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Title: The Historical Geography of Europe. - Vol. I.—Text
Author: Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Language: English
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THE
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE
VOL. I.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
THE
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
OF
EUROPE
BY
EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L., LL.D.
HONORARY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
IN TWO VOLUMES
_VOL. I.—TEXT_
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1881
_All rights reserved_
PREFACE.
It is now several years since this book was begun. It has been delayed
by a crowd of causes, by a temporary loss of strength, by enforced
absence from England, by other occupations and interruptions of various
kinds. I mention this only because of the effect which I fear it has
had on the book itself. It has been impossible to make it, what a book
should, if possible, be, the result of one continuous effort. The
mere fact that the kindness of the publishers allowed the early part
to be printed some years back has, I fear, led to some repetition and
even contradiction. A certain change of plan was found unavoidable.
It proved impossible to go through the whole volume according to the
method of the earlier chapters. Instead of treating Europe as a whole,
I found it needful to divide it into several large geographical groups.
The result is that each of the later chapters has had to go over again
some small amount of ground which had been already gone over in the
earlier chapters. In some cases later lights have led to some changes
of view or expression. I have marked these, as far as I could, in the
Additions and Corrections. If in any case I have failed to do so, the
later statement is the one which should be relied on.
I hope that I have made the object of the work clear in the
Introductory Chapter. It is really a very humble one. It aims at little
more than tracing out the extent of various states at different times,
and at attempting to place the various changes in their due relation to
one another and to their causes. I am not, strictly speaking, writing
history. I have little to do with the internal affairs of any country.
I have looked at events mainly with reference to their effect on the
European map. This has led to a reversal of what to many will seem the
natural order of things. In a constitutional history of Europe, our own
island would claim the very first place. In my strictly geographical
point of view, I believe I am right in giving it the last.
I of course assume in the reader a certain elementary knowledge of
European history, at least as much as may be learned from my own
General Sketch. Names and things which have been explained there I
have not thought it needful to explain again. I need hardly say that
I found myself far more competent to deal with some parts of the work
than with others. No one can take an equal interest in, or have an
equal knowledge of, all branches of so wide a subject. Some parts of
the book will represent real original research; others must be dealt
with in a far less thorough way, and will represent only knowledge
got up for the occasion. In such cases the reader will doubtless find
out the difference for himself. But I have felt my own deficiencies
most keenly in the German part. No part of European history is to me
more attractive than the early history of the German kingdom as such.
No part is to me less attractive than the endless family divisions and
unions of the smaller German states.
In the Slavonic part I have found great difficulty in following any
uniform system of spelling. I consulted several Slavonic scholars. Each
gave me advice, and each supported his own advice by arguments which I
should have thought unanswerable, if I had not seen the arguments in
support of the wholly different advice given me by the others. When
the teachers differ so widely, the learner will, I hope, be forgiven,
if the result is sometimes a little chaotic. I have tried to write
Slavonic names so as to give some approach to the sound, as far as I
know it. But I fear that I have succeeded very imperfectly.
In such a crowd of names, dates, and the like, there must be many small
inaccuracies. In the case of the smaller dates, those which do not mark
the great epochs of history, nothing is easier than to get wrong by a
year or so. Sometimes there is an actual difference of statement in
different authorities. Sometimes there is a difference in the reckoning
of the year. For instance, In what year was Calais lost to England? We
should say 1558. A writer at the time would say 1557. Then again there
is no slip of either pen or press so easy as putting a wrong figure,
and, except in the case of great and obvious dates, or again when the
mistake is very far wrong indeed, there is no slip of pen or press so
likely to be passed by in revision. And again there is often room for
question as to the date which should be marked. In recording a transfer
of territory from one power to another, what should be the date given?
The actual military occupation and the formal diplomatic cession are
often several years apart. Which of these dates should be chosen? I
have found it hard to follow any fixed rule in such matters. Sometimes
the military occupation seems the most important point, sometimes the
diplomatic cession. I believe that in each case where a question of
this sort might arise, I could give a reason for the date which has
been chosen; but here there has been no room to enter into discussions.
I can only say that I shall be deeply thankful to any one who will
point out to me any mistakes or seeming mistakes in these or any other
matters.
The maps have been a matter of great difficulty. I somewhat regret
that it has been found needful to bind them separately from the text,
because this looks as if they made some pretensions to the character of
an historical atlas. To this they lay no claim. They are meant simply
to illustrate the text, and in no way enter into competition either
with such an elaborate collection as that of Spruner-Menke, or even
with collections much less elaborate than that. Those maps are meant
to be companions in studying the history of the several periods. Mine
do not pretend to do more than to illustrate changes of boundary in a
general way. It was found, as the work went on, that it was better on
the whole to increase the number of maps, even at the expense of making
each map smaller. There are disadvantages both ways. In the maps of
South-Eastern Europe, for instance, it was found impossible to show
the small states which arose in Greece after the Latin conquest at all
clearly. But this evil seemed to be counterbalanced by giving as many
pictures as might be of the shifting frontier of the Eastern Empire
towards the Bulgarian, the Frank, and the Ottoman.
In one or two instances I have taken some small liberties with my
dates. Thus, for instance, the map of the greatest extent of the
Saracen dominion shows all the countries which were at any time under
the Saracen power. But there was no one moment when the Saracen power
took in the whole extent shown in the map. Sind and Septimania were
lost before Crete and Sicily were won. But such a view as I have
given seemed on the whole more instructive than it would have been to
substitute two or three maps showing the various losses and gains at a
few years’ distance from one another.
I have to thank a crowd of friends, including some whom I have never
seen, for many hints, and for much help given in various ways. Such
are Professor Pauli of Göttingen, Professor Steenstrup of Copenhagen,
Professor Romanos of Corfu, M. J.-B. Galiffe of Geneva, Dr. Paul Turner
of Budapest, Professor A. W. Ward of Manchester, the Rev. H. F. Tozer,
Mr. Ralston, Mr. Morfill, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and my son-in-law Arthur
John Evans, whose praise is in all South-Slavonic lands.
SOMERLEAZE, WELLS:
_December 16, 1880._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
Definition of Historical Geography 1
Its relation to kindred studies 1-2
Distinction between geographical and political names 3-5
§ 1. _Geographical Aspect of Europe._
Boundaries of Europe and Asia 5-6
General geography of the two continents—the great peninsulas 6-7
§ 2. _Effects of Geography on History._
Beginnings of history in the southern peninsulas—characteristics
of Greece and Italy 7-8
Advance and extent of the Roman dominion; the Mediterranean lands,
Gaul, and Britain 8-9
Effects of the geographical position of Germany, France, Spain,
Scandinavia, Britain 9-10
Effect of geographical position on the colonizing powers 10
Joint working of geographical position and national character 11
§ 3. _Geographical Distribution of Races._
Europe an Aryan continent—non-Aryan remnants and latter settlements 12
Fins and Basques 13
Order of Aryan settlements; Greeks and Italians 13
Celts, Teutons, Slaves, Lithuanians 14-15
Displacement and assimilation among the Aryan races 16
Intrusion of non-Aryans; Saracens 16
Turanian intrusions; Bulgarians; Magyars; Ottomans; differences in
their history 17
CHAPTER II.
GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES.
§ 1. _The Eastern or Greek Peninsula._
Geographical and historical characteristics of the Eastern, Greek,
or Byzantine peninsula 18-19
Its chief divisions; Thrace and Illyria; their relations to Greece 19-20
Greece Proper and its peninsulas 20-21
Peloponnêsos 21
§ 2. _Insular and Asiatic Greece._
Extent of _Continuous Hellas_ 21
The Islands 22
Asiatic Greece 22-23
§ 3. _Ethnology of the Eastern Peninsula._
The Greeks and the kindred races 23
Illyrians, Albanians, or Skipetar 24
Inhabitants of Epeiros, Macedonia, Sicily, and Italy 24
Pelasgians 24-25
The Greek Nation 25
§ 4. _Earliest Geography of Greece and the Neighbouring Lands._
Homeric Greece: its extent and tribal divisions 25-27
Use of the name _Epeiros_ 26
The cities: their groupings unlike those of later times; supremacy
of Mykênê 27
Extent of Greek colonization in Homeric times 28
The Asiatic catalogue 28
Probable kindred of all the neighbouring nations 28
Phœnician and Greek settlements in the islands 28
§ 5. _Change from Homeric to Historic Greece._
Changes in Peloponnêsos; Dorian and Aitolian settlements 29
Later divisions of Peloponnêsos 29-30
Change in Northern Greece; Thessaly 30
Akarnania and the Corinthian colonies 31
Foundation and destruction of cities 31
§ 6. _The Greek Colonies._
The Ægæan and Asiatic colonies 32-33
Early greatness of the Asiatic cities; Milêtos 32
Their submission to Lydians and Persians 32-33
The Thracian colonies; abiding greatness of Thessalonikê
and Byzantion 33
More distant colonies; Sicily, Italy, Dalmatia 33-34
Parts of the Mediterranean not colonized by the Greeks;
Phœnician settlements; struggles in Sicily and Cyprus 34-35
Greek colonies in Africa, Gaul, and Spain 35
Colonies on the Euxine; abiding greatness of Cherson and Trebizond 36
Beginning of the artificial Greek nation 36
§ 7. _Growth of Macedonia and Epeiros._
Growth of Macedonia; Philip; Alexander and the Successors;
effects of their conquests 37
Epeiros under Pyrrhos; Athamania 37
The Macedonian kingdoms; Egypt; Syria 38
Independent states in Asia; Pergamos 38
Asiatic states; advance of Greek culture 39
Free cities; Hêrakleia 39
Sinôpê; Bosporos 39
§ 8. _Later Geography of Independent Greece._
The Confederations; Achaia, Aitolia; smaller confederations 40
Macedonian possessions 40
First Roman possessions east of the Hadriatic 40
Progress of Roman conquest in Macedonia and Greece 41
Special character of Greek history 42
CHAPTER III.
FORMATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
Meanings of the name Italy; its extent under the Roman commonwealth 43
Characteristics of the Italian peninsula; the great islands 44
§ 1. _The Inhabitants of Italy and Sicily._
Ligurians and Etruscans 45
The Italian nations; Latins and Oscans 45-46
Other nations; Iapygians; Gauls; Veneti; use of the name _Venetia_ 46-47
Greek colonies in Italy; Kymê and Ankôn 47
The southern colonies; their history 47-48
Inhabitants of Sicily; Sikanians and Sikels 48
Phœnician and Greek settlements; rivalry of Aryan and
Semitic powers 48-49
§ 2. _Growth of the Roman Power in Italy._
Gradual conquest of Italy; different positions of the Italian
states 49
Origin of Rome; its Latin element dominant 49-50
Early Latin dominion of Rome 50
Conquest of Veii; more distant wars 50
Incorporation of the Italian states 50-51
§ 3. _The Western Provinces._
Nature of the Roman provinces 51
Eastern and Western provinces 52
First Roman possessions in Sicily; conquest of Syracuse 53
State of Sicily; its Greek civilization 53
Sardinia and Corsica 53-54
Cisalpine Gaul 54-55
Liguria; Venetia; Istria; foundation of Aquileia 55
Spain; its inhabitants; Iberians; Celts; Greek and Phœnician
colonies 55-56
Conquest and Romanization of Spain 56-57
Transalpine Gaul; the Province 57
Conquests of Cæsar; threefold division of Gaul 57-58
Boundaries of Gaul purely geographical; survival of nomenclature 57-58
Roman Africa; restoration of Carthage 58-60
§ 4. _The Eastern Provinces._
Contrast between the Eastern and Western provinces; Greek
civilization in the East 60
Distinctions among the Eastern provinces; boundary of Tauros 60-61
The Illyrian provinces; kingdom of Skodra; conquest of Dalmatia
and Istria 62-63
The outlying Greek lands: Crete, Cyprus, Kyrênê 63
The Asiatic provinces; province of Asia; Mithridatic War;
independence of Lykia 64
Syria; Palestine 65
Rome and Parthia 65
Conquest of Egypt; the Roman Peace 66
§ 5. _Conquests under the Empire._
Conquests from Augustus to Nero; incorporation of vassal kingdoms 66-67
Attempted conquest of Germany; frontiers of Rhine and Danube;
conquests on the Danube 67-68
Attempt on Arabia 68
Annexation of Thrace and Byzantion 68
Conquest of Britain; the wall 69
Conquests of Trajan; his Asiatic conquests surrendered by Hadrian 70
Arabia Petræa 70
Dacia; change of the name 70-71
Roman, Greek, and Oriental parts of the Empire 71
CHAPTER IV.
THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE.
§ 1. _The Later Geography of the Empire._
Changes under the Empire; loss of old divisions 73
New divisions of Italy under Augustus 74
Division of the Empire under Diocletian 74-75
The four Prætorian Prefectures 75
Prefecture of the East; its character 75-76
Its dioceses; the East; Egypt, Asia, Pontos 76
Diocese of Thrace; provinces of Scythia and Europa 76-77
Great cities of the Eastern prefecture 77
Prefecture of Illyricum; position of Greece 77-78
Dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia; province of Achaia 78
Prefecture of Italy; its extent 78
Dioceses of Italy, Illyricum, and Africa; greatness of Carthage 79
Prefecture of Gaul 79
Diocese of Spain; its African territory 79
Dioceses of Gaul and Britain; province of Valentia 79-80
§ 2. _The Division of the Empire._
Change in the position of Rome 80
Division of the Empire, A.D. 395 81
Rivalry with Parthia and Persia inherited by the Eastern Empire 81-82
Teutonic invasions; no Teutonic settlements in the East 82-83
§ 3. _The Teutonic Settlements within the Empire._
The Wandering of the Nations 83
New nomenclature of the Teutonic nations 83-84
Warfare on the Rhine and Danube; Roman outposts beyond the rivers 84
Teutonic confederations; Marcomanni; Quadi 84-85
Franks, Alemans, Saxons; Germans within the Empire 85-86
Beginning of national kingdoms 86
Loss of the Western provinces of Rome 86
Settlements within the Empire by land and by sea 87
Franks, Burgundians, Goths, Vandals 87-88
Early history of the Goths 88-89
The West-Gothic kingdom in Gaul and Spain 89-90
Alans, Suevi, Vandals; the Vandals in Africa 89-90
The Franks; use of the name _Francia_ 91
Alemans, Thuringians; Low-Dutch tribes 91
The Frankish dominions; Roman Germany Teutonized afresh;
peculiar position of the Franks 91-93
Celtic remnant in Armorica or Britanny 93
The Burgundians; various uses of the name _Burgundy_;
separate history of Provence 93-94
Inroads of the Huns; battle of Châlons; origin of Venice 94
Nominal reunion of the Empire in 476 94
Reigns of Odoacer and Theodoric 94-95
§ 4. _Settlement of the English in Britain._
Withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain 95
Special character of the English Conquest of Britain 96
The Low-Dutch settlers, Angles, Saxons, Jutes; origin of the
name _English_ 97
The Welsh and Scots 98
§ 5. _The Eastern Empire._
Comparison of the two Empires; no Teutonic settlements in the
Eastern 98
The Tetraxite Goths 98
Rivalry with Parthia continued under the revived Persian kingdom 98-99
Position of Armenia 99
Momentary conquests of Trajan 99
Conquests of Marcus, Severus, and Diocletian; cessions of Jovian 100
Division of Armenia; Hundred Years’ Peace 100
Summary 101-102
CHAPTER V.
THE FINAL DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE.
§ 1. _The Reunion of the Empire._
Continued existence of the Empire; position of the Teutonic kings 103
Extent of the Empire at the accession of Justinian 104
Conquests of Justinian; their effects 104-106
Provence ceded to the Franks 105
§ 2. _Settlement of the Lombards in Italy._
Early history of the Lombards; Gepidæ, Avars 106-107
Possibility of Teutonic powers on the Danube 107
Lombard conquest of Italy; its partial nature; territory kept
by the Empire 107-108
§ 3. _Rise of the Saracens._
Loss of the Spanish province by the Empire 108
Wars of Chosroes and Heraclius 109
Extension of Roman power on the Euxine 109-110
Relation of the Arabs to Rome and Persia 110
Union of the Arabs under Mahomet; renewed Aryan and Semitic strife 110
Loss of the Eastern and African provinces of Rome 111
Saracen conquest of Persia 111
Conquest of Spain; Saracen province in Gaul 111-112
Effects of the Saracen conquests; distinction between the
Latin, Greek, and Eastern provinces 112
Greatest extent of Saracen provinces 112
Loss of Septimania 113
§ 4. _Settlements of the Slavonic Nations._
Movements of the Slaves; Avars, Magyars, &c. 113-114
Geographical separation of the Slaves 114
Analogy between Teutons and Slaves 114
Slavonic settlements under Heraclius; the Dalmatian cities;
displacement of the Illyrians 115
Slavonic settlements in Greece 115-116
Settlement of the Bulgarians 116
Curtailment of the Empire; moral influence of Constantinople 116-117
§ 5. _The Transfer of the Western Empire to the Franks._
Conquests of the Franks in Germany and Gaul 117-119
Their position in Germany, Northern Gaul, and Southern Gaul 119-120
Division of the Frankish dominion; Austria and Neustria 120-121
Use of the name _Francia_; Teutonic and Latin _Francia_;
modern forms of the name 121
The Karlings; their conquests; German character of their power 121-122
The great powers of the eighth century: Romans, Franks, Saracens 122
Character of the Caliphate; its divisions 122
Relations between the Franks and the Empire 123
Lombard conquest of the Exarchate 123
Conquest of the Lombards by Charles the Great; he holds
Lombardy as a separate kingdom 123
His Roman title of Patrician 123-124
Effects of his Imperial coronation; final division of the Empire 124
The two Empires become severally German and Greek; their
separation and rivalry 124-125
The two Empires and the two Caliphates 125-126
Extent of the Carolingian Empire 126
Conquest of Saxony; dealings with Scandinavia; frontier of
the Eider 126-127
Relations with the Slaves; overthrow of the Avars 127
The Spanish March 128
Divisions of the Empire; kingdoms of Aquitaine and Italy 128
Use of the names _Francia_, _Gallia_, _Germania_ 129
§ 6. _Northern Europe._
Lands beyond the Empire: Scandinavia and Britain 129
Stages of English Conquest in Britain; Teutonic and Celtic
states 129-130
Supremacy of Wessex 130
Denmark; Norway; Sweden 130-131
Different directions of the Scandinavian settlements 131
Summary 131-133
Religious changes 132
Note on the Slavonic settlements 133
CHAPTER VI.
THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN EUROPEAN STATES.
§ 1. _The Division of the Frankish Empire._
Break-up of the Frankish power; origin of the states of
modern Europe 134
Kingdoms of Italy and Aquitaine 134
Division of 817 135
Union of Neustria and Aquitaine; first glimpses of modern France 135
Division of Verdun; Eastern and Western _Francia_; _Lotharingia_;
the Western Kingdom or Karolingia 137
Middle Kingdom or _Burgundy_ 137
Union under Charles the Fat; division on his deposition 137
No formal titles used; various names for the German Kingdom 138
Connexion between the German Kingdom and the Roman Empire 139
Extent of the German Kingdom; its duchies and _marks_ 139-140
Lotharingia 140-141
Extent of the Western Kingdom 141
Its great fiefs; Aquitaine; France; Normandy cut off from France 142
Origin of the French kingdom and nation; union of the duchy of
France with the Western kingdom 143
New use of the word _France_; title of _Rex Francorum_ 143-144
Paris the kernel of France 144
Various uses of the name _Burgundy_ 144
The French Duchy; the Middle Kingdom; Transjurane and
Cisjurane Burgundy 144-145
Great cities of the Burgundian kingdom 145
Separation of Burgundy from the Frankish kingdom; its union
with Germany 145-146
Its later history; mainly swallowed up by France, but partly
represented by Switzerland 146
Kingdom of Italy; its extent; separate principalities 146-147
Italy represents the Lombard kingdom; Milan its capital 147
Abeyance of the Western Empire; its restoration by Otto the
Great; the three Imperial kingdoms 147-148
Rivalry between France and the Empire 148
§ 2. _The Eastern Empire._
Rivalry of the Eastern and Western Empires and Churches;
Greek character of the Eastern Empire; fluctuations in
its extent 149
The _Themes_; Asiatic Themes 149-151
The European Themes; Hellas; Lombardy; Sicily 151-152
Older Greek names supplanted by new ones 151
Character of the European and Asiatic dominion of the Empire;
its supremacy by sea 152
Losses and gains; Crete; Sicily; Italy; Dalmatia; Greece; Syria;
Bulgaria; Cherson 152-153
Greatness of the Empire under Basil the Second 153
§ 3. _Origin of the Spanish Kingdoms._
Special position of Spain; the Saracen conquest 153-154
Growth of the Christian states 154-155
Castile; Aragon; Portugal 155
Break-up of the Western Caliphate 156
§ 4. _Origin of the Slavonic States._
Slavonic and Turanian invasions of the Eastern Empire;
Bulgarians; Magyars; Great Moravia 156-157
Special character of the Hungarian kingdom; effects of its
religious connexion with the West 157
The Northern and Southern Slaves split asunder by the Magyars 158
The South-eastern Slaves 158
The North-western Slaves; Bohemia; Poland 159
Special position of Russia 159
§ 5. _Northern Europe._
Scandinavian settlements 159-160
Growth of the kingdom of England 160
The Danish invasions; division between Ælfred and Guthrum;
Bernicia; Cumberland 161
Second West-Saxon advance; Wessex grows into England;
submission of Scotland and Strathclyde; Cumberland and Lothian 162
Use of the Imperial titles by the English kings; Northern Empire
of Cnut; England finally united by the Norman Conquest 162-163
Summary 163-165
CHAPTER VII.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL GEOGRAPHY OF WESTERN EUROPE.
Permanence of ecclesiastical divisions; they preserve earlier
divisions; case of Lyons and Rheims 166-167
Patriarchates, Provinces, Dioceses 167
Bishoprics within and without the Empire 167-168
§ 1. _The Great Patriarchates._
The Patriarchates suggested by the Prefectures 168
Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem 168-169
Later Patriarchates 169-170
§ 2. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Italy._
Great numbers and smaller importance of the Italian bishoprics 170
Rivals of Rome; Milan, Aquileia, Ravenna 171
The immediate Roman province; other metropolitan sees 171-172
§ 3. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Gaul and Germany._
Gaulish and German dioceses 172
Provinces of Southern Gaul; position of Lyons 172-173
New metropolitan sees; Toulouse, Alby, Avignon, Paris;
comparison of civil and ecclesiastical divisions 174
Provinces of Northern Gaul and Germany; history of Mainz 178-179
The archiepiscopal electors; other German provinces; Salzburg,
Bremen, Magdeburg 176-177
Modern arrangements in France, Germany, and the Netherlands 177
§ 4. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Spain._
Peculiarities of Spanish ecclesiastical geography; effects of
the Saracen conquest 178
Gothic and later dioceses; neglect of the Pyrenæan barrier 178-179
§ 5. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of the British Islands._
Analogy between Britain and Spain 179
Tribal nature of the Celtic episcopate 179-180
Scheme of Gregory the Great; the two English provinces;
relation of Scotland to York 180-181
Foundation of the English sees; territorial bishoprics 181
Canterbury and its suffragan; effects of the Norman Conquest 181-182
Province of York; Scotland and Ireland 182-183
§ 6. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Northern and Eastern Europe._
The Scandinavian provinces; Lund, Upsala, Trondhjem 184
Poland and neighbouring lands; Gnezna, Riga, Leopol 184-185
Provinces of Hungary and Dalmatia 186
CHAPTER VIII.
THE IMPERIAL KINGDOMS.
The German Kingdom; its relation to the Western Empire; falling
off of Italy and Burgundy 188-190
Loss of territory by the German kingdom; its extension to the
north-east 190-191
Geographical contrast of the earlier and the later Empire 191
§ 1. _The Kingdom of Germany._
Changes of boundaries and nomenclature in Germany; Saxony;
Bavaria; Austria; Burgundy; Prussia 191-192
Extent of the Kingdom; fluctuations of its western boundary;
Lorraine; Elsass; the left bank of the Rhine 192-194
Fluctuations on the Burgundian frontier; union of Burgundy
with the Empire 194
Frontier of Germany and Italy; union of the crowns 195
Northern and eastern advance of the Empire; the _marks_ 195
Hungarian frontier; marks of Austria, Carinthia, and Carniola 196
Danish frontier; Danish mark; boundary of the Eider 196
The Slavonic frontier 197
The Saxon mark; Slavonic princes of Mecklenburg, Lübeck;
the Hansa 198-199
Marks of Brandenburg, Lausitz, and Meissen 199
Bohemia and Moravia 199
Polish frontier; Pomerania, Silesia 200
Germanization of the Slavonic lands 200-201
Internal geography; growth of the principalities 201
Growth of the marchlands; Brandenburg or Prussia, and Austria;
analogies elsewhere 202
Decline of the duchies; end of the _Gauverfassung_ 202
Growth of the House of Austria; separation of Switzerland and
the Netherlands 203
The Circles 203
Powers holding lands within and without the Empire; Austria;
Sweden; Brandenburg and Prussia; Hannover and Great Britain 203-204
Dissolution of the kingdom; the Confederation 204
Greatness of Prussia and Austria 204
The new Empire 204
Germany under the Saxon and Frankish kings; vanishing of Francia;
analogy of Wessex 205-206
Changes in the twelfth century; beginning of Brandenburg and
Austria; the duchies and the circles 206-207
Duchy of Saxony; its divisions and growth 207
Break-up of the duchy; Westfalia; the new Saxony 207
Duchy of Brunswick; electorate and kingdom of Hannover 208
The new Saxony; Lauenburg; the Saxon Electorate 208-209
The North Mark of Saxony or Mark of Brandenburg 209
House of Hohenzollern; union of Brandenburg and Prussia 210
Advances in Pomerania, Westfalia, &c. 210
German character of the Prussian state; its contrast with
Austria; use of the name _Prussia_ 210-211
Conquest of Silesia; Polish acquisitions of Prussia; East
Friesland 211-212
Saxon Possessions of Denmark and Sweden 212-213
Free cities of Saxony; the Hansa; the cities and the bishoprics 213-214
Duchy of _Francia_; held by the bishops of Würzburg; the
Franconian circle 214
The Rhenish circles; Hessen; Bamberg; Nürnberg; the
ecclesiastical states on the Rhine 214-215
Palatinate of the Rhine; Upper Palatinate 215
Bavaria; its relations towards the Palatinate and towards Austria 215
Archbishopric of Salzburg 215
Lotharingia; falling off from the Empire; the later Lorraine
and Elsass 216
Swabia; ecclesiastical powers 216
Swabian lands of the Confederates 216
Baden and Württemberg 216
Circle of Austria; house of Habsburg 217
Extent of its German lands; Tyrol; Elsass; loss of Swabian lands 217
Bohemia and its dependencies 217
Trent and Brixen 217
Circle of Burgundy; not purely German; its origin 218
§ 2. _The Confederation and Empire of Germany._
Germany changes from a kingdom to a confederation 218
The _Bund_; the new Confederation and Empire; the Empire
still federal 219
Wars of the French Revolution; loss of the left bank of the Rhine 220
Suppression of free cities and ecclesiastical states; new
electorates 220
Peace of Pressburg; new kingdoms; cessions made by Austria 221
Title of ‘Emperor of Austria;’ Confederation of the Rhine; end of
the Western Empire 221
German territories of Denmark and Sweden 221-222
Losses of Prussia and Austria; French annexations 222
Kingdoms of Saxony and Westfalia; Grand duchy of Frankfurt 222
Germany wiped out of the map 222
Losses of Prussia; Danzig; duchy of Warsaw 222-223
The German Confederation; princes holding lands within and
without the Confederation; kingdom of Hanover 223
Increase of Prussian territory; dismemberment of Saxony 224
Lands recovered by Austria; German possessions of Denmark and
the Netherlands; Sweden withdraws from Germany 224-225
Comparison of Prussia and Austria; Hannover 225
Kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg; other German states;
the free cities; Lüttich passes to Belgium 226-227
Revival of German national life 227
Affairs of Luxemburg 228-229
War of Sleswick and Holstein; the duchies ceded to Austria
and Prussia 228
War of 1866; North German Confederation; exclusion of Austria;
great advance of Prussia 228-229
War with France; the new German Empire; recovery of
Elsass-Lothringen 229-230
Comparison of the old kingdom and the new Empire; name
of _Prussia_ 230-231
§ 3. _The Kingdom of Italy._
Small geographical importance of the kingdom; changes on the
Alpine frontier 231-232
Case of Trieste 233
Apulia, Sicily, Venice, no part of the kingdom; their relation
to the Eastern Empire 233-234
Special history of the house of Savoy 234
Extent of the kingdom; Neustria and Austria; Æmilia, Tuscany;
Romagna 234-235
Lombardy proper; the marches 235
Comparison of Germany and Italy; the commonwealths, the
tyrants, the Popes; four stages of Italian history 235-236
Northern Italy; the Marquesses of Montferrat; the Lombard
cities; the Veronese march 236-238
Central Italy; Romagna and the march of Ancona; the Tuscan
commonwealths; Pisa and Genoa; Rome and the Popes 238-239
The tyrannies; Spanish dominion: practical abeyance of the
Empire in Italy; Imperial and Papal fiefs 239-240
Palaiologoi at Montferrat; house of Visconti at Milan; the duchy
of Milan; its dismemberment; duchy of Parma and Piacenza 240-242
Land power of Venice 242-243
Other principalities; duchy of Mantua, of Ferrara and Modena;
difference in their tenure 243-244
Romagna; Bologna; Urbino; advance of the Popes 244
The Tuscan cities; Lucca; rivalry of Pisa and Genoa; Siena;
Florence 245
Duchy of Florence; grand duchy of Tuscany 246
§ 4. _The Later Geography of Italy._
The kingdom practically forgotten; position of Charles the Fifth 246
Italy a geographical expression; changes in the Italian states 246-247
Dominion of the two branches of the house of Austria 247
Italy mapped into larger states; exceptions at Monaco and
San Marino 247
Venice; Milan Spanish and Austrian; its dismemberment in favour
of Savoy; end of Montferrat and Mantua 248-249
Parma and Piacenza; separation of Modena and Ferrara; Genoa
and Lucca; Grand Duchy of Tuscany; advance of the Popes 249
The Norman kingdom of Sicily; Benevento 250
The Two Sicilies; their various unions and divisions; their
relations to the houses of Austria, Savoy and Bourbon 250-251
Use of the name _Sardinia_ 251
Wars of the French Revolution; the new republics; Treaty of
Campo Formio; Piedmont joined to France 251-253
Restoration of the Pope and the King of the Two Sicilies 253
The French kingdoms; Etruria; Italy 253
Various annexations; Rome becomes French; Murat King of Naples 253-254
Italy under French dominion; revival of the Italian name 254-255
Settlement of 1814-1815; the princes restored, but not the
commonwealths 255
Austrian kingdom of Lombardy and Venice; Genoa annexed by
Piedmont 255-256
The smaller states; the Papal states; Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies 256
Union of Italy comes from Piedmont; earlier movements; war of
1859; Kingdom of Italy: Savoy and Nizza ceded to France 257-258
Recovery of Venetia and Rome; parts of the kingdom not recovered 258
Freedom of San Marino 258
§ 5. _The Kingdom of Burgundy._
Union of Burgundy with Germany; dying out of the kingdom;
chiefly swallowed up by France, but represented by
Switzerland 258-259
Boundaries of the kingdom; fluctuation; Romance tongue prevails
in it 259
History of the Burgundian Palatinate; Besançon; Montbeliard 261
The Lesser Burgundy; partly German 261
The Dukes of Zähringen; the ecclesiastical states; the free cities;
the free lands; growth of the Old League of High Germany 262
Growth of Savoy; Burgundian possessions of its counts 263
States between the Palatinate and the Mediterranean; Bresse
and Bugey; principalities and free cities 263
County of Provence; its connexion with France 263-264
Progress of French annexation: 1310-1791: Lyons; the Dauphiny:
Vienne; Valence; Provence; Avignon and Venaissin 264-265
Nizza 265
History of Orange 265-266
States which have split off from the Imperial kingdoms:
Switzerland; Savoy; the duchy of Burgundy by Belgium
and the Netherlands 266-267
The Austrian power; its position as a marchland; its union
with Hungary; its relation to Eastern Europe 267-268
§ 6. _The Swiss Confederation._
German origin of the Confederation; popular errors; sketch
of Swiss history 268-270
The Three Lands; the cities: Luzern, Zürich, Bern; the Eight
Ancient Cantons 270
Allies and subjects; dominion of Zürich and Bern; conquests
from Austria 270-271
Italian conquests; first conquests from Savoy; League of Wallis 271-272
The Thirteen Cantons 272
League of Graubünden; further Italian and Savoyard conquests 272-273
History of Geneva; territory restored to Savoy; division of
Gruyères 273-274
The Allied States; Neufchâtel; Constanz 274
The Confederation independent of the Empire; its position as
a middle state 274-275
Wars of the French Revolution; Helvetic Republic; freedom of
the subject lands; annexations to France 275-276
Act of Mediation; the nineteen cantons 276
The present Swiss Confederation 276
History of Neufchâtel 276
§ 7. _The State of Savoy._
Position and growth of Savoy; three divisions of the Savoyard
lands; popular confusions 277-278
The Savoyard power originally Burgundian; Maurienne; Aosta 278
First Italian possessions 279
Burgundian advance; lands north of the lake 280-281
Relations to Geneva, France, and Bern 281-282
Acquisition of Nizza 282
Italian advance of Savoy; principally of Achaia, of Piedmont;
Saluzzo 283-284
Savoy a middle state 284
French influence and occupation; decline of Savoy 285
Loss of lands north of the lake; further losses to Bern and
her allies; recovery of the lands south of the lake;
the Savoyard power becomes mainly Italian 286
Savoy falls back in Burgundy and advances in Italy; history
of Saluzzo; finally acquired in exchange for Bresse, &c. 287
Duchy of Savoy annexed to France; restored; annexed again 288
French annexation of Nizza; Aosta the one Burgundian remnant 288
Savoyard advance in Italy 289
§ 8. _The Duchy of Burgundy and the Low Countries._
Position of the Valois dukes as a middle power; result of
their twofold vassalage 290
Schemes of a Burgundian kingdom; their final effects; Belgium
and the Netherlands 290-291
History of the duchy of Burgundy; its union with Flanders,
Artois, and the county of Burgundy; relations to France
and the Empire 292-293
The Netherlands; the counts of Flanders; their Imperial fiefs 293
Holland and Friesland 293
Brabant; Hainault; union of Holland and Hainault 294
Common points in all these states; the great cities; Romance
and Teutonic dialects 294-295
South-western states; Liége; Luxemburg; Limburg; duchy
of Geldern 295
Middle position of these states; French influence; union
under the Burgundian dukes 296
Advance under Philip the Good; Namur, Brabant, and Limburg,
Holland and Hainault 296-297
The towns on the Somme; Flanders and Artois released
from homage 297-298
Philip’s last acquisition of Luxemburg; advance under Charles
the Bold and Charles the Fifth; union of the Netherlands 298
The Netherlands pass to Spain; war of independence; its
imperfect results 299
The Seven United Provinces; their independence of the Empire;
their colonies; lack of a name; use of the word _Dutch_ 299-300
The Spanish Netherlands; English possession of Dunkirk;
advance of France; the Spanish Netherlands pass to Austria 301
Annexation by France; kingdom of Holland; all the Burgundian
possessions French 302
Kingdom of the Netherlands; Liége incorporated; relation
of Luxemburg to Germany 303
Division of the Netherlands and Belgium; separation of
Luxemburg from Germany 303
General history and result of the Burgundian power 303-304
§ 9. _The Dominions of Austria._
Origin of the name _Austria_; anomalous position of the
Austrian power; the so-called ‘Empire’ of Austria 305-307
The _Eastern Mark_; becomes a duchy; division of Carinthia;
union of Austria and Styria 307-308
County of Görz 309
Austria, &c., annexed by Bohemia; great power of Ottokar 309
House of Habsburg; their Swabian and Alsatian lands; their loss 309-311
King Rudolf; break-up of the power of Ottokar; Albert duke
of Austria and Styria 310
Relations between Austria and the Empire; division of the
Austrian dominions 311-312
Acquisition of Carinthia and Tyrol; commendation of Trieste;
loss of Thurgau 312-313
Austrian kings and emperors; possessions beyond the Empire 313-315
Union with Bohemia and Hungary 314-317
Consequences of the union with Hungary; slow recovery of
the kingdom 317
Acquisition of Görz; advance towards Italy; Austrian
dominion and influence in Italy 318
Connexion of Austria and Burgundy; the Austrian Netherlands 318-319
Loss of Elsass; of Silesia; acquisition of Poland; Dalmatia 320
Position and dominions of Maria Theresa 320-321
New use of the name _Austria_; the Austrian ‘Empire’ in 1811 321-322
Misuse of the Illyrian name 322
Austria in 1814-1815; recovery of Dalmatia; annexation of
Ragusa; of Cracow 322-323
Separation from Hungary; reconquest; the ‘Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy;’ Bosnia, Herzegovina, Spizza 323-324
CHAPTER IX.
THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE.
Origin and growth of France; comparison with Austria 325
How far Karolingia split off from the Empire 326
France a nation as well as a power 326-327
Use of the name of _France_; its dukes acquire the western
kingdom; extent of their dominion 327-328
Two forms of annexation; first, of fiefs of the crown;
secondly, of lands beyond the kingdom 328
Distinctions among the fiefs; the great vassals; Normandy;
Britanny 328
The Twelve Peers; different position of the bishops in Germany
and Karolingia 328-329
§ 1. _Incorporation of the Vassal States._
The duchy of France in 987; the King cut off from the sea 329-330
The neighbouring states; position of the Parisian kings 330
The kings less powerful than the dukes; advantages of their
kingship; first advances of the kings 331
The House of Anjou; gradual union of Normandy, Anjou, Maine,
Aquitaine, and Gascony 331-333
Acquisition of continental Normandy, Anjou, &c. 333-334
The English kings keep Aquitaine and insular Normandy 334
Sudden greatness of France 334
Fiefs of Aragon in Southern Gaul; counts of Toulouse and
Barcelona 334-335
Effects of the Albigensian war; French annexations;
Roussillon and Barcelona freed from homage 335
Languedoc 335
Other annexations of Saint Lewis 335-336
Annexation of Champagne; temporary possession of Navarre 336-337
The Hundred Years’ War; relations between France and Aquitaine;
momentary possession of Aquitaine by Philip the Fair 337
Peace of Bretigny; Aquitaine and other lands freed from homage 337-338
Peace of Troyes; momentary union of the French and English crowns 338
Final annexation of Aquitaine; beginning of the modern French
kingdom 338-339
Growths of the Dukes of Burgundy; the towns on the Somme;
momentary annexation of Artois and the County of Burgundy 339-340
Annexation of the duchy of Burgundy; Flanders and Artois
released from homage; analogy with Aquitaine 340-343
§ 2. _Foreign Annexations of France._
Relations between France and England; Boulogne; Dunkirk 341-342
Relations between France and Spain; Roussillon; Navarre;
Andorra 342-343
Advance at the cost of the Imperial kingdoms, first Burgundy,
then Germany 343
Effect of the Burgundian conquests of France; relations with
Savoy and Switzerland 344
History of the _Langue d’oc_ 345
French dominion in Italy; slight extent of real annexation 345-346
French annexations from Germany; the Three Bishoprics;
effect of isolated conquests 346
French acquisitions in Elsass; France reaches and passes the
Rhine; increased isolation 347-348
Temporary annexation of Bar; annexation of Roussillon;
advance in the Netherlands 348-349
Annexation of Franche Comté and Besançon; seizure of
Strassburg; annexation of Orange 349-350
Annexation of Lorraine; thorough incorporation of French
conquests; effect of geographical continuity 350-351
Purchase of Corsica; its effects; birth of Buonaparte 351-352
§ 3. _The Colonial Dominion of France._
French colonies in North America; Acadia; Canada; Louisiana 352
Colonial rivalry of France and England; English conquest
of Canada 353
French West India Islands 353
The French power in India; Bourbon and Mauritius 353-354
§ 4. _Acquisitions of France during the Revolutionary Wars._
Distinction between the Republican and ‘Imperial’ Conquests 355-356
First class of annexations; Avignon, Mülhausen, Montbeliard;
Geneva; bishopric of Basel 355
Second zone; traditions of Gaul and the Rhine; Netherlands;
Savoy, &c.; feelings of Buonaparte towards Switzerland 355-356
Character of Buonaparte’s conquests; dependent and incorporated
lands; division of Europe between France and Russia 356-357
The French power in 1811 357-358
Arrangements of 1814-1815 358-359
Later changes; annexation of Savoy, Nizza, and Mentone;
loss of Elsass and Lorraine 359
Losses among the colonies; independence of Hayti; sale of
Louisiana 359-360
Conquest of Algeria; character of African conquests 360
CHAPTER X.
THE EASTERN EMPIRE.
Comparison of the Eastern and Western Empires; the Western
falls to pieces from within; the Eastern is broken to
pieces from without 362-363
Tendencies to separation in the Eastern Empire 363
Closer connexion of the East with the elder Empire; retention
of the Roman name; _Romania_ 363-364
Importance of the distinction of races in the East 364
The original races; Albanians, Greeks, Vlachs 364
Slavonic settlers 364
Turanian invasions from the North; Bulgarians, Magyars, &c. 365
The Saracens 365
The Seljuk and Ottoman Turks; comparison of Bulgarians,
Magyars, and Ottomans 365
The Eastern Empire became nearly conterminous with the Greek
nation; reappearance of the other original races 366
The Latin Conquest, and the revived Byzantine Empire 366-367
States which arose out of the Empire or on its borders;
Sicily; Venice; Bulgaria; Hungary; Asiatic powers 367-368
Distinction between conquest and settlement 368
§ 1. _Changes in the Frontier of the Empire._
Power of revival in the Empire 369
Western possessions of the Empire; losses in the islands;
advance in the mainland 369
Loss of Sardinia; gradual loss and temporary partial recovery
of Sicily 369-370
Fluctuations of the Imperial power in Italy; the Normans 370-371
Loss and recovery of Crete and Cyprus; separation of Cyprus 371-372
Summary of the history of the great islands 372-373
Relations to the Slavonic powers; three Slavonic groups 373
Bulgarian migrations; White Bulgaria; the first Bulgarian
kingdom south of the Danube 373-374
Use of the Bulgarian name 374
The slaves of Macedonia, &c. 375
Relations between the Empire and the Bulgarian kingdom 375
Recovery of Macedonia and Greece; use of the name _Hellênes_ 375-376
Servia, Croatia, and Dalmatia 376
Greatest extent of the first Bulgarian kingdom under Simeon 376-377
First conquest of Bulgaria 377
Second Bulgarian kingdom under Samuel; second conquest 377-378
Venice and Cherson 378
Asiatic conquests; annexation of Armenia 378-379
New enemies; Magyars; Turks 379
Revolt of Servia; loss of Belgrade 379
Advance of the Seljuk Turks; Sultans of _Roum_; loss of Antioch 379-380
Normans advance; loss of Corfu and Durazzo 380
Revival under John and Manuel, Komnênos; recovery of lands in
Asia and Europe 381
Splitting off of distant possessions; loss of Dalmatia; Latin
Kingdom of Cyprus 381
Third Bulgarian kingdom; the Empire more thoroughly Greek 382
Latin conquest of Constantinople; Act of Partition 383
Latin Empire of Romania 383-384
Latin kingdom of Thessalonikê 384-385
Despotat of Epeiros; Greek Empire of Thessalonikê; their
separation 385
Empire of Trebizond; loss of its western dominion 386
The old Empire continued in the Empire of Nikaia; its advance
in Europe and Asia; recovery of Constantinople 386-387
Loss in Asia and advance in Europe; recovery of Peloponnêsos 387-388
Advance in Macedonia and Epeiros 388
Losses in Asia; Knights of Saint John; advance of the Turks 389
Losses towards Servia and Bulgaria; conquests of Stephen Dushan 389-390
Fragmentary dominion of the Empire 390
Advance of the Turks in Europe; loss of Hadrianople; loss
of Philadelphia 390
Recovery of territory after the fall of Bajazet 390-391
Turkish conquest of Constantinople; of Peloponnêsos 391
States which grew out of the Empire; Slavonic, Hungarian,
and Rouman; Greek; Latin; Turkish 391-393
§ 2. _The Kingdom of Sicily._
The Norman Power in Italy and Sicily; its relations to the
Eastern and Western Empires 393
Advance of the Normans in Italy; Aversa and Capua; duchy of
Apulia; Robert Wiscard in Epeiros 394-395
Norman conquest of Sicily 395
Roger King of Sicily; his conquests in Italy, Corfu, and Africa 395-396
Eastern dominion of the two Sicilian crowns; kingdom of
Margarito 396-397
Acre; Malta 398
§ 3. _The Crusading States._
Comparison between Sicily and the crusading states 398
Jerusalem; Cyprus; Armenia 399
Extent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; other Latin states in Syria;
loss and recovery of Jerusalem, final loss; loss of Acre 399-400
Kingdom of Cyprus; its relations to Jerusalem and Armenia 401
Frank principalities in Greece; possessions of the maritime
commonwealths 401-402
§ 4. _The Eastern Dominion of Venice and Genoa._
The historic position of Venice springs from her relation to
the Eastern Empire 402-403
Connexion of her Greek and Dalmatian rule 402
Comparison between Venice and Sicily 402
Her share in the Act of Partition compared with her real
dominion; her main position Hadriatic 403-405
Venetian possessions not assigned by the partition; Crete;
Cyprus; Thessalonikê 404
Taking of Zara in the fourth crusade 405
Relations of the Dalmatian cities to Servia, Croatia, Venice,
Hungary, and the Empire 405-407
Pagania 406
Magyar Kingdom of Croatia; struggles between Venice and Hungary 407
Independence of Ragusa; Polizza 407
History of Corfu 408
Venetian posts in Peloponnêsos: history of Euboia; loss
of the Ægæan islands 409
Advance of Venice and Dalmatia, Peloponnêsos, and the
Western islands 410
Venice the champion against the Turk; losses of Venice;
fluctuations in the Western Islands 410-412
Conquest and loss of Peloponnêsos 412
Frontier of Ragusa 412
Venetian fiefs; history of the duchy of Naxos 413
Possessions of Genoa; Galata; her dominions in the Euxine 413-414
Genoese fiefs; Lesbos; Chios; the Maona 414
Revolutions of Rhodes; knights of Saint John; their removal
to Malta; revolutions of Malta 414-415
§ 5. _The Principalities of the Greek Mainland._
Greek and Latin states; use of the name _Môraia_ 415-416
Lordship and duchy of Athens; the Catalans; the later
dukes; Ottoman conquest; momentary Venetian occupations 416-417
Salôna and Bodonitza 417
Principality of Achaia; recovery of Peloponnesian lands by
the Empire 417-418
Angevin overlordship in Achaia; dismemberment of the
principality 418
Patras under the Pope 418
Conquests of Constantine Palaiologos 418
Turkish conquest of Peloponnêsos; independence of Maina 419
Revolutions of Epeiros; dismemberment of the despotat;
recovery of Epeiros by the Empire 419
Servian conquests; beginning of the Albanian power; kings
of the house of Thopia 419-420
Servian dynasty in southern Epeiros; kingdom of Thessaly;
Turkish conquest 420
The Buondelmonti in Northern Epeiros; history of the house
of Tocco; _Karlili_; effects of their rule 420-421
Turkish conquest of Albania; revolt of Scanderbeg; Turkish
reconquest 421
Empire of Trebizond; its relations to Constantinople 422
Turkish conquest of Trebizond; of Perateia or Gothia 422-423
§ 6. _The Slavonic States._
Effects of the Latin conquest on the Slavonic states 423
Comparison of Servia and Bulgaria; extent of Servia; its
relation to the Empire; conquest by Manuel Komnênos;
Servia independent 423-424
Relations towards Hungary; shiftings of Rama or Bosnia 424-425
Southern advance of Servia; Empire of Stephen Dushan 425
Break-up of the Servian power; the later Servian kingdom;
conquests and deliverances of Servia 426
Kingdom of Bosnia; loss of Jayce; duchy of Saint Saba or
Herzegovina; Turkish conquest of Bosnia; of Herzegovina 426-427
The Balsa at Skodra; loss of Skodra; beginning of Tzernagora
or Montenegro 428
Loss of Zabljak; establishment of Tzetinje 428
The Vladikas; the lay princes 429
Montenegrin conquests and losses 428-429
Greatest extent of the third Bulgarian kingdom; its decline;
shiftings of the frontier towards the Empire; Philippopolis 429-430
Break-up of the kingdom; principality of Dobrutcha;
Turkish conquest 430-431
§ 7. _The Kingdom of Hungary._
Character and position of the Hungarian kingdom 431-432
Great Moravia overthrown by the Magyars; their relations to
the two Empires 432-433
The two Chrobatias separated by the Magyars; their geographical
position 433-434
Kingdom of Hungary; its relations to Croatia and Slavonia 434
Transsilvania or Siebenbürgen; origin of the name; German
and other colonies 435
Origin of the Roumans; their northern migration 435-436
Rouman element in the third Bulgarian kingdom; occupation
of the lands beyond the Danube; Great and Little Wallachia;
Transsilvania; Moldavia 436-437
Conquests of Lewis the Great; Dalmatia; occupation of Halicz
and Vladimir; pledging of Zips 437
Turkish invasion; disputes for Dalmatia 438
Reign of Matthias Corvinus; extension of Hungary east and west 438
Loss of Belgrade; the Austrian kings; Turkish conquest of
Hungary; fragment kept by the Austrian kings; their tribute
to the Turk; the Rouman lands 438-439
Recovery of Hungary from the Turk; peace of Carlowitz;
of Passarowitz; losses at the peace of Belgrade 439-440
Galicia and Lodomeria; Bukovina; Dalmatia 440-441
Annexation of Spizza; administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
renewed vassalage to the Turk 440-441
§ 8. _The Ottoman Power._
The Ottoman Turks; special character of their invasion;
contrast with other Turanian invasions; comparison with
the Saracens in Spain 442-443
Comparison of the Ottoman dominions with the Eastern Empire 443
Effects of the Mongolian invasion; origin of the Ottomans;
their position in Europe and Asia; break-up and reunion
of their dominion; its permanence 443-444
Advance of the Ottomans in Asia; in Europe; dominion of
Bajazet 444-445
Victory of Timour; reunion of the Ottoman power under
Mahomet the First 445-446
Mahomet the Second; taking of Constantinople; extent of
his dominion; taking of Otranto 446
Conquest of Syria and Egypt 447
Reign of Suleiman; his conquests; Hungary; Rhodes; Naxos;
his African overlordship 447
Conquest of Cyprus; decline of the Ottoman power 447-448
Greatest extent of the Ottoman power; Crete and Podolia 448
Ottoman loss of Hungary; loss and recovery of Peloponnêsos;
Bosnia and Herzegovina; union of inland and maritime Illyria 448
English vassalage in Cyprus 449
Relations between Russia and the Turk; Azof; Treaty of
Kainardji; Crim; Jedisan; Bessarabia; shiftings of
the Moldavian frontier 449-450
§ 9. _The Liberated States._
Lands liberated from the Turk; comparison of Hungary
with Greece, Servia, &c. 450
The Servian people the first to revolt 450
The Ionian Islands the first liberated state; the Septinsular
Republic; overlordship of the Turk 451
The Venetian outposts given to the Turk; surrender of Parga;
last Ottoman encroachment 451
The Ionian Islands under British protection 451
The Greek War of Independence; extent of the Greek nation;
extent of the liberated lands 451-452
Kingdom of Greece; addition of the Ionian Islands; promised
addition in Thessaly and Epeiros 452
First deliverance and reconquest of Servia 453
Second deliverance; Servia a tributary principality 452-453
Withdrawal of Turkish garrisons 453
Independence and enlargement of Servia 453
Fourfold division of the Servian nation 453
The Rouman principalities; union of Wallachia and Moldavia 453
Independence and new frontier of Roumania 453-454
Deliverance of part of Bulgaria; the Bulgaria of San Stefano 454
Treaty of Berlin; division of Bulgaria into free, half-free,
and enslaved 454-455
Principality of Bulgaria; Eastern Roumelia 454
General survey 455-460
Note on M. Sathas 460-461
CHAPTER XI.
THE BALTIC LANDS.
Lands beyond the two Empires; the British islands; Scandinavia;
Spain 462-463
_Quasi_-imperial position of certain powers 462-463
Comparison of Scandinavia and Spain; of Aragon and Sweden 463-464
Eastern and Western aspect of Scandinavia 464
General view of the Baltic lands; the Northern Slavonic lands,
their relations to Germany and Hungary 465
Characteristics of Poland and Russia 465
The primitive nations, Aryan and non-Aryan 455-466
Central position of the North-Slavonic lands; barbarian
neighbours of Russia and Scandinavia; Russian conquest
and colonization by land 467
Relation of the Baltic lands to the two Empires; Norway
always independent; relations of Sweden and Denmark
to the Western Empire 467
The Western Empire and the West-Slavonic lands; relations
of Poland to the Western Empire 467
Relations of Russia to the Eastern Church and Empire;
Imperial style of Russia 468
§ 1. _The Scandinavian Lands after the Separation of the Empires._
The Baltic still mainly held by the earlier races; formation
of the Scandinavian kingdom 468-499
Formation of the Danish kingdom; its extent; frontier of
the Eider; the Danish march 469
Use of the name _Northmen_; formation of the kingdom of
Norway 469-470
The Swedes and Gauts; the Swedish kingdom 470
Its fluctuations towards Norway and Denmark; its growth
towards the north 470
Western conquests and settlements of the Danes and Northmen 471
Settlements in Britain and Gaul 471
Settlements in Orkney, Man, Iceland, Ireland, &c. 471
Expeditions to the East; Danish occupation of Samland; Jomsburg 471
Swedish conquest of Curland; Scandinavians in Russia 472
§ 2. _The Lands East and South of the Baltic at the Separation
of the Empires._
Slaves between Elbe and Dnieper; their lack of sea-board 472-473
Kingdom of Samo; Great Moravia 473
Four Slavonic groups 473-474
Polabic group; Sorabi, Leuticii, Obotrites; their relations to
the Empire 474-475
Early conquest of the Sorabi; marks of Meissen and Lusatia;
long resistance of the Leuticians; takings of Branibor;
mark of Brandenburg 475-476
Mark of the Billungs; kingdom of Sclavinia; house of Mecklenburg;
relations to Denmark 476
Bohemia and Moravia; their relations to Poland, Hungary,
and Germany 477
The Polish kingdom; its relations to Germany; rivalry of
Poland and Russia 478
Lechs or Poles; their various tribes 478
Beginning of the Polish state; its conversion and relations
to the Empire 479
Conquests of Boleslaf; union of the Northern Chrobatia with
Poland 479
The Polish state survives, though divided 479-480
Relations of Russia to the Eastern Church and Empire; Russia
created by the Scandinavian settlement; origin of the name 480
First centre at Novgorod; Russian advance; union of the
Eastern Slaves 481
Second centre at Kief; the princes become Slavonic; attacks
on Constantinople and Cherson 481-482
Conquests on the Caspian; isolation of Russia; Russian lands
west of Dnieper 482
Russian principalities; supremacy of Kief 482
Supremacy of the northern Vladimir; commonwealths of Novgorod
and Pskof; various principalities; kingdom of Halicz or Galicia 483
The Cuman power; Mongol invasion; Russia tributary to
the Mongols; Russia represented by Novgorod 483-484
The earlier races; Finns in Livland and Esthland 484
The Lettic nations; Lithuania; Prussia 484
Survey in the twelfth century 485
§ 3. _German Dominion on the Baltic._
Time of Teutonic conquest on the Baltic; comparison of German
and Scandinavian influence; German influence the stronger 485-486
Beginning of Swedish conquest in Finland; German conquest
in Livland; its effect on Lithuania and Russia; the
Military orders 487
Polish gains and losses 487
Character of the _Hansa_ 487
Temporary Swedish possession of Scania; union of Calmar;
division and reunion; abiding union of Denmark and Norway 487-488
Union of Iceland with Norway; loss of the Scandinavian
settlements in the British isles 488
Swedish advance in Finland 488
Temporary greatness of Denmark, settlement of Esthland;
conquest of Sclavinia; Danish advance in Germany;
Holstein, &c.; long retention of Rügen 488-490
Duchy of South-Jutland or Sleswick; its relations to Denmark
and Holstein; royal and ducal lines; conquest
of Ditmarschen 490-491
Effect of the Danish advance on the Slavonic lands; western
losses of Poland; Pomerania; Silesia 491-492
Kingdom of Bohemia; dominion of Ottocar; the Luxemburg kings 492-493
Annexation of Silesia and Lusatia; territory lost to Matthias
Corvinus 493
Union with Austria; later losses 493
German corporations; the Hansa; its nature; not strictly
a territorial power 494-495
The Military Orders; Sword-brothers and Teutonic knights;
their connexion with the Empire; effects of their rule 495
The Sword-brothers in Livland and Esthland; extent of
their dominion 495-496
The Teutonic order in Prussia; union with the Sword-brothers;
acquisition of Culm, Pomerelia, Samogitia, Gotland;
the New Mark 496
Losses of the order; cession of Pomerelia and part of Prussia
to Poland; the remainder a Polish fief 496-497
Advance of Christianity; Lithuania the last heathen power;
its great advance 497-498
Consolidation of Poland; conquests of Casimir the Great;
shiftings of Red Russia 498
Union of Poland and Lithuania; recovery of the Polish
duchies; Lithuanian advance; closer union 498-499
Revival of Russia; power of Moscow; name of _Muscovy_ 499-500
Break-up of the Mongol power; the Khanats of Crim, Kazan,
Siberia, Astrakhan 501
Deliverance of Russia; Crim dependent on the Turk 501
Advance of Moscow; annexation of Novgorod, &c.; Russia
united and independent 501
Survey at the end of the fifteenth century 502
§ 4. _The Growth of Russia and Sweden._
Growth of Russia; creation of Prussia; temporary greatness
of Sweden 503
Separation of the Prussian and Livonian knights; duchy of
Prussia; union of Prussia and Brandenburg; Prussia
independent of Poland 503-504
Fall of the Livonian knights; partition of their dominions;
duchy of Curland; shares of Denmark, Sweden, Poland,
and Russia 504
Greatest Baltic extent of Poland and Lithuania; union of Lublin 505
Advance of Russia; its order; the Euxine reached last 505-506
Recovery of Russian lands from Lithuania; Polish conquest
of Russia; second Russian advance; Peace of Andraszovo;
recovery of Kief 506
Russian superiority over the Cossacks; Podolia ceded to the
Turk 506-507
Comparison of Swedish and Russian advance 507
Advance under and after Gustavus Adolphus; conquests from
Russia and Poland; Ingermanland; Livland 507-508
Conquests from Denmark and Norway; Dago and Oesel;
Scania, &c.; restoration of Trondhjem 508-509
Fiefs of Sweden within the Empire; Pomerania; Bremen and Verden 509
Fluctuations in the duchies; Danish possession of Oldenburg 509
Sweden after the peace of Oliva 510
Eastern advance of Russia; Kasan and Astrakhan; Siberia 511
§ 5. _The Decline of Sweden and Poland._
Decline of Sweden; extinction of Poland; kingdom of Prussia;
empire of Russia 511-512
Russia on the Baltic; conquest of Livland, &c.; foundation
of Saint Petersburg; advance in Finland 512
German losses of Sweden: Bremen, Verden, part of Pomerania 513
Union of the Gottorp lands and Denmark 513
First partition of Poland; recovery of lost lands by Russia;
geographical union of Prussia and Brandenburg; Polish
and Russian lands acquired by Austria 513-514
Second partition: Russian and Prussian shares 514
Third partition: extinction of Poland and Lithuania 514-515
No strictly Polish territory acquired by Russia; the old
Poland passes to Prussia, Chrobatia to Austria 515
Russian advance on the Euxine, Azof; Crim; Jedisan 515-516
Temporary Russian advance on the Caspian; superiority
over Georgia 516
Survey at the end of the eighteenth century 517
§ 6. _The Modern Geography of the Baltic Lands._
Effects of the fall of the Empire; incorporation of the German
lands of Sweden and Denmark 518
Russian conquest of Finland 518
Union of Sweden and Norway; loss of Swedish Pomerania 518-519
Denmark enters the German Confederation for Holstein and
Lauenburg; loss of these duchies and of Sleswick 519
Polish losses of Prussia; commonwealth of Danzig; Duchy
of Warsaw 519-520
Polish territory recovered by Prussia; Russian kingdom of
Poland; commonwealth of Cracow; its annexation by Austria 520
Fluctuation on the Moldavian border 521
Russian advance in the Caucasus and on the Caspian 521
Advance in Turkestan and Eastern Asia; extent and character
of the Russian dominion 522-523
Russian America 523
Final survey of the Baltic lands 523-524
CHAPTER XII.
THE SPANISH PENINSULA AND ITS COLONIES.
Analogy between Spain and Scandinavia; slight relation of
Spain with the Empire; break between its earlier and
later history 525
Comparison of Spain and the Eastern Empire; the Spanish nation
formed by the Saracen wars; analogy between Spain and
Russia 525-526
Extent of West-Gothic and Saracen dominions; two centres
of deliverance, native and Frankish 526-527
History of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal; use of the phrase
‘Spain and Portugal’ 527-528
Navarre 528
§ 1. _The Foundation of the Spanish Kingdoms._
Beginning of the kingdom of Leon 529
The Ommiad emirate; the Spanish March; its divisions 529
Navarre under Sancho the Great 529-530
Break-up of the kingdom of Navarre, and of the Ommiad
caliphate; small Mussulman powers 530
Invasion of the Almoravides; use of the name _Moors_ 530
New kingdoms: Castile, Aragon, and Sobrarbe; union of
Aragon and Sobrarbe 530
Shiftings of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia; final union; Castilian
Empire 531
Decline of Navarre; growth of Aragon; union of Aragon and
Barcelona; end of French superiority 531
County and kingdom of Portugal 532
Advance of Castile; taking of Toledo; checked by the Almoravides 532
Advance of Aragon; taking of Zaragoza 532
Advance of Portugal; taking of Lisbon 533
Second advance of Castile; invasion of the Almohades;
their decline 533
Advance of Aragon and Portugal 533
Final advance of Castile; kingdom of Granada; Gibraltar 534
Geographical position of the Spanish kingdoms 534-535
Title of ‘King of Spain;’ the lesser kingdoms 535-536
§ 2. _Growth and Partition of the Great Spanish Monarchy._
Little geographical change in the peninsula; territories
beyond the peninsula; the great Spanish Monarchy 536
Conquest of Granada; end of Mussulman rule 536-537
Union of Castile and Aragon; loss, recovery, and final loss of
Roussillon; annexation and separation of Portugal 537-538
Gibraltar and Minorca 537
Advance of Aragon beyond the peninsula; union with the
Sicilies and Sardinia 538
Extension of Castile dominion; the Burgundian inheritance;
duchy of Milan 539
Extent of the Spanish Monarchy; loss of the United Netherlands;
lands lost to France 539
Partition of the Spanish Monarchy; later relations with the
Sicilies; duchy of Parma 539-540
§ 3. _The Colonial Dominion of Spain and Portugal._
Character of the outlying dominion of Portugal 540
African conquests of Portugal; kingdom of Algarve beyond
the Sea; Ceuta, Tangier 541
Advance in Africa and the islands; Cape of Good Hope;
dominion in India and Arabia 541-542
Settlement and history of Brazil; the one American monarchy 542
Division of the Indies between Spain and Portugal; African
and insular dominion of Spain 542-543
American dominions of Spain; revolutions of the Spanish
colonies; two Empires of Mexico 543-544
The Spanish West Indies 544
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BRITISH ISLANDS AND COLONIES.
Isolation and independence of Britain; late Roman conquest
and early loss; Britain another world and Empire 545
Shiftings of the Celtic and Teutonic kingdoms; little geographical
change in later times 546
English settlements beyond sea; new English nations 547
§ 1. _The Kingdom of Scotland._
Greatness of Scotland due to its English elements; two English
kingdoms in Britain 548
Use of the Scottish name 549
Analogy with Switzerland 549
The three elements in the later Scotland; English, British,
Irish; Lothian, Strathclyde, Scotland 549
The Picts; their union with the Scots; Scottish Strathclyde;
Galloway 550
Scandinavian settlements; Caithness and Sutherland 550
English supremacy; taking of Edinburgh; grants of Cumberland
and Lothian 550-551
Difference of tenure gradually forgotten 551
Effects of the grant of Lothian; shiftings of Cumberland,
Carlisle, and Northumberland 551-552
Boundary of England and Scotland; relations between the kingdoms 552
Struggle with the Northmen; recovery of Caithness, Galloway,
and the Sudereys 553
History of Man; of Orkney 553
§ 2. _The Kingdom of England._
Changes of boundary toward Wales; conquests of Harold 553
Norman conquest of North Wales 554
Princes of North Wales; English conquest 554
The principality of Wales; full incorporation with England 554-555
The English shires; two classes of shires; ancient
principalities; shires mapped out in the tenth century 555
The new shires; Cumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, Rutland 555-556
§ 3. _Ireland._
Ireland the first Scotland; its provinces 556
Settlements of the Ostmen; increasing connexion with England;
the English conquest; fluctuations of the Pale 556-557
Lordship and kingdom of Ireland; its relations to England
and Great Britain 557
§ 4. _Outlying European Possessions of England._
The Norman Islands; Aquitaine, Calais, &c. 558
Outposts and islands 558
Greek possessions; the Ionian Islands; Cyprus 558-559
§ 5. _The American Colonies of England._
The United States of America 559
First English settlements; Virginia; the New England States;
Maryland; Carolina 559-561
Settlements of the United Provinces and Sweden; New
Netherlands; New Sweden; New York 561
The Jerseys; Pennsylvania; Delaware; Georgia 561-562
The thirteen Colonies; their independence 562
Nova Scotia; Canada; Louisiana; Florida 562-563
A new English nation formed; lack of a name; use of the
name _America_ 563-564
Second English nation in North America; the Canadian
confederation 564
The West India Islands, &c. 565
§ 6. _Other Colonies and Possessions of England._
The Australian colonies 565-566
The South-African colonies 566
Europe extended by colonization; contrast with barbaric
dominion; Empire of India 567
Summary 568-569
INDEX 571
* * * * *
ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.
[Transcriber’s note: These additions and corrections have not been made
in this electronic version of the text. Page numbers and line numbers
reflect the pagination of the original text and may not reflect the
structure of this version.]
P. 19, l. 10. Latterly the name _Balkan Peninsula_ has come into more
general use.
P. 38, side-note. For ‘Cities of independent state’ read ‘Growth of
independent states.’
P. 41, l. 10 from bottom. This is true in a rough practical way.
But when I wrote this, I hardly took in the fact that not a few
Greek cities, though practically subject to the Empire, were not
finally incorporated with it till ages later, perhaps never formally
incorporated at all.
P. 55, l. 7. For ‘south-east’ read ‘south-west.’
P. 55, l. 8. For ‘north-west’ read ‘north-east.’
P. 71. When I wrote this, I had not taken in the true history of the
Rouman people. See below, p. 435.
P. 88, l. 14. Since this was written, I wrote the article ‘Goths,’ in
the Encyclopædia Britannica, where I have gone rather more fully into
their history from later and minuter study.
P. 90, l. 4 from the bottom. I believe the existence of a _Gothia_
by that name in Spain is a little doubtful. As to the _Gothia_ in
Gaul, otherwise _Septimania_, and the other _Gothia_ in the Tauric
Chersonêsos, there is no doubt.
P. 105, l. 14 from bottom. I believe however that the coins of some of
the Provençal cities point to a retention of allegiance to the Empire
much later. Still there is no doubt as to the formal cession.
P. 115, l. 5 from bottom. I now see no reason to believe in any
Albanian migrations into Greece till long afterwards. But I still have
no doubt that the Albanians strictly represent the old Illyrians.
P. 119. Dele side-note, ‘The cession of Gaulish possessions.’
P. 126, l. 6. For ‘_the_ great Mahometan powers’ read ‘_the two_ great
Mahometan powers.’
P. 138, l. 9. Dele ‘much as.’
P. 154. The growth of the Christian states in Spain will be found more
fully and accurately given in the specially Spanish chapter, Chapter
XII.
P. 156, l. 4. It will be at once seen that this was written before
the events of 1877-8. The later changes in these lands will be found
described in Chapter X.
P. 167, l. 10. For ‘division’ read ‘divisions.’
P. 172, side-note. For ‘province’ read ‘provinces.’
P. 180, side-note. For ‘schemes’ read ‘scheme.’
P. 189, l. 12. For ‘were’ read ‘some were.’
P. 216, side-note. For ‘ecclesiastical towns’ read ‘ecclesiastical
powers.’
P. 221, side-note. For ‘kingdom’ read ‘kingdoms.’
P. 258, l. 14. I was here speaking purely geographically, before much,
if anything, had been heard of the cry of _Italia irredenta_. How far I
go with that cry, how far not, I have explained in Historical Essays,
Third Series, p. 206.
P. 261, l. 1. For ‘Montbeilliard,’ read ‘Montbeliard.’
P. 263, side-note. For ‘Burgundian possession of its county’ read
‘Burgundian possessions of its counts.’
P. 267, l. 1. For ‘maps’ read ‘map.’
P. 288, l. 11 from bottom. For ‘High and Low Savoy’ read ‘Savoy and
High Savoy.’
P. 300, side-note. For ‘1662’ read ‘1663.’
P. 306, l. 8. At present it would seem that this mysterious name takes
in all those kingdoms, counties, lordships, &c., which are held by
the Archduke of Austria, and which do not form part of the kingdom of
Hungary and its _partes annexæ_. For these I have elsewhere, according
to an old analogy, suggested the more intelligible name of _Nungary_.
P. 319, l. 3. That is Philip ‘the Handsome,’ son of Maximilian and
father of Charles the Fifth.
P. 334, l. 9. Aquitaine, the inheritance of Eleanor, did not come under
the forfeiture of the fiefs actually held by John.
P. 340, l. 4 from bottom. Roussillon is another case of a land freed
from homage and afterwards annexed as a foreign conquest.
P. 369, l. 17. For ‘farther’ read ‘further.’
P. 389, side-note. For ‘conquest’ read ‘conquests of.’
P. 408, side-note. For ‘final’ read ‘first.’
P. 413, side-note. For ‘possession of Venetian cities’ read
‘possessions of Venetian families.’
P. 429, l. 15. Since this was printed, Dulcigno has been restored to
Montenegro, in exchange for some inland Albanian territory given back
to the Turk. The formation of the Albanian League is not unlikely to
affect the geography of Herzegovina; but no change has yet (January
1881) taken place which can be shown on the map.
P. 441, l. 8. How unpleasant this truth is felt to be in certain
quarters, is shown by a small incident of last year. I sent a set of
manuscript maps of Dalmatia to Mr. Arthur Evans for his suggestions.
Those maps vanished in the Imperial, Royal, and Apostolic post-office,
and never reached his address at Ragusa. If therefore the revolutions
of Dalmatian geography are less accurately marked in this book than
they should be, the fault is not mine. In Imperial, Royal, and
Apostolic quarters it is doubtless inconvenient to allow any memory
of days when free Ragusa had not bowed to any self-styled Emperor,
either from Corsica or from Lorraine, or of still later days when free
Tzernagora reached to her own sea at Cattaro. Those who have made it
their business to filch the substance may naturally enough think it
their business to filch the picture also.
P. 450, l. 5 from bottom. It is quite accurate to say that the Turk
has never ruled at Tzetinje. It is perfectly true that the Turk has
more than once harried Montenegro and Tzetinje itself; the Turk
has professed to consider the land as included in a pashalik; but
Montenegro has never been a regularly and avowedly tributary state, as
Servia and Roumania were, as free Bulgaria is still.
P. 452, l. 7 from bottom. The promises of Europe on this head still
remain unfulfilled (January 1881). It is hardly needful to notice the
diplomatic quibble that the European order for the liberation of these
lands was not contained in the document strictly called the Treaty of
Berlin, but in another paper signed at the same time and place. The
order has been renewed during the present year at the Second Berlin
Conference.
P. 492, side-note. For ‘and’ read ‘under.’
P. 529, l. 9 from bottom. For ‘western’ read ‘eastern.’
P. 554, side-note. For ‘Northerners,’ read ‘Northmen.’
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
♦Definition of Historical Geography.♦
The work which we have now before us is to trace out the extent of
territory which the different states and nations of Europe and the
neighbouring lands have held at different times in the world’s history,
to mark the different boundaries which the same country has had, and
the different meanings in which the same name has been used. It is of
great importance carefully to make these distinctions, because great
mistakes as to the facts of history are often caused through men
thinking and speaking as if the names of different countries, say for
instance England, France, Burgundy, Austria, have always meant exactly
the same extent of territory. Historical geography, in this sense,
differs from physical geography which regards the natural features of
the earth’s surface. It differs also from studies like ethnology and
comparative philology, which have to do directly with the differences
between one nation and another, with their movements from one part
of the world to another, and with the relations to be found among
the languages spoken by them. But, though it is distinct from these
studies, it makes much use of them. For the physical geography of a
country always has a great effect upon its political history, and
the dispersions and movements of different nations are exactly those
parts of history which have most to do with fixing the names and the
boundaries of different countries at different times. _England_, for
instance, is, in strictness, the land of the English wherever they
may settle, whether in their old home on the European continent,
or in the isle of Britain, or in New England beyond the Ocean. But
the extent of territory which was in this way to become England was
largely determined by the physical circumstances of the countries in
which the English settled. And the history of the English nation has
been influenced, above all things, by the fact that the great English
settlement which has made the English name famous was made in an
island. But, when England had become the name of a distinct political
dominion, its meaning was liable to change as that dominion advanced
or went back. Thus the borders of England and Scotland have greatly
changed at different times, and forgetfulness of this has led to many
misunderstandings in reading the history of the two countries. And so
with all other cases of the kind; the physical nature of the country,
and the settlements of the different nations which have occupied it,
have always been the determining causes of its political divisions.
But it is with the political divisions that historical geography has
to deal in the first place. With the nature of the land, and with
the people who occupy it, it has to deal only so far as they have
influenced the political divisions. Our present business in short is,
first to draw the map of the countries with which we are concerned as
it appeared after each of the different changes which they have gone
through, and then to point out the historical causes which have led to
the changes on the map. In this way we shall always see what was the
meaning of any geographical name at any particular time, and we shall
thus avoid mistakes, some of which have often led to really important
practical consequences.
♦Distinction of Geographical and Political Names.♦
From this it follows that, in looking at the geography of Europe
for our present purpose, we must look first at the land itself, and
then at the nations which occupy it. And, in so doing, it may be
well first of all to distinguish between two kinds of names which we
shall have to use. Some names of countries are strictly geographical;
they really mean a certain part of the earth’s surface marked out by
boundaries which cannot well be changed. Others simply mean the extent
of country which is occupied at any time by a particular nation, and
whose boundaries may easily be changed. Thus _Britain_ is a strictly
geographical name, meaning an island whose shape and boundaries
must always be nearly the same. _England_, _Scotland_, _Wales_, are
names of parts of that island, called after different nations which
have settled in it, and the boundaries of all of which have differed
greatly at different times. _Spain_ again is the geographical name
of a peninsula which is almost as well marked out by nature as the
island of Britain. _Castile_, _Aragon_, _Portugal_, are political
names of parts of the peninsula of Spain. They are the names of states
whose boundaries have greatly varied, and which have sometimes formed
separate governments and sometimes have been joined together.[1]
_Gaul_ again is the geographical name of a country which is not so
clearly marked out all round by nature as the island of Britain and
the peninsula of Spain, but which is well marked on three sides, to
the north, south, and west. Within the limits of Gaul, names like
_France_, _Flanders_, _Britanny_, _Burgundy_, and _Aquitaine_, are
political names of parts of the country, whose limits have varied as
much at different times as those of the different parts of Britain and
Spain. This is the difference between strictly geographical names which
do not alter and political names which do alter. No doubt _Gaul_ and
_Britain_ were in the beginning political names, names given to the
land from those who occupied it, just as much as the names _France_ and
_England_. But the settlements from which those lands took the names of
Gaul and Britain took place long before the beginning of trustworthy
history, while the settlements from which parts of those lands took the
names of France and England happened in times long after trustworthy
history began, and for which we are therefore ready with dates and
names. Thus Gaul and Britain are the oldest received names of those
lands; they are the names which those lands bore when we first hear
of them. It is therefore convenient to keep them in use as strictly
geographical names, as always meaning that part of the earth’s surface
which they meant when we first hear of them. In this book therefore,
_Gaul_, _Britain_, _Spain_, and other names of the same kind, will
always be used to mean a certain space on the map, whoever may be its
inhabitants, or whatever may be its government, at any particular time.
But names like _France_, _England_, _Castile_, will be used to mean
the territory to which they were politically applied at the time of
which we may be speaking, a territory which has been greater and less
at different times. Thus, the cities of Carlisle and Edinburgh have
always been in _Britain_ since they were built. They have sometimes
been in _England_ and sometimes not. The cities of Marseilles, Geneva,
Strassburg, and Arras have always been in _Gaul_ ever since they
were built. They have sometimes been in _France_ and sometimes not,
according to political changes.
§ 1. _Geographical Aspect of Europe._
Our present business is with the Historical Geography of Europe, and
with that of other parts of the world only so far as they concern
the geography of Europe. But we shall have to speak of all the three
divisions of the Old World, Europe, Asia, and Africa, in those parts
of the three which come nearest to one another, and in which the real
history of the world begins. ♦The Mediterranean Lands.♦ These are those
parts of all three which lie round the Mediterranean sea, the lands
which gradually came to form the Empire of Rome. In these lands the
boundaries between the three great divisions are very easily marked.
Modern maps do not all place the boundary between Europe and Asia at
the same point; some make the river Don the boundary and some the
Volga. But this question is of little importance for history. In the
earliest historical times, when we have to do only with the countries
round the Mediterranean sea, there can be no doubt how much is Europe
and how much is Asia and Africa. Europe is the land to the north of the
Mediterranean sea and of the great gulfs which run out of it. If an
exact boundary is needed in the barbarous lands north of the Euxine,
the Tanais or Don is clearly the boundary which should be taken. In
all these lands the Mediterranean and its gulfs divide Europe from
Asia. But the northern parts of the two continents really form one
geographical whole, the boundary between them being one merely of
convenience. A vast central mass of land, stretching right across the
inland parts of the two continents, sends forth a system of peninsulas
and islands, to the north and south. And it is in the peninsular lands
of Europe that European history begins.
Alike in Europe and in Asia, the southern or peninsular part of the
continent is cut off from the central mass by a mountain chain, which
in Europe is nearly unbroken. ♦The peninsulas of Europe and Asia.♦ Thus
the southern part of Europe consists of the three great peninsulas of
_Spain_, _Italy_, and what we may, in a wide sense, call _Greece_.
These answer in some sort to the three great Oceanic peninsulas of
Asia, those of _Arabia_, _India_, and _India_ beyond the _Ganges_. But
the part of Asia which has historically had most to do with Europe
is its Mediterranean peninsula, the land known as _Asia Minor_. In
the northern part of each continent we find another system of great
gulfs or inland seas; but those in Asia have been hindered by the cold
from ever being of any importance, while in Europe the Baltic sea and
the gulfs which run out of it may be looked on as forming a kind of
secondary Mediterranean. We may thus say that Europe consists of two
insular and peninsular regions, north and south, with a great unbroken
mass of land between them. But there are some parts of Europe which
seem as it were connecting links between the three main divisions of
the continent. Thus we said that the three great peninsulas are cut
off from the central mass by a nearly unbroken mountain chain. But the
connexion of the central peninsula, that of Italy, with the eastern
one or Greece, is far closer than its connexion with the western
one, or Spain. Italy and Spain are much further apart than Italy and
Greece, and between the Alps and the Pyrenees the mountain chain is
nearly lost. We might almost say that a piece of central Europe breaks
through at this point and comes down to the Mediterranean. This is the
south-eastern part of Gaul; and Gaul may in this way be looked on as a
land which joins together the central and the southern parts of Europe.
But this is not all; in the north-western corner of Europe lies that
great group of islands, two large ones and many small, of which our own
Britain is the greatest. The British islands are closely connected in
their geography and history with Gaul on one side, and with the islands
and peninsulas of the North on the other. In this way we may say that
all the three divisions of Europe are brought closely together on the
western side of the continent, and that the lands of Gaul and Britain
are the connecting links which bind them together.
§ 2. _Effect of Geography on History._
♦Beginning of history in the European peninsulas.♦
Now this geographical aspect of the chief lands of Europe has had its
direct effect on their history. We might almost take for granted that
the history of Europe should begin in the two more eastern among the
three great southern peninsulas. Of these two, Italy and Greece,
each has its own character. Greece, though it is the part of Europe
which lies nearest to Asia, is in a certain sense the most European
of European lands. The characteristic of Europe is to be more full of
peninsulas and islands and inland seas than the rest of the Old World.
♦Characteristics of Greece;♦ And Greece, the peninsula itself and the
neighbouring lands, are fuller of islands and promontories and inland
seas than any other part of Europe. On the other hand, Italy is the
central land of all southern Europe, and indeed of all the land round
the Mediterranean. It was therefore only natural that Greece should be
the part of Europe in which all that is most distinctively European
first grew up and influenced other lands. ♦of Italy.♦ And so, if any
one land or city among the Mediterranean lands was to rule over all the
rest, it is in Italy, as the central land, that we should naturally
look for the place of dominion. The destinies of the two peninsulas and
their relations to the rest of the world were thus impressed on them by
their geographical position.
If we turn to recorded history, we find that it is only a working out
of the consequences of these physical facts. Greece was the first part
of Europe to become civilized and to play a part in history; but it was
Italy, and in Italy it was its most central city, Rome, which came to
have the dominion over the civilized world of early times—that is, over
the lands around the Mediterranean. These two peninsulas have, each
in its own way, ruled and influenced the rest of Europe as no other
parts have done. All the other parts have been, in one way or another,
their subjects or disciples. ♦Advance of the Roman dominion.♦ The
effect of the geographical position of these countries is also marked
in the stages by which Rome advanced to the general dominion of the
Mediterranean lands. She first subdued Italy; then she had to strive
for the mastery with her great rival Carthage, a city which held nearly
the same central position on the southern coast of the Mediterranean
which she herself did on the northern. Then she subdued, step by
step, the peninsulas on each side of her and the other coast lands of
the Mediterranean—European, Asiatic, and African. Into the central
division of Europe she did not press far, never having any firm or
lasting dominion beyond the Rhine and the Danube. Into Northern Europe,
properly so called, her power never reached at all. But she subdued the
lands which we have seen act as a kind of connecting link between the
different parts of Europe, namely Gaul and the greater part of Britain.
Thus the Roman Empire, at its greatest extent, consisted of the lands
round the Mediterranean, together with Gaul and Britain. For the
possession of the Mediterranean land would have been imperfect without
the possession of Gaul, and the possession of Gaul naturally led to the
possession of Britain.
♦Effect of the geographical position of♦
In this way the early history of Greece and Italy, and the formation of
the Roman Empire, were affected by the geographical character of the
countries themselves. The same was the case with the other European
lands when they came to share in that importance which once belonged
to Greece and Italy only. ♦Germany,♦ Thus Germany, as being the most
central part of Europe, came at one time to fill something like the
same position which Italy had once held. It came to be the country
which had to do with all parts of Europe, east, west, north, and south,
and even to be a ruler over some of them. ♦France,♦ So, as France
became the chief state of Gaul, it took upon it something like the old
position of Gaul as a means of communication between the different
parts of Western Europe. ♦Spain and Scandinavia.♦ Meanwhile, as the
Scandinavian and Spanish peninsulas are both cut off in such a marked
way from the mainland of Europe, each of them has often formed a kind
of world of its own, having much less to do with other countries than
Germany, France, and Italy had. The same was for a long time the case
with our own island. Britain was looked on as lying outside the world.
Thus the geographical position of the European lands influenced their
history while their history was still purely European. And when Europe
began to send forth colonies to other continents, the working of
geographical causes came out no less strongly. Thus the position of
Spain on the Ocean led Castile and Portugal to be foremost among the
colonizing nations of Europe. For the same reason, our own country was
one of the chief in following their example, and so was France also for
a long time. ♦The colonizing powers.♦ Holland too, when it rose into
importance, became a great colonizing power, and so did Denmark and
Sweden to some extent. But an Italian colony beyond the Ocean was never
heard of, nor has there ever been a German colony in the same sense
in which there have been Spanish and English colonies. Meanwhile, the
north-eastern part of Europe, which in early times was not known at
all, has always lagged behind the rest, and has become of importance
only in later times. This is mainly because its geographical position
has almost wholly cut it off both from the Mediterranean and from the
Ocean.
Thus we see how, in all these ways, both in earlier and in later
times, the history of every country has been influenced by its
geography. ♦Influence of national character.♦ No doubt the history
of each country has also been largely influenced by the disposition
of the people who have settled in it, by what is called the national
character. But then the geographical position itself has often had
something to do with forming the national character, and in all cases
it has had an influence upon it, by giving it a better or a worse field
for working and showing itself. Thus it has been well said that neither
the Greeks in any other country nor any other people in Greece could
have been what the Greeks in Greece really were. The nature of the
country and the nature of the people helped one another, and caused
Greece to become all that it was in the early times of Europe. It is
always useful to mark the points both of likeness and unlikeness of
the different nations whose history we study. And of this likeness and
unlikeness we shall always find that the geographical character, though
only one cause out of several, is always one of the chief causes.
§ 3. _Geographical Distribution of Races._
Our present business then is with geography as influenced by history,
and with history as influenced by geography. With ethnology, with the
relations of nations and races to one another, we have to deal only so
far as they form one of the agents in history. And it will be well to
avoid, as far as may be, all obscure or controverted points of this
kind. But the great results of comparative philology may now be taken
for granted, and a general view of the geographical disposition of the
great European races is needful as an introduction to the changes which
historical causes have wrought in the geography of the several parts of
Europe.
In European ethnology one main feature is that the population of
Europe is, and from the very beginnings of history has been, more
nearly homogeneous, at least more palpably homogeneous, than that of
any other great division of the world. ♦Europe an Aryan continent.♦
Whether we look at Europe now, or whether we look at it at the earliest
times of which we have any glimmerings, it is pre-eminently an Aryan
continent. Everything non-Aryan is at once marked as exceptional. We
cannot say this of Asia, where, among several great ethnical elements,
none is so clearly predominant as the Aryan element is in Europe.
♦Non-Aryan remnants.♦ There are in Europe non-Aryan elements, both
earlier and later than the Aryan settlement; but they have, as a rule,
been assimilated to the prevailing Aryan mass. The earlier non-Aryan
element consists of the remnants which still remain of the races which
the Aryan settlers found in Europe, and which they either exterminated
or assimilated to themselves. The later elements consist of non-Aryan
races which have made their way into Europe within historical times,
in whose case the work of assimilation has been much less complete. It
follows almost naturally from the position of Europe that the primæval
non-Aryan element has survived in the west and in the north, while
the later or intrusive non-Aryan element has made its way into the
east and the south. In the mountains of the western peninsula, in the
border lands of Spain and Gaul, the non-Aryan tongue of the _Basque_
still survives. In the extreme north of Europe the non-Aryan tongue of
the _Fins_ and _Laps_ still survives. The possible relations of these
tongues either to one another or to other non-Aryan tongues beyond
the bounds of Europe is a question of purely philological concern,
and does not touch historical geography. But historical geography is
touched by the probability, rising almost to moral certainty, that the
isolated populations by whom these primitive tongues are still spoken
are mere remnants of the primitive races which formed the population
of Europe at the time when the Aryans first made their way into that
continent. Everything tends to show that the _Basques_ are but the
remnant of a great people whom we may set down with certainty as the
præ-Aryan inhabitants of Spain and a large part of Gaul, and whose
range we may, with great probability, extend over Sicily, over part
at least of Italy, and perhaps as far north as our own island. Their
possible connexion with the early inhabitants of northern Africa hardly
concerns us. The probability that they were themselves preceded by
an earlier and far lower race concerns us not at all. The earliest
historical inhabitants of south-western Europe are those of whom the
Basques are the surviving remnant, those who, under the names of
_Iberians_ and _Ligurians_, fill a not unimportant place in European
history.
♦Order of the Aryan settlement.♦
When we come to the Aryan settlements, we cannot positively determine
which among the Aryan races of Europe were the earliest settlers in
point of time. ♦Greeks and Italians.♦ The great race which, in its
many sub-divisions, contains the _Greeks_, the _Italians_, and the
nations more immediately akin to them, are the first among the European
Aryans to show themselves in the light of history; but it does not
necessarily follow that they were actually the first in point of
settlement. ♦Celts.♦ It may be that, while they were pressing through
the Mediterranean peninsulas and islands, the _Celts_ were pressing
their way through the solid central land of Europe. The Celts were
clearly the vanguard of the Aryan migration within their own range, the
first swarm which made its way to the shores of the Ocean. Partially in
Spain, more completely in Gaul and the British Islands, they displaced
or assimilated the earlier inhabitants, who, under their pressure and
that of later conquerors, have been gradually shut up in the small
mountainous region which they still keep. Of the Celtic migration we
have no historical accounts, but all probability would lead us to think
that the Celts whom in historic times we find on the Danube and south
of the Alps were not emigrants who had followed a backward course from
the great settlement in Transalpine Gaul, but rather detachments which
had been left behind on the westward journey. Without attempting to
settle questions as to the traces of Celtic occupancy to be found in
other lands, it is enough for our purpose that, at the beginnings of
their history, we find the Celts the chief inhabitants of a region
stretching from the Rubico to the furthest known points of Britain.
Gaul, Cisalpine and Transalpine, is their great central land, though
even here they are not exclusive possessors; they share the land with
a non-Aryan remnant to the south-west, and with the next wave of Aryan
new-comers to the north-east.
The settlements of these two great Aryan races come before authentic
history. After them came the _Teutonic_ races, who pressed on the Celts
from the east; and in their wake, to judge from their place on the map,
must have come the vast family of the _Slavonic_ nations. ♦Teutons and
Slaves.♦ But the migrations of the Teutons and Slaves come, for the
most part, within the range of recorded history. Our first glimpse of
the Teutons shows them in their central German land, already occupying
both sides of the Rhine, though seemingly not very old settlers on its
left bank. The long wanderings of the various Teutonic and Slavonic
tribes over all parts of central Europe, their settlements in the
southern and western lands, are all matters of history. So is the great
Teutonic settlement in the British islands, which partly exterminated,
partly assimilated, their Celtic inhabitants, so as to leave them as
mere a remnant, though a greater remnant, as they themselves had made
the Basques. And, as the process which made the north-western islands
of Europe Teutonic is a matter of history, so also are the later
stages of the process which made the northern peninsulas Teutonic.
But it is only the later stages which are historical; we know that in
the strictly Scandinavian peninsula the Teutonic invaders displaced
non-Aryan Fins; we have only to guess that in the Cimbric Chersonêsos
they displaced Aryan Celts. ♦Lithuanians.♦ But beyond the Teutons
and Slaves lies yet another Aryan settlement, one which, in a purely
philological view, is the most interesting of all, the small and
fast vanishing group which still survives in _Lithuania_ and the
neighbouring lands. Of these there is historically really nothing to be
said. On the eastern shores of the Baltic we find people whose tongue
comes nearer than any other European tongue to the common Aryan model;
but we can only guess alike at the date when they came thither and at
the road by which they came.
These races then, Aryan and non-Aryan, make up the immemorial
population of Europe. The remnants of the older non-Aryan races,
and the successive waves of Aryan settlement, are all immemorial
facts which we must accept as the groundwork of our history and
our geography. ♦Movements among the Aryan races.♦ They must be
distinguished from other movements which are strictly matters of
written history, both movements among the Aryan nations themselves
and later intrusions of non-Aryan nations. Thus the Greek colonies
and the conquests of the Hellenized Macedonians Hellenized large
districts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, partly by displacement, partly
by assimilation. The conquests of Rome, and the Teutonic settlements
within the Roman Empire, brought about but little in the way of
displacement, but a great deal in the way of assimilation. The
process indeed was opposite in the two cases. The Roman conqueror
assimilated the conquered to himself; the Teutonic conqueror was
himself assimilated by those whom he conquered. Britain and the
Rhenish and Danubian lands stand out as marked exceptions. The
Slavonic settlements in the East wrought far more of displacement than
the Teutonic settlements in the West. Vast regions, once Illyrian
or Thracian—that is, most likely, more or less nearly akin to the
Greeks—are now wholly Slavonic. ♦Later intrusion of Non-Aryan races.♦
Lastly come the incursions on European lands made by non-Aryan
settlers in historic times. Their results have been widely different
in different cases. ♦Semitic.♦ The Semitic _Saracens_ settled in Spain
and Sicily, bringing with them and after them their African converts,
men possibly of originally kindred race with the first inhabitants
both of the peninsula and of the island. These non-Aryan settlers
have vanished. The displacement of large bodies of them is a fact of
comparatively recent history, but it can hardly fail that some degree
of assimilation must also have taken place. Then come the settlements,
chiefly in eastern Europe, of those whom for our purpose it is enough
to group together as the Turanian nations. The _Huns_ of Attila have
left only a name. The more lasting settlement of the _Avars_ has
vanished, how far by displacement, how far by assimilation, it might be
hard to say. _Chozars_, _Patzinaks_, a crowd of other barbarian races,
have left no sign of their presence. ♦Turanian.♦ The _Bulgarians_,
originally Turanian conquerors, have been assimilated by their Slavonic
subjects. The Finnish _Magyars_ have received a political and religious
assimilation; their kingdom became a member of the commonwealth of
Christian Europe, though they still keep their old Turanian language.
The latest intruders of all, the _Ottoman Turks_, still remain as
they were when they first came, aliens on Aryan and Christian ground.
But here again is a case of assimilation the other way; the Ottoman
Turks are an artificial nation which has been kept up by the constant
incorporation of European renegades who have thrown aside the speech,
the creed, and the civilization of Europe.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In modern use we speak of _Spain_ as only one part, though much the
larger part, of the peninsula, and of _Portugal_ as another part. But
this simply comes from the accident that, for some centuries past, all
the other Spanish kingdoms have been joined under one government, while
Portugal has remained separate. In speaking of any time till near the
end of the fifteenth century of our æra, the word _Spain_ must always
be used in the geographical sense, as the name of the whole peninsula.
CHAPTER II.
GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES.
§ 1. _The Eastern or Greek Peninsula._
♦Characteristics of the Eastern peninsula.♦
The Historical Geography of Europe, if looked at in chronological
order, must begin with the most eastern of the three peninsulas of
Southern Europe. Here the history of Europe, and the truest history of
the world, began. It was in the insular and peninsular lands between
the Ionian and Ægæan seas that the first steps towards European
civilization were taken; it is there that we see the first beginnings
of art, science, and political life. But Greece or _Hellas_, in the
strict sense of the name, forms only a part of the lands which must be
looked on as the great Eastern peninsula. It is however its leading
and characteristic portion. As the whole peninsular land gradually
tapers southwards from the great mass of central Europe, it becomes at
each stage more and more peninsular, and it also becomes at each stage
more and more Greek. Greece indeed and the neighbouring lands form,
as was long ago remarked by Strabo,[2] a series of peninsulas within
peninsulas. It is not easy to find a name for the whole region, as it
stretches far beyond any limits which can be given to Greece in any age
of the world or according to any use of the name. But the whole land
seems to have been occupied by nations more or less akin to the Greeks.
The history of those nations chiefly consists of their relations to the
Greeks, and all of them were brought more or less within the range of
Greek influences. We may therefore not improperly call the whole land,
as opposed to Italy and Spain, the _Greek_ peninsula. It has also been
called the _Byzantine peninsula_, as nearly answering to the European
part of the Eastern division of the Roman Empire, when its seat of
government was at Byzantion, Constantinople, or New Rome.
♦Its chief divisions.♦
Taking the great range of mountains which divides southern from central
Europe as the northern boundary of the eastern or Greek peninsula, it
may be said to take in the lands which are cut off from the central
mass by the _Dalmatian Alps_ and the range of _Haimos_ or _Balkan_.
It is washed to the east, west, or south, by various parts of the
Mediterranean and its great gulf the Euxine. But the northern part of
this region, all that lies north of the Ægæan Sea, taking in therefore
the whole of the Euxine coast, still keeps much of the character of the
great central mass of Europe, and forms a land intermediate between
that and the more strictly peninsular lands to the south. Still the
boundary is a real one, for all the lands south of this range have
come more or less within Greek influences, and have played their part
in Grecian history. But when we get beyond the mountains, into the
valley of the Danube, we find ourselves in lands which, excepting
a few colonies on the coast, have hardly at all come under Greek
influences till quite modern times. This region between Haimos and the
more strictly Greek lands takes in _Thrace_, _Paionia_, and _Illyria_.
Of these, Thrace and Illyria, having a sea coast, received many Greek
colonies, especially on the northern coast of the Ægæan and on the
_Propontis_ or Sea of Marmora. The Thracian part of this region, as
bordering on these more distinctly Grecian seas, became more truly
a part of the Grecian world than the other lands to the west of it.
♦Thrace and Illyria.♦ Yet geographically Thrace is more widely cut off
from Greece than Illyria is. For there is no such great break on the
western shore of the great peninsula as that which, on the eastern
side, marks the point where we must draw the line between Greece and
its immediate neighbours and the lands to the north of them. This is at
the point where a peninsula within a peninsula breaks off to the south,
comprising _Greece_, _Macedonia_, and _Epeiros_. There is here no very
special break on the Illyrian coast, but the Ægæan coast of Thrace is
fenced in as it were at its two ends, to the east by the long narrow
peninsula known specially as the _Chersonêsos_, and to the west by the
group of peninsulas called _Chalkidikê_. These have nothing answering
to them on the Illyrian side beyond the mere bend in the coast above
Epidamnos. This last point however marks the extent of the earlier
Greek colonization in those regions, and which has become a still more
important boundary in later times.
Beyond Chalkidikê to the west, the specially Greek peninsula projects
to the south, being itself again composed of peninsulas within
peninsulas. ♦Greece proper and its peninsulas.♦ The _Ambrakian Gulf_ on
the west and the _Pagasaian_ on the east again fence off a peninsula
to the south, by which the more purely Greek lands are fenced off
from _Macedonia_, _Epeiros_, and _Thessaly_. Within this peninsula
again another may be marked off by a line drawn from _Thermopylai_
to the _Corinthian_ gulf near Delphoi. This again shuts out to the
east _Akarnania_, _Aitolia_, and some other of the more backward
divisions of the Greek name. ♦Peloponnêsos.♦ Thus _Phôkis_, _Boiôtia_,
and _Attica_ form a great promontory, from which Attica projects as
a further promontory to the south-east, while the great peninsula of
_Peloponnêsos_—itself made up on its eastern and southern sides of
smaller peninsulas—is joined on by the narrow isthmus of Corinth.
In this way, from Haimos to _Tainaros_, the land is ever becoming
more and more broken up by greater or smaller inlets of the sea. And
in proportion as the land becomes more strictly peninsular, it also
becomes more strictly Greek, till in Peloponnêsos we reach the natural
citadel of the Greek nation.
§ 2. _Insular and Asiatic Greece._
♦Continuous Hellas.♦
Greece Proper then, what the ancient geographers called _Continuous
Hellas_ as distinguished from the Greek colonies planted on barbarian
shores, is, so far as it is part of the mainland, made up of a system
of peninsulas stretching south from the general mass of eastern Europe.
But the neighbouring islands equally form a part of continuous Greece;
and the other coasts of the Ægæan, Asiatic as well as Thracian, were
so thickly strewed with Greek colonies as to form, if not part of
continuous Greece, yet part of the immediate Greek world. The western
coast, as it is less peninsular, is also less insular, and the islands
on the western side of Greece did not reach the same importance as
those on the eastern side. Still they too, the Ionian islands of
modern geography, form in every sense a part of Greece. ♦The Islands.♦
To the north of _Korkyra_ or _Corfu_ there are only detached Greek
colonies, whether on the mainland or in the islands; but all the
islands of the Ægæan are, during historical times, as much part of
Greece as the mainland; and one island on each side, _Leukas_ on the
west and the greater island of _Euboia_ on the east, might almost be
counted as parts of the mainland, as peninsulas rather than islands.
To the south the long narrow island of _Crete_ forms a sort of barrier
between Greek and barbarian seas. It is the most southern of the purely
Greek lands. _Sicily_ to the east and _Cyprus_ to the west received
many Greek colonies, but they never became purely Greek in the same way
as Crete and the islands to the north of it.
♦Asiatic Greece.♦
But, besides the European peninsulas and the islands, part of Asia
must be looked on as forming part of the immediate Greek world, though
not strictly of continuous Greece. The peninsula known as _Asia Minor_
cannot be separated from Europe either in its geography or in its
history. With its central mass we have little or nothing to do; but
its coasts form a part of the Greek world, and its Ægæan coast was
only less thoroughly Greek than Greece itself and the Greek islands.
It would seem that the whole western coast of Asia Minor was inhabited
by nations which, like the European neighbours of Greece, were more
or less nearly akin to the Greeks. And the Ægæan coast of Asia is
almost as full of inlets of the sea, of peninsulas and promontories and
islands near to the shore, as European Greece itself. All these shores
therefore received Greek colonies. The islands and the most tempting
spots on the mainland were occupied by Greek settlers, and became
the sites of Greek cities. But Greek influence never spread very far
inland, and even the coast itself did not become so purely Greek as the
islands. When we pass from the Ægæan coast of Asia to the other two
sides of the peninsula, to its northern coast washed by the Euxine and
its southern coast washed by the Mediterranean, we have passed out of
the immediate Greek world. Greek colonies are found on favourable spots
here and there; but the land, even the coast as a whole, is barbarian.
§ 3. _Ethnology of the Eastern Peninsula._
♦The Greeks and the kindred races.♦
The immediate Greek world then as opposed to the outlying Greek
colonies, consists of the shores of the Ægæan sea and of the peninsulas
lying between it and the Ionian sea. Of this region a great part was
exclusively inhabited by the Greek nation, while Greek influences were
more or less dominant throughout the whole. But it would further seem
that the whole, or nearly the whole, of these lands were inhabited by
races more or less akin to the Greeks. They seem to have been races
which had a good deal in common with the Greeks, and of whom the Greeks
were simply the foremost and most fortunate, their higher developement
being doubtless greatly favoured by the geographical nature of the
country which they occupied. But a distinction must be drawn between
the nearer and the more remote neighbours of Greece. It is hardly
necessary for our present purpose to determine whether the Greeks had
or had not any connexion with Thracians, European or Asiatic, with
Phrygians and Lydians, and other neighbouring nations. ♦Nations more
remote, but probably kindred.♦ All these were in Greek eyes simply
Barbarians, but modern scholarship has seen in them signs of a kindred
with the Greek nation nearer than the share of both in the common
Aryan stock. We need not settle here whether all the inhabitants of
the geographical district which we have marked out were, or were not,
kinsmen in this sense; but with some among them the question assumes
a deeper interest and a nearer approach to certainty. ♦Illyrians.♦
The great Illyrian race, of whom the Albanians or _Skipetars_ are the
modern representatives, a race which has been so largely displaced by
Slaves at one end and assimilated by Greeks at the other, can hardly
fail to have had a nearer kindred with the Greeks than that which they
both share with Celts and Teutons. When we come to the lands which are
yet more closely connected with Greece, both in geographical position
and in their history, the case becomes clearer still. ♦Epeiros,
Macedonia, Sicily and Italy.♦ We can hardly doubt of the close
connexion between the Greeks and the nations which bordered on Greece
immediately to the north in Epeiros and Macedonia, as well as with some
at least of those which they found occupying the opposite coasts of the
Ægæan, as well as in Sicily and Italy. The Greeks and Italians, with
the nations immediately connected with them, clearly belong to one,
and that a well marked, division of the Aryan family. Their kindred
is shown alike by the evidence of language and by the remarkable ease
with which in all ages they received Greek civilization. Into more
minute inquiries as to these matters it is hardly our province to go
here. ♦Pelasgians.♦ It is perhaps enough to say that the _Pelasgian_
name, which has given rise to so much speculation, seems to have been
used by the Greeks themselves in a very vague way, much as the word
_Saxon_ is among ourselves. It is therefore dangerous to form any
theories about the matter. Sometimes the Pelasgians seem to be spoken
of simply as _Old-Hellênes_, sometimes as a people distinct from the
Hellênes. ♦The Greek nation.♦ Whether the Hellênes, on their entering
into Greece, found the land held by earlier inhabitants, whether Aryan
or non-Aryan, is a curious and interesting speculation, but one which
does not concern us. It is enough for our purpose that, as far back as
history or even legend can carry us, we find the land in the occupation
of a branch of the Aryan family, consisting, like all other nations, of
various kindred tribes. It is a nation which is as well defined as any
other nation, and yet it shades off, as it were, into the other nations
of the kindred stock. Clearly marked as Greek and Barbarian are from
the beginning, there still are frontier tribes in Epeiros and Macedonia
which must be looked on as forming an intermediate stage between the
two classes, and which are accordingly placed by different Greek
writers sometimes in one class and sometimes in the other.
