable, nor too sparingly
bestowed upon the needy." Everywhere there is a doctrine of the mean
reflected through Cicero's _De Officiis_, the doctrine insufficiently
stated, as though it were a mean of quantity, and not that rightly
tempered mean which is the harmony of opposing moods. The poor are not
to be sent away empty. Those rejected by the church are not to be left
to the "outer darkness" of an earlier Christianity. They must be
supplied if they are in want. The methodic giver is "hard towards
none, but is free towards all." Consequently none are refused, and no
account is taken of the regeneration that may spring up in a man from
the effort towards self-help which refusal may originate. Thus after
all it appears that method means no more than this--to give sometimes
more, sometimes less, to all needy people. In the small congregational
church of early Christianity, each member of which was admitted on the
conditions of strictest discipline, the common alms of the faithful
could hardly have done much harm within the body, even though outside
they created and kept alive a horde of vagrant alms-seekers and
pretenders. Now in this department at least the church had become the
state, and discipline and a close knowledge of one's fellow-Christians
no longer safeguarded the alms. From Cicero is borrowed the thought of
"active help," which "is often grander and more noble," but the
thought is not worked out. From the social side the problem is not
understood or even stated, and hence no principle of charity or of
charitable administration is brought to light in the investigation.
Still there are rudiments of the economics of charity in the praise of
Joseph, who made the people _buy_ the corn, for otherwise "they would
have given up cultivating the soil; for he who has the use of what is
another's often neglects his own." Perhaps, as St Augustine inspired
the theology of the middle ages, we may say that St Ambrose, in the
mingled motives, indefiniteness, and kindliness of this book, stands
for the charity of the middle ages, except in so far as the movement
which culminated in the brotherhood of St Francis awakened the
intelligence of the world to wider issues.

In Constantinople the pauperism seems to have been extreme. The corn
supplies of Africa were diverted there in great part when it became the
capital of the empire. This must have left to Rome a larger scope for
the development of the civic-religious administration of relief. St
Chrysostom's sermons give no impression of the rise of any new
administrative force, alike sagacious and dominant. The appeal to give
alms is constant, but the positive counsel on charitable work is _nil_.
The people had the _annona civica_, and imperial gifts, corn, allowances
(_salaria_) from the treasury granted for the poor and needy, and an
annual gift of 50 gold pounds (rather more than £1400) for funerals.
Besides these there were many institutions, and the begging and the
almsgiving at the church doors. "The land could not support the lazy and
valiant beggars." There were public works provided for them; if they
refused to work on them they were to be driven away. The sick might
visit the capital, but must be registered and sent back (A.D. 382); the
sturdy beggar was condemned to slavery. So little did alms effect. And
in the East monasticism seems to have produced no firmness of purpose
such as led to the organization of the church and of charitable relief
under St Gregory.

Another movement of the Byzantine period was the establishment of the
endowed charity. The Jewish synagogue long served as a place for the
reception of strangers--a religious [Greek: xenodocheion]. Probably the
strangers referred to in "the _Teaching_" were so entertained. The table
of the bishop and a room in his house served as the guest-chamber, for
which afterwards a separate building was instituted. In the East the
Jewish charitable inn first appears, and there took place the earliest
extension of institutions. There was probably a demand for an
elaboration of institutions as social changes made themselves felt in
the churches. We have seen this in the case of the [Greek: agapê].
Similar changes would affect other branches of charitable work. The
hospital (_hospitalium_, [Greek: xenodocheion]) is defined as a "house
of God in which strangers who lack hospitality are received" (Suicerus,
_Thesaur._), a home separated from the church; and round the church, out
of the primitive [Greek: xenodocheion] of early Christian times and the
entertainment of strangers at the houses of members of the community,
would grow up other similar charities. In A.D. 321 licence was given by
Constantine to leave property to the Church. The churches were thus
placed in the same position as pagan temples, and though subsequently
Valentinian (A.D. 379) withdrew the permission on account of the
shameless legacy-hunting of the clergy, in that period much must have
been done to endow church and charitable institutions. In the same
period grew to its height the passion for monasticism. This affected the
parish and the endowed charity alike. Under its influence the deacon as
an almoner tends to disappear, except where, as in Rome, there is an
elaborate system of relief. Nor does it seem that deaconesses, widows,
and virgins continued to occupy their old position as church workers and
alms-receivers. Naturally when marriage was considered "in itself an
evil, perhaps to be tolerated, but still degrading to human nature," and
(A.D. 385) the marriage of the clergy was prohibited, men, except those
in charge of parishes, and women would join regular monastic bodies; the
deacon, as almoner, would disappear, and the "widows" and virgins would
become nuns. Thus there would grow up a large body of men and women
living segregated in institutions, and forming a leisured class able to
superintend institutional charities. And now two new officers appear,
the _eleemosynarius_ or almoner and the _oeconomus_ or steward (already
an assistant treasurer to the bishop), who superintend and distribute
the alms and manage the property of the institution. (In the first six
books of the _Apost. Constit._, A.D. 300, these officers are not
mentioned.) In these circumstances the _hospitium_ or hospital ([Greek:
xenon], [Greek: katagôgion]) assumes a new character. It becomes in St
Basil's hands (A.D. 330-379) a resort not only for those who "visit it
from time to time as they pass by, but also for those who need some
treatment in illness." And round St Basil at Caesarea there springs up a
colony of institutions. Four kinds principally are mentioned in the
Theodosian code: (i) the guest-houses ([Greek: xenodocheia]); (2) the
poor-houses ([Greek: ptôcheia]), where the poor (_mendici_) were housed
and maintained (the [Greek: ptôcheion] was a general term also applied
to all houses for the poor, the aged, orphans and sick); (3) there were
orphanages ([Greek: orphanotropheia]) for orphans and wards; and (4)
there were houses for infant children ([Greek: brephotropheia]). Thus a
large number of endowed charities had grown up. This new movement it is
necessary to consider in connexion with the law relating to religious
property and bequests, in its bearing on the rule of the monasteries,
and in its effect on the family.

The sacred property (_res sacra_) of Roman law consisted of things
dedicated to the gods by the pontiff with the approval of the civil
authority, in turn, the people, the senate and the emperor. Things so
consecrated were inalienable. Apart from this in the empire, the
municipalities as they grew up were considered "juristic persons" who
were entitled to receive and hold property. In a similar position were
authorized _collegia_, amongst which were the mutual aid societies
referred to above. Christians associated in these societies would
leave legacies to them. Thus (W.M. Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of
Phrygia_, I. i. 119) an inscription mentions a bequest (possibly by a
Christian) to the council ([Greek: synhedrion]) of the presidents of
the dyers in purple for a ceremonial, on the condition that, if the
ceremony be neglected, the legacy shall become the property of the
gild for the care of nurslings; and in the same way a bequest is left
in Rome (Orelli 4420) for a memorial sacrifice, on the condition that,
if it be not performed, double the cost be paid to the treasury of the
corn-supply (_fisco stationis annonae_). No unauthorized _collegia_
could receive a legacy. "The law recognized no freedom of
association." Nor could any private individual create a foundation
with separate property of its own. Property could only be left to an
authorized juristic person, being a municipality or a _collegium_. But
as the problem of poverty was considered from a broader standpoint,
there was a desire to deal with it in a more permanent manner than by
the _annona civica_. The _pueri alimentarii_ (see above) were
considered to hold their property as part of the _fiscus_ or property
of the state. Pliny (_Ep._ vii. 18), seeking a method of endowment,
transferred property in land to the steward of public property, and
then took it back again subject to a permanent charge for the aid of
children of freemen. By the law of Constantine and subsequent laws no
such devices were necessary. Widows or deaconesses, or virgins
dedicated to God, or nuns (A.D. 455), could leave bequests to a church
or memorial church (_martyrum_), or to a priest or a monk, or to the
poor in any shape or form, in writing or without it. Later (A.D. 475)
donations of every kind, "to the person of any martyr, or apostle, or
prophet, or the holy angels," for building an oratory were made valid,
even if the building were promised only and not begun; and the same
rule applied to infirmaries ([Greek: nosokomoeia]) and poor-houses
([Greek: ptôcheia])--the bishop or steward being competent to appear
as plaintiff in such cases. Later, again (A.D. 528), contributions of
50 solidi (say about £19, 10s.) to a church, hostel ([Greek:
xenodocheion]), &c., were made legal, though not registered; while
larger sums, if registered, were also legalized. So (A.D. 529)
property might be given for "churches, hostels, poor-houses, infant
and orphan homes, and homes for the aged, or any such community"
(_consortium_), even though not registered, and such property was free
from taxation. The next year (530) it was enacted that prescription
even for 100 years did not alienate church and charitable property.
The broadest interpretation was allowed. If by will a share of an
estate was left "to Christ our Lord," the church of the city or other
locality might receive it as heir; "let these, the law says, belong to
the holy churches, so that they may become the alimony of the poor."
It was sufficient to leave property to the poor (_Corpus Juris
Civilis_, ed. Krueger, 1877, ii. 25). The bequest was legal. It went
to the legal representative of the poor--the church. Charitable
property was thus church property. The word "alms" covered both. It
was given to pious uses, and as a kind of public institution "shared
that corporate capacity which belonged to all ecclesiastical
institutions by virtue of a general rule of law." On a _pia causa_ it
was not necessary to confer a juristic personality. Other laws
preserved or regulated alienation (A.D. 477, A.D. 530), and checked
negligence or fraud in management. The clergy had thus become the
owners of large properties, with the _coloni_ and slaves upon the
estates and the allowances of civic corn (_annona civica_); and (A.D.
357) it was stipulated that whatever they acquired by thrift or
trading should be used for the service of the poor and needy, though
what they acquired from the labour of their slaves in the labour
houses (_ergastula_) or inns (_tabernae_) might be considered a profit
of religion (_religionis lucrum_).

Thus grew up the system of endowed charities, which with certain
modifications continued throughout the middle ages, and, though it
assumed different forms in connexion with gilds and municipalities, in
England it still retains, partially at least, its relation to the
church. It remained the system of institutional relief parallel to the
more personal almsgiving of the parish.

Monasticism, in acting on men of strong character, endowed them with a
double strength of will, and to men like St Gregory it seemed to give
back with administrative power the relentless firmness of the Roman. In
the East it produced the turbulent soldiery of the church, in the West
its missionaries; and each mission-monastery was a centre of relief. But
whatever the services monasticism rendered, it can hardly be said to
have furthered true charity from the social standpoint, though out of
regard to some of its institutional work we may to a certain degree
qualify this judgment. The movement was almost of necessity in large
measure anti-parochial, and thus out of sympathy with the charities of
the parish, where personal relations with the poor at their homes count
for most.

The good and evil of it may be weighed. Monasticism working through St
Augustine helped the world to realize the mood of love as the real or
eternal life. Of the natural life of the world and its
responsibilities, through which that mood would have borne its
completest fruit, it took but little heed, except in so far as, by
creating a class possessed of leisure, it created able scholars,
lawyers and administrators, and disciplined the will of strong men.
It had no power to stay the social evils of the day. Unlike the
friars, at their best the monks were a class apart, not a class mixed
up with the people. So were their charities. The belief in poverty as
a fixed condition--irretrievable and ever to be alleviated without any
regard to science or observation, subjected charity to a perpetual
stagnation. Charity requires belief in growth, in the sharing of life,
in the utility and nobility of what is done here and now for the
hereafter of this present world. Monasticism had no thought of this.
It was based on a belief in the evil of matter; and from that root
could spring no social charity. Economic difficulties also fostered
monasticism. Gold was appreciated in value, and necessaries were
expensive, and the cost of maintaining a family was great. It was an
economy to force a son or a brother into the church. The population
was decreasing; and in spite of church feeling Marjorian (A.D. 461)
had to forbid women from taking the veil before forty, and to require
the remarriage of widows, subject to a large forfeit of property
(Hodgkin, _Italy and her Invaders_, ii. 420). Monasticism was
inconsistent with the social good. As to the family--like the moderns
who depreciate thrift and are careless of the life of the family, the
monks, believing that marriage was a lower form of morality, if not
indeed, as would at times appear, hardly moral at all, could feel but
little enthusiasm for what is socially a chief source of health to the
community and a well-spring of spontaneous charitable feeling. By the
sacerdotal-monastic movement the moralizing force of Christianity was
denaturalized. Among the secular clergy the falsity of the position as
between men and women revealed itself in relations which being
unhallowed and unrecognized became also degrading. But worse than all,
it pushed charity from its pivot. For this no monasteries or
institutions, no domination of religious belief, could atone. The
church that with so fine an intensity of purpose had fostered chastity
and marriage was betraying its trust. It was out of touch with the
primal unit of social life, the child-school of dawning habits and the
loving economy of the home. It produced no treatise on economy in the
older Greek sense of the word. The home and its associations no longer
retained their pre-eminence. In the extreme advocacy of the celibate
state, the honourable development of the married life and its duties
were depreciated and sometimes, one would think, quite forgotten.

We may ask, then, What were the results of charity at the close of the
period which ends with St Gregory and the founding of the medieval
church?--for if the charity is reflected in the social good the results
should be manifest. Economic and social conditions were adverse. With
lessened trade the middle class was decaying (Dill, _Roman Society in
the Last Century of the Western Empire_, p. 204) and a selfish
aristocracy rising up. Municipal responsibility had been taxed to
extinction. The public service was corrupt. The rich evaded taxation,
the poor were oppressed by it. There were laws upon laws, endeavours to
underpin the framework of a decaying society. Society was bankrupt of
skill--and the skill of a generation has a close bearing on its
charitable administration. While hospitals increased, medicine was
unprogressive. There were miserable years of famine and pestilence, and
constant wars. The care of the poorer classes, and ultimately of the
people, was the charge of the church. The church strengthened the
feeling of kindness for those in want, widows, orphans and the sick. It
lessened the degradation of the "actresses," and, co-operating with
Stoic opinion, abolished the slaughter of the gladiatorial shows. It
created a popular "dogmatic system and moral discipline," which paganism
failed to do; but it produced no prophet of charity, such as enlarged
the moral imagination of the Jews. It ransomed slaves, as did paganism
also, but it did not abolish slavery. Large economic causes produced
that great reform. The serf attached to the soil took the place of the
slave. The almsgiving of the church by degrees took the place of
_annona_ and _sportula_, and it may have created pauperism. But
dependence on almsgiving was at least an advance on dependence founded
on a civic and hereditary right to relief. As the _colonus_ stood higher
than the slave, so did the pauper, socially at any rate, free to support
himself, exceed the _colonus_. Bad economic conditions and traditions,
and a bad system of almsgiving, might enthral him. But the way, at
least, was open; and thus it became possible that charity, working in
alliance with good economic traditions, should in the end accomplish the
self-support of society, the independence of the whole people.

PART V.--MEDIEVAL CHARITY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

It remains to trace the history of thought and administration in
relation to (1) the development of charitable responsibility in the
parish, and the use of tithe and church property for poor relief; and
(2) the revision of the theory of charity, with which are associated the
names of St Augustine (354-430), St Benedict (480-542), St Bernard
(1091-1153), St Francis (1182-1226), and St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).
(3) There follows, in reference chiefly to England, a sketch of the
dependence of the poor under feudalism, the charities of the parish, the
monastery and the hospital--the medieval system of endowed charity; the
rise of gild and municipal charities; the decadence at the close of the
15th century, and the statutory endeavours to cope with economic
difficulties which, in the 16th century, led to the establishment of
statutory serfdom and the poor-laws. New elements affect the problem of
charity in the 17th and 18th centuries; but it is not too much to say
that almost all these headings represent phases of thought or
institutions which in later forms are interwoven with the charitable
thought and endeavours of the present day.

The parish and charitable relief.

Naturally, two methods of relief have usually been prominent: relief
administered locally, chiefly to residents in their own homes, and
relief administered in an institution. At the time of Charlemagne
(742-814) the system of relief was parochial, consisting principally of
assistance at the home. After that time, except probably in England, the
institutional method appears to have predominated, and the monastery or
hospital in one form or another gradually encroached on the parish.

The system of parochial charity was the outcome, apparently, of three
conditions: the position and influence of the bishop, the eleemosynary
nature of the church funds, and the need of some responsible
organization of relief. It resulted in what might almost be called an
ecclesiastical poor-law. The affairs of a local church or congregation
were superintended by a bishop. To deal with the outlying districts he
detached priests for religious work and, as in Rome and (774)
Strassburg, deacons also for the administration of relief. Originally
all the income of the church or congregation was paid into one fund
only, of which the bishop had charge, and this fund was available
primarily for charitable purposes. Church property was the patrimony
of the poor. In the 4th century (IV. Council of Carthage, 398) the
names of the clergy were entered on a list (_matricula_ or _canon_),
as were also the names of the poor, and both received from the church
their daily portion (cf. Ratzinger, _Geschichte der kirchlichen
Armenpflege_, p. 117). There were no expenses for building. Before the
reign of Constantine (306) very few churches were built (Ratzinger, p.
120). Thus the early church as has been said, was chiefly a charitable
society. By degrees the property of the church was very largely
increased by gifts and bequests, and in the West before St Gregory's
time the division of it for four separate purposes--the support of the
bishop, of the clergy, and of the poor, and for church
buildings--still further promoted decentralization. Apart from any
special gifts, there was thus created a separate fund for almsgiving,
supervised by the bishop, consisting of a fourth of the church
property, the oblations (mostly used for the poor), and the tithe,
which at first was used for the poor solely. The organization of the
church was gradually extended. The church once established in the
chief city of a district would become in turn the mother church of
other neighbourhoods, and the bishop or priest of the mother church
would come to exercise supervision over them and their parishes.

In France, which may serve as a good illustration, in the 4th century
(Ratzinger, p. 181) the civic organization was utilized for a further
change. The Roman provinces were divided into large areas,
_civitales_, and these were adopted by the church as bishop's parishes
or, as we should call them, dioceses; and the chief city became the
cathedral city. The bishop thus became responsible in Charlemagne's
time both for his own parish--that of the mother church--and for the
supervision of the parishes in the _civitas_, and so for the sick and
needy of the diocese generally. He had to take charge of the poor in
his own parish personally, keep the list of the poor, and houses for
the homeless. The other parishes were at first, or in some measure,
supported from his funds, but they acquired by degrees tithe and
property of their own and were endowed by Charlemagne, who gave one or
more manses or lots of land (cf. Fustel de Coulanges, _Hist, des
institutions politiques de l'ancienne France_, p. 360) for the support
of each parish priest. The priests were required to relieve their own
poor so that they should not stray into other cities (II. Counc.
Tours, 567), and to provide food and lodging for strangers. The method
was indeed elaborated and became, like the Jewish, that contradiction
in terms--a compulsory system of charitable relief. The payment of
tithe was enforced by Charlemagne, and it became a legal due (Counc.
Frankfort, 794; Arelat. 794). At the same time two other conditions
were enforced. Each person (_unusquisque fidelium nostrorum_ or _omnes
cives_) was to keep his own family, i.e. all dependent on him--all,
that is, upon his freehold estate (_allodium_), and no one was to
presume to give relief to able-bodied beggars unless they were set to
work (Charlem. _Capit_. v. 10). Thus we find here the germ of a
poor-law system. As in the times of the _annona civica_, slavery,
feudalism, or statutory serfdom, the burthen of the maintenance of the
poor fell only in part on charity. Only those who could not be
maintained as members of some "family" were properly entitled to
relief, and in these circumstances the officially recognized clients
of the church consisted of the gradually decreasing number of free
poor and those who were tenants of church lands.

Since 817 there has been no universally binding decision of the church
respecting the care of the poor (Ratzinger, p. 236). So long ago did
laicization begin in charity. In the wars and confusion of the 9th and
10th centuries the poorer freemen lapsed still further into slavery,
or became _coloni_ or bond servants; and later they passed under the
feudal rule. Thus the church's duty to relieve them became the
masters' obligation to maintain them. Simultaneously the activity of
the clergy, regular and secular alike, dwindled. They were exhorted to
increase their alms. The revenues and property of "the poor" were
largely turned to private or partly ecclesiastical purposes, or
secularized. Legacies went wholly to the clergy, but only the tithe of
the produce of their own lands was used for relief; and of the general
tithe, only a third or fourth part was so applied. Eventually to a
large extent, but more elsewhere than in England (Ratzinger, pp. 246,
269), the tithe itself was appropriated by nobles or even by the
monasteries; and thus during and after the 10th century a new
organization of charity was created on non-parochial methods of
relief. Alms, with prayer and fasting, had always been connected with
penance. But the character of the penitential system had altered. By
the 7th century private penance had superseded the public and
congregational penance of the earlier church (_Dict. Christian
Antiquities_, art. "Penitence"). To the penalties of exclusion from
the sacraments or from the services of the church or from its
communion was coupled, with other penitential discipline, an elaborate
penitential system, in which about the 7th century the redemption of
sin by the "sacrifice" of property, payments of money fines, &c., was
introduced. (Cf. for instance Conc. Elberti:--Labbeus i. 969 (A.D.
305), with Conc. Berghamstedense, Wilkins, Conc. p. 60 (A.D. 696), and
the Penitential (p. 115) and Canons (A.D. 960), p. 236.) The same sin
committed by an overseer (_praepositus paganus_) was compensated by a
fine of 100 _solidi_; in the case of a _colonus_ by a fine of 50. So
amongst the ways of penitence were entered in the above-mentioned
Canons, to erect a church, and if means allowed, add to it land ... to
repair the public roads ... "to distribute," to help poor widows,
orphans and strangers, redeem slaves, fast, &c.--a combination of
"good deeds" which suggests a line of thought such as ultimately found
expression in the definition of charities in the Charitable Uses Act
of Queen Elizabeth. The confessor, too, was "_spiritualis medicus_,"
and much that from the point of view of counsel would now be the work
of charity would in his hands be dealt with in that capacity. For
lesser sins (cf. Bede (673-735), _Hom._ 34, quoted by Ratzinger) the
penalty was prayer, fasting and alms; for the greater sins--murder,
adultery and idolatry--to give up all. Thus while half-converted
barbarians were kept in moral subjection by material penances, the
church was enriched by their gifts; and these tended to support the
monastic and institutional methods which were in favour, and to which,
on the revival of religious earnestness in the 11th century, the world
looked for the reform of social life.

Medieval revision of the theory of charity.

To understand medieval charity it is necessary to return to St
Augustine. According to him, the motive of man in his legitimate effort
to assert himself in life was love or desire (_amor_ or _cupido_). "All
impulses were only evolutions of this typical characteristic" (Harnack,
_History of Dogma_ (trans.), v. iii.); and this was so alike in the
spiritual and the sensuous life. Happiness thus depended on desire; and
desire in turn depended on the regulation of the will; but the will was
regulated only by grace. God was the _spiritualis substantia_; and
freedom was the identity of the will with the omnipotent unchanging
nature. This highest Being was "holiness working on the will in the form
of omnipotent love." This love was grace--"grace imparting itself in
love." Love (_caritas_--charity) is identified with justice; and the
will, the goodwill, is love. The identity of the will with the will of
God was attained by communion with Him. The after-life consummated by
sight this communion, which was here reached only by faith. Such a
method of thought was entirely introspective, and it turned the mind
"wholly to hope, asceticism and the contemplation of God in worship."
"Where St Augustine indulges in the exposition of practical piety he has
no theory at all of Christ's work." To charity on that side he added
nothing. In the 11th century there was a revival of piety, which had
amongst its objects the restoration of discipline in the monasteries and
a monastic training for the secular clergy. To this Augustinian thought
led the way. "Christianity was asceticism and the city of God" (Harnack
vi. 6). A new religious feeling took possession of the general mind, a
regard and adoration of the actual, the historic Christ. Of this St
Bernard was the expositor. "Beside the sacramental Christ the image of
the historical took its place,--majesty in humility, innocence in penal
suffering, life in death." The spiritual and the sensuous were
intermingled. Dogmatic formulae fell into the background. The picture of
the historic Christ led to the realization of the Christ according to
the spirit ([Greek: kata pneuma]). Thus St Bernard carried forward
Augustinian thought; and the historic Christ became the "sinless man,
approved by suffering, to whom the divine grace, by which He lives, has
lent such power that His image takes shape in other men and incites them
to corresponding humility and love."

Humility and poverty represented the conditions under which alone this
spirit could be realized; and the poverty must be spiritual, and
therefore self-imposed ("wilful," as it was afterwards called). This led
to practical results. Poverty was not a social state, but a spiritual;
and consequently the poor generally were not the _pauperes Christi_, but
those who, like the monks, had taken vows of poverty. From these
premisses followed later the doctrine that gifts to the church were not
gifts to the poor, as once they had been, but to the religious bodies.
The church was not the church of the poor, but of the poor in spirit.
But the immediate effect was the belief for a time, apparently almost
universal, that the salvation of society would come from the monastic
orders. By their aid, backed by the general opinion, the secular clergy
were brought back to celibacy and the monasteries newly disciplined. But
charity could not thus regain its touch of life and become the means of
raising the standard of social duty.

Next, one amongst many who were stirred by a kindred inspiration, St
Francis turned back to actual life and gave a new reality to religious
idealism. For him the poor were once again the _pauperes Christi_. To
follow Christ was to adopt the life of "evangelical poverty," and this
was to live among the poor the life of a poor man. The follower was to
work with his hands (as the poor clergy of the early church had done and
the clergy of the early English church were exhorted to do); he was to
receive no money; he was to earn the actual necessaries of life, though
what he could not earn he might beg. To ask for this was a right, so
long as he was bringing a better life into the world. All in excess of
this he gave to the poor. He would possess no property, buildings or
endowments, nor was his order to do so. The fulness of his life was in
the complete realization of it now, without the cares of property and
without any fear of the future. Having a definite aim and mission, he
was ready to accept the want that might come upon him, and his life was
a discipline to enable him to suffer it if it came. To him humility was
the soul making itself fit to love; and poverty was humility expanded
from a mood to a life, a life not guarded by seclusion, but spent
amongst those who were actually poor. The object of life was to console
the poor--those outside all monasteries and institutions--the poor as
they lived and worked. The movement was practically a lay movement, and
its force consisted in its simplicity and directness. Book learning was
disparaged: life was to be the teacher. The brothers thus became
observant and practical, and afterwards indeed learned, and their
learning had the same characteristics. Their power lay in their
practical sagacity, in their treatment of life, outside the cloister and
the hospital, at first hand. They knew the people because they settled
amongst them, living just as they did. This was their method of charity.

The inspiration that drew St Francis to this method was the
contemplation of the life of Christ. But it was more than this. The
Christ was to him, as to St Bernard, an ideal, whose nature passed into
that of the contemplating and adoring beholder, so that, as he said,
"having lost its individuality, of itself the creature could no longer
act." He had no impulse but the Christ impulse. He was changed. His
identity was merged in that of Christ. And with this came the conception
of a gracious and finely ordered charity, moving like the natural world
in a constant harmonious development towards a definite end. The
mysticism was intense, but it was practical because it was intense. In
that lay the strength of the movement of the true Franciscans, and in
those orders that, whether called heretical or not, followed
them--Lollards and others. Religion thus became a personal and original
possession. It became individual. It was inspired by a social endeavour,
and for the world at large it made of charity a new thing.

St Thomas Aquinas took up St Bernard's position. Renunciation of
property, voluntary poverty, was in his view also a necessary means of
reaching the perfect life; and the feeling that was akin to this
renunciation and prompted it was charity. "All perfection of the
Christian life was to be attained according to charity," and charity
united us to God.

In the system elaborated by St Thomas Aquinas two lines of thought are
wrought into a kind of harmony. The one stands for Aristotle and
nature, the other for Christian tradition and theology. We have thus a
duplicate theory of thought and action throughout, both rational and
theologic virtues, and a duplicate beatitude or state of happiness
correspondent to each. On the one hand it is argued that the good act
is an act which, in relation to its object, wholly serves its purpose;
and thus the measure of goodness (_Prima Secundae Summae Theolog. Q._
xviii. 2) is the proportion between action and effect. On the other
hand, the act has to satisfy the twofold law, human reason and eternal
reason. From the point of view of the former the cardinal factor is
desire, which, made proportionate to an end, is love (_amor_); and,
seeking the good of others, it loses its quality of concupiscence and
becomes friendly love (_amor amicitiae_). But this rational love
(_amor_) and charity (_caritas_), the theologic virtue, may meet. All
virtue or goodness is a degree of love (_amor_), if by virtue we mean
the cardinal virtues and refer to the rule of reason only. But there
are also theologic virtues, which are on one side "essential," on the
other side participative. As wood ignited participates in the natural
fire, so does the individual in these virtues (II. II.^ae lxii. l).
Charity is a kind of friendship towards God. It is received _per
infusionem spiritus sancti_, and is the chief and root of the
theologic virtues of faith and hope, and on it the rational virtues
depend. They are not degrees of charity as they are of (_amor_) love,
but charity gives purpose, order and quality to them all. In this
sense the word is applied to the rational virtues--as, for instance,
beneficence. The counterpart of charity in social life is pity
(_misericordia_), the compassion that moves us to supply another's
want (_summa religionis Christianae in misericordia consistit quantum
ad exteriora opera_). It is, however, an emotion, not a virtue, and
must be regulated like any other emotion (... _passio est et non
virtus. Hic autem motus potest esse secundum rationem regulatus_, II.
II.^ae xxx. 3). Thus we pass to alms, which are the instrument of
pity--an act of charity done through the intervention of pity. The act
is not done in order to purchase spiritual good by a corporal means,
but to merit a spiritual good (_per effectum caritatis_) through being
in a state of charity; and from that point of view its effect is
tested by the recipient being moved to pray for his benefactor. The
claim of others on our beneficence is relative, according to
consanguinity and other bonds (II. II.^ae xxxi. 3), subject to the
condition that the common good of many is a holier obligation
(_divinius_) than that of one. Obedience and obligation to parents may
be crossed by other obligations, as, for instance, duty to the church.
To give alms is a command. Alms should consist of the
superfluous--that is, of all that the individual possesses after he
has reserved what is necessary. What is necessary the donor should fix
in due relation to the claims of his family and dependants, his
position in life (_dignitas_), and the sustenance of his body. On the
other hand, his gift should meet the actual necessities of the
recipient and no more. More than this will lead to excess on the
recipient's part (_ut inde luxurietur_) or to want of spirit and
apathy (_ut aliis remissio et refrigerium sit_), though allowance must
be made for different requirements in different conditions of life. It
were better to distribute alms to many persons than to give more than
is necessary to one. In individual cases there remains the further
question of correction--the removing of some evil or sin from another;
and this, too, is an act of charity.

It will be seen that though St Thomas bases his argument on a
duplicate theory of thought, action and happiness, part natural, part
theologic, and states fully the conditions of good action, he does not
bring the two into unison. Logically the argument should follow that
alms that fail in social benefit (produce _remissionem et
refrigerium_, for instance) fail also in spiritual good, for the two
cannot be inconsistent. But in regard to the former he does not press
the importance of purpose, and, in spite of his Aristotle, he misses
the point on which Aristotle, as a close observer of social
conditions, insists, that gifts without purpose and reciprocity foster
the dependence they are designed to meet. The proverb of the "pierced
cask" is as applicable to ecclesiastical as to political almsgiving,
as has often been proved by the event. The distribution of all
"superfluous" income in the form of alms would have the effect of a
huge endowment, and would stereotype "the poor" as a permanent and
unprogressive class. The proposal suggests that St Thomas contemplated
the adoption of a method of relief which would be like a voluntary
poor-law; and it is noteworthy that his phrase "necessary relief"
forms the defining words of the Elizabethan poor-law, while he also
lays stress on the importance of "correction," which, on the decline
and disappearance of the penitential system, assumed at the
Reformation a prominent position in administration in relation not
only to "sin," but also to offences against society, such as idleness,
&c.

On this foundation was built up the classification of acts of charity,
which in one shape or another has a long social tradition, and which St
Thomas quotes in an elaborated form--the seven spiritual acts
(_consule_, _carpe_, _doce_, _solare_, _remitte_, _fer_, _ora_),
counsel, sustain, teach, console, save, pardon, pray; and the seven
corporal (_vestio_, _poto_, _cibo_, _redimo_, _tego_, _colligo_,
_condo_) I clothe, I give drink to, I feed, I free from prison, I
shelter, I assist in sickness, I bury (II. II.^ae xxxii. 2). These in
subsequent thought became "good works," and availed for the after-life,
bringing with them definite boons. Thus charity was linked to the system
of indulgences. The bias of the act of charity is made to favour the
actor. Primarily the benefit reverts to him. He becomes conscious of an
ultimate reward accruing to himself. The simplicity of the deed, the
spontaneity from which, as in a well-practised art, its freshness
springs and its good effects result, is falsified at the outset. The
thought that should be wholly concerned in the fulfilment of a definite
purpose is diverted from it. The deed itself, apart from the outcome of
the deed, is highly considered. An extreme inducement is placed on
giving, counselling, and the like, but none on the personal or social
utility of the gift or counsel. Yet the value of these lies in their
end. No policy or science of charity can grow out of such a system. It
can produce innumerable isolated acts, which may or may not be
beneficent, but it cannot enkindle the "ordered charity." This charity
is, strictly speaking, by its very nature alike intellectual and
emotional. Otherwise it would inevitably fail of its purpose, for though
emotion might stimulate it, intelligence would not guide it.

There are, then, these three lines of thought. That of St Bernard, who
invigorated the monastic movement, and helped to make the monastery or
hospital the centre of charitable relief. That of St Francis, who,
passing by regular and secular clergy alike, revived and reinvigorated
the conception of charity and gave it once more the reality of a social
force, knowing that it would find a freer scope and larger usefulness in
the life of the people than in the religious aristocracy of monasteries.
And that of St Thomas Aquinas, who, analysing the problem of charity and
almsgiving, and associating it with definite groups of works, led to its
taking, in the common thought, certain stereotyped forms, so that its
social aim and purpose were ignored and its power for good was
neutralized.

Charity and social conditions in England.

We have now to turn to the conditions of social life in which these
thoughts fermented and took practical shape. The population of England
from the Conquest to the 14th century is estimated at between 1½ and 2½
millions. London, it is believed, had a population of about 40,000.
Other towns were small. Two or three of the larger had 4000 or 5000
inhabitants. The only substantial building in a village, apart perhaps
from the manor-house, was the church, used for many secular as well as
religious purposes. In the towns the mud or wood-paved huts sheltered a
people who, accepting a common poverty, traded in little more than the
necessaries of life (Green, _Town Life in the 15th Century_, i. 13). The
population was stationary. Famine and pestilence were of frequent
occurrence (Creighton, _Epidemics in Britain_, p. 19), and for the
careless there was waste at harvest-time and want in winter. Hunger was
the drill-sergeant of society. Owing to the hardship and penury of life
infant mortality was probably very great (Blashill, _Sutton in
Holdernesse_, p. 123). The 15th century was, however, "the golden age of
the labourer." Our problem is to ascertain what was the service of
charity to this people till the end of that century. In order to
estimate this we have to apply tests similar to those we applied before
to Greece and Rome and the pre-medieval church.

_The Family._--Largely Germanic in its origin, we may perhaps set down
as elemental in the English race what Tacitus said of the Germans.
They had the home virtues. They had a high regard for chastity, and
respected and enforced the family tie. The wife was honoured. The men
were poor, but when the actual pressure of their work--fighting--was
removed, idle. They were born gamblers. Much toil fell upon the wife;
but slavery was rather a form of tenure than a Roman bondage. As
elsewhere, there was in England "the joint family or household"
(Pollock and Maitland, _English Law before Edward I._ i. 31). Each
member of the community was, or should be, under some lord; for the
lordless man was, like the wanderer in Homer, who belonged to no
phratry, suspected and dangerous, and his kinsfolk might be required
to find a lord for him. There was personal servitude, but it was not
of one complexion; there were grades amongst the unfree, and the
general advance to freedom was continuous. By the 9th century the
larger amount of the slavery was bondage by tenure. In the reign of
Edward I., though "the larger half of the rural population was
unfree," yet the serf, notwithstanding the fact that he was his lord's
chattel, was free against all save his lord. A century later (1381)
villenage--that is payment for tenancy by service, instead of by
quit-rent--was practically extinguished. So steady was the progress
towards the freedom and self-maintenance of the individual and his
family.

_The Manor._--In social importance, next to the family, comes the
manor, the organization of which affected charity greatly on one side.
It was "an economic unit," the estate of a lord on which there were
associated the lord with his demesne, tenants free of service, and
villeins and others, tenants by service. All had the use of land, even
the serf. The estate was regulated by a manor court, consisting of the
lord of the manor or his representative, and the free tenants, and
entrusted with wide quasi-domestic jurisdiction. The value of the
estate depended on the labour available for its cultivation, and the
cultivators were the unfree tenants. Hence the lord, through the
manor-court, required an indemnity or fine if a child, for instance,
left the manor; and similarly, if a villein died, his widow might have
to remarry or pay a fine. Thus the lord reacquired a servant and the
widow and her family were maintained. The courts, too, fixed prices,
and thus in local and limited conditions of supply and demand were
able to equalize them in a measure and neutralize some of the effects
of scarcity. In this way, till the reign of Edward I., and, where the
manor courts remained active, till much later, a self-supporting
social organization made any systematic public or charitable relief
unnecessary.

_The Parish and the Tithe._--The conversion of England in the 7th
century was effected by bishops, accompanied by itinerant priests, who
made use of conventual houses as the centres of their work. The
parochial system was not firmly established till the 10th century
(970). Then, by a law of Edgar, a man who had a church on his own land
was allowed to pay a third of his tithe to his own church, instead of
giving the whole of it to the minister or conventual church. Theodore,
archbishop of Canterbury (667), had introduced the Carolingian system
into England; and, accordingly, the parish priest was required to
provide for strangers and to keep a room in his house for them. Of the
tithe, a third and not a fourth was to go to the poor with any
surplus; and in order to have larger means of helping them, the
priests were urged to work themselves, according to the ancient canons
of the church (cf. Labbeus, IV. Conc. Carthag. A.D. 398). The
importance of the tithe to the poor is shown by acts of Richard II.
and Henry IV., by which it was enacted that, if parochial tithes were
appropriated to a monastery, a portion of them should be assigned to
the poor of the parish. At a very early date (1287) quasi-compulsory
charges in the nature of a rate were imposed on parishioners for
various church purposes (Pollock and Maitland, i. 604), though in the
14th and 15th centuries a compulsory church rate was seldom made.
Collections were made by paid collectors, especially for Hock-tide
(q.v.) money--gathered for church purposes (Brand's _Antiquities_,
p. 112). But there must have been many varieties in practice. In
Somersetshire the churchwardens' accounts (1349 to 1560) show that the
parish contributed nothing to the relief of the poor, and it seems
probable that the personal charities of the parishioners, and the
charities of the gild fellowships and of the parsonage house sufficed
(Bishop Hobhouse, _Churchwardens' Accounts, 1349-1560_, Somerset
Record Society). Many parishes possessed land, houses and cattle, and
received gifts and legacies of all kinds. The proceeds of this
property, if given for the use of the parish generally, might, if
necessary, be available for the relief of the poor, but, if given
definitely for their use, would provide doles, or stock cattle or
"poor's" lands, &c. (Cf. Augustus Jessopp, _Before the Great Pillage_,
p. 40; and many instances in the reports of the Charity Commissioners,
1818-1835.) Of the endowments for parish doles very many may have
disappeared in the break-up of the 16th century. There were also
"Parish Ales," the proceeds of which would be used for parish purposes
or for relief. Further, all the greater festivals were days of
feasting and the distribution of food; at funerals also there were
often large distributions, and also at marriages. The faithful
generally, subject to penance, were required to relieve the poor and
the stranger. In the larger part of England the parish and the vill
were usually coterminous. In the north a parish contained several
vills. There were thus side by side the charitable relief system of
the parish, which at an early date became a rating area, and the
self-supporting system of the manor.

_The Monasteries._--As Christianity spread monasteries spread, and
each monastery was a centre of relief. Sometimes they were
established, like St Albans (796), for a hundred Benedictine monks and
for the entertainment of strangers; or sometimes without any such
special purpose, like the abbey of Croyland (reorganized 946), which,
becoming exceeding rich from its _diversorium pauperum_, or almonry,
"relieved the whole country round so that prodigious numbers resorted
to it." At Glastonbury, for instance (1537), £140 16s. 8d. was given
away in doles. But documents seem to prove (Denton, _England in
Fifteenth Century_, p. 245) that the relief generally given by
monasteries was much less than is usually supposed.

The general system may be described (cf. Rule, _St Dunst. Cant.
Archp._ p. 42, Dugdale; J.B. Clark, _The Observances_, Augustinian
Priory, Barnwell; Abbot Gasquet, _English Monastic Life_). The almonry
was usually near the church of the monastery. An almoner was in
charge. He was to be prudent and discreet in the distribution of his
doles (_portiones_) and to relieve travellers, palmers, chaplains and
mendicants (_mendicantes_, apparently the beggars recognized as living
by begging, such as we have noted under other social conditions), and
the leprous more liberally than others. The old and infirm, lame and
blind who were confined to their beds he was to visit and relieve
suitably (_in competenti annona_). The importunity of the poor he was
to put up with, and to meet their need as far as he could. In the
almonry there were usually rooms for the sick. The sick outside the
precincts were relieved at the almoner's discretion. Continuous relief
might be given after consultation with the superior. All the remnants
of meals and the old clothes of the monks were given to the almoner
for distribution, and at Christmas he had a store of stockings and
other articles to give away as presents to widows, orphans and poor
clerks. He also provided the Maundy gifts and selected the poor for
the washing of feet. He was thus a local visitor and alms distributor,
not merely at the gate of the monastery but in the neighbourhood, and
had also at his disposal "indoor" relief for the sick. Separate from
the rest the house there was also a dormitory and rooms and the
kitchen for strangers. A _hospitularius_ attended to their needs and
novices waited on them. Guests who were laymen might stay on, working
in return for board and lodging (Smith's _Dict. Christian Antiq._,
"Benedictine").

The monasteries often established hospitals; they served also as
schools for the gentry and for the poor; and they were pioneers of
agriculture. In the 12th century, in which many monastic orders were
constituted, there were many lavish endowments. In the 14th century
their usefulness had begun to wane. At the end of that century the
larger estates were generally held in entail, with the result that
younger sons were put into religious houses. This worldliness had its
natural consequences. In the 15th century, owing to mismanagement,
waste, and subsequently to the decline of rural prosperity, their
resources were greatly crippled. In their relation to charity one or
two points may be noted: (1) Of the small population of England the
professed monks and nuns with the parish priests (Rogers, _Hist.
Agric. and Prices_, i. 58) numbered at least 30,000 or 40,000. This
number of celibates was a standing protest against the moral
sufficiency of the family life. On the other hand, amongst them were
the brothers and sisters who visited the poor and nursed the sick in
hospitals; and many who now succumb physically or mentally to the
pressure of life, and are cared for in institutions, may then have
found maintenance and a retreat in the monasteries. (2) Bound together
by no common controlling organization, the monasteries were but so
many miscellaneous centres of relief, chiefly casual relief. They were
mostly "magnificent hostelries." (3) They stood outside the parish,
and they weakened its organization and hampered its development.

_The Hospitals._--The revival of piety in the 11th century led to a
large increase in the number of hospitals and hospital orders. To show
how far they covered the field in England two instances may be quoted.
At Canterbury (Creighton, _Epidemics_, p. 87) there were four for
different purposes, two endowed by Lanfranc (1084), one for poor,
infirm, lame and blind men and women, and one outside the town for
lepers. These hospitals were put under the charge of a priory, and
endowed out of tithes payable to the secular clergy. Later (Henry
II.), a hospital for leprous sisters was established, and afterwards a
hospital for leprous monks and poor relations of the monks of St
Augustine's. In a less populous parish, Luton (Cobbe, _Luton Church_),
there were a hospital for the poor, an almshouse, and two hospitals,
one for the sick and one for the leprous. The word "leper," it is
evident, was used very loosely, and was applied to many diseases other
than leprosy. There were hospitals for the infirm and the leprous; the
disease was not considered contagious. The hospital in its modern
sense was but slowly created. Thus St Bartholomew's in London was
founded (1123) for a master, brethren and sisters, and for the
entertainment of poor diseased persons till they got well; of
distressed women big with child till they were able to go abroad; and
for the maintenance, until the age of seven, of all such children
whose mothers died in the house. St Thomas's (rebuilt 1228) had a
master and brethren and three lay sisters, and 40 beds for poor,
infirm and impotent people, who had also victual and firing. There
were hospitals for many special purposes--as for the blind, for
instance. There were also many hospital orders in England and on the
continent. They sprang up beside the monastic orders, and for a time
were very popular: brothers and sisters of the Holy Ghost (1198),
sisters of St Elizabeth (1207-1231), Beguines and Beghards (see
BEGUINES), knights of St John and others.

_The Mendicant Orders._--The Franciscans tended the sick and poor in
the slums of the towns with great devotion--indeed, the whole movement
tells of a splendid self-abandonment and an intensity of effort in the
early spring of its enthusiasm, and with the aid of reform councils
and reformations it lengthened out its usefulness for two centuries.

Medieval endowed charities.

As in the pre-medieval church, the system of relief is that of
charitable endowments--a marked contrast to the modern method of
voluntary associations or rate-supported institutions.

(1) _The Church as Legatee._--The church building among the Teutonic
races was not held by the bishop as part of what was originally the
charitable property of the church. It was assigned to the patron saint
of the church by the donor, who retained the right of administration,
of which his own patronage or right of presentation is a relic.
Subsequently, with the study of Roman law, the conception of the
church as a _persona ficta_ prevailed; and till the larger growth of
the gilds and corporations it was the only general legatee for
charitable gifts. As these arise a large number of charitable trusts
are created and held by lay corporations; and "alms" include gifts for
social as well as religious or eleemosynary purposes. (2) _Freedom
from Taxation and Service._--Gifts to the church for charitable or
other purposes were made in free, pure and perpetual alms ("_ad
tenendum in puram et perpetuam eleemosynam sine omni temporali
servicio et consuetudine_"). Land held under this _frankalmoigne_ was
given "in perpetual alms," therefore the donor could not retract it;
in free alms, therefore he could exact no services in regard to it;
and in pure alms as being free from secular jurisdiction (cf. Pollock
and Maitland). (3) _Alienation and Mortmain._--To prevent alienation
of property to religious houses, with the consequent loss of service
to the superior or chief lords, a licence from the chief lord was
required to legalize the alienation (Magna Carta, and Edw. I., _De
viris religiosis_). Other statutes (Edw. I. and Rich. II.) enacted
that this licence should be issued out of chancery after
investigation; and the principle was applied to civil corporations.
The necessity of this licence was one lay check on injurious
alienation. (4) _Irresponsible Administration._--Until after the 13th
century, when the lay courts had asserted their right to settle
disputes as to lands held in alms, the administration of charity was
from the lay point of view entirely irresponsible. It was outside the
secular jurisdiction; and civilly the professed clergy, who were the
administrators, were "dead." They could not sue or be sued except
through their sovereign--their chief, the abbot. They formed a large
body of non-civic inhabitants free from the pressure and the
responsibilities of civil life. (5) _Control_.--Apart from the control
of the abbot, prior, master or other head, the bishop was visitor, or,
as we should say, inspector; and abuses might be remedied by the visit
of the bishop or his ordinary. The bishop's ordinary (2 Henry V. i. 1)
was the recognized visitor of all hospitals apart from the founder.
The founder and his family retained a right of intervention. Sometimes
thus an institution was reorganized, or even dissolved, the property
reverting to the founder (Dugdale, _Monasticon Anglicanum_, vi. 2.
715). (6) _Cy-près._--Charities were, especially after Henry V.'s
reign, appropriated to other uses, either because their original
purpose failed or because some new object had become important. Thus,
for instance, a college or hospital for lepers (1363) is
re-established by the founder's family with a master and priest, _quod
nulli leprosi reperiebantur_; and a similar hospital founded in Henry
I.'s time near Oxford has decayed, and is given by Edward III. to
Oriel College, Oxford, to maintain a chaplain and poor brethren. Thus,
apart from alienation pure and simple, the principle of adaptation to
new uses was put in force at an early date, and supplied many
precedents to Wolsey, Edward VI. and the post-Reformation bishops. The
system of endowments was indeed far more adaptable than it would at
first sight seem to have been. (7) _The Sources of Income._--The
hospitals were chiefly supported by rents or the produce of land; or,
if attached to monasteries, out of the tithe of their monastic lands
or other sources of revenue, or out of the appropriated tithes of the
secular clergy; or they might be in part maintained by collections
made, for instance, by a commissioner duly authorized by a formal
attested document, in which were recounted the indulgences by popes,
archbishops and bishops to those who became its benefactors (Cobbe, p.
75); or, in the case of leper hospitals, by a leper with a "clapdish,"
who begged in the markets; or by a proctor, in the case of more
important institutions in towns, who "came with his box one day in
every month to the churches and other religious houses, at times of
service, and there received the voluntary gifts of the congregation";
or they might receive inmates on payment, and thus apparently a
frequent abuse, decayed servants of the court and others, were "farmed
out." (8) _Mode of Admission._--The admission was usually, no doubt,
regulated by the prior or master. At York, at the hospital of St
Nicholas for the leprous, the conditions of admission were: promise or
vow of continence, participation in prayer, the abandonment of all
business, the inmate's property at death to go to the house. This may
serve as an example. The master was usually one of the regular clergy.
(9) _Decline of the Hospitals._--It is said that, in addition to 645
monasteries and 90 "colleges" and many chantries, Henry VIII.
suppressed 110 hospitals (Speed's _Chronicle_, p. 778). The numbers
seem small. In the economic decline at the end of the 15th and
beginning of the 16th centuries many hospitals may have lapsed.

Gild and municipal charities.

In the 15th century the towns grew in importance. First the wool trade
and then the cloth trade flourished, and the English developed a large
shipping trade. The towns grew up like "little principalities"; and for
the advancement of trade, gilds, consisting alike of masters and
workmen, were formed, which endeavoured to regulate and then to
monopolize the market. By degrees the corporations of the towns were
worked in their interests, and the whole commercial system became
restrictive and inadaptable. Meanwhile the towns attracted newcomers;
freedom from feudal obligations was gained with comparative ease; and a
new _plebs_ was congregating, a population of inhabitants not qualified
as burghers or gild members, women, sons living with their fathers,
menial servants and apprentices. There was thus an increasing
restriction imposed on trade, coupled with a growing _plebs_. Naturally,
then, lay charities sprang up for members of gilds, and for burghers and
for the commonalty. Men left estates to their gilds to maintain decayed
members in hospitals, almshouses or otherwise, to educate their
children, portion their daughters, and to assist their widows. The
middle-class trader was thus in great measure insured against the risks
of life. The gilds were one sign of the new temper and wants of burghers
freed from feudalism. Another sign was a new standard of manners. Rules
and saws, Hesiodic in their tone, became popular--in regard, for
instance, to such a question as "how to enable a man to live on his
means, and to keep himself and those belonging to him." The boroughs
established other charities also, hospitals and almshouses for the
people, a movement which, like that of the gilds, began very early--in
Italy as early as the 9th century. They sometimes gave outdoor relief
also to registered poor (Green i. 41), and they had in large towns
courts of orphans presided over by the mayor and aldermen, thus taking
over a duty that previously had been one of conspicuous importance in
the church. As early as 1257 in Westphalian towns there was a
rough-and-ready system of Easter relief of the poor; and in Frankfort in
1437 there was a town council of almoners with a systematic programme of
relief (Ratzinger, p. 352). Thus at the close of the middle ages the
towns were gradually assuming what had been charitable functions of the
church.

Statutory wage control.

While a new freedom was being attained by the labourer in the country
and the burgher in the town, the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient
supply of labour for agriculture must have been constant, especially at
every visitation of plague and famine. In accordance with a general
policy of state regulation which was to control and supervise industry,
agriculture and poor relief and to repress vagrancy by gaols and houses
of correction, the state stepped in as arbiter and organizer. By
Statutes of Labourers beginning in 1351 (25 Edw. III. 135), it aimed at
enforcing a settled wage and restraining migration. From 1351 it
endeavoured to suppress mendicity, and in part to systematize it in the
interest of infirm and aged mendicants. Each series of enactments is the
natural complement of the other. In the main their signification, from
the point of view of charity, lies in the fact that they represent a
persistent endeavour to prevent social unsettlement and in part the
distress which unsettlement causes, and which vagrancy in some measure
indicates, by keeping the people within the ranks of recognized
dependence, the settled industry of the crafts and of agriculture, or
forcing them back into it by fear of the gaol or the stocks. The extreme
point of this policy was reached when by the laws of Edward VI. and
Elizabeth the "rogue, vagabond or sturdy beggar" was branded with an R
on the shoulder and handed over as a bondman for a period to any one who
would take him. On the other hand, it was desired that relief should be
a means of preventing migration. In any time of general pressure there
is a desire to organize mendicity, to prevent the wandering of beggars,
to create a kind of settled poor, distinguished from the rest as infirm
and not able-bodied, and to keep these at least at home sufficiently
supported by local and parochial relief; and this, in its simpler form
all the world over, has in the past been by response to public begging.
The argument may be summed up thus: We cannot have begging, which
implies that the beggar is cared for by no one, belongs to no one, and
therefore throws himself on the world at large. Therefore, if he is
able-bodied he must be punished as unsocial, for it is his fault that he
belongs to no one; or we must make him some one's dependant, and so keep
him; or if he is infirm, and therefore of no service to any one--if no
one will keep him--we must organize his mendicity, for such mendicity is
justified. If he cannot dig for the man to whom he does or should
belong, he must beg. Then out of the failure to organize mendicity--for
relief of itself is no remedy, least of all casual relief--a poor-law
springs up, which, afterwards associated with the provision of
employment, will, it is hoped, make relief in some measure remedial by
increasing its quantity by means of compulsory levies. This argument,
which combined statutory wage control and statutory poor relief, seems
to have been firmly bedded in the English legislative mind for more than
two centuries, from 1351 till after 1600; and until 1834 these two
series of laws effectually reduced the English labourer to a new
industrial dependence. To people imbued with ideas of feudalism the way
of escape from villenage seemed to be not independence, but a new
reversion to it.

The decadence.

Many elements produced the social and economic catastrophe of the 16th
century, for the condition into which the country fell can hardly be
considered less than a catastrophe. With the growing independence of the
people there was created after the 13th century an unsettled
"masterless" class, a residue of failure resulting from social changes,
which was large and important enough to call for legislation. In the
15th century, "the golden age of the English labourer," the towns
increased and flourished. Both town and country did well. At the end of
the century came the decadence. The measure of the strain, when perhaps
it had reached its lowest level, is indicated by the following
comparison: "The cost of a peasant's family of four in the early part of
the 14th century was £3:4:9; after 1540 it was £8" (Rogers, _Hist, of
Agric. and Prices_, iv. 756).

The cause of this has now been fairly investigated. The value of land
in the 13th century generally depended chiefly on "the head of labour"
retained upon it. Its fertility depended on mainoeuvre (manure). To
keep labour upon it was therefore the aim of the lord or owner. The
enclosing of lands for sheep began early, and in the time of Edward
III., in the great days of the woolstaple, must have been extensive.
So long as the demand for the exportation of wool, and then for its
consumption at home in the cloth trade, continued, the towns
prospered, and the enclosures did not become a grievance. Even before
the reign of Henry VII., with the decay of trade, the towns decayed,
and their population in some cases diminished extraordinarily. This
reacted on the country, where the great families had already become
impoverished, and were hardly able to support their retainers. In
Henry VIII.'s time the lands of the religious houses were confiscated.
Worked on old lines, the custom of tillage remained in force on them.
Accordingly, when these estates fell into private hands they were
transferred subject to the condition that they should be tilled as
heretofore. The condition was evaded by the new owners, and the
disbandment of farm labourers went on apace. In England and Wales
these changes, it is said, affected a third of the country, more than
12,000,000 acres, if the estimates be correct, or rather a third of
the best land in the kingdom. With towns decaying, the effect of this
must have been terrible. What were really "latifundia" were created,
"great landes," "enclosures of a mile or two or thereabouts ...
destroying thereby not only the farms and cottages within the same
circuits, but also the towns and villages adjoining." A herdsman and
his wife took the place of eighteen to twenty-four farm hands. The
people thus set wandering could only join the wanderers from the
decaying towns. At the same time the economic difficulty was
aggravated by a new patrician or commercial greed; and once more the
land question--the absorption of property into a few hands instead of
its free exchange--led to lasting social demoralization. A few years
after the alienation of the monasteries the coinage (1543) was
debased. By this means prices were arbitrarily raised, and wages were
increased nominally; but nevertheless the price of necessaries was "so
enhanced" that neither "the poor labourers can live with their wages
that is limited by your grace's laws, nor the artificers can make,
much less sell, their wares at any reasonable price" (Lamond, _The
Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. xlvii). No social
reformation, such as the charitable instincts of Wycliffe, More,
Hales, Latimer and other men suggested, was attempted, or at least
persistently carried out. In towns the organization of labour had
become restrictive, exclusive and inadaptable, or, judged from the
moral standpoint, uncharitable. There had been a time of plenty and
extravagance, of which in high quarters the famous "field of the cloth
of gold" was typical; and probably, in accordance with the frequently
observed law of social economics, as the advance in wages and their
purchasing power in the earlier part of the 15th century had not been
accompanied by a simultaneous advance in self-discipline and
intelligent expenditure, it resulted in part in lessened competence
and industrial ability on the part of the workmen, and thus in the end
produced pauperism.

The poverty of the country was very great in the reigns of Edward VI.
and Elizabeth. Adversity then taught the people new manners, and
households became more simple and thrifty. In the reign of James I.,
with enforced economy and thrift, a "slow but substantial improvement in
agriculture" took place, and a new growth of commercial enterprise. The
vigour of the municipalities had abated, so that in Henry VIII.'s time
they had become the very humble servants of the government; and the
government, on the other hand, had become strongly centralized--in
itself a sign of the general withdrawal of self-sustaining activity in
all administration, in the administration of charitable relief no less
than in other departments. A system of endowed charities had been built
up, supported chiefly by rents from landed property. These now had
disappeared, and thus the means of relief, which Edward VI. and Queen
Elizabeth might have utilized at a time of general distress, had been
dissipated by the acts of their predecessors. The civil independence of
the monasteries and religious houses might have been justified,
possibly, when they were engaged in missionary work and were instilling
into the people the precepts of a higher moral law than that which was
in force around them. But afterwards, as the ability and intelligence of
the community increased, their privileges became more and more
antagonistic to charity, and tended to create a non-social and even
anti-social ecclesiastical democracy actuated by aims and interests in
which the general good of the people had little or no place. There was a
growing alienation between religious tradition and secular opinion, as
Lollardism slowly permeated the thought of the people and led the way to
the Reformation. While this alienation existed no national system of
charity, civic and yet religious, could be created. But worse than all,
the ideal of charity had been degraded. A self-regarding system of
relief had superseded charity, and it was productive of nothing but
alms, large or small, isolated and unmethodic, given with a wrong bias,
and thus almost inevitably with evil results. Out of this could spring
no vigorous co-operative charity. Charity--not relief--indeed seemed to
have left the world. The larger issues were overlooked. Then the
property of the hospitals and the gilds was wantonly confiscated, though
the poor had already lost that share in the revenues of the church to
which at one time they were admitted to have a just claim. A new
beginning had to be made. The obligations of charity had to be revived.
A new organization of charitable relief had to be created, and that with
an empty exchequer and after a vast waste of charitable resources. There
were signs of a new congregational and parochial energy, yet the task
could not be entrusted to the religious bodies, divided and disunited as
they were. In their stead it could be imposed only on some authority
which represented the general community, such as municipalities; and in
spite of the centralization of the government there seemed some hope of
creating a system of relief in connexion with them. They were tried,
and, very naturally, failed. In the poverty of the time it seemed that
the poor could be relieved only by a compulsory rate, and the
administration of statutory relief naturally devolved on the central
government--the only vigorous administrative body left in the country.
The government might indeed have adopted the alternative of letting the
industrial difficulties of the country work themselves out, but they had
inherited a policy of minute legislative control, and they continued it.
Revising previous statutes, they enacted the Poor Law, which still
remains on the statute book. It could be no remedy for social offences
against charity and the community. But in part at least it was
successful. It helped to conceal the failure to find a remedy.

PART VI.--AFTER THE REFORMATION

The Reformation theory of charity.

During the Reformation, which extended, it should be understood, from
the middle of the 14th century to the reign of James I., the groundwork
of the theory of charity was being recast. The old system and the narrow
theory on which it had come to depend were discredited. The recoil is
startling. To a very large extent charitable administration had been in
the hands of men and women who, as an indispensable condition to their
participation in it, took the vows of obedience, chastity and "wilful"
poverty. Now this was all entirely set aside. It was felt (see _Homilies
on Faith and Good Works, &c._, A.D. 1547) that socially and morally the
method had been a failure. The vow of obedience, it was argued, led to a
general disregard of the duties of civic and family life. Those who
bound themselves by it were outside the state and did not serve it. In
regard to chastity the _Homily_ states the common opinion: "How the
profession of chastity was kept, it is more honesty to pass over in
silence and let the world judge of what is well known." As to wilful
poverty, the regulars, it is urged, were not poor, but rich, for they
were in possession of much wealth. Their property, it is true, was held
_in communi_, and not personally, but nevertheless it was practically
theirs, and they used it for their personal enjoyment; and "for all
their riches they might never help father nor mother, nor others that
were indeed very needy and poor, without the license of their father
abbot" or other head. This was the negative position. The positive was
found in the doctrine of justification--the central point in the
discussions of the time, a plant from the garden of St Augustine.
Justification was the personal conviction of a lively (or living) faith,
and was defined as "a true trust and confidence of the mercy of God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, and a stedfast hope of all good things to
be received at His hands." Without this justification there could be no
good works. They were the signs of a lively faith and grew out of it.
Apart from it, what seemed to be "good works" were of the nature of sin,
phantom acts productive of nothing, "birds that were lost, unreal." So
were the works of pagans and heretics. The relation of almsgiving to
religion was thus entirely altered. The personal reward here or
hereafter to the actor was eliminated. The deed was good only in the
same sense in which the doer was good; it had in itself no merit. This
was a great gain, quite apart from any question as to the sufficiency or
insufficiency of the Protestant scheme of salvation. The deed, it was
realized, was only the outcome of the doer, the expression of himself,
what he was as a whole, neither better nor worse. Logically this led to
the discipline of the intelligence and the emotions, and undoubtedly
"justification" to very many was only consistent with such discipline
and implied it. Thus under a new guise the old position of charity
reasserted itself. But there were other differences.

The relation of charity to prayer, fasting, almsgiving and penance was
altsred. The prayerful contemplation of the Christ was preserved in
the mysticism of Protestantism; but it was dissociated from the
"historic Christ," from the fervent idealization of whom St Francis
drew his inspiration and his active charitable impulse. The tradition
did not die out, however. It remained with many, notably with George
Herbert, of whom it made, not unlike St Francis, a poet as well as a
practical parish priest; but the absence of it indicated in much
post-Reformation endeavour a want, if not of devotion, yet of
intensity of feeling which may in part account for the fact that
sectarianism in relief has since proved itself stronger than charity,
instead of yielding to charity as its superior and its organizer.
Fasting was parted from prayer and almsgiving. It was "a thing not of
its own proper nature good as the love of father or mother or
neighbour, but according to its end." Almsgiving also as a "work"
disappeared and with it a whole series of inducements that from the
standpoint of the pecuniary and material supply of relief had long
been active. It was no wonder that the preachers advocated it in vain,
and reproached their hearers with their diminished bounty to the poor;
the old personal incentive had gone, and could only gradually be
superseded by the spontaneous activity of personal religion very
slowly wedding itself to true views of social duty and purpose.
Penance, once so closely related to almsgiving, passed out of sight.
Charity, the love of God and our neighbour, had two offices, it was
said, "to cherish good and harmless men" and "to correct and punish
vice without regard to persons." Correction as a means of discipline
takes the place of penance, and it becomes judicial, regulating and
controlling church membership by the authority of the church, a
congregation, minister or elder; or dealing with laziness or ill-doing
through the municipality or state, in connexion with what now first
appear, not prisons, but houses of correction.

The religious life was to be democratic--not in religious bodies, but in
the whole people; and in a new sense--in relation to family and social
life--it was to be moral. That was the significance of the Reformation
for charity.

The organization of municipal relief.

Consistently with this movement of religious activity towards a complete
fulfilment of the duties of civic life, the older classical social
theory, fostered by the Renaissance, assumed a new influence--the great
conception of the state as a community bound together by charity and
friendship, "We be not born to ourselves," it was said, "but partly to
the use of our country, of our parents, of our kinsfolk, and partly of
our friends and neighbours; and therefore all good virtues are grafted
on us naturally, whose effects be to do good to others, when it showeth
forth the image of God in man, whose property is ever to do good to
others" (Lamond, p. 14). Economic theory also changed. Instead of the
medieval opinion of the "theologian or social preacher," that "trade
could only be defended on the ground that honestly conducted it made no
profit" (Green, ii. 71), we have a recognition of the advantages
resulting from exchange, and individual interests, it is argued, are not
necessarily inconsistent with those of the state, but are, on the
contrary, a source of solid good to the whole community.

Municipal laws for the suppression of the mendicity of the able-bodied
and the organization of relief on behalf of the infirm were common in
England and on the continent (Colmar, 1362; Nuremberg, 1478;
Strassburg, 1523; London, 1514). Vives (Ehrle, _Beitrage zur
Geschichte und Reform der Armenpflege_, p. 26), a Spaniard, who had
been at the court of Henry VIII., in a book translated into several
languages and widely read, seems to have summed up the thought of the
time in regard to the management of the poor. He divided them into
three classes: those in hospitals and poor-houses, the public homeless
beggars and the poor at home. He would have a census taken of the
number of each class in the town, and information obtained as to the
causes of their distress. Then he would establish a central
organization of relief under the magistrates. Work was to be supplied
for all, while begging was strictly forbidden. Non-settled poor who
were able-bodied were to be sent to their homes. Able-bodied settled
poor who knew no craft were to be put on some public work--the
undeserving being set to hard labour. For others work was to be found,
or they were to be assisted to become self-supporting. The hospitals
provided with medical advice and necessaries were to be classified to
meet the needs of the sick, the blind and lunatics. The poor living at
home were to work with a view to their self-support. What they earned,
if insufficient, might be supplemented. If a citizen found a case of
distress he was not to help it, but to send it for inquiry to the
magistrate. Children were to be taught. Private relief was to be
obtained from the rich. The funds of endowed charities were to be the
chief source of income; if more was wanted, bequests and church
collections would suffice. The scheme was put in force in Yprès in
1524. The Sorbonne approved it, and similar plans were adopted in
Paris and elsewhere. It is in outline the scheme of London municipal
charity promoted by Edward VI., by which the poor were classified, St
Bartholomew's and St Thomas's hospitals appropriated for the sick,
Christ's hospital for the children of the poor, and Bridewell for the
correction of the able-bodied. Less the institutional arrangements and
plus the compulsory rate, the methods are those of the Poor Relief Act
of Queen Elizabeth of 1601. At first the attempt had been made to
introduce state relief in reliance on voluntary alms (1 Mary 13, 5
Eliz. 3, 1562-1563), subject to the right of assessment if alms were
refused. But the position was anomalous. Charity is voluntary, and
spontaneously meets the demands of distress. Such demands have always
a tendency to increase with the supply. Hence the very limitations of
charitable finance are in the nature of a safeguard. At most economic
trouble can only be assuaged by relief, and it can only be met or
prevented by economic and social reforms. If a compulsory rate be not
enforced, as in Scotland and formerly in some parishes in England, a
voluntary rate may be made in supplementation of the local charities.
In Scotland, where the compulsory clauses of the Poor Relief Act of
James I. were not put in force, the country weathered the storm
without them, and the compulsory rate, which was extended throughout
the country by the Poor Act of 1844, came in very slowly in the 18th
and 19th centuries. In France (1566) a similar act was passed and set
aside. If a compulsory rate be enforced, it is inevitable that the
resources of charity, unless kept apart from the poor-law and
administered on different lines from it, will diminish, and at the
same time, as has happened often in the case of endowed charities, the
interest in charitable administration will lapse, while the charges
for poor-law relief, drawn without much scruple from the taxation of
the community, will mount to millions either to meet increasing
demands or to provide more elaborate institutional accommodation. The
principle once adopted, it was enacted (1572-1573) that the aged and
infirm should be cared for by the overseers of the poor, a new
authority; and in 1601 the duplicate acts were passed, that for the
relief of the poor (43 Eliz. 2), and that for the furtherance and
protection of endowed charities. Thus the poor were brought into the
dependence of a legally recognized class, endowed with a claim for
relief, on the fulfilment of which, after a time, they could without
difficulty insist if they were so minded. The civic authority had
indeed taken over the alms of the parish, and an _eleemosyna civica_
had taken the place of the _annona civica_. It was a similar system
under a different name.

Poor Relief Acts and statutory serfdom.

A phrase of Robert Cecil's (1st earl of Salisbury) indicates the minute
domestic character of the Elizabethan legislation (D'Ewes, 674). The
question (1601) was the repeal of a statute of tillage. Cecil says: "If
in Edward I.'s time a law was made for the maintenance of the fry of
fish, and in Henry VII.'s for the preservation of the eggs of wild fowl,
shall we now throw away a law of more consequence and import? If we
debar tillage, we give scope to the depopulating. And then, if the poor
being thrust out of their houses go to dwell with others, straight we
catch them with the statute of inmates; if they wander abroad, they are
within the danger of the statute of the poor to be whipt. So by this
undo this statute, and you endanger many thousands." A strong central
government, a local authority appointed directly by the government, and
a network of legislation controlled the whole movement of economic life.
On this reliance was placed to meet economic difficulties. The local
authorities were the justices of the peace; and they had to carry out
the statutes for this purpose, to assess the wages of artisans and
labourers, and to enforce the payment of the wages they had fixed; to
ensure that suitable provision was made for the relief of the poor at
the expense of rates which they also fixed; and to suppress vagabondage.
Since 23 Edw. III. there had been labour statutes, and in 1563 a new
statute was passed, an "Act containing divers orders for Artificers,
Labourers, Servants of Husbandry and Apprentices" (5 Eliz. c. 4). It
recognized and upheld a social classification. On the one hand there was
the gentleman or owner of property to which the act was not to apply;
and on the other the artisan and labouring class. This class in turn was
subdivided, and the justices were to assess their wages annually
according to "the plenty and scarcity of the time and other
circumstances." Persons between the ages of twelve and sixty, who were
not apprentices or engaged in certain specified employments, were
compelled to serve in husbandry by the year "with any person that
keepeth husbandry." The length of the day's work and the conditions of
apprenticeship were fixed. The assessed rate of wages was enforceable by
fine and imprisonment, and refusal to be apprenticed by imprisonment.
Thus there was created a life control over labour with an industrial
settlement and a wage fixed by the justices annually. There are
differences of opinion in regard to the extent to which this act was
enforced; and the evidence on the point is comparatively scanty. It was
enforced throughout the century in which it was passed, and it probably
continued in force generally until the Restoration, while subsequently
it was put in operation to meet special emergencies, such as times of
distress when some settlement of wages seemed desirable (cf. Rogers, v.
611; Hewins, _English Trade and Finance_, p. 82; Cunningham, _Growth of
English Industry and Commerce: Modern Times_, i. 168). It was not
repealed till 1814.

From 1585 to 1622 there was, it is said, a slight increase in labourers'
wages, which fluctuated from 5s. 3/8d. to 5s. 8 ¼d. a week, with a
declining standard of comfort and at times great distress. Then there
was a marked increase of wage till 1662 and "a very marked improvement;
the rate of increase being very nearly double that of the earlier
periods," and reaching 9s., "as the highest weekly rate for the whole
period." Then from 1662 to 1702 there was "a slight improvement"
(Hewins, p. 89). It would seem indeed that the stir of the times between
1622 and 1662 may have caused a great demand for labour. But with the
Restoration, when the assessment system was falling into desuetude, came
the Poor Relief Act of 1662 (13 & 14 Car. II. cap. 62), which brought in
the law of settlement, and a settlement for relief of a very strict
nature was added to the industrial settlement of the Artificers and
Labourers Act. Thus, if the influence of that act, which had so long
controlled labour, was waning, its place was now taken by an act which,
though it had nothing to do with the assessment of wage, yet so settled
the labourer within the bounds of his parish that he had practically to
rely, if not upon a wage fixed by the justices, yet upon a customary
wage limited and restricted as a result of the law of settlement. And
the assessment by the justices, in so far as it may have continued,
would therefore be of little or no consequence. Settlement also, like
the Artificers and Labourers Act, would prevent the country labourer
from passing to the towns, or the townsmen passing to other towns. At
least they would do so at the risk of forfeiting their right to relief
if they lost their settlement without acquiring a new one. Hence the
industrial control, though under another name and other conditions,
remained in force to a large extent in practice.

By the Artificers and Labourers Act then, in conjunction with other
measures, the labouring classes were finally committed to a new bondage,
when they had freed themselves from the serfdom of feudalism, and when
the control exercised over them by the gild and municipality was
relaxed. The statute was so enforced that to earn a year's livelihood
would have taken a labourer not 52 weeks, but sometimes two years, or 58
weeks, or 80 weeks, or 72 weeks; sometimes, however, less--48 or 35. It
followed that on such a system the country could only with the utmost
good fortune free itself from the economic difficulties of the century,
and that the need of a poor-law was felt the more as these difficulties
persisted. A voluntary or a municipal system could not suffice, even as
a palliative, while such statutes as these were in force to render
labour immobile and unprogressive. Also, while wages were fixed by
statute or order, whether chiefly in the interest of the employers or
not, obviously any shortage on the wages had to be made good by the
community. The community, by fixing the wages to be earned in a
livelihood, made itself responsible for their sufficiency. And it is
suggestive to find that in the year in which the Artificers and
Labourers Act (1563) was passed, the act for the enforcement of
assessments of poor-rate (5 Eliz. cap. 3) was also enacted. The Law of
Settlement, to which we have referred, passed in the reign of Charles
II., was due, it is said, to a migration of labourers southward from
counties where less favourable statutory wages prevailed; but it was, in
fact, only a corollary of the Artificers and Labourers Act of 1563 and
the Poor Relief Act of 1601. These laws, it may be said, were the means
of making the English labourer, until the poor-law reform of 1834, a
settled but landless serf, supported by a fixed wage and a state bounty.
By the poor-law it was possible to continue this state of things till,
in consequence of an absolute economic breakdown, there was no
alternative but reform.

The philanthropic nature of the poor-law is indicated by its
antecedents: once enacted, its bounties became a right; its philanthropy
disappeared in a quasi-legal claim. Its object was to relieve the poor
by home industries, apprentice children, and provide necessary relief to
the poor unable to work. The act was commonly interpreted so as to
include the whole of that indefinite class, the "poor"; by a better and
more rigid interpretation it was, at least in the 19th century, held to
apply only to the "destitute," that is, to those who required "necessary
relief"--according to the actual wording of the statute. The economic
fallacy of home industries founded on rate-supplied capital early
declared itself, and the method could only have continued as long as it
did because it formed part of a general system of industrial control.
When in the 18th century workhouses were established, the same
industrial fallacy, as records show, repeated itself under new
conditions. Within the parish it resulted in the farmer paying the
labourer as small a wage as possible, and leaving the parish to provide
whatever he might require in addition during his working life and in his
old age. Thus, indeed, a gigantic experiment in civic employment was
made for at least two centuries on a vast scale throughout the
country--and failed. As was natural, the lack of economic independence
reacted on the morals of the people. With pauperism came want of energy,
idleness and a disregard for chastity and the obligations of marriage.
The law, it is true, recognized the mutual obligations of parents and
grandparents, children and grandchildren; but in the general poverty
which it was itself a means of perpetuating such obligations became
practically obsolete, while at all times they are difficult to enforce.
Still, the fact that they were recognized implies a great advance in
charitable thought. The act, passed at first from year to year, was very
slowly put in force. Even before it was passed the poor-rate first
assessed under the act of 1563 was felt to be "a greater tax than some
subsidies," and in the time of Charles II. it amounted to a third of the
revenue of England and Wales (Rogers, v. 81).

The service of villein and cottar was, as we have now seen, in part
superseded by what we have called a statutory wage-control, founded on a
basis of wage supplemented by relief, provided by a rate-supported
poor-law. But it follows that with the decay of this system the poor-law
itself should have disappeared, or should have taken some new and very
limited form. Unfortunately, as in Roman times, state relief proved to
be a popular and vigorous parasite that outlived the tree on which it
was rooted: assessments of wage under the Statute of Labourers fell into
disuse after the Restoration, it is said, and the statute was finally
repealed in 1814, and sixty years later the act against illegal
combinations of working men; but the serfdom of the poor-law, the
_eleemosyna civica_, remained, to work the gravest evil to the labouring
classes, and even after the reform of 1834 greatly impeded the recovery
of their independence. Nevertheless, by a new law of state alms for the
aged, or by statutory outdoor relief with, as some would wish, a
regulated wage, it is now proposed to bring them once again under a
thraldom similar to that from which they have so slowly emancipated
themselves.

The endowed charities.

The policy adopted by Queen Elizabeth for the relief of the poor (1601)
included a scheme for the reorganization of voluntary charity as well as
plans for the extension of rate-aided relief. During the century, as we
have seen, endeavours had been made to create a system of voluntary
charity. This it was proposed to safeguard and promote concurrently with
the extension of the poor-rate. Accordingly, in the poor-law it was
arranged that the overseers, the new civic authority, and the
churchwardens, the old parochial and charitable authority, should act in
conjunction, and, subject to magisterial approval, together "raise
weekly or otherwise" the necessary means "by taxation of every
inhabitant." The old charitable organization was based on endowment, and
the churchwarden was responsible for the administration of many such
endowments. What was not available from these and other sources was to
be raised "by taxation." The object of the new act was to encourage
charitable gifts.

Towards the end of the 18th century, when the administration of poor
relief fell into confusion, many charities were lost, or were in danger
of being lost, and many were mismanaged. In 1786 and 1788 a committee of
the House of Commons reported on the subject. In 1818, chiefly through
the instrumentality of Lord Brougham, a commission of inquiry on
educational charities was appointed, and in 1819 another commission to
investigate (with some exceptions) all the charities for the poor in
England and Wales. These and subsequent commissions continued their
inquiries till 1835, when a select committee of the House of Commons
made a strong report, advocating the establishment of a permanent and
independent board, to inquire, to compel the production of accounts, to
secure the safe custody of charity property, to adapt it to new uses on
cy-près lines, &c. A commission followed in 1849, and eventually in 1853
the first Charitable Trusts Act was passed, under which "The Charity
Commissioners of England and Wales" were appointed.

The following are details of importance:--(1) _Definition._--The
definition of the act of 1601 (Charitable Uses, 43 Eliz. 4) still
holds good. It enumerates as charitable objects all that was once
called "alms": (a) "The relief of aged, impotent and poor people"--the
normal poor; "the maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers and
mariners"--the poor chiefly by reason of war, sometime a class of
privileged mendicants; (b) education, "schools of learning, free
schools and scholars in universities"; and then (c) a group of objects
which include general civic and religious purposes, and the charities
of gilds and corporations; "the repair of bridges, ports, havens,
causeways, churches, sea-banks and highways; the education and
preferment of orphans; the relief, stock, or maintenance for houses of
correction; marriages of poor maids, supportation, aid, and help of
young tradesmen, handicraftsmen, and persons decayed"; and there
follows (d) "the relief or redemption of prisoners or captives"; and,
lastly, (e) "the aid and ease of any poor inhabitants concerning
payment of fifteens" (the property-tax of Tudor times), setting out of
soldiers, and other taxes. The definition might be illustrated by the
charitable bequests of the next 60, or indeed 225, years. It is a fair
summary of them. (2) _Charitable Gifts._--A public trust and a
charitable trust are, as this definition shows, synonymous. It is a
trust which relates to public charities, and is not held for the
benefit of private persons, e.g. relations, but for the common good,
and, subject to the instructions of the founder, by trustees
responsible to the community. Gifts for charitable purposes, other
than those affected by the law of mortmain, have always been viewed
with favour. "Where a charitable bequest is capable of two
constructions, one of which would make it void and the other would
make it effectual, the latter will be adopted by the court" (Tudor's
_Charitable Trusts_, ed. 1906, by Bristowe, Hunt and Burdett, p. 167).
Gifts to the poor, or widows, or orphans, indefinitely, or in a
particular parish, were valid under the act, or for any purpose or
institution for the aid of the "poor." Thus practically the act
covered the same field as the poor-law, though afterwards it was
decided that, "as a rule, persons receiving parochial relief were not
entitled to the benefit of a charity intended for the poor" (Tudor, p.
167). (3) _Religious Differences._--In the administration of charities
which are for the poor the broadest view is taken of religious
differences. (4) _Superstitious Uses._--The superstitious use is one
that has for its object the propagation of the rights of a religion
not tolerated by the law (Tudor, p. 4). Consequently, so far as
charities were held or left subject to such rights, they were illegal,
or became legal only as toleration was extended. Thus by degrees,
since the Toleration Act of 1688, all charities to dissenters have
become legal--that is, trusts for schools, places for religious
instruction, education and charitable purposes generally. But bequests
for masses for the soul of the donor, or for monastic orders, are
still void. (5) _Administration._--The duty of administering
charitable trusts falls upon trustees or corporations, and under the
term "eleemosynary corporations" are included endowed hospitals and
colleges. Under schemes of the Charity Commissioners, where charities
have been remodelled, besides trustees elected by corporations, there
are now usually appointed _ex-officio_ trustees who represent some
office or institution of importance in connexion with the charity. (6)
_Jurisdiction by Chancery and Charity Commission._--The Court of
Chancery has jurisdiction over charities, under the old principle that
"charities are trusts of a public nature, in regard to which no one is
entitled by an immediate and peculiar interest to prefer a complaint
for compelling the performance by the trustees of their obligations."
The court, accordingly, represents the crown as _parens patriae_. Now,
by the Charitable Trusts Act 1853, and subsequent acts, a charity
commission has been formed which is entrusted with large powers,
formerly enforced only by the Court of Chancery. (7) _Jurisdiction by
Visitor._--A further jurisdiction is by the "visitor," a right
inherent in the founder of any eleemosynary corporation, and his
heirs, or those whom he appoints, or in their default, the king. The
object of the visitor is "to prevent all perverting of the charity, or
to compose differences among members of the corporation." Formerly the
bishop's ordinary was the recognized visitor (2 Henry V. I, 1414) of
hospitals, apart from the founder. Subsequently his power was limited
(14 Eliz. c. 5, 1572) to hospitals for which the founders had
appointed no visitors. Then (1601) by the Charitable Uses Act
commissions were issued for inquiry by county juries. Now, apart from
the duty of visitors, inquiry is conducted by the charity
commissioners and the assistant commissioners. By subsequent acts (see
below) ecclesiastical and eleemosynary charities have been still
further separated and defined. (8) _Advice._--"Trustees, or other
persons concerned in the management of a charity, may apply to the
charity commissioners for their opinion, advice or direction; and any
person acting under such advice is indemnified, unless he has been
guilty of misrepresentation in obtaining it." (9) _Limitation of
Charity Commissioners' Powers_,--The commissioners cannot, however,
make any order with respect to any charity of which the gross annual
income amounts to £50 or upwards, except on the application (in
writing) of the trustees or a majority of them. Their powers are thus
very limited, except when put in motion by the trustees. If a parish
is divided they can apportion the charities if the gross income does
not exceed £20. (10) _General Powers of the Charity
Commission._--Subject to the limitation of £50, &c., the charity
commissioners have power (Charitable Trusts Act 1860) to make orders
for the appointment or removal of trustees, or of any officer, and for
the transfer, payment and vesting of any real or personal estate, or
"for the establishment of any scheme for the administration" of the
charity, (11) _Schemes and Remodelling of Charities._--Under this
power charities are remodelled, and small and miscellaneous charities
put into one fund and applied to new purposes. The cy-près doctrine is
applied, by which if a testator leaves directions that are only
indefinite, or if the objects for which a charity was founded are
obsolete, the charity is applied to some purpose, as far as possible,
in accordance with the charitable intention of the founder. This
doctrine probably received its widest application in the City of
London Parochial Charities Act of 1883. Under other acts doles have
been applied to education and to allotments. About 380 schemes are
issued in the course of a year. (12) _Objects adopted in remodelling
Charities._--In the remodelling of charities for the general benefit
of the poor some one or more of thirteen objects are usually included
in the scheme. These are subscriptions to a medical charity, to a
provident club or coal or clothing society, to a friendly society; for
nurses, for annuities, for outfit for service, &c.; for emigration;
for recreation grounds, clubs, reading-rooms, museums, lectures; for
temporary relief to a limited amount in each year; for clothes fuel,
tools, medical aid, food, &c., or in money "in cases of unexpected
loss or sudden destitution"; for pensions. (13) _Parochial
Charities._--By the Local Government Act of 1892, local ecclesiastical
charities, i.e. endowments for "any spiritual purpose that is a
legal purpose" (for spiritual persons, church and other buildings, for
spiritual uses, &c.), are separated from parochial charities, "the
benefits of which are, or the separate distribution of the benefits of
which is, confined to inhabitants of a single parish, or of a single
ancient ecclesiastical parish, or not more than five neighbouring
parishes." These charities, since the Local Government Act 1894, are
under the supervision of the parish councils, who appoint trustees for
their management in lieu of the former overseer or vestry trustees,
or, under certain conditions, "additional trustees." The accounts have
to be submitted to the parish meeting, and the names of the
beneficiaries of dole charities published. (14) _Official
Trustees._--There is also "an official trustee of charity lands," who
as "bare trustee" may hold the land or stock of the charity managed by
the trustees or administrators. In 1905 the stock transferred to the
official trustees amounted to £24,820,945. (15) _Audit_.--The charity
commissioners have no power of audit, but the trustees of every
charity have to prepare a statement of accounts annually, and transmit
it to the commission. The accounts have to be "certified under the
hand of one or more of the trustees and by the auditor of the
charity." (16) _Taxation_.--In the case of rents and profits of lands,
&c., belonging to hospitals or almshouses, or vested in trustees for
charitable purposes, allowances are made in diminution of income-tax
(56 Vict. 35 § 61). From the inhabited house duty any hospital charity
school, or house provided for the reception or relief of poor persons,
is exempted (House Tax Act 1808). Also there is an exemption from the
land-tax in regard to land rents, &c., in possession of hospitals
before 1693. (17) _The Digest._--A digest of endowed charities in
England and Wales was compiled in the years 1861 to 1876. A new digest
of reports and financial particulars has since been completed.