§ 4. _The Earliest Geography of Greece and the Neighbouring Lands._
♦The Homeric map of Greece.♦
Our first picture of Greek geography comes from the Homeric catalogue.
Whatever may be the historic value of the Homeric poems in general,
it is clear that the catalogue in the second book of the Iliad
must represent a real state of things. It gives us a map of Greece
so different from the map of Greece at any later time that it is
inconceivable that it can have been invented at any later time. We have
in fact a map of Greece at a time earlier than any time to which we
can assign certain names and dates. Within the range of Greece itself
the various Greek races often changed their settlements, displacing
or conquering earlier Greek settlers; and the different states which
they formed often changed their boundaries by bringing other states
into subjection or depriving them of parts of their territory. The
Homeric catalogue gives us a wholly different arrangement of the
various branches of the nation from any that we find in the Greece of
historic times. The _Dorian_ and _Ionian_ names, which were afterwards
so famous, are hardly known; the name of _Hellênes_ itself belongs only
to a small district. ♦Tribal divisions of Homeric Greece.♦ The names
for the whole people are _Achaians_, _Argeians_ (_Argos_ seeming to
mean all Peloponnêsos), and _Danaoi_, the last a name which goes quite
out of use in historic times. The boundary of Greece to the west is
narrower than it was in later times. The land called _Akarnania_ has
not yet got that name, if indeed it was Greek at all. It is spoken of
vaguely as _Epeiros_ or the mainland,[3] and it appears as part of the
possessions of the king of the neighbouring islands, _Kephallênia_
and _Ithakê_. The islands to the north, _Leukas_ and _Korkyra_, were
not yet Greek. The _Thesprotians_ in Epeiros are spoken of as a
neighbouring and friendly people, but they form no part of the Greek
nation. The _Aitolians_ appear as a Greek people, and so do most
of the other divisions of the Greek nation, only their position and
relative importance is often different from what it was afterwards.
Thus, to mention a few examples out of many, the _Lokrians_, who, in
historic times, appear both on the sea of Euboia and on the Corinthian
gulf, appear in the catalogue in their northern seats only.
When we turn from tribes to cities, the difference is still greater.
♦Groupings of cities.♦ The cities which held the first place in
historic times are not always those which are greatest in the earlier
time, and their grouping in federations or principalities is wholly
unlike anything in later history. Thus in the historic _Boiotia_ we
find _Orchomenos_ as the second city of a confederation of which
_Thebes_ is the first. In the catalogue Orchomenos and the neighbouring
city _Aspledôn_ form a separate division, distinct from Boiôtia. Euboia
forms a whole; and, what is specially to be noticed, _Attica_, as a
land, is not mentioned, but only the single city of _Athens_, with
_Salamis_ as a kind of dependency. Peloponnêsos again is divided in a
manner quite different from anything in later times. The ruling city is
_Mykênê_, whose king holds also a general superiority over all Hellas,
while his immediate dominion takes in _Corinth_, _Kleônai_, _Sikyôn_,
and the whole south coast of the Corinthian Gulf, the _Achaia_ of later
times. The rest of the cities of the Argolic peninsula are grouped
round _Argos_. Northern Greece again is divided into groups of cities
which answer to nothing in later times. And its relative importance
in the Greek world is clearly far greater than it was in the historic
period.
The catalogue also helps us to our earliest picture of the northern
and eastern coasts of the Ægæan and of the Ægæan islands. ♦Extent
of Greek colonization.♦ We see the extent which Greek colonization
had already made. It had as yet taken in only the southern islands
of the Ægæan. _Crete_ was already Greek; so were _Rhodes_, _Kôs_,
and the neighbouring islands; but these last are distinctly marked
as new settlements. The coast of Asia and the northern islands are
still untouched, except through the events of the Trojan war itself,
in which the Greek conquest of _Lesbos_ is distinctly marked. ♦The
Asiatic Catalogue.♦ In Asia, besides _Trojans_ and _Dardanians_, we
find _Pelasgians_ as a distinct people, as also _Paphlagonians_,
_Mysians_, _Phrygians_, _Maionians_, _Karians_, and _Lykians_. We find
in short the nations which fringe the whole Ægæan coast of Asia and the
south-western coast of the Euxine. In Europe again we have Thracians
and Paionians, names familiar in historic times, and whose bearers
seemingly occupied nearly the same lands which they do in later times.
The presence of Thracians in Asia is implied rather than asserted. The
_Macedonian_ name is not found. The northern islands of the Ægæan are
mentioned only incidentally. Everything leaves us to believe that the
whole region, European and Asiatic, to which we are now concerned,
was, at this earliest time of which we have any glimpses, occupied by
various races more or less closely allied to each other. ♦Phœnician and
Greek settlements in the islands.♦ The islands were largely Karian, but
the _Phœnicians_, a Semitic people from the eastern coast, seem to have
planted colonies in several of the Mediterranean islands. But Karians
and Phœnicians had now begun to give way to Greek settlements. The same
rivalry in short between Greeks and Phœnicians must have gone on in the
earliest times in the islands of the Ægæan which went on in historical
times in the greater islands of Cyprus and Sicily.
§ 5. _Change from Homeric to Historic Greece._
The state of things which is set before us in the catalogue was
altogether broken up by later changes, but changes which still come
before the beginnings of contemporary history, and which we understand
chiefly by comparing the geography of the catalogue with the geography
of later times. ♦Changes in Peloponnêsos.♦ According to received
tradition, a number of _Dorian_ colonies from Northern Greece were
gradually planted in the chief cities of Peloponnêsos, and drove out
or reduced to subjection their older _Achaian_ inhabitants. Mykênê
from this time loses its importance; Argos, Sparta, Corinth, and
Sikyôn become Dorian cities; and Sparta gradually wins the dominion
over all the towns, whether Dorian or Achaian, within her immediate
dominion of Lakonia. To the west of Lakonia arises the Dorian state of
_Messênê_, which is the name only of a district, as there was as yet
no city so called. As part of the same movement, an Aitolian colony
is said to have occupied _Êlis_ on the west coast of Peloponnêsos.
Elis again was at this time the name of a district only; the cities
both of Messênê and Êlis are of much later date. First Argos, and then
Sparta, rises to a supremacy over their fellow-Dorians and over the
whole of Peloponnêsos. Historical Peloponnêsos thus consists (i) of the
cities, chiefly Dorian, of the Argolic _Aktê_ or peninsula, together
with _Corinth_ on the Isthmus and _Megara_, a Dorian outpost beyond
the Isthmus; (ii) of _Lakonikê_, the district immediately subject to
Sparta, with a boundary towards Argos which changed as Sparta advanced
and Argos went back; (iii) of _Messênê_, which was conquered by Sparta
before the age of contemporary history, and was again separated in
the fourth century B.C.; (iv) of _Elis_, with the border-districts
between it and Messênê; (v) of the _Achaian_ cities on the coast of
the Corinthian Gulf; (vi) of the inland country of _Arkadia_. The
relations among these districts and the several cities within them
often fluctuated, but the general aspect of the map of Peloponnêsos did
not greatly change from the beginning of the fifth century to the later
days of the third.
♦Changes in Northern Greece.♦
According to the received traditions, migrations of the same kind took
place in Northern Greece also between the time of the catalogue and
the beginning of contemporary history. Thus Thessaly, whose different
divisions form a most important part of the catalogue, is said to have
suffered an invasion at the hands of the half Hellenic _Thesprotians_.
They are said to have become the ruling people in Thessaly itself, and
to have held a supremacy over the neighbouring lands, including the
peninsula of Magnêsia and the Phthiôtic Achaia. It is certain that in
the historical period Thessaly lags in the back ground, and that the
true Hellenic spirit is much less developed there than in other parts
of Greece. There is less reason to accept the legend of a migration
out of Thessaly into Boiôtia; but in historic times Orchomenos no
longer appears as a separate state, but is the second city of the
Boiotian confederacy, yielding the first place to Thebes with great
unwillingness. The Lokrians also now appear on the Corinthian gulf as
well as on the sea of Euboia. And the land to the west of Aitôlia,
so vaguely spoken of in the catalogue, has become the seat of a
Greek people under the name of _Akarnania_. The Corinthian colonies
along this coast, the city of _Ambrakia_, the island or peninsula of
_Leukas_, the foundation of which is placed in the eighth century B.C.,
come almost within the time of trustworthy history. They are not Greek
in the catalogue; they are Greek when we first hear of them in history.
Ambrakia forms the last outpost of continuous Hellas towards the
north-west; beyond that are only outlying settlements on the Illyrian
coasts and islands.
These changes in the geography of continental Greece, both within and
without Peloponnêsos, make the main differences between the Greece of
the Homeric catalogue and the Greece of the Persian and Peloponnesian
wars. ♦Changes in later times.♦ During the sixth, fifth, and fourth
centuries before Christ there were constant changes in political
relations of the Greek states to one another; but there were not many
changes which greatly affected the geography. Cities were constantly
brought in subjection to one another, and were again relieved from
the yoke. ♦B.C. 370-369.♦ In the course of the fourth century two
new Peloponnesian cities, _Messênê_ and _Megalopolis_, were founded.
In Boiotia again, _Plataia_ and _Orchomenos_ were destroyed by the
Thebans, and Thebes itself was destroyed by Alexander, but these were
afterwards rebuilt. ♦B.C. 468.♦ In Peloponnêsos Mykênê was destroyed
by the Argeians, and never rebuilt. But most of these changes do not
affect geography, as they did not involve any change in the seats of
the great divisions of the Greek name. The only exception is that of
the foundation of _Messênê_, which was accompanied by the separation
of the old Messenian territory from Sparta, and the consequent
establishment of a new or restored division of the Greek nation.
§ 6. _The Greek Colonies._
♦The Ægæan colonies.♦
It must have been in the time between the days represented by the
catalogue and the beginnings of contemporary history, that most of the
islands of the Ægæan became Greek, and that the Greek colonies were
planted on the Ægæan coast of Asia. We have seen that the southern
islands were already Greek at the time of the catalogue, while some of
the northern ones, _Thasos_, _Lêmnos_, and others, did not become Greek
till times to which we can give approximate dates, from the eighth to
the fifth centuries. ♦Colonies in Asia.♦ During this period, at some
time before the eighth century, the whole Ægæan coast of Asia had
become fringed with Greek cities, _Dorian_ to the south, _Aiolian_ to
the north, _Ionian_ between the two. The story of the Trojan war itself
in the land is most likely a legendary account of the beginning of
these settlements, which may make us think that the Greek colonization
of this coast began in the north, in the lands bordering on the
Hellespont. At all events, by the eighth century these settlements had
made the Asiatic coast and the islands adjoining it a part, and a most
important part, not only of the Greek world, but we may almost say of
Greece itself. ♦Their early greatness.♦ The Ionian cities, above all,
_Smyrna_, _Ephesos_, _Milêtos_, and the islands of _Chios_ and _Samos_,
were among the greatest of Greek cities, more flourishing certainly
than any in European Greece. Milêtos, above all, was famous for the
number of colonies which it sent forth in its own turn. But, if their
day of greatness came before that of the European Greeks, they were
also the first to come under the power of the Barbarians. ♦Lydian and
Persian conquests.♦ In the course of the fifth century the Greek cities
on the continent of Asia came under the power, first of the _Lydian_
kings and then of their _Persian_ conquerors, who subdued several of
the islands also. It was this subjection of the Asiatic Greeks to the
Barbarians which led to the Persian war, with which the most brilliant
time in the history of European Greece begins. We thus know the Asiatic
cities only in the days of their decline. ♦Colonies in Thrace.♦ The
coasts of Thrace and Macedonia were also sprinkled with Greek cities,
but they did not lie so thick together as those on the Asiatic coast,
except only in the three-fingered peninsula of _Chalkidikê_, which
became a thoroughly Greek land. Some of these colonies in Thrace, as
_Olynthos_ and _Potidaia_, play an important part in Greek history,
and two among them fill a place in the history of the world. _Thermê_,
under its later name of _Thessalonikê_, has kept on its importance
under all changes down to our own time. And _Byzantion_, on the
Thracian Bosporos, rose higher still, becoming, under the form of
_Constantinople_, the transplanted seat of the Empire of Rome.
The settlements which have been thus far spoken of may be all counted
as coming within the immediate Greek world. They were planted in lands
so near to the mother-country, and they lay so near to one another,
that the whole country round the Ægæan may be looked on as more or less
thoroughly Greek. Some parts were wholly Greek, and everywhere Greek
influences were predominant. ♦More distant colonies.♦ But, during this
same period of distant enterprise, between the time of the Homeric
catalogue and the time of the Persian War, many Greek settlements were
made in countries much further off from continuous Greece. All of
course came within the range of the Mediterranean world; no Greek ever
passed through the Straits of Hêraklês to found settlements on the
Ocean. But a large part of the coast both of the Mediterranean itself
and of the Euxine was gradually dotted with Greek colonies. These
outposts of Greece, unless they were actually conquered by barbarians,
almost always remained Greek; they kept their Greek language and
manners, and they often spread them to some extent among their
barbarian neighbours. But it was not often that any large tract of
country in these more distant lands became so thoroughly Greek as the
Ægæan coast of Asia became. We may say however that such was the case
with the coast of Sicily and Southern Italy, where many Greek colonies
were planted, which will be spoken of more fully in another chapter.
All Sicily indeed did in the end really become a Greek country, though
not till after its conquest by the Romans. But in Northern and Central
Italy, the Latins, Etruscans, and other Italian nations were too strong
for any Greek colonies to be made in those parts. ♦Colonies in the
Hadriatic.♦ On the other side of the Hadriatic, Greek colonies had
spread before the Peloponnesian war as far north as _Epidamnos_. The
more northern colonies on the coast and among the islands of Dalmatia,
the Illyrian _Epidauros_, _Pharos_, _Black Korkyra_, and others, were
among the latest efforts of Greek colonization in the strict sense.
In other parts of the Mediterranean coasts the Greek settlements
lay further apart from each other. But we may say that they were
spread here and there over the whole coast, except where there was
some special hindrance to keep the Greeks from settling. ♦Phœnician
colonies.♦ Thus, in a great part of the Mediterranean the Phœnicians
had got the start of the Greeks, both in their own country on the coast
of Syria, and in the colonies sent forth by their great cities of Tyre
and Sidon. The Phœnician colonists occupied a large part of the western
half of the southern coast of the Mediterranean, where lay the great
Phœnician cities of _Carthage_, _Utica_, and others. They had also
settlements in Southern Spain, and one at least outside the straits
on the Ocean. This is _Gades_ or _Cadiz_, which has kept its name
and its unbroken position as a great city from an earlier time than
any other city in Europe. The Greeks therefore could not colonize in
these parts. In the great islands of Sicily and Cyprus there were both
Phœnician and Greek colonies, and there was a long struggle between the
settlers of the two nations. In Egypt again, though there were some
Greek settlers, yet there were no Greek colonies in the strict sense.
That is, there were no independent Greek commonwealths. Thus the only
part of the southern coast of the Mediterranean which was open to Greek
colonization was the land between Egypt and the dominions of Carthage.
♦Greek colonies in Africa, Gaul, and Spain.♦ In that land accordingly
several Greek cities were planted, of which the chief was the famous
_Kyrênê_. On the southern coast of Gaul arose the great Ionian city of
_Massalia_ or _Marseilles_, which also, like the Phœnician Gades, has
kept its name and its prosperity down to our own time. Massalia became
the centre of a group of Greek cities on the south coast of Gaul and
the east coast of Spain, which were the means of spreading a certain
amount of Greek civilization in those parts.
♦Colonies on the Euxine.♦
Besides these settlements in the Mediterranean itself, there were
also a good many Greek colonies on the western, northern, and
southern coasts of the Euxine, of which those best worth remembering
are the city of _Chersonêsos_ in the peninsula called the _Tauric
Chersonêsos_, now Crimea, and _Trapezous_ on the southern coast.
These two deserve notice as being two most abiding seats of Greek
influence. Chersonêsos, under the name of _Cherson_, remained an
independent Greek commonwealth longer than any other, and Trapezous or
_Trebizond_ became the seat of Greek-speaking Emperors, who outlived
those of Constantinople. Speaking generally then, we may say that, in
the most famous times of European Greece, in the time of the Persian
and Peloponnesian wars, the whole coast of the Ægæan was part of the
immediate Greek world, while in Sicily and Cyprus Greek colonies were
contending with the Phœnicians, and in Italy with the native Italians.
Massalia was the centre of a group of Greek states in the north-west,
and Kyrênê in the south, while the greater part of the coast of the
Euxine was also dotted with Greek cities here and there. In most of
these colonies the Greeks mixed to some extent with the natives, and
the natives to some extent learned the Greek language and manners.
♦Beginning of the artificial Greek nation.♦ We thus get the beginning
of what we call an artificial Greek nation, a nation Greek in speech
and manners, but not purely Greek in blood, which has gone on ever
since.
§ 7. _Growth of Macedonia and Epeiros._
♦Growth of Macedonia.♦
But while the spread of the Greek language and civilization, and
therewith the growth of the artificial Greek nation, was brought about
in a great degree by the planting of independent Greek colonies, it was
brought about still more fully by events which went far to destroy the
political independence of Greece itself. This came of the growth of
the kindred nations to the north of Greece, in Macedonia and Epeiros.
The Macedonians were for a long time hemmed in by the barbarians to
the north and west of them and by the Greek cities on the coast, and
they were also weakened by divisions among themselves. ♦Reign of
Philip, B.C. 360-336.♦ But when the whole nation was united under its
great King Philip, Macedonia soon became the chief power in Greece
and the neighbouring lands. Philip greatly increased his dominions at
the expense of both Greeks and barbarians, especially by adding the
peninsulas of Chalkidikê to his kingdom. But in Greece itself, though
he took to himself the chief power, he did not actually annex any of
the Greek states to Macedonia, so that his victories there do not
affect the map. ♦Conquests of Alexander, 336-323.♦ His yet more famous
son Alexander, and the Macedonian kings after him, in like manner held
garrisons in particular Greek cities, and brought some parts of Greece,
as Thessaly and Euboia, under a degree of Macedonian influence which
hardly differed from dominion; but they did not formally annex them.
The conquests of Alexander in Asia brought most of the Greek cities
and islands under Macedonian dominion, but some, as Crete, Rhodes,
Byzantion, and _Hêrakleia_ on the Euxine, kept their independence.
♦Epeiros under Pyrrhos, B.C. 295-272.♦ Meanwhile Epeiros became united
under the Greek kings of _Molossis_, and under Pyrrhos, who made
Ambrakia his capital, it became a powerful state. And a little kingdom
called _Athamania_, thrust in between Epeiros, Macedonia, and Thessaly,
now begins to be heard of.
♦The Macedonian kingdoms in Asia.♦
The conquests of Alexander in Asia concern us only so far as they
called into being a class of states in Western Asia, all of which
received a greater or less share of Hellenic culture, and some of
which may claim a place in the actual Greek world. By the division
of the empire of Alexander after the battle of Ipsos, _Egypt_ became
the kingdom of Ptolemy, with whose descendants it remained down to
the Roman conquest. ♦B.C. 301.♦ The civilization of the Egyptian
court was Greek, and Alexandria became one of the greatest of Greek
cities. ♦Egypt under the Ptolemies.♦ Moreover the earlier kings of the
Ptolemaic dynasty held various islands in the Ægæan, and points on the
coast of Asia and even of Thrace, which made them almost entitled to
rank as a power in Greece itself. ♦The Seleukid dynasty.♦ The great
Asiatic power of Alexander passed to _Seleukos_ and his descendants.
The early kings of his house ruled from the Ægæan to the Hyphasis,
though this great dominion was at all times fringed and broken in upon
by the dominions of native princes, by independent Greek cities, and
by the dominions of other Macedonian kings. ♦Circa B.C. 256.♦ But in
the third century their dominion was altogether cut short in the East
by the revolt of the Parthians in northern Persia, by whom the eastern
provinces of the Seleukid kingdom were lopped away. ♦B.C. 191-181.♦ And
when Antiochos the Great provoked a war with Rome, his dominion was cut
short to the West also. The Seleukid power now shrank up into a local
kingdom of _Syria_, with Tauros for its north-western frontier.
♦Cities of independent state in Asia Minor. B.C. 283.♦
By the cutting short of the Seleukid kingdom, room was given for the
growth of the independent states which had already sprung up in Asia
Minor. ♦Pergamos.♦ The kingdom of _Pergamos_ had already begun, and
the dominions of its kings were largely increased by the Romans at
the expense of Antiochos. Pergamos might count as a Hellenic state,
alongside of Macedonia and Epeiros. But the other kingdoms of Asia
Minor, _Bithynia_, _Kappadokia_, _Paphlagonia_, and _Pontos_, the
kingdom of the famous Mithridates, must be counted as Asiatic. ♦Spread
of Hellenic culture.♦ The Hellenic influence indeed spread itself
far to the East. Even the Parthian kings affected a certain amount
of Greek culture, and in all the more western kingdoms there was a
greater or less Greek element, and in several of them the kings fixed
their capitals in Greek cities. Still in all of them the Asiatic
element prevailed in a way in which it did not prevail at Pergamos.
Meanwhile other states, either originally Greek or largely Hellenized,
still remained East of the Ægæan. Thus, at the south-western corner of
Asia Minor, _Lykia_, though seemingly less thoroughly Hellenized than
some of its neighbours, became a federal state after the Greek model.
♦Seleukeia.♦ Far to the East, _Seleukeia_ on the Tigris, whether under
Syrian or Parthian overlordship, kept its character as a Greek colony,
and its position as what may be called a free imperial city. Further
to the West other more purely Greek states survived. ♦Hêrakleia. |
B.C. 188.♦ The Pontic _Hêrakleia_ long remained an independent Greek
city, sometimes a commonwealth, sometimes under tyrants; and _Sinôpê_
remained a Greek city till it became the capital of the kings of
Pontos. On the north of the Euxine, _Bosporos_ still remained a Greek
kingdom.
§ 8. _The later Geography of Independent Greece._
♦Later political divisions of Greece.♦
The political divisions of independent Greece, in the days when it
gradually came under the power of Rome, differ almost as much from
those to which we are used during the Persian and Peloponnesian
wars, as these last differ from the earlier divisions in the Homeric
catalogue. The chief feature of these times was the power which
was held, as we have before seen, by the Macedonian kings, and the
alliances made by the different Greek states in order to escape or to
throw off their yoke. The result was that the greater part of Greece
was gradually mapped out among large confederations, much larger at
least than Greece had ever seen before. ♦The Achaian League, B.C. 280.♦
The most famous of these, the League of _Achaia_, began among the old
Achaian cities on the south of the Corinthian Gulf. ♦B.C. 191.♦ It
gradually spread, till it took in the whole of Peloponnêsos, together
with Megara and one or two outlying cities. Thus Corinth, Argos, Elis,
and even Sparta, instead of being distinct states as of old, with a
greater or less dominion over other cities, were now simply members of
one federal body. ♦The Aitolian League.♦ In Northern Greece the League
of _Aitolia_ now became very powerful, and extended itself far beyond
its old borders. Akarnania, Phôkis, Lokris, and Boiôtia formed Federal
states of less power, and so did _Epeiros_, where the kings had been
got rid of, and which was now reckoned as a thoroughly Greek state.
The Macedonian kings held different points at different times: Corinth
itself for a good while, and Thessaly and Euboia for longer periods,
might be almost counted as parts of their kingdom.
♦Roman interference in Greece.♦
This was the state of things in Greece at the time when the Romans
began to meddle in Greek and Macedonian affairs, and gradually to
bring all these countries, like the rest of the Mediterranean world,
under their power. But it should be remarked that this was done,
as the conquests of the Romans always were done, very gradually.
♦B.C. 229.♦ First the island of Korkyra and the cities of Epidamnos
and Apollônia on the Illyrian coast became Roman allies, which was
always a step to becoming Roman subjects. ♦B.C. 205.♦ The Romans
first appeared in Greece itself, as allies of the Aitolians, but by
the Peace of Epeiros Rome obtained no dominion in Greece, and merely
some increase of her Illyrian territory. ♦B.C. 200-197. | Progress of
Roman conquests. | B.C. 196.♦ The second Macedonian War made Macedonia
dependent on Rome, and all those parts of Greece which had been under
the Macedonian power were declared free at its close. ♦B.C. 189.♦ As
the Aitolians had joined Antiochos of Syria against Rome, they were
made a Roman dependency. From that time Rome was always meddling in
the affairs of the Greek states, and they may be counted as really,
though not formally, dependent on Rome. ♦B.C. 169. | B.C. 149.♦ After
the third Macedonian war, Macedonia was cut up into four separate
commonwealths; and at last, after the fourth, it became a Roman
province. ♦B.C. 146. | Remaining free states incorporated by
Vespasian.♦ About the same time the Leagues of Epeiros and Boiôtia
were dissolved; the Achaian League also became formally dependent on
Rome, and was dissolved for a time also. It is not certain when Achaia
became formally a Roman province; but, from this time, all Greece was
practically subject to Rome. Athens remained nominally independent, as
did Rhodes, Byzantion, and several other islands and outlying cities,
some of which were not formally incorporated with the Roman dominion
till the time of the Emperor Vespasian.
As we go on with the geography of other countries which came under
the Roman dominion, we shall learn more of the way in which Rome thus
enlarged her territories bit by bit. But it seemed right to begin with
the geography of Greece, and this could not be carried down to the
time when Greece became a Roman dominion without saying something of
the Roman conquest. From B.C. 146 we must look upon Greece and the
neighbouring lands as being, some of them formally and all of them
practically, part of the Roman dominion. And we shall not have to speak
of them again as separate states or countries till many ages later,
when the Roman dominion began to fall in pieces. Having thus traced the
geography of the most eastern of the three great European peninsulas
down to the time when it became part of the dominion which took in all
the lands around the Mediterranean, we will now go on to speak of the
middle peninsula, which became the centre of that dominion, namely
that of Italy. ♦Special character of Greek history.♦ Greece and the
neighbouring lands are the only parts of Europe which can be said to
have a history quite independent of Rome, and beginning earlier than
the Roman history. Of the other countries therefore which became part
of the Roman Empire it will be best to speak in their relation to
Italy, and, as nearly as possible, in the order in which they came
under the Roman power.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] See the first chapter of his eighth book (vol. ii. p. 139 of
the Tauchnitz edition). He makes four peninsulas within peninsulas,
beginning from the south with Peloponnêsos, and he enlarges on the
general character of the country as made up of gulfs and promontories.
[3] Ἤπειρος is simply the mainland, and came only gradually to mean a
particular country. We may compare the use of ‘terra firma’ in South
America. In the catalogue (_Iliad_, ii. 620-635), after the island
subjects of Odysseus have been reckoned up, we read: οἵ τ᾽ Ἤπειρον
ἔχον, ἠδ᾽ ἀντιπέραι᾽ ἐνέμοντο. This must mean the land afterwards
called Akarnania. It was remarked at a later time that the Akarnanians
were the only people of Greece who did not appear in the catalogue.
CHAPTER III.
FORMATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
The second of the three great peninsulas of southern Europe, that which
lies between the other two, is that of Italy. ♦Different meanings of
the name Italy.♦ The name of Italy has been used in several meanings
at different times, but it has always meant either the whole or a part
of the land which we now call Italy. The name gradually spread itself
from the extreme south to the north.[4] At the time when our survey
begins, the name did not go beyond the long narrow peninsula itself;
and indeed it hardly took in the whole of that. ♦Its meaning under
the Roman commonwealth.♦ During the time of the Roman commonwealth
Italy did not reach beyond the little rivers _Macra_ on one side, near
_Luna_, and _Rubico_ on the other side, near _Ariminum_. The land to
the north, as far as the Alps, was not counted for Italy till after
the time of Cæsar. But the Alps are the natural boundary which fence
off the peninsular land from the great mass of central Europe; so
that, looking at the matter as a piece of geography, we may count the
whole land within the Alps as Italy. It will be at once seen that the
Italian peninsula, though so long and narrow, is by no means cut up
into promontories and smaller peninsulas as the Greek peninsula is. Nor
is it surrounded by so many islands. It is only quite in the south,
where the long narrow peninsula splits off into two smaller ones, that
the coast has at all the character of the Greek coast, and there only
in a much slighter degree. ♦The Italian islands.♦ Close by this end of
Italy lies the great island of _Sicily_, whose history has always been
closely connected with that of Italy. Further off lie the two other
great islands of _Corsica_ and _Sardinia_, which in old times were not
reckoned to belong to Italy at all. Besides these there are several
smaller islands, _Elba_ and others, along the Italian coast; but they
lie a good way from each other, and do not form any marked feature in
the geography. There is nothing at all like even the group of islands
off western Greece, much less like the endless multitude, great and
small, in the Ægæan. Through the whole length of the peninsula, like
a backbone, runs the long chain of the _Apennines_. These branch off
from the Alps in north-western Italy near the sea, and run through the
whole length of the country to the very toe of the boot, as the Italian
peninsula has been called from its shape. From all this it follows
that, though Italy was the land which was destined in the end to have
the rule over all the rest, yet the people of Italy were not likely to
begin to make themselves a name so early as the Greeks did. Least of
all were they likely to take in the same way to a sea-faring life, and
to plant colonies in far off lands.
§ 1. _The Inhabitants of Italy and Sicily._
♦Non-Aryans in Italy.♦
We seem to have somewhat clearer signs in Italy than we have in Greece
of the men who dwelled in the land before the Aryans who appear as
its historical inhabitants came into it. ♦Ligurians.♦ On the coast of
_Liguria_, the land on each side of the city of Genoa, a land which was
not reckoned Italian in early times, we find people who seem not to
have been Aryan. And these Ligurians seem to have been part of a race
which was spread through Italy and Sicily before the Aryan settlements,
and to have been akin to the non-Aryan inhabitants of Spain and
southern Gaul, of whom the Basques on each side of the Pyrenees remain
as a remnant. ♦Etruscans.♦ And in historical times a large part of
Italy was held, and in earlier times a still larger part seems to
have been held, by the _Etruscans_. These are a people about whose
origin and language there have been many theories, but nothing can
as yet be said to be certainly known. These Etruscans, in historical
times, formed a confederacy of twelve cities in the land west of the
Apennines, between the Macra and the Tiber; and it is believed that in
earlier times they had settlements both more to the north, on the Po,
and more to the south, in Campania. If they were a non-Aryan race, the
part of the non-Aryans in the geography and history of Italy becomes
greater than it has been in any part of Western Europe except Spain.
♦The Italians.♦
But whatever we make of the Etruscans, the rest of Italy in the older
sense was held by various branches of an Aryan race nearly allied to
the Greeks, whom we may call the _Italians_. Of this race there were
two great branches. One of them, under various names, seems to have
held all the southern part of the western coast of Italy, and to have
spread into Sicily. Some of the tribes of this branch seem to have been
almost as nearly akin to the Greeks as the Epeirots and other kindred
nations on the east side of the Hadriatic. ♦Latins.♦ Of this branch
of the Italian race, the most famous people were the _Latins_; and it
was the greatest Latin city, the border city of the Latins against
the Etruscans, the city of _Rome_ on the Tiber, which became, step by
step, the mistress of Latium, of Italy, and of the Mediterranean world.
♦Opicans.♦ The other branch, which held a much larger part of the
peninsula, taking in the _Sabines_, _Æquians_, _Volscians_, _Samnites_,
_Lucanians_, and other people who play a great part in the Roman
history, may perhaps be classed together as _Opicans_ or _Oscans_, in
distinction from the Latins, and the other tribes allied to them. These
tribes seem to have pressed from the eastern, the Hadriatic, coast of
Italy, down upon the nations to the south-west of them, and to have
largely extended their borders at their expense.
But part of ancient Italy, and a still larger part of Italy in the
modern sense, was inhabited by nations other than the Italians.
♦Iapygians.♦ In the heel of the boot were the _Iapygians_, a people of
uncertain origin, but who seem in any case to have had a great gift of
receiving the Greek language and manners. ♦Gauls.♦ And in the northern
part, in the lands which were not then counted as part of Italy, were
the _Gauls_, a Celtic people, akin to the Gauls beyond the Alps, and
whose country was therefore called _Cisalpine Gaul_ or Gaul on this
side of the Alps. They were found on both sides of the Po, and on the
Hadriatic coast they seem to have stretched in early times almost as
far south as _Ancona_. ♦Veneti.♦ In the north-east corner of Italy were
yet another people, the _Veneti_, perhaps of Illyrian origin, whose
name long after was taken by the city of _Venice_. But during the
whole time with which we have to do, there was no city so called, and
the name of _Venetia_ is always the name of a country.
♦Greek colonies in Italy.♦
All these nations we may look on as the original inhabitants of Italy;
that is, all were there before anything like contemporary history
begins.[5] But besides these original nations, there were in one part
of Italy many Greek colonies, and also in the island of Sicily. Some
cities of Italy claimed to be Greek colonies, without any clear proof
that they were so. But there seems no reason to doubt that _Kymê_ or
_Cumæ_ on the western coast of Italy, and _Ankôn_ or _Ancona_ on the
Hadriatic, were solitary Greek colonies far away from any other Greek
settlements. Cumæ, though so far off, is said to have been the earliest
Greek colony in Italy. But where the Greeks mainly settled was in the
two lesser peninsulas, the heel and the toe of the boot, into which
the great peninsula of Italy divides at its southern end. Here, as
was before said, there is a nearer approach to the kind of coast to
which the Greeks were used at home. Here then arose a number of Greek
cities, stretching from the extreme south almost up to Cumæ. As in the
case of the Greek cities in Asia, the time of greatness of the Italian
Greeks came earlier than that of the Greeks in Greece itself. In the
sixth century B.C. some of these Greek colonies in Italy, as _Taras_ or
_Tarentum_, _Krotôn_ or _Crotona_, _Sybaris_, and others, were among
the greatest cities of the Greek name. But, as the Italian nations grew
stronger, the Greek cities lost their power, and many of them, Cumæ
among them, fell into the hands of Italian conquerors, and lost their
Greek character more or less thoroughly. Others remained Greek till
they became subject to Rome, and the Greek speech and manners did not
quite die out of southern Italy till ages after the Christian æra.
♦Inhabitants of Sicily.♦
The geography and history of the great island of Sicily, which lies
so near to the toe of the boot, cannot be kept apart from those of
Italy. The mainland and the island were, to a great extent, inhabited
by the same nations. The _Sikanians_ in the western part of the island
may not unlikely have been akin to the Ligurians and Basques; but the
_Sikels_, who gave their name to the island, and who are the people
with whom the Greeks had most to do, were clearly of the Italian stock,
and were nearly allied to the Latins. ♦Phœnician and Greek colonies.♦
The Phœnicians of Carthage planted some colonies in the western and
northern parts of the island, the chief of which was the city which the
Greeks called _Panormos_, the modern capital _Palermo_. But the western
and southern sides of the triangle were full of Greek cities, which are
said to have been founded from the eighth century B.C. to the sixth.
Several of these, especially _Syracuse_ and _Akragas_ or _Agrigentum_,
were among the chief of Greek cities; and from them the Greek speech
and manners gradually spread themselves over the natives, till in the
end Sicily was reckoned as wholly a Greek land. But for some centuries
Sicilian history is chiefly made up of struggles for the mastery
between Carthage and the Greek cities. This was in truth a struggle
between the Aryan and the Semitic race, and we shall see that, many
ages after, the same battle was again fought on the same ground.
§ 2. _Growth of the Roman power in Italy._
♦Gradual conquest of Italy.♦
The history of ancient Italy, as far as we know it, is the history of
the gradual conquest of the whole land by one of its own cities; and
the changes in its political geography are mainly the changes which
followed the gradual bringing of the whole peninsula under the Roman
dominion. But the form which the conquests of Rome took hindered those
conquests from having so great an effect on the map as they otherwise
might have had. The cities and districts of Italy, as they were one by
one conquered by Rome, were commonly left as separate states, in the
relation of dependent alliance, from which most of them were step by
step promoted to the rights of Roman citizenship. ♦Different positions
of the Italian cities.♦ An Italian city might be a dependent ally of
Rome; it might be a Roman colony with the full franchise or a colony
holding the inferior Latin franchise; or it might have been actually
made part of a Roman tribe. All these were very important political
differences; but they do not make much difference in the look of things
on the map. The most important of the changes which can be called
strictly geographical belong to the early days of Rome, when there were
important national movements among the various races of Italy. ♦Origin
of Rome.♦ Rome arose at the point of union of the
three races, Latin, Oscan, and Etruscan, and it arose from an union
between the _Latin_ and _Oscan_ races. ♦Rome a Latin city.♦ Two Latin
and one _Sabine_ settlements seem to have joined together to form
the city of Rome; but the Sabine element must have been thoroughly
Latinized, and Rome must be counted as a Latin city, the greatest,
though very likely the youngest, among the cities of Latium.
♦Her early Latin dominion.♦
Rome, planted on a march, rose, in the way in which marchlands often do
rise, to supremacy among her fellows. Our first authentic record of the
early commonwealth sets Rome before us as bearing rule over the whole
of Latium. This dominion she seems to have lost soon after the driving
out of the kings, and some of her territory right of the Tiber seems
to have become Etruscan. Presently Rome appears, no longer as mistress
of Latium, but as forming one member of a triple league concluded on
equal terms with the Latins as a body, and with the Hernicans. ♦Wars
with her neighbours.♦ This league was engaged in constant wars with its
neighbours of the Oscan race, the _Æquians_ and _Volscians_, by whom
many of the Latin cities were taken. ♦More distant wars. | B.C. 396.♦
But the first great advance of Rome’s actual dominion was made on the
right bank of the Tiber, by the taking of the Etruscan city of _Veii_.
♦B.C. 343.♦ Fifty years later Rome began to engage in more distant
wars; and we may say generally that the conquest of Italy was going on
bit by bit for eighty years more. ♦B.C. 296.♦ By the end of that time,
all Italy, in the older sense, was brought in one shape or another
under the Roman dominion. The neighbouring districts, both Latin and of
other races, had been admitted to citizenship. Roman and Latin colonies
were planted in various parts of the country; elsewhere the old cities,
Etruscan, Samnite, Greek, or any other, still remained as dependent
allies of Rome. ♦Incorporation of the Italian states. | B.C. 89.♦
Presently Rome went on to win dominion out of Italy; but the Italian
states still remained in their old relation to Rome, till the Italian
allies received the Roman franchise after the _Social_ or _Marsian_
war. The _Samnites_ alone held out, and they may be said to have been
altogether exterminated in the wars of Sulla. The rest of Italy was
Roman.
§ 3. _The Western Provinces._
The great change in Roman policy, and in European geography as affected
by it, took place when Rome began to win territory out of Italy. The
relation of these foreign possessions to the ruling city was quite
different from that of the Italian states. The foreign conquests of
Rome were made into _provinces_. ♦Nature of the Roman Provinces.♦ A
province was a district which was subject to Rome, and put under the
rule of a Roman governor, which was not done with the dependent allies
in Italy. But it must be borne in mind that, though we speak of a
province as having a certain geographical extent, yet there might be
cities within its limits whose formal relation to Rome was that of
dependent, or even of equal, alliance. There might also be Roman and
Latin colonies, either colonies really planted or cities which had
been raised to the Roman or Latin franchise. All these were important
distinctions as regarded the internal government of the different
states; still practically all alike formed part of the Roman dominion.
In a geographical survey it will therefore be enough to mark the extent
of the different provinces, without attending to their political, or
more truly municipal, distinctions, except in a few cases where they
are of special importance.
♦Eastern and Western Provinces.♦
The provinces then are the foreign dominions of Rome, and they fall
naturally into two, or rather three, divisions. There are the
provinces of the West, in which the Romans had chiefly to contend with
nations much less civilized than themselves, and in which therefore
the provincials gradually adopted the language and manners of their
conquerors. But in the provinces to the east of the Hadriatic, the
Greek language and Greek manners had become the language and manners
of civilized life, and their supremacy was not supplanted by those of
Rome. And in the more distant parts, as in Syria and Egypt, the Greek
civilization was a mere varnish; the mass of the people still kept to
their old manners and languages as they were before the Macedonian
conquests. In these countries therefore the Latin tongue and Roman
civilization made but little progress. The Roman conquests went on
on both sides of the Hadriatic at the same time, but it was to the
west that they began. The first Roman province however forms a sort
of intermediate class by itself, standing between the eastern and the
western.
♦Sicily.♦
This first Roman province was formed in the great island of _Sicily_,
which, by its geographical position, belongs to the western part of
Europe, while the fact that Greek became the prevailing language in
it rather connects it with the eastern part. ♦First Roman possessions
in the island. B.C. 241.♦ The Roman dominion in Sicily began when the
Carthaginian possessions in the island were given up to Rome, as the
result of the first Punic war. But, as Hierôn of _Syracuse_ had helped
Rome against Carthage, his kingdom remained in alliance with Rome,
and was not dealt with as a conquered land. ♦Conquest of Syracuse.
B.C. 212.♦ It was only when Syracuse turned against Rome in the
second Punic war that it was, on its conquest, formally made a Roman
possession. ♦B.C. 132.♦ Eighty years later the condition of Sicily
under the Roman government was finally settled, and it may be taken
as a type of the endless variety of relations in which the different
districts and cities throughout the Roman dominions stood to the ruling
commonwealth. ♦State of Sicily.♦ The greater part of the island became
simply subject; the land was held to be forfeited to the Roman People,
and the former inhabitants held it simply as tenants on payment of a
tithe. But some cities were called free, and kept their land; others
remained in name independent allies of the Roman People. Other cities
were afterwards raised to the Latin franchise; in others Latin or
Roman colonies were planted, and one Sicilian city, that of _Messana_,
received the full citizenship of Rome. It must be borne in mind that
these different relations, these exceptionally favoured cities and
districts, are found, not only in Sicily, but throughout all the
provinces. ♦Greek civilization of Sicily.♦ Sicily, by the time of the
conquest, was looked on as a thoroughly Greek land. The Greek language
and manners had now spread themselves everywhere among the Sikels and
the other inhabitants of the island. And Sicily remained a thoroughly
Greek land, till, ages afterwards, it again became, as it had been in
the days of the Greek and Phœnician colonies, a battle-field of Aryan
and Semitic races in the days of the Mahometan conquests.
♦Sardinia and Corsica.♦
The two great islands of _Sardinia_ and _Corsica_ seem almost as
natural appendages to Italy as Sicily itself; but their history is
very different. They have played no important part in the history of
the world. The original stock of their inhabitants seems to have been
akin to the non-Aryan element in Spain and Sicily. The attempts at
Greek colonization in them were but feeble, and they passed under the
dominion, first of Carthage and then of Rome, without any important
change in their condition. ♦B.C. 238.♦ These two islands became a
Roman province, which was always reckoned one of the most worthless of
provinces, in the interval between the first and second Punic wars.
♦Cisalpine Gaul.♦
Thus far the Roman dominions did not reach beyond what we should
look upon as the natural extent of the dominion of an Italian power.
Indeed, as long as Italy did not reach to the Alps, we should say that
it had not reached the natural extent of an Italian dominion. But
the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul cannot be separated from the general
conquest of Western Europe. The Roman conquest of Gaul and Spain, by
gradually spreading the Latin language and Roman civilization over
those countries, created two of the chief nations and languages of
modern Europe. But the process was simply the continuation of a process
which began within the borders of what we now call Italy. Gaul within
the Alps was as strictly a foreign conquest as Spain or as Gaul beyond
the Alps. Only the geographical position of Cisalpine Gaul allowed it
to be easily and speedily incorporated with Italy in a way which the
lands beyond the Alps could not be. The beginnings of conquest in this
direction took place after the end of the Samnite wars. ♦Foundation
of Sena Gallica. B.C. 282.♦ Then the colony of _Sena Gallica_, now
_Sinigaglia_, was founded on Gaulish soil, and it was presently
followed by the foundation of _Ariminum_ or _Rimini_. ♦Conquest of
Cisalpine Gaul. B.C. 201-191.♦ The Roman arms were carried beyond the
Po in the time between the first and the second Punic war; after the
second Punic war, Cisalpine Gaul was thoroughly conquered, and was
secured by the foundation of many Roman and Latin colonies. ♦B.C. 43.♦
The Roman and Latin franchises were gradually extended to most parts
of the country, and at last Cisalpine Gaul was formally incorporated
with Italy.
♦Conquest of Liguria and Venetia.♦
Closely connected with the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul was the conquest
of the other non-Italian lands within the boundaries of modern Italy.
These were _Liguria_ to the south-east of Cisalpine Gaul and _Venetia_
to the north-west. Both these lands held out longer than Cisalpine
Gaul; but by the time of Augustus they were all, together with the
peninsula of _Istria_, counted as part of Italy. ♦Foundation of
Aquileia, B.C. 183.♦ The dominion of Rome in this region was secured at
an early stage of the conquest by the foundation of the great colony
of _Aquileia_. We thus see that, not only Venice, but Milan, Pavia,
Verona, Ravenna, and Genoa, cities which played so great a part in
the after history of Italy, arose in lands which were not originally
Italian. But we also see that Italy, with the boundaries given to it by
Augustus, took in a somewhat larger territory to the north-east than
the kingdom of Italy does now.
♦Spain.♦
The lands within the Alps may be fairly said to have been conquered by
Rome in self-defence, and we cannot help looking on the three great
islands as natural parts of an Italian dominion. The conquests of the
Romans in lands altogether beyond their own borders may be said to
have begun in Western Europe with the conquest of _Spain_, which began
before that of Transalpine Gaul. ♦Connexion of Spain and Gaul.♦ Spain
and Gaul, using the names in the geographical sense, have much which
binds them together. ♦Iberians in Spain.♦ On the borders of the two
countries traces are still left of the old non-Aryan inhabitants who
still speak the Basque language. These represent the old _Iberian_
inhabitants of Spain and Gaul, who, when our history begins, stretched
as far into Gaul as the Garonne. ♦Celts.♦ But the _Celts_, the first
wave of the Aryan migration in Europe, had pressed into both Gaul and
Spain; in Gaul they had, when trustworthy history begins, already
occupied by far the greater part of the country. ♦Greek and♦ The
Mediterranean coasts of Gaul and Spain were also connected together
by the sprinkling of Greek colonies along those shores, of which
_Massalia_ was the head. And, beside the primitive non-Aryan element,
there was an intrusive non-Aryan element also. ♦Phœnician settlements.♦
In southern Spain several Phœnician settlements had been made, the
chief of which was _Gades_ or _Cadiz_, beyond the straits, the one
great Phœnician city on the Ocean. And between the first and second
Punic wars Carthage obtained a large Spanish dominion, of which _New
Carthage_ or _Carthagena_ was the capital.
It was the presence of these last settlements which first brought Spain
under the Roman dominion. ♦First Roman province in Spain.♦ _Saguntum_
was an ally of Rome, and its taking by Hannibal was the beginning of
the second Punic war. ♦B.C. 218-206.♦ The campaigns of the Scipios
during that war led to the gradual conquest of the whole country. ♦B.C.
49.♦ The Carthaginian possessions first became a Roman province, while
Gades became a favoured ally of Rome, and at last was admitted to the
full Roman franchise. ♦B.C. 133.♦ Meanwhile, the gradual conquest of
the rest of the country went on, till, after the taking of _Numantia_,
all Spain, except the remote tribes in the north-west, had become
a Roman possession. ♦Final conquest. B.C. 19.♦ These tribes, the
_Cantabrians_ and their neighbours, were not fully subdued till the
time of Augustus. ♦Romanization of Spain.♦ But long before that time
the Latin language and Roman manners had been fast spreading through
the country, and in Augustus’ time southern Spain was altogether
Romanized. It was only in a small district close to the Pyrenees that
the ancient language held out, as it has done ever since.
♦Transalpine Gaul.♦
The conquest of Spain, owing to the connexion of the country with
Carthage, thus began while a large part even of Cisalpine Gaul was
still unsubdued. And the Roman arms were not carried into Gaul beyond
the Alps till the conquest of Spain was pretty well assured. ♦B.C.
122.♦ The foundation of the first Roman colony at _Aquæ Sextiæ_, the
modern _Aix_, was only eleven years later than the fall of Numantia.
The Romans stepped in as allies of the Greek city of Massalia, and, as
usual, from helping their allies they took to conquering on their own
account. ♦The Transalpine Province. B.C. 125-105.♦ A Roman province,
including the colonies of _Narbonne_ and _Toulouse_, was thus formed
in the south-eastern part of Transalpine Gaul. The advance of Rome
in this direction seems to have been checked by the invasion of the
Cimbri and Teutones, but through that long delay Roman influences were
able to establish themselves more firmly. This part of Gaul was early
and thoroughly Romanized, and part of it still keeps, in its name of
_Provence_, the memory of its having been the first Roman province
beyond the Alps. The rest of Gaul was left untouched till the great
campaigns of Cæsar.
♦Conquests of Cæsar. B.C. 58-51.♦
It is from Cæsar, ethnologer as well as conqueror, that we get our
chief knowledge of the country as it was in his day. ♦Boundaries of
Transalpine Gaul.♦ Transalpine Gaul, as a geographical division, has
well-marked boundaries in the Mediterranean, the Alps, the Rhine,
the Ocean, and the Pyrenees. But this geographical division has
never answered to any divisions of blood and language. ♦Its three
divisions, and their inhabitants, Iberian, Celtic, and German.♦ Gaul
in Cæsar’s day, that is Gaul beyond the Roman province, formed three
divisions—_Aquitaine_ to the south-west, _Celtic Gaul_ in the middle,
and _Belgic Gaul_ to the north-east. Aquitaine, stretching to the
Garonne—the name was under Augustus extended to the Loire—was Iberian,
akin to the people on the other side of the Pyrenees: a trace of its
old speech remains in the small Basque district north of the Pyrenees.
Celtic Gaul, from the Loire to the Seine and Marne, was the most truly
Celtic land, and it was in this part of Gaul that the modern French
nation took its rise. In the third division, Belgic Gaul, the tribes
to the east, nearer to the Rhine, were some of them purely German, and
others had been to a great extent brought under German influences or
mixed with German elements. There was, in fact, no unity in Gaul beyond
that which the Romans brought with them. ♦Romanization of Gaul.♦ In
seven years Cæsar subdued the whole land, and the work of assimilation
began. The Roman language gradually displaced all the native languages,
except where Basque and Breton survive in two corners; but in a large
part of Belgic Gaul the events of later times brought the German tongue
back again. ♦Permanence of the ancient geography.♦ There is no Roman
province in which, among all changes, the ancient geography has had
so much effect upon that of all later times. In southern Gaul most of
the cities still keep their old names with very little change. But in
northern Gaul the cities have mostly taken the names of the tribes
of which they were the heads. Thus _Tolosa_ is still _Toulouse_; but
_Lutetia Parisiorum_ has become _Paris_.
♦Roman Africa.♦
The lands which we have thus gone through, Cisalpine Gaul with Liguria
and Venetia, Spain, and Transalpine Gaul, form a marked division in
historical geography. They are those parts of Western Europe which Rome
conquered during the time of her Commonwealth, and they are those parts
which have mainly kept their Roman speech to this day. But these did
not make up the whole of the lands where Rome planted her Latin speech,
at least for a while. The conquest of Britain belongs to the days of
the Empire; but Rome, during the Commonwealth, made another conquest,
which, though not in Europe, may be counted as belonging to the
Western or Latin-speaking half of her dominion. This is the conquest
of that part of _Africa_ which Rome won as the result of her wars with
Carthage. ♦Province of Africa, B.C. 146;♦ The only African possession
won by Rome during the days of the Commonwealth was _Africa_ in the
strictest sense, the immediate dominion of Carthage. This became a
province when the Punic wars were ended by the destruction of Carthage.
♦of New Africa, B.C. 49.♦ The neighbouring state of _Numidia_, after
passing, like Carthage itself, through the intermediate state of a
dependency, was made a province by Cæsar, being called _New Africa_,
the former African province becoming the _Old_. ♦Restoration and
greatness of Carthage.♦ Cæsar also restored the city of Carthage as
a Roman colony, and it became the chief of the Latin-speaking cities
of the Empire, second only to Rome herself. But in Africa, just as
in Britain, the land never became thoroughly Romanized like Gaul and
Spain. The Roman tongue and laws therefore died out in both lands at
the first touch of an invader, the English in one case and the Saracens
in the other. The strip of fertile land between the sea on one side
and the mountains and the Great Desert on the other received, first
Phœnician and then Roman civilization. But neither of them could
really take root there in the way that the Roman civilization took root
in Gaul and Spain.
§ 4. _The Eastern Provinces._
♦Contrast between the Eastern and Western provinces.♦
The Hadriatic Sea may be roughly taken as the boundary between the
Eastern and Western parts of the Roman dominion. In the West, the
Romans carried with them not only their arms, but their tongue, their
laws, and their manners. They were not only conquerors but civilizers.
The native Iberians and Celts adopted Roman fashions, and the isolated
Greek and Phœnician cities, like Massalia and Gades, gradually became
Roman also. East of the Hadriatic the state of things was quite
different. Here the language and civilization of Greece had, through
the conquests of the Macedonian kings, become everywhere predominant.
♦Greek civilization in the East.♦ Greek was everywhere the polite and
literary language, and a certain varnish of Greek manners had been
everywhere spread. In some parts indeed it was the merest varnish;
still it was everywhere strong enough to withstand the influence
of Latin. Sicily and Southern Italy are the only lands which have
altogether thrown away the Greek tongue, and have taken to Latin or any
of the languages formed out of Latin. No part of the eastern half of
the Roman dominion ever became Roman in the same way as Gaul and Spain.
The whole of the lands east of the Hadriatic may thus, as opposed to
the Latin-speaking lands of the west, be called Greek-speaking lands.
♦Distinctions among the Eastern provinces.♦ But there are some wide
distinctions to be drawn among them. First, there was old Greece itself
and the Greek colonies, and lands like _Epeiros_, which had become
thoroughly Greek. Secondly, there were the kingdoms, like _Macedonia_
in Europe and _Pergamos_ in Asia, which had adopted the Greek speech
and manners, but which did not, like Epeiros, become Greek in any
political sense. Thirdly, there were a number of native states,
_Bithynia_ and others, whose kings also tried to imitate Greek ways,
but naturally could not do so as thoroughly as the kings of Macedonia
and Pergamos. ♦Lands beyond Tauros.♦ Fourthly, beyond Mount Tauros lay
the kingdoms of _Syria_ and _Egypt_, which were ruled by Macedonian
kings, which contained great Greek or Macedonian cities like _Antioch_
and _Alexandria_, but where there were native languages, and an old
native civilization, which neither Greek nor Roman influences could
ever root out. We shall see as we go on that Tauros makes a great
historical boundary. The lands on this side of it really came, though
very gradually, under the dominion of the Greek speech and the Roman
law. Beyond Mount Tauros both the Greek and the Roman element lay
merely on the surface, and therefore those lands, like Africa, easily
fell away when they were attacked by the Saracens.[6] We must now go
through such of the lands east of the Hadriatic as were formed into
Roman provinces during the time of the Roman Commonwealth.
♦The Illyrian Provinces.♦
But again, between the Latin and the Greek parts of the Roman dominion
there was a border land, namely, the lands held by the great _Illyrian_
race. The southern parts of Illyria came within the reach of Greek
influences, and it was through the affairs of Illyria that Rome was
first led to meddle in the affairs of Greece. ♦The kingdom of Skodra.♦
The use of the name _Illyria_ is at all times very vague; as a more
definite meaning as the name of a kingdom whose capital was _Skodra_,
and which, in the second half of the third century, was a dangerous
neighbour to the Greek cities and islands on that coast. ♦B.C. 168.♦
This kingdom was involved in the third Macedonian war, and came to an
end at the same time. As usual, it is not easy to distinguish how much,
if any, of the country actually became a Roman province, and how much
was left for a while in the intermediate state of dependent alliance.
But, for all practical purposes, the Illyrian kingdom of Skodra formed
from this time a part of the Roman dominion. With the fall of Skodra,
the parts of Illyria which lay further to the north, beyond the bounds
of the Greek world, first came into notice. ♦Dalmatian Wars.♦ The
Greek colonies in Dalmatia had played their part in the first Illyrian
war; but the land itself, which was to become an outlying fringe of
Italy lying east of the Hadriatic, is now first heard of as a distinct
country formed by a separation from the kingdom of Skodra. ♦B.C. 156. |
B.C. 34.♦ The first Dalmatian war soon followed; but it was not till
after several wars that Dalmatia became a province, and even after that
time there were several revolts. ♦Roman colonies in Dalmatia.♦ Before
long, Dalmatia was settled with several Roman colonies, as _Jadera_ or
_Zara_, and, above all, _Salona_, which became one of the chief cities
of the Roman dominion. The neighbouring lands of _Liburnia_, _Istria_,
and the land of the _Iapodes_, were gradually reduced during the same
period. ♦Istria incorporated with Italy.♦ Istria, like the neighbouring
land of Venetia, was actually incorporated with Italy, and _Pola_,
under the name of _Pietas Julia_, became a Roman colony.
♦The outlying Greek lands.♦
We have already traced the process by which old Greece and the
neighbouring lands of Macedonia and Epeiros gradually sank, first
practically, and then formally, into parts of the Roman dominion. It
would be hard to say at what particular moment many of the Greek cities
and islands sank from the relation of obedient allies into that of
acknowledged subjects. ♦Their late formal annexation.♦ We have seen
that some of them, as Rhodes and Byzantion, were not formally annexed
till the reign of Vespasian. The Greek cities on the Euxine do not seem
to have been formally annexed at all till a late period of the Eastern
Empire. Other outlying Greek lands and cities became so mixed up with
the history of some of the Asiatic kingdoms that they will come in
for a mention along with them. ♦Conquest of Crete, B.C. 67,♦ _Crete_
kept its independence to become a nest of pirates, and to be specially
conquered. It then formed one province with the then recent conquest of
_Kyrênê_, the one great Greek settlement in Africa, which had become an
appanage of the Macedonian kings of Egypt. The same had been the fate
of _Cyprus_, an island which had always been partly Greek, and which
had been further Hellenized under its Macedonian kings. ♦of Cyprus,
B.C. 58.♦ Cyprus too became a province. Thus, before Rome lost her own
freedom, she had become the formal or practical mistress of all the
earlier abodes of freedom. Men could not yet foresee that a time would
come when _Greek_ and _Roman_ should be words having the same meaning,
and when the place and name of Rome herself should be transferred to
one of the Greek cities which Vespasian formally reduced from alliance
to bondage.
♦The Asiatic Provinces.♦
In Roman history one war and one conquest always led to another, and,
as the affairs of Illyria had led to Roman interference in Greece,
so the affairs of Greece led to Roman interference in _Asia_. ♦B.C.
191-188.♦ The first war which Rome waged with _Antiochos_ of Syria led
to no immediate increase of the Roman territory, but all the Seleukid
possessions on this side Tauros were divided among the allies of Rome.
♦Province of Asia. B.C. 133-129.♦ This, as usual, was the first step
towards the conquest of Asia, and it is quite according to the usual
course of things that the first Roman province beyond the Ægæan, the
province of _Asia_, was formed of the dominions of Rome’s first and
most useful allies, the kings of Pergamos. The mission of Alexander
and his successors, as the representatives of Western civilization
against the East, now passed into the hands of Rome. Step by step, the
other lands west of Tauros came under the formal or practical dominion
of Rome. ♦Bithynia. B.C. 74.♦ _Bithynia_ was the first to be annexed,
and this acquisition was one of the causes which led to the second war
between Rome and the famous _Mithridates_ of _Pontos_. ♦Overthrow of
Mithridates. B.C. 64.♦ His final overthrow brought a number of other
lands under Roman dominion or influence. The Greek cities of _Sinôpê_
and _Hêrakleia_ obtained a nominal freedom, and vassal kings went on
reigning in part of Pontos itself, and in the distant Greek kingdom
of _Bosporos_. Rome was now mistress of Asia Minor. ♦Lykia.♦ The land
was divided among her provinces and her vassal kings, save that the
wise federal commonwealth of _Lykia_ still kept the highest amount of
independence which was consistent with the practical supremacy of Rome.
The Mithridatic war, which made Rome mistress of Asia in the narrower
sense, at once involved her in the affairs of the further East.
Tigranes of _Armenia_ had been the chief ally of Mithridates; but,
though his power was utterly humbled, no Armenian province was added
to the Roman dominion for a long time to come. ♦Province of Syria.
B.C. 64.♦ But the remnant of the Seleukid monarchy became the Roman
province of _Syria_. As usual, several cities and principalities were
allowed to remain in various relations of alliance and dependence on
the ruling commonwealth. ♦Palestine.♦ Among these we find _Judæa_ and
the rest of _Palestine_, sometimes under a Roman procurator, sometimes
united under a single vassal king, sometimes parted out among various
kings and tetrarchs, as suited the momentary caprice or policy of Rome.
♦Comparison with British India.♦ In all these various relations between
the native states and the ruling city we have a lively foreshadowing of
the relations between England and the subject and dependent princes of
India. ♦Rome the champion of the West.♦ The conquests of Rome in these
regions made her more distinctly than ever the sole representative of
the West against the East, and these conquests presently brought her
into collision with the one power in the known world which could at all
meet her on equal terms. She had stepped into the place of Alexander
and Seleukos so far as that all those parts of Alexander’s Asiatic
conquests which had received even a varnish of Hellenic culture had
become parts of her dominion. ♦Her rivalry with Parthia.♦ The further
East beyond the Euphrates was again under the command of a great
barbarian power, that of _Parthia_, which had stepped into the place
of Persia, as Rome had stepped into the place of Greece and Macedonia.
Rome had now again a rival, in a sense from which she had not had a
rival since the overthrow of Carthage and Macedonia.
One only of the Macedonian kingdoms now remained to be gathered in.
♦Conquest of Egypt. B.C. 31.♦ The annexation of _Egypt_, an annexation
made famous by the names of Kleopatra, Antonius, the elder and the
younger Cæsar, completed the work. Rome was now fully mistress of her
own civilized world. Her dominion took in all the lands round the
great inland sea. If, here and there, her formal dominion was broken
by a city or principality whose nominal relation was that of alliance,
the distinction concerned only the local affairs of that city or
principality. ♦_Pax Romana._♦ Within the whole historic world of the
three ancient continents, the Roman Peace had begun. Rome had still to
wage wars, and even to annex provinces; but those wars and annexations
were now done rather to round off and to strengthen the territory which
had been already gained, than in the strictest sense to extend it.
§ 5. _Conquests under the Empire._
At the same moment when the Roman commonwealth was practically changed
into a monarchy, the Roman dominion was thus brought, not indeed to its
greatest extent, but to an extent of which its further extension was
only a natural completion. ♦Conquests under Augustus and Tiberius.♦
There seems a certain inconsistency when we find Augustus laying
down a rule against the enlargement of the Empire, while the Empire
was, during his reign and that of his successor, extended in every
direction. But the conquests of this time were mainly conquests for
the purpose of strengthening the frontier; the occasional changes of
this and that city or district from the dependent to the provincial
relation, or sometimes from the provincial to the dependent, are now
hardly worth mentioning. ♦Incorporation of the dependent kingdoms.♦
Between Augustus and Nero, or, at all events, between Augustus
and Vespasian, all the dependent states in Asia and Africa, such
as _Mauritania_, _Kappadokia_, _Lykia_, and others, were finally
incorporated with the Empire to which they had long been practically
subject. These annexations can hardly be called conquests. And it was
merely finishing a work which had been begun two hundred years before,
when the small corner of Spain which still kept its independence was
brought under the Roman power. ♦Strengthening of the frontier.♦ The
real conquests of this time consisted in the strengthening of the
European frontier. No frontier nearer than the Rhine and the Danube
could be looked on as safe. This lesson was easily learned; but it
had also to be accompanied by another lesson which taught that the
Rhine and the Danube, and no more distant points, were to be the real
frontiers of Rome.
This brings us both to the lands which were then our own and to the
lands which became our own in after times. During the reign of Augustus
two conquests which most nearly concern our own history were planned,
and one of them was attempted. The annexation of the land which was to
become England was talked of; the annexation of the land which then
was England, along with the rest of the German lands, was seriously
attempted. But the conquest of Britain was put off from the days of
Augustus to the days of Claudius. ♦Attempted conquest of Germany. B.C.
11-A.D. 9.♦ The attempt at the conquest of Germany, which was deemed to
have been already carried out, was shivered when Arminius overthrew the
legions of Varus. ♦A.D. 19.♦ The expeditions of Drusus and Germanicus
into Northern Germany must have brought the Roman armies into contact
with our own forefathers, for the first time, and, for several ages,
for the last time. But from this time the relations between Rome
and southern Germany begin, and constantly increase in importance.
The two great rivers were fixed as a real frontier. ♦Conquests on
the Danube.♦ The lands between the Alps and the Danube, _Rætia_,
_Vindelicia_, _Noricum_, _Pannonia_, with _Mœsia_ on the lower Danube,
were all added to the Empire during the reign of Augustus. These were
strictly defensive annexations, annexations made in order to remove the
dangerous frontier further from Italy. Beyond the Rhine and the Danube
the Roman possessions were mere outposts held for the defence of the
land between the two great streams.
♦Attempt on Arabia. B.C. 24.♦
Meanwhile, while the attempt of the conquest of Germany came to so
little, an attempt at conquest at the other end of the world, in the
_Arabian_ peninsula, came to even less. ♦Thrace.♦ It marks the policy
of Rome and the gradual nature of her advance that, while these more
distant conquests were made or attempted, _Thrace_ still retained her
dependent princes, the only land of any extent within the European
dominions of Rome which did so. But Thrace, surrounded by Roman
provinces, was in no way dangerous; it might remain a dependency while
more distant lands were incorporated. It was not till uniformity was
more sought after, till, under Vespasian, the nominal freedom of so
many cities and principalities came to an end, that Thrace became a
province. ♦Annexation of Byzantion.♦ It was then that, among her latest
formal acquisitions in Europe, Rome annexed the city which was, in the
course of ages, to take her own place and name.
♦Conquest of Britain.♦
Thus, in the days between Augustus and Trajan, the conquests which
Rome actually made were mainly of a defensive and strengthening
character. To this rule there is one and only one exception of any
importance. This is the annexation to the Roman world of the land which
was looked on as another world, the conquest of the greater part of the
Isle of _Britain_. But Britain, though it did not come under the same
law as the defensive annexations of Rætia and Pannonia, was naturally
suggested by the annexation of Gaul and by the visits of the first
Cæsar to the island. ♦Claudius. B.C. 43.♦ No actual conquest however
took place till the reign of Claudius. ♦Agricola. B.C. 84.♦ Forty years
later the Roman conquests in Britain were pushed by _Agricola_ as far
as the isthmus between the friths of Forth and Clyde, the boundary
marked by the later rampart of _Antoninus_. But the lasting boundary of
the Roman dominion in Britain cannot be looked on as reaching beyond
the line of the southern wall of _Hadrian_, _Severus_, and _Stilicho_,
between the Solway and the mouth of the Tyne. The northern part of
Britain thus remained unconquered, and the conquest of Ireland was not
even attempted. For us the conquest of the land which afterwards became
our own has an interest above all the other conquests of Rome. But it
is a purely geographical interest. The British victories of Cæsar and
Agricola were won, not over our own forefathers, but over those Celtic
Britons whom our forefathers more thoroughly swept away. The history of
our own nation is still for some ages to be looked for by the banks of
the Elbe and the Weser, not by those of the Severn and the Thames.
♦The Eastern conquests of Trajan.♦
Britain was the last to be won of the Western provinces of Rome, and
the first to be lost. Still it was, for more than three hundred years,
thoroughly incorporated with the Empire, and its loss did not happen
till that general break-up of the Empire of which its loss was the
first stage. But between the conquest of Britain and its loss there
was a short time in which Rome again extended her dominion in the old
fashion, both in Europe and Asia. ♦Conquests of Trajan. A.D. 98-117.♦
This was during the reign of Trajan, when the Roman borders were again
widely extended in both Europe and Asia. Under him the Danube ceased
to be a boundary stream in one continent and the Euphrates in the
other. ♦His Asiatic and European conquests.♦ But a marked distinction
must be drawn between his Asiatic and his European warfare. Trajan’s
Asiatic conquests were strictly momentary; they were at once given up
by his successor; and they will be better dealt with when we speak in
another chapter of the long strife between Rome and her Eastern rival,
first Parthian and then Persian. ♦Conquest of Arabia Petræa. A.D. 106.♦
The only lasting Asiatic conquest of Trajan’s reign was not made by
Trajan himself, namely the small Roman province in Northern _Arabia_.
The European conquests of Trajan stand on another ground. If not
strictly defensive, like those of Augustus, they might easily seem to
be so. ♦Dacia.♦ The _Dacians_, to the north of the lower Danube, were
really threatening to the Roman power in those regions, and they had
dealt Rome more than one severe blow in the days of Domitian. ♦A.D.
106.♦ Trajan now formed the lands between the Thiess and the Danube,
the Dniester and the Carpathian Mountains, into the Roman province of
_Dacia_. ♦A.D. 270.♦ The last province to be won was the first to be
given up; for Aurelian withdrew from it, and transferred its name to
the Mœsian land immediately south of the Danube. But if Dacia was in
this way one of the most short lived of Roman conquests, it was in
another way one of the most lasting. ♦Later history of Dacia.♦ Cut off,
as it has been for so many ages, from all Roman influences, forming,
as it has done, one of the great highways of barbarian migration, a
large part of Dacia, namely the modern Rouman principality, still keeps
its Roman language no less than Spain and Gaul. In one way the land is
to this day more Roman than Spain or Gaul, as its people still call
themselves by the Roman name. Dacia, in fact, though geographically
belonging to the Eastern half of the Empire, stood in the same position
as the Western provinces. Greek influences had not reached so far
north, nor was there in Dacia any old-standing native civilization,
such as there was in Syria and Egypt. There was therefore nothing that
was at all able to hold up against Roman influences. The land was
speedily and thoroughly Romanized, and it remains Roman in speech and
name sixteen hundred years after the withdrawal of the Roman power.
* * * * *
♦Summary.♦
The Roman Empire was thus gradually formed by bringing, first Italy
and then the whole of the Mediterranean lands, under the dominion of
the one Roman city. In every part of that dominion the process of
conquest was gradual. The lands which became Roman provinces passed
through various stages of alliance and dependence before they were
fully incorporated. But, in the end, all the civilized world of those
times became Roman. Speaking roughly, three great rivers, the Rhine,
Danube, and Euphrates, formed the European and Asiatic boundaries of
the Empire. In Africa the Roman dominion consisted only of the strip
of fertile land between the Mediterranean and the mountains and
deserts. Britain and Dacia, the only two great provinces lying beyond
this range, were the last conquered and the first given up. In Western
Europe and in Africa Rome carried her language and her civilization
with her, and in those lands the Roman speech still remains, except
where it has been swept away by Teutonic and Saracen conquests. In the
lands from the Hadriatic to Mount Tauros, which had been brought more
or less under Greek influences, the Greek speech and civilization stood
its ground, and in those lands Greek still survives wherever it has not
been swept away by Slavonic and Turkish conquests. In the further east,
in Syria and Egypt, where there was an old native civilization, neither
Greek nor Roman influences took real root. The differences between
these three parts of the Roman Empire, the really Roman, the Greek, and
the Oriental, will be clearly seen as we go on.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] We shall come as we go on to two uses of the name in which Italy,
oddly enough, meant only the northern part of the land commonly so
called. But in both these cases the name had a purely political and
technical meaning, and it never came into common use in this sense.
[5] Some may think that the Cisalpine Gauls ought to be excepted, as
the common Roman story represents them as having crossed the Alps from
Transalpine Gaul at a time which almost comes within the range of
contemporary history. But this is a point about which there is no real
certainty; and it seems quite as likely that the Gaulish settlements on
the Italian side of the Alps were as old as those on the other side.
[6] In a more minute study of the history it will be found that Latin
Africa held out against the Saracens very much longer than Syria
and Egypt. But for our purpose the two may be classed together in
opposition to those lands in Europe and Asia which always remained
Roman or Greek.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE.
§ 1. _The Later Geography of the Empire._
The Roman dominion, as we have seen, grew up by the successive
annexation of endless kingdoms, districts, and cities, each of which,
after its annexation, still retained, whether as an allied province
or a subject state, much of the separate being which it had while it
was independent. The allies and subjects of Rome remained in a variety
of different relations to the ruling city, and the old names and the
old geographical boundaries were largely preserved. ♦Wiping out of old
divisions under the Empire.♦ But, as the old ideas of the commonwealth
gradually died out, and as the power of the Emperors gradually grew
into an avowed monarchy, the political change naturally led to a
geographical change. The Roman dominion ceased to be a collection
of allied and subject states under a single ruling city; it changed
into a single Empire, all whose parts, all whose inhabitants, were
equally subject to its Imperial head. The old distinctions of Latins,
Italians, and provincials died out when all free inhabitants of the
Empire became alike Romans. Italy had no longer any privilege; it
was simply part of the Empire, like any other part. The geographical
divisions which had been, first independent, then dependent states,
sank into purely administrative divisions, which might be mapped out
afresh at any time when it was found convenient to do so. Italy itself,
in the extended sense which the word Italy had then come to bear, was
mapped out afresh into _regions_ as early as the time of Augustus. ♦New
division of Italy under Augustus.♦ These divisions, eleven in number,
mark an epoch in the process by which the detached elements out of
which the Roman Empire had grown were fused together into one whole. As
long as Italy was a collection of separate commonwealths, standing in
various relations to the ruling city, there could not be any systematic
division of the country for administrative purposes. Now that the whole
of Italy stood on one level of citizenship or of subjection, the land
might be mapped out in whatever way was most convenient. ♦The eleven
Regions.♦ But the eleven regions of Augustus did not work any violent
change. Old names and old boundaries largely remained. The famous names
of _Etruria_, _Latium_, _Samnium_, _Umbria_, _Picenum_, and _Lucania_
still lived on, though not always with their ancient boundaries. And,
though all the land as far as the Alps was now Italy, two of the
divisions of Italy kept their ancient names of _Gaul on this side the
Po_ and _Gaul beyond the Po_. _Liguria_ and _Venetia_, now Italian
lands, make up the remainder of Northern Italy.
♦Divisions under Constantine.♦
Italy had thus been mapped out afresh; what was done with Italy in
the time of Augustus was done with the whole Empire in the time of
Constantine. What Italy was in the earlier time the whole Empire was
in the later; the old distinctions had been wiped out, and the whole
of the Roman world stood ready to be parted out into fresh divisions.
Under Diocletian, the Empire was divided into four parts, forming the
realms of the four Imperial colleagues of his system, the two Augusti
and their subordinate Cæsars. ♦Division of the Empire under Diocletian.
A.D. 292.♦ Diocletian’s system of government involved a practical
degradation of Rome from the headship of the Empire. Augusti and Cæsars
now dwelled at points where their presence was more needed to ward off
Persian and German attacks from the frontiers; Rome was forsaken for
Nikomêdeia and Milan, for Antioch, York, and Trier. ♦Reunion under
Constantine. A.D. 323. | Division between the sons of Theodosius. A.D.
395.♦ The division between the four Imperial colleagues lasted under
another form after the Empire was re-united under Constantine, and it
formed the groundwork of the more lasting division of the Empire into
East and West, between the sons of Theodosius. The whole Empire was
now mapped out according to a scheme in which ancient geographical
names were largely preserved, but in which they were for the most
part used in new or, at least, extended meanings. ♦The Four Prætorian
Prefectures.♦ The Empire was divided into four great divisions called
Prætorian _Prefectures_. These were divided into _Dioceses_—a name used
in this nomenclature without regard to the ecclesiastical sense which
was borrowed from it—and the dioceses again into _Provinces_. The four
great prefectures of the _East_, _Illyricum_, _Italy_, and _Gaul_,
answer nearly to the fourfold division under Diocletian; while we may
say that, in the final division, Illyricum and the East formed the
Eastern Empire, and Italy and Gaul formed the Western. But it is only
roughly that either the prefectures or their smaller divisions answer
to any of the great national or geographical landmarks of earlier times.
♦Prefecture of the East.♦
The Prefecture of the _East_ is that one among the four which least
answers to anything in earlier geography, natural or historical. Its
boundaries do not answer to those of any earlier dominion, nor yet to
any great division of race or language. It stretched into all the three
continents of the old world, and took in all those parts of the Empire
which were never fully brought under either Greek or Roman influences.
But it also took in large tracts which we have learned to look on as
part of the Hellenic world—not only lands which had been, to a great
extent, Hellenized in later times, but even some of the earliest Greek
colonies. The four dioceses into which the Prefecture was divided
formed far more natural divisions than the Prefecture itself.
♦Dioceses of the East,♦
Three of these were Asiatic. The first, specially called the _East_,
took in all the possessions of Rome beyond Mount Tauros, together with
Isauria, Kilikia, and the island of Cyprus. Its eastern boundaries
naturally fluctuated according as Rome or Persia prevailed on the
Euphrates and the Tigris, fluctuations of which we shall have again to
speak more specially. ♦Egypt,♦ The diocese of _Egypt_, besides Egypt in
the elder sense, took in, under the name of _Libya_, the old Greek land
of the Kyrenaic Pentapolis. ♦Asia.♦ The diocese of _Asia_, a reminder
of the elder province of that name and of the kingdom of Pergamos out
of which it grew, took in the Asiatic coasts of the Ægæan, together
with Pamphylia, Lykia, and the Ægæan Islands. The diocese of _Pontos_,
preserving the name of the kingdom of Mithridates, took in the lands on
the Euxine, with the fluctuating Armenian possessions of Rome.
♦Diocese of Thrace.♦
Besides these Asiatic lands, the Eastern Prefecture contained
one European diocese, that of _Thrace_, which took in the lands
stretching from the Propontis to the Lower Danube. The names of two
of its provinces are remarkable. Rome now boasts of a province of
_Scythia_. But, among the varied uses of that name, it has now shrunk
up to mean the land immediately south of the mouths of the Danube.
♦Province of _Europa_.♦ The other name is _Europa_, a name which, as
a Roman province, means the district immediately round the New Rome.
Constantine had now fixed his capital on the site of the old Byzantion,
the site from which the city on the Bosporos might seem to bear rule
over two worlds. With whatever motive, the name of Europe was specially
given to that corner of the Western continent where it comes nearest
to the Eastern. Nor was the name ill-chosen for the district round the
city which was so long to be the bulwark of Europe against invading
Asia. ♦Great cities of the Eastern Prefecture.♦ And, besides the New
Rome, this Prefecture, as containing those parts of the Empire which
had belonged to the great Macedonian kingdoms, contained an unusual
proportion of the great cities of the world. Besides a crowd of less
famous places, it took in the two great Eastern seats of Grecian
culture, the most renowned Alexandria and the most renowned Antioch,
themselves only the chief among many others cities bearing the same
names. All these, it should be remarked, were comparatively recent
creations, bearing the names of individual men. That cities thus
artificially called into being should have kept the position which
still belonged to the great Macedonian capitals is one of the most
speaking signs of the effect which the dominion of Alexander and his
successors had on the history of the world.
♦Prefecture of Illyricum.♦
The nomenclature of the second Prefecture marks how utterly Greece, as
a country and nation, had died out of all reckoning. The Prefecture
of the Eastern _Illyricum_ answered roughly to European Greece and
its immediate neighbours. It took in the lands stretching from the
Danube to the southern point of Peloponnêsos. Greece, as part of the
Roman Empire, was included under the name of the barbarian land through
which Rome was first brought into contact with Greek affairs. She was
further included under the name of the half-barbarian neighbour who
had become Greek through the process of conquering Greece. In the
system of Prefectures, Greece formed part of Macedonia, and Macedonia
formed part of Illyricum. So low had Greece, as a land, fallen at
the very moment when her tongue was making the greatest of all its
conquests, when a Greek city was raised to the rank of another Rome.
♦Dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia.♦ The Illyrian Prefecture contained
the two dioceses of _Macedonia_ and _Dacia_. This last name, it will
be remembered, had, since the days of Aurelian, withdrawn to the
south of the Danube. The Macedonian diocese contained six provinces,
among which, besides the familiar and venerable names of Macedonia
and Epeiros, we find the names, still more venerable and familiar, of
_Thessaly_ and _Crete_. And one yet greater name lives on with them.
_Hellas_ and _Græcia_ have alike vanished from the map; but the most
abiding name in Grecian history, the theme of Homer and the theme of
Polybios, has not perished. ♦Province of Achaia.♦ Among all changes,
_Achaia_ is there still.
♦Prefecture of Italy.♦
In the new system Italy and Rome herself were in no way privileged over
the rest of the Empire. The _Italian_ Prefecture took in Italy itself
and the lands which might be looked on as necessary for the defence
and maintenance of Italy. It took in the defensive conquests of the
early Empire on the Upper Danube, and it took in the granary of Italy,
Africa. Its three dioceses were _Italy_, _Illyricum_, and _Africa_.
Here Illyricum strangely gave its name both to a distinct Prefecture
and to one diocese of the Prefecture of Italy. ♦Dioceses of Italy,♦ The
Italian diocese contained seventeen provinces. The Gaulish name has now
wholly vanished from the lands south of the Alps. The lands between the
older and the newer boundaries of Italy are now divided into _Liguria_
and _Venetia_—the former name being used in a widely extended sense—and
the new names of _Æmilia_ and _Flaminia_, provinces named after the
great Roman roads, as the roads themselves were named after Roman
magistrates. But the new Italy has spread beyond the Alps, and reaches
to the Danube. Two Rætian provinces form part of it. Three other
provinces are formed by the three great islands, Sicily, Sardinia, and
Corsica. ♦Illyricum,♦ The diocese of the _Western Illyricum_ took in
_Pannonia_, _Dalmatia_, and _Noricum_. ♦Africa.♦ The third diocese,
that of _Africa_, took in the old _Africa_, _Numidia_, and western
_Mauritania_. ♦Greatness of Carthage.♦ The union of these lands with
Italy may seem less strange when we remember that the colony of the
first Cæsar, the restored Carthage, was the greatest of Latin-speaking
cities after Rome herself.
♦Prefecture of Gaul.♦
The fourth Prefecture took in the Roman dominions in Western Europe,
the great Latin-speaking provinces beyond the Alps. ♦Diocese of
Spain; its African territory.♦ Among the seven provinces of _Spain_
are reckoned, not only the Balearic islands, a natural appendage to
the Spanish peninsula, but a small part of the African continent, the
province of _Tingitana_, stretching from the now Italian Africa to the
Ocean. This was according to the general law by which, in almost all
periods of history, either the masters of Spain have borne rule in
Africa or the masters of Africa have borne rule in Spain. ♦Diocese of
Gaul;♦ The diocese of _Gaul_, with its seventeen provinces, keeps, at
least in name, the boundaries of the old Transalpine land. It still
numbers the two Germanies west of the Rhine among its provinces. ♦of
Britain.♦ The five provinces of the diocese of _Britain_ took in, at
the moment when the Empire was beginning to fall asunder, a greater
territory than Rome had held in the island in the days of her greatest
power. ♦Province of Valentia. A.D. 367.♦ The exploits of the elder
Theodosius, who drove back the Pict by land and the Saxon by sea, for
a moment added to the Empire a province beyond the wall of Antoninus,
which, in honour of the reigning Emperors Valentinian and Valens,
received the name of _Valentia_.
§ 2. _The Division of the Empire._
♦Change in the position of Rome.♦
The mapping out of the Empire into Prefectures, and its division
between two or more Imperial colleagues, led naturally to its more
lasting division into what were practically two Empires. The old
state of things had altogether passed away. Rome was no longer the
city ruling over subject states. From the Ocean to the Euphrates all
was alike, if not Rome, at least _Romania_; all its inhabitants were
equally Romans. But to be a Roman now meant, no longer to be a citizen
of a commonwealth, but to be the subject of an Emperor. The unity
of the Empire was not broken by the division of its administration
between several Imperial colleagues; but Rome ceased to be the only
Imperial dwelling-place, and, from the latter years of the third
century, it ceased to be an Imperial dwelling-place at all. As long
as Rome held her old place, no lasting division, nothing more than an
administrative partition among colleagues, could be thought of. There
could be no division to mark on the map. But, when the new system
had fully taken root at the end of the fourth century, we come to a
division which was comparatively lasting, one which fills an important
place in history, and which is capable of being marked on the map.
♦Division of the Empire between the sons of Theodosius. | A.D. 395.♦
On the death of Theodosius the Great, the Empire was divided between
his two sons, Arcadius taking the Eastern provinces, answering nearly
to the Prefectures of the East and of Illyricum, while Honorius took
the Western provinces, the Prefectures of Italy and Gaul. Through the
greater part of the fifth century, the successors of Arcadius and of
Honorius formed two distinct lines of Emperors, of whom the Eastern
reigned at Constantinople, the Western most commonly at Ravenna. But as
the dominions of each prince were alike Roman, the Eastern and Western
Emperors were still looked on in theory as Imperial colleagues charged
with the administration of a common Roman dominion. ♦Practically two
Empires.♦ Practically however the dominions of the two Emperors may
be looked on as two distinct Empires, the Eastern having its seat at
the New Rome or Constantinople, while the Western had its seat more
commonly at Ravenna than at the Old Rome.
This division of the Empire is the great political feature of the
fifth century; but the fate of the two Empires was widely different.
♦Enemies of Rome.♦ From the very beginning of the Empire, Rome had had
to struggle with two chief enemies, in the East and in the West, in
Europe and in Asia, the nature of whose warfare was widely different.
♦Rivalry with Parthia and Persia.♦ In the East she had, first the
Parthian and then the regenerate Persian, as strictly a rival power on
equal terms. This rivalry went on from the moment when Rome stepped
into the place of the Seleukids till the time when Rome was cut short,
and Persia overthrown, by the Saracenic invasions. But, except during
the momentary conquests of Trajan and during the equally momentary
alternate conquests of Rome and Persia in the seventh century, the
whole strife was a mere border warfare which did not threaten the
serious dismemberment of either power. This and that fortress was taken
and retaken; this and that province was ceded and ceded back again;
but except under Trajan and again under Chosroes and Heraclius, the
existence and dominion of neither power was ever seriously threatened.
♦Rivalry with Persia passes on to the Eastern Empire.♦ The Eastern
Empire naturally inherited this part of the calling of the undivided
Empire, the long strife with Persia.
At the other end of the Empire, the enemy was of quite another kind.
♦Teutonic incursions in the Western Empire.♦ The danger there was
through the incursions of the various Teutonic nations. There was no
one Teutonic power which could be a rival to Rome in the same sense
in which Persia was in the East; but a crowd of independent Teutonic
tribes were pressing into the Empire from all quarters, and were
striving to make settlements within its borders. The task of resisting
these incursions fell of course to the Western Empire. ♦No Teutonic
settlements in the Eastern Empire.♦ The Eastern Empire indeed was often
traversed by wandering Teutonic nations; but no permanent settlements
were made within its borders, no dismemberment of its provinces capable
of being marked on the map was made till a much later time. But the
Western Empire was altogether dismembered and broken in pieces by
the settlement of the Teutonic nations within it. The geographical
aspects of the two Empires during the fifth century are thus strikingly
unlike one another; but each continues one side of the history of
the undivided Empire. It will therefore be well to trace those two
characteristic aspects of the two Empires separately. We will first
speak of the Teutonic incursions, through which in the end the Western
Empire was split up and the states of modern Europe were founded. We
will then trace the geographical aspect of the long rivalry between
Rome and Persia in the East.
§ 3. _The Teutonic Settlements within the Empire._
Our subject is historical geography, and neither ethnology nor
political history, except so far as either national migrations or
political changes produce a directly geographical effect. ♦The
Wandering of the Nations.♦ The great movement called the Wandering of
the Nations, and its results in the settlement of various Teutonic
nations within the bounds of the Roman Empire, concern us now only so
far as they wrought a visible change on the map. The exact relations
of the different tribes to one another, the exact course of the
migrations which led to the final settlement of each, belong rather
to another branch of inquiry. But there are certain marked stages in
the relations of the Empire to the nations beyond its borders, certain
marked stages in the growth and mutual relations of those nations,
which must be borne in mind in order to explain their settlements
within the Empire. ♦Changes in the nomenclature of the Teutonic
nations.♦ It will be at once seen that the geography and nomenclature
of the German nations in the third century is for the most part quite
different from their geography and nomenclature as we find it in Cæsar
and Tacitus. New names have come to the front, names all of which
play a part in history, many of which remain to this day; and, with
one or two exceptions, the older names sink into the background. It
is therefore hardly needful to go through the ethnology and geography
of Tacitus, or to deal with any of the controverted points which are
suggested thereby. We have to look at the German nations purely in
their relations to Rome.
♦Warfare on the Rhine and the Danube.♦
We have seen that the history of Rome in her western provinces was,
from an early stage of the Empire, a struggle with the Teutonic nations
on the Rhine and the Danube. We have seen that all attempts at serious
conquest beyond those boundaries came to nothing. ♦Roman possessions
beyond those rivers.♦ The Roman possessions beyond the two great
rivers were mere outposts for the better security of the land within
the rivers. The district beyond them, fenced in by a wall and known
as the _Agri Decumates_, was hardly more than such an outlying post
on a great scale. The struggle along the border was, almost from the
beginning, a defensive struggle on the part of Rome. We hear of Roman
conquests from the second century to the fifth; but they are strictly
defensive conquests, the mere recovery of lost possessions, or at most
the establishment of fresh outposts. ♦Formation of confederacies
among the Germans.♦ From the moment of the first appearance of Rome
on the two rivers, the Teutonic nations were really threatening to
Rome, and the warfare of Rome was really defensive; and from the very
beginning too a process seems to have been at work among the German
nations themselves which greatly strengthened their power as enemies
of Rome. New nations or confederacies, bearing, for the most part,
names unknown to earlier times, begin to be far more dangerous than the
smaller and more scattered tribes of the earlier times had been. These
movements among the German nations themselves, hastened by pressure
of other nations to the east of them, caused the Teutonic attacks on
the Empire to become more and more formidable, and at last to grow into
Teutonic settlements within the Empire. But, in the course of this
process, several stages may be noticed. ♦Marcomanni and Quadi.♦ Thus
the _Marcomanni_ and the _Quadi_ play a part in this history from the
very beginning. The Marcomanni appear in Cæsar, and, from their name of
_Markmen_, we may be sure that they were a confederacy of the same kind
as the later confederacies of the Franks and Alemanni. In the first and
second centuries the Marcomanni are dangerous neighbours, threatening
the Empire and often penetrating beyond its borders, and their name
appears in history as late as the fifth century. But they play no part
in the Teutonic settlements within the Empire. They do not affect the
later map; they had no share in bringing about the changes out of which
modern Europe arose. Their importance ceases just at the time when a
second stage begins, when, in the course of the third century, we begin
to hear of those nations or confederacies whose movements really did
affect later history and geography.
♦Beginning of modern European history.♦
In the third and fourth centuries the history of modern Europe begins.
♦The new confederacies.♦ We now begin to hear names which have been
heard ever since, _Franks_, _Alemans_, _Saxons_, all of them great
confederacies of German tribes. ♦Defensive warfare of Rome.♦ Defence
against German inroads now becomes the chief business of the rulers of
Rome. The invaders were constantly driven back; but new invaders were
as constantly found to renew their incursions. Men of Teutonic race
pressed into the Empire in every conceivable character. ♦Germans within
the Empire.♦ Besides open enemies, who came with the hope either of
plunder or settlement, crowds of Germans served in the Roman armies
and obtained lands held by military tenure as the reward of their
services. Their chiefs were promoted to every rank and honour, military
and civil, short of the Imperial dignity itself. These were changes
of the utmost importance in other points of view; still they do not
directly affect the map of the Empire. Lands and cities were won and
lost over and over again; but such changes were merely momentary; the
acknowledged boundaries of the Roman dominion were not yet altered;
it is not till the next stage that geography begins to be directly
concerned.
♦Beginning of national kingdoms.♦
This last stage begins with the early years of the fifth century, and
thus nearly coincides with the division of the Empire into East and
West. Gothic and other Teutonic kings could now march at pleasure at
the head of their armies through every corner of the Empire, sometimes
bearing the titles of Roman officers, sometimes dictating the choice
of Roman Emperors, sometimes sacking the Old Rome or threatening the
New. It was when these armies under their kings settled down and formed
national kingdoms within the limits of the Empire, that the change
comes to have an effect on the map. In the course of the fifth century
the Western provinces of Rome were rent away from her. In most cases
the loss was cloaked by some Imperial commission, some empty title
bestowed on the victorious invader; but the Empire was none the less
practically dismembered. Out of these dismemberments the modern states
of Europe gradually grew. It will now be our business to give some
account of those nations, Teutonic and otherwise, who had an immediate
share in this work, passing lightly by all questions, and indeed all
nations, which cannot be said to have had such an immediate share in it.
* * * * *
♦Teutonic Settlements in the West.♦
The nations which in the fourth and fifth centuries made settlements
in the Western provinces of Rome fall under two chief heads; those
who made their settlements by land, and those who made them by sea.
This last class is pretty well coextensive with the settlement of
our own forefathers in Britain, which must be spoken of separately.
♦Settlements within the Empire.♦ Among the others, the nations who play
an important part in the fourth and fifth centuries are the _Goths_,
the _Vandals_, the _Burgundians_, the _Suevi_, and the _Franks_. And
their settlements again fall into two classes, those which passed away
within a century or two, and those which have had a lasting effect on
European history. ♦Franks, Burgundians, Suevi,♦ Thus it is plain at the
first glance that the Franks and the Burgundians have left their names
on the modern map. The Suevi have left their name also: but it is now
found only in their older German land; it has vanished for ages from
their western settlement. ♦Goths,♦ The name of the Goths has passed
away from the kingdoms which they founded, but their presence has
affected the history of both the Spanish and the Italian peninsulas.
♦Vandals.♦ The Vandals alone, as a nation and kingdom, have left no
traces whatever, though it may be that they have left their name to a
part of one of the lands of their sojourn. ♦Their kingdoms.♦ All these
nations founded kingdoms within the Western Empire, kingdoms which at
first admitted a nominal superiority in the Empire, but which were
practically independent from the beginning. ♦Various circumstances
of their history.♦ But the history of the several kingdoms is very
different. Some of them soon passed away altogether, while others
became the beginnings of the great nations of modern Europe. Gaul and
Spain fell off very gradually from the Empire. But, in the course of
the fifth century, all the nations of which we have been speaking
formed more or less lasting settlements within those provinces.
Pre-eminent among them are the great settlements of the Goths and the
Franks. Out of the settlement of the Franks arose the modern kingdoms
of Germany and France, and out of the settlement of the Goths arose
the various kingdoms of Spain. Those of the Burgundians, Vandals, and
Suevi were either smaller or less lasting. All of them however must be
mentioned in their order.
♦Migrations of the West-Goths.♦
First and greatest come the _Goths_. It is not needful for our purpose
to examine all that history or legend has to tell us as to the origin
of the Goths, or all the theories which ingenious men have formed on
the subject. ♦Defeat of the Goths by Claudius. A.D. 269.♦ It is enough
for our purpose that the Goths began to show themselves as dangerous
enemies of the Empire in the second half of the third century; but
their continuous history does not begin till the second half of the
fourth. ♦Gothic kingdom on the Danube.♦ We then find them forming a
great kingdom in the lands north of the Danube. ♦Goths driven onwards
by the Huns.♦ Presently a large body of them were driven to seek
shelter within the bounds of the Eastern Empire from the pressure of
the invading _Huns_. These last were a Turanian people who had been
driven from their own older settlements by movements in the further
East which do not concern us, but who become an important element in
the history of the fifth century. They affected the Empire, partly by
actual invasions, partly by driving other nations before them but they
made no lasting settlements within it. Nor did the Goths themselves
make any lasting settlement in the Eastern Empire. ♦They cross the
Danube. A.D. 377.♦ While one part of the Gothic nation became subject
to the Huns, another part crossed the Danube; but they crossed it by
Imperial licence, and if they took to arms, it was only to punish
the treachery of the Roman officers. Presently we find Gothic chiefs
marching at pleasure through the dominions of the Eastern Cæsar; but
they simply march and ravage; it is not till they have got within the
boundary of the West that they found any lasting kingdoms. In fact,
the Goths, and the Teutonic tribes generally, had no real mission in
the East; to them the East was a mere highway to the West. ♦Career of
Alaric. A.D. 394-410.♦ The movements of Alaric in Greece, Illyricum,
and Italy, his sieges and his capture of Rome, are of the highest
historical importance, but they do not touch geography. The Goths first
win for themselves a local habitation and a place on the map when they
left Italy to establish themselves in the further West.
♦Beginning of the West-Gothic kingdom under Athaulf. A.D. 412.♦
Under Alaric’s successor, Athaulf, the first foundations were laid of
that great West-Gothic kingdom which we are apt to look on as specially
Spanish, but which in truth had its first beginning in Gaul, and which
kept some Gaulish territory as long as it lasted. But the Goths passed
into those lands, not in the character of avowed conquerors, not as
founders of an avowed Gothic state, but as soldiers of the Empire,
sent to win back its lost provinces. ♦Condition of Gaul and Spain.♦
Those provinces were now occupied or torn in pieces by a crowd of
invaders, _Suevi_, _Vandals_, and _Alans_. ♦The Alans.♦ These last
are a puzzling race, our accounts of whom are somewhat contradictory,
but who may perhaps be most safely set down as a non-Aryan, or, at
any rate, a non-Teutonic people, who had been largely brought under
Gothic influences. But early in the fifth century they possessed a
dominion in central Spain which stretched from sea to sea. ♦The Suevi
in Spain.♦ Their dominion passed for a few years into the hands of the
Suevi, who had already formed a settlement in north-western Spain, and
who still kept a dominion in that corner long after the greater part
of the peninsula had become Gothic. ♦The Vandals in Africa. A.D. 425.♦
The Vandals occupied Bætica; but they presently passed into Africa,
and there founded the one Teutonic kingdom in that continent, with
Carthage to its capital, a kingdom which took in also the great islands
of the western Mediterranean, including Sicily itself. ♦Independence
of the Basques.♦ Through all these changes the unconquerable people
of the Basque and Cantabrian mountains seem never to have fully
submitted to any conquerors; but the rest of Spain and south-western
Gaul was, before half of the fifth century had passed, formed into the
great West-Gothic kingdom. ♦Gothic kingdom of Toulouse.♦ That kingdom
stretched from the pillars of Hêraklês to the Loire and the Rhone,
and its capital was placed, not on Spanish but on Gaulish ground, at
the Gaulish Tolosa or _Toulouse_. The Gothic dominion in Gaul was
doomed not to be lasting; the Gothic dominion in Spain lasted down to
the Saracen conquest, and all the later Christian kingdoms of Spain
may be looked on as fragments or revivals of it. Spain however never
changed her name for that of her conquerors. ♦Gothia.♦ The only parts
of the Gothic kingdom which ever bore the Gothic name were those small
parts both of Spain and Gaul which kept the name of _Gothia_ through
later causes. ♦Andalusia.♦ The Vandals, on the other hand, though they
passed altogether out of Spain, have left their name to this day in its
southern part under the form of _Andalusia_, a name which, under the
Saracen conquerors, spread itself over the whole peninsula.
♦The Franks.♦
The other great Teutonic nations or confederacies of which we have to
speak have had a far more lasting effect on the nomenclature of Europe.
We have now to trace the steps by which the _Franks_ gradually became
the ruling people both of Germany and of Gaul. They have stamped their
name on both countries. ♦Uses of the word _Francia_.♦ The dominions
of the Franks got the name of _Francia_, a name whose meaning has
constantly varied according to the extent of the Frankish dominion at
different times. In modern use it still cleaves to two parts of their
dominions, to that part of Germany which is still called _Franken_ or
_Franconia_, and to that part of Gaul which is still called _France_.
♦The Alemanni.♦ And their history is closely mixed up with that of
another nation or confederacy, that of the _Alemanni_, who again have,
in the French tongue, given their name to the whole of Germany. ♦A.D.
275.♦ Franks and Alemanni alike begin to be heard of in the third
century, and the Alemanni even attempted an actual invasion of Italy;
but the geographical importance of both confederacies does not begin
till the fifth. All through the fourth century it is the chief business
of the Emperors who ruled in Gaul to defend the frontier of the Rhine
against their incursions, against the Alemanni along the upper part of
its course, and against the Franks along its lower part. ♦Thuringians.
| The Low-Dutch tribes.♦ To the east of the Franks and Alemanni lay
the _Thuringians_; to the north, along the coasts of the German Ocean,
the Low-Dutch tribes, _Saxons_ and _Frisians_. In the course of the
fifth century their movements also began to affect the geography of the
Empire.
During the whole of that century the Franks were pressing into Gaul.
The Imperial city of Trier was more than once taken, and the seat of
the provincial government was removed to Arles. ♦Reign of Chlodwig.
A.D. 481-511.♦ The union of the two chief divisions of the Frankish
confederacy, and the overthrow of the Alemanni, made the Franks, under
their first Christian king, Chlodwig or Clovis, the ruling people of
northern Gaul and central Germany. Their territory thus took in both
lands which had been part of the Empire, and lands which had never
been such. ♦Character and divisions of the Frankish kingdom.♦ This is
a special characteristic of the Frankish settlement, and one which
influences the whole of their later history. There was, from the very
beginning, long before any such distinction was consciously drawn, a
_Teutonic_ and a _Latin Francia_. There were Frankish lands to the
East which never had been Roman. There were lands in northern Gaul
which remained practically Roman under the Frankish dominion. ♦Roman
Germany Teutonized afresh.♦ And between them lay, on the left bank
of the Rhine, the Teutonic lands which had formed part of the Roman
province of Gaul, but which now became Teutonic again. _Moguntiacum_,
_Augusta Treverorum_, and _Colonia Agrippina_, cities founded on
Teutonic soil, now again became German, ready to be in due time, by the
names of _Mainz_, _Trier_, and _Köln_, the metropolitan and electoral
cities of Germany. ♦Eastern and Western _Francia_.♦ These lands, with
the original German lands, formed the _Eastern_ or _Teutonic Francia_,
where the Franks, or their German allies and subjects, formed the real
population of the country. In the _Western Francia_, between the Loire
and the Channel, though the Franks largely settled and influenced
the country in many ways, the mass of the population remained Roman.
♦Armorica or Britanny.♦ Over the western peninsula of _Armorica_ the
dominion of the Franks was always precarious and, at most, external.
Here the ante-Roman population still kept its Celtic language, and it
was further strengthened by colonies from Britain, from which the land
took its later name of the _Lesser Britain_ or _Britanny_. ♦Extent
of the Frankish dominion. A.D. 500.♦ Thus, at the end of the fifth
century, the Frankish dominion was firmly established over the whole of
central Germany and Northern Gaul. Their dominion was fated to be the
most lasting of the Teutonic kingdoms formed on the Roman mainland. The
reason is obvious; while the Goths in Spain and the Vandals in Africa
were isolated Teutonic settlers in a Roman land, the Franks in Gaul
were strengthened by the unbroken Teutonic mainland at their back.