The income of endowed charities in 1876 was returned at £2,198,463. It
is now, no doubt, considerably larger than it was in 1876. Partial
returns show that at least a million a year is now available in
England and Wales for the assistance of the aged poor and for doles.
Between the poor-law, which, as it is at present administered, is a
permanent endowment provided from the rates for the support of a class
of permanent "poor," and endowed charities, which are funds available
for the poor of successive generations, there is no great difference.
But in their resources and administration the difference is marked.
Local endowed charities were constantly founded after Queen
Elizabeth's time till about 1830, and the poor-rate was at first
supplementary of the local charities. When corn and fuel were dear and
clothes very expensive, what now seem trivial endowments for food,
fuel, coal and clothes were important assets in the thrifty management
of a parish. But when the poor were recognized as a class of
dependants entitled by law to relief from the community, the rate
increased out of all proportion to the charities. A distinction then
made itself felt between the "parish" poor and the "second" poor, or
the poor who were not relieved from the rates, and relief from the
rates altogether overshadowed the charitable aid. Charitable
endowments were ignored, ill-administered, and often were lost. After
1834 the poor-law was brought under the control of the central
government. Poor relief was placed in the hands of boards of guardians
in unions of parishes. The method of co-operation between poor-law and
charity suggested by the acts of Queen Elizabeth was set aside, and,
as a responsible partner in the public work of relief, charity was
disestablished. In the parishes the endowed charities remained in
general a disorganized medley of separate trusts, jealously guarded by
incompetent administrators. To give unity to this mass of units, so
long as the principles of charity are misunderstood or ignored, has
proved an almost impossible and certainly an unpopular task. So far as
it has been achieved, it has been accomplished by the piecemeal
legislation of schemes cautiously elaborated to meet local prejudices.
Active reform has been resented, and politicians have often
accentuated this resentment. In 1894 a select committee was appointed
to inquire whether it was desirable to take measures to bring the
action of the Charity Commission more directly under the control of
parliament, but no serious grievances were substantiated. The
committees' reports are of interest, however, as an indication of the
initial difficulties of all charitable work, the general ignorance
that prevails in regard to the elementary conditions that govern it,
the common disregard of these principles, and the absence of any
accepted theory or constructive policy that should regulate its
development and its administration.

Charity in the parish after 1601.

After the Poor-Law Act of 1601 the history of the voluntary parochial
charities in a town parish is marked by their decreasing amount and
utility, as poor-law relief and pauperism increased. The act, it would
seem, was not adopted with much alacrity by the local authorities. From
1625 to 1646 there were many years of plague and sickness, but in St
Giles's, London, as late as 1649, the amount raised by the "collectors"
(or overseers) was only £176. They disbursed this to "the visited poor"
as "pensions." In 1665 an extra levy of £600 is mentioned. In the
accounts of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, where, as in St Giles's, gifts
were received, the change wrought by another half-century (1714) is
apparent. The sources of charitable relief are similar to those in all
the Protestant churches--English, Scottish or continental: church
collections and offertories; correctional fines, such as composition for
bastards and conviction money for swearers; and besides these, income
from annuities and legacies, the parish estate, the royal bounty, and
"petitions to persons of quality." In all £2041 was collected, but, so
far as relief was concerned, the parish relied not on it, but on the
poor-rate, which produced £3765. All this was collected and disbursed on
their own authority by collectors, to orphans, "pensioners" or the
"known or standing" poor, or to casual poor (£1818), including nurse
children and bastards. The begging poor were numerous and the infant
death-rate enormous, and each year three-fourths of those christened
were "inhumanly suffered to die by the barbarity of nurses." The whole
administration was uncharitable, injurious to the community and the
family, and inhuman to the child. If one may judge from later accounts
of other parishes even up to 1834, usually it remained the same,
purposeless and unintelligent; and it can hardly be denied that,
generally speaking, only since the middle of the 19th century has any
serious attention been paid to the charitable side of parochial work.
Parallel to the parochial movement of the poor-law in England, in France
(about 1617) were established the _bureaux de bienfaisance_, at first
entirely voluntary institutions, then recognized by the state, and
during the Revolution made the central administration for relief in the
communes.

Charitable movements after 1601.

In the 17th century in England, as in France, opinion favoured the
establishment of large hospitals or _maisons Dieu_ for the reception of
the poor of different classes. In France throughout the century there
was a continuous struggle with mendicancy, and the hospitals were used
as places into which offenders were summarily driven. A new humanity
was, however, beginning its protest. The pitiful condition of abandoned
children attracted sympathy in both countries. St Vincent de Paul
established homes for the _enfants trouvés_, followed in England by the
establishment of the Foundling hospital (1739). In both countries the
method was applied inconsiderately and pushed to excess, and it affected
family life most injuriously. Grants from parliament supported the
foundling movement in England, and homes were opened in many parts of
the country. The demand soon became overwhelming; the mortality was
enormous, and the cost so large that it outstripped all financial
expedients. The lesson of the experiment is the same as that of the
poor-law catastrophe before 1834; only, instead of the able-bodied poor
of another age, infants were made the object of a compassionate but
undiscerning philanthropy. With widespread relief there came widespread
abandonment of duty and economic bankruptcy. Had the poor-rates instead
of charitable relief been used in the same way, the moral injury would
have been as great, but the annual draft from the rates would have
concealed the moral and postponed the economic disaster. To amend the
evil, changes were made by which the relation between child and mother
was kept alive, and a personal application on her part was required; the
character of the mother and her circumstances were investigated, and
assistance was only given when it would be "the means of replacing the
mother in the course of virtue and the way of an honest livelihood."
General reforms were also made, especially through the instrumentality
of Jonas Hanway, to check infant mortality, and metropolitan parishes
were required to provide for their children outside London. A kindred
movement led to the establishment of penitentiaries (1758), of lock
hospitals and lying-in hospitals (1749-1752).

In Queen Anne's reign there was a new educational movement, "the charity
school"--"to teach poor children the alphabet and the principles of
religion," followed by the Sunday-school movement (1780), and about the
same time (1788) by "the school of industry"--to employ children and
teach them to be industrious. In 1844 the Ragged School Union was
established, and until the Education Act of 1870 continued its voluntary
educational work. As an outcome of these movements, through the efforts
of Miss Mary Carpenter and many others, in 1854-1855 industrial and
reformatory schools were established, to prevent crime and reform child
criminals. The orphanage movement, beginning in 1758, when the Orphan
Working Home was established, has been continued to the present day on a
vastly extended scale. In 1772 a society for the discharge of persons
imprisoned for small debts was established, and in 1773 Howard began his
prison reforms. This raised the standard of work in institutional
charities generally. After the civil wars the old hospital foundations
of St Bartholomew and St Thomas, municipalized by Edward VI., became
endowed charities partly supported by voluntary contributions. The same
fate befell Christ's Hospital, in connexion with which the voting
system, the admission of candidates by the vote of the whole body of
subscribers--that peculiarly English invention--first makes its
appearance.

A new interest in hospitals sprang up at the end of the 17th century. St
Thomas's was rebuilt (1693) and St Bartholomew's (1739); Guy's was
founded in 1724, and on the system of free "letters" obtainable in
exchange for donations, voluntary hospitals and infirmaries were
established in London (1733 and later) and in most of the large towns.
Towards the end of the 18th century the dispensary movement was
developed--a system of local dispensaries with fairly definite districts
and home visiting, a substitute for attendance at a hospital, where
"hospital fever" was dreaded, and an alternative to what was then a very
ill-administered system of poor-law medical relief. After 1840 the
provident dispensary was introduced, in order that the patients by small
contributions in the time of health might provide for illness without
having to meet large doctors' bills, and the doctor might receive some
sufficient remuneration for his attendance on poor patients. This
movement was largely extended after 1860. Three hospital funds for
collecting contributions for hospitals and making them grants, a
movement that originated in Birmingham in 1859, were established in
London in 1873 and 1897.

Since 1868 the poor-law medical system of Great Britain has been
immensely improved and extended, while at the same time the number of
persons in receipt of free medical relief in most of the large towns
has greatly increased. The following figures refer to London: at
hospitals, 97 in number, in-patients (1904) during the year, 118,536;
out-patients and casualty cases, 1,858,800; patients at free,
part-pay, or provident dispensaries, about 280,000; orders issued for
attendance at poor-law dispensaries and at home, 114,158. The number
of beds in poor-law infirmaries (1904) was 16,976. There are in London
12 general hospitals with, 18 without, medical schools, and 67
special hospitals. Thus the population in receipt of public and
voluntary medical relief is very large, indeed altogether excessive.

Each religious movement has brought with it its several charities. The
Society of Friends, the Wesleyans, the Baptists have large charities.
With the extension of the High Church movement there have been
established many sisterhoods which support penitentiaries, convalescent
homes and hospitals, schools, missions, &c.

The magnitude of this accumulating provision of charitable relief is
evident, though it cannot be summed up in any single total.

At the beginning of the 19th century anti-mendicity societies were
established; and later, about 1869, in England and Scotland a movement
began for the organization of charitable relief, in connexion with which
there are now societies and committees in most of the larger towns in
Great Britain, in the colonies, and in the United States of America.
More recently the movement for the establishment of settlements in poor
districts, initiated by Canon Barnett at Toynbee Hall--"to educate
citizens in the knowledge of one another, and to provide them with
teaching and recreation"--has spread to many towns in England and
America.

Progress of thought in 18th and 19th centuries.

These notes of charitable movements suggest an altogether new
development of thought. On behalf of the charity school of Queen Anne's
time were preached very formal sermons, which showed but little sympathy
with child life. After the first half of the century a new humanism with
which we connect the name of Rousseau, slowly superseded this formal
beneficence. Rousseau made the world open its eyes and see nature in the
child, the family and the community. He analysed social life, intent on
explaining it and discovering on what its well-being depended; and he
stimulated that desire to meet definite social needs which is apparent
in the charities of the century. Little as it may appear to be so at
first sight, it was a period of charitable reformation. Law revised the
religious conception of charity, though he was himself so strangely
devoid of social instinct that, like some of his successors, he linked
the utmost earnestness in belief to that form of almsgiving which most
effectually fosters beggardom. Howard introduced the era of inspection,
the ardent apostle of a new social sagacity; and Bentham, no less
sagacious, propounded opinions, plans and suggestions which, perhaps it
may be said, in due course moulded the principles and methods of the
poor-law of 1834. In the broader sense the turn of thought is religious,
for while usually stress is laid on the religious scepticism of the
century, the deeper, fervent, conscientious and evangelical charity in
which Nonconformists, and especially "the Friends," took so large a
part, is often forgotten. Sometimes, indeed, as often happens now, the
feeling of charity passed into the merest sentimentality. This is
evident, for instance, from so ill-considered a measure as Pitt's Bill
for the relief of the poor. On the other hand, during the 18th century
the poor-law was the object of constant criticism, though so long as the
labour statutes and the old law of settlement were in force, and the
relief of the labouring population as state "poor" prevailed, it was
impossible to reform it. Indeed, the criticism itself was generally
vitiated by a tacit acceptance of "the poor" as a class, a permanent and
irrevocable charge on the funds of the community; and at the end of the
18th century, when the labour statutes were abrogated, but the
conditions under which poor relief was administered remained the same,
serfdom in its later stage, the serfdom of the poor-law, asserted itself
in its extremest form in times of dearth and difficulty during the
Napoleonic War. In 1802-1803 it was calculated (Marshall's _Digest_)
that 28% of the population were in receipt of permanent or occasional
relief. Those in receipt of the former numbered 734,817, including
children--so real had this serfdom of the poor become.

In 1832 the expenditure on pauperism in England and Wales was
£7,036,968. In the early years of the 19th century the mendicity
societies, established in some of the larger towns, were a sign of the
general discontent with existing methods of administration. The Society
for Bettering the Condition of the Poor--representing a group of men
such as Patrick Colquhoun, Sir I. Bernard, Dr Lettsom, Dr Haygarth,
James Neald, Count Rumford and others--took a more positive line and
issued many useful publications (1796). After 1833 the very atmosphere
of thought seems changed. There was a general desire to be quit of the
serfdom of pauperism. The Poor-law Amendment Act was passed in 1834, and
since then male able-bodied pauperism has dwindled to a minimum. The bad
years of 1860-1870 revived the problem in England and Scotland, and the
old spirit of reform for a time prevailed. Improved administration
working with economic progress effected still further reductions of
pauperism, till on the 1st of January 1905 (exclusive of lunatics in
county asylums and casual paupers) the mean number of paupers stood at
764,589, or 22.6 per thousand of the population, instead of 41.8 per
thousand as in 1859 (see POOR-LAW).

Charity organization societies were formed after 1869, with the object
of "improving the condition of the poor," or, in other words, to promote
independence by an ordered and co-operative charity; and the Association
for Befriending Young Servants, and workhouse aid committees, in order
to prevent relapse into pauperism on the part of those who as children
or young women received relief from the poor-law. The Local Government
Board adopted a restricted out-door relief policy, and a new interest
was felt in all the chief problems of local administration. The movement
was general. The results of the Elberfeld system of municipal relief
administered by unpaid almoners, each dealing with but one or two cases,
influenced thought both in England and America. The experience gained by
Mr Joseph Tuckerman of Boston of the utility of registering applications
for relief, and the teaching of Miss Octavia Hill, led to the foundation
of the system of friendly visiting and associated charity at Boston
(1880) and elsewhere. Since that time the influence of Arnold Toynbee
and the investigations of Charles Booth have led to a better
appreciation of the conditions of labour; and to some extent, in London
and elsewhere, the spirit of charity has assumed the form of a new
devotion to the duties of citizenship. But perhaps, in regard to charity
in Great Britain, the most important change has been the revival of the
teaching of Dr Chalmers (1780-1847), who (1819) introduced a system of
parochial charity at St John's, Glasgow, on independent lines,
consistent with the best traditions of the Scottish church. In the
development of the theory of charitable relief on the economic side this
has been a main factor. His view, which he tested by experience, may be
summed up as follows: Society is a growing, self-supporting organism. It
has within it, as between family and family, neighbour and neighbour,
master and employee, endless links of sympathy and self-support. Poverty
is not an absolute, but a relative term. Naturally the members of one
class help one another; the poor help the poor. There is thus a large
invisible fund available and constantly used by those who, by their
proximity to one another, know best how to help. The philanthropist is
an alien to this life around him. Moved by a sense of contrast between
his own lot, as he understands it, and the lot of those about him, whom
he but little understands, he concludes that he should relieve them. But
his gift, unless it be given in such a way as to promote this
self-support, instead of weakening it, is really injurious. In the first
place, by his interference he puts a check on the charitable resources
of another class and lessens their social energy. What he gives they do
not give, though they might do so. But next, he does more harm than
this. He stimulates expectation, so that by a false arithmetic his gift
of a few shillings seems to those who receive it and to those who hear
of it a possible source of help in any difficulty. To them it represents
a large command of means; and where one has received what, though it be
little, is yet, relative to wage, a large sum to be acquired without
labour, many will seek more, and with that object will waste their time
and be put off their work, or even be tempted to lie and cheat. So
social energy is diverted from its proper use. Alms thus given weakens
social ties, diminishes the natural relief funds of mutual help, and
beggars a neighbour instead of benefiting him. By this argument a clear
and well-defined purpose is placed before charity. Charity becomes a
science based on social principles and observation. Not to give alms,
but to keep alive the saving health of the family, becomes its problem:
relief becomes altogether subordinate to this, and institutions or
societies are serviceable or the reverse according as they serve or fail
to serve this purpose. Not poverty, but distress is the plea for help;
not almsgiving, but charity the means. To charity is given a definite
social aim, and a desire to use consistently with this aim every method
that increasing knowledge and trained ability can devise.

Under such influences as these, joined with better economic conditions,
a great reform has been made. The poor-law, however, remains--the modern
_eleemosyna civica_. It now, indeed, absorbs a proportionately lesser
amount of the largely increased national income, but, excluding the
maintenance of lunatics, it costs Great Britain more than twelve
millions a year; and among the lower classes of the poor, directly or
indirectly, it serves as a bounty on dependence and is a permanent
obstacle to thrift and self-reliance. The number of those who are within
the circle of its more immediate attraction is now perhaps, in different
parts of the country or different districts in a town, not more than,
say, 20% of the population. Upon that population the statistics of a day
census would show a pauperism not of 2.63, the percentage of the mean
day pauperism on the population in 1908, but of 13.15%; and the
percentage would be much greater--twice as large, perhaps--if the total
number of those who in some way received poor relief in the course of a
year were taken into account. The English poor-law is thus among the
lower classes, those most tempted to dependence--say some six or seven
millions of the people--a very potent influence definitely antagonistic
to the good development of family life, unless it be limited to very
narrow proportions; as, for instance, to restricted indoor or
institutional relief for the sick, for the aged and infirm, who in
extreme old age require special care and nursing, and for the afflicted,
for whom no sufficient charitable provision is procurable. As ample
experience shows, only on these conditions can poor-law relief be
justified from the point of view of charity and the common good. In
marked contrast to this opinion is the English movement for Old Age
pensions, which came to its first fruition in 1908--a huge charity
started on the credit of the state, the extension of which might
ultimately involve a cost comparable with that of the army or the navy.
Schemes of the kind have been adopted in the Australasian colonies with
limitations and safeguards; and they seem likely to develop into a new
type of poor-relief organization for the aged and infirm (Report: Royal
Commission on Old Age Pensions, Commonwealth of Australia, 1906). In
England, partly to meet the demand for better state provision for the
aged, the Local Government Board in 1900 urged the boards of guardians
to give more adequate outdoor relief to aged deserving people, and laid
no stress on the test of destitution, or, in other words, the limitation
of relief to what was actually "necessary," the neglect of which has led
to new difficulties. History has proved that demoralization results from
the wholesale relief whether of the mass of the citizens, or of the
able-bodied, or of the children, and the proposal to limit the endowment
to the aged makes no substantial difference. The social results must be
similar; but social forces work slowly, and usually only the
unanswerable argument of financial bankruptcy suffices to convert a
people habituated to dependence, though the inward decay of vitality and
character may long before be manifest. Ultimately the distribution of
pensions by way of out-door relief, corrupting a far more independent
people, is calculated to work a far greater injury than the _annona
civica_. Such an endowment of old age might indeed be justified as part
of a system of regulated labour, which, as in earlier times, could not
be enforced without some such extraneous help, but it could not be
justified otherwise. It is naturally associated, therefore, with
socialistic proposals for the regulation of wage.

In the light of the principles of charity, which we have considered
historically, we have now to turn to two questions: charity and
economics, and charity and socialism.

The economics of charity.

The object of charity is to render to our neighbour the services and
duties of goodwill, friendship and love. To prevent distress charity
has for its further object to preserve and develop the manhood and
womanhood of individuals and their self-maintenance in and through the
family; and any form of state intervention is approved or disapproved by
the same standard. By self-maintenance is meant self-support throughout
life in its ordinary contingencies--sickness, widowhood, old age, &c.
Political economy we would define as the science of exchange and
exchange value. Here it has to be considered in relation to the purposes
of charity. By way of illustration we take, accordingly, three points:
distribution and use, supplementation of wage, and the standard of
well-being or comfort in relation to wage.

(1) _Distribution and Use._--Economy in the Greek sense begins at this
point--the administration and the use of means and resources.
Political economy generally ignores this part of the problem. Yet from
the point of view of charity it is cardinal to the whole issue. The
distribution of wage may or may not be largely influenced by trades
unions; but the variation of wage, as is generally the case, by the
increase or decrease of a few pence is of less importance than its
use. Comparing a careful and an unthrifty family, the difference in
use may amount to as much as a third on the total wage. Mere
abstention from alcohol may make, in a normal family, a difference of
6s. in a wage of 25s. On the other hand, membership of a friendly
society is at a time of sickness equivalent to the command of a large
sum of money, for the common stock of capital is by that means placed
at the disposal of each individual who has a share in it. Further,
even a small amount saved may place the holder in a position to get a
better market for his labour; he can wait when another man cannot.
Rent may be high, but by co-operation that too may be reduced. Other
points are obvious and need not be mentioned. It is evident that while
the amount of wage is important, still more important is its use. In
use it has a large expansive value. (2) _Supplementation of
Wage._--The exchange between skill and wage must be free if it is to
be valid. The less the skill the greater is the temptation to
philanthropists to supplement the lesser wage; and the more important
is non-supplementation, for the skilled can usually look after their
own interests in the market, while the less skilled, because their
labour is less marketable, have to make the greater effort to avoid
dependence. But the dole of endowed charities, outdoor relief, and any
constant giving, tend to reduce wage, and thus to deprive the
recipients of some part of the means of independence. The employer is
pressed by competition himself, and in return he presses for profit
through a reduced wage, if circumstances make it possible for the
workman to take it. And thus a few individuals may lower the wages of
a large class of poorly skilled or unskilled hands. In these
conditions unionism, even if it were likely to be advantageous, is not
feasible. Unionism can only create a coherent unit of workers where
there is a limited market and a definite saleable skill. Except for
the time, insufficient wage will not be remedied in the individual
case by supplementation in any form--doles, clothes, or other kinds of
relief; and in that case, too, the relief will probably produce
lessened energy after a short time, or in other words lessened ability
to live. An insufficient wage may be prevented by increasing the skill
of the worker, who will then have the advantage of a better series of
economic exchanges, but hardly otherwise. If the supplementation be
not immediate, but postponed, as in the case of old-age pensions, its
effect will be similar. To the extent of the prospective adventitious
gain the attraction to the friendly society and to mutual help and
saving will grow less. Necessity has been the inventor of these; and
where wage is small, a little that would otherwise be saved is quickly
spent if the necessity for saving it is removed. Only necessity
schools most men, especially the weak, to whom it makes most
difference ultimately, whether they are thrifty or whether or not they
save for the future in any way. (3) _The Standard of Well-being or
Comfort in Relation to Wage._--With an increase of income there has to
be an increase in the power to use income intelligently. Whatever is
not so used reacts on the family to its undoing. Constantly when the
wife can earn a few shillings a week, the husband will every week idle
for two or three days; so also if the husband finds that in a few days
he can earn enough to meet what he considers to be his requirements
for the week. In these circumstances the standard of well-being falls
below the standard of wage; the wage is in excess of the energy and
intelligence necessary to its economic use, and in these cases
ultimately pauperism often ensues. The family is demoralized. Thus,
with a view to the prevention of distress in good times, when there is
the less poverty there is the more need of charity, rightly
understood; for charity would strive to promote the right use of wage,
as the best means of preventing distress and preserving the economic
well-being of the family.

Charity and socialism.

The theory of charity separates it entirely from socialism, as that word
is commonly used. Strictly socialism means, in questions affecting the
community, a dominant regard for the common or social good in so far as
it is contrary to private or individual advantage. But even so the
antithesis is misleading, for the two need not be inconsistent. On the
contrary, the common good is really and ultimately only individual good
(not advantage) harmonized to a common end. The issue, indeed, is that
of old Greek days, and the conditions of a settlement of it are not
substantially different. Using modern terms one may say that charity is
"interventionist." It has sought to transform the world by the
transformation of the will and the inward life in the individual and in
society. It would intensify the spirit and feeling of membership in
society and would aim at improving social conditions, as science makes
clear what the lines of reform should be. So it has constantly
intervened in all kinds of ways, and, in the 19th century for instance,
it has initiated many movements afterwards taken up by public
authorities--such as prison reform, industrial schools, child
protection, housing, food reform, &c., and it has been a friendly ally
in many reforms that affect industry very closely, as, for instance, in
the introduction of the factory acts. But it has never aimed at
recasting society itself on a new economic plan, as does socialism.
Socialism indeed offers the people a new state of social security. It
recognizes that the _annona civica_ and the old poor-law may have been
bad, but it would meet the objection made against them by insisting on
the gradual creation of a new industrial society in which wage would be
regulated and all would be supported, some by wage in adult life, some
by allowance in old age, and others by maintenance in childhood.
Accordingly for it all schemes for the state maintenance of school
children, old age pensions, or state provision for the unemployed are,
like municipal trading, steps towards a final stage, in which none shall
want because all shall be supported by society or be dependent on it
industrially. To charity this position seems to exclude the ethical
element in life and to treat the people primarily or chiefly as human
animals. It seems also to exclude the motives for energy and endeavour
that come from self-maintenance. Against it, on the other hand,
socialism would urge, that only by close regulation and penalty will the
lowest classes be improved, and that only the society that maintains
them can control them. Charity from its experience doubts the
possibility of such control without a fatal loss of initiative on the
part of those controlled, and it believes both that there is constant
improvement on the present conditions of society and that there will be
constantly more as science grows and its conclusions are put in force.
Thus charity and socialism, in the usual meaning of the word, imply
ultimately two quite different theories of social life. The one would
re-found society industrially, the other would develop it and allow it
to develop.

The organization of charity.

The springs of charity lie in sympathy and religion, and, one would now
add, in science. To organize it is to give to it the "ordered nature" of
an organic whole, to give it a definite social purpose, and to associate
the members of the community for the fulfilment of that purpose. This in
turn depends on the recognition of common principles, the adoption of a
common method, self-discipline and training, and co-operation. In a mass
of people there may be a large variation in motives coincident with much
unity in action. Thus there may be acceptance of a common social purpose
in charity, while in one the impulse is similar to that which moved St
Francis or George Herbert, in another to that which moved Howard or Dr
Chalmers, or a modern poor-law reformer like Sir G. Nicholls or E.
Denison. Accepting, then, the principles of charity, we pass to the
method in relation to assistance and relief. Details may vary, but on
the following points there is general agreement among students and
workers:--

(1) _The Committee or Conference._--There are usually two kinds of
local relief: the public or poor-law relief, and relief connected with
religious agencies. Besides, there is the relief of endowments,
societies and charitable persons. Therefore, as a condition precedent
to all organization, there must be some local centre of association
for information and common help. A town should be divided for this
purpose into manageable areas coincident with parishes or poor-law
divisions, or other districts. Subject to an acceptance of general
principles, those engaged in charity should be members of a local
conference or committee, or allied to it. The committee would thus be
the rallying-point of a large and somewhat loosely knit association
of friends and workers. (2) _Inquiry, Aid and Registration_.--The
object of inquiry is to ascertain the actual causes of distress or
dependence, and to carry on the work there must usually be a staff of
several honorary and one or two paid workers. Two methods may be
adopted: to inquire in regard to applications for help with a view to
forming some plan of material help or friendly aid, or both, which
will lead to the ultimate self-support of the family and its members,
and, under certain conditions, in the case of the aged or sick, to
their continuous or their sufficient help; or to ascertain the facts
partly at once, partly by degrees, and then to form and carry out some
plan of help, or continue to befriend the family in need of help, in
the hope of bringing them to conditions of self-support, leaving the
work of relief entirely to other agencies. The committee in neither
case should be a relief committee--itself a direct source of relief.
On the former method it has usually no relief fund, but it raises from
relations, employers, charities and charitable persons the relief
required, according to the plan of help agreed upon, unless, indeed,
it is better not to relieve the case, or to leave it to the poor-law.
The committee thus makes itself responsible for endeavouring to the
best of its ability to raise the necessary relief, and acts as trustee
for those who co-operate without it, in such a way as to keep intact
and to give play to all the natural obligations that lie within the
inner circles of a self-supporting community. On the latter method the
work of relief is left to general charity, or to private persons, or
to the poor-law; and the effort is made to help the family to
self-support by a friendly visitor. This procedure is that adopted by
the associated charities in Boston, Mass., and other similar societies
in America and elsewhere. It is akin also to that adopted in the
municipal system of relief in Elberfeld--which has become with many
variations in detail the standard method of poor relief in Germany.
The method of associated help, combined with personal work, represents
the usual practice of charity organization societies. _Mutatis
mutandis_, the plan can be adopted on the simplest scale in parochial
or other relief committees, subject to the safeguards of sufficient
training and settled method. The inquiry should cover the following
points: names and address, and ages of family, previous addresses,
past employment and wages, present income, rent and liabilities,
membership of friendly or other society, and savings, relations,
relief (if any) from any source. These points should be verified, and
reference should be made to the clergy, the poor-law authorities, and
others, to ascertain if they know the applicant. The result should be
to show how the applicant has been living, and what are the sources of
possible help, and also what is his character. The problem, however,
is not whether the person is "deserving" or "undeserving," but
whether, granted the facts, the distress can be stayed and
self-support attained. If the help can be given privately from within
the circle of the family, so much the better. Often it may be best to
advise, but not to interfere. In some cases but little help may be
necessary; in others again the friendly relation between applicant and
friend may last for months and even years. Usually in charitable work
the question of the kind of relief available--money, tickets, clothes,
&c.--governs the decision how the case should be assisted. But this is
quite wrong: the opposite is the true rule. The wants of the case,
rightly understood, should govern the decision as to what charity
should do and what it should provide. Cases are overwhelming in
number, as at the out-patient and casualty departments of a hospital,
where the admissions are made without inquiry, and subject practically
to no restrictions; but when there is inquiry, and each case is
seriously considered and aided with a view to self-support, the
numbers will seldom be overwhelming. On this plan appeal is made to
the strength of the applicant, and requires an effort on his part.
Indiscriminate relief, on the other hand, attracts the applicant by an
appeal to his weakness, and it requires of him no effort. Hence, apart
even from the differentiating effect of inquiry, one method makes
applicants, the other limits their number, although on the latter plan
much more strenuous endeavours be made to assist the lesser number of
claimants. For the routine work of the office an extremely simple
system of records with card index, &c., has been devised. In some
cities, particularly in the United States of America, there is a
central registration of cases, notified by individual charities,
poor-relief authorities and private persons. The system of charity
organization or associated charity, it will be seen, allows of the
utmost variety of treatment, according to the difficulties in each
instance and the remedies available, and the utmost scope for personal
work. (3) _Training._--If charitable work is an art, those who
undertake it must needs be trained both in practice and method and in
judgment. It requires, too, that self-discipline which blends
intelligence with emotion, and so endows emotion with strength and
purpose. In times of distress a reserve of trained workers is of the
utmost service. At all times they do more and produce, socially,
better results; but when there is general distress of any kind they do
not lose their heads like new recruits, but prevent at least some of
the mischief that comes of the panic which often takes possession of a
community, when distress is apprehended, and leads to the wildest
distribution of relief. Also trained workers make the most useful
poor-law guardians, trustees of charities, secretaries of charitable
societies and district visitors. All clergy and ministers and all
medical men who have to be engaged in the administration of medical
relief should learn the art of charity. Poor-law guardians are
usually elected on political or general grounds, and have no special
knowledge of good methods of charity; and trustees are seldom
appointed on the score of their qualifications on this head. To
provide the necessary education in charity there should be competent
helpers and teachers at charity organization committees and elsewhere,
and an alliance for this purpose should be formed between them and
professors and teachers of moral science and economics and the
"settlements." Those who study social problems in connexion with what
a doctor would call "cases" or "practice" see the limits and the
falsity of schemes that on paper seem logical enough. This puts a
check on the influence of scheme-building and that literary
sensationalism which makes capital out of social conditions. (4)
_Co-operation._--Organization in charity depends on extensive
co-operation, and ultimately on the acceptance of common views. This
comes but slowly. But with much tribulation the goal may be reached,
if in case after case the effort is made to provide friendly help
through charities and private persons,--unless, as may well be, it
should seem best not to interfere, but to leave the applicant to apply
to the administrators of public relief. Experience of what is right
and wrong in charity is thus gained on both sides. Many sources may
have to be utilized for aid of different kinds even in a single case,
and for the prevention of distress co-operation with members of
friendly societies and with co-operative and thrift agencies is
indispensable.

The poor law.

Where there is accord between charity and the poor-law pauperism may be
largely reduced. The poor-law in most countries has at its disposal
certain institutional relief and out-door allowances, but it has no
means of devising plans of help which may prevent application to the
rates or "take" people "off the rates." Thus a widow in the first days
of widowhood applies and receives an allowance according to the number
of her children. Helped at the outset by charity on some definite plan,
she may become self-supporting; and if her family be large one or two of
her children may be placed in schools by the guardians, while she
maintains the remaining children and herself. As far as possible there
should be a division of labour between the poor-law and charity. Except
where some plan such as that just mentioned is adopted, one or the other
should take whole charge of the case relieved. There should be no
supplementation of poor-law relief by charity. This will weaken the
strength and dissipate the resources of charity without adding to the
efficiency of the poor-law. Unless the guardians adopt a restrictive
out-door relief policy, there is no scope for any useful division of
labour between them and charity; for the many cases which, taken in
time, charity might save from pauperism, they will draw into chronic
dependence by their allowances a very much larger number. But if there
is a restrictive out-door policy, so far as relief is necessary, charity
may undertake to meet on its own lines distress which the poor-law would
otherwise have met by allowances, and, subject to the assistance of
urgent cases, poor-law relief may thus by degrees become institutional
only. Then, in the main, natural social forces would come into play, and
dependence on any form of _annona civica_ would cease.

Hospitals.

Open-handed hospitality always creates mendicants. This is what the
hospitals offer in the out-patient and casualty departments, and they
have created a class of hospital mendicants. The cases are quickly dealt
with, without inquiry and without regard to home conditions. The medical
man in the hospital does not co-operate with any fellow-workers outside
the hospital. Where his physic or advice ceases to operate his
usefulness ceases. He regards no conditions of morality. In a large
number of cases drink or vice is the cause of application, and the cure
of the patient is dependent on moral conditions; but he returns home,
drinks and may beat his wife, and then on another visit to the hospital
he will again be physicked and so on. The man is not even referred to
the poor-law infirmary for relief. Nor are conditions of home sanitation
regarded. One cause of constant sickness is thus entirely overlooked,
while drugs, otherwise unnecessary, are constantly given at the
hospital. The hospitals are thus large isolated relief stations which
are creating a new kind of pauperism. So far as the patients can
pay--and many can do so--the general practitioners, to whom they would
otherwise go, are deprived of their gains. Still worse is it when the
hospital itself charges a fee in its out-patient department. The relief
is then claimed even more absolutely as a right, and the general
practitioners are still further injured. The doctors, as a medical
staff, are not only medical men, but whether they recognize the fact or
not, they are also almsgivers or almoners; what they give is relief. Yet
few or none of them have ever been trained for that work, and
consequently they do not realize how very advantageous, even for the
cure of their own patients, would be a thorough treatment of each case
both at the hospital and outside it. Nor can they understand how their
methods at present protract sickness and promote habitual dependence.
Were this side of their work studied by them in any way they would be
the first, probably, to press upon the governors of their hospitals the
necessity for a change. Unfortunately, at present the governors are
themselves untrained, and to finance the hospital and to make it a good
institution is their sole object. Hospitals, however, are, after all,
only a part of the general administration of charity, though as they are
now managed they have seldom any systematic connexion with that
administration. Nor is there any co-ordination between the several
hospitals and dispensaries. If one rightly refuses further treatment to
certain applicants, they have only to wander to some other hospital,
there to be admitted with little or no scrutiny. For usually
out-patients and casualty patients are not even registered, nor can they
be identified if they apply again. Practically they come and go at will.
The definite limitation of cases, according to some standard of
effectual work, association with general charity, trained almonership
and inquiry, and a just regard for the interests of general
practitioners, are stepping-stones to reform. In towns where medical
charities are numerous a representative board would promote mutual help
and organization.

Endowed charities.

Like the poor-law, endowed charities may be permanent institutions
established to meet what should be passing and decreasing needs (cf. the
arguments in _The State and Charity_, by T. Mackay). Administered as
they usually are in isolation--apart from the living voluntary charities
of the generation, and consisting often of small trusts difficult to
utilize satisfactorily, they tend to create a permanent demand which
they meet by fixed quantities of relief. Also, as a rule, they make no
systematic inquiries with a view to the verification of the statements
of the applicants, for they have no staff for these purposes; nor have
they the assistance of almoners or friendly visitors. Nor does the
relief which they give form part of any plan of help in conjunction with
other aid from without; nor is the administration subject to frequent
inspection, as in the case of the poor-law. All these conditions have
led to a want of progress in the actual administration of endowed
charities, in regard to which it is often very difficult to prevent the
exercise of an undue patronage. But there is no reason why these
charities should not become a responsible part of the country's
administration, aiding it to reduce outdoor pauperism. It was never
intended that the poor-law should extinguish the endowed charities,
still less, as statistics now prove, that where endowments abound the
rate of pauperism should be considerably above the average of the rest
of the country. This shows that these charities often foster pauperism
instead of preventing it. As a step to reform, the publication of an
annual register of endowed charities in England and Wales is greatly
needed. The consolidating schemes of the charity commissioners have done
much good; still more may be done in some counties by extending to the
county the benefits of the charities of well-endowed towns, as has been
accomplished by the extension of the eleemosynary endowments of the city
of London to the metropolitan police area. Nor, again, until quite
lately, and that as yet only in a few schemes, has the principle been
adopted that pensions or other relief should be given only in
supplementation of the relief of relations, former employers and
friends, and not in substitution of it. This, coupled with good methods
of inquiry and supervision, has proved very beneficial. Hitherto,
however, to a large extent, endowed charities, it must be admitted, have
tended to weaken the family and to pauperize.

Relief to children at school.

In many places funds are raised for the relief of school children by the
supply of meals during the winter and spring; and an act has now been
passed in England (1906) enabling the cost to be put upon the rates.
Usually a very large number of children are said to be underfed, but
inquiry shows that such statements may be taken as altogether excessive.
They are sometimes based on information drawn from the children at
school; or sometimes on general deductions; they are seldom founded on
any systematic and competent inquiry at the homes. When this has been
made, the numbers dwindle to very small proportions. Teachers of
experience have noted the effect of the meals in weakening the
independence of the family. While they are forthcoming women sometimes
give up cooking meals at home, use their money for other things, and
tell the child he can get his meal at school. Great temptations are put
before a parent to neglect her family, and very much distress is due to
this. The meals--just at a time when, owing to the age of her children,
the mother's care is most needed, and just in those families where the
temptation is greatest, and where the family instinct should be
strengthened--stimulate this neglect. Considered from the point of view
of meeting by eleemosynary provision a normal economic demand for food,
intervention can only have one result. The demand must continue to
outstrip the supply, so long as there are resources available on the one
side, and until on the other side the desire of the social class that is
chiefly exposed to the temptations of dependence in relation to such
relief has been satisfied. If the provision be made from the resources
of local or general taxation the largeness of the fund available will
allow practically of an unlimited expansion of the supply of food. If
the provision be made from voluntary sources, in some measure limited
therefore and less certain, this very fact will tend to circumscribe
demand and limit the offer of relief. It is indeed the problem of
poor-law relief in 1832 over again. The relief provided by local
taxation practically unlimited will create a mass of constant claimants,
with a kind of assumed right to aid based on the payment of rates; while
voluntary relief, whatever its short-comings, will be less injurious
because it is less amply endowed. In Paris the municipal subvention for
meals rose from 545,900 francs in 1892 to 1,000,000 in 1904. Between
1894 and 1904 there was an increase of 9% in the school population; and
an increase of 28% in the municipal grant. In that period the
contributions from the local school funds (_caisses des écoles_)
decreased 36%; while the voluntary contributions otherwise received were
insignificant; and the payments for meals increased 2%.

The subject has been lately considered from a somewhat different
standpoint (cf. the reports of the Scottish Royal Commission on Physical
Education, 1903; of the Inter-departmental committees on Physical
Deterioration, 1905, and on Medical Inspection and the Feeding of School
Children, 1905; also the report of the special committee of the Charity
Organization Society on "the assistance of school children," 1893).
After careful investigations medical officers especially have drawn
attention to the low physical condition of children in schools in the
poorer parts of large English towns, their low stature, their physical
defects, the improper food supplied to them at home, their
uncleanliness, and their want of decent bringing-up, and sometimes their
want of food. Other inquiries have shown that, as women more usually
become breadwinners their children receive less attention, and the home
and its duties are neglected, while in the lowest sections of the poorer
classes social irresponsibility reaches its maximum. Cheap but often
quite improper food is provided, and infant mortality, which is largely
preventable, remains as high as ever, though adult life is longer. This
with a marked decrease in the birth-rate in recent years, has, it may be
said, opened out a new field for charitable effort and social work.
Science is at each revision of the problem making its task more
definite. Actually the mere demand for meals stands for less; the reform
of home conditions for more. So it was hoped that instead of making
school meals a charge on taxation, as parliament has done, it would be
content to leave it a voluntary charge, while the medical inspection of
elementary Schools will be made universal; representative relief
committees formed for schools or groups of schools; the cases of want or
distress among the school children dealt with individually in connexion
with their families, and, where necessary, day schools established on
the lines of day industrial schools.

Exceptional distress.

At a time of exceptional distress the following suggestions founded on
much English experience may be of service (cf. Report of special
committee of the Charity Organization Society on the best means of
dealing with exceptional distress, 1886). Usually at such a time
proposals are made to establish special funds, and to provide employment
to men and women out of work. But it is best, if possible and as long as
possible, to rely on existing agencies, and to strengthen them. Round
them there are usually workers more or less trained. A new fund usually
draws to it new people, many of whom may not have had any special
experience at all. If a new fund is inevitable, it is best that it
should make its grants to existing agencies after consultation with
them. In any case, a clear policy should be adopted, and people should
keep their heads. The exaggeration of feeling at a time of apprehended
or actual distress is sometimes extraordinary, and the unwise action
which it prompts is often a cause of continuing pauperism afterwards.
Where there is public or poor-law relief the following plan may be
adopted:--In any large town there are usually different recognized
poor-law, charitable or other areas. The local people already at work in
these areas should be formed into local committees. In each case a quick
inquiry should be made, and the relieving officer communicated with,
some central facts verified, and the home visited. Roughly, cases may be
divided into three classes: the irresponsible casual labouring class, a
middle class of men with decent homes, who have made no provision for
the future, and are not members of either friendly society or trades
union; and a third class, who have made some provision. These usually
are affected last of all; at all hazards they should be kept from
receiving public relief, and should be helped, as far as possible,
privately and personally. If there are public works, the second class
might be referred to them; if there are not, probably some should be
left to the poor-law, some assisted in the same way as members of class
three. Much would turn upon the family and the home. The first class
should be left to the poor-law. If there is no poor-law system at work
they should be put on public works. Working men of independent position,
not the creatures of any political club, but such as are respected
members of a friendly society, or are otherwise well qualified for the
task, should be called into consultation. The relief should be settled
according to the requirements of each case, but if the pressure is
great, at first at least it may be necessary to make grants according to
some generally sufficient scale. There should be as constant a revision
of cases as time permits. Great care should be taken to stop the relief
as soon as possible, and to do nothing to make it the stepping-stone to
permanent dependence.

If employment be provided it should be work within the skill of all; it
should be fairly remunerated, so that at least the scantiness of the pay
may not be an excuse for neglect; and it should be paid for according to
measured or piece work. The discipline should be strict, though due
regard should be paid at first to those unaccustomed to digging or
earthwork. In England and Wales the guardians have power to open labour
yards. These, like charities which provide work, tend to attract and
keep in employment a low class of labourer or workman, who finds it pays
him to use the institution as a convenience. It is best, therefore, to
avoid the opening of a labour yard if possible. If it is opened, the
discipline should be very strict, and when there is laziness or
insubordination, relief in the workhouse should at once be offered. The
relief furnished to men employed in a labour yard, of which in England
at least half has to be given ih kind, should, it has been said, be
dealt out from day to day. This leads to the men giving up the work
sooner than they otherwise would. They have less to spend.

Unemployment.

In Great Britain a great change has taken place in regard to the
provision of employment in connexion with the state. Since about 1890
there has been a feeling that men in distress from want of employment
should not be dealt with by the poor-law. A circular letter issued by
the Local Government Board in 1886, and subsequently in 1895, coincided
with this feeling. It was addressed to town councils and other local
authorities, asking them to provide work (1) which will not involve the
stigma of pauperism, (2) which all can perform whatever may have been
their previous avocations, and (3) which does not compete with that of
other labourers at present in employment. This circular led to the
vestries and subsequently the borough councils in many districts
becoming partially recognized relief authorities for the unemployed,
concurrently with the poor-law. Much confusion resulted. The local
authorities had seldom any suitable organization for the investigation
of applications. It was difficult to supply work on the terms required;
and the work was often ill-done and costly. Also it was found that the
same set of people would apply year after year, unskilled labourers
usually out of work part of the winter, or men habitually "unemployed."
As on other occasions when public work was provided, very few of the
applicants were found to be artisans, or members of trades unions or of
friendly societies. In 1904 Mr Long, then president of the Local
Government Board, proposed that local voluntary distress committees
should be established in London consisting of poor-law guardians and
town councillors and others, more or less supervised by a central
committee and ultimately by the Local Government Board. This
organization was set on foot and large sums were subscribed for its
work. The report on the results of the movement was somewhat doubtful
(Report, London Unemployed Fund, 1904-1905, p. 101, &c.), but in 1905
the Unemployed Workmen's Act was passed, and in London and elsewhere
distress committees like the voluntary committees of the previous year
were established by statute. It was enacted that for establishment
expenses, emigration and removal, labour exchanges, and the acquisition
of land a halfpenny rate might be levied, but that the rate would not be
available for the remuneration of men employed. For this purpose
(1905-1906) a large charitable fund was raised. A training farm at
Hollesley Bay was acquired, and it was hoped to train Londoners there to
become fit for agricultural work. It is impossible to judge this
experiment properly, on the evidence available up to 1908. But one or
two points are important: (1) something very like the "right to labour"
has been granted by the legislature; (2) this has been done apart from
the conditions required by the poor-laws and orders of the Local
Government Board on poor relief and without imposing disfranchisement on
the men employed; (3) a labour rate has not been levied, but a rate has
been levied in aid of the provision of employment; (4) if the line of
development that the act suggests were to be followed (as the renewed
Labour agitation in 1908-1909 made probable) it must tend to create a
class of "unemployed," unskilled labourers of varying grades of industry
who may become the dependent and state-supported proletariat of modern
urban life. Thus, unless the administration be extremely rigorous, once
more will a kind of serfdom be established, to be, as some would say,
taken over hereafter by the socialist state.

Vagrancy.

In some of the English colonies Homeric hospitality still prevails, but
by degrees the station-house or some refuge is established in the towns
as they grow more populous. Finally, some system of labour in exchange
for relief is evolved. At first this is voluntary, afterwards it is
officially recognized, and finally it may become part of the system of
public relief. As bad years come, these changes are made step by step.
In England the vagrant or wayfarer is tolerated and discouraged, but not
kept employed. He should be under greater pressure to maintain himself,
it is thought. The provision made for him in different parts of the
country is far from uniform, and now, usually, at least in the larger
towns, after he has had a bath and food, he is admitted to a separate
room or cell in a casual ward. Before he leaves he has to do a task of
work, and, subject to the discretion of the master, he is detained two
nights. This plan has reduced vagrancy, and if it were universally
adopted clean accommodation would everywhere be provided for the vagrant
without the attractions of a common or "associated" ward; and probably
vagrancy would diminish still further. It seems almost needless to say
that, in these circumstances at any rate, casual alms should not be
given to vagrants. They know much better how to provide for themselves
than the almsgiver imagines, for vagrancy is in the main a mode of life
not the result of any casual difficulty. Vagrancy and criminality are
also nearly allied. The magistrate, therefore, rather than the
almsgiver, should usually interfere; and, as a rule, where the
magistrates are strict, vagrancy in a county diminishes. An
inter-departmental committee (1906) taking generally this line, reported
in favour of vagrants being placed entirely under police control, and it
recommended a system of wayfarers' tickets for men on the roads who are
not habitual vagrants, and the committal of men likely to become
habitual vagrants to certified labour colonies for not less than six
months. Still undoubtedly vagrancy has its economic side. In a bad year
the number of tramps is increased by the addition of unskilled and
irresponsible labourers, who are soonest discharged when work is slack.
As a part-voluntary system under official recognition the German
_Arbeiter-colonien_ are of interest. This in a measure has led to the
introduction of labour homes in England, the justification of which
should be that they recruit the energy of the men who find their way to
them, and enable them to earn a living which they could not do
otherwise. In a small percentage of cases their result may be achieved.
Charitable refuges or philanthropic common lodging-houses, usually
established in districts where this class already congregate, only
aggravate the difficulty. They give additional attractions to a vagrant
and casual life, and make it more endurable. They also make a
comfortable avoidance of the responsibilities of family life
comparatively easy, and in so far as they do this they are clearly
injurious to the community.

American conditions and methods.

The English colonists of the New England states and Pennsylvania
introduced the disciplinary religious and relief system of Protestantism
and the Elizabethan poor-law. To the former reference has already been
made. With an appreciation of the fact that the cause of distress is not
usually poverty, but weakness of character and want of judgment, and
that relief is in itself no remedy, those who have inherited the old
Puritan traditions have, in the light of toleration and a larger social
experience, organized the method of friendly visiting, the object of
which is illustrated by the motto, "Not alms, but a friend." To the
friendship of charity is thus given a disciplinary force, capable of
immense expansion and usefulness, if the friendship on the side of those
who would help is sincere and guided by practical knowledge and
sagacity, and if on the side of those in distress there is awakened a
reciprocal regard and a willingness to change their way of life by
degrees. Visiting by "districts" is set aside, for "friendliness" is not
a quality easily diffused over a wide area. To be real it must be
limited as time and ability allow. Consequently, a friendly visitor
usually befriends but one or two, or in any case only a few, families.
The friendly visitor is the outcome of the movement for "associated
charities," but in America charity organization societies have also
adopted the term, and to a certain extent the method. Between the two
movements there is the closest affinity. The registration of applicants
for relief is much more complete in American cities than in England,
where the plan meets with comparatively little support. At the office of
the associated charities in Boston there is a central and practically a
complete register of all the applications made to the public authority
for poor relief, to the associated charities, and to many other
voluntary bodies.

The Elizabethan poor-law system, with the machinery of overseers,
poor-houses and out-door relief, is still maintained in New England, New
York state and Pennsylvania, but with many modifications, especially in
New York. A chief factor in these changes has been immigration. While
the County or town remained the administrative area for local poor
relief, the large number of immigrant and "unsettled" poor, and the
business connected with their removal from the state, entailed the
establishment of a secondary or state system of administration and aid,
with special classes of institutions to which the counties or towns
could send their poor, as, for instance, state reform schools, farms,
almshouses, &c. For the oversight of these institutions, and often of
prisons also and lunatic asylums, in many states there have been
established state boards of "charity or corrections and charity." The
members of these boards are selected by the state for a term of years,
and give their services honorarily. There are state boards in
Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, North Carolina and elsewhere. There
is also a district board of charities in the district of Columbia. These
boards publish most useful and detailed reports. Besides the state board
there is sometimes also, as in New York, a State Charities Aid
Association, whose members, in the counties in which they reside, have a
legal right of entry to visit and inspect any public or charitable
institution owned by the state, and any county and other poor-house. A
large association of visitors accustomed to inspect and report on
institutions has thus been created. Further, the counties and towns in
New York state, for instance, and Massachusetts, and the almshouse
districts in Pennsylvania, are under boards of supervision. Usually the
overseers give out-door relief, and the pauperism of some areas is as
high as that in some English unions, 3, 4 and 5%. On the whole
population of the United States, however, and of individual states,
consisting to a great extent of comparatively young and energetic
immigrants, the pauperism is insignificant. In Massachusetts "it has
been the general policy of the state to order the removal to the state
almshouse of unsettled residents of the several cities and towns in need
of temporary aid, thus avoiding some of the abuses incident to out-door
relief." In New York state, in the city of New York, including Brooklyn,
the distribution of out-door relief by the department of charities is
forbidden, except for purposes of transportation and for the adult
blind. Most counties in the state have an almshouse, and the county
superintendents and overseers of the poor "furnish necessary relief to
such of the county poor as may require only temporary assistance, or are
so disabled that they cannot be safely removed to the almshouse." Public
attention is in many cases being drawn to the inutility and injury of
out-door relief.

In some states and cities the system of subsidizing voluntary
institutions is in full force, and it is in force also in many English
colonies. At first sight it has the advantage of providing relief for
public purposes without the creation of a new staff or establishment.
There is thus an apparent economy. But the evils are many. Political
partisanship and favour may influence the amount and disposition of the
grants. The grants act as a bounty on the establishment and continuance
of charitable institutions, homes for children, hospitals, &c., but not
on the expansion of the voluntary charitable funds and efforts that
should maintain them; and thus charitable homes exist in which charity
in its truer sense may have little part, but in which the chief motive
of the administration may be to support sectarian interests by public
subsidies. Claimants for relief have little scruple in turning such
institutions to their own account; and the institutions, being
financially irresponsible, are not in these circumstances scrupulous on
their side to prevent a misdirection of their bounties. "Parents unload
their children upon the community more recklessly when they know that
such children will be provided for in private orphan asylums and
protectories, where the religious training that the parents prefer will
be given them" (Amos G. Warner, in _International Congress: Charities
and Correction_, 1893). Past history in New York city illustrates the
same evil. The admission was entirely in the hands of the managers. They
admitted; the city paid. In New York city the population between 1870
and 1890 increased about 80%; the subsidies for prisoners and public
paupers increased by 43%, but those for paupers in private institutions
increased from $334,828 to $1,845,872, or about 461%. The total was at
that time $3,794,972; in 1898 it was rather less, $3,132,786. The
alternative to this system is either the establishment of state or
municipal institutions, and possibly in special cases payments to
voluntary homes for the maintenance of inmates admitted at the request
of a state authority, as at certified and other homes in England, with
grants made conditional on the work being conducted on specified lines,
and subject to a certain increasing amount of voluntary financial
support; or a close general and financial inspection of charitable
institutions--the method of reform adopted in New York; or payment for
only those inmates who are sent by public authorities and admitted on
their request.

The enormous extent to which children's aid societies have been
increased in the United States, sometimes with the help of considerable
public grants, suggests the greatest need for caution from the point of
the preservation of the family as the central element of social strength
in the community. The problem of charity in relation to medical relief
in the large towns of the United States is similar to that of England;
its difficulties are alike.

LITERATURE.--As good translations of the classics become accessible it
is easy for the general reader or student to combine a study of the
principles of charity in relation to the community with a study of
history. Thus, and in connexion with special investigations and the
conditions of practical charity, social economics may best be studied.
In N. Masterman, _Chalmers on Charity_ (1900); T. Mackay, _Methods of
Social Reform_ (1896); B. Bosanquet and others, _Some Aspects of the
Social Problem_ (1894); and C.S. Loch, _Methods of Social Advance_
(1904), this point of view is generally assumed. Special
investigations of importance may be found in the reports of medical
officers of health. See Report of Committee on Physical Deterioration
referred to above, and, for instance, Dr Newsholme's _Vital
Statistics_ and Charles Booth's _Labour and Life in London_. For the
history of charity there is no good single work. On details there are
many good articles in Daremberg's _Dictionary of Classical
Antiquities_, and similar works. _Modern Methods of Charity_, by C.H.
Henderson and others (1904), supplies much general information in
regard to poor relief and charity in different countries. Apart from
books and official documents mentioned in the text as indicating the
present state of charitable and public relief, or as aids to practical
work, the following may be of service. England:--_Annual Charities'
Register and Digest, with Introduction on "How to help Cases of
Distress"_; the _Charity Organization Review; Occasional Papers_ (3
vols.), published by the London Charity Organization Society
(1896-1906); _Reports of Proceedings of Conferences of Poor-Law
Guardians; The Strength of the People_, by Helen Bosanquet; _Homes of
the London Poor_ and _Our Common Land_, by Miss Octavia Hill; _The
Queen's Poor_, by M. Loane. United States of America:--_The
Proceedings of the International Conference on Charities and
Correction_ (1894), and the proceedings of the annual conferences;
_Friendly Visiting among the Poor_, by Mary E. Richmond (1899);
_American Charities_, by Amos G. Warner (1908); _The Practice of
Charity_, by E.T. Devine; _Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften_,
by Dr J. Conrad, &c., vol. ii.; _Das Armenwesen in den Vereinigten
Staaten von America_, by Dr Francis G. Peabody (1897); the _Charities
Review_, published monthly by the New York Charity Organization
Society; the Papers and Reports of the Boston and Baltimore societies.
France:--_La Bibliographie charitable_, by Camille Granier (1891); _La
Charité avant et depuis 1789_, by P. Hubert Valleroux; Fascicules of
the _Conseil supérieur de l'assistance publique, Revue d'assistance_,
published by the _Société Internationale pour l'étude des questions
d'assistance_. Germany:--Reports and Proceedings of the _Deutsche
Vereine für Armenpflege und Wohltätigkeit; Die Armenpflege_, a
practical handbook, by Dr E. Münsterberg (1897).
Austria:--_Österreichs Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen, 1848-1898_, by Dr
Ernest Mischler (1899). (C. S. L.)

CHARIVARI, a French term of uncertain origin, but probably onomatopoeic,
for a mock serenade "rough music," made by beating on kettles,
fire-irons, tea-trays or what not. The charivari was anciently in France
a regular wedding custom, all bridal couples being thus serenaded. Later
it was reserved for ill-assorted and unpopular marriages, for widows or
widowers who remarried too soon, and generally as a mockery for all who
were unpopular. At the beginning of the 17th century, wedding charivaris
were forbidden by the Council of Tours under pain of excommunication,
but the custom still lingers in rural districts. The French of Louisiana
and Canada introduced the charivari into America, where it became known
under the corrupted name of "shivaree."

CHARKHARI, a native state in the Bundelkhand agency of Central India.
Area, 745 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 123,594; estimated revenue £33,000. It is
surrounded on all sides by other states of Central India, except near
Charkhari town, where it meets the United Provinces. It was founded by
Bijai Bahadur (vikramaditya), a _sanad_ being granted him in 1804 and
another in 1811. The chief, whose title is maharaja, is a Rajput of the
Bundela clan, descended from Chhatar Sal, the champion of the
independence of Bundelkhand in the 18th century. In 1857 Raja Ratan
Singh received a hereditary salute of 11 guns, a _khilat_ and a
perpetual _jagir_ of £1300 a year in recognition of his services during
the Mutiny. The town of Charkhari (locally _Maharajnagar_) is 40 m. W.
of Banda; pop. (1901) 11,718.

CHARLATAN (Ital. _ciarlatano_, from _ciarlare_, to chatter), originally
one who "patters" to a crowd to sell his wares, like a "cheap-jack" or
"quack" doctor--"quack" being similarly derived from the noise made by a
duck; so an impostor who pretends to have some special skill or
knowledge.

CHARLEMAGNE [CHARLES THE GREAT] (c. 742-814), Roman emperor, and king of
the Franks, was the elder son of Pippin the Short, king of the Franks,
and Bertha, or Bertrada, daughter of Charibert, count of Laon. The place
of his birth is unknown and its date uncertain, although some
authorities give it as the 2nd of April 742; doubts have been cast upon
his legitimacy, and it is just possible that the marriage of Pippin and
Bertha took place subsequent to the birth of their elder son. When
Pippin was crowned king of the Franks at St Denis on the 28th of July
754 by Pope Stephen II., Charles, and his brother Carloman were anointed
by the pope as a sign of their kingly rank. The rough surroundings of
the Frankish court were unfavourable to the acquisition of learning, and
Charles grew up almost ignorant of letters, but hardy in body and
skilled in the use of weapons.

In 761 he accompanied his father on a campaign in Aquitaine, and in 763
undertook the government of several counties. In 768 Pippin divided his
dominions between his two sons, and on his death soon afterwards Charles
became the ruler of the northern portion of the Frankish kingdom, and
was crowned at Noyon on the 9th of October 768. Bad feeling had existed
for some time between Charles and Carloman, and when Charles early in
769 was called upon to suppress a rising in Aquitaine, his brother
refused to afford him any assistance. This rebellion, however, was
easily crushed, its leader, the Aquitainian duke Hunold, was made
prisoner, and his territory more closely attached to the Frankish
kingdom. About this time Bertha, having effected a temporary
reconciliation between her sons, overcame the repugnance with which Pope
Stephen III. regarded an alliance between Frank and Lombard, and brought
about a marriage between Charles and a daughter of Desiderius, king of
the Lombards. Charles had previously contracted a union, probably of an
irregular nature, with a Frankish lady named Himiltrude, who had borne
him a son Pippin, the "Hunchback." The peace with the Lombards, in which
the Bavarians as allies of Desiderius joined, was, however, soon broken.
Charles thereupon repudiated his Lombard wife (Bertha or Desiderata) and
married in 771 a princess of the Alamanni named Hildegarde. Carloman
died in December 771, and Charles was at once recognized at Corbeny as
sole king of the Franks. Carloman's widow Gerberga had fled to the
protection of the Lombard king, who espoused her cause and requested the
new pope, Adrian I., to recognize her two sons as the lawful Frankish
kings. Adrian, between whom and the Lombards other causes of quarrel
existed, refused to assent to this demand, and when Desiderius invaded
the papal territories he appealed to the Frankish king for help.
Charles, who was at the moment engaged in his first Saxon campaign,
expostulated with Desiderius; but when such mild measures proved useless
he led his forces across the Alps in 773. Gerberga and her children were
delivered up and disappear from history; the siege of Pavia was
undertaken; and at Easter 774 the king left the seat of war and visited
Rome, where he was received with great respect.

During his stay in the city Charles renewed the donation which his
father Pippin had made to the papacy in 754 or 756. This transaction has
given rise to much discussion as to its trustworthiness and the extent
of its operation. Our only authority, a passage in the _Liber
Pontificalis_, describes the gift as including the whole of Italy and
Corsica, except the lands north of the Po, Calabria and the city of
Naples. The vast extent of this donation, which, moreover, included
territories not owning Charles's authority, and the fact that the king
did not execute, or apparently attempt to execute, its provisions, has
caused many scholars to look upon the passage as a forgery; but the
better opinion would appear to be that it is genuine, or at least has a
genuine basis. Various explanations have been suggested. The area of the
grant may have been enlarged by later interpolations; or it may have
dealt with property rather than with sovereignty, and have only referred
to estates claimed by the pope in the territories named; or it is
possible that Charles may have actually intended to establish an
extensive papal kingdom in Italy, but was released from his promise by
Adrian when the pope saw no chance of its fulfilment. Another
supposition is that the author of the _Liber Pontificalis_ gives the
papal interpretation of a grant that had been expressed by Pippin in
ambiguous terms; and this view is supported by the history of the
subsequent controversy between king and pope.

Returning to the scene of hostilities, Charles witnessed the
capitulation of Pavia in June 774, and the capture of Desiderius, who
was sent into a monastery. He now took the title "king of the Lombards,"
to which he added the dignity of "Patrician of the Romans," which had
been granted to his father. Adalgis, the son of Desiderius, who was
residing at Constantinople, hoped the emperor Leo IV. would assist him
in recovering his father's kingdom; but a coalition formed for this
purpose was ineffectual, and a rising led by his ally Rothgaud, duke of
Friuli, was easily crushed by Charles in 776. In 777 the king was
visited at Paderborn by three Saracen chiefs who implored his aid
against Abd-ar-Rahman, the caliph of Cordova, and promised some Spanish
cities in return for help. Seizing this opportunity to extend his
influence Charles marched into Spain in 778 and took Pampeluna, but
meeting with some checks decided to return. As the Frankish forces were
defiling through the passes of the Pyrenees they were attacked by the
Wascones (probably Basques), and the rear-guard of the army was almost
annihilated. It was useless to attempt to avenge this disaster, which
occurred on the 15th of August 778, for the enemy disappeared as quickly
as he came; the incident has passed from the domain of history into that
of legend and romance, being associated by tradition with the pass of
Roncesvalles. Among the slain was one Hruodland, or Roland, margrave of
the Breton march, whose death gave rise to the _Chanson de Roland_ (see
ROLAND, LEGEND OF).

Charles now sought to increase his authority in Italy, where Frankish
counts were set over various districts, and where Hildebrand, duke of
Spoleto, appears to have recognized his overlordship. In 780 he was
again in the peninsula, and at Mantua issued an important _capitulary_
which increased the authority of the Lombard bishops, relieved freemen
who under stress of famine had sold themselves into servitude, and
condemned abuses of the system of vassalage. At the same time commerce
was encouraged by the abolition of unauthorized tolls and by an
improvement of the coinage; while the sale of arms to hostile peoples,
and the trade in Christian slaves were forbidden. Proceeding to Rome,
the king appears to have come to some arrangement with Adrian about the
donation of 774. At Easter 781, Carloman, his second son by Hildegarde,
was renamed Pippin and crowned king of Italy by Pope Adrian, and his
youngest son Louis was crowned king of Aquitaine; but no mention was
made at the time of his eldest son Charles, who was doubtless intended
to be king of the Franks. In 783 the king, having lost his wife
Hildegarde, married Fastrada, the daughter of a Frankish count named
Radolf; and in the same year his mother Bertha died. The emperor
Constantine VI. was at this time exhibiting some interest in Italian
affairs, and Adalgis the Lombard was still residing at his court; so
Charles sought to avert danger from this quarter by consenting in 781 to
a marriage between Constantine and his own daughter Rothrude. In 786 the
entreaties of the pope and the hostile attitude of Arichis II., duke of
Benevento, a son-in-law of Desiderius, called the king again into Italy.
Arichis submitted without a struggle, though the basis of Frankish
authority in his duchy was far from secure; but in conjunction with
Adalgis he sought aid from Constantinople. His plans were ended by his
death in 787, and although the empress Irene, the real ruler of the
eastern empire, broke off the projected marriage between her son and
Rothrude, she appears to have given very little assistance to Adalgis,
whose attack on Italy was easily repulsed. During this visit Charles
had presented certain towns to Adrian, but an estrangement soon arose
between king and pope over the claim of Charles to confirm the election
to the archbishopric of Ravenna, and it was accentuated by Adrian's
objection to the establishment by Charles of Grimoald III. as duke of
Benevento, in succession to his father Arichis.

These journeys and campaigns, however, were but interludes in the long
and stubborn struggle between Charles and the Saxons, which began in 772
and ended in 804 with the incorporation of Saxony in the Carolingian
empire (see SAXONY). This contest, in which the king himself took a very
active part, brought the Franks into collision with the Wiltzi, a tribe
dwelling east of the Elbe, who in 789 was reduced to dependence. A
similar sequence of events took place in southern Germany. Tassilo III.,
duke of the Bavarians, who had on several occasions adopted a line of
conduct inconsistent with his allegiance to Charles, was deposed in 788
and his duchy placed under the rule of Gerold, a brother-in-law of
Charles, to be governed on the Frankish system (see BAVARIA). Having
thus taken upon himself the control of Bavaria, Charles felt himself
responsible for protecting its eastern frontier, which had long been
menaced by the Avars, a people inhabiting the region now known as
Hungary. He accordingly ravaged their country in 791 at the head of an
army containing Saxon, Frisian, Bavarian and Alamannian warriors, which
penetrated as far as the Raab; and he spent the following year in
Bavaria preparing for a second campaign against them, the conduct of
which, however, he was compelled by further trouble in Saxony to entrust
to his son king Pippin, and to Eric, margrave of Friuli. These deputies
succeeded in 795 and 796 in taking possession of the vast treasures of
the Avars, which were distributed by the king with lavish generosity to
churches, courtiers and friends. A conspiracy against Charles, which his
friend and biographer Einhard alleges was provoked by the cruelties of
Queen Fastrada, was suppressed without difficulty in 792, and its
leader, the king's illegitimate son Pippin, was confined in a monastery
till his death in 811. Fastrada died in August 794, when Charles took
for his fourth wife an Alamannian lady named Liutgarde.

The continuous interest taken by the king in ecclesiastical affairs was
shown at the synod of Frankfort, over which he presided in 794. It was
on his initiative that this synod condemned the heresy of _adoptianism_
and the worship of images, which had been restored in 787 by the second
council of Nicaea; and at the same time that council was declared to
have been superfluous. This policy caused a further breach with Pope
Adrian; but when Adrian died in December 795, his successor, Leo III.,
in notifying his elevation to the king, sent him the keys of St Peter's
grave and the banner of the city, and asked Charles to send an envoy to
receive his oath of fidelity. There is no doubt that Leo recognized
Charles as sovereign of Rome. He was the first pope to date his acts
according to the years of the Frankish monarchy, and a mosaic of the
time in the Lateran palace represents St Peter bestowing the banners
upon Charles as a token of temporal supremacy, while the coinage issued
by the pope bears witness to the same idea. Leo soon had occasion to
invoke the aid of his protector. In 799, after he had been attacked and
maltreated in the streets of Rome during a procession, he escaped to the
king at Paderborn, and Charles sent him back to Italy escorted by some
of his most trusted servants. Taking the same journey himself shortly
afterwards, the king reached Rome in 800 for the purpose (as he
declared) of restoring discipline in the church. His authority was
undisputed; and after Leo had cleared himself by an oath of certain
charges made against him, Charles restored the pope and banished his
leading opponents.

The great event of this visit took place on the succeeding Christmas
Day, when Charles on rising from prayer in St Peter's was crowned by Leo
and proclaimed emperor and _augustus_ amid the acclamations of the
crowd. This act can hardly have been unpremeditated, and some doubt has
been cast upon the statement which Einhard attributes to Charles, that
he would not have entered the building had he known of the intention of
Leo. He accepted the dignity at any rate without demur, and there seems
little doubt that the question of assuming, or obtaining, this title had
previously been discussed. His policy had been steadily leading up to
this position, which was rather the emblem of the power he already held
than an extension of the area of his authority. It is probable therefore
that Charles either considered the coronation premature, as he was
hoping to obtain the assent of the eastern empire to this step, or that,
from fear of evils which he foresaw from the claim of the pope to crown
the emperor, he wished to crown himself. All the evidence tends to show
that it was the time or manner of the act rather than the act itself
which aroused his temporary displeasure. Contemporary accounts lay
stress upon the fact that as there was then no emperor, Constantinople
being under the rule of Irene, it seemed good to Leo and his counsellors
and the "rest of the Christian people" to choose Charles, already ruler
of Rome, to fill the vacant office. However doubtful such conjectures
concerning his intentions may be, it is certain that immediately after
his coronation Charles sought to establish friendly relations with
Constantinople, and even suggested a marriage between himself and Irene,
as he had again become a widower in 800. The deposition and death of the
empress foiled this plan; and after a desultory warfare in Italy between
the two empires, negotiations were recommenced which in 810 led to an
arrangement between Charles and the eastern emperor, Nicephorus I. The
death of Nicephorus and the accession of Michael I. did not interfere
with the relations, and in 812 an embassy from Constantinople arrived at
Aix-la-Chapelle, when Charles was acknowledged as emperor, and in return
agreed to cede Venice and Dalmatia to Michael.

Increasing years and accumulating responsibilities now caused the
emperor to alter somewhat his manner of life. No longer leading his
armies in person he entrusted the direction of campaigns in various
parts of his empire to his sons and other lieutenants, and from his
favourite residence at Aix watched their progress with a keen and
sustained interest. In 802 he ordered that a new oath of fidelity to him
as emperor should be taken by all his subjects over twelve years of age.
In 804 he was visited by Pope Leo, who returned to Rome laden with
gifts. Before his coronation as emperor, Charles had entered into
communications with the caliph of Bagdad, Harun-al-Rashid, probably in
order to protect the eastern Christians, and in 801 he had received an
embassy and presents from Harun. In the same year the patriarch of
Jerusalem sent him the keys of the Holy Sepulchre; and in 807 Harun not
only sent further gifts, but appears to have confirmed the emperor's
rights in Jerusalem, which, however, probably amounted to no more than
an undefined protectorate over the Christians in that part of the world.
While thus extending his influence even into Asia, there was scarcely
any part of Europe where the power of Charles did not make itself felt.
He had not visited Spain since the disaster of Roncesvalles, but he
continued to take a lively interest in the affairs of that country. In
798 he had concluded an alliance with Alphonso II., king of the
Asturias, and a series of campaigns mainly under the leadership of King
Louis resulted in the establishment of the "Spanish march," a district
between the Pyrenees and the Ebro stretching from Pampeluna to
Barcelona, as a defence against the Saracens. In 799 the Balearic
Islands had been handed over to Charles, and a long warfare was carried
on both by sea and land between Frank and Saracen until 810, when peace
was made between the emperor and El-Hakem, the emir of Cordova. Italy
was equally the scene of continuous fighting. Grimoald of Benevento
rebelled against his overlord; the possession of Venice and Dalmatia was
disputed by the two empires; and Istria was brought into subjection.

With England the emperor had already entered into relations, and at one
time a marriage was proposed between his son Charles and a daughter of
Offa, king of the Mercians. English exiles were welcomed at his court;
he was mainly instrumental in restoring Eardwulf to the throne of
Northumbria in 809; and Einhard includes the Scots within the sphere of
his influence. In eastern Europe the Avars had owned themselves
completely under his power in 805; campaigns against the Czechs in 805
and 806 had met with some success, and about the same time the land of
the Sorbs was ravaged; while at the western extremity of the continent
the Breton nobles had done homage to Charles at Tours in 800. Thus the
emperor's dominions now stretched from the Eider to the Ebro, and from
the Atlantic to the Elbe, the Saale and the Raab, and they also included
the greater part of Italy; while even beyond these bounds he exercised
an acknowledged but shadowy authority. In 806 Charles arranged a
division of his territories among his three legitimate sons, but this
arrangement came to nothing owing to the death of Pippin in 810, and of
the younger Charles in the following year. Charles then named his
remaining son Louis as his successor; and at his father's command Louis
took the crown from the altar and placed it upon his own head. This
ceremony took place at Aix on the 11th of September 813. In 808 the
Frankish authority over the Obotrites was interfered with by Gudrod
(Godfrey), king of the Danes, who ravaged the Frisian coasts and spoke
boastfully of leading his troops to Aix. To ward off these attacks
Charles took a warm interest in the building of a fleet, which he
reviewed in 811; but by this time Gudrod had been killed, and his
successor Hemming made peace with the emperor.

In 811 Charles made his will, which shows that he contemplated the
possibility of abdication. The bulk of his possessions were left to the
twenty-one metropolitan churches of his dominions, and the remainder to
his children, his servants and the poor. In his last years he passed
most of his days at Aix, though he had sufficient energy to take the
field for a short time during the Danish War. Early in 814 he was
attacked by a fever which he sought to subdue by fasting; but pleurisy
supervened, and after partaking of the communion, he died on the 28th of
January 814, and on the same day his body was buried in the church of St
Mary at Aix. In the year 1000 his tomb was opened by the emperor Otto
III., but the account that Otto found the body upright upon a throne
with a golden crown on the head and holding a golden sceptre in the
hands, is generally regarded as legendary. The tomb was again opened by
the emperor Frederick I. in 1165, when the remains were removed from a
marble sarcophagus and placed in a wooden coffin. Fifty years later they
were transferred by order of the emperor Frederick II. to a splendid
shrine, in which the relics are still exhibited once in every six years.
The sarcophagus in which the body originally lay may still be seen at
Aix, and other relics of the great emperor are in the imperial treasury
at Vienna. In 1165 Charles was canonized by the antipope Paschal III. at
the instance of the emperor Frederick I., and Louis XI. of France gave
strict orders that the feast of the saint should be observed.

The personal appearance of Charles is thus described by Einhard:--"Big
and robust in frame, he was tall, but not excessively so, measuring
about seven of his own feet in height. His eyes were large and lustrous,
his nose rather long and his countenance bright and cheerful." He had a
commanding presence, a clear but somewhat feeble voice, and in later
life became rather corpulent. His health was uniformly good, owing
perhaps to his moderation in eating and drinking, and to his love for
hunting and swimming. He was an affectionate father, and loved to pass
his time in the company of his children, to whose education he paid the
closest attention. His sons were trained for war and the chase, and his
daughters instructed in the spinning of wool and other feminine arts.
His ideas of sexual morality were primitive. Many concubines are spoken
of, he had several illegitimate children, and the morals of his
daughters were very loose. He was a regular observer of religious rites,
took great pains to secure decorum in the services of the church, and
was generous in almsgiving both within his empire and without. He
reformed the Frankish liturgy, and brought singers from Rome to improve
the services of the church. He had considerable knowledge of theology,
took a prominent part in the theological controversies of the time, and
was responsible for the addition of the clause _filioque_ to the Nicene
Creed. The most attractive feature of his character, however, was his
love of learning. In addition to his native tongue he could read Latin
and understood Greek, but he was unable to write, and Einhard gives an
account of his futile efforts to learn this art in later life. He loved
the reading of histories and astronomy, and by questioning travellers
gained some knowledge of distant parts of the earth. He attended
lectures on grammar, and his favourite work was St Augustine's _De
civitate Dei_. He caused Frankish sagas to be collected, began a grammar
of his native tongue, and spent some of his last hours in correcting a
text of the Vulgate. He delighted in the society of scholars--Alcuin,
Angilbert, Paul the Lombard, Peter of Pisa and others, and in this
company the trappings of rank were laid aside and the emperor was known
simply as David. Under his patronage Alcuin organized the school of the
palace, where the royal children were taught in the company of others,
and founded a school at Tours which became the model for many other
establishments. Charles was unwearying in his efforts to improve the
education of clergy and laity, and in 789 ordered that schools should be
established in every diocese. The atmosphere of these schools was
strictly ecclesiastical and the questions discussed by the scholars were
often puerile, but the greatness of the educational work of Charles will
not be doubted when one considers the rude condition of Frankish society
half a century before. The main work of the Carolingian renaissance was
to restore Latin to its position as a literary language, and to
reintroduce a correct system of spelling and an improved handwriting.
The manuscripts of the time are accurate and artistic, copies of
valuable books were made and by careful collation the texts were
purified.

Charles was not a great warrior. His victories were won rather by the
power of organization, which he possessed in a marked degree, and he was
eager to seize ideas and prompt in their execution. He erected a stone
bridge with wooden piers across the Rhine at Mainz, and began a canal
between the Altmühl and the Rednitz to connect the Rhine and the Danube,
but this work was not finished. He built palaces at Aix (his favourite
residence), Nijmwegen and Ingelheim, and erected the church of St Mary
at Aix, modelled on that of St Vitalis at Ravenna and adorned with
columns and mosaics brought from the same city. He loved the simple
dress and manners of the Franks, and on two occasions only did he assume
the more stately attire of a Roman noble. The administrative system of
Charles in church and state was largely personal, and he brought to the
work an untiring industry, and a marvellous grasp of detail. He
admonished the pope, appointed the bishops, watched over the morals and
work of the clergy, and took an active part in the deliberations of
church synods; he founded bishoprics and monasteries, was lavish in his
gifts to ecclesiastical foundations, and chose bishops and abbots for
administrative work. As the real founder of the ecclesiastical state, he
must be held mainly responsible for the evils which resulted from the
policy of the church in exalting the ecclesiastical over the secular
authority.

In secular affairs Charles abolished the office of duke, placed counts
over districts smaller than the former duchies, and supervised their
government by means of _missi dominici_, officials responsible to
himself alone. Marches were formed on all the borders of the empire, and
the exigencies of military service led to the growth of a system of
land-tenure which contained the germ of feudalism. The assemblies of the
people gradually changed their character under his rule. No longer did
the nation come together to direct and govern, but the emperor summoned
his people to assent to his acts. Taking a lively interest in commerce
and agriculture, Charles issued various regulations for the organization
of the one and the improvement of the other. He introduced a new system
of weights and measures, which he ordered should be used throughout his
kingdom, and took steps to reform the coinage. He was a voluminous
lawgiver. Without abolishing the customary law of the German tribes,
which is said to have been committed to writing by his orders, he added
to it by means of _capitularies_, and thus introduced certain Christian
principles and customs, and some degree of uniformity.

The extent and glamour of his empire exercised a potent spell on western
Europe. The aim of the greatest of his successors was to restore it to
its pristine position and influence, while many of the French rulers
made its re-establishment the goal of their policy. Otto the Great to a
considerable extent succeeded; Louis XIV. referred frequently to the
empire of Charlemagne; and Napoleon regarded him as his prototype and
predecessor. The empire of Charles, however, was not lasting. In spite
of his own wonderful genius the seeds of weakness were sown in his
lifetime. The church was too powerful, an incipient feudalism was
present, and there was no real bond of union between the different races
that acknowledged his authority. All the vigilance of the emperor could
not restrain the dishonesty and the cupidity of his servants, and no
sooner was the strong hand of their ruler removed than they began to
acquire territorial power for themselves.

AUTHORITIES.--The chief authorities for the life and times of
Charlemagne are Einhard's _Vita Karoli Magni_, the _Annales
Laurissenses majores_, the _Annales Fuldenses_, and other annals,
which are published in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica_.
_Scriptores_, Band i. and ii., edited by G.H. Pertz (Hanover and
Berlin, 1826-1892). For the capitularies see _Capitularia regum
Francorum_, edited by A. Boretius in the _Monumenta. Leges_. Many of
the songs of the period appear in the _Poetae Latini aevi Carolini_,
edited by E. Dümmler (Berlin, 1881-1884). The _Bibliotheca rerum
Germanicarum_, tome iv., edited by Ph. Jaffé (Berlin, 1864-1873),
contains some of the emperor's correspondence, and Hincmar's _De
ordine palatii_, edited by M. Prou (Paris, 1884), is also valuable.

The best modern authorities are S. Abel and B. Simson, _Jahrbücher des
fränkischen Reiches unter Karl dem Grossen_ (Leipzig, 1883-1888); G.
Richter and H. Kohl, _Annalen des fränkischen Reichs im Zeitalter der
Karolinger_ (Halle, 1885-1887); E. Mühlbacher, _Deutsche Geschichte
unter den Karolingern_ (Stuttgart, 1886); H. Brosien, _Karl der
Grosse_ (Leipzig and Prague, 1885); J.I. Mombert, _History of Charles
the Great_ (London, 1888); M. Lipp, _Das fränkische Grenzsystem unter
Karl dem Grossen_ (Breslau, 1892); J. von Döllinger, _Das Kaiserthum
Karls des Grossen und seiner Nachfolger_ (Munich, 1864); F. von Wyss,
_Karl der Grosse als Gesetzgeber_ (Zürich, 1869); Th. Sickel, _Lehre
von den Urkunden der ersten Karolinger_ (Vienna, 1867); E. Dümmler in
the _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, Band xv.; Th. Lindner, _Die
Fabel von der Bestattung Karls des Grossen_ (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1893);
J.A. Ketterer, _Karl der Grosse und die Kirche_ (Munich and Leipzig,
1898); and J.B. Mullinger, _The Schools of Charles the Great and the
Restoration of Education in the 9th century_ (London, 1877).

The work of the monk of St Gall is found in the _Monumenta_, Band ii.;
an edition of the _Historia de vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi_, edited
by F. Castets, has been published (Paris, 1880), and an edition of the
_Kaiserchronik_, edited by E. Schröder (Hanover, 1892). See also P.
Clemen, _Die Porträtdarstellung Karls des Grossen_ (Aix-la-Chapelle,
1896). (A. W. H.*)

THE CHARLEMAGNE LEGENDS

Innumerable legends soon gathered round the memory of the great emperor.
He was represented as a warrior performing superhuman feats, as a ruler
dispensing perfect justice, and even as a martyr suffering for the
faith. It was confidently believed towards the close of the 10th century
that he had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and, like many other great
rulers, it was reported that he was only sleeping to awake in the hour
of his country's need. We know from Einhard (_Vita Karoli_, cap. xxix.)
that the Frankish heroic ballads were drawn up in writing by
Charlemagne's order, and it may be accepted as certain that he was
himself the subject of many such during his lifetime. The legendary
element crept even into the Latin panegyrics produced by the court
poets. Before the end of the 9th century a monk of St Gall drew up a
chronicle _De gestis Karoli Magni_, which was based partly on oral
tradition, received from an old soldier named Adalbert, who had served
in Charlemagne's army. This recital contains various fabulous incidents.
The author relates a conversation between Otkar the Frank (Ogier the
Dane) and the Lombard king Desiderius (Didier) on the walls of Pavia in
view of Charlemagne's advancing army. To Didier's repeated question "Is
this the emperor?" Otkar continues to answer "Not yet," adding at last
"When thou shalt see the fields bristling with an iron harvest, and the
Po and the Ticino swollen with sea-floods, inundating the walls of the
city with iron billows, then shall Karl be nigh at hand." This episode,
which bears the marks of popular heroic poetry, may well be the
substance of a lost Carolingian _cantilena_.[1]

The legendary Charlemagne and his warriors were endowed with the great
deeds of earlier kings and heroes of the Frankish kingdom, for the
romancers were not troubled by considerations of chronology. National
traditions extending over centuries were grouped round Charlemagne, his
father Pippin, and his son Louis. The history of Charles Martel
especially was absorbed in the Charlemagne legend. But if Charles's name
was associated with the heroism of his predecessors he was credited with
equal readiness with the weaknesses of his successors. In the earlier
_chansons de geste_ he is invariably a majestic figure and represents
within limitations the grandeur of the historic Charles. But in the
histories of the wars with his vassals he is often little more than a
tyrannical dotard, who is made to submit to gross insult. This picture
of affairs is drawn from later times, and the sympathies of the poet are
generally with the rebels against the monarchy. Historical tradition was
already dim when the hypothetical and much discussed _cantilenae_, which
may be taken to have formed the repository of the national legends from
the 8th to the 10th century, were succeeded in the 11th and the early
l2th centuries by the _chansons de geste_. The early poems of the cycle
sometimes contain curious information on the Frankish methods in war, in
council and in judicial procedure, which had no parallels in
contemporary institutions. The account in the _Chanson de Roland_ of the
trial of Ganelon after the battle of Roncesvalles must have been adopted
almost intact from earlier poets, and provides a striking example of the
value of the _chansons de geste_ to the historian of manners and
customs. In general, however, the trouvère depicted the feeling and
manners of his own time.

Charlemagne's wars in Italy, Spain and Saxony formed part of the common
epic material, and there are references to his wars against the Slavs;
but especially he remained in the popular mind as the great champion of
Christianity against the creed of Mahomet, and even his Norman and Saxon
enemies became Saracens in current legend. He is the Christian emperor
directly inspired by angels; his sword Joyeuse contained the point of
the lance used in the Passion; his standard was Romaine, the banner of
St Peter, which, as the oriflamme of Saint Denis, was later to be borne
in battle before the kings of France; and in 1164 Charles was canonized
at the desire of the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa by the anti-pope
Pascal III. This gave him no real claim to saintship, but his festival
was observed in some places until comparatively recent times.
Charlemagne was endowed with the good and bad qualities of the epic
king, and as in the case of Agamemnon and Arthur, his exploits paled
beside those of his chief warriors. These were not originally known as
the twelve peers[2] famous in later Carolingian romance. The twelve
peers were in the first instance the companions in arms of Roland in the
Teutonic sense.[3] The idea of the paladins forming an association
corresponding to the Arthurian Round Table first appears in the romance
of _Fierabras_. The lists of them are very various, but all include the
names of Roland and Oliver. The chief heroes who fought Charlemagne's
battles were Roland; Ganelon, afterwards the traitor; Turpin, the
fighting archbishop of Reims; Duke Naimes of Bavaria, the wise
counsellor who is always on the side of justice; Ogier the Dane, the
hero of a whole series of romances; and Guillaume of Toulouse, the
defender of Narbonne. Gradually most of the _chansons de geste_ were
attached to the name of Charlemagne, whose poetical history falls into
three cycles:--the _geste du roi_, relating his wars and the personal
history of himself and his family; the southern cycle, of which
Guillaume de Toulouse is the central figure; and the feudal epic,
dealing with the revolts of the barons against the emperor, the rebels
being invariably connected by the trouverès with the family of Doon de
Mayence (q.v.).

The earliest poems of the cycle are naturally the closest to historical
truth. The central point of the _geste du roi_ is the 11th-century
_Chanson de Roland_ (see ROLAND, LEGEND OF), one of the greatest of
medieval poems. Strangely enough the defeat of Roncesvalles, which so
deeply impressed the popular mind, has not a corresponding importance in
real history. But it chanced to find as its exponent a poet whose genius
established a model for his successors, and definitely fixed the type of
later heroic poems. The other early _chansons_ to which reference is
made in _Roland--Aspremont, Enfances Ogier, Guiteclin, Balan_, relating
to Charlemagne's wars in Italy and Saxony--are not preserved in their
original form, and only the first in an early recension. _Basin_ or
_Carl el Élégast_ (preserved in Dutch and Icelandic), the _Voyage de
Charlemagne à Jerusalem_ and _Le Couronnement Looys_ also belong to the
heroic period. The purely fictitious and romantic tales added to the
personal history of Charlemagne and his warriors in the 13th century are
inferior in manner, and belong to the decadence of romance. The old
tales, very much distorted in the 15th-century prose versions, were to
undergo still further degradation in 18th-century compilations.

According to _Berte aus grans piés_, in the 13th-century _remaniement_
of the Brabantine trouvère Adenès li Rois, Charlemagne was the son of
Pippin and of Berte, the daughter of Flore and Blanchefleur, king and
queen of Hungary. The tale bears marks of high antiquity, and presents
one of the few incidents in the French cycle which may be referred to a
mythic origin. On the night of Berte's marriage a slave, Margiste, is
substituted for her, and reigns in her place for nine years, at the
expiration of which Blanchefleur exposes the deception; whereupon Berte
is restored from her refuge in the forest to her rightful place as
queen. _Mainet_ (12th century) and the kindred poems in German and
Italian are perhaps based on the adventures of Charles Martel, who after
his father's death had to flee to the Ardennes. They relate that, after
the death of his parents, Charles was driven by the machinations of the
two sons of Margiste to take refuge in Spain, where he accomplished his
_enfances_ (youthful exploits) with the Mussulman king Galafre under the
feigned name of Mainet. He delivered Rome from the besieging Saracens,
and returned to France in triumph. But his wife Galienne, daughter of
Galafre, whom he had converted to the Christian faith, died on her way
to rejoin him. Charlemagne then made an expedition to Italy (_Enfances
Ogier_ in the Venetian _Charlemagne_, and the first part of the
_Chevalerie Ogier de Dannemarche_ by Raimbert of Paris, 12th century) to
raise the siege of Rome, which was besieged by the Saracen emir
Corsuble. He crossed the Alps under the guidance of a white hart,
miraculously sent to assist the passage of the army. _Aspremont_ (12th
century) describes a fictitious campaign against the Saracen King
Agolant in Calabria, and is chiefly devoted to the _enfances_ of Roland.
The wars of Charlemagne with his vassals are described in _Girart de
Roussillon, Renaus de Montauban_, recounting the deeds of the four sons
of Aymon, _Huon de Bordeaux_, and in the latter part of the _Chevalerie
Ogier_, which belong properly to the cycle connected with Doon of
Mayence.

The account of the pilgrimage of Charlemagne and his twelve paladins to
the Holy Sepulchre must in its first form have been earlier than the
Crusades, as the patriarch asks the emperor to free Spain, not the Holy
Land, from the Saracens. The legend probably originated in a desire to
authenticate the relics in the abbey of Saint Denis, supposed to have
been brought to Aix by Charlemagne, and is preserved in a 12th-century
romance, _Le Voyage de Charlemagne à Jerusalem et à Constantinople_.[4]
This journey forms the subject of a window in the cathedral of Chartres,
and there was originally a similar one at Saint-Denis. On the way home
Charles and his paladins visited the emperor Hugon at Constantinople,
where they indulged in a series of _gabs_ which they were made to carry
out. _Galien_, a favourite 15th-century romance, was attached to this
episode, for Galien was the son of the amours of Oliver with Jacqueline,
Hugon's daughter. The traditions of Charlemagne's fights with the
Norsemen (Norois, Noreins) are preserved in _Aiquin_ (12th century),
which describes the emperor's reconquest of Armorica from the "Saracen"
king Aiquin, and a disaster at Cézembre as terrible in its way as those
of Roncesvalles and Aliscans. _La destruction de Rome_ is a 13th-century
version of the older _chanson_ of the emir Balan, who collected an army
in Spain and sailed to Rome. The defenders were overpowered and the city
destroyed before the advent of Charlemagne, who, however, avenged the
disaster by a great battle in Spain. The romance of _Fierabras_ (13th
century) was one of the most popular in the 15th century, and by later
additions came to have pretensions to be a complete history of
Charlemagne. The first part represents an episode in Spain three years
before Roncesvalles, in which Oliver defeats the Saracen giant Fierabras
in single combat, and converts him. The hero of the second part is Gui
de Bourgogne, who recovers the relics of the Passion, lost in the siege
of Rome. _Otinel_ (13th century) is also pure fiction. _L'Entrée en
Espagne_, preserved in a 14th-century Italian compilation, relates the
beginning of the Spanish War, the siege of Pampeluna, and the legendary
combat of Roland with Ferragus. Charlemagne's march on Saragossa, and
the capture of Huesca, Barcelona and Girone, gave rise to _La Prise de
Pampelune_ (14th century, based on a lost _chanson_); and _Gui de
Bourgogne_ (12th century) tells how the children of the barons, after
appointing Guy as king of France, set out to find and rescue their
fathers, who are represented as having been fighting in Spain for
twenty-seven years. The _Chanson de Roland_ relates the historic defeat
of Roncesvalles on the 15th of August 778, and forms the very crown of
the whole Carolingian legend. The two 13th-century romances, _Gaidon_,
by Herbert Leduc de Dammartin, and _Anséis de Carthage_, contain a
purely fictitious account of the end of the war in Spain, and of the
establishment of a Frankish kingdom under the rule of Anséis.
Charlemagne was recalled from Spain by the news of the outbreak of the
Saxons. The contest between Charlemagne and Widukind (_Guiteclin_)
offered abundant epic material. Unfortunately the original _Guiteclin_
is lost, but the legend is preserved in _Les Saisnes_ (c. 1300) of Jehan
Bodel, which is largely occupied by the loves of Baudouin and Sibille,
the wife of Guiteclin. The adventures of Blanchefleur, wife of
Charlemagne, form a variation of the common tale of the innocent wife
falsely accused, and are told in _Macaire_ and in the extant fragments
of _La Reine Sibille_ (14th century). After the conquest of the Saracens
and the Saxons, the defeat of the Northmen, and the suppression of the
feudal revolts, the emperor abdicated in favour of his son Louis (_Le
Couronnement Looys_, 12th century). Charles's harangue to his son is in
the best tradition of epic romance. The memory of Roncesvalles haunts
him on his death-bed, and at the moment of death he has a vision of
Roland.

The mythic element is practically lacking in the French legends, but in
Germany some part of the Odin myth was associated with Charles's name.
The constellation of the Great Bear, generally associated with Odin, is
Karlswagen in German, and Charles's Wain in English. According to
tradition in Hesse, he awaits resurrection, probably symbolic of the
triumph of the sun over winter, within the Gudensberg (Hill of Odin).
Bavarian tradition asserts that he is seated in the Untersberg in a
chair, as in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle. His white beard goes on
growing, and when it has thrice encircled the stone table before him the
end of the world will come; or, according to another version, Charles
will arise and after fighting a great battle on the plain of Wals will
reign over a new Germany. There were medieval chroniclers who did not
fear to assert that Charles rose from the dead to take part in the
Crusades. In the MS. _Annales S. Stephani Frisingenses_ (15th century),
which formerly belonged to the abbey of Weihenstephan, and is now at
Munich, the childhood of Charlemagne is practically the same as that of
many mythic heroes. This work, generally known as the chronicle of
Weihenstephan, gives among other legends a curious history of the
emperor's passion for a dead woman, caused by a charm given to Charles
by a serpent to whom he had rendered justice. The charm was finally
dropped into a well at Aix, which thenceforward became Charles's
favourite residence. The story of Roland's birth from the union of
Charles with his sister Gilles, also found in German and Scandinavian
versions, has abundant parallels in mythology, and was probably
transferred from mythology to Charlemagne.

The Latin chronicle, wrongly ascribed to Turpin (Tilpinus), bishop of
Reims from 753 to 800, was in reality later than the earlier poems of
the French cycle, and the first properly authenticated mention of it is
in 1165. Its primary object was to authenticate the relics of St James
at Compostella. Alberic Trium Fontium, a monk of the Cistercian
monastery of Trois Fontanes in the diocese of Châlons, embodied much
poetical fiction in his chronicle (c. 1249). A large section of the
_Chronique rimée_ (c. 1243) of Philippe Mousket is devoted to
Charlemagne's exploits. At the beginning of the 14th century Girard of
Amiens made a dull compilation known as _Charlemagne_ from the _chansons
de gests_, authentic history and the pseudo-Turpin. _La Conqueste que
fit le grand roi Charlemaigne es Espaignes_ (pr. 1486) is the same work
as the prose compilation of _Fierabras_ (pr. 1478), and Caxton's _Lyf of
Charles the Grete_ (1485).

The Charlemagne legend was fully developed in Italy, where it was to
have later a great poetic development at the hands of Boiardo, Ariosto
and Tasso. There are two important Italian compilations, MS. XIII. of
the library of St Mark, Venice (c. 1200), and the _Reali di Francia_ (c.
1400) of a Florentine writer, Andrea da Barberino (b. 1370), edited by
G. Vandelli (Bologna, 1892). The six books of this work are rivalled in
importance by the ten branches of the Norse _Karlamagnus saga_, written
under the reign of Haakon V. This forms a consecutive legendary history
of Charles, and is apparently based on earlier versions of the French
Charlemagne poems than those which we possess. It thus furnishes a guide
to the older forms of stories, and moreover preserves the substance of
others which have not survived in their French form. A popular
abridgment, the _Keiser Karl Magnus Krönike_ (pr. Malmõ, 1534), drawn up
in Danish, serves in some cases to complete the earlier work. The 2000
lines of the German _Kaiserchronik_ on the history of Charlemagne belong
to the first half of the 12th century, and were perhaps the work of
Conrad, the poet of the _Ruolantes Liet_. The German poet known as the
Stricker used the same sources as the author of the chronicle of
Weihenstephan for his _Karl_ (c. 1230). The earliest important Spanish
version was the _Chronica Hispaniae_ (c. 1284) of Rodrigo de Toledo.

The French and Norman-French chansons circulated as freely in England as
in France, and it was therefore not until the period of decadence that
English versions were made. The English metrical romances of Charlemagne
are:--_Rowlandes Song_ (15th century); _The Taill of Rauf Coilyear_ (c.
1475, pr. by R. Lekpreuik, St Andrews, 1472), apparently original; _Sir
Ferumbras_ (c. 1380) and the _Sowdone of Babylone_ (c. 1400) from an
early version of _Fierabras_; a fragmentary _Roland and Vernagu_
(Ferragus); two versions of _Otuel_ (Otinel); and a _Sege of Melayne_
(c. 1390), forming a prologue to Otinel unknown in French.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The most important works on the Charlemagne cycle of
romance are:--G. Paris, _Hist. poétique de Charlemagne_ (Paris, 1865;
reprint, with additional notes by Paris and P. Meyer, 1905); L.
Gautier, _Les Épopées françaises_ (Paris, 4 vols. new ed., 1878, 1892,
1880, 1882) and the supplementary _Bibliographie des chansons de
geste_ (1897). The third volume of the _Épopées françaises_ contains
an analysis and full particulars of the _chansons de geste_
immediately connected with the history of Charlemagne. See also G.
Rauschen, _Die Legende Karls des Grossen im 11ten und 12ten
Jahrhundert_ (Leipzig, 1890); Kristoffer Nyrop, _Den oldfranske
Heldedigtning_ (Copenhagen, 1883; Ital. trans. Turin, 1886); Pio
Rajna, _Le Origini dell' epopea francese_ (Florence, 1884); G.T.
Graesse, "Die grossen Sagenkreise des Mittelalters," in his
_Litterärgeschichte_ (Dresden, 1842); _Histoire littéraire de la
France_ (vol. xxii., 1852); H.L. Ward, _Catalogue of Romances in the
Dept. of MSS. in the British Museum_ (1883), vol. i. pp. 546-689; E.
Muntz, _La Légende de Charlemagne dans l'art du moyen âge_ (Paris,
1885); and for the German legend, vol. iii. of H.F. Massmann's edition
of the _Kaiserchronik_ (Quedlinburg, 1849-1854). _The English
Charlemagne Romances_ were edited (extra series) for the Early Eng.
Text Soc. by Sidney J. Herrtage, Emil Hausknecht, Octavia Richardson
and Sidney Lee (1879-1881), the romance of _Duke Huon of Bordeaux_
containing a general account of the cycle by Sidney Lee; the
_Karlamagnussaga_, by C.R. Unger (Christiania, 1860), see also G.
Paris in _Bibl. de l'École des Charles_ (1864-1865). For individual
_chansons_ see _Anséis de Carthage_, ed. J. Alton (Tubingen, 1892);
_Aiquin_, ed. F. Jouon des Longrais (Nantes, 1880); _Aspremont_, ed.
F. Guessard and L. Gautier (Paris, 1885); _Basin_, or _Charles et
Élégast_ or _Le Couronnement de Charles_, preserved only in foreign
versions (see Paris, _Hist. Poét._ pp. 315, seq.); _Berta de li gran
pié_, ed. A. Mussafia, in _Romania_ (vols. iii. and iv., 1874-1875);
_Berte aus grans piés_, ed. A. Scheler (Brussels, 1874);
_Charlemagne_, by Girard d'Amiens, detailed analysis in Paris, _Hist.
Poét._ (Appendix iv.); _Couronnement Looys_, ed. E. Langlois (Le Puy,
1888); _Désier_ (Desiderius or Didier), lost songs of the wars of
Lombardy, some fragments of which are preserved in _Ogier le Danois;
Destruction de Rome_, ed. G. Gröber in _Romania_(1873); A. Thomas,
_Nouvelles recherches sur "l'entrée de Spagne_," in _Bibl. des écoles
françaises de Rome_ (Paris, 1882); _Fierabras_, ed. A. Kröber and G.
Servois (Paris, 1860) in _Anciens poètes de la France_, and Provençal
text, ed. I. Bekker (Berlin, 1829); _Galien_, ed. E. Stengel and K.
Pfeil (Marburg, 1890); _Gaydon_, ed. F. Guessard and S. Luce (_Anciens
poètes_ ... 1862); _Gui de Bourgogne_, ed. F. Guessard and H.
Michelant (same series, 1859); _Mainet_ (fragments only extant), ed.
G. Paris, in _Romania_ (1875); _Otinel_, ed Guessard and Michelant
_(Anciens poètes_, 1859), and _Sir Otuel_, ed. S.J. Herrtage
(_E.E.T.S._, 1880); _Prise de Pampelune_ (ed. A. Mussafia, Vienna,
1864); for the Carolingian romances relating to Roland, see ROLAND;
_Les Saisnes_, ed. F. Michel (1839); _The Sege of Melaine_,
introductory to Otinel, preserved in English only (ed. _E.E.T.S._,
1880); _Simon de Pouille_, analysis in _Épop. fr._ (iii. pp. 346 sq.);
_Voyage de C. à Jerusalem_, ed. E. Koschwitz (Heilbronn, 1879). For
the chronicle of the Pseudo-Turpin, see an edition by Castets (Paris,
1881) for the "Société des langues romanes," and the dissertation by
G. Paris, _De Pseudo-Turpino_ (Paris, 1865). The Spanish versions of
Carolingian legends are studied by Milà y Fontanals in _De la poesia
heroico-popular castellana_ (Barcelona, 1874). (M. Br.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A remnant of the popular poetry contemporary with Charlemagne and
written in the vernacular has been thought to be discernible under
its Latin translation in the description of a siege during
Charlemagne's war against the Saracens, known as the "Fragment from
the Hague" (Pertz, _Script._ iii. pp. 708-710).

[2] The words _douze pairs_ were anglicized in a variety of forms
ranging from douzepers to dosepers. The word even occurred as a
singular in the metrical romance of _Octavian_:--"Ferst they sent out
a doseper." At the beginning of the 13th century there existed a
_cour des pairs_ which exercised judicial functions and dated
possibly from the 11th century, but their prerogatives at the
beginning of the 14th century appear to have been mainly ceremonial
and decorative. In 1257 the twelve peers were the chiefs of the great
feudal provinces, the dukes of Normandy, Burgundy and Aquitaine, the
counts of Toulouse, Champagne and Flanders, and six spiritual peers,
the archbishop of Reims, the bishops of Laon, Châlons-sur-Marne,
Beauvais, Langres and Noyon. (See Du Cange, _Glossarium_, s.v.
"Par.").

[3] See J. Flach, _Le Compagnonnage dans les chansons de geste_
(Paris, 1891).

[4] For clerical accounts of Charles's voyage to the Holy Land see
the _Chronicon_ (c. 968) of Benedict, a monk of St André, and
_Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini ...
detulerit_, by an 11th-century writer.

CHARLEMAGNE, JEAN ARMAND (1753-1838), French dramatic author, was born
at Bourget (Seine) on the 30th of November 1753. Originally intended for
the church, he turned first to being a lawyer's clerk and then a
soldier. He served in the American War of Independence, and on returning
to France (1783) began to employ his pen on economic subjects, and later
in writing for the stage. He became the author of a large number of
plays, poems and romances, among which may be mentioned the comedies _M.
de Crac à Paris_ (1793), _Le Souper des Jacobins_ (1795)and _L'Agioteur_
(1796) and _Observations de quelques patriotes sur la nécessité de
conserver les monuments de la littérature et des arts_ (1794), an essay
written in collaboration with M.M. Chardin and Renouard, which induced
the Convention to protect books adorned with the coats of arms of their
former owners and other treasures from destruction at the hands of the
revolutionists. He died in Paris on the 6th of March 1838.

CHARLEMONT, JAMES CAULFEILD, 1ST EARL OF (1728-1799), Irish statesman,
son of the 3rd viscount Charlemont, was born in Dublin on the 18th of
August 1728, and succeeded his father as 4th viscount in 1734. The title
of Charlemont descended from Sir Toby Caulfeild (1565-1627) of
Oxfordshire, England, who was given lands in Ireland, and created Baron
Charlemont (the name of a fort on the Blackwater), for his services to
King James I. in 1620, and the 1st viscount was the 5th baron (d. 1671),
who was advanced by Charles II. Lord Charlemont is historically
interesting for his political connexion with Flood and Grattan; he was
a cultivated man with literary and artistic tastes, and both in Dublin
and in London his amiable character gave him considerable social
influence. For various early services in Ireland he was made an earl in
1763, but he disregarded court favours and cordially joined Grattan in
1780 in the assertion of Irish independence. He was president of the
volunteer convention in Dublin in November 1783, having taken from the
first a leading part in the embodiment of the volunteers; and he was a
strong opponent of the proposals for the Union. He died on the 4th of
August 1799; his eldest son, who succeeded him, being subsequently
(1837) created an English baron.

His _Life_, by F. Hardy, appeared in 1810.

CHARLEROI (_Carolus Rex_), a town in the province of Hainaut, Belgium.
Pop. (1904) 26,528. It was founded in 1666 on the site of a village
called Charnoy by the Spanish governor Roderigo and named after his
sovereign Charles II. of Spain. Charleroi is the centre of the iron
industry of Belgium. It is connected by a canal with Brussels, and from
its position on the Sambre enjoys facilities of communication by water
with France as well as Belgium. It was ceded soon after its foundation
to France by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and Vauban fortified it.
During the French occupation the town was considerably extended, and the
fortifications were made so strong that Charleroi twice successfully
resisted the strenuous attacks of William of Orange. In 1794 Charleroi
again fell into the hands of the French, and on this occasion instead of
fortifying they dismantled it. In 1816 Charleroi was refortified under
Wellington's direction, and it was finally dismantled in 1859. Some
portions of the old ramparts are left near the railway station. There is
an archaeological museum with a miscellaneous collection of Roman and
Frank antiquities.

CHARLEROI, a borough of Washington county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the
Monongahela river, near the S.W. corner of the state, about 20 m. S. of
Pittsburgh. Pop. (1900) 5930, (1749 foreign-born); (1910) 9615. It is
served by the Pennsylvania railway. The surrounding country has good
farming land and large coal mines. In 1905 the borough ranked fifth
among the cities of the United States in the manufacture of glass
(plate-glass, lamp chimneys and bottles), its product (valued at
$1,841,308) being 2.3% of that of the whole country. Charleroi was
settled in 1890 and was incorporated in 1891.

CHARLES (Fr. _Charles_; Span. _Carlos_; Ital. _Carlo_; Ger. _Karl_;
derived from O.H.G. _Charal_, latinized as _Carolus_, meaning originally
"man": cf. Mod. Ger., _Kerl_, "fellow," A.S. _ceorl_, Mod. Eng.
"churl"), a masculine proper name. It has been borne by many European
princes, notices of the more important of whom are given below in the
following order: (1) Roman emperors, (2) kings of England, (3) other
kings in the alphabetical order of their states, (4) other reigning
princes in the same order, (5) non-reigning princes. Those princes who
are known by a name in addition to Charles (Charles Albert, &c.) will be
found after the private individuals bearing Charles as a surname.

CHARLES II.[1] called THE BALD (823-877), Roman emperor and king of the
West Franks, was the son of the emperor Louis the Pious and of his
second wife Judith and was born in 823. The attempts made by his father
to assign him a kingdom, first Alamannia (829), then the country between
the Meuse and the Pyrenees (839), at the expense of his half-brothers
Lothair and Louis led to a rising on the part of these two (see LOUIS
I., the Pious). The death of the emperor in 840 was the signal for the
outbreak of war between his sons. Charles allied himself with his
brother Louis the German to resist the pretensions of the emperor
Lothair, and the two allies conquered him in the bloody victory of
Fontenoy-en-Puisaye (25 June 841). In the following year, the two
brothers confirmed their alliance by the celebrated oaths of Strassburg,
made by Charles in the Teutonic language spoken by the subjects of
Louis, and by Louis in the Romance tongue of Charles's subjects. The war
was brought to an end by the treaty of Verdun (August 843), which gave
to Charles the Bald the kingdom of the western Franks, which practically
corresponded with what is now France, as far as the Meuse, the Saône
and the Rhone, with the addition of the Spanish March as far as the
Ebro. The first years of his reign up to the death of Lothair I. (855)
were comparatively peaceful, and during them was continued the system of
"confraternal government" of the sons of Louis the Pious, who had
various meetings with one another, at Coblenz (848), at Meersen (851),
and at Attigny (854). In 858 Louis the German, summoned by the
disaffected nobles, invaded the kingdom of Charles, who fled to
Burgundy, and was only saved by the help of the bishops, and by the
fidelity of the family of the Welfs, who were related to Judith. In 860
he in his turn tried to seize the kingdom of his nephew, Charles of
Provence, but met with a repulse. On the death of Lothair II. in 869 he
tried to seize his dominions, but by the treaty of Mersen (870) was
compelled to share them with Louis the German. Besides this, Charles had
to struggle against the incessant rebellions in Aquitaine, against the
Bretons, whose revolt was led by their chief Nomenoé and Erispoé, and
who inflicted on the king the defeats of Ballon (845) and Juvardeil
(851), and especially against the Normans, who devastated the country in
the north of Gaul, the valleys of the Seine and Loire, and even up to
the borders of Aquitaine. Charles was several times compelled to
purchase their retreat at a heavy price. He has been accused of being
incapable of resisting them, but we must take into account the
unwillingness of the nobles, who continually refused to join the royal
army; moreover, the Frankish army does not seem to have been
sufficiently accustomed to war to make any headway against the pirates.
At any rate, Charles led various expeditions against the invaders, and
tried to put a barrier in their way by having fortified bridges built
over all the rivers. In 875, after the death of the emperor Louis II.,
Charles the Bald, supported by Pope John VIII., descended into Italy,
receiving the royal crown at Pavia and the imperial crown at Rome (29th
December). But Louis the German, who was also a candidate for the
succession of Louis II., revenged himself for Charles's success by
invading and devastating his dominions. Charles was recalled to Gaul,
and after the death of Louis the German (28th August 876), in his turn
made an attempt to seize his kingdom, but at Andernach met with a
shameful defeat (8th October 876). In the meantime, John VIII., who was
menaced by the Saracens, was continually urging him to come to Italy,
and Charles, after having taken at Quierzy the necessary measures for
safeguarding the government of his dominions in his absence, again
crossed the Alps, but this expedition had been received with small
enthusiasm by the nobles, and even by Boso, Charles's brother-in-law,
who had been entrusted by him with the government of Lombardy, and they
refused to come with their men to join the imperial army. At the same
time Carlo man, son of Louis the German, entered northern Italy.
Charles, ill and in great distress, started on his way back to Gaul, and
died while crossing the pass of the Mont Cenis on the 5th or 6th of
October 877. He was succeeded by his son Louis the Stammerer, the child
of Ermentrude, daughter of a count of Orleans, whom he had married in
842, and who had died in 869. In 870 he had married Richilde, who was
descended from a noble family of Lorraine, but none of the children whom
he had by her played a part of any importance. Charles seems to have
been a prince of education and letters, a friend of the church, and
conscious of the support he could find in the episcopate against his
unruly nobles, for he chose his councillors for preference from among
the higher clergy, as in the case of Guenelon of Sens, who betrayed him,
or of Hincmar of Reims. But his character and his reign have been judged
very variously. The general tendency seems to have been to accept too
easily the accounts of the chroniclers of the east Frankish kingdom,
which are favourable to Louis the German, and to accuse Charles of
cowardice and bad faith. He seems on the contrary not to have lacked
activity or decision.

AUTHORITIES.--The most important authority for the history of
Charles's reign is represented by the _Annales Bertiniani_, which were
the work of Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, up to 861, then up to 882 of
the celebrated Hincmar, archbishop of Reims. This prince's charters
are to be found published in the collections of the _Académie des
Inscriptions_, by M.M. Prou. The most complete history of the reign
is found in E. Dümmler, _Geschichte des ostfrankischen Reiches_ (3
vols., Leipzig, 1887-1888). See also J. Calmette, _La Diplomatie
carolingienne du traité de Verdun à la mort de Charles le Chauve_
(Paris, 1901), and F. Lot, "Une Année du règne de Charles le Chauve,"
in _Le Moyen-Âge_, (1902) pp. 393-438.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] For Charles I., Roman emperor, see CHARLEMAGNE; cf. under Charles
I. of France below.

CHARLES III., THE FAT[1] (832-888), Roman emperor and king of the West
Franks, was the youngest of the three sons of Louis the German, and
received from his father the kingdom of Swabia (Alamannia). After the
death of his two brothers in succession, Carloman (881) and Louis the
Young (882), he inherited the whole of his father's dominions. In 880 he
had helped his two cousins in the west Frankish realm, Louis III. and
Carloman, in their struggle with the usurper Boso of Provence, but
abandoned them during the campaign in order to be crowned emperor at
Rome by Pope John VIII. (February 881). On his return he led an
expedition against the Norsemen of Friesland, who were entrenched in
their camp at Elsloo, but instead of engaging with them he preferred to
make terms and paid them tribute. In 884 the death of Carloman brought
into his possession the west Frankish realm, and in 885 he got rid of
his rival Hugh of Alsace, an illegitimate son of Lothair II., taking him
prisoner by treachery and putting out his eyes. However, in spite of his
six expeditions into Italy, he did not succeed in pacifying the country,
nor in delivering it from the Saracens. He was equally unfortunate in
Gaul and in Germany against the Norsemen, who in 886-887 besieged Paris.
The emperor appeared before the city with a large army (October 886),
but contented himself by treating with them, buying the retreat of the
invaders at the price of a heavy ransom, and his permission for them to
ravage Burgundy without his interfering. On his return to Alamannia,
however, the general discontent showed itself openly and a conspiracy
was formed against him. He was first forced to dismiss his favourite,
the chancellor Liutward, bishop of Vercelli. The dissolution of his
marriage with the pious empress Richarde, in spite of her innocence as
proved by the judicial examination, alienated his nobles still more from
him. He was deposed by an assembly which met at Frankfort or at Tribur
(November 887), and died in poverty at Neidingen on the Danube (18th
January 888).

See E. Dümmler, _Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reiches_ vol. iii.
(Leipzig 1888).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This surname has only been applied to Charles since the 13th
century.

CHARLES IV. (1316-1378), Roman emperor and king of Bohemia, was the
eldest son of John of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, and Elizabeth, sister
of Wenceslas III., the last Bohemian king of the Premyslides dynasty. He
was born at Prague on the 14th of May 1316, and in 1323 went to the
court of his uncle, Charles IV., king of France, and exchanged his
baptismal name of Wenceslas for that of Charles. He remained for seven
years in France, where he was well educated and learnt five languages;
and there he married Blanche, sister of King Philip VI., the successor
of Charles IV. In 1331 he gained some experience of warfare in Italy
with his father; and on his return to Bohemia in 1333 he was made
margrave of Moravia. Three years later he undertook the government of
Tirol on behalf of his brother John Henry, and was soon actively
concerned in a struggle for the possession of this county. In
consequence of an alliance between his father and Pope Clement VI., the
relentless enemy of the emperor Louis IV., Charles was chosen German
king in opposition to Louis by some of the princes at Rense on the 11th
of July 1346. As he had previously promised to be subservient to Clement
he made extensive concessions to the pope in 1347. Confirming the papacy
in the possession of wide territories, he promised to annul the acts of
Louis against Clement, to take no part in Italian affairs, and to defend
and protect the church. Meanwhile he had accompanied his father into
France and had taken part in the battle of Crecy in August 1346, when
John was killed and Charles escaped wounded from the field. As king of
Bohemia he returned to Germany, and after being crowned German king at
Bonn on the 26th of November 1346, prepared to attack Louis. Hostilities
were interrupted by the death of the emperor in October 1347, and
Günther, count of Schwarzburg, who was chosen king by the partisans of
Louis, soon abandoned the struggle. Charles, having made good use of the
difficulties of his opponents, was recrowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the
25th of July 1349, and was soon the undisputed ruler of Germany. Gifts
or promises had won the support of the Rhenish and Swabian towns; a
marriage alliance secured the friendship of the Habsburgs; and that of
Rudolph II., count palatine of the Rhine, was obtained when Charles, who
had become a widower in 1348, married his daughter Anna.

In 1350 the king was visited at Prague by Cola di Rienzi, who urged him
to go to Italy, where the poet Petrarch and the citizens of Florence
also implored his presence. Turning a deaf ear to these entreaties,
Charles kept Rienzi in prison for a year, and then handed him as a
prisoner to Clement at Avignon. Four years later, however, he crossed
the Alps without an army, received the Lombard crown at Milan on the 6th
of January 1355, and was crowned emperor at Rome by a cardinal on the
5th of April in the same year. His sole object appears to have been to
obtain the imperial crown in peace, and in accordance with a promise
previously made to Pope Clement he only remained in the city for a few
hours, in spite of the expressed wishes of the Romans. Having virtually
abandoned all the imperial rights in Italy, the emperor recrossed the
Alps, pursued by the scornful words of Petrarch but laden with
considerable wealth. On his return Charles was occupied with the
administration of Germany, then just recovering from the Black Death,
and in 1356 he promulgated the Golden Bull (q.v.) to regulate the
election of the king. Having given Moravia to one brother, John Henry,
and erected the county of Luxemburg into a duchy for another, Wenceslas,
he was unremitting in his efforts to secure other territories as
compensation and to strengthen the Bohemian monarchy. To this end he
purchased part of the upper Palatinate of the Rhine in 1353, and in 1367
annexed Lower Lusatia to Bohemia and bought numerous estates in various
parts of Germany. On the death in 1363 of Meinhard, duke of Upper
Bavaria and count of Tirol, Upper Bavaria was claimed by the sons of the
emperor Louis IV., and Tirol by Rudolph IV., duke of Austria. Both
claims were admitted by Charles on the understanding that if these
families died out both territories should pass to the house of
Luxemburg. About the same time he was promised the succession to the
margraviate of Brandenburg, which he actually obtained for his son
Wenceslas in 1373. He also gained a considerable portion of Silesian
territory, partly by inheritance through his third wife, Anna, daughter
of Henry II., duke of Schweidnitz. In 1365 Charles visited Pope Urban V.
at Avignon and undertook to escort him to Rome; and on the same occasion
was crowned king of Burgundy, or Arles, at Arles on the 4th of June
1365.

His second journey to Italy took place in 1368, when he had a meeting
with Urban at Viterbo, was besieged in his palace at Siena, and left the
country before the end of the year 1369. During his later years the
emperor took little part in German affairs beyond securing the election
of his son Wenceslas as king of the Romans in 1376, and negotiating a
peace between the Swabian league and some nobles in 1378. After dividing
his lands between his three sons, he died on the 29th of November 1378
at Prague, where he was buried, and where a statue was erected to his
memory in 1848.

Charles, who according to the emperor Maximilian I. was the step-father
of the Empire, but the father of Bohemia, brought the latter country to
a high state of prosperity. He reformed the finances, caused roads to be
made, provided for greater security to life and property, and introduced
or encouraged various forms of industry. In 1348 he founded the
university of Prague, and afterwards made this city the seat of an
archbishop, and beautified it by the erection of several fine buildings.
He was an accomplished diplomatist, possessed a penetrating intellect,
and was capable of much trickery in order to gain his ends. By refusing
to become entangled in Italian troubles and confining himself to
Bohemia, he proved that he preferred the substance of power to its
shadow. Apparently the most pliant of men, he had in reality great
persistence of character, and if foiled in one set of plans readily
turned round and reached his goal by a totally different path. He was
superstitious and peace-loving, had few personal wants, and is described
as a round-shouldered man of medium height, with black hair and beard,
and sallow cheeks.

His autobiography the "Vita Caroli IV.," which deals with events down
to the year 1346, and various other documents relating to his life and
times, are published in the _Fontes rerum Germanicarum_, Band I.,
edited by J.F. Böhmer (Leipzig, 1885). For other documents relating to
the time see _Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Kaiser Karl IV._,
edited by J.F. Böhmer and A. Huber (Innsbruck, 1889); _Acta Karoli IV.
imperatoris inedita_ (Innsbruck, 1891); E. Werunsky, _Excerpta ex
registris Clementis VI. et Innocentii VI._ (Innsbruck, 1885). See also
E. Werunsky, _Geschichte Kaiser Karls IV. und seiner Zeit_ (Innsbruck,
1880-1892); H. Friedjung, _Kaiser Karl IV. und sein Antheil am
geistigen Leben seiner Zeit_ (Vienna, 1876); A. Gottlob, _Karls IV.
private und politische Beziehungen zu Frankreich_ (Innsbruck, 1883);
O. Winckelmann, _Die Beziehungen Kaiser Karls IV. zum Königreich
Arelat_ (Strassburg, 1882); K. Palm, "Zu Karls IV. Politik gegen
Baiern," in the _Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte_, Band XV.
(Göttingen, 1862-1866); Th. Lindner, "Karl IV. und die Wittelsbacher,"
and S. Stienherz, "Die Beziehungen Ludwigs I. von Ungarn zu Karl IV.,"
and "Karl IV. und die österreichischen Freiheitsbriefe," in the
_Mittheilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung_
(Innsbruck, 1880).

CHARLES V. (1500-1558), Roman emperor and (as CHARLES I.) king of Spain,
was born at Ghent on the 24th of February 1500. His parents were Philip
of Burgundy and Joanna, third child of Ferdinand and Isabella. Philip
died in 1506, and Charles succeeded to his Netherland possessions and
the county of Burgundy (Franche Comté). His grandfather, the emperor
Maximilian, as regent, appointed his daughter Margaret vice-regent, and
under her strenuous guardianship Charles lived in the Netherlands until
the estates declared him of age in 1515. In Castile, Ferdinand, king of
Aragon, acted as regent for his daughter Joanna, whose intellect was
already clouded. On the 23rd of January 1516 Ferdinand died. Charles's
visit to Spain was delayed until the autumn of 1517, and only in 1518
was he formally recognized as king conjointly with his mother, firstly
by the cortes of Castile, and then by those of Aragon. Joanna lived to
the very eve of her son's abdication, so that he was only for some
months technically sole king of Spain. During this Spanish visit
Maximilian died, and Charles succeeded to the inheritance of the
Habsburgs, to which was shortly added the duchy of Württemberg.
Maximilian had also intended that he should succeed as emperor. In spite
of the formidable rivalry of Francis I. and the opposition of Pope Leo
X., pecuniary corruption and national feeling combined to secure his
election in 1519. Charles hurriedly left Spain, and after a visit to
Henry VIII. and his aunt Catherine, was crowned at Aix on the 23rd of
October 1520.

The difficulty of Charles's reign consists in the complexity of
interests caused by the unnatural aggregate of distinct territories and
races. The crown of Castile brought with it the two recently conquered
kingdoms of Navarre and Granada, together with the new colonies in
America and scattered possessions in northern Africa. That of Aragon
comprised the three distinct states of Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia,
and in addition the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, each with a
separate character and constitution of its own. No less than eight
independent cortes or parliaments existed in this Spanish-Italian group,
adding greatly to the intricacy of government. In the Netherland
provinces again the tie was almost purely personal; there existed only
the rudiments of a central administration and a common representative
system, while the county of Burgundy had a history apart. Much the same
was true of the Habsburg group of states, but Charles soon freed himself
from direct responsibility for their government by making them over,
together with Württemberg, to his brother Ferdinand. The Empire entailed
serious liabilities on its ruler without furnishing any reliable assets:
only through the cumbrous machinery of the diet could Charles tap the
military and financial resources of Germany. His problem here was
complicated by the growth of Lutheranism, which he had to face at his
very first diet in 1521. In addition to such administrative difficulties
Charles had inherited a quarrel with France, to which the rivalry of
Francis I. for the Empire gave a personal character. Almost equally
formidable was the advance of Sultan Suliman up the Danube, and the
union of the Turkish naval power with that of the Barbary States of
northern Africa. Against Lutheran Germany the Catholic emperor might
hope to rely upon the pope, and against France on England. But the
attitude of the popes was almost uniformly disagreeable, while from
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. Charles met with more unpleasantness than
favour.

The difficulty of Charles himself is also that of the historian and
reader of his reign. It is probably more instructive to treat it
according to the emperor's several problems than in strict chronological
order. Yet an attempt to distinguish the several periods of his career
may serve as a useful introduction. The two best dividing lines are,
perhaps, the coronation as emperor at Bologna in 1530, and the peace of
Crépy in 1544. Until his visit to Italy (1529) Charles remained in the
background of the European stage, except for his momentous meeting with
Luther at the diet of Worms (1521). This meeting in itself forms a
subdivision. Previously to this, during his nominal rule in the
Netherlands, his visit to Spain, and his candidature for the Empire, he
seemed, as it was said, spell-bound under the ferule of his minister
Chièvres. Almost every report represented him as colourless, reserved
and weak. His dependence on his Flemish counsellors provoked the rising
in Castile, the feebleness of his government the social war in Aragon.
The religious question first gave him a living interest, and at this
moment Chièvres died. Aleander, the papal nuncio at Worms, now
recognized that public opinion had been wrong in its estimate of
Charles. Never again was he under tutelage. The necessity, however, of
residence in Spain prevented his taking a personal part in the great
fight with Francis I. for Italy. He could claim no credit for the
capture of his rival at Pavia. When his army sacked Rome and held Pope
Clement VII. prisoner, he could not have known where this army was. And
when later the French overran Naples, and all but deprived him of his
hold on Italy, he had to instruct his generals that they must shift for
themselves. The world had become afraid of him, but knew little of his
character. In the second main division of his career Charles changed all
this. No monarch until Napoleon was so widely seen in Europe and in
Africa. Complexity of problems is the characteristic of this period. At
the head of his army Charles forced the Turks backwards down the Danube
(1532). He personally conquered Tunis (1535), and was only prevented by
"act of God" from winning Algiers (1541). The invasion of Provence in
1536 was headed by the emperor. In person he crushed the rebellion of
Ghent (1540). In his last war with Francis (1542-44) he journeyed from
Spain to the Netherlands, brought the rebellious duke of Cleves to his
knees, and was within easy reach of Paris when he made the peace of
Crépy (1544). In Germany, meanwhile, from the diet of Augsburg (1530)
onwards, he had presided at the diets or conferences, which, as he
hoped, would effect the reunion of the church.

Peace with France and the Turk and a short spell of friendliness with
Pope Paul III. enabled Charles at last to devote his whole energies to
the healing of religious schism. Conciliation proving impossible, he led
the army which received the submission of the Lutheran states, and then
captured the elector of Saxony at Mühlberg, after which the other
leader, Philip of Hesse, capitulated. The Armed Diet of 1548 was the
high-water mark of Charles's power. Here, in defiance of the pope, he
published the Interim which was meant to reconcile the Lutherans with
the church, and the so-called Reform which was to amend its abuses.
During the next four years, owing to ill-health and loss of insight, his
power was ebbing. In 1552 he was flying over the Brenner from Maurice of
Saxony, a princeling whose fortunes he had made. Once again the old
complications had arisen. His old enemy's son, Henry II., had attacked
him indirectly in Piedmont and Parma, and then directly in Germany in
alliance with Maurice. Once more the Turk was moving in the Danube and
in the western Mediterranean. The humiliation of his flight gave Charles
new spirit, and he once more led an army through Germany against the
French, only to be checked by the duke of Guise's defence of Metz.
Henceforth the waves of his fortune plashed to and fro until his
abdication without much ostensible loss or gain.

Charles had abundance of good sense, but little creative genius, and he
was by nature conservative. Consequently he never sought to impose any
new or common principles of administration on his several states. He
took them as he found them, and at most, as in the Netherlands, improved
upon what he found. So also in dealing with rival powers his policy may
be called opportunist. He was indeed accused by his enemies of emulating
Charlemagne, of aiming at universal empire. Historians have frequently
repeated this charge. Charles himself in later life laughingly denied
the imputation, and facts are in favour of his denial. When Francis I.
was in his power he made no attempt to dismember France, in spite of his
pledges to his allies Henry VIII. and the duke of Bourbon. He did,
indeed, demand the duchy of Burgundy, because he believed this to have
been unrighteously stolen by Louis XI. from his grandmother when a
helpless girl. The claim was not pressed, and at the height of his
fortunes in 1548 he advised his son never to surrender it, but also
never to make it a cause of war. When Clement VII. was his prisoner, he
was vehemently urged to overthrow the temporal power, to restore
imperial dominion in Italy, at least to make the papacy harmless for the
future. In reply he restored his enemy to the whole of his dominions,
even reimposing him by force on the Florentine republic. To the end of
his life his conscience was sensitive as to Ferdinand's expulsion of the
house of Albret from Spanish Navarre, though this was essential to the
safety of Spain. Though always at war he was essentially a lover of
peace, and all his wars were virtually defensive. "Not greedy of
territory," wrote Marcantonio Contarini in 1536, "but most greedy of
peace and quiet." For peace he made sacrifices which angered his
hot-headed brother Ferdinand. He would not aid in expelling the sultan's
puppet Zapolya from Ferdinand's kingdom of Hungary, and he suffered the
restoration of the ruffianly duke of Württemberg, to the grave prejudice
of German Catholicism. In spite of his protests, Henry VIII. with
impunity ill-treated his aunt Catherine, and the feeble government of
Edward VI. bullied his cousin Mary, who had been his fiancée. No serious
efforts were made to restore his brother-in-law, Christian II., to the
throne of Denmark, and he advised his son Philip to make friends with
the usurper. After the defeat of the Lutheran powers in 1547 he did not
gain a palm's breadth of territory for himself. He resisted Ferdinand's
claim for Wurttemberg, which the duke had deserved to forfeit; he
disliked his acceptance of the voluntary surrender of the city of
Constance; he would not have it said that he had gone to war for the
benefit of the house of Habsburg.

On the other hand, Charles V.'s policy was not merely negative. He
enlarged upon the old Habsburg practice of marriage as a means of
alliance of influence. Previously to his election as emperor, his sister
Isabella was married to Christian II. of Denmark, and the marriages of
Mary and Ferdinand with the king of Hungary and his sister had been
arranged. Before he was twenty Charles himself had been engaged some ten
times with a view to political combinations. Naturally, therefore, he
regarded his near relations as diplomatic assets. The federative system
was equally familiar; Germany, the Netherlands, and even Spain, were in
a measure federations. Combining these two principles, he would within
his more immediate spheres of influence strengthen existing federations
by intermarriage, while he hoped that the same means would convert the
jarring powers of Europe into a happy family. He made it a condition of
the treaty of Madrid (1526) that Francis I. should marry his sister
Eleanor, Manuel of Portugal's widow, in the hope, not that she would be
an ally or a spy within the enemy's camp, but an instrument of peace.
His son's marriage with Mary Tudor would not only salve the rubs with
England, but give such absolute security to the Netherlands that France
would shrink from war. The personal union of all the Iberian kingdoms
under a single ruler had long been an aim of Spanish statecraft. So
Charles had married his sister Eleanor, much against her will, to the
old king Manuel, and then his sister Catherine to his successor. The
empress was a Portuguese infanta, and Philip's first wife was another.
It is thus small wonder that, within a quarter of a century of Charles's
death, Philip became king of Portugal.

In the wars with Francis I. Italy was the stake. In spite of his success
Charles for long made no direct conquests. He would convert the
peninsula into a federation mainly matrimonial. Savoy, the important
buffer state, was detached from France by the marriage of the somewhat
feeble duke to Charles's capable and devoted sister-in-law, Beatrice of
Portugal. Milan, conquered from France, was granted to Francesco Sforza,
heir of the old dynasty, and even after his treason was restored to him.
In the vain hope of offspring Charles sacrificed his niece, Christina of
Denmark, to the valetudinarian duke. In the long negotiations for a
Habsburg-Valois dynasty which followed Francesco's death, Charles was
probably sincere. He insisted that his daughter or niece should marry
the third rather than the second son of Francis I., in order, apart from
other reasons, to run less risk of the duchy falling under French
dominion. The final investiture of Philip was forced upon him, and does
not represent his saner policy. The Medici of Florence, the Gonzaga of
Mantua, the papal house of Farnese, were all attached by Habsburg
marriages. The republics of Genoa and Siena were drawn into the circle
through the agency of their chief noble families, the Doria and
Piccolomini; while Charles behaved with scrupulous moderation towards
Venice in spite of her active hostility before and after the League of
Cognac. Occasional acts of violence there were, such as the
participation in the murder of Pierluigi Farnese, and the measures which
provoked the rebellion of Siena. These were due to the difficulty of
controlling the imperial agents from a distance, and in part to the
faults of the victim prince and republic. On the whole, the loose
federation of viceroyalties and principalities harmonized with Italian
interests and traditions. The alternative was not Italian independence,
but French domination. At any rate, Charles's structure was so durable
that the French met with no real success in Italy until the 18th
century.

Germany offered a fine field for a creative intellect, since the evils
of her disintegration stood confessed. On the other hand, princes and
towns were so jealous of an increase of central authority that Charles,
at least until his victory over the League of Schmalkalden, had little
effective power. Owing to his wars with French and Turks he was rarely
in Germany, and his visits were very short. His problem was infinitely
complicated by the union of Lutheranism and princely independence. He
fell back on the old policy of Maximilian, and strove to create a party
by personal alliances and intermarriage. In this he met with some
success. The friendship of the electors of Brandenburg, whether Catholic
or Protestant, was unbroken. In the war of Schmalkalden half the
Protestant princes were on Charles's side or friendly neutrals. At the
critical moment which preceded this, the lately rebellious duke of
Cleves and the heir of Bavaria were secured through the agency of two of
Ferdinand's invaluable daughters. The relations, indeed, between the two
old enemies, Austria and Bavaria, were permanently improved. The elector
palatine, whose love affairs with his sister Eleanor Charles as a boy
had roughly broken, received in compensation a Danish niece. Her sister,
widow of Francesco Sforza, was utilized to gain a hold upon the French
dynasty which ruled Lorraine. More than once there were proposals for
winning the hostile house of Saxony by matrimonial means. After his
victory over the League of Schmalkalden, Charles perhaps had really a
chance of making the imperial power a reality. But he lacked either
courage or imagination, contenting himself with proposals for voluntary
association on the lines of the defunct Swabian League, and dropping
even these when public opinion was against them. Now, too, he made his
great mistake in attempting to foist Philip upon the Empire as
Ferdinand's successor. Gossip reported that Ferdinand himself was to be
set aside, and careless historians have given currency to this. Such an
idea was impossible. Charles wished Philip to succeed Ferdinand, while
he ultimately conceded that Ferdinand's son Maximilian should follow
Philip, and even in his lifetime exercise the practical power in
Germany. This scheme irritated Ferdinand and his popular and ambitious
son at the critical moment when it was essential that the Habsburgs
should hold together against princely malcontents. Philip was
imprudently introduced to Germany, which had also just received a
foretaste of the unpleasant characteristics of Spanish troops. Yet the
person rather than the policy was, perhaps, at fault. It was natural
that the quasi-hereditary succession should revert to the elder line.
France proved her recuperative power by the occupation of Savoy and of
Metz, Toul and Verdun, the military keys of Lorraine. The separation of
the Empire and Spain left two weakened powers not always at accord, and
neither of them permanently able to cope on equal terms with France.
Nevertheless, this scheme did contribute in no small measure to the
failure of Charles in Germany. The main cause was, of course, the
religious schism, but his treatment of this requires separate
consideration.

The characteristics of Charles's government, its mingled conservatism
and adaptability, are best seen in Spain and the Netherlands, with which
he was in closer personal contact than with Italy and Germany. In Spain,
when once he knew the country, he never repeated the mistakes which on
his first visit caused the rising of the communes. The cortes of Castile
were regularly summoned, and though he would allow no encroachment on
the crown's prerogatives, he was equally scrupulous in respecting their
constitutional rights. They became, perhaps, during the reign slightly
more dependent on the crown. This has been ascribed to the system of
gratuities which in later reigns became a scandal, but was not
introduced by Charles, and as yet amounted to little more than the
payment of members' expenses. Indirectly, crown influence increased
owing to the greater control which had gradually been exercised over the
composition of the municipal councils, which often returned the deputies
for the cortes. Charles was throughout nervous as to the power and
wealth of the greater nobles. They rather than the crown had conquered
the communes, and in the past they rather than the towns had been the
enemies of monarchy. He earnestly warned his son against giving them
administrative power, especially the duke of Alva, who in spite of his
sanctimonious and humble bearing cherished the highest ambitions: in
foreign affairs and war he might be freely used, for he was Spain's best
soldier. In the cortes of 1538 Charles came into collision with the
nobles as a class. They usually attended only on ceremonial occasions,
since they were exempted from direct taxation, which was the main
function of the cortes. Now, however, they were summoned, because
Charles was bent upon a scheme of indirect taxation which would have
affected all classes. They offered an uncompromising opposition, and
Charles somewhat angrily dismissed them, nor did he ever summon them
again. The peculiar Spanish system of departmental councils was further
developed, so that it may be said that the bureaucratic element was
slightly increasing just as the parliamentary element was on the wane.
The evils of this tendency were as yet scarcely apparent owing to
Charles's personal intervention in all departments. The councils
presented their reports through the minister chiefly concerned; Charles
heard their advice, and formed his own conclusions. He impressed upon
Philip that he should never become the servant of his ministers: let him
hear them all but decide himself. Naturally enough, he was well served
by his ministers, whom he very rarely changed. After the death of the
Piedmontese Gattinara he relied mainly on Nicolas Perrenot de Granvella
for Netherland and German affairs, and on Francisco de los Cobos for
Spanish, while the younger Granvella was being trained. From 1520 to
1555 these were the only ministers of high importance. Above all,
Charles never had a court favourite, and the only women who exercised
any influence were his natural advisers, his wife, his aunt Margaret and
his sister Mary. In all these ladies he was peculiarly fortunate.
Charles was never quite popular in Spain, but the empress whom he
married at his people's request was much beloved. Complaints were made
of his absenteeism, but until 1543 he spent the greater portion of his
reign in Spain, or on expeditions such as those against Tunis and
Algiers which were distinctively in Spanish interests. Spaniards
disliked his Netherland and German connexions, but without the vigorous
blows which these enabled him to strike at France, it is improbable that
Spain could have retained her hold on Italy, or her monopoly of commerce
with the Indies. The wars with Francis I. were, in spite of the rival
candidature for the Empire, Spanish wars entailed by Ferdinand's
retention of Roussillon, his annexation of Navarre, his summary eviction
of the French from Naples. The Netherlands had become convinced on
commercial grounds of the wisdom of peace with France, and the German
interest in Milan was not sufficiently active to be a standing cause of
war. Charles and Francis had inherited the hostility of Ferdinand and
Louis XII.

The reign of Charles was in America the age of conquest and
organization. Upon his accession the settlements upon the mainland were
insignificant; by 1556 conquest was practically complete, and civil and
ecclesiastical government firmly established. Actual expansion was the
work of great adventurers starting on their own impulse from the older
colonies. To Charles fell the task of encouraging such ventures, of
controlling the conquerors, of settling the relations between colonists
and natives, which involved those between the colonists and the
missionary colonial church. He must arrest depopulation, provide for the
labour market, regulate oceanic trade, and check military preponderance
by civil and ecclesiastical organization. In America Charles took an
unceasing interest; he had a boundless belief in its possibilities, and
a determination to safeguard the interests of the crown. Cortes,
Alvarado and the brothers Pizarro were brought into close personal
communication with the emperor. If he bestowed on Cortes the confidence
which the loyal conqueror deserved, he showed the sternest determination
in crushing the rebellious and autonomous instincts of Almagro and the
Pizarros. But for this, Peru and Chile must have become independent
almost as soon as they were conquered. Throughout he strove to protect
the natives, to prevent actual slavery, and the consequent raids upon
the natives. Legislation was not, indeed, always consistent, because the
claims of the colonists could not always be resisted, but on the whole
he gave earnest support to the missionaries, who upheld the cause of the
natives against the military, and sometimes the civil and ecclesiastical
elements. His humane care for his native subjects may well be studied in
the instructions sent to Philip from Germany in 1548, when Charles was
at the summit of his power. If Charles had had his will, he would have
opened the colonial trade to the whole of his wide possessions. The
Castilians, however, jealously confined it to the city of Seville,
artificially fostering the indolence of the colonists to maintain the
agricultural and manufacturing monopoly of Castile, and by extreme
protective measures forcing them to live on smuggled goods from other
countries. Charles did actually attempt to cure the exclusive interest
of the colonists in mineral wealth by the establishment of peasant and
artisan colonies. If in many respects he failed, yet the organization of
Spanish America and the survival of the native races were perhaps the
most permanent results of his reign. It is a proof of the complexity of
his interests that the march of the Turk upon Vienna and of the French
on Naples delayed until the following reign the foundation of Spain's
eastern empire. Charles carefully organized the expedition of Magellan,
which sailed for the Moluccas and discovered the Philippines.
Unfortunately, his straits for money in 1529 compelled him to mortgage
to Portugal his disputed claim to the Moluccas, and the Philippines
consequently dropped out of sight.

If in the administration of Spain Charles did little more than mark
time, in the Netherlands advance was rapid. Of the seven northern
provinces he added five, containing more than half the area of the later
United Provinces. In the south he freed Flanders and Artois from French
suzerainty, annexed Tournai and Cambrai, and closed the natural line of
French advance through the great bishopric of Liége by a line of
fortresses across its western frontier. Much was done to convert the
aggregate of jarring provinces into a harmonious unity by means of
common principles of law and finance, and by the creation of a national
army. While every province had its own assembly, there were at Charles's
accession only the rudiments of estates general for the Netherlands at
large. At the close of the reign the common parliamentary system was in
full swing, and was fast converting the loosely knit provinces into a
state. By these means the ruler had wished to facilitate the process of
supply, but supply soon entailed redress, and the provinces could
recognize their common interests and grievances. Under Philip II. all
patriotic spirits passionately turned to this creation of his father as
the palladium of Netherland liberty. This process of consolidation was
infinitely difficult, and conflicts between local and central
authorities were frequent. That they were safely tided over was due to
Charles's moderation and his legal mind, which prompted him to draw back
when his case was bad. The harshest act of his life was the punishment
of the rebellion of Ghent. Yet the city met with little or no sympathy
in other quarters, because she had refused to act in concert with the
other members of Flanders and the other provinces. It was no mere local
quarrel, but a breach of the growing national unity.

In the Netherlands Charles showed none of the jealousy with which he
regarded the Spanish nobles. He encouraged the growth of large estates
through primogeniture; he gave the nobles the provincial governorships,
the great court offices, the command of the professional cavalry. In the
Order of the Golden Fleece and the long established presence of the
court at Brussels, he possessed advantages which he lacked in Spain. The
nobility were utilized as a link between the court and the provinces.
Very different was it with the church. By far the greater part of the
Netherlands fell under foreign sees, which were peculiarly liable to
papal exactions and to the intrigues of rival powers. Thus the usual
conflict between civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction was peculiarly
acute. To remedy this dualism of authority and the consequent moral and
religious abuses, Charles early designed the creation of a national
diocesan system, and this was a darling project throughout his life. He
was doing what every German territorial prince, Catholic or Lutheran,
attempted, making bishoprics and abbeys dependent on the crown, with
nomination and institution in his hands, and with reasonable control
over taxation and jurisdiction. The papacy unfortunately thwarted him,
and the scheme, which under Charles would have been carried with
national assent, and created a national church, took the appearance
under Philip of alien domination.

If in Germany Charles was emperor, he was in the Netherlands territorial
prince, and thus his interests might easily be at disaccord with those
of the Empire. Consequently, just as he had shaken off French suzerainty
from Flanders and Artois, so he loosened the tie of the other provinces
to Germany. In 1548 they were declared free and sovereign principalities
not subject to imperial laws, and all the territories were incorporated
in the Burgundian circle. It was, indeed, agreed that they should
contribute to imperial taxation, and in return receive imperial
protection. But this soon became a dead letter, and the Netherlands were
really severed from the Empire, save for the nominal feudal tie in the
case of some provinces. Thus some writers have dated their independence
from Charles's convention of 1548 rather than from the peace of
Westphalia, a century later. Having converted his heterogeneous
territories into a self-sufficient state, Charles often contemplated the
formation of a middle kingdom between France and Germany. At the last
moment he spoiled his own work by granting the Netherlands to Philip. It
was indeed hard to set aside the order of inheritance, and the
commercial interests of the provinces were closely bound with Spain, and
with England, whose queen Philip had married. Under any other ruler than
Philip the breach might not have come so early. Yet it must be regretted
that Charles had not the courage of his convictions, and that he lost
the opportunity of completing the new nation which he had faithfully
laboured to create.

Charles V. is in the eyes of many the very picture of a Catholic zealot.
Popular opinion is probably mainly based upon the letters written from
Yuste in 1558, when two hot-beds of heresy had been discovered in Spain
herself, and on the contemporary codicil to his will. These were,
perhaps, really in part responsible for the later persecution. Yet the
circumstances were far from being typical of the emperor's career. Death
was very near him; devotional exercises were his main occupation. The
letters, moreover, were cries of warning, and not edicts. Charles was
not then the responsible authority. There is a long step between a
violent letter and a violent act. Few men would care to have their lives
judged by letters written in the last extremities of gout. Less
pardonable was the earlier persecution of the Valencian Moriscoes in
1525-1526. They had fought for their landlords in the cause of order,
had been forcibly converted by the revolutionaries, and on the
suppression of revolution had naturally relapsed. But for this momentary
conversion the Inquisition would have had no hold upon them. The edict
of persecution was cruel and unnecessary, and all expert opinion in
Valencia was against it. It was not, however, actually enforced until
after the victory of Pavia. It seems likely that Charles in a fit of
religious exaltation regarded the persecution as a sacrificial
thank-offering for his miraculous preservation. It is characteristic
that, when in the following year he was brought into personal contact
with the Moors of Granada, he allowed them to buy themselves off from
the more obnoxious measures of the Inquisition. Henceforth the reign was
marked by extreme leniency. Spain enjoyed a long lull in the activity of
her Inquisition. At Naples in 1547 a rumour that the Spanish Inquisition
was to be introduced to check the growth of heresy in influential
quarters produced a dangerous revolt. The briefs were, however, issued
by Paul III., no friend of Charles, and when a Neapolitan deputation
visited the emperor he disclaimed any intention of making innovations.
Of a different type to all the above was the persecution in the
Netherlands. Here it was deliberate, chronic, and on an ascending scale.
It is not a sufficient explanation that heresy also was persistent,
ubiquitous and increasing, for this was also the case in Germany where
Charles's methods were neither uniform nor drastic. But in the
Netherlands the heretics were his immediate subjects, and as in every
other state, Catholic or Lutheran, they must conform to their prince's
religion. But there was more than this. After the suppression of the
German peasant revolt in 1525 many of the refugees found shelter in the
teeming Netherland cities, and heresy took the form, not of Lutheranism,
but of Anabaptism, which was believed to be perilous to society and the
state. The government put down Anabaptism, as a modern government might
stamp out Anarchism. The edicts were, indeed, directed against heresy in
general, and were as harsh as they could be--at least on paper. Yet when
Charles was assured that they were embarrassing foreign trade he let it
be understood that they should not affect the foreign mercantile
communities. Prudential considerations proved frequently a drag upon
religious zeal.

The relations of Charles to heresy must be judged in the main by his
treatment of German Lutheranism. Here he had to deal, not with
drawing-room imprudences nor hole-and-corner conventicles, not with
oriental survivals nor millenary aspirations, but with organized
churches protected by their princes, supported by revenues filched from
his own church and stiffened by formulae as rigid as those of
Catholicism. The length and stubbornness of the conflict will serve to
show that Charles's religious conservatism had a measure of elasticity,
that he was not a bigot and nothing more. It should be remembered that
all his principal ministers were inclined to be Erasmian or indifferent,
that one of his favourite confessors, Loaysa, advised compromise, and
that several intimate members of his court and chapel were, after his
death, victims of the Inquisition. The two more obvious courses towards
the restoration of Catholic unity were force and reconciliation, in
other words, a religious war or a general council. Neither of these was
a simple remedy. The latter was impossible without papal concurrence,
inoperative without the assistance of the European powers, and merely
irritant without the adhesion of the Lutherans. It was most improbable
that the papacy, the powers and the Lutherans would combine in a
measure so palpably advantageous to the emperor. Force was hopeless save
in the absence of war with France and the Turk, and of papal hostility
in Italian territorial politics. Charles must obtain subsidies from
ecclesiastical sources, and the support of all German Catholics,
especially of the traditional rival, Bavaria. Even so the Protestants
would probably be the stronger, and therefore they must be divided by
utilizing any religious split, any class distinction, any personal or
traditional dislikes, or else by bribery. Force and reconciliation
seeming equally difficult, could an alternative be found in toleration?
The experiment might take the form either of individual toleration, or
of toleration for the Lutheran states. The former would be equally
objectionable to Lutheran and Catholic princes as loosening their grip
upon their subjects. Territorial toleration might seem equally obnoxious
to the emperor, for its recognition would strengthen the anti-imperial
particularism so closely associated with Lutheranism. If Charles could
find no permanent specific, he must apply a provisional palliative. It
was absolutely necessary to patch, if not to cure, because Germany must
be pulled together to resist French and Turks. Such palliatives were
two--suspension and comprehension. Suspension deferred the execution of
penalties incurred by heresy, either for a term of years, or until a
council should decide. Thus it recognized the divorce of the two
religions, but limited it by time. Comprehension instead of recognizing
the divorce would strive to conceal the breach. It was a domestic
remedy, German and national, not European and papal. To become permanent
it must receive the sanction of pope and council, for the Roman emperor
could not set up a church of Germany. Yet the formula adopted might
conceivably be found to fall within the four corners of the faith, and
so obviate the necessity alike of force or council. Such were the
conditions of the emperor's task, and such the methods which he actually
pursued. He would advance now on one line, now on another, now on two or
three concurrently, but he never definitely abandoned any. This fusion
of obstinacy and versatility was a marked feature of his character.

Suspension was of course often accidental and involuntary. The two chief
stages of Lutheran growth naturally corresponded with the periods, each
of nine years, when Charles was absent. Deliberate suspension was
usually a consequence of the failure of comprehension. Thus at Augsburg
in 1530 the wide gulf between the Lutheran confession and the Catholic
confutation led to the definite suspensive treaty granted to the
Lutherans at Nuremberg (1532). Charles dared not employ the alternative
of force, because he needed their aid for the Turkish war. In 1541,
after a series of religious conferences, he personally presented a
compromise in the so-called Book of Regensburg, which was rejected by
both parties. He then proposed that the articles agreed upon should be
compulsory, while on others toleration should be exercised until a
national council should decide. Never before nor after did he go so far
upon the path of toleration, or so nearly accept a national settlement.
He was then burning to set sail for Algiers. His last formal suspensive
measure was that of Spires (Speyer) in 1544, when he was marching
against Francis. He promised a free and general council to be held in
Germany, and, as a preparation, a national religious congress. The
Lutherans were privately assured that a measure of comprehension should
be concluded with or without papal approval. Meanwhile all edicts
against heresy were suspended. No wonder that Charles afterwards
confessed that he could scarcely reconcile these concessions with his
conscience, but he won Lutheran aid for his campaign. The peace of Crépy
gave all the conditions required for the employment of force. He had
peace with French and Turk, he won the active support of the pope, he
had deeply divided the Lutherans and reconciled Bavaria. Finding that
the Lutherans would not accept the council summoned by the pope to
Trent, he resorted to force, and force succeeded. At the Armed Diet of
1548 reunion seemed within reach. But Paul III. in direct opposition to
Charles's wish had withdrawn the council from Trent to Bologna. Charles
could not force Lutherans to submit to a council which he did not
himself recognize, and he could not bring himself to national schism.
Thus, falling back upon his old palliatives, he issued the Interim and
the accompanying Reform of the Clergy, pending a final settlement by a
satisfactory general council. These measures pleased neither party, and
Charles at the very height of his power had failed. He was conscious of
failure, and made few attempts even to enforce the Interim. Henceforward
political complications gathered round him anew. The only remedy was
toleration in some form, independent of the papacy and limitless in
time. To this Charles could never assent. His ideal was shattered, but
it was a great ideal, and the patience, the moderation, even at times
the adroitness with which he had striven towards it, proved him to be no
bigot.

The idea of abdication had long been present with Charles. After his
failure to eject the French from Metz he had not shrunk from a wearisome
campaign against Henry II., and he was now tired out. His mother's death
removed an obstacle, for there could now be no question as to his son's
succession to the Spanish kingdoms. Religious settlement in Germany
could no longer be postponed, and he shrank from the responsibility; the
hand that should rend the seamless raiment of God's church must not be
his. To Ferdinand he gave his full authority as emperor, although at his
brother's earnest request formal abdication was delayed until 1558. In
the Hall of the Golden Fleece at Brussels on the 25th of October 1555 he
formally resigned to Philip the sovereignty of his beloved Netherlands.
Turning from his son to the representatives of the estates he said,
"Gentlemen, you must not be astonished if, old and feeble as I am in all
my members, and also from the love I bear you, I shed some tears." In
the Netherlands at least the love was reciprocal, and tears were
infectious among the thousand deputies who listened to their sovereign's
last speech. On the 16th of January 1556, Charles resigned his Spanish
kingdoms and that of Sicily, and shortly afterwards his county of
Burgundy. On the 17th of September he sailed from Flushing on the last
of his many voyages, an English fleet from Portland bearing him company
down the Channel. In February 1557 he was installed in the home which he
had chosen at Yuste in Estremadura.

The excellent books which have been written upon the emperor's
retirement have inspired an interest out of all proportion to its real
significance. His little house was attached to the monastery, but was
not within it. He was neither an ascetic nor a recluse. Gastronomic
indiscretions still entailed their inevitable penalties. Society was not
confined to interchange of civilities with the brethren. His relations,
his chief friends, his official historians, all found their way to
Yuste. Couriers brought news of Philip's war and peace with Pope Paul
IV., of the victories of Saint Quentin and Gravelines, of the French
capture of Calais, of the danger of Oran. As head of the family he
intervened in the delicate relations with the closely allied house of
Portugal: he even negotiated with the house of Navarre for reparation
for the wrong done by his grandfather Ferdinand, which appeared to weigh
upon his conscience. Above all he was shocked by the discovery that
Spain, his own court, and his very chapel were infected with heresy. His
violent letters to his son and daughter recommending immediate
persecution, his profession of regret at having kept his word when
Luther was in his power, have weighed too heavily on his reputation. The
feverish phrases of religious exaltation due to broken health and
unnatural retirement cannot balance the deliberate humanity and honour
of wholesome manhood. Apart from such occasional moments of excitement,
the emperor's last years passed tranquilly enough. At first he would
shoot pigeons in the monastery woods, and till his last illness tended
his garden and his animal pets, or watched the operations of Torriani,
maker of clocks and mechanical toys. After an illness of three weeks the
call came in the early hours of the feast of St Matthew, who, as his
chaplain said, had for Christ's sake forsaken wealth even as Charles had
forsaken empire. The dying man clasped his wife's crucifix to his breast
till his fingers lost their hold. The archbishop held it before his
eyes, and with the cry of "_Ay Jesus!_" died, in the words of his
faithul squire D. Luis de Quijada, "the chief of men that had ever been
or would ever be." Posterity need not agree, but no great man can boast
a more honest panegyric.

In character Charles stands high among contemporary princes. It consists
of pairs of contrasts, but the better side is usually stronger than the
worse. Steadfast honesty of purpose was occasionally warped by
self-interest, or rather he was apt to think that his own course must
needs be that of righteousness. Self-control would give way, but very
rarely, to squalls of passion. Obstinacy and irresolution were fairly
balanced, the former generally bearing upon ends, the latter upon means.
His own ideals were constant, but he could gradually assimilate the
views of others, and could bend to argument and circumstance; yet even
here he had a habit of harking back to earlier schemes which he had
seemed to have definitely abandoned. Intercourse with different
nationalities taught him a certain versatility; he was dignified with
Spaniards, familiar with Flemings, while the material Italians were
pleased with his good sense. His sympathies were neither wide nor quick,
but he was a most faithful friend, and the most considerate of masters.
For all who sought him his courtesy and patience were unfailing. At his
abdication he dwelt with reasonable pride upon his labours and his
journeyings. Few monarchs have lived a more strenuous life. Yet his
industry was broken by fits of indolence, which were probably due to
health. In his prime his confessor warned him against this defect, and
it caused, indeed, the last great disaster of his life. Fortunately he
was conscious of his obstinacy, his irresolution and his indolence. He
would accept admonition from the chapter of the Golden Fleece, would
comment on his failings as a warning to his son. When Cardinal Contarini
politely assured him that to hold fast to good opinions is not obstinacy
but firmness, the emperor replied, "Ah! but I sometimes stick to bad
ones." Charles was not cruel, indeed the character of his reign was
peculiarly merciful. But he was somewhat unforgiving. He especially
resented any slight upon his honour, and his unwise severity to Philip
of Hesse was probably due to the unfounded accusation that he had
imprisoned him in violation of his pledge. The excesses of his troops in
Italy, in Guelders and on the Austrian frontiers caused him acute pain,
although he called himself "hard to weep." No great nobleman, statesman
or financier was executed at Charles's order. He was proud of his
generalship, classing himself with Alva and Montmorenci as the best of
his day. Yet his failures nearly balanced his successes. It is true that
in his most important campaign, that against the League of Schmalkalden,
the main credit must be ascribed to his well-judged audacity at the
opening, and his dogged persistency at the close. As a soldier he must
rank very high. It was said that his being emperor lost to Spain the
best light horseman of her army. At every crisis he was admirably cool,
setting a truly royal example to his men. His mettle was displayed when
he was attacked on the burning sands of Tunis, when his troops were
driven in panic from Algiers, when in spite of physical suffering he
forded the Elbe at Mühlberg, and when he was bombarded by the vastly
superior Lutheran artillery under the walls of Ingolstadt. When blamed
for exposing himself on this last occasion, "I could not help it," he
apologized; "we were short of hands, 1 could not set a bad example."
Nevertheless he was by nature timid. Just before this very action he had
a fit of trembling, and he was afraid of mice and spiders. The force of
his example was not confined to the field. Melanchthon wrote from
Augsburg in 1530 that he was a model of continence, temperance and
moderation, that the old domestic discipline was now only preserved in
the imperial household. He tenderly loved his wife, whom he had married
for pecuniary and diplomatic reasons. Of his two well-known illegitimate
children, Margaret was born before he married, and Don John long after
his wife's death, but he felt this latter to be a child of shame. His
sobriety was frequently contrasted with the universal drunkenness of the
German and Flemish nobles, which he earnestly condemned. But on his
appetite he could place no control, in spite of the ruinous effects of
his gluttony upon his health. In dress, in his household, and in his
stable he was simple and economical. He loved children, flowers, animals
and birds. Professional jesters amused him, and he was not above a joke
himself. Maps and mechanical inventions greatly interested him, and in
later life he became fond of reading. He takes his place indeed among
authors, for he dictated the commentaries on his own career. Of music he
possessed a really fine knowledge, and his high appreciation of Titian
proves the purity of his feeling for art. The little collection of books
and pictures which he carried to Yuste is an index of his tastes.
Charles was undeniably plain. He confessed that he was by nature ugly,
but that as artists usually painted him uglier than he was, strangers on
seeing him were agreeably disappointed. The protruding lower jaw and the
thin pale face were redeemed by the fine open brow and the bright
speaking eyes. He was, moreover, well made, and in youth had an
incomparable leg. Above all no man could doubt his dignity; Charles was
every inch an emperor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Commentaries de Charles-quint_, ed. by Baron Kervyn de
Lettenhove (Brussels, 1862); _Memoirs_ written by Charles in 1550, and
treating somewhat fully of the years 1543-1548; W. Robertson, _History
of the Emperor Charles V._ (latest ed., London, 1887), an English
classic, which needs supplementing by later authorities; F.A. Mignet,
_Rivalité de François I et de Charles-quint_ (2 vols., Paris, 1875);
E. Armstrong, _The Emperor Charles V._ (2 vols., London, 1902), to
which reference may be made for monographs and collections of
documents bearing on the reign; H. Baumgarten, _Geschichte Karls V._
(3 vols., Stuttgart, 1885-1893), very full but extending only to 1539;
G. de Leva, _Storia documentata di Carlo V. in correlazione all'
Italia_ (5 vols., Venice, 1862-1894), a general history of the reign,
though with special reference to its Italian aspects, and extending to
1552; article by L.P. Gachard in _Biographie nationale_, vol. iii.,
1872, an excellent compressed account. The life of Charles V. at Yuste
may be studied in L.P. Gachard's _Retraite et mort de Charles-quint au
monastère de Yuste_ (Brussels, 1854-1855), and in Sir W.
Stirling-Maxwell's _The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V._
(London, 4 editions from 1852); also in W.H. Prescott's edition of
Robertson's _History_ (1857). (E. Ar.)

CHARLES VI. (1685-1740), Roman emperor, was born on the 1st of October
1685 at Vienna. He was the second son of the emperor Leopold I. by his
third marriage with Eleanore, daughter of Philip William of Neuburg,
elector palatine of the Rhine. When the Spanish branch of the house of
Habsburg became extinct in 1700, he was put forward as the lawful heir
in opposition to Philip V., the Bourbon to whom the Spanish dominions
had been left by the will of Charles II. of Spain. He was proclaimed at
Vienna on the 19th of September 1703, and made his way to Spain by the
Low Countries, England and Lisbon, remaining in Spain till 1711, mostly
in Catalonia, where the Habsburg party was strong. Although he had a
certain tenacity of purpose, which he showed in later life, he displayed
none of the qualities required in a prince who had to gain his throne by
the sword (see SPANISH SUCCESSION, WAR OF). He was so afraid of
appearing to be ruled by a favourite that he would not take good advice,
but was easily earwigged by flatterers who played on his weakness for
appearing independent. In 1708 he was married at Barcelona to Elizabeth
Christina of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1691-1750), a Lutheran princess who
was persuaded to accept Roman Catholicism by the assurances of
Protestant divines and of the philosopher Leibnitz, that she could
always give an Evangelical meaning to Catholic ceremonies. On the death
of his elder brother Joseph I. on the 17th of April 1711, Charles
inherited the hereditary possessions of the house of Habsburg, and their
claims on the Empire. The death of Joseph without male issue had been
foreseen, and Charles had at one time been prepared to give up Spain and
the Indies on condition that he was allowed to retain Naples, Sicily and
the Milanese. But when the case arose, his natural obstinacy led him to
declare that he would not think of surrendering any of the rights of his
family. It was with great difficulty that he was persuaded to leave
Spain, months after the death of his brother (on the 27th of September
1711). Only the emphatic refusal of the European powers to tolerate the
reconstruction of the empire of Charles V. forced him to give a sullen
submission to necessity. He abandoned Spain and was crowned emperor in
December 1711, but for a long time he would not recognize Philip V. It
is to his honour that he was very reluctant to desert the Catalans who
had fought for his cause. Some of their chiefs followed him to Vienna,
and their advice had an unfortunate influence on his mind. They almost
succeeded in arousing his suspicions of the loyalty of Prince Eugene at
the very moment when the prince's splendid victories over the Turks had
led to the peace of Passarowitz on the 28th of July 1718, and a great
extension of the Austrian dominions eastward. Charles showed an
enlightened, though not always successful, interest in the commercial
prosperity of his subjects, but from the date of his return to Germany
till his death his ruling passion was to secure his inheritance against
dismemberment. As early as 1713 he had begun to prepare the "Pragmatic
Sanction" which was to regulate the succession. An only son, born on the
13th of April 1716, died in infancy, and it became the object of his
policy to obtain the recognition of his daughter Maria Theresa as his
heiress. He made great concessions to obtain his aim, and embarked on
complicated diplomatic negotiations. His last days were embittered by a
disastrous war with Turkey, in which he lost almost all he had gained by
the peace of Passarowitz. He died at Vienna on the 20th of October 1740,
and with him expired the male line of his house. Charles VI. was an
admirable representative of the tenacious ambition of the Habsburgs, and
of their belief in their own "august greatness" and boundless rights.

For the personal character of Charles VI. see A. von Arneth,
_Geschichte Maria Theresias_ (Vienna, 1863-1879). Dr Franz Krones, R.
v. Marchland, _Grundriss der dsterreichischen Geschichte_ (Vienna,
1882), gives a very copious bibliography.

CHARLES VII. (1697-1745), Roman emperor, known also as Charles Albert,
elector of Bavaria, was the son of the elector Maximilian Emanuel and
his second wife, Theresa Cunigunda, daughter of John Sobieski, king of
Poland. He was born on the 6th of August 1697. His father having taken
the side of Louis XIV. of France in the War of the Spanish Succession
(q.v.), Bavaria was occupied by the allies. Charles and his brother
Clement, afterwards archbishop of Cologne, were carried prisoners to
Vienna, and were educated by the Jesuits under the name of the counts of
Wittelsbach. When his father was restored to his electorate, Charles was
released, and in 1717 he led the Bavarian contingent of the imperial
army which served under Prince Eugene against the Turks, and is said to
have distinguished himself at Belgrade. On the 25th of September 1722 he
was betrothed to Maria Amelia, the younger of the two orphan daughters
of the emperor Joseph I. Her uncle Charles VI. insisted that the
Bavarian house should recognize the Pragmatic Sanction which established
his daughter Maria Theresa as heiress of the Habsburg dominions. They
did so, but with secret protests and mental reservations of their
rights, which were designed to render the recognition valueless. The
electors of Bavaria had claims on the possessions of the Habsburgs under
the will of the emperor Ferdinand I., who died in 1564.

Charles succeeded his father on the 26th of February 1726. As a ruler of
Bavaria, he showed a vague disposition to improve the condition of his
subjects, but his profuse habits and his efforts to rival the splendour
of the French court crippled his finances. His policy was one of much
duplicity, for he was constantly endeavouring to keep on good terms with
the emperor while slipping out of his obligation to accept the Pragmatic
Sanction and intriguing to secure French support for his claims whenever
Charles VI. should die. On hearing of the emperor's last illness, he
ordered his agent at Vienna to renew his claim to the Austrian
inheritance. The claim was advanced immediately after the death of
Charles VI. on the 20th of October 1740. Charles Albert now entered into
the league against Maria Theresa, to the great misfortune of himself and
his subjects. By the help of her enemies he was elected emperor in
opposition to her husband Francis, grand duke of Tuscany, on the 24th of
January 1742, under the title of Charles VII., and was crowned at
Frankfort-on-Main on the 12th of February. But as his army had been
neglected, he was utterly unable to resist the Austrian troops. While he
was being crowned his hereditary dominions in Bavaria were being
overrun. He described himself as attacked by stone and gout, ill,
without money or land, and in distress comparable to the sorrows of
Job. During the War of the Austrian Succession (q.v.) he was a mere
puppet in the hands of the anti-Austrian coalition, and was often in
want of mere necessaries. In the changes of the war he was able to
re-enter his capital, Munich, in 1743, but had immediately afterwards to
take flight again. He was restored by Frederick the Great in October
1744, but died worn out at Munich on the 20th of January 1745.

See A. von Arneth, _Geschichte Maria Theresias_ (Vienna, 1863-1879);
and P.T. Heigel. _Der österreichische Erbfolgestreit und die
Kaiserwahl Karls VII._ (Munich, 1877).

CHARLES I. (1600-1649), king of Great Britain and Ireland, second son of
James I. and Anne of Denmark, was born at Dunfermline on the 19th of
November 1600. At his baptism he was created duke of Albany, and on the
16th of January 1605 duke of York. In 1612, by the death of his elder
brother Henry, he became heir-apparent, and was created prince of Wales
on the 3rd of November 1616. In 1620 he took up warmly the cause of his
sister the queen of Bohemia, and in 1621 he defended Bacon, using his
influence to prevent the chancellor's degradation from the peerage. The
prince's marriage with the infanta Maria, daughter of Philip III. of
Spain, had been for some time the subject of negotiation, James desiring
to obtain through Spanish support the restitution of his son-in-law,
Frederick, to the Palatinate; and in 1623 Charles was persuaded by
Buckingham, who now obtained a complete ascendancy over him in
opposition to wiser advisers and the king's own wishes, to make a secret
expedition himself to Spain, put an end to all formalities, and bring
home his mistress himself: "a gallant and brave thing for his Highness."
"Steenie" and "Baby Charles," as James called them, started on the 17th
of February, arriving at Paris on the 21st and at Madrid on the 7th of
March, where they assumed the unromantic names of Mr Smith, and Mr
Brown. They found the Spanish court by no means enthusiastic for the
marriage[1] and the princess herself averse. The prince's immediate
conversion was expected, and a complete religious tolerance for the
Roman Catholics in England demanded. James engaged to allow the infanta
the right of public worship and to use his influence to modify the law,
but Charles himself went much further. He promised the alteration of the
penal laws within three years, conceded the education of the children to
the mother till the age of twelve, and undertook to listen to the
infanta's priests in matters of religion, signing the marriage contract
on the 25th of July 1623. The Spanish, however, did not trust to words,
and Charles was informed that his wife could only follow him to England
when these promises were executed. Moreover, they had no intention
whatever of aiding the Protestant Frederick. Meanwhile Buckingham,
incensed at the failure of the expedition, had quarrelled with the
grandees, and Charles left Madrid, landing at Portsmouth on the 5th of
October, to the joy of the people, to whom the proposed alliance was
odious. He now with Buckingham urged James to make war on Spain, and in
December 1624 signed a marriage treaty with Henrietta Maria, daughter of
Henry IV. of France. In April Charles had declared solemnly to the
parliament that in case of his marriage to a Roman Catholic princess no
concessions should be granted to recusants, but these were in September
1624 deliberately promised by James and Charles in a secret article, the
first instance of the duplicity and deception practised by Charles in
dealing with the parliament and the nation. The French on their side
promised to assist in Mansfeld's expedition for the recovery of the
Palatinate, but Louis in October refused to allow the men to pass
through France; and the army, without pay or provisions, dwindled away
in Holland to nothing.

On the 27th of March 1625 Charles I. succeeded to the throne by the
death of his father, and on the 1st of May he was married by proxy to
Henrietta Maria. He received her at Canterbury on the 13th of June, and
on the 18th his first parliament assembled. On the day of his marriage
Charles had given directions that the prosecutions of the Roman
Catholics should cease, but he now declared his intention of enforcing
the laws against them, and demanded subsidies for carrying on the war
against Spain. The Commons, however, responded coldly. Charles had lent
ships to Louis XIII. to be used against the Protestants at La Rochelle,
and the Commons were not aware of the subterfuges and fictitious delays
intended to prevent their employment. The Protestant feelings of the
Commons were also aroused by the king's support of the royal chaplain,
Richard Montagu, who had repudiated Calvinistic doctrine. They only
voted small sums, and sent up a petition on the state of religion and
reflecting upon Buckingham, whom they deemed responsible for the failure
of Mansfeld's expedition, at the same time demanding counsellors in whom
they could trust. Parliament was accordingly dissolved by Charles on the
12th of August. He hoped that greater success abroad would persuade the
Commons to be more generous. On the 8th of September 1625 he made the
treaty of Southampton with the Dutch against Spain, and sent an
expedition to Cadiz under Sir Edward Cecil, which, however, was a
failure. In order to make himself independent of parliament he attempted
to raise money on the crown jewels in Holland, and to diminish the
opposition in the Commons he excluded the chief leaders by appointing
them sheriffs. When the second parliament met, however, on the 6th of
February 1626, the opposition, led by Sir John Eliot, was more
determined than before, and their attack was concentrated upon
Buckingham. On the 29th of March, Charles, calling the Commons into his
presence, accused them of leading him into the war and of taking
advantage of his difficulties to "make their own game." "I pray you not
to be deceived," he said, "it is not a parliamentary way, nor 'tis not a
way to deal with a king. Remember that parliaments are altogether in my
power for their calling, sitting, and dissolution; therefore as I find
the fruits of them good or evil, they are to continue or not to be."
Charles, however, was worsted in several collisions with the two houses,
with a consequent loss of influence. He was obliged by the peers to set
at liberty Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, whom he had put into the
Tower, and to send a summons to the earl of Bristol, whom he had
attempted to exclude from parliament, while the Commons compelled him,
with a threat of doing no business, to liberate Eliot and Digges, the
managers of Buckingham's impeachment, whom he had imprisoned. Finally in
June the Commons answered Charles's demand for money by a remonstrance
asking for Buckingham's dismissal, which they decided must precede the
grant of supply. They claimed responsible ministers, while Charles
considered himself the executive and the sole and unfettered judge of
the necessities of the state. Accordingly on the 15th Charles dissolved
the parliament.

The king was now in great need of money. He was at war with Spain and
had promised to pay £30,000 a month to Christian IV. of Denmark in
support of the Protestant campaign in Germany. To these necessities was
now added a war with France. Charles had never kept his promise
concerning the recusants; disputes arose in consequence with his wife,
and on the 31st of July 1626 he ordered all her French attendants to be
expelled from Whitehall and sent back to France. At the same time
several French ships carrying contraband goods to the Spanish
Netherlands were seized by English warships. On the 27th of June 1627
Buckingham with a large expedition sailed to the Isle of Ré to relieve
La Rochelle, then besieged by the forces of Louis XIII. Though the
success of the French Protestants was an object much desired in England,
Buckingham's unpopularity prevented support being given to the
expedition, and the duke returned to Plymouth on the 11th of November
completely defeated. Meanwhile Charles had endeavoured to get the money
refused to him by parliament by means of a forced loan, dismissing Chief
Justice Crewe for declining to support its legality, and imprisoning
several of the leaders of the opposition for refusing to subscribe to
it. These summary measures, however, only brought a small sum into the
treasury. On the 2nd of January 1628 Charles ordered the release of all
the persons imprisoned, and on the 17th of March summoned his third
parliament.