♦The Burgundians.♦
The greater part of Gaul was thus, at the end of the fifth century,
divided between the Franks in the north and the West-Goths in the
south. But, early in the fifth century, a third Teutonic power grew up
in south-eastern Gaul. ♦Their kingdom.♦ The _Burgundians_, a people
who, in the course of the Wandering of the Nations, seem to have made
their way from the shores of the Baltic, established themselves in
the lands between the Rhone and the Alps, where they formed a kingdom
which bore their name. Their dominion in Gaul may be said to have
been more lasting than that of the Goths, less lasting than that of
the Franks. ♦Meaning of the word _Burgundy_.♦ _Burgundy_ is still a
recognized name; but no name in geography has so often shifted its
place and meaning, and it has for some centuries settled itself on a
very small part of the ancient kingdom of the Burgundians. ♦Provence
Burgundian. A.D. 500-510. | 510-536.♦ At the end of the fifth century
the Rhone was a Burgundian river; _Autun_, _Besançon_, _Lyons_, and
_Vienne_ were Burgundian cities; but the sea coast, the original Roman
_Province_, the land which has so steadily kept that name, though it
fell for a moment under the Burgundian power, followed at this time,
as became the first Roman land beyond the Alps, the fortunes of Italy
rather than those of Gaul.
♦Invasion of the Huns.♦
Among these various conquests and shiftings of dominion, all of which
affected the map at the time, some of which have affected history and
geography ever since, it may be well to mention, if only by way of
contrast, an inroad which fills a great place in the history of the
fifth century, but which had no direct effect on geography. ♦Battle
of Châlons. A.D. 451.♦ This was the invasion of Italy and Gaul by
the _Huns_ under Attila, and their defeat at Châlons by the combined
forces of Romans, West-Goths, and Franks. This battle is one of the
events which is remarkable, not for working change, but for hindering
it. Had Attila succeeded, the greatest of all changes would have
taken place throughout all Western Europe. As it was, the map of Gaul
was not affected by his inroad. ♦Destruction of Aquileia, and origin
of Venice.♦ On the map of Italy it did have an indirect effect; he
destroyed the city of Aquileia, and its inhabitants, fleeing to the
Venetian islands, laid the foundation of one of the later powers of
Europe in the form of the commonwealth of _Venice_.
While Spain and Gaul were thus rent away from the Empire, Italy and
Rome itself were practically rent away also, though the form which
the event took was different. ♦Reunion of the Empire. | Rule of
Odoacer. A.D. 476-493.♦ A vote of the Senate reunited the Western
Empire to the Eastern; the Eastern Emperor Zeno became sole Emperor,
and the government of the diocese of Italy—that is, it will be
remembered, of a large territory besides the Italian peninsula—was
entrusted by his commission to Odoacer, a general of barbarian
mercenaries, with the rank of Patrician. No doubt Odoacer was
practically independent of the Empire; but the union of the Empire was
preserved in form, and no separate kingdom of Italy was set up. ♦The
East-Goths in Italy.♦ Presently Odoacer was overthrown by Theodoric
king of the East-Goths, who, though king of his own people, reigned
in Italy by an Imperial commission as Patrician. ♦Rule of Theodoric.
A.D. 493-526.♦ Practically, he founded an East-Gothic kingdom, taking
in Italy and the other lands which formed the dioceses of Italy and
Western Illyricum. ♦Extent of his dominion.♦ His dominion also took in
the coast of what we may now call _Provence_, and his influence was
extended in various ways over most of the kingdoms of the West. The
seat of the Gothic dominion, like that of the later Western Empire, was
at Ravenna. Practically Theodoric and his successors were independent
kings, and, as chiefs of their own people, they bore the kingly title.
♦Theory of the Empire.♦ Hence, as Rome formed part of their dominions,
it is true to say that under them Rome ceased to be part of the Roman
Empire. Still in theory the Imperial supremacy went on, and in this
way it became much easier for Italy to be won back to the Empire at a
somewhat later time.
§ 4. _Settlement of the English in Britain._
Meanwhile, in another part of Europe, a Teutonic settlement of quite
another character from those on the mainland was going on. ♦The Romans
withdrawn from Britain. A.D. 411.♦ Spain and Gaul fell away from
the Empire by slow degrees; but the Roman dominion in Britain came
to an end by a definite act at a definite moment. The Roman armies
were withdrawn from the province, and its inhabitants were left to
themselves. Presently, a new settlement took place in the island which
was thus left undefended. ♦Difference between the conquest of Britain
and other Teutonic conquests.♦ It is specially important to mark
the difference between the Teutonic settlements in Britain and the
Teutonic conquests on the mainland. The Teutonic conquests in Gaul and
Spain were made by Teutonic neighbours who had already learned to know
and respect the Roman civilization, who were either Christians already
or became Christians soon after they entered the Empire. They pressed
in gradually by land; they left the Roman inhabitants to live after the
Roman law, and they themselves gradually adopted the speech and much of
the manners of Rome. The only exception to this rule on the continent
is to be found in the lands immediately on the Rhine and the Danube,
where the Teutonic settlement was complete, and where the Roman tongue
and civilization were pretty well wiped out. This same process happened
yet more completely in the Teutonic conquest of Britain. ♦Character of
the English settlement; | long struggle with the Britons.♦ The great
island possession of Rome had been virtually abandoned by Rome before
the Teutonic settlements in it began. The invaders had therefore to
struggle rather with native Britons than with Romans. Moreover, they
were invaders who came by sea, and who came from lands where little or
nothing was known of the Roman law or religion. They therefore made
a settlement of quite another kind from the settlement of the Goths
or even from that of the Franks. They met with a degree of strictly
national resistance such as no other Teutonic conquerors met with;
therefore in the end they swept away all traces of the earlier state
of things in a way which took place nowhere else. ♦The English remain
Teutonic.♦ As far as such a process is possible, they slew or drove out
the older inhabitants; they kept their heathen religion and Teutonic
language, and were thus able to grow up as a new Teutonic nation in
their new home without any important intermixture with the earlier
inhabitants, Roman or British.
♦The Low-Dutch settlements in Britain.♦
The conquerors who wrought this change were our own forefathers, the
Low-Dutch inhabitants of the border lands of Germany and Denmark,
quite away from the Roman frontier; and among them three tribes, the
_Angles_, the _Saxons_, and the _Jutes_, had the chief share in the
conquest of Britain. ♦Saxons.♦ The Saxons had, as has already been
said, attempted a settlement in the fourth century. They were therefore
the tribe who were first known to the Roman and Celtic inhabitants of
the island; the Celts of Britain and Ireland have therefore called
all the Teutonic settlers _Saxons_ to this day. ♦Origin of the name
_English_.♦ But, as the Angles or _English_ occupied in the end much
the greater part of the land, it was they who, when the Teutonic tribes
in Britain began to form one nation, gave their name to that nation and
its land. That nation was the _English_, and their land was _England_.
While _Britain_ therefore remains the proper geographical name of the
whole island, _England_ is the name of that part of Britain which was
step by step conquered by the English. Before the end of the fifth
century several Teutonic kingdoms had begun in Britain. ♦Jutes in Kent.
A.D. 449.♦ The Jutes began the conquest by their settlement in _Kent_,
and presently the _Saxons_ began to settle on the South coast and on
a small part of the East coast, in _Sussex_, _Wessex_, and _Essex_.
♦Saxon and Anglian settlements.♦ And along a great part of the eastern
coast various _Anglian_ settlements were made, which gradually grew
into the kingdoms of _East-Anglia_, _Deira_, and _Bernicia_, which two
last formed by their union the great kingdom of _Northumberland_. But,
at the end of the sixth century, the English had not got very far from
the southern and eastern coasts. ♦The Welsh and Scots.♦ The Britons,
whom the English called _Welsh_ or strangers, held out in the West, and
the Picts and Scots in the North. The _Scots_ were properly the people
of Ireland; but a colony of them had settled on the western coast of
northern Britain, and, in the end, they gave the name of Scotland to
the whole North of the island.
§ 5. _The Eastern Empire._
♦Contrast between the Eastern and Western Empires.♦
We have already seen the differences between the position of the
Eastern and Western Empires during this period. While in the West the
provinces were gradually lopped away by the Teutonic settlements, the
provinces of the East, though often traversed by Teutonic armies,
or rather nations, did not become the seats of lasting Teutonic
settlements. ♦The Tetraxite Goths.♦ We can hardly count as an exception
the settlement of the _Tetraxite Goths_ in the Tauric Chersonêsos, a
land which was rather in alliance with the Empire than actually part
of it. ♦Rivalry with Persia.♦ The distinctive history of the Eastern
Empire consists, as has been already said, in the long struggle between
East and West, in which Rome had succeeded to the mission of Alexander
and the Seleukids as the representative of Western civilization. To
this mission was afterwards added the championship of Christianity,
first against the Fire-worshipper and then against the Moslem. In
Eastern history no event is more important and more remarkable than
the uprising of the regenerate _Persian_ nation against its Parthian
masters. ♦Revival of the Persian kingdom. A.D. 226.♦ But, as far as
either the history or the geography of Rome is concerned, the Persian
simply steps into the place of the Parthian as the representative of
the East against the West. From our point of view, the long wars
on the Eastern frontier of Rome, and the frequent shiftings of that
frontier, form one unbroken story, whether the enemy that was striven
against is the successor of Arsakes or the successor of Artaxerxes.
♦Position of Armenia.♦ And besides the natural rivalry of two great
powers in such a position, the border kingdom of _Armenia_, a name
which has changed its meaning and its frontiers almost as often as
Burgundy or Austria, supplied constant ground for dispute between Rome
and her eastern rival, whether Parthian or Persian.
In the geographical aspect of this long struggle three special
periods need to be pointed out. ♦Conquests of Trajan. A.D. 114-117.♦
The first is that of the momentary conquests of Trajan. Under him
_Armenia_, hitherto a vassal kingdom of Rome, was incorporated as a
Roman province. _Albania_ and _Iberia_ took its place as the frontier
vassal states. Beyond the Euphrates, even beyond the Tigris, the Roman
dominion took in _Mesopotamia_, _Atropatênê_, and _Babylonia_. The
Parthian capital of Ktesiphôn and the outlying Greek free city of
Seleukeia were included within the boundaries of an Empire which for a
moment touched the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. Rome, as the champion
of the West, seemed to have triumphed for ever over her Eastern rival,
when the Parthian kingdom was thus shorn of the border lands of the
two worlds, and when its king was forced to become a Roman vassal
for the dominions that were left to him. But this vast extension of
the Roman power was strictly only for a moment. ♦Conquests of Trajan
surrendered by Hadrian. A.D. 117.♦ What Trajan had conquered Hadrian
at once gave back; the Empire was again bounded by the Euphrates, and
Armenia was again left to form matter of dispute between its Eastern
and its Western claimant. ♦Conquests of Marcus. A.D. 162-166.♦ The
second stage begins when, under Marcus, the Roman frontier again began
to advance. ♦Of Severus. A.D. 197-202.♦ Between the Euphrates and the
Tigris _Osrhoênê_ became a Roman dependency: under the house of Severus
it became a Roman province; and the fortress of _Nisibis_, so famous
in later wars, was planted as the Eastern outpost of Rome against
the Parthian. Ten years later the Parthian power was no more; but,
as seen with Western eyes, the revived monarchy of Persia had simply
stepped into its place. The wars of Alexander Severus, the captivity
of Valerian, the wasting march of Sapor through the Roman provinces,
left no trace on the map. ♦Conquests under Diocletian. A.D. 297.♦ But
under the mighty rule of Diocletian the glories of Trajan were renewed.
Mesopotamia again became Roman; five provinces beyond the Tigris were
added to the Empire; Armenia, again the vassal of Rome, was enlarged
at the expense of Persia, and Iberia was once more a Roman dependency.
In the third stage the Roman frontier again went back. The wars of
the second Sapor did little but deprive Rome of two Mesopotamian
fortresses. ♦Surrender of provinces by Jovian. A.D. 363.♦ But after the
fall of Julian the lands beyond the Tigris were given back to Persia;
even Nisibis was yielded, and the Persian frontier again reached the
Euphrates. ♦Division of Armenia. 387. | The Hundred Years’ Peace. 421.♦
Armenia was now tossed to and fro, conquered and reconquered, till the
kingdom was divided between the vassals of the two Empires, a division
which was again confirmed by the hundred years’ peace between Rome and
Persia. This was the state of the Eastern frontier of Rome at the time
when the West-Goths were laying the foundation of their dominion in
Spain and Aquitaine, when Goth and Roman joined together to overthrow
the mingled host of Attila at Châlons, and when the first English keels
were on their way to the shores of Britain.
This then is the picture of the civilized world at the end of the
fifth century. The whole of the Western dominions of Rome, including
Italy and Rome herself, have practically, if not everywhere formally,
fallen away from the Roman Empire. The whole West is under the rule of
Teutonic kings. The Frank has become supreme in northern Gaul, without
losing his ancient hold on western and central Germany. The West-Goth
reigns in Spain and Aquitaine; the Burgundian reigns in the lands
between the Rhone and the Alps. Italy and the lands to the north of the
Alps and the Hadriatic have become, in substance though not in name, an
East-Gothic kingdom. But the countries of the European mainland, though
cut off from Roman political dominion, are far from being cut off
from Roman influences. The Teutonic settlers, if conquerors, are also
disciples. Their rulers are everywhere Christian; in Northern Gaul they
are even Orthodox. Africa, under the Arian Vandal, is far more utterly
cut off from the traditions of Rome than the lands ruled either by the
Catholic Frank or by the Arian Goth. To the north of the Franks lie the
independent tribes of Germany, still untouched by any Roman influence.
They are beginning to find themselves new homes in Britain, and, as
the natural consequence of a purely barbarian and heathen conquest, to
sever from the Empire all that they conquered yet more thoroughly than
Africa itself was severed. Such is the state of the West. In the East
the Roman power lives on in the New Rome, with a dominion constantly
threatened and insulted by various enemies, but with a frontier which
has varied but little since the time of Aurelian. No lasting Teutonic
settlement has been made within its borders. In its endless wars with
Persia, its frontier sometimes advances and sometimes retreats. In our
next chapter we shall see how much of life still clung to the majesty
of the Roman name, and how large a part of the ancient dominion of Rome
could still be won back again.
CHAPTER V.
THE FINAL DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE.
§ 1. _The Reunion of the Empire._
♦Continuity of Roman rule.♦
The main point to be always borne in mind in the history, and
therefore in the historical geography, of the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries, is the continued existence of the Roman Empire. It
was still the Roman Empire, although the seat of its dominion was no
longer at the Old Rome, although for a while the Old Rome was actually
separated from the Roman dominion. Gaul, Spain, Africa, Italy itself,
had been lopped away. Britain had fallen away by another process. But
the Roman rule went on undisturbed in the Eastern part of the Empire,
and even in the West the memory of that rule had by no means wholly
died out. ♦Position of the Teutonic kings.♦ Teutonic kings ruled in
all the countries of the West; but nowhere on the continent had they
become national sovereigns. They were still simply the chiefs of their
own people reigning in the midst of a Roman population. The Romans
meanwhile everywhere looked to the Cæsar of the New Rome as their
lawful sovereign, from whose rule they had been unwillingly torn away.
Both in Spain and in Italy the Gothic kings had settled in the country
as Imperial lieutenants with an Imperial commission. The formal aspect
of the event of 476 had been the reunion of the Western Empire with
the Eastern. ♦Recovery of territory by the Empire.♦ It was perfectly
natural therefore that the sole Roman Emperor reigning in the New Rome
should strive, whenever he had a chance, to win back territories which
he had never formally surrendered, and that the Roman inhabitants of
those territories should welcome him as a deliverer from barbarian
masters. The geographical limits within which, at the beginning of the
sixth century, the Roman power was practically confined, the phænomena
of race and language within those limits, might have suggested another
course. But considerations of that kind are seldom felt at the time;
they are the reflexions of thoughtful men long after. ♦Extent of the
Roman dominion at the accession of Justinian, 527.♦ The Roman dominion,
at the accession of Justinian, was shut up within the Greek and
Oriental provinces of the Empire; its enemies were already beginning
to speak of its subjects as Greeks. Its truest policy would have been
to have anticipated several centuries of history, to have taken up the
position of a Greek state, defending its borders against the Persian,
withstanding or inviting the settlement of the Slave, but leaving the
now Teutonic West to develope itself undisturbed. But in such cases
the known past is always more powerful than the unknown future, and it
seemed the first duty of the Roman Emperor to restore the Roman Empire
to its ancient extent.
♦Conquests of Justinian.♦
It was during the reign of Justinian that this work was carried out
through a large part of the Western Empire. Lost provinces were won
back in two continents. The growth of independent Teutonic powers was
for ever stopped in Africa, and it received no small check in Europe.
The Emperor was enabled, through the weakness and internal dissensions
of the Vandal and Gothic kingdoms, to win back Africa and Italy to the
Empire. The work was done by the swords of Belisarius and Narses—the
Slave and the Persian being now used to win back the Old Rome to the
dominion of the New. ♦Vandal war. 533-535.♦ The short _Vandal_ war
restored Africa in the Roman sense, and a large part of Mauritania,
to the Empire. ♦Gothic war. 537-554.♦ The long _Gothic_ war won back
Illyricum, Italy, and the Old Rome. Italy and Africa were still ruled
from Ravenna and from Carthage; but they were now ruled not by Teutonic
kings, but by Byzantine exarchs. ♦Conquest of southern Spain. 550.♦
Meanwhile, while the war with the East-Goths was going on in Italy,
a large part of southern Spain was won back from the West-Goths. Two
Teutonic kingdoms were thus wiped out; a third was weakened, and the
acquisition of so great a line of sea-coast, together with the great
islands, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands, gave
the Empire an undisputed supremacy by sea. In one corner only did the
Imperial frontier even nominally go back, or any Teutonic power advance
at its expense. ♦Provence ceded to the Franks, 548.♦ The sea-board of
Provence, which had long been practically lost to the Empire, was now
formally ceded to the Franks. In this one corner the Roman Terminus
withdrew.
♦Geographical changes under Justinian.♦
In a geographical aspect the map of Europe has seldom been so
completely changed within a single generation as it was during the
reign of Justinian. At his accession his dominion was bounded to the
west by the Hadriatic, and he was far from possessing the whole of the
Hadriatic coast. Under his reign the power of the Roman arms and the
Roman law were again extended to the Ocean. The Roman dominion was
indeed no longer spread round the whole shore of the Mediterranean;
the Imperial territories were no longer continuous as of old: but,
if the Empire was not still, as it had once been, the only power in
the Mediterranean lands, it had again become beyond all comparison
the greatest power. ♦Effects of Justinian’s conquests.♦ Moreover, by
the recovery of so large an extent of Latin-speaking territory, the
tendency of the Empire to change into a Greek or Oriental state was
checked for several centuries. We are here concerned only with the
geographical, not with the political or moral aspect of the conquests
of Justinian. Some of those conquests, like those of Trajan, were
hardly more than momentary. But the changes which they made for the
time were some of the most remarkable on record, and the effect of
those changes remained, both in history and geography, long after their
immediate results were again undone.
§ 2. _Settlement of the Lombards in Italy._
The conquests of Justinian hindered the growth of a national Teutonic
kingdom in Italy, such as grew up in Gaul and Spain, and they
practically made the cradle of the Empire, Rome herself, an outlying
dependency of her great colony by the Bosporos. But the reunion of all
Italy with the Empire lasted only for a moment. The conquest was only
just over when a new set of Teutonic conquerors appeared in Italy.
♦Pannonian kingdom of the Lombards.♦ These were the _Lombards_, who,
in the great wandering, had made their way into the ancient Pannonia
about the time that the East Goths passed into Italy. They were thus
settled within the ancient boundaries of the Western Empire. But the
Roman power had now quite passed away from those regions, and the
Lombard kingdom in Pannonia was practically altogether beyond the
Imperial borders; it had not even that Roman tinge which affected the
Frankish and Gothic kingdoms. ♦Gepidæ.♦ To the east of the Lombards,
in the ancient Dacia, another Teutonic kingdom had arisen; that of the
_Gepidæ_, a people seemingly closely akin to the Goths. ♦Avars.♦ The
process of wandering had brought the Turanian _Avars_ into those parts,
and their presence seriously affected all later history and geography.
♦Teutonic powers on the Lower Danube.♦ With the Gepidæ in Dacia and
the Lombards in Pannonia, there was a chance of two Teutonic states
growing up on the borders of East and West. These might possibly have
played the same part in the East which the Franks and Goths played in
the West, and they might thus have altogether changed the later course
of history. But the Lombards allied themselves with the Avars. ♦The
Gepidæ overthrown by the Lombards and Avars. 566. | The Lombards pass
into Italy. 567.♦ In partnership with their barbarian allies, they
overthrew the kingdom of the Gepidæ, and they themselves passed into
Italy. Thus the growth of Teutonic powers in those regions was stopped.
A new and far more dangerous enemy was brought into the neighbourhood
of the Empire, and the way was opened for the Slavonic races to play in
some degree the same part in the East which the Teutons played in the
West. But while the East lost this chance of renovation, for such it
would have been, the Lombard settlement in Italy was the beginning of a
new Teutonic power in that country. ♦Character of the Lombard kingdom.♦
But it was not a power which could possibly grow up into a national
Teutonic kingdom of all Italy, as the dominion of the East-Goths might
well have done. ♦Incomplete conquest of Italy.♦ The Lombard conquest
of Italy was at no time a complete conquest; part of the land was won
by the Lombards; part was kept by the Emperors; and the Imperial and
Lombard possessions intersected one another in a way which hindered
the growth of any kind of national unity under either power. ♦Lombard
duchies.♦ The new settlers founded the great Lombard kingdom in the
North of Italy, which has kept the Lombard name to this day, and the
smaller Lombard states of _Spoleto_ and _Beneventum_. But a large part
of Italy still remained to the Empire. ♦Imperial possessions in Italy.♦
Ravenna, the dwelling-place of the Exarchs, Rome itself, Naples, and
the island city of Venice were all centres of districts which still
acknowledged the Imperial rule. The Emperors also kept the extreme
southern points of both the peninsulas of Southern Italy, and, for the
present, the three great islands. The Lombard Kings were constantly
threatening Rome and Ravenna. ♦Ravenna taken by the Lombards. c. 753.♦
Rome never fell into their hands, but in the middle of the eighth
century Ravenna was taken, and with it the district specially known as
the _Exarchate_ was annexed to the Lombard dominion. But this greatest
extent of the Lombard power caused its overthrow: for it led to a chain
of events which, as we shall presently see, ended in transferring not
only the Lombard kingdom, but the Imperial crown of the West to the
hands of the Franks.
§ 3. _Rise of the Saracens._
But, before we give any account of the revolutions which took place
among the already existing powers of Western Europe, it will be well to
describe the geographical changes which were caused by the appearance
of absolutely new actors on two sides of the Empire. ♦Roman province
in Spain recovered by the Goths. 534-572.♦ One point however may be
noticed here, as standing apart from the general course of events,
namely, that the Roman province in Spain was won gradually back by the
West-Goths. ♦616-624.♦ The inland cities, as Cordova, were hardly kept
forty years, and the whole of the Imperial possessions in Spain were
lost during the reign of Heraclius. Thus the great dominion which
Justinian had won back in the West, important as were its historical
results, was itself of very short duration; a large part of Italy was
lost almost as soon as it was won, and the recovered dominion in Spain
did not abide more than ninety years.
But meanwhile, in the course of the seventh century, nations which
had hitherto been unknown or unimportant began to play a great part
in history and greatly to change the face of the map. These new
powers fall under two heads; those who appeared on the northern and
those who appeared on the eastern frontier of the Empire. The nations
who appeared on the North were, like the early Teutonic invaders of
the Empire, ready to act, if partly as conquerors, partly also as
disciples; those who appeared on the East were the champions of an
utterly different system in religion and everything else. In short, the
old rivalry of the East and West now takes a distinctly aggressive form
on the part of the East. ♦Wars between Rome and Persia.♦ As long as
the Sassanid dynasty lasted, Rome and Persia still continued their old
rivalry on nearly equal terms. The long wars between the two Empires
made little difference in their boundaries. ♦Wars of Chosroes and
Heraclius, 603-628.♦ In the last stage of their warfare Chosroes took
Jerusalem and Antioch, and encamped at Chalkêdôn. Heraclius pressed his
eastern victories beyond the boundaries of the Empire under Trajan.
But even these great campaigns made no lasting difference in the map,
except so far as, by weakening Rome and Persia alike, they paved the
way for the greatest change of all. ♦Extension of the Roman power on
the Euxine.♦ More important to geography was a change which took place
at somewhat earlier time when, during the reign of Justinian, the
Roman power was extended on the Eastern side of the Euxine in _Colchis_
or _Lazica_. ♦The Arabian vassals of Rome and Persia.♦ The southern
borders of each Empire were to some extent protected by the dominion
of dependent Arabian kings, the _Ghassanides_ being vassals of Rome,
and the _Lachmites_ to the east of them being vassals of Persia. But a
change came presently which altogether overthrew the Persian kingdom,
which deprived the Roman Empire of its Eastern, Egyptian, and African
provinces, and which gave both the Empire and the Teutonic kingdoms of
the West an enemy of a kind altogether different from any against whom
they hitherto had to strive.
♦Rise of the Saracens.♦
The cause which wrought such abiding changes was the rise of the
_Saracens_ under Mahomet and his first followers. A new nation, that
of the Arabs, now became dominant in a large part of the lands which
had been part of the Roman Empire, as well as in lands far beyond its
boundaries. ♦Arabia united under Mahomet, 622-632.♦ The scattered
tribes of Arabia were first gathered together into a single power by
Mahomet himself, and under his successors they undertook to spread the
Mahometan religion wherever their swords could carry it. And, with the
Mahometan religion, they carried also the Arabic language, and what
we may call Eastern civilization as opposed to Western. A strife, in
short, now begins between Aryan and Semitic man. Rome and Persia, with
all their differences, were both of them Aryan powers. ♦Conquests of
the Saracens.♦ The most amazing thing is the extraordinary speed with
which the Saracens pressed their conquests at the expense of both Rome
and Persia, forming a marked contrast to the slow advance both of Roman
conquest and of Teutonic settlement. In the course of less than eighty
years, the Mahometan conquerors formed a dominion greater than that of
Rome, and, for a short time, the will of the Caliph of the Prophet was
obeyed from the Ocean to lands beyond the Indus. ♦Loss of the Eastern
provinces of Rome. 632-639.♦ In a few campaigns the Empire lost all
its possessions beyond Mount Tauros; that is, it lost one of the three
great divisions of the Empire, that namely in which neither Greek nor
Roman civilization had ever thoroughly taken root.
While the Roman Empire was thus dismembered, the rival power of Persia
was not merely dismembered, but utterly overwhelmed. ♦Saracen conquest
of Persia. 632-651.♦ The Persian nationality was again, as in the
days of the Parthians, held down under a foreign power, to revive
yet again ages later. But the Saracen power was very far from merely
taking the place of its Parthian and Persian predecessors. The mission
of the followers of Mahomet was a mission of universal conquest,
and that mission they so far carried out as altogether to overthrow
the exclusive dominion of Rome in her own Mediterranean. Under
Justinian, if the Imperial possession of the Mediterranean coast was
not absolutely continuous, the small exceptions in Africa, Spain, and
Gaul in no way interfered with the maritime supremacy of the Empire,
and Gaul and Spain, even where they were not Roman, were at least
Christian. ♦Saracen conquest of Africa. 647-711.♦ But now a gradual
advance of sixty-four years annexed the Roman dominions in Africa to
the Mahometan dominion. ♦Of Spain. 711-714.♦ Thence the Saracens passed
into Spain, and found the West-Gothic kingdom an easier prey than the
Roman provinces. Within three years after the final conquest of Africa,
the whole peninsula was conquered, save where the Christian still held
out in the inaccessible mountain fastnesses. ♦Saracen provinces in
Gaul, 713-755.♦ The Saracen power was even carried beyond the Pyrenees
into the province of Septimania, the remnant of the Gaulish dominion of
the West-Gothic kings. Narbonne, Arles, Nîmes, all became for a while
Saracen cities.
♦Effects of Saracen conquest.♦
In this way, of the three continents round the Mediterranean, Rome
lost all her possessions in Africa, while both in Europe and Asia
she had now a neighbour and an enemy of quite another kind from any
which she had had before. The Teutonic conquerors, if conquerors,
had been also disciples; they became part of the Latin world. The
Persian, though his rivalry was religious as well as political, was
still merely a rival, fighting along a single line of frontier. But
every province that was conquered by the Saracens was utterly lopped
away; it became the possession of men altogether alien and hostile in
race, language, manners, and religion. A large part of the Roman world
passed from Aryan and Christian to Semitic and Mahometan dominion.
♦Different fates of the Eastern, Latin, and Greek provinces.♦ But the
essential differences among the three main parts of the Empire now
showed themselves very clearly. The Eastern provinces, where either
Roman or Greek life was always an exotic, fell away at the first touch.
♦647-709.♦ Africa, as being so greatly Romanized, held out for sixty
years. The provinces of Asia Minor, now thoroughly Greek, were often
ravaged, but never conquered. Spain and Septimania were far more easily
conquered than Africa—a sign perhaps that the West-Gothic rule was
still felt as foreign by the Roman inhabitants.
♦Greatest extent of Saracen provinces.♦
With the conquest of Spain the undivided Saracenic Empire, the dominion
of the single Caliph, reached its greatest extent in the three
continents. Detached conquests in Europe were made long after, but on
the whole the Saracen power went back. ♦750.♦ Forty years later they
lost _Sind_, their furthest possession to the East. ♦Separation of
Spain. 755.♦ Five years later Spain became the seat of a rival dynasty,
which after a while grew into a rival Caliphate. In the same year the
Saracen dominion for the first time went back in Europe. ♦Battle of
Tours. 732. | Frankish conquest of Septimania. 755.♦ The battle of
Tours answers to the repulse of Attila at Châlons; it did not make
changes, but hindered them; but before long the one province which the
Saracens held beyond the Pyrenees, that of _Septimania_ or _Gothia_,
was won from them by the Franks.
§ 4. _Settlements of the Slavonic Nations._
The movements of the sixth century began to bring into notice a
branch of the Aryan family of nations which was to play an important
part in the affairs both of the East and of the West. ♦Movements of
the Slaves.♦ These nations were the _Slaves_. It is needless for our
purpose to attempt to trace their earlier history; but the movements
of the _Avars_ in the sixth century seem to have had much the same
effect upon the Slaves which the movements of the Huns in the fourth
century had upon the Teutons. The inroads of the Avars had, as we have
seen, checked the growth of Teutonic powers on the Lower Danube, and
had led to the Lombard settlement in Italy. But the Avars only formed
the vanguard of a number of Turanian nations, some at least of them
Turkish, which were now pressing westward. ♦Kingdom of the Avars. |
Magyars, &c.♦ The Avars formed a great kingdom in the lands north of
the Danube; to the east of these, along the northern coasts of the
Euxine, bordering on the outlying possessions and allies of the Empire
in those regions, lay _Magyars_, _Patzinaks_, and the greater dominion
of the _Chazars_. All these play a part in Byzantine history; and
the Avars were in the seventh century the most dangerous invaders
and ravagers of the Roman territory. But south of the Danube they
appeared mainly as ravagers; geography knows them only in their settled
kingdom to the north of that river. Even that kingdom lasted no very
great time; the real importance of all these migrations consists in
the effect which they had on the great Aryan race which now begins to
take its part in history. ♦North-western and South-western Slaves.♦
The Slaves seem to have been driven by the Turanian incursions in two
directions; to the North-west and to the South-west. The North-western
division gave rise to more than one European state, and their relations
with Germany form an important part of the history of the Western
Empire. These North-western Slaves do not become of importance till a
little later. But the South-western division plays a great part in the
history of the sixth and seventh centuries. ♦Analogy between Teutons
and Slaves.♦ Their position with regard to the Eastern Empire is a kind
of shadow of the position held by the Teutonic nations with regard to
the Western Empire. The Slaves play in the East, though less thoroughly
and less brilliantly, the same part, half conquerors, half disciples,
which the Teutons played in the West. During the sixth century they
appear only as ravagers; in the seventh they appear as settlers.
♦Slavonic settlements under Heraclius. c. 620.♦ There seems no doubt
that Heraclius encouraged Slavonic settlements south of the Danube,
doubtless with a view to defence against the more dangerous Avars. Much
like the Teutonic settlers in the West, the Slaves came in at first as
colonists under Imperial authority, and presently became practically
independent. A number of Slavonic states thus arose in the lands north
and east of the Hadriatic, as _Servia_, _Chrobatia_ or _Croatia_,
_Carinthia_, of which the first two are historically connected with
the Eastern, and the third with the Western Empire. _Istria_ and
_Dalmatia_ now became Slavonic, with the exception of the maritime
cities, which, among many vicissitudes, clave to the Empire. And even
among them considerable revolutions took place. ♦Destruction of Salona,
639.♦ Thus _Salona_ was destroyed, and out of Diocletian’s palace in
its neighbourhood arose the new city of _Spalato_. ♦Origin of Spalato
and Ragusa.♦ The Dalmatian _Epidauros_ was also destroyed, and _Ragusa_
took its place. In many of these inroads Slaves and Avars were mixed up
together; but the lasting settlements were all Slavonic. And the state
of things which thus began has been lasting; the north-eastern coast of
the Hadriatic is still a Slavonic land with an Italian fringe.
♦Displacement of the Illyrians.♦
In these migrations the Slaves displaced whatever remnants were left
of the old Illyrian race in the lands near the Danube. They have
themselves to some extent taken the Illyrian name, a change which has
sometimes led to confusion. But at the time the movement went much
further south than this. ♦Extent of Slavonic settlement.♦ The Slaves
pressed on into a large part of Macedonia and Greece, and, during the
seventh and eighth centuries, the whole of those countries, except the
fortified cities and a fringe along the coast, were practically cut
off from the Empire. The name of _Slavinia_ reached from the Danube
to Peloponnêsos, leaving to the Empire only islands and detached
points of coast from Venice round to Thessalonica. Their settlements
in these regions gave a new meaning to an ancient name, and the
word _Macedonian_ now began to mean _Slavonic_. ♦Albanians.♦ And it
must have been at this time that the Illyrians, the _Skipetar_ or
_Albanians_, pressed southward and formed those colonies in Greece,
some of which still keep the Albanian language, while the Slavonic
language has vanished from those lands for ages. ♦Nature of Slavonic
settlement in Greece.♦ The Slavonic occupation of Greece is a fact
which must neither be forgotten nor exaggerated. It certainly did not
amount to an extirpation of the Greek nation; but it certainly did
amount to an occupation of a large part of the country, which was
Hellenized afresh from those cities and districts which remained Greek
or Roman. While these changes were going on in the Hadriatic and Ægæan
lands, another immigration later in the seventh century took place
in the lands south of the lower Danube, and drove back the Imperial
frontier to Haimos. ♦Settlement of the Bulgarians, c. 679.♦ This was
the incursion of the _Bulgarians_, another Turanian people, but one
whose history has been different from that of most of the Turanian
immigrants. By mixture with Slavonic subjects and neighbours they
became practically Slavonic, and they still remain a people speaking a
Slavonic language. ♦The Eastern Empire cut short in its own peninsula.♦
Thus the Empire, though it still kept its possessions in Italy with the
great Mediterranean islands, though its hold on Western Africa lasted
on into the eighth century, though it still kept outlying possessions
on the northern and eastern coasts of the Euxine, was cut short in that
great peninsula which seems made to be the immediate possession of the
New Rome.
♦Moral influence of Constantinople.♦
But, exactly as happened in the West, the loss of political dominion
carried with it the growth of moral dominion. The nations which pressed
into these provinces gradually accepted Christianity in its Eastern
form, and they have always looked up to the New Rome with a feeling
the same in kind, but less strong in degree, as that with which the
West has looked up to the Old Rome. ♦Extent of the Eastern Empire.♦
But, at the beginning of the eighth century, though the Imperial power
still held posts here and there from the pillars of Hêraklês to the
Kimmerian Bosporos, Saracens on the one side and Slaves on the other
had cut short the continuous Roman dominion to a comparatively narrow
space. The unbroken possessions of Cæsar were now confined to Thrace
and that solid peninsula of Asia Minor which the Saracens constantly
ravaged, but never conquered. Mountains had taken place of rivers as
the great boundaries of the Empire: instead of the Danube and the
Euphrates, the Roman Terminus had fallen back to Haimos and Tauros.
§ 5. _The Transfer of the Western Empire to the Franks._
♦Growth of the Franks.♦
Meanwhile we must go back to the West, and trace the growth of the
great power which was there growing up, a power which, while the elder
Empire was thus cut short in the East, was in the end to supplant it in
the West by the creation of a rival Empire. For a while the _Franks_
and the Empire had only occasional dealings with each other. Next to
Britain, which had altogether ceased to be part of the Roman world, the
part of the Western Empire which was least affected by the re-awakening
of the Roman power in the East was the former province of Transalpine
Gaul. The power of the Franks was fast spreading, both in their old
home in Germany and in their new home in Gaul. ♦Frankish conquest
of the Alemanni, 496;♦ The victory of Chlodwig over the _Alemanni_
made the Franks the leading people of Germany. The two German powers
which had so long been the chief enemies of the Roman power along
the Rhine were now united. Throughout the sixth century the German
dominion of the Franks was growing. ♦of the Thuringians, c. 530; | of
Bavaria.♦ The Frankish supremacy was extended over _Thuringia_, and
later in the century over _Bavaria_. The Bavaria of this age, it must
be remembered, has a much wider extent than the name has in modern
geography, reaching to the northern borders of Italy. The Bavarians
seem to have been themselves but recent settlers in the land between
the Alps and the Danube; but their immigration and their reduction
under Frankish supremacy made the lands immediately south of the Danube
thoroughly Teutonic, as the earlier Frankish conquests had done by
the lands immediately west of the Rhine. Long before this time, the
Franks had greatly extended their dominions in Gaul also. ♦Conquest
of Aquitaine [507-511] and Burgundy. 532-534.♦ In the later years of
Chlodwig the greater part of _Aquitaine_ was won from the West-Goths.
Further conquests at their expense were afterwards made, and about the
same time Burgundy came under Frankish supremacy.
The Franks now held, either in possession or dependence, the whole
oceanic coast of Gaul; but they were still shut out from the
Mediterranean. The West-Goths still kept the land from the Pyrenees to
the Rhone, the land of _Septimania_ or _Gothia_, to which the last name
clave as being now the only Gothic part of Gaul. The land which was
specially _Provincia_, the first Roman possession in Transalpine Gaul,
the coast from the Rhone to the Alps, formed part of the East-Gothic
dominions of Theodoric. An invasion of Italy during the long wars
between the Goths and Romans failed to establish a Frankish dominion on
the Italian side of the Alps. But as the Franks, by their conquest of
Burgundy, were now neighbours of Italy, it led to a further enlargement
of their Gaulish dominions, and to their first acquisition of a
Mediterranean sea-board. ♦Cession of Provence. 536.♦ It was now that
Massalia, Arelate, and the rest of the Province were, by an Imperial
grant, one of the last exercises of Imperial power in those regions,
added to the kingdom of the Franks. ♦Extent of the Frankish dominions.♦
By the time that the Roman reconquest of Italy was completed, the
Frankish dominion, united for a moment under a single head, took in
the whole of Gaul, except the small remaining West-Gothic territory,
together with central Germany and a supremacy over the Southern German
lands. To the north lay the still independent tribes of the Low-Dutch
stock, Frisian and Saxon.
♦Position of the Franks.♦
As the Frankish dominion plays so great a part in European history and
geography, a part in truth second only to that played by the Roman
dominion, it will be needful to consider the historical position of
the Franks. Their dominion was that of a German people who had made
themselves dominant alike in Germany and in Gaul. But it was only in
a small part of the Frankish territory that the Frankish people had
actually settled. ♦The cession of Gaulish possessions.♦ It was only
in northern Gaul and central Germany, in the countries to which they
have permanently given their name, that the Franks can be looked on as
really occupying the land. In their German territory they of course
remained German; in northern Gaul their position answered to that of
the other Teutonic nations which had formed settlements within the
Empire. They were a dominant Teutonic race in a Roman land. Gradually
they adopted the speech of the conquered, while the conquered in the
end adopted the name of the conquerors. ♦Slow fusion of Franks and
Romans.♦ But the fusion of German and Roman was slower in the Frankish
part of Gaul than elsewhere, doubtless because elsewhere the Teutonic
settlements were cut off from their older Teutonic homes, while the
Franks in Gaul had their older Teutonic home as a background. ♦German
and Gaulish dependencies of the Franks.♦ Beyond the bounds of these
more strictly Frankish lands, German and Gaulish, the dominion of the
Franks was at most a political supremacy, and in no sense a national
settlement. In Germany Bavaria was ruled by its vassal princes; in Gaul
south of the Loire the Frank was at most an external ruler. Aquitaine
had to be practically conquered over and over again, and new dynasties
of native princes were constantly rising up. ♦Ethnology of Southern
Gaul.♦ The Teutonic element in these lands, an element much slighter
than the Teutonic element in Northern Gaul, is not Frankish, but Gothic
and Burgundian. The native Romance speech of those lands is wholly
different from the Romance speech of Northern Gaul. In short, there was
really nothing in common between the two great parts of Gaul, the lands
south and the lands north of the Loire, except their union, first under
Roman and then under Frankish dominion. And in Armorica the old Celtic
population, strengthened by the settlers from Britain, formed another
and a yet more distinct element.
♦Divisions of the Frankish dominions.♦
Thus there were within the Frankish dominions wide national
diversities, containing the germs of future divisions. It needed a
strong hand even to keep the Teutonic and the Latin _Francia_ together,
much less to keep together all the dependent lands, German and Gaulish.
During the ages while the Empire was being cut short by Lombards,
Goths, Slaves, and Saracens, the Frankish dominion was never in the
like sort cut short by foreign settlements; but its whole history
under the Merowingian dynasty is a history of divisions and reunions.
The tendencies to division which were inherent in the condition of
the country were strengthened by endless partitions among the members
of the reigning house. ♦_Austria_ and _Neustria_.♦ Speaking roughly,
it may be said that the more strictly Frankish territory showed a
tendency to divide itself into two parts, the Eastern or Teutonic
land, _Austria_ or _Austrasia_, and _Neustria_, the Western or Romance
land. These were severally the germs which grew into the kingdoms of
Germany and France. ♦Use of the name _Francia_.♦ As for the mere name
of _Francia_, like other names of the kind, it shifted its geographical
use according to the wanderings of the people from whom it was derived.
After many such changes of meaning, it gradually settled down as the
name for those parts of Germany and Gaul where it still abides. There
are the Teutonic or Austrian _Francia_, part of which still keeps
the name of _Franken_ or _Franconia_, and the Romance or Neustrian
_Francia_, which by various annexations has grown into modern _France_.
♦The Karlings. Dukes, 687-752; Kings, 752-987.♦
At last, after endless divisions, reconquests, and reunions of the
different parts of the Frankish territory, the whole Frankish dominion
was again, in the second half of the eighth century, joined together
under the Austrasian, the purely German, house of the _Karlings_. The
Dukes and Kings of that house consolidated and extended the Frankish
dominion in every direction. Under Pippin and Charles the Great, the
power of the ruling race was more firmly established over the dependent
states, such as Bavaria and Aquitaine. ♦Pippin conquers Septimania.
752. | Conquests of Charles the Great. 768-814.♦ Under Pippin the
conquest of the Saracen province of Septimania extended the Frankish
power over the whole of Gaul; and under Charles the Great, the Frankish
dominion was extended by a series of conquests in every direction. Of
these, his Italian conquests were rather the winning of a new crown for
the Frankish king than the extension of the Frankish kingdom. But the
conquest of _Saxony_ at the one end and of the _Spanish March_ at the
other, as well as the overthrow of the Pannonian kingdom of the Avars,
were in the strictest sense extensions of the Frankish dominions.
♦German character of the Frankish power.♦ The Frankish power which now
plays so great a part in the world was a power essentially German. The
Franks and their kings, the kings who reigned from the Elbe to the
Ebro, were German in blood, speech, and feeling; but they bore rule
over other lands, German, Latin, and Celtic, in many various degrees of
incorporation and subjection.
♦The three great powers of the eighth century; Romans, Franks,
Saracens.♦
Thus the effect of the Saracen conquests was to leave in Europe one
purely European power, namely the kingdom of the Franks, one power
both European and Asiatic, namely the Roman Empire with its seat at
Constantinople, and one power at once Asiatic, African, and European,
namely the Saracen Caliphate. Through the eighth century these three
are the great powers of the world, to which the other nations of
Europe and Asia form, as far as we are concerned, a mere background.
♦Character of the Caliphate.♦ But the Caliphate, as a Semitic and
Mahometan power, could be European only in a geographical sense.
♦The Saracen dominion in Spain.♦ Even after the establishment of the
independent Saracen dominion in Spain, the new power still remained
an exotic. A great country of Western Europe was no longer ruled from
Damascus or Bagdad; but the emirate, afterwards Caliphate, of Cordova,
and the kingdoms into which it afterwards broke up, still remained only
geographically European. They were portions of Asia—in after times
rather of Africa—thrusting themselves into Europe, like the Spanish
dominion of Carthage in earlier times. The two great Christian powers,
the two great really European powers, are the Roman and the Frankish.
We now come to the process which for a while caused the Roman and
Frankish names to have the same meaning within a large part of Europe,
and by which the two seats of Roman dominion were again parted asunder,
never to be reunited.
♦Relations of the Franks and the Empire.♦
The way by which the Roman and Frankish powers came to affect one
another was through the affairs of Italy. ♦The Imperial possessions in
Italy.♦ The steps by which the Imperial power was, during the eighth
century, weakened step by step in the territories which still remained
to the Empire in central Italy are, either from an ecclesiastical or
from a strictly historical point of view, of surpassing interest. But,
as long as the authority of the Emperor was not openly thrown off,
no change was made on the map. ♦Lombard conquest of the Exarchate.
| Overthrow of the Lombards by Charles. 774.♦ The events of those times
which did make a change on the map were, first the conquest of the
Exarchate by the Lombards, and secondly, the overthrow of the Lombard
kingdom itself by the Frank king Charles the Great. The Frankish power
was thus at last established on the Italian side of the Alps, but it
must be remarked that the new conquest was not incorporated with the
Frankish dominion. ♦Lombardy a separate kingdom.♦ Charles held his
Italian dominion as a separate dominion, and called himself King of
the Franks and Lombards. He also bore the title of Patrician of the
Romans; but, though the assumption of that title was of great political
significance, it did not affect geography. ♦Title of Patrician.♦ The
title of Patrician of itself implied a commission from the Emperor,
and, though it was bestowed by the Bishop and people of Rome without
the Imperial consent, the very choice of the title showed that the
Imperial authority was not formally thrown off. Charles, as Patrician,
was virtually sovereign of Rome, and his acquisition of the patriciate
practically extended his dominion from the Ocean to the frontiers
of Beneventum. ♦Nominal authority of the Empire.♦ But, down to his
Imperial coronation in the last week of the eighth century, the Emperor
who reigned in the New Rome was still the nominal sovereign of the old.
The event of the year 800, with all its weighty significance, did not
practically either extend the territories of Charles or increase his
powers.
♦Effect of the Imperial coronation of Charles. 800.♦
Still the Imperial coronation of Charles is one of the great landmarks
both of history and of historical geography. The whole political
system of Europe was changed when the Old Rome cast off its formal
allegiance to the New, and chose the King of the Franks and Lombards
to be Emperor of the Romans. Though the powers of Charles were not
increased nor his dominions extended, he held everything by a new
title. ♦Final division of the Empire.♦ The Roman Empire was divided,
never to be joined together again. But its Western half now took in,
not only the greatest of its lost provinces, but vast regions which
had never formed part of the Empire in the days of Trajan himself.
Again, the distinctive character of the older Roman Empire had been
the absence of nationality. The whole civilized world had become Rome,
and all its free inhabitants had become Romans. ♦Growing nationality
of the two Empires, German and Greek.♦ But from this time each of the
two divisions of the Empire begins to assume something like a national
character. East and West alike remained Roman in name and in political
traditions. The Old Rome was the nominal centre of one; the New Rome
was both the nominal and the real centre of the other. But there was
a sense in which both alike ceased from this time to be Roman. The
Western Empire has passed to a German king, and later changes tended
to make his Empire more and more German. The Eastern Empire meanwhile,
by the successive loss of the Eastern provinces, of Latin Africa, and
of Latin Italy, became nearly conterminous with those parts of Europe
and Asia where the Greek speech and Greek civilization prevailed. From
one point of view, both Empires are still Roman; from another point of
view, one is fast becoming German, the other is fast becoming Greek.
♦Rivalry of the two Empires.♦ And the two powers into which the old
Roman Empire is thus split are in the strictest sense two Empires.
They are no longer mere divisions of an Empire which has been found
to be too great for the rule of one man. The Emperors of the East and
West are no longer Imperial colleagues dividing the administration
of a single Empire between them. They are now rival potentates, each
claiming to be exclusively the one true Roman Emperor, the one true
representative of the common predecessors of both in the days when the
Empire was still undivided.
♦The two Caliphates.♦
It is further to be noted that the same kind of change which now
happened to the Christian Empire, had happened earlier in the century
to the Mahometan Empire. The establishment of a rival dynasty at
Cordova, even though the assumption of the actual title of Caliph
did not follow at once, was exactly analogous to the establishment
of a rival Empire in the Old Rome. The Mediterranean world has now
four great powers, the two rival Christian Empires, and the two rival
Mahometan Caliphates. Among these, it naturally follows that each
is hostile to its neighbour of the opposite religion, and friendly
to its neighbour’s rival. The Western Emperor is the enemy of the
Western Caliph, the friend of the Eastern. ♦Rivalry of the Empires and
Caliphates.♦ The Eastern Emperor is the enemy of the Eastern Caliph,
the friend of the Western. Thus the four great powers stood at the
beginning of the ninth century. And it was out of the dismemberments of
the two great Christian and the great Mahometan powers that the later
states, Christian and Mahometan, of the Mediterranean world took their
rise.
♦Extent of the Carolingian Empire.♦
It is a point of geographical as well as of historical importance that
Charles the Great, after he was crowned Emperor, caused all those who
had been hitherto bound by allegiance to him as King of the Franks
to swear allegiance to him afresh as Roman Emperor. This marks that
all his dominions, Frankish, Lombard, and strictly Roman, are to be
looked on as forming part of the Western Empire. Thus the Western
Empire now took in all those German lands which the old Roman Emperors
never could conquer. Germany became part of the Roman Empire, not by
Rome conquering Germany, but by Rome choosing the German king as her
Emperor. ♦Contrast of its boundaries with those of the elder Empire.♦
The boundaries of the Empire thus became different from what they had
ever been before. Of the old provinces of the Western Empire, Britain,
Africa, and all Spain save one corner, remained foreign to the new
Roman Empire of the Franks. But, on the other hand, the Empire now took
in all the lands in Germany and beyond Germany over which the Frankish
power now reached, but which had never formed part of the elder Empire.
♦Conquest of Saxony. 772-804.♦ The long wars of Charles with the Saxons
led to their final conquest, to the incorporation of _Saxony_ with the
Frankish kingdom, and, after the Imperial coronation of the Frankish
king, to its incorporation with the Western Empire.
The conquests of Charles had thus, among their other results, welded
Germany into a single whole. For though the Franks had long been the
greatest power in Germany, yet Germany could not be said to form a
single whole as long as the Saxons, the greatest people of Northern
Germany, remained independent. The conquest of Saxony brought the
Frankish power for the first time in contact with the _Danes_ and the
other people of _Scandinavia_. ♦Boundary of the Eider.♦ The dominions
of Charles took in what was then called Saxony beyond the Elbe, that is
the modern Holstein, and the _Eider_ was fixed as the northern boundary
of the Empire. More than one Danish king did homage to Charles and to
some of the Emperors after him; but Denmark was never incorporated with
the Empire or even made permanently dependent. ♦Slavonic allies and
neighbours.♦ To the east, the immediate dominions of Charles stretched
but a little way beyond the Elbe; but here the Western Empire came in
contact, as the Eastern had done at an earlier time and by a different
process, with the widely spread nations of the Slavonic race. The same
movements which had driven one branch of that race to the south-west
had driven another branch to the north-west, and the wars of Charles
in those regions gave his Empire a fringe of Slavonic allies and
dependents along both sides of the Elbe, forming a barrier between
the immediate dominions of the Empire and the independent Slaves to
the east. ♦Overthrow of the Avar kingdom. 796.♦ To the south Charles
overthrew the kingdom of the _Avars_; he thus extended his dominions
on the side of south-eastern Germany, and here he came in contact with
the southern branch of the Slaves, a portion of whom, in _Carinthia_
and the neighbouring lands, became subjects of his Empire. ♦The Spanish
March. 778.♦ In Spain he acquired the north-eastern corner as far as
the Ebro, forming the Spanish March, afterwards the county of Barcelona.
♦Divisions of the Empire.♦
Thus the new Western Empire took in all Gaul, all that was then
Germany, the greater part of Italy, and a small part of Spain.[7] It
thus took in both Teutonic and Romance lands, and contained in it the
germs of the chief nations of modern Europe. It was a step towards
their formation when Charles, following the example both of earlier
Roman Emperors and of earlier Frankish kings, planned several divisions
of his dominions among his sons. Owing to the deaths of all his sons
but one, none of these divisions took effect. And it should be noticed
that as yet none of these schemes of division agreed with any great
natural or national boundary. They did not as yet foreshadow the
division which afterwards took place, and out of which the chief states
of Western Europe grew. In two cases only was anything like a national
kingdom thought of. ♦Kingdom of Aquitaine.♦ Charles’s son Lewis reigned
under him as king in _Aquitaine_, a kingdom which took in all Southern
Gaul and the Spanish March, answering pretty nearly to the lands of
the Provençal tongue or tongue of _Oc_. ♦Death of Charles. 814.♦ And
when Charles died, and was succeeded in the Empire by Lewis, Charles’s
grandson Bernard still went on reigning under his uncle as King of
Italy. ♦Kingdom of Italy.♦ The _Kingdom of Italy_ must be understood
as taking in the Italian mainland, except the lands in the south which
were held by the dependent princes of Beneventum and by the rival
Emperors of the East. ♦Use of the name _Francia_.♦ During this period
_Francia_ commonly means the strictly Frankish kingdoms, Gaulish
and German. The words _Gallia_ and _Germania_ are used in a strictly
geographical sense.
§ 6. _Northern Europe._
♦Scandinavians and English.♦
Meanwhile other nations were beginning to show themselves in those
parts of Europe which lay beyond the Empire. In north-western Europe
two branches of the Teutonic race were fast growing into importance;
the one in lands which had never formed part of the Empire, the other
in a land which had been part of it, but which had been so utterly
severed from it as to be all one as if it had never belonged to it.
These were the _Scandinavian_ nations in the two great peninsulas of
Northern Europe, and the _English_ in the Isle of Britain. The history
of these two races is closely connected, and it has an important
bearing on the history of Europe in general.
♦Stages of the English conquest of Britain.♦
In Britain itself the progress of the English arms had been gradual.
Sometimes conquests from the Britons were made with great speed:
sometimes the English advance was checked by successes on the British
side, by mere inaction, or by wars between the different English
kingdoms. The fluctuations of victory, and consequently of boundaries,
between the English kingdoms were quite as marked as the warfare
between the English and the Britons. ♦The English kingdoms.♦ Among the
many Teutonic settlements in Britain, small and great, seven kingdoms
stand out as of special importance, and three of these, _Wessex_,
_Mercia_, and _Northumberland_, again stand out as candidates for a
general supremacy over the whole English name. ♦Britain at the end of
the eighth century.♦ At the end of the eighth century a large part
of Britain remained, as it still remains, in the hands of the elder
Celtic inhabitants; but the parts which they still kept were now cut
off from each other. ♦Celtic states.♦ _Cornwall_ or _West-Wales_,
_North-Wales_ (answering nearly to the modern principality), and
_Strathclyde_ or _Cumberland_ (a much larger district than the modern
county so called) were all the seats of separate, though fluctuating,
British states. Beyond the Forth lay the independent kingdoms of the
_Picts_ and _Scots_, which, in the course of the ninth century, became
one.
♦West-Saxon supremacy under Ecgberht. 802-837.♦
It was the West-Saxon kingdom to which the supremacy over all the
kingdoms of Britain, Teutonic and Celtic, came in the end. Ecgberht,
its king, had been a friend and guest of Charles the Great, and he had
most likely been stirred up by his example to do in his own island
what Charles had done on the mainland. In the course of his reign,
West-Wales was completely conquered; the other English kingdoms,
together with North-Wales, were brought into a greater or less
degree of dependence. But both in North-Wales and also in Mercia,
Northumberland, and East-Anglia, the local kings went on reigning under
the supremacy of the King of the West-Saxons, who now began sometimes
to call himself _King of the English_. In the north both Scotland and
Strathclyde remained quite independent.
♦The Scandinavian nations.♦
That part also of the Teutonic race which lay altogether beyond the
bounds of the Empire now begins to be of importance. ♦The Danes.♦ The
_Danes_ are heard of as early as the days of Justinian; but neither
they nor the other Scandinavian nations play any great part in history
before the time of Charles the Great. A great number of small states
gradually settled down into three great kingdoms, which remain still,
though their boundaries have greatly changed. The boundary between
Denmark and the Empire was, as we have seen, fixed at the Eider.
♦Extent of Denmark and Norway.♦ Besides the peninsula of Jutland
and the islands which still belong to it, Denmark took in _Scania_
and other lands in the south of the great peninsula that now forms
_Sweden_ and _Norway_. Norway, on the other hand, ran much further
inland, and came down much further south than it does now. These points
are of importance, because they show the causes of the later history
of the three Scandinavian states. ♦Sweden.♦ Both Denmark and Norway
had a great front to the Ocean, while _Swithiod_ and _Gauthiod_, the
districts which formed the beginning of the kingdom of Sweden, had no
opening that way, but were altogether turned towards the Baltic. It
thus came about that for some centuries both Denmark and Norway played
a much greater part in the general affairs of Europe than Sweden did.
♦Danish and Norwegian settlements.♦ Denmark was an immediate neighbour
of the Empire, and from both Denmark and Norway men went out to conquer
and settle in various parts of Britain, Ireland and Gaul, besides
colonizing the more distant and uninhabited lands of _Iceland_ and
_Greenland_. ♦Pressure of Swedes to the East.♦ Meanwhile, the Swedes
pressed eastward on the Finnish and Slavonic people beyond the Baltic.
In this last way they had a great effect on the history of the Eastern
Empire; but in Western history Sweden counts for very little till a
much later time.
* * * * *
♦Summary.♦
During the period which has been dealt with in this chapter, taking in
the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, we thus see, first of all the
reunion of the greater part of the Roman Empire under Justinian—then
the lopping away of the Eastern and African provinces by the conquests
of the Saracens—then the gradual separation of all Italy except the
south, ending in the re-establishment of a separate Western Empire
under Charles the Great. We thus get two great Christian powers, the
Eastern and Western Empires, balanced by two great Mahometan powers,
the Eastern and Western Caliphates. All the older Teutonic kingdoms
have either vanished or have grown into something wholly different.
The Vandal kingdom of Africa and the East-Gothic kingdom have wholly
vanished. The West-Gothic kingdom, cut short by Franks on one side and
Saracens on the other, survives only in the form of the small Christian
principalities which still held their ground in Northern Spain. The
Frankish kingdom, by swallowing up the Gothic and Burgundian dominions
in Gaul, the independent nations of Germany, the Lombard kingdom, and
the more part of the possessions of the Empire in Italy, has grown
into a new Western Empire. The two Empires, both still politically
Roman, are fast becoming, one German and the other Greek. Meanwhile,
nations beyond the bounds of the Empire are growing into importance.
The process has begun by which the many small Teutonic settlements in
Britain grew in the end into the one kingdom of England. The three
Scandinavian nations, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians or Northmen, now
begin to grow into importance. In a religious point of view, if Syria,
Egypt, Africa, and the more part of Spain were lost to Christendom,
the loss was in some degree made up by the conversion to Christianity
of the Angles and Saxons in Britain, of the Old-Saxons in Germany, and
of the other German tribes which at the beginning of the sixth century
had still been heathen. At no time in the world’s history did the map
undergo greater changes. This period is the time of real transition
from the older state of things represented by the undivided Roman
Empire to the newer state of things in which Europe is made up of a
great number of independent states. The modern kingdoms outside the
Empire, in Britain and Scandinavia, were already forming. The great
continental nations of Western Europe had as yet hardly begun to form.
They were to grow out of the break-up of the Carolingian Empire, the
Roman Empire of the Franks.[8]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The geographical extent of the Frankish dominion before and after
the conquest of Charles is most fully marked by Einhard, Vita Karoli,
c. 15.
[8] While I was revising this chapter, I became acquainted with C. J.
Jireček’s _Geschichte der Bulgaren_ (Prag, 1876), the third chapter
of which is devoted to an examination of the early settlements of
the Slaves in the Eastern peninsula. He makes it probable that they
were there earlier than is generally thought. They seem, exactly
like the Teutons, to have first entered the Empire as captives and
colonists, a process which may have begun as early as the second and
third centuries. He shows also that the march of Theodoric into Italy
had the effect of laying a large region open to their settlements.
But he leaves my general propositions untouched. It is not till the
sixth century that those Slavonic movements began which are of real
importance to historical geography.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BEGINNING OF THE MODERN EUROPEAN STATES.
§ 1. _The Division of the Frankish Empire._
♦Dissolution of the Frankish dominion.♦
The great dominion of the Franks, the German kingdom which had so
strangely grown into a new Western Roman Empire, did not last long.
In the course of the ninth century it altogether fell to pieces. ♦The
chief states of modern Europe spring out of it.♦ But the process by
which it fell to pieces must be carefully traced, because it was out
of its dismemberment that the chief states of Western Europe arose.
Speaking roughly, the Carolingian Empire took in Germany, so far as
Germany had yet spread to the East, all Gaul, a great part of Italy,
and a small part of Spain. ♦National kingdoms not yet formed.♦ Of
these, it was only Italy, and sometimes Aquitaine, which showed any
approach to the character of a separate or national kingdom. ♦Extent
of _Francia_.♦ Northern Gaul and central Germany were still alike
_Francia_; and, though the Romance speech prevailed in one, and the
Teutonic speech in the other, no national distinction was drawn between
them during the time of Charles the Great. Among the proposed divisions
of his Empire, none proposed to separate _Neustria_ and _Austria_,
the Western and the Eastern _Francia_. ♦Separate being of Italy and
Aquitaine.♦ But Italy did form a separate kingdom under the superiority
of the Emperor; and so for a while there was an under-kingdom of
Aquitaine, answering roughly to Gaul south of the Loire. This is the
land of the _Provençal_ tongue, the _tongue of Oc_, a tongue which,
it must be remembered, reached to the Ebro. ♦Division under Lewis
the Pious. | First glimpses of Modern France.♦ It is in the various
divisions, contemplated and actual, among the sons of Lewis the Pious,
the successor of Charles the Great, that we see the first approaches to
a national division between Germany and Gaul, and the first glimmerings
of a state answering in any way to _France_ in the modern sense.
♦Division of 817.♦
The earliest among those endless divisions that we need mention is the
division of 817, by which two new subordinate kingdoms were founded
within the Empire. Lewis and his immediate colleague Lothar kept in
their own hands _Francia_, German and Gaulish, and the more part of
Burgundy. South-western Gaul, Aquitaine in the wide sense, with some
small parts of Septimania and Burgundy, formed the portion of one
under-king; South-eastern Germany, Bavaria and the march-lands beyond
it, formed the portion of another. Italy still remained the portion of
a third. Here we have nothing in the least answering to modern France.
The tendency is rather to leave the immediate Frankish kingdom, both in
Gaul and Germany, as an undivided whole, and to part off its dependent
lands, German, Gaulish, and Italian. ♦Union of Neustria and Aquitaine
the first step to the creation of _France_. 838.♦ But, in a much later
division, Lewis granted Neustria to his son Charles, and in the next
year, on the death of Pippin of Aquitaine, he added his kingdom to
that of Charles. A state was thus formed which answers roughly to the
later kingdom of France, as it stood before the long series of French
encroachments on the German and Burgundian lands. ♦Character of the
_Western Kingdom_.♦ The kingdom thus formed had no definite name, and
it answered to no national division. It was indeed mainly a kingdom
of the Romance speech, but it did not answer to any one of the great
divisions of that speech. It was a kingdom formed by accident, because
Lewis wished to increase the portion of his youngest son. Still there
can be no doubt that we have here the first beginning of the kingdom
of _France_, though it was not till after several other stages that
the kingdom thus formed took that name. ♦Division of Verdun. 843.♦ The
final division of Verdun went a step further in the direction of the
modern map. It left Charles in possession of a kingdom which still more
nearly answered to France, as France stood before its Burgundian and
German annexations. It also founded a kingdom which roughly answered
to the later _Germany_ before its great extension to the East at the
expense of the Slavonic nations. And, as the Western kingdom was
formed by the addition of Aquitaine to the Western _Francia_, so the
Eastern kingdom was formed by the addition of the Eastern _Francia_ to
Bavaria. Lewis of Bavaria became king of a kingdom which we are tempted
to call the kingdom of _Germany_. Still it would as yet be premature
to speak of France at all, or even to speak of Germany, except in the
geographical sense. ♦Kingdoms of the Eastern and Western Franks.♦ The
two kingdoms are severally the kingdoms of the _Eastern_ and of the
_Western Franks_. But between these two states the policy of the ninth
century instinctively put a barrier. The Emperor Lothar, besides Italy,
kept a long narrow strip of territory between the dominions of his
Eastern and Western brothers. After him, Italy remained to his son the
Emperor Lewis, while the border lands of Germany and Gaul passed to the
younger Lothar. ♦Kingdom of _Lotharingia_, Lothringen, Lorraine.♦ This
land, having thus been the dominion of two Lothars, took the name of
_Lotharingia_, _Lothringen_, or _Lorraine_, a name which part of it has
kept to this day. This land, sometimes attached to the Eastern kingdom,
sometimes to the Western, sometimes divided between the two, sometimes
separated from both, always kept its character of a border-land. ♦The
Western Kingdom called _Karolingia_.♦ The kingdom to the west of it, in
like manner took the name of _Karolingia_, which, according to the same
analogy, should be _Charlaine_. It is only by a caprice of language
that the name of Lotharingia has survived, while that of Karolingia has
died out.
♦Burgundy, or the Middle Kingdom.♦
Meanwhile, in South-eastern Gaul, between the Rhone and the Alps,
another kingdom arose, namely the kingdom of _Burgundy_. ♦Union under
Charles the Fat. 884.♦ Under Charles the Third, commonly known as the
Fat, all the Frankish dominions, except Burgundy, were again united for
a moment. ♦Division on his deposition. 887.♦ On his deposition they
split asunder again. We now have four distinct kingdoms, those of the
_Eastern_ and _Western Franks_, the forerunners of Germany and France,
the kingdom of _Italy_, and _Burgundy_, sometimes forming one kingdom
and sometimes two. _Lotharingia_ remained a border-land between the
Eastern and Western kingdoms, attached sometimes to one, sometimes to
another. Out of these elements arose the great kingdoms and nations
of Western Europe. The four can hardly be better described than they
are by the Old-English Chronicler: ‘Arnulf then dwelled in the land to
the East of Rhine; and Rudolf took to the middle kingdom; and Oda to
the West deal; and Berengar and Guy to the Lombards’ land, and to the
lands on that side of the mountain.’ But the geography of all the four
kingdoms which now arose must be described at somewhat greater length.
It must be borne in mind that all these divisions of the great Frankish
dominion were, in theory, like the ancient divisions of the Empire,
a mere parcelling out of a common possession among several royal
colleagues. ♦No formal titles or names of the Frankish kingdoms.♦ The
Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no special names
recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled over any part of the
ancient _Francia_ was a King of the Franks, just as much as all among
the many rulers of the Roman Empire in the days of Diocletian and
Constantine were equally Roman Augusti or Cæsars. As the kings and
their kingdoms had no formal titles specially set apart for them, the
writers of the time had to describe them as they might.[9] ♦Various
names of the Eastern Kingdom or _Germany_.♦ The Eastern part of the
Frankish dominions, the lot of Lewis the German and his successors,
is thus called the _Eastern Kingdom_, the _Teutonic Kingdom_. Its
king is the _King of the East-Franks_, sometimes simply the King of
the _Eastern men_, sometimes the _King of Germany_. This last name,
convenient in use, was inaccurate as a formal title, for the _Regnum
Teutonicum_ lay geographically partly in Germany, partly in Gaul.[10]
To the men of the Western kingdom the Eastern king sometimes appeared
as the _King beyond the Rhine_. The title of _King of Germany_ is
often found in the ninth century as a description, but it was not a
formal title. The Eastern king, like other kings, for the most part
simply calls himself _Rex_, till the time came when his rank as King of
Germany or of the East-Franks became simply a step towards the higher
title of Emperor of the Romans. ♦Connexion between the Eastern Kingdom
and the Empire.♦ But it must be remembered, that the special connexion
between the Roman Empire and the German kingdom did not begin at once
on the division of 887. ♦Imperial coronation of Arnulf. 896. | Homage
of Odo to Arnulf. 888.♦ Arnulf indeed, the first German King after the
division, made his way to Rome and was crowned Emperor; and it marks
the position of the Eastern kingdom as the chief among the kingdoms of
the Franks, that the West-Frankish King Odo did homage to Arnulf before
his lord’s Imperial coronation, when he was still simple German king.
♦Final union of Germany with the Empire under Otto the Great. 963.♦
The rule that whoever was chosen King of Germany had a right, without
further election, to the kingdom of Italy and to the Roman Empire,
began only with the coronation of Otto the Great. Up to that time, the
German king is simply one of the kings of the Franks, though it is
plain that he held the highest place among them.
* * * * *
♦Extent of the German kingdom.♦
This Eastern or German kingdom, as it came out of the division of
887, had, from north to south, nearly the same extent as the Germany
of later times. It stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern
boundaries were somewhat fluctuating. _Verona_ and _Aquileia_ are
sometimes counted as a German march, and the boundary between Germany
and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed. To the
North-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the Elbe, except in the
small Saxon land between the Elbe and the Eider. The great extension of
the German power over the Slavonic lands beyond the Elbe had hardly
yet begun. ♦The Austrian and Carinthian marks.♦ To the South-east lay
the two border-lands or _marks_; the _Eastern Mark_, which grew into
the later duchy of _Oesterreich_ or the modern _Austria_, and to the
south of it the mark of _Kärnthen_ or _Carinthia_. ♦The great duchies.♦
But the main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of
_Saxony_, _Eastern Francia_, _Alemannia_, and _Bavaria_. ♦Saxony.♦ Of
these the two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked
as having widely different meanings from those which they bear on
the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between the
Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually touches
the last-named river. ♦Eastern or Teutonic _Francia_.♦ To the south
of Saxony lies the Eastern _Francia_, the centre and kernel of the
German kingdom. The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within
its borders. To the south of Francia lie _Alemannia_ and _Bavaria_.
♦Alemannia and Bavaria.♦ This last, it must be remembered, borders on
Italy, with Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in
which both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches
on both sides of the _Bodensee_ or Lake of Constanz, with the Rætian
Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to come, there is no
distinction, national or even provincial, between the lands north and
south of the Bodensee.
* * * * *
♦Lotharingia.♦
These lands make up the undoubted Eastern or German territory. To the
west of this lies the border land of _Lotharingia_, which has a history
of its own. For the first century after the division of 887, the
possession of Lotharingia fluctuated several times between the Eastern
and the Western kingdom. ♦987.♦ After the change of dynasty in the
Western kingdom, Lotharingia became definitely and undoubtedly German
in allegiance, though it always kept up something of a distinct being,
and its language was partly German and partly Romance. Lotharingia took
in the two duchies of the _Ripuarian Lotharingia_ and _Lotharingia on
the Mosel_. The former contains a large part of the modern Belgium
and the neighbouring lands on the Rhine, including the royal city of
Aachen. Lotharingia on the Mosel answers roughly to the later duchy of
that name, though its extent to the East is considerably larger.
* * * * *
♦The Western Kingdom.♦
The part of the Frankish dominions to which the Frankish name has
stuck most lastingly has been the Western kingdom or _Karolingia_,
which gradually got the special name of _France_. This came about
through the events of the ninth and tenth centuries. ♦Its extent.♦
The Western kingdom, as it was formed under Charles the Bald and as
it remained after the division of 887, nominally took in a great part
of modern France, namely all west of the Rhone and Saône. It took in
nothing to the east of those rivers, and Lotharingia, as we have seen,
was a border land which at last settled down as part of the Eastern
kingdom. Thus the extent of the old _Karolingia_ to the east was very
much smaller than the extent of modern France. But, on the other hand,
the Western kingdom took in lands at three points which are not part
of modern France. These are the march or county of _Flanders_ in the
north, the greater part of which forms part of the modern kingdom of
Belgium; the _Spanish March_, or county of _Barcelona_, which is now
part of Spain; and the _Norman Islands_ which are now held by the
sovereign of England. And it is hardly needful to say that, even within
these boundaries, the whole land was not in the hands of the King of
the West-Franks. He had only a supremacy, which was apt to become
nearly nominal, over the vassal princes who held the great divisions
of the kingdom. ♦The great fiefs.♦ South of the Loire the chief of
these vassal states were the duchy of _Aquitaine_, a name which now
means the land between the Loire and the Garonne—the duchy of _Gascony_
between the Garonne and the Pyrenees—the county of _Toulouse_ to the
east of it—the marches of _Septimania_ and _Barcelona_. North of the
Loire were _Britanny_, where native Celtic princes still reigned under
a very doubtful supremacy on the part of the Frankish kings—the march
of _Flanders_ in the north—and the duchy of _Burgundy_, the duchy which
had Dijon for its capital, and which must be carefully distinguished
from other duchies and kingdoms of the same name. ♦The Duchy of
France.♦ And, greatest of all, there was the duchy of _France_, that is
_Western_ or _Latin France_, _Francia Occidentalis_ or _Latina_. Its
capital was Paris, and its princes were called _Duces Francorum_, a
title in which the word _Francus_ is just beginning to change from its
older meaning of _Frank_ to its later meaning of _French_. ♦Normandy
cut off from France. 912.♦ From this great duchy of France several
great fiefs, as _Anjou_ and _Champagne_, were gradually cut off, and
the part of France between the Seine and the Epte was granted to the
Scandinavian chief Rolf, which, under him and his successors, grew
into the great duchy of _Normandy_. Its capital was Rouen, and this
settlement of the Normans had the effect of cutting off France and its
capital Paris from the sea.
The modern French kingdom gradually came into being during the century
after the deposition of Charles the Fat. ♦Fluctuations between the
Duchy of the French at Paris and the Karlings at Laon. 888-987.♦ During
this time the crown of the Western kingdom passed to and fro more
than once between the Dukes of the French at Paris and the princes of
the house of Charles the Great, whose only immediate dominion was the
city and district of _Laon_ near the Lotharingian border. Thus, for
a hundred years, the royal city of the Western kingdom was sometimes
Laon and sometimes Paris, and the King of the West-Franks was sometimes
the same person as the Duke of the French and sometimes not. ♦Union
of the French Duchy with the West-Frankish kingdom. 987.♦ But after
the election of Hugh Capet, the kingdom and the duchy were never again
separated. The Kings of _Karolingia_ or the Western kingdom, and the
Dukes of the _Western Francia_, were now the same persons. ♦New meaning
of the word _France_.♦ _France_ then—the Western or Latin _Francia_,
as distinguished from the German _Francia_ or _Franken_—properly meant
only the King’s immediate dominions. Though Normandy, Aquitaine, and
the Duchy of Burgundy, all owed homage to the French king, no one
would have spoken of them as parts of France. ♦Advance of the French
kingdom.♦ But, as the French kings, step by step, got possession of the
dominions of their vassals and other neighbours, the name of _France_
gradually spread, till it took in, as it now does, by far the greater
part of Gaul. On the other hand, Flanders, Barcelona, and the Norman
islands, though once under the homage of the French kings, have fallen
altogether away, and have therefore never been reckoned as parts of
France. Thus the name of _France_ supplanted the name of _Karolingia_
as the name of the Western kingdom. ♦Title of _Rex Francorum_.♦ And,
as it so happened that the Western kings kept on the title of _Rex
Francorum_ after it had been dropped in the Eastern kingdom, that
title gradually came to mean, not King of the _Franks_, but King of
the _French_, King of the new Romance-speaking nation which grew up
under them. ♦Origin of the French nation.♦ Thus it was that the modern
kingdom and nation of France arose through the crown of the Western
kingdom passing to the Dukes of the Western _Francia_. ♦Paris the
kernel of France.♦ Paris is not only the capital of the kingdom; it is
the kernel round which the kingdom and nation grew.
* * * * *
♦The Middle Kingdom or Burgundy.♦
Of all geographical names, that which has changed its meaning the
greatest number of times is the name of _Burgundy_. ♦Various meanings
of the name _Burgundy_.♦ It is specially needful to explain its
different meanings at this stage, when there are always two, and
sometimes more, distinct states bearing the Burgundian name. ♦The
French Duchy.♦ Of the older Burgundian kingdom, the north-western
part, forming the land best known as the _Duchy of Burgundy_, was,
in the divisions of the ninth century, a fief of Karolingia or the
Western kingdom. This is the Burgundy which has Dijon for its capital,
and which was held by more than one dynasty of dukes as vassals of
the Western kings, first at Laon and then at Paris. This Burgundy,
which, as the name of France came to bear its modern sense, may be
distinguished as the _French Duchy_, must be carefully distinguished
from the _Royal_ Burgundy, the _Middle Kingdom_ of our own chronicler.
♦The Kingdom of Burgundy or Arles.♦ This is a state which arose out of
the divisions of the ninth century, and which, sometimes as a single
kingdom, sometimes as two, took in all the rest of the old Burgundian
kingdom which did not form part of the French duchy. It may be roughly
defined as the land between the Rhone and Saône and the Alps, though
its somewhat fluctuating boundaries sometimes stretched west of the
Rhone, and its eastern frontier towards Germany changed more than once.
It thus took in the original Roman province in Gaul, which may be now
spoken of as _Provence_, with its great cities, foremost among them
_Arelate_ or _Arles_, which was the capital of the kingdom, and from
which the land was sometimes called the _Kingdom of Arles_. ♦Cities
of the Burgundian kingdom.♦ It also took in Lyons, the primatial city
of Gaul, Geneva, Besançon, and other important Roman towns. In short,
from its position, it contained a greater number of the former seats
of Roman power than any of the new kingdoms except Italy itself.
♦Cis-jurane.♦ When Burgundy formed two kingdoms, the Northern or
_Trans-jurane_ Burgundy took in, speaking roughly, the lands north of
Lyons, and _Cis-jurane_ Burgundy those between Lyons and the sea. These
last are now wholly French. The ancient Transjurane Burgundy is in
modern geography divided between France and Switzerland.
♦Burgundy separated from the Frankish kingdoms.♦
The history of this Burgundian kingdom differs in one respect from
that of any other of the states which arose out of the break-up of the
Frankish Empire. It parted off wholly from the Carolingian dominion
before the division of 887. It formed no part of the reunited Empire
of Charles the Fat. It may therefore be looked on as having parted off
altogether from the immediately Frankish rule, though it often appears
as more or less dependent on the kings of the Eastern Francia. But its
time of separate being was short. ♦Union of the kingdom with Germany.
| Later history of Burgundy: mostly annexed by France.♦ After about a
century and a half from its foundation, the Burgundian kingdom was
united under the same kings as Germany, and its later history consists
of the way in which the greater part of the old Middle Kingdom has
been swallowed up bit by bit by the modern kingdom of France. The only
part which has escaped is that which now forms the western cantons of
Switzerland. ♦Partly represented by Switzerland.♦ In truth the Swiss
Confederation may be looked on as having, in some slight degree,
inherited the position of the Burgundian kingdom as a middle state.
Otherwise, while the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks have
grown into two of the greatest powers and nations in modern Europe,
the Burgundian kingdom has been altogether wiped out. Not only its
independence, but its very name, has passed from it. The name Burgundy
has for a long time past been commonly used to express the French duchy
only.
* * * * *
♦The Kingdom of Italy.♦
Italy, unlike Burgundy, formed part of the reunited dominion of
Charles the Fat; but it altogether passed away from Frankish rule
at the division of 887. It must be remembered that, though Lombardy
was conquered by Charles the Great, yet it was not merged in the
Frankish dominions, but was held as a separate kingdom by the King
of the Franks and Lombards. ♦Carolingian Kings of Italy.♦ Till the
reunion under Charles the Fat, Italy, as a separate kingdom, was
ruled by kings of the Carolingian house, some of whom were crowned
at Rome as Emperors. After the final division, it had separate kings
of its own, being not uncommonly disputed between two rival kings.
♦Italian Emperors.♦ Some of these kings even obtained Imperial rank.
♦Extent of the Italian kingdom.♦ The Italian kingdom, it must be
remembered, was far from taking in the whole Italian peninsula. Its
southern boundary was much the same as the old boundaries of Latium
and Picenum, reaching somewhat further to the south on the Hadriatic
coast. ♦Separate principalities of Benevento and Salerno.♦ To the south
were the separate principalities of _Benevento_ and _Salerno_, and
the lands which still clave to the Eastern Emperors. The kingdom thus
took in Lombardy, Liguria, _Friuli_ in the widest sense, taking in
_Trent_ and _Istria_, though these latter lands are sometimes counted
as a German march, while the Venetian islands still kept up their
connexion with the Eastern Empire. It took in also _Tuscany_, _Romagna_
or the former Exarchate of Ravenna, _Spoleto_, and _Rome_ itself. ♦The
Kingdom of Italy represents the Lombard Kingdom.♦ The Italian kingdom
thus represented the old Lombard kingdom, together with the provinces
which were formally transferred from the Eastern to the Western Empire
by the election of Charles the Great. But it may be looked on as
essentially a continuation of the Lombard kingdom. ♦Milan its capital.♦
The rank of capital of the Italian kingdom, as distinguished from the
Roman Empire, passed away from the old Lombard capital of _Pavia_
to the ecclesiastical metropolis of _Milan_, and Milan became the
crowning-place of the Kings of Italy.
* * * * *
♦Abeyance of the Empire.♦
For nearly eighty years after the division of 887, the Roman Empire of
the West may be looked on as having fallen into a kind of abeyance.
One German and several Italian kings were crowned Emperors; but they
never obtained any general acknowledgement throughout the West. There
could not be said to be any Western Empire with definite geographical
boundaries. ♦Restoration of the Western Empire by Otto.♦ A change in
this respect took place in the second half of the tenth century under
the German king Otto the Great. ♦952.♦ While he was still only German
king, Berengar King of Italy became his man, as Odo of Paris had
become the man of Arnulf. ♦962, 963.♦ Afterwards Otto himself obtained
the Italian kingdom, and was crowned Emperor at Rome. The rule was now
fully established that the German king who was crowned at Aachen had
a right to be crowned King of Italy at Milan and Emperor at Rome. A
geographical Western Empire was thus again founded, consisting of the
two kingdoms of Germany and Italy, to which Burgundy was afterwards
added. ♦The three Imperial kingdoms.♦ These three kingdoms now formed
the Empire, which thus consisted of the whole dominions of Charles
the Great—allowing for a different eastern frontier—except the part
which formed the Western kingdom, _Karolingia_, afterwards _France_.
This union of three of the four kingdoms gave a more distinct and
antagonistic character to the fourth which remained separate.
Karolingia looked like a part of the great Frankish dominion lopped off
from the main body. ♦Relations between the Empire and France.♦ On the
other hand, now that the German kings, the Kings of the East-Franks,
were also Kings of Italy and Burgundy and Emperors of the Romans, they
gradually dropped their Frankish style. But, as that style was kept
by the Western kings, and still more as the name of their duchy of
France gradually spread over so large a part of Gaul, the kingdom of
France had a superficial look of representing the old Frankish kingdom.
The newly-constituted Empire had thus a distinctly rival power on its
western side. And we shall find that a great part of our story will
consist of the way in which, on this side, the Imperial frontier went
back, and the French frontier advanced. On the other side, the Eastern
frontier of the Empire was capable of any amount of advance at the cost
of its Slavonic neighbours.
§ 2. _The Eastern Empire._
♦The Eastern Empire.♦
The effect of the various changes of the seventh and eighth centuries,
the rise of the Saracens, the settlement of the Slaves, the transfer
of the Western Empire to the Franks, seem really to have had the
effect of strengthening the Eastern Empire which they so terribly cut
short. It began for the first time to put on something of a national
character. ♦It takes a Greek character.♦ As the Western Empire was
fast becoming German, so the Eastern Empire was fast becoming Greek.
♦Rivalry of the Eastern and Western or Greek and Latin Churches.♦ And
a religious distinction was soon added to the distinction of language.
As the schism between the Churches came on, the Greek-speaking lands
attached themselves to the Eastern, and not to the Western, form of
Christianity. The Eastern Empire, keeping on all its Roman titles and
traditions, had thus become nearly identical with what may be called
the artificial Greek nation. It continues the work of hellenization
which was begun by the old Greek colonies and which went on under the
Macedonian kings. ♦Fluctuations in the extent of the Empire.♦ No power
gives more work for the geographer; through the alternate periods of
decay and revival which make up nearly the whole of Byzantine history,
provinces were always being lost and always being won back again. And
it supplies also a geographical study of another kind, in the new
divisions into which the Empire was now mapped out, divisions which,
for the most part, have very little reference to the divisions of
earlier times.
♦The _Themes_ as described by Constantine Porphyrogennêtos.♦
The _Themes_ or provinces of the Eastern Empire, as they stood in
the tenth century, have had the privilege of being elaborately
described by an Imperial geographer in the person of Constantine
Porphyrogennêtos.[11] He speaks of the division as comparatively
recent, and of some themes as having been formed almost in his own
time. The themes would certainly seem to have been mapped out after
the Empire had been cut short both to the north and to the east.
The nomenclature of the new divisions is singular and diversified.
♦Asiatic Themes.♦ Some ancient national names are kept, while the
titles of others seem fantastic enough. Thus in Asia _Paphlagonia_
and _Kappadokia_ remain names of themes with some approach to their
ancient boundaries; but the _Armenian_ theme is thrust far to the
west of any of the earlier uses of the name, so that the Halys flows
through it. Between it and the still independent Armenia lay the theme
of _Chaldia_, with Trapezous, the future seat of Emperors, for its
capital. Along the Saracen frontier lie the themes of _Kolôneia_,
_Mesopotamia_—a shadowy survival indeed of the Mesopotamia of Trajan,
of which it was not even a part—_Sebasteia_, _Lykandos_, _Kappadokia_,
and _Seleukeia_, called from the Isaurian or Kilikian city of that
name. Along the south coast the city of _Kibyra_ has given—in mockery,
says Constantine—its name to the theme of the _Kibyrraiotians_, which
reaches as far as Milêtos. The isle of _Samos_ gives its name to a
theme reaching from Milêtos to Adramyttion, while the theme of the
_Ægæan Sea_, besides most of the islands, stretches on to the mainland
of the ancient Aiolis. The rest of the Propontis is bordered by themes
bearing the strange names of _Opsikion_ and _Optimatôn_, names of Latin
origin, in the former of which the word _obsequium_ is to be traced.
To the east of them the no less strangely named _Thema Boukellariôn_
takes in the Euxine Hêrakleia. Inland and away from the frontier are
the themes _Thrakêsion_ and _Anatolikon_, while another Asiatic theme
is formed by the island of _Cyprus_.
♦The European Themes.♦
The nomenclature of the European themes is more intelligible. Most
of them bear ancient names, and the districts which bear them are at
least survivals of the lands which bore them of old. After a good deal
of shifting, owing to the loss and recovery of so many districts, the
Empire under Constantine Porphyrogennêtos numbered twelve European
themes. _Thrace_ had shrunk up into the land just round Constantinople
and Hadrianople, the latter now a frontier city against the Bulgarian.
_Macedonia_ had been pushed to the east, leaving the more strictly
Macedonian coast-districts which the Empire still kept to form the
themes of _Strymôn_ and _Thessalonikê_. ♦Use of the name Hellas.♦
Going further south, the name of _Hellas_ has revived, and that with
a singular accuracy of application. Hellas is now the eastern side of
continental Greece, taking in the land of Achilleus. The abiding name
of Achaia has vanished for a while, and the peninsula which had been
won back from the Slave again bears its name of _Peloponnêsos_. But
_Lakedaimonia_ now appears on the list of its chief cities instead
of Sparta. This and other instances in which one Greek name has been
supplanted by another are witnesses of the Slavonic occupation of
Hellas and its recovery by a Greek-speaking power. Off the west coast
the realm of Odysseus seems to revive in the theme of _Kephallênia_,
which takes in also the mythic isle of Alkinoos. Such parts of
Epeiros and Western Greece as clave to the Empire form the theme of
_Nikopolis_. ♦The Hadriatic lands.♦ To the north, on the Hadriatic
shore, was the theme of _Dyrrhachion_, and beyond that again, the
Dalmatian and Venetian cities still counted as outlying portions
of the Empire. ♦Possessions of the Empire in Italy.♦ Beyond the
Hadriatic, southern Italy forms the theme of _Lombardy_, interrupted
by the principality of _Salerno_, while Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi were
outlying posts like Venice and Ragusa. _Sicily_ was still reckoned as
a theme; but it was now wholly lost to the Saracen. ♦Chersôn.♦ And far
away in the Tauric peninsula, the last of the Hellenic commonwealths,
the furthest outpost of Hellenic civilization, had sunk in the ninth
century into the Byzantine theme of _Chersôn_.
♦Seeming Asiatic character of the Empire.♦
The first impression conveyed by this geographical description is that
the Eastern Empire had now become a power rather Asiatic than European.
It is only in Asia that any solid mass of territory is kept. ♦Nature
of its European possessions.♦ Elsewhere there are only islands and
fringes of coast. ♦Maritime supremacy of the Empire.♦ But they were
almost continuous fringes of coast, fringes which contained some of
the greatest cities of Christendom, and which gave their masters an
undisputed supremacy by sea. If the Mediterranean was not a Byzantine
lake, it was only the presence of the Saracen, the occasional visits
of the Northman, which hindered it from being so. Then again, the
whole history of the Empire, if a history of losses, is also a history
of recoveries, and before long the Roman arms again became terrible
by land. The picture of Constantine Porphyrogennêtos shows us the
Empire at a moment when neither process was actually going on; but
the times before and after his reign were times, first of loss and
then of recovery. ♦Loss and recovery of Crete. 823-960.♦ Early in the
ninth century _Crete_ was suddenly seized by Saracen adventurers from
Spain; about the same time began the long and slow Saracen conquest
of _Sicily_. ♦Loss of Sicily. 827-878. | Advance in Italy, Dalmatia,
and Greece. c. 802.♦ But, almost at the moment when Sicily was lost,
the Imperial province in Italy was largely increased, and the Imperial
influence in Dalmatia was largely restored. About the same time
Peloponnêsos was won back from the Slaves. ♦Recovery of provinces in
the East. 964-976.♦ In the latter half of the tenth century Crete was
won back; so were Kilikia and part of Syria, with the famous cities
of Tarsos, Edessa, and Antioch on the Orontes. ♦Conquest of Bulgaria.
981-1018.♦ Presently Basil the Second overthrew the _Bulgarian_ kingdom
in Europe and the _Armenian_ kingdom in Asia; the lands at the foot of
Caucasus admitted the Imperial supremacy, and the Byzantine rule was
carried round the greater part of the Euxine. ♦Loss of Cherson. 988.♦
Cherson indeed was lost; the old Megarian city passed into the hands
of the Russian. At the other end of the Empire, the recovery of Sicily
was actually begun, and, if the Saracen was not driven out, his power
was weakened in the interest of the next set of invaders. ♦The Eastern
Empire under Basil the Second.♦ Early in the eleventh century the
Eastern Rome was again the head of a dominion which was undoubtedly the
greatest among Christian powers, a dominion greater than it had been at
any time since the Saracenic and Slavonic inroads began.
§ 3. _Origin of the Spanish Kingdoms._
The historical geography of two of the three great Southern peninsulas
is thus bound up with that of the Empires of which they were severally
the centres. ♦Position of Spain.♦ The case is quite different with
the third great peninsula, that of Spain. There the Roman dominion,
even the province which had been recovered by Justinian, had quite
passed away, and it was only a small part of the land which was ever
reincorporated, even in the most shadowy way, with either Empire. ♦The
Saracen conquest. 710-713.♦ Spain was now conquered by the Saracens,
as it had before been conquered by the Romans, with this difference,
that it had been among the longest and hardest of the Roman conquests,
while no part of the Saracen dominion was won in a shorter time.
But, if the Roman conquest was slow, it was in the end complete. The
swifter Saracen conquest was never quite complete; it left a remnant
by which the land was in the end to be won back. But the part of the
land which withstood the Saracen was, as could hardly fail to be the
case, the same part as that which held out for the longest time against
the Roman. The mountainous regions of the North were never wholly
conquered. ♦Asturia 732, | united with Cantabria, 751.♦ _Cantabria_ and
_Asturia_, which had never fully submitted to the Goths, now became the
seat of resistance under princes who claimed to represent the Gothic
kings, and part of whose dominions bore the name of _Gothia_. Twenty
years after the conquest, Asturia was again a Christian principality,
which was presently united with Cantabria. ♦Kingdom of Leon, 916.♦ This
grew into the kingdom of _Leon_. ♦County of Castile, 904. | Kingdom,
1033.♦ The great fiefs of this kingdom on its eastern and western
borders, the counties of _Gallicia_ and _Castile_—the last originally
a line of _castles_ against the Saracen enemy—both showed from an
early time strong tendencies to separation. ♦Kingdom of Navarre. 905.♦
Meanwhile the kingdom of _Navarre_ grew up to the east, stretching,
it must be remembered, on both sides of the Pyrenees, though by far
the larger portion of it lay on their southern side. ♦County of Aragon
c. 760.♦ To the east of Navarre the small counties of _Aragon_ and
_Riparanensia_ were the beginning of the kingdom of _Aragon_. ♦The
Spanish March. 778.♦ To the east again of this was the land which,
after the final expulsion of the Saracens from Gaul, became part of the
Carolingian Empire by the name of the _Spanish March_. The shiftings
of territory, the unions and separations of these various kingdoms
and principalities, belong to the special history of Spain. But early
in the eleventh century the whole north-western part of Spain, and a
considerable fringe of territory in the north-east, had been formed
into Christian states. ♦Beginnings of Castile and Aragon.♦ Among these
had been laid the foundations of two kingdoms, those of Castile and
Aragon, which were to play a great part in the affairs of Europe.
It will be at once seen that those among the Spanish powers which were
destined to play the greatest part in later history were not among
the first to take the form of separate kingdoms. ♦Slow growth of the
greater kingdoms.♦ At this stage even Castile has hardly taken the form
of a distinct state. Aragon is only beginning; _Portugal_ has not even
begun. ♦History of Castile and Aragon.♦ Of these three, Castile was
fated to play the same part that was played by Wessex in England and by
France in Gaul, to become the leading power of the peninsula. Aragon,
when her growth had brought her to the Mediterranean, was to fill for
a long time a greater place in general European politics than any
other Spanish power. The union of Castile and Aragon was to form that
great Spanish monarchy which became the terror of Europe. ♦Portugal.♦
Meanwhile Portugal, lying on the Ocean, had first of all to extend
her borders at the cost of the common enemy, and afterwards to become
a beginner of European enterprise in distant lands, a path in which
Castile and other powers did but follow in her steps.
* * * * *
♦Break-up of the Spanish Caliphate.♦
Meanwhile the advance of the Christians was helped by the division of
the Saracenic power. The Caliphates of the East and of the West fell to
pieces, exactly as the Christian Empires did. The undivided Mahometan
dominion in Spain was at the height of its power in the tenth century.
Yet even then, amid many fluctuations, the Christian frontier was on
the whole advancing in the north-west. In the north-east Christian
progress was slower. ♦1028.♦ But, early in the eleventh century, the
Caliphate of Cordova broke in pieces, and out of its fragments arose
a crowd of small Mahometan kingdoms at Cordova, Seville, Lisbon,
Zaragoza, Toledo, Valencia, and elsewhere. It was now only by renewed
invasions from Africa that the Mahometan power in Spain was kept up.
But, as the Christian states are now fully formed, such mention of
these African dynasties as concerns geography will come more fittingly
at a later stage.
§ 4. _Origin of the Slavonic States._
♦Slavonic and Turanian invasions.♦
We left the borders of both the Eastern and the Western Empire beset by
neighbours of Slavonic race, who, in the case of the Eastern Empire,
were largely mingled with other neighbours of Turanian race. Of these
last, _Avars_, _Patzinaks_, _Khazars_, have passed away; they have
left no trace on the modern map of Europe. With two of the Turanian
settlements the case is different. ♦Bulgarians.♦ The settlement of
the _Bulgarians_, the foundation of a kingdom of Slavonized Turanians
south of the Danube, has been already mentioned. They still keep their
place and nation, though in bondage. Another Turanian settlement to the
north of the Bulgarians has been of yet greater importance in European
history. ♦Settlement of the Magyars or Hungarians, 895.♦ In the last
years of the ninth century the Finnish _Magyars_ or _Hungarians_, the
_Turks_ of the Byzantine writers, began to count as a power in Europe.
From their seats between the mouths of the Dnieper and the Danube, they
pressed eastward into the lands which had been Dacia and Pannonia.
♦Great Moravia.♦ The Bulgarian power was thus confined to the lands
south of the Danube, and _Great Moravia_, a name which then took in the
western part of modern Hungary, fell wholly under Magyar dominion.
This settlement is one which stands altogether by itself. ♦Peculiar
character of the Magyar settlement.♦ The Magyars and the Ottoman Turks
are the only Turanian settlers in Europe who have grown into permanent
Turanian powers on European ground. The Bulgarians have been lost in
the mass of their Slavonic neighbours and subjects, whose language they
have adopted. Magyars and Ottomans still remain speaking a Turanian
tongue on Aryan soil. But of these it is only the Magyars that have
grown into a really European state. ♦The Kingdom of Hungary.♦ After
appearing as momentary ravagers in Germany, Italy, and even Gaul,
the Magyars settled down into a Christian kingdom, which, among many
fluctuations of supremacy and dependence, has remained a distinct
kingdom to this day. ♦Effect of its religious connexion with Rome.♦ The
Christianity of Hungary however came from the Western Church and not
from the Eastern. And this fact has had a good deal of bearing upon
the history of those regions. But for this almost incidental connexion
with the Old Rome, Hungary, though settled by a Turanian people, would
most naturally have taken its place among the Slavonic states which
fringed the dominion of the New Rome. As it has turned out, difference
of religion has stepped in to heighten difference of blood, and Hungary
has formed a kingdom quite apart, closely connected in its history
with Servia and Bulgaria, but running a course which has been in many
things unlike theirs.
♦The Magyars separate the Northern and Southern Slaves.♦
The geographical results of the Magyar settlement were to place a
barrier between the Northern and the Southern Slaves. This it did
both directly and indirectly. The _Patzinaks_ pressed into what had
been the former Magyar territory; they appear in the pages of the
Imperial geographer as a nation with whom the Empire always strove to
maintain peace, as they formed a barrier against both Hungarians and
_Russians_. ♦The Russians.♦ This last name begins to be of importance
in the ninth century. A part of the Eastern branch of the Slavonic
race, they were cut off from the other members of that branch south
of the Danube by these new Turanian settlements. The Magyars again
parted the South-eastern Slaves from the North-western, while the
Russians were still neighbours of the North-western Slaves. ♦Effects
of the geographical position of the Slaves.♦ The geographical position
of these three divisions of the Slavonic race has had an important
effect on European history. ♦History of the South-eastern Slaves.♦ The
South-eastern Slaves in Servia, Croatia, Dalmatia, and the neighbouring
lands, formed a debateable ground between the two Empires, the Magyar
kingdom, and the Venetian republic, as soon as Venice grew into a
distinct and conquering state. These lands have, down to our own time,
played an important, but commonly a secondary, part in history. And in
later times their history has chiefly consisted in successive changes
of masters. The states which they formed will have to be spoken of in
connexion with the greater and more lasting powers to which they have
commonly been adjuncts. ♦The North-western Slaves.♦ The North-western
Slaves appear for the most part in different degrees of vassalage or
incorporation with the Western Empire. ♦Bohemia, Poland.♦ But, besides
several considerable duchies, there grew up among them the kingdoms of
_Bohemia_ and _Poland_, of which the latter established its complete
independence of the Empire, and became for a while one of the chief
powers of Europe. ♦Russia.♦ Russia meanwhile, forming a third division,
appears, in the ninth and tenth centuries, first as a formidable
enemy, then as a spiritual conquest, of the Empire and Church of
Constantinople. Russia had then already assumed the character which it
has again put on in later times, that of the one great European power
at once Slavonic in race and Eastern in faith. Russia is now fully
established as an European power. The variations of its territorial
extent must be traced in a distinct chapter.
§ 5. _Northern Europe._
♦The Scandinavian settlements.♦
The European importance of the Scandinavian nations at this time
chiefly arises from their settlements in various parts of Europe, and
specially in Britain and Ireland. The three great Scandinavian kingdoms
were already formed. Sweden was doing its work towards the east; the
Norwegians, specially known as Northmen, colonized the extreme north
of Britain, the Scandinavian earldoms of Caithness and Sutherland,
together with the islands to the north and west of Britain, Orkney,
Shetland, Faroe, the so-called Hebrides, and Man. They also colonized
the eastern coast of Ireland, where they were known as _Ostmen_. And
it was from Norway also that the settlers came by which the coast of
France in the strictest sense, the French duchy, was cut off from the
dominion of Paris to form the Duchy of Normandy. ♦England and Denmark.
789-1017.♦ But the chief field for the energy of Denmark properly so
called lay within the limits of that part of Britain which we may now
begin to call _England_. It was during this period that the united
English kingdom grew up, that the many English settlements in Britain
coalesced into one English nation. And this work was in a singular way
promoted by the very cause, namely, the Danish invasions, which seemed
best suited to hinder it.
Up to this time the great island had been in truth, as it was often
called, another world, influencing but little, and but little
influenced by, any of the lands which formed part of either of the
continental Empires. ♦Formation of the Kingdom of England.♦ The English
history of these times, a history which is specially connected with
geography, consists of two great facts. The first is the union of
all the English states in Britain into one English kingdom under the
West-Saxon kings. The other is the establishment of a vague supremacy
on the part of those kings over the whole island. ♦West-Saxon supremacy
under Ecgberht. 825-830.♦ The dominion established by Ecgberht was
in no sense a kingdom of England. It consisted simply in a supremacy
on the part of the West-Saxon king over all the princes of Britain,
Teutonic and Celtic, save only the Picts, Scots, and Welsh of
Strathclyde or Cumberland. The smaller kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and
Essex formed appanages for West-Saxon _æthelings_; but the superiority
over East-Anglia, Mercia, Northumberland, and the Welsh princes was
purely external. The change of this power into an united English
kingdom holding a supremacy over the whole island was largely helped
by the Danish incursions and settlements. ♦The Danish invasions. 789.♦
These incursions began in the last years of the eighth century; they
became more frequent and more dangerous in the middle of the ninth;
and in the latter part of that century they grew from mere incursions
into actual settlements. This was the result of the great struggle in
the days of the first Æthelred and his more famous brother Ælfred.
♦Division between Ælfred and Guthrum. 878.♦ By Ælfred’s treaty with the
Danish Guthrum, the West-Saxon king kept his own West-Saxon kingdom
and all the other lands south of the Thames, together with western
Mercia. The rest of Mercia, with East-Anglia and _Deira_ or southern
Northumberland, passed under Danish rule. ♦Bernicia not Danish.♦
_Bernicia_, or northern Northumberland from the Tees to the Forth,
still kept its Anglian princes, seemingly under Danish supremacy.
Over the lands which thus became Danish the West-Saxon king kept a
mere nominal and precarious supremacy. ♦Scandinavian settlements in
Cumberland.♦ In Scotland and Strathclyde the succession of the Celtic
princes was not disturbed; but in part at least of Strathclyde, in
the more modern Cumberland, a large Scandinavian population, though
probably Norwegian rather than Danish, must have settled.
♦Increase of the immediate kingdom of Wessex.♦
By these changes the power of the West-Saxon king as an over-lord
was greatly cut short, while his immediate kingdom was enlarged. The
dynasty which had come so near to the supremacy of the whole island
seemed to be again shut up in its own kingdom and the lands immediately
bordering on it. ♦Second West-Saxon advance. 910-954.♦ But, by
overthrowing the other English kingdoms, the Danes had prepared the
way for the second West-Saxon advance in the tenth century. Saxon king
was now the only English king, and he further became the English and
Christian champion against intruders who largely remained heathen.