Instead of relieving the king's necessities the Commons immediately
proceeded to discuss the constitutional position and to formulate the
Petition of Right, forbidding taxation without consent of parliament,
arbitrary and illegal imprisonment, compulsory billeting in private
houses, and martial law. Charles, on the 1st of May, first demanded that
they should "rest on his royal word and promise." He obtained an opinion
from the judges that the acceptance of the petition would not absolutely
preclude in certain cases imprisonments without showing cause, and after
a futile endeavour to avoid an acceptance by returning an ambiguous
answer which only exasperated the Commons, he gave his consent on the
7th of June in the full and usual form. Charles now obtained his
subsidies, but no real settlement was reached, and his relations with
the parliament remained as unfriendly as before. They proceeded to
remonstrate against his government and against his support of
Buckingham, and denied his right to tonnage and poundage. Accordingly,
on the 26th of June they were prorogued. New disasters befell Charles,
in the assassination of Buckingham and in the failure of the fresh
expedition sent to Ré. In January 1629 the parliament reassembled,
irritated by the exaction of the duties and seizure of goods during the
interval, and suspicious of "innovations in religion," the king having
forbidden the clergy to continue the controversy concerning Calvinistic
and Arminian doctrines, the latter of which the parliament desired to
suppress. While they were discussing these matters, on the 2nd of March
1629, the king ordered them to adjourn, but amidst a scene of great
excitement the speaker, Sir John Finch, was held down in his chair and
the doors were locked, whilst resolutions against innovations in
religion and declaring those who levied or paid tonnage and poundage
enemies to their country were passed. Parliament was immediately
dissolved, and Charles imprisoned nine members, leaders of the
opposition, Eliot, Holles, Strode, Selden, Valentine, Coryton, Heyman,
Hobart and Long, his vengeance being especially shown in the case of
Eliot, the most formidable of his opponents, who died in the Tower of
consumption after long years of close and unhealthy confinement, and
whose corpse even Charles refused to give up to his family.

For eleven years Charles ruled without parliaments and with some
success. There seemed no reason to think that "that noise," to use
Laud's expression concerning parliaments, would ever be heard again by
those then living. A revenue of about £618,000 was obtained by enforcing
the payment of tonnage and poundage, and while avoiding the taxes,
loans, and benevolences forbidden by the petition of right, by
monopolies, fines for knighthood, and for pretended encroachments on the
royal domains and forests, which enabled the king to meet expenditure at
home. In Ireland, Charles, in order to get money, had granted the Graces
in 1628, conceding security of titles of more than sixty years'
standing, and a more moderate oath of allegiance for the Roman
Catholics, together with the renunciation of the shilling fine for
non-attendance at church. He continued, however, to make various
attempts to get estates into his possession on the pretext of invalid
title, and on the 12th of May 1635 the city of London estates were
sequestered. Charles here destroyed one of the most valuable settlements
in Ireland founded by James I. in the interests of national defence, and
at the same time extinguished the historic loyalty of the city of
London, which henceforth steadily favoured the parliamentary cause. In
1633 Wentworth had been sent to Ireland to establish a medieval monarchy
and get money, and his success in organization seemed great enough to
justify the attempt to extend the system to England. Charles at the same
time restricted his foreign policy to scarcely more than a wish for the
recovery of the Palatinate, to further which he engaged in a series of
numerous and mutually destructive negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus
and with Spain, finally making peace with Spain on the 5th of November
1630, an agreement which was followed on the 2nd of January 1631 by a
further secret treaty, the two kings binding themselves to make war on
the Dutch and partition their territories. A notable feature of this
agreement was that while in Charles's portion Roman Catholicism was to
be tolerated, there was no guarantee for the security of Protestantism
in the territory to be ceded to Spain.

In 1634 Charles levied ship-money from the seaport towns for the
increase of the navy, and in 1635 the tax was extended to the inland
counties, which aroused considerable opposition. In February 1637
Charles obtained an opinion in favour of his claims from the judges, and
in 1638 the great Hampden case was decided in his favour. The apparent
success, however, of Charles was imperilled by the general and growing
resentment aroused by his exactions and whole policy, and this again was
small compared with the fears excited by the king's attitude towards
religion and Protestantism. He supported zealously Laud's rigid Anglican
orthodoxy, his compulsory introduction of unwelcome ritual, and his
narrow, intolerant and despotic policy, which was marked by several
savage prosecutions and sentences in the Star Chamber, drove numbers of
moderate Protestants out of the Church into Presbyterianism, and created
an intense feeling of hostility to the government throughout the
country. Charles further increased the popular fears on the subject of
religion by his welcome given to Panzani, the pope's agent, in 1634, who
endeavoured unsuccessfully to reconcile the two churches, and afterwards
to George Conn, papal agent at the court of Henrietta Maria, while the
favour shown by the king to these was contrasted with the severe
sentences passed upon the Puritans.

The same imprudent neglect of the national sentiment was pursued in
Scotland. Charles had already made powerful enemies there by a
declaration announcing the arbitrary revocation of former church estates
to the crown. On the 18th of June 1633 he was crowned at Edinburgh with
full Anglican ceremonial, which lost him the hearts of numbers of his
Scottish subjects and aroused hostility to his government in parliament.
After his return to England he gave further offence by ordering the use
of the surplice, by his appointment of Archbishop Spotiswood as
chancellor of Scotland, and by introducing other bishops into the privy
council. In 1636 the new _Book of Canons_ was issued by the king's
authority, ordering the communion table to be placed at the east end,
enjoining confession, and declaring excommunicate any who should presume
to attack the new prayer-book. The latter was ordered to be used on the
18th of October 1636, but it did not arrive in Scotland till May 1637.
It was intensely disliked both as "popish" and as English. A riot
followed its first use in St Giles' cathedral on the 23rd of July, and
Charles's order to enforce it on the 10th of September was met by fresh
disturbances and by the establishment of the "Tables," national
committees which now became the real though informal government of
Scotland. In 1638 the national covenant was drawn up, binding those that
signed it to defend their religion to the death, and was taken by large
numbers with enthusiasm all over the country. Charles now drew back,
promised to enforce the canons and prayer-book only in a "fair and legal
way," and sent the marquis of Hamilton as a mediator. The latter,
however, a weak and incapable man, desirous of popularity with all
parties, and unfaithful to the king's interests, yielded everything,
without obtaining the return of Charles's subjects to their allegiance.
The assembly met at Glasgow on the 21st of November, and in spite of
Hamilton's opposition immediately proceeded to judge the bishops. On the
28th Hamilton dissolved it, but it continued to sit, deposed the bishops
and re-established Presbyterianism. The rebellion had now begun, and an
appeal to arms alone could decide the quarrel between Charles and his
subjects. On the 28th of May 1639 he arrived at Berwick with a small and
ill-trained force, thus beginning what is known as the first Bishops'
War; but being confronted by the Scottish army at Duns Law, he was
compelled to sign the treaty of Berwick on the 18th of June, which
provided for the disbandment of both armies and the restitution to the
king of the royal castles, referring all questions to a general assembly
and a parliament. When the assembly met it abolished episcopacy, but
Charles, who on the 3rd of August had returned to Whitehall, refused his
consent to this and to other measures proposed by the Scottish
parliament. His extreme financial necessities, and the prospect of
renewed hostilities with the Scots, now moved Charles, at the
instigation of Strafford, who in September had left Ireland to become
the king's chief adviser, to turn again to parliament for assistance as
the last resource, and on the 13th of April 1640 the Short Parliament
assembled. But on its discussing grievances before granting supplies and
finally refusing subsidies till peace was made with the Scots, it was
dissolved on the 5th of May. Charles returned once more to measures of
repression, and on the 10th imprisoned some of the London aldermen who
refused to lend money. He prepared for war, scraping together what money
he could and obtaining a grant through Strafford from Ireland. His
position, however, was hopeless; his forces were totally undisciplined,
and the Scots were supported by the parliamentary opposition in England.
On the 20th of August the Scots crossed the Tweed, beginning the
so-called second Bishops' War, defeated the king's army at Newburn on
the 28th, and subsequently occupied Newcastle and Durham. Charles at
this juncture, on the 24th of September, summoned a great council of the
peers; and on the 21st of October a cessation of arms was agreed to by
the treaty of Ripon, the Scots receiving £850 a day for the maintenance
of the army, and further negotiations being transferred to London. On
the 3rd of November the king summoned the Long Parliament.

Such was the final issue of Charles's attempt to govern without
parliaments--Scotland in triumphant rebellion, Ireland only waiting for
a signal to rise, and in England the parliament revived with almost
irresistible strength, in spite of the king, by the force of
circumstances alone. At this great crisis, which would indeed have taxed
the resolution and resource of the most cool-headed and sagacious
statesman, Charles failed signally. Two alternative courses were open to
him, either of which still offered good chances of success. He might
have taken his stand on the ancient and undoubted prerogative of the
crown, resisted all encroachments on the executive by the parliament by
legal and constitutional means, which were probably ample, and in case
of necessity have appealed to the loyalty of the nation to support him
in arms; or he might have waived his rights, and, acknowledging the
mistakes of his past administration, have united with the parliament and
created once more that union of interests and sentiment of the monarchy
with the nation which had made England so powerful. Charles, however,
pretended to do both simultaneously or by turns, and therefore
accomplished neither. The illegally imprisoned members of the last
parliament, now smarting with the sense of their wrongs, were set free
to stimulate the violence of the opposition to the king in the new
assembly. Of Charles's double statecraft, however, the series of
incidents which terminated the career of the great Strafford form the
most terrible example. Strafford had come to London in November, having
been assured by Charles that he "should not suffer in his person, honour
or fortune," but was impeached and thrown into the Tower almost
immediately. Charles took no steps to hinder the progress of the
proceedings against him, but entered into schemes for saving him by
bringing up an army to London, and this step exasperated Strafford's
enemies and added new zeal to the prosecution. On the 23rd of April,
after the passing of the attainder by the Commons, he repeated to
Strafford his former assurances of protection. On the 1st of May he
appealed to the Lords to spare his life and be satisfied with rendering
him incapable of holding office. On the 2nd he made an attempt to seize
the Tower by force. On the 10th, yielding to the queen's fears and to
the mob surging round his palace, he signed his death-warrant. "If my
own person only were in danger," he declared to the council, "I would
gladly venture it to save my Lord Strafford's life; but seeing my wife,
children, all my kingdom are concerned in it, I am forced to give way
unto it." On the 11th he sent to the peers a petition for Strafford's
life, the force of which was completely annulled by the strange
postscript: "If he must die, it were a charity to reprieve him until
Saturday." This tragic surrender of his great and devoted servant left
an indelible stain upon the king's character, and he lived to repent it
bitterly. One of his last admonitions to the prince of Wales was "never
to give way to the punishment of any for their faithful service to the
crown." It was regarded by Charles as the cause of his own subsequent
misfortunes, and on the scaffold the remembrance of it disturbed his own
last moments. The surrender of Strafford was followed by another
stupendous concession by Charles, the surrender of his right to
dissolve the parliament without its own consent, and the parliament
immediately proceeded, with Charles's consent, to sweep away the
star-chamber, high commission and other extra-legal courts, and all
extra-parliamentary taxation. Charles, however, did not remain long or
consistently in the yielding mood. In June 1641 he engaged in a second
army plot for bringing up the forces to London, and on the 10th of
August he set out for Scotland in order to obtain the Scottish army
against the parliament in England; this plan was obviously doomed to
failure and was interrupted by another appeal to force, the so-called
Incident, at which Charles was suspected (in all probability unjustly)
of having connived, consisting in an attempt to kidnap and murder
Argyll, Hamilton and Lanark, with whom he was negotiating. Charles had
also apparently been intriguing with Irish Roman Catholic lords for
military help in return for concessions, and he was suspected of
complicity in the Irish rebellion which now broke out. He left Scotland
more discredited than ever, having by his concessions made, to use
Hyde's words, "a perfect deed of gift of that kingdom," and without
gaining any advantage.

Charles returned to London on the 25th of November 1641 and was
immediately confronted by the Grand Remonstrance (passed on the 22nd),
in which, after reciting the chief points of the king's misgovernment,
the parliament demanded the appointment of acceptable ministers and the
constitution of an assembly of divines to settle the religious question.
On the 2nd of January 1642 Charles gave office to the opposition members
Colepeper and Falkland, and at the same time Hyde left the opposition
party to serve the king. Charles promised to take no serious step
without their advice. Nevertheless, entirely without their knowledge,
through the influence of the queen whose impeachment was intended,
Charles on the 4th made the rash and fatal attempt to seize with an
armed force the five members of the Commons, Pym, Hampden, Holies,
Hesilrige and Strode, whom, together with Mandeville (afterwards earl of
Manchester) in the Lords, he had impeached of high treason. No English
sovereign ever had (or has since that time) penetrated into the House of
Commons. So complete and flagrant a violation of parliamentary
liberties, and an appeal so crude and glaring to brute force, could only
be justified by complete success; but the court plans had been betrayed,
and were known to the offending members, who, by order of the House, had
taken refuge in the city before the king's arrival with the soldiers.
Charles, on entering the House, found "the birds flown," and returned
baffled, having thrown away the last chance of a peaceful settlement
(see LENTHALL, WILLIAM). The next day Charles was equally unsuccessful
in obtaining their surrender in the city. "The king had the worst day in
London yesterday," wrote a spectator of the scene, "that ever he had,
the people crying 'privilege of parliament' by thousands and prayed God
to turn the heart of the king, shutting up their shops and standing at
their doors with swords and halberds."[2] On the 10th, amidst general
manifestations of hostility, Charles left Whitehall to prepare for war,
destined never to return till he was brought back by his victorious
enemies to die.

Several months followed spent in manoeuvres to obtain the control of the
forces and in a paper war of controversy. On the 23rd of April Charles
was refused entry into Hull, and on the 2nd of June the parliament sent
to him the "Nineteen Propositions," claiming the whole sovereignty and
government for the parliament, including the choice of the ministers,
the judges, and the control of the army, and the execution of the laws
against the Roman Catholics. The military events of the war are
described in the article GREAT REBELLION. On the 22nd of August the king
set up his standard at Nottingham, and on the 23rd of October he fought
the indecisive battle of Edgehill, occupying Oxford and advancing as far
as Brentford. It seemed possible that the war might immediately be ended
by Charles penetrating to the heart of the enemy's position and
occupying London, but he drew back on the 13th of November before the
parliamentary force at Turnham Green, and avoided a decisive contest.

Next year (1643) another campaign, for surrounding instead of
penetrating into London, was projected. Newcastle and Hopton were to
advance from the north and west, seize the north and south banks of the
river below the city, destroy its commerce, and combine with Charles at
Oxford. The royalist force, however, in spite of victories at Adwalton
Moor (June 30th) and Roundway Down (July 13th), did not succeed in
combining with Charles, Newcastle in the north being kept back by the
Eastern Association and the presence of the enemy at Hull, and Hopton in
the west being detained by their successful holding out at Plymouth.
Being too weak to attempt anything alone against London, Charles marched
to besiege Gloucester, Essex following him and relieving the place.
Subsequently the rival forces fought the indecisive first battle of
Newbury, and Charles failed in preventing the return of Essex to London.
Meanwhile on the 1st of February the parliament had submitted proposals
to Charles at Oxford, but the negotiations came to nothing, and
Charles's unwise attempt at the same time to stir up a rising in his
favour in the city, known as Waller's Plot, injured his cause
considerably. He once more turned for help to Ireland, where the
cessation of the campaign against the rebels was agreed upon on the 15th
of September 1643, and several English regiments became thereby
available for employment by the king in England. Charles also accepted
the proposal for bringing over 2000 Irish. On the 22nd of January 1644
the king opened the rival parliament at Oxford.

The campaign of 1644 began far less favourably for Charles than the two
last, principally owing to the alliance now made between the Scots and
the parliament, the parliament taking the Solemn League and Covenant on
the 25th of September 1643, and the Scottish army crossing the border on
the 19th of January 1644. No attempt was this year made against London,
and Rupert was sent to Newcastle's succour in the north, where the great
disaster of Marston Moor on the 2nd of July ruined Charles's last
chances in that quarter. Meanwhile Charles himself had defeated Waller
at Cropredy Bridge on the 29th of June, and he subsequently followed
Essex to the west, compelling the surrender of Essex's infantry at
Lostwithiel on the 2nd of September. With an ill-timed leniency he
allowed the men to go free after giving up their stores and arms, and on
his return towards Oxford he was confronted again by Essex's army at
Newbury, combined now with that of Waller and of Manchester. Charles
owed his escape here from complete annihilation only to Manchester's
unwillingness to inflict a total defeat, and he was allowed to get away
with his artillery to Oxford and to revictual Donnington Castle and
Basing House.

The negotiations carried on at Uxbridge during January and February 1645
failed to secure a settlement, and on the 14th of June the crushing
defeat of the king's forces by the new model army at Naseby practically
ended the civil war. Charles, however, refused to make peace on Rupert's
advice, and considered it a point of honour "neither to abandon God's
cause, injure my successors, nor forsake my friends." His chief hope was
to join Montrose in Scotland, but his march north was prevented by the
parliamentary forces, and on the 24th of September he witnessed from the
walls of Chester the rout of his followers at Rowton Heath. He now
entered into a series of intrigues, mutually destructive, which,
becoming known to the different parties, exasperated all and diminished
still further the king's credit. One proposal was the levy of a foreign
force to reduce the kingdom; another, the supply through the marquis of
Ormonde of 10,000 Irish. Correspondence relating to these schemes,
fatally compromising as they were if Charles hoped ever to rule England
again, was discovered by his enemies, including the Glamorgan treaty,
which went much further than the instructions to Ormonde, but of which
the full responsibility has never been really traced to Charles, who on
the 29th of January 1646 disavowed his agent's proceedings. He
simultaneously treated with the parliament, and promised toleration to
the Roman Catholics if they and the pope would aid in the restoration of
the monarchy and the church. Nor was this all. The parliamentary forces
had been closing round Oxford. On the 27th of April the king left the
city, and on the 5th of May gave himself up to the Scottish army at
Newark, arriving on the 13th with them at Newcastle. On the 13th of July
the parliament sent to Charles the "Newcastle Propositions," which
included the extreme demands of Charles's acceptance of the Covenants,
the abolition of episcopacy and establishment of Presbyterianism,
severer laws against the Roman Catholics and parliamentary control of
the forces, with the withdrawal of the Irish Cessation, and a long list
of royalists to be exempted from pardon. Charles returned no definite
answer for several months. He imagined that he might now find support in
Scottish royalism, encouraged by Montrose's series of brilliant
victories, but these hopes were destroyed by the latter's defeat at
Philiphaugh on the 3rd of September. The Scots insisted on the Covenant
and on the permanent establishment of Presbyterianism, while Charles
would only consent to a temporary maintenance for three years.
Accordingly the Scots, in return for the payment of part of their army
arrears by the parliament, marched home on the 30th of January 1647,
leaving Charles behind, who under the care of the parliamentary
commissioners was conducted to Holmby House. Thence on the 12th of May
he sent his answer to the Newcastle Propositions, offering the militia
to the parliament for ten years and the establishment of Presbyterianism
for three, while a final settlement on religion was to be reached
through an assembly of twenty divines at Westminster. But in the midst
of the negotiation with the parliament Charles's person was seized, on
the 3rd of June 1647, by Cornet Joyce under instructions of the army,
which soon afterwards occupied London and overpowered the parliament,
placing Charles at Hampton Court.

If Charles could have remained firm to either one or the other faction,
and have made concessions either to Presbyterianism or on the subject of
the militia, he might even now have prevailed. But he had learned
nothing by experience, and continued at this juncture his characteristic
policy of intrigue and double-dealing, "playing his game," to use his
own words, negotiating with both parties at once, not with the object or
wish to arrive at a settlement with either, but to augment their
disputes, gain time and profit ultimately by their divisions. The "Heads
of the Proposals," submitted to Charles by the army on the 28th of July
1647, were terms conceived on a basis far broader and more statesmanlike
than the Newcastle Propositions, and such as Charles might well have
accepted. The proposals on religion anticipated the Toleration Act of
1689. There was no mention of episcopacy, and its existence was thereby
indirectly admitted, but complete religious freedom for all Protestant
denominations was provided, and the power of the church to inflict civil
penalties abolished, while it was also suggested that dangers from Roman
Catholics and Jesuits might be avoided by means other than enforcing
attendance at church. The parliament was to dissolve itself and be
succeeded by biennial assemblies elected on a reformed franchise, not to
be dissolved without their own consent before 120 days, and not to sit
more than 240 days in the two years. A council of state was to conduct
the foreign policy of the state and conclude peace and war subject to
the approval of parliament, and to control the militia for ten years,
the commanders being appointed by parliament, as also the officers of
state for ten years. No peer created since May the 21st, 1642, was to
sit in parliament without consent of both Houses, and the judicial
decisions of the House of Lords were to be ratified by the Commons. Only
five persons were excepted from amnesty, but royalists were not to hold
office for five years and not to sit in the Commons till the end of the
second biennial parliament. Proposals for a series of reforms were also
added. Charles, however, was at the same time negotiating with
Lauderdale for an invasion of England by the Scots, and imagined he
could win over Cromwell and Fairfax by "proffers of advantage to
themselves." The precious opportunity was therefore allowed to slip by.
On the 9th of September he rejected the proposals of the parliament for
the establishment of Presbyterianism. His hopes of gaining advantages by
playing upon the differences of his opponents proved a complete failure.
Fresh terms were drawn up by the army and parliament together on the
10th of November, but before these could be presented, Charles, on the
11th, had escaped to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. Thence on
the 16th he sent a message offering Presbyterianism for three years and
the militia for his lifetime to the parliament, but insisting on the
maintenance of episcopacy. On the 28th of December he refused his assent
to the Four Bills, which demanded the militia for parliament for twenty
years and practically for ever, annulled the honours recently granted by
the king and his declarations against the Houses, and gave to parliament
the right to adjourn to any place it wished. On the 3rd of January 1648
the Commons agreed to a resolution to address the king no further, in
which they were joined by the Lords on the 15th.

Charles had meanwhile taken a further fatal step which brought about his
total destruction. On the 26th of December 1647 he had signed at
Carisbrooke with the Scottish commissioners the secret treaty called the
"Engagement," whereby the Scots undertook to invade England on his
behalf and restore him to the throne on condition of the establishment
of Presbyterianism for three years and the suppression of the
sectarians. In consequence the second civil war broke out and the Scots
invaded England under Hamilton. The royalist risings in England were
soon suppressed, and Cromwell gained an easy and decisive victory over
the Scots at Preston. Charles was now left alone to face his enemies,
with the whole tale of his intrigues and deceptions unmasked and
exposed. The last intrigue with the Scots was the most unpardonable in
the eyes of his contemporaries, no less wicked and monstrous than his
design to conquer England by the Irish soldiers; "a more prodigious
treason," said Cromwell, "than any that had been perfected before;
because the former quarrel was that Englishmen might rule over one
another; this to vassalize us to a foreign nation." Cromwell, who up to
this point had shown himself foremost in supporting the negotiations
with the king, now spoke of the treaty of Newport, which he found the
parliament in the act of negotiating on his return from Scotland, as
"this ruining hypocritical agreement." Charles had engaged in these
negotiations only to gain time and find opportunity to escape. "The
great concession I made this day," he wrote on the 7th of October, "was
made merely in order to my escape." At the beginning he had stipulated
that no concession from him should be valid unless an agreement were
reached upon every point. He had now consented to most of the demands of
the parliament, including the repudiation of the Irish Cessation, the
surrender of the delinquents and the cession of the militia for twenty
years, and of the offices of state to parliament, but remained firm in
his refusal to abolish episcopacy, consenting only to Presbyterianism
for three years. Charles's devotion to the church is undoubted. In April
1646, before his flight from Oxford, inspired perhaps by superstitious
fears as to the origin of his misfortunes, he had delivered to Sheldon,
afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, a written vow (now in the library
of St Paul's cathedral) to restore all church lands held by the crown on
his restoration to the throne; and almost his last injunction to the
prince of Wales was that of fidelity to the national church. His present
firmness, however, in its support was caused probably less by his
devotion to it than by his desire to secure the failure of the whole
treaty, and his attempts to escape naturally weakened the chances of
success. Cromwell now supported the petitions of the army against the
treaty. On the 16th of November the council of officers demanded the
trial of the king, "the capital and grand author of our troubles," and
on the 27th of November the parliamentary commissioners returned from
Newport without having secured Charles's consent. Charles was removed to
Hurst Castle on the 1st of December, where he remained till the 19th,
thence being taken to Windsor, where he arrived on the 23rd. On the 6th
"Pride's Purge" had removed from the Commons all those who might show
any favour to the king. On the 25th a last attempt by the council of
officers to come to terms with him was repulsed. On the 1st of January
the remnant of the Commons resolved that Charles was guilty of treason
by "levying war against the parliament and kingdom of England"; on the
4th they declared their own power to make laws without the lords or the
sovereign, and on the 6th established a "high court of justice" to try
the king. On the 19th Charles was brought to St James's Palace, and on
the next day his trial began in Westminster Hall, without the assistance
of any of the judges, who all refused to take part in the proceedings.
He laughed aloud at hearing himself called a traitor, and immediately
demanded by what authority he was tried. He had been in treaty with the
parliament in the Isle of Wight and taken thence by force; he saw no
lords present. He was told by Bradshaw, the president of the court, that
he was tried by the authority of the people of England, who had elected
him king; Charles making the obvious reply that he was king by
inheritance and not by election, that England had been for more than
1000 years an hereditary kingdom, and Bradshaw cutting short the
discussion by adjourning the court. On the 22nd Charles repeated his
reasoning, adding, "It is not my case alone; it is the freedom and
liberty of the people of England, and do you pretend what you will, I
stand more for their liberties, for if power without law may make laws
... I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his
life or anything that he calls his own." On the 23rd he again refused to
plead. The court was adjourned, and there were several signs that the
army in their prosecution of the king had not the nation at their back.
While the soldiers had shouted "Justice! justice!" as the king passed
through their ranks, the civilian spectators from the end of the hall
had cried "God save the king!" There was considerable opposition and
reluctance to proceed among the members of the court. On the 26th,
however, the court decided unanimously upon his execution, and on the
27th Charles was brought into court for the last time to hear his
sentence. His request to be heard before the Lords and Commons was
rejected, and his attempts to answer the charges of the president were
silenced. Sentence was pronounced, and the king was removed by the
soldiers, uttering his last broken protest: "I am not suffered to speak.
Expect what justice other people will have."

In these last hours Charles, who was probably weary of life, showed a
remarkable dignity and self-possession, and a firm resignation supported
by religious faith and by the absolute conviction of his own innocence,
which, says Burnet, "amazed all people and that so much the more because
it was not natural to him. It was imputed to a very extraordinary
measure of supernatural assistance....; it was owing to something within
himself that he went through so many indignities with so much true
greatness without disorder or any sort of affectation." Nothing in his
life became Charles like the leaving it. "He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene." On the morning of the 29th of January he
said his last sad farewell to his younger children, Elizabeth and Henry,
duke of Gloucester. On the 30th at ten o'clock he walked across from St
James's to Whitehall, calling on his guard "in a pleasant manner" to
walk apace, and at two he stepped upon the scaffold from a window,
probably the middle one, of the Banqueting House (see ARCHITECTURE,
Plate VI., fig. 75). He was separated from the people by large ranks of
soldiers, and his last speech only reached Juxon and those with him on
the scaffold. He declared that he had desired the liberty and freedom of
the people as much as any; "but I must tell you that their liberty and
freedom consists in having government. ... It is not their having a
share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A
subject and a sovereign are clean different things." These, together
with his declaration that he died a member of the Church of England, and
the mysterious "Remember," spoken to Juxon, were Charles's last words.
"It much discontents the citizens," wrote a spectator; "ye manner of his
deportment was very resolutely with some smiling countenances,
intimating his willingness to be out of his troubles."[3] "The blow I
saw given," wrote another, Philip Henry, "and can truly say with a sad
heart, at the instant whereof, I remember well, there was such a grone
by the Thousands then present as I never heard before and desire I may
never hear again. There was according to order one Troop immediately
marching fromwards Charing-Cross to Westminster and another fromwards
Westminster to Charing-Cross, purposely to masker" (i.e. to overpower)
"the people and to disperse and scatter them, so that I had much adoe
amongst the rest to escape home without hurt."[4]

Amidst such scenes of violence was at last effected the destruction of
Charles. "It is lawful," wrote Milton, "and hath been held so through
all ages for any one who have the power to call to account a Tyrant or
wicked King and after due conviction to depose and put him to death."[5]
But here (it might well be contended) there had been no "due
conviction." The execution had been the act of the king's personal
enemies, of "only some fifty or sixty governing Englishmen with Oliver
Cromwell in the midst of them" an act technically illegal, morally
unjustifiable because the supposed crimes of Charles had been condoned
by the later negotiations with him, and indefensible on the ground of
public expediency, for the king's death proved a far greater obstacle to
the re-establishment of settled government than his life could have
been. The result was an extraordinary revulsion of feeling in favour of
Charles and the monarchy, in which the incidents of his misgovernment
were completely forgotten. He soon became in the popular veneration a
martyr and a saint. His fate was compared with the Crucifixion, and his
trials and sufferings to those of the Saviour. Handkerchiefs dipped in
his blood wrought "miracles," and the _Eikon Basilike_, published on the
day of his funeral, presented to the public a touching if not a genuine
portrait of the unfortunate sovereign. At the Restoration the
anniversary of his death was ordered to be kept as a day of fasting and
humiliation, and the service appointed for use on the occasion was only
removed from the prayer-book in 1859. The same conception of Charles as
a martyr for religion appeals still to many, and has been stimulated by
modern writers. "Had Charles been willing to abandon the church and give
up episcopacy," says Bishop Creighton, "he might have saved his throne
and his life. But on this point Charles stood firm, for this he died and
by dying saved it for the future."[6] Gladstone, Keble, Newman write in
the same strain. "It was for the Church," says Gladstone, "that Charles
shed his blood upon the scaffold."[7] "I rest," says Newman, "on the
scenes of past years, from the Upper Room in Acts to the Court of
Carisbrooke and Uxbridge." The injustice and violence of the king's
death, however, the pathetic dignity of his last days, and the many
noble traits in his character, cannot blind us to the real causes of his
downfall and destruction, and a sober judgment cannot allow that Charles
was really a martyr either for the church or for the popular liberties.

The constitutional struggle between the crown and parliament had not
been initiated by Charles I. It was in full existence in the reign of
James I., and distinct traces appear towards the latter part of that of
Elizabeth. Charles, therefore, in some degree inherited a situation for
which he was not responsible, nor can he be justly blamed, according to
the ideas of kingship which then prevailed, for defending the
prerogatives of the crown as precious and sacred personal possessions
which it was his duty to hand down intact to his successors. Neither
will his persistence in refusing to yield up the control of the
executive to the parliament or the army, or his zeal in defending the
national church, be altogether censured. In the event the parliament
proved quite incapable of governing, an army uncontrolled by the
sovereign was shown to constitute a more grievous tyranny than Charles's
most arbitrary rule, and the downfall of the church seen to make room
only for a sectarian despotism as intolerable as the Laudian. The
natural inference might be that both conceptions of government had much
to support them, that they were bound sooner or later to come into
collision, and that the actual individuals in the drama, including the
king himself, were rather the victims of the greatness of events than
real actors in the scene, still less the controllers of their own and
the national destiny. A closer insight, however, shows that biographical
more than abstract historical elements determined the actual course and
issue of the Rebellion. The great constitutional and religious points of
dispute between the king and parliament, though doubtless involving
principles vital to the national interests, would not alone have
sufficed to destroy Charles. Monarchy was too much venerated, was too
deeply rooted in the national life, to be hastily and easily extirpated;
the perils of removing the foundation of all government, law and order
were too obvious not to be shunned at almost all costs. Still less can
the crowning tragedy of the king's death find its real explanation or
justification in these disputes and antagonisms. The real cause was the
complete discredit into which Charles had brought himself and the
monarchy. The ordinary routine of daily life and of business cannot
continue without some degree of mutual confidence between the
individuals brought into contact, far less could relations be maintained
by subjects with a king endowed with the enormous powers then attached
to the kingship, and with whom agreements, promises, negotiations were
merely subterfuges and prevarications. We have seen the series of
unhappy falsehoods and deceptions which constituted Charles's
statecraft, beginning with the fraud concerning the concessions to the
Roman Catholics at his marriage, the evasions with which he met the
Petition of Right, the abandonment of Strafford, the simultaneous
negotiation with, and betrayal of, all parties. Strafford's reported
words on hearing of his desertion by Charles, "Put not your trust in
princes," re-echo through the whole of Charles's reign. It was the
degradation and dishonour of the kingship, and the personal loss of
credit which Charles suffered through these transactions--which never
appear to have caused him a moment's regret or uneasiness, but the fatal
consequences of which were seen only too clearly by men like Hyde and
Falkland--that were the real causes of the rebellion and of the king's
execution. The constitutional and religious grievances were the outward
and visible sign of the corroding suspicions which slowly consumed the
national loyalty. In themselves there was nothing incapable of
settlement either through the spirit of union which existed between
Elizabeth and her subjects, or by the principle of compromise which
formed the basis of the constitutional settlement in 1688. The bond of
union between his people and himself Charles had, however, early broken,
and compromise is only possible between parties both of whom can
acknowledge to some extent the force of the other's position, which can
trust one another, and which are sincere in their endeavour to reach
agreement. Thus on Charles himself chiefly falls the responsibility for
the catastrophe.

His character and motives fill a large place in English history, but
they have never been fully understood and possibly were largely due to
physical causes. His weakness as a child was so extreme that his life
was despaired of. He outgrew physical defects, and as a young man
excelled in horsemanship and in the sports of the times, but always
retained an impediment of speech. At the time of his accession his
reserve and reticence were especially noticed. Buckingham was the only
person who ever enjoyed his friendship, and after his death Charles
placed entire confidence in no man. This isolation was the cause of an
ignorance of men and of the world, and of an incapacity to appreciate
the ideas, principles and motives of others, while it prepared at the
same time a fertile soil for receiving those exalted conceptions of
kingship, of divine right and prerogative, which came into vogue at this
period, together with those exaggerated ideas of his own personal
supremacy and importance to which minds not quite normal are always
especially inclined. His character was marked by a weakness which
shirked and postponed the settlement of difficulties, by a meanness and
ingratitude even when dealing with his most devoted followers, by an
obstinacy which only feigned compliance and by an untruthfulness which
differed widely from his son's unblushing deceit, which found always
some reservation or excuse, but which while more scrupulous was also
more dangerous and insidious because employed continually as a principle
of conduct. Yet Charles, in spite of his failings, had many fine
qualities. Clarendon, who was fully conscious of them, who does not
venture to call him a good king, and allows that "his kingly virtues had
some mixture and alloy that hindered them from shining in full lustre,"
declares that "he was if ever any, the most worthy of the title of an
Honest Man, so great a lover of justice that no temptation could dispose
him to a wrongful action except that it was disguised to him that he
believed it just," "the worthiest of gentlemen, the best master, the
best friend, the best husband, the best father and the best Christian
that the age in which he lived produced." With all its deplorable
mistakes and failings Charles I.'s reign belongs to a sphere infinitely
superior to that of his unscrupulous, corrupt, selfish but more
successful son. His private life was without a blemish. Immediately on
his accession he had suppressed the disorder which had existed in the
household of James I., and let it be known that whoever had business
with him "must never approach him by backstairs or private doors."[8] He
maintained a strict sobriety in food and dress. He had a fine artistic
sense, and Milton reprehends him for having made Shakespeare "the
closest companion of his solitudes." "Monsieur le Prince de Galles,"
wrote Rubens in 1625, "est le prince le plus amateur de la peinture qui
soit au monde." He succeeded in bringing together during twenty years an
unrivalled collection, of which a great part was dispersed at his death.
He showed a noble insensibility to flattery. He was deeply and sincerely
religious. He wished to do right, and was conscious of the purity of his
motives. Those who came into contact with him, even the most bitter of
his opponents, were impressed with his goodness. The great tragedy of
his life, to be read in his well-known, dignified, but weak and unhappy
features, and to be followed in his inexplicable and mysterious choice
of baneful instruments, such as Rupert, Laud, Hamilton, Glamorgan,
Henrietta Maria--all in their several ways working out his
destruction--seems to have been inspired by a fateful insanity or
infirmity of mind or will, recalling the great Greek dramas in which the
poets depicted frenzied mortals rushing into their own destruction,
impelled by the unseen and superior powers.

The king's body, after being embalmed, was buried by the few followers
who remained with him to the last, hastily and without any funeral
service, which was forbidden by the authorities, in the tomb of Henry
VIII., in St George's Chapel, Windsor, where his coffin was identified
and opened in 1813. An "account of what appeared" was published by Sir
Henry Halford, and a bone abstracted on the occasion was replaced in the
vault by the prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) in 1888. Charles
I. left, besides three children who died in infancy, Charles (afterwards
Charles II.); James (afterwards James II.); Henry, duke of Gloucester
(1639-1660); Mary (1631-1660), who married William of Orange; Elizabeth
(1635-1650); and Henrietta, duchess of Orleans (1644-1670).

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The leading authority for the life and reign of Charles
I. is the _History of England_ (1883) and _History of the Great Civil
War_ (1893), by S.R. Gardiner, with the references there given. Among
recent works may be mentioned _Memoirs of the Martyr King_, by A. Fea
(1905); _Life of Charles I, 1600-1625_, by E.B. Chancellor (1886);
_The Visits of Charles I. to Newcastle_, by C.S. Terry (1898);
_Charles I._, by Sir J. Skelton, valuable for its illustrations
(1898); _The Manner of the Coronation of King Charles I._, ed. by C.
Wordsworth (Henry Bradshaw Soc., 1892); _The Picture Gallery of
Charles I._, by C. Phillips (1896). See also _Calendars of State
Papers_, _Irish_ and _Domestic Series_; _Hist. MSS. Comm. Series_,
esp. _MSS. of J. Eliot Hodgkin, F.J. Savile Foljambe, Lord Montagu of
Beaulieu, Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle, Marquis of Ormonde, Earl
Cowper (Coke MSS.), Earl of Lonsdale_ (note-books of parliaments of
1626 and 1628), _Duke of Buccleuch at Montagu House, Duke of
Portland_, 11th Rep. app. pt. vi., _Duke of Hamilton_, pt. i.,
_Salvetti Correspondence_, 10th Rep. pt. vi., _Lord Braye_; _Add.
MSS._ Brit. Mus., 33,596 fols. 21-32 (keys to ciphers), 34,171,
35,297; _Notes and Queries_, ser. vi., vii., viii., ix. indexes; _Eng.
Hist. Rev._ ii. 687 ("Charles and Glamorgan" by S.R. Gardiner), vii.
176; _Cornhill Mag._ vol. 75, January 1897, "Execution of Charles," by
C.H. Firth. (P. C. Y.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Hist. MSS. Comm._ 11 Rep. app. Pt. iv. 21.

[2] _Hist. MSS. Comm.: MSS. of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu_, 141.

[3] _Notes and Queries_, 7th ser., viii. 326.

[4] _Letters and Diaries of P. Henry_ (1882), 12.

[5] _Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_.

[6] _Lectures on Archbishop Laud_ (1895), p. 25.

[7] _Remarks on the Royal Supremacy_ (1850), p. 57.

[8] Salvetti's Corresp. in _Hist. MSS. Comm._ 11th Rep. app. pt. i.
p. 6.

CHARLES II. (1630-1685), king of Great Britain and Ireland, second son
of Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria, was born on the 29th of May
1630 at St James's Palace, and was brought up under the care
successively of the countess of Dorset, William Cavendish, duke of
Newcastle, and the marquess of Hertford. He accompanied the king during
the campaigns of the Civil War, and sat in the parliament at Oxford, but
on the 4th of March 1645 he was sent by Charles I. to the west,
accompanied by Hyde and others who formed his council. Owing, however,
to the mutual jealousies and misconduct of Goring and Grenville, and the
prince's own disregard and contempt of the council, his presence was in
no way advantageous, and could not prevent the final overthrow of the
king's forces in 1646. He retired (17th of February) to Pendennis Castle
at Falmouth, and on the approach of Fairfax (2nd of March) to Scilly,
where he remained with Hyde till the 16th of April. Thence he fled to
Jersey, and finally refusing all the overtures from the parliament, and
in opposition to the counsels of Hyde, who desired the prince to remain
on English territory, he repaired to the queen at Paris, where he
remained for two years. He is described at this time by Mme de
Motteville as "well-made, with a swarthy complexion agreeing well with
his fine black eyes, a large ugly mouth, a graceful and dignified
carriage and a fine figure"; and according to the description circulated
later for his capture after the battle of Worcester, he was over six
feet tall. He received instruction in mathematics from Hobbes, and was
early initiated into all the vices of the age by Buckingham and Percy.
In July 1648 the prince joined the royalist fleet and blockaded the
Thames with a fleet of eleven ships, returning to Holland, where he
received the news of the final royalist defeats and afterwards of the
execution of his father. On the 14th of January 1649 he had forwarded to
the council a signed _carte blanche_, granting any conditions provided
his father's life were spared. He immediately assumed the title of king,
and was proclaimed in Scotland (5th of February) and in some parts of
Ireland. On the 17th of September, after a visit to his mother at St
Germain, Charles went to Jersey and issued a declaration proclaiming his
rights; but, owing to the arrival of the fleet at Portsmouth, he was
obliged, on the 13th of February 1650, to return again to Breda. The
projected invasion of Ireland was delayed through want of funds till it
was too late; Hyde's mission to Spain, in the midst of Cromwell's'
successes, brought no assistance, and Charles now turned to Scotland for
aid. Employing the same unscrupulous and treacherous methods which had
proved so fatal to his father, he simultaneously supported and
encouraged the expedition of Montrose and the royalists, and negotiated
with the covenanters. On the 1st of May he signed the first draft of a
treaty at Breda with the latter, in which he accepted the Solemn League
and Covenant, conceded the control of public and church affairs to the
parliament and the kirk, and undertook to establish Presbyterianism in
the three kingdoms. He also signed privately a paper repudiating Ormonde
and the loyal Irish, and recalling the commissions granted to them. In
acting thus he did not scruple to desert his own royalist followers, and
to repudiate and abandon the great and noble Montrose, whose heroic
efforts he was apparently merely using in order to extort better terms
from the covenanters, and who, having been captured on the 4th of May,
was executed on the 21st in spite of some attempts by Charles to procure
for him an indemnity.

Thus perjured and disgraced the young king embarked for Scotland on the
2nd of June; on the 11th when off Heligoland he signed the treaty, and
on the 23rd, on his arrival at Speymouth, before landing, he swore to
both the covenants. He proceeded to Falkland near Perth and passed
through Aberdeen, where he saw the mutilated arm of Montrose suspended
over the city gate. He was compelled to dismiss all his followers except
Buckingham, and to submit to interminable sermons, which generally
contained violent invectives against his parents and himself. To Argyll
he promised the payment of £40,000 at his restoration, doubtless the sum
owing as arrears of the Scottish army unpaid when Charles I. was
surrendered to the English at Newcastle, and entered into negotiations
for marrying his daughter. In August he was forced to sign a further
declaration, confessing his own wickedness in dealing with the Irish,
his father's blood-guiltiness, his mother's idolatry, and his abhorrence
of prelacy, besides ratifying his allegiance to the covenants and to
Presbyterianism. At the same time he declared himself secretly to King,
dean of Tuam, "a true child of the Church of England," "a true
Cavalier," and avowed that "what concerns Ireland is in no ways
binding"; while to the Roman Catholics in England he promised
concessions and expressed his goodwill towards their church to Pope
Innocent X. His attempt, called "The Start," on the 4th of October 1650,
to escape from the faction at Perth and to join Huntly and the royalists
in the north failed, and he was overtaken and compelled to return. On
the 1st of January 1651 he was crowned at Scone, when he was forced to
repeat his oaths to both the covenants.

Meanwhile Cromwell had advanced and had defeated the Presbyterians at
Dunbar on the 3rd of September 1650, subsequently occupying Edinburgh.
This defeat was not wholly unwelcome to Charles in the circumstances; in
the following summer, during Cromwell's advance to the north, he shook
off the Presbyterian influence, and on the 31st of July 1651 marched
south into England with an army of about 10,000 commanded by David
Leslie. He was proclaimed king at Carlisle, joined by the earl of Derby
in Lancashire, evaded the troops of Lambert and Harrison in Cheshire,
marched through Shropshire, meeting with a rebuff at Shrewsbury, and
entered Worcester with a small, tired and dispirited force of only
16,000 men (22nd of August). Here the decisive battle, which ruined his
hopes, and in which Charles distinguished himself by conspicuous courage
and fortitude, was fought on the 3rd of September. After leading an
unsuccessful cavalry charge against the enemy he fled, about 6 P.M.,
accompanied by Buckingham, Derby, Wilmot, Lauderdale and others, towards
Kidderminster, taking refuge at Whiteladies, about 25 m. from Worcester,
where he separated himself from all his followers except Wilmot,
concealing himself in the famous oak during the 6th of September, moving
subsequently to Boscobel, to Moseley and Bentley Hall, and thence,
disguised as Miss Lane's attendant, to Abbots Leigh near Bristol, to
Trent in Somersetshire, and finally to the George Inn at Brighton,
having been recognized during the forty-one days of his wanderings by
about fifty persons, none of whom, in spite of the reward of £1000
offered for his capture, or of the death penalty threatened for aiding
his concealment, had betrayed him.

He set sail from Shoreham on the 15th of October 1651, and landed at
Fécamp in Normandy the next day. He resided at Paris at St Germain till
June 1654, in inactivity, unable to make any further effort, and living
with difficulty on a grant from Louis XIV. of 600 livres a month.
Various missions to foreign powers met with failure; he was excluded
from Holland by the treaty made with England in April 1654, and he
anticipated his expulsion from France, owing to the new relations of
friendship established with Cromwell, by quitting the country in July.
He visited his sister, the princess of Orange, at Spa, and went to
Aix-la-Chapelle, thence finally proceeding in November to Cologne, where
he was hospitably received. The conclusion of Cromwell's treaty with
France in October 1655, and the war between England and Spain, gave hope
of aid from the latter power. In April 1656 Charles went to Bruges, and
on the 7th of February 1658 to Brussels, where he signed a treaty with
Don John of Austria, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, by which he
received an allowance in place of his French pension and undertook to
assemble all his subjects in France in aid of the Spanish against the
French. This plan, however, came to nothing; projected risings in
England were betrayed, and by the capture of Dunkirk in June 1658, after
the battle of the Dunes, by the French and Cromwell's Ironsides, the
Spanish cause in Flanders was ruined.

As long as Cromwell lived there appeared little hope of the restoration
of the monarchy, and Charles and Hyde had been aware of the plots for
his assassination, which had aroused no disapproval. By the protector's
death on the 3rd of September 1658 the scene was wholly changed, and
amidst the consequent confusion of factions the cry for the restoration
of the monarchy grew daily in strength. The premature royalist rising,
however, in August 1659 was defeated, and Charles, who had awaited the
result on the coast of Brittany, proceeded to Fuenterrabia on the
Spanish frontier, where Mazarin and Luis de Haro were negotiating the
treaty of the Pyrenees, to induce both powers to support his cause; but
the failure of the attempt in England ensured the rejection of his
request, and he returned to Brussels in December, visiting his mother at
Paris on the way. Events had meanwhile developed fast in favour of a
restoration. Charles, by Hyde's advice, had not interfered in the
movement, and had avoided inconvenient concessions to the various
factions by referring all to a "free parliament." He left Brussels for
Breda, and issued in April 1660, together with the letters to the
council, the officers of the army and the houses of parliament and the
city, the declaration of an amnesty for all except those specially
excluded afterwards by parliament, which referred to parliament the
settlement of estates and promised a liberty to tender consciences in
matters of religion not contrary to the peace of the kingdom.

On the 8th of May Charles II. was proclaimed king in Westminster Hall
and elsewhere in London. On the 24th he sailed from the Hague, landing
on the 26th at Dover, where he was met by Monk, whom he saluted as
father, and by the mayor, from whom he accepted a "very rich bible,"
"the thing that he loved above all things in the world." He reached
London on the 29th, his thirtieth birthday, arriving with the
procession, amidst general rejoicings and "through a lane of happy
faces," at seven in the evening at Whitehall, where the houses of
parliament awaited his coming, to offer in the name of the nation their
congratulations and allegiance.

No event in the history of England had been attended with more lively
and general rejoicing than Charles's restoration, and none was destined
to cause greater subsequent disappointment and disillusion. Indolent,
sensual and dissipated by nature, Charles's vices had greatly increased
during his exile abroad, and were now, with the great turn of fortune
which gave him full opportunity to indulge them, to surpass all the
bounds of decency and control. A long residence till the age of thirty
abroad, together with his French blood, had made him politically more of
a foreigner than an Englishman, and he returned to England ignorant of
the English constitution, a Roman Catholic and a secret adversary of the
national religion, and untouched by the sentiment of England's greatness
or of patriotism. Pure selfishness was the basis of his policy both in
domestic and foreign affairs. Abroad the great national interests were
eagerly sacrificed for the sake of a pension, and at home his personal
ease and pleasure alone decided every measure, and the fate of every
minister and subject. During his exile he had surrounded himself with
young men of the same spirit as himself, such as Buckingham and Bennet,
who, without having any claim to statesmanship, inattentive to business,
neglectful of the national interests and national prejudices, became
Charles's chief advisers. With them, as with their master, public office
was only desirable as a means of procuring enjoyment, for which an
absolute monarchy provided the most favourable conditions. Such persons
were now, accordingly, destined to supplant the older and responsible
ministers of the type of Clarendon and Ormonde, men of high character
and patriotism, who followed definite lines of policy, while at the same
time the younger men of ability and standing were shut out from office.

The first period of Charles II.'s reign (1660-1667) was that of the
administration of Lord Clarendon, the principal author of the
Restoration settlement. The king was granted the large revenue of
£1,300,000. The naval and military forces were disbanded, but Charles
managed to retain under the name of guards three regiments, which
remained the nucleus of a standing army. The settlement of estates on a
legal basis provided ill for a large number of the king's adherents who
had impoverished themselves in his cause. The king's honour was directly
involved in their compensation and, except for the gratification of a
few individuals, was tarnished by his neglect to afford them relief.
Charles used his influence to carry through parliament the act of
indemnity, and the execution of some of the regicides was a measure not
more severe than was to be expected in the times and circumstances; but
that of Sir Henry Vane, who was not a regicide and whose life Charles
had promised the parliament to spare in case of his condemnation, was
brought about by Charles's personal insistence in revenge for the
victim's high bearing during his trial, and was an act of gross cruelty
and perfidy. Charles was in favour of religious toleration, and a
declaration issued by him in October 1660 aroused great hopes; but he
made little effort to conciliate the Presbyterians or to effect a
settlement through the Savoy conference, and his real object was to gain
power over all the factions and to free his co-religionists, the Roman
Catholics, in favour of whom he issued his first declaration of
indulgence (26th of December 1662), the bill to give effect to it being
opposed by Clarendon and defeated in the Lords, and being replied to by
the passing of further acts against religious liberty. Meanwhile the
plot of Venner and of the Fifth Monarchy men had been suppressed in
January 1661, and the king was crowned on the 23rd of April. The
convention parliament had been dissolved on the 29th of December 1660,
and Charles's first parliament, the Long Parliament of the Restoration,
which met on the 8th of May 1661 and continued till January 1679,
declared the command of the forces inherent in the crown, repudiated the
taking up of arms against the king, and repealed in 1664 the Triennial
Act, adding only a provision that there should not be intermission of
parliaments for more than three years. In Ireland the church was
re-established, and a new settlement of land introduced by the Act of
Settlement 1661 and the Act of Explanation 1665. The island was excluded
from the benefit of the Navigation Laws, and in 1666 the importation of
cattle and horses into England was forbidden. In Scotland episcopacy was
set up, the covenant to which Charles had taken so many solemn oaths
burnt by the common hangman, and Argyll brought to the scaffold, while
the kingdom was given over to the savage and corrupt administration of
Lauderdale. On the 21st of May 1662, in pursuance of the pro-French and
anti-Spanish policy, Charles married Catherine of Braganza, daughter of
John IV. of Portugal, by which alliance England obtained Tangier and
Bombay. She brought him no children, and her attractions for Charles
were inferior to those of his mistress, Lady Castlemaine, whom she was
compelled to receive as a lady of her bedchamber. In February 1665 the
ill-omened war with Holland was declared, during the progress of which
it became apparent how greatly the condition of the national services
and the state of administration had deteriorated since the Commonwealth,
and to what extent England was isolated and abandoned abroad, Michael de
Ruyter, on the 13th of June 1667, carrying out his celebrated attack on
Chatham and burning several warships. The disgrace was unprecedented.
Charles did not show himself and it was reported that he had abdicated,
but to allay the popular panic it was given out "that he was very
cheerful that night at supper with his mistresses." The treaty of Breda
with Holland (21st of July 1667) removed the danger, but not the
ignominy, and Charles showed the real baseness of his character when he
joined in the popular outcry against Clarendon, the upright and devoted
adherent of his father and himself during twenty-five years of
misfortune, and drove him into poverty and exile in his old age,
recalling ominously Charles I.'s betrayal of Strafford.

To Clarendon now succeeded the ministry of Buckingham and Arlington, who
with Lauderdale, Ashley (afterwards Lord Shaftesbury) and Clifford,
constituted the so-called Cabal ministry in 1672. With these advisers
Charles entered into those schemes so antagonistic to the national
interests which have disgraced his reign. His plan was to render himself
independent of parliament and of the nation by binding himself to France
and the French policy of aggrandizement, and receiving a French pension
with the secret intention as well of introducing the Roman Catholic
religion again into England. In 1661 under Clarendon's rule, the evil
precedent had been admitted of receiving money from France, in 1662
Dunkirk had been sold to Louis, and in February 1667 during the Dutch
war a secret alliance had been made with Louis, Charles promising him a
free hand in the Netherlands and Louis undertaking to support Charles's
designs "in or out of the kingdom." In January 1668 Sir W. Temple had
made with Sweden and Holland the Triple Alliance against the
encroachments and aggrandizement of France, but this national policy was
soon upset by the king's own secret plans. In 1668 the conversion of his
brother James to Romanism became known to Charles. Already in 1662 the
king had sent Sir Richard Bellings to Rome to arrange the terms of
England's conversion, and now in 1668 he was in correspondence with
Oliva, the general of the Jesuits in Rome, through James de la Cloche,
the eldest of his natural sons, of whom he had become the father when
scarcely sixteen during his residence at Jersey. On the 25th of January
1669, at a secret meeting between the two royal brothers, with
Arlington, Clifford and Arundell of Wardour, it was determined to
announce to Louis XIV. the projected conversion of Charles and the
realm, and subsequent negotiations terminated in the two secret treaties
of Dover. The first, signed only, among the ministers, by Arlington and
Clifford, the rest not being initiated, on the 20th of May 1670,
provided for the return of England to Rome and the joint attack of
France and England upon Holland, England's ally, together with Charles's
support of the Bourbon claims to the throne of Spain, while Charles
received a pension of £200,000 a year. In the second, signed by
Arlington, Buckingham, Lauderdale and Ashley on the 31st of December
1670, nothing was said about the conversion, and the pension provided
for that purpose was added to the military subsidy, neither of these
treaties being communicated to parliament or to the nation. An immediate
gain to Charles was the acquisition of another mistress in the person of
Louise de Kéroualle, the so-called "Madam Carwell," who had accompanied
the duchess of Orleans, the king's sister, to Dover, at the time of the
negotiations, and who joined Charles's seraglio, being created duchess
of Portsmouth, and acting as the agent of the French alliance throughout
the reign.

On the 24th of October 1670, at the very time that these treaties were
in progress, Charles opened parliament and obtained a vote of £800,000
on the plea of supporting the Triple Alliance. Parliament was prorogued
in April 1671, not assembling again till February 1673, and on the 2nd
of January 1672 was announced the "stop of the exchequer," or national
bankruptcy, one of the most blameworthy and unscrupulous acts of the
reign, by which the payments from the exchequer ceased, and large
numbers of persons who had lent to the government were thus ruined. On
the reassembling of parliament on the 4th of February 1673 a strong
opposition was shown to the Cabal ministry which had been constituted at
the end of 1672. The Dutch War, declared on the 17th of March 1672,
though the commercial and naval jealousies of Holland had certainly not
disappeared in England, was unpopular because of the alliance with
France and the attack upon Protestantism, while the king's second
declaration of indulgence (15th of March 1672) aroused still further
antagonism, was declared illegal by the parliament, and was followed up
by the Test Act, which obliged James and Clifford to resign their
offices. In February 1674 the war with Holland was closed by the treaty
of London or of Westminster, though Charles still gave Louis a free hand
in his aggressive policy towards the Netherlands, and the Cabal was
driven from office. Danby (afterwards duke of Leeds) now became chief
minister; but, though in reality a strong supporter of the national
policy, he could not hope to keep his place without acquiescence in the
king's schemes. In November 1675 Charles again prorogued parliament, and
did not summon it again till February 1677, when it was almost
immediately prorogued. On the 17th of February 1676, with Danby's
knowledge, Charles concluded a further treaty with Louis by which he
undertook to subordinate entirely his foreign policy to that of France,
and received an annual pension of £100,000. On the other hand, Danby
succeeded in effecting the marriage (4th of November 1677) between
William of Orange and the princess Mary, which proved the most important
political event in the whole reign. Louis revenged himself by intriguing
with the Opposition and by turning his streams of gold in that
direction, and a further treaty with France for the annual payment to
Charles of £300,000 and the dismissal of his parliament, concluded on
the 17th of May 1678, was not executed. Louis made peace with Holland
at Nijmwegen on the 10th of August, and punished Danby by disclosing
his secret negotiations, thus causing the minister's fall and
impeachment. To save Danby Charles now prorogued the parliament on the
30th of December, dissolving it on the 24th of January 1679.

Meanwhile the "Popish Plot," the creation of a band of impostors
encouraged by Shaftesbury and the most violent and unscrupulous of the
extreme Protestant party in order to exclude James from the throne, had
thrown the whole country into a panic. Charles's conduct in this
conjuncture was highly characteristic and was marked by his usual
cynical selfishness. He carefully refrained from incurring suspicion and
unpopularity by opposing the general outcry, and though he saw through
the imposture from the beginning he made no attempt to moderate the
popular frenzy or to save the life of any of the victims, his
co-religionists, not even intervening in the case of Lord Stafford, and
allowing Titus Oates to be lodged at Whitehall with a pension. His
policy was to take advantage of the violence of the faction, to "give
them line enough," to use his own words, to encourage it rather than
repress it, with the expectation of procuring finally a strong royalist
reaction. In his resistance to the great movement for the exclusion of
James from the succession, Charles was aided by moderate men such as
Halifax, who desired only a restriction of James's powers, and still
more by the violence of the extreme exclusionists themselves, who headed
by Shaftesbury brought about their own downfall and that of their cause
by their support of the legitimacy and claims of Charles's natural son,
the duke of Monmouth. In 1679 Charles denied, in council, his supposed
marriage with Lucy Walter, Monmouth's mother, his declarations being
published in 1680 to refute the legend of the black box which was
supposed to contain the contract of marriage, and told Burnet he would
rather see him hanged than legitimize him. He deprived him of his
general's commission in consequence of his quasi-royal progresses about
the country, and in December on Monmouth's return to England he was
forbidden to appear at court. In February 1679 the king had consented to
order James to go abroad, and even approved of the attempt of the
primate and the bishop of Winchester to convert him to Protestantism. To
weaken the opposition to his government Charles accepted Sir W Temple's
new scheme of governing by a council which included the leaders of the
Opposition, and which might have become a rival to the parliament, but
this was an immediate failure. In May 1679 he prorogued the new
parliament which had attainted Danby, and in July dissolved it, while in
October he prorogued another parliament of the same mind till January
and finally till October 1680, having resolved "to wait till this
violence should wear off." He even made overtures to Shaftesbury in
November 1679, but the latter insisted on the departure of both the
queen and James. All attempts at compromise failed, and on the
assembling of the parliament in October 1680 the Exclusion Bill passed
the Commons, being, however, thrown out in the Lords through the
influence of Halifax. Charles dissolved the parliament in January 1681,
declaring that he would never give his consent to the Exclusion Bill,
and summoned another at Oxford, which met there on the 21st of March
1681, Shaftesbury's faction arriving accompanied by armed bands. Charles
expressed his willingness to consent to the handing over of the
administration to the control of a Protestant, in the case of a Roman
Catholic sovereign, but the Opposition insisted on Charles's nomination
of Monmouth as his successor, and the parliament was accordingly once
more (28th of March) dissolved by Charles, while a royal proclamation
ordered to be read in all the churches proclaimed the ill-deeds of the
parliament and the king's affection for the Protestant religion.

Charles's tenacity and clever tact were now rewarded. A great popular
reaction ensued in favour of the monarchy, and a large number of loyal
addresses were sent in, most of them condemning the Exclusion Bill.
Shaftesbury was imprisoned, and though the Middlesex jury threw out his
indictment and he was liberated, he never recovered his power, and in
October 1682 left England for ever. The Exclusion Bill and the
limitation of James's powers were no more heard of, and full liberty
was granted to the king to pursue the retrograde and arbitrary policy to
which his disposition naturally inclined. In Scotland James set up a
tyrannical administration of the worst type. The royal enmity towards
William of Orange was increased by a visit of the latter to England in
July. No more parliaments were called, and Charles subsisted on his
permanent revenue and his French pensions. He continued the policy of
double-dealing and treachery, deceiving his ministers as at the treaty
of Dover, by pretending to support Holland and Spain while he was
secretly engaged to Louis to betray them. On the 22nd of March 1681 he
entered into a compact with Louis whereby he undertook to desert his
allies and offer no resistance to French aggressions. In August he
joined with Spain and Holland in a manifesto against France, while
secretly for a million livres he engaged himself to Louis, and in 1682
he proposed himself as arbitrator with the intention of treacherously
handing over Luxemburg to France, an offer which was rejected owing to
Spanish suspicions of collusion. In the event, Charles's duplicity
enabled Louis to seize Strassburg in 1681 and Luxemburg in 1684. The
government at home was carried on principally by Rochester, Sunderland
and Godolphin, while Guilford was lord chancellor and Jeffreys lord
chief justice. The laws against the Nonconformists were strictly
enforced. In order to obtain servile parliaments and also obsequious
juries, who with the co-operation of judges of the stamp of Jeffreys
could be depended upon to carry out the wishes of the court, the borough
charters were confiscated, the charter of the city of London being
forfeited on the 12th of June 1683.

The popularity of Charles, now greatly increased, was raised to national
enthusiasm by the discovery of the Rye House plot in 1683, said to be a
scheme to assassinate Charles and James at an isolated house on the high
road near Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire as they returned from Newmarket to
London, among those implicated being Algernon Sidney, Lord Russell and
Monmouth, the two former paying the death penalty and Monmouth being
finally banished to the Hague. The administration became more and more
despotic, and Tangier was abandoned in order to reduce expenses and to
increase the forces at home for overawing opposition. The first
preliminary steps were now taken for the reintroduction of the Roman
Catholic religion. Danby and those confined on account of participation
in the popish plot were liberated, and Titus Oates thrown into prison. A
scheme was announced for withdrawing the control of the army in Ireland
from Rochester, the lord-lieutenant, and placing it in the king's own
hands, and the commission to which the king had delegated ecclesiastical
patronage was revoked. In May 1684 the office of lord high admiral, in
spite of the Test Act, was again given to James, who had now returned
from Scotland. To all appearances the same policy afterwards pursued so
recklessly and disastrously by James was now cautiously initiated by
Charles, who, however, not being inspired by the same religious zeal as
his brother, and not desiring "to go on his travels again," would
probably have drawn back prudently before his throne was endangered. The
developments of this movement were, however, now interrupted by the
death of Charles after a short illness on the 6th of February 1685. He
was buried on the 17th in Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey with
funeral ceremonies criticized by contemporaries as mean and wanting in
respect, but the scantiness of which was probably owing to the fact that
he had died a Roman Catholic.

On his death-bed Charles had at length declared himself an adherent of
that religion and had received the last rites according to the Romanist
usage. There appears to be no trustworthy record of his formal
conversion, assigned to various times and various agencies. As a youth,
says Clarendon, "the ill-bred familiarity of the Scotch divines had
given him a distaste" for Presbyterianism, which he indeed declared "no
religion for gentlemen," and the mean figure which the fallen national
church made in exile repelled him at the same time that he was attracted
by the "genteel part of the Catholic religion." With Charles religion
was not the serious matter it was with James, and was largely regarded
from the political aspect and from that of ease and personal
convenience. Presbyterianism constituted a dangerous encroachment on the
royal prerogative; the national church and the cavalier party were
indeed the natural supporters of the authority of the crown, but on the
other hand they refused to countenance the dependence upon France; Roman
Catholicism at that moment was the obvious medium of governing without
parliaments, of French pensions and of reigning without trouble, and was
naturally the faith of Charles's choice. Of the two papers in defence of
the Roman Catholic religion in Charles's own hand, published by James,
Halifax says "though neither his temper nor education made him very fit
to be an author, yet in this case ... he might write it all himself and
yet not one word of it his own...."

Of his amours and mistresses the same shrewd observer of human
character, who was also well acquainted with the king, declares "that
his inclinations to love were the effects of health and a good
constitution with as little mixture of the _seraphic_ part as ever man
had.... I am apt to think his stayed as much as any man's ever did in
the _lower_ region." His health was the one subject to which he gave
unremitting attention, and his fine constitution and devotion to all
kinds of sport and physical exercise kept off the effects of
uncontrolled debauchery for thirty years. In later years the society of
his mistresses seems to have been chiefly acceptable as a means to avoid
business and petitioners, and in the case of the duchess of Portsmouth
was the price paid for ease and the continuance of the French pensions.
His ministers he never scrupled to sacrifice to his ease. The love of
ease exercised an entire sovereignty in his thoughts. "The motive of his
giving bounties was rather to make men less uneasy to him than more easy
to themselves." He would rob his own treasury and take bribes to press a
measure through the council. He had a natural affability, but too
general to be much valued, and he was fickle and deceitful. Neither
gratitude nor revenge moved him, and good or ill services left little
impression on his mind. Halifax, however, concludes by desiring to
moderate the roughness of his picture by emphasizing the excellence of
his intellect and memory and his mechanical talent, by deprecating a too
censorious judgment and by dwelling upon the disadvantages of his
bringing up, the difficulties and temptations of his position, and on
the fact that his vices were those common to human frailty. His capacity
for king-craft, knowledge of the world, and easy address enabled him to
surmount difficulties and dangers which would have proved fatal to his
father or to his brother. "It was a common saying that he could send
away a person better pleased at receiving nothing than those in the good
king his father's time that had requests granted them,"[1] and his
good-humoured tact and familiarity compensated for and concealed his
ingratitude and perfidy and preserved his popularity. He had good taste
in art and literature, was fond of chemistry and science, and the Royal
Society was founded in his reign. According to Evelyn he was "débonnaire
and easy of access, naturally kind-hearted and possessed an excellent
temper," virtues which covered a multitude of sins.

These small traits of amiability, however, which pleased his
contemporaries, cannot disguise for us the broad lines of Charles's
career and character. How far the extraordinary corruption of private
morals which has gained for the restoration period so unenviable a
notoriety was owing to the king's own example of flagrant debauchery,
how far to the natural reaction from an artificial Puritanism, is
uncertain, but it is incontestable that Charles's cynical selfishness
was the chief cause of the degradation of public life which marks his
reign, and of the disgraceful and unscrupulous betrayal of the national
interests which raised France to a threatening predominance and
imperilled the very existence of Britain for generations. The reign of
his predecessor Charles I., and even of that of his successor James II.,
with their mistaken principles and ideals, have a saving dignity wholly
wanting in that of Charles II., and the administration of Cromwell, in
spite of the popularity of the restoration, was soon regretted. "A lazy
Prince," writes Pepys, "no Council, no money, no reputation at home or
abroad. It is strange how ... everybody do nowadays reflect upon Oliver
and commend him, what brave things he did and made all the neighbour
princes fear him; while here a prince, come in with all the love and
prayers and good liking of his people ... hath lost all so soon...."

Charles II. had no children by his queen. By his numerous mistresses he
had a large illegitimate progeny. By Barbara Villiers, Mrs Palmer,
afterwards countess of Castlemaine and duchess of Cleveland, mistress
_en titre_ till she was superseded by the duchess of Portsmouth, he had
Charles Fitzroy, duke of Southampton and Cleveland, Henry Fitzroy, duke
of Grafton, George Fitzroy, duke of Northumberland, Anne, countess of
Sussex, Charlotte, countess of Lichfield, and Barbara, a nun; by Louise
de Kéroualle, duchess of Portsmouth, Charles Lennox, duke of Richmond;
by Lucy Walter, James, duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, and a daughter;
by Nell Gwyn, Charles Beauclerk, duke of St Albans, and James Beauclerk;
by Catherine Peg, Charles Fitz Charles, earl of Plymouth; by Lady
Shannon, Charlotte, countess of Yarmouth; by Mary Davis, Mary Tudor,
countess of Derwentwater.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See the article in the _Dict, of Nat. Biog._ by A.W.
Ward (1887), with authorities there given; _Charles II._, by O. Airy
(1904); _Life of Sir G. Savile_, by H.C. Foxcroft, and esp. Halifax's
_Character of Charles II._ printed in the appendix (1898); _The Essex
Papers_ (Camden Soc., 1890); _Despatches of W. Perwich_ (Royal Hist.
Soc. Pubtns., 1903); _History of England, of the Civil War_ and _of
the Commonwealth_, by S.R. Gardiner; _Hist. of Scotland_, by A. Lang,
vol. iii. (1904); Macaulay's _Hist, of England_, vol. i.; _Notes which
passed at Meetings of the Privy Council between Charles II. and the
Earl of Clarendon_ (Roxburghe Club, 1896); _A French Ambassador at the
Court of Charles II._, by J.J. Jusserand (1902); _The Story of Nell
Gwyn and the Sayings of Charles II._, by P. Cunningham, ed. by H.B.
Wheatley (1892); for his adventures and period of exile see _Memoiren
der Herzogin Sophie_, ed. by A. Köcher (1879); "Briefe der Elisabeth
Stuart," by A. Wendland (_Litterarischer Verein in Stuttgart_, No.
228); Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Mlle de Montpensier and Mme de
Motteville; _The King in Exile_, by E. Scott (1905); Scottish History
Pubtns. vols. 17 (_Charles II. in Scotland_, by S.R. Gardiner, 1894)
and 18 (_Scotland and the Commonwealth, 1651-1653_, ed. by C.H. Firth,
1895); _Charles II. in the Channel Islands_, by S.E. Hoskins (1854) i
_Boscobel_, by T. Blount, &c., ed. by C.G. Thomas (1894); _The Flight
of the King_ (1897) and _After Worcester Fight_ (1904), by A. Fea;
_Edinburgh Review_, (January 1894); _Eng. Hist. Rev._ xix. (1904) 363;
_Revue historique_, xxviii. and xxix.; _Art Journal_ (1889), p. 178
("Boscobel and Whiteladies," by J. Penderel-Brodhurst); _England under
Charles II._, by W.F. Taylor (1889), a collection of passages from
contemporary writers; and R. Crawfurd, _The Last Days of Charles II._
(1909). (P. C. Y.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _Mem. of Thomas, earl of Ailesbury_, p. 95.

CHARLES I. and II., kings of France. By the French, Charles the Great,
Roman emperor and king of the Franks, is reckoned the first of the
series of French kings named Charles (see CHARLEMAGNE). Similarly the
emperor Charles II. the Bald (q.v.) is reckoned as Charles II. of
France. In some enumerations the emperor Charles III. the Fat (q.v.) is
reckoned as Charles II. of France, Charlemagne not being included in the
list, and Charles the Bald being styled Charles I.

CHARLES III., the Simple (879-929), king of France, was a posthumous son
of Louis the Stammerer and of his second wife Adelaide. On the
deposition of Charles the Fat in 887 he was excluded from the throne by
his youth; but during the reign of Odo, who had succeeded Charles, he
succeeded in gaining the recognition of a certain number of notables and
in securing his coronation at Reims on the 28th of January 893. He now
obtained the alliance of the emperor, and forced Odo to cede part of
Neustria. In 898, by the death of his rival (Jan. 1), he obtained
possession of the whole kingdom. His most important act was the treaty
of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte with the Normans in 911. Some of them were
baptized; the territory which was afterwards known as the duchy of
Normandy was ceded to them; but the story of the marriage of their chief
Rollo with a sister of the king, related by the chronicler Dudo of Saint
Quentin, is very doubtful. The same year Charles, on the invitation of
the barons, took possession of the kingdom of Lotharingia. In 920 the
barons, jealous of the growth of the royal authority and discontented
with the favour shown by the king to his counsellor Hagano, rebelled,
and in 922 elected Robert, brother of King Odo, in place of Charles.
Robert was killed in the battle of Soissons, but the victory remained
with his party, who elected Rudolph, duke of Burgundy, king. In his
extremity Charles trusted himself to Herbert, count of Vermandois, who
deceived him, and threw him into confinement at Château-Thierry and
afterwards at Péronne. In the latter town he died on the 7th of October
929. In 907 he had married Frederona, sister of Bovo, bishop of Chalons.
After her death he married Eadgyfu (Odgiva), daughter of Edward the
Elder, king of the English, who was the mother of Louis IV.

See A. Eckel, _Charles le Simple_ (Paris, 1899).

CHARLES IV. (1294-1328), king of France, called THE FAIR, was the third
and youngest son of Philip IV. and Jeanne of Navarre. In 1316 he was
created count of La Marche, and succeeded his brother Philip V. as king
of France and Navarre early in 1322. He followed the policy of his
predecessors in enforcing the royal authority over the nobles, but the
machinery of a centralized government strong enough to hold nobility in
check increased the royal expenditure, to meet which Charles had
recourse to doubtful financial expedients. At the beginning of his reign
he ordered a recast of the coinage, with serious results to commerce;
civil officials were deprived of offices, which had been conferred free,
but were now put up to auction; duties were imposed on exported
merchandise and on goods brought into Paris; the practice of exacting
heavy fines was encouraged by making the salaries of the magistrates
dependent on them; and on the pretext of a crusade to free Armenia from
the Turks, Charles obtained from the pope a tithe levied on the clergy,
the proceeds of which he kept for his own use; he also confiscated the
property of the Lombard bankers who had been invited to France by his
father at a time of financial crisis. The history of the assemblies
summoned by Charles IV. is obscure, but in 1326, on the outbreak of war
with England, an assembly of prelates and barons met at Meaux.
Commissioners were afterwards despatched to the provinces to state the
position of affairs and to receive complaints. The king justified his
failure to summon the estates on the ground of the expense incurred by
provincial deputies. The external politics of his reign were not marked
by any striking events. He maintained excellent relations with Pope John
XXII., who made overtures to him, indirectly, offering his support in
case of his candidature for the imperial crown. Charles tried to form a
party in Italy in support of the pope against the emperor Louis IV. of
Bavaria, but failed. A treaty with the English which secured the
district of Agenais for France was followed by a feudal war in Guienne.
Isabella, Charles's sister and the wife of Edward II., was sent to
France to negotiate, and with her brother's help arranged the final
conspiracy against her husband. Charles's first wife was Blanche,
daughter of Otto IV., count of Burgundy, and of Matilda (Mahaut),
countess of Artois, to whom he was married in 1307. In May 1314, by
order of King Philip IV., she was arrested and imprisoned in the
Château-Gaillard with her sister-in-law Marguerite, daughter of Robert
II., duke of Burgundy, and wife of Louis Hutin, on the charge of
adultery with two gentlemen of the royal household, Philippe and Gautier
d'Aunai. Jeanne, sister of Marguerite and wife of Philip the Tall, was
also arrested for not having denounced the culprits, and imprisoned at
Dourdan. The two knights were put to the torture and executed, and their
goods confiscated. It is impossible to say how far the charges were
true. Tradition has involved and obscured the story, which is the origin
of the legend of the _tour de Nesle_ made famous by the drama of A.
Dumas the elder. Marguerite died shortly in prison; Jeanne was declared
innocent by the parlement and returned to her husband. Blanche was still
in prison when Charles became king. He induced Pope John XXII. to
declare the marriage null, on the ground that Blanche's mother had been
his godmother. Blanche died in 1326, still in confinement, though at the
last in the abbey of Maubuisson.

In 1322, freed from his first marriage, Charles married his cousin Mary
of Luxemburg, daughter of the emperor Henry VII., and upon her death,
two years later, Jeanne, daughter of Louis, count of Evreux. Charles IV.
died at Vincennes on the 1st of February 1328. He left no issue by his
first two wives to succeed him, and daughters only by Jeanne of Evreux.
He was the last of the direct line of Capetians.

See A. d'Herbomey, "Notes et documents pour servir à l'histoire des
rois fils de Philippe le Bel," in _Bibl. de l'École des Chartes_ (lix.
pp. 479 seq. and 689 seq.); de Bréquigny, "Mémoire sur les différends
entre la France et l'Angleterre sous le règne de Charles le Bel," in
_Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions_ (xli. pp. 641-692); H. Lot,
"Projets de crusade sous Charles le Bel et sous Philippe de Valois"
(_Bibl. de l'École des Chartes_, xx. pp. 503-509); "Chronique
parisienne anonyme de 1316 à 1339 ..." ed. Hellot in _Mém. de la soc.
de l'hist. de Paris_ (xi., 1884, pp. 1-207).

CHARLES V. (1337-1380), king of France, called THE WISE, was born at the
château of Vincennes on the 21st of January 1337, the son of John II.
and Bonne of Luxemburg. In 1349 he became dauphin of the Viennois by
purchase from Humbert II., and in 1355 he was created duke of Normandy.
At the battle of Poitiers (1356) his father ordered him to leave the
field when the battle turned against the French, and he was thus saved
from the imprisonment that overtook his father. After arranging for the
government of Normandy he proceeded to Paris, where he took the title of
lieutenant of the kingdom. During the years of John II.'s imprisonment
in England Charles was virtually king of France. He summoned the
states-general of northern France (Langue d'oïl) to Paris in October
1356 to obtain men and money to carry on the war. But under the
leadership of Étienne Marcel, provost of the Parisian merchants and
president of the third estate, and Robert le Coq, bishop of Laon,
president of the clergy, a partisan of Charles of Navarre, the states
refused any "aid" except on conditions which Charles declined to accept.
They demanded the dismissal of a number of the royal ministers; the
establishment of a commission elected from the three estates to regulate
the dauphin's administration, and of another board to act as council of
war; also the release of Charles the Bad, king of Navarre, who had been
imprisoned by King John. The estates of Languedoc, summoned to Toulouse,
also made protests against misgovernment, but they agreed to raise a
war-levy on terms to which the dauphin acceded. Charles sought the
alliance of his uncle, the emperor Charles IV., to whom he did homage at
Metz as dauphin of the Viennois, and he was also made imperial vicar of
Dauphiné, thus acknowledging the imperial jurisdiction. But he gained
small material advantage from these proceedings. The states-general were
again convoked in February 1357. Their demands were more moderate than
in the preceding year, but they nominated members to replace certain
obnoxious persons on the royal council, demanded the right to assemble
without the royal summons, and certain administrative reforms. In return
they promised to raise and finance an army of 30,000 men, but the
money--a tithe levied on the annual revenues of the clergy and
nobility--voted for this object was not to pass through the dauphin's
hands. Charles appeared to consent, but the agreement was annulled by
letters from King John, announcing at the same time the conclusion of a
two years' truce, and the reformers failed to secure their ends. Charles
had escaped from their power by leaving Paris, but he returned for a new
meeting of the estates in the autumn of 1357.

Meanwhile Charles of Navarre had been released by his partisans, and
allying himself with Marcel had become a popular hero in Paris. The
dauphin was obliged to receive him and to undergo an apparent
reconciliation. In Paris Étienne Marcel was supreme. He forced his way
into the dauphin's palace (February 1358), and Charles's servant, Jean
de Conflans, marshal of Champagne, and Robert de Clermont, marshal of
Normandy, were murdered before his eyes. Charles was powerless openly to
resent these outrages, but he obtained from the provincial assemblies
the money refused him by the states-general, and deferred his vengeance
until the dissensions of his enemies should offer him an opportunity.
Charles of Navarre, now in league with the English and master of lower
Normandy and of the approaches to Paris, returned to the immediate
neighbourhood of the city, and Marcel found himself driven to avowed
co-operation with the dauphin's enemies, the English and the Navarrese.
Charles had been compelled in March to take the title of regent to
prevent the possibility of further intervention from King John. In
defiance of a recent ordinance prohibiting provincial assemblies, he
presided over the estates of Picardy and Artois, and then over those of
Champagne. The states-general of 1358 were summoned to Compiègne instead
of Paris, and granted a large aid. The condition of northern France was
rendered more desperate by the outbreak (May-June 1358) of the peasant
revolt known as the Jacquerie, which was repressed with a barbarity far
exceeding the excesses of the rebels. Within the walls of Paris Jean
Maillart had formed a royalist party; Marcel was assassinated (31st July
1358), and the dauphin entered Paris in the following month. A reaction
in Charles's favour had set in, and from the estates of 1359 he regained
the authority he had lost. It was with their full concurrence that he
restored their honours to the officials who had been dismissed by the
estates of 1356 and 1357. They supported him in repudiating the treaty
of London (1359), which King John had signed in anxiety for his personal
freedom, and voted money unconditionally for the continuation of the
war. From this time the estates were only once convoked by Charles, who
contented himself thenceforward by appeals to the assembly of notables
or to the provincial bodies. Charles of Navarre was now at open war with
the regent; Edward III. landed at Calais in October; and a great part of
the country was exposed to double depredations from the English and the
Navarrese troops. In the scarcity of money Charles had recourse to the
debasement of the coinage, which suffered no less than twenty-two
variations in the two years before the treaty of Brétigny. This
disastrous financial expedient was made good later, the coinage being
established on a firm basis during the last sixteen years of Charles's
reign in accordance with the principles of Nicolas Oresme. On the
conclusion of peace King John was restored to France, but, being unable
to raise his ransom, he returned in 1364 to England, where he died in
April, leaving the crown to Charles, who was crowned at Reims on the
19th of May.

The new king found an able servant in Bertrand du Guesclin, who won a
victory over the Navarrese troops at Cocherel and took prisoner their
best general, Jean de Grailli, captal of Buch. The establishment of
Charles's brother, Philip the Bold, in the duchy of Burgundy, though it
constituted in the event a serious menace to the monarchy, put an end to
the king of Navarre's ambitions in that direction. A treaty of peace
between the two kings was signed in 1365, by which Charles of Navarre
gave up Mantes, Meulan and the county of Longueville in exchange for
Montpellier. Negotiations were renewed in 1370 when Charles of Navarre
did homage for his French possessions, though he was then considering an
offensive and defensive alliance with Edward III. Du Guesclin undertook
to free France from the depredations of the "free companies," mercenary
soldiers put out of employment by the cessation of the war. An attempt
to send them on a crusade against the Turks failed, and Du Guesclin led
them to Spain to put Henry of Trastamara on the throne of Castile. By
the marriage of his brother Philip the Bold with Margaret of Flanders,
Charles detached the Flemings from the English alliance, and as soon as
he had restored something like order in the internal affairs of the
kingdom he provoked a quarrel with the English. The text of the treaty
of Brétigny presented technical difficulties of which Charles was not
slow to avail himself. The English power in Guienne was weakened by the
disastrous Spanish expedition of the Black Prince, whom Charles summoned
before the parlement of Paris in January 1369 to answer the charges
preferred against him by his subjects, thus expressly repudiating the
English supremacy in Guienne. War was renewed in May after a meeting of
the states-general. Between 1371 and 1373 Poitou and Saintonge were
reconquered by Du Guesclin, and soon the English had to abandon all
their territory north of the Garonne. John IV. of Brittany (Jean de
Montfort) had won his duchy with English help by the defeat of Charles
of Blois, the French nominee, at Auray in 1364. His sympathies remained
English, but he was now (1373) obliged to take refuge in England, and
later in Flanders, while the English only retained a footing in two or
three coast towns. Charles's generals avoided pitched battles, and
contented themselves with defensive and guerrilla tactics, with the
result that in 1380 only Bayonne, Bordeaux, Brest and Calais were still
in English hands.

Charles had in 1378 obtained proof of Charles of Navarre's treasonable
designs. He seized the Norman towns held by the Navarrese, while Henry
of Trastamara invaded Navarre, and imposed conditions of peace which
rendered his lifelong enemy at last powerless. A premature attempt to
amalgamate the duchy of Brittany with the French crown failed. Charles
summoned the duke to Paris in 1378, and on his non-appearance committed
one of his rare errors of policy by confiscating his duchy. But the
Bretons rose to defend their independence, and recalled their duke. The
matter was still unsettled when Charles died at Vincennes on the 16th of
September 1380. His health, always delicate, had been further weakened,
according to popular report, by a slow poison prepared for him by the
king of Navarre. His wife, Jeanne of Bourbon, died in 1378, and the
succession devolved on their elder son Charles, a boy of twelve. Their
younger son was Louis, duke of Orleans.

Personally Charles was no soldier. He owed the signal successes of his
reign partly to his skilful choice of advisers and administrators, to
his chancellors Jean and Guillaume de Dormans and Pierre d'Orgemont, to
Hugues Aubriot, provost of Paris, Bureau de la Riviere and others;
partly to a singular coolness and subtlety in the exercise of a not
over-scrupulous diplomacy, which made him a dangerous enemy. He had
learnt prudence and self-restraint in the troubled times of the regency,
and did not lose his moderation in success. He modelled his private life
on that of his predecessor Saint Louis, but was no fanatic in religion,
for he refused his support to the violent methods of the Inquisition in
southern France, and allowed the Jews to return to the country, at the
same time confirming their privileges. His support of the schismatic
pope Clement VII. at Avignon was doubtless due to political
considerations, as favouring the independence of the Gallican church.
Charles V. was a student of astrology, medicine, law and philosophy, and
collected a large and valuable library at the Louvre. He gathered round
him a group of distinguished writers and thinkers, among whom were Raoul
de Presles, Philippe de Mézières, Nicolas Oresme and others. The ideas
of these men were applied by him to the practical work of
administration, though he confined himself chiefly to the consolidation
and improvement of existing institutions. The power of the nobility was
lessened by restrictions which, without prohibiting private wars, made
them practically impossible. The feudal fortresses were regularly
inspected by the central authority, and the nobles themselves became in
many cases paid officers of the king. Charles established a merchant
marine and a formidable navy, which under Jean de Vienne threatened the
English coast between 1377 and 1380. The states-general were silenced
and the royal prerogative increased; the royal domains were extended,
and the wealth of the crown was augmented; additions were made to the
revenue by the sale of municipal charters and patents; and taxation
became heavier, since Charles set no limits to the gratification of his
tastes either in the collection of jewels and precious objects, of
books, or of his love of building, examples of which are the renovation
of the Louvre and the erection of the palace of Saint Paul in Paris.