♦Wessex grows into England.♦ The work of the first half of the tenth
century was to enlarge the Kingdom of Wessex into the Kingdom of
England. Eadward the Elder, King, not merely of the West-Saxons but
of the English, extended his immediate frontier, the frontier of the
one English kingdom, to the Humber. ♦First submission of Scotland and
Strathclyde. 923.♦ Wales, Northumberland, English and Danish, and now,
for the first time, Scotland and Strathclyde, all acknowledged the
English supremacy. ♦926.♦ Under Æthelstan Northumberland was for the
first time incorporated with the kingdom, and after several revolts and
reconquests, it finally became an integral part of England, forming
sometimes one, sometimes two, English earldoms. ♦Cumberland granted
as a fief to Scotland. 945.♦ Meanwhile Cumberland was subdued by
Eadmund, and was given as a fief to the Kings of Scots, who commonly
granted it as an appanage to their sons. ♦Lothian granted to Scotland.♦
Meanwhile, partly, it would seem, by conquest, partly by cession, the
Scottish kings became possessed of the northern part of Northumberland,
under the name of the earldom of Lothian. Thus, in the second half of
the tenth century, a single kingdom of England had been formed, of
which the Welsh principalities, as well as Scotland, Strathclyde, and
Lothian, were vassal states.
♦The English Empire.♦
Thus the English kingdom was formed, and with it the English Empire.
♦Use of the Imperial titles.♦ For the English kings in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, acknowledging no superiority in the Cæsar either of
East or West and holding within their own island a position analogous
to that of the Emperors on the mainland, did not scruple to assume the
Imperial title, and to speak of themselves as Emperors of the other
world of Britain. The kingdom and Empire thus formed were transferred
by the wars of Swegen and Cnut from a West-Saxon to a Danish king.
♦Northern Empire of Cnut. 1016-1035.♦ Under Cnut England was for a
moment the chief seat, and Winchester the Imperial city, of a Northern
Empire which might fairly claim a place alongside of the Old and the
New Rome. England, Denmark, Norway, had a single king, whose supremacy
extended further over the rest of Britain, over Sweden and a large
part of the Baltic coast. That Empire split in pieces on his death.
The Scandinavian kingdoms were again separated; England itself was
divided for a moment. ♦The Norman Conquest. 1066-70.♦ The kingdom,
again reunited, first passed back to the West-Saxon house, and then, by
a second conquest, to the Norman. After this last revolution a division
of the kingdom was never more heard of. ♦England finally united by
William.♦ William the Conqueror put the finishing stroke to the work of
Ecgberht, and made England for ever one. And, by uniting England under
the same ruler as Normandy, and by thus leading her into the general
current of continental affairs, he gave her an European position such
as she had never held under her native kings.
* * * * *
♦Summary.♦
By the end of the eleventh century then the chief nations of Europe
had been formed. The Western Empire, after many shiftings, had taken
a definite shape. ♦The Western Empire and the Imperial Kingdoms.♦
The Imperial dignity and the two royal crowns of Italy and Burgundy
were now attached to the German kingdom. The Empire, in short,
though keeping its Roman titles and associations, and with them its
influence over the minds of men, had practically become a German
power. Its history from this time mainly consists in the steps by
which the German Emperors of Rome lost their hold on their Italian and
Burgundian kingdoms, and of the steps by which the German dominion
was extended over the Slaves to the East. ♦France.♦ To the West the
Western Kingdom has altogether detached itself from the Empire; the
union of its crown with the Duchy of France has created the French
kingdom and nation, with its centre at Paris, and with a supremacy, as
yet little more than nominal, over a large part of Gaul. ♦The Eastern
Empire.♦ As the Western Empire has become German, the Eastern Empire
has become Greek; in the early years of the eleventh century it again
forms a powerful and compact state, ruling from Naples to Antioch.
♦The Slavonic states.♦ Of the states to the north of it, Bulgaria has
been reincorporated with the Empire; Servia, Hungary, Russia, have
taken their definite position among the Christian powers of Europe. So
have Poland and Bohemia on the borders of the Western Empire. Prussia,
Lithuania, and the Finnish lands to the immediate north of them remain
heathen. ♦Spain.♦ In Spain, the Christians have won back a large part
of the peninsula. Castile and Navarre are already kingdoms; Aragon,
though not yet a kingdom, has begun her history. ♦The Scandinavian
kingdoms.♦ In Northern Europe, the three Scandinavian nations are
clearly distinguished and firmly established. ♦England and Normandy.♦
Within the isle of Britain the kingdoms of England and Scotland have
been formed, and the union of England and Normandy under a single
prince has opened the way to altogether new relations between the
continent and the great island. In short, the only European powers
which play a part in strictly mediæval history which are not yet formed
are Portugal and the Sicilian kingdoms.
From this point then, when most of the European powers have come into
being, and when the two Roman Empires are fast becoming a German and a
Greek power alongside of other powers, it will be well to change the
form of our present inquiry. Thus far we have treated the historical
geography of Europe as a whole, gathering round two centres at the
Old and the New Rome. It will henceforth be more convenient to take
the history of the great divisions of Europe separately, and to trace
out in distinct chapters the changes which the boundaries of each have
gone through from the eleventh century to our own time. ♦Ecclesiastical
geography.♦ But before we enter on these several national divisions, it
will be well to take a view of the ecclesiastical divisions of Western
Christendom, which are of great importance and which are constantly
referred to in the times with which we are now concerned.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The best account of the various names by which the East-Frankish
kings and their people are described is given by Waitz, _Deutsche
Verfassungsgeschichte_, v. 121 et seqq.
[10] So Wippo (2) describes the gathering of the men of the kingdom:
‘Cis et circa Rhenum castra locabant. Qui dum Galliam a Germanis
dividat, ex parte _Germaniæ_ Saxones cum sibi adjacentibus Sclavis,
Franci orientales, Norici, Alamanni, convenere. De _Gallia_ vero Franci
qui super Rhenum habitant, Ribuarii, Liutharingi, coadunati sunt.’ The
two sets of Franks are again distinguished from the Latin or French
‘Franci.’
[11] See special treatise on the Themes in the third volume of the Bonn
edition. The Treatise which follows, ‘de Administrando Imperio,’ is
also full of geographical matter.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL GEOGRAPHY OF WESTERN EUROPE.
♦Character of ecclesiastical geography.♦
The ecclesiastical geography of Western Europe was by this time
formed. The great ecclesiastical divisions were now almost everywhere
mapped out, and from hence they are more permanent than the political
divisions. ♦Permanence of the ecclesiastical divisions.♦ The
ecclesiastical geography in truth constantly preserves an earlier
political geography. ♦They represent older civil divisions.♦ The
ecclesiastical divisions were always mapped out according to the
political divisions of the time when they were established, and they
often remained unaltered while the political divisions went through
many revolutions. ♦Illustrations from England and France.♦ Thus
in France the dioceses represented the jurisdictions of the Roman
cities; in England they represented the ancient English kingdoms and
principalities. In both cases they outlived by many ages the political
divisions which they represented. While the political map was altered
over and over again, the ecclesiastical map remained down to quite
modern times, with hardly any change beyond the occasional division of
a large diocese or the occasional union of two smaller dioceses. Thus
the greater permanence of the ecclesiastical map often makes it useful
as a standard for reference in describing political changes. ♦Lyons and
Rheims.♦ To take an instance, the city of Lyons has been at different
times under Burgundian and under Frankish kings; it has been a free
city of the Empire and a city of the modern kingdom of France. But,
among all these changes, the Archbishop of Lyons has always remained
Primate of all the Gauls, while the Archbishop of Rheims has held a
wholly different position alongside of him as first prelate and first
peer of the modern kingdom of France. Paris meanwhile, the political
capital of the modern kingdom, remained till the seventeenth century
the seat of a simple bishoprick.
In this way the ecclesiastical division will be found almost everywhere
to keep up the remembrance of an earlier political state of things.
♦Patriarchates, Provinces, Dioceses.♦ As the Empire became Christian,
it was mapped out into _Patriarchates_ as well as into Prefectures.
Under these were the metropolitan and episcopal districts, which in
after-times borrowed, though in a reverse order of dignity, the civil
titles of _provinces_ and _dioceses_. ♦Divisions within and without
the Empire.♦ As the Church carried her spiritual conquests beyond the
bounds of the Empire, new ecclesiastical districts were of course
formed in the newly converted countries. As a rule, every kingdom had
at least one archbishopric; the smaller principalities, provinces,
or other divisions became the dioceses of bishops. But the different
social conditions of southern and northern Europe caused a marked
difference in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the two regions. In
the South the bishop was bishop of a city; in the North he was bishop
of a tribe or a district. Within the Empire each city had its bishop.
Thus in Italy and Southern Gaul, where the cities were thickest on
the ground, the bishops were most numerous and their dioceses were
smallest. ♦Bishops of cities and of tribes.♦ In Northern Gaul the
cities are fewer and the dioceses larger, while outside the Empire,
the dioceses which represented a tribe or principality were larger
again. Also again, within the Empire the bishop, as bishop of a city,
always took his title from the city; outside the Empire, especially in
the British islands both Celtic and Teutonic, the bishop of a tribe or
principality bore a tribal or territorial title.
§ 1. _The Great Patriarchates._
♦The Patriarchates suggested by the Prefectures.♦
The highest ecclesiastical divisions, the Patriarchates, though they
did not exactly answer to the Prefectures, were clearly suggested
by them. And whenever the boundaries of the Patriarchates departed
from the boundaries of the Prefectures, they came nearer to the great
divisions of race and language. For our purpose, it is enough to
take the Patriarchates, as they grew up, after the establishment of
Christianity, in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries. The
four older ones were seated at the _Old_ and the _New Rome_, and at
the two great Eastern cities of _Antioch_ and _Alexandria_. Out of
the patriarchate of Antioch the small patriarchate of _Jerusalem_ was
afterwards taken. This last seems a piece of sentimental geography;
the other divisions were eminently practical. ♦Rome.♦ Whether we look
on the original jurisdiction of the Bishop of the Old _Rome_ as taking
in the whole _prefecture_ of Italy or only the _diocese_ of Italy, it
is certain that it was gradually extended over the two prefectures
of Italy and Gaul. ♦Extended beyond the Empire.♦ That is, it took in
the Latin part of the Empire, and it spread thence over the Teutonic
converts in the West, as well as over Hungary and the Western Slaves.
♦Constantinople.♦ The Patriarchate of _Constantinople_ or New Rome took
in the Prefecture of Illyricum, and three dioceses in the Prefecture
of the East, those of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus. This territory pretty
well answers to the extent of the Greek language and influence. The
two Illyrian dioceses, possibly through some confusion arising out of
the two meanings of the word _Illyricum_, were claimed by the Popes of
Old Rome; but, when the Empires and Churches parted asunder, Macedonia
and Greece were not likely to cleave to the Western division. ♦Its
relation to the Eastern Empire and to the Slaves.♦ In course of time
the Byzantine patriarchate became nearly coextensive with the Byzantine
Empire, and it became the centre of conversion to the Slaves of the
East, just as the patriarchate of Old Rome was to the Teutons of the
West. ♦Antioch. | Jerusalem.♦ The patriarchate of _Antioch_, before its
dismemberment in favour of the tiny patriarchate of _Jerusalem_, took
in the whole diocese of the East, and the churches beyond the limits
of the Empire in that direction. ♦Alexandria.♦ The patriarchate of
_Alexandria_ answered to the diocese of Egypt, with the churches beyond
the Empire on that side, specially the _Abyssinian_ church, which has
kept its nationality to our own time. That these Eastern patriarchates
have been for ages disputed by claimants belonging to different sects
of Christianity is a fact which concerns both theology and history,
but does not concern geography. Whether the see was in Orthodox or
heretical—that is commonly in national—hands, the see and its diocese,
the geographical extent on the map, remained the same.
♦Later nominal patriarchates.♦
These then are the five great patriarchates which formed the most
ancient geographical divisions of the Church. In later times the
name patriarchate has been more loosely applied. As the Roman bishop
grew into something more than the Patriarch of the West, the title
of Patriarch was given to several metropolitans, sometimes, as far
as one can see, without any particular reason. ♦Lisbon, Venice,
Aquileia.♦ The title has been borne by the Bishops of _Lisbon_ and
_Venice_, and specially by the Metropolitans of _Aquileia_. These last
assumed the title during a time of separation from the Roman see. But
nominal patriarchates of this kind must be carefully distinguished
from the five great churches to which the name was anciently attached.
♦Patriarchate of Moscow. 1587.♦ In the East the name was never extended
beyond its four original holders, till a new patriarchate of _Moscow_
arose in Russia, to mark the greatest spiritual conquest of the
Orthodox Church. Of the four original Eastern patriarchates it is only
that of Constantinople which plays much part in later history. The
seats of the other three fell into the hands of the Saracens in the
very beginning of their conquests.
§ 2. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Italy._
♦Great numbers of the Italian bishoprics.♦
In no part of Christendom do the bishoprics lie so thick upon the
ground as in Italy, and especially in the southern part. But from
that very fact it follows that the ecclesiastical divisions of Italy
are of less historical importance than those of most other Western
countries. ♦Small size of the provinces.♦ In southern Italy above
all, the bishoprics were so numerous, and the dioceses therefore
so small, that the archiepiscopal provinces were hardly so large
as the episcopal dioceses in more northern lands. So it is in the
islands; Sicily contained four provinces and Sardinia three. ♦Effect
of the commonwealths on the position of the prelates.♦ The peculiar
characteristics of Italian history also hindered ecclesiastical
geography from being of the same importance as elsewhere. Where every
city became an independent commonwealth, the Bishop, and even the
Metropolitan, sank to a lower rank than they held in the lands where
each prelate was a great feudal lord.
It follows then that there are only a few of the archbishoprics
and bishoprics of Italy which at all stand out in general history.
♦Relation to the Roman See.♦ The growth of the Roman see also more
distinctly overshadowed the Italian bishops than it did those of other
lands. ♦Rivals of Rome.♦ The bishoprics which have most historical
importance are those which at one time or another stood out in rivalry
or opposition to Rome. ♦Milan. | Aquileia.♦ Such was the great see of
_Milan_, whose province took in a crowd of Lombard bishoprics; such was
the patriarchal see of _Aquileia_, whose metropolitan jurisdiction took
in Como at one end and the Istrian Pola at the other. The patriarchs of
Aquileia, standing as they did on the march of the Italian, Teutonic,
and Slavonic lands, grew, unlike most of the Italian prelates,
into powerful temporal princes. ♦Ravenna.♦ _Ravenna_ was the head
of a smaller province than either Milan or Aquileia; but _Ravenna_
too stands out as one of the churches which kept up for a while an
independent position in the face of the growing power of Rome. Milan
and Ravenna, in short, never lost the memory of their Imperial days;
and Aquileia took advantage, first of a theological difference, and
secondly of its temporal position as the great border see.
♦The immediate Roman Province.♦
In the rest of Italy the case is different. Rome herself was the
immediate head of a large province stretching from sea to sea.
Within this the _suburbicarian_ sees, those close around Rome, stood
in a special and closer relation to the patriarchal see itself.
♦Metropolitan sees of central Italy.♦ The famous cities of _Genoa_,
_Bologna_, _Pisa_, _Florence_, and _Sienna_, were also metropolitan
sees, though their ecclesiastical dignity is quite overshadowed by
their civic greatness. _Lucca_ has been added to the same list in
modern times. ♦Pisa and Genoa.♦ The provinces of Pisa and Genoa
are notable as having been extended into the island of Corsica
after its recovery from the Saracens. The history and extent of the
Italian dioceses is, with these few exceptions, a matter almost
wholly of local ecclesiastical concern. ♦The southern province.♦ In
the south and in Sicily the endless archiepiscopal sees preserve
the names of some famous cities, as _Capua_—the later Capua on the
site of Casilinum—_Tarentum_, _Bari_, and others. But some even of
the metropolitan churches are fixed in places of quite secondary
importance, and the simple bishoprics are endless.
§ 3. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Gaul and Germany._
By taking a single view of the ecclesiastical arrangements of the whole
of the Western Empire on this side of the Alps and the Pyrenees, some
instructive lessons may be learned. Such a way of looking at the map
will bring out more strongly the differences between bishoprics of
earlier and later foundation. ♦Gaulish and German dioceses.♦ And, if
we take the name of Gaul in the old geographical sense, taking in the
German lands west of the Rhine which formed part of the older Empire,
we shall find that several ecclesiastical provinces may be called
either Gaulish or German. With the boundaries of the French kingdom we
have no concern, except so far as the boundary between the Eastern and
Western kingdoms of the Franks did to some extent follow ecclesiastical
lines. Modern annexations of course have had no regard to them.
♦Province of South Gaul.♦
On first crossing the Alps from Italy, we find the ecclesiastical
phænomena of Italy continued in the lands nearest to it. The two
provinces of _Tarantaise_ (answering to the civil division of _Alpes
Penninæ_) and _Embrun_ (_Alpes Maritimæ_) which take in the mountain
region between Italy and Gaul, are of small size, though of course in
the actual mountain lands the bishoprics are less thick on the ground.
♦Tarantaise.♦ The Tarantasian province contained only three suffragan
sees, _Sitten_, _Aosta_, and _St. John of Maurienne_, three bishoprics
which now belong to three distinct political powers. ♦Embrun.♦ But
in the southern part of the province of Embrun, which reaches to the
sea, the bishops’ sees are thick on the ground, just as they are in
Italy. ♦Aix and Arles.♦ So they are in the small provinces of _Aix_
(_Narbonensis Secunda_) and _Arles_. But, as soon as we get out of
Provence into the parts of Gaul which were less thoroughly Romanized,
and where cities, and consequently bishoprics, lay less close together,
the phænomena of the ecclesiastical map begin to change. ♦Vienne.
| Narbonne.♦ The Provençal provinces of Aix and Aries are bounded to
the north and west by those of _Vienne_ (which with Arles answers
nearly to the civil _Viennensis_) and _Narbonne_ (answering nearly to
_Narbonensis Secunda_). These provinces are of much greater size, and
the suffragan sees are much further apart. ♦Auch.♦ To the west lies
_Auch_, answering to the oldest Aquitaine or _Novempopulana_, and to
the north of these, in the remainder of Gaul, the original provinces
are of still greater size. Most of them answer very nearly to the older
civil divisions. ♦Bourges, Bourdeaux, Lyons, Rouen, Tours, and Sens.♦
_Aquitania Prima_ is the province of _Bourges_, _Aquitania Secunda_
that of _Bourdeaux_. _Lugdunensis Prima_, _Secunda_, _Tertia_, and
_Quarta_, answer to _Lyons_, _Rouen_, _Tours_, and _Sens_. Of these
Lyons, as having been the temporal capital, became the seat of the
Primate of all the Gauls. The province of Rouen too answers very
nearly to the duchy of which that metropolis became the capital; its
Archbishop still bears the title of Primate of Normandy.
These are the oldest ecclesiastical arrangements, closely following
the civil divisions of the Empire. These divisions lived through the
Teutonic conquests; and, though here and there a see was translated
from one city to another, they were not seriously interfered with till
the fourteenth century. ♦Foundation of the provinces of Toulouse and
Alby, 1322.♦ Pope John the Twenty-second raised the see of _Toulouse_
in the province of Narbonne and that of _Alby_ in the province of
Bourges to metropolitan rank, thus forming two new provinces. He also
founded new bishoprics in several towns in these two new provinces
and in that of Narbonne. ♦Avignon, 1475.♦ In the next century Sixtus
the Fourth made the church of _Avignon_ metropolitan. These changes
help to give this whole district more of the character of Italy and
Provence than originally belonged to it. ♦Paris, 1622.♦ Lastly, in
the seventeenth century the province of _Sens_ was also divided, and
the church of _Paris_ became metropolitan. Some of these changes show
how closely the ecclesiastical divisions followed the oldest civil
divisions, and how slowly they were affected by changes in the civil
divisions. When Gaul was first mapped out, Tolosa was of less account
than Narbo; the Parisii and their city were of less account than the
great nation of the _Senones_. Tolosa became the royal city of the
Goth; but it did not rise to the highest ecclesiastical rank till ages
after the Gothic kingdom had passed away. Paris, after having been
several times a momentary seat of dominion, became the birthplace of
the modern French kingdom. But it had been the continuous seat of
kings for more than six hundred years before it became the seat of an
archbishop.
* * * * *
As we draw nearer to German ground, the ecclesiastical boundaries
are found to have been somewhat more strongly affected by political
changes. ♦Besançon.♦ The ecclesiastical province of _Besançon_ answers
to _Maxima Sequanorum_; but it is not quite of the same extent; the
boundary of the German and Burgundian kingdoms passed through the
Roman province: its eastern part is therefore found in a German
diocese. ♦Rheims.♦ The province of _Rheims_ answers nearly, but not
quite, to _Belgica Secunda_: for the ecclesiastical province took in
some territory to the east of the Scheld. Here again the boundary of
the Eastern and Western kingdoms passed through the province. The
metropolitan city lay within the region which became the kingdom
of France, and it became the ecclesiastical head of the kingdom.
Yet one of its suffragan sees, that of _Cambray_, was a city of the
Empire. ♦Trier, 785.♦ The province of _Trier_ took in no part of the
Western kingdom; but, besides the old province of _Belgica Prima_, it
stretched away over the German lands even beyond the Rhine. ♦Köln,
785.♦ When the old Gaulish bishoprick of _Colonia Agrippina_ became
metropolitan under Charles the Great, its province took in nearly all
the old Gaulish province of _Germania Secunda_; but it too came to
stretch beyond the Rhine and beyond the Weser. These two metropolitan
sees, Trier and Köln, were old Gaulish bishopricks of the frontier
land. ♦Mainz, 747.♦ The see of _Mainz_ has no certain historical being
before Boniface in the eighth century. It too was founded on what was
geographically Gaulish soil; but the greater part of its vast extent
was strictly German. Three only of its suffragans, _Worms_, _Speyer_,
and _Argentoratum_ or _Strassburg_, were even geographically Gaulish.
No province has had more fluctuating boundaries: the elevation of
Köln to metropolitan rank cut it short to the west, while it grew
indefinitely to the north, south, and east, as its boundaries were
enlarged by conversion and conquest. ♦Prag, 1344.♦ To the east it was
cut short in the fourteenth century when the kingdom of Bohemia and its
dependencies were formed into the ecclesiastical province of _Prag_.
♦Bamberg, 1007.♦ The famous bishoprick of _Bamberg_, locally in the
province of Mainz, was from the beginning immediately dependent on the
see of Rome.
♦The three ecclesiastical Electors and Arch-chancellors.♦
These three great archbishopricks of the frontier land, all of whose
sees were on the Gaulish side of the Rhine, remained distinguished by
their temporal rank during the whole life of the German kingdom. All
the German prelates became princes; but only these three were Electors.
The prelates of these three were the Arch-chancellors of the three
Imperial kingdoms, Mainz of Germany, Köln of Italy, Trier of Gaul.
But, as the Frankish or German kingdom spread to the north-east, new
ecclesiastical provinces were formed. ♦Salzburg, 798.♦ The bishoprick
of _Salzburg_ became metropolitan under Charles the Great, with a
province stretching away to the East towards his conquests from the
Avars. ♦Bremen or Hamburg, 788.♦ The bishoprick of _Bremen_, another
foundation of Charles the Great, was transferred under his son to
_Hamburg_, as a metropolitan see which was designed to be a missionary
centre for the Scandinavian nations. ♦1223.♦ After some fluctuations,
the see was finally settled at Bremen, as the metropolis of a province,
which had now become in no way Scandinavian, but partly Old-Saxon,
partly Wendish. ♦Magdeburg, 968.♦ Lastly, Otto the Great founded the
metropolitan see of _Magdeburg_ on the Slavonic march. Thus the German
kingdom formed six ecclesiastical provinces, all of vast extent as
compared with those of Southern Europe, and with their suffragan sees
few and far apart. The difference is here clearly marked between the
earlier sees which arose from the very beginning in the Roman cities,
and the sees of later foundation which were gradually founded as new
lands were brought under the dominion of the Empire and the Church.
Still the old tradition went on so far that each Bishop had his see in
a city, and took his name from that city. Though the German dioceses
were of large extent, yet none of the German bishoprics were in
strictness territorial.
♦Modern ecclesiastical divisions of Germany and France.♦
In no part of Christendom have the ecclesiastical divisions been more
completely upset in modern times than they have been in Germany. In
France the number of dioceses was greatly lessened by the _Concordat_
under the first Buonaparte; but the main ecclesiastical landmarks were
to a great extent respected. In Germany, on the other hand, no trace
of them is left. The country has been mapped out afresh to suit the
boundaries of patched-up modern kingdoms. Mainz and Trier are no longer
metropolitan sees, while the modern map shows such novelties as an
Archbishop of München and an Archbishop of Freiburg. ♦Changes of Philip
the Second in the Netherlands.♦ Long before, under Philip the Second of
Spain, those parts of the German kingdom which had become practically
detached under the Dukes of Burgundy underwent a complete change in
their ecclesiastical divisions. ♦Cambray, Mechlin, Utrecht.♦ _Cambray_
and _Mechlin_ in the province of Rheims, and _Utrecht_ in the province
of Köln, became metropolitan sees. Modern political changes have made
these three cities members of three distinct political powers.
§ 4. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Spain._
♦Peculiarities of Spanish ecclesiastical geography.♦
The ecclesiastical history of the Spanish peninsula presents phænomena
of a different kind from those of Italy, Gaul, or Germany. In Italy
and Gaul the ecclesiastical divisions go on uninterruptedly from the
earliest days of Christianity. Western Germany must count for these
purposes as part of Gaul. In eastern Germany the ecclesiastical
divisions were formed in later times, as Christianity was spread
over the country. In Spain the country must have been mapped out for
ecclesiastical purposes at least as early as Gaul. ♦Old divisions lost,
and mapped out afresh after the recovery from the Saracens.♦ But the
Mahometan conquest of the greater part of the country, followed by the
Christian reconquest, caused the old ecclesiastical lines to be wiped
out, and new divisions had to be traced out afresh as the land was
gradually won back. ♦Ecclesiastical divisions under the West-Goths.♦
The ecclesiastical divisions of Spain in the time of the Gothic kingdom
simply reproduce the civil divisions of the period, as those civil
divisions are only a slight modification of the Roman provinces.
_Lusitania_ and _Bætica_ survived, with a slight change of frontier,
both as civil and as ecclesiastical divisions. _Tarraconensis_ was for
both purposes divided into three, _Tarraconensis_, _Carthagenensis_,
and _Gallæcia_. As the land was won back, and as new ecclesiastical
provinces were formed, the number was greatly increased, and some of
them found their way to new sites. ♦Tarragona, Zaragoza, Valencia.♦
Thus the Tarraconensian province was again divided into three, those
of _Tarragona_, _Zaragoza_, and _Valencia_, answering nearly to the
kingdom of Aragon. ♦Toledo.♦ New Carthage lost its metropolitan rank in
favour of the great metropolis of _Toledo_, which numbered _Cordova_
and _Valladolid_ among its suffragans. ♦Compostella, Burgos, Seville,
and Granada. | Braga, Evora, Lisbon.♦ Leaving out some anomalous
districts, the rest of the peninsula formed the provinces of St.
James of _Compostella_, _Burgos_, _Seville_, _Granada_, with _Braga_,
_Evora_, and the patriarchal see of _Lisbon_, the last three answering
to the kingdom of Portugal. And it must be remembered that the Pyrenees
did not form an eternal boundary in ecclesiastical, any more than in
civil geography. ♦Dioceses of Pampeluna and Bayonne.♦ As the kingdom of
Navarre stretched on both sides of the mountains, so did the diocese
of _Pampeluna_; and to the west of it the Gaulish diocese of _Bayonne_
stretched on what is now Spanish ground. All these are survivals of a
time when, to use the phrase of a later day, there were no Pyrenees, or
when at least the same rulers, first Gothic and then Saracen, reigned
on both sides of them.
§ 5. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of the British Islands._
♦The British islands.♦
The historical phænomena of the British islands have points in common
with more than one of the continental countries. In a very rough and
general view of things, Britain has some analogies with Spain. It is
not altogether without reason that in some legendary stories the names
of Saxons and Saracens get confounded. In both cases a land which had
been Christian was overrun by conquerors of another creed; in both a
Christian people held their ground in a part of the country; and in
both the whole land was won back to Christianity, though by different
and even opposite processes in the two cases. ♦The Celtic episcopate.♦
But there is no reason to believe that the Celtic churches in Britain
and Ireland had anything like the same complete ecclesiastical
organization as the Spanish churches under the Goths. ♦Tribal
episcopacy.♦ The Celtic episcopate was of an irregular and anomalous
kind, and, in its most intelligible shape, it was, as was natural under
the circumstances of the country, not a city episcopate, hardly a
territorial episcopate, but one strictly tribal. This is nearly the
only fact in the history of the early Celtic churches which is of any
importance for our purpose. It might be too much to say that traces of
this peculiarity were handed on from the Celtic to the English Church.
The little likeness that there is between them is rather due to the
fact that in Northern Europe generally, whether Celtic or Teutonic,
a strictly city episcopate like that of Italy and Gaul was something
which in the nature of things could not be.
In truth the antiquities of the Celtic churches may fairly be left to
be matter of local or of special ecclesiastical inquiry. Their effect
on history is slight; their effect on historical geography is still
slighter. For our purpose the ecclesiastical geography of Britain may
be looked on as beginning with the mission of Augustine. The English
Church was formed, and the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish Churches were
reconstructed, partly under its authority, altogether after its model.
♦Schemes of Gregory the Great.♦ In the original scheme of Gregory the
Great, Britain was clearly meant to be divided into two ecclesiastical
provinces nearly equal in extent. ♦Two equal provinces in Britain.♦
The Celtic churches were to be brought under the same ecclesiastical
obedience as the heathen English. As Wales was to form part of the
lot of the southern metropolitan, so Scotland was to form part of the
lot of the northern. This scheme was never fully carried out. Wales
was indeed brought into full submission to Canterbury; but Scotland
was never brought into the same full submission to York. ♦Relation of
the Scottish Bishops to York.♦ The allegiance of the Scottish sees to
their Northumbrian metropolis was at all times very precarious, and
it was in the end formally thrown off altogether. ♦Suffragan sees
of Canterbury and York.♦ Of this came the singular disproportion in
the territorial extent of the two English ecclesiastical provinces.
Canterbury, since the English Church was thoroughly organized, has
had a number of suffragans which would be unusual anywhere on the
continent, while York has always had comparatively few, and for a
considerable time had practically one only.
♦Foundation of the existing dioceses.♦
The systematic mapping out of Britain for ecclesiastical purposes, as
designed by Gregory, was therefore never fully carried out. The actual
provinces and dioceses were gradually formed, as the various English
existing kingdoms embraced Christianity. As a rule, each kingdom or
independent principality became a diocese. ♦Territorial bishoprics♦
And, except in the case of a few sees fixed in cities which kept
on something of old Roman memories, the bishops were more commonly
called from the people who formed their flock, than from the cities
which in some cases contained their chairs. For in many cases the
_bishop-settle_, as our forefathers called it, was not placed in a city
at all, but in some rural or even solitary spot. It was not till the
time of the Norman Conquest that a movement began for systematically
placing the ecclesiastical sees in the chief towns; from that time the
civic title altogether displaces the territorial.
♦Canterbury.♦
As Kent was the first part of Teutonic Britain to accept Christianity,
the metropolitan see of the south was fixed at _Canterbury_, the
capital of that kingdom. It was thus fixed in a city which has at
no time held that temporal preeminence which has in different ages
belonged to York, Winchester, and London. ♦Rochester. | London.♦
After Canterbury the earliest formed sees were _Rochester_ for the
West-Kentish kingdom, and _London_ for the East-Saxons. ♦Dorchester
or Winchester. Sherborne, Wells, Ramsbury.♦ The conversion of the
West-Saxons led to the foundation of the great diocese whose see was
first at _Dorchester_ on the Thames and then at _Winchester_, and from
which the sees of _Sherborne_, _Wells_, and _Ramsbury_ were gradually
parted off. ♦Elmham. | Dorchester or Lincoln.♦ The East-Angles formed a
diocese with its see at _Elmham_; the Middle-Angles settled down, after
some shiftings, into the vast diocese stretching from the Thames to the
Humber, whose see, first at _Dorchester_, was afterwards translated to
_Lincoln_. ♦Worcester, Hereford, Lichfield.♦ The West-Mercian lands
formed the dioceses of the Hwiccas at _Worcester_, of the Magesætas at
_Hereford_, and the great diocese of _Lichfield_, stretching northward
to the Ribble. The South-Saxons, whose see kept its tribal name down
to the Norman Conquest, had their see first at _Selsey_, and then at
_Chichester_. ♦Exeter.♦ Devonshire and Cornwall, after forming two
dioceses, were, just before the Norman Conquest, united under the
single see of _Exeter_. ♦The Welsh Sees.♦ The Conquest too brought
about the more complete submission of the four Welsh sees, _Saint
David’s_, _Llandaff_, _Bangor_, and _Saint Asaph_. ♦Salisbury, 1078.
| Ely, 1109.♦ To the times just before and just after the Conquest
belong the union of Sherborne and Ramsbury to form the diocese of
_Salisbury_, and the dismemberment of the huge diocese of Lincoln by
the foundation of an episcopal see at _Ely_. Thus the province of
Canterbury with its suffragan sees was gradually organized in the form
which it kept from the reign of Henry the First to that of Henry the
Eighth.
Meanwhile in the northern province things never reached the same
regular organization. ♦York. | Lindisfarn | or Durham, | Carlisle,
1133.♦ York, after some changes, took the position of a metropolitan
see, with one suffragan, first at _Lindisfarn_ and afterwards at
_Durham_, and another at _Carlisle_. ♦Saint Andrews, 1471. | Glasgow.
1492.♦ As the Scottish dioceses broke off from York, they first
acknowledged a kind of precedence in the Bishop of _St. Andrews_; but
it was not till a far later time that Scotland was divided into two
regular ecclesiastical provinces with their sees at _St. Andrews_ and
_Glasgow_. ♦Edinburgh. 1634.♦ Several of the Scottish dioceses always
kept their territorial titles; their sees were mostly fixed in small
places; and of the chief seats of Scottish royalty, Dunfermline and
Stirling never attained episcopal rank at all, and _Edinburgh_ only
attained it in quite modern times. ♦The four Irish provinces.♦ The
endless and fluctuating bishoprics of Ireland were in the twelfth
century gathered into the four provinces of _Armagh_, _Dublin_,
_Cashel_, and _Tuam_, answering to the temporal divisions of _Ulster_,
_Leinster_, _Munster_, and _Connaught_. It is to be noticed that, in
marked contradiction to continental practice, the chief see in all the
three British kingdoms has been placed in a city which has never held
the first temporal rank. Canterbury, St. Andrews, Armagh, were never
the temporal heads of England, Scotland, and Ireland. York, Dublin,
Glasgow, though metropolitan sees, were of secondary rank, and London
and Winchester were ordinary bishoprics.
§ 6. _The Ecclesiastical Divisions of Northern and Eastern Europe._
♦Ecclesiastical division in the converted lands.♦
In the other parts of Europe which formed part of the communion of
the Latin Church, the ecclesiastical divisions mark the steps by
which Christianity was spread either by conversion or conquest. They
continued the process of which the ecclesiastical organization of
Eastern Germany was the beginning. As a rule, they strictly follow
the political divisions of the age in which they were founded. ♦The
Scandinavian provinces.♦ As the Church in the Scandinavian kingdoms
became more settled, its bishoprics parted off from their allegiance
to Hamburg or Bremen, and each of the three kingdoms formed an
ecclesiastical province, whose boundaries exactly answered to the
earlier boundaries of the kingdoms. ♦Lund, 1151.♦ Denmark had its
metropolitan see at _Lund_, in that part of the Danish kingdom which
geographically forms part of the greater Scandinavian peninsula, and
which is now Swedish territory. Its boundary to the south was the
Eider, the old frontier of Denmark and the Empire. The suffragan
sees of this province, among which the specially royal bishopric of
_Roeskild_ is the most famous, naturally lie thicker on the ground
than they do in the wilder regions of the two more northern kingdoms.
But the Baltic conquests of Denmark also placed part of the isle of
Rügen in the province of Lund and the diocese of Roeskild, and also
gave the Danish metropolitan a far more distant suffragan in the Bishop
of _Revel_ on the Finnish gulf. ♦Upsala.♦ The metropolitan see of
Sweden was placed at _Upsala_, and the province was carried by Swedish
conquest to the east of the Gulf of Bothnia, where the single bishopric
of _Abo_ took in the whole of the Swedish territory in that region.
♦Trondhjem.♦ In the like sort, the Norwegian province of _Nidaros_ or
_Trondhjem_ stretched far over the Ocean to the distant Colonies and
dependencies of Norway in Iceland, Greenland, and Man.
♦Poland, &c.♦
The conversion of Poland and the conquest of Prussia and Livonia
brought other lands within the pale of the Latin Church and her
ecclesiastical organization. ♦Gnezna.♦ The original kingdom of Poland
formed the province of _Gnezna_, a province whose boundaries were for
some centuries very fluctuating, according as Poland or the Empire was
stronger in the Slavonic lands on the Baltic. Each change of temporal
dominion caused the ecclesiastical frontiers of Gnezna and Magdeburg
to advance or fall back. The Silesian bishopric of _Breslau_ always
kept its old relation to the Polish metropolis, except so far as it
was held to be placed under the immediate superiority of Rome. The
later union of Lithuania to the Polish kingdom added a _Lithuanian_
and a _Samogitian_ bishopric to the original Polish province. ♦Riga.
| Leopol.♦ The earlier Polish conquests from Russia formed a new
province, the Latin province of _Leopol_ or _Lemberg_, a province whose
southern boundaries advanced and fell back along with the boundary of
the kingdom of which it formed a part. The conquests of the Teutonic
knights in Prussia and Livonia formed the ecclesiastical province of
_Riga_, which was divided into two parts by the province of Gnezna in
its greater extent.
* * * * *
It will be seen that some of the ecclesiastical divisions last
mentioned belong to a later stage of European history than the point
which we have reached in our general narrative. But it seemed better
to continue the survey over the whole of the Latin Church in Europe,
as the later foundations are a mere carrying out of the same process
which began in the earlier. The ecclesiastical divisions represent the
political divisions of the time, whether those political divisions are
Roman provinces or independent Teutonic or Slavonic kingdoms. But the
ecclesiastical divisions, when once fixed, were more lasting than the
temporal divisions, and many disputes have arisen out of political
changes which transferred one part of a province or diocese from one
political allegiance to another. Since the splitting-up of the Western
Church, the old ecclesiastical organization has altogether vanished
from some countries, and has been greatly modified in others, in
Germany most of all.
It seems hardly needful for the understanding of European history
to carry our ecclesiastical survey beyond the limits of the Latin
Church. One of the Polish provinces, that of Leopol, has carried us
to the borderland of the Eastern and Western Churches, and, if we
pass southwards into the Magyar and South-Slavonic lands, we find
ourselves still more distinctly on an ecclesiastical march. ♦Hungary.
| Strigonium. | Kolocza.♦ The Kingdom of Hungary formed two Latin
provinces, those of _Strigonium_ or Gran, and of _Kolocza_; the latter
has a very fluctuating boundary to the south. ♦Dalmatia.♦ The Dalmatian
coast, the borderland of all powers and of all religions, formed three
Latin provinces. ♦Zara.♦ _Jadera_ or _Zara_, on her peninsula, was the
head of a small province chiefly made up of islands. ♦Spalato.♦ Another
metropolitan had his throne in the very mausoleum of Diocletian, and
the province of _Spalato_ stretched some way inland over the lands
which have so often changed masters. ♦Ragusa.♦ To the south, the see
of _Ragusa_, the furthest outpost of Latin Christendom properly so
called, had, besides its own coasts and islands, an indefinite frontier
inland. This marks the furthest extent to which it is needful to
trace our ecclesiastical map. It is the furthest point at which Latin
Christianity can be said to be in any sense at home. The ecclesiastical
organization of the crusading and Venetian conquests further to the
south and east have but little bearing on historical geography. But,
within the bounds of Latin Christendom, the ecclesiastical divisions
both of the provinces and dioceses within the older Empire and what
we may call the missionary provinces beyond it, are of the highest
importance, and they should always be kept in mind alongside of the
political geography.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE IMPERIAL KINGDOMS.
♦The Kingdom of the _East-Franks_ or of _Germany_.♦
The division of 887 parted off from the general mass of the Frankish
dominions a distinct _Kingdom of the East-Franks_, the acknowledged
head of the Frankish kingdoms, which, as being distinguished from its
fellows as the _Regnum Teutonicum_, may be best spoken of as a _Kingdom
of Germany_. ♦Merging of the Kingdom in the Empire.♦ But the lasting
acquisition of the Italian and Imperial crowns by the German kings, and
their later acquisition of the kingdom of Burgundy, gradually tended
to obscure the notion of a distinct German kingdom. The idea of the
Kingdom was merged in the idea of the Empire of which it formed a part.
Later events too tended in the same direction. ♦The Emperors lose Italy
and Burgundy, but keep Germany.♦ The Italian kingdom gradually fell
off from any practical allegiance to its nominal king the Emperor. So
did the greater part of the Burgundian kingdom. Meanwhile, though the
powers of the Emperors as German kings were constantly lessening, their
authority was never wholly thrown off till the present century. The
Emperors in short lost their kingdoms of Italy and Burgundy, and kept
their kingdom of Germany. In the fifteenth century the coronation of
the Emperor at Rome had become a mere ceremony, carrying with it no
real authority in Italy. In the sixteenth century the ceremony itself
went out of use. ♦Charles the Fourth crowned at Arles, 1365.♦ The
Burgundian coronation at Arles became irregular at a very early time,
and it is last heard of in the fourteenth century. ♦1792.♦ But the
election of the German kings at Frankfurt, their coronation, in earlier
times at Aachen, afterwards at Frankfurt, went on regularly till the
last years of the eighteenth century. ♦Endurance of the German Diet.♦
So, while the national assemblies of Italy and Burgundy can hardly be
said to have been regularly held at all, while they went altogether
out of use at an early time, the national assembly of Germany, in one
shape or another, never ceased as long as there was any one calling
himself Emperor or German King. The tendency in all three kingdoms was
to split up into separate principalities and commonwealths. ♦Comparison
of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy.♦ But in Germany the principalities and
commonwealths always kept up some show of connexion with one another,
some show of allegiance to their Imperial head. In Italy and Burgundy
they parted off altogether. Some became absolutely independent; were
incorporated with other kingdoms or became their distant dependencies;
some were even held by the Emperors themselves in some other character,
and not by virtue either of their Empire or of their local kingship.
♦The Empire identified with Germany.♦ Thus, as the Empire became more
and more nearly coextensive with the German Kingdom, the distinction
between the two was gradually forgotten. The small parts of the other
kingdoms which kept any trace of their Imperial allegiance came to be
looked on as parts of Germany. ♦The Empire becomes a Confederation.♦ In
short, the Western Empire became a German kingdom; or rather it became
a German Confederation with a royal head, a confederation which still
kept up the forms and titles of the Empire. ♦1530.♦ As no German king
received an Imperial coronation after Charles the Fifth, it might in
strictness be said that the Empire came to an end at his abdication.
♦1556.♦ And in truth from that date the Empire practically became a
purely German power. But, as the Imperial forms and titles still went
on, the Western Empire must be looked on as surviving, in the form of a
German kingdom or confederation, down to its final fall.
♦The German Kingdom represents the Empire.♦
The Kingdom of Germany then may be looked on as representing the
Western Empire, as being what was left of the Western Empire after
the other parts of it had fallen away. But the German kingdom itself
underwent, though in a smaller degree, the same fate as the other
two Imperial kingdoms. ♦Separation of parts of the Kingdom.♦ While
all Italy and all Burgundy, with some very trifling exceptions, fell
away from the Empire, the mass of Germany remained Imperial. Still
large parts of Germany were lost to the Empire no less than Italy and
Burgundy. A considerable territory on the western and south-western
frontier of Germany gradually fell away. Part of this territory has
grown into independent states; part has been incorporated with the
French kingdom. The Swiss Confederation has grown up on lands partly
German, partly Burgundian, partly Italian, but of which the oldest and
greatest part belonged to the German kingdom. The Confederation of the
United Provinces, represented by the modern kingdom of the Netherlands,
lay wholly[12] within the old German kingdom: so did by far the greater
part of the modern kingdom of Belgium. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In our own
day the same tendency has been shewn in south-eastern as well as
south-western Germany; several members of the ancient kingdom have
fallen away to form part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. ♦Extension
of Germany to the north-east.♦ But on the northern and north-eastern
frontier the tendency to extension, with some fluctuations, has gone
on from the beginning of the kingdom to our own day. ♦Geographical
contrast of the earlier and later Empire.♦ This tendency to lose
territory to the west and south, and to gain territory to the east and
north, had the effect of gradually cutting off the Western Empire,
as represented by the German kingdom, from any close geographical
connexion with the earlier Empire of which it was the historical
continuation. The Holy Roman Empire, at the time of its final fall,
contained but little territory which had formed part of the Empire of
Trajan. It contained nothing which had formed part of the Empire of
Justinian, save some small scraps of territory in the north-eastern
corner of the old Italian kingdom.
§ 1. _The Kingdom of Germany._
♦Change in the geography and nomenclature of Germany.♦
In tracing out, for our present purpose, the geographical revolutions
of Germany, it will be enough to look at them, as far as may be, mainly
in their European aspect. Owing to the gradual way in which the various
members of the Empire grew into practical sovereignty—owing to the
constant division of principalities among many members of the same
family—no country has undergone so many internal geographical changes
as Germany has. In few countries also has the nomenclature shifted in
a more singular way. ♦Ancient and modern Saxony and Bavaria.♦ To take
two obvious examples, the modern kingdom of _Saxony_ has nothing but
its name in common with the Saxony which was brought under the Frankish
dominion by Charles the Great. The modern kingdom of _Bavaria_ has a
considerable territory in common with the ancient Bavaria; but it has
gained so much at one end and lost so much at the other that the two
cannot be said to be in any practical sense the same country. ♦Uses of
the name Austria.♦ The name of _Austria_ has shifted from the eastern
part of the old _Francia_ to the German mark against the Magyar, and
it has lately wandered altogether beyond the modern German frontier.
♦Burgundy.♦ The name of _Burgundy_ has borne endless meanings, both
within the Empire and beyond it. ♦Prussia.♦ Lastly, the ruling state
of modern Germany, a state stretching across the whole land from
east to west, strangely bears the name of the conquered and extinct
_Prussian_ race. Many of these changes affect the history of Europe
as well as the history of Germany; but many of the endless changes
among the smaller members of the Empire are matters of purely local
interest, which belong to the historical geography of Germany only, and
which claim no place in the historical geography of Europe. I shall
endeavour therefore in the present section, first to trace carefully
the shiftings of the German frontier as regards other powers, and then
to bring out such, and such only, of the internal changes as have a
bearing on the general history of Europe.
* * * * *
♦Extent of the Kingdom.♦
The extent of the German kingdom as it stood after the division of
887 has been roughly traced already. ♦Boundaries under the Ottos,
936-1002.♦ It will now be well to go over its frontiers somewhat more
minutely, as they stood at the time of final separation between the
Empire and the West-Frankish kingdom, the time of final union between
the Empire and the East-Frankish kingdom. This marks the great age of
the Saxon Ottos. ♦Boundary towards the West.♦ The frontier towards
the Western kingdom was now fairly ascertained, and it was subject
to dispute only at a few points. ♦Lotharingia.♦ It is hardly needful
to insist again on the fact that all Lotharingia, in the sense of
those days, taking in all the southern Netherlands except the French
fief of Flanders, was now Imperial. ♦Encroachments of France.♦ It
is along this line that the German border has in later times most
largely fallen back. The advance of France has touched Burgundy more
than Germany; but it has, first swallowed up, and afterwards partly
restored, a considerable part of the German kingdom. ♦The Netherlands.♦
The Netherlands had been practically so cut off from Germany before the
annexations of France in that quarter began, that they will be better
spoken of in another section. ♦Lorraine and Elsass.♦ The other points
at which the frontier has fluctuated on a great scale have been the
border land of _Lorraine_—as distinguished from the Lower _Lotharingia_
which has more to do with the history of the Netherlands—and the
Swabian land of _Elsass_. ♦Fluctuations of Bar.♦ The Duchy of _Bar_,
the borderland of the borderland, fluctuated more than once. ♦1473.♦
After its union with the Duchy of Lorraine, it followed the fortunes
of that state. ♦The Three Bishoprics, 1552.♦ In the next century came
the annexation of the three Lotharingian bishoprics of _Metz_, _Toul_,
and _Verdun_, which gave France three outlying possessions within the
geographical borders of the Lotharingian duchy. ♦Loss of Austrian
Elsass, 1648.♦ In the next century, as the result of the Thirty Years’
War, France obtained by the Peace of Westfalia the formal cession of
these conquests, and also the great advance of her frontier by the
dismemberment of _Elsass_. The cession now made did not take in the
whole of Elsass, but only the possessions and rights of the House of
Austria in that country. This cession still left both Strassburg and
various smaller towns and districts to the Empire; but it naturally
opened the way to further French advances in a land where the frontier
was so complicated and where difficulties were so easily raised as to
treaty-rights. ♦Gradual annexation of Elsass, 1679-1789.♦ A series of
annexations, _réunions_ as they were called, gradually united nearly
all Elsass to France. ♦Seizure of Strassburg, 1681.♦ _Strassburg_,
as all the world knows, was seized by Lewis the Fourteenth in time
of peace. ♦Seizure of Lorraine, 1678-1697.♦ During the wars with the
same prince, the duchy of Lorraine was seized and restored. ♦Its final
annexation. 1766.♦ In the next century it was separated from the
Empire to become the life-possession of the Polish king Stanislaus,
and on his death it was finally added to France just before a far
greater series of French annexations began. ♦Loss of the left bank
of the Rhine, 1801.♦ The wars of the French Revolution, confirmed by
the Peace of _Luneville_, tore away from Germany and the Empire all
that lay on the left bank of the Rhine. In other words, the Western
_Francia_, the duchy of the lords of Paris, advanced itself to the
utmost limits of the Gaul of Cæsar. This was the last annexation of
France at the expense of the old German kingdom. ♦Dissolution of the
Kingdom and Empire, 1806.♦ It was indeed the main cause of the formal
dissolution of the kingdom which happened a few years later. The utter
transformation of Germany within and without which now followed must be
spoken of at a later stage.
♦Frontier of Germany and Burgundy.♦
The frontier of Germany and Burgundy, while they still remained
distinct kingdoms, fluctuated a good deal, especially in the lands
which now form Switzerland. ♦Union of Burgundy with the Empire, 1033.♦
But this frontier ceased to be of any practical importance when the
Burgundian kingdom was united with the Empire. The later history of
Burgundy, consisting of the gradual incorporation by France of the
greater part of the kingdom, and the growth of the remnant into the
western cantons of the Swiss Confederation, will be told elsewhere.
♦Frontier of Germany and Italy.♦
Towards Italy again the frontier was sometimes doubtful. _Chiavenna_,
for instance, sometimes appears in the tenth and eleventh centuries as
German; so do the greater districts of _Trent_, _Aquileia_, _Istria_,
and even _Verona_. ♦The Marchland.♦ All these formed a marchland, part
of which in the end became definitely attached to Germany and part to
Italy. ♦Union of the Crowns, 961-1530. | 961-1250.♦ But here again,
as long as the German and Italian crowns were united, and as long
as their common king kept any real authority in either kingdom, the
frontier was of no great practical importance. So in later times, both
before and after the dissolution of the German Kingdom, the question
has practically been a question between Italy and the House of Austria
rather than between Italy and Germany as such. These changes also will
better come in another section.
* * * * *
♦Eastern and Northern frontiers.♦
The case is quite different with regard to the eastern and northern
frontiers, on which the really greatest changes took place, and where
Germany, as Germany, made its greatest advances. ♦Advance of the
Empire.♦ Along this line the Roman Empire and the German Kingdom meant
the same thing. On this side the frontier had to be marked, so far as
it could be marked, against nations which had had nothing to do with
the elder Empire. Here then for many ages the Roman Terminus advanced
and fell back according to the accidents of a long warfare.
The whole frontier of the kingdom towards its northern and eastern
neighbours was defended by a series of _marks_ or border territories
whose rulers were clothed with special powers for the defence and
extension of the frontier.[13] They had to guard the realm against the
Dane in the north, and against the Slave during the whole remaining
length of the eastern frontier, except where, in the last years of the
ninth century, the Magyar thrust himself in between the northern and
southern Slaves. ♦Hungarian frontier. | Mark of Austria.♦ Here the
frontier, as against Hungary and Croatia, was defended by the marks of
_Krain_ or _Carniola_, _Kärnthen_ or _Carinthia_, _Austrian_ mark to
the north of them. ♦Little change on this frontier.♦ This frontier has
changed least of all. It may, without any great breach of accuracy, be
said to have remained the same from the days of the Saxon Emperors till
now. The part where it was at all fluctuating was along the Austrian
mark, rather than along the two marks to the south of it. ♦Occasional
homage of Hungary to the Emperors.♦ The Emperors claimed, and sometimes
enforced, a feudal superiority over the Hungarian kings. But this kind
of precarious submission does not affect geography. Hungary always
remained a separate kingdom; the Imperial supremacy was something
purely external, and it was always thrown off on the first opportunity.
♦Frontier towards Denmark.♦
The same may be said of _Denmark_. For a short time a German mark was
formed north of the Eider. ♦The Danish Mark, 934-1027. | Boundary of
the Eider, 1027-1806.♦ But, when the Danish kingdom had grown into
the Northern Empire of Cnut, the German frontier fell back here also,
and the _Eider_ remained the boundary of the Empire till its fall.
♦Occasional homage of the Danish Kings.♦ As with Hungary, so with
Denmark; more than one Danish king became the man of Cæsar; but here
again the precarious acknowledgement of Imperial supremacy had no
effect on geography.
♦Slavonic frontier.♦
It is in the intermediate lands, along the vast frontier where
the Empire marched on the northern _Slavonic_ lands, that the real
historical geography of Germany lies for some ages. ♦Fluctuation of
territory.♦ Here the boundary was ever fluctuating. ♦Extent of the
Slaves.♦ At the time of the division of 887, the Slaves held all east
of the Elbe and a good deal to the west. How far they had during the
Wandering of the Nations stepped into the place of earlier Teutonic
inhabitants is a question which belongs to another field of inquiry.
We must here start from the geographical fact that, at the time when
the modern states of Europe began to form themselves, the Slaves were
actually in possession of the great North-Eastern region of modern
Germany. Their special mention will come in their special place; we
must here mark that modern Germany has largely formed itself by the
gradual conquest and colonization of lands which at the end of the
ninth century were Slavonic. The German kingdom spread itself far to
the North-East, and German settlements and German influences spread
themselves far beyond the formal bounds of the German kingdom. Three
special instruments worked together in bringing about this end. The
Saxon Dukes came first. In after times came the great league of German
cities, the famous _Hansa_ which, like some other bodies originally
commercial, became a political power, and which spread German
influences over the whole of the shores of the Baltic. Along with
them, from the thirteenth century onwards, worked the great military
order of the Teutonic knights. Out of their conquests came the first
beginnings of the Prussian state, and the extension of German rule
and the German speech over much which in modern geography has become
Russian. In a history of the German nation all these causes would
have to be dealt with together as joint instruments towards the same
end. In a purely geographical view the case is different. Some of
these influences concern the formation of the actual German kingdom;
others have geographically more to do with the group of powers more
to the north-east, the Slavonic states of Poland and Russia, and
their Lithuanian and Finnish neighbours. The growth and fall of the
military orders will therefore most naturally come in another section.
We have here to trace out those changes only which helped to give the
German kingdom the definite geographical extent which it held for some
centuries before its final fall.
♦The Saxon Mark.♦
Beginning at the north, in the lands where German, Slave, and Dane came
into close contact, in _Saxony beyond the Elbe_, the modern _Holstein_,
the Slaves held the western coast, and the narrow _Saxon mark_ fenced
off the German land. ♦Mark of the Billungs, 960-1106.♦ The Saxon dukes
of the house of Billung formed a German mark, which took in the lands
reaching from the Elbe to the strait which divides the isle of Rügen
from the mainland. But this possession was altogether precarious.
♦Its fluctuations.♦ It again became a Slavonic kingdom; then it was a
possession of Denmark; it cannot be looked on as definitely becoming
part of the German realm till the thirteenth century. ♦Slavonic princes
continue in Mecklenburg.♦ The chief state in these lands which has
lasted till later times is the duchy of _Mecklenburg_, the rulers of
which, in its two modern divisions, are the only modern princes who
directly represent an old Slavonic royal house. Meanwhile a way was
opened for a vast extension of German influence through the whole
North, by the growth of the city of _Lübeck_. ♦Foundation of Lübeck,
1140-1158.♦ Twice founded, the second time by Henry the Lion Duke of
Saxony, it gradually became the leading member of the great merchant
League. ♦The Hanse Towns.♦ To the south of these lands come those
Slavonic lands which have grown into the modern kingdom of Saxony and
the central parts of the modern kingdom of Prussia. ♦Marchlands.♦
These were specially marchlands, a name which some of them have kept
down to our own day. ♦Brandenburg. | Lausitz. | Meissen.♦ The mark
of _Brandenburg_ in its various divisions, the mark of _Lausitz_ or
_Lusatia_, where a Slavonic remnant still lingers, and the mark of
_Meissen_, long preserved the memory of the times when these lands,
which afterwards came to play so great a part in the internal history
of Germany, were still outlying and precarious possessions of the
German realm.
To the south-east lay the _Bohemian_ lands, whose history has been
somewhat different. ♦Bohemia a fief, 928.♦ The duchy, afterwards
kingdom, of _Bohemia_, became, early in the tenth century, a fief of
the German kingdom. ♦Becomes a kingdom, 1198. | 1003.♦ From that time
ever afterwards, save during one moment of passing Polish annexation,
it remained one of its principal members, ruled, as long as the
Empire lasted, by princes holding electoral rank. The boundaries of
the kingdom itself have hardly varied at all. ♦Moravia. | 1019.♦ The
dependent marchland of _Moravia_ to the east, the remnant of the great
Moravian kingdom whose history will come more fittingly in another
chapter, fluctuated for a long while between Hungarian, Polish, and
Bohemian supremacy. But from the early part of the eleventh century it
remained under Bohemian rule, and therefore under Imperial superiority.
♦More distant Slavonic states.♦ To the east of this nearer zone of
Slavonic dependencies, lay another range of Slavonic states, some
of which were gradually incorporated with the German kingdom, while
others remained distinct down to modern times. ♦Pomerania.♦ _Pomerania_
on the Baltic coast is a name which has often changed both its
geographical extent and its political allegiance. The eastern part of
the land now so called lay open, as will be hereafter seen, to the
occupation of the Pole, and its western part to that of the Dane.
♦Native princes go on.♦ But in the end it took its place on the map in
the form of two duchies, ruled, like Mecklenburg, by native princes
under Imperial supremacy. ♦Polish frontier.♦ South of Pomerania, the
German march bordered on the growing power of _Poland_, and between
Poland and Hungary lay the northern _Croatia_ or _Chrobatia_. The
German supremacy seems sometimes to have been extended as far as
the Wartha, and, in the Chrobatian land, even beyond the Vistula.
♦Occasional homage of the Polish kings.♦ But this occupation was quite
momentary; Poland grew up, like Hungary, as a kingdom, some of whose
dukes and kings admitted the Imperial supremacy, but which gradually
became wholly independent. ♦Silesia Polish, 999.♦ The border province
of _Silesia_, after some fluctuations between Bohemia and Poland,
became definitely Polish at the end of the tenth century. ♦Bohemian,
1289-1327.♦ Afterwards it was divided into several principalities,
whose dukes passed under Bohemian vassalage, and so became members
of the Empire. Thus in the course of some ages, a boundary was drawn
between Germany and Poland which lasted down to modern times.
* * * * *
♦Extension of the Empire to the east.♦
The result of this survey is to show how great, and at the same time
how gradual, was the extension of the German power eastward. A Roman
Empire with a long Baltic coast was something that had never been
dreamed of in earlier days. If the extension of the German name was
but the recovery of long lost Teutonic lands, the extension to them
of the Imperial name which had become identified with Germany was at
least wholly new. ♦The Slavonic lands Germanized.♦ In all the lands now
annexed, save in a few exceptional districts, German annexation meant
German colonization, and the assimilation of the surviving inhabitants
to the speech and manners of Germany. Colonists were brought, specially
from the Frisian lands, by whose means the Low-Dutch tongue was spread
along the whole southern coast of the Baltic. German cities were
founded. The marchlands grew into powerful German states. At last one
of these marchlands, united with a German conquest still further cut
off from the heart of the old German realm, has grown into a state
which in our own days has become the Imperial power of Germany.
* * * * *
♦Internal geography of Germany.♦
The internal geography of the German kingdom is the greatest difficulty
of such a work as the present. To trace the boundaries of the kingdom
as against other kingdoms is comparatively easy; but to trace out the
endless shiftings, the unions and the divisions, of the countless
small principalities and commonwealths which arose within the kingdom,
would be a hopeless attempt. ♦Growth of the principalities.♦ Still
the growth of the dukes, counts, and other princes of Germany into
independent sovereigns is the great feature of German history, as the
consequent wiping out of old divisions, and shifting to and fro of old
names, is the special feature of German historical geography. ♦Changes
in nomenclature.♦ The dying out of the old names has a historical
interest, and the growth of the new powers which have supplanted them
has both an historical and a political interest. ♦Origin of Prussia and
Austria.♦ It is specially important to mark how the two powers which
have stood at the head of Germany in modern times in no way represent
any of the old divisions of the German name. They have grown out of
the outlying _marks_ planted against the Slave and the Magyar. The
mark of _Brandenburg_, the mark against the Slave, has grown into the
kingdom of _Prussia_, the Imperial state of Germany in its latest form.
The _Eastern_ mark, the mark against the Magyar, has grown into the
archduchy which gave Germany so many kings, into the so-called Austrian
‘empire,’ into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of our own day. ♦Analogies
between Brandenburg and other marchlands.♦ The growth of Brandenburg
or Prussia again affords an instructive comparison with the growth of
Wessex in England, of France in Gaul, and of Castile in Spain. In all
these cases alike, it has been a marchland which has come to the front
and has become the head of the united nation.
♦The great Duchies under the Saxon and Frankish Kings, 919-1125.♦
Starting from the division of 887, we shall find several important
landmarks in the history of the German kingdom which may help us in
this most difficult part of our work. Under the Saxon and Frankish
kings we see the great duchies still forming the main divisions,
while the kingdom is enlarged by Slavonic conquests to the east and
by the definite adhesion of Lotharingia to the west. ♦Decline of the
Duchies under the Swabian Kings, 1137-1254.♦ Under the Swabian kings
we see the break-up of the great duchies. In the partition of Saxony
the process which was everywhere silently and gradually at work
was formally carried out in the greatest case of all by Imperial,
and national authority. ♦End of the _Gauverfassung_. | Growth of
territorial Principalities.♦ The _Gauverfassung_, the immemorial
system of Teutonic communities, now finally changes into a system of
territorial principalities, broken only by the many free cities and
the few free districts which owned no lord but the King. ♦Growth
of the march powers. 1254-1512.♦ During this period too we see the
beginnings of some of the powers which became chief at a later day, the
powers of the eastern marchland, _Brandenburg_, _Austria_, _Saxony_
in the later sense. The time from the so-called _Interregnum_ to the
legislation under Maximilian is marked by the further growth of these
powers. ♦Growth of the House of Austria.♦ It is further marked by the
beginning of that connexion of the Austrian duchy, and of the Imperial
crown itself, with lands beyond the bounds of the Kingdom and the
Empire which led in the end to the special and anomalous position of
the House of Austria as an European power. ♦Separation of Switzerland,
1495-1648. | Of the Netherlands, 1430-1648.♦ During the same period
comes the practical separation of _Switzerland_ and the _Netherlands_
from the German kingdom. In short it was during this age that Germany
in its later aspect was formed. ♦Legislation under Maximilian,
1495-1512.♦ The legislation of Maximilian’s reign, the attempts then
made to bring the kingdom to a greater degree of unity, have left their
mark on geography in the division of Germany into _circles_. ♦Division
into circles, 1500-1512.♦ This division, though it was not perfectly
complete, though it did not extend to every corner of the kingdom, was
strictly an administrative division of the kingdom itself as such; but
the mapping out of the circles, the difference of which in point of
size is remarkable, was itself affected by the geographical extent of
the dominions of the princes who held lands within them. ♦Thirty Years’
War, 1618-1648.♦ The seventeenth century is marked by the results of
the Thirty Years’ War and of other changes. ♦Powers holding lands
within and without Germany.♦ Its most important geographical result
was to carry on the process which had begun with the Austrian House,
the formation of powers holding lands both within and without the
Empire. ♦Austria. | Sweden. | Union of Brandenburg and Prussia.♦ Thus,
beside the union of the Hungarian kingdom with the Austrian archduchy,
the King of Sweden now held lands as a prince of the Empire, and
the same result was brought about in another way by the union of the
Electorate of Brandenburg with the Duchy of Prussia. ♦Rivalry of
Prussia and Austria.♦ This, and other accessions of territory, now
made Brandenburg as distinctly the first power of northern Germany as
Austria was of southern Germany, and in the eighteenth century the
rivalry of these two powers becomes the chief centre, not only of
German but of European politics. ♦Hannover and Great Britain, 1715.♦
The union of the Electorate of Hannover under the same sovereign with
the kingdom of Great Britain further increased the number of princes
ruling both within Germany and without it. ♦Dissolution of the Kingdom,
1806.♦ Lastly, the wars of the latter years of the eighteenth and the
beginning of the nineteenth century led to the dissolution alike of
the German kingdom and of the Roman Empire. ♦The German Confederation,
1815-1866.♦ Then, after a time of confusion and foreign occupation,
comes the formation of a Confederation with boundaries nearly the same
as the later boundaries of the kingdom. But the Confederation now
appears as something quite subordinate to its two leading members.
♦Austria and Prussia greater than the Confederation.♦ Germany, as such,
no longer counts as a great European power, but Prussia and Austria,
the two chief holders at once of German and of non-German lands, stand
forth among the chief bearers of European rank. ♦The new Confederation
and Empire, 1866-1870.♦ Lastly, the changes of our own day have given
us an Imperial Germany with geographical boundaries altogether new,
a Germany from which the south-eastern German lands are cut off,
while the Polish and other non-German possessions of Prussia to the
north-east have become an integral part of the new Empire. The task of
the geographer is thereby greatly simplified. Down to the last changes,
one of his greatest difficulties is to make his map show with any
clearness what was the extent of the German Kingdom or Confederation,
and at the same time what was the extent of the dominions of those
princes who held lands both in Germany and out of it. By the last
arrangements this difficulty at least is altogether taken away.
* * * * *
♦Germany under the Saxon and Frankish Empire.♦
If we look at the map of Germany under the Saxon and Frankish Kings,
we see that the old names, marking the great divisions of the German
people, still keep their predominance. ♦The great Duchies.♦ The kingdom
is still made up of the four great duchies, the Eastern _Francia_,
_Saxony_, _Alemannia_, and _Bavaria_, together with the great
border-land of _Lotharingia_. These are still the great duchies, to
which all smaller divisions are subordinate. ♦Eastern Francia cut off
from extension.♦ Among these, the kernel of the kingdom, the Eastern
_Francia_, is the only one whose boundaries had little or no chance of
being extended or lessened at the cost of foreign powers. It had the
smallest possible frontier towards the Slave. ♦Frontier position of
Saxony, Bavaria, and Alemannia.♦ On the other hand, _Saxony_ has an
ever fluctuating boundary against the Slave and the Dane; _Bavaria_
marches upon the Slave, the Magyar, and the Kingdom of Italy, while
_Alemannia_ has a shifting frontier towards both Burgundy and Italy.
♦Exposed position of Lotharingia and Burgundy.♦ Lotharingia, and
Burgundy after its annexation, are the lands which lie exposed to
aggression from the West. ♦Vanishing of Francia.♦ It is perhaps for
this very reason that, of the four duchies which preserve the names
of the four great divisions of the German nation, the Eastern Francia
is the one which has most utterly vanished from the modern map and
from modern memory. Another cause may have strengthened its tendency
to vanish. The policy of the kings forbade that the Frankish duchy
should become the abiding heritage of any princely family. ♦Its
ecclesiastical Dukes.♦ The ducal title of the Eastern Francia was at
two periods of its history borne by ecclesiastical princes in the
persons of the Bishops of _Würzburg_; but it never gave its name, like
Saxony and Bavaria, to any ruling house. ♦Analogy with Wessex.♦ The
English student will notice the analogy by which, among all the ancient
English kingdoms, Wessex, the cradle of the English monarchy, is the
one whose name has most utterly vanished from modern memory.
The only way to grasp the endless shiftings and divisions of the German
principalities, so as to give anything like a clear general view,
will be to take the great duchies, and to point out in a general way
the steps by which they split asunder, and the chief states of any
historical importance which rose out of their divisions. ♦Growth of
new powers in the twelfth century.♦ Most of these new powers begin to
be of importance in the twelfth century, a time which is specially
marked as the æra when those two states which have had most to do
with the making or unmaking of modern Germany begin to find their
place in history. ♦Brandenburg and Austria.♦ It is then that the two
great marchlands of Brandenburg and Austria begin to take their place
among the leading powers of the German kingdom. ♦The Circles.♦ And,
in making this survey, it will be well to bear in mind the much later
division into circles. The circles, an attempt to create administrative
divisions of the kingdom as such, were, in a faint way, a return to the
ancient duchies, the names of which were to some extent retained. Thus
we have the two _Saxon_ circles, _Upper_ and _Lower_, and the three of
_Franconia_, _Swabia_, and _Bavaria_. All of these keep up the names
of ancient duchies, and most of them keep up a stronger or fainter
geographical connexion with the ancient lands whose names they bore.
The other circles, the two _Rhenish_ circles, _Upper_ and _Lower_, and
those of _Westfalia_, _Austria_, and _Burgundy_—the last name being
used in a sense altogether new—arose out of changes which took place
between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, some of which we shall
have to notice.
* * * * *
♦Saxony; its three divisions, Westfalia, Angria, Eastfalia.♦
First then, the great duchy of _Saxony_ consisted of three main
divisions, _Westfalia_, _Engern_ or _Angria_, and _Eastfalia_.
_Thuringia_ to the south-east, and the _Frisian_ lands to the
north-west, may be looked on as in some sort appendages to the Saxon
duchy. ♦Growth of Saxony at the expense of the Slaves.♦ The duchy
was also capable of any amount of extension towards the east, and
the lands gradually won from the Wends on this side were all looked
on as additions made to the Saxon territory. ♦Break-up of the Duchy,
1182-1191.♦ But the great Saxon duchy was broken up at the fall of
Henry the Lion. ♦Duchy of Westfalia.♦ The archiepiscopal Electors of
_Köln_ received the title of Dukes of _Westfalia_ and _Engern_. But in
the greater part of those districts the grant remained merely nominal,
though the ducal title, with a small actual Westfalian duchy, remained
to the electorate till the end. From these lands the Saxon name may
be looked on as having altogether passed away. ♦New use of the name
_Saxony_.♦ The name of _Saxony_, as a geographical expression, clave
to the Eastfalian remnant of the old duchy, and to Thuringia and the
Slavonic conquests to the east. ♦The Saxon Circles.♦ In the later
division of Germany these lands formed the two circles of _Upper_ and
_Lower Saxony_; and it was within their limits that the various states
arose which have kept on the Saxon name to our own time.
From the descendants of Henry the Lion himself, and from the allodial
lands which they kept, the Saxon name passed away, except so far as
they became part of the Lower-Saxon circle. ♦Duchy of Brunswick.♦
They held their place as princes of the Empire, no longer as Dukes
of Saxony, but as Dukes of _Brunswick_, a house which gave Rome one
Emperor and England a dynasty of kings. ♦Its division, 1203. | Lüneburg
and Wolfenbüttel.♦ After some of the usual divisions, two Brunswick
principalities finally took their place on the map, those of _Lüneburg_
and _Wolfenbüttel_, the latter having the town of Brunswick for its
capital. The Lüneburg duchy grew. ♦Lüneburg acquires the bishoprics
of Bremen and Verden, 1715-1719.♦ Late in the seventeenth century it
was raised to the electoral rank, and early in the next century it was
finally enlarged by the acquisition of the bishoprics of _Bremen_ and
_Verden_. ♦Electorate of Hannover or Brunswick Lüneburg, 1692.♦ Thus
was formed the Electorate, and afterwards Kingdom, of _Hannover_, while
the simple ducal title remained with the Brunswick princes of the other
line.
♦The new Saxony.♦
The Saxon name itself withdrew in the end from the old Saxony to the
lands conquered from the Slave. ♦Bernhard duke of Saxony, 1180-1212.♦
On the fall of Henry the Lion, the duchy of Saxony, cut short by
the grant to the archbishops of Köln, was granted to Bernhard of
Ballensted, the founder of the Ascanian House. ♦Sachsen-Lauenburg.♦ Of
the older Saxon land his house kept only for a while the small district
north of the Elbe which kept the name of _Sachsen-Lauenburg_, and which
in the end became part of the Hannover electorate. ♦1423.♦ But it was
in Thuringia and the conquered Slavonic lands to the east of Thuringia
that a new Saxony arose, which kept on somewhat of the European
position of the Saxon name down to modern times. This new Saxony, with
Wittenberg for its capital, grew, through the addition of _Thuringia_
and _Meissen_, into the Saxon Electorate which played so great a
part during the three last centuries of the existence of the German
kingdom. ♦Divisions and unions.♦ But in Saxony too the usual divisions
took place. Lauenburg parted off; so did the smaller duchies which
still keep the Saxon name. ♦1547.♦ The ducal and electoral dignities
were divided, till the two, united under the famous Maurice, formed
the Saxon electorate as it stood at the dissolution of the kingdom.
It was in short a new state, one which had succeeded to the name, but
which could in no other way be thought to represent, the Saxony whose
conquest cost so many campaigns to Charles the Great.
* * * * *
♦The Mark of Brandenburg.♦
Another power which arose in the marchland of Saxon and Slave, to the
north of Saxony in the later sense, was the land known specially as
the _Mark_, the groundwork of the power which has in our own day risen
to the head of Germany. The _North Mark_ of Saxony became the _Mark of
Brandenburg_. ♦Reign of Albert the Bear, 1134-1170.♦ In the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, under Albert the Bear and his house, the
Mark greatly extended itself at the expense of the Slaves. ♦Union with
Bohemia, 1373-1415. | House of Hohenzollern, 1415.♦ United for a time
with the kingdom of Bohemia, it passed into the house of the Burgraves
of _Nürnberg_, that House of Hohenzollern which has grown step by
step till it has reached Imperial rank in our own day. The power thus
formed presently acquired a special character by the acquisition of
what may be called a German land out of Germany, a land which gave them
in the end a higher title, and which by its geographical position led
irresistibly to a further increase of territory. ♦Union of Brandenburg
and Prussia, 1611-1618.♦ Early in the seventeenth century the Electors
of Brandenburg acquired by inheritance the _Duchy of Prussia_, that is
merely Eastern Prussia, a fief, not of the Empire but of the crown of
Poland, and which lay geographically apart from their strictly German
dominions. ♦Prussia independent of Poland, 1656; becomes kingdom,
1701.♦ The common sovereign of Brandenburg and Prussia was thus the
man of two lords; but the Great Elector Frederick William became a
wholly independent sovereign in his duchy, and his son Frederick took
on himself the kingly title for the land which was thus freed from all
homage. Both before and after the union with Prussia, the Electors
of Brandenburg continued largely to increase their German dominions.
♦1523-1623.♦ A temporary possession of the principality of _Jägerndorf_
in Silesia, unimportant in itself, led to great events in later times.
♦Westfalian possessions of Brandenburg, 1614-1666. | 1702-1744.♦ The
acquisition, at various times in the seventeenth century, of _Cleve_
and other outlying Westfalian lands, which were further increased
in the next century, led in the same way to the modern dominion of
Prussia in western Germany. ♦Acquisitions in Pomerania, 1638-1648.
| 1713-1719.♦ But the most solid acquisition of Brandenburg in this
age was that of _Eastern Pomerania_, to which the town of Stettin,
with a further increase of territory, was added after the wars of
Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also
increased the dominions both of Brandenburg and Saxony at the expense
of the neighbouring ecclesiastical princes. ♦Later acquisitions of
Prussia.♦ The later acquisitions of the House of Hohenzollern, after
the Electors of Brandenburg had taken the kingly title from their
Prussian duchy, concern Prussia as an European power at least as much
as they concern Brandenburg as a German power. ♦German character of
the Prussian Monarchy.♦ Yet their proper place comes in the history of
Germany. Unlike the other princes who held lands within and without the
German kingdom, the Kings of Prussia and Electors of Brandenburg have
remained essentially German princes. Their acquisitions of territory
out of Germany have all been in fact enlargements, if not of the soil
of Germany, at least of the sphere of German influence. And, at last,
in marked contrast to the fate of the rival House of Austria, the whole
Prussian dominions have been incorporated with the new German Empire,
and form the immediate dominion of its Imperial head. ♦Spread of the
name of _Prussia_.♦ The outward sign of this change, the outward sign
of the special position of Brandenburg, as compared with Holstein or
Austria, is the strange spread of the name of _Prussia_ over the German
dominions of the King of Prussia. No such spread has taken place with
the name of Denmark or of Hungary.
♦Conquest of Silesia, 1741.♦
Within Germany the greatest enlargement of the dominion of Prussia—as
we may now begin to call it instead of Brandenburg—was the acquisition
of by far the greater part of _Schlesien_ or _Silesia_, hitherto part
of the Bohemian lands, and then held by the House of Austria. This,
it should be noted, was an acquisition which could hardly fail to
lead to further acquisitions. ♦Geographical character of the Prussian
dominions.♦ The geographical characteristic of the Prussian dominions
was the way in which they lay in detached pieces, and the enormous
extent of frontier as compared with the area of the country. The
kingdom itself lay detached, hemmed in and intersected by the territory
of Poland. The electorate, with the Pomeranian territory, formed a
somewhat more compact mass; but even this had a very large frontier
compared with its area. The Westfalian possessions, the district of
_Cottbus_, and other outlying dominions, lay quite apart. The addition
of Silesia increased this characteristic yet further. ♦Position of
Silesia.♦ The newly won duchy, barely joining the electorate, ran out
as a kind of peninsula between Saxony, Bohemia, and Poland. Silesia,
first as a Polish and then as a Bohemian fief, had formed part of a
fairly compact geographical mass; as part of the same dominion with
Prussia and Brandenburg, it was an all but isolated land with an
enormous frontier. ♦Acquisitions from Poland, 1772-1795.♦ The details
of the Polish acquisitions of Prussia will be best given in our survey
of Poland. ♦Their geographical character.♦ But it should be noted that
each of the portions of territory which were added to Prussia by the
several partitions has a geographical character of its own. ♦1772.♦
The addition of _West-Prussia_—that is the geographical union of the
kingdom and the electorate—was something which could not fail in the
nature of things to come sooner or later. ♦1793.♦ The second addition
of _South-Prussia_ might seem geographically needed in order to leave
Silesia no longer peninsular. ♦1795.♦ The last, and most short-lived
addition of _New-East-Prussia_ had no such geographical necessity as
the other two. Still it helped to give greater compactness to the
kingdom, and to lessen its frontier in comparison with its area.
Another acquisition of the House of Hohenzollern during the eighteenth
century, though temporary, deserves a passing notice. ♦East-Friesland,
1744.♦ Among its Westfalian annexations was _East-Friesland_. The King
of Prussia thus became, during the last half of the eighteenth century,
an oceanic potentate, a character which he presently lost, and which,
save for a moment in the days of confusion, he obtained again only in
our own day.
* * * * *
♦Parts of Saxony held by foreign kings.♦
A large part of Saxony, both in the older and in the later sense, thus
came to form part of a dominion containing both German and non-German
lands, but in which the German character was in every way predominant.
Other parts of Saxony in the same extended sense also came to form part
of the dominions of princes who ruled both in and out of Germany, but
in whom the non-German character was yet more predominant. ♦Holstein:♦
The old _Saxony beyond the Elbe_, the modern _Holstein_, passed into
the hands of the Danish Kings. ♦its relation to Sleswick.♦ Its shifting
relations towards Denmark and Germany and towards the neighbouring land
of _Sleswick_, as having become matter of international dispute between
Denmark and Germany, will be best spoken of when we come to deal with
Denmark. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also made the Swedish
kings for a while considerable potentates in northern Germany. ♦German
territories of Sweden, 1648-1815.♦ The Peace of Westfalia confirmed
to them _Western Pomerania_ and the town of _Wismar_ on the Baltic,
and the bishoprics of _Bremen_ and _Verden_ which gave them an oceanic
coast. ♦1720.♦ But these last lands were, as we have seen afterwards,
ceded to Hannover, and the Pomeranian possessions of Sweden were also
cut short by cession to Brandenburg. But the possession of Wismar and
a part of Pomerania still gave the Swedish kings a position as German
princes down to the dissolution of the Empire.
These are the chief powers which rose to historical importance within
the bounds of Saxony, in the widest sense of that word. To trace every
division and union which created or extinguished any of the smaller
principalities, or even to mark every minute change of frontier among
the greater powers, would be impossible. ♦Free cities of Saxony. | The
Hanse Towns.♦ But it must be further remembered that the Saxon circles
were the seats of some of the greatest of the free cities of Germany,
the leading members of the Hanseatic League. In the growth of German
commerce the Rhenish lands took the lead, and, in the earliest days
of the Hansa, _Köln_ held the first place among its cities. ♦Lübeck,
Bremen, Hamburg.♦ The pre-eminence afterwards passed to havens nearer
to the Ocean and the Baltic, where, among a crowd of others, the
Imperial cities of _Lübeck_ and _Bremen_ stand out foremost, and with
them _Hamburg_, a rival which has in later times outstripped them.
And at this point it may be noticed that Lübeck and Bremen specially
illustrate a law which extended to many other of the episcopal cities
of Germany. ♦The cities and the bishoprics.♦ The Bishop became a
prince, and held a greater or smaller extent of territory in temporal
sovereignty. But the city which contained his see remained independent
of him in temporal things, and knew him only as its spiritual shepherd.
Such were the archbishopric of Bremen and the bishopric of Lübeck,
principalities which, after the change of religion, passed into secular
hands. Thus we have seen the archbishopric of Bremen pass, first to
Sweden, and then to Hannover. But the two cities always remained
independent commonwealths, owning no superior but the Emperor.
* * * * *
♦Franconia.♦
The next among the great duchies, that of _Eastern Francia_, _Franken_,
or _Franconia_, is of much less importance in European history than
that of Saxony. ♦Bishops of Würzburg Dukes.♦ It gave the ducal title
to the Bishops of Würzburg; but it cannot be said to be in any sense
continued in any modern state. ♦Extent of the Circle.♦ Its name
gradually retreated, and the circle of _Franken_ or _Franconia_ took in
only the most eastern part of the ancient duchy. ♦The Rhenish Circles.♦
The western and northern part of the duchy, together with a good deal
of territory which was strictly Lotharingian, became part of the two
Rhenish circles. Thus _Fulda_, the greatest of German abbeys, passed
away from the Frankish name. In north-eastern Francia, the _Hessian_
principalities grew up to the north-west. Within the Franconian circle
lay _Würzburg_, the see of the bishops who bore the ducal title,
the other great bishopric of _Bamberg_, together with the free city
of _Nürnberg_, and various smaller principalities. ♦Ecclesiastical
States on the Rhine.♦ In the Rhenish lands, both within and without
the old Francia, one chief characteristic is the predominance of the
ecclesiastical principalities, _Mainz_, _Köln_, _Worms_, _Speyer_,
and _Strassburg_. The chief temporal power which arose in this region
was the _Palatinate of the Rhine_, a power which, like others, went
through many unions and divisions, and spread into four circles, those
of Upper and Lower Rhine, Westfalia, and Bavaria. ♦Bavaria.♦ This last
district, though united with the Palatine Electorate, was, from the
early part of the fourteenth century, distinguished from the Palatinate
of the Rhine as the _Oberpfalz_ or _Upper Palatinate_. To the south
of it lay the _Bavarian_ principalities. These, united into a single
duchy, formed the power which grew into the modern kingdom. But neither
this duchy nor the whole Bavarian circle at all reached to the extent
of the ancient Bavaria which bordered on Italy. ♦Shiftings between
Bavaria and the Palatinate, 1623. | Electorate of Bavaria, 1648.♦ The
early stages of the Thirty Years’ War gave the Rhenish Palatinate,
with its electoral rights, to Bavaria; the Peace of Westfalia restored
the Palatinate, leaving Bavaria as a new electorate. ♦Union of the
two, 1777.♦ Late in the eighteenth century, Bavaria itself passed to
the Elector Palatine, thus forming what may be called modern Bavaria
with its outlying Rhenish lands. ♦Cession to Austria, 1778.♦ This
acquisition was at the same time partly balanced by the cession to
Austria of the lands east of the Inn, known as the _Innviertel_.
♦Archbishopric of Salzburg.♦ The other chief state within the Bavarian
circle was the great ecclesiastical principality of the archbishops of
_Salzburg_ in the extreme south-east.
♦Lotharingia.♦
The old _Lotharingian_ divisions, as we see them in the time of the
great duchies, utterly died out. ♦Lower Lotharingia.♦ The states which
arose in the _Lower Lotharingia_ are among those which silently fell
off from the German Kingdom to take a special position under the name
of the _Netherlands_. ♦Duchy of Lothringen or Lorraine.♦ The special
duchy of _Lothringen_ or _Lorraine_ was held to belong to the circle of
Upper Rhine. ♦Elsass.♦ _Elsass_ also formed part of the same circle,
the circle which was specially cut short by the encroachments of
France. ♦Circle of Swabia.♦ The _Swabian_ circle answered more nearly
than most of the new divisions to the old Swabian duchy, as that duchy
stood without counting the marchland of Elsass. No part of Germany was
more cut up into small states than the old land of the Hohenstaufen.
A crowd of principalities, secular and ecclesiastical, among them the
lesser principalities of the Hohenzollern House, of free cities, and
of outlying possessions of the houses of Austria made up the main
part of the circle. ♦Ecclesiastical towns of Swabia.♦ _Strassburg_,
_Augsburg_, _Constanz_, _St. Gallen_, _Chur_, _Zürich_, are among
the great bishoprics and other ecclesiastical foundations of the old
Swabia. ♦Part of Swabia becomes Switzerland.♦ But, as I shall show
more fully in another section, large districts in the south-east,
those which formed the _Old League of High Germany_, had practically
fallen away from the kingdom before the new division was made, and
were therefore never reckoned in any circle. ♦Baden. | Württemberg.♦
Two Swabian principalities, the mark of _Baden_, and _Württemberg_,
first county and then duchy, came gradually to the first place in this
region. As such they still remain, preserving in some sort a divided
representation of the old Swabia.
* * * * *
Two important parts of the old kingdom, two circles of the division of
Maximilian, still remain. These are the lands which form the circles
of _Burgundy_ and _Austria_. These are lands which have, in earlier
or later times, wholly fallen off from the German Kingdom. ♦Circle of
_Austria_.♦ The _Austrian_ circle was formed of the lands in southern
Germany which gradually gathered in the hands of the second Austrian
dynasty, the House of Habsburg. ♦Growth of the House of Austria.♦
Starting from the original mark on the Hungarian frontier, those lands
grew, first into a great German, and then into a great European, power,
and the latest changes have made even their German lands politically
non-German. The growth of the Austrian House will therefore be properly
dealt with in a separate section. ♦Extent of its German lands.♦ It is
enough to say here that the Austrian dominion in Germany gradually
took in, besides the original duchy, the south-eastern duchies of
_Steiermark_ or _Styria_, _Kärnthen_ or _Carinthia_, and _Krain_ or
_Carniola_, with the Italian borderlands of _Görz_, _Aquileia_, and
part of _Istria_. ♦Tyrol.♦ Joined to these by a kind of geographical
isthmus, like that which joins Silesia and Brandenburg, lay the western
possessions of the house, the Bavarian county of _Tyrol_ and various
outlying strips and points of lands in _Swabia_ and _Elsass_. ♦Loss of
Swabian lands.♦ The growth of the Confederates cut short the Swabian
possessions of Austria, as the later cession to France cut short its
Alsatian possessions. Still a Swabian remnant remained down to the
dissolution of the Kingdom. ♦Bohemia and its dependencies.♦ The kingdom
of _Bohemia_, with the dependent lands of Moravia and _Silesia_, though
held by the Archdukes of Austria and giving them electoral rank, was
not included in any German circle. ♦Trent and Brixen.♦ The Austrian
circle moreover was not wholly made up of the dominions of the Austrian
house; besides some smaller territories it also took in the bishoprics
of _Trent_ and _Brixen_ on the debateable frontier of Italy and old
Bavaria.
♦Circle of Burgundy.♦
The _Burgundian_ circle was the last and the strangest use of the
Burgundian name. ♦Dominion of the Valois Dukes within the Empire.♦ It
consisted of those parts of the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy of
the House of Valois which remained to their descendants of the House
of Austria at the time of the division into circles. These did not all
lie strictly within the boundaries of the German kingdom. ♦The Imperial
Netherlands.♦ Within that kingdom indeed lay the Northern Netherlands,
the Frisian lands of _Holland_, _Zealand_, and _West-Friesland_, as
also _Brabant_ and other Lotharingian lands. ♦County of Burgundy.♦ But
the circle also took in the _County of Burgundy or Franche Comté_, part
of the old kingdom of Burgundy, and lastly _Flanders_ and _Artois_,
lands beyond the bounds of the Empire. ♦Flanders and Artois released
from homage to France, 1526.♦ These were fiefs of France which were
released from their homage to that crown by the treaty between Charles
the Fifth and Francis the First of France. The Burgundian circle thus
took in all the Imperial fiefs of the Valois dukes, together with a
small part of their French fiefs. As all, or nearly all, of these
lands altogether fell away from the German kingdom, and as those parts
of them which now form the two kingdoms of the Low Countries have a
certain historical being of their own, it will be well to keep their
more detailed mention also for a special section.
§ 2. _The Confederation and Empire of Germany._
♦Germany changed from a kingdom to a confederation.♦
Our survey in the last section has carried us down to the beginning
of the changes which led to the break-up of the old German Kingdom.
Germany is the only land in history which has changed from a kingdom
to a confederation. ♦Sketch of the process, 1806-1815.♦ The tie
which bound the vassal princes to the king became so lax that it was
at last thrown off altogether. In this process foreign invasion
largely helped. Between the two processes of foreign war and domestic
disintegration, a chaotic time followed, in which boundaries were ever
shifting and new states were ever rising and falling. ♦The German
_Bund_, 1815.♦ In the end, nearly all the lands which had formed the
old kingdom came together again, with new names and boundaries, as
members of a lax Confederation. ♦The new Confederation and Empire,
1866-1871.♦ The latest events of all have driven the former chief of
the Confederation beyond its boundaries; they have joined its other
members together by a much closer tie; they have raised the second
member of the former Confederation to the post of perpetual chief
of the new Confederation, and they have further clothed him with
the Imperial title. ♦The new Empire still federal.♦ But it must be
remembered that the modern Empire of Germany is still a Federal state.
Its chief bears the title of Emperor; still the relation is federal and
not feudal. The lesser members of the Empire are not vassals of the
Emperor, as they were in the days of the old kingdom. They are states
bound to him and to one another by a tie which is purely federal.
That the state whose prince holds Imperial rank far surpasses any of
its other members in extent and power is an important political fact;
but it does not touch the federal position of all the states of the
Empire, great and small. Reuss-Schleiz is not a vassal of Prussia;
it is a member of a league in which the voice of Prussia naturally
goes for more than the voice of Reuss-Schleiz. ♦Wars of the French
Revolution, 1793-1814.♦ The dissolution of the German kingdom, and with
it the wiping out of the last tradition of the Roman Empire, cannot
be separated from the history of wars of the French Revolution which
went before it, and which indeed led to it. For our purely geographical
purpose, we must distinguish the changes which directly affected the
German kingdom from those which affected the Austrian states, the
Netherlands, and Switzerland, lands which have now a separate historic
being from Germany. ♦War between France and the Empire, 1793-1801.♦
The last war which the Empire as such waged with France was the eight
years’ war which was ended by the Peace of Luneville. ♦The left bank
of the Rhine ceded by the Peace of Luneville, 1801.♦ By that peace,
all Germany on the left bank on the Rhine was ceded to France. What
a sacrifice this was we at once see, when we bear in mind that it
took in the three metropolitan cities of Köln, Mainz, and Trier, the
royal city of Aachen, and the famous bishoprics of Worms and Speyer.
♦The _Reichsdeputationshauptschluss_, 1803.♦ A number of princes thus
lost all or part of their dominions, and it was presently agreed that
they should compensate themselves within the lands which remained to
the kingdom at the expense of the free cities and the ecclesiastical
princes. ♦End of the Ecclesiastical principalities.♦ The great German
hierarchy of princely bishops and abbots now came to an end, with a
solitary exception. ♦The Prince-Primate of Regensburg.♦ As the ancient
metropolis of Mainz had passed to France, the see of its archbishop was
removed to _Regensburg_, where, under the title of _Prince-Primate_,
he remained an Elector and Arch-Chancellor of the Empire. ♦Salzburg
a secular electorate.♦ _Salzburg_ became a secular electorate. ♦The
Free Cities.♦ The other ecclesiastical states were annexed by the
neighbouring princes, and of the free cities six only were left.
These were the Hanseatic towns of _Lübeck_, _Bremen_, and _Hamburg_,
and the inland towns of _Frankfurt_, _Nürnberg_, and _Augsburg_.
♦New Electorates.♦ Besides Salzburg, three new Electorates arose,
_Württemberg_, _Baden_, and _Hessen-Cassel_. None of these new Electors
ever chose any King or Emperor. ♦Peace of Pressburg, 1805. | Kingdom of
Württemberg and Bavaria.♦ The next war led to the Peace of Pressburg,
in which the Electors of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden appear as
allies of France, and by which those of Bavaria and Württemberg are
acknowledged as Kings. ♦They divide the western lands of Austria.♦
Austria was now wholly cut off from south-western Germany. Württemberg
and Baden divided her Swabian possessions, while Tyrol, Trent, Brixen,
together with the free city of Augsburg, fell to the lot of Bavaria.
♦Grand Duchy of Würzburg.♦ Austria received Salzburg; its prince
removed himself and his electorate to Würzburg, and a _Grand Duchy of
Würzburg_ was formed to compensate its Elector.
These were the last changes which took place while any shadow of the
old Kingdom and Empire lasted. ♦Title of ‘Emperor of Austria.’♦ The
reigning King of Germany and Emperor-elect, Francis King of Hungary
and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria, had already begun to call himself
‘_Hereditary Emperor of Austria_.’ In the treaty of Pressburg he
is described by the strange title, unheard of before or after, of
‘Emperor of Germany and Austria,’ and the Empire itself is spoken of
as a ‘Germanic Confederation.’ These formulæ were prophetic. ♦The
Confederation of the Rhine, July 12, 1806.♦ The next year a crowd
of princes renounced their allegiance, and formed themselves into
the _Confederation of the Rhine_ under the protectorate of France.
♦Dissolution of the Empire, August 6, 1806.♦ The formal dissolution
of the Empire followed at once. The succession which had gone on from
Augustus ended; the work of Charles the Great was undone. Instead of
the Frank ruling over Gaul, the Frenchman ruled over Germany. ♦Repeated
changes, 1806-1811.♦ A time of confusion followed, in which boundaries
were constantly shifting, states were constantly rising and falling,
and new portions of German ground were being constantly added to
France. ♦Germany in 1811-1813.♦ At the time of the greatest extent
of French dominion, the political state of Germany was on this wise.
♦Territories of Denmark and Sweden.♦ The dissolution of the Empire
had released all its members from their allegiance, and the German
possessions of the Kings of Denmark and Sweden had been incorporated
with their several kingdoms. ♦Losses of Prussia and Austria.♦ Hannover
was wholly lost to its island sovereign; seized and lost again more
than once by Prussia and by France, it passed at last wholly into the
hands of the foreign power. Prussia had lost, not only its momentary
possession of Hannover, but also everything west of the Elbe. Austria
had yielded _Salzburg_ to Bavaria, and part of her own south-western
territory in Krain and Kärnthen had passed to France under the name of
the _Illyrian Provinces_. ♦Annexations to France.♦ France too, beside
all the lands west of the Rhine, had incorporated _East Friesland_,
_Oldenburg_, part of _Hannover_, and the three _Hanseatic_ cities.
♦Confederation of the Rhine.♦ The remaining states of Germany formed
the _Confederation of the Rhine_. The chief among these were the four
Kingdoms of _Bavaria_, _Württemberg_, _Saxony_, and _Westfalia_.
♦Kingdoms of Saxony and Westfalia.♦ Saxony had become a kingdom under
its own Elector presently after the dissolution of the Empire: the
new-made kingdom of Westfalia had a French king in Jerome Buonaparte.
♦Grand Duchy of Frankfurt.♦ Besides _Mecklenburg_, _Baden_—now a Grand
Duchy—_Berg_, _Nassau_, _Hessen_, and other smaller states, there were
now among its members the Grand Duchy of _Würzburg_, and also a Grand
Duchy of _Frankfurt_, the possession of the Prince Primate, once of
Mainz, afterwards of Regensburg. ♦Germany wiped out.♦ We may say with
truth that during this time Germany had ceased to exist; its very name
had vanished from the map of Europe.
* * * * *
Prussia was a power so thoroughly German that the fate even of its
non-German possessions cannot well be separated from German geography.
♦The Kingdom of Prussia cut short, 1807.♦ The same blow which cut
short the old electorate of Brandenburg no less cut short the kingdom
of Prussia in its Polish acquisitions. ♦Commonwealth of Danzig.♦
_West-Prussia_ only was left, and even here _Danzig_ was cut off to
form a separate republic. ♦Duchy of Warsaw, 1806-1814.♦ The other
Polish territories of Prussia formed the _Duchy of Warsaw_, which was
held by the new King of Saxony. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ Silesia thus
fell back again on its half-isolated position, all the more so as it
lay between the German and the Polish possessions of the Saxon king.
The territory left to Prussia was now wholly continuous, without any
outlying possessions; but the length of its frontier and the strange
irregularity of its shape on the map were now more striking than ever.
* * * * *
The liberation of Germany and the fall of Buonaparte brought with
it a complete reconstruction of the German territory. ♦The German
Confederation, 1815.♦ Germany again arose, no longer as an Empire or
Kingdom, but as a lax Confederation. Austria, the duchy whose princes
had been so often chosen Emperors, became its presiding state. The
boundaries of the new Confederation differed but slightly from those
of the old Kingdom; but the internal divisions had greatly changed.
♦Princes holding lands both within the Confederation and out of it.♦
Once more a number of princes held lands both in Germany and out of
it. The so-called ‘Emperor’ of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark,
and the Netherlands, became members of the Confederation for those
parts of their dominions which had formerly been states of the Empire.
In the like sort, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, having
recovered his continental dominions, entered the Confederation by the
title of _King of Hannover_. ♦Kingdom of Hannover, 1815-1866.♦ This
new kingdom was made up of the former electorate with some additions,
including _East-Friesland_. ♦Increase of the Prussian territory. |
Dismemberment of Saxony.♦ In other parts the Prussian territories were
largely increased. _Magdeburg_ and _Halberstadt_ were recovered.
_Swedish Pomerania_ was added to the rest of the ancient duchy; and,
more important than this, a large part of the kingdom of _Saxony_,
including the greater part of _Lausitz_ and the formerly outlying-land
of _Cottbus_, was incorporated with Prussia. This change, which made
the Saxon kingdom far smaller than the old electorate, altogether put
an end to the peninsular position of Silesia, even as regarded the
strictly German possessions of Prussia. ♦Posen.♦ The kingdom was at
the same time rendered more compact by the recovery of part of its
Polish possessions under the name of the Grand Duchy of _Posen_. In
western Germany again Prussia now made great acquisitions. ♦Rhenish
and Westfalian territory.♦ Its old outlying Rhenish and Westfalian
possessions grew into a large and tolerably compact territory, though
lying isolated from the great body of the monarchy. The greater part
of the territory west of the Rhine which had been ceded to France
now became Prussian, including the cities of _Köln_, no longer a
metropolitan see, _Trier_, _Münster_, and _Paderborn_. The main part
of the Prussian possessions thus consisted of two detached masses, of
very unequal size, but which seemed to crave for a closer geographical
union. ♦Neufchâtel.♦ The Principality of _Neufchâtel_, which made the
Prussian king a member of the Swiss Confederation, will be mentioned
elsewhere.
♦Territory recovered by Austria.♦
Of the other powers which entered the Confederation for the German
parts of their dominions, but which also had territories beyond the
Confederation, _Austria_ recovered _Salzburg_, _Tyrol_, _Trent_, and
_Brixen_, together with the south-eastern lands which had passed to
France. Thus the territory of the Confederation, like that of the
old Kingdom, again reached to the Hadriatic. ♦Possession of Denmark.
| Holstein and Lauenburg.♦ _Denmark_ entered the Confederation for
_Holstein_, and for a new possession, that of _Lauenburg_, the duchy
which in a manner represented ancient Saxony. ♦Luxemburg.♦ The King
of the _Netherlands_ entered the Confederation for the Grand Duchy
of _Luxemburg_, part of which however was cut off to be added to the
Rhenish possessions of Prussia. ♦Sweden gives up Pomerania.♦ Sweden, by
the cession of its last remnant of _Pomerania_, ceased altogether to be
a German power.
There were thus five powers whose dominions lay partly within the
Confederation, partly out of it. ♦Prussia the greatest German Power.♦
In the case of one of these, that of Prussia, the division of German
and non-German territory was purely formal. Prussia was practically
a purely German power, and the greatest of purely German powers.
♦Austria.♦ Her rival Austria stood higher in formal rank in the
Confederation, and ruled over a much greater continuous territory; but
here the distinction between German and non-German lands was really
practical, as later events have shown. ♦Comparison of the position of
Austria and Prussia.♦ It has been found possible to shut out Austria
from Germany. To shut out Prussia would have been to abolish Germany
altogether. ♦Hannover.♦ Hannover, though under a common sovereign with
Great Britain, was so completely cut off from Great Britain, and had so
little influence on British politics, that it was practically as much a
purely German state before its separation from Great Britain as it was
afterwards. ♦Holstein and Luxemburg.♦ In the cases of Denmark and the
Netherlands, princes the greater part of whose territories lay out of
Germany held adjoining territories in Germany. Here then were materials
for political questions and difficulties; and in the case of Denmark,
these questions and difficulties became of the highest importance.
♦Kingdom of Bavaria.♦
Among those members of the Confederation, whose territory lay wholly
within Germany, the Kingdom of _Bavaria_ stood first. Its newly
acquired lands to the south were given back to Austria; but it made
large acquisitions to the north-east. Modern Bavaria consists of a
large mass of territory, Bavarian, Swabian, and Frankish, counting
within its boundaries the famous cities of _Augsburg_ and _Nürnberg_
and the great bishoprics of _Bamberg_ and _Würzburg_. ♦Her Rhenish
territory.♦ Besides this, Bavaria recovered a considerable part of the
ancient Palatinate west of the Rhine, which adds _Speyer_ to the list
of Bavarian cities. ♦Württemberg. | Saxony.♦ The other states which
bore the kingly title, _Württemberg_ and the remnant of _Saxony_, were
of much smaller extent. Saxony however kept a position in many ways out
of all proportion to the narrowed extent of its geographical limits.
Württemberg, increased by various additions from the _Swabian_ lands
of _Austria_ and from other smaller principalities, had, though the
smallest of kingdoms, won for itself a much higher position than had
been held by its former Counts and Dukes. ♦Baden.♦ Along with them
might be ranked the Grand Duchy of _Baden_, with its strange irregular
frontier, taking in Heidelberg and Constanz. ♦Hessen.♦ Among a crowd
of smaller states stand out the two Hessian principalities, the
Grand Duchy of _Hessen-Darmstadt_, and _Hessen-Cassel_, whose prince
still kept the title of Elector, and the Grand Duchy of _Nassau_.
♦Oldenburg.♦ The Grand Duchy of _Oldenburg_ nearly divided the Kingdom
of Hannover into two parts. ♦Anhalt.♦ The principalities of _Anhalt_
stretched into the Prussian territory between Halberstadt and the
newly-won Saxon lands. ♦Brunswick.♦ The Duchy of _Brunswick_ helped
to divide the two great masses of Prussian territory. ♦Mecklenburg.♦
In the north _Mecklenburg_ remained, as before, unequally divided
between the Grand Dukes of _Schwerin_ and _Strelitz_. Germany was thus
thoroughly mapped out afresh. Some of the old names had vanished; some
had got new meanings. The greater states, with the exception of Saxony,
became greater. A crowd of insignificant principalities passed away.
Another crowd of them remained, especially the smaller Saxon duchies
in the land which had once been Thuringian. But, if we look to two of
the most characteristic features of the old Empire, we shall find that
one has passed away for ever, while the other was sadly weakened. ♦No
ecclesiastical principality.♦ No ecclesiastical principality revived
in the new state of things. ♦Lüttich added to Belgium.♦ The territory
of one of the old bishoprics, that of _Lüttich_, formerly absorbed by
France, now passed wholly away from Germany, and became part of the new
kingdom of Belgium. ♦The four Free Cities.♦ Of the free cities four did
revive, but four only. The three _Hanse Towns_, no longer included in
French departments, and Frankfurt, no longer a Grand Duchy, entered the
Confederation as independent commonwealths. ♦Revival of German national
life.♦ Germany, for a while utterly crushed, had come to life again;
she had again reached a certain measure of national unity, which could
hardly fail to become closer.[14]
The Confederation thus formed lasted, with hardly any change that
concerns geography, till the war of 1866. ♦Division of Luxemburg,
1831.♦ The Grand Duchy of _Luxemburg_, which had, by the arrangements
of 1815, been held by the King of the Netherlands as a member of
the German Confederation, was, on the separation of Belgium and the
Netherlands, cut into two parts. Part was added to Belgium; another
part, though quite detached from the kingdom of the Netherlands, was
held by its king as a member of the Confederation. In 1839 he also
entered it for the Duchy of Limburg. ♦War in Sleswick and Holstein,
1848-1851.♦ The internal movements which began in 1848, and the war
in _Sleswick_ and _Holstein_ which began in the same time, led to no
lasting geographical changes. In 1849 the Swabian principalities of
Hohenzollern were joined to the Prussian crown. ♦Cession of the Duchies
to Austria and Prussia, 1864.♦ The last Danish war ended by the cession
of Sleswick and Holstein, together with Lauenburg, to Prussia and
Austria jointly, an arrangement in its own nature provisional. Austria
ceded her right in Lauenburg to Prussia in the next year, and in the
next year again came the Seven Weeks’ War, and the great geographical
changes which followed it. ♦Abolition of the Confederation. | Exclusion
of Austria. | North-German Confederation. | Cession of Sleswick and
Holstein to Prussia, 1866.♦ The German Confederation was abolished;
Austria was shut out from all share in German affairs, and she ceded
her joint right in Sleswick and Holstein to Prussia. ♦Prussian
annexations.♦ The Northern states of Germany became a distinct
Confederation under the presidency of Prussia, whose immediate dominion
was increased by the annexation of the kingdom of _Hannover_, the duchy
of _Nassau_, the electorate of _Hessen_, and the city of _Frankfurt_.
The States south of the Main, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, and the
southern part of Hessen-Darmstadt, remained for a while outside of the
new League. ♦All the Prussian lands admitted to the Confederation.♦
The non-German dominions of Prussia, Prussia strictly so called with
the Polish duchy of Posen and the newly acquired land of Sleswick,
were now incorporated with the Confederation; on the other hand,
all that Austria had held within the Confederation was now shut out
of it. ♦Settlement of Luxemburg, 1867.♦ _Luxemburg_ also was not
included in the new League, and, after some disputes, it was in the
next year recognized as a neutral territory under its own duke the
King of the Netherlands. ♦Liechtenstein.♦ The little principality of
_Liechtenstein_ was perhaps forgotten altogether; but, as not being
included in the Confederation, nor yet incorporated with anything else,
it must be looked on as becoming an absolutely independent state.
♦Great geographical changes, 1866.♦ Thus the geographical frontiers
of Germany underwent, at a single blow, changes as great as they had
undergone in the wars of the French Revolution. The geography of the
presiding power of the new League was no less changed.
That extraordinary extent of frontier which had hitherto been
characteristic of Prussia was not wholly taken away by the new
annexations, but it was greatly lessened. The kingdom, as a kingdom,
is made far more compact, and the two great detached masses in which
it formerly lay are now joined together. Moreover, the geographical
character of Prussia becomes of much less political importance, now
that her frontier marches to so great an extent on the smaller members
of the League of which she is herself President. ♦War with France,
1870-1871. | The German Empire. | Incorporation of the Southern
states.♦ Next came the war with France, the first effect of which
was the incorporation of the southern states of Germany with the new
League, which presently took the name of an Empire, with the Prussian
King as hereditary Emperor. ♦Recovery of Elsass-Lothringen, 1871.♦ Then
by the peace with France, nearly the whole of _Elsass_ and part of
_Lotharingia_, including the cities of _Strassburg_ and _Metz_, were
restored to Germany. They have, under the name of _Elsass-Lothringen_,
become an Imperial territory, forming part of the Empire and owning
the sovereignty of the Emperor, but not becoming part of the kingdom
of Prussia or of any other German state. ♦The Imperial title.♦
The assumption of the Imperial title could hardly be avoided in a
confederation whose constitution was monarchic, and which numbered
kings among its members. No title but Emperor could have been found
to express the relation between the presiding chief and the lesser
sovereigns.
♦The new Empire a revival of the German Kingdom, but not of the Roman
Empire. | Comparison of the old Kingdom and the new Empire.♦
Still it must be borne in mind that the new German Empire is in no
sense a continuation or restoration of the Holy Roman Empire which
fell sixty-four years before its creation. But it may be fairly
looked on as a restoration of the old German Kingdom, the Kingdom of
the East-Franks. Still, as far as geography is concerned, no change
can be stranger than the change in the boundaries of Germany between
the ninth century and the nineteenth. The new Empire, cut short to
the north-west, south-west, and south-east, has grown somewhat to
the north, and it has grown prodigiously to the north-east. ♦Name of
_Prussia_.♦ Its ruling state, a state which contains such illustrious
cities as Köln, Trier, and Frankfurt, is content to call itself after
an extinct heathen people whose name had most likely never reached
the ears of Charles the Great. ♦Position of Berlin.♦ The capital of
the new Empire, placed far away from any of the antient seats of
German kingship, stands in what in his day, and long after, was a
Slavonic land. ♦Formation of the new Empire.♦ Germany, with its chief
state bearing the name of _Prussia_, with the place of its national
assemblies transferred from Frankfurt to Berlin, presents one of the
strangest changes that historical geography can show us. But, strange
as is the geographical change, it has come about gradually, by the
natural working of historical causes. The Slavonic and Prussian lands
have been Germanized, while the western parts of the old kingdom
which have fallen away have mostly lost their German character. Those
German lands which have formed the kernel of the Swiss Confederation
have risen to a higher political state than that of any kingdom or
Empire. But the German lands which still remain so strangely united
to the lands of the Magyar and the southern Slave await, at however
distant a time, their natural and inevitable reunion. So does a Danish
population in the extreme north await, with less hope, its no less
natural separation from the German body. Posen, still mainly Slavonic,
remains unnaturally united to a Teutonic body, but it is not likely to
gain by a transfer to any other ruler. The reconstruction of the German
realm in its present shape, a shape so novel to the eye, but preserving
so much of ancient life and ancient history, has been the greatest
historical and geographical change of our times.
§ 3. _The Kingdom of Italy._
♦Small geographical importance of the kingdom as such.♦
We parted from the Italian kingdom at the moment of its separation
from the Eastern and Western kingdoms of the Franks. Its history,
as a kingdom, consists in little more than its reunion with the
East-Frankish crown, and in the way in which the royal power gradually
died out within its limits. There is but little to say as to any
changes of frontier of the kingdom as such. As long as Germany, Italy,
and Burgundy acknowledged a single king, any shiftings of the frontiers
of his three kingdoms were of secondary importance. When the power
of the Emperors in Italy had died out, the land became a system of
independent commonwealths and principalities, which had hardly that
degree of unity which could enable us to say that a certain territory
was added to Italy or taken from it. Even if a certain territory
passed from an Italian to a German or Burgundian lord, the change was
rather a change in the frontier of this or that Italian state than
in the frontier of Italy itself. ♦Changes on the Alpine frontier.♦
The shiftings of frontier along the whole Alpine border have been
considerable; but it is only in our own day that we can say that Italy
as such has become capable of extending or lessening her borders. ♦Case
of Verona.♦ When, in 1866, Venice and Verona were added to the Italian
kingdom, that was a distinct change in the frontier of Italy. We can
hardly give that name to endless earlier changes on the same marchland.
♦Case of Trieste, 1380.♦ In the fourteenth century, for instance, the
town of _Trieste_, disputed between the patriarchs of Aquileia and
the commonwealth of Venice, was acknowledged as an independent state,
and it presently gave up its independence by commendation to the Duke
of Austria. It is not likely that the question entered into any man’s
mind whether the frontiers of the German and Italian kingdoms were
affected by such a change. Whether as a free city or as an Austrian
lordship, Trieste remained under the superiority, formally undoubted
but practically nominal, of the common sovereign of Germany and Italy,
the Roman Emperor or King. Whether the nominal allegiance of the city
was due to him in his German or in his Italian character most likely no
one stopped to think. ♦No eastern or western frontiers.♦ East and west,
the Italian kingdom had no frontiers; the only question which could
arise was as to the relation of the islands of Corsica and Sardinia
to the kingdom itself or to any of the states which arose within it.
To the south lay the independent Lombard duchies, and the possessions
which still remained to the Eastern Empire. ♦The Norman kingdom of
Sicily not an Imperial fief.♦ These changed in time into the Norman
duchy of _Apulia_ and kingdom of _Sicily_; but that kingdom, held as
it was as a fief of the see of Rome, was never incorporated with the
Italian kingdom of the Emperors, nor did its kings ever become the
men of the Emperor. Particular Emperors in the thirteenth century, in
the sixteenth, and in the eighteenth, were also kings of one or both
the Sicilian kingdoms; but at no time before our own day were Sicily
and southern Italy ever incorporated with a Kingdom of Italy. When we
remember that it was to the southern part of the peninsula that the
name of Italy was first given, we see here a curiosity of nomenclature
as remarkable as the shiftings of meaning in the names of Saxony and
Burgundy.
Naples and Sicily then, the Two Sicilies of later political
nomenclature, lie outside our present subject. ♦Venice no part of
Italy.♦ So does the commonwealth of _Venice_, except so far as Venice
afterwards won a large subject territory on the Italian mainland.
♦Her Italian dominions.♦ Both these states have to do with Italy as
a geographical expression, but neither the Venetian commonwealth nor
the Sicilian kingdom is Italian within the meaning of the present
section. They formed no part of the Carolingian dominion. ♦Venice
and the Sicilies part of the Eastern Empire.♦ They were parts of the
Eastern Empire, not of the Western. They remained attached to the New
Rome after an Imperial throne had again been set up in the Old. They
gradually fell away from their allegiance to the Eastern Empire, but
they were never incorporated with the Empire of the West. I shall deal
with them here only in their relations to the Imperial Kingdom of
Italy, and treat of their special history elsewhere among the states
which arose out of the break-up of the Eastern Empire. Again, on the
north-western march of Italy a power gradually arose, partly Italian,
but for a long time mainly Burgundian, which has in the end, by a
strange fate, grown into a new Italian Kingdom. ♦The House of Savoy.♦
This is the House of _Savoy_. The growth of the dominions of that
house, the process by which it gradually lost territory in Burgundy
and gained it in _Italy_, form another distinct subject. ♦Its special
history.♦ It will be dealt with here only in its relations to the
kingdom of Italy.
♦The Kingdom of Italy continues the Lombard kingdom.♦
The Italian Kingdom of the Karlings, the kingdom which was reunited
to Germany under Otto the Great, was, as has been already said, a
continuation of the old Lombard kingdom. It consisted of that kingdom,
enlarged by the Italian lands which fell off from the Eastern Empire
in the eighth century; that is by the _Exarchate_ and the adjoining
_Pentapolis_, and the immediate territory of _Rome_ itself. ♦Austria
and Neustria.♦ The Lombard kingdom, in the strictest sense, took in
the two provinces north of the Po, in which we again find, as in
other lands, an _Austria_ to the east and a _Neustria_ to the west.
♦Æmilia. | Tuscany.♦ It took in _Æmilia_ south of the Po—the district
of Piacenza, Parma, Reggio, and Modena—also _Tuscany_, a name, which,
as it no longer reaches to the Tiber, answers pretty nearly to its
modern use. ♦Romagna.♦ The Tuscan name has lived on; the Exarchate and
Pentapolis, as having been the chief seat of the later Imperial power
in Italy, got the name of _Romania_, _Romandiola_, or _Romagna_. This
name also lives on; but the Lombard Neustria and Austria soon vanish
from the map. Their disappearance was perhaps lucky, as one knows not
what arguments might otherwise have been built on the presence of an
Austria south of the Alps. ♦Lombardy proper. | Venetia.♦ The Lombard
Neustria together with Æmilia got the special name of _Lombardy_, while
the Lombard Austria, after various shiftings of names taken from the
principalities which rose and fell within it, came back in the end to
its oldest name, that of _Venetia_. ♦Mark of Ivrea. | Duchy of Friuli.♦
In the north-west corner _Iporedia_ or _Ivrea_ appears as a distinct
march; but the Venetian march at the other corner, known at this stage
as the duchy of _Friuli_, is of more importance. It takes in the county
of _Trent_, the special march of _Friuli_, and the march of _Istria_.
♦Fluctuation of boundary at the north-west corner.♦ This is the corner
in which the German and Italian frontier has so often fluctuated. We
have seen that, after the union of the Italian and German crowns, even
Verona itself was sometimes counted as German ground.
♦Comparison of Italy and Germany.♦
Under the German kings Italy came under the same influences as the
other two Imperial kingdoms. Principalities grew up; free cities
grew up; but, while in Germany the principalities were the rule and
the cities the exception, in Italy it was the other way. ♦Growth
of a system of commonwealths in Italy.♦ The land gradually became
a system of practically independent commonwealths. Feudal princes,
ecclesiastical or temporal, flourished only in the north-western and
north-eastern corners of the kingdom. But, if the range of the German
cities was less wide, and their career less brilliant, than those of
Italy, their freedom was more lasting. ♦Tyrants grow into princes.♦ The
Italian cities gradually fell under tyrants, and the tyrants gradually
grew into acknowledged princes. ♦Growth of the dominion of the Popes.♦
The Bishops of Rome too, by a series of claims dexterously pressed
at various times, contrived to form the greatest of ecclesiastical
principalities, one which stretched across the peninsula from sea to
sea. ♦Four stages of Italian history.♦ The geographical history of
Italy consists of four stages. In the first the kingdom fell asunder
into principalities. In the second the principalities vanished before
the growth of the free cities. In the third the cities were again
massed into principalities, till in the fourth the principalities were
at last merged in a kingdom of united Italy.
* * * * *
Under the Saxon and Frankish Emperors the old Lombard names of Neustria
and Æmilia pass away. Several small marches lie along the Burgundian
frontier, as _Savona_ on the coast, _Ivrea_ among the mountains to
the north-west, between them _Montferrat_, _Vasto_, and _Susa_,
whose princes, as special guardians of the passage between the two
kingdoms, bore the title of Marquess in Italy. It was in this region
that the feudal princes were strongest, and that the system of free
cities had the smallest developement. ♦The Marquesses of Montferrat,
938-1533.♦ The Savoyard power was already beginning to grow up in
the extreme north-west corner; but at this time a greater part in
strictly Italian history is played by the Marquesses of Montferrat,
who for many centuries kept their position as important feudal princes
quite apart from the lords of the cities. In the north-east corner
of the kingdom the place of the old Austria is taken by the border
principalities where the Italian, the German, and the Slave all come
in contact, and which fluctuated more than once between the Italian
and the German crowns. We have here the great march of Verona, beyond
it that of Friuli, Trent, the marchland of the marchland, between
Verona and Bavaria, and the Istrian peninsula on the Slavonic side
of the Hadriatic. Between the border districts on either side lay
the central land, Lombardy, in the narrower sense, the chosen home
of the free cities. ♦Growth of the Lombard cities.♦ Here, by the
middle of the twelfth century, every city had practically become a
separate commonwealth, owning only the most nominal superiority in
the Emperor. Guelfic cities withstood the Emperor; Ghibelin cities
welcomed him; but both were practically independent commonwealths.
♦Wars of the Swabian Emperors.♦ Hence came those long wars between
the Swabian Emperors and the Italian cities which form the chief
feature of Italian history in the second half of the twelfth century
and the first half of the thirteenth. ♦Milan and Pavia. | The other
Lombard cities. | Alessandria, 1168.♦ Round the younger and the elder
capital, round Guelfic Milan and Ghibelin Pavia, gathered a crowd of
famous names, _Como_, _Bergamo_, and _Brescia_, _Lodi_, _Crema_, and
_Cremona_, _Tortona_, _Piacenza_, and _Parma_, and _Alessandria_, the
trophy of republican and papal victory over Imperial power. ♦Verona
and Padua.♦ The Veronese march was less rich in cities of the same
historical importance; but both _Verona_ itself and _Padua_ played
a great part, as the seats first of commonwealths, then of tyrants.
Further north and east, the civic element was weaker again. ♦Trent.
| Aquileia.♦ _Trent_ gradually parted off from Italy to become an
ecclesiastical principality of the German kingdom; and the Patriarchs
of _Aquileia_ grew into powerful princes at the north-eastern corner
of the Hadriatic. ♦The lords of Romano and Este.♦ Within the Veronese
or Trevisan march itself, the lords of _Romano_ and the more important
marquesses of _Este_ also demand notice. Romano gave the Trevisan march
its famous tyrant Eccelino in the days of Frederick the Second, and the
Marquesses of Este, kinsmen of the great Saxon dukes, came in time to
rank among the chief Italian princes. ♦The north-eastern march falls
off from Italy.♦ The extreme north-eastern march so completely fell off
from Italy that it will be better treated in tracing the growth of the
powers of Venice and Austria.
♦Tuscany, Romagna, and the March of Ancona.♦
In the more central lands of the kingdom, in the old exarchate,
now known as _Romagna_, in the march variously called by the names
of _Camerino_, _Fermo_, or _Ancona_, and above all in the march of
_Tuscany_ on the southern sea, the same developement of city life also
took place, but somewhat later. North of the Apennines, along the
Hadriatic coast, arose a crowd of small commonwealths which gradually
passed into small tyrannies. ♦The Tuscan commonwealths.♦ Tuscany, on
the other hand, was parted off into a few commonwealths of illustrious
name. For a while one of these ran a course which stood rather apart
from the common run of Italian history. ♦Pisa; | her wars with the
Saracens 1005-1115.♦ _Pisa_, then one of the great maritime and
commercial states of Europe, became, early in the eleventh century,
a power which forestalled the crusades and won back lands from the
Saracen. Though she was in every sense a city of the Italian kingdom,
Pisa at this time held a position not unlike that which was afterwards
held by Venice. Like her, she was a power which colonized and conquered
beyond the seas, but which came only gradually to take a share in the
main course of Italian affairs. ♦Genoa.♦ Beyond the borders of Tuscany,
the same position was held by _Genoa_ on the Ligurian gulf. ♦Occupation
of the island of Sardinia by Pisa, and of Corsica by Genoa.♦ Pisa won
_Sardinia_ from the Saracen; Genoa, after long disputes with Pisa,
obtained a more lasting possession of _Corsica_. Returning to Tuscany,
three great commonwealths here grew up, which gradually divided the
land between them. ♦Lucca, Siena, Florence.♦ These were _Lucca_
and _Siena_, and _Florence_, the last of Italian cities to rise to
greatness, but the one which became in many ways the greatest among
her fellows. ♦Perugia.♦ In the centre of Italy, within the bounds of
old Etruria but not within those of modern Tuscany, _Perugia_, both as
commonwealth and as tyranny, held a high place among Italian cities.
♦Rome.♦ Of Rome herself it is almost impossible to speak. She has much
history, but she has little geography. Emperors were crowned there;
Popes sometimes lived there; sometimes Rome appears once more as a
single Latin city, waging war against Tusculum or some other of her
earliest fellows. ♦Claims of the Popes.♦ The claims of her Bishops
to independent temporal power, founded on a succession of real or
pretended Imperial and royal grants, lay still in the background; but
they were ready to grow into reality as occasion served.
* * * * *
♦Second stage, c. 1250-1530.♦
The next stage of Italian political geography may be dated from
the death of Frederick the Second, when all practical power of an
Imperial kingdom in Italy may be said to have passed away. ♦Growth of
tyrannies.♦ Presently begins the gradual change of the commonwealths
into tyrannies, and the grouping together of many of them into larger
states. We also see the beginning of more definite claims of temporal
dominion on behalf of the Popes. ♦Dominion of Spain, 1555-1701.♦ In
the course of the three hundred years between Frederick the Second and
Charles the Fifth, these processes gradually changed the face of the
Italian kingdom. It became in the end a collection of principalities,
broken only by the survival of a few oligarchic commonwealths and by
the anomalous dominion of Venice on the mainland. Between Frederick
the Second and Charles the Fifth, we may look on the Empire as
practically in abeyance in Italy. The coming of an Emperor always
caused a great stir for the time, but it was only for the time. ♦Grant
of Rudolf, 1278.♦ After the grant of Rudolf of Habsburg to the Popes,
a distinction was drawn between Imperial and papal territory in Italy.
♦Imperial and papal fiefs.♦ While certain princes and commonwealths
still acknowledged at least the nominal superiority of the Emperor,
others were now held to stand in the same relation of vassalage to the
Pope.
We must now trace out the growth of the chief states which were formed
by these several processes. Beginning again in the north, it must be
remembered that all this while the power of Savoy was advancing in
those north-western lands in which the influences which mainly ruled
this period had less force than elsewhere. Montferrat too kept its old
character of a feudal principality, a state whose rulers had in various
ways a singular connexion with the East. ♦Palaiologoi at Montferrat,
1306.♦ As Marquesses of Montferrat had claimed the crown of Jerusalem
and had worn the crown of Thessalonica, so, as if to keep even the
balance between East and West, in return a branch of the Imperial house
of Palaiologos came to reign at Montferrat. To the east of these more
ancient principalities, two great powers of quite different kinds grew
up in the old Neustria and Austria. ♦Duchy of Milan. Venice.♦ These
were the _Duchy of Milan_ and the land power of _Venice_. Milan, like
most other Italian cities, came under the influence of party leaders,
who grew first into tyrants and then into acknowledged sovereigns.
♦The Visconti at Milan, 1310-1447.♦ These at Milan, after the shorter
domination of the Della Torre, were the more abiding house of the
Visconti. Their dominion, after various fluctuations and revolutions,
was finally established when the coming of the Emperor Henry the
Seventh generally strengthened the rule of the Lords of the cities
throughout Italy.
♦Grant of the Duchy by King Wenceslaus, 1395.♦
At the end of the fourteenth century their informal lordship passed by
a royal grant into an acknowledged duchy of the Empire. The dominion
which they had gradually gained, and which was thus in a manner
legalized, took in all the great cities of Lombardy, those especially
which had formed the Lombard League against the Swabian Emperors.
♦County of Pavia.♦ Pavia indeed, the ancient rival of Milan, kept a
kind of separate being, and was formed into a distinct county. ♦Extent
of the duchy.♦ But the duchy granted by Wenceslaus to Gian-Galeazzo
stretched far on both sides of the lake of Garda. _Belluno_ at one end
and _Vercelli_ at the other formed part of it. It took in the mountain
lands which afterwards passed to the two Alpine Confederations; it took
in _Parma_, _Piacenza_, and _Reggio_ south of the Po, and _Verona_
and _Vicenza_ in the old Austrian or Venetian land. Besides all this,
_Padua_, _Bologna_, even _Genoa_ and _Pisa_, passed at various times
under the lordship of the Visconti. But this great power was not
lasting. The Duchy of Milan, under various lords, native and foreign,
lasted till the wars of the French Revolution; but, long before that
time, it had been cut short on every side. ♦Decrease on the death of
Gian Galeazzo, 1402.♦ The death of the first Duke was followed by a
separation of the duchy of Milan and the county of Pavia between his
sons, and the restored duchy never rose again to its former power.
♦The eastern cities won by Venice, 1406-1447.♦ The eastern parts,
Padua, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, were gradually added to the dominion
of Venice. By the middle of the fifteenth century, that republic
had become the greatest power in northern Italy. ♦House of Sforza,
1450-1535. | Claims of the Kings of France, 1499-1525.♦ In the duchy of
Milan the house of Sforza succeeded that of Visconti; but the opposing
claims of the Kings of France were one chief cause of the long wars
which laid Italy waste in the latter years of the fifteenth century
and the early years of the sixteenth. The duchy was tossed to and fro
between the Emperor, the French King, and its own dukes. Meanwhile the
dominion which was thus struggled for was cut short at the two ends.
♦Cession to the Alpine Leagues, 1512-1513.♦ It was dismembered to the
north in favour of the two Alpine Leagues, as will be hereafter shown
more in detail. ♦The Popes obtain Parma and Piacenza, 1515. | Duchy
of Parma and Piacenza, 1545.♦ South of the Po, the Popes obtained
_Parma_ and _Piacenza_, which were afterwards granted as papal fiefs to
form a duchy for the house of Farnese. Thus the Duchy of Milan which
became in the end a possession of Charles the Fifth, and afterwards
of his Spanish and Austrian successors, was but a remnant of the
great dominion of the first Duke. The duchy underwent still further
dismemberments in later times.
♦Land power of Venice only.♦
With Venice we have here to deal in her somewhat unnatural position
as an Italian land power. ♦War of the League of Cambray, 1508-1517.♦
This position she took on herself in the fifteenth century; in the
sixteenth it led to the momentary overthrow and wonderful recovery of
her dominion in the war of the League of Cambray. This land power of
Venice stands quite distinct from the Venetian possessions east of
the Hadriatic. ♦Istria.♦ With this last her possession of the coast
of the _Istrian_ peninsula must be reckoned, rather than with her
Italian dominions. Between these lay Aquileia, Trieste, and the other
lands in this quarter which gradually came under the power of Austria.
♦Extent of Venetian dominion. | Ravenna, 1441-1530.♦ The continuous
Italian dominion of Venice took in _Udine_ at one end and _Bergamo_
at the other, besides _Crema_, and for a while _Ravenna_, as outlying
possessions. Thus the Byzantine city which lay anchored off the shore
of the Western Empire could for a season call the ancient seat of the
Exarchate its own. ♦Two parts of the Venetian territory.♦ But even the
continuous land territory of Venice lay in two portions. Brescia and
Bergamo were almost cut off from Verona and the other possessions to
the east by the Lake of Garda, the bishopric of Trent to the north, and
the principality of _Mantua_ to the south.
The mention of this last state leads us back again to the commonwealths
which, like Milan, changed, first into tyrannies, and then into
acknowledged principalities. It is impossible to mention all of them,
and some of those which played for a while the most brilliant part in
Italian history had no lasting effect on Italian geography. ♦Rule of
the Scala at Verona, 1260-1387; | of the Carrara at Padua, 1318-1405;♦
The rule of the house of Scala at Verona, the rule of the house of
Carrara at Padua, left no lasting trace on the map. It was otherwise
with the two states which bordered on the Venetian possessions to the
south. ♦of the Gonzaga at Mantua, 1328-1708. | Marquesses, 1433;
| Dukes, 1530.♦ The house of Gonzaga held sovereign power at _Mantua_,
first as captains, then as marquesses, then as dukes, for nearly four
hundred years. ♦House of Este.♦ Of greater fame was the power that
grew up in the house of _Este_, the Italian branch of the house of
Welf. Their position is one specially instructive, as illustrating the
various tenures by which dominion was held. ♦The lords of Ferrara and
Modena, 1264-1288.♦ The marquesses of Este, feudal lords of that small
principality, became, after some of the usual fluctuations, permanent
lords of the cities of _Ferrara_ and _Modena_. About the same time
they lost their original holding of Este, which passed to Padua, and
with Padua to Venice. Thus the nominal marquess of Este and real lord
of Ferrara was not uncommonly spoken of as Marquess of Ferrara. In the
fifteenth century these princes rose to ducal rank; but by that time
the new doctrine of the temporal dominion of the Popes had made great
advances. Modena, no man doubted, was a city of the Empire; but Ferrara
was now held to be under the supremacy of the Pope. The Marquess Borso
had thus to seek his elevation to ducal rank from two separate lords.
♦Duchy of Modena, 1453. | Duchy of Ferrara, 1471.♦ He was created Duke
of Modena and Reggio by the Emperor, and afterwards Duke of Ferrara
by the Pope. This difference of holding, as we shall presently see,
led to the destruction of the power of the house of Este. In the times
in which we are now concerned, their dominions lay in two masses. To
the west lay the duchy of Modena and Reggio; apart from it to the
east lay the duchy of Ferrara. ♦Loss of Rovigo, 1484.♦ Not long after
its creation, this last duchy was cut short by the surrender of the
border-district of _Rovigo_ to Venice.
♦Cities of Romagna.♦
Between the two great duchies of the house of Este lay _Bologna_,
gradually changed from _Romania_ in one sense into _Romagna_ in
another. Like most other Italian cities, the commonwealths of the
Exarchate and the Pentapolis changed into tyrannies, and their petty
princes were one by one overthrown by the advancing power of the
Popes. ♦Bologna, Perugia, Rimini.♦ Every city had its dynasty; but
it was only a few, like the houses of _Bentevoglio_ at _Bologna_, of
_Baglioni_ at _Perugia_, and _Malatesta_ at _Rimini_, that rose to
any historical importance. One only combined historical importance
with acknowledged princely rank. ♦The Duchy of Urbino, 1478-1631.♦ The
house of _Montefeltro_, lords of _Urbino_, became acknowledged dukes by
papal grants. From them the duchy passed to the house of La Rovere, and
it flourished under five princes of the two dynasties. ♦Expansion of
the papal dominions.♦ Gradually, by successive annexations, the papal
dominions, before the middle of the sixteenth century, stretched from
the Po to Tarracina. Ferrara and Urbino still remained distinct states,
but states which were confessedly held as fiefs of the Holy See.
♦Creation of the Tuscan cities.♦
To the west, in Tuscany, the phænomena are somewhat different. The
characteristic of this part of Italy was the grouping together of the
smaller cities under the power of the larger. Nearly all the land
came in the end under princely rule; but both acknowledged princely
rule and the tyrannies out of which it sprang came into importance in
Tuscany later than anywhere else. ♦Lucca under Castruccio Castracani,
1320-1338.♦ _Lucca_ had in the fourteenth century a short time of
greatness under her illustrious tyrant Castruccio; but, before and
after his day, she plays, as a commonwealth, only a secondary part in
Italy. Still she remained a commonwealth, though latterly an oligarchic
one, through all changes down to the general crash of the French
Revolution. ♦Pisa.♦ _Pisa_ kept for a while her maritime greatness,
and her rivalry with the Ligurian commonwealth of _Genoa_. ♦Genoa.♦
Genoa, less famous in the earliest times, proved a far more lasting
power. ♦Her rule in Corsica.♦ She established her dominion over the
coast on both sides of her, and kept her island of Corsica down to
modern times. ♦Sardinia ceded to Aragon, 1428. | Pisa subject to
Florence, 1416.♦ Physical causes caused the fall of the maritime power
of Pisa; Sardinia passed from her to become a kingdom of the House
of Aragon, and she herself passed under the dominion of _Florence_.
♦Greatness of Florence.♦ This last illustrious city, the greatest of
Tuscan and even of Italian commonwealths, begins to stand forth as
the foremost of republican states about the time when her forerunner
Milan came under the rule of tyrants. She extended her dominion over
_Volterra_, _Arezzo_, and many smaller places, till she became mistress
of all northern Tuscany. ♦Siena.♦ To the south the commonwealth of
_Siena_ also formed a large dominion. ♦Rule of the Medici. 1434-1494.
| 1512-1527.♦ In Florence the rule of the Medici grew step by step into
a hereditary tyranny; but it was an intermittent tyranny, one which was
supported only by foreign force, and which was overturned whenever
Florence had strength to act for herself. ♦Alexander, Duke of Florence,
1530.♦ It was only after her last overthrow by the combined powers of
Pope and Cæsar that she became, under Alexander, the first duke of the
house of Medici, an acknowledged principality. ♦Cosmo annexes Siena,
1557. | Elba, &c.♦ Cosmo the First, the second duke, annexed Siena,
and all the territory of that commonwealth, except the lands known as
_Stati degli Presidi_, that is the isle of _Elba_ and some points on
the coast. These became parts of the kingdom of Naples; that is, at
that time, parts of the dominion of Spain. The state thus formed by
Cosmo was one of the most considerable in Italy, taking in the whole
of Tuscany except the territory of Lucca and the lands which became
Spanish. ♦Cosmo Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1567.♦ Its ruler presently
exchanged by papal authority the title of Duke of Florence for that of
Grand Duke of Tuscany.
§ 4. _The Later Geography of Italy._
♦Abeyance of the kingdom of Italy, 1530-1805.♦
Under Charles the Fifth it might have seemed that both the Roman Empire
and the kingdom of Italy had come to life again. A prince who wore
both crowns was practically master of Italy. But though the power of
the Emperor was restored, the power of the Empire was not. In truth
we may look on all notion of a kingdom of Italy in the elder sense as
having passed away with the coronation of Charles himself. The thing
had passed away long before; after the pageant at Bologna the name was
not heard for more than two centuries and a half. ♦Italy a geographical
expression.♦ Italy became truly a ‘geographical expression;’ the land
consisted of a number of principalities and a few commonwealths, all
nominally independent, some more or less practically so, but the more
part of which were under foreign influence, and some of them were
actually ruled by foreign princes. ♦Changes among the Italian states.♦
The states of Italy were united, divided, handed over from one ruler to
another, according to the fluctuations of war and diplomacy, without
any regard either to the will of the inhabitants or to the authority of
any central power. A practically dominant power there was during the
greater part of this period; but it was not the power of even a nominal
King of Italy. For a long time that dominant power was held by the
House of Austria in its two branches. The supremacy of Charles in Italy
passed, not to his Imperial brother, but to his Spanish son. ♦Dominion
of Spain, 1555-1701;♦ Then followed the long dominion of the Spanish
branch of the Austrian house; then came the less thorough dominion of
the German branch. ♦of Austria, 1713-1793.♦ This last was a dominion
strictly of the House of Austria as such, not of the Empire or of
either of the Imperial kingdoms. And now that the name of Italy means
merely a certain surface on the map, we must take some notice, so far
as they regard Italian history, at once of Savoy at one end and of the
Sicilian kingdoms at the other. From this time both of them have a more
direct bearing on Italian history.
♦Massing of Italy into larger states.♦
By the time of the coronation of Charles the Fifth, or at least within
the generation which could remember his coronation, the greater part
of Italy had been massed into a few states, which, as compared with
the earlier state of things, were of considerable size. ♦Monaco♦ A few
smaller principalities and lordships still kept their place, of which
one of the smallest, that of _Monaco_ in the extreme south-west, has
lived on to our own time. ♦San Marino♦ So has the small commonwealth of
_San Marino_, surrounded, first by the dominions of the Popes and now
by the modern kingdom. But such states as these were mere survivals.
♦Dominion of Venice on the mainland, 1406-1797.♦ In the north-east,
Venice kept her power on the mainland untouched, from the recovery
of her dominions after the league of Cambray down to her final fall.
♦She loses her outlying Italian possessions, 1530.♦ By the treaty of
Bologna she lost _Ravenna_; she lost too the towns of _Brindisi_ and
_Monopoli_ which she had gained during the wars of Naples; but her
continuous dominion, both properly Venetian and Lombard, remained.
♦Duchy of Milan: | Spanish, 1540-1706; | Austrian, 1706-1796.♦ The
duchy of _Milan_ to the west of her was held in succession by the
two branches of the House of Austria, first the Spanish and then
the German. ♦Advance of Savoy towards Milan.♦ But the duchy, as an
Austrian possession, was being constantly cut short towards the west
by the growing power of Savoy. For a while the Milanese and Savoyard
states were conterminous only during a small part of their frontier.
♦Montferrat.♦ The marquisate of _Montferrat_, as long as it remained
a separate principality, lay between the southern parts of the two
states. On the failure of the old line of marquesses, Montferrat was
disputed between the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua. ♦United to Mantua
1536, but claimed by Savoy, 1613-1631.♦ Adjudged to Mantua, and raised
into a duchy by Imperial authority, it was still claimed, and partly
conquered by, Savoy. ♦Mantua forfeited to the Empire, and Montferrat
joined to Savoy, 1708-1713.♦ At last, by one of the last exercises of
Imperial authority in Italy, the duchy of Mantua itself was held to be
forfeited to the Empire; that is, it became an Austrian possession. At
the same time the Imperial authority confirmed Montferrat to Savoy. The
Austrian dominions in Italy were thus extended to the south-east by
the accession of the Mantuan territory; but the whole western frontier
of the Milanese now lay open to Savoyard advance. ♦First dismemberment
of Milan in favour of Savoy, 1713.♦ The same treaties which confirmed
Montferrat to Savoy and Milan to Austria also dismembered Milan
in favour of Savoy. A corner of the duchy to the south-west,
_Alessandria_ and the neighbouring districts, were now given to Savoy;
the Peace of Vienna further cut off _Novara_ to the north and _Tortona_
to the south. ♦Further cessions, 1738.♦ The next peace, that of
Aix-la-Chapelle, gave up all west of the Ticino, which river became a
permanent frontier.
♦Parma and Piacenza given to the Spanish Bourbons, 1731-1749.♦
Among the other states, the duchy of _Parma_ and _Piacenza_ was,
on the extinction of the house of Farnese, handed over to princes
of the Spanish branch of the Bourbons. ♦Ferrara confiscated to the
Popes, 1598.♦ _Modena_ and _Ferrara_ remained united, till Ferrara
was annexed as an escheated fief to the dominions of its spiritual
overlord. ♦1718.♦ But the house of Este still reigned over Modena with
_Reggio_ and _Mirandola_, while its dominions were extended to the
sea by the addition of _Massa_ and other small possessions between
Lucca and Genoa. ♦1771-1803.♦ The duchy in the end passed by female
succession to the House of Austria. ♦Corsica ceded to France, 1768.♦
_Genoa_ and _Lucca_ remained aristocratic commonwealths; but Genoa
lost its island possession of _Corsica_, which passed to France.
♦Extinction of the Medici, 1737. | Francis of Lorraine Grand Duke of
Tuscany.♦ The Grand Duchy of _Tuscany_ remained in the house of Medici,
till it was assigned to Duke Francis of Lorraine, afterwards the
Emperor Francis the First, and after that it remained in the House of
Habsburg-Lorraine. ♦Urbino annexed by the Popes, 1631.♦ The States of
the Church, after the annexation of Ferrara, were in the next century
further enlarged by the annexation of the duchy of Urbino.
♦1530-1797. | Comparatively little geographical change.♦
Thus, except on the frontier of Piedmont and Milan, the whole time
from Charles the Fifth to the French Revolution was, within the old
kingdom of Italy, much less remarkable for changes in the geographical
frontiers of the several states than for the way in which they are
passed to and fro from one master to another. ♦Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies♦ This is yet more remarkable, if we look to the southern
part of the peninsula, and to the two great islands which in modern
geography we have learned to look on as attached to Italy. ♦The Norman
kingdom of Sicily.♦ The Norman kingdom which, by steps which will
be told elsewhere, grew up to the south of the Imperial Kingdom of
Italy, has hardly ever changed its boundaries, except by the various
separations and unions of the insular and the continental kingdom.
♦Benevento.♦ Even the outlying papal possession of _Benevento_ after
each war went back to its ecclesiastical master. But the shiftings,
divisions, and reunions of the Two Sicilies and of the island of
Sardinia have been endless. ♦Charles of Anjou, 1265.♦ The Sicilian
kingdom of the Norman and Swabian kings, containing both the island
and the provinces on the mainland, passed unchanged to Charles of
Anjou. ♦Revolt of the island of Sicily, 1282. | The two kingdoms.♦
The revolt of the island split the kingdom into two, one insular, one
continental, each of which called itself the _Kingdom of Sicily_,
though the continental realm was more commonly known as the _Kingdom
of Naples_. The wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries caused
endless changes of dynasty in the continental kingdom, but no changes
of frontier. ♦Union of Aragon, Sardinia, and continental Sicily under
Alfonso, 1442.♦ Under the famous Alfonso in the fifteenth century,
Aragon, Sardinia, and the continental Sicily were three kingdoms
under one sovereign, while the insular Sicily was ruled by another
branch of the same house. ♦Aragonese kings of the island, 1296-1442.
| 1458-1701.♦ Then continental Sicily passed to an illegitimate
branch of the House of Aragon, while Sardinia and insular Sicily
were held by the legitimate branch. ♦Wars beginning with Charles the
Eighth, 1494-1528. | Spanish, 1556-1701.♦ The French invasion under
Charles the Eighth and the long wars that followed, the conquests,
the restorations, the schemes of division, all ended in the union
of both the Sicilian kingdoms, now known as the _Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies_, along with Sardinia, as part of the great Spanish monarchy.
♦1554-1555.♦ A momentary separation of the insular kingdom, in order
to give the husband of Mary of England royal rank while his father yet
reigned, is important only as the first formal use of the title of
_King of Naples_. ♦Sardinia and Naples Austrian. | Duke of Savoy king
of Sicily, 1713.♦ In the division of the Spanish monarchy, Sardinia
and Naples fell to the lot of the Austrian House, while Sicily was
given to the Duke of Savoy, who thus gained substantial kingly rank.
♦Exchange of Sicily and Sardinia, 1718.♦ Presently the kings of the two
island kingdoms made an exchange; Sardinia passed to Savoy, and the
Emperor Charles the Sixth ruled, like Frederick the Second and Charles
the Fifth, over both Sicilies. ♦The Spanish Bourbons, 1735-1806.
| 1817-1860.♦ Lastly, the kingdom was handed over from an Austrian to a
new Spanish master, the first of the line of Neapolitan Bourbons. Thus,
at the end of the last century, the Two Sicilies formed a distinct and
united kingdom, while Sardinia formed the outlying realm of the Duke of
Savoy and Prince of Piedmont. His kingdom was of far less value than
his principality or his duchy. ♦Use of the name _Sardinia_.♦ But, as
Sardinia gave their common sovereign his highest title, the Sardinian
name often came in common speech to be extended to the continental
dominions of its king.
* * * * *
♦Time of the Revolution, 1797-1814.♦
This period, a period of change, but of comparatively slight
geographical change, was followed by a time when, in Italy as in
Germany, boundaries were changed, new names were invented or forgotten
names revived, when old land-marks were rooted up, and thrones were
set up and cast down, with a speed which baffles the chronicler. The
first strictly geographical change which was wrought in Italy by the
revolutionary wars was a characteristic one. ♦Cispadane Republic,
1796.♦ A _Cispadane Republic_, the first of a number of momentary
commonwealths bearing names dug up from the recesses of bygone times,
took in the duchy of Modena and the Papal Legations of Romagna. Without
exactly following the same boundaries, it answered roughly to the old
Exarchate. ♦Transpadane Republic, 1797.♦ Then the French victories
over Austria caused the Austrian duchies of Milan and Mantua to become
a _Transpadane Republic_. ♦Treaty of Campo Formio, 1797. | Cisalpine
Republic.♦ Then Venice was wiped out at Campo Formio, and her Lombard
possessions were joined together with the two newly made commonwealths,
to form a _Cisalpine Republic_. But the same treaty wrought another
change which was more distinctly geographical. ♦Venice surrendered
to Austria.♦ Venice and the eastern part of her possessions on the
mainland, the old Venetia, the Lombard _Austria_, was now handed over
to the modern state which bore the latter name. This change may be
looked on as distinctly cutting short the boundaries of Italy. The
duchy of Milan in Austrian hands had been an outlying part of the
Austrian dominions; but Venetia marches on the older territory of
the Austrian house, and was thus more completely severed from Italy.
The whole north of the Hadriatic coast thus became Austrian in the
modern sense. One Italian commonwealth—for Venice had long counted as
Italian—was thus wiped out, and handed over to a foreign king. But
elsewhere, at this stage of revolutionary progress, the fashion ran
in favour of the creation of local commonwealths. ♦Ligurian Republic,
1797. | Parthenopæan Republic. | Tiberine Republic, 1798-1801.♦ The
dominions of Genoa became a _Ligurian Republic_; Naples became a
_Parthenopæan Republic_; Rome herself exchanged for a moment the
memories of kings, consuls, emperors, and pontiffs to become the head
of a _Tiberine Republic_. ♦Piedmont joined to France, 1798-1800.♦
Piedmont was overwhelmed; the greater part was incorporated with
France. Some small parts were added to the neighbouring republics, and
the king of Sardinia withdrew to his island kingdom. Amid this crowd
of new-fangled states and new-fangled names, ancient San Marino still
lived on.
Thus far revolutionary Italy followed the example of revolutionary
France, and the new states were all at least nominal commonwealths. In
the next stage, when France came under the rule of a single man, above
all when that single ruler took on him the Imperial title, the tide
turned in favour of monarchy. In Rome and Naples it had already turned
so in another way. ♦Restoration of the Pope and the King of the Two
Sicilies, 1801.♦ By help of the Czar and the Sultan, the new republics
vanished, and the old rulers, Pope and King, came back again. And now
France herself began to create kingdoms instead of commonwealths.
♦Kingdom of Etruria, 1801-1808.♦ Parma was annexed to France, and its
Duke was sent to rule in Tuscany by the title of _King of Etruria_.
Presently Italy herself gave her name to a kingdom. ♦Kingdom of Italy,
1805-1814.♦ The Cisalpine republic, further enlarged by Venice and
the other territory ceded to Austria at Campo Formio, enlarged also
by the _Valtellina_ and the former bishopric of _Trent_ at one end
and by the march of _Ancona_ at the other, became the _Kingdom of
Italy_. ♦Buonaparte king of Italy.♦ Its King, the first since Charles
the Fifth who had worn the Italian crown, was no other than the new
ruler of France, the self-styled ‘Emperor.’ But, in Buonaparte’s later
distributions of Italian territory, it was not his Italian kingdom,
but his French ‘empire’ whose frontiers were extended. ♦Annexation
of Liguria, 1805; | of Etruria, 1808. | Grand duchy of Lucca.♦ The
Ligurian Republic was annexed; so before long was the new kingdom
of Etruria; _Lucca_ meanwhile was made into a grand duchy for the
conqueror’s sister. ♦Incorporation of Rome and France, 1809.♦ Lastly,
Rome itself, with what was left of the papal dominions, was also
incorporated with the French dominion. The work alike of Cæsar and of
Charles was wiped out from the Eternal City. The Empire of the Gauls,
which Civilis had dreamed of more than seventeen centuries before, had
come at last.
The fate of the remainder of the peninsula had been already sealed
before Rome became French. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell
asunder. The Bourbon king kept his island, as the Savoyard king kept
his. ♦Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, 1806. | 1809. | _Stati degli
Presidi._♦ The continental kingdom passed, as a _Kingdom of Naples_,
first to Joseph Buonaparte, and then to Joachim Murat. ♦Benevento.♦
But the outlying Tuscan possessions of the Sicilian crown had already
passed to France, and _Benevento_, the outlying papal possession in the
heart of the kingdom, became a separate principality.
♦Italy under French dominion.♦
Thus all Italy—unless we count the island kingdoms of Sardinia and
Sicily as parts of Italy—was brought under French dominion in one form
or another. But of that dominion there were three varieties. ♦Part
incorporated with France.♦ The whole western part of the land, from
Aosta to Tarracina—unless it is worth while to except the new Lucchese
duchy—was formally incorporated with France. ♦Extent of the kingdom of
Italy.♦ The north-eastern side, from Bözen to Ascoli, formed a Kingdom
of Italy, distinct from France, but held by the same sovereign. And
this Kingdom of Italy was further increased to the north by part of
those Italian lands which had become Swiss and German. ♦Kingdom of
Naples.♦ Southern Italy, the Kingdom of Naples, remained in form an
independent kingdom; but it was held by princes who could not be looked
on as anything but the humble vassals of their mighty kinsman. Never
had Italy been brought more completely under foreign dominion. ♦Revival
of the Italian name.♦ Still, in a part at least of the land, the name
of Italy, and the shadow of a Kingdom of Italy, had been revived. ♦Its
effects.♦ And, as names and shadows are not without influence in human
affairs, the mere existence of an Italian state, called by the Italian
name, did something. The creation of a sham Italy was no unimportant
step towards the creation of a real one.
* * * * *
♦Settlement of, 1814-1815.♦
The settlement of Italy after the fall of Buonaparte was far more
strictly a return to the old state of things than the contemporary
settlement of Germany. Italy remained a geographical expression. Its
states were, as before, independent of one another. ♦No tie between the
Italian states.♦ They were practically dependent on a foreign power:
but they were in no way bound together, even by the laxest federal tie.
♦The princes restored, but not the commonwealths.♦ The main principle
of settlement was that the princes who had lost their dominions should
be restored, but that the commonwealths which had been overthrown
should not be restored. Only harmless San Marino was allowed to live
on. Venice, Lucca, and Genoa remained possessions of princes. ♦Kingdom
of Lombardy and Venice.♦ The sovereign of Hungary and Austria, now
calling himself ‘Emperor’ of his archduchy, carved out for himself
an Italian kingdom which bore the name of the _Kingdom of Lombardy
and Venice_. On the strength of this, the Austrian, like his French
predecessor, took upon him to wear the Italian crown. ♦Its extent.♦ The
new kingdom consisted of the former Italian possessions of Austria,
the duchies of Milan and Mantua, enlarged by the former possessions
of Venice, which had become Austrian at Campoformio. The old boundary
between Germany and Italy was restored. Trent, Aquileia, Trieste, were
again severed from Italy. They remained possessions of the same prince
as Milan and Venice, but they formed no part of his Lombardo-Venetian
kingdom. On another frontier, where restoration would have had to be
made to a commonwealth, the arrangements were less conservative, and
the _Valtellina_ remained part of the new kingdom. The Ticino formed,
as before, the boundary towards Piedmont. ♦Genoa annexed to Piedmont.♦
The King of Sardinia came again into possession of this last country,
enlarged by the former dominions of _Genoa_. ♦Monaco.♦ This gave him
the whole Ligurian seaboard, except where the little principality of
_Monaco_ still went on. ♦Tuscany, Parma, Modena, Lucca.♦ _Parma_,
_Modena_, and _Tuscany_ again became separate duchies. _Lucca_ remained
a duchy alongside of them. ♦Lucca annexed to Tuscany.♦ The family
arrangements by which these states were handed about to this and that
widow do not concern geography; all that need be marked is that, by
virtue of one of these compacts, Lucca was in the end added to Tuscany.
That grand-duchy was further increased by the addition of the former
outlying possessions of the Sicilian crown, including Elba, the island
which for a moment was an Empire. ♦The Papal states.♦ The Pope came
back to all his old Italian possessions, outlying Benevento included.
♦The Two Sicilies.♦ The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was formed again
by the restoration of the Kingdom of Naples to the Bourbon king. Thus
was formed the Italy of 1815, an Italy which, save in the sweeping away
of its commonwealths, and the consequent extension of Sardinian and
Austrian territory, differed geographically but little from the Italy
of 1748. But in 1815 there were hopes which had had no being in 1748.
Italy was divided on the map; but she had made up her mind to be one.
* * * * *
♦The union of Italy comes from Piedmont.♦
The union of Italy was at last to come from one of those corners which
in earlier history we have looked on as being hardly Italian at all.
It was not Milan or Florence or Rome which was to grow into the new
Italy. That function was reserved for a princely house whose beginnings
had been Burgundian rather than Italian, whose chief territories had
long lain on the Burgundian side of the Alps, but which had gradually
put on an Italian character, and which had now become the one national
Italian dynasty. The Italian possessions of the Savoyard house,
Piedmont, Genoa, and the island of Sardinia, now formed one of the
chief Italian states, and the only one whose rule, if still despotic,
was not foreign. Savoy, by ceasing to be Savoy, was to become Italy.
♦Movements of 1848.♦ The movements of 1848 in Italy, like those in
Germany, led to no lasting changes on the map: but they do so far
affect geography that new states were actually founded, if only for a
moment. ♦Momentary commonwealths.♦ Rome, Venice, Milan, were actually
for a while republics, and the Two Sicilies were for a while separated.
In the next year all came back as before. The next lasting change
on the map was that which at last restored a real Kingdom of Italy.
♦Campaign of 1859.♦ The joint campaign of France and Sardinia won
_Lombardy_ for the Sardinian kingdom. Lombardy was now defined as that
part of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom which lay west of the Mincio,
except that Mantua was left out. She was left to Austria. A French
scheme for an Italian confederation came to nothing. ♦Union of the
smaller states, 1860.♦ Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna voted their
own annexation to Piedmont. The Two Sicilies were won by Garibaldi,
and the kingly title of Sardinia was merged in that of the restored
Kingdom of Italy. ♦Addition of the Sicilies.♦ This new Italian kingdom
was, by the addition of the Sicilies, extended over lands which had
never been part of the elder Italian kingdom. But Venetia was still
cut off; the Pope kept the lands on each side of Rome, the so-called
_Patrimony_ and the _Campagna_. ♦Cession of Savoy and Nizza to France.♦
But France annexed the lands, strictly Burgundian rather than Italian,
of _Savoy_ and _Nizza_. The Italian kingdom was thus again called into
being; but it had not yet come to perfection. Italy had ceased to be a
geographical expression; but the Italian frontier still presented some
geographical anomalies.
♦Recovery of Venetia, 1866; | of Rome, 1870.♦
The war between Prussia and Austria gave Venetia to Italy; the war
between Germany and France allowed Italy to recover Rome. ♦Part of the
old kingdom not yet recovered.♦ The two great gaps in her frontier
were thus made good; but, to say nothing of the annexations made by
France, a large Italian-speaking population, lying within the bounds
of the old Italian kingdom, still remains outside its modern revival.
Trent, Aquileia, Trieste, Istria, are still parts, not of an Italian
kingdom, not of a German kingdom, confederation, or empire, but of an
Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Otherwise the Italian kingdom has formed
itself, and it has taken its place among the great powers of Europe.
Yet the whole peninsula does not form part of the Italian kingdom. ♦San
Marino remains free.♦ Surrounded on every side by that kingdom, the
commonwealth of _San Marino_, like Rhodes or Byzantium under the early
Cæsars, still keeps its ancient freedom.
§ 5. _The Kingdom of Burgundy._
♦Union of Burgundy with Germany and Italy, 1032.♦
The Burgundian Kingdom, which was united with those of Germany and
Italy after the death of its last separate king Rudolf the Third,
has had a fate unlike that of any other part of Europe. ♦Dying out
of the kingdom.♦ Its memory, as a separate state, has gradually died
out. ♦Chiefly annexed by France;♦ The greater part of its territory
has been swallowed up bit by bit by a neighbouring power, and the
small part which has escaped that fate has long lost all trace of
its original name or its original political relations. By a long
series of annexations, spreading over more than five hundred years,
the greater part of the kingdom has gradually been incorporated with
France. ♦part Italian; | part Swiss.♦ Of what remains, a small corner
forms part of the modern kingdom of Italy, while the rest still keeps
its independence in the form of the commonwealths which make up the
western cantons of Switzerland. ♦Burgundy represented by Switzerland.♦
These cantons, in fact, are the truest modern representatives of the
Burgundian kingdom. ♦Neutrality of Switzerland and Belgium.♦ And it is
on the Confederation of which they form a part, interposed as it is
between France, Italy, the new German Empire, and the modern Austrian
monarchy, as a central state with a guaranteed neutrality, that some
trace of the old function of Burgundy, as the middle kingdom, is
thrown. This function it shares with the Lotharingian lands at the
other end of the Empire, which now form part of the equally neutral
kingdom of Belgium, lands which, oddly enough, themselves became
Burgundian in another sense.
The Burgundian Kingdom, lying between the Alps, the Saône and the
Rhone, and the Mediterranean, might be thought to have a fair natural
boundary. ♦Boundaries of the kingdom.♦ And, while it kept any shadow of
separate being, its boundaries did not greatly change. ♦Fluctuation of
its frontier.♦ They were however somewhat fluctuating on the side of
the Western kingdom, being sometimes bounded by the Rhone and sometimes
reaching to the line of hills to the west of it. They were also, as
we have seen, somewhat fluctuating on the side of Germany. ♦Chiefly
Romance speaking.♦ At this end the kingdom took in some German-speaking
districts; otherwise the language was Romance, including several
dialects of the tongue of _Oc_.
♦County Palatine. | Lesser Burgundy.♦
The northern part of the kingdom, answering to the former Transjurane
kingdom—the _Regnum Jurense_—formed two chief states, the _County
Palatine of Burgundy_—the modern _Franche Comté_—and the _Lesser
Burgundy_, roughly taking in western Switzerland and northern Savoy.
♦Provence.♦ On the Mediterranean lay the great county of _Provence_,
with a number of smaller counties lying between it and the two northern
principalities. ♦The Free Cities.♦ But the great characteristic of
the land was that, next to Italy, no part of Europe contained so many
considerable cities lying near together. Many of these at different
times strove more or less successfully after a republican independence,
and a few have kept it to our own day.
♦Little real unity in the kingdom.♦
But, though the Burgundian kingdom might be thought to have, on three
sides at least, a good natural frontier, it had but little real unity.
The northern part naturally clave to its connexion with the Empire much
longer than the southern. ♦The Burgundian Palatinate.♦ The _County
Palatine_ of Burgundy often passed from one dynasty to another, and it
is remarkable for the number of times that it was held as a separate
state by several of the great princes of Europe. ♦Held by the Emperor
Frederick, 1156-1189; | by Philip of France, 1315-1330.♦ It was held by
the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in right of his wife; the marriage of
one of his female descendants carried it to Philip the Fifth of France.
♦United with the French Duchy.♦ Then it became united with the French
duchy of Burgundy under the dukes of the House of Valois. ♦1477. | Held
by the House of Austria, Charles the Fifth Count of Burgundy.♦ Saving
a momentary French occupation after the death of Charles the Bold, it
remained with them and their Austrian and Spanish representatives.
Among these it had a second Imperial Count in the person of Charles
the Fifth. ♦Annexed to France, 1674.♦ But, through all these changes
of dynasty, it remained an acknowledged fief of the Empire, till its
annexation to France under Lewis the Fourteenth. ♦Dole the capital of
the county.♦ The capital of this county, it must be remembered, was
_Dole_. ♦Besançon a Free Imperial city. 1189-1651.♦ The ecclesiastical
metropolis of _Besançon_, though surrounded by the county, remained a
free city of the Empire from the days of Frederick Barbarossa to those
of Ferdinand the Third. ♦United to France.♦ It was then merged in the
county, and along with the county it passed to France. ♦Montbeilliard.♦
And it should be noticed that a small Burgundian land in this quarter,
the county of _Montbeilliard_ or _Mümpelgard_, first as a separate
state, then in union with the duchy of Württemberg, kept its allegiance
to the Empire till the wars of the French Revolution, when it was
annexed to France and was never restored.
♦The Lesser Burgundy.♦
While the Burgundian Palatinate thus kept its history as an unit in
European geography, the _Lesser Burgundy_ to the south-west of it had
a different history. The geography here gets somewhat confused through
the fact that this Lesser Burgundy, which in the twelfth century passed
under the power of the _Dukes of Zähringen_ in Swabia as _Rectors_,
took in some districts which were not parts of the Burgundian kingdom.
♦The eastern part German.♦ The eastern part of the kingdom itself
was of German speech, and its frontier towards the German duchy of
Alemannia or Swabia was somewhat fluctuating. The Aar may be taken
as the boundary of the kingdom, while the Lesser Burgundy, as an
administrative division, stretched somewhat further to the East.
♦Cities of the Lesser Burgundy.♦ Thus Basel, as well the foundations
of the House of Zähringen at Bern and Freiburg, stood on strictly
Burgundian ground, while the city of Luzern and the land of Unterwalden
come under the head of the Lesser Burgundy, without forming part of the
Burgundian kingdom. These lands long kept up their connexion with the
Empire, though the Lesser Burgundy did not long remain as a separate
unit. ♦Dukes of Zähringen. | End of their house, 1218.♦ When the House
of Zähringen came to an end, the country began to split up into small
principalities and free cities which gradually grew into independent
commonwealths. ♦Break-up of the duchy. | Savoyard territory.♦ The
counts of Savoy, of whom more presently, acquired a large territory on
both sides of the Lake of Geneva. ♦Bishops, Counts, and Free Cities.♦
Other considerable princes were the bishops of _Basel_, _Lausanne_,
_Geneva_, and _Sitten_, the counts of _Geneva_, _Kyburg_, _Gruyères_,
and _Neufchâtel_. ♦The Free Lands.♦ _Basel_, _Solothurn_, and _Bern_
were Imperial cities. The complicated relations between the Bishops
and the city of Geneva hindered that city from having a strict right
to that title. In Unterwalden and in _Wallis_, notwithstanding the
possessions and claims of various spiritual and temporal lords, the
most marked feature was the retention of the old rural independence.
♦The Old League of High Germany.♦ Of the cities in this region, Luzern,
Bern, Freiburg, Solothurn, and Basel, all gradually became members of
the _Old League of High Germany_, the ground-work of the modern Swiss
Confederation. ♦Conquests of Bern and Freiburg from Savoy, 1536.♦ The
Savoyard lands north of the lake were conquered by Bern and Freiburg in
the sixteenth century, a conquest which also secured the independence
of Geneva. ♦The Burgundian cantons of Switzerland.♦ All these lands,
after going through the intermediate stage of allies or subjects
of some or other of the confederate cantons, have in modern times
become independent cantons themselves. This process of annexation and
liberation will be traced more fully when we come to the history of the
Swiss Confederation.
To the south of this group of states, and partly intermingled with
them, lay another group, lying partly within the Cisjurane and partly
within the Transjurane kingdom, which gradually grew into a great
power. ♦Growth of Savoy.♦ These were the states which were united step
by step under the Counts of _Maurienne_, afterwards Counts of _Savoy_.
♦Burgundian possession of its county.♦ When their dominions were at
their greatest extent, they held south of the Lake of Geneva, besides
Maurienne and Savoy strictly so called, the districts of _Aosta_,
_Tarantaise_, the _Genevois_, _Chablais_, and _Faucigny_, together with
_Vaud_ and _Gex_ north of the lake. Thus grew up the power of Savoy,
which has already been noticed in its purely Italian aspect, but which
must receive fuller separate treatment in a section of its own.
♦States between the Palatinate and the Mediterranean.♦
The remainder of the Burgundian Kingdom consisted of a number of small
states stretching from the southern boundary of the Burgundian county
to the Mediterranean. ♦Bresse and Bugey become Savoyard. | Bugey,
1137-1344; | Bresse, 1272-1402.♦ North of the Rhone lay the districts
of _Bresse_ and _Bugey_, which passed at various times to the House
of Savoy. ♦Lyons, Vienne, Orange, &c. | Provence.♦ Southwards on the
Rhone lay a number of small states, among which the most important
in history are the archbishopric, the county, and the free city of
_Lyons_, the county or _Dauphiny_ of _Vienne_ and the city of _Vienne_,
the county or principality _of Orange_, the city of _Avignon_, the
county of _Venaissin_, the free city of _Arles_, the capital of the
kingdom, the free city of _Massalia_ or _Marseilles_, the county of
_Nizza_ or _Nice_, and the great county or marquisate of _Provence_.
In this last power lay the first element of danger, especially to the
republican independence of the free cities. ♦Changes of dynasty. | The
Angevins, 1246.♦ After being held by separate princes of its own, as
well as by the Aragonese kings, it passed by marriage into the hands
of a French prince, Charles of Anjou, the conqueror of Sicily, and
also the destroyer of the second freedom of Massalia. ♦Growing French
connexion.♦ The possession of the greatest member of the kingdom by
a French ruler, though it made no immediate change in the formal
state of things, gave fresh strength to every tendency which tended to
withdraw the Burgundian lands from their allegiance to the Empire and
to bring them, first into connexion with France, and then into actual
incorporation with the French kingdom.
♦Process of French annexation.♦
Step by step, though by a process which was spread over many centuries,
all the principalities and commonwealths of the Burgundian kingdom,
save the lands which have been Swiss and the single valley which is
now Italian, have come into the hands of France. The tendency shows
itself early. ♦Avignon first seized, 1226. | Annexation of Lyons,
1310.♦ _Avignon_ was seized for a moment during the Albigensian wars;
but the permanent process of French annexation began when Philip the
Fair took advantage of the disputes between the archbishops and the
citizens of _Lyons_, to join that Imperial city to his dominions. The
head of all the Gauls, the seat of the Primate of all the Gauls, thus
passed into the hands of the new monarchy of Paris, the first-fruits of
French aggrandizement at the cost of the Middle Kingdom. ♦Purchase of
the Dauphiny of Vienne, 1343.♦ Later in the same century, the Dauphiny
of _Vienne_ was acquired by a bargain with its last independent
prince. This land also passed, through the intermediate stage of an
Imperial fief held by the heir-apparent of the French crown, into a
mere province of France. ♦The city of Vienne annexed, 1448.♦ But the
acquisition of the Dauphiny did not carry with it that of the city
of _Vienne_, which escaped for more than a century. ♦Valence, 1446.♦
Between the acquisition of the Dauphiny and the acquisition of the
city, the county of _Valence_ was annexed to the Dauphiny. ♦Provence,
1481.♦ Later in the same century followed the great annexation of
_Provence_ itself. The rule of French princes in that county for two
centuries had doubtless paved the way for this annexation. And the
acquisition of Provence carried with it the acquisition of the cities
of _Arles_ and _Marseilles_, which the counts of Provence had deprived
of their freedom. By this time the whole of the land between the Rhone
and the sea had been swallowed up, save one state at the extreme
south-east corner of the kingdom, and a group of small states which
were now quite hemmed in by French territory. ♦Nizza passes to Savoy,
1388.♦ The first was the county of _Nizza_ or Nice, which had passed
away from Provence to Savoy before the French annexation of Provence.
But by this time Savoy had become an Italian power, and Nizza was
from henceforth looked on as Italian rather than Burgundian. Between
Provence and the Dauphiny lay the city of _Avignon_, the county of
_Venaissin_, and the principality of _Orange_. ♦Avignon and Venaissin
become Papal, 1348. | Annexed to France, 1791.♦ Avignon and Venaissin
became papal possessions by purchase from the sovereign of Provence;
and, though they were at last quite surrounded by French territory,
they remained papal possessions till they were annexed in the course of
the great Revolution. These outlying possessions of the Popes perhaps
did somewhat towards preserving the independence of a more interesting
fragment of the ancient kingdom. ♦Orange.♦ This was the Principality
of _Orange_, which the neighbourhood of the Pope hindered from being
altogether surrounded by French territory. This little state, whose
name has become so much more famous than itself, passed through several
dynasties, and for a long time it was regularly seized by France in the
course of every war. ♦Its annexation to France, 1714-1771.♦ But it was
as regularly restored to independence at every peace, and its final
annexation did not happen till the eighteenth century. The acquisition
of Orange, Avignon, and Venaissin, completed the process of French
aggrandizement in the lands between the Rhone and the Var. The stages
of the same process as applied to the Savoyard lands will be best told
in another section.
* * * * *
♦Modern states which have split off from the three kingdoms.♦
We have thus traced the geographical history of the three Imperial
kingdoms themselves. It now follows to trace in the like sort the
origin and growth of certain of the modern powers of Europe which
have grown out of one or more of those kingdoms. Certain parts of
the German, Italian, and Burgundian kingdoms have split off from
these kingdoms, so as to form new political units, distinct from
any of them. Five states of no small importance in later European
history have thus been formed. ♦Their character as middle states.♦
Most of them partake more or less of the character of middle states,
interposed between France and one or more of the Imperial kingdoms.
♦Switzerland.♦ First, there is the Confederation of _Switzerland_,
which arose by certain German districts and cities forming so close
an union among themselves that their common allegiance to the Empire
gradually died out. The Confederation grew into its present form by the
addition to these German districts of certain Italian and Burgundian
districts. ♦Savoy.♦ Secondly, there are, or rather were, the dominions
of the Dukes of _Savoy_, formed by the union of various Italian and
Burgundian districts. This however, as a middle power, has ceased
to exist; nearly all its Burgundian possessions have been joined to
France, while its Italian possessions have grown into a new Italy. ♦The
Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Thirdly, there were the dominions of the Dukes of
_Burgundy_, forming a middle power between France and Germany, and
made up by the union of French and Imperial fiefs. ♦Represented by the
kingdoms of the Low Countries.♦ These are represented on the modern
maps by the kingdoms of the _Netherlands_ and _Belgium_, the greater
part of both of which belonged to the Burgundian dukes. Of these
kingdoms much the greater part had split off from the old kingdom of
Germany. Certain parts were once French fiefs, but had ceased to be
so. ♦Recognized neutrality of Belgium, Switzerland, and once of part
of Savoy.♦ The position of three out of these four states as middle
powers, and their importance in that character, has been acknowledged
even by modern diplomacy in the neutrality which is still guaranteed
to Belgium and Switzerland, and which was formerly extended to certain
districts of Savoy.
Of these four states, Switzerland, Savoy, and the duchy of Burgundy as
represented by the two kingdoms of the Low Countries, some have been
merged in other powers, and those which still remain count only among
the secondary states of Europe. But a fifth power has also broken off
from Germany which still ranks among the greatest in Europe. ♦The
Austrian dominions.♦ This is the power which, starting from a small
German mark on the Danube, has, by the gradual union of various lands,
German and non-German, grown into something distinct from Germany,
first under the name of the _Austrian ‘Empire’_ and more latterly
under that of the _Austro-Hungarian Monarchy_. This power differs
from the other states of which we have been just speaking, not only
in its vastly greater extent, but also in its position. ♦Position of
the Austrian dominion as a marchland.♦ It is a marchland, a middle
kingdom, but in a different sense from Burgundy, Switzerland, Savoy,
or Belgium. ♦Comparison with the western marchlands.♦ All these were
marchlands between Christian states, between states all of which had
formed part of the Carolingian Empire. All lie on the western side of
the German and Italian kingdoms. Austria, on the other hand, as its
name implies, arose on the eastern side of the German kingdom, as
a mark against Turanian and heathen invaders. ♦Austria as the march
against the Magyar.♦ The first mission of Austria was to guard Germany
against the Magyar. When the Magyar was admitted into the fellowship of
Europe and Christendom—when, after a while, his realm was united under
a single sovereign with Austria—the same duty was continued in another
form. ♦Austria and Hungary the mark of Christendom against the Turk.♦
The power formed by the union of Hungary and Austria was one of the
chief among those which had to guard Christendom against the Turk. Its
history therefore forms one of the connecting links between Eastern and
Western Europe. In this chapter it will be dealt with chiefly on its
Western side, with regard to its relations towards Germany and Italy.
The Eastern aspect of the Austro-Hungarian power has more to do with
the states which arose out of the break up of the Eastern Empire.
These states then, Switzerland, Savoy, the Duchy of Burgundy, the
Netherlands, and Austria, form a proper addition to the sections given
to the three Imperial kingdoms. I will now go on to deal with them in
order.
§ 6. _The Swiss Confederation._
♦The original Confederation practically German,♦
I have just spoken of the Swiss Confederation as being in its origin
purely German. This statement is practically correct, as all the
original cantons were German in speech and feeling, and the formal
style of their union was _the Old League of High Germany_. But in
strict geographical accuracy there was, as we have seen in the last
section, a small Burgundian element in the Confederation, if not from
the beginning, at least from its aggrandizement in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. ♦though part of it geographically Burgundian.♦
That is to say, part of the territory of the states which formed the
old Confederation lay geographically within the kingdom of Burgundy,
and a further part lay within the Lesser Burgundy of the Dukes of
Zähringen. But, by the time when the history of the Confederation
begins, the kingdom of Burgundy was pretty well forgotten, and the
small German-speaking territory which it took in at its extreme
north-east corner may be looked on as practically German ground. ♦All
the old Cantons German in speech.♦ A more practical division than the
old boundaries of the kingdoms is the boundary of the Teutonic and
Romance speech; in this sense all the cantons of the old Confederation,
except part of Freiburg, are German. ♦The later Romance Cantons.♦
The Romance cantons are those which were formed in modern times
out of the allied and subject states. ♦Many popular errors.♦ It is
specially needful to bear in mind, first, that, till the last years of
the thirteenth century, not even the germ of modern Switzerland had
appeared on the map of Europe; secondly, that the Confederation did
not formally become an independent power till the seventeenth century;
lastly, that, though the _Swiss_ name had been in common use for ages,
it did not become the formal style of the Confederation till the
nineteenth century. Nothing in the whole study of historical geography
is more necessary than to root out the notion that there has always
been a country of Switzerland, as there has always been a country of
Germany, Gaul, or Italy. ♦The Swiss do not represent the Helvetii.♦
And it is no less needful to root out the notion that the Swiss of
the original cantons in any way represent the Helvetii of Cæsar.
♦Summary of Swiss history. | A German League having become more united
and independent than others, annexes Romance allies and subjects.♦
The points to be borne in mind are that the Swiss Confederation is
simply one of many German Leagues, which was more lasting and became
more closely united than other German Leagues—that it gradually split
off from the German Kingdom—that in the course of this process, the
League and its members obtained a large body of Italian and Burgundian
allies and subjects—lastly, that these allies and subjects have in
modern times been joined into one Federal body with the original German
Confederates.
♦The Three Lands on the boundary of the three kingdoms.♦
The three Swabian lands which formed the kernel of the Old League lay
at the point of union of the three Imperial kingdoms, parts of all of
which were to become members of the Confederation in its later form.
♦First known document of union, 1291.♦ The first known document of
confederation between the three lands dates from the last years of the
thirteenth century. But that document is likely to have been rather
the confirmation than the actual beginning of their union. They had
for their neighbours several ecclesiastical and temporal lords, some
other Imperial lands and towns, and far greater than all, the Counts
of the house of _Kyburg_ and _Habsburg_, who had lately grown into the
more dangerous character of Dukes of Austria. ♦Growth of the League.♦
The Confederation grew for a while by the admission of neighbouring
lands and cities as members of a free German Confederation, owning no
superior but the Emperor. ♦Luzern, 1332.♦ First of all, the city of
_Luzern_ joined the League. ♦Zürich, 1351.♦ Then came the Imperial
city of _Zürich_, which had already begun to form a little dominion
in the adjoining lands. ♦Glarus and Zug, 1352.♦ Then came the land
of _Glarus_ and the town of _Zug_ with its small territory. ♦Bern,
1353.♦ And lastly came the great city of _Bern_, which had already won
a dominion over a considerable body of detached and outlying allies
and subjects. ♦The Eight Ancient Cantons.♦ These confederate lands and
towns formed the _Eight Ancient Cantons_. Their close alliance with
each other helped the growth of each canton separately, as well as
that of the League as a whole. ♦Their growth.♦ Those cantons whose
geographical position allowed them to do so, were thus able to extend
their power, in the form of various shades of dominion and alliance,
over the smaller lands and towns in their neighbourhood. These lesser
changes and annexations cannot all be recorded here; but it must be
carefully borne in mind that the process was constantly going on.
♦Dominion of Zürich and Bern.♦ Zürich, and yet more Bern, each formed,
after the manner of an ancient Greek city, what in ancient Greece
would have passed for an empire. ♦Conquests from Austria, 1415-1460.♦
In the fifteenth century, large conquests were made at the expense of
the House of Austria, of which the earlier ones were made by direct
Imperial sanction. The Confederation, or some or other of its members,
had now extended its territory to the Rhine and the Lake of Constanz.
♦Aargau, Thurgau, &c.♦ The lands thus won, _Aargau_, _Thurgau_, and
some other districts, were held as subject territories in the hands of
some or other of the Confederate states.
♦No new canton formed for a long time.♦
It is a fact to be specially noticed in the history of the
Confederation, that, for nearly a hundred and thirty years, though
the territory and the power of the Confederation were constantly
increasing, no new states were admitted to the rank of confederate
cantons. Before the next group of cantons was admitted, the general
state of the Confederation and its European position had greatly
changed. It had ceased to be a purely German power. ♦Beginning of
Italian dominions.♦ The first extension beyond the original German
lands and those Burgundian lands which were practically German began in
the direction of Italy. ♦Uri obtains Val Levantina, 1441.♦ Uri had, by
the annexation of Urseren, become the neighbour of the Duchy of Milan,
and in the middle of the fifteenth century, this canton acquired some
rights in the _Val Levantina_ on the Italian side of the Alps. This
was the beginning of the extension of the Confederation on Italian
ground. But far more important than this was the advance of the
Confederates over the Burgundian lands to the west. ♦First Savoyard
conquest of Bern. | 1475.♦ The war with Charles of Burgundy enabled
Bern to win several detached possessions in the Savoyard lands north
and east of the lake, and even on the lower course of the Rhone.
♦Savoyard conquests of Freiburg and Wallis.♦ And, while Bern advanced,
some points in the same direction were gained by her allies who are not
yet members of the Confederation, by the city of _Freiburg_ and the
League of _Wallis_. ♦Growth of Wallis.♦ This last confederation had
grown up on the upper course of the Rhone, where the small free lands
had gradually displaced the territorial lords. ♦Freiburg and Solothurn
become Cantons, 1481.♦ Soon after this came the next admission of
new cantons, those of the cities of _Freiburg_ and _Solothurn_, each
of them bringing with it its small following of allied and subject
territory. ♦Basel and Schaffhausen, 1501.♦ Twenty years later, _Basel_
and _Schaffhausen_, the latter being the only canton north of the
Rhine, were admitted with their following of the like kind. ♦Appenzell,
1513.♦ Twelve years later, _Appenzell_, a little land which had set
itself free from the rule of the abbots of _Saint Gallen_, after having
long been in alliance with the Confederates, was admitted to the rank
of a canton. ♦The Thirteen Cantons, 1513-1798.♦ Thus was made up the
full number of Thirteen Cantons, which remained unchanged down to the
wars of the French Revolution.
But the time when the Confederation was finally settled as regards
the number of cantons was also a time of great extension of territory
on the part both of the Confederation and of several of its members.
♦Graubünden.♦ At the south-east corner of the Confederate territory, on
the borders of the duchy of Milan and the county of Tyrol, the League
of _Graubünden_ or the _Grey Leagues_ had gradually arisen. A number
of communities, as in Wallis, had got rid of the neighbouring lords,
and had formed themselves into three leagues, the _Grey League_ proper,
the _Gotteshausbund_, and the League of _Ten Jurisdictions_, which
three were again united by a further federal tie. ♦Their alliance with
the Confederates.♦ At the end of the fifteenth century, the Leagues so
formed entered into an alliance with the Confederates. ♦1495-1567.♦
Then began a great accession of territory towards the south on the part
both of the Confederates and of their new allies. ♦Italian dominion
of the Confederation, 1512;♦ The Confederates received a considerable
territory within the duchy of Milan, including _Bellinzona_, _Locarno_,
and _Lugano_, as the reward of services done to the House of Sforza.
♦of the Grey Leagues, 1513.♦ The next year their new allies of the
Grey Leagues also won some Italian territory, the _Valtellina_ and the
districts of _Chiavenna_ and _Bormio_. ♦Early Savoyard conquests of
Bern, Freiburg, and Wallis, 1536.♦ Next came the conquest of a large
part of the Savoyard lands, of all north of the Lake and a good deal to
the south, by the arms of Bern, Freiburg, and Wallis. ♦Vaud.♦ Bern and
Freiburg divided _Vaud_ in very unequal proportions. ♦Lausanne.♦ Bern
and Wallis divided _Chablais_ on the south side of the lake, and Bern
annexed the bishopric of _Lausanne_ on the north. ♦Geneva in alliance
with Bern and Freiburg.♦ _Geneva_, the ally of Bern and Freiburg,
with her little territory of detached scraps, was now surrounded by
the dominion of her most powerful allies at Bern. ♦Territory restored
to Savoy, 1567.♦ But by a later treaty Bern and Wallis gave back to
Savoy all that they had won south of the Lake, with the territory of
_Gex_ to the west of it. Geneva thus again had Savoy for a neighbour,
a neighbour at whose expense she even made some conquests—Gex among
them—conquests which the French ally of the free city would not allow
her to keep. Later changes gave her a neighbour yet more dangerous than
Savoy in the shape of France itself. ♦Gruyères divided between Bern and
Freiburg, 1554.♦ Before these changes, Bern and Freiburg divided the
county of _Gruyères_ between them, the last important instance of that
kind of process.
♦The Allies.♦
The Confederation was thus fully formed, with its Thirteen Cantons and
their allied states. ♦Saint Gallen. | Bienne.♦ Of these the _Abbot of
Saint Gallen_, the _town of Saint Gallen_, and the town of _Biel_ or
_Bienne_, were so closely allied with the Confederates as to have a
place in their Diets. Besides relations of less close alliance which
the Confederates had with various Alsatian cities, several other states
had a connexion so close and lasting with the Confederation or with
some of its members, as to form part of the same political system.
♦_Bischofbasel._ | Mühlhausen and Rottweil. | Neufchâtel passes to
Prussia, 1707.♦ Such were the Leagues of Wallis and Graubünden, the
Bishop of _Basel_, the outlying town of _Mühlhausen_ in Elsass, and
for a while that of _Rottweil_. Bern too, and sometimes other cantons,
had relations both with the town and with the princes of _Neufchâtel_,
which, after passing through several dynasties, was at last inherited
by the Kings of Prussia. ♦Constanz.♦ _Constanz_, at the other end of
the Confederate land, was refused admission as a canton, but for a
while it was in alliance with some of the cantons. ♦Passes to Austria,
1548.♦ But this connexion was severed when Constanz, instead of a free
Imperial city, became a possession of Austria. ♦The Confederation
released from the allegiance to the Empire, 1658.♦ The power thus
formed, a power in which a body of German Confederates was surrounded
by a body of allies and subjects, German, Italian, and Burgundian, all
of them originally members of the Empire, was by the Peace of Westfalia
formally released from all allegiance to the Empire and its chief.
♦Date of the practical separation, 1495.♦ Their practical separation
may be dated much earlier, from the time when the Confederates refused
to accept the legislation of Maximilian.
♦Geographical position of the League.♦
The growth of the League into an independent power was doubtless
greatly promoted by its geographical position, as occupying the
natural citadel of Europe. ♦Its anomalous frontier.♦ But the piecemeal
way in which it grew up was marked by the anomalous nature of its
frontier on several points. On the north the Rhine would seem to be a
natural boundary, but Schaffhausen beyond the Rhine formed part of the
Confederation, while Constanz and other points within it did not. To
the south the possession of territory on the Italian side of the Alps
seems an anomaly, an anomaly which is brought out more strongly by a
singularly irregular and arbitrary frontier. ♦The Confederation as a
middle state.♦ But looking on the Confederation as the middle state,
arising at the point of junction of the three Imperial kingdoms, it was
in a manner fitting that it should spread itself into all three.
* * * * *
♦Wars of the French Revolution.♦
The form which the Confederation thus took in the sixteenth
century remained untouched till the wars of the French Revolution.
♦Dismemberment of the Grey Leagues, 1797.♦ The beginning of change was
when the Italian districts subject to the Grey Leagues were transferred
to the newly formed _Cisalpine Republic_. In the next year the whole
existing system was destroyed. ♦Abolition of the Federal system, 1798.
| The Helvetic Republic.♦ The Federal system was abolished; instead of
the Old League of High Germany, there arose, after the new fashion
of nomenclature, a _Helvetic Republic_, in which the word _canton_
meant no more than _department_. Yet even by such a revolution as
this some good was done. ♦Freedom of the subject districts.♦ The
subject districts were freed from the yoke of their masters, whether
those masters were the whole Confederation or one or more of its
several cantons. ♦Freedom of Vaud.♦ Thus, above all, the Romance land
of _Vaud_ was freed from subjection to its German masters at Bern.
♦Annexation of _Bischofbasel_ and Geneva to France.♦ Some of the
allied districts, as the bishopric of Basel and the city of Geneva,
were annexed to France. But the Leagues of Wallis and Graubünden
were incorporated with the Helvetic Republic. ♦Act of Mediation,
1803.♦ In 1803 the Federal system was restored by Buonaparte’s _Act
of Mediation_, which formed a Federal republic of nineteen cantons.
♦The nineteen cantons.♦ These were the original thirteen, with the
addition of _Aargau_, _Graubünden_, _St. Gallen_, _Ticino_, _Thurgau_,
and _Vaud_, which were formed out of the formerly allied and subject
lands. ♦Wallis incorporated with France.♦ _Wallis_ was separated from
the Confederation, and became, first a nominally distinct republic,
and afterwards a French department. ♦Neufchâtel. | 1806.♦ _Neufchâtel_
was, in the course of Buonaparte’s wars with Prussia, detached from
that power, to form a principality under his General Berthier. ♦The
Swiss Confederation of twenty-two cantons. 1815.♦ At last, in 1815, the
present _Swiss Confederation_ was established, consisting of twenty-two
cantons, the number being made up by the addition of _Neufchâtel_,
_Wallis_, and _Geneva_. ♦_Bischofbasel_ added to Bern.♦ The bishopric
of Basel was also again detached from France, and added to the canton
of Bern, a canton differing in language and religion, and cut off
by a mountain range. ♦Neufchâtel separated from Prussia, 1848.♦ The
great constitutional changes which have been made since that time
have not affected geography, unless we count the division of the city
and district of Basel, _Baselstadt_ and _Baselland_, into distinct
half-cantons, and the surrender of all rights over Neufchâtel by the
King of Prussia. But this last was not strictly a geographical change;
it was rather a change from a _quasi_ monarchic to a purely republican
government in that particular canton.
§ 7. _The State of Savoy._
♦Position and growth of Savoy.♦
The growth of the power of Savoy, the border state of Burgundy and
Italy, has necessarily been spoken of more than once in earlier
sections; but it seems needful to give a short connected account of its
progress, and to mark the way in which a power originally Burgundian
gradually lost on the side of Burgundy and grew on the side of Italy,
till it has in the end itself grown into a new Italy. ♦Geographical
position of the Savoyard lands.♦ The lands which have at different
times passed under the rule of the House of Savoy lie continuously,
though with an irregular frontier, and though divided by the great
barrier of the Alps. ♦Their three divisions.♦ They fall however into
three main geographical divisions, which at one time became also
political divisions, being held by different branches of the Savoyard
House. ♦Italian.♦ There are the Italian possessions of that House,
which have grown into the modern Italian kingdom. ♦Burgundian south of
the lake.♦ There are the more strictly Savoyard lands south of the Lake
of Geneva, and the other lands south of the Rhone after it issues from
that lake, all of which have passed away under the power of France.
♦Burgundian north of the lake.♦ And there are the lands north of the
Lake and of the Rhone, part of which have also become French, while
others have become part of the Swiss Confederation. Both these last lay
within the kingdom of Burgundy, and stretched into both its divisions,
Transjurane and Cisjurane. In no part of our story is it more necessary
to avoid language which forestalls the arrangements of later times.
♦Popular confusions.♦ A wholly false impression is given by the use
of language such as commonly is used. We often hear of the princes of
Savoy holding lands ‘in France’ and ‘in Switzerland. They held lands
which by virtue of later changes have severally become French and
Swiss; but those lands became French and Swiss only by ceasing to be
Savoyard. On the other hand, to speak of them from the beginning as
holding lands in Italy is perfectly accurate. The Savoyard states
were a large and fluctuating assemblage of lands on both sides of the
Alps, lying partly within the Italian and partly within the Burgundian
kingdom. These last have shared the fate of the other fiefs of that
crown.
♦The Savoyard state originally Burgundian.♦
The cradle of the Savoyard power lay in the Burgundian lands
immediately bordering upon Italy and stretching on both sides of
the Alps. It was to their geographical position, as holding several
great mountain passes, that the Savoyard princes owed their first
importance, succeeding therein in some measure to the Burgundian kings
themselves.[15] The early stages of the growth of the house are very
obscure; and its power does not seem to have formed itself till after
the union of Burgundy with the Empire. ♦Possessions of the Counts
of Maurienne.♦ But it seems plain that, at the end of the eleventh
century, the Counts of _Maurienne_, which was their earliest title,
held rights of sovereignty in the Burgundian districts of _Maurienne_,
_Savoy_ strictly so called, _Tarantaise_, and _Aosta_. ♦Aosta; its
special position.♦ This last valley and city, though on the Italian
side of the Alps, had hitherto been rather Burgundian than Italian.[16]
Its allegiance had fluctuated several times between the two kingdoms;
but, from the time that Savoy held lands in both, the question became
of no practical importance. And, without entering into minute questions
of tenure, it may be said that the early Savoyard possessions reached
to the Lake of Geneva, and spread on both sides of the inland mouth
of the Rhone. The power of the Savoyard princes in this region was
largely due to their ecclesiastical position as advocates of the
abbey of Saint Maurice. ♦Geographical character of the Burgundian
territories.♦ Thus their possessions had a most irregular outline,
nearly surrounding the lands of _Genevois_ and _Faucigny_. A state of
this shape, like Prussia in a later age and on a greater scale, was, as
it were, predestined to make further advances. But for some centuries
those advances were made much more largely in Burgundy than in Italy.
♦Their early Italian possessions.♦ The original Italian possessions
of the House bordered on their Burgundian counties of Maurienne and
Aosta, taking in _Susa_ and _Turin_. ♦Marquesses in Italy.♦ This small
marchland gave its princes the sounding title of _Marquesses in Italy_.
The endless shiftings of territory in this quarter could be dealt with
only at extreme length, and they are matters of purely local concern.
♦Fluctuations of dominion.♦ In truth, they are not always fluctuations
of territory in any strict sense at all, but rather fluctuations of
rights between the feudal princes, the cities, and their bishops.
♦Their position in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.♦ In the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the princes of Savoy were still
hemmed in in their own corner of Italy by princes of equal or greater
power, at _Montferrat_, at _Saluzzo_, at _Iverea_, and at _Biandrate_.
And it must be remembered that their position as princes at once
Burgundian and Italian was not peculiar to them. ♦Other princes at once
Italian and Burgundian.♦ The Dauphins of the Viennois and the Counts of
Provence both held at different times territories on the Italian side
of the Alps. The Italian dominions of the family remained for a long
while quite secondary to its Burgundian possessions, and the latter may
therefore be traced out first.
♦Advance of Savoy in Burgundy. | Faucigny and the Genevois.♦
The main object of Savoyard policy in this region was necessarily the
acquisition of the lands of _Faucigny_ and the _Genevois_. ♦First
advance north of the lake.♦ But the final incorporation of those lands
did not take place till they were still more completely hemmed in by
the Savoyard dominions through the extension of the Savoyard power to
the north of the Lake. ♦Grant of Moudon. 1207.♦ This began early in
the thirteenth century by a royal grant of _Moudon_ to Count Thomas of
Savoy. ♦Romont the northern capital.♦ _Romont_ was next won, and became
the centre of the Savoyard power north of the Lake. ♦Peter, Count
of Savoy. 1263-1268.♦ Soon after, through the conquests of Peter of
Savoy, who was known as the Little Charlemagne and who plays a part in
English as well as in Burgundian history, these possessions grew into
a large dominion, stretching along a great part of the shores of the
Lake of Neufchâtel and reaching as far north as _Murten_ or _Morat_.
♦1239-1268.♦ But it was a straggling, and in some parts fragmentary,
dominion, the continuity of which was broken by the scattered
possessions of the Bishops of Lausanne and other ecclesiastical and
temporal lords. This extension of dominion brought Peter into close
connexion with the lands and cities which were afterwards to form the
Old League of High Germany. ♦His relations with Bern.♦ Bern especially,
the power to which his conquests were afterwards to be transferred,
looked on him as a protector. ♦Barons of Vaud. | Union of Vaud with
the elder branch. 1349.♦ This new dominion north of the Lake was,
after Peter’s reign, held for a short time by a separate branch of
the Savoyard princes as _Barons of Vaud_; but in the middle of the
fourteenth century, their barony came into the direct possession of the
elder branch of the house. The lands of Faucigny and the Genevois were
thus altogether surrounded by the Savoyard territory. ♦Faucigny held
by the Dauphins of the Viennois.♦ Faucigny had passed to the Dauphins
of the Viennois, who were the constant rivals of the Savoyard counts,
down to the time of the practical transfer of their dauphiny to France.
♦Savoy acquires Faucigny and Gex. 1355.♦ Soon after that annexation,
Savoy obtained _Faucigny_, with _Gex_ and some other districts beyond
the Rhone, in exchange for some small Savoyard possessions within the
Dauphiny. ♦The Genevois. 1401.♦ The long struggle for the Genevois,
the _county_ of Geneva, was ended by its purchase in the beginning
of the fifteenth century. This left the _city_ of Geneva altogether
surrounded by Savoyard territory, a position which before long
altogether changed the relations between the Savoyard counts and the
city. ♦Changed relations to city of Geneva.♦ Hitherto, in the endless
struggles between the Genevese counts, bishops, and citizens, the
Savoyard counts, the enemies of the immediate enemy, had often been
looked on by the citizens as friends and protectors. Now that they had
become immediate neighbours of the city, they began before long to
be its most dangerous enemies. ♦Amadeus the Eighth, Count 1391; | Duke
1417; | Antipope 1440; | died 1451.♦ The acquisition of the Genevois
took place in the reign of the famous Amadeus the Eighth, the first
Duke of Savoy, who received that rank by grant of King Siegmund,
and who was afterwards the Antipope Felix. ♦Greatest extent of the
dominions of Savoy in Burgundy.♦ In his reign the dominions of Savoy,
as a power ruling on both sides of the Alps, reached their greatest
extent. But the Savoyard power was still pre-eminently Burgundian,
and Chambery was its capital. The continuous Burgundian dominion of
the house now reached from the Alps to the Saône, surrounding the
lake of Geneva and spreading on both sides of the lake of Neufchâtel.
♦Annexation of Nizza. 1388.♦ Besides this continuous Burgundian
dominion, the House of Savoy had already become possessed of _Nizza_,
by which their dominions reached to the sea. This last territory
had however, though technically Burgundian, geographically more to
do with the Italian possessions of the house. ♦Savoy brought into
the neighbourhood of France.♦ But this great extension of territory
brought Savoy on its western side into closer connexion with the most
dangerous of neighbours. Her frontier for a certain distance joined
the actual kingdom of France. The rest joined the Dauphiny, which was
now practically French, and the county of Provence, which was ruled by
French princes and which before the end of the century became an actual
French possession. ♦New relations towards Bern and the Confederates.♦
To the North again the change in the relations between the House of
Savoy and the city of Geneva led in course of time to equally changed
relations towards Bern and her Confederates. ♦Loss of the Burgundian
dominion of Savoy.♦ Through the working of these two causes, all that
the House of Savoy now keeps of this great Burgundian territory is
the single city and valley of Aosta. After the fifteenth century, the
Burgundian history of that house consists of the steps spread over more
than three hundred years by which this great dominion was lost.
* * * * *
♦Growth of Savoy in Italy.♦
The real importance of the house of Savoy in Italy dates from much the
same time as the great extension of its power in Burgundy. ♦The largest
dominions cut short in the twelfth century.♦ During the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, partly through the growth of the cities, partly
through the enmity of the Emperor Henry the Sixth, the dominions of
the Savoyard princes as marquesses of Susa had been cut short, so as
hardly to reach beyond their immediate Alpine valleys. ♦Grants to
Count Thomas. 1207.♦ In the beginning of the thirteenth century, when
Count Thomas obtained his first royal grant north of the lake, he also
obtained grants of _Chieri_ and other places in the neighbourhood of
Turin. These grants were merely nominal; but they were none the less
the beginning of the Italian advance of the house. ♦First homage of
Saluzzo. 1216.♦ In the same reign _Saluzzo_ for the first time paid
a precarious homage to Savoy. ♦Italian dominion of Charles of Anjou.
1259.♦ Later in the thirteenth century, Charles of Anjou, now Count of
Provence and King of Sicily, made his way into Northern Italy also,
and thus brought the house of Savoy into a dangerous neighbourhood
with French princes on its Italian as well as on its Burgundian
side. Through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Savoyard
border went on extending itself. But the Italian possessions of the
house, like its possessions north of the lake, were separated from
the main body of Savoyard territory to form a fief for one of the
younger branches. ♦Counts of Achaia in Piedmont. 1301-1418.♦ This
branch bore by marriage the empty title of Counts of _Achaia_ and
_Morea_—memories of Frank dominion within the Eastern Empire—while,
as if to keep matters straight, a branch of the house of Palaiologos
reigned at Montferrat. ♦Advance in the fourteenth century.♦ During
the fourteenth century, among many struggles with the marquesses of
Montferrat and Saluzzo, the Angevin counts of Provence, and the lords
of Milan, the Savoyard power in Italy generally increased. ♦Reunion
of Piedmont. 1418.♦ Under Amadeus the Eighth, the lands held by the
princes of Achaia were united to the possessions of the head of the
house. ♦Acquisition of Biella, &c. 1435.♦ Before the end of the reign
of Amadeus, the dominions of Savoy stretched as far as the Sesia,
taking in _Biella_, _Santhia_ and _Vercelli_. Counting Nizza and Aosta
as Italian, which they now practically were, the Italian dominions of
the House reached from the Alps of Wallis to the sea. ♦Relations with
Montferrat.♦ But they were nearly cut in two by the dominions of the
Marquesses of _Montferrat_, from whom however the Dukes of Savoy now
claimed homage. ♦Claims on Saluzzo; its doubtful homage.♦ _Saluzzo_,
lying between the old inheritance of Susa and the new possession of
Nizza, also passed under Savoyard supremacy. But it lay open to a very
dangerous French claim on the ground of a former homage done to the
Viennese Dauphins. Amadeus, the first Duke of Savoy, took the title of
_Count of Piedmont_, and afterwards that of _Prince_. ♦Establishment of
Savoy as a middle state.♦ His possessions were now fairly established
as a middle state, Italian and Burgundian, in nearly equal proportions.
♦Effects of the Italian wars.♦
In the course of the next century and a half the Savoyard state
altogether changed its character in many ways. The changes which
affected all Europe, especially the great Italian wars, could not fail
greatly to affect the border state of Italy and Gaul. And there is no
part of our story which gives us more instructive lessons with
regard to the proper limits of our subject. During this time the
Savoyard power was brought under a number of influences, all of which
deeply affected its history, but which did not all alike affect its
geography. ♦French influence and occupation.♦ We have a period of
French influence, a period of French occupation, and more than one
actual fresh settlement of the frontier. Mere influence does not
concern us at all. Occupation concerns us only when it takes the form
of permanent conquest. An occupation of nearly forty years comes very
near to permanent conquest; still when, as in this case, it comes to
an end without having effected any formal annexation, it is hardly to
be looked on as actually working a change on the map. ♦Occupation by
France.♦ France occupied Piedmont for nearly as long a time as Bern
occupied the lands south of the lake. Yet we look on the one occupation
as simply part of the military history, while in the other we see a
real, though only temporary, geographical change. ♦Increased Italian
character of Savoy.♦ But the result alike of influence, of occupation,
and of actual change of boundaries, all tended the same way. They all
tended to strengthen the Italian character of the House of Savoy, to
cut short its Burgundian possessions, and, if not greatly to increase
its Italian possessions, at least to put it in the way of greatly
increasing them.
♦Decline of Savoy.♦
During the second half of the fifteenth century, the power of the
House of Savoy greatly declined, partly through the growing influence
of France, partly through the division, in the form of appanages, of
the lands which had been so lately formed together into a compact
state. ♦The Italian wars.♦ Then came the Italian wars, in which the
Savoyard dominions became the highway for the kings of France in their
invasions of Italy. The strictly territorial changes of this period
chiefly concern the marquisate of Saluzzo on the Italian side and the
northern frontier on the Burgundian side. In the end these two points
of controversy were merged in a single settlement. ♦First loss of
lands north of the lake. 1475.♦ The first loss of territory on the
northern frontier, the first sign that the Savoyard power in Burgundy
was gradually to fall back, was the loss of part of the lands north of
the lake in the war between Charles of Burgundy and the Confederates.
_Granson_ on the lake of Neufchâtel, _Murten_ or _Morat_ on its own
lake, _Aigle_ at the south-east end of the great lake, _Échallens_
lying detached in the heart of Vaud, all passed away from Savoy and
became for ever Confederate ground. Sixty years later, the affairs of
Geneva led to the great intervention of Bern, Freiburg and Wallis, by
which Savoy was for ever shorn of her possessions north of the lake.
♦Loss of the lands on both sides of the lake. 1536.♦ For a while indeed
she was cut off from the lake altogether; Chablais passed away as well
as Vaud. Geneva, with her detached scraps of territory, was now wholly
surrounded by her own allies. ♦Reunion of the lands south of the lake.
1567.♦ Thirty years later, Bern restored all her conquests south of the
lake, together with Gex to the west, leaving Geneva again surrounded by
the dominions of Savoy. Wallis too gave up part of her share, keeping
only the narrow strip on the left bank of the Rhone. ♦Charles the Good.
1504-1553. | Emanuel Filibert. 1553-1580.♦ The loss and the recovery
mark the difference between the reigns of Duke Charles the Third,
called the Good, and Duke Emmanuel Filibert with the Iron Head. The
difference of the two reigns is equally marked with regard to France.
♦Beginning of French occupation 1536. | Its end. 1574.♦ Almost at the
same moment as the conquests made by Bern, began that occupation, whole
or partial, of Savoyard territory by the French arms which did not come
wholly to an end for thirty-eight years. Savoy then appeared again
as a power whose main strength lay in Italy, whose capital, instead
of Burgundian Chambery, was Italian Turin. And all later changes of
frontier and the changes of frontier in her more southern dominions
also tended the same way to increase the Italian character of the
Savoyard power, and to lessen its extent in the lands which we may
distinguish as Transalpine, for the Burgundian name has now altogether
passed away from them.
The first formal exchange of Burgundian for Italian ground happened
under Emmanuel Filibert, shortly after the emancipation of his
dominions. ♦Acquisition of Tenda.♦ The small county of _Tenda_ was
acquired in exchange for the marquisate of _Villars_ in Bresse.
This extended the Italian frontier, without formally narrowing the
Burgundian frontier; still it was a step in the direction of more
important changes. ♦Disputes about the homage of Saluzzo.♦ The first
of these was caused by the endless disputes which arose out of the
disputed homage of Saluzzo. ♦Annexation of Saluzzo by France. 1548.♦
The Marquesses of Saluzzo preferred the French claimant of their
homage to the Savoyard, a preference which led in the end to definite
annexation by France. This was the first acquisition of Italian soil
by France as such, as distinguished from the claims of French princes
over Milan, Naples, and Asti. France thus threw a continuous piece
of French territory into the heart of the states of Savoy. When the
French occupation ceased, Saluzzo still remained to France. ♦Conquest
of Saluzzo. 1588.♦ Presently it was conquered by Duke Charles Emmanuel.
♦Reign of Charles Emanuel. 1580-1630.♦ The reign of this prince marks
the final change in the destiny of the house of Savoy. He himself
had dreamed of wider conquests on the Gaulish side of the Alps than
had ever presented himself to any prince of his house. He was to be
Count of Provence, King of Burgundy, perhaps King of France. The real
results of his reign told in exactly the opposite way. ♦Bresse, &c.
exchanged for Saluzzo. 1601.♦ By the treaty which ended his war with
France, Saluzzo was ceded to Savoy in exchange for _Bresse_, _Bugey_,
_Valromey_, and _Gex_. ♦Loss of position beyond the Alps.♦ A powerful
neighbour was thus shut out from a possession which cut the Savoyard
states in twain; but the price at which this advantage was gained
amounted to a final surrender of the old position of the Savoyard House
beyond the Alps. The Rhone and not the Saône became the boundary,
while the surrender of Gex brought France to the shores of the Lake.