See the chronicles of Froissart, and of Pierre d'Orgemont (_Grandes
Chroniques de Saint Denis_, Paris, vol. vi, 1838); Christine de Pisan,
_Le Livre des fais et bonnes moeurs du sage roy Charles V_, written in
1404, ed. Michaud and Poujoulat, vol. ii. (1836); L. Delisle,
_Mandements et actes divers de Charles V_ (1886); letters of Charles
V. from the English archives in Champollion-Figeac, _Lettres de rois
et de reines_, ii. pp. 167 seq.; the anonymous _Songe du vergier_ or
_Somnium viridarii_, written in 1376 and giving the political ideas of
Charles V. and his advisers; "Relation de la mort de Charles V" in
Haureau, _Notices et extraits_, xxxi. pp. 278-284; Ch. Benoist, _La
Politique du roi Charles V_ (1874); S. Luce, _La France pendant la
guerre de cent ans_; G. Clément Simon, _La Rupture du traité de
Brétigny_ (1898); A. Vuitry, _Êtudes sur le régime financier de la
France_, vols. i. and ii. (1883); and R. Delachenal, _Histoire de
Charles V_ (Paris, 1908).

CHARLES VI. (1368-1422), king of France, son of Charles V. and Jeanne of
Bourbon, was born in Paris on the 3rd of December 1368. He received the
appanage of Dauphiné at his birth, and was thus the first of the princes
of France to bear the title of dauphin from infancy. Charles V. had
entrusted his education to Philippe de Mézières, and had fixed his
majority at fourteen. He succeeded to the throne in 1380, at the age of
twelve, and the royal authority was divided between his paternal uncles,
Louis, duke of Anjou, John, duke of Berry, Philip the Bold, duke of
Burgundy, and his mother's brother, Louis II., duke of Bourbon. In
accordance with an ordinance of the late king the duke of Anjou became
regent, while the guardianship of the young king, together with the
control of Paris and Normandy, passed to the dukes of Burgundy and
Bourbon, who were to be assisted by certain of the councillors of
Charles V. The duke of Berry, excluded by this arrangement, was
compensated by the government of Languedoc and Guienne. Anjou held the
regency for a few months only, until the king's coronation in November
1380. He enriched himself from the estate of Charles V. and by excessive
exactions, before he set out in 1382 for Italy to effect the conquest of
Naples. Considerable discontent existed in the south of France at the
time of the death of Charles V., and when the duke of Anjou re-imposed
certain taxes which the late king had remitted at the end of his reign,
there were revolts at Puy and Montpellier. Paris, Rouen, the cities of
Flanders, with Amiens, Orleans, Reims and other French towns, also rose
(1382) in revolt against their masters. The _Maillotins_, as the
Parisian insurgents were named from the weapon they used, gained the
upper hand in Paris, and were able temporarily to make terms, but the
commune of Rouen was abolished, and the _Tuchins_, as the marauders in
Languedoc were called, were pitilessly hunted down. Charles VI. marched
to the help of the count of Flanders against the insurgents headed by
Philip van Artevelde, and gained a complete victory at Roosebeke
(November 27th, 1382). Strengthened by this success the king, on his
return to Paris in the following January, exacted vengeance on the
citizens by fines, executions and the suppression of the privileges of
the city. The help sent by the English to the Flemish cities resulted in
a second Flemish campaign. In 1385 Jean de Vienne made an unsuccessful
descent on the Scottish coast, and Charles equipped a fleet at Sluys for
the invasion of England, but a series of delays ended in the destruction
of the ships by the English.

In 1385 Charles VI. married Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen II., duke of
Bavaria, her name being gallicized as Isabeau. Three years later, with
the help of his brother, Louis of Orleans, duke of Touraine, he threw
off the tutelage of his uncles, whom he replaced by Bureau de la Rivière
and others among his father's counsellors, nicknamed by the royal
princes the _marmousets_ because of their humble origin. Two years later
he deprived the duke of Berry of the government of Languedoc. The
opening years of Charles VI.'s effective rule promised well, but excess
in gaiety of all kinds undermined his constitution, and in 1392 he had
an attack of madness at Le Mans, when on his way to Brittany to force
from John V. the surrender of his cousin Pierre de Craon, who had tried
to assassinate the constable Olivier de Clisson in the streets of Paris.
Other attacks followed, and it became evident that Charles was unable
permanently to sustain the royal authority. Clisson, Bureau de la
Rivière, Jean de Mercier, and the other _marmousets_ were driven from
office, and the royal dukes regained their power. The rivalries between
the most powerful of these--the duke of Burgundy, who during the king's
attacks of madness practically ruled the country, and the duke of
Orleans--were a constant menace to peace. In 1306 peace with England
seemed assured by the marriage of Richard II. with Charles VI.'s
daughter Isabella, but the Lancastrian revolution of 1399 destroyed the
diplomatic advantages gained by this union. In France the country was
disturbed by the papal schism. At an assembly of the clergy held in
Paris in 1398 it was resolved to refuse to recognize the authority of
Benedict XIII., who succeeded Clement VII. as schismatic pope at
Avignon. The question became a party one; Benedict was supported by
Louis of Orleans, while Philip the Bold and the university of Paris
opposed him. Obedience to Benedict's authority was resumed in 1403, only
to be withdrawn again in 1408, when the king declared himself the
guardian and protector of the French church, which was indeed for a time
self-governing. Edicts further extending the royal power in
ecclesiastical affairs were even issued in 1418, after the schism was at
an end.

The king's intelligence became yearly feebler, and in 1404 the death of
Philip the Bold aggravated the position of affairs. The new duke, John
the Fearless, did not immediately replace his father in general affairs,
and the influence of the duke of Orleans increased. Queen Isabeau, who
had generally supported the Burgundian party, was now practically
separated from her husband, whose madness had become pronounced. She was
replaced by a young Burgundian lady, Odette de Champdivers, called by
her contemporaries _la petite reine_, who rescued the king from the
state of neglect into which he had fallen. Isabeau of Bavaria was freely
accused of intrigue with the duke of Orleans. She was from time to time
regent of France, and as her policy was directed by personal
considerations and by her love of splendour she further added to the
general distress. The relations between John the Fearless and the duke
of Orleans became more embittered, and on the 23rd of November 1407
Orleans was murdered in the streets of Paris at the instigation of his
rival. The young duke Charles of Orleans married the daughter of the
Gascon count Bernard VII. of Armagnac, and presently formed alliances
with the dukes of Berry, Bourbon and Brittany, and others who formed the
party known as the Armagnacs (see ARMAGNAC), against the Burgundians who
had gained the upper hand in the royal council. In 1411 John the
Fearless contracted an alliance with Henry IV. of England, and civil war
began in the autumn, but in 1412 the Armagnacs in their turn sought
English aid, and, by promising the sovereignty of Aquitaine to the
English king, gave John the opportunity of posing as defender of France.
In Paris the Burgundians were hand in hand with the corporation of the
butchers, who were the leaders of the Parisian populace. The
malcontents, who took their name from one of their number, Caboche,
penetrated into the palace of the dauphin Louis, and demanded the
surrender of the unpopular members of his household. A royal ordinance,
promising reforms in administration, was promulgated on the 27th of May
1413, and some of the royal advisers were executed. The king and the
dauphin, powerless in the hands of Duke John and the Parisians, appealed
secretly to the Armagnac princes for deliverance. They entered Paris in
September; the ordinance extracted by the Cabochiens was rescinded; and
numbers of the insurgents were banished the city.

In the next year Henry V. of England, after concluding an alliance with
Burgundy, resumed the pretensions of Edward III. to the crown of France,
and in 1415 followed the disastrous battle of Agincourt. The two elder
sons of Charles VI., Louis, duke of Guienne, and John, duke of Touraine,
died in 1415 and 1417, and Charles, count of Ponthieu, became heir
apparent. Paris was governed by Bernard of Armagnac, constable of
France, who expelled all suspected of Burgundian sympathies and treated
Paris like a conquered city. Queen Isabeau was imprisoned at Tours, but
escaped to Burgundy. The capture of Paris by the Burgundians on the 20th
of May 1418 was followed by a series of horrible massacres of the
Armagnacs; and in July Duke John and Isabeau, who assumed the title of
regent, entered Paris. Meanwhile Henry V. had completed the conquest of
Normandy. The murder of John the Fearless in 1419 under the eyes of the
dauphin Charles threw the Burgundians definitely into the arms of the
English, and his successor Philip the Good, in concert with Queen
Isabeau, concluded (1420) the treaty of Troyes with Henry V., who became
master of France. Charles VI. had long been of no account in the
government, and the state of neglect in which he existed at Senlis
induced Henry V. to undertake the re-organization of his household. He
came to Paris in September 1422, and died on the 21st of October.

The chief authorities for the reign of Charles VI. are:--_Chronica
Caroli VI._, written by a monk of Saint Denis, commissioned officially
to write the history of his time, edited by C. Bellaguet with a French
translation (6 vols., 1839-1852); Jean Juvenal des Ursins,
_Chronique_, printed by D. Godefroy in _Histoire de Charles VI_
(1653), chiefly an abridgment of the monk of St Denis's narrative; a
fragment of the _Grandes Chroniques de Saint Denis_ covering the years
1381 to 1383 (ed. J. Pichon 1864); correspondence of Charles VI.
printed by Champollion-Figeac in _Lettres de rois_, vol. ii.; _Choix
de pièces inédites rel. au règne de Charles VI_ (2 vols., 1863-1864),
edited by L. Douët d'Arcq for the Société de l'Histoire de France; J.
Froissart, _Chroniques_; Enguerrand de Monstrelet, _Chroniques_,
covering the first half of the 15th century (Eng. trans., 4 vols.,
1809); _Chronique des quatre premiers Valois_, by an unknown author,
ed. S. Luce (1862). See also E. Lavisse, _Hist, de France_, iv. 267
seq.; E. Petit, "Séjours de Charles VI," _Bull. du com. des travaux
hist._ (1893); Vallet de Viriville, "Isabeau de Bavière," _Revue
française_ (1858-1859); M. Thibaut, _Isabeau de Bavière_ (1903).

CHARLES VII. (1403-1461), king of France, fifth son of Charles VI. and
Isabeau of Bavaria, was born in Paris on the 22nd of February 1403. The
count of Ponthieu, as he was called in his boyhood, was betrothed in
1413 to Mary of Anjou, daughter of Louis II., duke of Anjou and king of
Sicily, and spent the next two years at the Angevin court. He received
the duchy of Touraine in 1416, and in the next year the death of his
brother John made him dauphin of France. He became lieutenant-general of
the kingdom in 1417, and made active efforts to combat the complaisance
of his mother. He assumed the title of regent in December 1418, but his
authority in northern France was paralysed in 1419 by the murder of John
the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, in his presence at Montereau. Although
the deed was not apparently premeditated, as the English and Burgundians
declared, it ruined Charles's cause for the time. He was disinherited by
the treaty of Troyes in 1420, and at the time of his father's death in
1422 had retired to Mehun-sur-Yèvre, near Bourges, which had been the
nominal seat of government since 1418. He was recognized as king in
Touraine, Berry and Poitou, in Languedoc and other provinces of southern
France; but the English power in the north was presently increased by
the provinces of Champagne and Maine, as the result of the victories of
Crevant (1423) and Verneuil (1424). The Armagnac administrators who had
been driven out of Paris by the duke of Bedford gathered round the young
king, nicknamed the "king of Bourges," but he was weak in body and mind,
and was under the domination of Jean Louvet and Tanguy du Chastel, the
instigators of the murder of John the Fearless, and other discredited
partisans. The power of these favourites was shaken by the influence of
the queen's mother, Yolande of Aragon, duchess of Anjou. She sought the
alliance of John V., duke of Brittany, who, however, vacillated
throughout his life between the English and French alliance, concerned
chiefly to maintain the independence of his duchy. His brother, Arthur
of Brittany, earl of Richmond (comte de Richemont), was reconciled with
the king, and became constable in 1425, with the avowed intention of
making peace between Charles VII. and the duke of Burgundy. Richemont
caused the assassination of Charles's favourites Pierre de Giac and Le
Camus de Beaulieu, and imposed one of his own choosing, Georges de la
Trémoille, an adventurer who rapidly usurped the constable's power. For
five years (1427-1432) a private war between these two exhausted the
Armagnac forces, and central France returned to anarchy.

Meanwhile Bedford had established settled government throughout the
north of France, and in 1428 he advanced to the siege of Orleans. For
the movement which was to lead to the deliverance of France from the
English invaders, see JOAN OF ARC. The siege of Orleans was raised by
her efforts on the 8th of May 1429, and two months later Charles VII.
was crowned at Reims. Charles's intimate counsellors, La Trémoille and
Regnault de Chartres, archbishop of Reims, saw their profits menaced by
the triumphs of Joan of Arc, and accordingly the court put every
difficulty in the way of her military career, and received the news of
her capture before Compiègne (1430) with indifference. No measures were
taken for her deliverance or her ransom, and Normandy and the Isle of
France remained in English hands. Fifteen years of anarchy and civil war
intervened before peace was restored. Bands of armed men fighting for
their own hand traversed the country, and in the ten years between 1434
and 1444 the provinces were terrorized by these _écorcheurs_, who, with
the decline of discipline in the English army, were also recruited from
the ranks of the invaders. The duke of Bedford died in 1435, and in the
same year Philip the Good of Burgundy concluded a treaty with Charles
VII. at Arras, after fruitless negotiations for an English treaty. From
this time Charles's policy was strengthened. La Trémoille had been
assassinated in 1433 by the constable's orders, with the connivance of
Yolande of Aragon. For his former favourites were substituted energetic
advisers, his brother-in-law Charles of Anjou, Dunois (the famous
bastard of Orleans), Pierre de Brézé, Richemont and others. Richemont
entered Paris on the 13th of April 1436, and in the next five years the
finance of the country was re-established on a settled basis. Charles
himself commanded the troops who captured Pontoise in 1441, and in the
next year he made a successful expedition in the south.

Meanwhile the princes of the blood and the great nobles resented the
ascendancy of councillors and soldiers drawn from the smaller nobility
and the _bourgeoisie_. They made a formidable league against the crown
in 1440 which included Charles I., duke of Bourbon, John II., duke of
Alençon, John IV. of Armagnac, and the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. The
revolt broke out in Poitou in 1440 and was known as the _Praguerie_.
Charles VII. repressed the rising, and showed great skill with the rebel
nobles, finally buying them over individually by considerable
concessions. In 1444 a truce was concluded with England at Tours, and
Charles proceeded to organize a regular army. The central authority was
gradually made effective, and a definite system of payment, by removing
the original cause of brigandage, and the establishment of a strict
discipline learnt perhaps from the English troops, gradually stamped out
the most serious of the many evils under which the country had suffered.
Pierre Bessonneau, and the brothers Gaspard and Jean Bureau created a
considerable force of artillery. Domestic troubles in their own country
weakened the English in France. The conquest of Normandy was completed
by the battle of Formigny (15th of April 1450). Guienne was conquered in
1451 by Duncis, but not subdued, and another expedition was necessary in
1453, when Talbot was defeated and slain at Castillon. Meanwhile in 1450
Charles VII. had resolved on the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, thus
rendering a tardy recognition of her services. This was granted in 1456
by the Holy See. The only foothold retained by the English on French
ground was Calais. In its earlier stages the deliverance of France from
the English had been the work of the people themselves. The change which
made Charles take an active part in public affairs is said to have been
largely due to the influence of Agnes Sorel, who became his mistress in
1444 and died in 1450. She was the first to play a public and political
rôle as mistress of a king of France, and may be said to have
established a tradition. Pierre de Brézé, who had had a large share in
the repression of the Praguerie, obtained through her a dominating
influence over the king, and he inspired the monarch himself and the
whole administration with new vigour. Charles and René of Anjou retired
from court, and the greater part of the members of the king's council
were drawn from the bourgeois classes. The most famous of all these was
Jacques Coeur (q.v.). It was by the zeal of these councillors that
Charles obtained the surname of "The Well-Served."

Charles VII. continued his father's general policy in church matters. He
desired to lessen the power of the Holy See in France and to preserve as
far as possible the liberties of the Gallican church. With the council
of Constance (1414-1418) the great schism was practically healed.
Charles, while careful to protest against its renewal, supported the
anti-papal contentions of the French members of the council of Basel
(1431-1449), and in 1438 he promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction at
Bourges, by which the patronage of ecclesiastical benefices was removed
from the Holy See, while certain interventions of the royal power were
admitted. Bishops and abbots were to be elected, in accordance with
ancient custom, by their clergy. After the English had evacuated French
territory Charles still had to cope with feudal revolt, and with the
hostility of the dauphin, who was in open revolt in 1446, and for the
next ten years ruled like an independent sovereign in Dauphiné. He took
refuge in 1457 with Charles's most formidable enemy, Philip of Burgundy.
Charles VII. nevertheless found means to prevent Philip from attaining
his ambitions in Lorraine and in Germany. But the dauphin succeeded in
embarrassing his father's policy at home and abroad, and had his own
party in the court itself. Charles VII. died at Mehun-sur-Yévre on the
22nd of July 1461. He believed that he was poisoned by his son, who
cannot, however, be accused of anything more than an eager expectation
of his death.

AUTHORITIES.--The history of the reign of Charles VII. has been
written by two modern historians,--Vallet de Viriville, _Histoire de
Charles VII ... et de son époque_ (Paris, 3 vols., 1862-1865), and G.
du Fresne de Beaucourt, _Hist, de Charles VII_ (Paris, 6 vols.,
1881-1891). There is abundant contemporary material. The herald,
Jacques le Bouvier or Berry (b. 1386), whose _Chronicques du feu roi
Charles VII_ was first printed in 1528 as the work of Alain Chartier,
was an eye-witness of many of the events he described. His
_Recouvrement de Normandie_, with other material on the same subject,
was edited for the "Rolls" series (_Chronicles and Memorials_) by
Joseph Stevenson in 1863. The _Histoire de Charles VII_ by Jean
Chartier, historiographer-royal from 1437, was included in the
_Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis_, and was first printed under
Chartier's name by Denis Godefroy, together with other contemporary
narratives, in 1661. It was re-edited by Vallet de Viriville (Paris, 3
vols., 1858-1859). With these must be considered the Burgundian
chroniclers Enguerrand de Monstrelet, whose chronicle (ed. L. Douët
d'Arcq; Paris, 6 vols., 1857-1862) covers the years 1400-1444, and
Georges Chastellain, the existing fragments of whose chronicle are
published in his _OEuvres_ (ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove; Brussels, 8
vols., 1863-1866). For a detailed bibliography and an account of
printed and MS. documents see du Fresne de Beaucourt, already cited,
also A. Molinier, _Manuel de bibliographie historique_, iv. 240-306.

CHARLES VIII. (1470-1498), king of France, was the only son of Louis XI.
During the whole of his childhood Charles lived far from his father at
the château of Amboise, which was throughout his life his favourite
residence. On the death of Louis XI in 1483 Charles, a lad of thirteen,
was of age, but was absolutely incapable of governing. Until 1492 he
abandoned the government to his sister Anne of Beaujeu. In 1491 he
married Anne, duchess of Brittany, who was already betrothed to
Maximilian of Austria. Urged by his favourite, Étienne de Vesc, he then,
at the age of twenty-two, threw off the yoke of the Beaujeus, and at the
same time discarded their wise and able policy. But he was a thoroughly
worthless man with a weak and ill-balanced intellect. He had a romantic
imagination and conceived vast projects. He proposed at first to claim
the rights of the house of Anjou, to which Louis XI. had succeeded, on
the kingdom of Naples, and to use this as a stepping-stone to the
capture of Constantinople from the Turks and his own coronation as
emperor of the East. He sacrificed everything to this adventurous
policy, signed disastrous treaties to keep his hands free, and set out
for Italy in 1494. The ceremonial side of the expedition being in his
eyes the most important, he allowed himself to be intoxicated by his
easy triumph and duped by the Italians. On the 12th of May 1495 he
entered Naples in great pomp, clothed in the imperial insignia. A
general coalition was, however, formed against him, and he was forced to
return precipitately to France. It cannot be denied that he showed
bravery at the battle of Fornovo (the 5th of July 1495). He was
preparing a fresh expedition to Italy, when he died on the 8th of April
1498, from the results of an accident, at the château of Amboise.

See _Histoire de Charles VIII, roy de France_, by G. de Jaligny, André
de la Vigne, &c., edited by Godefroy (Paris, 1684); De Cherrier,
_Histoire de Charles VIII_ (Paris, 1868); H. Fr. Delaborde,
_Expédition de Charles VIII en Italie_ (Paris, 1888). For a complete
bibliography see H. Hauser, _Les Sources de l'histoire de France,
1494-1610_, vol. i. (Paris, 1906); and E. Lavisse, _Histoire de
France_, vol. v. part i., by H. Lemonnier (Paris, 1903).

CHARLES IX. (1550-1574), king of France, was the third son of Henry II.
and Catherine de' Medici. At first he bore the title of duke of Orleans.
He became king in 1560 by the death of his brother Francis II., but as
he was only ten years old the power was in the hands of the
queen-mother, Catherine. Charles seems to have been a youth of good
parts, lively and agreeable, but he had a weak, passionate and fantastic
nature. His education had spoiled him. He was left to his whims--even
the strangest--and to his taste for violent exercises; and the excesses
to which he gave himself up ruined his health. Proclaimed of age on the
17th of August 1563, he continued to be absorbed in his fantasies and
his hunting, and submitted docilely to the authority of his mother. In
1570 he was married to Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian II.
It was about this time that he dreamed of making a figure in the world.
The successes of his brother, the duke of Anjou, at Jarnac and
Moncontour had already caused him some jealousy. When Coligny came to
court, he received him very warmly, and seemed at first to accept the
idea of an intervention in the Netherlands against the Spaniards. For
the upshot of this adventure see the article ST BARTHOLOMEW, MASSACRE
OF. Charles was in these circumstances no hypocrite, but weak,
hesitating and ill-balanced. Moreover, the terrible events in which he
had played a part transformed his character. He became melancholy,
severe and taciturn. "It is feared," said the Venetian ambassador, "that
he may become cruel." Undermined by fever, at the age of twenty he had
the appearance of an old man, and night and day he was haunted with
nightmares. He died on the 30th of May 1574. By his mistress, Marie
Touchet, he had one son, Charles, duke of Angoulême. Charles IX. had a
sincere love of letters, himself practised poetry, was the patron of
Ronsard and the poets of the Pleiad, and granted privileges to the first
academy founded by Antoine de Baïf (afterwards the Académie du Palais).
He left a work on hunting, _Traité de la chasse royale_, which was
published in 1625, and reprinted in 1859.

AUTHORITIES.--The principal sources are the contemporary memoirs and
chronicles of T.A. d'Aubigné, Brantôme, Castelnau, Haton, la Place,
Montluc, la Noue, l'Estoile, Ste Foy, de Thou, Tavannes, &c.; the
published correspondence of Catherine de' Medici, Marguerite de
Valois, and the Venetian ambassadors; and Calendars of State Papers,
&c. See also Abel Desjardins, _Charles IX, deux années de règne_
(Paris, 1873); de la Ferrière, _Le XVIe siècle et les Valois_ (Paris,
1879); H. Mariéjol, _La Réforme et la Ligue_ (Paris, 1904), in vol. v.
of the _Histoire de France_, by E. Lavisse, which contains a
bibliography for the reign.

CHARLES X. (1757-1836), king of France from 1824 to 1830, was the fourth
child of the dauphin, son of Louis XV. and of Marie Josephe of Saxony,
and consequently brother of Louis XVI. He was known before his accession
as Charles Philippe, count of Artois. At the age of sixteen he married
Marie Thérèse of Savoy, sister-in-law of his brother, the count of
Provence (Louis XVIII.). His youth was passed in scandalous dissipation,
which drew upon himself and his coterie the detestation of the people of
Paris. Although lacking military tastes, he joined the French army at
the siege of Gibraltar in 1772, merely for distraction. In a few years
he had incurred a debt of 56 million francs, a burden assumed by the
impoverished state. Prior to the Revolution he took only a minor part in
politics, but when it broke out he soon became, with the queen, the
chief of the reactionary party at court. In July 1789 he left France,
became leader of the _émigrés_, and visited several of the courts of
Europe in the interest of the royalist cause. After the execution of
Louis XVI. he received from his brother, the count of Provence, the
title of lieutenant-general of the realm, and, on the death of Louis
XVII., that of "Monsieur." In 1795 he attempted to aid the royalist
rising of La Vendée, landing at the island of Yeu. But he refused to
advance farther and to put himself resolutely at the head of his party,
although warmly acclaimed by it, and courage failing him, he returned to
England, settling first in London, then in Holyrood Palace at Edinburgh
and afterwards at Hartwell. There he remained until 1813, returning to
France in February 1814, and entering Paris in April, in the track of
the Allies.

During the reign of his brother, Louis XVIII., he was the leader of the
ultra-royalists, the party of extreme reaction. On succeeding to the
throne in September 1824 the dignity of his address and his affable
condescension won him a passing popularity. But his coronation at Reims,
with all the gorgeous ceremonial of the old régime, proclaimed his
intention of ruling, as the Most Christian King, by divine right. His
first acts, indeed, allayed the worst alarms of the Liberals; but it was
soon apparent that the weight of the crown would be consistently thrown
into the scale of the reactionary forces. The _émigrés_ were awarded a
milliard as compensation for their confiscated lands; and Gallicans and
Liberals alike were offended by measures which threw increased power
into the hands of the Jesuits and Ultramontanes. In a few months there
were disquieting signs of the growing unpopularity of the king. The
royal princesses were insulted in the streets; and on the 29th of April
1825 Charles, when reviewing the National Guard, was met with cries from
the ranks of "Down with the ministers!" His reply was, next day, a
decree disbanding the citizen army.

It was not till 1829, when the result of the elections had proved the
futility of Villèle's policy of repression, that Charles consented
unwillingly to try a policy of compromise. It was, however, too late.
Villèle's successor was the vicomte de Martignac, who took Decazes for
his model; and in the speech from the throne Charles declared that the
happiness of France depended on "the sincere union of the royal
authority with the liberties consecrated by the charter." But Charles
had none of the patience and commonsense which had enabled Louis XVIII.
to play with decency the part of a constitutional king. "I would rather
hew wood," he exclaimed, "than be a king under the conditions of the
king of England"; and when the Liberal opposition obstructed all the
measures proposed by a ministry not selected from the parliamentary
majority, he lost patience. "I told you," he said, "that there was no
coming to terms with these men." Martignac was dismissed; and Prince
Jules de Polignac, the very incarnation of clericalism and reaction, was
called to the helm of state.

The inevitable result was obvious to all the world. "There is no such
thing as political experience," wrote Wellington, certainly no friend of
Liberalism; "with the warning of James II. before him, Charles X. was
setting up a government by priests, through priests, for priests." A
formidable agitation sprang up in France, which only served to make the
king more obstinate. In opening the session of 1830 he declared that he
would "find the power" to overcome the obstacles placed in his path by
"culpable manoeuvres." The reply of the chambers was a protest against
"the unjust distrust of the sentiment and reason of France"; whereupon
they were first prorogued, and on the 16th of May dissolved. The result
of the new elections was what might have been foreseen: a large increase
in the Opposition; and Charles, on the advice of his ministers,
determined on a virtual suspension of the constitution. On the 25th of
July were issued the famous "four ordinances" which were the immediate
cause of the revolution that followed.

With singular fatuity Charles had taken no precautions in view of a
violent outbreak. Marshal Marmont, who commanded the scattered troops in
Paris, had received no orders, beyond a jesting command from the duke of
Angoulême to place them under arms "as some windows might be broken." At
the beginning of the revolution Charles was at St Cloud, whence on the
news of the fighting he withdrew first to Versailles and then to
Rambouillet. So little did he understand the seriousness of the
situation that, when the laconic message "All is over!" was brought to
him, he believed that the insurrection had been suppressed. On realizing
the truth he hastily abdicated in favour of his grandson, the duke of
Bordeaux (comte de Chambord), and appointed Louis Philippe, duke of
Orleans, lieutenant-general of the kingdom (July 30th). But, on the news
of Louis Philippe's acceptance of the crown, he gave up the contest and
began a dignified retreat to the sea-coast, followed by his suite, and
surrounded by the infantry, cavalry and artillery of the guard. Beyond
sending a corps of observation to follow his movements, the new
government did nothing to arrest his escape. At Maintenon Charles took
leave of the bulk of his troops, and proceeding with an escort of some
1200 men to Cherbourg, took ship there for England on the 16th of
August. For a time he returned to Holyrood Palace at Edinburgh, which
was again placed at his disposal. He died at Goritz, whither he had
gone for his health, on the 6th of November 1836.

The best that can be said of Charles X. is that, if he did not know how
to rule, he knew how to cease to rule. The dignity of his exit was more
worthy of the ancient splendour of the royal house of France than the
theatrical humility of Louis Philippe's entrance. But Charles was an
impossible monarch for the 19th century, or perhaps for any other
century. He was a typical Bourbon, unable either to learn or to forget;
and the closing years of his life he spent in religious austerities,
intended to expiate, not his failure to grasp a great opportunity, but
the comparatively venial excesses of his youth.[1]

See Achille de Vaulabelle, _Chute de l'empire: histoire des deux
restaurations_ (Paris, 1847-1857); Louis de Vielcastel, _Hist. de la
restauration_ (Paris, 1860-1878); Alphonse de Lamartine, _Hist. de la
restauration_ (Paris, 1851-1852); Louis Blanc, _Hist. de dix ans,
1830-1840_ (5 vols., 1842-1844); G.I. de Montbel, _Derniére Époque de
l'hist. de Charles X_ (5th ed., Paris, 1840); Théodore Anne,
_Mémoires, souvenirs, et anecdotes sur l'interieur du palais de
Charles X et les évènements de 1815 à 1830_ (2 vols., Paris, 1831);
ib., _Journal de Saint-Cloud a Cherbourg_; Védrenne, _Vie de Charles
X_ (3 vols., Paris, 1879); Petit, _Charles X_ (Paris, 1886);
Villeneuve, _Charles X et Louis XIX en exil. Mémoires inédits_ (Paris,
1889); Imbert de Saint-Amand, _La Cour de Charles X_ (Paris, 1892).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This, at any rate, represents the general verdict of history. It
is interesting, however, to note that so liberal-minded and shrewd a
critic of men as King Leopold I. of the Belgians formed a different
estimate. In a letter of the 18th of November 1836 addressed to
Princess (afterwards Queen) Victoria he writes:--"History will state
that Louis XVIII. was a most liberal monarch, reigning with great
mildness and justice to his end, but that his brother, from his
despotic and harsh disposition, upset all the other had done, and
lost the throne. Louis XVIII. was a clever, hard-hearted man,
shackled by no principle, very proud and false. Charles X. an honest
man, a kind friend, an honourable master, sincere in his opinions,
and inclined to do everything that is right. That teaches us what we
ought to believe in history as it is compiled according to ostensible
events and results known to the generality of people."

CHARLES I. (1288-1342), king of Hungary, the son of Charles Martell of
Naples, and Clemencia, daughter of the emperor Rudolph, was known as
Charles Robert previously to being enthroned king of Hungary in 1309. He
claimed the Hungarian crown, as the grandson of Stephen V., under the
banner of the pope, and in August 1300 proceeded from Naples to Dalmatia
to make good his claim. He was crowned at Esztergom after the death of
the last Arpad, Andrew III. (1301), but was forced the same year to
surrender the crown to Wenceslaus II. of Bohemia (1289-1306). His
failure only made Pope Boniface VIII. still more zealous on his behalf,
and at the diet of Pressburg (1304) his Magyar adherents induced him to
attempt to recover the crown of St Stephen from the Czechs. But in the
meantime (1305) Wenceslaus transferred his rights to Duke Otto of
Bavaria, who in his turn was taken prisoner by the Hungarian rebels.
Charles's prospects now improved, and he was enthroned at Buda on the
15th of June 1309, though his installation was not regarded as valid
till he was crowned with the sacred crown (which was at last recovered
from the robber-barons) at Székesfehérvár on the 27th of August 1310.
For the next three years Charles had to contend with rebellion after
rebellion, and it was only after his great victory over all the elements
of rapine and disorder at Rozgony (June 15, 1312) that he was really
master in his own land. His foreign policy aimed at the aggrandizement
of his family, but his plans were prudent as well as ambitious, and
Hungary benefited by them greatly. His most successful achievement was
the union with Poland for mutual defence against the Habsburgs and the
Czechs. This was accomplished by the convention of Trencsén (1335),
confirmed the same year at the brilliant congress of Visegrád, where all
the princes of central Europe met to compose their differences and were
splendidly entertained during the months of October and November. The
immediate result of the congress was a combined attack by the Magyars
and Poles upon the emperor Louis and his ally Albert of Austria, which
resulted in favour of Charles in 1337. Charles's desire to unite the
kingdoms of Hungary and Naples under the eldest son Louis was frustrated
by Venice and the pope, from fear lest Hungary might become the dominant
Adriatic power. He was, however, more than compensated for this
disappointment by his compact (1339) with his ally and brother-in-law,
Casimir of Poland, whereby it was agreed that Louis should succeed to
the Polish throne on the death of the childless Casimir. For an account
of the numerous important reforms effected by Charles see HUNGARY:
_History_. A statesman of the first rank, he not only raised Hungary
once more to the rank of a great power, but enriched and civilized her.
In character he was pious, courtly and valiant, popular alike with the
nobility and the middle classes, whose increasing welfare he did so much
to promote, and much beloved by the clergy. His court was famous
throughout Europe as a school of chivalry.

Charles was married thrice. His first wife was Maria, daughter of Duke
Casimir of Teschen, whom he wedded in 1306. On her death in 1318 he
married Beatrice, daughter of the emperor Henry VII. On her decease two
years later he gave his hand to Elizabeth, daughter of Wladislaus
Lokietek, king of Poland. Five sons were the fruit of these marriages,
of whom three, Louis, Andrew and Stephen, survived him. He died on the
16th of July 1342, and was laid beside the high altar at Székesfehérvár,
the ancient burial-place of the Arpads.

See Béla Kerékgyartó, _The Hungarian Royal Court under the House of
Anjou_ (Hung.) (Budapest, 1881); _Rationes Collectorum Pontif. in
Hungaria_ (Budapest, 1887); _Diplomas of the Angevin Period_, edited
by Imre Nagy (Hung. and Lat.), vols. i.-iii. (Budapest, 1878, &c.).
(R. N. B.)

CHARLES I. (1226-1285), king of Naples and Sicily and count of Anjou,
was the seventh child of Louis VIII. of France and Blanche of Castile.
Louis died a few months after Charles's birth and was succeeded by his
son Louis IX. (St Louis), and on the death in 1232 of the third son
John, count of Anjou and Maine, those fiefs were conferred on Charles.
In 1246 he married Beatrice, daughter and heiress of Raymond Bérenger
V., the last count of Provence, and after defeating James I. of Aragon
and other rivals with the help of his brother the French king, he took
possession of his new county. In 1248 he accompanied Louis in the
crusade to Egypt, but on the defeat of the Crusaders he was taken
prisoner with his brother. Shortly afterwards he was ransomed, and
returned to Provence in 1250. During his absence several towns had
asserted their independence; but he succeeded in subduing them without
much difficulty and gradually suppressed their communal liberties.
Charles's ambition aimed at wider fields, and when Margaret, countess of
Flanders, asked help of the French court against the German king William
of Holland, by whom she had been defeated, he gladly accepted her offer
of the county of Hainaut in exchange for his assistance (1253); this
arrangement was, however, rescinded by Louis of France, who returned
from captivity in 1254, and Charles gave up Hainaut for an immense sum
of money. He extended his influence by the subjugation of Marseilles in
1257, then one of the most important maritime cities of the world, and
two years later several communes of Piedmont recognized Charles's
suzerainty. In 1262 Pope Urban IV. determined to destroy the power of
the Hohenstaufen in Italy, and offered the kingdoms of Naples and
Sicily, in consideration of a yearly tribute, to Charles of Anjou, in
opposition to Manfred, the bastard son of the late emperor Frederick II.
The next year Charles succeeded in getting himself elected senator of
Rome, which gave him an advantage in dealing with the pope. After long
negotiations he accepted the Sicilian and Neapolitan crowns, and in 1264
he sent a first expedition of Provençals to Italy; he also collected a
large army and navy in Provence and France with the help of King Louis,
and by an alliance with the cities of Lombardy was able to send part of
his force overland. Pope Clement IV. confirmed the Sicilian agreement on
conditions even more favourable to Charles, who sailed in 1265, and
conferred on the expedition all the privileges of a crusade. After
narrowly escaping capture by Manfred's fleet he reached Rome safely,
where he was crowned king of the Two Sicilies. The land army arrived
soon afterwards, and on the 26th of February 1266 Charles encountered
Manfred at Benevento, where after a hard-fought battle Manfred was
defeated and killed, and the whole kingdom was soon in Charles's
possession. Then Conradin, Frederick's grandson and last legitimate
descendant of the Hohenstaufen, came into Italy, where he found many
partisans among the Ghibellines of Lombardy and Tuscany, and among
Manfred's former adherents in the south. He gathered a large army
consisting partly of Germans and Saracens, but was totally defeated by
Charles at Tagliacozzo (23rd of August 1268); taken prisoner, he was
tried as a rebel and executed at Naples. Charles, in a spirit of the
most vindictive cruelty, had large numbers of Conradin's barons put to
death and their estates confiscated, and the whole population of several
towns massacred.

He was now one of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe, for besides
ruling over Provence and Anjou and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he
was imperial vicar of Tuscany, lord of many cities of Lombardy and
Piedmont, and as the pope's favourite practically arbiter of the papal
states, especially during the interregnum between the death of Clement
IV. (1268) and the election of Gregory X. (1272). But his ambition was
by no means satisfied, and he even aspired to the crown of the East
Roman empire. In 1272 he took part with Louis IX. in a crusade to north
Africa, where the French king died of fever, and Charles, after
defeating the soldan of Tunis, returned to Sicily. The election of
Rudolph of Habsburg as German king after a long interregnum, and that of
Nicholas III. to the Holy See (1277), diminished Charles's power, for
the new pope set himself to compose the difference between Guelphs and
Ghibellines in the Italian cities, but at his death Charles secured the
election of his henchman Martin IV. (1281), who recommenced persecuting
the Ghibellines, excommunicated the Greek emperor, Michael Palaeologus,
proclaimed a crusade against the Greeks, filled every appointment in the
papal states with Charles's vassals, and reappointed the Angevin king
senator of Rome. But the cruelty of the French rulers of Sicily drove
the people of the island to despair, and a Neapolitan nobleman, Giovanni
da Procida, organized the rebellion known as the Sicilian Vespers (see
VESPERS, SICILIAN), in which the French in Sicily were all massacred or
expelled (1282). Charles determined to subjugate the island and sailed
with his fleet for Messina. The city held out until Peter III. of
Aragon, whose wife Constance was a daughter of Manfred, arrived in
Sicily, and a Sicilian-Catalan fleet under the Calabrese admiral,
Ruggiero di Lauria, completely destroyed that of Charles. "If thou art
determined, O God, to destroy me," the unhappy Angevin exclaimed, "let
my fall be gradual!" He was forced to abandon all attempts at
reconquest, but proposed to decide the question by single combat between
himself and Peter, to take place at Bordeaux under English protection.
The Aragonese accepted, but fearing treachery, as the French army was in
the neighbourhood, he failed to appear on the appointed day. In the
meanwhile Ruggiero di Lauria appeared before Naples and destroyed
another Angevin fleet commanded by Charles's son, who was taken prisoner
(May 1284). Charles came to Naples with a new fleet from Provence, and
was preparing to invade Sicily again, when he contracted a fever and
died at Foggia on the 7th of January 1285. He was undoubtedly an
extremely able soldier and a skilful statesman, and much of his
legislation shows a real political sense; but his inordinate ambition,
his oppressive methods of government and taxation, and his cruelty
created enemies on all sides, and led to the collapse of the edifice of
dominion which he had raised.

CHARLES II. (1250-1309), king of Naples and Sicily, son of Charles I.,
had been captured by Ruggiero di Lauria in the naval battle at Naples in
1284, and when his father died he was still a prisoner in the hands of
Peter of Aragon. In 1288 King Edward I. of England had mediated to make
peace, and Charles was liberated on the understanding that he was to
retain Naples alone, Sicily being left to the Aragonese; Charles was
also to induce his cousin Charles of Valois to renounce for twenty
thousand pounds of silver the kingdom of Aragon which had been given to
him by Pope Martin IV. to punish Peter for having invaded Sicily, but
which the Valois had never effectively occupied. The Angevin king was
thereupon set free, leaving three of his sons and sixty Provençal
nobles as hostages, promising to pay 30,000 marks and to return a
prisoner if the conditions were not fulfilled within three years. He
went to Rieti, where the new pope Nicholas IV. immediately absolved him
from all the conditions he had sworn to observe, crowned him king of the
Two Sicilies (1289), and excommunicated Alphonso, while Charles of
Valois, in alliance with Castile, prepared to take possession of Aragon.
Alphonso III, the Aragonese king, being hard pressed, had to promise to
withdraw the troops he had sent to help his brother James in Sicily, to
renounce all rights over the island, and pay a tribute to the Holy See.
But Alphonso died childless in 1291 before the treaty could be carried
out, and James took possession of Aragon, leaving the government of
Sicily to the third brother Frederick. The new pope Boniface VIII.,
elected in 1294 at Naples under the auspices of King Charles, mediated
between the latter and James, and a most dishonourable treaty was
signed: James was to marry Charles's daughter Bianca and was promised
the investiture by the pope of Sardinia and Corsica, while he was to
leave the Angevin a free hand in Sicily and even to assist him if the
Sicilians resisted. An attempt was made to bribe Frederick into
consenting to this arrangement, but being backed up by his people he
refused, and was afterwards crowned king of Sicily. The war was fought
with great fury on land and sea, but Charles, although aided by the
pope, by Charles of Valois, and by James II. of Aragon, was unable to
conquer the island, and his son the prince of Taranto was taken prisoner
at the battle of La Falconara in 1299. Peace was at last made in 1302 at
Caltabellotta, Charles II. giving up all rights to Sicily and agreeing
to the marriage of his daughter Leonora to King Frederick; the treaty
was ratified by the pope in 1303. Charles spent his last years quietly
in Naples, which city he improved and embellished. He died in August
1309, and was succeeded by his son Robert.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A. de Saint-Priest, _Histoire de la conquête de Naples
par Charles d'Anjou_ (4 vols., Paris, 1847-1849), is still of use for
the documents from the archives of Barcelona, but it needs to be
collated with more recent works; S. de Sismondi, in vol. ii. of his
_Histoire des republiques italiennes_ (Brussels, 1838), gives a good
general sketch of the reigns of Charles I. and II., but is
occasionally inaccurate as to details; the best authority on the early
life of Charles I. is R. Sternfeld, _Karl von Anjou als Graf von
Provence_ (Berlin, 1888); Charles's connexion with north Italy is
dealt with in Merkel's _La Dominazione di Carlo d'Angio in Piemonte e
in Lombardia_ (Turin, 1891), while the R. Deputazione di Storia
Patria Toscana has recently published a _Codice diplomatico delle
relazioni di Carlo d'Angio con la Toscana_; the contents of the
Angevin archives at Naples have been published by Durrien, _Archives
angevines de Naples_ (Toulouse, 1866-1867). M. Amari's _La Guerra del
Vespro Siciliano_ (8th ed., Florence, 1876) is a valuable history, but
the author is too bitterly prejudiced against the French to be quite
impartial; his work should be compared with L. Cadier's _Essai sur
l'administration du royaume de Sicile sous Charles I et Charles II
d'Anjou_ (Paris, 1891, _Bibl. des écoles françaises d'Athenes et de
Rome_, fasc. 59), which contains many documents, and tends somewhat to
rehabilitate the Angevin rule.

CHARLES II. (1332-1387), called THE BAD, king of Navarre and count of
Evreux, was a son of Jeanne II., queen of Navarre, by her marriage with
Philip, count of Evreux (d. 1343). Having become king of Navarre on
Jeanne's death in 1349, he suppressed a rising at Pampeluna with much
cruelty, and by this and similar actions thoroughly earned his surname
of "The Bad." In 1352 he married Jeanne (d. 1393), a daughter of John
II., king of France, a union which made his relationship to the French
crown still more complicated. Through his mother he was a grandson of
Louis X. and through his father a great-grandson of Philip III., having
thus a better claim to the throne of France than Edward III. of England;
and, moreover, he held lands under the suzerainty of the French king,
whose son-in-law he now became. Charles was a man of great ability,
possessing popular manners and considerable eloquence, but he was
singularly unscrupulous, a quality which was revealed during the years
in which he played an important part in the internal affairs of France.
Trouble soon arose between King John and his son-in-law. The promised
dowry had not been paid, and the county of Angoulême, which had formerly
belonged to Jeanne of Navarre, was now in the possession of the French
king's favourite, the constable Charles la Cerda. In January 1354 the
constable was assassinated by order of Charles, and preparations for war
were begun. The king of Navarre, who defended this deed, had, however,
many friends in France and was in communication with Edward III.; and
consequently John was forced to make a treaty at Mantes and to
compensate him for the loss of Angoulême by a large grant of lands,
chiefly in Normandy. This peace did not last long, and in 1355 John was
compelled to confirm the treaty of Mantes. Returning to Normandy,
Charles was partly responsible for some unrest in the duchy, and in
April 1356 he was treacherously seized by the French king at Rouen,
remaining in captivity until November 1357, when John, after his defeat
at Poitiers, was a prisoner in England. Charles was regarded with much
favour in France, and the states-general demanded his release, which,
however, was effected by a surprise. Owing to his popularity he was
considered by Étienne Marcel and his party as a suitable rival to the
dauphin, afterwards King Charles V., and on entering Paris he was well
received and delivered an eloquent harangue to the Parisians.
Subsequently peace was made with the dauphin, who promised to restore to
Charles his confiscated estates. This peace was not enduring, and as his
lands were not given back Charles had some ground for complaint. War
again broke out, quickly followed by a new treaty, after which the king
of Navarre took part in suppressing the peasant rising known as the
_Jacquerie_. Answering the entreaties of Marcel he returned to Paris on
June 1358, and became captain-general of the city, which was soon
besieged by the dauphin. This position, however, did not prevent him
from negotiating both with the dauphin and with the English; terms were
soon arranged with the former, and Charles, having lost much of his
popularity, left Paris just before the murder of Marcel in July 1358. He
continued his alternate policy of war and peace, meanwhile adding if
possible by his depredations to the misery of France, until the
conclusion of the treaty of Brétigny in May 1360 deprived him of the
alliance of the English, and compelled him to make peace with King John
in the following October. A new cause of trouble arose when the duchy of
Burgundy was left without a ruler in November 1361, and was claimed by
Charles; but, lacking both allies and money, he was unable to prevent
the French king from seizing Burgundy, while he himself returned to
Navarre.

In his own kingdom Charles took some steps to reform the financial and
judicial administration and so to increase his revenue; but he was soon
occupied once more with foreign entanglements, and in July 1362, in
alliance with Peter the Cruel, king of Castile, he invaded Aragon,
deserting his new ally soon afterwards for Peter IV., king of Aragon.
Meanwhile the war with the dauphin had been renewed. Still hankering
after Burgundy, Charles saw his French estates again seized; but after
some desultory warfare, chiefly in Normandy, peace was made in March
1365, and he returned to his work of interference in the politics of the
Spanish kingdoms. In turn he made treaties with the kings of Castile and
Aragon, who were at war with each other; promising to assist Peter the
Cruel to regain his throne, from which he had been driven in 1366 by his
half-brother Henry of Trastamara, and then assuring Henry and his ally
Peter of Aragon that he would aid them to retain Castile. He continued
this treacherous policy when Edward the Black Prince advanced to succour
Peter the Cruel; then signed a treaty with Edward of England, and then
in 1371 allied himself with Charles V. of France. His next important
move was to offer his assistance to Richard II. of England for an attack
upon France. About this time serious charges were brought against him.
Accused of attempting to poison the king of France and other prominent
persons, and of other crimes, his French estates were seized by order of
Charles V., and soon afterwards Navarre was invaded by the Castilians.
Won over by the surrender of Cherbourg in July 1378, the English under
John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, came to his aid; but a heavy price had
to be paid for the neutrality of the king of Castile. After the death of
Charles V. in 1380, the king of Navarre did not interfere in the
internal affairs of France, although he endeavoured vainly again to
obtain aid from Richard II., and to regain Cherbourg. His lands in
France were handed over to his eldest son Charles, who governed them
with the consent of the new king Charles VI. Charles died on the 1st of
January 1387, and many stories are current regarding the manner of his
death. Froissart relates that he was burned to death through his
bedclothes catching fire; Secousse says that he died in peace with many
signs of contrition; another story says he died of leprosy; and a
popular legend tells how he expired by a divine judgment through the
burning of the clothes steeped in sulphur and spirits in which he had
been wrapped as a cure for a loathsome disease caused by his debauchery.
He had three sons and four daughters, and was succeeded by his eldest
son Charles; one of his daughters, Jeanne, became the wife of Henry IV.
of England.

See Jean Froissart, _Chroniques_, edited by S. Luce and G. Raynaud
(Paris, 1869-1897); D.F. Secousse, _Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire
de Charles II, roi de Navarre_ (Paris, 1755-1768); E. Meyer, _Charles
II, roi de Navarre et la Normandie au XIVe siècle_ (Paris, 1898); F.T.
Perrens, _Étienne Marcel_ (Paris, 1874); R. Delachenal, _Premières
negotiations de Charles le Mauvais avec les Anglais_ (Paris, 1900);
and E. Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, tome iv. (Paris, 1902).

CHARLES III. (1361-1425), called THE NOBLE, king of Navarre and count of
Evreux, was the eldest son of Charles II. the Bad, king of Navarre, by
his marriage with Jeanne, daughter of John II., king of France, and was
married in 1375 to Leonora (d. 1415), daughter of Henry II., king of
Castile. Having passed much of his early life in France, he became king
of Navarre on the death of Charles II. in January 1387, and his reign
was a period of peace and order, thus contrasting sharply with the long
and calamitous reign of his father. In 1393 he regained Cherbourg, which
had been handed over by Charles II. to Richard II. of England, and in
1403 he came to an arrangement with the representatives of Charles VI.
of France concerning the extensive lands which he claimed in that
country. Cherbourg was given to the French king; certain exchanges of
land were made; and in the following year Charles III. surrendered the
county of Evreux, and was created duke of Nemours and made a peer of
France. After this his only interference in the internal affairs of
France was when he sought to make peace between the rival factions in
that country. Charles sought to improve the condition of Navarre by
making canals and rendering the rivers navigable, and in other ways. He
died at Olite on the 8th of September 1425 and was buried at Pampeluna.
After the death of his two sons in 1402 the king decreed that his
kingdom should pass to his daughter Blanche (d. 1441), who took for her
second husband John, afterwards John II., king of Aragon; and the cortes
of Navarre swore to recognize Charles (q.v.), prince of Viana, her son
by this marriage, as king after his mother's death.

CHARLES (KARL EITEL ZEPHYRIN LUDWIG; in Rum. CAROL), king of Rumania
(1839- ), second son of Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen,
was born on the 20th of April 1839. He was educated at Dresden
(1850-1856), and passed through his university course at Bonn. Entering
the Prussian army in 1857, he won considerable distinction in the Danish
war of 1864, and received instruction in strategy from General von
Moltke. He afterwards travelled in France, Italy, Spain and Algeria. He
was a captain in the 2nd regiment of Prussian Dragoon Guards when he was
elected _hospodar_ or prince of Rumania on the 20th of April 1866, after
the compulsory abdication of Prince Alexander John Cuza. Regarded at
first with distrust by Turkey, Russia and Austria, he succeeded in
gaining general recognition in six months; but he had to contend for ten
years with fierce party struggles between the Conservatives and the
Liberals.

During this period, however, Charles displayed great tact in his
dealings with both parties, and kept his country in the path of
administrative and economic reform, organizing the army, developing the
railways, and establishing commercial relations with foreign powers. The
sympathy of Rumania with France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and
the consequent interruption of certain commercial undertakings, led to a
hostile movement against Prince Charles, which, being fostered by
Russia, made him resolve to abdicate; and it was with difficulty that he
was persuaded to remain. In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 he joined
the Russians before Plevna (q.v.), and being placed in command of the
combined Russian and Rumanian forces, forced Osman Pasha to surrender.
As a consequence of the prince's vigorous action the independence of
Rumania, which had been proclaimed in May 1877, was confirmed by various
treaties in 1878, and recognized by Great Britain, France and Germany in
1880. On the 26th of March 1881 he was proclaimed king of Rumania, and,
with his consort, was crowned on the 22nd of May following. From that
time he pursued a successful career in home and foreign policy, and
greatly improved the financial and military position of his country;
while his appreciation of the fine arts was shown by his formation of an
important collection of paintings of all schools in his palaces at
Sinaïa and Bucharest. For a detailed account of his reign, see RUMANIA.
On the 1st of November 1869 he married Princess Elizabeth (q.v.), a
daughter of Prince Hermann of Wied, widely known under her literary name
of "Carmen Sylva." As the only child of the marriage, a daughter, died
in 1874, the succession was finally settled upon the king's nephew,
Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who was created prince of
Rumania on the 18th of March 1889, and married, on the 10th of January
1893, Princess Marie, daughter of Alfred, duke of Saxe-Coburg, their
children being Prince Carol (b. 1893) and Princess Elizabeth (b. 1894).

The official life of King Charles, mainly his own composition, _Aus
dem Leben Konig Karls von Rumänien_ (Stuttgart, 1894-1900, 4 vols.),
deals mainly with political history. See for an account of his
domestic life, M. Kremnitz, _König Karl von Rumänien. Ein Lebensbild_
(Breslau, 1903).

CHARLES II. (1661-1700), king of Spain, known among Spanish kings as
"The Desired" and "The Bewitched," was the son of Philip IV. by his
second marriage with Maria, daughter of the emperor Ferdinand III., his
niece. He was born on the 11th of November 1661, and was the only
surviving son of his father's two marriages--a child of old age and
disease, in whom the constant intermarriages of the Habsburgs had
developed the family type to deformity. His birth was greeted with joy
by the Spaniards, who feared the dispute as to the succession which must
have ensued if Philip IV. left no male issue. The boy was so feeble that
till the age of five or six he was fed only from the breast of a nurse.
For years afterwards it was not thought safe to allow him to walk. That
he might not be overtaxed he was left entirely uneducated, and his
indolence was indulged to such an extent that he was not even expected
to be clean. When his brother, the younger Don John of Austria, a
natural son of Philip IV., obtained power by exiling the queen mother
from court he insisted that at least the king's hair should be combed.
Charles made the malicious remark that nothing was safe from Don
John--not even vermin. The king was then fifteen, and, according to
Spanish law, of age. But he never became a man in body or mind. The
personages who ruled in his name arranged a marriage for him with Maria
Louisa of Orleans. The French princess, a lively young woman of no
sense, died in the stifling atmosphere of the Spanish court, and from
the attendance of Spanish doctors. Again his advisers arranged a
marriage with Maria Ana of Neuburg. The Bavarian wife stood the strain
and survived him. Both marriages were merely political--the first a
victory for the French, and the second for the Austrian party. France
and Austria were alike preparing for the day when the Spanish succession
would have to be fought for. The king was a mere puppet in the hands of
each alternately. By natural instinct he hated the French, but there was
no room in his nearly imbecile mind for more than childish superstition,
insane pride of birth, and an interest in court etiquette. The only
touch of manhood was a taste for shooting which he occasionally indulged
in the preserves of the Escorial. In his later days he suffered much
pain, and was driven wild by the conflict between his wish to transmit
his inheritance to "the illustrious house of Austria," his own kin, and
the belief instilled into him by the partisans of the French claimant
that only the power of Louis XIV. could avert the dismemberment of the
empire. A silly fanatic made the discovery that the king was bewitched,
and his confessor Froilan Diaz supported the belief. The king was
exorcised, and the exorcists of the kingdom were called upon to put
stringent questions to the devils they cast out. The Inquisition
interfered, and the dying king was driven mad among them. Very near his
end he had the lugubrious curiosity to cause the coffins of his embalmed
ancestors to be opened at the Escorial. The sight of the body of his
first wife, at whom he also insisted on looking, provoked a passion of
tears and despair. Under severe pressure from the cardinal archbishop of
Toledo, Portocarrero, he finally made a will in favour of Philip, duke
of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., and died on the 1st of November 1700,
after a lifetime of senile decay.

The best picture of Charles II. is to be found in _Les Mémoires de la
tour d'Espagne_ of the Marquis de Villars (London, 1861), and the
_Letters_ of the Marquise de Villars (Paris, 1868).

CHARLES III. (1716-1788), king of Spain, born on the 20th January 1716,
was the first son of the second marriage of Philip V. with Elizabeth
Farnese of Parma. It was his good fortune to be sent to rule as duke of
Parma by right of his mother at the age of sixteen, and thus came under
more intelligent influence than he could have found in Spain. In 1734 he
made himself master of Naples and Sicily by arms. Charles had, however,
no military tastes, seldom wore uniform, and could with difficulty be
persuaded to witness a review. The peremptory action of the British
admiral commanding in the Mediterranean at the approach of the War of
the Austrian Succession, who forced him to promise to observe neutrality
under a threat to bombard Naples, made a deep impression on his mind. It
gave him a feeling of hostility to England which in after-times
influenced his policy.

As king of the Two Sicilies Charles began there the work of internal
reform which he afterwards continued in Spain. Foreign ministers who
dealt with him agreed that he had no great natural ability, but he was
honestly desirous to do his duty as king, and he showed good judgment in
his choice of ministers. The chief minister in Naples, Tanucci, had a
considerable influence over him. On the death of his half-brother
Ferdinand VI. he became king of Spain, and resigned the Two Sicilies to
his third son Ferdinand. As king of Spain his foreign policy was
disastrous. His strong family feeling and his detestation of England,
which was unchecked after the death of his wife, Maria Amelia, daughter
of Frederick Augustus II. of Saxony, led him into the Family Compact
with France. Spain was entangled in the close of the Seven Years' War,
to her great loss. In 1770 he almost ran into another war over the
barren Falkland Islands. In 1779 he was, somewhat reluctantly, led to
join France and the American insurgents against England, though he well
knew that the independence of the English colonies must have a ruinous
influence on his own American dominions. For his army he did practically
nothing, and for his fleet very little except build fine ships without
taking measures to train officers and men.

But his internal government was on the whole beneficial to the country.
He began by compelling the people of Madrid to give up emptying their
slops out of the windows, and when they objected he said they were like
children who cried when their faces were washed. In 1766 his attempt to
force the Madrileños to adopt the French dress led to a riot during
which he did not display much personal courage. For a long time after it
he remained at Aranjuez, leaving the government in the hands of his
minister Aranda. All his reforms were not of this formal kind. Charles
was a thorough despot of the benevolent order, and had been deeply
offended by the real or suspected share of the Jesuits in the riot of
1766. He therefore consented to the expulsion of the order, and was then
the main advocate for its suppression. His quarrel with the Jesuits, and
the recollection of some disputes with the pope he had had when king of
Naples, turned him towards a general policy of restriction of the
overgrown power of the church. The number of the idle clergy, and more
particularly of the monastic orders, was reduced, and the Inquisition,
though not abolished, was rendered torpid. In the meantime much
antiquated legislation which tended to restrict trade and industry was
abolished; roads, canals and drainage works were carried out. Many of
his paternal ventures led to little more than waste of money, or the
creation of hotbeds of jobbery. Yet on the whole the country prospered.
The result was largely due to the king, who even when he was ill-advised
did at least work steadily at his task of government. His example was
not without effect on some at least of the nobles. In his domestic life
King Charles was regular, and was a considerate master, though he had a
somewhat caustic tongue and took a rather cynical view of mankind. He
was passionately fond of hunting. During his later years he had some
trouble with his eldest son and his daughter-in-law. If Charles had
lived to see the beginning of the French Revolution he would probably
have been frightened into reaction. As he died on the 14th of December
1788 he left the reputation of a philanthropic and "philosophic" king.
In spite of his hostility to the Jesuits, his dislike of friars in
general, and his jealousy of the Inquisition, he was a very sincere
Roman Catholic, and showed much zeal in endeavouring to persuade the
pope to proclaim the Immaculate Conception as a dogma necessary to
salvation.

See the _Reign of Charles III._, by M. Danvila y Collado (6 vols.), in
the _Historia General de España de la Real Academia de la Historia_
(Madrid, 1892, &c.); and F. Rousseau, _Règne de Charles III d'Espagne_
(Paris, 1907).

CHARLES IV. (1748-1819), king of Spain, second son of Charles III. and
his wife Maria Amelia of Saxony, was born at Portici on the 11th of
November 1748, while his father was king of the Two Sicilies. The elder
brother was set aside as imbecile and epileptic. Charles had inherited a
great frame and immense physical strength from the Saxon line of his
mother. When young he was fond of wrestling with the strongest
countrymen he could find. In character he was not malignant, but he was
intellectually torpid, and of a credulity which almost passes belief.
His wife, Maria Luisa of Parma, his first cousin, a thoroughly coarse
and vicious woman, ruled him completely, though he was capable of
obstinacy at times. During his father's lifetime he was led by her into
court intrigues which aimed at driving the king's favourite minister,
Floridablanca, from office, and replacing him by Aranda, the chief of
the "Aragonese" party. After he succeeded to the throne in 1788 his one
serious occupation was hunting. Affairs were left to be directed by his
wife and her lover Godoy (q.v.). For Godoy the king had an unaffected
liking, and the lifelong favour he showed him is almost pathetic. When
terrified by the French Revolution he turned to the Inquisition to help
him against the party which would have carried the reforming policy of
Charles III. much further. But he was too slothful to have more than a
passive part in the direction of his own government. He simply obeyed
the impulse given him by the queen and Godoy. If he ever knew his wife's
real character he thought it more consistent with his dignity to shut
his eyes. For he had a profound belief in his divine right and the
sanctity of his person. If he understood that his kingdom was treated as
a mere dependence by France, he also thought it due to his "face" to
make believe that he was a powerful monarch. Royalty never wore a more
silly aspect than in the person of Charles IV., and it is highly
credible that he never knew what his wife was, or what was the position
of his kingdom. When he was told that his son Ferdinand was appealing to
the emperor Napoleon against Godoy, he took the side of the favourite.
When the populace rose at Aranjuez in 1808 he abdicated to save the
minister. He took refuge in France, and when he and Ferdinand were both
prisoners of Napoleon's, he was with difficulty restrained from
assaulting his son. Then he abdicated in favour of Napoleon, handing
over his people like a herd of cattle. He accepted a pension from the
French emperor and spent the rest of his life between his wife and
Godoy. He died at Rome on the 20th of January 1819, probably without
having once suspected that he had done anything unbecoming a king by
divine right and a gentleman.

See _Historia del Reinado de Carlos IV._, by General Gomez de Arteche
(3 vols.), in the _Historia General de España de la Real Academia de
la Historia_ (Madrid, 1892, &c.).

CHARLES IX. (1550-1611), king of Sweden, was the youngest son of
Gustavus Vasa and Margareto Lejonhufrud. By his father's will he got, by
way of appanage, the duchy of Södermanland, which included the provinces
of Neriké and Vermland; but he did not come into actual possession of
them till after the fall of Eric XIV. (1569). In 1568 he was the real
leader of the rebellion against Eric, but took no part in the designs of
his brother John against the unhappy king after his deposition. Indeed,
Charles's relations with John III. were always more or less strained. He
had no sympathy with John's high-church tendencies on the one hand, and
he sturdily resisted all the king's endeavours to restrict his authority
as duke of Södermanland (Sudermania) on the other. The nobility and the
majority of the _Riksdag_ supported John, however, in his endeavours to
unify the realm, and Charles had consequently (1587) to resign his
pretensions to autonomy within his duchy; but, fanatical Calvinist as he
was, on the religious question he was immovable. The matter came to a
crisis on the death of John III. (1592). The heir to the throne was
John's eldest son, Sigismund, already king of Poland and a devoted
Catholic. The fear lest Sigismund might re-catholicize the land alarmed
the Protestant majority in Sweden, and Charles came forward as their
champion, and also as the defender of the Vasa dynasty against foreign
interference. It was due entirely to him that Sigismund was forced to
confirm the resolutions of the council of Upsala, thereby recognizing
the fact that Sweden was essentially a Protestant state (see SWEDEN:
_History_). In the ensuing years Charles's task was extraordinarily
difficult. He had steadily to oppose Sigismund's reactionary tendencies;
he had also to curb the nobility, which he did with cruel rigour.
Necessity compelled him to work rather with the people than the gentry;
hence it was that the _Riksdag_ assumed under his government a power and
an importance which it had never possessed before. In 1595 the _Riksdag_
of Söderköping elected Charles regent, and his attempt to force Klas
Flemming, governor of Finland, to submit to his authority, rather than
to that of the king, provoked a civil war. Technically Charles was,
without doubt, guilty of high treason, and the considerable minority of
all classes which adhered to Sigismund on his landing in Sweden in 1598
indisputably behaved like loyal subjects. But Sigismund was both an
alien and a heretic to the majority of the Swedish nation, and his
formal deposition by the _Riksdag_ in 1599 was, in effect, a natural
vindication and legitimation of Charles's position. Finally, the diet of
Linköping (Feb. 24, 1600) declared that Sigismund and his posterity had
forfeited the Swedish throne, and, passing over duke John, the second
son of John III., a youth of ten, recognized duke Charles as their
sovereign under the title of Charles IX.

Charles's short reign was an uninterrupted warfare. The hostility of
Poland and the break up of Russia involved him in two overseas contests
for the possession of Livonia and Ingria, while his pretensions to
Lapland brought upon him a war with Denmark in the last year of his
reign. In all these struggles he was more or less unsuccessful, owing
partly to the fact that he had to do with superior generals (e.g.
Chodkiewicz and Christian IV.) and partly to sheer ill-luck. Compared
with his foreign policy, the domestic policy of Charles IX. was
comparatively unimportant. It aimed at confirming and supplementing what
had already been done during his regency. Not till the 6th of March
1604, after Duke John had formally renounced his rights to the throne,
did Charles IX. begin to style himself king. The first deed in which the
title appears is dated the 20th of March 1604; but he was not crowned
till the 15th of March 1607. Four and a half years later Charles IX.
died at Nyköping (Oct. 30, 1611). As a ruler he is the link between his
great father and his still greater son. He consolidated the work of
Gustavus Vasa, the creation of a great Protestant state: he prepared the
way for the erection of the Protestant empire of Gustavus Adolphus.
Swedish historians have been excusably indulgent to the father of their
greatest ruler. Indisputably Charles was cruel, ungenerous and
vindictive; yet he seems, at all hazards, strenuously to have
endeavoured to do his duty during a period of political and religious
transition, and, despite his violence and brutality, possessed many of
the qualities of a wise and courageous statesman. By his first wife
Marie, daughter of the elector palatine Louis VI., he had six children,
of whom only one daughter, Catherine, survived; by his second wife,
Christina, daughter of Adolphus, duke of Holstein-Gottorp, he had five
children, including Gustavus Adolphus and Charles Philip, duke of
Finland.

See _Sveriges Historia_, vol. iii. (Stockholm, 1878); Robert Nisbet
Bain, _Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905), caps. 5-7. (R. N. B.)

CHARLES X. [CHARLES GUSTAVUS] (1622-1660), king of Sweden, son of John
Casimir, count palatine of Zweibrücken, and Catherine, sister of
Gustavus Adolphus, was born at Nyköping Castle on the 8th of November
1622. He learnt the art of war under the great Lennart Torstensson,
being present at the second battle of Breitenfeld and at Jankowitz. From
1646 to 1648 he frequented the Swedish court. It was supposed that he
would marry the queen regnant, Christina, but her unsurmountable
objection to wedlock put an end to these anticipations, and to
compensate her cousin for a broken half-promise she declared him (1649)
her successor, despite the opposition of the senate headed by the
venerable Axel Oxenstjerna. In 1648 he was appointed generalissimo of
the Swedish forces in Germany. The conclusion of the treaties of
Westphalia prevented him from winning the military laurels he so
ardently desired, but as the Swedish plenipotentiary at the executive
congress of Nuremberg, he had unrivalled opportunities of learning
diplomacy, in which science he speedily became a past-master. As the
recognized heir to the throne, his position on his return to Sweden was
not without danger, for the growing discontent with the queen turned the
eyes of thousands to him as a possible deliverer. He therefore withdrew
to the isle of Öland till the abdication of Christina (June 5, 1654)
called him to the throne.

The beginning of his reign was devoted to the healing of domestic
discords, and the rallying of all the forces of the nation round his
standard for a new policy of conquest. He contracted a political
marriage (Oct. 24, 1654) with Hedwig Leonora, the daughter of Frederick
III., duke of Holstein-Gottorp, by way of securing a future ally against
Denmark. The two great pressing national questions, war and the
restitution of the alienated crown lands, were duly considered at the
_Riksdag_ which assembled at Stockholm in March 1655. The war question
was decided in three days by a secret committee presided over by the
king, who easily persuaded the delegates that a war with Poland was
necessary and might prove very advantageous; but the consideration of
the question of the subsidies due to the crown for military purposes was
postponed to the following _Riksdag_ (see SWEDEN: _History_). On the
10th of July Charles quitted Sweden to engage in his Polish adventure.
By the time war was declared he had at his disposal 50,000 men and 50
warships. Hostilities had already begun with the occupation of Dünaburg
(Dvinsk) in Polish Livonia by the Swedes (July 1, 1655), and the Polish
army encamped among the marshes of the Netze concluded a convention
(July 25) whereby the palatinates of Posen and Kalisz placed themselves
under the protection of the Swedish king. Thereupon the Swedes entered
Warsaw without opposition and occupied the whole of Great Poland. The
Polish king, John Casimir, fled to Silesia. Meanwhile Charles pressed on
towards Cracow, which was captured after a two months' siege. The fall
of Cracow extinguished the last hope of the boldest Pole; but before the
end of the year an extraordinary reaction began in Poland itself. On the
18th of October the Swedes invested the fortress-monastery of
Czenstochowa, but the place was heroically defended; and after a seventy
days' siege the besiegers were compelled to retire with great loss.

This astounding success elicited an outburst of popular enthusiasm which
gave the war a national and religious character. The tactlessness of
Charles, the rapacity of his generals, the barbarity of his mercenaries,
his refusal to legalize his position by summoning the Polish diet, his
negotiations for the partition of the very state he affected to
befriend, awoke the long slumbering public spirit of the country. In the
beginning of 1656 John Casimir returned from exile and the Polish army
was reorganized and increased. By this time Charles had discovered that
it was easier to defeat the Poles than to conquer Poland. His chief
object, the conquest of Prussia, was still unaccomplished, and a new foe
arose in the elector of Brandenburg, alarmed by the ambition of the
Swedish king. Charles forced the elector, indeed, at the point of the
sword to become his ally and vassal (treaty of Königsberg, Jan. 17,
1656); but the Polish national rising now imperatively demanded his
presence in the south. For weeks he scoured the interminable
snow-covered plains of Poland in pursuit of the Polish guerillas,
penetrating as far south as Jaroslau in Galicia, by which time he had
lost two-thirds of his 15,000 men with no apparent result. His retreat
from Jaroslau to Warsaw, with the fragments of his host, amidst three
converging armies, in a marshy forest region, intersected in every
direction by well-guarded rivers, was one of his most brilliant
achievements. But his necessities were overwhelming. On the 21st of June
Warsaw was retaken by the Poles, and four days later Charles was obliged
to purchase the assistance of Frederick William by the treaty of
Marienburg. On July 18-20 the combined Swedes and Brandenburgers, 18,000
strong, after a three days' battle, defeated John Casimir's army of
100,000 at Warsaw and reoccupied the Polish capital; but this brilliant
feat of arms was altogether useless, and when the suspicious attitude of
Frederick William compelled the Swedish king at last to open
negotiations with the Poles, they refused the terms offered, the war was
resumed, and Charles concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with
the elector of Brandenburg (treaty of Labiau, Nov. 20) whereby it was
agreed that Frederick William and his heirs should henceforth possess
the full sovereignty of East Prussia.

This was an essential modification of Charles's Baltic policy; but the
alliance of the elector had now become indispensable on almost any
terms. So serious, indeed, were the difficulties of Charles X. in Poland
that it was with extreme satisfaction that he received the tidings of
the Danish declaration of war (June 1, 1657). The hostile action of
Denmark enabled him honourably to emerge from the inglorious Polish
imbroglio, and he was certain of the zealous support of his own people.
He had learnt from Torstensson that Denmark was most vulnerable if
attacked from the south, and, imitating the strategy of his master, he
fell upon her with a velocity which paralysed resistance. At the end of
June 1657, at the head of 8000 seasoned veterans, he broke up from
Bromberg in Prussia and reached the borders of Holstein on the 18th of
July. The Danish army at once dispersed and the duchy of Bremen was
recovered by the Swedes, who in the early autumn swarmed over Jutland
and firmly established themselves in the duchies. But the fortress of
Fredriksodde (Fredericia) held Charles's little army at bay from
mid-August to mid-October, while the fleet of Denmark, after a stubborn
two days' battle, compelled the Swedish fleet to abandon its projected
attack on the Danish islands. The position of the Swedish king had now
become critical. In July an offensive and defensive alliance was
concluded between Denmark and Poland. Still more ominously, the elector
of Brandenburg, perceiving Sweden to be in difficulties, joined the
league against her and compelled Charles to accept the proffered
mediation of Cromwell and Mazarin. The negotiations foundered, however,
upon the refusal of Sweden to refer the points in dispute to a general
peace-congress, and Charles was still further encouraged by the capture
of Fredriksodde (Oct. 23-24), whereupon he began to make preparations
for conveying his troops over to Fünen in transport vessels. But soon
another and cheaper expedient presented itself. In the middle of
December 1657 began the great frost which was to be so fatal to Denmark.
In a few weeks the cold had grown so intense that even the freezing of
an arm of the sea with so rapid a current as the Little Belt became a
conceivable possibility; and henceforth meteorological observations
formed an essential part of the strategy of the Swedes. On the 28th of
January 1658, Charles X. arrived at Haderslev (Hadersleben) in South
Jutland, when it was estimated that in a couple of days the ice of the
Little Belt would be firm enough to bear even the passage of a
mail-clad host. The cold during the night of the 29th of January was
most severe; and early in the morning of the 30th the Swedish king gave
the order to start, the horsemen dismounting where the ice was weakest,
and cautiously leading their horses as far apart as possible, when they
swung into their saddles again, closed their ranks and made a dash for
the shore. The Danish troops lining the opposite coast were quickly
overpowered, and the whole of Fünen was won with the loss of only two
companies of cavalry, which disappeared under the ice while fighting
with the Danish left wing. Pursuing his irresistible march, Charles X.,
with his eyes fixed steadily on Copenhagen, resolved to cross the frozen
Great Belt also. After some hesitation, he accepted the advice of his
chief engineer officer Eric Dahlberg, who acted as pioneer throughout
and chose the more circuitous route from Svendborg, by the islands of
Langeland, Laaland and Falster, in preference to the direct route from
Nyborg to Korsör, which would have been across a broad, almost
uninterrupted expanse of ice. Yet this second adventure was not embarked
upon without much anxious consideration. A council of war, which met at
two o'clock in the morning to consider the practicability of Dahlberg's
proposal, at once dismissed it as criminally hazardous. Even the king
wavered for an instant; but, Dahlberg persisting in his opinion, Charles
overruled the objections of the commanders. On the night of the 5th of
February the transit began, the cavalry leading the way through the
snow-covered ice, which quickly thawed beneath the horses' hoofs so that
the infantry which followed after had to wade through half an ell of
sludge, fearing every moment lest the rotting ice should break beneath
their feet. At three o'clock in the afternoon, Dahlberg leading the way,
the army reached Grimsted in Laaland without losing a man On the 8th of
February Charles reached Falster. On the 11th he stood safely on the
soil of Sjaelland (Zealand). Not without reason did the medal struck to
commemorate "the glorious transit of the Baltic Sea" bear the haughty
inscription: _Natura hoc debuit uni._ An exploit unique in history had
been achieved. The crushing effect of this unheard-of achievement on the
Danish government found expression in the treaties of Taastrup (Feb. 18)
and Roskilde (Feb. 26, 1658), whereby Denmark sacrificed nearly half her
territory to save the rest (see DENMARK: _History_). But even this was
not enough for the conqueror. Military ambition and greed of conquest
moved Charles X. to what, divested of all its pomp and circumstance, was
an outrageous act of political brigandage. At a council held at Gottorp
(July 7), Charles X. resolved to wipe from the map of Europe an
inconvenient rival, and without any warning, in defiance of all
international equity, let loose his veterans upon Denmark a second time.
For the details of this second struggle, with the concomitant diplomatic
intervention of the western powers, see DENMARK: _History_, and SWEDEN:
_History_. Only after great hesitation would Charles X. consent to
reopen negotiations with Denmark direct, at the same time proposing to
exercise pressure upon the enemy by a simultaneous winter campaign in
Norway. Such an enterprise necessitated fresh subsidies from his already
impoverished people, and obliged him in December 1659 to cross over to
Sweden to meet the estates, whom he had summoned to Gothenburg. The
lower estates murmured at the imposition of fresh burdens; and Charles
had need of all his adroitness to persuade them that his demands were
reasonable and necessary. At the very beginning of the _Riksdag_, in
January 1660, it was noticed that the king was ill; but he spared
himself as little in the council-chamber as in the battle-field, till
death suddenly overtook him on the night of the 13th of February 1660,
in his thirty-eighth year. The abrupt cessation of such an inexhaustible
fount of enterprise and energy was a distinct loss to Sweden; and signs
are not wanting that, in his latter years, Charles had begun to feel the
need and value of repose. Had he lived long enough to overcome his
martial ardour, and develop and organize the empire he helped to create,
Sweden might perhaps have remained a great power to this day. Even so
she owes her natural frontiers in the Scandinavian peninsula to Charles
X.

See Martin Veibull, _Sveriges Storhedstid_ (Stockholm, 1881);
Frederick Ferdinand Carlson, _Sveriges Historia under Konungarne af
Pfalziska Huset_ (Stockholm, 1883-1885); E. Haumant, _La Guerre du
nord et la paix d'Oliva_ (Paris, 1893); Robert Nisbet Bain,
_Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905); G. Jones, _The Diplomatic Relations
between Cromwell and Charles X._ (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1897).
(R. N. B.)

CHARLES XI. (1655-1697), king of Sweden, the only son of Charles X., and
Hedwig Leonora of Holstein-Gottorp, was born in the palace at Stockholm,
on the 24th of November 1655. His father, who died when the child was in
his fourth year, left the care of his education to the regents whom he
had appointed. So shamefully did they neglect their duty that when, at
the age of seventeen, Charles XI. attained his majority, he was ignorant
of the very rudiments of state-craft and almost illiterate. Yet those
nearest to him had great hopes of him. He was known to be truthful,
upright and God-fearing; if he had neglected his studies it was to
devote himself to manly sports and exercises; and in the pursuit of his
favourite pastime, bear-hunting, he had already given proofs of the most
splendid courage. It was the general disaster produced by the
speculative policy of his former guardians which first called forth his
sterling qualities and hardened him into a premature manhood. With
indefatigable energy he at once attempted to grapple with the
difficulties of the situation, waging an almost desperate struggle with
sloth, corruption and incompetence. Amidst universal anarchy, the young
king, barely twenty years of age, inexperienced, ill-served, snatching
at every expedient, worked day and night in his newly-formed camp in
Scania (Skåne) to arm the nation for its mortal struggle. The victory of
Fyllebro (Aug. 17, 1676), when Charles and his commander-in-chief S.G.
Helmfeld routed a Danish division, was the first gleam of good luck, and
on the 4th of December, on the tableland of Helgonabäck, near Lund, the
young Swedish monarch defeated Christian V. of Denmark, who also
commanded his army in person. After a ferocious contest, the Danes were
practically annihilated. The battle of Lund was, relatively to the
number engaged, one of the bloodiest engagements of modern times. More
than half the combatants (8357, of whom 3000 were Swedes) actually
perished on the battle-field. All the Swedish commanders showed
remarkable ability, but the chief glory of the day indisputably belongs
to Charles XI. This great victory restored to the Swedes their
self-confidence and prestige. In the following year, Charles with 9000
men routed 12,000 Danes near Malmõ (July 15, 1678). This proved to be
the last pitched battle of the war, the Danes never again venturing to
attack their once more invincible enemy in the open field. In 1679 Louis
XIV. dictated the terms of a general pacification, and Charles XI, who
bitterly resented "the insufferable tutelage" of the French king, was
forced at last to acquiesce in a peace which at least left his empire
practically intact. Charles devoted the rest of his life to the gigantic
task of rehabilitating Sweden by means of a _reduktion_, or recovery of
alienated crown lands, a process which involved the examination of every
title deed in the kingdom, and resulted in the complete readjustment of
the finances. But vast as it was, the _reduktion_ represents only a
tithe of Charles XI.'s immense activity. The constructive part of his
administration was equally thorough-going, and entirely beneficial.
Here, too, everything was due to his personal initiative. Finance,
commerce, the national armaments by sea and land, judicial procedure,
church government, education, even art and science--everything, in
short--emerged recast from his shaping hand. Charles XI. died on the 5th
of April 1697, in his forty-first year. By his beloved consort Ulrica
Leonora of Denmark, from the shock of whose death in July 1693 he never
recovered, he had seven children, of whom only three survived him, a son
Charles, and two daughters, Hedwig Sophia, duchess of Holstein, and
Ulrica Leonora, who ultimately succeeded her brother on the Swedish
throne. After Gustavus Vasa and Gustavus Adolphus Charles XI. was,
perhaps, the greatest of all the kings of Sweden. His modest, homespun
figure has indeed been unduly eclipsed by the brilliant and colossal
shapes of his heroic father and his meteoric son; yet in reality Charles
XI. is far worthier of admiration than either Charles X. or Charles XII.
He was in an eminent degree a great master-builder. He found Sweden in
ruins, and devoted his whole life to laying the solid foundations of a
new order of things which, in its essential features, has endured to the
present day.

See Martin Veibull, _Sveriges Storhedstid_ (Stockholm, 1881);
Frederick Ferdinand Carlson, _Sveriges Historia under Konungarne af
Pfalziska Huset_ (Stockholm, 1883-1885); Robert Nisbet Bain,
_Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905); O. Sjõgren, _Karl den Elfte och
Svenska Folket_ (Stockholm, 1897); S. Jacobsen, _Den nordiske Kriegs
Krönicke, 1675-1679_ (Copenhagen, 1897); J.A. de Mesmes d'Avaux,
_Négociations du comte d'Avaux, 1693, 1697, 1698_ (Utrecht, 1882,
&c.). (R. N. B.)

CHARLES XII. (1682-1718), king of Sweden, the only surviving son of
Charles XI. and Ulrica Leonora, daughter of Frederick III. of Denmark,
was born on the 17th of June 1682. He was carefully educated by
excellent tutors under the watchful eyes of his parents. His natural
parts were excellent; and a strong bias in the direction of abstract
thought, and mathematics in particular, was noticeable at an early date.
His memory was astonishing. He could translate Latin into Swedish or
German, or Swedish or German into Latin at sight. Charles XI. personally
supervised his son's physical training. He was taught to ride before he
was four, at eight was quite at home in his saddle, and when only
eleven, brought down his first bear at a single shot. As he grew older
his father took him on all his rounds, reviewing troops, inspecting
studs, foundries, dockyards and granaries. Thus the lad was gradually
initiated into all the _minutiae_ of administration. The influence of
Charles XI. over his son was, indeed, far greater than is commonly
supposed, and it accounts for much in Charles XII.'s character which is
otherwise inexplicable, for instance his precocious reserve and
taciturnity, his dislike of everything French, and his inordinate
contempt for purely diplomatic methods. On the whole, his early training
was admirable; but the young prince was not allowed the opportunity of
gradually gaining experience under his guardians. At the _Riksdag_
assembled at Stockholm in 1697, the estates, jealous of the influence of
the regents, offered full sovereignty to the young monarch, the senate
acquiesced, and, after some hesitation, Charles at last declared that he
could not resist the urgent appeal of his subjects and would take over
the government of the realm "in God's name." The subsequent coronation
was marked by portentous novelties, the most significant of which was
the king's omission to take the usual coronation oath, which omission
was interpreted to mean that he considered himself under no obligation
to his subjects. The general opinion of the young king was, however,
still favourable. His conduct was evidently regulated by strict
principle and not by mere caprice. His refusal to countenance torture as
an instrument of judicial investigation, on the ground that "confessions
so extorted give no sure criteria for forming a judgment," showed him to
be more humane as well as more enlightened than the majority of his
council, which had defended the contrary opinion. His intense
application to affairs is noted by the English minister, John Robinson
(1650-1723), who informed his court that there was every prospect of a
happy reign in Sweden, provided his majesty were well served and did not
injure his health by too much work.

The coalition formed against Sweden by Johann Reinhold Patkul, which
resulted in the outbreak of the Great Northern War (1699), abruptly put
an end to Charles XII.'s political apprenticeship, and forced into his
hand the sword he was never again to relinquish. The young king resolved
to attack the nearest of his three enemies--Denmark--first. The timidity
of the Danish admiral Ulrik C. Gyldenlõve, and the daring of Charles,
who forced his nervous and protesting admiral to attempt the passage of
the eastern channel of the Sound, the dangerous _flinterend_, hitherto
reputed to be unnavigable, enabled the Swedish king to effect a landing
at Humleback in Sjaelland (Zealand), a few miles north of Copenhagen
(Aug. 4, 1700). He now hoped to accomplish what his grandfather, fifty
years before, had vainly attempted--the destruction of the
Danish-Norwegian monarchy by capturing its capital. But for once
prudential considerations prevailed, and the short and bloodless war was
terminated by the peace of Travendal (Aug. 18), whereby Frederick IV.
conceded full sovereignty to Charles's ally and kinsman the duke of
Gottorp, besides paying him an indemnity of 200,000 rix-dollars and
solemnly engaging to commit no hostilities against Sweden in future.
From Sjaelland Charles now hastened to Livonia with 8000 men. On the 6th
of October he had reached Pernau, with the intention of first relieving
Riga, but, hearing that Narva was in great straits, he decided to turn
northwards against the tsar. He set out for Narva on the 13th of
November, against the advice of all his generals, who feared the effect
on untried troops of a week's march through a wasted land, along boggy
roads guarded by no fewer than three formidable passes which a little
engineering skill could easily have made impregnable. Fortunately, the
two first passes were unoccupied; and the third, Pyhäjoggi, was captured
by Charles, who with 400 horsemen put 6000 Russian cavalry to flight. On
the 19th of November the little army reached Lagena, a village about 9
m. from Narva, whence it signalled its approach to the beleaguered
fortress, and early on the following morning it advanced in battle
array. The attack on the Russian fortified camp began at two o'clock in
the afternoon, in the midst of a violent snowstorm; and by nightfall the
whole position was in the hands of the Swedes: the Russian army was
annihilated. The triumph was as cheap as it was crushing; it cost
Charles less than 2000 men.