Geneva, her city and her scattered scraps of territory, had now,
besides Bern, two other neighbours in France and Savoy. ♦Attempts on
Geneva. 1602-1609.♦ The two attempts of Charles Emmanuel to seize upon
the city were fruitless. Savoy now became distinctly an Italian power,
keeping indeed the lands between the Alps and the Lake, the proper
Duchy of Savoy, but having her main possessions and her main interests
in Italy. ♦Later history of Savoy.♦ We may here therefore finish the
history of the Transalpine possessions of the Savoyard House. ♦Annexed
to France. 1792-1796.♦ The Duchy of Savoy remained in the hands of its
own Dukes till their continental dominion was swept away in the storm
of the French Revolution. ♦Restored. 1814-1815.♦ It was restored after
the first fall of Buonaparte, but with a narrowed frontier, which left
its capital _Chambery_ to France. This was set right by the treaties
of the next year. ♦Savoy and Nizza annexed to France. 1860.♦ Lastly,
as all the world knows, Savoy itself, including the guaranteed neutral
lands on the Lake, passed, along with Nizza, to France. Savoy itself
was so far favoured as to be allowed to keep its ancient name, and
to form the departments of _High_ and _Low Savoy_, instead of being
condemned, as in the former temporary annexation, to bear the names of
_Leman_ and _Mont Blanc_. The Burgundian Counts who have grown into
Italian Kings have thus lost the land under whose name their House
grew famous. ♦Aosta spared.♦ Aosta alone remains as the last relic of
the times when the Savoyard Dukes, the greatest lords of the Middle
Kingdom, still kept their place as the truest representatives of the
Middle Kingdom itself.
* * * * *
♦Italian history of the House of Savoy.♦
The purely Italian history of the house now begins, a history which
has been already sketched in dealing with the geography of Italy.
♦Its character.♦ Savoy now takes part in every European struggle, and,
though its position led to constant foreign occupation, some addition
of territory was commonly gained at every peace. ♦French occupation.
1629.♦ Thus, before the reign of Charles Emmanuel was over, Piedmont
was again overrun by French troops. ♦Annexation of part of Montferrat.
1631. | French occupation of Pinerolo. 1630-1696.♦ Though the Savoyard
possessions in Italy were presently increased by a part of the Duchy of
_Montferrat_, this was a poor compensation for the French occupation
of _Pinerolo_ and other points in the heart of Piedmont, which lasted
till nearly the end of the century. ♦Later Italian advance.♦ The
gradual acquisition of territory at the expense of the Milanese duchy,
the acquisition and exchange of the two island kingdoms, the last
annexation by France, the acquisition of the Genoese seaboard, the
growth of the Kingdom of Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy, have been
already told. Our present business has been with Savoy as a middle
power, a character which practically passed from it with the loss of
Vaud and Bresse, and all traces of which are now sunk in the higher but
less interesting character of one of the great powers of Europe. From
Savoy in its character of a middle power, as one of the representatives
of ancient Burgundy, we naturally pass to another middle power which
prolonged the existence of the Burgundian name, and on part of which,
though not on a part lying within its Burgundian possessions, some
trace of the ancient functions of the middle kingdom is still laid by
the needs of modern European policy.
§ 8. _The Duchy of Burgundy and the Low Countries._
♦Position of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy.♦
Among all the powers which we have marked as having for their special
characteristic that of being middle states, the one which came most
nearly to an actual revival of the middle states of earlier days was
the Duchy of Burgundy under the Valois Dukes. A great power was formed
whose princes held no part of their dominions in wholly independent
sovereignty. ♦Their twofold vassalage.♦ In practical power they were
the peers of their Imperial and royal neighbours; but their formal
character throughout every rood of their possessions was that of
vassals of one or other of those neighbours. ♦Its effects.♦ Such
a twofold vassalage naturally suggested, even more strongly than
vassalage to a single lord could have done, the thought of emancipation
from all vassalage, and of the gathering together of endless separate
fiefs into a single kingdom. ♦Schemes for a Burgundian kingdom.♦ The
gradual acquisitions of earlier princes, especially those of Philip the
Good, naturally led up to the design, avowed by his son Charles the
Bold, of exchanging the title of Duke for that of King. The memories of
the older Burgundian and Lotharingian kingdoms had no doubt a share in
shaping the schemes of a prince who possessed so large a share of the
provinces which had formed those kingdoms. The schemes of Charles, one
can hardly doubt, reached to the formation of a realm like that of the
first Lothar, a realm stretching from the Ocean to the Mediterranean.
His actual possessions, at their greatest extent, formed a power to
which Burgundy gave its name, but which was historically at least
as much Lotharingian as Burgundian. ♦Historical importance of the
Burgundian power.♦ And though this actual dominion was only momentary,
no power ever arose which fills a wider and more œcumenical place in
history than the line of the Valois Dukes. Their power connects the
earliest settlement of the European states with the latest. ♦1870.♦
It spans a thousand years, and connects the division of Verdun with
the last treaty that guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. The growth
of their power was directly influenced by memories of the early
Carolingian partitions; and, even in its fall, it has itself influenced
the geography and politics of Europe ever since. As a Burgundian power,
it was as ephemeral as all other Burgundian powers have ever been. As a
Lotharingian power, it abides still in its effects. ♦History of the Low
Countries.♦ The union of the greater part of the Low Countries under a
single prince, and that a prince who was on the whole foreign to the
Empire, strengthened that tendency to split off from the Empire which
was already at work in some of those lands. Later events caused them
to split off in two bodies instead of one. This last tendency became
so strong that a modern attempt to unite them broke down, and their
place in the modern polity of Europe is that of two distinct kingdoms.
♦Final result of the Burgundian dominion.♦ The existence of those two
kingdoms is the final result of the growth of the Burgundian power in
the fifteenth century. ♦Its effect on language.♦ And by leading to the
separation of the northern Netherlands from the Empire, it has led to
one result which could never have been reckoned on, the preservation
of one branch of the Low-Dutch tongue as the acknowledged and literary
speech of an independent nation. ♦The Netherlands and Belgium.♦ Its
political results were the creation, in the shape of the northern
Netherlands, of a power which once held a great place in the affairs
of Europe and of the world, and the slower growth, in the shape of
the southern Netherlands, of a state in which modern European policy
still acknowledges the character of a middle kingdom. As the neutral
confederation of Switzerland represents the middle kingdom of Burgundy,
so the neutral kingdom of Belgium represents the middle kingdom of
Lotharingia.
♦Ducal Burgundy a fief of the Western Kingdom.♦
The Duchy of Burgundy which gave its name to the Burgundian power of
the fifteenth century was that one among the many lands bearing the
Burgundian name which lay wholly outside the Burgundian kingdom of the
Emperors. This Burgundy, the only one which has kept the name to our
own time, the duchy of which Dijon is the capital, never was a fief
of the Eastern Kingdom or of the Empire, after the final separation.
It always acknowledged the supremacy of the kings of Laon and Paris.
♦Two lines of Dukes. 1032.♦ By these last the duchy was twice granted
in fief to princes of their own house, once in the eleventh century
and once in the fourteenth. ♦The Valois. 1363.♦ This last grant was
the beginning of the Dukes of the House of Valois, with the growth
of whose power we have now to deal. ♦Union of Flanders and Burgundy.
1369. | The county of Burgundy.♦ Philip the Hardy, the first Duke of
this line, obtained, by his marriage with Margaret of Flanders, the
counties of _Flanders_, _Artois_, _Rhetel_, and _Nevers_, all fiefs of
the crown of France, together with the _County Palatine of Burgundy_ as
a fief of the Empire. The peculiar position of the Dukes of Burgundy
of this line was at once established by this marriage. ♦Two masses of
territory.♦ Duke Philip held of two lords, and his dominions lay in
two distinct masses. The two Burgundies, duchy and county, and the
county of Nevers, lay geographically together; Flanders and Artois
lay together at a great distance; the small possession of Rhetel lay
again detached between the two. Any princes who held such a territory
as this could hardly fail to devote their main policy to the work of
bringing about the geographical union of their scattered possessions.
Nor was this all. The possession of the two Burgundies made their
common sovereign a vassal at once of France and of the Empire.
♦Position of the Netherlands.♦ The possession of Flanders, Artois,
and Rhetel further brought him into connexion with those border
lands of the Empire and of the French kingdom where the authority of
either over-lord was weakest, and which had long been tending to form
themselves into a separate political system distinct from both. The
results of this complicated position, as worked out, whether by the
prudence of Philip the Good or by the daring of Charles the Bold, form
the history of the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois.
♦Imperial and French fiefs in the Netherlands.♦
The lands which we are accustomed to group together under the name of
the _Netherlands_ or _Low Countries_ lay chiefly within the bounds
of the Empire; but the county of Flanders had always been a fief of
France. ♦Fief of the Counts of Flanders within the Empire.♦ Part
however of the dominions of its counts, the north-eastern corner of
their dominions, the lands of _Alost_ and _Waas_, were held of the
Empire. ♦Zealand.♦ These lands, together with the neighbouring islands
of _Zealand_, formed a ground of endless disputes between the Counts of
Flanders and their northern neighbours the Counts of _Holland_. ♦County
of Holland.♦ This last county gradually disentangles itself from the
general mass of the Frisian lands which lie along the whole coast from
the mouth of the Scheld to the mouth of the Weser. ♦Inroads of the
sea. 1219, 1282.♦ And those great inroads of the sea in the thirteenth
century which gave the Zuyder-Zee its present extent helped to give the
country a natural boundary, and to part it off from the Frisian lands
to the north-east. ♦Disputes with the free Frisians.♦ Towards the end
of the thirteenth century Friesland west of the Zuyder-Zee had become
part of the dominions of the Counts. ♦Independence of West Friesland.
1417-1447. | County of East Friesland. 1454.♦ The land immediately east
of the gulf established its freedom, while _East Friesland_ passed to
a line of counts, under whom its fortunes parted off from those of the
Netherlands. Part of its later history has been already given in the
character of a more purely German state. ♦The Bishops of Utrecht.♦
Both the counts and the free Frisians had also dangerous neighbours
in the Bishops of _Utrecht_, the great ecclesiastical princes of this
region, who held a large temporal sovereignty lying apart from their
city on the eastern side of the gulf. These disputes went on, as also
disputes with the Dukes of Geldern, without any final settlement,
almost to the time when all these lands began to be united under the
Burgundian power. But before this time, the Counts of Holland had
become closely connected with lands much further to the south. ♦Duchy
of Brabant.♦ Among a number of states in this region, the most powerful
was the Duchy of _Brabant_, which represented the Duchy of the Lower
Lotharingia, and whose princes held the mark of _Antwerp_ and the
cities of _Brussels_, _Löwen_ or _Louvain_, and _Mechlin_. ♦County
of Hennegau or Hainault united with Holland. 1299.♦ To the South of
them lay the county of _Hennegau_ or _Hainault_. At the end of the
thirteenth century, this county was joined by marriage with that of
Holland. Holland and Hainault were thus detached possessions of a
common prince, with Brabant lying between them. ♦Mark of Namur.♦ South
of Brabant lay the small mark or county of _Namur_, which, without
being united to Flanders, was held by a branch of the princes of that
house.
♦Common character of these states.♦
All these states, though their princes held of two separate over-lords,
had much in common, and were well fitted to be worked together into
a single political system. They had much in common in the physical
character of the country, and in the unusual number of great and
flourishing cities which these countries contained. ♦Importance of the
cities.♦ None of these cities indeed actually reached the position
of free cities of the Empire; but their wealth, and the degree of
practical independence which they possessed, forms a main feature in
the history of the Low Countries. In point of language, the northern
part of these states spoke various dialects of Low-Dutch, from Flemish
to Frisian; in the southern lands of Hainault, Artois, and Namur, the
language, though not French, was not Teutonic, but an independent
Romance speech, the Walloon. ♦South-western group of states.♦ To
the west of these states lay another group of small principalities
connected with the former greater group in many ways, but not so
closely as those which we have just gone through. ♦Bishopric of
Lüttich. | Duchies of Luxemburg and Limburg.♦ The great ecclesiastical
principality of _Lüttich_ or _Liège_, lying in two detached parts,
divided the lands of which we have been speaking from the counties,
afterwards duchies, of _Lüzelburg_ or _Luxemburg_ and of _Limburg_. Of
these the more distant Limburg passed in the fourteenth century to the
Dukes of Brabant. ♦Luxemburg a Duchy. 1353.♦ Luxemburg is famous as
having given a series of princes to the kingdom of Bohemia and to the
Empire, and in their hands it rose to the rank of a duchy. ♦Geldern.♦
Lastly, to the north of Lüttich, forming a connecting link between this
group of states and the more purely Frisian powers, lay the duchy of
_Geldern_, of whose quarters the most northern portion stretched to
the Zuyder Zee. These eastern states, though not so closely connected
with one another as those to the west, were easily led into the same
political system. ♦Middle position of all these states.♦ Without
drawing any hard and fast line, we may say that all the states of this
region formed, if not yet a middle state, yet a middle system, apart
alike from France and the Empire, though in various ways connected
with both. Mainly Imperial, mainly Teutonic, they were not wholly so.
♦French influence.♦ Besides the homage lawfully due to France from
Flanders and Artois, French influence in various ways, in politics,
in manners, and in language, had made great inroads in the southern
Netherlands. Brabant and Hainault had practically quite as much to do
with France as with the Empire. ♦Walloon language.♦ And this French
influence was of course helped by the fact that a considerable region
in the south was, though not of French, yet not of Teutonic speech.
Altogether, with much to unite them to the great powers on either side,
with much to keep them apart from either of them, with much more to
unite them to one another, the states of the Netherlands might almost
seem to be designed by nature to be united under a single political
head. ♦Union of the Netherlands under the Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Such a
head was supplied by the Dukes of Burgundy and Counts of Flanders, by
whom, in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, nearly
the whole of the Netherlands was united into a single power which was
to be presently broken into two by the results of religious divisions.
* * * * *
Leaving then for the present the growth and fall of the Burgundian
power in the lands more to the south, we will go on to trace the steps
by which the provinces of the Low Countries were united under the
Valois Dukes and their Austrian descendants. ♦Reign of Philip the Good.
1419-1467.♦ The great increase of territory in this region was made
during the long reign of Philip the Good. ♦Namur. 1421-1429.♦ His first
acquisition was the county of _Namur_, a small and outlying district,
but one which, as small and outlying, would still more strongly suggest
the rounding off of the scattered territory. ♦1429-1433.♦ A series
of marriages and disputes next enabled Philip to make a much more
important extension of his dominions. ♦1405.♦ Brabant and Limburg had
passed to a younger branch of the Burgundian House. ♦1418.♦ John,
Duke of Brabant, the cousin of Philip by a marriage with Jacqueline,
Countess of Holland and Hainault, united those states for a moment. The
disputes and confusions which followed on her marriages and divorces
led to the annexation of her territories by the Duke of Burgundy,
a process which was finally concluded by the formal cession of her
dominions by Jacqueline. ♦Brabant and Limburg. 1430. | Holland and
Hainault. 1433.♦ Meanwhile Philip had succeeded to Brabant and Limburg,
and the union of Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Zealand, and Holland,
together made a dominion which took in all the greatest Netherland
states, and formed a compact mass of territory. On this presently
followed a great acquisition of territory which was more strictly
French than the fiefs which Philip already held of the French crown in
Flanders and Artois. The Treaty of Arras, by which Philip, hitherto
the ally of England against France, made peace with his western
overlord, gave him, under the form of mortgage, the lands on the Somme.
♦The towns on the Somme. 1435-1483.♦ The acquisition of these lands,
_Ponthieu_, _Vermandois_, _Amiens_, and _Boulogne_, advanced the
Burgundian frontier to a dangerous neighbourhood to Paris on this side
as well as on the other. It had the further effect of keeping the small
continental possessions which England still kept at Calais and Guisnes
apart from the French territory. During the reigns of Philip and
Charles the Bold, the continental neighbour of England was not France
but Burgundy. But this great southern dominion was not lasting. The
towns on the Somme, redeemed and again recovered, passed on the fall of
Charles the Bold once more into French hands. ♦Recovered by France.♦
So did Artois itself, and, though Artois was won back, Amiens and the
rest were not. Yet, if the towns on the Somme had stayed under the rule
of the successive masters of the Low Countries, it might by this time
have seemed as natural for Amiens to be Belgian as it now seems natural
for Cambray and Valenciennes to be French. The Treaty of Madrid drew a
definite boundary. ♦France resigns the homage of Flanders and Artois.
1526.♦ France gave up all claim to homage from Flanders and Artois,
and Charles the Fifth, in his Burgundian, or rather in his Flemish,
character, finally gave up all claim to the lands on the Somme.
The south-western frontier was thus fixed; but meanwhile the new
state had advanced in other directions. ♦Luxemburg. 1443.♦ Philip’s
last great acquisition was the duchy of _Luxemburg_. He now possessed
the greater part of the Netherlands; but his dominions were still
intersected by the bishoprics of Utrecht and Lüttich and the duchy of
Geldern. ♦Geldern and Zutphen. 1472.♦ The duchy of Geldern and county
of Zutphen were added by Charles the Bold. ♦Final annexation. 1543.♦
But they formed a precarious possession, lost and won more than once,
down to their final annexation under Charles the Fifth. ♦Bishopric of
Lüttich never annexed.♦ Of the two great ecclesiastical principalities
by which the Burgundian possessions in the Netherlands were cut
asunder, the bishopric of _Lüttich_, though its history is much mixed
up with that of the Burgundian Dukes, and though it came largely
under their influence, was never formally annexed. ♦Annexation of the
bishopric of Utrecht, 1531; | and Friesland, 1515.♦ But the temporal
principality of the Bishop of _Utrecht_ was secularized under Charles
the Fifth. _Friesland_, the Friesland immediately east of the Zuyder
Zee, was already reincorporated with the dominions of the prince who
represented the ancient counts of Holland. ♦Dominions of Charles the
Fifth.♦ The whole Netherlands were thus consolidated under the rule
of Charles the Fifth. They were united with the far distant county of
Burgundy, and with it they formed the Burgundian circle in the new
division of the Empire. The bishopric of Lüttich, which intersected
the whole southern part of the country, remained in the circle of
Westfalia. ♦The seventeen provinces.♦ Seventeen provinces, each keeping
much of separate being, were united under a single prince, and, since
the treaty of Madrid, they were free from any pretensions on the part
of foreign powers. The Netherlands formed one of the most compact and
important parts of the scattered dominions of the Emperor who was also
lord of Burgundy and Castile. ♦Their separation from the Empire.♦
But the final union of these lands under the direct dominion of an
Emperor at once led to their practical separation from the Empire.
♦The possessions of Philip of Spain. 1555.♦ They passed, with all the
remaining possessions and claims of the Burgundian House, to Philip of
Spain, and they were reckoned among the crowd of distant dependencies
which had come under the rule of the crowns of Castile and Aragon.
In Spanish hands they acted less as a middle state than as a power
which helped to hem in France on both sides. Had the great revolt of
the Netherlands ended in the final liberation of the whole seventeen
provinces, the middle state would have been formed in its full
strength. ♦The War of Independence. 1568-1609.♦ As it was, the work of
the War of Independence was imperfect. The northern provinces won their
freedom in the form of a federal commonwealth. The southern provinces
remained dependencies of Spain, to become the chosen fighting ground of
European armies, the chosen plaything of European diplomacy.
♦The Seven United Provinces. 1578.♦
The end of the long war of independence waged by the northern provinces
was the establishment of the famous federal commonwealth of the _Seven
United Provinces_, _Holland_, _Zealand_, _Utrecht_, _Gelderland_,
_Over-Yssel_, _Friesland_, and _Groningen_. These answered nearly to
the dominions of the Counts of Holland and Bishops of Utrecht in
earlier times. ♦Gelderland.♦ But besides these, part of the duchy of
_Geldern_ formed one of the United Provinces, while its southern part
shared the fate of the southern provinces. But, besides the United
Seven, the Confederation also kept parts of Brabant, Geldern, and
Flanders as common possessions. ♦Formal independence of the Empire.
1648.♦ The power thus formed, one which so long held an European
importance quite disproportioned to its geographical extent, had under
Burgundian rule become practically independent of the Empire, but it
was only by the Peace of Westfalia that its independence was formally
acknowledged. The maritime strength of the Confederation made it more
than an European power. It became a colonizing power in three parts
of the world. ♦Colonies of the Netherlands.♦ In the course of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Seven Provinces extended
their dominion over many points on the continent of India and over the
neighbouring island of _Ceylon_, over the great equatorial islands of
_Java_, _Sumatra_, and the _Moluccas_, over many points in _Guinea_
and southern Africa, and over part of _Guiana_ in South America. ♦New
Netherland passes to England. 1664.♦ But the great North American
settlement of _New Netherland_ passed to England, and _New Amsterdam_
became _New York_. ♦No real name for the county.♦ Singularly enough,
this great power never had any strict geographical name. _Netherlands_
was too large, as it took in the whole of the Low Countries and not the
emancipated provinces only. _Holland_ was too small, as being the name
of one province only, though the greatest. ♦Use of the name _Dutch_.♦
And, by one of the oddest cases of caprice of language, in common
English usage the name of the whole Teutonic race settled down on this
one small part of it, and the men of the Seven Provinces came to be
exclusively spoken of as _Dutch_.
♦The Spanish Netherlands. 1578-1706.♦
Meanwhile the southern provinces, the greater part of Brabant
and Flanders, with Artois, Hennegau or Hainault, Namur, Limburg,
Luxemburg, and the southern part of Geldern,—taking in Antwerp at
one end and Cambray at the other—remained under the sovereignty of
the representatives of the Burgundian Dukes. That is, they remained
an outlying dependency of the Spanish monarchy. But their southern
frontier was open to constant aggressions on the part of France.
♦Dunkirk held by England. 1658-1662.♦ _Dunkirk_ indeed was for a moment
held by England, as Calais and Boulogne had been in earlier times.
♦Cession of parts of Artois and of Gravelines, 1659;♦ By the Peace of
the Pyrenees France obtained Arras and the greater part of Artois,
leaving Saint Omer to Spain. ♦Dunkirk, 1662;♦ France also began to
work her way up along the coast of Flanders, taking _Gravelines_ by
virtue of the treaty, and presently adding Dunkirk by purchase from
England. ♦Philippeville, Marienburg, Thionville.♦ The treaty also
added to France several points along the frontiers of Hainault, Liège,
and Luxemburg, including the detached fortresses of _Philippeville_
and _Marienburg_, and _Thionville_ famous in far earlier days. During
the endless wars of Lewis’ reign, the boundary fluctuated with each
treaty. ♦1668. | 1677.♦ Acquisitions were made by France at the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, some of which were surrendered, and others
gained, by the Peace of Nimwegen. ♦Boundary fixed by the Peace of
Utrecht. 1713.♦ At last the boundary was finally fixed by the Peace
of Utrecht in the last days of Lewis. Parts of Flanders and Hainault
were finally confirmed to France, which thus kept _Lille_, _Cambray_,
and _Valenciennes_. ♦The Spanish Netherlands pass to Austria.♦ The
provinces which had hitherto been Spanish now passed to the only
surviving branch of the House of Austria, that which reigned in the
archduchy and supplied the hereditary candidates for the Empire.
♦Annexed by France. 1792.♦ The first wars of the French Revolution
added the Austrian Netherlands to France, and with them the bishopric
of Lüttich which still so oddly divided them. ♦Kingdom of Holland.
1806-1810.♦ A later stage of the days of confusion changed the Seven
United Provinces, enlarged by the addition of East Friesland, into a
_Kingdom of Holland_, one of the states which the new conqueror carved
out for the benefit of his kinsfolk. ♦Holland annexed by France.
1810-1813.♦ Presently the new kingdom was incorporated with the new
‘Empire,’ along with the German lands to the north-east of it. The
Corsican had at last carried out the schemes of the Valois kings, and
the whole Burgundian heritage formed for a moment part of France.
* * * * *
At the general settlement of Europe, after the long wars with France,
the restoration of the Low Countries as a middle state was a main
object. ♦Kingdom of the Netherlands. 1814.♦ This was brought about
by the union of the whole Netherlands into a single kingdom bearing
that name. The southern boundary did not differ very greatly from
that fixed by the Peace of Utrecht. ♦The boundaries.♦ As in the
case of the Savoyard frontier, France kept a little more by the
arrangements of 1814 than she finally kept by those of 1815. To the
east, East-Friesland passed to Hannover, leaving the boundary of the
new kingdom not very different from that of the two earlier powers
which it represented, gaining only a small territory on the banks of
the Maes. ♦Incorporation of Lüttich.♦ But the bishopric of Lüttich was
incorporated with the lands which it had once parted asunder, and so
ceased altogether to be German ground. ♦Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.♦ The
new king, as we have already seen, entered the German confederation in
his character of Grand Duke of _Luxemburg_, the duchy being somewhat
shortened to the east in favour of Prussia. Lastly, after fifteen years
of union, the new kingdom again split asunder. ♦Kingdom of Belgium.
1830-1831.♦ It was now divided into the kingdom of the Netherlands,
answering to the old United Provinces, and the kingdom of Belgium,
answering to the old Spanish or Austrian Netherlands. ♦Luxemburg
divided.♦ But part of Limburg remained to the northern kingdom, and its
sovereign also kept part of Luxemburg, as a district state, forming
part of the German confederation. The western part of the duchy formed
part of the kingdom of Belgium. ♦1867.♦ Later events, as has been
already recorded, have severed the last tie between Germany and the
Netherlands; they have wiped out the last survival of the days when the
Counts of Holland and of Luxemburg were alike princes of the German
kingdom.
* * * * *
♦Effects of Burgundian rule.♦
The above may pass as a sketch of the fluctuations along the borderland
in their European aspect. It is needless to go through every small
shifting of frontier, or to recount in detail the history of small
border principalities like _Saint Pol_ and _Bouillon_. The main
historical aspect of these countries is their tendency, in all ages, to
form somewhat of a middle system between two greater powers on either
side of them. The guaranteed neutrality of Belgium and the guaranteed
neutrality of Switzerland are alike survivals or revivals—it is hard
to say which they should be called—of the instinctive feeling which,
in the ninth century, called the Lotharingian kingdom into being. The
modern form of this thousand-year old idea was made possible through
the growth of the power of the Burgundian Dukes of the House of Valois.
The real historical work of those dukes was thus done in those parts
of their dominions from which they did not take their name, but which
took their name from them. The history of their other dominions
may be told in a few words; indeed a great part of it has been told
already. ♦Schemes of Charles the Bold.♦ The schemes of Charles the
Bold for uniting his scattered dominions by the conquest of the duchy
of Lorraine, for extending the power thus formed to the sea-board of
the royal Burgundy, for forming in short a middle kingdom stretching
from the Ocean to the Mediterranean, acting as a barrier alike between
France and Germany and between France and Italy, remained mere schemes.
They are important only as showing how deeply the idea or the memory of
a middle state was still fixed in men’s minds. The conquests of Charles
in Lorraine, his purchases in Elsass, were momentary possessions
which hardly touch geography. But the fall of Charles, by causing
the break-up of the southern dominion of his house, helped to give
greater importance to its northern dominion. While the Netherlands grew
together, the Burgundies split asunder. After the fall of Charles the
fate of the two Burgundies was much the same as the fate of Flanders
and Artois. Both were for a while seized by France; but the county,
like Artois, was afterwards recovered for a season. The duchy of
Burgundy was lost for ever; the county, along with the outlying county
of Charolois, remained to those who by female succession represented
the Burgundian Dukes, that is to Charles the Fifth and his Spanish
son. The annexation of the Burgundian county, and with it of the city
of Besançon, by Lewis the Fourteenth has been recorded in an earlier
section.
§ 9. _The Dominions of Austria._
We now come to one among these German states which have parted off
from the kingdom of Germany whose course has been widely different
from the rest, and whose modern European importance stands on a widely
different level. As the Lotharingian and Frisian lands parted off on
the north-west of the kingdom, as a large part of the Swabian lands
parted off to the south-west of the kingdom, so the _Eastern Mark_,
the mark of _Austria_, parted off no less, but with widely different
consequences. ♦Origin of the name _Oesterreich_, _Austria_.♦ The name
of _Austria_, _Oesterreich_—_Ostrich_ as our forefathers wrote it—is,
naturally enough, a common name for the eastern part of any kingdom.
♦Other lands so called.♦ The Frankish kingdom of the Merwings had its
_Austria_; the Italian kingdom of the Lombards had its _Austria_ also.
We are half inclined to wonder that the name was never given in our own
island either to Essex or to East-Anglia. But, while the other Austrias
have passed away, the _Oesterreich_, the _Austria_, the Eastern mark,
of the German kingdom, its defence against the Magyar invader, has
lived on to our own times. It has not only lived on, but it has become
one of the chief European powers. And it has become so by a process
to which it would be hard to find a parallel. ♦Special position of
the Austrian power.♦ The Austrian duchy supplied Germany with so many
Kings, and Rome with so many Emperors, that something of Imperial
character came to cleave to the duchy itself. Its Dukes, in resigning,
first, the crown of Germany, and then all connexion with Germany, have
carried with them into their new position the titles and bearings
of the German Cæsars. ♦Union with Hungary.♦ The power which began
as a mark against the Magyar came to have a common sovereign with
the Magyar kingdom; and the Austrian duchy and Magyar kingdom, each
drawing with it a crowd of smaller states of endless nationalities,
have figured together in the face of modern Europe as the _Austrian
Empire_ or the _Austro-Hungarian Monarchy_. ♦The so-called ‘Empire’ of
Austria.♦ It is not easy, in drawing a map, to find a place for the
‘Empire’ of Austria. The Archduchy is there, and its sovereign has not
dropped his archiducal title. A crowd of kingdoms, duchies, counties,
and lordships, all acknowledging the sovereignty of the same prince,
are there also. But it is not easy to find the geographical place of an
‘Empire’ of Austria, as distinct from the Archduchy. Nor is it easy to
understand on what principle an ‘Empire’ of Austria can be understood
as taking in all the states which happen to own the Hungarian King
and Austrian Archduke as their sovereign. The matter is made more
difficult when we remember that the title of ‘Hereditary Emperor of
Austria’ was first taken while its bearer was still King of Germany
and Roman Emperor-elect. ♦Union of separate states under the Austrian
House.♦ But, putting questions like these aside, the gradual union of
a great number of states, German and non-German, under the common rule
of the archiducal house of Austria, by whatever name we call the power
so formed, is a great fact both of history and of geography. A number
of states, originally independent of one another, differing in origin
and language and everything that makes states differ from one another,
some of them members of the former Empire, some not, have, as a matter
of fact, come together to form a power which fills a large space in
modern history and on the modern map. ♦Lack of national unity.♦ But it
is a power which is altogether lacking in national unity. It is a power
which is not coextensive with any nation, but which takes in parts of
many nations. It cannot even be said that there is a dominant nation
surrounded by subject nations. ♦German, Magyar, and other races.♦ The
Magyar nation in its unity, and a fragment of the German nation, stand
side by side on equal terms, while Italians, Roumans, and Slaves of
almost every branch of the Slavonic race, are grouped around those two.
♦No strictly federal tie.♦ There is no federal tie; it is a stretch of
language to apply the federal name to the present relation between the
two chief powers of Hungary and Austria. Nor can any strictly federal
tie be said to unite Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Galicia. And yet
these other members of the general body are not mere subject provinces,
like the dominions of Old Rome. The same prince is sovereign of a crowd
of separate states, two of which stand out prominently as centres
among the rest. There is neither national unity, nor federation, nor
mere subjection of one land or nation to another. All this has come by
the gradual union by various means of many crowns upon the same brow.
♦Anomalous nature of the Austrian power.♦ The result is an anomalous
power which has nothing else exactly like it, past or present. But the
very anomaly makes the growth of such a power a more curious study.
* * * * *
♦The Eastern Mark.♦
The beginnings of the Austrian state are to be found in the small
_Mark_ on the Danube, lying between Bohemia, Moravia, and the Duchy of
Kärnthen or Carinthia. It appears in its first form as an appendage
to Bavaria.[17] This mark Frederick Barbarossa raised into a duchy,
under its first duke Henry the Second, and it was enlarged to the
westward at the expense of Bavaria by the addition of the lands above
the Enns. ♦Duchy of Austria, 1156.♦ Thus was formed the original
_Duchy of Austria_, the duchy of the Dukes of the House of Babenberg.
It had not long risen to ducal rank before it began to extend itself at
the expense of states which had hitherto been of greater moment than
itself. Itself primarily a mark against the Magyar, Austria had to the
south of it the lands where the German Kingdom marched at once upon
the Magyar, the Slave, and the Kingdom of Italy. ♦Duchy of Carinthia.♦
Here lay the great Duchy of Carinthia, a land where the population
was mainly Slave, though on this frontier the Slavonic population had
been brought into much earlier and more thorough subjection to the
German Kings than the Slaves on the north-eastern frontier. ♦Duchy of
Styria, 1180;♦ At the time of the foundation of the duchy of Austria,
the Carinthian duchy had begun to split in pieces, and its northern
part, hitherto the _Upper Carinthian Mark_, grew into the Duchy of
_Steyermark_ or _Styria_. ♦united to Austria, 1192.♦ Twelve years
later, Leopold the Fifth of Austria inherited the duchy of Styria, a
duchy greater than his own, by the will of its duke Ottokar. Carinthia
itself went on as a separate duchy; but it now took in only a narrow
territory in the south-western part of the old duchy, and that broken
up by outlying possessions of the archbishops of Salzburg and other
ecclesiastical lords. ♦The county of Görz.♦ To the south grew up a
considerable power in the hands of the counts of _Görz_ or _Gorizia_
on the Italian border. ♦Ecclesiastical position of its Counts.♦ The
possessions of these counts stretched, though not continuously, from
Tyrol to Istria, and their influence was further enlarged by their
position as advocates of the bishoprics of _Trent_ and _Brixen_ and
of the more famous patriarchate of _Aquileia_. These are the lands,
the marchlands of Germany towards its eastern and south-eastern
neighbours, which came by gradual annexations to form the German
possessions of the Austrian power. But the further growth of that power
did not begin till the duchy itself had passed away to the hands of a
wholly new line of princes.
♦Momentary union of Austria and Bohemia.♦
The first change was one which brought about for a moment from one side
an union which was afterwards to be brought about in a more lasting
shape from the other side. This was the annexation of Austria by the
kingdom of _Bohemia_. ♦Bohemia a kingdom, 1158.♦ That duchy had been
raised to the rank of a kingdom, though of course without ceasing to
be a fief of the Empire, a few years after the mark of Austria had
become a duchy. The death of the last duke of Austria of the Babenberg
line led to a disputed succession and a series of wars, in which the
princes of Bavaria, Bohemia, and Hungary all had their share. ♦Ottokar
of Bohemia annexes Austria and Styria, 1252-1262. | Carinthia, 1269.♦
In the end, between marriage, conquest, and royal grant, Ottokar king
of Bohemia obtained the duchies of Austria and Styria, and a few years
later he further added Carinthia by the bequest of its Duke. Thus a new
power was formed, by which several German states came into the power
of a Slavonic king. ♦Great power of Ottokar.♦ The power of that king
for a moment reached the Baltic as well as the Hadriatic; for Ottokar
carried his arms into Prussia, and became the founder of Königsberg.
But this great power was but momentary. Bohemia and Austria were again
separated, and Austria, with its indefinite mission of extension over
so many lands, including Bohemia itself, passed to a house sprung from
a distant part of Germany.
* * * * *
♦House of Habsburg.♦
We have now come to the European beginnings of the second House of
Austria, the house whose name seems to have become inseparably
connected with the name of Austria, though the spot from which that
house drew its name has long ceased to be an Austrian possession. This
is the house of the Counts of _Habsburg_. They took this name from
their castle on the lower course of the Aar, in the north-west corner
of the Aargau, in that southern Swabian land where the Old League of
High Germany was presently to arise, and so greatly to extend itself
at the cost of the power of Habsburg. ♦Union of Habsburg, Kyburg, and
Lenzburg.♦ By an union of the lands of Habsburg with those of the
Counts of _Kyburg_ and _Lenzburg_, a considerable, though straggling,
dominion was formed. It stretched in and out among the mountains and
lakes, taking in Luzern, and forming a dangerous neighbour to the free
city of Zürich. ♦Their possession in Elsass.♦ Besides these lands,
the same house also held _Upper Elsass_ with the title of Landgrave,
a dominion separated from the other Swabian lands of the House by
the territory of the free city of Basel. ♦Rudolf king, 1273. | His
victories over Ottokar, 1276-1278. | Albert of Habsburg Duke of Austria
and Styria, 1282.♦ The lord of this great Swabian dominion, the famous
Rudolf, being chosen to the German crown, and having broken the power
of Ottokar, bestowed the duchies of Austria and Styria on his son
Albert, afterwards King. ♦Meinhard Duke of Carinthia and Count of
Tyrol, 1286.♦ Carinthia at first formed part of the same grant; but it
was presently granted to Meinhard Count of Görz and Tyrol. Görz passed
to another branch of the house of its own Counts. Three powers were
thus formed in these regions, the duchies of _Austria_ and _Styria_,
the duchy of _Carinthia_ with the county of _Tyrol_, and the county of
_Görz_.
♦Scattered territories of the House of Habsburg.♦
Thus under Albert the possessions of the House of Habsburg were large,
but widely scattered. The two newly acquired eastern duchies not only
gave its princes their highest titles, but they formed a compact
territory, well suited for extension northward and southward. ♦Falling
off of the Swabian lands.♦ But among the outlying Swabian territories,
though some parts remained to the Austrian House down to the end of the
German Kingdom, the tendency was to diminish and gradually to part off
altogether from Germany. In the lands south of the Rhine this happened
through union with the Confederates; in the Alsatian lands it happened
at a later stage through French annexation.
♦Connexion of Austria with the Empire.♦
It is to be hoped that it is no longer needful to explain that the
hereditary lands of the House of Habsburg or Austria had no inherent
connexion with the German Kingdom and Roman Empire of which they were
fiefs, beyond the fact that they were among its fiefs. They were
further connected with it only by the accident that, from Rudolf
onwards, many princes of that house were chosen Kings, and that, from
the middle of the fifteenth century, onwards, all the Kings were chosen
from that house and from the house into which it merged by female
succession. It is to be hoped that there is no longer any need to
explain that every Emperor was not Duke of Austria, and that every Duke
of Austria was not Emperor. But it may be needful to explain that every
Duke of Austria was not master of the whole dominions of the House of
Austria. ♦Divisions of the Austrian dominions.♦ The divisions, the
reunions, the joint reigns, which are common to the House of Austria
with other German princely houses, become at once more important and
more puzzling in the case of a house which gradually came to stand
above all the others in European rank. The caution is specially needful
in the case of the Swabian lands, as the history of the Confederates
is liable to be greatly misunderstood, if every Duke of Austria
who appears there is taken for the sole sovereign of the Austrian
dominions. It is needless to go here through all these shiftings
between princes of the same house. Through all changes the unity of
the house and its possessions was maintained, even while they were
parted out or held in common by different members of the house. But
it is important to bear in mind that some of the Dukes of Austria who
figure in the history of Switzerland were rather Landgraves of Elsass
or Counts of Tyrol than Dukes of Austria in any practical sense.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may be defined as a time during
which the Austrian House on the whole steadily advanced in the Eastern
part of its dominions and steadily fell back in the Western. But in the
course of the fourteenth century an acquisition was made which, without
making them absolutely continuous, brought them into something more
like geographical connexion with one another. ♦Acquisition of Carinthia
and Tyrol, 1335.♦ This was the acquisition of the Duchy of Carinthia
and County of _Tyrol_, the latter of which lands lay conveniently
between the Eastern and Western dominions of the house. ♦Extent of the
Austrian territory.♦ These now stretched continuously from the Bohemian
frontier to Istria, and they threw out, in the form of Tyrol and the
Swabian lands, a scattered, but nearly continuous, territory stretching
to the borders of Lorraine and the county of Burgundy. The Austrian
possessions now touched the eastern gulf of the Hadriatic and came
into the neighbourhood of the Dalmatian Archipelago. ♦Commendation of
Trieste, 1382.♦ Somewhat later they reached the main Hadriatic itself,
when the city of _Trieste_, hitherto disputed between the commonwealth
of Venice and the patriarchs of Aquileia, commended itself to the
Austrian Duke Leopold as its lord. This is the same Leopold who four
years later fell at Sempach. By this time the Swabian possessions
had been increased north of the Rhine, while south of the Rhine the
Austrian dominion was steadily giving way. ♦Loss of Thurgau, 1460.♦
The Confederates and their several cantons advanced in every way, by
purchase and conquest, till, after the loss of Thurgau, the House of
Austria kept nothing south of the Rhine except the towns known as the
_Waldstädte_.
By this time the division of the estates of the house had taken a more
lasting shape. One branch reigned in Austria, another in Carinthia and
Styria, a third in Tyrol and the other western lands. At this time
begins the unbroken series of Austrian elections to the German and
Imperial crowns. ♦Albert the Second, king, 1437-1440.♦ The first was
Albert the Second, Duke of Austria. ♦Frederick the Third, king, 1440;
Emperor, 1452. | Archduke of Austria, 1453.♦ Then Frederick the Third,
the first Emperor of the House, united the Austrian and Carinthian
duchies, and raised Austria to the unique rank of an Archduchy.
♦Siegmund, Count of Tyrol, &c., 1429-1496.♦ Meanwhile, Siegmund Count
of Tyrol held the western lands, and appears as Duke of Austria in
Confederate and Burgundian history. He there figures as the prince who
lost Thurgau to the Confederates and who mortgaged his Alsatian lands
to Charles the Bold. ♦Maximilian, King of the Romans, 1486; Archduke,
1493; Count of Tyrol, 1496; Emperor-elect, 1508.♦ In Maximilian the
whole possessions of the house of Austria were united. ♦Beginning of
union with lands beyond the Empire.♦ But by this time the affairs of
the purely German lands which had hitherto formed the possessions of
the Austrian house had begun to be mixed up with the succession to
lands and kingdoms beyond the Empire, and with lands which, though
technically within the Empire, had a distinct being of their own. In
the course of the fifteenth century the house of Austria, hitherto
simply one of the chief German princely houses, put on two special
characters. ♦Succession of Austrian Kings and Emperors.♦ It became, as
we have already seen, the house which exclusively supplied kings and
Emperors to Germany and the Empire. And it became, by virtue of its
hereditary possessions rather than of its Imperial position, one of the
chief European powers. For a while the greatest of European powers, it
has remained a great European power down to our own time.
♦Union with Bohemia and Hungary.♦
The special feature in the history of the house of Austria from the
fifteenth century onwards is its connexion—a connexion more or less
broken, but still constantly recurring till in the end it becomes fully
permanent—with the kingdom of Bohemia within the Empire and with the
kingdom of Hungary beyond its bounds. These possessions have given the
Austrian power its special character, that of a power formed by the
union under one prince of several wholly distinct nations or parts of
nations which have no tie beyond that union. The Austrian princes,
originally purely German, equally in their Swabian and in their
Austrian possessions, had already, by the extension of their power to
the south, obtained some Slavonic and some Italian-speaking subjects.
Still, as a power, they were purely German. ♦Various acquisitions of
Austria.♦ But in the period which begins in the fifteenth and goes on
into the nineteenth century, we shall see them gradually gathering
together, sometimes gaining, sometimes losing—gaining and losing by
every process, warlike and peaceful, by which territory can be gained
or lost—a crowd of kingdoms, duchies, and counties, scattered over
all parts of Europe from Flanders to Transsilvania. But it is the
acquisition of the two crowns of Bohemia and Hungary which, above all
others, gave the House of Austria its special position as a middle
power, a power belonging at once to the system of Western and to
the system of Eastern Europe. Among the endless shiftings of the
states which have been massed together under the rule of the House
of Habsburg, that house has more than once been at the same moment
the neighbour of the Gaul and the neighbour of the Turk; and it has
sometimes found Gaul and Turk arrayed together against it. Add to
all this that, though the connexion between the house of Austria and
the Empire was a purely personal one, renewed in each generation by
a special election, still the fact that so many kings of Hungary and
archdukes of Austria were chosen Emperors one after another, caused
the house itself, after the Empire was abolished, to look in the eyes
of many like a continuation of the power which had come to an end. The
peculiar position of the Austrian house could hardly have been obtained
by a mere union of Hungary, Austria, and the other states under princes
none of whom were raised to Imperial rank. Nor could it have been
obtained by a series of mere dukes of Austria, even though they had
been chosen Emperors from generation to generation. It was through the
accidental union under one sovereign of a crowd of states which had no
natural connexion with each other, and through the further accident
that the Empire itself seemed to become a possession of the House, that
the House of Habsburg, and its representative the House of Lorraine,
have won their unique position among European powers.
The first hints, so to speak, of a coming union between the Hungarian
and Bohemian kingdoms and the Austrian duchy began, as we have seen,
in the days of Ottokar. A Bohemian king had then held the Austrian
duchy, while a Hungarian king had for a moment occupied part of
Styria. ♦Relations with Hungary and Bohemia.♦ But the later form which
the union was to take was not that of the Bohemian or the Hungarian
reigning over Austria, but that of the Austrian reigning over Hungary
and Bohemia. The duchy was not to be added to either of the kingdoms;
but both kingdoms were in course of time to be added to the duchy.
The growth of both Hungary and Bohemia as kingdoms will be spoken
of elsewhere. We have now to deal only with their relations to the
Austrian House. ♦Rudolf, son of Albert, King of Bohemia, 1306.♦ For a
moment, early in the fourteenth century, an Austrian prince, son of the
first Austrian King of Germany, was actually acknowledged as King of
Bohemia. But this connexion was only momentary. The first beginnings
of anything like a more permanent connexion begin a hundred and thirty
years later. ♦Albert the Second, King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1438.♦
The second Austrian King of Germany wore both the Hungarian and the
Bohemian crowns by virtue of his marriage with the daughter of the
Emperor and King Siegmund. The steps towards the union of the various
crowns are now beginning. ♦Siegmund, King of Hungary, 1386; King of the
Romans, 1414; King of Bohemia, 1419; Emperor, 1433.♦ Siegmund was the
third King of Bohemia who had worn the crown of Germany, the second
who had worn the crown of the Empire. Under his son-in-law, Hungary,
Bohemia, and Austria were for a moment united with the German crown; in
the next reign, as we have seen, begins the lasting connexion between
Austria and the Empire. But the Hungarian and Bohemian kingdoms parted
again. ♦Wladislaus Postumus, Duke of Austria, 1440-1457; King of
Hungary and Bohemia, 1453-1457.♦ One Austrian King, the son of Albert,
reigned at least nominally over both kingdoms, as well as over the
special Austrian duchy. But the final union did not come for another
eighty years. The Turk was now threatening and conquering. At Mohacz
Lewis, king of the two kingdoms, fell before the invaders. ♦Ferdinand,
Archduke of Austria, 1519; King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1527; King of
the Romans, 1531; Emperor-elect, 1556. | Permanent union of Bohemia.♦
His Bohemian kingdom passed to Ferdinand of Austria, and from that day
to this, unless we except the momentary choice of the Winter King, the
Palatine Frederick, the Bohemian crown has always stayed in the House
of Austria. And for many generations it has been worn by the actual
sovereign of the Austrian archduchy.
♦Effects of the union with Hungary.♦
The acquisition of the crown of Hungary was of greater importance. It
at once put the Austrian House into a wholly new position; it gave it
its new later character of a middle state between Eastern and Western
Europe. The duchy had begun as a mark against the Turanian and heathen
invaders of earlier times. Those Turanian and heathen invaders had
long before settled down into a Christian kingdom; they had latterly
become the foremost champions of Christendom against the Turanian and
Mahometan invaders who had seized the throne of the Eastern Cæsars.
♦Mission against the Turk.♦ With the crown of Hungary, the main duty of
the Hungarian crown, the defence of Christendom against the Ottoman,
passed to the Archdukes and Emperors of the Austrian House. ♦The
Austrian kings in Hungary.♦ But for a long time Hungary was a most
imperfect and precarious possession of its Austrian Kings. ♦1526-1699.♦
For more than a century and a half after the election of Ferdinand, his
rule and that of his successors was disputed and partial. They had from
the very beginning to strive against rival kings, while the greater
part of the kingdom and of the lands attached to the crown was either
held by the Turk himself or by princes who acknowledged the Turk as
their superior lord. These strictly Hungarian affairs, as well as the
changes on the frontier towards the Turk, will be spoken of elsewhere.
♦Peace of Passarowitz, 1718.♦ It was not till the eighteenth century
that the Austrian Kings were in full possession of the whole Hungarian
kingdom and all its dependencies.
♦Acquisition of Görz, 1500.♦
Meanwhile the Austrian power had been making advances in other
quarters. At the end of the fifteenth century the Austrian possessions
at the north-east of the Hadriatic were greatly enlarged by the
addition of the county of _Görz_, which carried with it the fallen city
of Aquileia. ♦New position towards Italy.♦ A more direct path towards
Italian dominion was thus opened. The wars of the League of Cambray
made no permanent addition to Austrian dominion in this quarter; but
the master of Trieste and Aquileia, whose territory cut off Venice
from her Istrian possessions, might already almost pass for an Italian
sovereign. ♦Dominions of Charles the Fifth.♦ Under Charles the Fifth
the House of Austria became, as we have seen, possessed of a vast
Italian dominion. But after him it passed away alike from the Empire
and the German branch of the house, to become part of the heritage of
the Austrian Kings of Spain. ♦Austrian rule in Italy.♦ It was not, as
we have already seen, till the beginning of the eighteenth century that
either an Emperor or a reigning archduke again obtained any territory
within the acknowledged bounds of Italy. The fluctuations of Austrian
rule in Italy, from the acquisition of the Duchy of Milan down to our
own day, have been already told in the Italian section. Lombardy and
Venetia are now again Italian; but Austria still keeps the north-east
corner of the great gulf. She still keeps Görz and Aquileia, Trieste
and all Istria, to say nothing of the dangerous way which her frontier
still stretches on Italian ground in the land of Trent and Roveredo.
♦Burgundian possessions.♦
These last named possessions still abide as traces of the Austrian
advance in these regions, and its fluctuations there have been among
the most important facts of modern history. Another series of Austrian
acquisitions in the West of Europe have altogether passed away.
The great Burgundian inheritance passed to the House of Austria.
♦Maximilian and Philip.♦ But it was only for a short time, in the
persons of Maximilian and Philip, that it was in any way united to the
actual Austrian Archduchy. ♦The Austrian Netherlands.♦ After Charles
the Fifth the Burgundian possessions passed, like those in Italy, to
the Spanish branch of the House, and, just as in Italy, it was not till
the eighteenth century that actual Emperors or archdukes again reigned
over a part of the Netherlands. ♦Loss of Elsass.♦ Before this time the
Alsatian dominion of Austria had passed away to France, and the remnant
of her Swabian possessions passed away, as we have seen, in the days of
general confusion. The changes of her territory in Germany during that
period have been already spoken of. Her acquisitions in Eastern Europe
will come more fully elsewhere; but a word must be given to them here.
♦Loss of Silesia, 1740. | Final partition of Poland, 1772.♦ Looking at
the House of Austria simply as a power, without reference to the German
or non-German character of its dominions, the loss of _Silesia_ may
be looked on as counterbalanced by the territory gained from Poland
at the first and third partitions. ♦Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ The first
partition gave the Austrian House a territory of which the greater
part was originally Russian rather than Polish, and in which the old
Russian names of _Halicz_ and _Vladimir_ were strangely softened
into a _Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria_. ♦Third partition, 1795.
| New-Galicia.♦ The third partition added _Cracow_ and a considerable
amount of strictly Polish territory. These last passed away, first
to the Duchy of Warsaw, and then to the restored Kingdom of Poland.
♦Annexation of Cracow, 1846.♦ But Galicia has been kept, and it has
been increased in our day by the seizure of the republic of Cracow.
These lands lie to the north of the Hungarian kingdom. Parted from them
by the whole extent of that kingdom, and adjoining that kingdom at
its south-west corner lie the coast lands of Austria on the Hadriatic.
♦Dalmatia, 1797.♦ By the Peace of Campoformio, Austria took _Dalmatia_
strictly so called, and the other Venetian possessions as far south as
Budua. ♦Recovered, 1814. | Ragusa, 1814.♦ These lands, lost in the wars
with France, were won again at the Peace, with the addition of _Ragusa_
and its territory.
* * * * *
This account of the gains and losses of a power which has gained and
lost in so many quarters is necessary somewhat piecemeal. It may be
well then to end this section with a picture of the Austrian power as
it stood at several points of the history of the last century and a
half, leaving the fluctuating frontier towards the Turk to be dealt
with in our survey of the more strictly Eastern lands.
♦Reign of Maria Theresa, 1740-1780.♦
We will begin at a date when we come across a sovereign whose position
is often strangely misunderstood, the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa—Queen
in her own right of Hungary and Bohemia, Empress by the election of
her husband to the Imperial Crown. ♦Her hereditary dominions.♦ The
Pragmatic Sanction of her father Charles the Sixth made her heiress
of all his hereditary dominions. That is, it made her heiress,
within the Empire, of the kingdom of Bohemia with its dependencies
of Moravia and Silesia—of the Archduchy of Austria with the duchies,
counties, and lordships of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Tyrol, Görz,
and Trieste—of Constanz and a few other outlying Swabian points—as
also of Milan, Mantua, and the Austrian Netherlands, lands which it
needs some stretch, whether of memory or of legal fiction, to look
on as being then in any sense lands of the Empire. Altogether beyond
the Empire, it gave her the Kingdom of Hungary with its dependent
lands of Croatia, Slavonia, and Transsilvania or Siebenbürgen. These
hereditary dominions, lessened by the loss of Silesia, increased by the
addition of Galicia, she handed on to their later Kings and Archdukes.
Her marriage transferred those hereditary dominions, it indirectly
transferring the Empire itself, to a new family, the House of Lorraine.
The husband of Maria Theresa, Francis, who had exchanged his duchy
of Lorraine for that of Tuscany, was in truth the first Lotharingian
Emperor. After him came three Emperors of his house, under the third of
whom the succession of Augustus and Charles came to an end.
♦Austrian dominions in 1811.♦
We may take another view of the Austrian territory at the moment when
the French power in Germany was at its height. The Roman Empire and
the German kingdom had now come to an end; but their last sovereign
still, with whatever meaning, called himself Emperor of his archduchy,
though without dropping his proper title of Archduke. ♦New use of the
name _Austria_.♦ From this time the word Austria was used, commonly
but inaccurately, to take in all the possessions of the House of
Austria. And, as all the possessions of the House of Austria were now
geographically continuous, it became more natural to speak of them by
a single name than it had been when the dominions of that house in
Italy and the Netherlands lay apart from the great mass of Austrian
territory. And at this moment, when the Empire had come to an end
and when the German Confederation had not yet been formed, there was
no distinction between German and non-German lands. The ‘Empire’ of
Francis the Second or First, as it stood at the time of Buonaparte’s
greatest power, had, as compared with the hereditary dominions of Maria
Theresa, gone through these changes. Tyrol and the Swabian lands had
passed to other German princes; Salzburg had been won and lost again.
In Italy the Venetian possessions had been won and lost, and they,
together with the older Italian possessions of Austria, had passed to
the French kingdom of Italy. France in her own name had encroached
on the Austrian dominions at two ends. She had absorbed the Austrian
Netherlands at one corner, the newly won territory of Dalmatia at
another. This last territory, with parts of Carinthia and Carniola, and
with the Hungarian kingdom of Croatia, received, on passing to France,
the name of the _Illyrian Provinces_. Illyrian they were in the widest
and most purely geographical sense of that name. But this use of the
Illyrian name was confusing and misleading, as tending to put out of
sight that the true representatives of the old Illyrian race dwell to
the south, not only of Carinthia and Carniola, but of Dalmatia itself.
The loss of the Austrian possessions in this quarter brought back
the new Austrian ‘Empire’ to the condition of the original Austrian
duchy. It became a wholly inland dominion, without an inch of sea-coast
anywhere.
♦Austria at the peace. 1814-5.♦
We have already seen how Austria won back her lost Italian and
Dalmatian territory, and so much of her lost German territory as was
geographically continuous. ♦Ragusa and Cattaro.♦ Released from her
inland prison, provided again with a great sea-board on both sides
of the Hadriatic, she now refused to Ragusa the restoration of her
freedom, and filched from Montenegro her hard-won haven of Cattaro.
The recovered lands formed, in the new nomenclature of the Austrian
possessions, the kingdoms of Lombardy and Venice, of Illyria, and of
Dalmatia. The last was an ancient title of the Hungarian crown. The
Kingdom of Illyria was a continuation of the affected nomenclature
which had been bestowed on the lands which formed it under their
French occupation. We have already traced the driving out of the
Austrian power from Lombardy and Venetia, its momentary joint
possession in Sleswick, Holstein, and Lauenburg. ♦Cracow, 1846.♦
The only other actual change of frontier has been the annexation of
the inland commonwealth of Cracow, to match the annexation of the
sea-faring commonwealth of Ragusa. ♦Separation of Hungary, 1848.♦ The
movement of 1848 separated Hungary for a moment from the Austrian
power. ♦Recovery of Hungary, 1849.♦ Won back, partly by Russian help,
partly by the arms of her own Slavonic subjects, the Magyar kingdom
remained crushed till Austria was shut out alike from Germany and
from Italy. ♦Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 1867.♦ Then arose the present
system, the so called _dualism_, the theory of which is that the
‘Austro-Hungarian Monarchy’ consists of two states under a common
sovereign. By an odd turning about of meanings, Austria, once really
the _Oesterreich_, the Eastern land, of Germany, has become in truth
the Western land, the _Neustria_, of the new arrangement. With the
Hungarian kingdom are grouped the principality of Transsilvania and
the kingdoms of Slavonia and Croatia. The Austrian state is made up
of _Austria_ itself—the archduchy with the addition of _Salzburg_—the
duchy of _Styria_, the county of _Tyrol_, the kingdoms of _Bohemia_,
_Galicia_ and _Lodomeria_, _Illyria_, and _Dalmatia_ with _Ragusa_ and
_Cattaro_. These last lands are not continuous. Thus two states are
formed. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In one the dominant German duchy has Slavonic
lands on each side of it, and an Italian fringe on its coast. ♦Modern
Hungary.♦ In the other state, the ruling Magyar holds also among the
subjects of his crown the Slave, the Rouman, and the outlying Saxon of
Siebenbürgen. ♦Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Spizza, 1878.♦ Add to this that
the latest arrangements of all have added to the Austrian dominions,
under the diplomatic phrase of ‘administration,’ the Slavonic lands of
_Herzegovina_ and _Bosnia_, while the kingdom of Dalmatia is increased
by the harbour of _Spizza_. A power like this, which rests on no
national basis, but which has been simply patched together during
a space of six hundred years by this and that grant, this and that
marriage, this and that treaty, is surely an anachronism on the face
of modern Europe. Germany and Italy are nations as well as powers.
Austria, changed from the _Austria_ of Germany into the _Neustria_ of
Hungary, is simply a name without a meaning.
* * * * *
We have thus gone through the geographical changes of the three
Imperial kingdoms, and of the states and powers which were formed
by parts of those kingdoms falling away, and in some cases uniting
themselves with lands beyond the Empire. They have all to some extent
kept a common history down to our own time. We have now to turn to
another land which parted off from the Empire in like manner, but which
parted off so early as to become a wholly separate and rival land, with
an altogether independent history of its own.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Unless we except the small part of Flanders held by the
Confederation.
[13] On the marks, see Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichten_, vii.
62, et seq.
[14] No influence was more powerful for this end than the _Zollverein_
or customs union, which gradually united most of the German states
for certain purposes. But as it did not affect the boundaries or the
governments of sovereign states, it hardly concerns geography. Neither
do the strivings after more perfect union in 1848 and the following
years.
[15] Compare the mention of Rudolf in the letter of Cnut, on his Roman
Pilgrimage, in Florence of Worcester, 1031. He is there ‘Rodulphus rex,
qui maxime ipsarum clausurarum dominatur.’
[16] That Aosta was strictly Burgundian appears from the ‘Divisio
Imperii, 806’ (Pertz, Leges, i. 141), where Italy is granted whole
to Pippin, Burgundy is divided between Charles and Lewis; but it is
provided that both Charles and Lewis shall have success to Italy,
‘Karolus per vallem Augustanam quæ ad regnum ejus pertinet.’ The
Divisio Imperii of 839 is still plainer (Pertz, Leges, i. 373,
Scriptores, i. 434). There the one share takes in ‘Regnum Italiæ
partemque Burgundiæ, id est, vallem Augustanam,’ and certain other
districts. So Einhard (Vita Karoli, 15) excludes Aosta from Italy.
‘Italia tota, quæ ab Augusta Prætoria usque in Calabriam inferiorem, in
qua Græcorum et Beneventanorum constat esse confinia, porrigitur.’ As
Calabria was not part of Italy in this sense, so neither was Aosta.
[17] See Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, iv. 73.
CHAPTER IX.
THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE.
♦Origin and growth of France.♦
The process by which a great power grew up to the west of the Western
Empire has something in common with the process by which the powers
spoken of in the later sections of the last Chapter split off from the
Western Empire. As in the case of Switzerland and the United Provinces,
so in the case of France, a land which had formed part of the dominions
of Charles the Great became independent of his successors. ♦Comparison
with Austria.♦ As in the case of Austria to the east, so in the case
of France to the west, a duchy of the old Empire grew into a power
distinct from the Empire, and tried to attach to itself the old
Imperial titles and traditions. ♦Different nature of the Austrian and
the French territories.♦ But there is more than one point of difference
between the two cases. As a matter of geography, the power of the
Austrian house has for some centuries largely rested on the possession
of dominions beyond the boundaries of the Carolingian Empire, while
it has been only for a moment, and that chiefly by the annexation of
territory from Austria itself, that France has ever held any European
possessions beyond the Carolingian frontier.[18] ♦Difference in the
process of separation.♦ But the true difference lies in the date and
circumstances of the separation. ♦The other powers split off after
the Empire has become German.♦ The Swabian, Lotharingian, Frisian,
and Austrian lands which gradually split off from the Empire to form
distinct states split off after the Empire had been finally annexed to
the crown of Germany, indeed after Germany and the Empire had come to
mean nearly the same thing. But France can hardly be said to have split
off from the German kingdom or from the Empire itself. The first prince
of the Western _Francia_ who bore the kingly title was indeed the man
of the King of the East-Franks.[19] But no lasting relation, such as
afterwards bound the princes of the Empire to its head, sprang out of
his homage. Again from 887 to 963 the Imperial dignity was not finally
attached to any one kingdom. It fluctuated between Germany and Italy;
it might have passed to Burgundy; it might have passed to Karolingia,
as it had once already done in the person of Charles the Bald. ♦The
Empire divided into four kingdoms, of which three are again united,
while one remains distinct.♦ The truer way of putting the matter is to
say that in 887 the Empire split up into four kingdoms, of which three
came together again, and formed the Empire in a new shape. The fourth
kingdom remained separate; it can hardly be said to have split off
from the Empire, but its separation hindered the full reconstruction
of the Empire. It has had a distinct history, a history which made
it the special rival of the Empire. ♦Karolingia receives the name of
_France_.♦ This was _Karolingia_, the kingdom of the West-Franks, to
which, through the results of the change of dynasty in 987, the name of
_France_ gradually came to be applied.
♦France a nation as well as a power.♦
But there is yet another distinction of greater practical importance.
France was so early detached from the rest of the elder Frankish
dominions that it was able to form from the first a nation as well as a
power. Its separation happened at the time when the European nations
were forming. The other powers did not split off till long after those
nations were formed, and they did not in any strict sense form nations.
But France is a nation in the fullest sense. Its history is therefore
different from the history of Austria, of Burgundy, of Switzerland, or
even of Italy. As a state which had become wholly distinct from the
Empire, which was commonly the rival and enemy of the Empire, which
largely grew at the expense of the Empire, above all, as a state which
won for itself a most distinct national being, France fully deserves
a chapter, and not a mere section. Still that chapter is in some sort
an appendage to that which deals with the Imperial kingdoms of the
West. It naturally follows on our survey of those kingdoms, before we
go on further to deal with the European powers which arose out of the
dismemberment of the Empire of the East.
* * * * *
♦Extent of the royal domain at the accession of the Parisian house.
987.♦
We left Karolingia or the Western Kingdom at that point where the
modern French state took its real beginning under the kings of the
house of Paris. Their duchy of France had since its foundation been cut
short by the great grant of Normandy, and by the practical independence
which had been won by the counts of _Anjou_, _Maine_, and _Chartres_.
By their election to the kingdom the Dukes of the French added to
their duchy the small territory which up to that time had still been
in the immediate possession of the West-Frankish Kings at Laon. And,
with the crown and the immediate territory of those kings, the French
kings at Paris also inherited their claim to superiority over all the
states which had arisen within the bounds of the Western Kingdom.
♦Definition of the word _France_.♦ But the name _France_, as it was
used in the times with which we are dealing, means only the immediate
territory of the King. ♦Two forms of growth; annexation of fiefs of the
French crown and of lands altogether beyond the kingdom.♦ The use of
the name spreads with every increase of that territory, whether that
increase was made by the incorporation of a fief or by the annexation
of territory wholly foreign to the kingdom. These two processes must be
carefully distinguished. Both went on side by side for some centuries;
but the incorporation of the vassal states naturally began before the
annexation of altogether foreign territory.
♦Various feudal gradations.♦
Among the fiefs which were gradually annexed a distinction must be
drawn between the great princes who were really national chiefs owing
an external homage to the French crown, and the lesser counts whose
dominions had been cut off from the original duchy of France. And a
distinction must be again drawn between these last and the immediate
tenants of the Crown within its own domains, vassals of the Duke as
well as of the King. ♦The great vassals.♦ To the first class belong
the Dukes and Counts of _Burgundy_, _Aquitaine_, _Toulouse_, and
_Flanders_; to the second the Counts of _Anjou_, _Chartres_, and
_Champagne_. ♦Special character of Normandy.♦ Historically, _Normandy_
belongs to the second class, as the original grant to Rolf was
undoubtedly cut off from the French duchy. But the whole circumstances
of the Norman duchy made it a truly national state, owing to the French
crown the merest external homage. ♦Britanny.♦ _Britanny_, yet more
distinct in every way, was held to owe its immediate homage to the
Duke of the Normans. ♦The Twelve Peers.♦ The so-called Twelve Peers of
France seem to have been devised by Philip Augustus out of the romances
of Charlemagne; but the selection shows who were looked on as the
greatest vassals of the crown in his day. The six lay peers were the
Dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine, the Counts of Flanders,
Toulouse, and Champagne. ♦Champagne.♦ This last was the only one of the
six who could not be looked upon as a national sovereign. His dominions
were _French_ in a sense in which Normandy or Aquitaine could not be
called French. ♦Different position of the Bishops in the Eastern and
Western kingdom.♦ The six ecclesiastical peers offer a marked contrast
to the ecclesiastical electors of the Empire. The German bishops became
princes, holding directly of the Empire. But the bishops within the
dominions of the great vassals of the French crown were the subjects of
their immediate sovereigns. The Archbishop of Rouen or the Archbishop
of Bourdeaux stood in no relation to the King of the French. The
ecclesiastical peerage of France consisted only of certain bishops
who were immediate vassals of the King in his character of King,
among whom was only one prelate of the first rank, the Archbishop and
Duke of _Rheims_. The others were the Bishops and Dukes of _Langres_
and _Laon_, and the Bishops and Counts of _Beauvais_, _Noyon_, and
_Châlons_. As the bishops within the dominions of the great feudatories
had no claim to rank as peers of the kingdom, neither had those
prelates who were actually within the King’s immediate territory,
vassals therefore of the Duke of the French as well as of the King.
Thus the Bishop of _Paris_ and his metropolitan the Archbishop of
_Sens_ had no place among the twelve peers.
§ 1. _Incorporation of the Vassal States._
At the accession of the Parisian dynasty, the royal domain took in the
greater part of the later _Isle of France_, the territory to which the
old name specially clung, the greater part of the later government of
_Orleans_, besides some outlying fiefs holding immediately of the King.
♦Chief vassals within the royal domain.♦ Within this territory the
counties of _Clermont_, _Dreux_, _Moulins_, _Valois_, and _Gatinois_,
are of the greatest historical importance. Two of the great rivers of
Gaul, the Seine and the Loire, flowed through the royal dominions; but
the King was wholly cut off from the sea by the great feudatories who
commanded the lower course of the rivers. ♦States on the Channel and♦
The coast of the channel was held by the princes of Britanny, Normandy,
and Flanders, and the smaller county of _Ponthieu_, which lay between
Normandy and Flanders and fluctuated in its homage between the two.
♦on the Ocean;♦ The ocean coast was held by the rulers of Britanny,
of _Poitou_ and _Aquitaine_ united under a single sovereign, and of
_Gascony_ to the south of them. ♦on the Mediterranean coast.♦ That
small part of the Mediterranean coast which nominally belonged to the
Western Kingdom was held by the counts of _Toulouse_ and _Barcelona_.
♦Neighbours of the royal domain.♦ Of these great feudatories, the
princes of Flanders, Burgundy, Normandy, and Champagne, were all
immediate neighbours of the King. To the west of the royal domain
lay several states of the second rank which played a great part in
the history of France and Normandy. ♦Chartres and Blois. 1125-1152.♦
These were the counties of _Chartres_ and _Blois_, which were for a
while united with _Champagne_. ♦Anjou and Touraine united. 1044.
| Maine.♦ Beyond these, besides some smaller counties, were _Anjou_ and
_Touraine_, and _Maine_, the great borderland of Normandy and France.
Thus surrounded by their own vassals, the early Kings of the house of
Paris had far less dealings with powers beyond their own kingdom than
their Karolingian predecessors. They were thus able to make themselves
the great power of Gaul before they stood forth on a wider field as
one of the great powers of Europe.
♦The kingdom smaller than the old duchy.♦
As regards their extent of territory, the Kings of the French at the
beginning of the eleventh century had altogether fallen away from the
commanding position which had been held by the Dukes of the French
in the middle of the tenth. But this seeming loss of power was fully
outweighed by the fact that there were now Kings and not merely Dukes,
lords and no longer vassals. ♦Advantage of the kingly position.♦
As feudal principles grew, opportunities were constantly found for
annexing the lands of the vassal to the lands of his lord. ♦First
advances of the Kings. | Gatinois. 1068. | Viscounty of Bourges. 1100.♦
Towards the end of the eleventh century the royal domain had already
begun to increase by the acquisition of the _Gatinois_ and of the
viscounty of _Bourges_, a small part only of the later province of
Berry, but an addition which made France and Aquitaine more clearly
neighbours than before. Towards the end of the twelfth century began
a more important advance to the north-east. The first aggrandizement
of France at the expense of Flanders was the beginning of an important
chain of events in European history. ♦Amiens and Vermandois. 1183.
| Valois. 1185.♦ In the early years of Philip Augustus the counties of
_Amiens_ and _Vermandois_ were united to the crown, as was the county
of _Valois_ two years later. ♦Artois. 1180-1187.♦ So for a while was
the more important land of _Artois_. Later in the reign of the same
prince came an annexation on a far greater scale, which did not happen
till the first years of the thirteenth century, but which was the
result of causes which had been going on ever since the eleventh.
♦Growth of the House of Anjou.♦
In the course of the twelfth century a power grew up within the
bounds of the Western Kingdom which in extent of territory threw the
dominions of the French King into insignificance. The two great powers
of northern and southern Gaul, Normandy and Aquitaine, each carrying
with it a crowd of smaller states, were united in the hands of a
single prince, and that a prince who was also the king of a powerful
foreign kingdom. The Aquitanian duchy contained, besides the county of
_Poitou_, a number of fiefs, of which the most important were those of
_Perigueux_, _Limoges_, the dauphiny of _Auvergne_, and the county of
_Marche_ which gave kings to Jerusalem and Cyprus. ♦Union of Aquitaine
and Gascony. 1052.♦ To these, in the eleventh century, the duchy of
_Gascony_, with its subordinate fiefs, was added, and the dominions
of the lord of Poitiers stretched to the Pyrenees. ♦Conquests of
William of Normandy. Ponthieu. 1056. | Domfront. 1049. | Maine. 1063.♦
Meanwhile Duke William of Normandy, before his conquest of England, had
increased his continental dominions, by acquiring the superiority of
_Ponthieu_ and the immediate dominion, first of the small district of
_Domfront_ and then of the whole of _Maine_. Maine was presently lost
by his successor, and passed in the end to the house of Anjou. ♦Union
of Maine and Anjou. 1110.♦ But the union of several lines in descent
in the same person united England, Normandy, Anjou, and Maine in the
person of Henry the Second.
♦Dominions of Henry the Second.♦
For a moment it seemed as if, instead of the northern and southern
powers being united in opposition to the crown, one of them was to be
itself incorporated with the crown. ♦Momentary union of France and
Aquitaine. 1137.♦ The marriage of Lewis the Seventh with Eleanor of
Aquitaine united his kingdom and her duchy. A king of Paris for the
first time reigned on the Garonne and at the foot of the Pyrenees.
♦Their separation. 1152. | Union of Aquitaine, Normandy, and Anjou.
1152-1154.♦ But the divorce of Lewis and Eleanor and her immediate
re-marriage with the Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou again severed
the southern duchy from the kingdom, and united the great powers of
northern and southern Gaul. Then their common lord won a crown beyond
the sea and became the first Angevin king of England. ♦Britanny. 1169.♦
Another marriage brought Britanny, long the nominal fief of Normandy,
under the practical dominion of its Duke. The House of Anjou thus
suddenly rose to a dominion on Gaulish soil equal to that of the French
king and his other vassals put together, a dominion which held the
mouths of the three great rivers, and which was further strengthened
by the possession of the English kingdom. But a favourable moment soon
came which enabled the King to add to his own dominions the greater
part of the estates of his dangerous vassal. ♦Claims of Arthur of
Britanny.♦ On the death of Richard, first of England and fourth of
Normandy, Normandy and England passed to his brother John, while in
the other continental dominions of the Angevin princes the claims of
his nephew Arthur, the heir of Britanny, were asserted. ♦Possible
effects of his success.♦ The success of Arthur would have given the
geography of Gaul altogether a new shape. The Angevin possessions on
the continent, instead of being held by a king of England, would have
been held by a Duke of Britanny, the prince of a state which, though
not geographically cut off like England, was even more foreign to
France. ♦Annexation of Normandy, Anjou, &c. 1202-1205.♦ On the fall of
Arthur, Philip, by the help of a jurisprudence devised for the purpose,
was able to declare all the fiefs which John held of the French crown
to be forfeited to that crown, a sentence which did not apply to the
fiefs of his mother Eleanor. In the space of two years Philip was
able to carry that sentence into effect everywhere on the mainland.
♦1258.♦ Continental Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, were joined
to the dominions of the French crown, and by a later treaty they were
formally surrendered by John’s son Henry. Poitou went with them, and
all these lands may from this time be looked on as forming part of
France. ♦Character and effects of the annexation.♦ Thus far the process
of annexation was little more than the restoration of an earlier state
of things. For all these lands, except Poitou, had formed part of the
old French duchy. ♦Territories kept by the English kings.♦ The Kings
of England still kept the duchy of Aquitaine with Gascony. ♦The Norman
Islands.♦ They kept also the insular Normandy, the Norman islands
which have ever since remained distinct states attached to the English
crown. ♦Aquitaine.♦ Aquitaine was now no longer part of the continental
dominions of a prince who was equally at home on both sides of the
Channel. It was now a remote dependency of the insular kingdom, a
dependency whose great cities clave to the English connexion, while its
geographical position and the feelings of its feudal nobility tended to
draw it towards France.
♦Sudden greatness of France.♦
The result of this great and sudden acquisition of territory was to
make the King of the French incomparably greater on Gaulish ground than
any of his own vassals. France had now a large sea-board on the Channel
and a small sea-board on the Ocean. And now another chain of events
incorporated a large territory with which the crown had hitherto stood
in no practical relation, and which gave the kingdom a third sea-board
on the Mediterranean.
* * * * *
♦Fiefs of Aragon in Southern Gaul.♦
While north-western and south-western Gaul were united in the hands
of an insular king, the king of a peninsular kingdom became only less
powerful in south-eastern Gaul. ♦Counts of Toulouse.♦ Hitherto the
greatest princes in this region had been the counts of _Toulouse_,
who, besides their fiefs of the French crown, had also possessions in
the Burgundian kingdom beyond the Rhone. But during the latter part
of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth, the Counts
of _Barcelona_, and the kings of Aragon who succeeded them, acquired
by various means a number of Tolosan fiefs, both French and Imperial.
_Carcassonne_, _Albi_, and _Nîmes_ were all under the lordship of the
Aragonese crown. ♦The Albigensian War. 1207-1229.♦ The Albigensian
war seemed at first likely to lead to the establishment of the house
of Montfort as the chief power of Southern Gaul. ♦Simon of Montfort
at Toulouse.♦ But the struggle ended in a vast increase of the power
of the French crown, at the expense alike of the house of Toulouse
and of the house of Aragon. ♦Settlement of Meaux.♦ The dominions of
the Count of Toulouse were divided. ♦Annexation of Narbonne, 1229;♦
A number of fiefs, _Beziers_, _Narbonne_, _Nîmes_, _Albi_, and some
other districts, were at once annexed to the crown. ♦of Toulouse,
1270.♦ The capital itself and its county passed to the crown fifty
years later. By a settlement with Aragon, the domains of the French
king were increased, while the French kingdom itself was nominally
cut short. ♦Roussillon and Barcelona released from homage. 1258.♦ Two
of the Aragonese fiefs, the counties of _Roussillon_ and _Barcelona_,
were relieved from even nominal homage. The name of Toulouse, except as
the name of the city itself, now passed away, and the new acquisitions
of France came in the end to be known by the name of the tongue which
was common to them with Aquitaine and Imperial Burgundy. ♦Province
of Languedoc.♦ Under the name of _Languedoc_ they became one of the
greatest and most valuable provinces of the French kingdom.
The great growth of the crown during the reign of Saint Lewis was thus
in the south; but he also extended his borders nearer home. ♦Purchase
of Blois and Chartres. 1234. | Escheat of Perche. 1257.♦ He won back
part of the old French duchy when he purchased the superiority of
_Blois_ and _Chartres_, to which _Perche_ was afterwards added by
escheat. ♦Annexation of Macon, 1239.♦ Further off, he added _Macon_ to
the crown, a possession which afterwards passed away to the House of
Burgundy.
* * * * *
♦Southern advance of the Crown.♦
Thus, during the reigns of Philip Augustus and his grandson, the
royal possessions had been enlarged by the annexations of two of
the chief vassal states, two of the lay peerages, annexations which
gave the French King a sea-board on two seas and which brought him
into immediate connexion with the affairs of the Spanish peninsula.
♦Marriage of Philip the Fair, 1284, with the heiress of Champagne and
Navarre.♦ Later in the thirteenth century, the marriage of Philip the
Fair with the heiress of _Champagne_ not only extinguished another
peerage, but made the French kings for awhile actually Spanish
sovereigns, and made France an immediate neighbour of the German
kingdom. The county of _Champagne_ had for two generations been united
with the kingdom of Navarre. These dominions were held in right of
their wives by three kings of France. ♦Separation of Navarre. 1328.
| Union of Champagne, 1335; incorporation, 1361.♦ Then Navarre, though
it passed to a French prince, was wholly separated from France, while
Champagne was incorporated with the kingdom. This last annexation gave
France a considerable frontier towards Germany, and especially brought
the kingdom into the immediate neighbourhood of the Lotharingian
bishoprics. These acquisitions, of Normandy and the states connected
with it, of Toulouse and the rest of Languedoc, and now of Champagne,
were the chief cases of incorporation of vassal states with the royal
domain up to the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦Appanages.♦ The
mere grants and recoveries of appanages hardly concern geography. We
now turn to two great struggles which, in the course of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, the Kings of France had to wage with two of
their chief vassals who were also powerful foreign princes. In both
cases, events which seemed likely to bring about the utter humiliation
of France did in the end bring to it a large increase of territory.
* * * * *
♦The Hundred Years’ War with England.♦
The former of these struggles was the great war between England and
France, called by French writers the _Hundred Years’ War_. This war
might be called either a war for the annexation of France to England
or a war for the annexation of Aquitaine to France. ♦Designs of the
French kings on Aquitaine.♦ By the peace between Henry the Third and
Saint Lewis, Aquitaine became a land held by the king of England as a
vassal of the French crown. From that time it was one main object of
the French kings to change their feudal superiority over this great
duchy into an actual possession. This object had been once obtained for
a moment by the marriage of Eleanor and Lewis the Seventh. ♦Momentary
occupation by Philip the Fair. 1294.♦ It was again obtained for a
moment by the negotiations between Edward the First and Philip the
Fair. The Hundred Years’ war began through the attempts of Philip of
Valois on the Aquitanian dominions of Edward the Third. ♦1337.♦ Then
the King of England found it politic to assume the title of King of
France. ♦1339.♦ But the real nature of the controversy was shown by
the first great settlement. ♦Peace of Bretigny. 1360.♦ At the Peace
of _Bretigny_ Edward gave up all claim to the crown of France, in
exchange for the independent sovereignty of his old fiefs and of
some of his recent conquests. _Aquitaine_ and _Gascony_, including
_Poitou_ but not including _Auvergne_, together with the districts on
the Channel, _Calais_ with _Guines_ and the county of _Ponthieu_, were
made over to the King of England without the reservation of any homage
or superiority of any kind. These lands became a territory as foreign
to the French kingdom as the territory of her German and Spanish
neighbours. ♦Renewal of the war. 1370-1374. | Losses of the English.♦
But in a few years the treaty was broken on the French side, and the
actual possessions of England beyond the sea were cut down to Calais
and Guines, with some small parts of Aquitaine adjoining the cities of
Bourdeaux and Bayonne. ♦Conquests of Henry the Fifth.♦ Then the tide
turned at the invasion of Henry the Fifth. ♦Treaty of Troyes. 1420.♦
The Treaty of Troyes united the crowns of England and France. ♦1431.♦
Aquitaine and Normandy were won back; Paris saw the crowning of an
English king, and only the central part of the country obeyed the heir
of the Parisian kingdom, no longer king of Paris but only of Bourges.
♦Conquest of Aquitaine. 1451-1453.♦ But the final result of the war was
the driving out of the English from all Aquitaine and France, except
the single district of Calais. The geographical aspect of the change is
that Aquitaine, which had been wholly cut off from the kingdom by the
Peace of Bretigny, was finally incorporated with the kingdom. ♦Final
union of Aquitaine with France.♦ The French conquest of Aquitaine,
the result of the Hundred Years’ War, was in form the conquest of a
land which had ceased to stand in any relation to the French crown.
Practically it was the incorporation with the French crown of its
greatest fief, balanced by the loss of a small territory the value of
which was certainly out of all proportion to its geographical extent.
In its historical aspect the annexation of Aquitaine was something yet
more. The first foreshadowing of the modern French kingdom was made
by the addition of Aquitaine to Neustria, of southern to northern
Gaul.[20] Now, after so many strivings, the two were united for ever.
Aquitaine was merged in France. The grant to Charles the Bald took
effect after six hundred years. ♦Beginning of the modern Kingdom of
France.♦ France, in the sense which the word bears in modern use, may
date its complete existence from the addition of Bourdeaux to the
dominions of Charles the Seventh.
* * * * *
♦Growth of the Dukes of Burgundy.♦
Thus, in the course of somewhat less than four hundred years, the
conquest of England by a vassal of France, followed by the union of
a crowd of other French fiefs in the hands of a common sovereign of
England and Normandy, had led to the union with France of all the
continental possessions of the prince who thus reigned on both sides
of the sea. Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the kingdom, the holder
of a great French fief swelled into an European power, the special
rival of his French overlord. ♦Escheat of the duchy of Burgundy. 1361.
| Grant to Philip the Hardy. 1364.♦ The duchy of Burgundy, granted
to a branch of the royal house in the earliest days of the Parisian
kingdom, escheated to the crown in the fourteenth century, and was
again granted out to a son of the reigning king. ♦Advance of the Valois
Dukes.♦ A series of marriages, purchases, conquests, transactions of
every kind, gathered together, in the hands of the Burgundian dukes,
a crowd of fiefs both of France and of the Empire.[21] The duchy
of _Burgundy_ with the county of _Charolois_, and the counties of
_Flanders_ and _Artois_, were joined under a common ruler with endless
Imperial fiefs in the Low Countries and with the Imperial _County of
Burgundy_. ♦Advance to the Somme.♦ More than this, under Philip the
Good and Charles the Bold, the Burgundian frontier was more than
once advanced to the Somme, and Amiens was separated from the crown.
♦Annexations at the death of Charles the Bold. 1479.♦ The fall of
Charles the Bold laid his dominions open to French annexation both
on the Burgundian and on the Flemish frontier. ♦Momentary annexation
of Artois and the County of Burgundy.♦ In the first moments of his
success, Lewis the Eleventh possessed himself of a large part of the
Imperial as well as the French fiefs of the fallen Duke. ♦Treaty of
Arras. 1435.♦ But in the end Flanders and Artois remained French fiefs
held by the House of Burgundy, which also kept the county of Burgundy
and the isolated county of Charolois. ♦Incorporation of the duchy of
Burgundy. 1479.♦ But France not only finally recovered the towns on
the Somme, but incorporated the Burgundian duchy, one of the greatest
fiefs of the crown. ♦French advance to the east.♦ This was the addition
of a territory which the kings of France had never before ruled, and
it marks an important stage in the advance of the French power towards
the Imperial lands on its eastern border. By the marriage of Mary of
Burgundy and Maximilian of Austria, the remains of the Burgundian
dominions passed to the House of Austria, and thereby in the end to
Spain. The result was that a French king had for a moment an Emperor
for his vassal in his character of Count of Flanders and Artois.
♦Flanders and Artois relieved from homage. 1525.♦ But by the treaty of
Madrid Flanders and Artois were relieved from all homage to France,
exactly as Aquitaine had been by the Peace of Bretigny. They now became
lands wholly foreign to France, and, as foreign lands, large parts of
them were afterwards conquered by France, just as Aquitaine was. But
the history of their acquisition belongs to the story of the advance of
France at the expense of the Empire.
♦All the great fiefs annexed except Britanny.♦
Thus, by the end of the reign of Lewis the Eleventh, all the fiefs
of the French crown which could make any claim to the character of
separate sovereignties had, with a single exception, been added to the
dominions of the crown. The one which had escaped was that one which,
more than any other, represented a nationality altogether distinct
from that of France. _Britanny_ still remained distinct under its own
Dukes. ♦1491-1499; incorporated 1532.♦ The marriages of its Duchess
Anne with two successive French kings, Charles the Eighth and Lewis
the Twelfth, added Britanny to France, and so completed the work. The
whole of the Western Kingdom, except those parts which had become
foreign ground—that is to say, insular Normandy and Calais, Barcelona,
Flanders, and Artois—was now united under the kings of Paris. Their
duchy of _France_ had spread its power and its name over the whole
kingdom. We have now to see how it also spread itself over lands which
had never formed part of that kingdom.
§ 2. _Foreign Annexations of France._
♦Foreign neighbours of Karolingia. | Imperial and Spanish neighbours.♦
When the Western Kingdom finally parted off from the body of the
Empire, its only immediate neighbours were the Imperial kingdoms to
the east, and the Spanish kingdoms to the south. ♦England.♦ The union
of Normandy and England in some sort made England and France immediate
neighbours. And the long retention of Aquitaine by England, the English
possession of Calais for more than two hundred years and of the insular
Normandy down to our own day, have all tended to keep them so. ♦Small
acquisitions of France from England and Spain.♦ But the acquisitions
of France from England, and from Spain, in its character as Spain,
have been comparatively small. Indeed the separation of the Spanish
March and the insular Normandy may be thought to turn the balance
the other way. From England France has won Aquitaine and Calais,
territories which had once been under the homage of the French King.
♦English conquest of Boulogne. 1544-1550. | 1663.♦ So in the sixteenth
century _Boulogne_ was lost to England and won back again; so in the
seventeenth century _Dunkirk_, which had become an English possession,
was made over to France. Since the final loss of Aquitaine, the wars
between England and France have made most important changes in the
English and French possessions in distant parts of the world, but they
have had no effect on the geography of England, and very little on that
of France.
♦Boundary of the Pyrenees.♦
Nearly the same may be said of the geographical relations between
France and Spain. The long wars between those countries have added to
France a large part of the outlying dominions of Spain; but they have
not greatly affected the boundaries of the two countries themselves.
♦Roussillon, its shiftings.♦ The only important exception is the county
of _Roussillon_, the land which Aragon kept on the north side of the
mountain range. ♦Finally becomes French. 1659.♦ United to France by
Lewis the Eleventh, given back by Charles the Eighth, it was finally
annexed to France by the Peace of the Pyrenees. Towards the other end
of the mountain frontier, a small portion of Spanish territory has
been annexed to France, perhaps quite unconsciously. ♦Navarre north
of the Pyrenees.♦ The old kingdom of _Navarre_, though it lay chiefly
south of the Pyrenees, contained a small territory to the north. ♦Union
of France and Navarre. 1589.♦ The accidents of female succession had
given Navarre to more than one King of France, and in the person of
Henry the Fourth the crown of France passed to a King of Navarre who
held only the part of his kingdom north of the Pyrenees. This little
piece of Spain within the borders of Gaul was thus united with France.
♦Protectorate of Andorra.♦ On the other hand, the Kings of France, as
successors of the Counts of Foix, and the other rulers of France after
them, have held, not any dominion but certain rights as advocates or
protectors, over the small commonwealth of _Andorra_ on the Spanish
side of the mountains.
* * * * *
♦Advance at the expense of the Imperial kingdoms.♦
Of far greater importance is the steady acquisition of territory
by France at the expense of the Imperial kingdoms, and of the
modern states by which those kingdoms are represented. ♦Burgundy.
| 1310-1860.♦ In the case of Burgundy, French annexation has taken the
form of a gradual swallowing up of nearly the whole kingdom, a process
which has been spread over more than five hundred years, from the
annexation of Lyons by Philip the Fair to the last annexation of Savoy
in our own day. ♦Annexations from Germany. 1552-1811.♦ The advance at
the expense of the German kingdom did not begin till the greater part
of the Burgundian kingdom was already swallowed up. ♦Late beginning of
annexations from Germany.♦ The north-eastern frontier of the Western
Kingdom changed but little from the accession of the Parisian house
in the tenth century till the growth of the Dukes of Burgundy in the
fifteenth. After Lotharingia finally became a part of the Eastern
Kingdom, there was no doubt that the homage of Flanders was due to
France, no doubt that the homage of the states which had formed the
Lower Lotharingia was due to the Empire. The frontier towards the Upper
Lotharingia and the Burgundian county also remained untouched. The
Saône remained a boundary stream long after the Rhone had ceased to be
one. ♦Effect of the Burgundian acquisitions of France;♦ It was on this
latter river that the great Burgundian annexations of France began,
annexations which gave France a wholly new European position.[22]
♦of the Dauphiny; | of Provence.♦ The acquisition of the Dauphiny of
Viennois made France the immediate neighbour of Italy; the acquisition
of Provence at once strengthened this last position and more than
doubled her Mediterranean coast. ♦Relations with the Swiss.♦ Add to
this that, though France and the Confederate territory did not yet
actually touch, yet the Burgundian wars and many other events in the
latter half of the fifteenth century enabled France to establish a
close connexion with the power which had grown up north of Lake Leman.
France had thus become a great Mediterranean and Alpine power, ready
to threaten Italy in the next generation. Later acquisitions within
the old border of the Burgundian kingdom had a somewhat different
character. ♦Annexations at the expense of Savoy;♦ Annexations at the
expense of Savoy, even when geographically Burgundian, were annexations
at the cost of a power which was beginning to be Italian rather than
Burgundian. ♦of the County of Burgundy.♦ The annexation of the County
of Burgundy goes rather with the Alsatian annexations. It was territory
won at the cost of the Empire and of the House of Austria. ♦Middle
character of the Burgundian lands.♦ But the lands between the Rhone,
the Alps, and the sea, still kept, negatively at least, their middle
character. They were lands which at least were neither German, French,
nor Italian. ♦They become French.♦ The events of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries ruled that this intermediate region should become
French. And none of the acquisitions of France ever helped more towards
the real growth of her power.
It was while the later stages of this process were going on that
the French kings added to their dominions the Aquitanian lands on
one side and the Burgundian duchy on the other. The acquisition of
Aquitaine has, besides its other characters, a third aspect which
closely connects it with the annexations between the Rhone and the
Alps. ♦Effect of French annexations on the _Langue d’oc_.♦ The strife
between Northern and Southern Gaul, between the tongue of _oil_ and the
tongue of _oc_, now came to an end. Had the chief power in Gaul settled
somewhere in Burgundy or Aquitaine, the tongue of _oil_ might now pass
for a _patois_ of the tongue of _oc_. Had French dominion in Italy
begun as soon and lasted as permanently as French dominion in Burgundy
and Aquitaine, the tongue of _si_, as well as the tongue of _oc_, might
now pass for a _patois_ of the tongue of _oil_. But now it was settled
that French, not Provençal, was to be the ruling speech of Gaul. The
lands of the Southern speech which escaped were almost wholly portions
of the dominions of other powers. There was no longer any separate
state wholly of that speech, except the little principality of Orange.
♦Extinction of the Provençal speech and nation.♦ The work which the
French kings had now ended amounted to little short of the extinction
of an European nation. A tongue, once of at least equal dignity with
the tongue of Paris and Tours, has sunk from the rank of a national
language to the rank of a provincial dialect.
* * * * *
♦Italian conquests of France.♦
The next great conquests of France were made on Italian soil, but
they are conquests which do not greatly concern geography. This
distinguishes the relations of France towards Italy from her relations
towards Burgundy. France has constantly interfered in Italian affairs;
she has at various times held large Italian territories, and brought
all Italy under French influence. But France has never permanently
kept any large amount of Italian territory. The French possession
of Naples and Milan was only temporary. ♦Not strictly extensions of
France.♦ And, if it had been lasting, the possession of these isolated
territories by the French king could hardly have been looked on as an
extension of the actual French frontier. Those lands could never have
been incorporated with France in the same way in which other French
conquests had been. Their retention would in truth have given the later
history of France quite a different character, a character more like
that which actually belonged to Spain. The long occupation of Savoyard
territory on both sides of the Alps[23] would, if it had lasted, have
been a real extension of the French kingdom. But down to our own day,
while the lands won by France from the Burgundian kingdom form a large
proportion of the whole French territory, French acquisitions from
Italy hardly go beyond the island of Corsica and the insignificant
district of _Mentone_.
* * * * *
♦Annexations at the expense of Germany.♦
The great annexations of France at the expense of the German kingdom
and the lands more closely connected with it begin in the middle of
the sixteenth century. ♦Annexation of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. 1552.♦
The first great advance was the practical annexation of the three
Lotharingian bishoprics, though their separation from the Empire was
not formally acknowledged till the Peace of Westfalia. ♦Effect of
isolated conquests.♦ This kind of conquest can hardly fail to lead to
other conquests. France now held certain patches of territory which lay
detached from one another and from the main body of the kingdom. Yet
the rounding off of the frontier was not the next step taken in this
direction. The cause was most likely the close connexion which for
somewhile existed between the ruling houses of France and Lorraine.
Before the next French advance on German ground, the frontier had
been extended in other directions. ♦Recovery of Calais, 1558; | of
Boulogne, 1550.♦ Almost at the same time as the acquisition of the
Three Bishoprics, _Calais_ was won back from England—the short English
possession of _Boulogne_ had already come to an end. ♦Surrender of
Saluzzo and annexation of Bresse, Bugey, and Gex.♦ The first year of
the sixteenth century saw the surrender of _Saluzzo_, in exchange for
_Bresse_, _Bugey_, and _Gex_. ♦Occupation of Pinerolo. 1630-1696.♦
Thirty years later came the renewed occupation of Italian territory at
_Pinerolo_ and other points in Piedmont, which lasted till nearly the
end of the seventeenth century.
The next great advance was the work of the Thirty Years’ War and of the
war with Spain which went on for eleven years longer. ♦The Bishoprics
surrendered by the Empire.♦ Now came the legal cession of the
Bishoprics and the further acquisition of the Alsatian dominions and
rights of the House of Austria. The irregularities of the frontier, and
the temptation to round off its angles, were increased tenfold. ♦French
acquisitions in Elsass. 1648.♦ France received another and larger
isolated territory lying to the east both of her earlier conquests and
of the independent lands which surrounded them. A part of her dominion,
itself sprinkled with isolated towns and districts which did not
belong to her dominion, stretched out without any connexion into the
middle of the Empire. The Duchy of Lorraine, dotted over by the French
lands of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, lay between the old French land of
Champagne and the new French land of _Elsass_ or _Alsace_. ♦Breisach.♦
And while France was allowed, by the possession of _Breisach_, to
establish herself at one point on the right bank of the Rhine, her new
territory on the left bank was broken up by the continued independence
of _Strassburg_ and the other Alsatian towns and districts which were
still left to the Empire. ♦France reaches the Rhine.♦ Such a frontier
could hardly be lasting; now that France had reached and even crossed
the Rhine, the annexation of the outlying Imperial lands to the west of
that river was sure to follow.
But, even after this further advance into the heart of Germany, the
gap was not filled up at the next stage of annexation. ♦Annexation
of Bar. 1659.♦ At the Peace of the Pyrenees, France obtained the
scattered lands of the duchy of Bar, which made the greater part of
the Three Bishoprics continuous with her older possessions. ♦Bar
restored. 1661.♦ But Bar was presently restored, and, though Lorraine
was constantly occupied by French armies, it was not incorporated with
France for another century. Up to this last change the Three Bishoprics
still remained isolated French possessions surrounded by lands of the
Empire. But France advanced at the expense of the outlying possessions
of Spain, lands only nominally Imperial, as well as of the Spanish
lands on her own southern frontier. ♦Annexation of Roussillon. 1659.♦
At the Peace of the Pyrenees _Roussillon_ finally became French. No
Spanish kingdom any longer stretched north of the great natural barrier
of the peninsula. ♦Annexation in the Netherlands. 1659.♦ The same
Treaty gave France her first acquisitions in _Flanders_ and _Artois_
since they had become wholly foreign ground, as well as her first
acquisitions from _Hainault_, _Liége_, and _Luxemburg_, lands which
had never owed her homage. Here again the frontier was of the same
kind as the frontier towards Germany. ♦Isolated points held by each
power.♦ Isolated points like _Philippeville_ and _Marienburg_ were
held by France within Spanish or Imperial territory, and isolated
points like _Aire_ and _St. Omer_ were still held by Spain in what
had now become French territory. ♦Further annexations. 1668.♦ The
furthest French advance that was recognized by any treaty was made
by the earlier Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, when, amongst other places,
_Douay_, _Tournay_, _Lille_, _Oudenarde_, and _Courtray_ became French.
♦Changes at the Peace of Nimwegen. 1678.♦ By the Peace of Nimwegen
the frontier again fell back in eastern Flanders, and Courtray and
Oudenarde were restored. But in the districts more to the south
France again advanced, gaining the outlying Spanish towns in Artois,
_Cambray_ and its district, and _Valenciennes_ in Hainault. ♦1697.♦
The Peace of Ryswick left the frontier as it had been fixed by the
Peace of Nimwegen. ♦Treaty of Utrecht and Barrier Treaty. 1713-1715.♦
Finally, the Treaty of Utrecht and the Barrier Treaty left France in
possession of a considerable part of Flanders, and of much land which
had been Imperial. ♦The Barrier Towns.♦ The Netherlands, formerly
Spanish and now Austrian, kept a frontier protected by the barrier
towns of _Furnes_, _Ypres_, _Menin_, _Tournai_, _Mons_, _Charleroi_,
_Namur_. The French frontier on the other side had its series of
barrier towns stretching from _St. Omer_ to _Charlemont_ on the Maes.
The arrangements now made have, with very slight changes, lasted
ever since, except during the French annexation of the whole of the
Netherlands during the revolutionary wars.
The reign of Lewis the Fourteenth was also a time of at least equal
advance on the part of France on her more strictly German frontier.
The time was now come for serious attempts to consolidate the
scattered possessions of France between Champagne and the Rhine.
♦Franche Comté conquered. 1668. | Conquered again. 1674.♦ _Franche
Comté_, as the county of Burgundy was now more commonly called, with
the city of _Besançon_, was twice seized by Lewis, and the second
seizure was confirmed by the peace of Nimwegen. ♦Freiburg.♦ By that
peace also France kept _Freiburg-im-Breisgau_ on the right bank of
the Rhine. A number of small places in Elsass were annexed after the
peace of Nimwegen by the process known as _Reunion_. ♦Seizure of
Strassburg 1681.♦ At last in 1681 _Strassburg_ itself was seized in
time of peace, and its possession was finally secured to France by
the peace of Ryswick. ♦Restoration of Freiburg and Breisach.♦ But
Freiburg and Breisach were restored, and Lorraine, held by France,
though not formally ceded, was given back to its own Duke. ♦Peace
of Rastadt. 1714.♦ The arrangements of Ryswick were again confirmed
by the peace of Rastadt. ♦Annexation of Orange. 1714.♦ In the same
year the principality of _Orange_ was annexed to France, leaving
the Papal possessions of Avignon and Venaissin surrounded by French
territory, the last relic of the Burgundian realm between the Rhone
and the Alps. ♦Effects of the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth.♦ France
had thus obtained a good physical boundary towards Spain and Italy,
and a boundary clearly marked on the map towards the now Austrian
Netherlands. Her eastern frontier was still broken in upon by the duchy
of Lorraine, by the districts in Elsass which had still escaped, by
the county of _Montbeliard_, and by the detached territories of the
commonwealth of _Geneva_. But France could now in a certain part of her
territory call the Rhine her frontier. It was an easy inference that
the Rhine ought to be her frontier through the whole of its course.
* * * * *
The next reign, that of Lewis the Fifteenth, in a manner completed
the work of Henry the Second and Lewis the Fourteenth. The gap which
had so long yawned between Champagne and Elsass was now filled up.
♦Arrangements as to Lorraine. 1735. | Its incorporation. 1766.♦ France
obtained a reversionary right to the duchy of Lorraine, which was
incorporated thirty-one years later. The lands of Metz, Toul, and
Verdun were no longer isolated. Elsass, which, by the acquisition
of Franche Comté, had ceased to be insular, now ceased to be even
peninsular. Leaving out of sight a few spots of Imperial soil which
were now wholly surrounded by France, the French territory now
stretched as a solid and unbroken mass from the Ocean to the Rhine.
♦Thorough incorporation of French Conquests.♦ And it must be remembered
that all the lands which the monarchy of Paris had gradually brought
under its power were in the strictest sense incorporated with the
kingdom. There were no dependencies, no separate kingdoms or duchies.
♦Effect of geographical continuity. | Contrast with Spain and Austria.♦
The geographical continuity of the French territory enabled France
really to incorporate her conquests in a way in which Spain and Austria
never could. And the process was further helped by the fact that each
annexation by itself was small compared with the general bulk of the
French monarchy. Except in the case of the fragment of Navarre which
was held by its Bourbon king, France never annexed a kingdom or made
any permanent addition to the royal style of her kings.
♦Purchase of Corsica. 1768.♦
The same reign saw another acquisition altogether unlike the rest
in the form of the Italian island of _Corsica_. In itself the
incorporation of this island with the French kingdom seems as unnatural
as the Spanish or Austrian dominion in Sicily or Sardinia. ♦Its
effects.♦ But the result has been different. Corsica has been far more
thoroughly incorporated with France than such outlying possessions
commonly are. The truth is that the strong continuity of the
continental dominions of France made the incorporation of the island
easier. There were no traditions or precedents which could suggest
the holding of it as a dependency or as a separate state in any form.
♦Birth of Buonaparte. 1769.♦ Corsica again was more easily attached to
France, because the man who did most to extend the dominion of France
was a Frenchman only so far as Corsicans had become Frenchmen. Corsica
has thus become French in a sense in which Sardinia and Sicily never
became Spanish, partly because France had no other possession of the
kind, partly because Napoleon Buonaparte was born at Ajaccio.
§ 3. _The Colonial Dominion of France._
♦Early French colonization.♦
France, like all the European powers which have an oceanic coast,
entered early on the field of colonization and distant dominion. At one
time indeed it seemed as if France was destined to become the chief
European power both in India and in North America. ♦French colonies in
North America. 1506.♦ French attempts at colonization in the latter
country began early in the sixteenth century. ♦1540. | 1603.♦ Thus
_Cape Breton_ at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence was reached early in
the sixteenth century, the colonization of _Canada_ began a generation
later, and French dominion in America was confirmed by the foundation
of _Quebec_. ♦Acadia ceded to England. 1713.♦ The peninsula of _Acadie_
or _Nova Scotia_ was from this time a subject of dispute between France
and Great Britain, till it was finally surrendered by France at the
Peace of Utrecht. ♦Canada and Louisiana.♦ France now, under the names
of _Canada_ and _Louisiana_, or of _New France_, held or claimed a vast
inland region stretching from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence to the
mouth of the Mississippi, while the eastern coast was colonized by
other powers. ♦Colonization at the mouth of the Mississippi. 1699.
| Foundation of New Orleans. 1717.♦ At the end of the seventeenth
century the first colonization began at the mouth of the Mississippi;
and the city of New Orleans was founded eighteen years later. ♦Rivalry
of English and French settlements.♦ France and England thus became
distinctly rival powers in America as well as in Europe. The English
settlers were pressing westward from the coast to the Ocean. The French
strove to fix the Alleghany range as the eastern boundary of English
advance. ♦Share of the Colonies in European Wars.♦ In every European
war between the two powers the American colonies played an important
part. ♦English conquest of Canada. 1759. | 1763.♦ Canada was wrested
from France; and by the Treaty of Paris all the French possessions
north of the present United States were finally surrendered to England,
except a few small islands kept for fishing purposes. ♦The Mississippi
boundary.♦ The Mississippi was now made the boundary of Louisiana,
leaving nothing to France on its left bank except the city of New
Orleans. These cessions ruled for ever that men of English blood,
whether remaining subjects of the mother-country or forming independent
states, should be the dominant power in the North American continent.
♦The West India islands.♦
Among the West India islands, France in the seventeenth century
colonized several of the _Antilles_, some of which were afterwards lost
to England. ♦St. Domingo. 1697.♦ Later in the century she acquired part
of the great island called variously _Hispaniola_, _Saint Domingo_, and
_Hayti_. ♦French Guiana. 1624. | Cayenne. 1635.♦ On the coast of South
America lay the French settlements in _Guiana_, with _Cayenne_ as their
capital. This colony grew into more importance after the war of Canada.
♦The French in India.♦
Nearly the same course of things took place in the eastern world as
in the western. In India neither English nor French colonized in any
strict sense. But commercial settlements grew into dominion, or what
seemed likely to become dominion: and in India, as in America, the
temporary greatness of France came before the more lasting greatness
of England. ♦1664.♦ The French East India Company began later than
the English; but its steps towards dominion were for a long time
faster. ♦Bourbon. 1657.♦ Before this the French had occupied the
_Isle of Bourbon_, an important point on the road to India. ♦Factory
at Surat. 1668.♦ The first French factory on the mainland was at
Surat. ♦Pondicherry. 1672.♦ During the later years of the century
various attempts at settlement were made; but no important or lasting
acquisition was made, except that of _Pondicherry_. This has ever since
remained a French possession, often lost in the course of warfare, but
always restored at the next peace. ♦Chandernagore. 1676.♦ A little
later France obtained _Chandernagore_ in Bengal. ♦Isle of France.
1720.♦ In the next century the island of _Mauritius_, abandoned by
the Dutch, became a French colony under the name of the _Isle of
France_. Under Labourdonnais and Dupleix France gained for a moment a
real Indian dominion. ♦Taking of Madras. 1746.♦ Madras was taken, and
a large dominion was obtained on the eastern coast of India in the
Carnatic and the Circars. ♦Restored. 1748.♦ But all hope of French
supremacy in India came to an end in the later years of the Seven
Years’ War. ♦Effects of the Peace of Paris. 1763.♦ France was confined
to a few points which have not seriously threatened the eastern
dominion of England.
§ 4. _Acquisitions of France during the Revolutionary Wars._
Thus the French monarchy grew from the original Parisian duchy into
a kingdom which spread north, south, east, and west, taking in all
the fiefs of the West-Frankish kings, together with much which had
belonged to the other kingdoms of the Empire. ♦Acquisitions in the
Revolutionary Wars.♦ With the great French revolution began a series of
acquisitions of territory on the part of France which are altogether
unparalleled. ♦Different classes of annexations.♦ First of all, there
were those small annexations of territory surrounded or nearly so by
French territory, whose annexation was necessary if French territory
was to be continuous. ♦Avignon. | Mülhausen.♦ Such were Avignon,
Venaissin, the county of _Montbeliard_, the few points in Elsass which
had escaped the reunions, with the Confederate city of _Mülhausen_.
Avignon and Venaissin, and the surviving Alsatian fragments, were
annexed to France before the time of warfare and conquest had begun.
Mülhausen, as Confederate ground, was respected as long as Confederate
ground was respected. ♦1796.♦ Montbeliard had been annexed already.
♦Geneva and _Bischofbasel_. 1801.♦ And with these we might be inclined
to place the annexations of Geneva and of the _Bishopric of Basel_,
lands which lay hardly less temptingly when the work of annexation
had once begun. ♦Second zone;♦ And beyond these roundings off of the
home estate lay a zone of territory which might easily be looked
upon as being French soil wrongfully lost. ♦traditions of Gaul and
the Rhine frontier.♦ When the Western _Francia_ had made such great
strides towards the dimensions of the Gaul of Cæsar, the inference
was easily made that it ought to take in all that Gaul had once taken
in. The conquest and incorporation of the Austrian Netherlands, of
all Germany on the left bank of the Rhine, of Savoy and Nizza, thus
became a matter of course. ♦Buonaparte’s feeling towards Switzerland.♦
That the Gaul of Cæsar was not fully completed by the complete
incorporation of Switzerland, seems to have been owing to a personal
tenderness for the Confederation on the part of Napoleon Buonaparte,
who never incorporated with his dominions any part of the territory
of the Thirteen Cantons. Otherwise, France under the Consulate might
pass for a revival of the Transalpine Gaul of Roman geography. And
there were other lands beyond the borders of Transalpine Gaul, which
had formed part of Gaul in the earlier sense of the name, and whose
annexation, when annexation had once begun, was hardly less wonderful
than that of the lands within the Rhine and the Alps. ♦Piedmont,
&c.♦ The incorporation of Piedmont and Genoa was not wonderful after
the incorporation of Savoy. ♦Distinction between conquests under
the Republic and under the ‘Empire.’♦ In short, the annexations of
republican France are at least intelligible. They have a meaning; we
can follow their purpose and object. They stand distinct from the wild
schemes of universal conquest which mark the period of the ‘Empire.’
♦Example of Corsica.♦
Still the example of such schemes was given during the days of the old
monarchy. There was nothing to suggest a French annexation of Corsica,
any more than a French annexation of Cerigo. ♦Character of Buonaparte’s
conquests.♦ Both were works of exactly the kind, works quite different
from incorporating isolated scraps of Elsass or of the old Burgundy,
from rounding off the frontier by Montbeliard, or even from advancing
to the left bank of the Rhine. The shiftings of the map which took
place during the ten years of the first French Empire, the divisions
and the unions, the different relations of the conquered states,
seem like several centuries of the onward march of the old Roman
commonwealth crowded into a single day. ♦Dependent and incorporated
lands.♦ In both cases we mark the distinction between lands which
are merely dependent and lands which are fully incorporated. And in
both cases the dependent relation is commonly a step towards full
incorporation. All past history and tradition, all national feelings,
all distinctions of race and language, were despised in building
up the vast fabric of French dominion. Such a power was sure to
break in pieces, even without any foreign attack, before its parts
could possibly have been fused together. As it was, Buonaparte never
professed to incorporate either Spain or the whole of Italy and Germany
with his Empire. He was satisfied with leaving large parts either in
the formally dependent relation, in the hands of puppet princes, or
even in the hands of powers which he deemed too much weakened for
further resistance. ♦Buonaparte’s treatment of Germany;♦ A large part
of Germany was incorporated with France, another large part was under
French protection or dependence, but a large part still remained in the
hands of the native princes of Austria and Prussia. ♦of Italy.♦ Much of
Italy was incorporated, and the rest was held, partly by the conqueror
himself under another title, partly by a prince of his own house. This
last was the case with Spain. ♦Division of Europe between France and
Russia.♦ Till the final breach with Russia, the idea of Buonaparte’s
dominion seems to have been that of a twofold division of Europe
between Russia and himself, a kind of revival on a vaster scale of the
Eastern and Western Empires. The western potentate was careful to keep
everywhere a dominant influence within his own world; but whether the
territory should be incorporated, made dependent, or granted out to his
kinsfolk and favourites, depended in each case on the conqueror’s will.
♦Europe in 1811.♦
A glance at the map of Europe, as it stood at the beginning of 1811,
will show how nearly this scheme was carried out. The kernel of
the French Empire was France as it stood at the beginning of the
Revolution, together with those conquests of the Republic which gave
it the Rhine frontier from Basel to Nimwegen. Beyond these limits the
former United Provinces, with the whole oceanic coast of Germany as
far as the Elbe, and the cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck, were
incorporated with France. France now stretched to the Baltic, and, as
Holstein was now incorporated with Denmark, France and Denmark had
a common frontier. The Confederation of the Rhine was a protected
state, and the Kingdom of Prussia and the self-styled ‘Empire’ of
Austria could practically hardly claim a higher place. Of the former
Austrian possessions, those parts which had passed to Bavaria and to
the kingdom of Italy formally stood in the dependent relation, and the
so-called Illyrian provinces were actually incorporated with France.
So were the Ionian islands yet further on. In Italy, the whole western
side of the ancient kingdom, with Rome itself, was incorporated with
France. North-eastern Italy formed a separate kingdom held by the ruler
of France. Naples, like Spain, was a dependent kingdom. In northern
Europe, Denmark and Sweden, like Prussia and Austria, could practically
claim no higher place. And the new duchy of Warsaw and the new republic
of Danzig carried French influence beyond the ancient borders of
Germany.
♦Arrangements of 1814-1815.♦
Such was the extent of the French dominion when the power of Buonaparte
was at its highest. At his fall all the great and distant conquests
were given up. ♦The first class of annexations retained by France,
the rest restored.♦ But those annexations which were necessary for
the completion of France as she then stood were respected. The new
Germanic body took back Köln, Trier, and Mainz, Worms and Speyer, but
not Montbeliard or any part of Elsass. The new Swiss body received
the Bishopric of Basel, Neufchâtel, Geneva, and Wallis. ♦Boundary
of Savoy.♦ Savoy and Nizza went back to their own prince. But here a
different frontier was drawn after the first and the second fall of
Buonaparte. The earlier arrangement left Chambéry to France. The Pope
again received Rome and his Italian dominions, but not his outlying
Burgundian city of Avignon and county of Venaissin. The frontier of the
new kingdom of the Netherlands, though traced at slightly different
points by the two arrangements, differed in either case but little from
the frontier of the Barrier Treaty. In short the France of the restored
Bourbons was the France of the old Bourbons, enlarged by those small
isolated scraps of foreign soil which were needed to make it continuous.
The geographical results of the rule of the second Buonaparte consist
of the completion of the work which began under Philip the Fair,
balanced by the utter undoing of the work of Richelieu, the partial
undoing of the work of Henry the Second and Lewis the Fourteenth.
♦Annexation of Savoy and Nizza. 1860. | Loss of Elsass and Lorraine.
1871.♦ _Savoy_, _Nizza_, and _Mentone_ were added; but Germany
recovered nearly all _Elsass_ and a part of _Lorraine_. The Rhine now
neither crosses nor waters a single rood of French ground. As it was
in the first beginnings of Northern European history, so it is now;
Germany lies on both sides of the German river.
* * * * *
The time of the greatest power of France in Europe was by no means
equally favourable to her advance in other parts of the world.
♦Independence of Hayti, 1801.♦ The greatest West India colony of
France, Saint Domingo, now known as _Hayti_, became an independent
negro state whose chiefs imitated home example by taking the title
of Emperor. About the same time the last remnant of French dominion
on the North American continent was voluntarily given up. ♦Louisiana
ceded to Spain, 1763; recovered, 1800; sold to United States, 1803.♦
Louisiana, ceded to Spain by the Peace of Paris and recovered under the
Consulate, was sold to the United States. All the smaller French West
India islands were conquered by England; but all were restored at the
peace, except _Tobago_ and _Saint Lucia_. ♦Mauritius kept by England.♦
The isles of _Bourbon_ and _Mauritius_ were also taken by England,
and _Bourbon_ alone was restored at the Peace. ♦Pondicherry lost and
restored.♦ In India _Pondicherry_ was twice taken and twice restored.
But since France was thus wholly beaten back from her great schemes of
dominion in distant parts of the world, she has led the way in a kind
of conquest and colonization which has no exact parallel in modern
times. ♦French conquest of Algeria, 1830;♦ In the French occupation of
_Algeria_ we see something different alike from political conquests in
Europe and from isolated conquests in distant parts of the world. ♦of
Constantine, 1837.♦ It is conquest, not actually in Europe, but in a
land on the shores of the great European sea, in a land which formed
part of the Empire of Constantine, Justinian, and Heraclius. ♦Character
of African conquests.♦ It is the winning back from Islam of a land
which once was part of Latin-speaking Christendom, a conquest which,
except in the necessary points of difference between continental and
insular conquests, may be best paralleled with the Norman Conquest of
Sicily. Sicily could be wholly recovered for Europe and Christendom;
but the French settlement in Algeria can never be more than a mere
fringe of Europe and its civilization on the edge of barbaric Africa.
It is strictly the first colony of the kind. Portugal, Spain, England,
had occupied this or that point on the northern coast of Africa; France
was the first European power to spread her dominion over a long range
of the southern Mediterranean shore, a land which in some sort answers
alike to India and to Australia, but lying within two days’ sail of her
own coast.
* * * * *
We have thus finished our survey of the states which were formed out
of the break-up of the later Western Empire. The rest of Western
Europe must be postponed, as neither the Spanish, the British, nor the
Scandinavian kingdoms rose out of the break-up of the Empire of Charles
the Great. In our next Chapter we must trace the historical geography
of the states which arose out of the gradual dismemberment of the
dominion of the Eastern Rome, a survey which will lead us to the most
stirring events and to the latest geographical changes of our own day.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Namely in the Illyrian Provinces and in the Ionian Islands. See
above, p. 322.
[19] See above, p. 139.
[20] See above, p. 135.
[21] See above, p. 292.
[22] See above, p. 264.
[23] See above, pp. 284, 285.
CHAPTER X.
THE EASTERN EMPIRE.
♦Contrast between the Eastern and Western Empires.♦
The geographical, like the political, history of the Eastern Empire is
wholly unlike that of the Western. ♦The Western Empire fell to pieces.♦
The Western Empire, in the strictest sense, fell asunder. Some of its
parts fell away formally, others practically. The tie that held the
rest snapped at the first touch of a vigorous invader. But that invader
was an European power whose territories had once formed part of the
Empire itself. From the invasions of nations beyond the European pale
the Western Empire, as such, suffered but little. The Western Empire
again, long before its fall, had become, so far as it was a power at
all, a national power, the _Roman Empire of the German nation_. Its
fall was the half voluntary parting asunder of a nation as well as of
an Empire. ♦Position of the Western Emperors;♦ The Western Emperors
again had, as Emperors, practically ceased to be territorial princes.
No lands of any account directly obeyed the Emperor, as such, as their
immediate sovereign. When the Empire fell, the Emperor withdrew to
his hereditary states, taking the Imperial title with him. In the
Eastern Empire all is different. It did to some extent fall asunder
from within, but its overthrow was mainly owing to its being broken in
pieces from without. ♦of the Eastern.♦ But, throughout its history, the
Emperor remained the immediate sovereign of all that still clave to
the Empire, and, when the Empire fell, the Emperor fell with it. ♦The
Eastern Empire fell mainly through foreign invasion.♦ The overthrow of
the Empire was mainly owing to foreign invasion in the strictest sense.
It was weakened and dismembered by the Christian powers of Europe,
and at last swallowed up by the barbarians of Asia. ♦Tendencies to
separation.♦ At the same time the tendency to break in pieces after
the Western fashion did exist and must always be borne in mind. But it
existed only in particular parts and under special conditions. It is
found mainly in possessions of the Empire which had become isolated, in
lands which had been lost and won again, and in lands which came under
the influence of Western ideas. The importance of these tendencies is
shown by the fact that three powers which had been cut off in various
ways from the body of the Empire, Bulgaria, Venice, and Sicily, became
three of its most dangerous enemies. But the actual destruction of the
Empire came from those barbarian attacks from which the West suffered
but little.
Speaking generally then, the Western Empire fell asunder from within;
the Eastern Empire was broken in pieces from without. Of the many
causes of this difference, perhaps only one concerns geography. At the
time of the separation of the Empires, the Western Empire was really
only another name for the dominions of the King of the Franks, whether
within or without the elder Empire. ♦Closer connexion of the East with
Roman political traditions.♦ The Eastern Empire, on the other hand,
kept the political tradition of the elder Empire unbroken. ♦Disuse of
the Roman name in the West.♦ No common geographical or national name
took in the three Imperial kingdoms of the West and their inhabitants.
♦Its retention in the East.♦ But all the inhabitants of the Eastern
Empire, down to the end, knew themselves by no national name but that
of _Romans_, and the land gradually received the geographical name
of _Romania_. But the Western Empire was not _Romania_, nor were its
people _Romans_. The only _Romania_ in the West, the Italian land so
called, took its name from its long adhesion to the Eastern Empire.
♦Importance of distinctions of race in the East.♦
In the East again differences of race are far more important than
they ever were in the West. In the West nations have been formed by a
certain commingling of elements; in the East the elements remain apart.
All the nations of the south-eastern peninsula, whether older than the
Roman conquest or settlers of later times, are there still as distinct
nations.
♦The original nations.♦
First among them come three nations whose settlement in the peninsula
is older than the Roman conquest. One of these has kept its name and
its language. One has kept its language, but has taken up its name
afresh only in modern times. The third has for ages lost both its
name and its language. ♦Albanians.♦ The most unchanged people in the
peninsula must be the _Albanians_, called by themselves _Skipetar_, the
representatives of the old Illyrians. ♦Greeks.♦ Next come the Greeks,
who keep their language, but whose name of _Hellênes_ went out of
ordinary use till its revival in modern times. ♦Vlachs.♦ Lastly there
are the _Vlachs_, representing those inhabitants of Thrace, Mœsia, and
other parts of the peninsula, who, like the Western nations, exchanged
their own speech for Latin. They must mainly represent the Thracian
race in its widest sense. ♦Use of the Roman name.♦ Both Greeks and
Vlachs kept on the Roman name in different forms, and the Vlachs, the
_Roumans_ of our own day, keep it still. Of the invading races, the
Goths passed through the Empire without making any lasting settlements
in it. ♦Slavonic settlers.♦ The last Aryan settlers, setting aside mere
colonists in later times, were the _Slaves_. ♦Turanian settlers.♦
Then came the Turanian settlers, Finnish, Turkish, or any other. Of
these the first wave, the _Bulgarians_, were presently assimilated by
the Slaves, and the Bulgarian power must be looked at historically as
Slavonic. ♦Turanian neighbours.♦ Then come Avars, Chazars, Magyars,
Patzinaks, Cumans, all settling on or near the borders of the Empire.
♦The Magyars.♦ Of these the Magyars alone grew into a lasting European
state, and alone established a lasting power over lands which had
formed part of the Empire. All these invaders came by the way of the
lands north of the Euxine. Lastly, there are the non-Aryan invaders who
came by way of Asia Minor or of the Mediterranean sea. ♦The Saracens.♦
The Semitic Saracens, after their first conquests in Syria, Egypt, and
Africa, made no lasting conquests. They occupied for a while several
of the great islands; but on the mainland of the Empire, European and
Asiatic, they were mere plunderers. ♦The Seljuk and Ottoman Turks.♦
In their wake came the most terrible enemies of all, the Turks, first
the Seljuk, then the Ottoman. Ethnologically they must be grouped with
the nations which came in by the north of the Euxine. Historically,
as Mahometans, coming in by the southern route, they rank with the
Saracens, and they did the work which the Saracens tried to do. Most
of these invading races have passed away from history; three still
remain in three different stages. ♦Comparison of Bulgarians, Magyars
and Ottomans.♦ The Bulgarian is lost among the Aryan people who have
taken his name. The Magyar abides, keeping his non-Aryan language,
but adopted into the European commonwealth by his acceptance of
Christianity. The Ottoman Turk still abides on European soil, unchanged
because Mahometan, still an alien alike to the creed and to the tongues
of Europe.
♦The Eastern Empire becomes Greek.♦
Among all these nations one holds a special place in the history of
the Eastern Empire. The loss of the Oriental and Latin provinces of
the Empire brought into practical working, though not into any formal
notice, the fact that, as the Western Empire was fast becoming German,
so the Eastern Empire was fast becoming Greek. ♦Loss of the Oriental
provinces,♦ To a state which had both a Roman and a Greek side the loss
of provinces which were neither Roman nor Greek was not a loss but a
source of strength. ♦of the Latin provinces.♦ And if the loss of the
Latin provinces was not a source of strength, it at least did much to
bring the Greek element in the Empire into predominance. ♦Dying out
of Roman ideas.♦ Meanwhile, within the lands which were left to the
Empire, first the Latin language, and then Roman ideas and traditions
generally, gradually died out. Before the end of the eleventh century,
the Empire was far more Greek than anything else. Before the end
of the twelfth century, it had become nearly conterminous with the
Greek nation, as defined by the combined use of the Greek language
and profession of the Orthodox faith. The name _Roman_, in its Greek
form, was coming to mean _Greek_. And, about the same time, the other
primitive nations of the peninsula, hitherto merged in the common mass
of Roman subjects, began to show themselves more distinctly alongside
of the Greeks. ♦Appearance of Albanians and Vlachs.♦ We now first
hear of _Albanians_ and _Vlachs_ by those names, and the importance
of the nations which have thus come again to light increases as we go
on. ♦The Latin Conquest, 1204.♦ Then the Greek remnant of the Empire
was broken in pieces by the great Latin invasion, and, instead of
a single power, Roman or Greek, we see a crowd of separate states,
Greek and Frank. ♦The revived Byzantine Empire.♦ The reunion of some
of these fragments formed the revived Empire of the Palaiologoi. But
at no moment since the twelfth century has the whole Greek nation
been united under a single power, native or foreign. ♦1461-1821.♦ And
from the Ottoman conquest of Trebizond to the beginning of the Greek
War of Independence, the whole of the Greek nation was under foreign
masters.[24]
* * * * *
We have now first to trace out the steps by which the Empire was broken
in pieces, and then to trace out severally the geographical history
of the states which rose out of its fragments. And with these last
we may class certain powers which do not strictly come under that
definition, but which come within the same geographical range and which
absorbed parts of the Imperial territory. Beginning in the West, the
territory which the Empire at the final separation still held west of
the Hadriatic, was gradually lost through the attacks, first of the
Saracens, then of the Normans. ♦Sicily.♦ These lands grew into the
kingdom of _Sicily_, which has its proper place here as an offshoot
from the Eastern Empire. ♦Venice.♦ At the other end of the Italian
peninsula, _Venice_ gradually detached itself from the Empire, to
become foremost in its partition: here then comes the place of Venice
as a maritime power. ♦Slavonic powers. | Bulgaria.♦ Then come the
powers which arose on the north and north-west of the Empire, powers
chiefly Slavonic, reckoning as Slavonic the great Bulgarian kingdom.
♦Hungary.♦ Here too will come the kingdom of Hungary, which, as a
non-Aryan power in the heart of Europe, has much both of likeness and
of contrast with Bulgaria. The kingdom of Hungary itself lay beyond the
bounds of the Empire, but a large part of its dependent territory had
been Imperial soil. ♦Albanians. | Roumans.♦ Here also we must speak
of the states which arose out of the new developement of the Albanian
and Rouman races, and of the states, Greek and Frank, which arose just
before and at the time of the Latin Conquest. ♦Asiatic powers.♦ Then
there are the powers, both Christian and Mahometan, which arose within
the Imperial dominions in Asia. Here we have to speak alike of the
states founded by the Crusaders and of the growth of the Ottoman Turks.
Lastly, we come to the work of our own days, to the new European states
which have been formed by the deliverance of old Imperial lands from
Ottoman bondage.
♦800-1204.♦
We will therefore first trace the geographical changes in the frontier
of the Empire itself down to the Latin Conquest. ♦1204-1453.♦ The
Latin Empire of _Romania_, the Greek Empire of _Nikaia_, the revived
Greek Empire of Constantinople, will follow, as continuing, at least
geographically, the true Eastern Roman Empire. Then will come the
powers which have fallen off from the Empire or grown up within the
Empire, from Sicily to free Bulgaria. But it must be remembered that it
is not always easy to mark, either chronologically or on the map, when
this or that territory was finally lost to the Empire. This is true
both on the Slavonic border and also in southern Italy. ♦Distinction
between conquest and settlement.♦ On the former above all it is often
hard to distinguish between conquest at the cost of the Empire and
settlement within the Empire. In either case the frontier within which
the Emperors exercised direct authority was always falling back and
advancing again. Beyond this there was a zone which could not be said
to be under the Emperor’s direct rule, but in which his overlordship
was more or less fully acknowledged, according to the relative
strength of the Empire and of its real or nominal vassals.
§ 1. _Changes in the Frontier of the Empire._
♦Power of revival in the Empire.♦
In tracing the fluctuations of the frontier of the Eastern Empire from
the beginning of the ninth century, we are struck by the wonderful
power of revival and reconquest which is shown throughout the whole
history. Except the lands which were won by the first Saracens, hardly
a province was finally lost till it had been once or twice won back.
No one could have dreamed that the Empire of the seventh century, cut
short by the Slavonic settlements to a mere fringe on its European
coasts, could ever have become the Empire of the eleventh century,
holding a solid mass of territory from Tainaros to the Danube. But
before this great revival, the borders of the Empire had both advanced
and fallen back in the farther West. ♦Sardinia, Sicily, Southern
Italy.♦ At the time of the separation of the Empires, the New Rome
still held Sardinia, Sicily, and a small part of southern Italy. The
heel of the boot still formed the theme of _Lombardy_,[25] while the
toe took the name of _Calabria_ which had once belonged to the heel.
_Naples_, _Gaeta_, and _Amalfi_ were outlying Italian cities of the
Empire; so was _Venice_, which can hardly be called an Italian city.
♦Loss of the islands. | Advance on the continent.♦ In the course of the
ninth century the power of the Empire was cut short in the islands, but
advanced on the mainland. ♦Loss of Sardinia.♦ The history of Sardinia
is utterly obscure; but it seems to have passed away from the Empire
by the beginning of the ninth century. ♦Loss of Sicily, 827-965.♦
Sicily was now conquered bit by bit by the Saracens of Africa during
a struggle of one hundred and forty years. ♦Loss of Agrigentum, 827;
| of Palermo, 831;♦ _Agrigentum_, opposite to the African coast, fell
first; _Palermo_, once the seat of Phœnician rule, became four years
later the new Semitic capital. ♦Messina, 842;♦ _Messina_ on the strait
soon followed; but the eastern side of the island, its most thoroughly
Greek side, held out much longer. ♦Malta, 869;♦ Before the conquest
of this region, _Malta_, the natural appendage to Sicily, passed into
Saracen hands. ♦Syracuse, 878.♦ _Syracuse_, the Christian capital,
did not fall till fifty years after the first invasion, and in the
north-western corner of the island a remnant still held out for nearly
ninety years. ♦Tauromenion, 902-963. | Rametta, 965.♦ _Tauromenion_ or
_Taormina_, on its height, had to be twice taken in the course of the
tenth century, and the single fort of _Rametta_, the last stronghold
of Eastern Christendom in the West, held out longer still. By this
time Eastern Christendom was fast advancing on Islam in Asia; but the
greatest of Mediterranean islands passed from Christendom to Islam,
from Europe to Africa, and a Greek-speaking people was cut off from the
Empire which was fast becoming Greek. ♦Partial recovery and final loss
of Sicily, 1038-1042.♦ But the complete and uninterrupted Mussulman
dominion in Sicily was short. The Imperial claims were never forgotten,
and in the eleventh century they were again enforced. By the arms of
George Maniakês, Messina and Syracuse, with a part of the island which
at the least took in the whole of its eastern side, was, if only for a
few years, restored to the Imperial rule.
♦Advance of the Empire in Italy.♦
While Sicily was thus lost bit by bit, the power of the Empire was
advancing in the neighbouring mainland of Italy. ♦Taking of Bari, 871.♦
_Bari_ was won back for Christendom from the Saracen by the combined
powers of both Empires; but the lasting possession of the prize fell
to the Cæsar of the East. At the end of the ninth century, the Eastern
Empire claimed either the direct possession or the superiority of all
southern Italy from Gaeta downwards. ♦Fluctuations of the Imperial
power in Italy.♦ The extent of the Imperial dominion was always
fluctuating; there was perhaps no moment when the power of the Emperors
was really extended over this whole region; but there was perhaps no
spot within it which did not at some time or other admit at least the
Imperial overlordship. The eastern coast, with the heel and the toe in
a wider sense than before, became a real and steady possession, while
the allegiance of _Beneventum_, _Capua_, and _Salerno_ was always very
precarious. ♦Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi.♦ But _Naples_, _Gaeta_, and
_Amalfi_, however nominal their allegiance might be, never formally
cast it aside.
Thus, at the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Emperors
held all Sicily, with some patches of territory on the neighbouring
mainland. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the island had
been wholly lost, while the dominion on the mainland had been greatly
enlarged. ♦The Normans in Italy and Sicily.♦ In the course of the
eleventh century a new power, the Normans of Apulia, conquered the
Italian possessions of the Empire, won Sicily from the Mussulman, and
even made conquests from the Empire east of the Hadriatic. Thus arose
the Sicilian kingdom, the growth of which will best be traced when we
come to the powers which arose out of the breaking-up of the Empire.
* * * * *
The great islands of the Eastern Mediterranean also fluctuated between
Byzantine and Saracen dominion. ♦Loss of Crete, 823.♦ _Crete_ was won
by a band of Mussulman adventurers from Spain nearly at the time
when the conquest of Sicily began. ♦Its recovery, 963.♦ It was won
back in the great revival of the Imperial power one hundred and forty
years later. ♦Cyprus lost, 708; recovered and lost again c. 881-888;
recovered again, 965.♦ _Cyprus_ was lost sooner; but it went through
many fluctuations and divisions, a recovery and a second loss, before
its final recovery at the same time as the recovery of Crete and the
complete loss of Sicily. ♦Loss and gain among the great islands.♦
Looking at the Empire simply as a power, there can be no doubt that the
loss of Sicily was altogether overbalanced by the recovery of Crete
and Cyprus. Geographically Sicily was an outlying Greek island; Crete
and Cyprus lay close to the body of the Empire, essential parts of a
Greek state. But Crete and Cyprus, as lands which had been lost and
won back, were among the lands where the tendency to fall away from
within showed itself earliest. Crete never actually separated from the
Empire. ♦Separation of Cyprus, 1182-1185. | Conquered by Richard of
Poitou, 1191.♦ Cyprus fell away under a rebel Emperor, to be presently
conquered by Richard, Count of Poitou and King of England, and to pass
away from the Empire for ever.
♦Fluctuations in the possession of the great islands, 801.♦
We may thus sum up the fluctuations in the possession of the great
islands. At the beginning of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire
still took in Sardinia, Sicily, and Crete; Cyprus was in the hands of
the Saracens. ♦901.♦ At the beginning of the tenth century, the Empire
held nothing in any of the four except the north-eastern corner of
Sicily. ♦1001.♦ At the beginning of the eleventh, Crete and Cyprus had
been won back; Sicily was wholly lost. ♦1101.♦ At the beginning of the
twelfth, Crete and Cyprus were still Imperial possessions; a great part
of Sicily had been won and lost again. ♦1201.♦ At the beginning of the
thirteenth, Cyprus, like Sicily, had passed to a Western master; Crete
was still held by the Empire, but only by a very feeble tie. Thus they
stood at the fall of the old Roman Empire of the East; of the revived
Empire of the Palaiologoi none of them ever formed a part.
* * * * *
♦Relations of the Empire towards the Slavonic powers.♦
In the islands the enemies with whom the Empire had to strive were,
first the Saracens, and then the Latins or Franks, the nations of
Western Europe. On the mainland the part of the Saracen was taken
by the Slave. During the four hundred years between the division of
the Empires and the Frank conquest of the East, the geographical
history of the Eastern Empire has mainly to deal with the shiftings
of its frontier towards the Slavonic powers. ♦Three Slavonic groups.♦
These fall into three main groups. ♦Servia and Croatia.♦ First, in
the north-western corner of the Empire, are the Croatian and Servian
settlements, whose history is closely connected with that of the
kingdom of Hungary and the commonwealth of Venice. ♦Macedonia and
Greece.♦ Secondly, there are the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and
Greece. ♦Bulgaria.♦ Thirdly, the great Bulgarian kingdom comes between
the two. These two last ranges gradually merge into one; the first
remains distinct throughout. Servia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, will be
best treated of in another section, remembering that, amidst all
fluctuations, the claims of the Empire over them were never denied
or forgotten, and were from time to time enforced. It was towards
the Bulgarian kingdom that the greatest fluctuations of the Imperial
frontier took place.
* * * * *
♦The Bulgarian kingdom.♦
The original Finnish Bulgarians were the vanguard of Turanian invasion
in the lands with which we have to do. Earlier, it would seem, in their
coming than the Avars, they were slower to settle down into actual
occupation of European territory. But when they did settle, it was
not on the outskirts of the Empire, but in one of its acknowledged
provinces. ♦Settlement south of the Danube, 679.♦ Late in the seventh
century, the first Bulgarian kingdom was established between Danube
and Hæmus. It must be remembered that another migration in quite
another direction founded another Bulgarian power on the Volga and the
Kama. ♦White Bulgaria.♦ This settlement, _Great_ or _White Bulgaria_,
remained Turanian and became Mahometan; _Black Bulgaria_ on the Danube
became Christian and Slavonic. ♦Use of the Bulgarian name.♦ The
modern Bulgarians bear the Bulgarian name only in the way in which
the Romanized Celts of Gaul bear the name of their Frankish masters
from Germany, in which the Slaves of Kief and Moscow bear the name of
their Russian masters from Scandinavia. In all three cases, the power
formed by the union of conquerors and conquered has taken the name of
the conquerors and has kept the speech of the conquered. But though
the Bulgarian power became essentially Slavonic, it took quite another
character from the less fully organized Slavonic settlements to the
west and south of it. ♦The Empire and the Macedonian Slaves.♦ Towards
the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, it cannot be said that the
Empire had any definite frontier. Settled within the Empire, they were
its tributaries or its enemies, according to the strength of the Empire
at any particular moment. Up to the coming of the Bulgarians, we might,
from different points of view, place the Imperial border either at the
Danube or at no great distance from the Ægæan. ♦The Empire and the
Bulgarian kingdom.♦ But from the Bulgarian conquest onwards, there was
on the Bulgarian side a real frontier, a frontier which often shifted,
but which was often fixed by treaty, and which, wherever it was fixed,
marked off lands which were, for the time, wholly lost to the Empire.
♦Loss of the Danubian frontier.♦ With the first Bulgarian settlement,
the Imperial frontier definitely withdrew for three hundred years from
the lower Danube to the line of Hæmus or Balkan. ♦Bulgarians south of
Hæmus.♦ As the Bulgarian power pushed to the south and west the two
fields of warfare, against the Bulgarians to the north and against the
half-independent Slaves to the west, gradually melted into one. But
as long as the Isaurian Emperors reigned, the two fields were kept
distinct. ♦Extent of Bulgaria in the eighth century.♦ They kept the
Balkan range against the Bulgarians, whose kingdom, stretching to the
north-west over lands which are now Servian, had not, at the end of the
eighth century, passed the mountain barrier of the Empire.
♦Recovery of the Slavonic settlements in Macedonia and Greece.♦
Meanwhile, as a wholly distinct work, the Imperial power was restored
over the Slaves of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. In the middle of
the eighth, century the inland parts of Greece were chiefly occupied
by Slavonic immigrants, while the coast and the cities remained
Greek. ♦775-784. | 807.♦ Before the end of the century, the Slaves of
Macedonia were reduced to tribute, and early in the ninth, those of
Greece wholly failed to recover their independence. ♦Recovery of Greece
from the Slaves. | Slaves on Ta getos.♦ The land was gradually settled
afresh by Greek colonists, and by the middle of the tenth, only two
Slavonic tribes, _Melings_ and _Ezerites_ (_Melinci_ and _Jezerci_),
remained, distinct, though tributary, on the range of Ta getos or
Pentedaktylos. From this time to the Frankish conquest, Greece, as a
whole, was held by the Empire. But, as a recovered land, it was one
of those parts of the Empire in which a tendency to separate began to
show itself. In the course of these changes, the name _Hellênes_, as a
national name, quite died out. ♦Hellênes of Maina.♦ It had long meant
_pagan_, and it was confined to the people of _Maina_, who remained
pagan till near the end of the ninth century. The Greeks now knew no
name but that of _Romans_. The local, perhaps contemptuous, name of the
inhabitants of Hellas was _Helladikoi_.
Thus, at the division of the Empires, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece had
been more or less thoroughly recovered by the Eastern Empire, while
the lands between Hæmus and Danube were wholly lost. ♦Romania.♦ The
Imperial dominion from the Hadriatic to the Euxine formed, together
with the Asiatic provinces, _Romania_, the land of the Romans of the
East. ♦Dalmatia, Servia, and Croatia.♦ The Emperors also kept the
cities on the Dalmatian coast, and the precarious allegiance of the
Servian and Croatian principalities. These lands were bound to the
Empire by a common dread of the encroaching Bulgarian. ♦Greatness of
the first Bulgarian kingdom.♦ The ninth century and the early years of
the tenth was a great time of Bulgarian advance. ♦Attempt on Pannonia,
818-829.♦ The Bulgarians seem to have failed in establishing any
lasting dominion to the north-west in Pannonia;[26] at the expense of
the Empire they were more successful. ♦Advance against the Empire.♦
At the end of the eighth century _Anchialos_ and _Sardica_—afterwards
called _Triaditza_ and _Sofia_—were border cities of the Empire. The
conquest of Sardica early in the ninth marks a stage of Bulgarian
advance. At the end of the century, after the conversion of the nation
to Christianity, comes the great era of the first Bulgarian kingdom,
the kingdom of _Peristhlava_. ♦Conquests of Simeon, 923-934.♦ The
Tzar Simeon established the Bulgarian supremacy over Servia, and
carried his conquests deep into the lands of the Empire. In Macedonia
and Epeiros the Empire kept only the sea-coast, Ægæan and Hadriatic;
Sardica, Philippopolis, Ochrida, were all cities of the Bulgarian
realm. Hadrianople, a frontier city of the Empire, passed more than
once into Bulgarian hands. Nowhere in Europe, save in old Hellas, did
the Imperial dominion stretch from sea to sea.
♦Revival of the Imperial power.♦
So stood matters in the middle of the tenth century. Then came that
greatest of all revivals of the Imperial power which won back Crete
and Cyprus, and which was no less successful on the mainland of Europe
and Asia. ♦Conquest of Bulgaria.♦ Bulgaria was conquered and lost and
conquered again. But the first time it was conquered, not from the
Bulgarian but from the Russian. ♦The Russians and Bulgarians. 968-971.♦
The Russians, long dangerous to Constantinople, now suddenly appear as
a land power. Their prince Sviatoslaf overthrew the first Bulgarian
kingdom, and Philippopolis became for a moment a Russian outpost.
But John Tzimiskês restored the power of the Empire over the whole
Bulgarian dominions. The Danube was once more the frontier of the
Eastern Rome.
♦The second Bulgarian kingdom.♦
It remained so for more than two hundred years during the lower part
of its course. But in the inland regions the Imperial power fell back
almost at once, to advance again further than ever. A large part of
the conquered land soon revolted, and a second Bulgarian kingdom,
Macedonian rather than Mœsian, arose. The kingdom of _Ochrida_, the
kingdom of Samuel, left to the Empire the eastern part of the old
Bulgaria between Danube and Hæmus, together with all Thrace and the
Macedonian coast. But it took in all the inland region of Macedonia;
it stretched down into Thessaly and Epeiros; and, while it nowhere
touched the Euxine or the Ægæan, it had a small seaboard on the
Hadriatic. Now came the great struggle between Romania and Bulgaria
which fills the last years of the tenth century and the opening years
of the eleventh. ♦Second conquest of Bulgaria, 1018.♦ At last all
Bulgaria, and with it for a while Servia, was restored to the Empire.
♦Croatia.♦ Croatia continued its vassalage, and its princes were
presently raised to royal rank by Imperial authority.
Thus the Eastern Empire again took in the whole south-eastern
peninsula. Of its outlying European possessions, southern Italy was
still untouched. ♦Venice.♦ At what moment Venice ceased to be a
dependency of the Empire, it would be hard to say. Its dukes still
received the Imperial investiture, and Venetian ships often joined
the Imperial fleet. This state of things seems never to have been
formally abolished, but rather to have dropped out of sight as Venice
and Constantinople became practically hostile. In the other outlying
city north of the Euxine the ninth and tenth centuries change places.
Through all changes the Empire kept its maritime province in the Tauric
Chersonêsos. ♦Cherson annexed, 829-842; | taken by Vladimir, 988.♦
There the allied city of _Cherson_, more formally annexed to the Empire
in the ninth century, was taken by the Russian Vladimir in the interval
between the two great Bulgarian wars.
♦The Empire in Asia.♦
In Asia the Imperial frontier had changed but little since the first
Saracen conquests. The solid peninsula of Asia Minor was often
plundered by the Mussulmans, but it was never conquered. Now, in
Asia as in Europe, came a time of advance. For eighty years, with
some fluctuations, the Empire grew on its eastern side. The Bagdad
caliphate was now broken up, and the smaller emirates were more
easily overcome. ♦Asiatic conquests of Nikêphoros and John, 963-976;♦
The wars of Nikêphoros Phôkas and John Tzimiskês restored _Kilikia_
and _Syria_ to the list of Roman provinces, _Tarsos_, _Antioch_,
and _Edessa_ to the list of Christian cities. ♦of Basil the Second,
991-1022. | Beginning of the annexation of Armenia 1021; Ani, 1045;
of Kars, 1064.♦ Basil the Second extended the Imperial power over the
_Iberian_ and _Abasgian_ lands east of the Euxine, and began a series
of transactions by which, in the space of forty years, all _Armenia_
was added to the Empire on the very eve of the downfall of the Imperial
power in Asia.
* * * * *
♦New enemies.♦
For the great extension of the Empire laid it open to new enemies in
both continents. ♦Turks. | Magyars.♦ In Asia it became the neighbour of
the Seljuk _Turks_, in Europe of the Magyars or Hungarians, who bear
the name of _Turks_ in the Byzantine writers of the tenth century.
Hungary had now settled down into a Christian kingdom. ♦Revolt of
Servia, 1040. | Loss of Belgrade, 1064.♦ A Servian revolt presently
placed a new independent state between Hungary and Romania, but
Belgrade remained an Imperial possession till it passed under Magyar
rule twenty-four years later. ♦Advance of the Turks.♦ By this time the
Empire had begun to be cut short in a far more terrible way in Asia.
The Seljuk Turks now reached the new Roman frontier. ♦Loss of Ani,
1064.♦ Plunder grew into conquest, and the first Turkish conquest, that
of _Ani_, happened in the same year as the last Imperial acquisition of
_Kars_. The Emperors now tried to strengthen this dangerous frontier
by the erection of vassal principalities. The very name of _Armenia_
now changes its place. ♦Lesser Armenia, 1080.♦ The new or _Lesser
Armenia_ arose in the Kilikian mountains, and was ruled by princes of
the old Armenian dynasty, whose allegiance to the Empire gradually died
out. But before this time the Turkish power was fully established in
the peninsula of Asia Minor. The plunderers had become conquerors.
♦1071.♦ The battle of Manzikert led to formal cessions and further
advances. ♦1074.♦ Throughout Asia Minor the Empire at most kept the
coast; the mass of the inland country became Turkish. ♦The Sultans of
_Roum_. | 1081.♦ But the Roman name did not pass away; the invaders
took the name of Sultans of _Roum_. Their capital was at _Nikaia_, a
threatening position indeed for Constantinople. But distant positions
like Trebizond and Antioch were still held as dependencies. ♦Loss of
Antioch, 1081.♦ Antioch was before long betrayed to the Turks.
By this time the Empire was attacked by a new enemy in its European
peninsula. ♦Normans in Corfu and Epeiros. 1081-1085.♦ The Norman
conquerors of Apulia and Sicily crossed the Hadriatic, and occupied
various points, both insular and continental, especially _Dyrrhachion_
or _Durazzo_ and the island of _Korkyra_, now called by a new Greek
name, _Koryphô_ or _Corfu_. At every point of its frontier the Empire
had, towards the end of the eleventh century, altogether fallen
back from the splendid position which it held at its beginning.
♦Geographical aspect of the Empire.♦ The geographical aspect of the
Empire was now the exact opposite of what it had been in the eighth
and ninth centuries. Then its main strength seemed to lie in Asia. Its
European dominion had been cut down to the coasts and islands; but its
Asiatic peninsula was firmly held, touched only by passing ravages.
Now the Asiatic dominion was cut down to the coasts and islands, while
the great European peninsula was, in the greater part of its extent,
still firmly held. Never before had the main power of the Empire been
so thoroughly European. No wonder that in Western eyes the Empire of
Romania began to look like a kingdom of Greece.
* * * * *
The states founded by the Crusaders will be dealt with elsewhere.
♦Recovery of Asiatic territory, 1097.♦ The crusades concern us here
only as helping towards the next revival of the Imperial power under
the house of Komnênos. Alexios himself won back Nikaia and the other
great cities of western Asia Minor. Some of these, as _Laodikeia_, were
received rather as free cities of the Empire than as mere subjects.
♦Reigns of John and Manuel.♦ The conquering reigns of John and Manuel
again extended the Empire in both continents. ♦1097.♦ The Turk still
ruled in the inland regions of Asia, but his capital was driven back
from Nikaia to _Ikonion_. ♦1137.♦ The superiority of the Empire was
restored over Antioch and Kilikian Armenia at the one end, over Servia
at the other. ♦1148.♦ Hungary itself had to yield _Zeugmin_, _Sirmium_,
and all Dalmatia. ♦1163-1168.♦ For a moment the Empire again took in
the whole eastern coast of the Hadriatic and its islands; even on
its western shore _Ancona_ became something like a dependency of the
Eastern Cæsar.
♦Falling of distant possessions.♦
The conquests of Manuel were clearly too great for the real strength
of the Empire. Some lands fell away at once. ♦Dalmatia, 1181.♦
Dalmatia was left to be struggled for between Venice and Hungary.
And the tendency to fall away within the Empire became strengthened
by increased intercourse with the feudal ideas of the West. Cyprus,
Trebizond, old Greece itself, came into the hands of rulers who were
rather feudal vassals than Roman governors. We have seen how Cyprus
fell away. Its Poitevin conqueror presently gave it to Guy of Lusignan.
♦Latin kingdom of Cyprus, 1192.♦ Thus, before the Latin conquest of
Constantinople, a province had been torn from the Eastern Empire to
become a Latin kingdom. The Greek-speaking lands were now beginning
largely to pass under Latin rule. In Sicily the Frank might pass for a
deliverer; in Corfu and Cyprus he was a mere foreign invader.
♦The third Bulgarian kingdom, 1187.♦
Meanwhile the Empire was again cut short to the north by a new
Bulgarian revolt, which established a third Bulgarian kingdom, but a
kingdom which seems to have been as much Vlach or Rouman as strictly
Bulgarian. The new kingdom took in the old Bulgarian land between
Danube and Hæmus, and it presently spread both to the west and to the
south. ♦Other Slavonic revolts.♦ The Bulgarian revolt was followed by
other movements among the Thracian and Macedonian Slaves, which did not
lead to the foundation of any new states, but which had their share in
the general break-up of the Imperial power. ♦Increased Greek character
of the Empire.♦ The work of Basil and Manuel was now undone, but its
undoing had the effect of making the Empire more nearly a Greek state
than ever. It did not wholly coincide with the Greek-speaking lands:
the Empire had subjects who were not Greeks, and there were Greeks who
were not subjects of the Empire. But the Greek speech and the new Greek
nationality were dominant within the lands which were still left to the
Empire. The Roman name was now merely a name: Roman and Greek meant
the same thing. Whatever was not Greek in European Romania was mainly
Albanian and Vlach. The dominion of the Empire in the peninsula was
mainly confined to the primitive races of the peninsula. ♦The Slavonic
states.♦ The great element of later times, the Slavonic settlers, had
almost wholly separated themselves from the Empire, establishing their
independence, but not their unity. They formed a group of independent
powers which had simply fallen away from the Empire; it was by the
powers of the West that the Empire itself was to be broken in pieces.
* * * * *
♦Latin conquest of Constantinople, 1204.♦
The taking of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade was the work of an
alliance between the now independent commonwealth of Venice and a body
of Western crusaders who, along with the states which they founded, may
be indifferently called _Latins_ or _Franks_. ♦Act of Partition.♦ A
regular act of partition was drawn out, by which the Empire was to be
divided into three parts. One was to be assigned to a Latin _Emperor
of Romania_, another of the pilgrims as his feudatories, a third to
the commonwealth of Venice. But the partition was never carried out. A
large part of the Empire was never conquered; another large part was
not assigned by the act of partition. In fact the scheme of partition
is hardly a geographical fact at all. The real partition to which the
Latin conquest led was one of quite another kind, a partition of the
Empire among a crowd of powers, Greek, Frank, and Venetian, more than
one of which had some claim to represent the Empire itself.
♦Latin Empire of Romania.♦
These were the Latin Empire of _Romania_, and the Greek Empire which
maintained itself at _Nikaia_, and which, after nearly sixty years of
banishment, won back the Imperial city. In the crusading scheme the
Latin Emperor was to be the feudal superior of the lesser princes who
were to establish themselves within the Empire. For his own Imperial
domain he was to have the whole of the Imperial possessions in Asia,
with a Thracian dominion stretching as far north as _Agathopolis_.
Hadrianople, with a narrow strip of territory stretching down to the
Propontis, was to be Venetian. The actual result was very different.
♦Its extent.♦ The Latin Emperors never got any footing in Asia
beyond parts of the themes bordering on the Propontis, reaching from
Adramyttion to the mouth of the Sangarios. In Europe they held the
eastern part of Thrace, with a fluctuating border towards Bulgaria on
the north, and to the new Latin and Greek states which arose to the
west. Their dominion also took in _Lêmnos_, _Lesbos_, _Chios_, and some
others of the Ægæan islands.
But the Latin Empire of Romania was not the only Empire which arose
out of the break-up of the old East-Roman power. Two, for a time
three, Greek princes bore the Imperial title; there was also a Latin
king. It will be convenient for a while to leave out of sight both
Asia and southern Greece, and to look to the revolutions of Thrace,
Macedonia, northern Greece, and what we may now begin to call
_Albania_. The immediate result of the Latin conquest was to divide
these lands between three powers, two Latin and one Greek. ♦Kingdom of
Thessalonikê. 1204-1222. | Despotat of Epeiros.♦ Besides the Empire of
Romania, there was the Latin kingdom of _Thessalonikê_, and the Greek
_despotat_[27] of _Epeiros_ held by the house of Angelos. Of these the
Thessalonian kingdom was the most short-lived, and there can be little
doubt that its creation was the ruin of the Latin Empire. It cut off
the Emperor from his distant vassals in Greece, whose vassalage soon
became nominal. It gave him, in successive reigns, a powerful neighbour
who knew his own power, and a weak neighbour, who fell before the Greek
advance sooner than himself. But the beginnings of the kingdom, under
its first king Boniface, were promising. His power stretched over
Thessaly, now known as _Great Vlachia_, and he received the homage of
the Frank princes further to the south. But within twenty years from
its foundation, Frank rule had ceased in Macedonia. ♦Thessalonikê again
Greek.♦ Thessalonikê was again a Greek and an Imperial city, and its
recovery by the Greeks split the Latin Empire asunder.
♦The Epeirot despotat.♦
This blow came from the west. It was the Nicene Empire which did in
the end win back the Imperial city; but, for some years after the
Latin conquest, things looked as if the restoration of the Greek power
in Europe was designed for Epeiros. The first despot Michael paid a
nominal homage to all the neighbouring powers, Greek and Frank, in
turn; but in truth he was the lord of an independent and growing state.
His power began in the Epeirot land west of Pindos. ♦1208-1210.♦ For
a moment he held in Peloponnêsos Corinth, Nauplia, and Argos. Durazzo
and Corfu were won from Venice. ♦1215.♦ The Epeirot power advanced also
to the east. ♦1222. | 1225.♦ Thessalonikê was taken; its ruler took
the Imperial title; Hadrianople followed, and the new Empire stretched
across the peninsula from sea to sea, and took in Thessaly to the
south. But the Thessalonian Empire was hardly more long-lived than the
Thessalonian kingdom. It was first dismembered among the princes of
the ruling house. ♦Separation of Epeiros and Thessalonia. 1237.♦ The
original Epeirot despotat, along with Corfu, parted away from the new
Macedonian power, to survive it by many years. But by this time the
championship of the Greek speech and faith against the Latin lords of
Constantinople had passed to the foremost of the Greek powers which
had grown up in Asia, to the Empire of Nikaia.
These Greek powers were two, which arose at the same time, but
by different processes and with different destinies. ♦The Empire
of Trebizond, 1204-1461.♦ The Empire of _Nikaia_ was the truer
continuation of the old East-Roman power; the Empire of _Trapezous_ or
_Trebizond_ was the last independent fragment of Roman dominion and
Greek culture. The Trapezuntine Empire was not in strictness one of the
states which arose out of the Latin partition. One of the parts of the
Empire which showed most disposition to fall away was independently
seized by a rival Emperor, at the very moment of the Latin conquest.
Alexios Komnênos occupied Trebizond, an occupation largely wrought by
Iberian help, as if the Empire, already dismembered by the Christians
of the West, was to be further dismembered by the Christians of the
further East. ♦Extent of the Komnenian dominion.♦ The dominions of
Alexios, enlarged by his brother David to the west, at first took in
the whole south coast of the Euxine from the Sangarios eastward, broken
by the city of _Amisos_, which contrived to make itself virtually
independent, and by the neighbouring Turkish settlement at _Samsoun_.
But this dominion was only momentary. The eastern part alone survived
to form the later Empire of Trebizond; the western part, the government
of David, soon passed to the rising power of Nikaia.
♦Empire of Nikaia. 1206-1261.♦
The founder of that power was Theodore Laskaris, in whom the succession
of the Eastern Empire was held to be continued. ♦1214.♦ Ten years
after the taking of Constantinople, a treaty fixed his border towards
the small Latin dominion in Asia. ♦1220. | 1240.♦ Six years later the
Latins kept only the lands north of the gulf of Nikomêdeia; sixteen
years later they held only the Asiatic coast of the Bosporos. ♦1247.♦
Seven years later Chios, Lêmnos, Samos, Kôs, and other islands were
won back by the growing Greek state. ♦The Nicene Empire in Europe.
1235.♦ But, long before this, the Nicene Empire had become an European
power. The Thracian Chersonêsos was first won, the work beginning
at _Kallipolis_. ♦1242. | 1246.♦ Presently the Thessalonian Emperor
sank to the rank of a despot under him of Nikaia; four years later
Thessalonikê was incorporated with the Nicene dominions. ♦1245-1256.♦
A series of Bulgarian campaigns carried the Imperial frontier, first
to the Hebros—already the Slavonic _Maritza_—and then to the foot of
Hæmus. ♦1254-1259.♦ A series of Epeirot campaigns won a Hadriatic
seaboard, and made _Durazzo_ for a while again a city of the Empire.
♦1259.♦ The Nicene power in these regions was confirmed by the victory
of Pelagonia, won over the combined forces of Epeiros, Achaia, and
Sicily. ♦1260.♦ The next year _Selymbria_ was won from the Latins, and
the Frank Empire was cut down to so much territory as could be guarded
from the walls of Constantinople. ♦Recovery of Constantinople, 1261.♦
At last the recovery of Constantinople changed the Empire of Nikaia
into the revived Byzantine Empire of the Palaiologoi.
That Empire still lasted a hundred and ninety years, and we must
carefully distinguish between its European and its Asiatic history.
The Asiatic border fell back almost as soon as the seat of rule was
restored to Europe. ♦Advance of the Empire in Europe.♦ In Europe the
revived Empire kept the character of an advancing power till just
before the entrance of the Ottoman into Europe, in some parts till just
before the fall of Constantinople. Many events helped to weaken the
real power of the Empire, which did not affect its geography. ♦1302.♦
Such were the earlier Turkish inroads and the destroying visit of
the Catalans. ♦Advance in Peloponnêsos.♦ The land in which advance
was most steady was Peloponnêsos, where, at the time of the recovery
of Constantinople, the Empire did not hold a foot of ground. ♦1262.♦
_Misithra_, _Monembasia_, and _Maina_ were the fruits of the day of
Pelagonia. For a while the Imperial frontier was stationary, but from
the beginning of the fourteenth century it steadily advanced. It
advanced perhaps all the more after Peloponnêsos became an Imperial
dependency, or an appanage for princes of the Imperial house, rather
than an immediate possession of the Empire. ♦1404.♦ Early in the
fifteenth century the greater part of the peninsula, including Corinth,
was again in Greek hands. ♦1430.♦ At last, twenty-three years only
before the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, all Peloponnêsos, except
the points held by Venice, was under the superiority of the Empire.
♦Advance in Macedonia and Epeiros.♦
In more northern parts the advance of the Empire, though chequered
by more reverses, went on steadily till the growth of the Servian
power in the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦1308.♦ The frontier
varied towards Servia, Bulgaria, Epeiros, and the Angevin power which
established itself on the Hadriatic coast. Even under Andronikos the
Second the Imperial dominion was extended over the greater part of
Thessaly or _Great Vlachia_. ♦1318-1339.♦ Later still, all Epeiros,
_Jôannina_ and _Arta_—once _Ambrakia_—were won. At the moment of the
great Servian advance, the Empire held the uninterrupted seaboard from
the Euxine to the Pagasaian Gulf, as well as its Hadriatic seaboard
from the Ambrakian gulf northward. But the Frank principalities
still cut off the main body of the Empire from its possessions in
Peloponnêsos.
♦Losses of the Empire in Asia.♦
In Asia there is another tale to tell. There the frontier of the Empire
steadily went back from the recovery of Constantinople. A few points
gained or lost to European powers go for little. ♦1260.♦ _Smyrna_
passed for a while to Genoa. ♦The Knights of Saint John, 1309-1315.♦
The Knights of Saint John won _Rhodes_, _Kôs_, and other islands, but
they did not become a power on the mainland of Asia till the Empire
had almost withdrawn from that continent. ♦Advance of the Turks.♦ The
Imperial power steadily crumbled away before the advance of the Turk,
first the Seljuk and then the Ottoman. The small Turkish powers into
which the Sultanate of Roum had now split up began to encroach on the
Greek dominion in Asia as soon as its centre was transferred to Europe.
By the end of the thirteenth century, the Imperial possessions in Asia
had again shrunk up to a narrow strip on the Propontis, from the Ægæan
to the Euxine. Losses followed more speedily when the Turkish power
passed from the Seljuk to the Ottoman. ♦1326-1338.♦ _Brusa_, _Nikaia_,
_Nikomêdeia_, were all lost within twelve years. By the middle of the
fourteenth century, the Emperors kept nothing in Asia, save a strip
of land just opposite Constantinople, and the outlying cities of
_Philadelphia_ and _Phôkaia_, their allies rather than their subjects.
The Ottoman was now all but ready to pass into Europe, and the way
was made easier for him by the rise and fall of an European power
which again cut short the Empire in its western provinces. ♦The Empire
falls back towards Servia and Bulgaria. | 1331.♦ While the Imperial
frontier was advancing in Epeiros and Thessaly, it fell back towards
Servia, and advanced towards Bulgaria only to fall back again. ♦Loss
of Philippopolis, 1344.♦ _Philippopolis_, so often lost and won, now
passed away for ever. ♦Conquest. Stephen Dushan.♦ And now came the
great momentary advance of _Servia_ under Stephen Dushan, which wrested
from the Empire a large part of its Thracian, Macedonian, Albanian,
and Greek possessions. ♦Extent of the Empire.♦ At the middle of the
fourteenth century, the Empire, all but banished from Asia, kept no
unbroken European dominion out of Thrace. Its other possessions were
isolated. It kept Thessalonikê and Chalkidikê, with a small strip of
Macedonia as far as _Berrhoia_ and _Vodena_. It kept a small Thessalian
territory about _Lamia_ or _Zeitouni_. There was the Peloponnesian
province, fast growing into importance; there was _Lesbos_ and a few
other islands. ♦1355.♦ On Stephen’s death his dominion broke in pieces,
but the Empire did not win back its lost lands. For the Ottoman was
already in Europe, ready, in the space of the next hundred years, to
swallow up all that was left.
♦1336.♦
As in the recovery of Romania by the Greeks of Nikaia, so in the final
conquest of Romania by the Turks of Brusa, Constantinople itself
was—with the exception of the Peloponnesian appanage—the last point
of the Empire to fall. The Turk, like the Greek, made his way in by
Kallipolis; like the Greek, he hemmed in the Imperial city for years
before it fell into his hands. ♦Loss of Hadrianople, 1361. | 1366.♦
In seven years from his first landing, Hadrianople had become the
European capital of the Turk; the Empire was his tributary, keeping,
besides its outlying possessions, only the land just round the city.
The romantic expedition of Amadeo of Savoy gave back to the Empire its
Euxine coast as far as _Mesêmbria_. ♦Loss of Philadelphia, 1374-1391.♦
Before the end of the century Philadelphia was lost in Asia, and the
Imperial dominion in Europe hardly reached beyond the city itself and
the Peloponnesian province. Thessalonikê and the Thessalian province
were both lost for a while. ♦Effects of Timour’s invasion, 1401.♦
Bajazet was on the point of doing the work of Mahomet, when the Empire
was saved for another half-century by the invasion of Timour and the
consequent break-up of the Ottoman power. During the Ottoman civil
wars, the outlying points of the Empire were restored and seized again
more than once. ♦1424.♦ At last the boundaries of the Empire were fixed
by treaty between Sultan Mahomet and the Emperor Manuel, much as they
had stood sixty years before. The coast of the Propontis to Selymbria,
the coast of the Euxine to Mesêmbria, Thessalonikê and Chalkidikê,
the Peloponnesian province, the smaller Thessalian province, the
overlordship of Lesbos, Ainos, and Thasos, was all that was left.
Further losses soon followed. ♦1426.♦ Thessalonikê passed from the
Empire within two years. ♦1453.♦ At last, as all the world knows, the
Imperial city itself fell, and the name of the Eastern Roman Empire was
blotted out of European geography. ♦1460.♦ Six years later came the
conquest of Peloponnêsos, and the whole of European Greece passed into
the hands of foreign masters.
* * * * *
♦States growing out of the Empire.♦
Having thus sketched the changes in the extent of the Eastern Roman
Empire during a period of six hundred and fifty years, we have now to
trace the geography of the states which, within that time, grew up
within its borders or upon its frontiers. These fall naturally into
four groups. ♦The Slavonic states.♦ First come the national states
which were formed by throwing off the dominion of the Empire. These are
mainly the Slavonic powers to the north, Bulgaria, Servia, Croatia, and
the later states which arose out of their divisions and combinations.
♦Hungary. | Rouman states.♦ And with these, different as was their
origin, we must, for our purposes, place both the _Hungarian_ kingdom
which annexed so many of the Slavonic lands, and the _Rouman_ states,
so closely connected with Hungarian history, which arose by migrations
out of the Empire. ♦The Greek states.♦ Another group consists of the
Greek states which split off from the Empire before or at the Latin
conquest, and which were not recovered by the Greek Emperors of Nikaia
and Constantinople. Both these classes of states belong strictly to
Eastern Christendom. Catholic Hungary ruling over Orthodox Slaves
forms a link between the East and the West; so do those Slaves who
themselves belong to the Latin Church. ♦Latin states with the Empire.♦
Another link is supplied by a third group of states, namely, those
parts of the Empire which, either at or before the Latin conquest,
came under Latin rule. This class is not confined to the Frank powers
in Romania or to the Eastern settlements of Venice and Genoa. ♦Kingdom
of Sicily. | Kingdom of Jerusalem.♦ From our point of view it takes in
the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the crusading kingdom of Jerusalem
with its fiefs. In all these cases, territory which had formed part
of the Eastern Empire came under Latin rule. And in all these cases,
Latin masters bore rule over alien subjects, Greek, Slave, Syrian,
or any other. None of the Latin powers were national states, like
the Slavonic or even like the Greek powers. But the foreign masters
of these lands were at least European and Christian. The last class
consists of powers which lie beyond the range of European and Christian
civilization. ♦Turkish dynasties.♦ These are the Turkish dynasties
which arose within the Empire. ♦The Ottomans.♦ Of these only the last
and greatest, the dynasty of _Othman_, became geographically European,
and swallowed up nearly all the lands which had belonged to the Empire
in Europe, together with much which lay beyond its bounds. Here we
have, not only the absence of national being, but the rule of the
Asiatic over the European, of the Mussulman over the Christian. ♦The
New States.♦ Lastly, we come to the partial redressing of this wrong by
the re-establishment of independent Greek and Slavonic states in our
own century.
These seem to make four natural groups, and it is needful to bear
in mind their nature and relations to each other. But it will be
more convenient to speak of the several states thus formed in an
order approaching more nearly to the order of their separation from
the Empire. And first comes a power which parted off so early, and
which became so thoroughly a part of Western Europe, that it needs
an effort to grasp the fact that its right place is among the powers
which had their beginning in separation from the Imperial throne of
Constantinople.
§ 2. _The Kingdom of Sicily._
♦The Norman power in Italy and Sicily.♦
This is the power which, in the course of the eleventh century, was
formed by the Norman adventurers in southern Italy and in Sicily. It
was not wholly formed at the expense of the Eastern Empire. But all
its insular, and the greater part of its continental, territory, was
either won from the Eastern Empire and its vassals, or else had once
formed part of that Empire. Its kings also more than once established
their power, for a longer or shorter time, in the Imperial lands east
of the Hadriatic. With the Western Empire and the Kingdom of Italy the
Sicilian kingdom had in its beginnings nothing to do, though it was
afterwards somewhat enlarged at their expense.
♦Possessions of the Empire in Italy.♦
When the Norman conquests in Italy began, early in the eleventh
century, the Eastern Empire still kept the coast of both seas from the
further side of the peninsula of _Gargano_ to the head of the gulf
of _Policastro_. The Imperial duchies of Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi,
lying to the north of this point, were cut off by the duchies of
_Benevento_, _Capua_, and _Salerno_, over which the Empire had at the
most a very precarious superiority. ♦Advance of the Normans.♦ Within
a hundred years, all these lands, together with the island of Sicily,
were brought under Norman rule. Thus grew up a new European power,
sometimes forming one kingdom, sometimes two, sometimes held alone,
sometimes together with other kingdoms. This power supplanted alike
the Eastern Empire, the Saracen powers of Sicily, and the Lombard
princes of southern Italy. It started from two points, two distinct
Norman settlements, of which the later outshone the earlier. ♦County
of Aversa, 1021.♦ The earliest Norman territorial settlement was the
county of _Aversa_, held in vassalage of the Imperial duchy of Naples.
♦Principality of Capua, 1062-1068.♦ Forty years later its counts became
possessed of the principality of _Capua_, of which they received a
papal confirmation which implied a denial of all dependence on either
Empire. The more lasting duchy of _Apulia_ began later under the
adventurers of the house of Hauteville. ♦County of Apulia, 1042.♦ Their
first stage is marked by the foundation of the county of Apulia, with
_Melfi_ as its capital, under William of-the-Iron-arm. This took in
the peninsula of Gargano and the lands immediately to the south of it.
♦Investiture by Pope Leo, 1053.♦ The next stage is when Leo the Ninth
invested Count Humfrey, or rather the Normans as a body, with all that
they could conquer in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. ♦Robert Wiscard
Duke, 1059. | Completion of the Apulian duchy, 1077.♦ The first of
several takings of _Tarentum_, and the assumption of the ducal title by
Robert Wiscard, mark another stage. Less than twenty years later the
Eastern Empire kept nothing but the duchy of Naples; _Benevento_ had
passed to the Popes. The rest of the lands both of the Empire and of
the Lombard princes were now very unequally divided between two Norman
lords, the Duke of Apulia and the Prince of Capua. ♦Robert Wiscard in
Epeiros, 1081-1085.♦ The Byzantine power west of the Hadriatic being
thus overthrown, Robert Wiscard for the first time pushed the Norman
arms into the Eastern peninsula itself. For the last few years of
his life he held the islands of Corfu and Kephallênia, with Durazzo
and the coast to the south, and even inland as far as _Kastoria_ and
_Trikkala_. ♦1147-1150.♦ His power was renewed for a moment by his son
Bohemond, and in the middle of the next century Corfu was again for a
short time held by King Roger.
♦Norman Conquest of Sicily, 1060-1093.♦
For by that time the island of Sicily was a kingdom of Western
Christendom. The second time of Mussulman rule over the whole island
was short. In the space of thirty years Count Roger won the great
island alike from Islam and from Eastern Christendom. ♦Taking of
Messina, 1061; | of Palermo, 1072; | of Syracuse, 1086; | of Noto,
1091;♦ Greek Messina was first won; after a while Saracen Palermo
followed; Syracuse was won much later; the last Saracen post in the
island to hold out was _Noto_ in the south-eastern corner. ♦of Malta,
1091.♦ _Malta_, the natural appendage of Sicily, was soon added. The
first Norman capital was _Messina_. Duke Robert, as overlord of his
brother Count Roger, kept Palermo and the surrounding district in his
own hands. It was not till the next century that the Count of Sicily
won full possession of the city. ♦Palermo capital of Sicily.♦ Palermo
then became again, as it had been under the Saracens, the head of
Sicily.
The ruler of Sicily also became a potentate on the Italian mainland.
First the half, then the whole, of Calabria formed part of his
dominions. ♦Roger the Second, 1105-1154. | King, 1130.♦ The third Great
Count, the first King, of Sicily, Roger the Second, gradually won the
whole possessions of his family on the mainland. ♦Capua, 1132-1136.♦
To these he presently added the Norman principality of Capua, first as
a dependent territory, then as fully incorporated with his dominions.
♦Naples, 1138.♦ He next won the last possession in the West which was
still held by the Eastern Empire, the city of Naples. ♦The Abruzzi,
1140.♦ He then pressed beyond the bounds both of the Eastern Empire
and of the early Norman conquests by the annexation of the _Abruzzi_.
He then, as we have seen, extended his power for a moment east of the
Hadriatic. Meanwhile he was more successful against the common enemies
of Eastern and Western Christendom. ♦Conquests in Africa, 1135-1137.♦
As Sicily had twice been conquered from Africa, Africa now began to be
conquered from Sicily. ♦1160.♦ Roger held a considerable dominion on
the African coast including _Mehadia_, _Bona_, and other points, which
were lost under his son William.
Thus was founded a kingdom which has, perhaps oftener than any other
European state, been divided and united and handed over from one
dynasty of strangers to another, but whose boundaries, strictly so
called, have hardly changed at all. For the only immediate neighbour
of the Sicilian king was his ecclesiastical overlord. The question was
whether the king of the mainland should be also king of the island.
But the successive dynasties which reigned both over the whole kingdom
and over its divided parts were for a long time eager to carry out the
policy of their first founder, by conquests east of the Hadriatic.
♦Epeirot conquests of William the Good, 1185.♦ Before the fall of the
old Empire, William the Good began again to establish an Epeirot and
insular dominion by the conquest of Durazzo, Corfu, Kephallênia, and
Zakynthos. ♦Kingdom of Margarito, 1186. | 1338.♦ But these outlying
dominions were granted in fief to the Sicilian Admiral Margarito,[28]
who, himself bearing the strange title of _King of the Epeirots_,
founded a dynasty which, with the title of Count Palatine, held
_Kephallênia_, _Zakynthos_, and _Ithakê_ into the fourteenth century.
Thus these lands, like Cyprus and Trebizond, were cut off from the
Empire just before its fall, and the revolutions of Sicily cut them off
equally from the Sicilian kingdom. ♦Epeirot dominion of Manfred, 1258.♦
A more lasting power in these regions began under Manfred, who received
with his Greek wife Corfu, Durazzo, and a strip of the Albanian coast,
with the title of _Lord of Romania_. ♦Of Charles of Anjou, 1266-69.
| 1272-1276.♦ This dominion passed to his conqueror Charles of Anjou,
who further established a feudal superiority over the Epeirot despotat.
♦1282.♦ But his plans were cut short by the revolution of the Vespers.
♦History of Durazzo, 1322. | Duchy of Durazzo, 1333-1360. | 1378.♦
Durazzo was lost and won more than once; but it came back to the
Angevin house, to become a separate Angevin duchy, till it fell before
the growth of the Albanian powers. Another branch held _Lepanto_—once
_Naupaktos_—which lasted longer. ♦1373-1386.♦ Corfu and Butrinto became
immediate possessions of the Neapolitan crown till they found more
lasting masters at Venice.
This Eastern dominion of the two Sicilian crowns, besides their
influence of which we shall have presently to speak in southern Greece,
tends to keep up the connexion of the Sicilian kingdoms with the Empire
out of which they sprang. But it can hardly be called a geographical
enlargement of the kingdoms themselves. ♦Acre occupied by Charles of
Anjou.♦ Still less can that name be given to the short occupation of
_Acre_ by Charles of Anjou in his character of one of the many Kings of
Jerusalem. ♦Malta granted to the Knights, 1530.♦ The Sicilian kingdoms
themselves cannot be said to have gained or lost territory till Charles
the Fifth granted Malta to the Knights of Saint John, till Philip the
Second added the _Stati degli Presidi_ to the Two Sicilies. The great
revolution of all has taken place in our own day. The name of Sicily
has for the first time been wiped from the European map. The island of
Hierôn and Roger has sunk to form seven provinces of a prince who has
not deigned to take the crown or the title of that illustrious realm.
§ 3. _The Crusading States._
♦Comparison between Sicily and the crusading states.♦
The Sicilian kingdom has much in common with the states formed by
the crusaders in Asia and Eastern Europe. Both grew out of lands won
by Western conquerors, partly from the Eastern Empire itself, partly
from Mussulman holders of lands which had belonged to the Eastern
Empire. But the order of the two processes is different. The Sicilian
Normans began by conquering lands of the Empire, and then went on
to win the island which the Saracens had torn from the Empire. The
successive crusades first founded Christian states in the lands which
the Mussulmans had won from the Empire, and then partitioned the Empire
itself. The first crusaders undertook to hold their conquest as fiefs
of the Eastern Empire. This condition was only very partially carried
out; but the mere theory marks a stage in the relations between the
Eastern Empire and the Latin powers of Palestine which has nothing
answering to it in the case of Sicily.
♦Kingdom of Jerusalem and Frank principalities in Syria.♦
First among these powers come the _Kingdom of Jerusalem_ and the other
Frank principalities which arose out of the first crusade. ♦Cyprus.♦
The kingdom of _Cyprus_, which in some sort continued the Kingdom of
Jerusalem, forms a link between the true crusading states and those
which arose out of the partition of the Empire in the fourth crusade.
♦Armenia.♦ And closely connected with this was the kingdom of _Kilikian
Armenia_ whose foundation we have already mentioned.[29] This last was
an Eastern state which became to some extent Latinized. But the Syrian
states, Cyprus, and the Latin powers which arose out of the partition
of the Empire, all agree in being colonies of Western Europe in Eastern
lands, states where the Latin settlers appear as a dominant race over
the natives, of whatever blood or creed.
♦The Crusaders cut off the Mussulmans from the sea.♦
The great geographical result of the first crusade was to cut off the
Mussulman powers from the seas of Asia and Eastern Europe. In the first
years of the twelfth century the Christian powers, Byzantine, Armenian,
and Latin, held the whole coast of Asia Minor and Syria. ♦Extent of
the Kingdom of Jerusalem.♦ The Kingdom of Jerusalem, at its greatest
extent, stretched along the coast from _Berytos_ to _Gaza_. To the
east it reached some way beyond Jordan and the Dead Sea, with a strip
of territory reaching southward to the eastern gulf of the Red Sea. To
the north lay two Latin states which, in the days of Komnenian revival,
acknowledged the superiority of the Eastern Emperor. ♦Tripolis.
| Antioch.♦ These were the county of _Tripolis_, reaching northwards
to the Syrian _Alexandretta_, and the more famous principality of
_Antioch_. ♦640. | 968. | 1081. | 1098. | 1268.♦ That great city, lost
to Christendom in the first days of Saracen conquest, won back to
the Empire in the Macedonian revival, lost to the Turk, won back by
the Frank, remained a Christian principality long after the fall of
Jerusalem, and did not pass again under Mussulman rule till late in the
thirteenth century. ♦Edessa.♦ North-east of Antioch lay the furthest
of the Latin possessions, the inland county of _Edessa_. ♦1128-1173.♦
This was the first to be lost; it fell under the power of the Turkish
Attabegs of Syria. ♦Loss of the lands beyond Jordan.♦ They cut short
the kingdom of Jerusalem, taking away the territory east of Jordan. On
their ruin arose the mightier power of Saladin, lord alike of Egypt
and Syria. ♦Jerusalem taken by Saladin, 1187.♦ He took Jerusalem, and
the kingdom which still bore that name was cut down to the lands just
round Tyre. ♦Jerusalem recovered by Frederick the Second, 1228.♦ The
crusades which followed won back _Acre_ and various points, and at
last the diplomacy of Frederick the Second won back from the Egyptian
Sultan Tyre, Sidon, and the Holy City itself. A strip of coast running
inland at two points, so as to take in Tiberias and Nazareth at one
end, Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the other, formed the Eastern realm of
the lord of Rome and Sicily. ♦1239-1243. | Final loss of Jerusalem,
1244.♦ Lost and won again by the Christians, Jerusalem was finally won
for Islam by the invasion of the Chorasmians from the shores of the
Caspian. But for nearly fifty years longer the points on the coast
were lost and won, as the Mussulman powers or fresh crusaders from
Europe had the upper hand. ♦Fall of Acre, 1291.♦ With the fall of
_Acre_, the Latin dominion on the Syrian mainland came to an end. The
land won by the Western Christians from the Mussulman went back to the
disciples of the Prophet. The land won by the Western Christian from
the Eastern, and the land where the Eastern Christian still maintained
his independence, held out longer.
♦Cyprus.♦
These were the kingdoms of _Cyprus_ and _Armenia_. ♦Famagosta Genoese.♦
The frontier of Cyprus hardly admitted of geographical change, unless
it were when, for a part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
the city and haven of _Famagosta_ passed to Genoa. ♦Connexion between
Cyprus and Jerusalem.♦ The kings of Cyprus however claimed the crown of
Jerusalem, and sometimes, before the whole Syrian coast was lost, they
really held this or that piece of territory on the mainland. ♦Armenia
acknowledges the Western Emperor, 1190.♦ Meanwhile the Armenian kingdom
in some sort entered the Western world, when its king, after receiving
one confirmation from the Eastern Emperor, thought it wise to receive
another from the Western Emperor also. ♦1342.♦ The kingdom, though
sadly cut short by its Mussulman neighbours, lived on under native
princes till the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦Connexion between
Armenia and Cyprus, 1393.♦ Then the fragments of the kingdom passed,
first to a branch of the Cypriot royal family, and then to the reigning
king of Cyprus. But the first joint reign was the last. ♦End of Armenia
and Cyprus, 1489.♦ The remnant of independent Armenia was swallowed up
by the Mameluke lords of Syria, while Cyprus lingered on till Saint
Mark and his commonwealth became the heirs of its last king.
* * * * *
The kingdom of Cyprus forms a link between the Latin states in Syria
and those which arose in Romania after the crusading capture of
Constantinople. And these last again fall into two classes. ♦Frank
principalities in Greece. | Possessions of the maritime commonwealths.♦
There are the Frank principalities on the mainland of Greece, and
there are the lands, chiefly insular, which fell to the lot of the
maritime commonwealths of the West and of their citizens. Among these
the first place belongs to the great commonwealth which had now cast
off all traces of allegiance to the Empire. ♦Genoa.♦ _Genoa_, which had
no share in the original partition of the Empire, obtained several
points of Imperial territory, both for the commonwealth itself and for
particular Genoese citizens. ♦Venice.♦ But the part played by Genoa
in the East is small beside the great and abiding dominion of Venice.
No result of the partition was greater than the field which it gave
to Venetian growth. ♦Comparison between the two.♦ The position of the
two commonwealths is different. Genoa was a mere stranger in the East;
Venice was in a manner at home. Once an outlying possession of the
Empire, her really great historical position is due to her share in its
overthrow.
§ 4. _The Eastern Dominion of Venice and Genoa._
We have already seen the origin of the Venetian state, and the
beginning of Venetian rule over the Slavonic coasts of the Hadriatic.
♦Connexion of the Dalmatian and Greek dominion of Venice.♦ The Eastern
dominion of Venice now began, and, in a strictly geographical view, her
Istrian and Dalmatian dominion cannot be separated from her Albanian
and purely Greek dominion. But Venice did not become a great European
power till she passed from the Slavonic lands whose connexion with the
Empire was nominal or precarious into the Albanian and Greek lands
which were among its immediate possessions. ♦Effect of the partition
on Venice.♦ The greatness of Venice dates from that partition of the
Empire which was the surest proof that she had wholly cast aside her
Byzantine allegiance. ♦Comparison between Venice and Sicily.♦ In this
point of view the history of Venice may be compared and contrasted
with the history of Sicily. In each case, a part of the dominions of
the Eastern Rome grew into a separate power; that power passed, so
to speak, from Eastern Europe to Western, and, in its new Western
character, it appeared as a conqueror in the Eastern lands. But, as
Venice and Sicily parted from the Empire in different ways, so their
later relations to the Empire were widely different. The Sicilian state
began in actual conquests made by foreign invaders at the expense of
the Empire. Venice was a dependency of the Empire which gradually
drifted into independence. Thus Sicily became more thoroughly Western
than Venice. The attempts of the kings, both of the whole Sicilian
kingdom and of its divided parts, to establish an Eastern dominion were
attacks from without, and were not really lasting. ♦Venice inherits
the position of the Empire.♦ But Venice, whose princes were lords of
one fourth and one eighth of the Empire of Romania,[30] took up in
some sort the position of the Empire itself. If she destroyed one
bulwark against the Mussulman, she set up another. As long as Venice
was really a great power, her main interests lay east of the Hadriatic.
♦Importance of the fourth crusade in Venetian history.♦ The fourth
crusade was her turning point. It was at once the beginning of her
Greek dominion and the recovery of her Dalmatian dominion.
♦Territory assigned to Venice by the Act of Partition.♦
The scheme of partition gave to Venice a vast dominion, insular and
continental. She was to be mistress of the Hadriatic and Ionian seas.
To her were assigned, not only the islands off the west coast of the
Empire, but the whole western coast itself, from the north of Albania
to the southern point of Peloponnêsos. She was to have some points
in the Ægæan, among them _Oreos_ and _Karystos_ at the two ends of
Euboia. She was to have her quarter of the capital, with a Thracian
and an Asiatic dominion, including, according to some versions, the
strange allotment of _Lazia_ at the east of the Euxine[31]. ♦Her actual
possessions.♦ The actual possessions of Venice in the East have a
very different look. Much of the territory which was assigned to the
republic never became hers, while she obtained large possessions which
were not assigned to her. ♦Her dominion primarily Hadriatic.♦ But the
main point, the dominion of the Hadriatic, was never forgotten, though
some both of her earliest and of her latest conquests lay beyond its
necessary range.
♦Possessions not assigned by the partition. | Crete. 1206-1669.♦
Among those possessions of Venice which were not assigned to her in the
act of partition was her greatest and most lasting possession of all,
the island of _Crete_. ♦1645-1669.♦ This she won almost at the first
moment of the conquest, and she kept it for more than four centuries
and a half, till the war of _Candia_ handed over all Crete, save two
fortresses, to the Ottoman. ♦Acquisition of Cyprus. 1489.♦ Before
this loss, Saint Mark had won and lost another great island which lay
altogether beyond the scheme of the Latin conquerors of Constantinople.
Late in the fifteenth century the republic succeeded the Latin kings
in the possession of _Cyprus_. ♦Loss of Cyprus, 1571.♦ But this was
held for less than a century. Cyprus, like Crete and Sicily, was a
special scene of struggle between European and barbarian powers. But it
shared the fate, not of Sicily but of Crete, and became the solid prize
of the Ottoman, when Christendom won the barren laurels of Lepanto.
♦Occupation of Thessalonikê, 1426-1430.♦ Another possession which lay
out of the usual course of Venetian dominion was the short occupation
of _Thessalonikê_. Bought of a Greek despot, it was after four years
taken by the Turk. Had Thessalonikê been kept, it might have passed as
a late compensation to the republic for the early loss of Hadrianople
and her other Thracian territory.
♦Venetian power both Dalmatian and Greek.♦
But the true scene of Venetian enterprise in the East is primarily
the Hadriatic, and next to that, the coasts and islands of the Ægæan.
She remained both a Dalmatian and a Greek power down to the moment of
her overthrow, and, at the moment of her overthrow, it was not eighty
years since she had ceased to be a Peloponnesian and an Ægæan power.
The Greek dominion of Venice was an enlargement of her Dalmatian
dominion. ♦Taking of Zara, 1202.♦ It is significant that Zara was
taken—not for the first or the last time—on the way to the taking of
Constantinople. ♦Hadriatic dominion of Venice.♦ Already mistress, or
striving to be mistress, of the northern part of the eastern coast of
the Hadriatic, the partition of the Empire opened to Venice the hope
of becoming mistress of the southern part. Mistress of the whole coast
she never was at any one moment; one point was gained and another lost.
But extension in those lands was steadily aimed at for more than seven
hundred years, and the greater part of the eastern Hadriatic coast has
been, at one time or another, under Venetian rule.
The story of Venetian dominion in these parts cannot be kept apart
from the story of the neighbouring Slavonic lands. The states of
Servia and Croatia were from the beginning the inland neighbours
of the Dalmatian coast cities. ♦Servian districts on the coast.♦
The river Tzettina may pass as the boundary between the Servian and
Croatian states. _Pagania_ on the Narenta, _Zachloumia_ between the
Narenta and Ragusa, _Terbounia_, represented by the modern _Trebinje_,
the coast district of the _Canali_, _Dioklea_, taking in the modern
Montenegro with the coast as far as the Drin—_Skodra_ or _Scutari_ on
its lake, the harbours of _Spizza_, _Antivari_, and _Dulcigno_, were
all originally Servian. ♦The Dalmatian cities.♦ The Dalmatian coast
cities, _Dekatera_ or _Cattaro_, _Raousion_ or _Ragusa_, _Tragourion_
or _Traü_, _Diadora_, _Jadera_, or _Zara_, formed a Roman fringe
on what had become a Slavonic body. It was not even a continuous
fringe, as the Slaves came down to the sea at more than one point.
♦Pagania.♦ _Pagania_ above all, the land of the heathen Narentines,
cut Roman Dalmatia into two marked parts. ♦The Islands.♦ It even took
in most of the great islands, _Curzola_—once _Black Korkyra_—_Meleda_,
_Lesina_—once _Pharos_—and others. At the separation of the two Empires
the Croatian power was strongest in those lands. ♦Croatia under Charles
the Great, 806-810.♦ The wars of Charles the Great left the coast
cities to the Eastern Empire, while inland Dalmatia and Croatia passed
under Frankish rule. ♦825-830.♦ Presently Croatia won its independence
of the Western Empire, while the coast cities were practically lost by
the Eastern. ♦Settlement under Basil the Macedonian, 868-878.♦ Under
Basil the Macedonian the Imperial authority was admitted, in name at
least, both by the cities and by the Croatian prince. ♦First Venetian
Conquest, 995-997.♦ More than a century later came the first Venetian
conquest, which was looked on at Venice as a deliverance of the cities
from Croatian rule. The pagan power on the Narenta was destroyed,
and the Duke of Venice took the title of _Duke of Dalmatia_. But all
this involved no formal separation from the Empire.[32] ♦The cities
under Croatia, 1052. | Dalmatian Kingdom, 1062.♦ Such a separation
may be held to have taken place in the middle of the next century,
when the cities again passed under Croatian rule, and when the taking
of the title of _King of Dalmatia_ by Croatian Kresimir may pass for
an assertion of complete independence. ♦Magyar Kingdom of Croatia,
1091; | of Dalmatia, 1102.♦ But the kingdoms, first of Croatia, then
of Dalmatia, were presently swallowed up by the growing power of the
Magyar. Then comes a time in which this city and that passes to and
fro between Venice and Hungary. ♦Croatia and Dalmatia restored to the
Empire, 1171. | Dalmatia passes to Hungary.♦ Under Manuel Komnênos the
whole of Croatia and Dalmatia was fully restored to the Empire; but ten
years later the cities again passed to Hungary. This was their final
separation from the Empire, and by this time Venice had thrown off all
Byzantine allegiance.
♦Struggle for the dominion of Dalmatia.♦
From this time the history of Croatia forms part of the history of
the Hungarian kingdom. The history of Dalmatia becomes part of the
long struggle of Venice for Hadriatic dominion. For five hundred years
the cities and islands of the whole Hadriatic coast were lost and won
over and over again in the strifes of the powers of the mainland.
These were in Dalmatia the Hungarian and Bosnian Kings; more to the
south they were the endless powers which rose and fell in Albania and
northern Greece. In after times the Ottoman took the place of all.
And many of the cities were able, amid the disputes of their stronger
neighbours, to make themselves independent commonwealths for a longer
or shorter time. ♦Independence of Ragusa;♦ _Ragusa_, above all, kept
her independence during the whole time, modified in later times by a
certain external dependence on the Turk. ♦of Polizza.♦ And the almost
invisible inland commonwealth of _Polizza_—a Slavonic San Marino—kept
its separate being into the present century.
♦Fluctuations between Venice and Hungary, 1315.♦
The crusading conquest of Zara was the beginning of this long
struggle. The frontier fluctuated during the whole of the thirteenth
century; early in the fourteenth the whole coast was again Venetian.
Meanwhile the republic was striving to make good her position further
south. The Epeirot despotat long hindered her establishment either
on the coasts or the islands of northern Greece. ♦Final conquest of
Durazzo and Corfu, 1206. | 1216.♦ Durazzo, the central point between
the older and the newer Venetian range, was won, along with Corfu, in
the earliest days of the conquest; but they were presently lost, to
come back again in after times. ♦History of Corfu.♦ The famous island
of Korkyra or Corfu has a special history of its own. No part of Greece
has been so often cut off from the Greek body. Under Pyrrhos and
Agathoklês, no less than under Michael Angelos and Roger, it obeyed an
Epeirot or a Sicilian master. It was among the first parts of Greece to
pass permanently under Roman dependence. ♦Second Venetian conquest of
Corfu, 1386-1797.♦ At last, after yet another turn of Sicilian rule, it
passed for four hundred years to the great commonwealth. In our own day
Corfu was not added to free Greece till long after the deliverance of
Attica and Peloponnêsos. But, under so many changes of foreign masters,
the island has always remained part of Europe and of Christendom.
Alone among the Greek lands, Corfu has never passed under barbarian
rule. ♦1716. | 1800.♦ It has seen the Turk only, for one moment as an
invader, for another moment as a nominal overlord.
♦Greek advance of Venice.♦
The second Venetian occupation of Corfu was the beginning of a great
advance among the neighbouring islands. But, during the hundred
and eighty years between the two occupations, the main fields of
Venetian action lay more to the north and more to the south. The Greek
acquisitions of the republic at this time were in Peloponnêsos and the
Ægæan islands. ♦Modon and Coron, 1206.♦ On the mainland she won, at
the very beginning of Latin settlement in the East, the south-western
peninsula of Peloponnêsos, with the towns of _Methônê_ and
_Kôrônê_—otherwise _Modon_ and _Coron_—which she held for nearly three
hundred years. ♦History of Euboia.♦ Among the Ægæan islands Venice
began very early to win an influence in the greatest of their number,
that of _Euboia_, often disguised under the specially barbarous name
of _Negropont_.[33] The history of that island, the endless shiftings
between its Latin lords and the neighbouring powers of all kinds, is
the most perplexed part of the perplexed Greek history of the time.
♦Complete occupation of Euboia, 1390.♦ Venice, mixed up in its affairs
throughout, obtained in the end complete possession, but not till after
the second occupation of Corfu. ♦Turkish conquest of Euboia, 1470.♦ The
island was kept till the Turkish conquest eighty years later. Several
other islands were held by the republic at different times. ♦Loss of
the Ægæan islands, 1718.♦ Of these _Tênos_ and _Mykonos_ were not
finally lost till Venice was in the eighteenth century confined to the
western seas.
Between the first and the second occupation of Corfu, the Venetian
power in Dalmatia had risen and fallen again. ♦Peace of Zara, 1358.
| Dalmatia Hungarian.♦ By the peace of Zara, Lewis the Great of Hungary
shut out Venice altogether from the Dalmatian coasts, and, as Dalmatian
King, he required the Venetian Duke to give up his Dalmatian title.
♦New advance of Venice.♦ Later in the century Venice again gained
ground, and her Dalmatian, Albanian, and Greek possessions began to
draw near together, and to form one whole, though never a continuous
whole. ♦1378-1455. | Recovery of Dalmatia.♦ In the space of about
eighty years, amid many fluctuations towards Hungary, Bosnia, and
Genoa—a new claimant called into rivalry by the war of Chioggia—Venice
again became mistress of the greater part of Dalmatia. Some districts
however formed part of the Duchy of _Saint Sava_, and Hungary kept part
of the inland territory, with the fortress of _Clissa_. The point where
the Hadriatic coast turns nearly due south may be taken as the boundary
of the lasting and nearly continuous dominion of the Republic; but for
the present the Venetian power went on spreading far south of that
point. ♦Advance in Albania and Greece, 1392.♦ On the second occupation
of Corfu followed the acquisition of _Durazzo_, _Alessio_, and of the
Albanian _Skodra_ or _Scutari_. ♦1401. | 1407.♦ _Butrinto_ and the
ever memorable _Parga_ put themselves under Venetian protection, and
_Lepanto_ was ceded by a Prince of Achaia. ♦1388.♦ In Peloponnêsos the
Messenian towns were still held, and to them were now added _Argos_
and its port of _Nauplia_, known in Italian as _Napoli di Romania_.
♦1408-1415. | 1419. | 1423.♦ _Patras_ was held for a few years,
_Monembasia_ was won, and the isle of _Aigina_, which might almost pass
for part of Peloponnêsos. On the other side of Greece, the possession
of Corfu led to the acquisition of the other so-called Ionian
Islands. ♦The Western Islands. 1449.♦ The prince of _Kephallênia_, of
_Zakynthos_ or _Zante_, and of _Leukadia_ or _Santa Maura_, found it to
his interest, for fear of the advancing Ottoman, to put his dominions
under the overlordship of Saint Mark.
♦Venice the champion against the Turk.♦
This marks an epoch in the history of Venice and of Europe. The
championship of Christendom against the Turk now passes from the New
Rome to the hardly less Byzantine city in the Lagoons. The short
occupation of Thessalonikê may pass for the beginning of the struggle.
Later in the fifteenth century, Venice and the Turk were meeting at
every point. ♦Loss of Argos, 1463.♦ In Peloponnêsos, _Argos_ was first
lost to the Turk; at the same moment he appeared far to the north, and
gradually occupied the Bosnian and Hungarian districts of Dalmatia.
♦1505-1699.♦ Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
the inland districts and the smaller towns were lost over and over
again, but the Republic always kept the chief coast cities, _Zara_,
_Sebenico_, and _Spalato_. ♦Losses of Venice.♦ Meanwhile, to the south
of Dalmatia, the Venetian power went back everywhere, except in the
western islands. ♦1474-1478.♦ On the mainland _Croja_, the city of
Scanderbeg, was held for a while. ♦1479.♦ But both Croja and Skodra
were won by Mahomet the Conqueror, and the treaty which ended this
war left to the Republic nothing on the coast of Albania and Northern
Greece, save _Durazzo_, _Antivari_, and _Butrinto_. ♦1500.♦ The treaty
which followed the next war took away _Durazzo_, _Butrinto_, and
_Lepanto_. ♦The Western Islands, 1481-1483.♦ A series of revolutions
in the islands of which the Republic already held the overlordship
placed them under her immediate dominion, to be struggled for against
the Turk. ♦1485. | 1502.♦ By the next peace _Zakynthos_ was kept, on
payment of a tribute to the Sultan; _Kephallênia_ passed to the Turk,
to be won back seventeen years later, and then to be permanently kept.
♦1502-1504.♦ _Leukadia_ was at the same time won for a moment and
lost again. ♦Loss of the Peloponnesian fortresses, 1502. | 1540.♦ In
Peloponnêsos _Modon_ and _Koron_ were lost along with _Durazzo_ and
_Lepanto_, and the great naval war with Suleiman cost the Republic her
last Peloponnesian possessions, _Nauplia_ and _Monembasia_, together
with all her Ægæan islands, except _Tênos_ and _Mykonos_. The strictly
Greek dominion of Venice was now for a hundred and forty years confined
to the islands, and, after the loss of Cyprus and Crete, almost wholly
to the Western islands. But after the loss of Crete came a revival
of the Venetian power, like one of the old revivals of the Empire.
♦Venetian conquest of Peloponnêsos, 1685-1699.♦ The great campaigns
of Francesco Morosini, confirmed by the peace of Carlowitz, freed all
Peloponnêsos from the Turk, and added it to the dominion of Saint Mark.
The same treaty confirmed Venice in the possession of the greater part
of Dalmatia. ♦Loss of Peloponnêsos, 1715-1718.♦ The next war cost her
the whole of Peloponnêsos, her two Cretan fortresses, and her two
remaining Ægæan islands. She now withdrew wholly to the western side
of Greece, where she had again won _Leukadia_ and _Butrinto_, and
had enlarged her dominion by the acquisition of _Prevesa_. ♦Extent
of Venetian dominion in Greece in the last century.♦ During the last
century the Venetian possessions in Greece consisted of the seven
so-called Ionian islands, with the continental posts of _Butrinto_,
_Prevesa_, and _Parga_.
♦Venetian territory in Dalmatia.♦
The Dalmatian territory of the Republic during the same time consisted
of a considerable inland district in the north-east, and of the whole
coast down to _Budua_, except where the territory of independent
Ragusa broke the continuity of her rule. ♦Ragusan frontier.♦ Ragusa
was so jealous of the mightier commonwealth that she preferred the
Turk as a neighbour. At two points of the coast, at _Klek_ at the
bottom of the gulf formed by the long peninsula of Sabbioncello, and
again at _Sutorina_ on the _Bocche_, the Ottoman territory came down
to the sea, so as to isolate the dominion of Ragusa from the Venetian
possessions on either side. Such was the frontier of the two Hadriatic
commonwealths down to the days when, first Venice and then Ragusa,
passed away.
♦Possession of Venetian cities.♦
Meanwhile, besides the direct possessions of the Venetian commonwealth,
there were other lands within the former dominions of the Eastern
Empire which were held by Venetian lords, as vassals either of the
republic or of the Empire of Romania. It would be endless to trace out
the revolutions of every Ægæan island; but one among the few which
claim our notice became the seat of a dynasty which proved, next to the
Venetian commonwealth itself, the most long-lived Latin power in the
Greek world. ♦The Duchy of Naxos.♦ This is the duchy variously known as
that of _Naxos_, of the _Dôdekannêsos_, and of the _Archipelago_, the
barbarous name given to the Ægæan or _White Sea_.[34] ♦1207. | 1566.♦
Founded in the early years of Latin settlement by the Venetian Marco
Sanudo, the island duchy lived on as a Latin state, commonly as a
vassal or tributary state of some greater power, till the last half of
the sixteenth century. ♦Annexed by the Turk, 1579. | 1617.♦ Shorn of
many of its islands by its Ottoman overlord, granted afresh to a Jewish
duke, it passed thirteen years later under the immediate dominion of
the Sultan. Most of the _Kyklades_ were either parts of this duchy or
fiefs held of it by other Venetian families. All came into the hands of
the Turk; but some of the very smallest remained merely tributary, and
not fully annexed, into the seventeenth century.
* * * * *
♦Settlements of Genoa and of Genoese citizens.♦
The year which saw the Naxian duchy pass from Latin to Hebrew hands saw
the fall of the most remarkable of the Genoese settlements in the Greek
lands. These settlements, like those of Venice, formed two classes,
those which were possessions of the Genoese commonwealth itself and
those which came into the hands of Genoese citizens. ♦1304.♦ Genoa
had no share in the fourth Crusade; she had therefore no share in the
division of the Empire, though, after the restoration of Byzantine
rule, her colony of _Galata_ made her almost a sharer in the capital
of the Empire. ♦Possessions of Genoa on the Euxine, 1461.♦ But the
seat of direct Genoese dominion in the East was not the Ægæan but the
Euxine. On the southern coast of that sea the republic held _Amastris_
and _Amisos_, and in the Tauric Chersonêsos was her great colony of
_Kaffa_. ♦1475.♦ The Euxine dominion of Genoa came to an end during the
later half of the fifteenth century; but it outlived the Empires both
of Constantinople and of Trebizond.
The Ægæan dominion of the citizens of Genoa was longer lived than the
Euxine dominion of Genoa herself. ♦Lesbos. 1354-1462.♦ The family of
Gattilusio received _Lesbos_ as an Imperial fief in the fourteenth
century, and kept it till after the fall of Constantinople. But the
most remarkable Genoese settlement in the Ægæan was that of _Chios_.
♦The Zaccaria at Chios. 1304-1346. | The Maona. 1346-1566.♦ First held
by princes of the Genoese house of Zaccaria, the island, with some of
its neighbours, passed into the hands of a Genoese commercial company
or _Maona_, a body somewhat like our own East India Company. ♦1566.♦
_Samos_, _Kôs_, and _Phôkaia_ on the mainland, came at different times
under their power, and Chios did not fall under the Ottoman yoke till
the same year as the duchy of Naxos.
* * * * *
One more insular dominion remains, chiefly famous as the possession,
not indeed of a commonwealth, but of an order. ♦Revolutions of Rhodes.♦
In a few years of the thirteenth century the island of _Rhodes_ passed
through all possible revolutions. ♦1233.♦ In the first moment of the
Latin conquest, it became an independent Greek principality, like
Epeiros and Trebizond. ♦1246.♦ Then it admitted the overlordship of the
Nicene Emperors. ♦1249.♦ Seized by Genoa, it was presently won back to
the Empire, till seventy years later it was again seized by the Knights
of Saint John. ♦Establishment of the Knights, 1310. | 1315.♦ From
Rhodes as a centre, the order established its dominion over _Kôs_ and
some other islands, and on some points of the Asiatic coast, especially
their famous fortress of _Halikarnassos_. ♦1480. | 1522.♦ They beat
back Mahomet the Conqueror, but they yielded to Suleiman the Lawgiver
forty years later. ♦Their removal to Malta, 1530.♦ Banished from
Rhodes, the order received _Malta_ from Charles the Fifth as a fief of
his Sicilian kingdom. We are thus brought back to the island which had
been lost to the Eastern Empire for seven hundred years. ♦1566.♦ The
knights in their new home beat back their former conqueror Suleiman,
and kept their island till the times of confusion. ♦Revolutions of
Malta. | 1814.♦ Held by France, held by England, held, nominally at
least, by its own Sicilian overlord, this fragment of the Empire of
Leo and of the kingdom of Roger finally passed at the peace under the
acknowledged rule of England.