After Narva, Charles XII. stood at the parting of ways. His best
advisers urged him to turn all his forces against the panic-stricken
Muscovites; to go into winter-quarters amongst them and live at their
expense; to fan into a flame the smouldering discontent caused by the
reforms of Peter the Great, and so disable Russia for some time to come.
But Charles's determination promptly to punish the treachery of Augustus
prevailed over every other consideration. It is easy from the
vantage-point of two centuries to criticize Charles XII. for neglecting
the Russians to pursue the Saxons; but at the beginning of the 18th
century his decision was natural enough. The real question was, which of
the two foes was the more dangerous, and Charles had many reasons to
think the civilized and martial Saxons far more formidable than the
imbecile Muscovites. Charles also rightly felt that he could never trust
the treacherous Augustus to remain quiet, even if he made peace with
him. To leave such a foe in his rear, while he plunged into the heart of
Russia would have been hazardous indeed. From this point of view
Charles's whole Polish policy, which has been blamed so long and so
loudly--the policy of placing a nominee of his own on the Polish
throne--takes quite another complexion: it was a policy not of
overvaulting ambition, but of prudential self-defence.

First, however, Charles cleared Livonia of the invader (July 1701),
subsequently occupying the duchy of Courland and converting it into a
Swedish governor-generalship. In January 1702 Charles established
himself at Bielowice in Lithuania, and, after issuing a proclamation
declaring that "the elector of Saxony" had forfeited the Polish crown,
set out for Warsaw, which he reached on the 14th of May. The
cardinal-primate was then sent for and commanded to summon a diet, for
the purpose of deposing Augustus. A fortnight later Charles quitted
Warsaw, to seek the elector; on the 2nd of July routed the combined
Poles and Saxons at Klissow; and three weeks later, captured the
fortress of Cracow by an act of almost fabulous audacity. Thus, within
four months of the opening of the campaign, the Polish capital and the
coronation city were both in the possession of the Swedes. After
Klissow, Augustus made every effort to put an end to the war, but
Charles would not even consider his offers. By this time, too, he had
conceived a passion for the perils and adventures of warfare. His
character was hardening, and he deliberately adopted the most barbarous
expedients for converting the Augustan Poles to his views. Such commands
as "ravage, singe, and burn all about, and reduce the whole district to
a wilderness!" "sweat contributions well out of them!" "rather let the
innocent suffer than the guilty escape!" became painfully frequent in
the mouth of the young commander, not yet 21, who was far from being
naturally cruel.

The campaign of 1703 was remarkable for Charles's victory at Pultusk
(April 21) and the long siege of Thorn, which occupied him eight months
but cost him only 50 men. On the 2nd of July 1704, with the assistance
of a bribing fund, Charles's ambassador at Warsaw, Count Arvid Bernard
Horn, succeeded in forcing through the election of Charles's candidate
to the Polish throne, Stanislaus Leszczynski, who could not be crowned
however till the 24th of September 1705, by which time the Saxons had
again been defeated at Punitz. From the autumn of 1705 to the spring of
1706, Charles was occupied in pursuing the Russian auxiliary army under
Ogilvie through the forests of Lithuania. On the 5th of August, he
recrossed the Vistula and established himself in Saxony, where his
presence in the heart of Europe, at the very crisis of the war of the
Spanish Succession, fluttered all the western diplomats. The allies, in
particular, at once suspected that Louis XIV. had bought the Swedes.
Marlborough was forthwith sent from the Hague to the castle of
Altranstädt near Leipzig, where Charles had fixed his headquarters, "to
endeavour to penetrate the designs" of the king of Sweden. He soon
convinced himself that western Europe had nothing to fear from Charles,
and that no bribes were necessary to turn the Swedish arms from Germany
to Russia. Five months later (Sept. 1707) Augustus was forced to sign
the peace of Altranstädt, whereby he resigned the Polish throne and
renounced every anti-Swedish alliance. Charles's departure from Saxony
was delayed for twelve months by a quarrel with the emperor. The court
of Vienna had treated the Silesian Protestants with tyrannical severity,
in direct contravention of the treaty of Osnabrück, of which Sweden was
one of the guarantors; and Charles demanded summary and complete
restitution so dictatorially that the emperor prepared for war. But the
allies interfered in Charles's favour, lest he might be tempted to aid
France, and induced the emperor to satisfy all the Swedish king's
demands, the maritime Powers at the same time agreeing to guarantee the
provisions of the peace of Altranstädt.

Nothing now prevented Charles from turning his victorious arms against
the tsar; and on the 13th of August 1707, he evacuated Saxony at the
head of the largest host he ever commanded, consisting of 24,000 horse
and 20,000 foot. Delayed during the autumn months in Poland by the tardy
arrival of reinforcements from Pomerania, it was not till November 1707
that Charles was able to take the field. On New Year's Day 1708 he
crossed the Vistula, though the ice was in a dangerous condition. On the
4th of July 1708 he cut in two the line of the Russian army, 6 m. long,
which barred his progress on the Wabis, near Holowczyn, and compelled it
to retreat. The victory of Holowczyn, memorable besides as the last
pitched battle won by Charles XII., opened up the way to the Dnieper.
The Swedish army now began to suffer severely, bread and fodder running
short, and the soldiers subsisting entirely on captured bullocks. The
Russians slowly retired before the invader, burning and destroying
everything in his path. On the 20th of December it was plain to Charles
himself that Moscow was inaccessible. But the idea of a retreat was
intolerable to him, so he determined to march southwards instead of
northwards as suggested by his generals, and join his forces with those
of the hetman of the Dnieperian Cossacks, Ivan Mazepa, who had 100,000
horsemen and a fresh and fruitful land at his disposal. Short of falling
back upon Livonia, it was the best plan adoptable in the circumstances,
but it was rendered abortive by Peter's destruction of Mazepa's capital
Baturin, so that when Mazepa joined Charles at Horki, on the 8th of
November 1708, it was as a ruined man with little more than 1300
personal attendants (see MAZEPA-KOLEDINSKY). A still more serious blow
was the destruction of the relief army which Levenhaupt was bringing to
Charles from Livonia, and which, hampered by hundreds of loaded wagons,
was overtaken and almost destroyed by Peter at Lyesna after a two days'
battle against fourfold odds (October). The very elements now began to
fight against the perishing but still unconquered host. The winter of
1708 was the severest that Europe had known for a century. By the 1st of
November firewood would not ignite in the open air, and the soldiers
warmed themselves over big bonfires of straw. By the time the army
reached the little Ukrainian fortress of Hadjacz in January 1709, wine
and spirits froze into solid masses of ice; birds on the wing fell dead;
saliva congealed on its passage from the mouth to the ground.
"Nevertheless," says an eye-witness, "though earth, sea and sky were
against us, the king's orders had to be obeyed and the daily march
made."

Never had Charles XII. seemed so superhuman as during these awful days.
It is not too much to say that his imperturbable equanimity, his serene
_bonhomie_ kept the host together. The frost broke at the end of
February 1709, and then the spring floods put an end to all active
operations till May, when Charles began the siege of the fortress of
Poltava, which he wished to make a base for subsequent operations while
awaiting reinforcements from Sweden and Poland. On the 7th of June a
bullet wound put Charles _hors de combat_, whereupon Peter threw the
greater part of his forces over the river Vorskla, which separated the
two armies (June 19-25). On the 26th of June Charles held a council of
war, at which it was resolved to attack the Russians in their
entrenchments on the following day. The Swedes joyfully accepted the
chances of battle and, advancing with irresistible _élan_, were, at
first, successful on both wings. Then one or two tactical blunders were
committed; and the tsar, taking courage, enveloped the little band in a
vast semicircle bristling with the most modern guns, which fired five
times to the Swedes' once, and swept away the guards before they could
draw their swords. The Swedish infantry was well nigh annihilated, while
the 14,000 cavalry, exhausted and demoralized, surrendered two days
later at Perevolochna on Dnieper. Charles himself with 1500 horsemen
took refuge in Turkish territory.

For the first time in his life Charles was now obliged to have recourse
to diplomacy; and his pen proved almost as formidable as his sword. He
procured the dismissal of four Russo-phil grand-viziers in succession,
and between 1710 and 1712 induced the Porte to declare war against the
tsar three times. But after November 1712 the Porte had no more money to
spare; and, the tsar making a show of submission, the sultan began to
regard Charles as a troublesome guest. On the 1st of February 1713 he
was attacked by the Turks in his camp at Bender, and made prisoner after
a contest which reads more like an extravagant episode from some heroic
folk-tale than an incident of sober 18th-century history. Charles
lingered on in Turkey fifteen months longer, in the hope of obtaining a
cavalry escort sufficiently strong to enable him to restore his credit
in Poland. Disappointed of this last hope, and moved by the despairing
appeals of his sister Ulrica and the senate to return to Sweden while
there was still a Sweden to return to, he quitted Demotika on the 20th
of September 1714, and attended by a single squire arrived unexpectedly
at midnight, on the 11th of November, at Stralsund, which, excepting
Wismar, was now all that remained to him on German soil.

For the diplomatic events of these critical years see SWEDEN: _History_.
Here it need only be said that Sweden, during the course of the Great
Northern War, had innumerable opportunities of obtaining an honourable
and even advantageous peace, but they all foundered oh the dogged
refusal of Charles to consent to the smallest concession to his
despoilers. Even now he would listen to no offers of compromise, and
after defending Stralsund with desperate courage till it was a mere
rubbish heap, returned to Sweden after an absence of 14 years. Here he
collected another army of 20,000 men, with which he so strongly
entrenched himself on the Scanian coast in 1716 that his combined
enemies shrank from attacking him, whereupon he assumed the offensive by
attacking Norway in 1717, and again in 1718, in order to conquer
sufficient territory to enable him to extort better terms from his
enemies. It was during this second adventure that he met his death. On
the 11th of December, when the Swedish approaches had come within 280
paces of the fortress of Fredriksten, which the Swedes were closely
besieging, Charles looked over the parapet of the foremost trench, and
was shot through the head by a bullet from the fortress.

See Charles XII., _Die eigenhändigen Briefe König Karls XII._ (Berlin,
1894); Friedrich Ferdinand Carlson, _Sveriges Historia under
Konungarne af Pfalziska Huset_ (Stockholm, 1883-1885); Robert Nisbet
Bain, _Charles XII. and the Collapse of the Swedish Empire_ (London
and Oxford, 1895); _Bidrag til den Store Nordishe Krigs Historie_
(Copenhagen, 1899-1900); G. Syveton, _Louis XIV et Charles XII_
(Paris, 1900); Daniel Krmann, _Historia ablegationis D. Krmann ad
regem Sueciae Carolum XII._ (Budapest, 1894); Oscar II., _Några bidrag
till Sveriges Krigshistoria åren 1711-1713_ (Stockholm, 1892); Martin
Weibull, _Sveriges Storhedstid_ (Stockholm, 1881). (R. N. B.)

CHARLES XIII. (1748-1818), king of Sweden and Norway, the second son of
Adolphus Frederick, king of Sweden, and Louisa Ulrica, sister of
Frederick the Great, was born at Stockholm on the 7th of October 1748.
In 1772 he co-operated in the revolutionary plans of his brother
Gustavus III. (q.v.). On the outbreak of the Russo-Swedish War of 1788
he served with distinction as admiral of the fleet, especially at the
battles of Hogland (June 17, 1788) and Oland (July 26, 1789). On the
latter occasion he would have won a signal victory but for the
unaccountable remissness of his second-in-command, Admiral Liljehorn. On
the death of Gustavus III., Charles, now duke of Sudermania, acted as
regent of Sweden till 1796; but the real ruler of the country was the
narrow-minded and vindictive Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm (q.v.), whose
mischievous influence over him was supreme. These four years were
perhaps the most miserable and degrading in Swedish history (an age of
lead succeeding an age of gold, as it has well been called) and may be
briefly described as alternations of fantastic jacobinism and ruthless
despotism. On the accession of Gustavus IV. (November 1796), the duke
became a mere cipher in politics till the 13th of March 1809, when those
who had dethroned Gustavus IV. appointed him regent, and finally elected
him king. But by this time he was prematurely decrepit, and Bernadotte
(see CHARLES XIV.) took over the government as soon as he landed in
Sweden (1810). By the union of 1814 Charles became the first king of
Sweden and Norway. He married his cousin Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of
Holstein-Gottorp (1759-1818), but their only child, Carl Adolf, duke of
Vermland, died in infancy (1798). Charles XIII., who for eight years had
been king only in title, died on the 5th of February 1818.

See _Sveriges Historia_ vol. v. (Stockholm, 1884); _Drottning Hedwig
Charlottes Dagbokshandteckningar_ (Stockholm, 1898); Robert Nisbet
Bain, _Gustavus III. and his Contemporaries_ (London, 1895)_; ib.
Scandinavia_ (Cambridge, 1905). (R. N. B.)

CHARLES XIV. (1763-1844), king of Sweden and Norway, born at Pau on the
26th of January 1763, was the son of Henri Bernadotte (1711-1780),
procurator at Pau, and Jeanne St Jean (1725-1809). The family name was
originally Deu Pouey, but was changed into Bernadotte in the beginning
of the 17th century. Bernadotte's christian names were Jean Baptiste; he
added the name Jules subsequently. He entered the French army on the 3rd
of September 1780, and first saw service in Corsica. On the outbreak of
the Revolution his eminent military qualities brought him speedy
promotion. In 1794 we find him as brigadier attached to the army of the
Sambre et Meuse, and after Jourdan's victory at Fleurus he was appointed
a general of division. At the battle of Theiningen, 1796, he
contributed, more than any one else, to the successful retreat of the
French army over the Rhine after its defeat by the archduke Charles. In
1797 he brought reinforcements from the Rhine to Bonaparte's army in
Italy, distinguishing himself greatly at the passage of the Tagliamento,
and in 1798 was sent as ambassador to Vienna, but was compelled to quit
his post owing to the disturbances caused by his hoisting the tricolor
over the embassy. On the 16th of August 1798 he married Désirée Clary
(1777-1860), the daughter of a Marseilles banker, and sister of Joseph
Bonaparte's wife. From the 2nd of July to the 14th of September he was
war minister, in which capacity he displayed great ability. About this
time he held aloof from Bonaparte, but though he declined to help
Napoleon in the preparations for the _coup d'état_ of November 1799, he
accepted employment from the Consulate, and from April 1800 till the
18th of August 1801 commanded the army in La Vendée. On the introduction
of the empire he was made one of the eighteen marshals of France, and,
from June 1804 to September 1805, acted as governor of the
recently-occupied Hanover. During the campaign of 1805, Bernadotte with
an army corps from Hanover co-operated in the great movement which
resulted in the shutting up of Mack in Ulm. He was rewarded for his
services at Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) by the principality of Ponte
Corvo (June 5, 1806), but during the campaign against Prussia, the same
year, was severely reproached by Napoleon for not participating with his
army corps in the battles of Jena and Auerstädt, though close at hand.
In 1808, as governor of the Hanse towns, he was to have directed the
expedition against Sweden, via the Danish islands, but the plan came to
nought because of the want of transports and the defection of the
Spanish contingent. In the war against Austria, Bernadotte led the Saxon
contingent at the battle of Wagram, on which occasion, on his own
initiative he issued an order of the day, attributing the victory
principally to the valour of his Saxons, which Napoleon at once
disavowed.

Bernadotte, considerably piqued, thereupon returned to Paris, where the
council of ministers entrusted him with the defence of the Netherlands
against the English. In 1810 he was about to enter upon his new post of
governor of Rome when he was, unexpectedly, elected successor to the
Swedish throne, partly because a large part of the Swedish army, in view
of future complications with Russia, were in favour of electing a
soldier, and partly because Bernadotte was very popular in Sweden, owing
to the kindness he had shown to the Swedish prisoners during the late
war with Denmark. The matter was decided by one of the Swedish couriers,
Baron Karl Otto Mörner, who, entirely on his own initiative, offered the
succession to the Swedish crown to Bernadotte. Bernadotte communicated
Mörner's offer to Napoleon, who treated the whole affair as an
absurdity. Bernadotte thereupon informed Mörner that he would not refuse
the honour if he were duly elected. Although the Swedish government,
amazed at Mörner's effrontery, at once placed him under arrest on his
return to Sweden, the candidature of Bernadotte gradually gained favour
there, and, on the 21st of August 1810, he was elected crown-prince.

On the 2nd of November Bernadotte made his solemn entry into Stockholm,
and on the 5th he received the homage of the estates and was adopted by
Charles XIII. under the name of Charles John. The new crown-prince was
very soon the most popular and the most powerful man in Sweden. The
infirmity of the old king and the dissensions in the council of state
placed the government, and especially the control of foreign affairs,
entirely in his hands. The keynote of his whole policy was the
acquisition of Norway, a policy which led him into many tortuous ways
(see SWEDEN: _History_), and made him a very tricky ally during the
struggle with Napoleon in 1813. Great Britain and Prussia very properly
insisted that Charles John's first duty was to them, the former power
rigorously protesting against the expenditure of her subsidies on the
nefarious Norwegian adventure before the common enemy had been crushed.
After the defeats of Lützen and Bautzen, it was the Swedish crown-prince
who put fresh heart into the allies; and at the conference of
Trachenberg he drew up the general plan for the campaign which began
after the expiration of the truce of Pläswitz. Though undoubtedly
sparing his Swedes unduly, to the just displeasure of the allies,
Charles John, as commander-in-chief of the northern army, successfully
defended the approaches to Berlin against Oudinot in August and against
Ney in September; but after Leipzig he went his own way, determined at
all hazards to cripple Denmark and secure Norway. For the events which
led to the union of Norway and Sweden, see SWEDEN: _History_ and NORWAY:
_History_. As unional king, Charles XIV. (who succeeded to that title in
1818 on the death of Charles XIII.) was popular in both countries.
Though his ultra-conservative views were detested, and as far as
possible opposed (especially after 1823), his dynasty was never in
serious danger, and Swedes and Norsemen alike were proud of a monarch
with a European reputation. It is true that the _Riksdag_ of 1840
meditated compelling him to abdicate, but the storm blew over and his
jubilee was celebrated with great enthusiasm in 1843. He died at
Stockholm on the 8th of March 1844. His reign was one of uninterrupted
peace, and the great material development of the two kingdoms during the
first half of the 19th century was largely due to his energy and
foresight.

See J.E. Sars, _Norges politiske historia_ (Christiania, 1899); Yngvar
Nielsen, _Carl Johan som han virkelig var_ (Christiania, 1897); Johan
Almén, _Ätten Bernadotte_ (Stockholm, 1893); C. Schefer, _Bernadotte
roi_ (Paris, 1899); G.R. Lagerhjelm, _Napoleon och Carl Johan under
Kriget i Tyskland, 1813_ (Stockholm, 1891). (R. N. B.)

CHARLES XV. (1826-1872), king of Sweden and Norway, eldest son of Oscar
I., king of Sweden and Norway, and Josephine Beauharnais of
Leuchtenberg, was born on the 3rd of May 1826. On the 19th of June 1850
he married Louisa, daughter of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands. He
became regent on the 25th of September 1857, and king on the death of
his father (8th of July 1859). As crown-prince, Charles's brusque and
downright manners had led many to regard his future accession with some
apprehension, yet he proved to be one of the most popular of
Scandinavian kings and a constitutional ruler in the best sense of the
word. His reign was remarkable for its manifold and far-reaching
reforms. Sweden's existing communal law (1862), ecclesiastical law
(1863) and criminal law (1864) were enacted appropriately enough under
the direction of a king whose motto was: "Build up the land upon the
laws!" Charles XV. also materially assisted De Geer (q.v.) to carry
through his memorable reform of the constitution in 1863. Charles was a
warm advocate of "Scandinavianism" and the political solidarity of the
three northern kingdoms, and his warm friendship for Frederick VII., it
is said, led him to give half promises of help to Denmark on the eve of
the war of 1864, which, in the circumstances, were perhaps misleading
and unjustifiable. In view, however, of the unpreparedness of the
Swedish army and the difficulties of the situation, Charles was forced
to observe a strict neutrality. He died at Malmö on the 18th of
September 1872. Charles XV. was highly gifted in many directions. He
attained to some eminence as a painter, and his _Digte_ show him to have
been a true poet. He left but one child, a daughter, Louisa Josephina
Eugenia, who in 1869 married the crown-prince Frederick of Denmark.

See Cecilia Bååth-Holmberg, _Carl XV., som enskild man, konung och
konstnär_ (Stockholm, 1891); Yngvar Nielsen, _Det norske og svenske
Kongehus fra 1818_ (Christiania, 1883). (R. N. B.)

CHARLES (c. 1319-1364), duke of Brittany, known as CHARLES OF BLOIS and
CHARLES OF CHÂTILLON, was the son of Guy of Châtillon, count of Blois (d.
1342), and of Marguerite of Valois, sister of Philip VI. of France. In
1337 he married Jeanne of Penthièvre (d. 1384), daughter of Guy of
Brittany, count of Penthièvre (d. 1331), and thus acquired a right to the
succession of the duchy of Brittany. On the death of John III., duke of
Brittany, in April 1341, his brother John, count of Montfort-l'Amaury,
and his niece Jeanne, wife of Charles of Blois, disputed the succession.
Charles of Blois, sustained by Philip VI., captured John of Montfort, who
was supported by King Edward III. at Nantes, besieged his wife Jeanne of
Flanders at Hennebont, and took Quimper and Guérande (1344). But next
year his partisans were defeated at Cadoret, and in June 1347 he was
himself wounded and taken prisoner at Roche-Derrien. He was not liberated
until 1356, when he continued the war against the young John of Montfort,
and perished in the battle of Auray, on the 29th of September 1364.
Charles bore a high reputation for piety, and was believed to have
performed miracles. The Roman Church has canonized him.

See Siméon Luce, _Histoire de Bertrand du Gueselin el de son époque_
(Paris, 1876).

CHARLES, called THE BOLD (1433-1477), duke of Burgundy, son of Philip
the Good of Burgundy and Isabella of Portugal, was born at Dijon on the
10th of November 1433. In his father's lifetime he bore the title of
count of Charolais. He was brought up under the direction of the
seigneur d'Auxy, and early showed great application to study and also to
warlike exercises. Although he was on familiar terms with the dauphin
(afterwards Louis XI.), when the latter was a refugee at the court of
Burgundy, he could not but view with chagrin the repurchase by the king
of France of the towns on the Somme, which had been temporarily ceded to
Philip the Good by the treaty of Arras; and when his father's failing
health enabled him to take into his hands the reins of government (which
Philip abandoned to him completely by an act of the 12th of April 1465),
he entered upon his lifelong struggle against Louis XI., and became one
of the principal leaders of the League of the Public Weal. His brilliant
bravery at the battle of Montlhéry (16th of July 1465), where he was
wounded and was left master of the field, neither prevented the king
from re-entering Paris nor assured Charles a decisive victory. He
succeeded, however, in forcing upon Louis the treaty of Conflans (1466),
by which the king restored to him the towns on the Somme, and promised
him the hand of his infant daughter Catherine, with Champagne as dowry.
In the meanwhile the count of Charolais obtained the surrender of
Ponthieu. The revolt of Liége and Dinant intervened to divert his
attention from the affairs of France. On the 25th of August 1466 Charles
took possession of Dinant, which he pillaged and sacked, and succeeded
in treating at the same time with the Liégeois. After the death of
Philip the Good (15th June 1467), the Liégeois renewed hostilities, but
Charles defeated them at St Trond, and made a victorious entry into
Liége, which he dismantled and deprived of some of its privileges.

Alarmed by these early successes of the duke of Burgundy, and anxious to
settle various questions relating to the execution of the treaty of
Conflans, Louis requested a meeting with Charles and placed himself in
his hands at Péronne. In the course of the negotiations the duke was
informed of a fresh revolt of the Liégeois secretly fomented by Louis.
After deliberating for four days how to deal with his adversary, who had
thus maladroitly placed himself at his mercy, Charles decided to respect
the parole he had given and to treat with Louis (October 1468), at the
same time forcing him to assist in quelling the revolt. The town was
carried by assault and the inhabitants were massacred, Louis not having
the courage to intervene on behalf of his ancient allies. At the expiry
of the one year's truce which followed the treaty of Péronne, the king
accused Charles of treason, cited him to appear before the parlement,
and seized some of the towns on the Somme (1471). The duke retaliated by
invading France with a large army, taking possession of Nesle and
massacring its inhabitants. He failed, however, in an attack on
Beauvais, and had to content himself with ravaging the country as far as
Rouen, eventually retiring without having attained any useful result.

Other matters, moreover, engaged his attention. Relinquishing, if not
the stately magnificence, at least the gay and wasteful profusion which
had characterized the court of Burgundy under the preceding duke, he had
bent all his efforts towards the development of his military and
political power. Since the beginning of his reign he had employed
himself in reorganizing his army and the administration of his
territories. While retaining the principles of feudal recruiting, he had
endeavoured to establish a system of rigid discipline among his troops,
which he had strengthened by taking into his pay foreign mercenaries,
particularly Englishmen and Italians, and by developing his artillery.
Furthermore, he had lost no opportunity of extending his power. In 1469
the archduke of Austria, Sigismund, had sold him the county of Ferrette,
and the landgraviate of Alsace and some other towns, reserving to
himself the right to repurchase. In 1472-1473 Charles bought the
reversion of the duchy of Gelderland from its old duke, Arnold, whom he
had supported against the rebellion of his son. Not content with being
"the grand duke of the West," he conceived the project of forming a
kingdom of Burgundy or Arles with himself as independent sovereign, and
even persuaded the emperor Frederick to assent to crown him king at
Trier. The ceremony, however, did not take place owing to the emperor's
precipitate flight by night (September 1473), occasioned by his
displeasure at the duke's attitude. In the following year Charles
involved himself in a series of difficulties and struggles which
ultimately brought about his downfall. He embroiled himself successively
with Sigismund of Austria, to whom he refused to restore his
possessions in Alsace for the stipulated sum; with the Swiss, who
supported the free towns of Alsace in their revolt against the tyranny
of the ducal governor, Peter von Hagenbach (who was condemned and
executed by the rebels in May 1474); and finally, with René of Lorraine,
with whom he disputed the succession of Lorraine, the possession of
which had united the two principal portions of Charles's
territories--Flanders and the duchy and county of Burgundy. All these
enemies, incited and supported as they were by Louis, were not long in
joining forces against their common adversary. Charles suffered a first
rebuff in endeavouring to protect his kinsman, the archbishop of
Cologne, against his rebel subjects. He spent ten months (July 1474-June
1475) in besieging the little town of Neuss on the Rhine, but was
compelled by the approach of a powerful imperial army to raise the
siege. Moreover, the expedition he had persuaded his brother-in-law,
Edward IV. of England, to undertake against Louis was stopped by the
treaty of Picquigny (29th of August 1475). He was more successful in
Lorraine, where he seized Nancy (30th of November 1475). From Nancy he
marched against the Swiss, hanging and drowning the garrison of Granson
in spite of the capitulation. Some days later, however, he was attacked
before Granson by the confederate army and suffered a shamful defeat,
being compelled to fly with a handful of attendants, and leaving his
artillery and an immense booty in the hands of the allies (February
1476). He succeeded in raising a fresh army of 30,000 men, with which he
attacked Morat, but he was again defeated by the Swiss army, assisted by
the cavalry of René of Lorraine (22nd of June 1476). On the 6th of
October Charles lost Nancy, which was re-entered by René. Making a last
effort, Charles formed a new army and arrived in the depth of winter
before the walls of Nancy. Having lost many of his troops through the
severe cold, it was with only a few thousand men that he met the joint
forces of the Lorrainers and the Swiss, who had come to the relief of
the town (6th of January 1477). He himself perished in the fight, his
mutilated body being discovered some days afterwards.

Charles the Bold has often been regarded as the last representative of
the feudal spirit--a man who possessed no other quality than a blind
bravery--and accordingly has often been contrasted with his rival Louis
XI. as representing modern politics. In reality, he was a prince of wide
knowledge and culture, knowing several languages and austere in morals;
and although he cannot be acquitted of occasional harshness, he had the
secret of winning the hearts of his subjects, who never refused him
their support in times of difficulty. He was thrice married--to
Catherine (d, 1446), daughter of Charles VII. of France, by whom he had
one daughter, Mary, afterwards the wife of the Emperor Maximilian I.; to
Isabella (d. 1465), daughter of Charles I., duke of Bourbon; and to
Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV. of England, whom he married in
1468.

The original authorities for the life and times of Charles the Bold
are the numerous French, Burgundian and Flemish chroniclers of the
latter part of the 15th century. Special mention may be made of the
_Mémoires_ of Philippe de Comines, and of the _Mémoires_ and other
writings of Olivier de la Marche. See also A. Molinier, _Les Sources
de l'histoire de France_, tome iv. (1904), and the compendious
bibliography in U. Chevalier's _Répertoire des sources historiques_,
part iii. (1904). _Charles the Bold_, by J.F. Kirk (1863-1868), is a
good English biography for its date; a more recent life is R. Putnam's
_Charles the Bold_ (1908). For a general sketch of the relations
between France and Burgundy at this time see E. Lavisse, _Histoire de
France_, tome iv. (1902). (R. Po.)

CHARLES, called THE GOOD (le Bon), or THE DANE (c. 1084-1127), count of
Flanders, only son of St Canute or Knut IV., king of Denmark, by Adela,
daughter of Robert the Frisian, count of Flanders, was born about 1084.
After the assassination of Canute in 1086, his widow took refuge in
Flanders, taking with her her son. Charles was brought up by his mother
and grandfather, Robert the Frisian, on whose death he did great
services to his uncle, Robert II., and his cousin, Baldwin VII., counts
of Flanders. Baldwin died of a wound received in battle in 1119, and,
having no issue, left by will the succession to his countship to Charles
the Dane. Charles did not secure his heritage without a civil war, but
he was speedily victorious and made his position secure by treating his
opponents with great clemency. He now devoted himself to promoting the
welfare of his subjects, and did his utmost to support the cause of
Christianity, both by his bounty and by his example. He well deserved
the surname of _Le Bon_, by which he is known to posterity. He refused
the offer of the crown of Jerusalem on the death of Baldwin, and
declined to be nominated as a candidate for the imperial crown in
succession to the emperor Henry V. He was murdered in the church of St
Donat at Bruges on the 2nd of March 1127.

See J. Perneel, _Histoire du règne de Charles le Bon, précedé d'un
résumé de l'histoire de Flandres_ (Brussels, 1830).

CHARLES I. (c. 950-c. 992), duke of Lower Lorraine, was a younger son of
the Frankish king Louis IV., and consequently a member of the
Carolingian family. Unable to obtain the duchy of Burgundy owing to the
opposition of his brother, King Lothair, he went to the court of his
maternal uncle, the emperor Otto the Great, about 965, and in 977
received from the emperor Otto II. the duchy of Lower Lorraine. His
authority in Lorraine was nominal; but he aided Otto in his struggle
with Lothair, and on the death of his nephew, Louis V., made an effort
to secure the Frankish crown. Hugh Capet, however, was the successful
candidate and war broke out. Charles had gained some successes and had
captured Reims, when in 991 he was treacherously seized by Adalberon,
bishop of Laon, and handed over to Hugh. Imprisoned with his wife and
children at Orleans, Charles did not long survive his humiliation. His
eldest son Otto, duke of Lower Lorraine, died in 1005.

CHARLES II. (d. 1431), duke of Lorraine, called THE BOLD, is sometimes
referred to as Charles I. A son of Duke John I., he succeeded his father
in 1390; but he neglected his duchy and passed his life in warfare. He
died on the 25th of January 1431, leaving two daughters, one of whom,
Isabella (d. 1453), married René I. of Anjou (1409-1450), king of
Naples, who succeeded his father-in-law as duke of Lorraine.

CHARLES III. or II. (1543-1608), called THE GREAT, duke of Lorraine, was
a son of Duke Francis I. (d. 1545), and a descendant of René of Anjou.
He was only an infant when he became duke, and was brought up at the
court of Henry II. of France, marrying Henry's daughter Claude in 1559.
He took part in the wars of religion in France, and was a member of the
League; but he was overshadowed by his kinsmen the Guises, although he
was a possible candidate for the French crown in 1589. The duke, who was
an excellent ruler of Lorraine, died at Nancy on the 14th of May 1608.
He had three sons: Henry (d. 1624) and Francis (d. 1632), who became in
turn dukes of Lorraine, and Charles (d. 1607), bishop of Metz and
Strassburg.

CHARLES IV. or III. (1604-1675), duke of Lorraine, was a son of Duke
Francis II., and was born on the 5th of April 1604. He became duke on
the abdication of his father in 1624, and obtained the duchy of Bar
through his marriage with his cousin Nicole (d. 1657), daughter of Duke
Henry. Mixing in the tortuous politics of his time, he was in continual
conflict with the crown of France, and spent much of his time in
assisting her enemies and in losing and regaining his duchies (see
LORRAINE). He lived an adventurous life, and in the intervals between
his several struggles with France fought for the emperor Ferdinand II.
at Nordlingen and elsewhere; talked of succouring Charles I. in England;
and after the conclusion of the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 entered the
service of Spain. He died on the 18th of September 1675, leaving by his
second wife, Beatrix de Cusance (d. 1663), a son, Charles Henry, count
of Vaudemont (1642-1723).

CHARLES V. or IV. (1643-1690), duke of Lorraine, nephew of Duke Charles
IV., was born on the 3rd of April 1643, and in 1664 received a colonelcy
in the emperor's army. In the same year he fought with distinction at
the battle of St Gotthard, in which he captured a standard from the
Turks. He was a candidate for the elective crown of Poland in 1668. In
1670 the emperor made him general of horse, and during the following
years he was constantly on active service, first against the Turks and
subsequently against the French. At Seneff (1674) he was wounded. In the
same year he was again a candidate for the Polish crown, but was
unsuccessful, John Sobieski, who was to be associated with him in his
greatest feat of arms, being elected. In 1675, on the death of Charles
IV., he rode with a cavalry corps into the duchy of Lorraine, then
occupied by the French, and secured the adhesion of the Lorraine troops
to himself; a little after this he succeeded Montecucculi as general of
the imperial army on the Rhine, and was made a field marshal. The chief
success of his campaign of 1676 was the capture of Philipsburg, after a
long and arduous siege. The war continued without decisive result for
some time, and the fate of the duchy, which was still occupied by the
French, was the subject of endless diplomacy. At the general peace
Charles had to accept the hard conditions imposed by Louis XIV., and he
never entered into effective possession of his sovereignty. In 1678 he
married the widowed queen of Poland, Eleonora Maria of Austria, and for
nearly five years they lived quietly at Innsbruck. The Turkish invasion
of 1683, the last great effort of the Turks to impose their will on
Europe, called Charles into the field again. At the head of a weak
imperial army the duke offered the best resistance he could to the
advance of the Turks on Vienna. But he had to fall back, contesting
every position, and the Turks finally invested Vienna (July 13th, 1683).
At this critical moment other powers came to the assistance of Austria,
reinforcements poured into Charles's camp, and John Sobieski, king of
Poland, brought 27,000 Poles. Sobieski and Charles had now over 80,000
men, Poles, Austrians and Germans, and on the morning of the 12th of
September they moved forward to the attack. By nightfall the Turks were
in complete disorder, Vienna was relieved, and the danger was at an end.
Soon the victors took the offensive and reconquered part of the kingdom
of Hungary. The Germans and Poles went home in the winter, but Charles
continued his offensive with the imperialists alone. Ofen (Buda)
resisted his efforts in 1684, but in the campaign of 1685 Neuhaüsel was
taken by storm, and in 1686 Charles, now reinforced by German
auxiliaries, resumed the siege of Ofen. All attempts to relieve the
place were repulsed, and Ofen was stormed on the 2nd of September. In
the following campaign the Austrians won a decisive victory on the
famous battle-ground of Mohacs (August 18th, 1687). In 1689 Charles took
the field on the Rhine against the forces of Louis XIV., the enemy of
his house. Mainz and Bonn were taken in the first campaign, but Charles
in travelling from Vienna to the front died suddenly at Wels on the 18th
of April 1690.

His eldest son, Leopold Joseph (1679-1729), at the peace of Ryswick in
1697 obtained the duchy, of which his father had been dispossessed by
France, and was the father of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine, who
became the husband of Maria Theresa (q.v.), and of Charles (Karl
Alexander), a distinguished Austrian commander in the wars with
Frederick the Great. The duchy was ceded by Francis Stephen to
Stanislaus Leczynski, the dethroned king of Poland, in 1736, Francis
receiving instead the grand-duchy of Tuscany.

CHARLES II. [CHARLES LOUIS DE BOURBON] (1799-1883), duke of Parma,
succeeded his mother, Maria Louisa, duchess of Lucca, as duke of Lucca
in 1824. He introduced economy into the administration, increased the
schools, and in 1832 as a reaction against the bigotry of the priests
and monks with which his mother had surrounded him, he became a
Protestant. He at first evinced Liberal tendencies, gave asylum to the
Modenese political refugees of 1831, and was indeed suspected of being a
Carbonaro. But his profligacy and eccentricities soon made him the
laughing-stock of Italy. In 1842 he returned to the Catholic Church and
made Thomas Ward, an English groom, his prime minister, a man not
without ability and tact. Charles gradually abandoned all his Liberal
ideas, and in 1847 declared himself hostile to the reforms introduced by
Pius IX. The Lucchesi demanded the constitution of 1805, promised them
by the treaty of Vienna, and a national guard, but the duke, in spite of
the warnings of Ward, refused all concessions. A few weeks later he
retired to Modena, selling his life-interest in the duchy to Tuscany.
On the 17th of October Maria Louisa of Austria, duchess of Parma, died,
and Charles Louis succeeded to her throne by the terms of the Florence
treaty, assuming the style of Charles II. His administration of Parma
was characterized by ruinous finance, debts, disorder and increased
taxation, and he concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with
Austria. But on the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 there were riots
in his capital (19th of March), and he declared his readiness to throw
in his lot with Charles Albert, the pope, and Leopold of Tuscany,
repudiated the Austrian treaty and promised a constitution. Then he
again changed his mind, abdicated in April, and left Parma in the hands
of a provisional government, whereupon the people voted for union with
Piedmont. After the armistice between Charles Albert and Austria (August
1848) the Austrian general Thurn occupied the duchy, and Charles II.
issued an edict from Weistropp annulling the acts of the provisional
government. When Piedmont attacked Austria again in 1849, Parma was
evacuated, but reoccupied by General d'Aspre in April.

In May 1849 Charles confirmed his abdication, and was succeeded by his
son CHARLES III. (1823-1854), who, protected by Austrian troops, placed
Parma under martial law, inflicted heavy penalties on the members of the
late provisional government, closed the university, and instituted a
regular policy of persecution. A violent ruler, a drunkard and a
libertine, he was assassinated on the 26th of March 1854. At his death
his widow Maria Louisa, sister of the comte de Chambord, became regent,
during the minority of his son Robert. The duchess introduced some sort
of order into the administration, seemed inclined to rule more mildly
and dismissed some of her husband's more obnoxious ministers, but the
riots of the Mazzinians in July 1854 were repressed with ruthless
severity, and the rest of her reign was characterized by political
trials, executions and imprisonments, to which the revolutionists
replied with assassinations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Massei, _Storia civile di Lucca_, vol. ii. (Lucca,
1878); Anon., _Y Borboni di Parma ... del 1847 al 1859_ (Parma, 1860);
N. Bianchi, _Storia della diplomazia europea in Italia_ (Turin, 1865,
&c.); C. Tivaroni, _L'Italia sotto il dominio austriaco_, ii. 96-101,
i. 590-605 (Turin, 1892), and _L'Italia degli Italiani_, i. 126-143
(Turin, 1895) by the same; S. Lottici and G. Sitti, _Bibliografia
generale per la storia parmense_ (Parma, 1904).

CHARLES [KARL LUDWIG] (1771-1847), archduke of Austria and duke of
Teschen, third son of the emperor Leopold II., was born at Florence (his
father being then grand-duke of Tuscany) on the 5th of September 1771.
His youth was spent in Tuscany, at Vienna and in the Austrian
Netherlands, where he began his career of military service in the war of
the French Revolution. He commanded a brigade at Jemappes, and in the
campaign of 1793 distinguished himself at the action of Aldenhoven and
the battle of Neerwinden. In this year he became _Statthalter_ in
Belgium and received the army rank of lieutenant field marshal, which
promotion was soon followed by that to Feldzeugmeister. In the remainder
of the war in the Low Countries he held high commands, and he was
present at Fleurus. In 1795 he served on the Rhine, and in the following
year was entrusted with the chief control of all the Austrian forces on
that river. His conduct of the operations against Jourdan and Moreau in
1796 marked him out at once as one of the greatest generals in Europe.
At first falling back carefully and avoiding a decision, he finally
marched away, leaving a mere screen in front of Moreau; falling upon
Jourdan he beat him in the battles of Amberg and Würzburg, and drove him
over the Rhine with great loss. He then turned upon Moreau's army, which
he defeated and forced out of Germany. For this campaign, one of the
most brilliant in modern history, see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS. In 1797
he was sent to arrest the victorious march of General Bonaparte in
Italy, and he conducted the retreat of the over-matched Austrians with
the highest skill. In the campaign of 1799 he was once more opposed to
Jourdan, whom he defeated in the battles of Osterach and Stokach,
following up his success by invading Switzerland and defeating Masséna
in the (first) battle of Zürich, after which he re-entered Germany and
drove the French once more over the Rhine. Ill-health, however, forced
him to retire to Bohemia, whence he was soon recalled to undertake the
task of checking Moreau's advance on Vienna. The result of the battle of
Hohenlinden had, however, foredoomed the attempt, and the archduke had
to make the armistice of Steyer. His popularity was now such that the
diet of Regensburg, which met in 1802, resolved to erect a statue in his
honour and to give him the title of saviour of his country; but Charles
refused both distinctions.

In the short and disastrous war of 1805 the archduke Charles commanded
what was intended to be the main army, in Italy, but events made Germany
the decisive theatre of operations, and the defeats sustained on the
Danube neutralized the success obtained by the archduke over Masséna in
the desperately fought battle of Caldiero. With the conclusion of peace
began his active work of army reorganization, which was first tested on
the field in 1809. As generalissimo of the army he had been made field
marshal some years before. As president of the Council of War, and
supported by the prestige of being the only general who had proved
capable of defeating the French, he promptly initiated a far-reaching
scheme of reform, which replaced the obsolete methods of the 18th
century, the chief characteristics of the new order being the adoption
of the "nation in arms" principle and of the French war organization and
tactics. The new army was surprised in the process of transition by the
war of 1809, in which Charles commanded in chief; yet even so it proved
a far more formidable opponent than the old, and, against the now
heterogeneous army of which Napoleon disposed (see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS)
it succumbed only after a desperate struggle. Its initial successes were
neutralized by the reverses of Abensberg, Landshut and Eckmühl; but,
after the evacuation of Vienna, the archduke won the great battle of
Aspern-Essling (q.v.) and soon afterwards fought the still more
desperate battle of Wagram (q.v.), at the close of which the Austrians
were defeated but not routed; they had inflicted upon Napoleon a loss of
over 50,000 men in the two battles. At the end of the campaign the
archduke gave up all his military offices, and spent the rest of his
life in retirement, except a short time in 1815, when he was governor of
Mainz. In 1822 he succeeded to the duchy of Saxe-Teschen. The archduke
Charles married, in 1815, Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg (d.
1829). He had four sons, the eldest of whom, the archduke Albert (q.v.)
became one of the most celebrated generals in Europe, and two daughters,
the elder of whom became queen of Naples. He died at Vienna on the 30th
of April 1847. An equestrian statue was erected to his memory in Vienna,
1860.

The caution which the archduke preached so earnestly in his strategical
works, he displayed in practice only when the situation seemed to demand
it, though his education certainly prejudiced him in favour of the
defensive at all costs. He was at the same time capable of forming and
executing the most daring offensive strategy, and his tactical skill in
the handling of troops, whether in wide turning movements, as at
Würzburg and Zürich, or in masses, as at Aspern and Wagram, was
certainly equal to that of any leader of his time, Napoleon only
excepted. The campaign of 1796 is considered almost faultless. That he
sustained defeat in 1809 was due in part to the great numerical
superiority of the French and their allies, and in part to the condition
of his newly reorganized troops. His six weeks' inaction after the
victory of Aspern is, however, open to unfavourable criticism. As a
military writer, his position in the evolution of the art of war is very
important, and his doctrines had naturally the greatest weight.
Nevertheless they cannot but be considered as antiquated even in 1806.
Caution and the importance of "strategic points" are the chief features
of his system. The rigidity of his geographical strategy may be gathered
from the prescription that "this principle is _never_ to be departed
from." Again and again he repeats the advice that nothing should be
hazarded unless one's army is _completely_ secure, a rule which he
himself neglected with such brilliant results in 1796. "Strategic
points," he says (not the defeat of the enemy's army), "decide the fate
of one's own country, and must constantly remain the general's main
solicitude"--a maxim which was never more remarkably disproved than in
the war of 1809. The editor of the archduke's work is able to make but a
feeble defence against Clausewitz's reproach that Charles attached more
value to ground than to the annihilation of the foe. In his tactical
writings the same spirit is conspicuous. His reserve in battle is
designed to "cover a retreat." The baneful influence of these antiquated
principles was clearly shown in the maintenance of Königgrätz-Josefstadt
in 1866 as a "strategic point," which was preferred to the defeat of the
separated Prussian armies; in the strange plans produced in Vienna for
the campaign of 1859, and in the "almost unintelligible" battle of
Montebello in the same year. The theory and the practice of the archduke
Charles form one of the most curious contrasts in military history. In
the one he is unreal, in the other he displayed, along with the greatest
skill, a vivid activity which made him for long the most formidable
opponent of Napoleon.

His writings were edited by the archduke Albert and his brother the
archduke William in the _Ausgewahlte Schriften weiland Sr. K. Hoheit
Erzh. Carl v. Österreich_ (1862; reprinted 1893, Vienna and Leipzig),
which includes the _Grundsatze der Kriegskunst für die Generale_
(1806), _Grundsatze der Strategie erlautert durch die Darstellung des
Feldzugs 1796_ (1814), _Gesch. des Feldzugs von 1799_ (1819)--the two
latter invaluable contributions to the history of the war, and papers
"on the higher art of war," "on practical training in the field," &c.
See, besides the histories of the period, C. von
B(inder)-K(rieglstein), _Geist und Stoff im Kriege_ (Vienna, 1895);
Caemmerer, _Development of Strategical Science_ (English transl.), ch.
iv.; M. Edler v. Angeli, _Erzherzog Carl v. Österr._ (Vienna and
Leipzig, 1896); Duller, _Erzh. Karl v. Österr._ (Vienna, 1845);
Schneidawind, _Karl, Erzherzog v. Österr. und die österr. Armee_
(Vienna, 1840); _Das Buch vom Erzh. Carl_ (1848); Thielen, _Erzh. Karl
v. Österr._ (1858); Wolf, _Erzh. Carl_ (1860); H. von Zeissberg,
_Erzh. Karl v. Österr._ (Vienna, 1895); M. von Angeli, _Erzh. Karl als
Feldherr und Organisator_ (Vienna, 1896).

CHARLES (1525-1574), cardinal of Lorraine, French statesman, was the
second son of Claude of Lorraine, duke of Guise, and brother of Francis,
duke of Guise. He was archbishop of Reims in 1538, and cardinal in 1547.
At first he was called the cardinal of Guise, but in 1550, on the death
of his uncle John, cardinal of Lorraine, he in his turn took the style
of cardinal of Lorraine. Brilliant, cunning and a master of intrigue, he
was, like all the Guises, devoured with ambition and devoid of scruples.
He had, said Brantôme, "a soul exceeding smirched," and, he adds, "by
nature he was exceeding craven." Together with his brother, Duke
Francis, the cardinal of Lorraine was all-powerful during the reigns of
Henry II. and Francis II.; in 1558 and 1559 he was one of the
negotiators of the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis; he fought and pitilessly
persecuted the reformers, and by his intolerant policy helped to provoke
the crisis of the wars of religion. The death of Francis II. deprived
him of power, but he remained one of the principal leaders of the
Catholic party. In 1561, at the Colloquy of Poissy, he was commissioned
to reply to Theodore Beza. In 1562 he went to the council of Trent,
where he at first defended the rights of the Gallican Church against the
pretensions of the pope; but after the assassination of his brother, he
approached the court of Rome, and on his return to France he
endeavoured, but without success, to obtain the promulgation of the
decrees of the council (1564). In 1567, when the Protestants took up
arms, he held for some time the first place in the king's council, but
Catherine de' Medici soon grew weary of his arrogance, and in 1570 he
had to leave the court. He endeavoured to regain favour by negotiating
at Rome the dispensation for the marriage of Henry of Navarre with
Margaret of Valois (1572). He died on the 26th of December 1574, at the
beginning of the reign of Henry III. An orator of talent, he left
several harangues or sermons, among them being _Oraison prononcée au
Colloque de Poissy_ (Paris, 1562) and _Oratio habita in Concil. Trident._
(_Concil. Trident. Orationes_, Louvain, 1567).

A large amount of correspondence is preserved in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris. See also René de Bouillé, _Histoire des ducs de
Guise_ (Paris, 1849); H. Forneron, _Les Guises et leur époque_ (Paris,
1877); Guillemin, _Le Cardinal de Lorraine_ (1847).

CHARLES [KARL ALEXANDER] (1712-1780), prince of Lorraine, was the
youngest son of Leopold, duke of Lorraine, and grandson of Charles V.,
duke of Lorraine (see above), the famous general. He was born at
Lunéville on the 12th of December 1712, and educated for a military
career. After his elder brother Francis, the duke, had exchanged
Lorraine for Tuscany and married Maria Theresa, Charles became an
Austrian officer, and he served in the campaigns of 1737 and 1738
against the Turks. At the outbreak of the Silesian wars in 1740 (see
AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION, WAR OF THE), the queen made her brother-in-law a
field marshal, though he was not yet thirty years old, and in 1742
Charles encountered Frederick the Great for the first time at the battle
of Chotusitz (May 17th). The victory of the Prussians on that field was
far from decisive, and Charles drew off his forces in good order. His
conduct of the successful campaign of 1743 against the French and
Bavarians heightened his reputation. He married, in January 1744,
Marianne of Austria, sister of Maria Theresa, who made them jointly
governors-general of the Austrian Netherlands. Very soon the war broke
out afresh, and Charles, at the head of the Austrian army on the Rhine,
won great renown by his brilliant crossing of the Rhine. Once more a
Lorraine prince at the head of Austrian troops invaded the duchy and
drove the French before him, but at this moment Frederick resumed the
Silesian war, all available troops were called back to oppose him, and
the French maintained their hold on Lorraine. Charles hurried to
Bohemia, whence, aided by the advice of the veteran field marshal Traun,
he quickly expelled the Prussians. At the close of his victorious
campaign he received the news that his wife, to whom he was deeply
attached, had died in childbirth on the 16th of December 1744 at
Brussels. He took the field again in 1745 in Silesia, but this time
without the advice of Traun, and he was twice severely defeated by
Frederick, at Hohenfriedberg and at Soor. Subsequently, as
commander-in-chief in the Low Countries he received, at Roucoux, a heavy
defeat at the hands of Marshal Saxe. His government of the Austrian
Netherlands during the peace of 1749-1756 was marked by many reforms,
and the prince won the regard of the people by his ceaseless activity on
their behalf. After the first reverses of the Seven Years' War (q.v.),
Maria Theresa called Charles again to the supreme command in the field.
The campaign of 1757 opened with Frederick's great victory of Prague,
and Prince Charles was shut up with his army in that fortress. In the
victory of the relieving army under Daun at Kolin Charles had no part.
Nevertheless the battle of Breslau, in which the Prussians suffered a
defeat even more serious than that of Kolin, was won by him, and great
enthusiasm was displayed in Austria over the victory, which seemed to be
the final blow to Frederick. But soon afterwards the king of Prussia
routed the French at Rossbach, and, swiftly returning to Silesia, he
inflicted on Charles the complete and crushing defeat of Leuthen
(December 5, 1757). A mere remnant of the Austrian army reassembled
after the pursuit, and Charles was relieved of his command. He received,
however, from the hands of the empress the grand cross, of the newly
founded order of Maria Theresa. For a year thereafter Prince Charles
acted as a military adviser at Vienna, he then returned to Brussels,
where, during the remainder of his life, he continued to govern in the
same liberal spirit as before. The affection of the people for the
prince was displayed during his dangerous illness in 1765, and in 1775
the estates of Brabant erected a statue in his honour at Brussels. He
died on the 4th of July 1780 at the castle of Tervoeren, and was buried
with his Lorraine ancestors at Nancy.

CHARLES (1270-1325), count of Valois, of Maine, and of Anjou, third son
of Philip III., king of France, surnamed the Bold, and of Isabella of
Aragon, was born on the 12th of March 1270. By his father's will he
inherited the four lordships of Crépy, La Ferté-Milon, Pierrefonds and
Béthisy, which together formed the countship of Valois. In 1284 Martin
IV., having excommunicated Pedro III., king of Aragon, offered that
kingdom to Charles. King Philip failed in an attempt to place his son on
this throne, and died on the return of the expedition. In 1290 Charles
married Margaret, daughter of Charles II., king of Naples, and renounced
his pretensions to Aragon. In 1294, at the beginning of the hostilities
against England, he invaded Guienne and took La Réole and Saint-Sever.
During the war Flanders (1300), he took Douai, Béthune and Dam, received
the submission of Guy of Dampierre, and aided King Philip IV., the Fair,
to gain the battle of Mons-en-Pévèle, on the 18th of August 1304. Asked
by Boniface VIII. for his aid against the Ghibellines, he crossed the
Alps in June 1301, entered Florence, and helped Charles II., the Lame,
king of Sicily, to reconquer Calabria and Apulia from the house of
Aragon, but was defeated in Sicily. As after the death of his first wife
Charles had married Catherine de Courtenay, a granddaughter of Baldwin
II., the last Latin emperor of Constantinople, he tried to assert his
rights to that throne. Philip the Fair also wished to get him elected
emperor; but Clement V. quashed his candidature in favour of Henry of
Luxemburg, afterwards the emperor Henry VII. Under Louis X. Charles
headed the party of feudal reaction, and was among those who compassed
the ruin of Enguerrand de Marigny. In the reign of Charles IV., the
Fair, he fought yet again in Guienne (1324), and died at Perray
(Seine-et-Oise) on the 16th of December 1325. His second wife had died
in 1307, and in July 1308 he had married a third wife, Mahaut de
Châtillon, countess of Saint-Pol. Philip, his eldest son, ascended the
French throne in 1328, and from him sprang the royal house of Valois.

See Joseph Petit, _Charles de Valois_ (Paris, 1900).

CHARLES (1421-1461), prince of Viana, sometimes called Charles IV. king
of Navarre, was the son of John, afterwards John II., king of Aragon, by
his marriage with Blanche, daughter and heiress of Charles III., king of
Navarre. Both his grandfather Charles and his mother, who ruled over
Navarre from 1425 to 1441, had bequeathed this kingdom to Charles, whose
right had also been recognized by the Cortes; but when Blanche died in
1441 her husband John seized the government to the exclusion of his son.
The ill-feeling between father and son was increased when in 1447 John
took for his second wife Joanna Henriquez, a Castilian princess, who
soon bore him a son, afterwards Ferdinand I. king of Spain, and who
regarded her stepson as an interloper. When Joanna began to interfere in
the internal affairs of Navarre civil war broke out; and in 1452
Charles, although aided by John II., king of Castile, was defeated and
taken prisoner. Released upon promising not to take the kingly title
until after his father's death, the prince, again unsuccessful in an
appeal to arms, took refuge in Italy with Alphonso V., king of Aragon,
Naples and Sicily. In 1458 Alphonso died and John became king of Aragon,
while Charles was offered the crowns of Naples and Sicily. He declined
these proposals, and having been reconciled with his father returned to
Navarre in 1459. Aspiring to marry a Castilian princess, he was then
thrown into prison by his father, and the Catalans rose in his favour.
This insurrection soon became general and John was obliged to yield. He
released his son, and recognized him as perpetual governor of Catalonia,
and heir to the kingdom. Soon afterwards, however, on the 23rd of
September 1461, the prince died at Barcelona, not without a suspicion
that he had been poisoned by his stepmother. Charles was a cultured and
amiable prince, fond of music and literature. He translated the _Ethics_
of Aristotle into Spanish, a work first published at Saragossa in 1509,
and wrote a chronicle of the kings of Navarre, _Crónica de los reyes de
Navarra_, an edition which, edited by J. Yangues y Miranda, was
published at Pampeluna in 1843.

See J. de Moret and F. de Aleson, _Anales del reyno de Navarra_, tome
iv. (Pampeluna, 1866); M.J. Quintana, _Vidas de españoles célebres_
(Paris, 1827); and G. Desdevises du Dézert, _Carlos d'Aragon_ (Paris,
1889).

CHARLES, ELIZABETH (1828-1896), English author, was born at Tavistock on
the 2nd of January 1828, the daughter of John Rundle, M.P. Some of her
youthful poems won the praise of Tennyson, who read them in manuscript.
In 1851 she married Andrew Paton Charles. Her best known book, written
to order for an editor who wished for a story about Martin Luther, _The
Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family_, was published in 1862, and
was translated into most of the European languages, into Arabic, and
into many Indian dialects. Mrs Charles wrote in all some fifty books,
the majority of a semi-religious character. She took an active part in
the work of various charitable institutions, and among her friends and
correspondents were Dean Stanley, Archbishop Tait, Charles Kingsley,
Jowett and Pusey. She died at Hampstead on the 28th of March 1896.

CHARLES, JACQUES ALEXANDRE CÉSAR (1746-1823), French mathematician and
physicist, was born at Beaugency, Loiret, on the 12th of November 1746.
After spending some years as a clerk in the ministry of finance, he
turned to scientific pursuits, and attracted considerable attention by
his skilful and elaborate demonstrations of physical experiments. He was
the first, in 1783, to employ hydrogen for the inflation of balloons
(see AERONAUTICS), and about 1787 he anticipated Gay Lussac's law of the
dilatation of gases with heat, which on that account is sometimes known
by his name. In 1785 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences, and
subsequently he became professor of physics at the Conservatoire des
Arts et Métiers. He died in Paris on the 7th of April 1823. His
published papers are chiefly concerned with mathematical topics.

CHARLES, THOMAS (1755-1814), Welsh Nonconformist divine, was born of
humble parentage at Longmoor, in the parish of Llanfihangel Abercywyn,
near St Clears, Carmarthenshire, on the 14th of October 1755. He was
educated for the Anglican ministry at Llanddowror and Carmarthen, and at
Jesus College, Oxford (1775-1778). In 1777 he studied theology under the
evangelical John Newton at Olney. He was ordained deacon in 1778 on the
title of the curacies of Shepton Beauchamp and Sparkford, Somerset; and
took priest's orders in 1780. He afterwards added to his charge at
Sparkford, Lovington, South Barrow and North Barrow, and in September
1782 was presented to the perpetual curacy of South Barrow by the Rev.
John Hughes, Coln St Denys. But he never left Sparkford, though the
contrary has been maintained, until he resigned all his curacies in June
1783, and returned to Wales, marrying (on August 20th) Sarah Jones of
Bala, the orphan of a flourishing shopkeeper. He had early fallen under
the influence of the great revival movement in Wales, and at the age of
seventeen had been "converted" by a sermon of Daniel Rowland's. This was
enough to make him unpopular with many of the Welsh clergy, and being
denied the privilege of preaching for nothing at two churches, he helped
his old Oxford friend John Mayor, now vicar of Shawbury, Shropshire,
from October until January 11th, 1784. On the 25th of January he took
charge of Llan yn Mowddwy (14 m. from Bala), but was not allowed to
continue there more than three months. Three influential people, among
them the rector of Bala, agitated some of the parishioners against him,
and persuaded his rector to dismiss him. His preaching, his catechizing
of the children after evensong, and his connexion with the Bala
Methodists--his wife's step-father being a Methodist preacher--gave
great offence. After a fortnight more at Shawbury, he wrote to John
Newton and another clergyman friend in London for advice. The Church of
England denied him employment, and the Methodists desired his services.
His friends advised him to return to England, but it was too late. By
September he had crossed the Rubicon, Henry Newman (his rector at
Shepton Beauchamp and Sparkford) accompanying him on a tour in
Carnarvonshire. In December, he was preaching at the Bont Uchel
Association; so that he joined the Methodists (see CALVINISTIC
METHODISTS) in 1784.

Before taking this step, he had been wont in his enforced leisure to
gather the poor children of Bala into his house for instruction, and so
thickly did they come that he had to adjourn with them to the chapel.
This was the origin of the Welsh Circulating Schools, which he developed
on the lines adopted by Griffith Jones (d. 1761), formerly vicar of
Llanddowror. First one man was trained for the work by himself, then he
was sent to a district for six months, where, (for £8 a year) he taught
gratis the children and young people (in fact, all comers) reading and
Christian principles. Writing was added later. The expenses were met by
collections made in the Calvinistic Methodist Societies, and as the
funds increased masters were multiplied, until in 1786 Charles had
seven masters to whom he paid £10 per annum; in 1787, twelve; in 1789,
fifteen; in 1794, twenty. By this time the salary had been increased to
£12; in 1801 it was £14. He had learnt of Raikes's Sunday Schools before
he left the Establishment, but he rightly considered the system set on
foot by himself far superior; the work and object being the same, he
gave six days' tuition for every one given by them, and many people not
only objected to working as teachers on Sunday, but thought the children
forgot in the six days what they learnt on the one. But Sunday Schools
were first adopted by Charles to meet the case of young people in
service who could not attend during the week, and even in that form much
opposition was shown to them because teaching was thought to be a form
of Sabbath breaking. His first Sunday School was in 1787. Wilberforce,
Charles Grant, John Thornton and his son Henry, were among the
philanthropists who contributed to his funds; in 1798 the Sunday School
Society (established 1785) extended its operations to Wales, making him
its agent, and Sunday Schools grew rapidly in number and favour. A
powerful revival broke out at Bala in the autumn of 1791, and his
account of it in letters to correspondents, sent without his knowledge
to magazines, kindled a similar fire at Huntly. The scarcity of Welsh
bibles was Charles's greatest difficulty in his work. John Thornton and
Thomas Scott helped him to secure supplies from the Society for the
Promotion of Christian Knowledge from 1787 to 1789, when the stock
became all but exhausted. In 1799 a new edition was brought out by the
Society, and he managed to secure 700 copies of the 10,000 issued; the
Sunday School Society got 3000 testaments printed, and most of them
passed into his hands in 1801.

In 1800, when a frost-bitten thumb gave him great pain and much fear for
his life, his friend, Rev. Philip Oliver of Chester, died, leaving him
director and one of three trustees over his chapel at Boughton; and this
added much to his anxiety. The Welsh causes at Manchester and London,
too, gave him much uneasiness, and burdened him with great
responsibilities at this juncture. In November 1802 he went to London,
and on the 7th of December he sat at a committee meeting of the
Religious Tract Society, as a country member, when his friend, Joseph
Tarn--a member of the Spa Fields and Religious Tract Society
committees--introduced the subject of a regular supply of bibles for
Wales. Charles was asked to state his case to the committee, and so
forcibly did he impress them, that it was there and then decided to move
in the matter of a general dispersion of the bible. When he visited
London a year later, his friends were ready to discuss the name of a new
Society, and the sole object of which should be to supply bibles.
Charles returned to Wales on the 30th of January 1804, and the British
and Foreign Bible Society was formally and publicly inaugurated on March
the 7th. The first Welsh testament issued by that Society appeared on
the 6th of May 1806, the bible on the 7th of May 1807--both being edited
by Charles.

Between 1805 and 1811 he issued his Biblical Dictionary in four volumes,
which still remains the standard work of its kind in Welsh. Three
editions of his Welsh catechism were published for the use of his
schools (1789, 1791 and 1794); an English catechism for the use of
schools in Lady Huntingdon's Connexion was drawn up by him in 1797; his
shorter catechism in Welsh appeared in 1799, and passed through several
editions, in Welsh and English, before 1807, when his _Instructor_
(still the Connexional catechism) appeared. From April 1799 to December
1801 six numbers of a Welsh magazine called _Trysorfa Ysprydol_
(Spiritual Treasury) were edited by Thomas Jones of Mold and himself; in
March 1809 the first number of the second volume appeared, and the
twelfth and last in November 1813.

The London Hibernian Society asked him to accompany Dr David Bogue, the
Rev. Joseph Hughes, and Samuel Mills to Ireland in August 1807, to
report on the state of Protestant religion in the country. Their report
is still extant, and among the movements initiated as a result of their
visit was the Circulating School system. In 1810, owing to the growth of
Methodism and the lack of ordained ministers, he led the Connexion in
the movement for connexionally ordained ministers, and his influence
was the chief factor in the success of that important step. From 1811
to 1814 his energy was mainly devoted to establishing auxiliary Bible
Societies. By correspondence he stimulated some friends in Edinburgh to
establish charity schools in the Highlands, and the Gaelic School
Society (1811) was his idea. His last work was a corrected edition of
the Welsh Bible issued in small pica by the Bible Society. As a preacher
he was in great request, though possessing but few of the qualities of
the popular preacher. All his work received very small remuneration; the
family was maintained by the profits of a business managed by Mrs
Charles--a keen, active and good woman. He died on the 5th of October
1814. His influence is still felt, and he is rightly claimed as one of
the makers of modern Wales. (D. E. J.)

CHARLES ALBERT [CARLO ALBERTO] (1798-1849), king of Sardinia (Piedmont),
son of Prince Charles of Savoy-Carignano and Princess Albertine of
Saxe-Courland, was born on the 2nd of October 1798, a few days before
the French occupied Piedmont and forced his cousin King Charles Emmanuel
to take refuge in Sardinia. Although Prince and Princess Carignano
adhered to the French Republican régime, they soon fell under suspicion
and were summoned to Paris. Prince Charles died in 1800, and his widow
married a Count de Montléart and for some years led a wandering
existence, chiefly in Switzerland, neglecting her son and giving him
mere scraps of education, now under a devotee of J.J. Rousseau, now
under a Genevan Calvinist. In 1802 King Charles Emmanuel abdicated in
favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel I.; the latter's only son being
dead, his brother Charles Felix was heir to the throne, and after him
Charles Albert. On the fall of Napoleon in 1814 the Piedmontese court
returned to Turin and the king was anxious to secure the succession for
Charles Albert, knowing that Austria meditated excluding him from it in
favour of an Austrian archduke, but at the same time he regarded him as
an objectionable person on account of his revolutionary upbringing.
Charles Albert was summoned to Turin, given tutors to instruct him in
legitimist principles, and on the 1st of October 1817 married the
archduchess Maria Theresa of Tuscany, who, on the 14th of March 1820,
gave birth to Victor Emmanuel, afterwards king of Italy.

The Piedmontese government at this time was most reactionary, and had
made a clean sweep of all French institutions. But there were strong
Italian nationalists and anti-Austrian tendencies among the younger
nobles and army officers, and the Carbonari and other revolutionary
societies had made much progress.

Their hopes centred in the young Carignano, whose agreeable manners had
endeared him to all, and who had many friends among the Liberals and
Carbonari. Early in 1820 a revolutionary movement was set on foot, and
vague plans of combined risings all over Italy and a war with Austria
were talked of. Charles Albert no doubt was aware of this, but he never
actually became a Carbonaro, and was surprised and startled when after
the outbreak of the Neapolitan revolution of 1820 some of the leading
conspirators in the Piedmontese army, including Count Santorre di
Santarosa and Count San Marzano, informed him that a military rising was
ready and that they counted on his help (2nd March 1821). He induced
them to delay the outbreak and informed the king, requesting him,
however, not to punish anyone. On the 10th the garrison of Alessandria
mutinied, and two days later Turin was in the hands of the insurgents,
the people demanding the Spanish constitution. The king at once
abdicated and appointed Charles Albert regent. The latter, pressed by
the revolutionists and abandoned by his ministers, granted the
constitution and sent to inform Charles Felix, who was now king, of the
occurrence. Charles Felix, who was then at Modena, repudiated the
regent's acts, accepted Austrian military assistance, with which the
rising was easily quelled, and exiled Charles Albert to Florence. The
young prince found himself the most unpopular man in Italy, for while
the Liberals looked on him as a traitor, to the king and the
Conservatives he was a dangerous revolutionist. At the Congress of
Verona (1822) the Austrian chancellor, Prince Metternich, tried to
induce Charles Felix to set aside Charles Albert's rights of succession.
But the king was piqued by Austria's interference, and as both the
grand-duke of Tuscany and the duke of Wellington supported him, Charles
Albert's claims were respected. France having decided to intervene in
the Spanish revolution on the side of autocracy, Charles Albert asked
permission to join the duc d'Angoulême's expedition. The king granted it
and the young prince set out for Spain, where he fought with such
gallantry at the storming of the Trocadero (1st of September 1823) that
the French soldiers proclaimed him the "first Grenadier of France." But
it was not until he had signed a secret undertaking binding himself, as
soon as he ascended the throne, to place himself under the tutelage of a
council composed of the higher clergy and the knights of the Annunziata,
and to maintain the existing forms of the monarchy (D. Berti, _Cesare
Alfieri_, xi. 77, Rome, 1871), that he was allowed to return to Turin
and forgiven.

On the death of Charles Felix (27th of April 1831) Charles Albert
succeeded; he inherited a kingdom without an army, with an empty
treasury, a chaotic administration and medieval laws. His first task was
to set his house in order; he reorganized the finances, created the
army, and started Piedmont on a path which if not liberalism was at
least progress. "He was," wrote his reactionary minister, Count della
Margherita, "hostile to Austria from the depths of his soul and full of
illusions as to the possibility of freeing Italy from dependence on
her.... As for the revolutionaries, he detested them but feared them,
and was convinced that sooner or later he would be their victim." In
1833 a conspiracy of the _Giovane Italia_ Society, organized by Mazzini,
was discovered, and a number of its members punished with ruthless
severity. On the election in 1846 of Pius IX., who appeared to be a
Liberal and an Italian patriot, the eyes of all Italy were turned on him
as the heaven-born leader who was to rescue the country from the
foreigner. This to some extent reconciled the king to the Liberal
movement, for it accorded with his religious views. "I confess," he
wrote to the marquis of Villamarina, in 1847, "that a war of national
independence which should have for its object the defence of the pope
would be the greatest happiness that could befall me." On the 30th of
October he issued a decree granting wide reforms, and when risings broke
out in other parts of Italy early in 1848 and further liberties were
demanded, he was at last induced to grant the constitution (8th
February).

When the news of the Milanese revolt against the Austrians reached Turin
(19th of March) public opinion demanded that the Piedmontese should
succour their struggling brothers; and after some hesitation the king
declared war. But much time had been wasted and many precious
opportunities lost. With an army of 60,000 Piedmontese troops and 30,000
men from other parts of Italy the king took the field, and after
defeating the Austrians at Pastrengo on the 30th of April, and at Goito
on the 30th of May, where he was himself slightly wounded, more time was
wasted in useless operations. Radetzky, the Austrian general, having
received reinforcements, drove the centre of the extended Italian line
back across the Mincio (23rd of July), and in the two days' fighting at
Custozza (24th and 25th of July) the Piedmontese were beaten, forced to
retreat, and to ask for an armistice. On re-entering Milan Charles
Albert was badly received and reviled as a traitor by the Republicans,
and although he declared himself ready to die defending the city the
municipality treated with Radetzky for a capitulation; the mob, urged on
by the demagogues, made a savage demonstration against him at the
Palazzo Greppi, whence he escaped in the night with difficulty and
returned to Piedmont with his defeated army. [** amended from armp] The
French Republic offered to intervene in the spring of 1848, but Charles
Albert did not desire foreign aid, the more so as in this case it would
have had to be paid for by the cession of Nice and Savoy. The
revolutionary movement throughout Italy was breaking down, but Charles
Albert felt that while he possessed an army he could not abandon the
Lombards and Venetians, and determined to stake all on a last chance. On
the 12th of March 1849 he denounced the armistice and took the field
again with an army of 80,000 men, but gave the chief command to the
Polish general Chrzanowski. General Ramorino commanding the Lombard
division proved unable to prevent the Austrians from crossing the Ticino
(20th of April), and Chrzanowski was completely out-generalled and
defeated at La Bicocca near Novara on the 23rd. The Piedmontese fought
with great bravery, and the unhappy king sought death in vain. After the
battle he asked terms of Radetzky, who demanded the occupation by
Austria of a large part of Piedmont and the heir to the throne as a
hostage. Thereupon, feeling himself to be the obstacle to better
conditions, Charles Albert abdicated in favour of his son Victor
Emmanuel. That same night he departed alone and made his way to Oporto,
where he retired into a monastery and died on the 28th of July 1849.

Charles Albert was not a man of first-rate ability; he was of a
hopelessly vacillating character. Devout and mystical to an almost
morbid degree, hating revolution and distrusting Liberalism, he was a
confirmed pessimist, yet he had many noble qualities: he was brave to
the verge of foolhardiness, devoted to his country, and ready to risk
his crown to free Italy from the foreigner. To him the people of Italy
owe a great debt, for if he failed in his object he at least
materialized the idea of the Risorgimento in a practical shape, and the
charges which the Republicans and demagogues brought against him were
monstrously unjust.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Besides the general works on modern Italy, see the
Marquis Costa de Beauregard's interesting volumes _La Jeunesse du roi
Charles Albert_ (Paris, 1899) and _Novare et Oporto_ (1890), based on
the king's letters and the journal of Sylvain Costa, his faithful
equerry, though the author's views are those of an old-fashioned
Savoyard who dislikes the idea of Italian unity; Ernesto Masi's _Il
Segreto del Re Carlo Alberto_ (Bologna, 1891) is a very illuminating
essay; Domenico Perrero, _Gli Ultimi Reali di Savoia_ (Turin, 1889);
L. Cappelletti, _Storia di Carlo Alberto_ (Rome, 1891); Nicomede
Bianchi, _Storia della diplomazia europea in Italia_ (8 vols., Turin,
1865, &c.), a most important work of a general character, and the same
author's _Scritti e lettere di Carlo Alberto_ (Rome, 1879) and his
_Storia della monarchia piemontese_ (Turin, 1877); Count S. della
Margherita, _Memorandum storico-politico_ (Turin, 1851).

CHARLES AUGUSTUS [KARL AUGUST] (1757-1828), grand-duke of Saxe-Weimar,
son of Constantine, duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and Anna Amalia of
Brunswick, was born on the 3rd of September 1757. His father died when
he was only nine months old, and the boy was brought up under the
regency and supervision of his mother, a woman of enlightened but
masterful temperament. His governor was Count Eustach von Görz, a German
nobleman of the old strait-laced school; but a more humane element was
introduced into his training when, in 1771, Wieland was appointed his
tutor. In 1774 the poet Karl Ludwig von Knebel came to Weimar as tutor
to the young Prince Constantine; and in the same year the two princes
set out, with Count Görz and Knebel, for Paris. At Frankfort, Knebel
introduced Karl August to the young Goethe: the beginning of a momentous
friendship. In 1775 Karl August returned to Weimar, and the same year
came of age and married Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt.

One of the first acts of the young grand-duke was to summon Goethe to
Weimar, and in 1776 he was made a member of the privy council. "People
of discernment," he said, "congratulate me on possessing this man. His
intellect, his genius is known. It makes no difference if the world is
offended because I have made Dr Goethe a member of my most important
_collegium_ without his having passed through the stages of minor
official professor and councillor of state." To the undiscerning, the
beneficial effect of this appointment was not at once apparent. With
Goethe the "storm and stress" spirit descended upon Weimar, and the
stiff traditions of the little court dissolved in a riot of youthful
exuberance. The duke was a deep drinker, but also a good sportsman; and
the revels of the court were alternated with break-neck rides across
country, ending in nights spent round the camp fire under the stars.
Karl August, however, had more serious tastes. He was interested in
literature, in art, in science; critics, unsuspected of flattery,
praised his judgment in painting; biologists found in him an expert in
anatomy. Nor did he neglect the government of his little state. His
reforms were the outcome of something more than the spirit of the
"enlightened despots" of the 18th century; for from the first he had
realized that the powers of the prince to play "earthly providence" were
strictly limited. His aim, then, was to educate his people to work out
their own political and social salvation, the object of education being
in his view, as he explained later to the dismay of Metternich and his
school, to help men to "independence of judgment." To this end Herder
was summoned to Weimar to reform the educational system; and it is
little wonder that, under a patron so enlightened, the university of
Jena attained the zenith of its fame, and Weimar became the intellectual
centre of Germany.

Meanwhile, in the affairs of Germany and of Europe the character of Karl
August gave him an influence out of all proportion to his position as a
sovereign prince. He had early faced the problem presented by the decay
of the Empire, and began to work for the unity of Germany. The plans of
the emperor Joseph II., which threatened to absorb a great part of
Germany into the heterogeneous Habsburg monarchy, threw him into the
arms of Prussia, and he was the prime mover in the establishment of the
league of princes (_Furstenbund_) in 1785, by which, under the
leadership of Frederick the Great, Joseph's intrigues were frustrated.
He was, however, under no illusion as to the power of Austria, and he
wisely refused the offer of the Hungarian crown, made to him in 1787 by
Prussia at the instance of the Magyar malcontents, with the dry remark
that he had no desire to be another "Winter King." In 1788 Karl August
took service in the Prussian army as major-general in active command of
a regiment. As such he was present, with Goethe, at the cannonade of
Valmy in 1792, and in 1794 at the siege of Mainz and the battles of
Pirmasenz (September 14) and Kaiserslautern (October 28-30). After this,
dissatisfied with the attitude of the powers, he resigned; but rejoined
on the accession of his friend King Frederick William III. to the
Prussian throne. The disastrous campaign of Jena (1806) followed; on the
14th of October, the day after the battle, Weimar was sacked; and Karl
August, to prevent the confiscation of his territories, was forced to
join the Confederation of the Rhine. From this time till after the
Moscow campaign of 1812 his contingent fought under the French flag in
all Napoleon's wars. In 1813, however, he joined the Grand Alliance, and
at the beginning of 1814 took the command of a corps of 30,000 men
operating in the Netherlands.

At the congress of Vienna Karl August was present in person, and
protested vainly against the narrow policy of the powers in confining
their debates to the "rights of the princes" to the exclusion of the
"rights of the people." His services in the war of liberation were
rewarded with an extension of territory and the title of grand-duke; but
his liberal attitude had already made him suspect, and his subsequent
action brought him still further into antagonism to the reactionary
powers. He was the first of the German princes to grant a liberal
constitution to his state under Article XIII. of the Act of
Confederation (May 5, 1816); and his concession of full liberty to the
press made Weimar for a while the focus of journalistic agitation
against the existing order. Metternich dubbed him contemptuously "der
grosse Bursche" for his patronage of the "revolutionary"
_Burschenschaften_; and the celebrated "festival" held at the Wartburg
by his permission in 1818, though in effect the mildest of political
demonstrations, brought down upon him the wrath of the great powers.
Karl August, against his better judgment, was compelled to yield to the
remonstrances of Prussia, Austria and Russia; the liberty of the press
was again restricted in the grand-duchy, but, thanks to the good
understanding between the grand-duke and his people, the régime of the
Carlsbad Decrees pressed less heavily upon Weimar than upon other German
states.

Karl August died on the 14th of June 1828. Upon his contemporaries of
the most various types his personality made a great impression. Karl von
Dalberg, the prince-primate, who owed the coadjutorship of Mainz to the
duke's friendship, said that he had never met a prince "with so much
understanding, character, frankness and true-heartedness"; the Milanese,
when he visited their city, called him the "uomo principe"; and Goethe
himself said of him "he had the gift of discriminating intellects and
characters and setting each one in his place. He was inspired by the
noblest good-will, the purest humanity, and with his whole soul desired
only what was best. There was in him something of the divine. He would
gladly have wrought the happiness of all mankind. And finally, he was
greater than his surroundings,... Everywhere he himself saw and judged,
and in all circumstances his surest foundation was in himself." He left
two sons: Charles Frederick (d. 1853), by whom he was succeeded, and
Bernhard, duke of Saxe-Weimar (1792-1862), a distinguished soldier, who,
after the congress of Vienna, became colonel of a regiment in the
service of the king of the Netherlands, distinguished himself as
commander of the Dutch troops in the Belgian campaign of 1830, and from
1847 to 1850 held the command of the forces in the Dutch East Indies.
Bernhard's son, William Augustus Edward, known as Prince Edward of
Saxe-Weimar (1823-1902), entered the British army, served with much
distinction in the Crimean War, and became colonel of the 1st Life
Guards and a field marshal; in 1851 he contracted a morganatic marriage
with Lady Augusta Gordon-Lennox (d. 1904), daughter of the 5th duke of
Richmond and Gordon, who in Germany received the title of countess of
Dornburg, but was granted the rank of princess in Great Britain by royal
decree in 1866. Karl August's only daughter, Caroline, married Frederick
Louis, hereditary grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and was the mother
of Helene (1814-1858), wife of Ferdinand, duke of Orleans, eldest son of
King Louis Philippe.

Karl August's correspondence with Goethe was published in 2 vols. at
Weimar in 1863. See the biography by von Wegele in the _Allgem.
deutsche Biographie._

CHARLES EDWARD [CHARLES EDWARD LOUIS PHILIP CASIMIR STUART] (1720-1788),
English prince, called the "Young Pretender" and also the "Young
Chevalier," was born at Rome on December 31st, 1720. He was the grandson
of King James II. of England and elder son of James, the "Old
Pretender," by whom (as James III.) he was created at his birth prince
of Wales, the title he bore among the English Jacobites during his
father's lifetime. The young prince was educated at his father's
miniature court in Rome, with James Murray, Jacobite earl of Dunbar, for
his governor, and under various tutors, amongst whom were the learned
Chevalier Ramsay, Sir Thomas Sheridan and the abbé Légoux. He quickly
became conversant with the English, French and Italian languages, but
all his extant letters written in English appear singularly ill-spelt
and illiterate. In 1734 his cousin, the duke of Liria, afterwards duke
of Berwick, who was proceeding to join Don Carlos in his struggle for
the crown of Naples, passed through Rome. He offered to take Charles on
his expedition, and the boy of thirteen, having been appointed general
of artillery by Don Carlos, shared with credit the dangers of the
successful siege of Gaeta.

The handsome and accomplished youth, whose doings were eagerly reported
by the English ambassador at Florence and by the spy, John Walton, at
Rome, was now introduced by his father and the pope to the highest
Italian society, which he fascinated by the frankness of his manner and
the grace and dignity of his bearing. In 1737 James despatched his son
on a tour through the chief Italian cities, that his education as a
prince and man of the world might be completed. The distinction with
which he was received on his journey, the royal honours paid to him in
Venice, and the jealous interference of the English ambassador in regard
to his reception by the grand-duke of Tuscany, show how great was the
respect in which the exiled house was held at this period by foreign
Catholic powers, as well as the watchful policy of England in regard to
its fortunes. The Old Pretender himself calculated upon foreign aid in
his attempts to restore the monarchy of the Stuarts; and the idea of
rebellion unassisted by invasion or by support of any kind from abroad
was one which it was left for Charles Edward to endeavour to realize. Of
all the European nations France was the one on which Jacobite hopes
mainly rested, and the warm sympathy which Cardinal Tencin, who had
succeeded Fleury as French minister, felt for the Old Pretender resulted
in a definite scheme for an invasion of England to be timed
simultaneously with a prearranged Scottish rebellion. Charles was
secretly despatched to Paris in January 1744. A squadron under Admiral
Roquefeuil sailed from the coast of France. Transports containing 7000
troops, to be led by Marshal Saxe, accompanied by the young prince, were
in readiness to set sail for England. A severe storm effected, however,
a complete disaster without any actual engagement taking place.

The loss in ships of the line, in transports, and in lives was a
crushing blow to the hopes of Charles, who remained in France for over a
year in a retirement which he keenly felt. He had at Rome already made
the acquaintance of Lord Elcho and of John Murray of Broughton; at Paris
he had seen many supporters of the Stuart cause; he was aware that in
every European court the Jacobites were represented in earnest intrigue;
and he had now taken a considerable share in correspondence and other
actual work connected with the promotion of his own and his father's
interests. Although dissuaded by all his friends, on the 13th of July
1745 he sailed from Nantes for Scotland on board the small brig "La
Doutelle," which was accompanied by a French man-of-war, the
"Elisabeth," laden with arms and ammunition. The latter fell in with an
English man-of-war, the "Lion," and had to return to France; Charles
escaped during the engagement, and at length arrived on the 2nd of
August off Erisca, a little island of the Hebrides. Receiving, however,
but a cool reception from Macdonald of Boisdale, he set sail again and
arrived at the bay of Lochnanuagh on the west coast of Inverness-shire.

The Macdonalds of Clanranald and Kinloch Moidart, along with other
chieftains, again attempted to dissuade him from the rashness of an
unaided rising, but they yielded at last to the enthusiasm and charm of
his manner, and Charles landed on Scottish soil in the company of the
"Seven Men of Moidart" who had come with him from France. Everywhere,
however, he met with discouragement among the chiefs, whose adherence he
wished to secure; but at last, by enlisting the support of Cameron of
Lochiel, he gained a footing for a serious rebellion. With secrecy and
speed communications were entered into with the known leaders of the
Highland clans, and on the 19th of August, in the valley of Glenfinnan,
the standard of James III. and VIII. was raised in the midst of a motley
but increasing crowd. On the same day Sir John Cope at the head of 1500
men left Edinburgh in search of Charles; but, fearing an attack in the
Pass of Corryarrick, he changed his proposed route to Inverness, and
Charles thus had the undefended south country before him. In the
beginning of September he entered Perth, having gained numerous
accessions to his forces on his march. Crossing the Forth unopposed at
the Fords of Frew and passing through Stirling and Linlithgow, he
arrived within a few miles of the astonished metropolis, and on the 16th
of September a body of his skirmishers defeated the dragoons of Colonel
Gardiner in what was known as the "Canter of Coltbrig." His success was
still further augmented by his being enabled to enter the city, a few of
Cameron's Highlanders having on the following morning, by a happy ruse,
forced their way through the Canon-gate. On the 18th he publicly
proclaimed James VIII. of Scotland at the Market Cross and occupied
Holyrood.

Cope had by this time brought his disappointed forces by sea to Dunbar.
On the 20th Charles met and defeated him at Prestonpans, and returned to
prosecute the siege of Edinburgh Castle, which, however, he raised on
General Guest's threatening to lay the city in ruins. In the beginning
of November Charles left Edinburgh, never to return. He was at the head
of at least 6000 men; but the ranks were being gradually thinned by the
desertion of Highlanders, whose traditions had led them to consider war
merely as a raid and an immediate return with plunder. Having passed
through Kelso, on the 9th of November he laid siege to Carlisle, which
capitulated in a week. Manchester received the prince with a warm
welcome and with 150 recruits under Francis Towneley. On the 4th of
December he had reached Derby and was within ten days' march of London,
where the inhabitants were terror-struck and a commercial panic
immediately ensued. Two armies under English leadership were now in the
field against him, one under Marshal Wade, whom he had evaded by
entering England by the west, and the other under William, duke of
Cumberland, who had returned from the continent. London was not to be
supposed helpless in such an emergency; Manchester, Glasgow and
Dumfries, rid of his presence, had risen against him, and Charles
paused. There was division among his advisers and desertion among his
men, and on the 6th of December he reluctantly was forced to begin his
retreat northward. Closely pursued by Cumberland, he marched by way of
Carlisle across the border, and at last stopped to invest Stirling
Castle. At Falkirk, on the 17th of January 1746, he defeated General
Hawley, who had marched from Edinburgh to intercept his retreat. A
fortnight later, however, Charles raised the siege of Stirling, and
after a weary though successful march rested his troops at Inverness.
Having taken Forts George and Augustus, and after varying success
against the supporters of the government in the north, he at last
prepared to face the duke of Cumberland, who had passed the early spring
at Aberdeen. On the 8th of April the duke marched thence to meet
Charles, whose little army, exhausted with a futile night march,
half-starving, and broken by desertion, was completely worsted at
Culloden on the 16th of April 1746.

This decisive and cruel defeat sealed the fate of Charles Edward and the
house of Stuart. Accompanied by the faithful Ned Burke and a few other
followers, Charles at last gained the wild western coast. Hunted hither
and thither, he wandered on foot or cruised restlessly in open boats
among the many barren isles of the Scottish shore, enduring the greatest
hardships with marvellous courage and cheerfulness. Charles, upon whose
head a reward £30,000 had a year before been set, was thus for over five
months relentlessly pursued by the troops and spies of the government.
Disguised in female attire and aided by a passport obtained by the
devoted Flora Macdonald, he passed through Skye and parted from his
gallant conductress at Portree. Towards the end of July he took refuge
in the cave of Coiraghoth in the Braes of Glenmoriston, and in August he
joined Lochiel and Cluny Macpherson, with whom he remained in hiding
until the news was brought that two French ships were in waiting for him
at the place of his first arrival in Scotland--Lochnanuagh. He embarked
with speed and sailed for France, reaching the little port of Roscoff,
near Morlaix, on the 29th of September 1746. He was warmly welcomed by
Louis XV., and ere long he was again vigorously intriguing in Paris, and
even in Madrid. So far as political assistance was concerned, his
efforts proved fruitless, but he became at once the popular hero and
idol of the people of Paris. So enraged was he with his brother Henry's
acceptance of a cardinal's hat in July 1747, that he deliberately broke
off communication with his father in Rome (who had approved the step),
nor did he ever see him again. The enmity of the British government to
Charles Edward made peace with France an impossibility so long as she
continued to harbour the young prince. A condition of the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded in October 1748, was that every member of the
house of Stuart should be expelled the French dominions. Charles had
forestalled the proclamation of the treaty by an indignant protest
against its injustice, and a declaration that he would not be bound by
its provisions. But his indignation and persistent refusal to comply
with the request that he should voluntarily leave France had to be met
at last with force: he was apprehended, imprisoned for a week at
Vincennes, and on the 17th of December conducted to the French border.
He lingered at Avignon; but the French, compelled to hard measures by
the English, refused to be satisfied; and Pope Benedict XIV., alarmed by
the threat of a bombardment of Civita Vecchia, advised the prince to
withdraw. Charles quietly disappeared; for years Europe watched for him
in vain. It is now established, almost with certainty, that he returned
to the neighbourhood of Paris; and it is supposed that his residence was
known to the French ministers, who, however, firmly proclaimed their
ignorance. In 1750, and again, it is thought, in 1754, he was in London,
hatching futile plots and risking his safety for his hopeless cause, and
even abjuring the Roman Catholic faith in order to further his political
interests.

During the next ten years of his life Charles Edward's illicit connexion
with Miss Clementina Walkinshaw (d. 1802), whom he had first met at
Bannockburn House while conducting the siege of Stirling, his imperious
fretful temper, his drunken habits and debauched life, could no longer
be concealed. He wandered over Europe in disguise, alienating the
friends and crushing the hopes of his party; and in 1766, on returning
to Rome at the death of his father, he was treated by Pope Clement XIII.
with coldness, and his title as heir to the British throne was openly
repudiated by all the great Catholic powers. It was probably through the
influence of the French court, still intriguing against England, that
the marriage between Charles (now self-styled count of Albany) and
Princess Louise of Stolberg was arranged in 1772. The union proved
childless and unhappy, and in 1780 the countess fled for refuge from her
husband's drunken violence to a convent in Florence, where Charles had
been residing since 1774. Later, the countess of Albany (q.v.) threw
herself on the protection of her brother-in-law Henry, Cardinal York, at
Rome, and the formal separation between the ill-matched pair was finally
brought about in 1784, chiefly through the kind offices of King Gustavus
III. of Sweden. Charles, lonely, ill, and evidently near death, now
summoned to Florence his natural daughter, Charlotte Stuart, the child
of Clementina Walkinshaw, born at Liége in October 1753 and hitherto
neglected by the prince. Charlotte Stuart, who was declared legitimate
and created duchess of Albany, tended her father for the remaining years
of his life, during which she contrived to reconcile the two Stuart
brothers, so that in 1785 Charles returned to Rome, where he died in the
old Palazzo Muti on the 30th of January 1788. He was buried in his
brother's cathedral church at Frascati, but in 1807 his remains were
removed to the _Grotte Vaticane_ of St Peter's. His daughter Charlotte
survived her father less than two years, dying unmarried at Bologna in
November 1789, at the early age of thirty-six.

See A.C. Ewald, _Life and Times of Charles Stuart, the Young
Pretender_ (2 vols., 1875); C.S. Terry, _Life of the Young Pretender_,
and _The Rising of 1745; with Bibliography of Jacobite History
1689--1788_ (Scott. Hist. fr. Contemp. Writers, iii.) (1900); Earl
Stanhope, _History of England_ (1836) and _Decline of the Last
Stuarts_ (1854); Bishop R. Forbes, _The Lyon in Mourning_ (1895-1896);
Andrew Lang, _Pickle, the Spy_ (1897), and _Prince Charles Edward_
(1900); R. Chambers, _History of the Rebellion in Scotland_, &c. &c.
(H. M. V.)

CHARLES EMMANUEL I. [CARLO EMANUELE] (1562-1630), duke of Savoy,
succeeded his father, Emmanuel Philibert, in 1580. He continued the
latter's policy of profiting by the rivalry of France and Spain in order
to round off and extend his dominions. His three chief objects were the
conquest of Geneva, of Saluzzo and of Monferrato. Saluzzo he succeeded
in wresting from France in 1588. He intervened in the French religious
wars, and also fought with Bern and other Swiss cantons, and on the
murder of Henry III. of France in 1580 he aspired to the French throne
on the strength of the claims of his wife Catherine, sister of Henry of
Navarre, afterwards King Henry IV. In 1590 he sent an expedition to
Provence in the interests of the Catholic League, and followed it
himself later, but the peace of 1593, by which Henry of Navarre was
recognized as king of France, put an end to his ambitions. In the war
between France and Spain Charles sided with the latter, with varying
success. Finally, by the peace of Lyons (1601), he gave up all
territories beyond the Rhone, but his possession of Saluzzo was
confirmed. He now meditated a further enterprise against Geneva; but his
attempt to capture the city by treachery and with the help of Spain (the
famous _escalade_) in 1602 failed completely. The next few years were
filled with negotiations and intrigues with Spain and France which did
not lead to any particular result, but on the death in 1612 of Duke
Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua, who was lord of Monferrato, Charles
Emmanuel made a successful _coup de main_ on that district. This
arrayed the Venetians, Tuscany, the Empire and Spain against him, and
he was obliged to relinquish his conquest. The Spaniards invaded the
duchy from Lombardy, and although the duke was defeated several times he
fought bravely, gained some successes, and the terms of the peace of
1618 left him more or less in the _status quo ante_. We next find
Charles Emmanuel aspiring to the imperial crown in 1619, but without
success. In 1628 he was in alliance with Spain in the war against
France; the French invaded the duchy, which, being abandoned by Spain,
was overrun by their armies. The duke fought desperately, but was taken
ill at Savigliano and died in 1630. He was succeeded by his son Victor
Amedeo I., while his third son Tommaso founded the line of
Savoy-Carignano from which the present royal house of Italy is
descended. Charles Emmanuel achieved a great reputation as a statesman
and warrior, and increased the prestige of Savoy, but he was too shifty
and ingenious, and his schemes ended in disaster.

See E. Ricotti, _Storia della monarchia piemontese_, vols. iii. and
iv. (Florence, 1865); T. Raulich, _Storia di Carlo Emanuele I._
(Milan, 1896-1902); G. Curti, _Carlo Emanuele I. secondo; più recenti
studii_ (Milan, 1894).

CHARLES MARTEL[1] (c. 688-741), Frankish ruler, was a natural son of
Pippin II., mayor of the palace, and Chalpaïda. Charles was baptized by
St Rigobert, bishop of Reims. At the death of his father in 714,
Pippin's widow Plectrude claimed the government in Austrasia and
Neustria in the name of her grandchildren, and had Charles thrown into
prison. But the Neustrians threw off the Austrasian yoke and entered
into an offensive alliance with the Frisians and Saxons. In the general
anarchy Charles succeeded in escaping, defeated the Neustrians at
Amblève, south of Liége, in 716, and at Vincy, near Cambrai, in 717, and
forced them to come to terms. In Austrasia he wrested the power from
Plectrude, and took the title of mayor of the palace, thus prejudicing
the interests of his nephews. According to the Frankish custom he
proclaimed a king in Austrasia in the person of the young Clotaire IV.,
but in reality Charles was the sole master--the entry in the annals for
the year 717 being "Carolus regnare coepit." Once in possession of
Austrasia, Charles sought to extend his dominion over Neustria also. In
719 he defeated Ragenfrid, the Neustrian mayor of the palace, at
Soissons, and forced him to retreat to Angers. Ragenfrid died in 731,
and from that time Charles had no competitor in the western kingdom. He
obliged the inhabitants of Burgundy to submit, and disposed of the
Burgundian bishoprics and countships to his _leudes_. In Aquitaine Duke
Odo (Eudes) exercised independent authority, but in 719 Charles forced
him to recognize the suzerainty of northern France, at least nominally.
After the alliance between Charles and Odo on the field of Poitiers, the
mayor of the palace left Aquitaine to Odo's son Hunald, who paid homage
to him. Besides establishing a certain unity in Gaul, Charles saved it
from a very great peril. In 711 the Arabs had conquered Spain. In 720
they crossed the Pyrenees, seized Narbonensis, a dependency of the
kingdom of the Visigoths, and advanced on Gaul. By his able policy Odo
succeeded in arresting their progress for some years; but a new vali,
Abdur Rahman, a member of an extremely fanatical sect, resumed the
attack, reached Poitiers, and advanced on Tours, the holy town of Gaul.
In October 732--just 100 years after the death of Mahomet--Charles
gained a brilliant victory over Abdur Rahman, who was called back to
Africa by the revolts of the Berbers and had to give up the struggle.
This was the last of the great Arab invasions of Europe. After his
victory Charles took the offensive, and endeavoured to wrest Narbonensis
from the Mussulmans. Although he was not successful in his attempt to
recover Narbonne (737), he destroyed the fortresses of Agde, Béziers and
Maguelonne, and set fire to the amphitheatre at Nîmes. He subdued also
the Germanic tribes; annexed Frisia, where Christianity was beginning to
make progress; put an end to the duchy of Alemannia; intervened in the
internal affairs of the dukes of Bavaria; made expeditions into Saxony;
and in 738 compelled some of the Saxon tribes to pay him tribute. He
also gave St Boniface a safe conduct for his missions in Thuringia,
Alemannia and Bavaria.

During the government of Charles Martel important changes appear to have
been made in the internal administration. Under him began the great
assemblies of nobles known as the _champs de Mars_. To attach his
_leudes_ Charles had to give them church lands as _precarium_, and this
had a very great influence in the development of the feudal system. It
was from the _precarium_, or ecclesiastical benefice, that the feudal
fief originated. Vassalage, too, acquired a greater consistency at this
period, and its rules began to crystallize. Under Charles occurred the
first attempt at reconciliation between the papacy and the Franks. Pope
Gregory III., menaced by the Lombards, invoked the aid of Charles (739),
sent him a deputation with the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the chains
of St Peter, and offered to break with the emperor and Constantinople,
and to give Charles the Roman consulate (_ut a partibus imperatoris
recederet et Romanum consulatum Carolo sanciret_). This proposal, though
unsuccessful, was the starting-point of a new papal policy. Since the
death of Theuderich IV. in 737 there had been no king of the Franks. In
741 Charles divided the kingdom between his two sons, as though he were
himself master of the realm. To the elder, Carloman, he gave Austrasia,
Alemannia and Thuringia, with suzerainty over Bavaria; the younger,
Pippin, received Neustria, Burgundy and Provence. Shortly after this
division of the kingdom Charles died at Quierzy on the 22nd of October
741, and was buried at St Denis. The characters of Charles Martel and
his grandson Charlemagne offer many striking points of resemblance. Both
were men of courage and activity, and the two men are often confused in
the _chansons de geste_.

See T. Breysig, _Jahrbücher d. fränk. Reichs, 714--741; die Zeit Karl
Martells_ (Leipzig, 1869); A.A. Beugnot, "Sur la spoliation des biens
du clergé attribuée à Charles Martel," in the _Mém. de l'Acad. des
Inscr. et Belles-Lettres_, vol. xix. (Paris, 1853); Ulysse Chevalier,
_Bio-bibliographie_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1904). (C. Pf.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Or "The Hammer."

CHARLESTON, a city and the county-seat of Coles county, Illinois,
U.S.A., in the E. part of the state, about 45 m. W. of Terre Haute,
Indiana. Pop. (1900) 5488; (1910) 5884. It is served by the Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Toledo, St Louis & Western
railways, and by interurban electric lines. It is the seat of the
Eastern Illinois state normal school (opened in 1899). The city is
situated in an important broom-corn raising district, and has broom
factories, a tile factory and planing mills. The water-works are owned
and operated by the municipality. Charleston was settled about 1835, was
incorporated in 1839, and was reincorporated in 1865. One of the
Lincoln-Douglas debates was held here in 1858.

CHARLESTON, the largest city of South Carolina, U.S.A., the county-seat
of Charleston county, a port of entry, and an important South Atlantic
seaport, on a narrow peninsula formed by the Cooper river on the E. and
the Ashley on the W. and S.W., and within sight of the ocean about 7 m.
distant. Pop. (1890) 54,955; (1900) 55,807, of whom 31,522 were of negro
descent and 2592 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 58,833. It is served
by the Atlantic Coast Line and the Southern railways, the Clyde
Steamship Line to New York, Boston and Jacksonville, the Baltimore &
Carolina Steamship Co. to Baltimore and Georgetown, and a branch of the
North German Lloyd Steamship Co., which brings immigrants from Europe
direct to the Southern states; there are freight boat lines to ports in
the West Indies, Central America and other foreign countries.

The city extends over 3.76 sq. m. of surface, nowhere rising more than 8
or 10 ft. above the rivers, and has about 9 m. of water front. In the
middle of the harbour, on a small island near its entrance, is the
famous Fort Sumter; a little to the north-east, on Sullivan's Island, is
the scarcely less historic Fort Moultrie, as well as extensive modern
fortifications; on James Island, opposite, is Fort Johnson, now the
United States Quarantine Station, and farther up, on the other islands,
are Fort Ripley and Castle Pinckney (now the United States buoy
station). Viewed from any of these forts, Charleston's spires and public
buildings seem to rise out of the sea. The streets are shaded with the
live oak and the linden, and are ornamented with the palmetto; and the
quaint specimens of colonial architecture, numerous pillared porticoes,
spacious verandas--both upper and lower--and flower gardens made
beautiful with magnolias, palmettoes, azaleas, jessamines, camelias and
roses, give the city a peculiarly picturesque character.

King Street, running north and south through the middle of the
peninsula, and Market Street, crossing it about 1 m. from its lower end,
are lined with stores, shops or stalls; on Broad Street are many of the
office buildings and banks; the wholesale houses are for the most part
on Meeting Street, the first thoroughfare east of King; nearly all of
the wharves are on the east side; the finest residences are at the lower
end of the peninsula on East Battery and South Battery, on Meeting
Street below Broad, on Legare Street, on Broad Street and on Rutledge
Avenue to the west of King. At the south-east corner of Broad and
Meeting streets is Saint Michael's (built in 1752-1761), the oldest
church edifice in the city, and a fine specimen of colonial
ecclesiastical architecture; in its tower is an excellent chime of eight
bells. Beneath the vestry room lie the remains of Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney, and in the churchyard are the graves of John Rutledge, James
Louis Petigru (1789-1863), and Robert Young Hayne. At the intersection
of the same streets are also the massive United States post office
building (Italian Renaissance in style), with walls of granite; the
county court house, the city hall and Washington Square--in which stand
a statue of William Pitt (one arm of which was broken off by a cannon
shot during the British bombardment in 1780), and a monument to the
memory of Henry Timrod (1829-1867), the poet. At the foot of Broad
Street is the Colonial Exchange in which the South Carolina convention
organized a new government during the War of Independence; and at the
foot of Market Street is the large modern custom house of white marble,
built in the Roman-Corinthian style. Saint Philip's church, with
admirable architectural proportions, has a steeple nearly 200 ft. in
height, from which a beacon light shines for the guidance of mariners
far out at sea. In the west cemetery of this church are the tombs of
John C. Calhoun, and of Robert James Turnbull (1775-1833), who was
prominent locally as a nullifier and under the name of "Brutus" wrote
ably on behalf of nullification, free trade and state's rights. The
French Protestant Church, though small, is an attractive specimen of
Gothic architecture; and the Unitarian, which is in the Perpendicular
style and is modelled after the chapel of Edward VI. in Westminster, has
a beautiful fan-tracery ceiling.

Of the few small city squares, gardens or parks, the White Point Garden
at the lower end of the peninsula is most frequented; it is shaded with
beautiful live oaks, is adorned with palmettoes and commands a fine view
of the harbour. About 1½ m. north of this on Meeting Street is Marion
Square, with a tall graceful monument to the memory of John C. Calhoun
on the south side, and the South Carolina Military Academy along the
north border. The largest park in Charleston is Hampton Park, named in
honour of General Wade Hampton. It is situated in the north-west part of
the city and is beautifully laid out. The Isle of Palms, to the north of
Sullivan's Island, has a large pavilion and a wide sandy beach with a
fine surf for bathing, and is the most popular resort for visitors. The
Magnolia Gardens are about 8 m. up the Ashley. Twenty-two miles beyond
is the town of Summerville (pop. in 1900, 2420), a health resort in the
pine lands, with one of the largest tea farms in the country. Magnolia
Cemetery, the principal burial-place, is a short distance north of the
city limits; in it are the graves of William Washington (1732-1810) and
Hugh Swinton Legaré. Charleston was the home of the Pinckneys, the
Rutledges, the Gadsdens, the Laurenses, and, in a later generation, of
W.G. Simms. A trace of the early social organization of the brilliant
colonial town remains in the St Cecilia Society, first formed in 1737 as
an amateur concert society.

Charleston has an excellent system of public schools. Foremost among the
educational institutions is the college of Charleston, chartered in 1785
and again in 1791, and opened in 1790; it is supported by the city and
by funds of its own, ranks high within the state, and has a large and
well-equipped museum of natural history, probably founded as early as
1777 and transferred to the college in 1850. Here, too, are the Medical
College of the state of South Carolina, which includes a department of
pharmacy; the South Carolina Military Academy (opened in 1843), which is
a branch of the University of South Carolina; the Porter Military
Academy (Protestant Episcopal), the Confederate home school for young
women, the Charleston University School, and the Avery Normal Institute
(Congregationalist) for coloured students. In the Charleston library
(about 25,000 volumes), founded in 1748, are important collections of
rare books and manuscripts; the rooms of the South Carolina Historical
Society are in the same building. The Charleston _News and Courier_,
published first as the _Courier_ in 1803 and combined with the _Daily
News_ (1865) in 1873, is one of the most influential newspapers in the
South. The charitable institutions of the city include the Roper
hospital, the Charleston Orphan Asylum (founded in 1792), the William
Euston home for the aged, and a home for the widows of Confederate
soldiers.

In 1878 the United States government began the construction of jetties
to remove the bar at the entrance to Charleston harbour, which was
otherwise deep and spacious and well protected, and by means of these
jetties the bar has been so far removed as to admit vessels drawing
about 30 ft. of water. The result has been not only the promotion of the
city's commerce, but the removal of the United States naval station and
navy yard from Port Royal to what was formerly Chicora Park on the left
bank of the Cooper river, a short distance above the city limits. The
city's commerce consists largely in the export of cotton,[1] rice,
fertilizers, fruits, lumber and naval stores; the value of its exports,
$10,794,000 in 1897, decreased to $2,196,596 in 1907 ($3,164,089 in
1908), while that of the import trade ($1,255,483 in 1897) increased to
$3,840,585 in 1907 ($3,323,844 in 1908). The principal industries are
the preparation of fertilizers--largely from the extensive beds of
phosphate rock along the banks of the Ashley river and from cotton-seed
meal--cotton compressing, rice cleaning, canning oysters, fruits and
vegetables, and the manufacture of cotton bagging, of lumber, of
cooperage goods, clothing and carriages and wagons. Between 1880 and
1890 the industrial development of the city was very rapid, the
manufactures in 1890 showing an increase of 229.6% over those of 1880;
the increase between 1890 and 1900 was only 6.2%. In 1900 the total
value of the city's manufactures, 16.3% (in value) of the product of the
entire state, was $9,562,387, the value of the fertilizer product alone,
much the most important, being $3,697,090.[2]

_History_.--The first English settlement in South Carolina, established
at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley river in 1670, was
named Charles Town in honour of Charles II. The location proving
undesirable, a new Charles Town on the site of the present city was
begun about 1672, and the seat of government was removed to it in 1680.
The name Charles Town became Charlestown about 1719 and Charleston in
1783. Among the early settlers were English Churchmen, New England
Congregationalists, Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, Dutch and German
Lutherans, Huguenots (especially in 1680-1688) from France and
Switzerland, and a few Quakers; later the French element of the
population was augmented by settlers from Acadia (1755) and from San
Domingo (1793). Although it soon became the largest and the wealthiest
settlement south of Philadelphia, Charleston did not receive a charter
until 1783, and did not have even a township government. Local
ordinances were passed by the provincial legislature and enforced partly
by provincial officials and partly by the church wardens. It was,
however, the political and social centre of the province, being not only
the headquarters of the governor, council and colonial officials, but
also the only place at which courts of justice were held until the
complaints of the Up Country people led to the establishment of circuit
courts in 1772. After the American War of Independence it continued to
be the capital of South Carolina until 1790. The charter of 1783, though
frequently amended and altered, is still in force. By an act of the
state legislature passed in 1837 the terms "mayor" and "alderman"
superseded the older terms "intendant" and "wardens." The city was the
heart of the nullification movement of 1832-1833; and in St Andrew's
Hall, in Broad Street, on the 20th of December 1860, a convention called
by the state legislature passed an ordinance of secession from the
Union.

Charleston has several times been attacked by naval forces and has
suffered from many storms. Hurricane and epidemic together devastated
the town both in 1699 and in 1854; the older and more thickly settled
part of the town was burnt in 1740, and a hurricane did great damage in
1752. In 1706, during the War of the Spanish Succession, a combined
fleet of Spanish and French under Captain Le Feboure was repulsed by the
forces of Governor Nathaniel Johnson (d. 1713) and Colonel William Rhett
(1666-1721). During the War of Independence Charleston withstood the
attack of Sir Peter Parker and Sir Henry Clinton in 1776, and that of
General Augustus Prevost in 1779, but shortly afterwards became the
objective of a more formidable attack by Sir Henry Clinton, the
commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. In the later years
of the contest the British turned their attention to the reduction of
the colonies in the south, and the prominent point and best base of
operations in that section was the city of Charleston, which was
occupied in the latter part of 1779 by an American force under General
Benjamin Lincoln. In December of that year Sir Henry Clinton embarked
from New York with 8000 British troops and proceeded to invest
Charleston by land. He entrenched himself west of the city between the
Cooper and Ashley rivers, which bound it north and south, and thus
hemmed Lincoln in a _cul-de-sac_. The latter made the mistake of
attempting to defend the city with an inferior force. Delays had
occurred in the British operations and Clinton was not prepared to
summon the Americans to surrender until the 10th of April 1780. Lincoln
refused, and Clinton advanced his trenches to the third parallel,
rendering his enemy's works untenable. On the 12th of May Lincoln
capitulated. About 2000 American Continentals were made prisoners, and
an equal number of militia and armed citizens. This success was regarded
by the British as an offset against the loss of Burgoyne's army in 1777,
and Charleston at once became the base of active operations in the
Carolinas, which Clinton left Cornwallis to conduct. Thenceforward
Charleston was under military rule until evacuated by the British on the
14th of December 1782.

The bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter (garrisoned by Federal
troops) by the South Carolinians, on the 12th and 13th of April 1861,
marked the actual beginning of the American Civil War. From 1862 onwards
Charleston was more or less under siege by the Federal naval and
military forces until 1865. The Confederates repulsed a naval attack
made by the Federals under Admiral S.F. Du Pont in April 1863, and a
land attack under General Q.A. Gillmore in June of the same year. They
were compelled to evacuate the city on the 17th of February 1865, after
having burned a considerable amount of cotton and other supplies to
prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. After the Civil
War the wealth and the population steadily increased, in spite of the
destruction wrought by the earthquake of 31st August 1886 (see
EARTHQUAKE). In that catastrophe 27 persons were killed, many more were
injured and died subsequently, 90% of the buildings were injured, and
property to the value of more than $5,000,000 was destroyed. The South
Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition, held here from the 1st
of December 1901 to the 1st of June 1902, called the attention of
investors to the resources of the city and state, but was not successful
financially, and Congress appropriated $160,000 to make good the
deficit.

Much information concerning Charleston may be obtained in A.S.
Salley's _A Guide and Historical Sketch of Charleston_ (Charleston,
1903), and in Mrs St Julien Ravenel's _Charleston; The Place and the
People_ (New York, 1906). The best history of Charleston is William A.
Courtenay's _Charleston, S.C.: The Centennial of Incorporation_
(Charleston, 1884). There is also a good sketch by Yates Snowden in
L.P. Powell's _Historic Towns of the Southern States_ (New York,
1900). For the earthquake see the account by Carl McKinley in the
_Charleston Year-Book_ for 1886. See also SOUTH CAROLINA.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] At an early date cotton became an important article in
Charleston's commerce; some was shipped so early as 1747. At the
outbreak of the Civil War Charleston was one of the three most
important cotton-shipping ports in the United States, being exceeded
in importance only by New Orleans and New York.

[2] The special census of 1905 dealt only with the factory product,
that of 1905 ($6,007,094) showing an increase of 5.1% over that of
1900 ($5,713,315). In 1905 the (factory) fertilizer product of
Charleston was $1,291,859, which represented more than 35% of the
(factory) fertilizer product of the whole state.

CHARLESTON, the capital of West Virginia, U.S.A., and the county-seat of
Kanawha county, situated near the centre of the state, on the N. bank of
the Kanawha river, at the mouth of the Elk river, about 200 m. E. of
Cincinnati, Ohio, and about 130 m. S.W. of Wheeling. Pop. (1890) 6742;
(1900) 11,099, of whom 1787 were negroes, and 353 were foreign-born;
(1910 census) 22,996. It is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Toledo
& Ohio Central, the Coal & Coke, and the Kanawha & West Virginia (39 m.
to Blakeley) railways, and by several river transportation lines on the
Kanawha river (navigable throughout the year by means of movable locks)
connecting with Ohio and Mississippi river ports. The city is
attractively built on high level land, above the river; in addition to a
fine customs house, court house and high school, it contains the West
Virginia state capitol, erected in 1880. The libraries include the state
law library, with 14,000 volumes in 1908, and the library of the state
Department of Archives and History, with about 11,000 volumes.
Charleston is in the midst of a region rich in bituminous coal, the
shipment of which by river and rail constitutes one of its principal
industries. Oil wells in the vicinity also furnish an important product
for export, and there are iron and salt mines near. An ample supply of
natural gas is utilized by its manufacturing establishments; and among
its manufactures are axes, lumber, foundry and machine shop products,
furniture, boilers, woollen goods, glass and chemical fire-engines. The
value of the city's factory products increased from $1,261,815 in 1900
to $2,728,074 in 1905, or 116.2%, a greater rate of increase than that
of any other city (with 8000 or more inhabitants) in the state during
this period. The first permanent white settlement at Charleston was made
soon after the close of the War of Independence; it was one of the
places through which the streams of immigrants entered the Ohio Valley,
and it became of considerable importance as a centre of transfer and
shipment, but it was not until the development of the coal-mining region
that it became industrially important. Charleston was incorporated in
1794, and was chartered as a city in 1870. Since the latter year it has
been the seat of government of West Virginia, with the exception of the
decade 1875-1885, when Wheeling was the capital.

CHARLESTOWN, formerly a separate city of Middlesex county,
Massachusetts, U.S.A., but since 1874 a part of the city of Boston, with
which it had long before been in many respects practically one. It is
situated on a small peninsula on Boston harbour, between the mouths of
the Mystic and Charles rivers; the first bridge across the Charles,
built in 1786, connected Charlestown and Boston. A United States navy
yard (1800), occupying about 87 acres, and the Massachusetts state
prison (1805) are here; the old burying-ground contains the grave of
John Harvard and that of Thomas Beecher, the first American member of
the famous Beecher family; and there is a soldiers' and sailors'
monument (1872), designed by Martin Milmore. Charlestown was founded in
1628 or 1629, being the oldest part of Boston, and soon rose into
importance; it was organized as a township in 1630, and was chartered as
a city in 1847. Within its limits was fought, on the 17th of June 1775,
the battle of Bunker Hill (q.v.), when Charlestown was almost completely
destroyed by the British. The Bunker Hill Monument commemorates the
battle; and the navy yard at Moulton's Point was the landing-place of
the attacking British troops. Little was done toward the rebuilding of
Charlestown until 1783. The original territory of the township was very
large, and from parts of it were formed Woburn (1642), Malden (1649),
Stoneham (1725), and Somerville (1842); other parts were annexed to
Cambridge, to Medford and to Arlington. S.F.B. Morse, the inventor of
the electric telegraph, was born here; and Charlestown was the
birthplace and home of Nathaniel Gorham (1738-1796), a member of the
Continental Congress in 1782-1783 and 1785-1787, and its president in
1786; and was the home of Loammi Baldwin (1780-1838), a well-known civil
engineer; of Samuel Dexter (1761-1816), an eminent lawyer, secretary of
war and for a short time secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of
President John Adams; and of Oliver Holden (1765-1831), a composer of
hymn-tunes, including "Coronation."

See R. Frothingham, _History of Charlestown_ (Boston, 1845), covering
1629-1775; J.F. Hunnewell, _A Century of Town Life ... 1775-1887_
(Boston, 1888); and Timothy T. Sawyer, _Old Charlestown_ (1902).

CHARLET, NICOLAS TOUSSAINT (1792-1845), French designer and painter,
more especially of military subjects, was born in Paris on the 20th of
December 1792. He was the son of a dragoon in the Republican army, whose
death in the ranks left the widow and orphan in very poor circumstances.
Madame Charlet, however, a woman of determined spirit and an extreme
Napoleonist, managed to give her boy a moderate education at the Lycée
Napoléon, and was repaid by his lifelong affection. His first employment
was in a Parisian mairie, where he had to register recruits: he served
in the National Guard in 1814, fought bravely at the Barrière de Clichy,
and, being thus unacceptable to the Bourbon party, was dismissed from
the mairie in 1816. He then, having from a very early age had a
propensity for drawing, entered the atelier of the distinguished painter
Baron Gros, and soon began issuing the first of those lithographed
designs which eventually brought him renown. His "Grenadier de
Waterloo," 1817, with the motto "La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas" (a
famous phrase frequently attributed to Cambronne, but which he never
uttered, and which cannot, perhaps, be traced farther than to this
lithograph by Charlet), was particularly popular. It was only towards
1822, however, that he began to be successful in a professional sense.
Lithographs (about 2000 altogether), water-colours, sepia-drawings,
numerous oil sketches, and a few etchings followed one another rapidly;
there were also three exhibited oil pictures, the first of which was
especially admired--"Episode in the Campaign of Russia" (1836), the
"Passage of the Rhine by Moreau" (1837), "Wounded Soldiers Halting in a
Ravine" (1843). Besides the military subjects in which he peculiarly
delighted, and which found an energetic response in the popular heart,
and kept alive a feeling of regret for the recent past of the French
nation and discontent with the present,--a feeling which increased upon
the artist himself towards the close of his career,--Charlet designed
many subjects of town life and peasant life, the ways of children, &c.,
with much wit and whim in the descriptive mottoes. One of the most
famous sets is the "Vie civile, politique, et militaire du Caporal
Valentin," 50 lithographs, dating from 1838 to 1842. In 1838 his health
began to fail owing to an affection of the chest. He died in Paris on
the 30th of October 1845. Charlet was an uncommonly tall man, with an
expressive face, bantering and good natured; his character corresponded,
full of boyish fun and high spirits, with manly independence, and a vein
of religious feeling, and he was a hearty favourite among his intimates,
one of whom was the painter Géricault. Charlet married in 1824, and two
sons survived him.

A life of Charlet was published in 1856 by a military friend, De la
Combe. (W. M. R.)

CHARLEVILLE, a town of north-eastern France, in the department of
Ardennes, 151 m. N.E. of Paris on the Eastern railway. Pop. (1906)
19,693. Charleville is situated within a bend of the Meuse on its left
bank, opposite Mézières, with which it is united by a suspension bridge.
The town was founded in 1606 by Charles III. (Gonzaga), duke of Nevers,
afterwards duke of Mantua, and is laid out on a uniform plan. Its
central and most interesting portion is the Place Ducale, a large square
surrounded by old houses with high-pitched roofs, the porches being
arranged so as to form a continuous arcade; in the centre there is a
fountain surmounted by a statue of the duke Charles. A handsome church
in the Romanesque style and the other public buildings date from the
19th century. An old mill, standing on the bank of the river, dates from
the early years of the town's existence. On the right bank of the Meuse
is Mont Olympe, with the ruins of a fortress dismantled under Louis XIV.
Charleville, which shares with Mézières the administrative institutions
of the department of Ardennes, has tribunals of first instance and of
commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators and lycées
and training colleges for both sexes. Its chief industries are
metal-founding and the manufacture of nails, anvils, tools and other
iron goods, and brush-making; leather-working and sugar-refining, and
the making of bricks and clay pipes are also carried on.

CHARLEVOIX, PIERRE FRANÇOIS XAVIER DE (1682-1761), French Jesuit
traveller and historian, was born at St Quentin on the 29th of October
1682. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus; and at the
age of twenty-three was sent to Canada, where he remained for four years
as professor at Quebec. He then returned and became professor of belles
lettres at home, and travelled on the errands of his society in various
countries. In 1720-1722, under orders from the regent, he visited
America for the second time, and went along the Great Lakes and down the
Mississippi. In later years (1733-1755) he was one of the directors of
the _Journal de Trévoux_. He died at La Flèche on the 1st of February
1761. His works, enumerated in the _Bibliographie des Prèrs de la
Compagnie de Jesus_ (by Carlos Sommervogel), fall into two groups. The
first contains his _Histoire de l'établissement, du progrès et de la
décadence du Christianisme dans l'empire du Japon_ (Rouen, 1715; English
trans. _History of the Church of Japan_, 1715), and his _Histoire et
description générale du Japon_ (1736), a compilation chiefly from
Kämpfer. The second group includes his historical work on America:
_Histoire de l'Isle Espagnole ou de Saint Domingue_ (1730), based on
manuscript memoirs of P. Jean-Baptiste Le Pers and original sources;
_Histoire de Paraguay_ (1756); _Vie de la Mère Marie de l'Incarnation,
institutrice et première supérieure des Urselines de la Nouvelle-France_
(1724); _Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France_ (1744;
in English 1769; tr. J.G. Shea, 1866-1872), a work of capital importance
for Canadian history.

CHARLEVOIX, a village and the county-seat of Charlevoix county,
Michigan, U.S.A., 16 m. E.S.E. of Petoskey, on Lake Michigan and Pine
Lake, which are connected by Pine river and Round Lake. Pop. (1890)
1496; (1900) 2079; (1904) 2395; (1910) 2420. It is on the main line of
the Père Marquette railway, and during the summer season is served by
lake steamers. The village is best known as a summer resort; it is built
on bluffs and on a series of terraces rising from Round and Pine lakes
and affording extensive views; and there are a number of attractive
summer residences. Charlevoix is an important hardwood lumber port, and
the principal industries are the manufacture of lumber and of cement;
fishing (especially for lake trout and white fish); the raising of sugar
beets; and the manufacture of rustic and fancy wood-work. Charlevoix was
settled about 1866, and was incorporated as a village in 1879.

CHARLOTTE, a city and the county-seat of Mecklenburg county, North
Carolina, U.S.A., situated on Sugar Creek, in the south-west part of the
state, about 175 m. south-west of Raleigh. Pop. (1890) 11,557; (1900)
18,091, of whom 7151 were negroes; (1910 census) 34,014. It is served by
the Seaboard Air Line and the Southern railways. Among the public
buildings are a fine city hall, court-house, Federal and Young Men's
Christian Association buildings, and a Carnegie library; several
hospitals: St Peter's (Episcopal) for whites, Good Samaritan (Episcopal)
for negroes, Mercy General (Roman Catholic) and a Presbyterian. The city
is the seat of Elizabeth College and Conservatory of Music (1897), a
non-sectarian institution for women, of the Presbyterian College for
women, and of Biddle University (Presbyterian) for negroes, established
in 1867. There is a United States assay office, established as a branch
mint in 1837, during the days of North Carolina's great importance as a
gold producing state, and closed from 1861 to 1869. The city has large
cotton, clothing, and knitting mills, and manufactories of cotton-seed
oil, tools, machinery, fertilizers and furniture. The total value of its
factory products was $4,849,630 in 1905. There are large electric power
plants in and near the city. Printing and publishing are of some
importance: Charlotte is the publication headquarters of the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church; and several textile trade journals and
two medical periodicals are published here. The water-works are owned by
the municipality. Charlotte was settled about 1750 and was incorporated
in 1768. Here in May 1775 was adopted the "Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence" (see NORTH CAROLINA), and in honour of its signers there
is a monument in front of the court-house. Charlotte was occupied in
September 1780 by Cornwallis, who left it after learning of the battle
of King's Mountain, and subsequently it became the principal base and
rendezvous of General Greene.

CHARLOTTENBURG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the
Spree, lying immediately west of Berlin, of which it forms practically
the entire western suburb. The earlier name of the town was Lietzenburg.
Pop. (1890) 76,859; (1900) 189,290; (1905) 237,231. It is governed by a
council of 94 members. The central part of the town is connected with
Berlin by a magnificent avenue, the Charlottenburger Chaussee, which
runs from the Brandenburger Tor through the whole length of the
Tiergarten. Although retaining its own municipal government,
Charlottenburg, together with the adjacent suburban towns of Schoneberg
and Rixdorf, was included in 1900 in the police district of the capital.
The Schloss, built in 1696 for the electress Sophie Charlotte, queen of
the elector Frederick, afterwards King Frederick I., after whom the town
was named, contains a collection of antiquities and paintings. In the
grounds stands a granite mausoleum, the work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel,
with beautiful white marble recumbent statues of Frederick William III.
and his queen Louise by Christian Daniel Rauch, and also those of the
emperor William I. and the empress Augusta by Erdmann Encke. It was in
the Schloss that the emperor Frederick III. took over the reins of
government in 1888, and here he resided for nearly the whole of his
three months' reign. The town contains an equestrian statue of
Frederick. Of public buildings, the famous technical academy and the
Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church are referred to in the article BERLIN. In
Charlottenburg is the Physikalisch-technische Reichsanstalt, a state
institution for the carrying out of scientific experiments and
measurements, and for testing instruments of precision, materials, &c.
It was established in 1886 with money provided by Ernst Werner Siemens.
In addition to the famous royal porcelain manufactory, Charlottenburg
has many flourishing industries, notably iron-works grouped along the
banks of the Spree. Its main thoroughfares are laid out on a spacious
plan, while there are many quiet streets containing pretty villas. See
F. Schultz, _Chronik von Charlottenburg_ (Charlottenburg, 1888).

CHARLOTTESVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Albemarle county,
Virginia, U.S.A., picturesquely situated on the Rivanna river, 96 m. (by
rail) N.W. of Richmond in the beautiful Piedmont region. Pop. (1890)
5591; (1900) 6449 (2613 being negroes); (1910) 6765. The city is served
by the Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Southern railways, and is best known
as the seat of the University of Virginia (q.v.), which was founded by
Thomas Jefferson. Here are also the Rawlings Institute for girls,
founded as the Albemarle Female Institute in 1857, and a University
school. Monticello, Jefferson's home, is still standing about 2 m.
south-east of the city on a fine hill, called Little Mountain until
Jefferson Italianised the name. The south pavilion of the present house
is the original brick building, one and a half storeys high, first
occupied by Jefferson in 1770. He was buried near the house, which was
sold by his daughter some years after his death. George Rogers Clark was
born near Monticello. Charlottesville is a trade centre for the
surrounding country; among its manufactures are woollen goods, overalls,
agricultural implements and cigars and tobacco. The city owns its
water-supply system and owns and operates its gas plant; an electric
plant, privately owned, lights the streets and many houses. The site of
the city was a part of the Castle Hill estate of Thomas Walker
(1715-1794), an intimate friend of George Washington. The act
establishing the town of Charlottesville was passed by the Assembly of
Virginia in November 1762, when the name Charlottesville (in honour of
Queen Charlotte, wife of George III.) first appeared. In 1779-1780 about
4000 of Burgoyne's troops, surrendered under the "Convention" of
Saratoga, were quartered here; in October 1780 part of them were sent to
Lancaster, Pa., and later the rest were sent north. In June 1781
Tarleton raided Charlottesville and the vicinity, nearly captured Thomas
Jefferson, and destroyed the public records and some arms and
ammunition. In 1888 Charlottesville was chartered as a city
administratively independent of the county.

CHARLOTTETOWN, a city of Canada, the capital of Prince Edward Island,
situated in Queen's county, on Hillsborough river. Pop. (1901) 12,080.
It has a good harbour, and the river is navigable by large vessels for
several miles. The export trade of the island centres here, and the city
has regular communication by steamer with the chief American and
Canadian ports. Besides the government buildings and the court-house, it
contains numerous churches, the Prince of Wales College, supported by
the province, the Roman Catholic college of St Dunstan's and a normal
school; among its manufactures are woollen goods, lumber, canned goods,
and foundry products. The head office and workshops of the Prince Edward
Island railway are situated here. The town was founded in 1750 by the
French under the name of Port la Joie, but under British rule changed
its name in honour of the queen of George III.

CHARM (through the Fr. from the Lat. _carmen_, a song), an incantation,
verses sung with supposed magical results, hence anything possessing
powers of bringing good luck or averting evil, particularly articles
worn with that purpose, such as an amulet. It is thus used of small
trinkets attached to bracelets or chains. The word is also used,
figuratively, of fascinating qualities of feature, voice or character.

CHARNAY, (CLAUDE JOSEPH) DESIRE (1828- ), French traveller and
archaeologist, was born in Fleurie (Rhone), on the 2nd of May 1828. He
studied at the Lycée Charlemagne, in 1850 became a teacher in New
Orleans, Louisiana, and there became acquainted with John Lloyd
Stephens's books of travel in Yucatan. He travelled in Mexico, under a
commission from the French ministry of education, in 1857-1861; in
Madagascar in 1863; in South America, particularly Chile and Argentina,
in 1875; and in Java and Australia in 1878. In 1880-1883 he again
visited the ruined cities of Mexico. Pierre Lorillard of New York
contributed to defray the expense of this expedition, and Charnay named
a great ruined city near the Guatemalan boundary line Ville Lorillard in
his honour. Charnay went to Yucatan in 1886. The more important of his
publications are _Le Mexique, souvenirs et impressions de voyage_
(1863), being his personal report on the expedition of 1857-61, of
which the official report is to be found in Viollet-le-Duc's _Cités et
ruines americaines: Mitla, Palenqué, Izamal, Chichen-Itza, Uxmal_
(1863), vol. 19 of _Recueil des voyages et des documents; Les Anciennes
Villes du Nouveau Monde_ (1885; English translation, _The Ancient Cities
of the New World_, 1887, by Mmes. Gonino and Conant); a romance, _Une
Princesse indienne avant la conquête_ (1888); _À travers les forêts
vierges_ (1890); and _Manuscrit Ramirez: Histoire de I'origine des
Indiens qui habitent la Nouvelle Espagne selon leurs traditions_ (1903).
He translated Cortez's letters into French, under the title _Lettres de
Fernand Cortes à Charles-quint sur la découverte et la conquête du
Mexique_ (1896). He elaborated a theory of Toltec migrations and
considered the prehistoric Mexican to be of Asiatic origin, because of
observed similarities to Japanese architecture, Chinese decoration,
Malaysian language and Cambodian dress, &c.

CHARNEL HOUSE (Med. Lat. _carnarium_), a place for depositing the bones
which might be thrown up in digging graves. Sometimes, as at Gloucester,
Hythe and Ripon, it was a portion of the crypt; sometimes, as at Old St
Paul's and Worcester (both now destroyed), it was a separate building in
the churchyard; sometimes chantry chapels were attached to these
buildings. Viollet-le-Duc has given two very curious examples of such
_ossuaires_ (as the French call them)--one from Fleurance (Gers), the
other from Faouët (Finistère).

CHARNOCK, JOB (d. 1693), English founder of Calcutta, went out to India
in 1655 or 1656, apparently not in the East India Company's service, but
soon joined it. He was stationed at Cossimbazar, and subsequently at
Patna. In 1685 he became chief agent at Hugli. Being besieged there by
the Mogul viceroy of Bengal, he put the company's goods and servants on
board his light vessels and dropped down the river 27 m. to the village
of Sutanati, a place well chosen for the purpose of defence, which
occupied the site of what is now Calcutta. It was only, however, at the
third attempt that Charnock finally settled down at this spot, and the
selection of the future capital of India was entirely due to his
stubborn resolution. He was a silent morose man, not popular among his
contemporaries, but "always a faithfull Man to the Company." He is said
to have married a Hindu widow.

CHARNOCK (or CHERNOCK), ROBERT (c.1663-1696), English conspirator,
belonged to a Warwickshire family, and was educated at Magdalen College,
Oxford, becoming a fellow of his college and a Roman Catholic priest.
When in 1687 the dispute arose between James II. and the fellows of
Magdalen over the election of a president Charnock favoured the first
royal nominee, Anthony Farmer, and also the succeeding one, Samuel
Parker, bishop of Oxford. Almost alone among the fellows he was not
driven out in November 1687, and he became dean and then vice-president
of the college under the new regime, but was expelled in October 1688.
Residing at the court of the Stuarts in France, or conspiring in
England, Charnock and Sir George Barclay appear to have arranged the
details of the unsuccessful attempt to kill William III. near Turnham
Green in February 1696, Barclay escaped, but Charnock was arrested, was
tried and found guilty, and was hanged on the 18th of March 1696.

CHARNOCKITE, a series of foliated igneous rocks of wide distribution and
great importance in India, Ceylon, Madagascar and Africa. The name was
given by Dr T.H. Holland from the fact that the tombstone of Job
Charnock, the founder of Calcutta, is made of a block of this rock. The
charnockite series includes rocks of many different types, some being
acid and rich in quartz and microcline, others basic and full of
pyroxene and olivine, while there are also intermediate varieties
corresponding mineralogically to norites, quartz-norites and diorites. A
special feature, recurring in many members of the group, is the presence
of strongly pleochroic, reddish or green hypersthene. Many of the
minerals of these rocks are "schillerized," as they contain minute platy
or rod-shaped enclosures, disposed parallel to certain crystallographic
planes or axes. The reflection of light from the surfaces of these
enclosures gives the minerals often a peculiar appearance, e.g. the
quartz is blue and opalescent, the felspar has a milky shimmer like
moonshine, the hypersthene has a bronzy metalloidal gleam. Very often
the different rock types occur in close association as one set forms
bands alternating with another set, or veins traversing it, and where
one facies appears the others also usually are found. The term
charnockite consequently is not the name of a rock, but of an assemblage
of rock types, connected in their origin because arising by
differentiation of the same parent magma. The banded structure which
these rocks commonly present in the field is only in a small measure due
to crushing, but is to a large extent original, and has been produced by
fluxion in a viscous crystallizing intrusive magma, together with
differentiation or segregation of the mass into bands of different
chemical and mineralogical composition. There have also been, of course,
earth movements acting on the solid rock at a later time and injection
of dikes both parallel to and across the primary foliation. In fact, the
history of the structures of the charnockite series is the history of
the most primitive gneisses in all parts of the world, for which we
cannot pretend to have as yet any thoroughly satisfactory explanations
to offer. A striking fact is the very wide distribution of rocks of this
group in the southern hemisphere; but they also, or rocks very similar
to them, occur in Norway, France, Germany, Scotland and North America,
though in these countries they have been mostly described as pyroxene
granulites, pyroxene gneisses, anorthosites, &c. They are usually
regarded as being of Archean age (pre-Cambrian), and in most cases this
can be definitely proved, though not in all. It is astonishing to find
that in spite of their great age their minerals are often in excellent
preservation. In India they form the Nilgiri Hills, the Shevaroys and
part of the Western Ghats, extending southward to Cape Comorin and
reappearing in Ceylon. Although they are certainly for the most part
igneous gneisses (or orthogneisses), rocks occur along with them, such
as marbles, scapolite limestones, and corundum rocks, which were
probably of sedimentary origin. (J. S. F.)

CHARNWOOD FOREST, an upland tract in the N.-W. of Leicestershire,
England. It is undulating, rocky, picturesque, and in great part barren,
though there are some extensive tracts of woodland; its elevation is
generally 600 ft. and upwards, the area exceeding this height being
about 6100 acres. The loftiest point, Bardon Hill, is 912 ft. On its
western flank lies a coalfield, with Coalville and other mining towns,
and granite and hone-stones are worked.

CHAROLLES, a town of east-central France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Saône-et-Loire, situated at the confluence of the
Semence and the Arconce, 39 m. W.N.W. of Mâcon on the Paris-Lyon
railway. Pop. (1906) 3228. It has a sub-prefecture, tribunals of primary
instance and commerce, and a communal college. There are stone quarries
in the vicinity; the town manufactures pottery, and is the centre for
trade in the famous breed of Charolais cattle and in agricultural
products. The ruins of the castle of the counts of Charolais occupy the
summit of a hill in the immediate vicinity of the town. Charolles was
the capital of Charolais, an old division of France, which from the
early 14th century gave the title of count to its possessors. In 1327
the countship passed by marriage to the house of Armagnac, and in 1390
it was sold to Philip of Burgundy. After the death of Charles the Bold,
who in his youth had borne the title of count of Charolais, it was
seized by Louis XI. of France, but in 1493 it was ceded by Charles VIII.
to Maximilian of Austria, the representative of the Burgundian family.
Ultimately passing to the Spanish kings, it became for a considerable
period an object of dispute between France and Spain, until at length in
1684 it was assigned to the great Condé, a creditor of the king of
Spain. It was united to the French crown in 1771.

CHARON, in Greek mythology, the son of Erebus and Nyx (Night). It was
his duty to ferry over the Styx (or Acheron) those souls of the deceased
who had duly received the rites of burial, in payment for which service
he received an obol, which was placed in the mouth of the corpse. It was
only exceptionally that he carried living passengers (_Aeneid_, vi. 295
ff). As ferryman of the dead he is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod, and
in this character is probably of Egyptian origin. He is represented as a
morose and grisly old man in a black sailor's cape. By the Etruscans he
was also supposed to be a kind of executioner of the powers of the
nether world, who, armed with an enormous hammer, was associated with
Mars in the slaughter of battle. Finally he came to be regarded as the
image of death and the world below. As such he survives in the Charos or
Charontas of the modern Greeks--a black bird which darts down upon its
prey, or a winged horseman who fastens his victims to the saddle and
bears them away to the realms of the dead.

See J.A. Ambrosch, _De Charonte Etrusco_ (1837), a learned and
exhaustive monograph; B. Schmidt, _Volksleben der Neugriechen_
(1871), i. 222-251; O. Waser, _Charon, Charun, Charos,
mythologisch-archaologische Monographie_ (1898); S. Rocco, "Sull'
origine del Mito di Caronte," in _Rivista di storia antica_, ii.
(1897), who considers Charon to be an old name for the sun-god Helios
embarking during the night for the East.

CHARONDAS, a celebrated lawgiver of Catina in Sicily. His date is
uncertain. Some make him a pupil of Pythagoras (c. 580-504 B.C.); but
all that can be said is that he was earlier than Anaxilaus of Rhegium
(494-476), since his laws were in use amongst the Rhegians until they
were abolished by that tyrant. His laws, originally written in verse,
were adopted by the other Chalcidic colonies in Sicily and Italy.
According to Aristotle there was nothing special about these laws,
except that Charondas introduced actions for perjury; but he speaks
highly of the precision with which they were drawn up (_Politics_, ii.
12). The story that Charondas killed himself because he entered the
public assembly wearing a sword, which was a violation of his own law,
is also told of Diocles and Zaleucus (Diod. Sic. xii. 11-19). The
fragments of laws attributed to him by Stobaeus and Diodorus are of late
(neo-Pythagorean) origin.

See Bentley, _On Phalaris_, which (according to B. Niese s.v. in
Pauly, _Realencyclopadie_) contains what is even now the best account
of Charondas; A. Holm, _Geschichte Siciliens_, i.; F.D. Gerlach,
_Zaleukos, Charondas, und Pythagoras_ (1858); also art. GREEK LAW.

CHARPENTIER, FRANÇOIS (1620-1702), French archaeologist and man of
letters, was born in Paris on the 15th of February 1620. He was intended
for the bar, but was employed by Colbert, who had determined on the
foundation of a French East India Company, to draw up an explanatory
account of the project for Louis XIV. Charpentier regarded as absurd the
use of Latin in monumental inscriptions, and to him was entrusted the
task of supplying the paintings of Lebrun in the Versailles Gallery with
appropriate legends. His verses were so indifferent that they had to be
replaced by others, the work of Racine and Boileau, both enemies of his.
Charpentier in his _Excellence de la langue française_ (1683) had
anticipated Perrault in the famous academical dispute concerning the
relative merit of the ancients and moderns. He is credited with a share
in the production of the magnificent series of medals that commemorate
the principal events of the age of Louis XIV. Charpentier, who was long
in receipt of a pension of 1200 livres from Colbert, was erudite and
ingenious, but he was always heavy and commonplace. His other works
include a _Vie de Socrate_ (1650), a translation of the _Cyropaedia_ of
Xenophon (1658), and the _Traité de la peinture parlante_ (1684).

CHARRIÈRE, AGNÈS ISABELLE ÉMILIE DE (1740-1805), Swiss author, was Dutch
by birth, her maiden name being van Tuyll van Seeroskerken van Zuylen.
She married in 1771 her brother's tutor, M. de Charrière, and settled
with him at Colombier, near Lausanne. She made her name by the
publication of her _Lettres neuchâteloises_ (Amsterdam, 1784), offering
a simple and attractive picture of French manners. This, with _Caliste,
ou lettres écrites de Lausanne_ (2 vols. Geneva, 1785-1788), was
analysed and highly praised by Sainte-Beuve in his _Portraits de femmes_
and in vol. in of his _Portraits littéraires_. She wrote a number of
other novels, and some political tracts; but is perhaps best remembered
by her liaison with Benjamin Constant between 1787 and 1796.

Her letters to Constant were printed in the _Revue suisse_ (April
1844), her _Lettres-Mémoires_ by E.H. Gaullieur in the same review in
1857, and all the available material is utilized in a monograph on her
and her work by P. Godet, _Madame de Charrière et ses amis_ (2 vols.,
Geneva, 1906).

CHARRON, PIERRE (1541-1603), French philosopher, born in Paris, was one
of the twenty-five children of a bookseller. After studying law he
practised at Paris as an advocate, but, having met with no great
success, entered the church, and soon gained the highest popularity as a
preacher, rising to the dignity of canon, and being appointed preacher
in ordinary to Marguerite, wife of Henry IV. of Navarre. About 1588, he
determined to fulfil a vow which he had once made to enter a cloister;
but being rejected by the Carthusians and the Celestines, he held
himself absolved, and continued to follow his old profession. He
delivered a course of sermons at Angers, and in the next year passed to
Bordeaux, where he formed a famous friendship with Montaigne. At the
death of Montaigne, in 1592, Charron was requested in his will to bear
the Montaigne arms.

In 1594 Charron published (at first anonymously, afterwards under the
name of "Benoit Vaillant, Advocate of the Holy Faith," and also, in
1594, in his own name) _Les Trois Verités_, in which by methodical and
orthodox arguments, he seeks to prove that there is a God and a true
religion, that the true religion is the Christian, and that the true
church is the Roman Catholic. The last book (which is three-fourths of
the whole work) is chiefly an answer to the famous Protestant work
entitled _Le Traité de l'Église_ by Du Plessis Mornay; and in the second
edition (1595) there is an elaborate reply to an attack made on the
third _Vérité_ by a Protestant writer. _Les Trois Vérités_ ran through
several editions, and obtained for its author the favour of the bishop
of Cahors, who appointed him grand vicar and theological canon. It also
led to his being chosen deputy to the general assembly of the clergy, of
which body he became chief secretary. It was followed in 1600 by
_Discours chrestiens_, a book of sermons, similar in tone, half of which
treat of the Eucharist. In 1601 Charron published at Bordeaux his third
and most remarkable work--the famous _De la sagesse_, a complete popular
system of moral philosophy. Usually, and so far correctly, it is coupled
with the Essays of Montaigne, to which the author is under very
extensive obligations. There is, however, distinct individuality in the
book. It is specially interesting from the time when it appeared, and
the man by whom it was written. Conspicuous as a champion of orthodoxy
against atheists, Jews and Protestants--without resigning this position,
and still upholding practical orthodoxy--Charron suddenly stood forth as
the representative of the most complete intellectual scepticism. The _De
la sagesse_, which represented a considerable advance on the standpoint
of the _Trois Vérités_, brought upon its author the most violent
attacks, the chief being by the Jesuit François Garasse (1585-1631), who
described him as a "brutal atheist." It received, however, the warm
support of Henry IV. and of the president Pierre Jeannin (1540-1622). A
second edition was soon called for. In 1603, notwithstanding much
opposition, it began to appear; but only a few pages had been printed
when Charron died suddenly in the street of apoplexy. His death was
regarded as a judgment for his impiety.

Charron's psychology is sensationalist. With sense all our knowledge
commences, and into sense all may be resolved. The soul, located in the
ventricles of the brain, is affected by the temperament of the
individual; the dry temperament produces acute intelligence; the moist,
memory; the hot, imagination. Dividing the intelligent soul into these
three faculties, he shows--after the manner which Francis Bacon
subsequently adopted--what branches of science correspond with each.
With regard to the nature of the soul he merely quotes opinions. The
belief in its immortality, he says, is the most universal of beliefs,
but the most feebly supported by reason. As to man's power of attaining
truth his scepticism is decided; and he plainly declares that none of
our faculties enable us to distinguish truth from error. In comparing
man with the lower animals, Charron insists that there are no breaks in
nature. The latter have reason; nay, they have virtue; and, though
inferior in some respects, in others they are superior. The estimate
formed of man is not, indeed, flattering. His most essential qualities
are vanity, weakness, inconstancy, presumption. Upon this view of human
nature and the human lot Charron founds his moral system. Equally
sceptical with Montaigne, and decidedly more cynical, he is
distinguished by a deeper and sterner tone. Man comes into the world to
endure; let him endure then, and that in silence. Our compassion should
be like that of God, who succours the suffering without sharing in their
pain. Avoid vulgar errors; cherish universal sympathy. Let no passion or
attachment become too powerful for restraint. Follow the customs and
laws which surround you. Morality has no connexion with religion. Reason
is the ultimate criterion.

Special interest attaches to Charron's treatment of religion. He insists
on the diversities in religions; he dwells also on what would indicate a
common origin. All grow from small beginnings and increase by a sort of
popular contagion; all teach that God is to be appeased by prayers,
presents, vows, but especially, and most irrationally, by human
suffering. Each is said by its devotees to have been given by
inspiration. In fact, however, a man is a Christian, Jew, or Mahommedan,
before he knows he is a man. One religion is built upon another. But
while he openly declares religion to be "strange to common sense," the
practical result at which Charron arrives is that one is not to sit in
judgment on his faith, but to be "simple and obedient," and to allow
himself to be led by public authority. This is one rule of wisdom with
regard to religion; and another equally important is to avoid
superstition, which he boldly defines as the belief that God is like a
hard judge who, eager to find fault, narrowly examines our slightest
act, that He is revengeful and hard to appease, and that therefore He
must be flattered and importuned, and won over by pain and sacrifice.
True piety, which is the first of duties, is, on the other hand, the
knowledge of God and of one's self, the latter knowledge being necessary
to the former. It is the abasing of man, the exalting of God,--the
belief that what He sends is all good, and that all the bad is from
ourselves. It leads to spiritual worship; for external ceremony is
merely for our advantage, not for His glory. Charron is thus the founder
of modern secularism. His political views are neither original nor
independent. He pours much hackneyed scorn on the common herd, declares
the sovereign to be the source of law, and asserts that popular freedom
is dangerous.

A summary and defence of the _Sagesse_, written shortly before his
death, appeared in 1606. In 1604 his friend Michel de la Rochemaillet
prefixed to an edition of the _Sagesse_ a Life, which depicts Charron
as a most amiable man of purest character. His complete works, with
this Life, were published in 1635. An excellent abridgment of the
_Sagesse_ is given in Tennemann's _Philosophie_, vol. ix.; an edition
with notes by A. Duval appeared in 1820.

See Liebscher, _Charron u. sein Werk, De la sagesse_ (Leipzig, 1890);
H.T. Buckle, _Introd. to History of Civilization in England_, vol. ii.
19; Abbé Lezat, _De la prédication sous Henri IV._ c. vi.; J.M.
Robertson, _Short History of Free Thought_ (London, 1906), vol. ii. p.
19; J. Owen, _Skeptics of the French Renaissance_ (1893); Lecky,
_Rationalism in Europe_ (1865).

CHARRUA, a tribe of South American Indians, wild and warlike, formerly
ranging over Uruguay and part of S. Brazil. They were dark and heavily
built, fought on horses and used the bolas or weighted lasso. They were
always at war with the Spaniards, and Juan Diaz de Solis was killed by
them in 1516. As a tribe they are now almost extinct, but the modern
Gauchos of Uruguay have much Charrua blood in them.

CHART (from Lat. _carta, charta_, a map). A chart is a marine map
intended specially for the use of seamen (for history, see MAP), though
the word is also used loosely for other varieties of graphical
representation. The marine or nautical chart is constructed for the
purpose of ascertaining the position of a ship with reference to the
land, of finding the direction in which she has to steer, the distance
to sail or steam, and the hidden dangers to avoid. The surface of the
sea on charts is studded with numerous small figures. These are known as
the _soundings_, indicating in fathoms or in feet (as shown upon the
title of the chart), at low water of ordinary spring tides, the least
depth of water through which the ship may be sailing. Charts show the
nature of the unseen bottom of the sea--with the irregularities in its
character in the shape of hidden rocks or sand-banks, and give
information of the greatest importance to the mariner. No matter how
well the land maybe surveyed or finely delineated, unless the soundings
are shown a chart is of little use.

The British admiralty charts are compiled, drawn and issued by the
hydrographic office. This department of the admiralty was established
under Earl Spencer by an order in council in 1795, consisting of the
hydrographer, one assistant and a draughtsman. The first hydrographer
was Alexander Dalrymple, a gentleman in the East India Company's civil
service. From this small beginning arose the important department which
is now the main source of the supply of hydrographical information to
the whole of the maritime world. The charts prepared by the officers and
draughtsmen of the hydrographic office, and published by order of the
lords commissioners of the admiralty, are compiled chiefly from the
labours of British naval officers employed in the surveying service; and
also from valuable contributions received from time to time from
officers of the royal navy and mercantile marine. In addition to the
work of British sailors, the labours of other nations have been
collected and utilized. Charts of the coasts of Europe have naturally
been taken from the surveys made by the various nations, and in charts
of other quarters of the world considerable assistance has been
received from the labours of French, Spanish, Dutch and American
surveyors. Important work is done by the Hydrographic Office of the
American navy, and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The admiralty
charts are published with the view of meeting the wants of the sailor in
all parts of the world. They may be classed under five heads, viz.
ocean, general, and coast charts, harbour plans and physical charts; for
instance, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, approaches to Plymouth,
Plymouth Sound and wind and current charts. The harbour plans and coast
sheets are constructed on the simple principles of plane trigonometry by
the surveying officers. (See SURVEYING: _Nautical_.) That important
feature, the depth of the sea, is obtained by the ordinary sounding line
or wire; all soundings are reduced to low water of ordinary spring
tides. The times and heights of the tides, with the direction and
velocity of the tidal streams, are also ascertained. These MS. charts
are forwarded to the admiralty, and form the foundation of the
hydrography of the world. The ocean and general charts are compiled and
drawn at the hydrographic office, and as originals, existing charts,
latest surveys and maps, have to be consulted, their compilation
requires considerable experience and is a painstaking work, for the
compiler has to decide what to omit, what to insert, and to arrange the
necessary names in such a manner that while full information is given,
the features of the coast are not interfered with. As a very slight
error in the position of a light or buoy, dot, cross or figure, might
lead to grave disaster, every symbol on the admiralty chart has been
delineated with great care and consideration, and no pains are spared in
the effort to lay before the public the labours of the nautical
surveyors and explorers not only of England, but of the maritime world;
reducing their various styles into a comprehensive system furnishing the
intelligent seaman with an intelligible guide, which common industry
will soon enable him to appreciate and take full advantage of.

As certain abbreviations are used in the charts, attention is called to
the "signs and abbreviations adopted in the charts published by the
admiralty." Certain parts of the world are still unsurveyed, or not
surveyed in sufficient detail for the requirements that steamships now
demand. Charts of these localities are therefore drawn in a light
hair-line and unfinished manner, so that the experienced seaman sees at
a glance that less trust is to be reposed upon charts drawn in this
manner. The charts given to the public are only correct up to the time
of their actual publication. They have to be kept up to date. Recent
publications by foreign governments, newly reported dangers, changes in
character or position of lights and buoys, are as soon as practicable
inserted on the charts and due notice given of such insertions in the
admiralty "Notices to Mariners."

The charts are supplemented by the _Admiralty Pilots_, or books of
sailing directions, with tide tables, and lists of lighthouses, light
vessels, &c., for the coasts to which a ship may be bound. The
physical charts are the continuation of the work so ably begun by
Maury of the United States and FitzRoy of the British navy, and give
the sailor a good general idea of the world's ocean winds and currents
at the different periods of the year; the probable tracks and seasons
of the tropical revolving or cyclonic storms; the coastal winds; the
extent or months of the rainy seasons; localities and times where ice
may be fallen in with; and, lastly, the direction and force of the
stream and drift currents of the oceans. (T. A. H.)

CHARTER (Lat. _charta, carta_, from Gr. [Greek: chartês], originally for
_papyrus_, material for writing, thence transferred to paper and from
this material to the document, in O. Eng. _boc_, book), a written
instrument, contract or convention by which cessions of sales of
property or of rights and privileges are confirmed and held, and which
may be produced by the grantees in proof of lawful possession. The use
of the word for any written document is obsolete in England, but is
preserved in France, e.g. the École des Chartes at Paris. In feudal
times charters of privileges were granted, not only by the crown, but by
mesne lords both lay and ecclesiastical, as well to communities, such as
boroughs, gilds and religious foundations, as to individuals. In modern
usage grants by charter have become all but obsolete, though in England
this form is still used in the incorporation by the crown of such
societies as the British Academy.

The grant of the Great Charter by King John in 1215 (see MAGNA CARTA),
which guaranteed the preservation of English liberties, led to a special
association of the word with constitutional privileges, and so in modern
times it has been applied to constitutions granted by sovereigns to
their subjects, in contradistinction to those based on "the will of the
people." Such was the Charter (_Charte_) granted by Louis XVIII. to
France in 1814. In Portugal the constitution granted by Dom Pedro in
1826 was called by the French party the "Charter," while that devised by
the Cortes in 1821 was known as the "Constitution." Magna Carta also
suggested to the English radicals in 1838 the name "People's Charter,"
which they gave to their published programme of reforms (see CHARTISM).
This association of the idea of liberty with the word charter led to its
figurative use in the sense of freedom or licence. This is, however,
rare; the most common use being in the phrase "chartered libertine"
(Shakespeare, _Henry V._ Act i. Sc. 1) from the derivative verb "to
charter," e.g. to grant a charter. The common colloquialism "to
charter," in the sense of to take, or hire, is derived from the special
use of "to charter" as to hire (a ship) by charter-party.

CHARTERED COMPANIES. A chartered company is a trading corporation
enjoying certain rights and privileges, and bound by certain obligations
under a special charter granted to it by the sovereign authority of the
state, such charter defining and limiting those rights, privileges and
obligations, and the localities in which they are to be exercised. Such
companies existed in early times, but have undergone changes and
modifications in accordance with the developments which have taken place
in the economic history of the states where they have existed. In Great
Britain the first trading charters were granted, not to English
companies, which were then non-existent, but to branches of the
Hanseatic League (q.v.), and it was not till 1597 that England was
finally relieved from the presence of a foreign chartered company. In
that year Queen Elizabeth closed the steel-yard where Teutons had been
established for 700 years.

The origin of all English trading companies is to be sought in the
Merchants of the Staple. They lingered on into the 18th century, but
only as a name, for their business was solely to export English products
which, as English manufactures grew, were wanted at home. Of all early
English chartered companies, the "Merchant Adventurers" conducted its
operations the most widely. Itself a development of very early trading
gilds, at the height of its prosperity it employed as many as 50,000
persons in the Netherlands, and the enormous influence it was able to
exercise undoubtedly saved Antwerp from the institution of the
Inquisition within its walls in the time of Charles V. In the reign of
Elizabeth British trade with the Netherlands reached in one year
12,000,000 ducats, and in that of James I. the company's yearly commerce
with Germany and the Netherlands was as much as £1,000,000. Hamburg
afterwards was its principal depot, and it became known as the "Hamburg
Company." In the "Merchant Adventurers'" enterprises is to be seen the
germ of the trading companies which had so remarkable a development in
the 16th and 17th centuries. These old regulated trade gilds passed
gradually into joint-stock associations, which were capable of far
greater extension, both as to the number of members and amount of stock,
each member being only accountable for the amount of his own stock, and
being able to transfer it at will to any other person.

It was in the age of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts that the chartered
company, in the modern sense of the term, had its rise. The discovery of
the New World, and the opening out of fresh trading routes to the
Indies, gave an extraordinary impulse to shipping, commerce and
industrial enterprise throughout western Europe. The English, French and
Dutch governments were ready to assist trade by the granting of charters
to trading associations. It is to the "Russia Company," which received
its first charter in 1554, that Great Britain owed its first intercourse
with an empire then almost unknown. The first recorded instance of a
purely chartered company annexing territory is to be found in the action
of this company in setting up a cross at Spitzbergen in 1613 with King
James's arms upon it. Among other associations trading to the continent
of Europe, receiving charters at this time, were the Turkey Company
(Levant Co.) and the Eastland Company. Both the Russia and Turkey
Companies had an important effect upon British relations with those
empires. They maintained British influence in those countries, and even
paid the expenses of the embassies which were sent out by the English
government to their courts. The Russia Company carried on a large trade
with Persia through Russian territory; but from various causes their
business gradually declined, though the Turkey Company existed in name
until 1825.

The chartered companies which were formed during this period for trade
with the Indies and the New World have had a more wide-reaching
influence in history. The extraordinary career of the East India Company
(q.v.) is dealt with elsewhere.

Charters were given to companies trading to Guinea, Morocco, Guiana and
the Canaries, but none of these enjoyed a very long or prosperous
existence, principally owing to the difficulties caused by foreign
competition. It is when we turn to North America that the importance of
the chartered company, as a colonizing rather than a trading agency, is
seen in its full development. The "Hudson's Bay Company," which still
exists as a commercial concern, is dealt with under its own heading, but
most of the thirteen British North American colonies were in their
inception chartered companies very much in the modern acceptation of the
term. The history of these companies will be found under the heading of
the different colonies of which they were the origin. It is necessary,
however, to bear in mind that two classes of charters are to be found in
force among the early American colonies: (1) Those granted to trading
associations, which were often useful when the colony was first founded,
but which formed a serious obstacle to its progress when the country had
become settled and was looking forward to commercial expansion; the
existence of these charters then often led to serious conflicts between
the grantees of the charter and the colonies; ultimately elective
assemblies everywhere superseded control of trading companies. (2) The
second class of charters were those granted to the settlers themselves,
to protect them against the oppressions of the crown and the provincial
governors. These were highly prized by the colonists.

In France and Holland, no less than in England, the institution of
chartered companies became a settled principle of the governments of
those countries during the whole of the period in question. In France
from 1599 to 1789, more than 70 of such companies came into existence,
but after 1770, when the great _Compagnie des Indes orientales_ went
into liquidation, they were almost abandoned, and finally perished in
the general sweeping away of privileges which followed on the outbreak
of the Revolution.

If we inquire into the economic ideas which induced the granting of
charters to these earlier companies and animated their promoters, we
shall find that they were entirely consistent with the general
principles of government at the time and what were then held to be sound
commercial views. Under the old régime everything was a matter of
monopoly and privilege, and to this state of things the constitution of
the old companies corresponded, the sovereign rights accorded to them
being also quite in accordance with the views of the time. It would have
been thought impossible then that private individuals could have found
the funds or maintained the magnitude of such enterprises. It was only
this necessity which induced statesmen like Colbert to countenance them,
and Montesquieu took the same view (_Esprit des lois_, t. xx. c. 10).
John de Witt's view was that such companies were not useful for
colonization properly so called, because they want quick returns to pay
their dividends. So, even in France and Holland, opinion was by no means
settled as to their utility. In England historic protests were made
against such monopolies, but the chartered companies were less exclusive
in England than in either France or Holland, the governors of provinces
almost always allowing strangers to trade on receiving some pecuniary
inducement. French commercial companies were more privileged, exclusive
and artificial than those in Holland and England. Those of Holland may
be said to have been national enterprises. French companies rested more
than did their rivals on false principles; they were more fettered by
the royal power, and had less initiative of their own, and therefore had
less chance of surviving. As an example of the kind of rules which
prevented the growth of the French companies, it may be pointed out that
no Protestants were allowed to take part in them. State subventions,
rather than commerce or colonization, were often their object; but that
has been a characteristic of French colonial enterprise at all times.

Such companies, however, under the old commercial system could hardly
have come into existence without exclusive privileges. Their existence
might have been prolonged had the whole people in time been allowed the
chance of participating in them.

To sum up the causes of failure of the old chartered companies, they are
to be attributed to (1) bad administration; (2) want of capital and
credit; (3) bad economic organization; (4) distribution of dividends
made prematurely or fictitiously. But those survived the longest which
extended the most widely their privileges to outsiders. According to
contemporary protests, they had a most injurious effect on the commerce
of the countries where they had their rise. They were monopolies, and
therefore, of course, obnoxious; and it is undoubted that the colonies
they founded only became prosperous when they had escaped from their
yoke.

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that they contributed in no
small degree to the commercial progress of their own states. They gave
colonies to the mother country, and an impulse to the development of its
fleet. In the case of England and Holland, the enterprise of the
companies saved them from suffering from the monopolies of Spain and
Portugal, and the wars of the English, and those of the Dutch in the
Indies with Spain and Portugal, were paid for by the companies. They
furnished the mother country with luxuries which, by the 18th century,
had become necessaries. They offered a career for the younger sons of
good families, and sometimes greatly assisted large and useful
enterprises.

During the last twenty years of the 19th century there was a great
revival of the system of chartered companies in Great Britain. It is a
feature of the general growth of interest in colonial expansion and
commercial development which has made itself felt almost universally
among European nations. Great Britain, however, alone has succeeded in
establishing such companies as have materially contributed to the growth
of her empire. These companies succeed or fail for reasons different
from those which affected the chartered companies of former days, though
there are points in common. Apart from causes inherent in the particular
case of each company, which necessitates their being examined
separately, recent experience leads us to lay down certain general
principles regarding them. The modern companies are not like those of
the 16th and 17th centuries. They are not privileged in the sense that
those companies were. They are not monopolists; they have only a limited
sovereignty, always being subject to the control of the home government.
It is true that they have certain advantages given them, for without
these advantages no capital would risk itself in the lands where they
carry on their operations. They often have very heavy corresponding
obligations, as will be seen in the case of one (the East Africa) where
the obligations were too onerous for the company to discharge, though
they were inseparable from its position. The charters of modern
companies differ in two points strongly from those of the old: they
contain clauses prohibiting any monopoly of trade, and they generally
confer some special political rights directly under the control of the
secretary of state. The political freedom of the old companies was much
greater. In these charters state control has been made a distinguishing
feature. It is to be exercised in almost all directions in which the
companies may come into contact with matters political. Of course, it is
inevitable in all disputes of the companies with foreign powers, and is
extended over all decrees of the company regarding the administration of
its territories, the taxation of natives, and mining regulations. In all
cases of dispute between the companies and the natives the secretary of
state is _ex officio_ the judge, and to the secretary of state (in the
case of the South Africa Company) the accounts of administration have to
be submitted for his approbation. It is deserving of notice that the
British character of the company is insisted upon in each case in the
charter which calls it into life. The crown always retains complete
control over the company by reserving to itself the power of revoking
the charter in case of the neglect of its stipulations. Special clauses
were inserted in the charters of the British East Africa and South
Africa Companies enabling the government to forfeit their charters if
they did not promote the objects alleged as reasons for demanding a
charter. This bound them still more strongly; and in the case of the
South Africa Company the duration of the charter was fixed at
twenty-five years.

The chartered company of these days is therefore very strongly fixed
within limits imposed by law on its political action. As a whole,
however, very remarkable results have been achieved. This may be
attributed in no small degree to the personality of the men who have had
the supreme direction at home and abroad, and who have, by their social
position and personal qualities, acquired the confidence of the public.
With the exception of the Royal Niger Company, it would be incorrect to
say that they have been financially successful, but in the domain of
government generally it may be said that they have added vast
territories to the British empire (in Africa about 1,700,000 sq. m.),
and in these territories they have acted as a civilizing force. They
have made roads, opened facilities for trade, enforced peace, and laid
at all events the foundation of settled administration. It is not too
much to say that they have often acted unselfishly for the benefit of
the mother country and even humanity. We may instance the anti-slavery
and anti-alcohol campaigns which have been carried on, the latter
certainly being against the immediate pecuniary interests of the
companies themselves. It must, of course, be recognized that to a
certain extent this has been done under the influence of the home
government. The occupation of Uganda certainly, and of the Nigerian
territory and Rhodesia probably, will prove to have been rather for the
benefit of posterity than of the companies which effected it. In the two
cases where the companies have been bought out by the state, they have
had no compensation for much that they have expended. In fact, it would
have been impossible to take into account actual expenditure day by day,
and the cost of wars. To use the expression of Sir William Mackinnon,
the shareholders have been compelled in some cases to "take out their
dividends in philanthropy."

The existence of such companies to-day is justified in certain political
and economic conditions only. It may be highly desirable for the
government to occupy certain territories, but political exigencies at
home will not permit it to incur the expenditure, or international
relations may make such an undertaking inexpedient at the time. In such
a case the formation of a chartered company may be the best way out of
the difficulty. But it has been demonstrated again and again that,
directly, the company's interests begin to clash with those of foreign
powers, the home government must assume a protectorate over its
territories in order to simplify the situation and save perhaps
disastrous collisions. So long as the political relations of such a
company are with savages or semi-savages, it may be left free to act,
but directly it becomes involved with a civilized power the state has
(if it wishes to retain the territory) to acquire by purchase the
political rights of the company, and it is obviously much easier to
induce a popular assembly to grant money for the purpose of maintaining
rights already existing than to acquire new ones. With the strict system
of government supervision enforced by modern charters it is not easy for
the state to be involved against its will in foreign complications.
Economically such companies are also justifiable up to a certain point.
When there is no other means of entering into commercial relations with
remote and savage races save by enterprise of such magnitude that
private individuals could not incur the risk involved, then a company
may be well entrusted with special privileges for the purpose, as an
inventor is accorded a certain protection by law by means of a patent
which enables him to bring out his invention at a profit if there is
anything in it. But such privileges should not be continued longer than
is necessary for the purpose of reasonably recompensing the adventurers.
A successful company, even when it has lost monopoly or privileges, has,
by its command of capital and general resources, established so strong a
position that private individuals or new companies can rarely compete
with it successfully. That this is so is clearly shown in the case of
the Hudson's Bay Company as at present constituted. In colonizing new
lands these companies often act successfully. They have proved more
potent than the direct action of governments. This may be seen in
Africa, where France and England have of late acquired vast areas, but
have developed them with very different results, acting from the
opposite principles of private and state promotion of colonization.
Apart from national characteristics, the individual has far more to gain
under the British system of private enterprise. A strong point in favour
of some of the British companies has been that their undertakings have
been practically extensions of existing British colonies rather than
entirely isolated ventures. But a chartered company can never be
anything but a transition stage of colonization; sooner or later the
state must take the lead. A company may act beneficially so long as a
country is undeveloped, but as soon as it becomes even semi-civilized
its conflicts with private interests become so frequent and serious that
its authority has to make way for that of the central government.

The companies which have been formed in France during recent years do
not yet afford material for profitable study, for they have been subject
to so much vexatious interference from home owing to lack of a fixed
system of control sanctioned by government, that they have not been
able, like the British, to develop along their own lines.

See also BORNEO; NIGERIA; BRIT. EAST AFRICA; RHODESIA; &c. The
following works deal with the subject of chartered companies
generally: Bonnassieux, _Les Grandes Compagnies de commerce_ (Paris,
1892); Chailly-Bert, _Les Compagnies de colonisation sous l'ancien
régime_ (Paris, 1898); Cawston and Keane, _The Early Chartered
Companies_ (London, 1896); W. Cunningham, _A History of British
Industry and Commerce_ (Cambridge, 1890, 1892); Egerton, _A Short
History of British Colonial Policy_ (London, 1897); J. Scott Keltie,
_The Partition of Africa_ (London, 1895); Leroy-Beaulieu, _De la
colonisation chez les peuples modernes_ (Paris, 1898); _Les Nouvelles
Sociétés anglo-saxonnes_ (Paris, 1897); MacDonald, _Select Charters
illustrative of American History, 1606-1775_ (New York, 1899); B.P.
Poore, _Federal and State Constitutions_, &c (Washington, 1877; a more
complete collection of American colonial charters); H.L. Osgood,
_American Colonies in the 17th Cent._ (1904-7); Carton de Wiart, _Les
Grandes Compagnies coloniales anglaises au 19me siècle_ (Paris, 1899).
Also see articles "Compagnies de Charte," "Colonies," "Privilege," in
_Nouveau Dictionnaire d'économie politique_ (Paris, 1892); and
article "Companies, Chartered," in _Encyclopaedia of the Laws of
England_, edited by A. Wood Renton (London, 1907-1909). (W. B. Du.)

CHARTERHOUSE. This name is an English corruption of the French _maison
chartreuse_, a religious house of the Carthusian order. As such it
occurs not uncommonly in England, in various places (e.g.
Charterhouse-on-Mendip, Charterhouse Hinton) where the Carthusians were
established. It is most familiar, however, in its application to the
Charterhouse, London. On a site near the old city wall, west of the
modern thoroughfare of Aldersgate, a Carthusian monastery was founded in
1371 by Sir Walter de Manny, a knight of French birth. After its
dissolution in 1535 the property passed through various hands. In 1558,
while in the possession of Lord North, it was occupied by Queen
Elizabeth during the preparations for her coronation, and James I. held
court here on his first entrance into London. The Charterhouse was then
in the hands of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, but in May 1611 it came
into those of Thomas Sutton (1532-1611) of Snaith, Lincolnshire. He
acquired a fortune by the discovery of coal on two estates which he had
leased near Newcastle-on-Tyne, and afterwards, removing to London, he
carried on a commercial career. In the year of his death, which took
place on the 12th of December 1611, he endowed a hospital on the site
of the Charterhouse, calling it the hospital of King James; and in his
will he bequeathed moneys to maintain a chapel, hospital (almshouse) and
school. The will was hotly contested but upheld in court, and the
foundation was finally constituted to afford a home for eighty male
pensioners ("gentlemen by descent and in poverty, soldiers that have
borne arms by sea or land, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, or
servants in household to the King or Queen's Majesty"), and to educate
forty boys. The school developed beyond the original intentions of its
founder, and now ranks among the most eminent public schools in England.
In 1872 it was removed, during the headmastership (1863-1897) of the
Rev. William Haig-Brown (d. 1907), to new buildings near Godalming in
Surrey, which were opened on the 18th of June in that year. The number
of foundation scholarships is increased to sixty. The scholars are not
now distinguished by wearing a special dress or by forming a separate
house, though one house is known as Gownboys, preserving the former
title of the scholars. The land on which the old school buildings stood
in London was sold for new buildings to accommodate the Merchant
Taylors' school, but the pensioners still occupy their picturesque home,
themselves picturesque figures in the black gowns designed for them
under the foundation. The buildings, of mellowed red brick, include a
panelled chapel, in which is the founder's tomb, a fine dining-hall,
governors' room with ornate ceiling and tapestried walls, the old
library, and the beautiful great staircase.

CHARTER-PARTY (Lat. _charta partita_, a legal paper or instrument,
"divided," i.e. written in duplicate so that each party retains half), a
written, or partly written and partly printed, contract between merchant
and shipowner, by which a ship is let or hired for the conveyance of
goods on a specified voyage, or for a definite period. (See
AFFREIGHTMENT.)

CHARTERS TOWERS, a mining town of Devonport county, Queensland,
Australia, 82 m. by rail S.W. of Townsville and 820 m. direct N.N.W. of
Brisbane. It is the centre of an important gold-field, the reefs of
which improve at the lower depths, the deepest shaft on the field being
2558 ft. below the surface-level. The gold is of a very fine quality. An
abundant water-supply is obtained from the Burdekin river, some 8 m.
distant. The population of the town in 1901 was 5523; but within a 5 m.
radius it was 20,976. Charters Towers became a municipality in 1877.

CHARTIER, ALAIN (c. 1392-c. 1430), French poet and political writer, was
born at Bayeux about 1392. Chartier belonged to a family marked by
considerable ability. His eldest brother Guillaume became bishop of
Paris; and Thomas became notary to the king. Jean Chartier, a monk of St
Denis, whose history of Charles VII. is printed in vol. iii. of _Les
Grands Chroniques de Saint-Denis_ (1477), was not, as is sometimes
stated, also a brother of the poet Alain studied, as his elder brother
had done, at the university of Paris. His earliest poem is the _Livre des
quatre dames_, written after the battle of Agincourt. This was followed
by the _Débat du réveille-matin_, _La Belle Dame sans merci_, and others.
None of these poems show any very patriotic feeling, though Chartier's
prose is evidence that he was not indifferent to the misfortunes of his
country. He followed the fortunes of the dauphin, afterwards Charles
VII., acting in the triple capacity of clerk, notary and financial
secretary. In 1422 he wrote the famous _Quadrilogue-invectif_. The
interlocutors in this dialogue are France herself and the three orders of
the state. Chartier lays bare the abuses of the feudal army and the
sufferings of the peasants. He rendered an immense service to his country
by maintaining that the cause of France, though desperate to all
appearance, was not yet lost if the contending factions could lay aside
their differences in the face of the common enemy. In 1424 Chartier was
sent on an embassy to Germany, and three years later he accompanied to
Scotland the mission sent to negotiate the marriage of Margaret of
Scotland, then not four years old, with the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI.
In 1429 he wrote the _Livre d'espérance_, which contains a fierce attack
on the nobility and clergy. He was the author of a diatribe on the
courtiers of Charles VII. entitled _Le Curial_, translated into English
(_Here foloweth the copy of a lettre whyche maistre A. Charetier wrote to
his brother_) by Caxton about 1484. The date of his death is to be placed
about 1430. A Latin epitaph, discovered in the 18th century, says,
however, that he was archdeacon of Paris, and declares that he died in
the city of Avignon in 1449. This is obviously not authentic, for Alain
described himself as a _simple clerc_ and certainly died long before
1449. The story of the famous kiss bestowed by Margaret of Scotland on
_la précieuse bouche de laquelle sont issus et sortis tant de bons mots
et vertueuses paroles_ is mythical, for Margaret did not come to France
till 1436, after the poet's death; but the story, first told by Guillaume
Bouchet in his _Annales d'Aquitaine_ (1524), is interesting, if only as a
proof of the high degree of estimation in which the ugliest man of his
day was held. Jean de Masles, who annotated a portion of his verse, has
recorded how the pages and young gentlemen of that epoch were required
daily to learn by heart passages of his _Bréviaire des nobles_. John
Lydgate studied him affectionately. His _Belle Dame sans merci_ was
translated into English by Sir Richard Ros about 1640, with an
introduction of his own; and Clément Marot and Octavien de Saint-Gelais,
writing fifty years after his death, find many fair words for the old
poet, their master and predecessor.

See Mancel, _Alain Chartier, étude bibliographique et littéraire_, 8vo
(Paris, 1849); D. Delaunay's _Étude sur Alain Chartier_ (1876), with
considerable extracts from his writings. His works were edited by A.
Duchesne (Paris, 1617). On Jean Chartier see Vallet de Viriville,
"Essais critiques sur les historiens originaux du règne de Charles
VIII," in the _Bibl. de l'École des Chartes_ (July-August 1857).

CHARTISM, the name given to a movement for political reform in England,
from the so-called "People's Charter" or "National Charter," the
document in which in 1838 the scheme of reforms was embodied. The
movement itself may be traced to the latter years of the 18th century.
Checked for a while by the reaction due to the excesses of the French
Revolution, it received a fresh impetus from the awful misery that
followed the Napoleonic wars and the economic changes due to the
introduction of machinery. The Six Acts of 1819 were directed, not only
against agrarian and industrial rioting, but against the political
movement of which Sir Francis Burdett was the spokesman in the House of
Commons, which demanded manhood suffrage, the ballot, annual
parliaments, the abolition of the property qualification for members of
parliament and their payment. The movement was checked for a while by
the Reform Bill of 1832; but it was soon discovered that, though the
middle classes had been enfranchised, the economic and political
grievances of the labouring population remained unredressed. Two
separate movements now developed: one socialistic, associated with the
name of Robert Owen; the other radical, aiming at the enfranchisement of
the "masses" as the first step to the amelioration of their condition.
The latter was represented in the Working Men's Association, by which in
1838 the "People's Charter" was drawn up. It embodied exactly the same
programme as that of the radical reformers mentioned above, with the
addition of a demand for equal electoral districts.

In support of this programme a vigorous agitation began, the principal
leader of which was Feargus O'Connor, whose irresponsible and erratic
oratory produced a vast effect. Monster meetings were held, at which
seditious language was occasionally used, and slight collisions with the
military took place. Petitions of enormous size, signed in great part
with fictitious names, were presented to parliament; and a great many
newspapers were started, of which the _Northern Star_, conducted by
Feargus O'Connor, had a circulation of 50,000. In November 1839 a
Chartist mob consisting of miners and others made an attack on Newport,
Mon. The rising was a total failure; the leaders, John Frost and two
others, were seized, were found guilty of high treason, and were
condemned to death. The sentence, however, was changed to one of
transportation, and Frost spent over fourteen years in Van Diemen's
Land. In 1854 he was pardoned, and from 1856 until his death on the 29th
of July 1877 he lived in England. In 1840 the Chartist movement was
still further organized by the inauguration at Manchester of the
National Charter Association, which rapidly became powerful, being the
head of about 400 sister societies, which are said to have numbered
40,000 members. Some time after, efforts were made towards a coalition
with the more moderate radicals, but these failed; and a land scheme was
started by O'Connor, which prospered for a few years. In 1844 the
uncompromising spirit of some of the leaders was well illustrated by
their hostile attitude towards the Anti-Corn-Law League. O'Connor,
especially, entered into a public controversy with Cobden and Bright, in
which he was worsted. But it was not till 1848, during a season of great
suffering among the working classes, and under the influence of the
revolution at Paris, that the real strength of the Chartist movement was
discovered and the prevalent discontent became known. Early in March
disturbances occurred in Glasgow which required the intervention of the
military, while in the manufacturing districts all over the west of
Scotland the operatives were ready to rise in the event of the main
movement succeeding. Some agitation, too, took place in Edinburgh and in
Manchester, but of a milder nature; in fact, while there was a real and
widespread discontent, men were indisposed to resort to decided
measures.

The principal scene of intended Chartist demonstration was London. An
enormous gathering of half a million was announced for the 10th of April
on Kennington Common, from which they were to march to the Houses of
Parliament to present a petition signed by nearly six million names, in
order by this imposing display of numbers to secure the enactment of the
six points. Probably some of the more violent members of the party
thought to imitate the Parisian mob by taking power entirely into their
own hands. The announcement of the procession excited great alarm, and
the most decided measures were taken by the authorities to prevent a
rising. The procession was forbidden. The military were called out under
the command of the duke of Wellington, and by him concealed near the
bridges and other points where the procession might attempt to force its
way. Even the Bank of England and other public buildings were put in a
state of defence, and special constables, to the number, it is said, of
170,000, were enrolled, one of whom was destined shortly after to be the
emperor of the French. After all these gigantic preparations on both
sides the Chartist demonstration proved to be a very insignificant
affair. Instead of half a million, only about 50,000 assembled on
Kennington Common, and their leaders, Feargus O'Connor and Ernest
Charles Jones, shrank from the responsibility of braving the authorities
by conducting the procession to the Houses of Parliament. The monster
petition was duly presented, and scrutinized, with the result that the
number of signatures was found to have been grossly exaggerated, and
that the most unheard-of falsification of names had been resorted to.
Thereafter the movement specially called Chartism soon died out. It
became merged, so far as its political programme is concerned, with the
advancing radicalism of the general democratic movement.

CHARTRES, a city of north-western France, capital of the department of
Eure-et-Loir, 55 m. S.W. of Paris on the railway to Le Mans. Pop. (1906)
19,433. Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure, on a hill
crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in
the surrounding country. To the south-east stretches the fruitful plain
of Beauce, "the granary of France," of which the town is the commercial
centre. The Eure, which at this point divides into three branches, is
crossed by several bridges, some of them ancient, and is fringed in
places by remains of the old fortifications, of which the Porte
Guillaume (14th century), a gateway flanked by towers, is the most
complete specimen. The steep, narrow streets of the old town contrast
with the wide, shady boulevards which encircle it and divide it from the
suburbs. The Clos St Jean, a pleasant park, lies to the north-west, and
squares and open spaces are numerous. The cathedral of Notre-Dame (see
ARCHITECTURE: _Romanesque and Gothic Architecture in France_; and
CATHEDRAL), one of the finest Gothic churches in France, was founded in
the 11th century by Bishop Fulbert on the site of an earlier church
destroyed by fire. In 1194 another conflagration laid waste the new
building then hardly completed; but clergy and people set zealously to
work, and the main part of the present structure was finished by 1240.
Though there have been numerous minor additions and alterations since
that time, the general character of the cathedral is unimpaired. The
upper woodwork was consumed by fire in 1836, but the rest of the
building was saved. The statuary of the lateral portals, the stained
glass of the 13th century, and the choir-screen of the Renaissance are
all unique from the artistic standpoint. The cathedral is also renowned
for the beauty and perfect proportions of its western towers. That to
the south, the Clocher Vieux (351 ft. high), dates from the 13th
century; its upper portion is lower and less rich in design than that of
the Clocher Neuf (377 ft.), which was not completed till the 16th
century. In length the cathedral measures 440 ft., its choir measures
150 ft. across, and the height of the vaulting is 121 ft. The abbey
church of St Pierre, dating chiefly from the 13th century, contains,
besides some fine stained glass, twelve representations of the apostles
in enamel, executed about 1547 by Léonard Limosin. Of the other churches
of Chartres the chief are St Aignan (13th, 16th and 17th centuries) and
St Martin-au-Val (12th century). The hôtel de ville, a building of the
17th century, containing a museum and library, an older hôtel de ville
of the 13th century, and several medieval and Renaissance houses, are of
interest. There is a statue of General F.S. Marceau-Desgraviers (b.
1769), a native of the town.

The town is the seat of a bishop, a prefecture, a court of assizes, and
has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce,
training colleges, a lycée for boys, a communal college for girls, and a
branch of the Bank of France. Its trade is carried on chiefly on
market-days, when the peasants of the Beauce bring their crops and
live-stock to be sold and make their purchases. The game-pies and other
delicacies of Chartres are well known, and the industries also include
flour-milling, brewing, distilling, iron-founding, leather manufacture,
dyeing, and the manufacture of stained glass, billiard requisites,
hosiery, &c.

Chartres was one of the principal towns of the Carnutes, and by the
Romans was called _Autricum_, from the river _Autura_ (Eure), and
afterwards _civitas Carnutum_. It was burnt by the Normans in 858, and
unsuccessfully besieged by them in 911. In 1417 it fell into the hands
of the English, from whom it was recovered in 1432. It was attacked
unsuccessfully by the Protestants in 1568, and was taken in 1591 by
Henry IV., who was crowned there three years afterwards. In the
Franco-German War it was seized by the Germans on the 21st of October
1870, and continued during the rest of the campaign an important centre
of operations. During the middle ages it was the chief town of the
district of Beauce, and gave its name to a countship which was held by
the counts of Blois and Champagne and afterwards by the house of
Châtillon, a member of which in 1286 sold it to the crown. It was raised
to the rank of a duchy in 1528 by Francis I. After the time of Louis
XIV. the title of duke of Chartres was hereditary in the family of
Orleans.

See M.T. Bulteau, _Monographie de la cathédrale de Chartres_ (1887);
A. Pierval, _Chartres, sa cathédrale, ses monuments_ (1896); H.J.L.J.
Massé, _Chartres: its Cathedral and Churches_ (1900).

CHARTREUSE, a liqueur, so called from having been made at the famous
Carthusian monastery, La Grande Chartreuse, at Grenoble (see below). In
consequence of the Associations Law, the Chartreux monks left France in
1904, and now continue the manufacture of this liqueur in Spain. There
are two main varieties of Chartreuse, the green and the yellow. The
green contains about 57, the yellow about 43% of alcohol. There are
other differences due to the varying nature and quantity of the
flavouring matters employed, but the secrets of manufacture are
jealously guarded. The genuine liqueur is undoubtedly produced by means
of a distillation process.

CHARTREUSE, LA GRANDE, the mother house of the very severe order of
Carthusian monks (see CARTHUSIANS). It is situated in the French
department of the Isère, about 12½ m. N. of Grenoble, at a height of
3205 ft. above the sea, in the heart of a group of limestone mountains,
and not far from the source of the Guiers Mort. The original settlement
here was founded by St Bruno about 1084, and derived its name from the
small village to the S.E., formerly known as Cartusia, and now as St
Pierre de Chartreuse. The first convent on the present site was built
between 1132 and 1137, but the actual buildings date only from about
1676, the older ones having been often burnt. The convent stands in a
very picturesque position in a large meadow, sloping to the S.W., and
watered by a tiny tributary of the Guiers Mort. On the north, fine
forests extend to the Col de la Ruchère, and on the west rise
well-wooded heights, while on the east tower white limestone ridges,
culminating in the Grand Som (6670 ft.). One of the most famous of the
early Carthusian monks was St Hugh of Lincoln, who lived here from 1160
to 1181, when he went to England to found the first Carthusian house at
Witham in Somerset; in 1186 he became bishop of Lincoln, and before his
death in 1200 had built the angel choir and other portions of the
wonderful cathedral there.

The principal approach to the convent is from St Laurent du Pont, a
village situated on the Guiers Mort, and largely built by the monks--it
is connected by steam tramways with Voiron (for Grenoble) and St Béron
(for Chambéry). Among the other routes may be mentioned those from
Grenoble by Le Sappey, or by the Col de la Charmette, or from Chambéry
by the Col de Couz and the village of Les Échelles. St Laurent is about
5½ m. from the convent. The road mounts along the Guiers Mort and soon
reaches the hamlet of Fourvoirie, so called from _forata via_, as about
1510 the road was first pierced hence towards the convent. Here are iron
forges, and here was formerly the chief centre of the manufacture of the
famed Chartreuse liqueur. Beyond, the road enters the "Désert" and
passes through most delightful scenery. Some way farther the Guiers Mort
is crossed by the modern bridge of St Bruno, the older bridge of Parant
being still visible higher up the stream. Here begins the splendid
carriage road, constructed by M.E. Viaud between 1854 and 1856. It soon
passes beneath the bold pinnacle of the Oeillette or Aiguillette, beyond
which formerly women were not allowed to penetrate. After passing
through four tunnels the road bends north (leaving the Guiers Mort which
flows past St Pierre de Chartreuse), and the valley soon opens to form
the upland hollow in which are the buildings of the convent. These are
not very striking, the high roofs of dark slate, the cross-surmounted
turrets and the lofty clock-tower being the chief features. But the
situation is one of ideal peace and repose. Women were formerly lodged
in the old infirmary, close to the main gate, which is now a hôtel.
Within the conventual buildings are four halls formerly used for the
reception of the priors of the various branch houses in France, Italy,
Burgundy and Germany. The very plain and unadorned chapel dates from the
15th century, but the cloisters, around which cluster the thirty-six
small houses for the fully professed monks, are of later date. The
library contained before the Revolution a very fine collection of books
and MSS., now mostly in the town library at Grenoble.

The monks were expelled in 1793, but allowed to return in 1816, but then
they had to pay rent for the use of the buildings and the forests
around, though both one and the other were due to the industry of their
predecessors. They were again expelled in 1904, and are dispersed in
various houses in England, at Pinerolo (Italy) and at Tarragona (Spain).
It is at the last-named spot that the various pharmaceutical
preparations are now manufactured for which they are famous (though sold
only since about 1840)--the _Elixir_, the _Boule d'acier_ (a mineral
paste or salve), and the celebrated _liqueur_. The magnificent revenues
derived from the profits of this manufacture were devoted by the monks
to various purposes of benevolence, especially in the neighbouring
villages, which owe to this source their churches, schools, hospitals,
&c., &c., built and maintained at the expense of the monks.

See _La Grande Chartreuse par un Chartreux_ (Grenoble, 1898); H.
Ferrand, _Guide à la Grande Chartreuse_ (1889); and _Les Montagnes de
la Chartreuse_ (1899) (W. A. B. C.)

CHARWOMAN, one who is hired to do occasional household work. "Char" or
"chare," which forms the first part of the word, is common, in many
forms, to Teutonic languages, meaning a "turn," and, in this original
sense, is seen in "ajar," properly "on char," of a door "on the turn" in
the act of closing. It is thus applied to a "turn of work," an odd job,
and is so used, in the form "chore," in America, and in dialects of the
south-west of England.

CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND (1808-1873), American statesman and jurist, was
born in Cornish township, New Hampshire, on the 13th of January 1808.
His father died in 1817, and the son passed several years (1820-1824) in
Ohio with his uncle, Bishop Philander Chase (1775-1852), the foremost
pioneer of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the West, the first bishop
of Ohio (1819-1831), and after 1835 bishop of Illinois. He graduated at
Dartmouth College in 1826, and after studying law under William Wirt,
attorney-general of the United States, in Washington, D.C., was admitted
to the bar in 1829, and removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1830. Here he
soon gained a position of prominence at the bar, and published an
annotated edition, which long remained standard, of the laws of Ohio. At
a time when public opinion in Cincinnati was largely dominated by
Southern business connexions, Chase, influenced probably by James G.
Birney, associated himself after about 1836 with the anti-slavery
movement, and became recognized as the leader of the political reformers
as opposed to the Garrisonian abolitionists. To the cause he freely gave
his services as a lawyer, and was particularly conspicuous as counsel
for fugitive slaves seized in Ohio for rendition to slavery under the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1793--indeed, he came to be known as the
"attorney-general of fugitive slaves." His argument (1847) in the famous
Van Zandt case before the United States Supreme Court attracted
particular attention, though in this as in other cases of the kind the
judgment was against him. In brief he contended that slavery was "local,
not national," that it could exist only by virtue of positive State Law,
that the Federal government was not empowered by the Constitution to
create slavery anywhere, and that "when a slave leaves the jurisdiction
of a state he ceases to be a slave, because he continues to be a man and
leaves behind him the law which made him a slave." In 1841 he abandoned
the Whig party, with which he had previously been affiliated, and for
seven years was the undisputed leader of the Liberty party in Ohio; he
was remarkably skilful in drafting platforms and addresses, and it was
he who prepared the national Liberty platform of 1843 and the Liberty
address of 1845. Realizing in time that a third party movement could not
succeed, he took the lead during the campaign of 1848 in combining the
Liberty party with the Barnburners or Van Buren Democrats of New York to
form the Free-Soilers. He drafted the famous Free-Soil platform, and it
was largely through his influence that Van Buren was nominated for the
presidency. His object, however, was not to establish a permanent new
party organization, but to bring pressure to bear upon Northern
Democrats to force them to adopt a policy opposed to the further
extension of slavery.

In 1849 he was elected to the United States Senate as the result of a
coalition between the Democrats and a small group of Free-Soilers in the
state legislature; and for some years thereafter, except in 1852, when
he rejoined the Free-Soilers, he classed himself as an Independent
Democrat, though he was out of harmony with the leaders of the
Democratic party. During his service in the Senate (1849-1855) he was
pre-eminently the champion of anti-slavery in that body, and no one
spoke more ably than he did against the Compromise Measures of 1850 and
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska legislation, and
the subsequent troubles in Kansas, having convinced him of the futility
of trying to influence the Democrats, he assumed the leadership in the
North-west of the movement to form a new party to oppose the extension
of slavery. The "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the
People of the United States," written by Chase and Giddings, and
published in the New York _Times_ of the 24th of January 1854, may be
regarded as the earliest draft of the Republican party creed. He was the
first Republican governor of Ohio, serving from 1855 to 1859. Although,
with the exception of Seward, he was the most prominent Republican in
the country, and had done more against slavery than any other
Republican, he failed to secure the nomination for the presidency in
1860, partly because his views on the question of protection were not
orthodox from a Republican point of view, and partly because the old
line Whig element could not forgive his coalition with the Democrats in
the senatorial campaign of 1849; his uncompromising and conspicuous
anti-slavery record, too, was against him from the point of view of
"availability." As secretary of the treasury in President Lincoln's
cabinet in 1861-1864, during the first three years of the Civil War, he
rendered services of the greatest value. That period of crisis witnessed
two great changes in American financial policy, the establishment of a
national banking system and the issue of a legal tender paper currency.
The former was Chase's own particular measure. He suggested the idea,
worked out all of the important principles and many of the details, and
induced Congress to accept them. The success of that system alone
warrants his being placed in the first rank of American financiers. It
not only secured an immediate market for government bonds, but it also
provided a permanent uniform national currency, which, though inelastic,
is absolutely stable. The issue of legal tenders, the greatest financial
blunder of the war, was made contrary to his wishes, although he did
not, as he perhaps ought to have done, push his opposition to the point
of resigning.

Perhaps Chase's chief defect as a statesman was an insatiable desire for
supreme office. It was partly this ambition, and also temperamental
differences from the president, which led him to retire from the cabinet
in June 1864. A few months later (December 6, 1864) he was appointed
chief justice of the United States Supreme Court to succeed Judge Taney,
a position which he held until his death in 1873. Among his most
important decisions were _Texas v. White_ (7 Wallace, 700), 1869, in
which he asserted that the Constitution provided for an "indestructible
union composed of indestructible states," _Veazie Bank_ v. _Fenno_ (8
Wallace, 533), 1869, in defence of that part of the banking legislation
of the Civil War which imposed a tax of 10% on state bank-notes, and
_Hepburn_ v. _Griswold_ (8 Wallace, 603), 1869, which declared certain
parts of the legal tender acts to be unconstitutional. When the legal
tender decision was reversed after the appointment of new judges,
1871-1872 (Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace, 457), Chase prepared a very
able dissenting opinion. Toward the end of his life he gradually drifted
back toward his old Democratic position, and made an unsuccessful effort
to secure the nomination of the Democratic party for the presidency in
1872. He died in New York city on the 7th of May 1873. Chase was one of
the ablest political leaders of the Civil War period, and deserves to be
placed in the front rank of American statesmen.

The standard biography is A.B. Hart's _Salmon Portland Chase_ in the
"American Statesmen Series" (1899). Less philosophical, but containing
a greater wealth of detail, is J.W. Shuckers' _Life and Public
Services of Salmon Portland Chase_ (New York, 1874). R.B. Warden's
_Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland
Chase_ (Cincinnati, 1874) deals more fully with Chase's private life.

CHASE, SAMUEL (1741-1811), American jurist, was born in Somerset county,
Maryland, on the 17th of April 1741. He was admitted to the bar at
Annapolis in 1761, and for more than twenty years was a member of the
Maryland legislature. He took an active part in the resistance to the
Stamp Act, and from 1774 to 1778 and 1784 to 1785 was a member of the
Continental Congress. With Benjamin Franklin and Charles Carroll he was
sent by Congress in 1776 to win over the Canadians to the side of the
revolting colonies, and after his return did much to persuade Maryland
to advocate a formal separation of the thirteen colonies from Great
Britain, he himself being one of those who signed the Declaration of
Independence on the 2nd of August 1776. In this year he was also a
member of the convention which framed the first constitution for the
state of Maryland. After serving in the Maryland convention which
ratified for that state the Federal Constitution, and there vigorously
opposing ratification, though afterwards he was an ardent Federalist, he
became in 1791 chief judge of the Maryland general court, which position
he resigned in 1796 for that of an associate justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States. His radical Federalism, however, led him to
continue active in politics, and he took advantage of every opportunity,
on the bench and off, to promote the cause of his party. His overbearing
conduct while presiding at the trials of John Fries for treason, and of
James Thompson Callender (d. 1813) for seditious libel in 1800, drove
the lawyers for the defence from the court, and evoked the wrath of the
Republicans, who were stirred to action by a political harangue on the
evil tendencies of democracy which he delivered as a charge to a grand
jury at Baltimore in 1803. The House of Representatives adopted a
resolution of impeachment in March 1804, and on the 7th of December 1804
the House managers, chief among whom were John Randolph, Joseph H.
Nicholson (1770-1817), and Caesar A. Rodney (1772-1824), laid their
articles of impeachment before the Senate. The trial, with frequent
interruptions and delays, lasted from the 2nd of January to the 1st of
March 1805. Judge Chase was defended by the ablest lawyers in the
country, including Luther Martin, Robert Goodloe Harper (1765-1825),
Philip Barton Key (1757-1815), Charles Lee (1758-1815), and Joseph
Hopkinson (1770-1842). The indictment, in eight articles, dealt with his
conduct in the Fries and Callender trials, with his treatment of a
Delaware grand jury, and (in article viii.) with his making "highly
indecent, extra-judicial" reflections upon the national administration,
probably the greatest offence in Republican eyes. On only three articles
was there a majority against Judge Chase, the largest, on article viii.,
being four short of the necessary two-thirds to convict. "The case,"
says Henry Adams, "proved impeachment to be an impracticable thing for
partisan purposes, and it decided the permanence of those lines of
constitutional development which were a reflection of the common law."
Judge Chase resumed his seat on the bench, and occupied it until his
death on the 19th of June 1811.

See _The Trial of Samuel Chase_ (2 vols., Washington, 1805), reported
by Samuel H. Smith and Thomas Lloyd; an article in _The American Law
Review_, vol. xxxiii. (St Louis, Mo., 1899); and Henry Adams's
_History of the United States_, vol. ii. (New York, 1889).

CHASE, WILLIAM MERRITT (1849- ), American painter, was born at
Franklin, Indiana, on the 1st of November 1849. He was a pupil of B.F.
Hays at Indianapolis, of J.O. Eaton in New York, and subsequently of A.
Wagner and Piloty in Munich. In New York he established a school of his
own, after teaching with success for some years at the Art Students'
League. A worker in all mediums--oils, water-colour, pastel and
etching--painting with distinction the figure, landscape and still-life,
he is perhaps best known by his portraits, his sitters numbering some of
the most important men and women of his time. Mr Chase won many honours
at home and abroad, became a member of the National Academy of Design,
New York, and for ten years was president of the Society of American
Artists. Among his important canvases are "Ready for the Ride" (Union
League Club, N.Y.), "The Apprentice," "Court Jester," and portraits of
the painters Whistler and Duveneck; of General Webb and of Peter Cooper.

CHASE. (1) (Fr. _chasse_, from Lat. _captare_, frequentative of
_capere_, to take), the pursuit of wild animals for food or sport (see
HUNTING). The word is used of the pursuit of anything, and also of the
thing pursued, as, in naval warfare, of a ship. A transferred meaning is
that of park land reserved for the breeding and hunting of wild animals,
in which sense it appears in various place-names in England, as Cannock
Chase. It is also a term for a stroke in tennis (q.v.). (2) (Fr.
_châsse_, Lat. _capsa_, a box, cf. _caisse_, and "chest"), an enclosure,
such as the muzzle-end of a gun in front of the trunnions, a groove cut
to hold a pipe, and, in typography, the frame enclosing the "forme."

CHASING, or ENCHASING, the art of producing figures and ornamental
patterns, either raised or indented, on metallic surfaces by means of
steel tools or punches. It is practised extensively for the
ornamentation of goldsmith and silversmith work, electro-plate and
similar objects, being employed to produce bold flutings and bosses, and
in another manner utilized for imitating engraved surfaces. Minute work
can be produced by this method, perfect examples of which may be seen in
the watch-cases chased by G.M. Moser, R.A. (1704-1783). The chaser first
outlines the pattern on the surface he is to ornament, after which, if
the work involves bold or high embossments, these are blocked out by a
process termed "snarling." The snarling iron is a long iron tool turned
up at the end, and made so that when securely fastened in a vise the
upturned end can reach and press against any portion of the interior of
the vase or other object to be chased. The part to be raised being held
firmly against the upturned point of the snarling iron, the workman
gives the shoulder or opposite end of the iron a sharp blow, which
causes the point applied to the work to give it a percussive stroke, and
thus throw up the surface of the metal held against the tool. When the
blocking out from the interior is finished, or when no such embossing is
required, the object to be chased is filled with molten pitch, which is
allowed to harden. It is then fastened to a sandbag, and with hammer and
a multitude of small punches of different outline the whole details of
the pattern, lined, smooth or "matt," are worked out. Embossing and
stamping from steel dies and rolled ornaments have long since taken the
place of chased ornamentations in the cheaper kinds of plated works.
(See EMBOSSING.)

CHASLES, VICTOR EUPHÉMIEN PHILARÈTE (1798-1873), French critic and man
of letters, was born at Mainvilliers (Eure et Loir) on the 8th of
October 1798. His father, Pierre Jacques Michel Chasles (1754-1826), was
a member of the Convention, and was one of those who voted the death of
Louis XVI. He brought up his son according to the principles of
Rousseau's _Émile_, and the boy, after a régime of outdoor life,
followed by some years' classical study, was apprenticed to a printer,
so that he might make acquaintance with manual labour. His master was
involved in one of the plots of 1815, and Philarète suffered two months'
imprisonment. On his release he was sent to London, where he worked for
the printer Valpy on editions of classical authors. He wrote articles
for the English reviews, and on his return to France did much to
popularize the study of English authors. He was also one of the earliest
to draw attention in France to Scandinavian and Russian literature. He
contributed to the _Revue des deux mondes_, until he had a violent
quarrel, terminating in a lawsuit, with François Buloz, who won his
case. He became librarian of the Bibliothèque Mazarine, and from 1841
was professor of comparative literature at the Collège de France. During
his active life he produced some fifty volumes of literary history and
criticism, and of social history, much of which is extremely valuable.
He died at Venice on the 18th of July 1873. His son, Émile Chasles (b.
1827), was a philologist of some reputation.

Among his best critical works is _Dix-huitième Siècle en Angleterre_
... (1846), one of a series of 20 vols. of _Études de littérature
comparée_ (1846-1875), which he called later _Trente ans de critique_.
An account of his strenuous boyhood is given in his _Maison de mon
père_. His _Mémoires_ (1876-1877) did not fulfil the expectations
based on his brilliant talk.

CHASSE (from the Fr., in full _chasse-café_, or "coffee-chaser"), a
draught of spirit or liqueur, taken with or after coffee, &c.

CHASSÉ (Fr. for "chased"), a gliding step in dancing, so called since
one foot is brought up behind or chases the other. The _chassé croisé_
is a double variety of the step.

CHASSELOUP-LAUBAT, FRANÇOIS, MARQUIS DE (1754-1833), French general and
military engineer, was born at St Sernin (Lower Charente) on the 18th of
August 1754, of a noble family, and entered the French engineers in
1774. He was still a subaltern at the outbreak of the Revolution,
becoming captain in 1791. His ability as a military engineer was
recognized in the campaigns of 1792 and 1793. In the following year he
won distinction in various actions and was promoted successively _chef
de bataillon_ and colonel. He was chief of engineers at the siege of
Mainz in 1796, after which he was sent to Italy. He there conducted the
first siege of Mantua, and reconnoitred the positions and lines of
advance of the army of Bonaparte. He was promoted general of brigade
before the close of the campaign, and was subsequently employed in
fortifying the new Rhine frontier of France. His work as chief of
engineers in the army of Italy (1799) was conspicuously successful, and
after the battle of Novi he was made general of division. When Napoleon
took the field in 1800 to retrieve the disasters of 1799, he again
selected Chasseloup as his engineer general. During the peace of
1801-1805 he was chiefly employed in reconstructing the defences of
northern Italy, and in particular the afterwards famous Quadrilateral.
His _chef-d'oeuvre_ was the great fortress of Alessandria on the Tanaro.
In 1805 he remained in Italy with Masséna, but at the end of 1806
Napoleon, then engaged in the Polish campaign, called him to the _Grande
Armée_, with which he served in the campaign of 1806-07, directing the
sieges of Colberg, Danzig and Stralsund. During the Napoleonic
domination in Germany, Chasseloup reconstructed many fortresses, in
particular Magdeburg. In the campaign of 1809 he again served in Italy.
In 1810 Napoleon made him a councillor of state. His last campaign was
that of 1812 in Russia. He retired from active service soon afterwards,
though in 1814 he was occasionally engaged in the inspection and
construction of fortifications. Louis XVIII. made him a peer of France
and a knight of St Louis. He refused to join Napoleon in the Hundred
Days, but after the second Restoration he voted in the chamber of peers
against the condemnation of Marshal Ney. In politics he belonged to the
constitutional party. The king created him a marquis. Chasseloup's later
years were employed chiefly in putting in order his manuscripts, a task
which he had to abandon owing to the failure of his sight. His only
published work was _Correspondence d'un général français, &c. sur divers
sujets_ (Paris, 1801, republished Milan, 1805 and 1811, under the title
_Correspondance de deux générals, &c., essais sur quelques parties
d'artillerie et de fortification_). The most important of his papers are
in manuscript in the Depôt of Fortifications, Paris.

As an engineer Chasseloup was an adherent, though of advanced views, of
the old bastioned system. He followed in many respects the engineer
Bousmard, whose work was published in 1797 and who fell, as a Prussian
officer, in the defence of Danzig in 1807 against Chasseloup's own
attack. His front was applied to Alessandria, as has been stated, and
contains many elaborations of the bastion trace, with, in particular,
masked flanks in the tenaille, which served as extra flanks of the
bastions. The bastion itself was carefully and minutely retrenched. The
ordinary ravelin he replaced by a heavy casemated caponier after the
example of Montalembert, and, like Bousmard's, his own ravelin was a
large and powerful work pushed out beyond the glacis.

CHASSEPOT, officially "fusil modèle 1866," a military breech-loading
rifle, famous as the arm of the French forces in the Franco-German War
of 1870-71. It was so called after its inventor, Antoine Alphonse
Chassepot (1833-1905), who, from 1857 onwards, had constructed various
experimental forms of breech-loader, and it became the French service
weapon in 1866. In the following year it made its first appearance on
the battle-field at Mentana (November 3rd, 1867), where it inflicted
severe losses upon Garibaldi's troops. In the war of 1870 it proved very
greatly superior to the German needle-gun. The breech was closed by a
bolt very similar to those of more modern rifles, and amongst the
technical features of interest were the method of obturation, which was
similar in principle to the de Bange obturator for heavy guns (see
ORDNANCE), and the retention of the paper cartridge. The principal
details of the chassepot are:--weight of rifle, 9 lb. 5 oz.; length with
bayonet, 6 ft. 2 in.; calibre, .433 in.; weight of bullet (lead), 386
grains; weight of charge (black powder), 86.4 grains; muzzle velocity,
1328 f.s.; sighted to 1312 yds. (1200 m.). The chassepot was replaced in
1874 by the Gras rifle, which had a metal cartridge, and all rifles of
the older model remaining in store were converted to take the same
ammunition (fusil modèle 1866/74).

CHASSÉSRIAU, THÉODORE (1819-1856), French painter, was born in the
Antilles, and studied under Ingres at Paris and at Rome, subsequently
falling under the influence of Paul Delaroche. He was a well-known
painter of portraits and historical pieces, his "Tepidarium at Pompeii"
(1853) being now in the Louvre.

CHASSIS (Fr. _châssis_, a frame, from the Late. Lat. _capsum_, an
enclosed space), properly a window-frame, from which is derived the word
"sash"; also the movable traversing frame of a gun, and more
particularly that part of a motor vehicle consisting of the wheels,
frame and machinery, on which the body or carriage part rests.

CHASTELARD, PIERRE DE BOCSOZEL DE (1540-1563), French poet, was born in
Dauphiné, a scion of the house of Bayard. His name is inseparably
connected with Mary, queen of Scots. From the service of the Constable
Montmorency, Chastelard, then a page, passed to the household of Marshal
Damville, whom he accompanied in his journey to Scotland in escort of
Mary (1561). He returned to Paris in the marshal's train, but left for
Scotland again shortly afterward, bearing letters of recommendation to
Mary from his old protector, Montmorency, and the _Regrets_ addressed to
the ex-queen of France by Pierre Ronsard, his master in the art of song.
He undertook to transmit to the poet the service of plate with which
Mary rewarded him. But he had fallen in love with the queen, who is said
to have encouraged his passion. Copies of verse passed between them; she
lost no occasion of showing herself partial to his person and
conversation. The young man hid himself under her bed, where he was
discovered by her maids of honour. Mary pardoned the offence, and the
old familiar terms between them were resumed. Chastelard was so rash as
again to violate her privacy. He was discovered a second time, seized,
sentenced and hanged the next morning. He met his fate valiantly and
consistently, reading, on his way to the scaffold, his master's noble
_Hymne de la mort_, and turning at the instant of doom towards the
palace of Holyrood, to address to his unseen mistress the famous
farewell--"Adieu, toi si belle et si cruelle, qui me tues et que je ne
puis cesser d'aimer." This at least is the version of the _Mémoires_ of
Brantôme, who is, however, notoriously untrustworthy. But for his
madness of love, it is possible that Chastelard would have left no
shadow or shred of himself behind. As it is, his life and death are of
interest as illustrating the wild days in which his lot was cast.

CHASTELLAIN, GEORGES (d. 1475), Burgundian chronicler, was a native of
Alost in Flanders. He derived his surname from the fact that his
ancestors were burgraves or châtelains of the town; his parents, who
belonged to illustrious Flemish families, were probably the Jean
Chastellain and his wife Marie de Masmines mentioned in the town records
in 1425 and 1432. A copy of an epitaph originally at Valenciennes states
that he died on the 20th of March 1474-5 aged seventy. But since he
states that he was so young a child in 1430 that he could not recollect
the details of events in that year, and since he was "_écolier_" at
Louvain in 1430, his birth may probably be placed nearer 1415 than 1405.
He saw active service in the Anglo-French wars and probably elsewhere,
winning the surname of _L'adventureux_. In 1434 he received a gift from
Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, for his military services, but on the
conclusion of the peace of Arras in the next year he abandoned
soldiering for diplomacy. The next ten years were spent in France, where
he was connected with Georges de la Trémoille, and afterwards entered
the household of Pierre de Brézé, at that time seneschal of Poitou, by
whom he was employed on missions to the duke of Burgundy, in an attempt
to establish better relations between Charles VII. and the duke. During
these years Chastellain had ample opportunity of obtaining an intimate
knowledge of French affairs, but on the further breach between the two
princes, Chastellain left the French service to enter Philip's
household. He was at first pantler, then carver, titles which are
misleading as to the nature of his services, which were those of a
diplomatist; and in 1457 he became a member of the ducal council. He was
continually employed on diplomatic errands until 1455, when, owing
apparently to ill-health, he received apartments in the palace of the
counts of Hainaut at Salle-le-Comte, Valenciennes, with a considerable
pension, on condition that the recipient should put in writing "_choses
nouvelles et morales_," and a chronicle of notable events. That is to
say, he was appointed Burgundian historiographer with a recommendation
to write also on other subjects not strictly within the scope of a
chronicler. From this time he worked hard at his _Chronique_, with
occasional interruptions in his retreat to fulfil missions in France, or
to visit the Burgundian court. He was assisted, from about 1463 onwards,
by his disciple and continuator, Jean Molinet, whose rhetorical and
redundant style may be fairly traced in some passages of the
_Chronique_. Charles the Bold maintained the traditions of his house as
a patron of literature, and showed special favour to Chastellain, who,
after being constituted _indiciaire_ or chronicler of the order of the
Golden Fleece, was himself made a knight of the order on the 2nd of May
1473. He died at Valenciennes on the 13th of February (according to the
treasury accounts), or on the 20th of March (according to his epitaph)
1475. He left an illegitimate son, to whom was paid in 1524 one hundred
and twenty livres for a copy of the _Chronique_ intended for Charles
V.'s sister Mary, queen of Hungary. Only about one-third of the whole
work, which extended from 1410 to 1474, is known to be in existence, but
MSS. carried by the Habsburgs to Vienna or Madrid may possibly yet be
discovered.

Among his contemporaries Chastellain acquired a great reputation by his
poems and occasional pieces now little considered. The unfinished state
of his _Chronique_ at the time of his death, coupled with political
considerations, may possibly account for the fact that it remained
unprinted during the century that followed his death, and his historical
work was only disinterred from the libraries of Arras, Paris and
Brussels by the painstaking researches of M. Buchon in 1825. Chastellain
was constantly engaged during the earlier part of his career in
negotiations between the French and Burgundian courts, and thus had
personal knowledge of the persons and events dealt with in his history.
A partisan element in writing of French affairs was inevitable in a
Burgundian chronicle. This defect appears most strongly in his treatment
of Joan of Arc; and the attack on Agnes Sorel seems to have been
dictated by the dauphin (afterwards Louis XI.), then a refugee in
Burgundy, of whom he was afterwards to become a severe critic. He was
not, however, misled, as his more picturesque predecessor Froissart had
been, by feudal and chivalric tradition into misconception of the
radical injustice of the English cause in France; and except in isolated
instances where Burgundian interests were at stake, he did full justice
to the patriotism of Frenchmen. Among his most sympathetic portraits are
those of his friend Pierre de Brézé and of Jacques Coeur. His French
style, based partly on his Latin reading, has, together with its
undeniable vigour and picturesqueness, the characteristic redundance and
rhetorical quality of the Burgundian school. Chastellain was no mere
annalist, but proposed to fuse and shape his vast material to his own
conclusions, in accordance with his political experience. The most
interesting feature of his work is the skill with which he pictures the
leading figures of his time. His "characters" are the fruit of acute and
experienced observation, and abound in satirical traits, although the
42nd chapter of his second book, devoted expressly to portraiture, is
headed "_Comment Georges escrit et mentionne les louanges vertueuses des
princes de son temps._"

The known extant fragments of Chastellain's _Chroniques_ with his
other works were edited by Kervyn de Lettenhove for the Brussels
Academy in 1863-1866 (8 vols., Brussels) as _OEuvres de Georges
Chastellain_. This edition includes all that had been already
published by Buchon in his _Collection de chroniques_ and _Choix de
chroniques_ (material subsequently incorporated in the _Panthéon
littéraire_), and portions printed by Renard in his _Trésor national_,
vol. i. and by Quicherat in the _Procès de la Pucelle_ vol. iv. Kervyn
de Lettenhove's text includes the portions of the chronicle covering
the periods September 1419, October 1422, January 1430 to December
1431, 1451-1452, July 1454 to October 1458, July 1461 to July 1463,
and, with omissions, June 1467 to September 1470; and three volumes of
minor pieces of considerable interest, especially _Le Temple de
Boccace_, dedicated to Margaret of Anjou, and the _Déprécation_ for
Pierre Brézé, imprisoned by Louis XI. In the case of these minor works
the attribution to Chastellain is in some cases erroneous, notably in
the case of the _Livre des faits de Jacques de Lalain_, which is the
work of Lefèbvre de Saint-Remi, herald of the Golden Fleece. In the
allegorical _Oultré d'amour_ it has been thought a real romance
between Brézé and a lady of the royal house is concealed.

See A. Molinier, _Les Sources de l'histoire de France_; as well as
notices by Kervyn de Lettenhove prefixed to the _OEuvres_ and in the
_Biographie nationale de Belgique_; and an article (three parts) by
Vallet de Viriville in the _Journal des savants_ (1867).

CHASUBLE (Fr. _chasuble_, Ger. _Kasel_, Span. _casulla_; Late Lat.
_casula_, a little house, hut, from _casa_), a liturgical vestment of
the Catholic Church. It is the outermost garment worn by bishops and
priests at the celebration of the Mass, forming with the alb (q.v.) the
most essential part of the eucharistic vestments. Since it is only used
at the Mass, or rarely for functions intimately connected with the
sacrament of the altar, it may be regarded as the Mass vestment _par
excellence_. The chasuble is thus in a special sense the sacerdotal
vestment, and at the ordination of priests, according to the Roman rite,
the bishop places on the candidate a chasuble rolled up at the back
(_planeta plicata_), with the words, "Take the sacerdotal robe, the
symbol of love," &c.; at the end of the ordination Mass the vestment is
unrolled. The chasuble or _planeta_ (as it is called in the Roman
missal), according to the prevailing model in the Roman Catholic Church,
is a scapular-like cloak, with a hole in the middle for the head,
falling down over breast and back, and leaving the arms uncovered at the
sides. Its shape and size, however, differ considerably in various
countries (see fig. 1), while some churches--e.g. those of certain
monastic orders--have retained or reverted to the earlier "Gothic" forms
to be described later. According to the decisions of the Congregation of
Rites chasubles must not be of linen, cotton or woollen stuffs, but of
silk; though a mixture of wool (or linen and cotton) and silk is allowed
if the silk completely cover the other material on the outer side; spun
glass thread, as a substitute for gold or silver thread, is also
forbidden, owing to the possible danger to the priest's health through
broken fragments falling into the chalice.

[Illustration: From Braun's _Liturgische Gewandung_, by permission of
the publisher, B. Herder.

FIG. 1.--Comparative shape and size of Chasubles as now in use in
various countries.

a, b, German. c, Roman. d, Spanish.]

The chasuble, like the kindred vestments (the [Greek: phelonion], &c.)
in the Eastern Churches, is derived from the Roman _paenula_ or
_planeta_, a cloak worn by all classes and both sexes in the
Graeco-Roman world (see VESTMENTS). Though early used in the celebration
of the liturgy it had for several centuries no specifically liturgical
character, the first clear instances of its ritual use being in a letter
of St Germanus of Paris (d. 576), and the next in the twenty-eighth
canon of the Council of Toledo (633). Much later than this, however, it
was still an article of everyday clerical dress, and as such was
prescribed by the German council convened by Carloman and presided over
by St Boniface in 742. Amalarius of Metz, in his _De ecclesiasticis
officiis_ (ii. 19), tells us in 816 that the _casula_ is the _generale
indumentum sacrorum ducum_ and "is proper generally to all the clergy."
It was not until the 11th century, when the cope (q.v.) had become
established as a liturgical vestment, that the chasuble began to be
reserved as special to the sacrifice of the Mass. As illustrating this
process Father Braun (p. 170) cites an interesting correspondence
between Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury and John of Avranches,
archbishop of Rouen, as to the propriety of a bishop wearing a chasuble
at the consecration of a church, Lanfranc maintaining as an established
principle that the vestment should be reserved for the Mass. By the 13th
century, with the final development of the ritual of the Mass, the
chasuble became definitely fixed as the vestment of the celebrating
priest; though to this day in the Roman Church relics of the earlier
general use of the chasuble survive in the _planeta plicata_ worn by
deacons and subdeacons in Lent and Advent, and other penitential
seasons.

At the Reformation the chasuble was rejected with the other vestments by
the more extreme Protestants. Its use, however, survived in the Lutheran
churches; and though in those of Germany it is no longer worn, it still
forms part of the liturgical costume of the Scandinavian Evangelical
churches. In the Church of England, though it was prescribed
alternatively with the cope in the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI., it
was ultimately discarded, with the other "Mass vestments," the cope
being substituted for it at the celebration of the Holy Communion in
cathedral and collegiate churches; its use has, however, during the last
fifty years been widely revived in connexion with the reactionary
movement in the direction of the pre-Reformation doctrine of the
eucharist. The difficult question of its legality is discussed in the
article VESTMENTS.

_Form._--The chasuble was originally a tent-like robe which fell in
loose folds below the knee (see Plate I. fig. 4). Its obvious
inconvenience for celebrating the holy mysteries, however, caused its
gradual modification. The object of the change was primarily to leave
the hands of the celebrant freer for the careful performance of the
manual acts, and to this end a process of cutting away at the sides of
the vestment began, which continued until the tent-shaped chasuble of
the 12th century had developed in the 16th into the scapular-like
vestment at present in use. This process was, moreover, hastened by the
substitution of costly and elaborately embroidered materials for the
simple stuffs of which the vestment had originally been composed; for,
as it became heavier and stiffer, it necessarily had to be made smaller.
For the extremely exiguous proportions of some chasubles actually in
use, which have been robbed of all the beauty of form they ever
possessed, less respectable motives have sometimes been responsible,
viz. the desire of their makers to save on the materials. The most
beautiful form of the chasuble is undoubtedly the "Gothic" (see the
figure of Bishop Johannes of Lübeck in the article VESTMENTS), which is
the form most affected by the Anglican clergy, as being that worn in the
English Church before the Reformation.

_Decoration._--Though _planetae_ decorated with narrow orphreys are
occasionally met with in the monuments of the early centuries, these
vestments were until the 10th century generally quite plain, and even at
the close of this century, when the custom of decorating the chasuble
with orphreys had become common, there was no definite rule as to their
disposition; sometimes they were merely embroidered borders to the
neck-opening or hem, sometimes a vertical strip down the back, less
often a forked cross, the arms of which turned upwards over the
shoulders. From this time onward, however, the embroidery became ever
more and more elaborate, and with this tendency the orphreys were
broadened to allow of their being decorated with figures. About the
middle of the 13th century, the cross with horizontal arms begins to
appear on the back of the vestment, and by the 15th this had become the
most usual form, though the forked cross also survived--e.g. in England,
where it is now considered distinctive of the chasuble as worn in the
Anglican Church. Where the forked cross is used it is placed both on the
back and front of the vestment; the horizontal-armed cross, on the other
hand, is placed only on the back, the front being decorated with a
vertical strip extending to the lower hem (fig. 1, b, d). Sometimes
the back of the chasuble has no cross, but only a vertical orphrey, and
in this case the front, besides the vertical stripe, has a horizontal
orphrey just below the neck opening (see Plate I. fig. 2). This latter
is the type used in the local Roman Church, which has been adopted in
certain dioceses in South Germany and Switzerland, and of late years in
the Roman Catholic churches in England, e.g. Westminster cathedral (see
Plate I. figs. 3 and 5).

[Illustration PLATE I.

FIG. 2.--Chasuble of Pope Calixtus III. (15th century) preserved at
Valencia.

From a photograph by Father J.L. Braun in _Die liturg Gewandung_, by
permission of the publisher, B. Herder.

FIG. 3.--Chasuble of Pope Pius V. (late 15th century) at S. Maria
Maggiore at Rome.

From a photograph by Father J.L. Braun in _Die liturg Gewandung_.

FIG. 4.--Chasuble dedicated by Stephen of Hungary (997-1038) and his
wife Gisela, used as the Hungarian Coronation Robe.

(From Braun, _Die liturg. Gewandung_.)

FIG. 5.--Modern Roman Chasuble of Archbishop Bourne of Westminster.

FIG. 6.--Modern English Chasuble, used at St Paul's Church,
Knightsbridge, London.]

[Illustration PLATE II.

FIG. 7.--Back of a Chasuble of Italian Brocaded Damask (Red) with
Embroidered Orphreys. The Vestment is of the early 16th century, the
Orphreys of the late 14th century. (English. In the Victoria and
Albert Museum.)]

It has been widely held that the forked cross was a conscious imitation
of the archiepiscopal pallium (F. Bock, _Gesch. der liturg. Gewänder_,
ii. 107), and that the chasuble so decorated is proper to archbishops.
Father Braun, however, makes it quite clear that this was not the case,
and gives proof that this decoration was not even originally conceived
as a cross at all, citing early instances of its having been worn by
laymen and even by non-Christians (p. 210). It was not until the 13th
century that the symbolical meaning of the cross began to be elaborated,
and this was still further accentuated from the 14th century onward by
the increasingly widespread custom of adding to it the figure of the
crucified Christ and other symbols of the Passion. This, however, did
not represent any definite rule; and the orphreys of chasubles were
decorated with a great variety of pictorial subjects, scriptural or
drawn from the stories of the saints, while the rest of the vestment was
either left plain or, if embroidered, most usually decorated with
arabesque patterns of foliage or animals. The local Roman Church, true
to its ancient traditions, adhered to the simpler forms. The modern
Roman chasuble pictured in Plate I. fig. 5, besides the conventional
arabesque pattern, is decorated, according to rule, with the arms of the
archbishop and his see.

_The Eastern Church._--The original equivalent of the chasuble is the
phelonion ([Greek: phelonion, phelonês, phainolion], from _paenula_). It
is a full vestment of the type of the Western bell chasuble; but,
instead of being cut away at the sides, it is for convenience' sake
either gathered up or cut short in front. In the Armenian, Syrian,
Chaldaean and Coptic rites it is cope-shaped. There is some difference
of opinion as to the derivation of the vestment in the latter case; the
Five Bishops (Report to Convocation, 1908) deriving it, like the cope,
from the _birrus_, while Father Braun considers it, as well as the cope,
to be a modification of the _paenula_.[1] The phelonion (Arm.
_shurtshar_, Syr. _phaina_, Chald. _maaphra_ or _phaina_, Copt, _burnos,
felonion, kuklion_) is confined to the priests in the Armenian, Syrian,
Chaldaean and Coptic rites; in the Greek rite it is worn also by the
lectors. It is not in the East so specifically a eucharistic vestment as
in the West, but is worn at other solemn functions besides the liturgy,
e.g. marriages, processions, &c.

Until the 11th century the phelonion is always pictured as a perfectly
plain dark robe, but at this period the custom arose of decorating the
patriarchal phelonion with a number of crosses, whence its name of
[Greek: polystaurion]. By the 14th century the use of these polystauria
had been extended to metropolitans and later still to all bishops. The
purple or black phelonion, however, remained plain in all cases. The
Greeks and Greek Melchite metropolitans now wear the _sakkos_ instead of
the phelonion; and in the Russian, Ruthenian, Bulgarian and Italo-Greek
churches this vestment has superseded the phelonion in the case of all
bishops (see DALMATIC and VESTMENTS).

See J. Braun, S.J., _Die liturgische Gewandung_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1907), pp. 149-247, and the bibliography to the article VESTMENTS.
(W. A. P.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The writer is indebted to the courtesy of Father Braun for the
following note:--"That the Syrian _phaina_ was formerly a closed
mantle of the type of the bell chasuble is clearly proved by the
evidence of the miniatures of a Syrian pontifical (dated 1239) in the
Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris (cf. Bild 16, 112, 284, in _Die
liturgische Gewandung_). The liturgical vestments of the Armenians
are derived, like their rite, from the Greek rite; so that in this
case also there can be no doubt that the _shurtshar_ was originally
closed. The Coptic rite is in the same relation to the Syrian.
Moreover, it would be further necessary to prove that the _birrus_,
in contradistinction to the _paenula_, was always open in front;
whereas, _per contra_, the _paenula_, both as worn by soldiers and in
ordinary life, was, like the modern Arab _burnus_, often slit up the
front to the neck. For the rest, it is obvious that if the Syrian
_phaina_ was still quite closed in the 13th century, and was only
provided with a slit since that time, the same is very probable in
the case of the Armenian chasuble. The absence of the hood might also
be taken as additional proof of the derivation of the _phaina_ from
the _paenula_, but I should not lay particular stress upon it. The
question is settled by the above-mentioned miniatures."

CHÂTEAU (from Lat. _castellum_, fortress, through O. Fr. _chastel,
chasteau_), the French word for castle (q.v.). The development of the
medieval castle, in the 15th and 16th centuries, into houses arranged
rather for residence than defence led to a corresponding widening of the
meaning of the term _château_, which came to be applied to any
seigniorial residence and so generally to all houses, especially country
houses, of any pretensions (cf. the Ger. _Schloss_). The French
distinguish the fortified castle from the residential mansion by
describing the former as the _château fort_, the latter as the _château
de plaisance_. The development of the one into the other is admirably
illustrated by surviving buildings in France, especially in the
_châteaux_ scattered along the Loire. Of these Langeais, still in
perfect preservation, is a fine type of the _château fort_, with its
10th-century keep and 13th-century walls. Amboise (1490), Blois
(1500-1540), Chambord (begun 1526), Chenonceaux (1515-1560),
Azay-le-Rideau (1521), may be taken as typical examples of the _château
de plaisance_ of the transition period, all retaining in greater or less
degree some of the architectural characteristics of the medieval castle.
Some description of these is given under their several headings. In
English the word _château_ is often used to translate foreign words
(e.g. _Schloss_) meaning country house or mansion.

For the Loire châteaux see Theodore Andrea Cook, _Old Touraine_
(1892).

CHATEAUBRIAND, FRANÇOIS RENÉ, VICOMTE DE (1768-1848), French author,
youngest son of René Auguste de Chateaubriand, comte de Combourg,[1] was
born at St Malo on the 4th of September 1768. He was a brilliant
representative of the reaction against the ideas of the French
Revolution, and the most conspicuous figure in French literature during
the First Empire. His naturally poetical temperament was fostered in
childhood by picturesque influences, the mysterious reserve of his
morose father, the ardent piety of his mother, the traditions of his
ancient family, the legends and antiquated customs of the sequestered
Breton district, above all, the vagueness and solemnity of the
neighbouring ocean. His closest friend was his sister Lucile,[2] a
passionate-hearted girl, divided between her devotion to him and to
religion. François received his education at Dol and Rennes, where Jean
Victor Moreau was among his fellow-students. From Rennes he proceeded to
the College of Dinan, and passed some years in desultory study in
preparation for the priesthood. He finally decided, after a year's
holiday at the family château of Combourg, that he had no vocation for
the Church, and was on the point of proceeding to try his fortune in
India when he received (1786) a commission in the army. After a short
visit to Paris he joined his regiment at Cambrai, and early in the
following year was presented at court. In 1788 he received the tonsure
in order to enter the order of the Knights of Malta. In Paris
(1787-1789) he made acquaintance with the Parisian men of letters. He
met la Harpe, Évariste Parny, "Pindare" Lebrun, Nicolas Chamfort, Pierre
Louis Ginguené, and others, of whom he has left portraits in his
memoirs.

Chateaubriand was not unfavourable to the Revolution in its first
stages, but he was disturbed by its early excesses; moreover, his
regiment was disbanded, and his family belonged to the party of
reaction. His political impartiality, he says, pleased no one. These
causes and the restlessness of his spirit induced him to take part in a
romantic scheme for the discovery of the North-West Passage, in
pursuance of which he departed for America in the spring of 1791. The
passage was not found or even attempted, but the adventurer returned
enriched with the--to him--more important discovery of his own powers
and vocation, conscious of his marvellous faculty for the delineation of
nature, and stored with the new ideas and new imagery, derived from
the virgin forests and magnificent scenery of the western continent.
That he actually lived among the Indians, however, is shown by Bedier to
be doubtful, and the same critic has exposed the untrustworthiness of
the autobiographical details of his American trip. His knowledge of
America was mainly derived from the books of Charlevoix and others.

The news of the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes in June 1791 recalled
him to France. In 1792 he married Mlle Céleste Buisson de Lavigne, a
girl of seventeen, who brought him a small fortune. This enabled him to
join the ranks of the emigrants, a course practically imposed on him by
his birth and his profession as a soldier. After the failure of the duke
of Brunswick's invasion he contrived to reach Brussels, where he was
left wounded and apparently dying in the street. His brother succeeded
in obtaining some shelter for him, and sent him to Jersey. The captain
of the boat in which he travelled left him on the beach in Guernsey. He
was once more rescued from death, this time by some fishermen. After
spending some time in the Channel Islands under the care of an emigrant
uncle, the comte de Bédée, he made his way to London. In England he
lived obscurely for several years, gaining an intimate acquaintance with
English literature and a practical acquaintance with poverty. His own
account of this period has been exposed by A. le Braz, _Au pays d'exil
de Chateaubriand_ (1909), and by E. Dick, _Revue d'histoire littéraire
de la France_ (1908), i. From his English exile dates the _Natchez_
(first printed in his _OEuvres complètes_, 1826-1831), a prose epic
designed to portray the life of the Red Indians. Two brilliant episodes
originally designed for this work, _Atala_ and _René_, are among his
most famous productions. Chateaubriand's first publication, however, was
the _Essai historique, politique et moral sur les révolutions_ ...
(London, 1797), which the author subsequently retracted, but took care
not to suppress. In this volume he appears as a mediator between
royalist and revolutionary ideas, a free-thinker in religion, and a
philosopher imbued with the spirit of Rousseau. A great change in his
views was, however, at hand, induced, according to his own statement, by
a letter from his sister Julie (Mme de Farcy), telling him of the grief
his views had caused his mother, who had died soon after her release
from the Conciergerie in the same year. His brother had perished on the
scaffold in April 1794, and both his sisters, Lucile and Julie, and his
wife had been imprisoned at Rennes. Mme de Farcy did not long survive
her imprisonment.

Chateaubriand's thoughts turned to religion, and on his return to France
in 1800 the _Génie du christianisme_ was already in an advanced state.
Louis de Fontanes had been a fellow-exile with Chateaubriand in London,
and he now introduced him to the society of Mme de Staël, Mme Récamier,
Benjamin Constant, Lucien Bonaparte and others. But Chateaubriand's
favourite resort was the salon of Pauline de Beaumont, who was destined
to fill a great place in his life, and gave him some help in the
preparation of his work on Christianity, part of the book being written
at her house at Savigny. _Atala, ou les amours de deux sauvages dans le
désert_, used as an episode in the _Génie du christianisme_, appeared
separately in 1801 and immediately made his reputation. Exquisite style,
impassioned eloquence and glowing descriptions of nature gained
indulgence for the incongruity between the rudeness of the personages
and the refinement of the sentiments, and for the distasteful blending
of prudery with sensuousness. Alike in its merits and defects the piece
is a more emphatic and highly coloured _Paul et Virginie_; it has been
justly said that Bernardin Saint-Pierre models in marble and
Chateaubriand in bronze. Encouraged by his success the author resumed
his _Génie du christianisme, ou beautés de la religion chrétienne_,
which appeared in 1802, just upon the eve of Napoleon's re-establishment
of the Catholic religion in France, for which it thus seemed almost to
have prepared the way. No coincidence could have been more opportune,
and Chateaubriand came to esteem himself the counterpart of Napoleon in
the intellectual order. In composing his work he had borne in mind the
admonition of his friend Joseph Joubert, that the public would care very
little for his erudition and very much for his eloquence. It is
consequently an inefficient production from the point of view of serious
argument. The considerations derived from natural theology are but
commonplaces rendered dazzling by the magic of style; and the parallels
between Christianity and antiquity, especially in arts and letters, are
at best ingenious sophistries. The less polemical passages, however,
where the author depicts the glories of the Catholic liturgy and its
accessories, or expounds its symbolical significance, are splendid
instances of the effect produced by the accumulation and judicious
distribution of particulars gorgeous in the mass, and treated with the
utmost refinement of detail. The work is a masterpiece of literary art,
and its influence in French literature was immense. The _Éloa_ of Alfred
de Vigny, the _Harmonies_ of Lamartine and even the _Légende des
siècles_ of Victor Hugo may be said to have been inspired by the _Génie
du christianisme_. Its immediate effect was very considerable. It
admirably subserved the statecraft of Napoleon, and Talleyrand in 1803
appointed the writer _attaché_ to the French legation at Rome, whither
he was followed by Mme de Beaumont, who died there.

When his insubordinate and intriguing spirit compelled his recall he was
transferred as envoy to the canton of the Valais. The murder of the duke
of Enghien (21st of March 1804) took place before he took up this
appointment. Chateaubriand, who was in Paris at the time, showed his
courage and independence by immediately resigning his post. In 1807 he
gave great offence to Napoleon by an article in the _Mercure de France_
(4th of July), containing allusions to Nero which were rightly taken to
refer to the emperor. The _Mercure_, of which he had become proprietor,
was temporarily suppressed, and was in the next year amalgamated with
the _Décade_. Chateaubriand states in his _Mémoires_ that his life was
threatened, but it is more than possible that he exaggerated the danger.
Before this, in 1806, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, undertaken, as
he subsequently acknowledged, less in a devotional spirit than in quest
of new imagery. He returned by way of Tunis, Carthage, Cadiz and
Granada. At Granada he met Mme de Mouchy, and the place and the meeting
apparently suggested the romantic tale of _Le Dernier Abencérage_,
which, for political reasons, remained unprinted until the publication
of the _OEuvres complètes_ (1826-1831). The journey also produced
_L'Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem_ ... (3 vols., 1811), a record of
travel distinguished by the writer's habitual picturesqueness; and
inspired his prose epic, _Les Martyrs, ou le triomphe de la religion
chrétienne_ (2 vols., 1809). This work may be regarded as the argument
of the _Génie du christianisme_ thrown into an objective form. As in the
_Epicurean_ of Thomas Moore, the professed design is the contrast
between Paganism and Christianity, which fails of its purpose partly
from the absence of real insight into the genius of antiquity, and
partly because the heathen are the most interesting characters after
all. _René_ had appeared in 1802 as an episode of the _Génie du
christianisme_, and was published separately at Leipzig without its
author's consent in the same year. It was perhaps Chateaubriand's most
characteristic production. The connecting link in European literature
between _Werther_ and _Childe Harold_, it paints the misery of a morbid
and dissatisfied soul. The representation is mainly from the life.
Chateaubriand betrayed amazing egotism in describing his sister Lucile
in the Amélie of the story, and much is obviously descriptive of his own
early surroundings. With _Les Natchez_ his career as an imaginative
writer is closed. In 1831 he published his _Études ou discours
historiques_ ... (4 vols.) dealing with the fall of the Roman Empire.

As a politician Chateaubriand was equally formidable to his antagonists
when in opposition and to his friends when in office. His poetical
receptivity and impressionableness rendered him no doubt honestly
inconsistent with himself; his vanity and ambition, too morbidly acute
to be restrained by the ties of party allegiance, made him dangerous and
untrustworthy as a political associate. He was forbidden to deliver the
address he had prepared (1811) for his reception to the Academy on M.J.
Chénier on account of the bitter allusions to Napoleon contained in it.
From this date until 1814 Chateaubriand lived in seclusion at the
Vallée-aux-loups, an estate he had bought in 1807 at Aulnay. His
pamphlet _De Bonaparte, des Bourbons, et de la nécessité de se rattier à
nos princes légitimes_, published on the 31st of March 1814, the day of
the entrance of the allies into Paris, was as opportune in the moment of
its appearance as the _Génie du christianisme_, and produced a hardly
less signal effect. Louis XVIII. declared that it had been worth a
hundred thousand men to him. Chateaubriand, as minister of the interior,
accompanied him to Ghent during the Hundred Days, and for a time
associated himself with the excesses of the royalist reaction. Political
bigotry, however, was not among his faults; he rapidly drifted into
liberalism and opposition, and was disgraced in September 1816 for his
pamphlet _De la monarchie selon la charte_. He had to sell his library
and his house of the Vallée-aux-loups.

After the fall of his opponent, the due Decazes, Chateaubriand obtained
the Berlin embassy (1821), from which he was transferred to London
(1822), and he also acted as French plenipotentiary at the Congress of
Verona (1822). He here made himself mainly responsible for the
iniquitous invasion of Spain--an expedition undertaken, as he himself
admits, with the idea of restoring French prestige by a military parade.
He next received the portfolio of foreign affairs, which he soon lost by
his desertion of his colleagues on the question of a reduction of the
interest on the national debt. After another interlude of effective
pamphleteering in opposition, he accepted the embassy to Rome in 1827,
under the Martignac administration, but resigned it at Prince Polignac's
accession to office. On the downfall of the elder branch of the
Bourbons, he made a brilliant but inevitably fruitless protest from the
tribune in defence of the principle of legitimacy. During the first half
of Louis Philippe's reign he was still politically active with his pen,
and published a _Mémoire sur la captivité de madame la duchesse de
Berry_ (1833) and other pamphlets in which he made himself the champion
of the exiled dynasty; but as years increased upon him, and the prospect
of his again performing a conspicuous part diminished, he relapsed into
an attitude of complete discouragement. His _Congrès de Vérone_ (1838),
_Vie de Rancé_ (1844), and his translation of Milton, _Le Paradis perdu
de Milton_ (1836), belong to the writings of these later days. He died
on the 4th of July 1848, wholly exhausted and thoroughly discontented
with himself and the world, but affectionately tended by his old friend
Madame Récamier, herself deprived of sight. For the last fifteen years
of his life he had been engaged on his _Mémoires_, and his chief
distraction had been his daily visit to Madame Récamier, at whose house
he met the European celebrities. He was buried in the Grand Bé, an islet
in the bay of St Malo. Shortly after his death his memory was revived,
and at the same time exposed to much adverse criticism, by the
publication, with sundry mutilations as has been suspected, of his
celebrated _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_ (12 vols., 1849-1850). These memoirs
undoubtedly reveal his vanity, his egotism, the frequent hollowness of
his professed convictions, and his incapacity for sincere attachment,
except, perhaps, in the case of Madame Récamier. Though the book must be
read with the greatest caution, especially in regard to persons with
whom Chateaubriand came into collision, it is perhaps now the most read
of all his works.

Chateaubriand ranks rather as a great rhetorician than as a great poet.
Something of affectation or unreality commonly interferes with the
enjoyment of his finest works. The _Génie du christianisme_ is a
brilliant piece of special pleading; _Atala_ is marred by its
unfaithfulness to the truth of uncivilized human nature, _René_ by the
perversion of sentiment which solicits sympathy for a contemptible
character. Chateaubriand is chiefly significant as marking the
transition from the old classical to the modern romantic school. The
fertility of ideas, vehemence of expression and luxury of natural
description, which he shares with the romanticists, are controlled by a
discipline learnt in the school of their predecessors. His palette,
always brilliant, is never gaudy; he is not merely a painter but an
artist. He is also a master of epigrammatic and incisive sayings.
Perhaps, however, the most truly characteristic feature of his genius is
the peculiar magical touch which Matthew Arnold indicated as a note of
Celtic extraction, which reveals some occult quality in a familiar
object, or tinges it, one knows not how, with "the light that never was
on sea or land." This incommunicable gift supplies an element of
sincerity to Chateaubriand's writings which goes far to redeem the
artificial effect of his calculated sophistry and set declamation. It is
also fortunate for his fame that so large a part of his writings should
directly or indirectly refer to himself, for on this theme he always
writes well. Egotism was his master-passion, and beyond his intrepidity
and the loftiness of his intellectual carriage his character presents
little to admire. He is a signal instance of the compatibility of
genuine poetic emotion, of sympathy with the grander aspects both of man
and nature, and of munificence in pecuniary matters, with absorption in
self and general sterility of heart.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The _OEuvres complétes_ of Chateaubriand were printed
in 28 vols., 1826-1831; in 20 vols., 1829-1831; and in many later
editions, notably in 1858-1861, in 20 volumes, with an introductory
study by Sainte-Beuve. The principal authority for Chateaubriand's
biography is the _Mémoires d'outre-tombe_ (1849-1850), of which there
is an English translation, _The Memoirs of ... Chateaubriand_ (6
vols., 1902), by A. Teixeira de Mattos, based on the admirable edition
(4 vols., 1899-1901) of Edmond Biré. This work should be supplemented
by the _Souvenirs et correspondances tirés des papiers de Mme
Récamier_ (2 vols., 1859, ed. Mme Ch. Lenormant). See also Comte de
Marcellus, _Chateaubriand et son temps_ (1859); the same editor's
_Souvenirs diplomatiques; correspondance intime de Chateaubriand_
(1858); C.A. Sainte-Beuve, _Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire
sous l'empire_ (2 vols., 1861, new and revised ed., 3 vols., 1872);
other articles by Sainte-Beuve, who was in this case a somewhat
prejudiced critic, in the _Portraits contemporains_, vols. i. and ii.;
_Causeries du lundi_, vols. i., ii. and x.; _Nouveaux Lundis_, vol.
iii.; _Premiers Lundis_, vol. iii.; A. Vinet, _Études sur la litt.
française au XIXe siècle_ (1849); M. de Lescure, _Chateaubriand_
(1892) in the _Grands écrivains français_; Émile Faguet, _Études
littéraires sur le XIXe siècle_ (1887); and _Essai d'une
bio-bibliographie de Chateaubriand et de sa famille_ (Vannes, 1896),
by René Kerviler. Joseph Bedier, in _Études critiques_ (1903), deals
with the American writings. Some correspondence with Sainte-Beuve was
edited by Louis Thomas in 1904, and some letters to Mme de Staël
appeared in the _Revue des deux mondes_ (Oct. 1903).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For full details of the Chateaubriand family see R. Kerviler,
_Essai d'une bio-bibliographie de Chateaubriand et de sa famille_
(Vannes, 1895).

[2] Her _OEuvres_ were edited in 1879, with a memoir, by Anatole
France.

CHÂTEAUBRIANT, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in
the department of Loire-Inférieure, on the left bank of the Chère, 40 m.
N.N.E. of Nantes by rail. Pop. (1906) 5969. Châteaubriant takes its name
from a castle founded in the 11th century by Brient, count of
Penthièvre, remains of which, consisting of a square donjon and four
towers, still exist. Adjoining it is another castle, built in the first
half of the 16th century by Jean de Laval, and famous in history as the
residence of Françoise de Foix, mistress of Francis I. Of this the most
beautiful feature is the colonnade running at right angles to the main
building, and connecting it with a graceful pavilion. It is occupied by
a small museum and some of the public offices. There is also an
interesting Romanesque church dedicated to St Jean de Béré.
Châteaubriant is the seat of a subprefect and has a tribunal of first
instance. It is an important centre on the Ouest-État railway, and has
trade in agricultural products. The manufacture of leather, agricultural
implements and preserved angelica are carried on. In 1551 Henry II.
signed an edict against the reformed religion at Châteaubriant.

CHÂTEAUDUN, a town of north central France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Eure-et-Loir, 28 m. S.S.W. of Chartres by rail.
Pop. (1906) 5805. It stands on an eminence near the left bank of the
Loire. The streets, which are straight and regular, radiate from a
central square, a uniformity due to the reconstruction of the town after
fires in 1723 and 1870. The château, the most remarkable building in the
town, was built in great part by Jean, count of Dunois, and his
descendants. Founded in the 10th century, and rebuilt in the 12th and
15th centuries, it consists of a principal wing with a fine staircase of
the 16th century, and, at right angles, a smaller wing adjoined by a
chapel. To the left of the courtyard thus formed rises a lofty keep of
the 12th century. The fine apartments and huge kitchens of the château
are in keeping with its imposing exterior. The church of La Madeleine
dates from the 12th century; the buildings of the abbey to which it
belonged are occupied by the subprefecture, the law court and the
hospital. The medieval churches of St Valérien and St Jean and the
ruined chapel of Notre-Dame du Champdé, of which the façade in the
Renaissance style now forms the entrance to the cemetery, are other
notable buildings. The public institutions include a tribunal of first
instance and a communal college. Flour-milling, tanning and
leather-dressing, and the manufacture of blankets, silver jewelry, nails
and machinery are the prominent industries. Trade is in cattle, grain,
wool and hemp. Châteaudun (_Castrodunum_), which dates from the
Gallo-Roman period, was in the middle ages the capital of the countship
of Dunois.

CHÂTEAU-GONTIER, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Mayenne, on the Mayenne, 18 m. S. by E. of Laval by
road. Pop. (1906) 6871. Of its churches, that of St Jean, a relic of the
castle, dates from the 11th century. Château-Gontier is the seat of a
subprefect and has a tribunal of first instance, a communal college for
boys and a small museum. It carries on wool- and cotton-spinning, the
manufacture of serge, flannel and oil, and is an agricultural market.
There are chalybeate springs close to the town. Château-Gontier owes its
origin and its name to a castle erected in the first half of the 11th
century by Gunther, the steward of Fulk Nerra of Anjou, on the site of a
farm belonging to the monks of St Aubin d'Angers. On the extinction of
the family, the lordship was assigned by Louis XI. to Philippe de
Comines. The town suffered severely during the wars of the League. In
1793 it was occupied by the Vendeans.

CHÂTEAUNEUF, LA BELLE, the name popularly given to RENÉE DE RIEUX,
daughter of Jean de Rieux, seigneur de Châteauneuf, who was descended
from one of the greatest families of Brittany. The dates both of her
birth and death are not known. She was maid of honour to the
queen-mother Catherine de' Medici, and inspired an ardent passion in the
duke of Anjou, brother of Charles IX. This intrigue deterred the duke
from the marriage which it was desired to arrange for him with Elizabeth
of England; but he soon abandoned La Belle Châteauneuf for Marie of
Cleves (1571). The court then wished to find a husband for Renee de
Rieux, whose singular beauty gave her an influence which the
queen-mother feared, and matches were in turn suggested with the voivode
of Transylvania, the earl of Leicester, with Du Prat, provost of Paris,
and with the count of Brienne, all of which came to nothing. Ultimately,
on the ground that she had been lacking in respect towards the queen,
Louise of Lorraine-Vaudémont, Renée was banished from the court. She
married a Florentine named Antinotti, whom she stabbed in a fit of
jealousy (1577); then she remarried, her husband being Philip Altoviti,
who in 1586 was killed in a duel by the Grand Prior Henry of Angoulême,
who was himself mortally wounded.

CHÂTEAU-RENAULT, FRANÇOIS LOUIS DE ROUSSELET, MARQUIS DE (1637-1716),
French admiral, was the fourth son of the third marquis of
Château-Renault. The family was of Breton origin, but had been long
settled near Blois. He entered the army in 1658, but in 1661 was
transferred to the navy, which Louis XIV. was eager to raise to a high
level of strength. After a short apprenticeship he was made captain in
1666. His early services were mostly performed in cruises against the
Barbary pirates (1672). In 1673 he was named _chef d'escadre_, and he
was promoted _lieutenant général des armées navales_ in 1687. During the
wars up to this date he had few chances of distinction, but he had been
wounded in action with the pirates, and had been on a cruise to the West
Indies. When war broke out between England and France after the
revolution of 1688, he was in command at Brest, and was chosen to carry
the troops and stores sent by the French king to the aid of James II. in
Ireland. Although he was watched by Admiral Herbert (Lord Torrington,
q.v.), with whom he fought an indecisive action in Bantry Bay, he
executed his mission with success. Château-Renault commanded a squadron
under Tourville at the battle of Beachy Head in 1690. He was with
Tourville in the attack of the Smyrna convoy in 1693, and was named
grand cross of the order of Saint Louis in the same year. Though in
constant service, the reduced state of the French navy (owing to the
financial embarrassments of the treasury) gave him few openings for
fighting at sea during the rest of the war.

On the death of Tourville in 1701 he was named to the vacant post of
vice-admiral of France. On the outbreak of the War of the Spanish
Succession he was named for the difficult task of protecting the Spanish
ships which were to bring the treasure from America. It was a duty of
extreme delicacy, for the Spaniards were unwilling to obey a foreigner,
and the French king was anxious that the bullion should be brought to
one of his own ports, a scheme which the Spanish officials were sure to
resent if they were allowed to discover what was meant. With the utmost
difficulty Château-Renault was able to bring the galleons as far as
Vigo, to which port he steered when he learnt that a powerful English
and Dutch armament was on the Spanish coast, and had to recognize that
the Spanish officers would not consent to make for a French harbour or
for Passages, which they thought too near France. His fleet of fifteen
French and three Spanish war-ships, having under their care twelve
galleons, had anchored on the 22nd of September in Vigo Bay. Obstacles,
some of an official character, and others due to the poverty of the
Spanish government in resources, arose to delay the landing of the
treasure. There was no adequate garrison in the town, and the local
militia was untrustworthy. Knowing that he would probably be attacked,
Château-Renault strove to protect his fleet by means of a boom. The
order to land the treasure was delayed, and until it came from Madrid
nothing could be done, since according to law it should have been landed
at Cadiz, which had a monopoly of the trade with America. At last the
order came, and the bullion was landed under the care of the Gallician
militia which was ordered to escort it to Lugo. A very large part, if
not the whole, was plundered by the militiamen and the farmers whose
carts had been commandeered for the service. But the bulk of the
merchandise was on board of the galleons when the allied fleet appeared
outside of the bay on the 22nd of October 1702. Sir George Rooke and his
colleagues resolved to attack. The fleet was carrying a body of troops
which had been sent out to make a landing at Cadiz, and had been beaten
off. The fortifications of Vigo were weak on the sea side, and on the
land side there were none. There was therefore nothing to offer a
serious resistance to the allies when they landed soldiers. The fleet of
twenty-four sail was steered at the boom and broke through it, while the
troops turned the forts and had no difficulty in scattering the
Gallician militia. In the bay the action was utterly disastrous to the
French and Spaniards. Their ships were all taken or destroyed. The booty
gained was far less than the allies hoped, but the damage done to the
French and Spanish governments was great.

Château-Renault suffered no loss of his master's favour by his failure
to save the treasure. The king considered him free from blame, and must
indeed have known that the admiral had been trusted with too many
secrets to make it safe to inflict a public rebuke. The Spanish
government declined to give him the rank of grandee which was to have
been the reward for bringing home the bullion safe. But in 1703 he was
made a marshal of France, and shortly afterwards lieutenant-general of
Brittany. The fight in Vigo Bay was the last piece of active service
performed by Château-Renault. In 1708 on the death of his nephew he
inherited the marquisate, and on the 15th of November 1716 he died in
Paris. He married in 1684 Marie-Anne-Renée de la Porte, daughter and
heiress of the count of Crozon. His eldest son was killed at the battle
of Malaga 1704, and another, also a naval officer, was killed by
accident in 1708. A third son, who too was a naval officer, succeeded
him in the title.

A life of Château-Renault was published in 1903 by M. Calmon-Maison.
There is a French as well as an English account of the part played by
him at Bantry Bay and Beachy Head, and the controversy still
continues. For the French history of the navy under Louis XIV. see
Léon Guerin, _Histoire maritime de la France_ (1863), vols. iii., iv.;
and his _Les Marins illustres_ (1861). Also the naval history by
Charles Bouzel de la Roncière. (D. H.)

CHÂTEAUROUX, MARIE ANNE DE MAILLY-NESLE, DUCHESSE DE (1717-1744),
mistress of Louis XV. of France, was the fourth daughter of Louis,
marquis de Nesle, a descendant of a niece of Mazarin. In 1740, upon the
death of her husband, the marquis de la Tournelle, she attracted the
attention of Louis XV.; and by the aid of the duc de Richelieu, who,
dominated by Madame de Tencin, hoped to rule both the king and the
state, she supplanted her sister, Madame de Mailly, as titular mistress
in 1742. Directed by Richelieu, she tried to arouse the king, dragging
him off to the armies, and negotiated the alliance with Frederick II. of
Prussia, in 1744. Her political rôle, however, has been exaggerated. Her
triumph after the passing disgrace provoked by the king's illness at
Metz did not last long, for she died on the 8th of December 1744.

See Ed. and J. de Goncourt, _La Duchesse de Châteauroux et ses soeurs_
(Paris, 1879).

CHÂTEAUROUX, a town of central France, capital of the department of
Indre, situated in a plain on the left bank of the Indre, 88 m. S. of
Orleans on the main line of the Orleans railway. Pop. (1906) 21,048. The
old town, close to the river, forms a nucleus round which a newer and
more extensive quarter, bordered by boulevards, has grown up; the
suburbs of St Christophe and Déols (q.v.) lie on the right bank of the
Indre. The principal buildings of Châteauroux are the handsome modern
church of St André, in the Gothic style, and the Château Raoul, of the
14th and 15th centuries; the latter now forms part of the prefecture.
The hôtel de ville contains a library and a museum which possesses a
collection of paintings of the Flemish school and some interesting
souvenirs of Napoleon I. A statue of General Henri Bertrand (1773-1844)
stands in one of the principal squares. Châteauroux is the seat of a
prefect and of a court of assizes. It has tribunals of first instance
and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a branch of the Bank of
France, a chamber of commerce, a lycée, a college for girls and training
colleges. The manufacture of coarse woollens for military clothing and
other purposes, and a state tobacco-factory, occupy large numbers of the
inhabitants. Wool-spinning, iron-founding, brewing, tanning, and the
manufacture of agricultural implements are also carried on. Trade is in
wool, iron, grain, sheep, lithographic stone and leather. The castle
from which Châteauroux takes its name was founded about the middle of
the 10th century by Raoul, prince of Déols, and during the middle ages
was the seat of a seigniory, which was raised to the rank of countship
in 1497, and in 1616, when it was held by Henry II., prince of Condé, to
that of duchy. In 1736 it returned to the crown, and was given by Louis
XV. in 1744 to his mistress, Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle, duchess of
Châteauroux.

CHÂTEAU-THIERRY, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Aisne, 59 m. E.N.E. of Paris on the Eastern railway
to Nancy. Pop. (1906) 6872. Château-Thierry is built on rising ground on
the right bank of the Marne, over which a fine stone bridge leads to the
suburb of Marne. On the quay stands a marble statue erected to the
memory of La Fontaine, who was born in the town in 1621; his house is
still preserved in the street that bears his name. On the top of a hill
are the ruins of a castle, which is said to have been built by Charles
Martel for the Frankish king, Thierry IV., and is plainly the origin of
the name of the town. The chief relic is a gateway flanked by massive
round towers, known as the Porte Saint-Pierre. A belfry of the 15th
century and the church of St Crépin of the same period are of some
interest. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of
first instance and a communal college. The distinctive industry is the
manufacture of mathematical and musical instruments. There is trade in
the white wine of the neighbourhood, and in sheep, cattle and
agricultural products. Gypsum, millstone and paving-stone are quarried
in the vicinity. Château-Thierry was formerly the capital of the
district of Brie Pouilleuse, and received the title of duchy from
Charles IX. in 1566. It was captured by the English in 1421, by Charles
V. in 1544, and sacked by the Spanish in 1591. During the wars of the
Fronde it was pillaged in 1652; and in the campaign of 1814 it suffered
severely. On the 12th of February of the latter year the Russo-Prussian
forces were beaten by Napoleon in the neighbourhood.

CHÂTELAIN (Med. Lat. _castellanus_, from _castellum_, a castle), in
France originally merely the equivalent of the English castellan, i.e.
the commander of a castle. With the growth of the feudal system,
however, the title gained in France a special significance which it
never acquired in England, as implying the jurisdiction of which the
castle became the centre. The _châtelain_ was originally, in Carolingian
times, an official of the count; with the development of feudalism the
office became a fief, and so ultimately hereditary. In this as in other
respects the châtelain was the equivalent of the viscount (q.v.)
sometimes the two titles were combined, but more usually in those
provinces where there were châtelains there were no viscounts, and vice
versa. The title châtelain continued also to be applied to the inferior
officer, or _concierge châtelain_, who was merely a castellan in the
English sense. The power and status of châtelains necessarily varied
greatly at different periods and places. Usually their rank in the
feudal hierarchy was equivalent to that of the simple _sire_
(_dominus_), between the baron and the _chevalier_; but occasionally
they were great nobles with an extensive jurisdiction, as in the Low
Countries (see BURGRAVE). This variation was most marked in the cities,
where in the struggle for power that of the châtelain depended on the
success with which he could assert himself against his feudal superior,
lay or ecclesiastical, or, from the 12th century onwards, against the
rising power of the communes. The _châtellenie_ (_castellania_), or
jurisdiction of the châtelain, as a territorial division for certain
judicial and administrative purposes, survived the disappearance of the
title and office of the châtelain in France, and continued till the
Revolution.

See Achille Luchaire, _Manuel des institutions françaises_ (Paris,
1892); Du Cange, _Glossarium, s._ "Castellanus."

CHATELAINE (Fr. _châtelaine_, the feminine form of _châtelain_, a keeper
of a castle), the mistress of a castle. From the custom of a châtelaine
to carry the keys of the castle suspended from her girdle, the word is
now applied to the collection of short chains, often worn by ladies, to
which are attached various small articles of domestic and toilet use, as
keys, penknife, needlecase, scissors, &c.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8 - "Chariot" to "Chatelaine"" ***

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