§ 5. _The Principalities of the Greek Mainland._
The Greek possessions of Venice, of Genoa, and of the Knights of Saint
John, consisted mainly of islands and detached points of coast. The
Venetian conquest of Peloponnêsos was the only exception on a great
scale. In this they are distinguished from the several powers, Greek
and Frank, which arose on the Greek mainland. We have already heard,
and we shall hear again, of the Greek despotat of Epeiros, which for
a moment grew into an Empire of Thessalonikê. Among the Latin powers
two rose to European importance. ♦Duchy of Athens. | Principality of
Achaia.♦ These are the _duchy of Athens_ in central Greece—in _Hellas_,
according to the Byzantine nomenclature—and the principality of
_Achaia_ or _Môraia_ in Peloponnêsos. ♦Use of the name Môraia.♦ This
last name, of uncertain origin,[35] has come, in its Italian shape,
to be a modern name of the peninsula itself. But the name of _Môraia_
seems strictly to belong to the domain lands of the principality, and
never to go beyond the bounds of the principality, which at no time
took in the whole of Peloponnêsos.
Both these powers were founded in the first days of the Latin conquest,
and the Turk did not finally annex the territories of either till after
the fall of Constantinople. But while the Athenian duchy lived on to
become itself the prize of Mahomet the Conqueror, the lands of the
Achaian principality had already gone back into Greek hands. ♦Lordship
of Athens. 1204-1205.♦ The lordship of Athens, founded by Otho de la
Roche, was first a fief of the kingdom of Thessalonikê, then of the
Empire of Romania. ♦The Duchy.♦ But it was by the grant of Saint Lewis
of France that the title of _Great Lord_[36] was exchanged for that of
_Duke_. ♦1260. | The Catalan Conquest, 1311.♦ The duchy fell into the
hands of the Catalan Great Company, who in central Greece grew from
mere ravagers into territorial occupiers. ♦The Sicilian Dukes.♦ They
brought with them the Thessalian land of _Neopatra_, and transferred
the nominal title of _Duke of Athens and Neopatra_ to princes of the
Sicilian branch of the House of Aragon. Thus the two claimants of the
Sicilian crown were brought face to face on old Greek ground. ♦Dukes
of the house of Acciauoli.♦ The duchy next passed to the Florentine
house of Acciauoli, which already held Corinth, Megara, Sikyôn, and the
greater part of Argolis. But their Peloponnesian dominion passed to
the Byzantine lords of the peninsula, and Neopatra fell into the hands
of the Turk. ♦1390.♦ The Athenian duchy itself, taking in Attica and
Boiôtia, lived on, the vassal in turn of the Angevin king at Naples, of
the Greek despot of Peloponnêsos, and of the Ottoman Sultan. ♦Ottoman
conquest. 1456-1460. | 1466. | 1687.♦ Annexed at last to the Ottoman
dominions, Athens remained in bondage till our own day, save only two
momentary occupations by Venice, one soon after the first conquest, the
other in the great war of Morosini.
* * * * *
♦Salôna and Bodonitza. The Principality of Achaia.♦
The smaller principalities of _Salôna_ and _Bodonitza_ play their part
in the history of the Athenian duchy; but we turn to the chief Latin
power of Peloponnêsos, the principality of Achaia. The shiftings of its
dynasties and feudal relations are endless; its geographical history is
simpler. The peninsula was, at the time of the Latin conquest, already
beginning to fall away from the Empire. ♦1205.♦ King Boniface of
Thessalonikê had to win the land from its Greek lord Leôn Sgouros. The
princes of the house of Champlitte and Villehardouin were his vassals.
They had to struggle with the Venetian settlement in Messênia, and with
the Greek despot of Epeiros, who, oddly enough, held Corinth, Argos,
and Nauplia. ♦1210-1212.♦ These last towns were won by the Latins, and
became an Achaian fief in the hands of Otho of Athens. ♦Its greatest
extent. 1248.♦ Before the end of half a century, the conquest of the
whole peninsula, save the Venetian possessions, was completed by the
taking of _Monembasia_. Things looked as if, now that the Latin power
was waning at Constantinople, a stronger Latin power had arisen in
Peloponnêsos. A crowd of Greek lands, Zakynthos, Naxos, Euboia, Athens,
even Epeiros and Thessalonikê, acknowledged at one time or another the
supremacy of Achaia. But Latin Achaia, like Latin Constantinople, had
to yield to revived Greek energy. ♦Recovery of lands in Peloponnêsos
by the Empire 1262.♦ The Empire won back the three Lacedæmonian
fortresses,[37] and presently made _Kalabryta_ in northern Arkadia a
Greek outpost. ♦1263.♦ Here the Greek advance stopped for a while.
♦Angevin overlordship. 1278.♦
Before the end of the century the Frank principality lost its
independence. It passed into vassalage to the Angevin crown, and
was held, sometimes by the Neapolitan kings themselves, sometimes
by princes of their house—some of them nominal Emperors of
Romania—sometimes by princes of Savoy, who carried the Achaian name
into Northern Italy.[38] ♦Dismemberment of the principality. 1337.♦
In the course of the fourteenth century the principality crumbled
away. ♦1356.♦ _Patras_ became an ecclesiastical principality under the
overlordship of the Pope of the Old Rome. Argos and its port became
a separate lordship. ♦1358.♦ Both of these passed for a longer or a
shorter time under the power of Venice. Corinth and the north-east
corner of the peninsula passed to the Acciauoli. ♦Byzantine advance.
1348-1383.♦ Meantime the Byzantine province grew. For some while,
under despots of the house of Kantakouzênos, it might almost pass for
an independent Greek state. ♦1381. | 1387. | 1442.♦ Notwithstanding
the inroads of the Navarrese, the second Spanish invaders of Greece,
and the first appearance of the Ottoman, the Greek power advanced,
till it took in all Peloponnêsos save the Venetian towns. ♦Conquests
of Constantine Palaiologos.♦ The last Constantine even appeared as a
conqueror at Athens and in central Greece. ♦1458-1460.♦ Then came
more Ottoman inroads, dismemberment, Albanian colonization, final
annexation by the Turk. ♦Successive Turkish conquests of Peloponnêsos.♦
But the last conqueror has been twice driven to conquer Peloponnêsos
afresh. The first revolt under Venetian support was crushed a few
years after the first conquest. ♦1463-1540. | 1670. | 1685.♦ Then the
Turk gradually gathered in the Venetian ports, and the whole peninsula
was his, save so far as _Maina_ kept on a kind of wild independence
almost down to the last Venetian conquest. The complete and unbroken
possession of all Peloponnêsos by the Ottoman has never filled up the
whole of any one century.
* * * * *
♦Despotat of Epeiros.♦
We have seen how the despotat of Epeiros parted away from the momentary
Empire of Thessalonikê. The despots, like their neighbours, often found
it convenient to acknowledge the overlordship of some other power,
Venice, Nikaia, Sicily, or Achaia. The boundaries of their dominions
were greatly cut short by the advance of the restored Empire and by
the cessions to Manfred of Sicily. ♦Dismemberment of the despotat.♦ A
state was left which took in old Epeiros, Akarnania, and Aitôlia, save
the points on the coast which were held by other powers. _Arta_, the
old _Ambrakia_, was, as in the days of Pyrrhos, its head. ♦1271-1318.
| 1309.♦ Another branch reigned in _Great Blachia_ or Thessaly, with
its capital at _Neopatra_, a capital presently lost to the Catalan
invaders. ♦1318. | 1339. | Servian conquest. 1331-1355.♦ Next the
greater part of Thessaly, and then Epeiros itself, were recovered by
the Empire, and then all gradually passed under the Servian power. On
the break-up of that power came a time of utter confusion and endless
shiftings, which has however one marked feature. ♦Advance of the
Albanians.♦ The Albanian race now comes fully to the front. Albanian
settlers press into all the southern lands, and Albanian principalities
stand forth on a level with those held by Greek and Latin lords.
♦Kings of Albania of the house of Thopia, 1358-1392.♦
The chief Albanian power which arose within the bounds of the despotat
was the house of _Thopia_ in northern Epeiros. ♦1366.♦ They called
themselves _Kings of Albania_; they won Durazzo from the Angevins,
and their power lasted till that duchy passed to Venice. ♦Servian
dynasty in Epeiros. 1359.♦ To the south of them, in southern Epeiros,
Akarnania, and Aitolia, reigned a Servian dynasty, whose prince Stephen
Urosh added Thessaly to his dominions, and called himself _Emperor of
the Serbs and Greeks_.[39] ♦1363.♦ His western dominion passed from
him. A Servian despot ruled at _Jôannina_, and an Albanian despot at
_Arta_. ♦Kingdom of Thessaly. | Turkish conquest. | 1393.♦ But Thessaly
went on as a kingdom, taking in the greater part of the land anciently
so called,[40] a kingdom which was the first Hellenic land to pass
under the power of the Turk. ♦1396.♦ Neopatra and Salôna followed,
and the Ottoman power stretched to the Corinthian gulf, and parted
asunder the still independent states of Western Greece from Attica and
Peloponnêsos.
In Epeiros the Servian and Albanian despots had both to yield to
Italian houses. ♦Buondelmonti in Northern Epeiros.♦ Northern Epeiros
passed to the Florentine house of _Buondelmonte_. ♦The house of Tocco.♦
To the south arose a dynasty of greater interest, the Beneventan house
of _Tocco_, the last independent princes in Western Greece. ♦1357.♦
They first, as counts palatine, held Kephallênia and Zakynthos as a
fief of the Latin Empire. ♦1362.♦ Then they won Leukadia with the ducal
title. ♦1394.♦ They next began a continental dominion, first for a
moment in Peloponnêsos, then more lastingly in the lands near their
island duchy. ♦1405-1418.♦ Duke Charles of Leukadia gradually won all
Epeiros save the Venetian posts; and he, his wife, and his heirs were
called Despot of Romania, King of Epeiros, and even Empress of the
Romans.[41] ♦Its effects.♦ This dynasty, though not long-lived on the
mainland, is of real and abiding importance in the history of the Greek
nation. The advance of the Albanians was checked; their settlements
were thrust further north and further south, while the Beneventan
dominions became and remained purely Greek. ♦Venetian and Turkish
occupation. 1430.♦ Soon after the death of Duke Charles, the Turk won
Jôannina and the greater part of Epeiros; but his son kept _Arta_ and
its neighbourhood for nineteen years as a vassal of Venice. ♦1449.♦
Then the dominions of Duke _Charles_ became the Turkish province of
_Karlili_. ♦1449-1479. | 1481-1483.♦ The house of Tocco kept its island
possessions for thirty years longer. Then they too passed to the
Turk, to be recovered for a moment by their own Duke, and then to be
struggled for between Turk and Venetian.
♦Northern Albania.♦
Meanwhile the strictly Albanian lands, from the Akrokeraunian point
northwards, were subdued by the Turk, were freed, and subdued again.
♦1414. | Turkish conquest. 1431.♦ Early in the fifteenth century the
Turk won all Albania, except the Venetian posts. ♦Revolt. 1448.♦
Seventeen years later came a revolt and a successful defence of
the country, whose later stages are ennobled by the name of George
Kastriota of Croja, the famous Scanderbeg. ♦Death of Scanderbeg. 1467.♦
His death gave his land back to the Ottoman, while Croja itself was for
a while held by Venice. The whole Greek and Albanian mainland was now
divided between Turk and Venetian.
♦The Empire of Trebizond.♦
Lastly, we must not forget that Greek state which outlived all the
rest. Far away, on the furthest bounds of the elder Empire, the Empire
of _Trebizond_ had the honour of being the last remaining fragment
of the Eastern Roman power. The rule of the Grand Komnênos survived
the fall of Constantinople; it survived the conquest of Athens and
Peloponnêsos.
♦Origin of the Empire. 1204.♦
We have seen the origin and early history of this power. After its
western dominions passed to the Nicene Emperors and Sinôpê to the Turk,
the Trapezuntine Empire was confined to the eastern part of the south
coast of the Euxine, stretching over part of Iberia, and keeping the
Imperial possessions in the Tauric Chersonêsos. Sometimes independent,
sometimes tributary to Turks or Mongols, the power of Trebizond lived
on for nearly eighty years as a distinct and rival Roman Empire.
♦Agreement between Constantinople and Trebizond, 1281.♦ Then, when
Constantinople was again in Greek hands, John Komnênos of Trebizond was
content to acknowledge Michael Palaiologos as Emperor of the Romans,
and to content himself with the style of ‘Emperor of all the East, of
Iberia, and of _Perateia_.’ This last name means the _province beyond
the sea_, in the Tauric Chersonêsos or _Crim_. We thus see that the
style of ‘Emperor of the East,’ which it is sometimes convenient to
give to him of Constantinople, strictly belongs to him of Trebizond.
The new Empire of the East suffered many fluctuations of territory,
chiefly at the hands of the neighbouring Turkomans. _Chalybia_,
the land of iron, was lost; the coast-line was split asunder; the
Empire bowed to Timour. ♦Turkish conquest of Trebizond; 1461.♦ But
the capital and a large part of the coast bore up to the last, and
did not pass under the Ottoman yoke till eight years after the fall
of Constantinople. ♦of Perateia. 1472.♦ The outlying dependency of
_Perateia_ or _Gothia_ was not conquered till eleven years later still.
As the Tauric Chersonêsos had sheltered the last Greek commonwealth, it
sheltered also the last Greek principality.
§ 6. _The Slavonic States._
The Greek and Frank states of which we have just been speaking arose,
for the most part they directly arose, out of the Latin partition of
the Empire. ♦Effects of the partition of the Empire on the Slavonic
states.♦ On the Slavonic powers the effect of that partition was
only indirect. Servia and Bulgaria had begun their second career of
independence before the partition. The partition touched them only so
far as the splitting up of the Empire into a number of small states
took away all fear of their being again brought under its obedience. In
Croatia and Dalmatia all trace of the Imperial power passed away. The
Magyar held the inland parts; the question was whether the Magyar or
the Venetian should hold the coast.
♦Servia and Bulgaria.♦
The chief independent Slavonic powers were those of _Servia_ and
_Bulgaria_. Of these, Servia represents the unmixed Slave, as unmixed,
that is, as any nation can be; Bulgaria represents the Slave brought
under some measure of Turanian influence and mixture. The history of
the purer race is the longer and the more brilliant. The Servian people
made a longer resistance to the Turk than the Bulgarian people; they
were the first to throw off his yoke; one part of them never submitted
to his yoke at all. ♦Extent of Servia.♦ The oldest Servia, as we have
seen, stretched far beyond the bounds of the present principality,
and had a considerable Hadriatic sea-board, though interrupted by the
Roman cities. Among the Zupans or princes of the many Servian tribes,
the chief were the northern Grand-Zupans of _Desnica_ on the Drina,
and the southern Grand-Zupans of _Dioklea_ or _Rascia_, so called from
their capital _Rassa_, the modern _Novi-Bazar_. This last principality
was the germ of the historical kingdom of Servia. ♦Relations to the
Empire.♦ But till the fall of the old Empire, the Imperial claims
over Servia were always asserted and were often enforced. ♦1018.♦
Indeed common enmity to the Bulgarian, the momentary conqueror of
Servia,[42] formed a tie between Servia and the Empire down to the
complete incorporation of Servia by Basil the Second. ♦1040. | Conquest
by Manuel Komnênos; 1148.♦ The successful revolt of Servia made room
for more than one claimant of Servian dominion and kingship; but
the Imperial claims remained, to be enforced again in their fulness
by Manuel Komnênos. At last the Latin conquest relieved Servia from
all danger on the part of Constantinople; Servia stood forth as an
independent power under the kings of the house of Nemanja.
♦Relations towards Hungary.♦
They had to struggle against more dangerous enemies to the north in
the Kings of Hungary. ♦Loss of Bosnia.♦ Even before the last Imperial
conquest, the Magyars had cut away the western part of Servia, the land
beyond the Drina, known as _Bosnia_ or _Rama_. Under the last name it
gave the Hungarian princes one of their royal titles. ♦1286.♦ This
land was more than once won back by Servia; but its tendency was to
separation and to growth at the cost of Servia. ♦1326.♦ In the first
half of the fourteenth century, Bosnia was enlarged by the Servian
lands bordering on the Dalmatian coast, the lands of _Zachloumia_ and
_Terbounia_, which were never permanently won back. So the lands on the
Save, between the Drina and the Morava, taking in the modern capital
of Belgrade, passed, in the endless shiftings of the frontier, at one
time to Bulgaria and at another to Hungary. ♦Servian advance eastward
and southward.♦ Servia, thus cut short to the north and west, was
driven to advance southward and eastward, at the expense of Bulgaria
and of the powers which had taken the place of the Empire on the
lower Hadriatic coast. From the latter part of the thirteenth century
onwards, Servia grew to be the greatest power in the south-eastern
peninsula. ♦Her seaboard. 1296.♦ Shorn of her old Hadriatic seaboard,
she gained a new and longer one, stretching from the mouths of Cattaro
to Durazzo. ♦1319-1322.♦ Durazzo itself twice fell into Servian hands;
but at the time of the highest power of Servia that city remained an
Angevin outpost on the Servian mainland. ♦Reign of Stephen Dushan,
1331-1355.♦ That highest power was reached in the reign of Stephen
Dushan, who spread his dominions far indeed at the cost of Greeks and
Franks, at the cost of his old Slavonic neighbours and of the rising
powers of Albania. In the new Servian capital of _Skopia_, _Skoupi_,
or _Skopje_, the Tzar Stephen took an Imperial crown as _Emperor of
the Serbs and Greeks_. ♦1346. | The Servian Empire.♦ The new Empire
stretched uninterruptedly from the Danube to the Corinthian gulf. At
one end Bosnia was won back; at the other end the Servian rule was
spread over Aitôlia and Thessaly, over Macedonia and Thrace as far as
_Christopolis_. It only remained to give a head to this great body, and
to make New Rome the seat of the Servian power.
♦Break up of the Servian power, 1355.♦
But the Servian tzardom broke in pieces at the death of the great
Servian Tzar; and before he died, the Ottoman was already in Europe. In
fact the historical result of the great advance of Servia was to split
up the whole of the Greek and Slavonic lands, and to leave no power of
either race able to keep out the barbarian. We have seen how the titles
of Stephen’s Empire lived for a generation in the Greek part of his
dominions.[43] In Macedonia and Thrace several small principalities
sprang up, and a power arose at Skodra of which we shall have to speak
again. To the north Bosnia fell away, and carried Zachloumia with it.
♦Later Kingdom of Servia.♦ Servia itself comes out of the chaos as a
separate kingdom, a kingdom wholly cut off from the sea, but stretching
southward as far as _Prisrend_, and again holding the lands between the
Drina and the Morava. ♦Conquests and deliverances of Servia. 1375.♦ The
Turk first took _Nish_, and brought the kingdom under tribute. ♦1389.♦
The overthrow at Kossovo made Servia wholly dependent. ♦1403.♦ With
the fall of Bajazet it again became free for a generation. ♦1438.♦
Then the Turk won the whole land except Belgrade. ♦1442. | 1444.♦ Then
the campaign of Huniades restored Servia as a free kingdom; the event
of Varna again brought her under tribute. ♦1459.♦ At last Mahomet the
Conqueror incorporated all Servia, except Belgrade, with his dominions.
* * * * *
♦The Kingdom of Bosnia.♦
The history of _Bosnia_, as a really separate power, holding its own
place in Europe, begins with the break-up of the momentary Servian
Empire. ♦Its origin, 1376.♦ The Ban Stephen Tvartko became the first
king of the last Bosnian dynasty, under the nominal superiority of the
Hungarian crown. Thus, at the very moment of the coming of the Turk, a
kingdom of Latin creed and associations became the first power among
the south-eastern Slaves. For a while it seemed as if Bosnia was going
to take the place which had been held by Servia. ♦Greatest extent of
Bosnia, 1382.♦ The Bosnian kingdom at its greatest extent took in all
the present Bosnia and Herzegovina, with, it would seem, all Dalmatia
except Zara, and the north-west corner of Servia stretching beyond
the Drina. But the Bosnian power was broken at Kossovo as well as
that of Servia. ♦Loss of Jayce, 1391.♦ In the time of confusion which
followed, Jayce in the north-west corner became a power connected with
both Hungary and Bosnia, while the Turk established himself in the
extreme south. The Turk was driven out for a while, but the kingdom
was dismembered to form a new Latin power. ♦Duchy of Saint Saba or
Herzegovina. 1440.♦ The Lord of the old Zachloumia, a Bosnian vassal,
transferred his homage to the Austrian king of the Romans, and, became
sovereign Duke of _Saint Sava_, perhaps rather of _Primorie_. Thus
arose the state of _Herzegovina_, that is the _Duchy_, commemorating in
its half-German name the relation of its prince to the Western Empire.
But neither kingdom nor duchy was long-lived. ♦1449.♦ Within ten years
after the separation of Herzegovina the Turk held western Bosnia.
♦Turkish conquest of Bosnia, 1463;♦ Fourteen years later he subdued
the whole kingdom. ♦of Herzegovina, 1483.♦ The next year the duchy
became tributary, and twenty years after the conquest of Bosnia it was
incorporated with the now Turkish province of Bosnia. But in the long
struggle between Venice and the Turk various parts of its territory,
especially the coast, came under the power of the Republic.
* * * * *
Meanwhile one small Slavonic land, one surviving fragment of the great
Servian dominion, maintained its independence through all changes.
In the break-up of the Servian Empire, a small state, with Skodra for
its capital, formed itself in the district of Zeta, reaching northwards
as far as Cattaro. ♦Dominion of the house of Balsa at Skodra. | Loss
of Skodra, 1394.♦ For a moment its princes of the house of _Balsa_
spread their power over all Northern Albania; but the new state was
cut short on all sides by Bosnia, Venice, and the Turk, and Skodra
itself was sold to Venice. In the middle of the fifteenth century, the
state took a more definite shape, though with a smaller territory,
under a new dynasty, that of Tzernojevich. ♦Beginning of Montenegro,
1456.♦ This independent remnant answered to the modern _Tzernagora_
or _Montenegro_, with a greater extent to the east and with a small
seaboard taking in Antivari. ♦Establishment of Tzetinje, 1488.♦ Its
capital _Zabljak_ was more than once lost and won from the Turk; at
the end of the century it was found hopeless to defend the lower
districts, and prince and people withdrew to the natural fortress of
the Black Mountain with its newly founded capital of Tzetinje. ♦The
Vladikas, 1499. | Lay princes, 1851.♦ The last prince of the dynasty
resigned his power to the metropolitan bishop, and Montenegro remained
an independent state under its Vladikas or hereditary prelates, till
their dominion was in our own time again exchanged for that of temporal
princes. During all this time the territory of Montenegro was simply
so much of the mountain region as could maintain its independence
against the ceaseless attacks of the Turk. Yet Montenegro, as the ally
of England and Russia, bore her part in the great European struggle,
and won for herself a haven and a capital at Cattaro. ♦1813. | 1858.♦
Her allies stood by while Cattaro was filched by the Austrian; and,
more than forty years later, when a definite frontier was first traced,
Western diplomacy so traced it as to give the Turk an inlet on both
sides to the unconquered Christian land. ♦Montenegrin conquests,
1876-1877.♦ In the latest times the Montenegrin arms set free a large
part of the kindred land of Herzegovina, and won back a considerable
part of the lost territory to the east, including part of the old
seaboard as far as _Dulcigno_. ♦1878.♦ Then Western diplomacy drew
another frontier, which forbade any large incorporation of the kindred
Slavonic districts, while a small extension was allowed in that part of
the lost ancient territory which had become Albanian. Of three havens
won by Montenegro in the war, _Dulcigno_ has been given back to the
Turk. ♦Spizza.♦ Austria has been allowed to filch _Spizza_, as she had
before filched Ragusa and Cattaro. The third haven, that of _Antivari_,
was left to those who had won it under such restrictions as armed wrong
knows how to impose on the weaker power of right.
* * * * *
The continued independence of Montenegro enables the Servian branch
of the Slavonic race to say that their nation has never been wholly
enslaved. ♦The third Bulgarian kingdom.♦ The case has been different
with Bulgaria. We have seen the origin of the third Bulgarian, or
rather _Vlacho-Bulgarian_, kingdom which won its independence of the
Empire in the last years of the twelfth century. From that time to
the Turkish conquest, one or more Bulgarian states always existed.
And throughout the thirteenth century, the Bulgarian kingdom, though
its boundaries were ever shifting, was one of the chief powers of the
south-eastern peninsula.
The oldest Bulgaria between Danube and Hæmus was the first to throw
off the Byzantine dominion, and the last to come under the power of
the Turk. ♦Bulgarian advance. 1197-1207.♦ But the new Bulgarian power
grew fast, and for a while called back the days of Simeon and Samuel.
Under Joannice the frontier stretched far to the north-west, over
lands which gradually passed to Servia, taking in Skupi, Nish, and
even Belgrade. ♦Dominion of John Asan. 1218-1241.♦ Under the Tzar John
Asan the new Bulgaria, the kingdom of _Tirnovo_, reached its greatest
extent. The greater part of Thrace, Philippopolis and the whole land of
_Rhodopê_ or _Achridos_, Hadrianople itself, Macedonia too stretching
away to Samuel’s Ochrida and to _Albanon_ or Elbassan, were all under
his rule. If his realm did not touch the Hadriatic or the Ægæan, it
came very near to both; but Thessalonikê at least always remained to
its Frank and Greek lords.[44] But this great power, like so many other
powers of its kind, did not survive its founder. ♦Decline of Bulgaria.
1246-1257.♦ The revived Greek states, the Nicene Empire and the Epeirot
despotat, cut the Bulgarian realm short. The disputes of an older and
of a later time went on.[45] ♦Shiftings of the frontier.♦ There was
undisputed Bulgaria north of Hæmus, an ever-shifting frontier south of
it. The inland Philippopolis, and the coast towns of _Anchialos_ and
_Mesêmbria_, passed backwards and forwards between Greek and Bulgarian.
♦Philippopolis finally Bulgarian. 1344-1366.♦ The last state of things,
immediately before the common overthrow, gave Philippopolis to Bulgaria
and the coast towns to the Empire.
♦Wars with Hungary. 1260.♦
An attempt at extension of the north by an attack on the Hungarian
Banat of _Severin_, the western part of modern Wallachia, led only to a
Hungarian invasion, to a temporary loss of _Widdin_, and the assumption
of a Bulgarian title by the Magyar king. ♦Cuman dynasty in Bulgaria.
1280.♦ Presently a new Turanian dynasty, this time of Cuman descent,
reigned in Bulgaria, and soon after, the kingdom passed for the moment
under a mightier overlord in the person of Nogai Khan. ♦Break-up of
the kingdom. 1357.♦ In the fourteenth century the kingdom broke up.
♦Principality of Dobrutcha.♦ The despot _Dobroditius_—his name has many
spellings—formed a separate dominion on the seaboard, stretching from
the Danube to the Imperial frontier, cutting off the King of Tirnovo
from the sea. Part of his land preserves his memory in its modern
name _Dobrutcha_. Presently we hear of three Bulgarias, the central
state at Tirnovo, the sea-land of Dobroditius, and a north-western
state at Widdin. ♦1362. | 1365-1369.♦ By this time the Ottoman inroads
had begun; Philippopolis was lost, and Bulgarian princes were blind
enough to employ Turkish help in a second attack on Severin, which
led only to a second temporary loss of Widdin. ♦1382. | 1388.♦ The
Turk now pressed on; Sofia was taken; the whole land became a Turkish
dependency. ♦Conquest by Bajazet, 1393.♦ After Kossovo the land was
wholly conquered, save only that the northern part of the land of
Dobroditius passed to Wallachia. Bulgaria passed away from the list
of European states both sooner and more utterly than Servia. Servia
still had its alternations of freedom and bondage for sixty years. In
after times large parts of it passed to a rule which, if foreign, was
at least European. In later days Servia was the first of the subject
nations to win its freedom. But the bondage of Bulgaria was never
disturbed from the days of Bajazet to our own time.
§ 7. _The Kingdom of Hungary._
The origin of the Hungarian kingdom and the reasons for dealing with
along with the states which arose out of the break-up of the Eastern
Empire have already been spoken of.[46] ♦Character of the Hungarian
kingdom.♦ The Finnish conquerors of the Slave, admitted within the
pale of Western Christendom, founding a new Hungary on the Danube and
the Theiss while they left behind them an older Hungary on the Kama,
have points of contact at once with Asia and with both Eastern and
Western Europe. ♦Its position in south-eastern Europe.♦ But, as closely
connected in their history with the nations of the south-eastern
peninsula, as sharers in the bondage and in the deliverance of Servia,
Greece, and Bulgaria, in our geographical survey they claim a place
where they may be looked at strictly as part of the south-eastern world.
♦Effects of the Magyar invasion.♦
It has been already noticed[47] that the main geographical work of the
Magyar was to cut off that south-eastern world, the world where the
Greek and the Slave, struggling for its supremacy, were both swallowed
up by the Ottoman, from the Slavonic region between the Carpathians
and the Baltic. ♦Great Moravia. 884-894.♦ At the moment of the Magyar
inroad, the foundation of the _Great-Moravian_ kingdom, the kingdom
of Sviatopluk, made it more likely than it has ever been since that
the Slaves of the two regions might be united into a single power.
That kingdom, stretching to Sirmium, marched on the north-western
dependencies of the Eastern Empire, while on the north it took in the
Chrobatian land which was afterwards Little Poland. Such a power might
have been dangerous to both Empires at once; but the invaders whom the
two Emperors called in proved far more dangerous than Great Moravia
could ever have been. The Magyars, Ogres, or Hungarians, the Turks
of the Imperial geographer,[48] were called in by his father Leo to
check the Bulgarians, as they were called in by Arnulf in the West to
check the new power of Moravia. They passed, from the north rather than
from the east, into the land which was disputed between Moravian and
Bulgarian. ♦906. Relations between Hungary and Germany.♦ The Moravian
power was overthrown, and the Magyars, stepping into its place, became
constant invaders of both Empires and their dependent lands. But to the
west, the victories of the Saxon kings put a check to their inroads,
and, save some shiftings on the Austrian march, the frontier of Germany
and Hungary has been singularly abiding.
♦The two Chrobatias separated by the Magyars.♦
While the Magyar settlement placed a barrier between the two chief
regions of the Slavonic race as a whole, it specially placed a barrier
between the two divisions of the _Croatian_ or _Chrobatian_ people,
those on the Vistula and those on the Drave and Save. ♦1025.♦ The
northern _Chrobatia_ still reached south of the Carpathians, and it
was not until the eleventh century that the Magyar kingdom, by the
acquisition of its southern part, gained a natural frontier which,
with some shiftings, served to part it off from the Slavonic powers to
the north of it. To the south-east an uncultivated and wooded tract
separated the Magyar territory from the lands between the Carpathians
and the lower Danube which were still held by the Patzinaks.
♦Geographical position of the Magyars.♦ The oldest Magyar settlement
thus occupied the central part of the modern kingdom, on the Theiss and
the middle Danube. There the Turanian invaders formed a ruling and
central race, within a Slavonic fringe at each end. There were northern
and southern Croats, _Slovaks_ to the north, and _Ruthenians_ to the
north-west, towards the kindred land of _Halicz_ or _Red Russia_.
♦Hungary a kingdom: its growth.♦
Hungary, ranking from the beginning of the eleventh century as a
kingdom of Latin Christendom, presently grew in all directions. We have
just seen its advance at the expense of the northern Chrobatian land.
Its advance at the expense of the southern branch of that race, and of
the other Slavonic lands which owed more or less of allegiance to the
Eastern Empire, was still more marked. ♦Hungary and Croatia.♦ All these
lands at one time or another gave royal titles to the King of Hungary,
King also of Croatia, of Dalmatia, of Rama, even of Bulgaria. But in
most of these lands the Hungarian kingship was temporary or nominal; in
Croatia alone, though the frontier has often shifted, Hungarian rule
has been abiding. Croatia has never formed an independent state since
the first Hungarian conquest; it has never been fully wrested from
Hungary since the days of Manuel Komnênos. In those days it was indeed
a question whether Hungary itself had not an overlord in the Eastern
Emperor. After the great Bulgarian revolt that question could never be
raised again. But the Hungarian frontier was ever shifting towards the
former lands of the Empire, Venetian, Servian, and Bulgarian. ♦Kingdom
of Slavonia. 1492.♦ One part of the old Croatian kingdom, the land
between Save and Drave, was cut off to form, first an appanage, then an
annexed kingdom, by the special name of _Slavonia_, a name shared by it
with lands on the Baltic, perhaps on the Ægæan.
But, from the first days of its conversion, the Hungarian realm
began to advance in other directions, in lands which had formed no
part of the Empire since the days of Aurelian. ♦Transsilvania or
_Siebenbürgen_. | 1004.♦ Before their Chrobatian conquest, the Magyars
passed the boundary which divided them from the Patzinaks, and won the
land which from its position took the name of _Transsilvania_.[49]
Colonists were invited to settle in the thinly inhabited land. One
chief settlement was of the Low-Dutch speech from Saxony and Flanders.
♦Various colonies.♦ Another element was formed by the Turanian
_Szeklers_, whose Latin form of _Siculi_ might easily mislead. Another
migration brought back the name and speech of the Old Rome to the first
land from which she had withdrawn her power.
♦Origin of the Roumans.♦
The legendary belief in the unbroken life of the Roman name and speech
in the lands north of the Danube is merely a legendary belief.[50]
There can be no reasonable doubt that the present principality of
Roumania and the Rouman lands beyond its borders derived their present
population and language from a settlement of the Rouman people further
south. South of the Danube, the Rouman or Vlach population, scattered
among Greeks, Slaves, and Albanians, at many points from Pindos
northwards, has kept its distinct nationality, but it has never formed
a political whole. ♦Their Northern migration.♦ But a migration beyond
the Danube enabled the Roumans in course of time to found two distinct
principalities, and to form a chief element in the population of a
third. There is no sign of any Rouman population north of the Danube
before the thirteenth century. The events of that century opened a way
for a reversal of the ordinary course of migration, for the settlement
of lands beyond the Empire by former subjects of the Empire.
♦Rouman element in the third Bulgarian kingdom.♦
We have seen that the third Bulgarian kingdom, that which arose at
the end of the twelfth century, was in its origin as much Rouman as
Bulgarian. ♦Cumans in Dacia.♦ By this time the rule of the Patzinaks
beyond the lower Danube had given way to that of the kindred _Cumans_.
♦Mongolian invasion.♦ Then the storm of Mongolian invasion, which
crushed Hungary itself for a moment, crushed the Cuman power for
ever. But the remnant of the Cuman nation lived on within the Magyar
realm, and gave its king yet another title, that of _King of Cumania_.
♦Rouman settlement in the Cuman land.♦ The former Cuman land now
lay open to new settlers, and the Rouman part of the inhabitants of
the new Bulgaria began to cross the Danube into that land and the
neighbouring districts. In the course of the thirteenth century they
occupied the present Wallachia, and already formed an element in the
mixed population of Transsilvania. A Rouman state thus began to be
formed, which took the name by which the Roumans were known to their
neighbours. The new _Vlachia_, _Wallachia_, stretched on both sides
of the Aluta. ♦Little Wallachia.♦ To the west of that river, _Little
Wallachia_ formed, as the banat of _Severin_, an integral part of the
Hungarian kingdom. ♦Great Wallachia.♦ _Great Wallachia_ to the east
formed a separate principality, dependent or independent on Hungary,
according to its strength from time to time. ♦Dobrutcha.♦ And, towards
the end of the fourteenth century, the land south of the Danube, called
_Dobrutcha_, passed from Bulgaria to Wallachia. ♦Moldavia. c. 1341.♦
Another Rouman migration, passing from the land of _Marmaros_ north
of Transsilvania, founded the principality of _Moldavia_ between the
Carpathians and the Dniester. This too stood to the Hungarian crown
in the same shifting relation as Great Wallachia, and sometimes
transferred its vassalage to Lithuania and Poland.
♦Lewis the Great, 1342-1382;♦
The greatest extension of the Hungarian dominion was in the fourteenth
century, under the Angevin King Lewis the Great. Before his time
the Magyar frontier had advanced and fallen back. ♦First possession
of Halicz, 1185-1220,♦ Hungary, having a Russian population within
its borders, had for a while enlarged its Russian dominion by the
annexation of the Red Russian land of _Halicz_ or _Galicia_. ♦of
Widdin, 1260-1264.♦ It had also, for a shorter time, occupied the
Bulgarian town of Widdin. ♦Conquests of Lewis, Halicz and Vladimir,
1342; Widdin, 1365-1369.♦ Lewis renewed both these conquests, and
made others. Halicz was not only won again, but was enlarged by the
neighbouring principality of _Vladimir_. The great day of Hungary was
contemporary with the great day of Servia, but it was a longer day, and
Hungary profited greatly by the fall of Servia. ♦1356.♦ While Lewis
annexed Dalmatia, he also at various times established his supremacy
over Bosnia and the Rouman principalities. That Lewis was king of
Poland by a personal union did not affect Hungarian geography. ♦Red
Russia restored to Poland, 1390.♦ But the separation of the crowns at
his death led presently to the restoration of the Red Russian provinces
to Poland. ♦Pledging of Zips, 1412.♦ Somewhat later, under Sigismund,
a territory within the Hungarian border, part of the county of _Zips_
or _Czepusz_, was pledged to Poland, and continued to be held by that
power.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the Ottoman was on his march to overthrow Hungary as well
as its neighbours, though the position of the Magyar kingdom made it
the last to be devoured and the first to be delivered. The Turkish
inroads as yet barely grazed the strictly Hungarian frontier. ♦First
Turkish invasion. 1391.♦ The first Turkish invasion of Hungary, the
first Turkish exaction of tribute from Wallachia, came in the same year
in which Sigismund established his supremacy over Bosnia. ♦Battle of
Nikopolis. 1396. | Campaign of Huniades 1443. | Battle of Varna. 1444.♦
The defeat of Nikopolis confirmed the Turkish supremacy in Wallachia,
a supremacy which was again won for Hungary in the great campaign
of Huniades, and was again lost at Varna. ♦Disputes for Dalmatia.♦
Meanwhile the full possession of Dalmatia did not outlive the reign of
Lewis. Henceforth Hungary is merely one competitor among others in the
ceaseless shiftings of the Dalmatian frontier.
♦Hungary under Matthias Corvinus. 1458-1490.♦
Later in the fifteenth century came another day of Hungarian greatness
under the son of Huniades, Matthias Corvinus. ♦1477. | 1485.♦ Its most
distinguishing feature was the extension of the Magyar power to the
west, over Bohemia and its dependencies, and even over the Austrian
archduchy. ♦1467.♦ In the south-eastern lands Wallachia and Moldavia
again became Hungarian dependencies. ♦1463.♦ _Jayce_ was won back
from the Turk, now lord of Bosnia, and, Belgrade being now Hungarian,
the frontier towards the Ottoman was fixed till the time of his great
advance northwards.
♦Loss of Belgrade. 1521.♦
The first stage of Ottoman conquest in Hungary, as distinguished from
mere ravage, was the taking of Belgrade. ♦Battle of Mohacz. 1526.♦ With
the battle of Mohacz, five years later, the separate history of Hungary
ends. ♦Turkish occupation of the greater part of Hungary. | 1552-1687.♦
That victory, followed by the disputes for the Hungarian crown between
an Austrian archduke and a Transsilvanian palatine, enabled Suleiman
to make himself master of the greater part of the kingdom, especially
of the part which was most thoroughly Magyar. From the middle of
the sixteenth century till the latter years of the seventeenth, the
Austrian Kings of Hungary kept only a fragment of Croatia, including
_Zagrab_ or _Agram_, and a strip of north-western Hungary, including
_Pressburg_. The whole central part of the kingdom passed under the
immediate dominion of the Turk, and a Pasha ruled at Buda. Besides
this great incorporation of Hungarian soil, the Turk held three vassal
principalities within the dominions of Lewis the Great. ♦Tributary
principalities: Transsilvania, Wallachia, Moldavia. 1497.♦ One was
_Transsilvania_, increased by a large part of north-eastern Hungary;
the second was _Wallachia_; the third was _Moldavia_, which began to be
tributary late in the fifteenth century. The Rouman lands became more
and more closely dependent on the Turk, who took on him to name their
princes. ♦1606.♦ Indeed, one might for a while add the Austrian kingdom
of Hungary itself as a fourth vassal state, as it paid tribute to the
Turk into the seventeenth century. ♦The Rouman lands disputed between
Poland and the Turk.♦ For the superiority of the Rouman principalities
an endless struggle went on between Poland and the Turk. At last the
same Slavonic power stepped in to deliver Hungary and Austria also.
♦Battle of Vienna. 1683.♦ With the overthrow of the Turk before Vienna
began the reaction of Christendom against Islam which has gone on to
our own day.
♦Recovery of Hungary from the Turk.♦
The wars which follow answer to the wars of independence in Servia and
Greece in so far as the Turk was driven out of a Christian land. They
differ in this, that the Turk was driven out of Greece and Servia to
the profit of Greece and Servia themselves, while he was driven out
of Hungary to the profit of the Austrian king. ♦Peace of Carlowitz.
1699.♦ The first stage of the work, the war which was ended by the
Peace of Carlowitz, won back nearly all Croatia and Slavonia, and all
Hungary proper, except the land of _Temeswar_ between Danube, Theiss,
and Maros. ♦Incorporation of Transsilvania. 1713.♦ Transsilvania
became a dependency of the Hungarian kingdom, with which it was
presently incorporated. Wallachia and Moldavia remained under Turkish
supremacy. ♦Peace of Passarowitz. 1718.♦ The next war, ended by the
Peace of Passarowitz, fully restored the Hungarian kingdom as part of
Christendom. The Turk kept only a small part of Croatia. All Slavonia
and the banat of Temeswar were won back; the frontier was even carried
south of the Save, so as to take in a small strip of Bosnia and a
great part of Servia, as also the Lesser Wallachia, the old banat
of Severin. Thus, while the first stage delivered Buda, the second
delivered Belgrade. But the next war, ended by the Peace of Belgrade,
largely undid the work. ♦Losses by the Peace of Belgrade. 1739.♦ The
frontier fell back to the point at which it stayed till our own day.
From the mouth of the Unna to Orsovo, the Save and the Danube became
the frontier. Belgrade, and all the land south of those rivers, passed
again to the Turk, and Little Wallachia became again part of a Turkish
dependency. ♦Final loss of Belgrade. 1789-1791.♦ At a later stage of
the century Belgrade was again delivered and again lost.
♦Acquisitions from Poland.♦
The later acquisitions of the House of Austria were made in the
character of Hungarian kings, but they did not lead to any enlargement
of the Hungarian kingdom. Thus the claim to the Austrian acquisitions
made at the first and third partitions of Poland, rested solely on the
two Hungarian occupations of Red Russia. ♦Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ Under
the softened forms of _Galicia_ and _Lodomeria_, the Red Russian lands
of _Halicz_ and _Vladimir_, together with part of Poland itself, became
a new kingdom of the House of Habsburg, as the greater part of the
territory thus won still remains. ♦Acquisition of Bukovina. 1776-1786.♦
Between the two partitions the new kingdom was increased by the
addition of _Bukovina_, the north-western corner of Moldavia, which was
claimed as an ancient part of the Transsilvanian principality. It was
again only in its Hungarian character that the House of Habsburg could
make any claim to Dalmatia. ♦Dalmatia.♦ Certainly no Austrian duke had
ever reigned over Dalmatia, Red Russia, or the Rouman principalities.
Yet in the present dual arrangement of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy
the so-called _triple kingdom_ of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia,
is divided between the rule of Pest and the rule of Vienna. Galicia
also counts to the Austrian, and not to the Hungarian, division of the
monarchy. All this is perhaps in harmony with the generally anomalous
character of the power of which they form part. ♦Spizza. 1878.♦ The
port of _Spizza_ has been added to the Dalmatian kingdom. ♦Bosnia and
Herzegovina.♦ It is hard to say in which of his many characters the
Hungarian King and Austrian Archduke holds the lands of _Bosnia_ and
_Herzegovina_, of which the Treaty of Berlin confers on him, not the
sovereignty, but the administration. They might have been claimed by
the Hungarian king in his ancient character of King of Rama. But the
formal aspect of the transaction would seem rather to be that he has,
like his predecessors in the sixteenth century, become the man of the
Turk.
* * * * *
♦Later history of Roumania.♦
After the restoration of the Lesser Wallachia to the Turk and the
addition of Bukovina to Galicia, the geographical history of the Rouman
principalities parts off wholly from that of Hungary, and will be more
fittingly treated in another section.
§ 8. _The Ottoman Power._
♦The Ottoman Turks.♦
Last among the powers which among them supplanted the Eastern Empire,
comes the greatest and most terrible of all, that which overthrew the
Empire itself and most of the states which arose out of its ruins, and
which stands distinguished from all the rest by its abiding possession
of the Imperial city. This is the power of the Ottoman Turks. ♦Their
special character as Mahometans.♦ They stand distinguished from all
the other invaders of the European mainland of the Empire by being
Mahometan invaders. The examples of Bulgaria and Hungary show that
Turanian invaders, as such, are not incapable of being received into
European fellowship. This could not be in the case of a Mahometan
power, bound by its religion to keep its Christian subjects in the
condition of bondmen. The Ottomans could not, like the Bulgarians, be
lost in the greater mass of those whom they conquered. ♦Preservation of
the subject nations.♦ But this very necessity helped in some measure to
preserve the national being of the subject nations. Greeks, Servians,
Bulgarians, have under Ottoman rule remained Greeks, Servians, and
Bulgarians, ready to begin their national career afresh whenever the
time for independence should come. ♦Comparison with the Saracen power
in Spain.♦ The dominion of the Turk in Eastern Europe answers, as a
Mahometan dominion, to the dominion of the Saracen in Western Europe.
But in everything, save the mere reckoning of years, it has been far
more abiding. The Mahometan dominion in southern Spain did indeed last
two hundred years longer than Mahometan dominion has yet lasted in any
part of Eastern Europe. But the Saracen power in the West began to fall
back as soon as it was established, and its last two hundred years
were a mere survival. The Ottomans underwent no considerable loss of
territory till more than four centuries and a half after their first
appearance in Asia, till more than three centuries after their passage
into Europe. Constantinople has been Ottoman sixty years longer than
Toledo was Saracen.
♦Extent of the Ottoman dominion compared with the Eastern Empire.♦
The Ottoman, possessor of the Eastern Rome, does in a rough way
represent the Eastern Roman in the extent of his dominion. The
dominions and dependencies of the Sultans at the height of their power
took in, in Eastern Europe, in Asia, and in Africa, nearly all that had
formed part of the Empire of Justinian, with a large territory, both in
Europe and Asia, which Justinian had not held. Justinian held nothing
north of the Danube; Suleiman held, as sovereign or as overlord, a vast
dominion from Buda to Azof. On the other hand, no part of the dominions
of Justinian in Western Europe, save one city for one moment, ever came
under Ottoman rule. The Eastern Empire in the year 800 was smaller than
even the present reduced dominion of the Turk. The Eastern Empire,
at its height in the eleventh century, held in Europe a dominion far
smaller than the dominion of the Turk in the sixteenth century, far
larger than his dominion now. But in the essential feature of Byzantine
geography, the possession of Constantinople and of the lands on each
side of the Bosporos and Hellespont, the Ottoman Sultan took the place
of the Eastern Emperor, and as yet he keeps it.
♦Effects of the Mongolian advance.♦
The history of the Eastern Empire, and that of the Ottomans in
connexion with it, was largely affected by the movements of the Mongols
in the further East. Mongolian pressure weakened the Seljuk Turks, and
so allowed the growth of the Nicene Empire. Mongolian invasions also
led indirectly to the growth of the Ottoman power, and at a later time
they gave it its greatest check. ♦Origin of the Ottomans.♦ The Ottomans
grew out of a Turkish band who served the Seljuk Sultan against the
Mongols. As his vassals, they began to be a power in Asia and to harry
the coasts of Europe. They passed into Europe, and won a great European
dominion far more quickly than they had won their Asiatic dominion.
This is the special characteristic of the Ottoman power. Asiatic in
everything else, it is geographically European; most of its Asiatic and
all its African dominion was won from an European centre. ♦Break-up and
reunion of the Ottoman power.♦ Already a power in Europe, but not yet
in possession of the Imperial city, the new Ottoman power was for a
moment utterly broken in pieces by the second flood of Mongol invasion.
That the shattered dominion came together again is an event without
a parallel in Eastern history. The restored Ottoman power then won
Constantinople, and from Constantinople, as representing the fallen
Empire, it won back the lost dominion of the Empire. ♦Its permanence.♦
The permanence of the Ottoman power, when Constantinople was once won,
is in no way wonderful. Even the unreclaimed Asiatic, when he was once
seated on the throne of the New Rome, inherited his share of Rome’s
eternity.
* * * * *
♦First settlements of the Ottomans.♦
The first settlements of the Ottoman Turks were on the banks of the
_Sangarios_, which gave them from the beginning a threatening position
towards Europe. ♦1299.♦ By the end of the thirteenth century they were
firmly established in that region. In the first half of the fourteenth
they became the leading power in Western Asia. ♦Conquest of Brusa.
1326-1330.♦ _Brusa_, the Asiatic capital, won in the last days of
the Emir Othman, has a manifest eye towards Europe. ♦Of Nikaia and
Nikomêdeia. 1330-1338.♦ _Nikaia_ and _Nikomêdeia_ followed, and the
Ottoman stepped geographically into the same position towards the
revived Greek Empire which the Nicene princes had held towards the
Latin Empire. ♦Entry into Europe. 1354. | Conquest of Hadrianople.
1361.♦ In the last days of the Emir Othman came their passage into
Europe, and a few more years saw Amurath in his European capital of
Hadrianople, completely hemming Constantinople in. ♦Ottoman advance.♦
The second half of the fourteenth century was a time of the most
speedy Ottoman advance, and the amount of real advance is by no means
represented by the change on the map. We have seen in the case of
Servia, of Greece, and of Hungary, that the course of Turkish invasion
commonly went through three stages. There was first the time of mere
plunder. Then came the tributary stage, and lastly, the day of complete
bondage. ♦Bajazet first Sultan, 1389-1402.♦ Under Bajazet, the first
Ottoman prince who bore the title of Sultan, the immediate Ottoman
dominion in Europe stretched from the Ægæan to the Danube. It took in
all Bulgaria, all Macedonia, Thessaly, and Thrace, save only Chalkidikê
and the district just round Constantinople. Servia and Wallachia were
dependent states, as indeed was the Empire itself. Central and southern
Greece, Bosnia, Hungary, even Styria, were lands open to plunder.
♦Battle of Angora. 1402.♦
This great dominion was broken in pieces by the victory of Timour
at Angora. It seemed that the empire of the Ottoman had passed away
like the empire of the Servian. ♦Break up of the Ottoman power.♦
The dominion of Bajazet was divided among his sons and the princes
of the dispossessed Turkish dynasties. The Christian states had a
breathing-time, and the sons of Bajazet were glad to give back to the
Empire some important parts of its lost territories. ♦Reunited under
Mahomet. 1413.♦ The Ottoman power came together again under Mahomet
the First; but for nearly half a century its advance was slower than
in the half-century before. The conquests of Mahomet and of Amurath
the Second lay mainly in the Greek and Albanian lands. ♦Conquest of
Thessalonikê. 1430.♦ The Turk now reached the Hadriatic, and the
conquest of Thessalonikê gave him a firmer hold on the Ægæan. Towards
Servia and Hungary he lost and he won again; he hardly conquered.
♦Mahomet the Conqueror. 1451-1481.♦ It was the thirty years of Mahomet
the Conqueror which finally gave the Ottoman dominion its European
position. ♦Conquest of Constantinople. 1453.♦ From his first and
greatest conquest of the New Rome, he gathered in what remained, Greek,
Frank, and Slave. The conquest of the Greek mainland, of Albania and
Bosnia, the final conquest of Servia, made him master of the whole
south-eastern peninsula, save only the points held by Venice and the
unconquered height of the Black Mountain. He began to gather in the
Western islands, and he struck the first great blow to the Venetian
power by the conquest of Euboia. Around the Euxine he won the Empire of
Trebizond and the points held by Genoa. The great mass of the islands
and the few Venetian points on the coast still escaped. ♦Extent of his
dominion.♦ Otherwise Mahomet the Conqueror held the whole European
dominions of Basil the Second, with a greater dominion in Asia than
that of Manuel Komnênos. From the Danube to the Tanais and beyond it,
he held a vast overlordship, over lands which had obeyed no Emperor
since Aurelian, over lands which had never obeyed any Emperor at all.
At last the Mussulman lord of Constantinople seemed about to win back
the Italian dominion of its Christian lords. ♦Taking of Otranto, 1480.♦
In his last days, by the possession of Otranto, Mahomet ruled west of
the Hadriatic.
It might have been deemed that the little cloud which now lighted on
Otranto would grow as fast as the little cloud which a hundred and
thirty years before had lighted on Kallipolis. But Bajazet the Second
made no conquests save the points which were won from Venice. ♦Conquest
of Syria and Egypt. 1516-17.♦ Selim the First, the greatest conqueror
of his line against fellow Mahometans, had no leisure, while winning
Syria and Egypt, to make any advance on Christian ground. ♦Conquests
of Suleiman. 1520-1566.♦ But under Suleiman the Lawgiver, not only the
overlordship but the immediate rule of Constantinople under its Turkish
Sultans was spread over wide European lands which had never obeyed its
Christian Emperors. ♦His African overlordship.♦ Then too its Mussulman
lords won back at least the nominal overlordship of that African
seaboard which the first Mussulmans had rent away from the allegiance
of Constantinople. The greatest conquest of Suleiman was made in
Hungary; but he also made the Ægæan an Ottoman sea. The early years of
his reign saw the driving of the Knights from Rhodes, and the winning
of their fortress of Halikarnassos, the last European possession on
Asiatic ground. His last days saw the annexation of the Naxian duchy;
at an intermediate stage Venice lost her Peloponnesian strongholds.
♦Algiers. 1519.♦ In Africa the Turk received the commendation of
_Algiers_ and of _Tunis_. ♦Tunis conquered by Charles the Fifth.
1531. | 1535.♦ But Tunis, won for Christendom by the Imperial King of
the Two Sicilies, was lost and won again, till it was finally won for
Islam by the second Selim. _Tripolis_, granted to the Knights, also
passed to Suleiman. ♦1574.♦ Under Selim _Cyprus_ was added; the fight
of Lepanto could neither save nor recover it; but the advance of the
Turk was stopped. ♦Decline of the Ottoman power.♦ The conquests of the
seventeenth century were small compared with those of earlier days,
and, before that century was out, the Ottoman Terminus had begun to go
back.
♦Greatest extent of the Ottoman power.♦
Yet it was in the last half of the seventeenth century that the
Ottoman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent. ♦Conquest of
Crete. 1641-1669. | of Podolia. 1672-1676.♦ _Crete_ was now won; a
few years later _Kamienetz_ and all _Podolia_ were ceded to the Turk
by Poland. This was not absolutely his last European acquisition, but
it was his last acquisition of a great province. The Ottoman dominion
now covered a wider space on the map than it had done at any earlier
moment. Suleiman in all his glory had not reigned over Cyprus, Crete,
and Podolia. The tide now turned for ever. ♦The Ottoman frontier falls
back.♦ From that time the Ottoman has, like his Byzantine predecessor,
had his periods of revival and recovery, but on the whole his frontier
has steadily gone back.
♦Ottoman loss of Hungary. 1683-1699.♦
The first great blow to the integrity and independence of the
Ottoman Empire was dealt in the war which was ended by the Peace of
Carlowitz. We have seen how Hungary and Peloponnêsos were won back
for Christendom; so was Podolia. We have seen too how at the next
stage the Turk gained at one end and lost at the other, winning back
Peloponnêsos, winning Mykonos and Tênos, but losing on the Save and the
Danube. The next stage shows the Ottoman frontier again in advance;
in our own day we have seen it again fall back. And the change which
has given Bosnia and Herzegovina to the master of Dalmatia, Ragusa,
and Cattaro has, besides throwing back the frontier of the Turk,
redressed a very old geographical wrong. ♦Union of inland and maritime
Illyricum.♦ Ever since the first Slavonic settlements, the inland
region of northern Illyricum has been more or less thoroughly cut off
from the coast cities which form its natural outlets. Whatever may be
the fate of those lands, the body is again joined to the mouth, and the
mouth to the body, and we can hardly fancy them again severed.
* * * * *
The same arrangements which transferred the ‘administration’ of Bosnia
and Herzegovina to the King of Hungary and Dalmatia, have transferred
another part of the Ottoman dominion to a more distant European power
on terms which are still less easy to understand. ♦Cyprus. 1878.♦ The
Greek island of _Cyprus_ has passed to English rule; but it is after
a fashion which may imply that the conquest of Richard of Poitou is
held—not, it is to be hoped, by the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland,
but possibly by the Empress of India—as a tributary of the Ottoman
Sultan.
* * * * *
During the former half of the eighteenth century the shiftings of
the Ottoman territory to the north were all on the side of Austria
or Hungary. ♦Relations of the Turk towards Russia.♦ But a new enemy
of the Turk appeared towards the end of the seventeenth century, one
who was, before the end of the eighteenth, to stand forth as his
chief enemy. ♦Loss and recovery of Azof. 1696-1711.♦ Under Peter the
Great _Azof_ was won by Russia and lost again. Sixty years later
great geographical changes took place in the same region. ♦Treaty of
Kainardji. 1774. | Independence of Crim.♦ By the Treaty of Kainardji,
the dependent khanate of _Crim_—the old Tauric Chersonêsos and the
neighbouring lands—was released from the superiority of the Sultan.
♦Russian annexation of Crim. 1783.♦ This was a natural step towards
its annexation by Russia, which thus again made her way to the Euxine.
♦Of Jedisan. 1791.♦ The Bug was now the frontier; presently, by the
Russian annexation of _Oczakow_ and the land of Jedisan, it fell back
to the Dniester. By the treaty of Bucharest the frontier alike of the
dominion and of the overlordship of the Turk fell back to the Pruth and
the lower Danube. ♦Of Bessarabia. 1812. | Shiftings of the Moldavian
frontier.♦ Russia thus gained _Bessarabia_ and the eastern part of
_Moldavia_. ♦Treaty of Hadrianople. 1829.♦ By the Treaty of Hadrianople
she further won the islands at the mouth of the Danube. ♦Treaty of
Paris, 1856;♦ The Treaty of Paris restored to Moldavia a small part
of the lands ceded at Bucharest, so as to keep the Russian frontier
away from the Danube. ♦of Berlin, 1878.♦ This last cession, with the
exception of the islands, was recovered by Russia at the Treaty of
Berlin. But changes of frontier in those regions no longer affect the
dominion of the Turk.
§ 9. _The Liberated States._
♦Lands liberated from the Ottoman.♦
The losses which the Ottoman power has undergone at the hands of its
independent neighbours, Russia, Montenegro, and Austria or Hungary,
must be distinguished from the liberation of certain lands from Turkish
rule to form new or revived European states. We have seen that the
kingdom of Hungary and its dependent lands might fairly come under this
head, and we have seen in what the circumstances of their liberation
differ from the liberation of Greece or Servia or Bulgaria. But it is
important to bear in mind that the Turk had to be driven from Hungary,
no less than from Greece, Servia, and Bulgaria. If the Turk has ruled
at Belgrade, at Athens, and at Tirnovo, he has ruled at Buda no less.
All stand in the same opposition to Tzetinje, where he has never ruled.
As the Servian people was the only one among the south-eastern nations
of which any part maintained its abiding independence, so the enslaved
part of the Servian people was the first among the subject nations to
throw off the yoke. ♦The Ionian Islands.♦ But the first attempt to form
anything like a free state in south-eastern Europe was made among a
branch of the Greek nation, in the so-called _Ionian Islands_. But the
form which the attempt took was no lessening of the Turkish dominion,
but its increase. ♦Ceded to France. 1797.♦ By the peace of Campoformio,
the islands, with the few Venetian points on the mainland, were to
pass to France. ♦Septinsular Republic under Ottoman overlordship.
1798.♦ By the treaty of the next year between Russia and the Turk,
the points on the mainland were to be handed over to the Turk, while
the islands were to form a commonwealth, tributary to the Turk, but
under the protection of Russia. ♦The Venetian outposts given to the
Turk.♦ Thus, besides an advance of the Turk’s immediate dominion on
the mainland, his overlordship was to be extended over the islands,
including Corfu, the one island which had never come under his power.
♦Surrender of Parga. 1819.♦ The other points on the mainland passed,
not so much to the Sultan as to his rebellious vassal Ali of Jôannina;
but _Parga_ kept its freedom till five years after the general peace.
♦All Albania and continental Greece under the Turk.♦ Thus the Turk made
his last encroachment on Christendom, and held for a moment the whole
of the Greek and Albanian mainland. ♦The Ionian Islands under English
protection. 1815.♦ The islands meanwhile, tossed to and fro during the
war between France and England, were at the peace again made into a
nominal commonwealth, but under a form of British protection which it
is not easy to distinguish from British sovereignty. Still a nominally
free Greek state was again set up, and the possibility of Greek freedom
on a larger scale was practically acknowledged.
♦The Greek War of Independence. 1821.♦
It was only for a very short time that the Turk held complete
possession of all Albania and continental Greece. Two years after the
betrayal of Parga began the Greek War of Independence. ♦Extent of
the Greek nation.♦ The geographical disposition of the Greek nation
has changed very little since the Latin conquest of Constantinople;
it has changed very little since the later days of old Hellas. At
all these stages some other people has held the solid mainland of
south-eastern Europe and of western Asia, while the Greek has been the
prevailing race on the coasts, the islands, the peninsular lands, of
both continents, from Durazzo to Trebizond. ♦General Greek revolt.♦
Within this range the Greeks revolted at every point where they were
strong enough to revolt at all. ♦Extent of the liberated territory.♦
But it was only in the old Hellenic mainland, and in Crete and others
of the Ægæan islands, that the Greeks were able to hold their ground.
♦1829-1833.♦ Of these lands some parts were allowed by Western
diplomacy to keep their freedom. ♦Kingdom of Greece.♦ A _Kingdom of
Greece_ was formed, taking in Peloponnêsos, Euboia, the Kyklades, and
a small part of central Greece, south of a line drawn from the gulf
of Arta to the gulf of Volo. But the Turk was allowed to hold, not
only the more distant Greek lands and islands, but Epeiros, Thessaly,
and Crete. ♦Ionian islands added to Greece. 1864.♦ The kingdom was
afterwards enlarged by the addition of the Ionian islands, whose
nominal Septinsular Republic was merged in the kingdom. ♦Treaty of
Berlin. 1878.♦ By the Treaty of Berlin, Crete, which had twice risen,
was thrust back into bondage, but parts of Thessaly and Epeiros were
ordered to be set free and to be added to the kingdom. ♦Its promises
unfulfilled.♦ But even this small instalment of Greek emancipation has
not yet been carried out.
* * * * *
♦First revolt and deliverance of Servia. 1805-1812.♦
Between the first and the second establishment of the Ionian
commonwealth, Servia had been delivered and had been conquered again.
The first revolt made Servia a tributary principality. ♦Second revolt
and deliverance. 1817-1829.♦ It was then won back by the Turk and
again delivered. ♦1826-1829.♦ Its freedom, modified by the payment of
tribute and by the presence of Turkish garrisons in certain towns, was
decreed by the peace of Akerman, and was carried out by the treaty of
Hadrianople. ♦Withdrawal of Turkish garrisons. 1867.♦ Fifty years after
the second establishment of the principality, its practical freedom
was made good by the withdrawal of the Turkish garrisons. ♦Servia
independent with an enlarged territory. 1878.♦ The last changes have
made Servia, under a native dynasty, an independent state, released
from all tribute or vassalage. The same changes have given Servia a
slight increase of territory. ♦Servian territory left to the Turk.♦
But the boundary is so drawn as to leave part of the old Servian land
to the Turk, and carefully to keep the frontiers of the Servian and
Montenegrin principalities apart. That is to say, the Servian nation
is split into four parts—Montenegro, free Servia, Turkish Servia, and
those Servian lands which are, some under the ‘administration,’ some
under the acknowledged rule, of the King of Hungary and Dalmatia.
* * * * *
♦The Rouman principalities.♦
While Servia and Greece were under the immediate rule of the Turk,
the Rouman lands of _Wallachia_ and _Moldavia_ always kept a certain
measure of separate being. The Turk named and deposed their princes,
but they never came under his direct rule. ♦Union of Wallachia and
Moldavia. 1861.♦ After the Treaty of Paris, the two principalities,
being again allowed to choose for themselves, took the first step
towards union by choosing the same prince. Then followed their complete
union as the _Principality of Roumania_, paying tribute to the Turk,
but otherwise free. ♦Independence of Roumania. 1878.♦ The last changes
have made Roumania, as well as Servia, an independent state. Its
frontier towards Russia, enlarged at Paris, was cut short at Berlin.
♦Change of its frontier.♦ But this last treaty restored to it the
land of _Dobrutcha_ south of the Danube, thus giving the new state a
certain Euxine sea-board. Thus the Roumans, the Romance-speaking people
of Eastern Europe, still a scattered remnant in their older seats,
have, in their great colony on the Danube, won for themselves a place
among the nations of Europe.
* * * * *
Lastly, while Servia and Roumania have been wholly freed from the
yoke, a part of _Bulgaria_ has been raised to that position of
practical independence which they formerly held. ♦The Bulgaria of San
Stefano. 1878.♦ The Russian treaty of San Stefano decreed a tributary
principality of Bulgaria, whose boundaries came most nearly to those
of the third Bulgarian kingdom at its greatest extent. But it was to
have, what no Bulgarian state had had before, a considerable Ægæan
sea-board. This would have had the effect of splitting the immediate
dominion of the Turk in two. It would also have had the real fault
of adding to Bulgaria some districts which ought rather to be added
to free Greece. ♦Treaty of Berlin. | Division of Bulgaria.♦ By the
Treaty of Berlin the Turk was to keep the whole north coast of the
Ægæan, while the Bulgarian nation was split into three parts, in
three different political conditions. ♦Free.♦ The oldest and latest
Bulgarian land, the land between Danube and Balkan, forms, with the
exception of the corner ceded to Roumania, the tributary _Principality
of Bulgaria_. ♦Half-free.♦ The land immediately south of the Danube,
the southern Bulgaria of history—northern Roumelia, according to the
compass—receives the diplomatic name of _Eastern Roumelia_, a name
which would more naturally take in Constantinople. Its political
condition is described as ‘administrative autonomy,’ a half-way house,
it would seem, between bondage and freedom. ♦Enslaved.♦ Meanwhile in
the old Macedonian land, the land for which Basil and Samuel strove so
stoutly, the question between Greek and Bulgarian is held to be solved
by handing over Greek and Bulgarian alike to the uncovenanted mercies
of the Turk.
* * * * *
♦General Survey.♦
We may end our survey of the south-eastern lands by taking a general
view of their geographical position at some of the most important
points in their history. ♦800.♦ At the end of the eighth century we
see the Eastern Empire still stretching from Tauros to Sardinia; but
everywhere, save in its solid Asiatic peninsula, it has shrunk up into
a dominion of coasts and islands. It still holds Sicily, Sardinia, and
Crete, the heel and the toe of Italy, the outlying duchies of Campania,
the outlying duchy at the head of the Hadriatic. In its great European
peninsula it holds the whole of the Ægæan coast, a great part of the
coasts of the Euxine and the Hadriatic. But the lord of the sea rules
nowhere far from the sea; the inland regions are held, partly by the
great Bulgarian power, partly by smaller Slavonic tribes fluctuating
between independence and formal submission. ♦900.♦ At the end of the
next century the general character of the East-Roman dominion remains
the same, but many points of detail have changed. Sardinia and Crete
are lost; a corner is all that is left in Sicily; but the Imperial
power is acknowledged along the whole eastern Hadriatic coast; the
heel and the toe have grown into the dominion of all southern Italy;
all Greece has been won back to the Empire. But the Empire has now new
neighbours. The Turanian Magyar is seated on the Danube, and other
kindred nations are pressing in his wake. Russians, Slaves that is
under Scandinavian leadership, threaten the Empire by sea. ♦1000.♦
The last year of the tenth century shows Sicily wholly lost, but
Crete and Cyprus won back; Kilikia and Northern Syria are won again;
Bulgaria is won and lost again; Russian establishment on the Danube
is put off for eight hundred years; the great struggle is going on
to decide whether the Slave or the Eastern Roman is to rule in the
south-eastern peninsula. ♦c. 1040.♦ At one moment in the eleventh
century we see the dominion of the New Rome at its full height. Europe
south of the Danube and its great tributaries, Asia to Caucasus and
almost to the Caspian, form a compact body of dominion, stretching
from the Venetian isles to the old Phœnician cities. The Italian and
insular dominion is untouched; it is enlarged for a moment by Sicilian
conquest. ♦c. 1090.♦ Another glance, half-a-century later, shows the
time when the Empire was most frightfully cut short by old enemies
and new. The Servian wins back his own land; the Saracen wins back
Sicily. The Norman in Italy cuts down the Imperial dominion to the
nominal superiority of Naples, the last of Greek cities in the West,
as Kymê was the first. For a moment he even plants himself east of
Hadria, and rends away Corfu and Durazzo from the Eastern world, as
Rome rent them away thirteen centuries before. The Turk swallows up the
inland provinces of Asia; he plants his throne at Nikaia, and leaves
to the Empire no Asiatic dominion beyond a strip of Euxine and Ægæan
coast. ♦c. 1180.♦ Towards the end of the twelfth century, the Empire
is restored to its full extent in Europe; Servia and Dalmatia are won
back, Hungary itself looks like a vassal. In Asia the inland realm
of the Turk is hemmed in by the strong Imperial grasp of the whole
coast-line, Euxine, Ægæan, and Mediterranean. ♦c. 1200.♦ At the next
moment comes the beginning of the final overthrow; before the century
is out, the distant possessions of the Empire have either fallen away
of themselves, or have been rent away by other powers. Bulgaria,
Cyprus, Trebizond, Corfu, even Epeiros and Hellas, have parted away,
or are in the act of parting away. ♦1204.♦ Venice, its long nominal
homage cast aside, joins with faithless crusaders to split the Empire
in pieces. The Flemish Emperor reigns at Constantinople; the Lombard
King reigns at Thessalonikê; Achaia, Athens, Naxos, give their names
to more abiding dynasties; Venice plants herself firmly in Crete and
Peloponnêsos. Still the Empire is not dead. The Frank, victorious
in Europe, hardly wins a footing in Asia. Nikaia and Trebizond keep
on the Imperial succession, and a third Greek power, for a moment
Imperial also, holds it in Western Greece and the islands. ♦1250.♦
Fifty years later, the Empire of Nikaia has become an European power;
it has already outlived the Latin dominion at Thessalonikê; it has
checked the revived power of Bulgaria; it has cut short the Latin
Empire to the immediate neighbourhood of the Imperial city. To the
north Servia is strengthening herself; Bosnia is coming into being;
the Dalmatian cities are tossed to and fro among their neighbours.
♦1300.♦ Another glance at the end of the thirteenth century shows us
the revived East-Roman Empire in its old Imperial seat, still in Europe
an advancing and conquering power, ruling on the three seas of its
own peninsula, established once more in Peloponnêsos, a compact and
seemingly powerful state, as compared with the Epeirot, Achaian, and
Athenian principalities, or with the scattered possessions of Venice
in the Greek lands. But the power which seems so firmly established
in Europe has all but passed away in Asia. There the Turk has taken
the place of the Greek, and the Greek the place of the Frank, as they
stood a hundred years earlier. And behind the immediate Turkish enemies
stands that younger and mightier Turkish power which is to swallow up
all its neighbours, Mussulman and Christian. ♦c. 1354.♦ In the central
years of the fourteenth century we see the Empire hemmed in between two
enemies, European and Asiatic, which have risen to unexpected power
at the same time. Part of Thrace, Chalkidikê, part of Thessaly, a few
scattered points in Asia, are left to the Empire; in Peloponnêsos alone
is it an advancing power; everywhere else its frontiers have fallen
back. The Servian Tzar rules from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth.
The Ottoman Emir has left but a few fragments to the Empire in Asia,
and has already fixed his grasp on Europe. ♦1400.♦ Before the century
is ended, neither Constantinople, nor Servia, nor any other Christian
power, is dominant in the south-eastern peninsula. The Ottoman rules
in their stead. The Empire is cut short to a corner of Thrace, with
Thessalonikê, Chalkidikê, and the Peloponnesian province which now
forms its greatest possession. Instead of the great power of Servia,
we see a crowd of small principalities, Greek, Slavonic, and Albanian,
falling for the most part under either Ottoman or Venetian supremacy.
The Servian name is still borne by one of them; but its prince is a
Turkish vassal; the true representative of Servian independence has
already begun to show itself among the mountains which look down on the
mouths of Cattaro and the lake of Skodra. Bulgaria has fallen lower
still; the Turk’s immediate power reaches to the Danube. Bosnia at one
end, the Frank principalities at the other end, the Venetian islands
in either sea, still hold out; but the Turk has begun, if not to rule
over them, at least to harry them. Within the memory of men who could
remember when the Empire of Servia was not yet, who could remember when
the eagles of Constantinople still went forth to victory, the Ottoman
had become the true master of the South-Eastern lands; whatever has
as yet escaped his grasp remained simply as remnants ready for the
gleaning.
♦1500.♦
We will take our next glance in the later years of the fifteenth
century, a few years after the death of the great conqueror. The
momentary break-up of the power of the Ottoman has been followed by the
greatest of his conquests. All now is over. The New Rome is the seat of
barbarian power. Trebizond, Peloponnêsos, Athens, Euboia, the remnant
of independent Epeiros, Servia, Bosnia, Albania, all are gathered in.
The islands are still mostly untouched; but the whole mainland is
conquered, save where Venice still holds her outposts, and where the
warrior prelates of the Black Mountain, the one independent Christian
power from the Save to Cape Matapan, have entered on their career of
undying glory. With these small exceptions, the whole dominion of the
Macedonian Emperors has passed into Ottoman hands, together with a
vast tributary dominion beyond the Danube, much of which had never
bowed to either Rome. ♦1600.♦ At the end of another century, we see all
Hungary, save a tributary remnant, a subject land of the Turk. We see
Venice shorn of Cyprus and all her Peloponnesian possessions. The Dukes
have gone from Naxos and the Knights from Rhodes, and the Mussulman
lord of so many Christian lands has spread his power over his fellow
Mussulmans in Syria, Egypt, and Africa. ♦1700.♦ Another century passes,
and the tide is turned. The Turk can still conquer; he has won Crete
abidingly and Podolia for a moment. But the crescent has passed away
for ever from Buda and from the Western isles; it has passed away for a
moment from Corinth and all Peloponnêsos. ♦1800.♦ At the end of another
century we see the Turk’s immediate possession bounded by the Save
and the Danube, and his overlordship bounded by the Dniester. His old
rivals Poland and Venice are no more; but Austria hems in his Slavonic
provinces; France struggles for the islands off his western shore;
Russia watches him from the peninsula so long held by the free Goth
and the free Greek. ♦1878.♦ Seventy-eight years more, and his shadow
of overlordship ends at the Danube, his shadow of immediate dominion
ends at the Balkan. Free Greece, free Servia, free Roumania—Montenegro
again reaching to her own sea—Bulgaria parted into three, but longing
for reunion—Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cyprus, held in a mysterious way by
neighbouring or distant European powers—all join to form, not so much
a picture as a dissolving view. We see in them a transitional state of
things, which diplomacy fondly believes to be an eternal settlement of
an eternal question, but of which reason and history can say only that
we know not what a day may bring forth.
[Long after this chapter was written, after the whole of it was
printed, after a great part of it was revised for the press, there
appeared the first volume of the great collection of C. N. Sathas,
Μνημεῖα τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Ἱσορίας, _Documents Inédits relatifs à
l’Histoire de la Grèce au Moyen Âge_ (Paris, 1880). In his preface
M. Sathas insists on two points. One is the Greek character of the
Eastern Empire throughout its whole being; that it had a Greek
side no one ever thought of denying. He brings together a good
many occasional instances, largely from unprinted manuscripts, of
the use of Ἕλλην and Ἑλλάς through the whole period of the Empire.
That the name came into rhetorical use by a kind of _Renaissance_
about the thirteenth century is undoubted. I brought together some
few instances in my Historical Essays, iii. 246, and the whole
history of Laonikos Chalkokondylas is one long instance. M. Sathas
brings several others from much earlier times. But they seem to me
to be mainly cases of the rhetorical use of an antiquated name,
such as is common among all nations. They do not seem to affect
the proposition that the regular national name of the Empire and
its people was always _Roman_. M. Sathas’ other point is somewhat
startling. It is that the Slavonic occupation of a large part of
Greece, as to the extent of which there has been much disputing,
but which I never before saw altogether denied, is all a mistake.
According to him the settlers were not Slaves, but Albanians,
called Slaves by that lax use of national names of which there
certainly are plenty of instances. I cannot undertake either to
accept or to refute M. Sathas’ doctrine during the process of
revising a proof-sheet. I can only put the fact on record that one
who has gone very deeply into the matter has come to this, to me at
least, altogether new conclusion.]
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Unless we except the momentary existence of the first Septinsular
Republic, to be spoken of below.
[25] The longer form Λογγιβαρδία clave to this theme, while the Greeks
learned to apply the contracted form Λαμπαρδοί to the Lombards of
Northern Italy.
[26] A temporary Bulgarian occupation seems clear from Einhard, Annals,
827, 828. But on the supposed existence of a Bulgarian duchy in the
present Hungary see Roesler, _Romänische Studien_, 201.
[27] It must be remembered that δεσπότης was and is a common Byzantine
title, with no worse meaning than _dominus_ or any of the words which
translate it.
[28] On this very singular, but very obscure, little state see our
own Benedict (ii. 199) and Roger of Howden (iii. 161, 269), and
the Ghibeline Annals of Placentia, Pertz, xix. 468. See also Hopf,
_Geschichte Griechenlands_, vi. 161.
[29] See above, p. 379.
[30] It is well to see this familiar title in Greek. The Duke (δοὺξ
Βενετίας) was δεσποτικῷ ἀξιώματι τιμηθεὶς, ἔχειν τε ἐξ ὅλου πρὸς τὸ
ὅλον ὃ τὸ τῶν Φράγκων ἐκτήσατο γένος τὸ τέταρτον καὶ τοῦ τετάρτου τὸ
ἥμισυ. George Akropolitês, 15. ed. Bonn.
[31] If this is what is really meant by _Laza_ or _Lacta_ in the Act of
Partition. Muratori, xii. 357.
[32] See the Venetian Chronicle in Pertz, viii. 29, 32. After the
Venetian conquest the Duke’s name is placed after that of the Emperor
in religious ceremonies. But we see how slight was the real hold of
the Empire on these distant dependencies, when we find that, on the
submission of Croatia and Dalmatia to Basil the Macedonian, the tribute
of the cities was assigned to the Croatian prince.
[33] _Negroponte_—a wild corruption of _Euripos_—is strictly the
name of one of the Latin baronies in Euboia, and has been carelessly
transferred to the whole island, as Crete used often to be called
_Candia_.
[34] Ἄσπρη θάλασσα, as distinguished from the Euxine, the μαύρη θάλασσα.
[35] Fallmerayer gives the name a Slavonic origin; Hopf and Hertzberg
make Μωραία a transposition of Ῥὡμαία. Neither derivation is
satisfactory; but either is better than the mulberry-leaf.
[36] _Grand Sire_, _Megaskyr_, = μέγας κύριος. See Nikêphoros Grêgoras,
vii. 5, vol. i. p. 239.
[37] See above, p. 388.
[38] See above, p. 283.
[39] See below, p. 425.
[40] See p. 141. It was Thessaly, less _Neopatra_ attached to Athens,
_Pteleon_ held by Venice, _Zeitouni_ by the Empire.
[41] ‘Basilissa Romæorum’ = Ῥωμαίων βασίλισσα. ‘Rom_æ_i’ is not
uncommonly used for the Ῥωμαῐωι of the East, as distinguished from the
‘Rom_an_orum Imperator’ of the West.
[42] See above, p. 377.
[43] See above, p. 420.
[44] He claimed (see Jireček, _Geschichte der Bulgaren_, p. 351)
to rule over the Greek, the Albanian, and the Servian lands, from
Hadrianople to Durazzo.
[45] The history of George Akropolitês gives a narrative of these wars
which is worth studying, if only for its close bearing on the most
recent events.
[46] See above, p. 157.
[47] See above, p. 158.
[48] On the origin of the name, see Roesler, _Romänische Studien_, 159,
218, 260. There is something strange in Constantine calling the Finnish
Magyars Τοῠρκοι, in opposition to the really Turkish Patzinaks. His
Τουρκία and Φραγγία are of course Hungary and Germany. De Adm. Imp. 13,
40. pp. 81, 173. ed. Bonn.
[49] Also called _Siebenbürgen_, a corruption of the name of the
fortress of _Cibin_, which has many spellings.
[50] I must have given far more faith to it than I do now when I
wrote p. 71. Roesler’s book, _Romänische Studien_, has since put the
whole matter in a clear light; nor can I think that his arguments are
at all set aside by the answer of Jung, _Römer und Romanen in den
Donauländern_. Innsbruck, 1877.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BALTIC LANDS.
♦Lands beyond the two Empires.♦
Our survey of the two Empires and of the powers which sprang out of
them has still left out of sight a large part of Europe, including some
lands which formed part of the elder Empire. It is only indirectly that
we have spoken of the extreme north, the extreme east, or the extreme
west, of Europe. ♦_Quasi_-Imperial position of certain powers.♦ In
all these regions powers have risen and fallen which might pass for
shadows of the two Empires of Rome. ♦The British islands.♦ Thus in the
north-west lie two great islands with a following of smaller ones, of
which the elder Empire never held more than part of the greater island
and those of the smaller ones which could not be separated from it.
Britain passed for a world of its own, and the princes who rose to a
_quasi_-Imperial position within that world took, by a kind of analogy,
the titles of Empire.[51] ♦Scandinavia.♦ In the extreme north are a
larger and smaller peninsula, with their attendant islands, which lay
wholly beyond the elder Empire, and of which the later Western Empire
took in only a very small part for a short time. ♦Empire of Cnut.♦
The momentary union of these two insular and peninsular systems, of
Britain and Scandinavia, formed more truly a third Empire of the North,
fully the fellow of those of the East and West.[52] ♦Spain.♦ In the
south-west of Europe again lay another great peninsula, which had
been fully incorporated with the elder Empire, parts of which—at two
opposite ends—had belonged to the Empire of Justinian and to the Empire
of Charles, but whose history, as a whole, stands apart from that of
either the Eastern or the Western Roman power. And in Spain also, as
being, like Britain, in some sort a world of its own, the leading power
asserted an Imperial rank. ♦Castilian Emperors.♦ As Wessex had its
Emperors, so had Castile.
♦History of the lands beyond the Empires.♦
Britain, Scandinavia, and Spain, thus form three marked geographical
wholes, three great divisions of that part of Europe which lay
outside the bounds of either Empire at the time of the separation.
But the geographical position of the three regions has led to marked
differences in their history. Insular Britain is wholly oceanic.
♦Geographical comparison of Scandinavia and Spain.♦ Peninsular Spain
and Scandinavia have each an oceanic side; but each has also a side
towards one of the great inland seas of Europe—Spain towards the
Mediterranean, Scandinavia towards the northern Mediterranean, the
Baltic. But the Baltic side of Scandinavia has been of far greater
relative importance than the Mediterranean side of Spain. ♦Position
of Aragon in the Mediterranean.♦ Of the three chief Spanish kingdoms
Aragon alone has a Mediterranean history; the seaward course of Castile
and Portugal was oceanic. Of the three Scandinavian kingdoms Norway
alone is wholly oceanic. ♦Position of Sweden in the Baltic.♦ Denmark is
more Baltic than oceanic; the whole historic life of Sweden lies on the
Baltic coasts. The Mediterranean position of Aragon enabled her to win
whole kingdoms as her dependencies. But they were not geographically
continuous, and they never could be incorporated. Sweden, on the other
hand, was able to establish a continuous dominion on both sides of the
great northern gulfs, and to make at least a nearer approach to the
incorporation of her conquests than Aragon could ever make. ♦Growth
and decline of Sweden.♦ The history of Sweden mainly consists in the
growth and the loss of her dominion in the Baltic lands out of her
own peninsula. It is only in quite modern times that the union of the
crowns, though not of the kingdoms, of Sweden and Norway has created a
power wholly peninsular and equally Baltic and oceanic.
♦Eastern and western aspects of Scandinavia.♦
This eastern aspect of Scandinavian history needs the more to be
insisted on, because there is another side of it with which we
are naturally more likely to be struck. Scandinavian inroads and
conquests—inroads and conquests, that is, from Denmark and Norway—make
up a large part of the early history of Gaul and Britain. When this
phase of their history ends, the Scandinavian kingdoms are apt to pass
out of our sight, till we are perhaps surprised at the great part which
they suddenly play in Europe in the seventeenth century. But both
Denmark and Sweden had meanwhile been running their course in the lands
north, east, and south of the Baltic. And it is this Baltic side of
their history which is of primary importance in our general European
view.
♦The Baltic lands generally.♦
It follows then that, for the purposes of our present survey, while the
British islands and the Spanish peninsula will each claim a distinct
treatment, we cannot separate the Scandinavian peninsulas from the
general mass of the Baltic lands. ♦The Northern Slavonic lands.♦ We
must look at Scandinavia in close geographical connexion with the
region which stretches from the centre to the extreme east of Europe,
a region which, while by no means wholly Slavonic, is best marked as
containing the seats of the northern branch of the Slavonic race. This
region has a constant connexion with both German and Scandinavian
history. ♦Germanized Slavonic lands.♦ It takes in those wide lands,
once Slavonic, which have at various times been more or less thoroughly
incorporated with Germany, but which did not become German without
vigorous efforts to make large parts of them Scandinavian. In another
part of our survey we have watched them join on to the Teutonic body;
we must now watch them drop off from the Slavonic body. ♦Northern
Slaves under Hungary or Austria.♦ And with them we must take another
glimpse at those among the Northern Slaves who passed under the power
of the Magyar, and of that composite dominion which claims the Magyar
crown among many others. These North-Slavonic lands which have passed
to non-Slavonic rulers form a region stretching from Holstein to
the Austrian kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and to the Slovak and
Ruthenian districts of Hungary. But above all, this North-Slavonic
region takes in those two branches of the Slavonic race which have in
turn lorded it over one another, neither of which passed permanently
under the lordship of either Empire, but one of which owed its
unity and national life to settlers from the Scandinavian north.
♦Characteristics of Poland and Russia.♦ That is to say, it is the
land of the Pole and the Russian, the land of the two branches of the
Slavonic race which passed severally under the spiritual dominion of
the elder and the younger Rome without passing under the temporal
dominion of either. ♦The primitive nations.♦ And within the same
region we have to deal with the remnant that is left of those ancient
nations, Aryan and non-Aryan, which so long refused all obedience to
either Church as well as to either Empire. ♦Aryan nations; Prussians
and Lithuanians.♦ The region at which we now look takes in the land of
those elder brethren of the European family whose speech has changed
less than any other European tongue from the Aryan speech once common
to all. Alongside of the Orthodox Russian, of the Catholic Pole, of the
Swede first Catholic and then Lutheran, we have to look on the long
abiding heathendom of the Lithuanian and the Prussian.[53] ♦Non-Aryan
Fins.♦ And at their side we have to look on older races still, on the
præ-Aryan nations on either side of the Bothnian and Finnish gulfs.
The history of the eastern coast of the Baltic is the history of the
struggle for the rule or the destruction of these ancient nations at
the hands of their Teutonic and Slavonic neighbours.
♦Central position of the North-Slavonic lands.♦
The whole North-Slavonic region, north-eastern rather than central
with regard to Europe in general, has still a central character of its
own. It is connected with the history of northern, of western, and
of south-eastern Europe. The falling away of so many Slavonic lands
to Germany is of itself no small part of German history. But besides
this, the strictly Polish and Russian area marches at once on the
Western Empire, on the lands which fringe the Eastern Empire, on the
Scandinavian North, and on the barbarian lands to the north-east. This
last feature is a characteristic both of the North-Slavonic region and
of the Scandinavian peninsula. ♦Barbarian neighbours of Russia and
Scandinavia.♦ Norway, Sweden, Russia, are the only European powers
whose land has always marched on the land of barbarian neighbours,
and have therefore been able to conquer and colonize in barbarian
lands simply by extending their own frontiers. This was done by Norway
and Sweden as far as their geographical position allowed them; but it
has been done on a far greater scale by Russia. ♦Russian conquest and
colonization by land.♦ While other European nations have conquered
and colonized by sea, Russia, the one European state of later times
which has marched upon Asia, has found a boundless field for conquest
and colonization by land. She has had her India, her Canada, and
her Australia, her Mexico, her Brazil, her Java, and her Algeria,
geographically continuous with her European territory. This fact is the
key to much in the later history of Russia.
♦Relation of the Baltic lands to the two Empires.♦
With regard to the two Empires, the lands round the Baltic show us
several relations. ♦Norway always independent.♦ In Scandinavia,
Norway stands alone in never having had anything to do with the Roman
power in any of its forms. ♦Relations of Sweden and Denmark to the
Empire.♦ Sweden itself has always been equally independent; but in
later times Swedish kings have held fiefs within the Western Empire.
The position of Denmark has naturally caused it to have much more to
do with its Roman or German neighbour. In earlier times some Danish
kings became vassals of the Empire for the Danish crown; others made
conquests within the lands of the Empire. In later times Danish kings
have held fiefs within the German kingdom and have been members of the
more modern Confederation. ♦The Empire and the West-Slavonic lands.♦
The western parts of the Slavonic region became formally part of the
Western Empire. But this was after the Empire had put on the character
of a German state; these lands were not drawn to it from its strictly
Imperial side. ♦Poland and the Empire.♦ Poland sometimes passed in
early days for a fief of the German kingdom; in later days it was
divided between the two chief powers which arose out of that kingdom.
♦Relations of Russia to the Eastern Church and Empire.♦ Russia, on the
other hand, the pupil of the Eastern Empire, has never been the subject
or the vassal of either Empire. When Russia had an external overlord,
he was an Asiatic barbarian. ♦Imperial style of Russia.♦ The peculiar
relation between Russia and Constantinople, spiritual submission
combined with temporal independence, has led to the appearance in
Russia of Imperial ideas and titles with a somewhat different meaning
from that with which they were taken in Spain and in Britain. The
Russian prince claims the Imperial style and bearings, not so much as
holding an Imperial position in a world of his own, as because the
most powerful prince of the Eastern Church in some sort inherits the
position of the Eastern Emperor in the general world of Europe.
§ 1. _The Scandinavian Lands after the Separation of the Empires._
At the end of the eighth century the Scandinavian and Slavonic
inhabitants of the Baltic lands as yet hardly touched one another. The
most northern Scandinavians and the most northern Slaves were still
far apart; if the two races anywhere marched on one another, it must
have been at the extreme south-western corner of the Baltic coast. ♦The
Baltic still mainly held by the earlier races.♦ The greater part of
that coast, all its northern and eastern parts, was still held by the
earlier nations, Aryan and non-Aryan. ♦Formation of the Scandinavian
kingdoms.♦ But, within the two Scandinavian peninsulas, the three
Scandinavian nations were fast forming. A number of kindred tribes were
settling down into the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,[54]
which, sometimes separate, sometimes united, have existed ever since.
Of these three, Denmark, the only one which had a frontier towards the
Empire, was naturally the first to play a part in general European
history. ♦Formation of the Danish kingdom.♦ In the course of the tenth
century, under the half-mythical Gorm and his successors Harold and
Sven, the Danish kingdom itself, as distinguished from other lands held
in after times by its kings, reached nearly its full historical extent
in the two peninsulas and the islands between them. ♦Denmark in the
northern peninsula.♦ _Halland_ and _Skåne_ or _Scania_, it must always
be remembered, are from the beginning at least as Danish as Zealand and
Jutland. ♦Frontier of the Eider. | The Danish March. 934-1027.♦ The
Eider remained the frontier towards the Empire, save during part of the
tenth and eleventh centuries, when the Danish frontier withdrew to the
Dannewerk, and the land between the two boundaries formed the _Danish
March_ of the Empire. Under Cnut the old frontier was restored.
The name of _Northmen_,[55] which the Franks used in a laxer way for
the Scandinavian nations generally, was confined to the people of
_Norway_. ♦Formation of the kingdom of Norway.♦ These were formed into
a single kingdom under Harold Harfagra late in the ninth century. The
Norwegian realm of that day stretched far beyond the bounds of the
later Norway, having an indefinite extension over tributary Finnish
tribes as far as the White Sea. The central part of the eastern side of
the northern peninsula, between Denmark to the south and the Finnish
nations to the north, was held by two Scandinavian settlements which
grew into the Swedish kingdom. ♦The Swedes and _Gauts_.♦ These were
those of the Swedes strictly so called, and of the _Geátas_ or _Gauts_.
This last name has naturally been confounded with that of the Goths,
and has given the title of _King of the Goths_ to the princes of
Sweden. _Gothland_, east and west, lay on each side of Lake Wettern.
_Swithiod_ or _Svealand_, Sweden proper, lay on both sides of the
great arm of the sea whose entrance is guarded by the modern capital.
♦The Swedish kingdom.♦ The union of Svealand and Gothland made up the
kingdom of Sweden. ♦Fluctuations towards Norway and Denmark. 1111.♦
Its early boundaries towards both Denmark and Norway were fluctuating.
_Wermeland_, immediately to the north of Lake Wenern, and _Jamteland_
farther to the north, were long a debateable land. At the beginning of
the twelfth century Wermeland passed finally to Sweden, and Jamteland
for several ages to Norway. _Bleking_ again, at the south-east corner
of the peninsula, was a debateable land between Sweden and Denmark
which passed to Denmark. ♦Growth to the north.♦ For a land thus bounded
the natural course of extension by land lay to the north, along the
west coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. In the course of the eleventh
century at the latest, Sweden began to spread itself in that direction
over _Helsingland_.
Sweden had thus a better opportunity than Denmark and Norway for
extension of her own borders by land. ♦Western expeditions of the
Danes and Northmen.♦ Meanwhile Denmark and Norway, looking to the
west, had their great time of Oceanic conquest and colonization
in the ninth and tenth centuries.[56] These two processes must be
distinguished. ♦Conquests.♦ Some lands, like the Northumbrian and
East-Anglian kingdoms in Britain and the duchy of Normandy in Gaul,
received Scandinavian princes and a Scandinavian element in their
population, without the geographical area of Scandinavia being
extended. ♦Colonies.♦ But that area may be looked on as being extended
by colonies like those of _Orkney_, _Shetland_, _Faroe_, the islands
off the western coast of Scotland, _Man_, _Iceland_, _Greenland_. Some
of these were actually discovered and settled for the first time by the
Northmen. ♦Settlements in Ireland.♦ The settlements on the east coast
of Ireland, Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, may also pass as outposts of
Scandinavia on Celtic ground. Of these outlying Scandinavian lands,
some of the islands, specially Iceland, have remained Scandinavian; the
settlements on the mainland of Britain and Ireland, and on the islands
nearest to them, have been merged in the British kingdoms or have
become dependencies of the British crown.
♦Expedition to the east.♦
Against this vast range of Oceanic settlement there is as yet little to
set in the form of Baltic conquest on the part of Norway and Denmark.
Norway indeed hardly could become a Baltic power. ♦Danes in Samland.
950.♦ But there was a Danish occupation of _Samland_ in Prussia in the
tenth century, which caused that land to be reckoned among the kingdoms
which made up the Northern Empire of Cnut.[56] ♦Jomsburg. 935-1043.♦
There is also the famous settlement of the _Jomsburg_ Wikings at the
mouth of the Oder. But the great eastern extension of Danish power came
later. Nor did the lasting Swedish occupation of the lands east of
the gulf of Bothnia begin till the twelfth century. But there is no
doubt that, long before this, there were Swedish inroads and occasional
Swedish conquests in other parts of the Baltic lands. ♦Swedish conquest
of Curland.♦ Thus _Curland_ is said to have been won for a while by
Sweden, and to have been again won back by its own Lettic people.[57]
The ninth century indeed saw a wonderful extension of Scandinavian
dominion far to the east and far to the south. But it was neither
ordinary conquest nor ordinary settlement. No new Scandinavian people
was planted, as in Orkney and Iceland. Nor were Scandinavian outposts
planted, as in Ireland. ♦Scandinavians in Russia.♦ But Scandinavian
princes, who in three generations lost all trace of their Scandinavian
origin, created, under the name of _Russia_, the greatest of Slavonic
powers. The vast results of their establishment have been results on
the history and geography of the Slaves; on Scandinavian geography it
had no direct effect at all. Still it forms a connecting link between
the Scandinavian lands west and north of the Baltic and the Slavonic
region to the east and south of that sea.
§ 2. _The Lands East and South of the Baltic at the Separation of the
Empires._
♦Slaves between Elbe and Dnieper.♦
At the beginning of the ninth century the inland region stretching from
the Elbe a little beyond the Dnieper was continuously held by various
Slavonic nations. Their land marched on the German kingdom at one end,
and on various Finnish and Turkish nations at the other. ♦Their lack
of sea-board.♦ But their sea-board was comparatively small. Wholly cut
off from the Euxine, from the northern Ocean, and from the great gulfs
of the Baltic, their only coast was that which reaches from the modern
haven of Kiel to the mouth of the Vistula. And this Slavonic coast was
gradually brought under German influence and dominion, and has been in
the end fully incorporated with the German state. It follows then that,
in tracing the history of the chief Slavonic powers in this region,
of Bohemia, Poland, and Russia, we are dealing with powers which are
almost wholly inland. At the time of the separation of the Empires,
there was no one great Slavonic power in these parts. One such, with
Bohemia for its centre, had shown itself for a moment in the seventh
century. ♦Bohemian kingdom of Samo. 623.♦ This was the kingdom of
Samo, which, if its founder was really of Frankish birth, forms an
exact parallel to Bulgaria and Russia, also Slavonic powers created by
foreign princes.[58] ♦Great-Moravia. 884.♦ The next considerable power
which arose nearly on the same ground was the Great Moravian kingdom of
Sviatopluk, which passed away before the advance of the Magyars. Before
its fall the Russian power had already begun to form itself far to the
north-east. ♦Four Slavonic groups.♦ Looking at the map just before the
beginning of the momentary Moravian and the lasting Russian power,
the North-Slavonic nations fall into four main historical groups.
♦North-western group; thoroughly Germanized.♦ There are, first, the
tribes to the north-west, whose lands, answering roughly to the modern
Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Saxony, have been thoroughly
Germanized. ♦South-western group under German supremacy♦ Secondly,
there are the tribes to the south-west in _Bohemia_, _Moravia_, and
_Lusatia_, which were brought under German dominion or supremacy, but
from which Slavonic nationality has not in the same sort passed away.
_Silesia_, connected in different ways with both these groups, forms
the link between them and the third group. ♦Central group; Polish.♦
This is formed by the central tribes of the whole region, lying between
the Magyar to the south and the Prussian to the north, whose union
made up the original Polish kingdom. ♦Eastern group; Russian.♦ Lastly,
to the east lie the tribes which joined to form the original Russian
state. Looking at these groups in our own time, we may say that from
the first of them all signs of Slavonic nationality have passed away.
The second and third, speaking roughly, keep nationality without
political independence. The fourth group has grown into the one great
modern power whose ruling nationality is Slavonic.
* * * * *
With regard to the first group, we have now to trace from the
Slavonic side the same changes of frontier which we have already
slightly glanced at from the German side. ♦Polabic group.♦ In the
land between the Elbe and the Oder, taking the upper course of those
rivers as represented by their tributaries the Saale and the Bober,
we find that division of the Slaves which their own historian marks
off as _Polabic_.[59] These again fall under three groups. ♦Sorabi.♦
First, to the south, in the modern Saxony, are the _Sorabi_, the
northern Serbs, cut off for ever from their southern brethren by the
Magyar inroad. ♦Leuticii.♦ To the north of them lie the _Leuticii_,
_Weleti_, _Weletabi_, or _Wiltsi_, and other tribes stretching to
the Baltic in modern Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. ♦Obotrites:♦
In the north-west corner, in Mecklenburg and eastern Holstein, were
the _Obotrites_, _Wagri_, and other tribes. ♦their relations to the
Empire.♦ Through the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the relations
between these lands and the Western Empire was not unlike the relation
of the southern Slaves to the Eastern Empire during the same ages. Only
the Western Emperors never had such a rival on their immediate border
as the Bulgaria of Simeon or Samuel. ♦Fluctuations of tribute and
independence. 921-968.♦ The Slavonic tribes on the north-eastern border
of the Western Empire were tributary or independent, according as the
Empire was strong or weak. Tributary under Charles the Great, tributary
again under the great Saxon kings, they had an intermediate period
of independence. The German dominion, which fell back in the latter
part of the tenth century, was again asserted by the Saxon dukes and
margraves in the eleventh and twelfth. ♦Final conquest.♦ Long before
the end of the twelfth century the work was done. The German dominion,
and with it the Christian religion, had been forced on the Slaves
between Elbe and Oder.
♦Conquest of the Sorabi.♦
The Serbs between Elbe and Saale seem to have been the earliest and the
most thoroughly conquered. They never won back their full independence
after the victories of the first Saxon kings. The Serbs between Elbe
and Bober, sometimes tributary to the Empire, were also sometimes
independent, sometimes under the superiority of kindred powers like
Poland or Bohemia. ♦Meissen.♦ The lands included in the mark of
_Meissen_ were thoroughly Germanized by the twelfth century. ♦Lusatia.♦
But in the lands included in the mark of _Lusatia_ the Slavonic speech
and nationality still keep a firm hold.
♦The Leuticians.♦
The Leutician land to the north was lost and won over and over again.
♦927-1157.♦ _Branibor_, the German _Brandenburg_, was often taken
and retaken during a space of two hundred years. ♦983.♦ Late in the
tenth century the whole land won back its freedom. ♦1030-1101.♦ In the
eleventh it came under the Polish power. ♦1134-1157.♦ At last, the
reign of Albert the Bear finally added to Germany the land which was to
contain the latest German capital, and made Brandenburg a German _mark_.
In the land lying on that narrow part of the Baltic which bore the
special name of the _Slavonic Gulf_, the alternations of revolt and
submission, from the ninth century to the twelfth, were endless. Here
we can trace out native dynasties, one of which has lasted to our own
day. ♦Kingdom of Sclavinia.♦ The mark of the Billungs[60] alternates
with the _kingdom of Sclavinia_, and the kingdom of Sclavinia
alternates between heathen and Christian princes. ♦Przemyslaf.
1161. | House of Mecklenburg.♦ At last, in the twelfth century, the
last heathen King of the Wends became the first Christian Duke, the
founder of the house of Mecklenburg. Part of this region, Western
Pomerania and the island of _Rügen_, became, both in this and in later
times, a special borderland of Germany and Scandinavia. ♦Rügen under
Denmark. 1168-1325.♦ Rügen and the neighbouring coast became a Danish
possession in the twelfth century, and so remained into the fourteenth.
♦1214-1223.♦ The kingdom of Sclavinia itself became Danish for a short
season. A Scandinavian power appeared again in the same region in the
seventeenth century. With these exceptions, the history of these lands
from the twelfth century onward, is that of members of the German
kingdom.
* * * * *
It was otherwise with the second group, with the Slaves who dwelled
within the fence of the Giant Mountains, and with their neighbours
to the north-east, on the upper course of the Oder as well as on the
Wag and the northern Morava. ♦Kingdom of Bohemia.♦ Here a Slavonic
kingdom has lived on to this day, though it early passed under German
supremacy, and though it has been for ages ruled by German kings.
♦928.♦ _Bohemia_, the land of the _Czechs_, tributary to Charles
the Great, part of the kingdom of Sviatopluk, became definitely a
German fief through the wars of the Saxon kings. But this did not
hinder Bohemia from becoming, later in the century, an advancing and
conquering power, the seat of a short-lived dominion, like those of
Samo and Sviatopluk. ♦Moravians and Slovaks.♦ To the east of the Czechs
of Bohemia lie the _Moravians_ and _Slovaks_, that branch of the
Slavonic race which formed the centre of the kingdom of Sviatopluk,
and which bore the main brunt of the Magyar invasion. ♦Magyar conquest
of Moravia. 906-955.♦ A large part of the Slaves of this region fell
permanently under Magyar rule; so did Moravia itself for a season.
Since then Bohemia and Moravia have usually had a common destiny.
♦Advance of Bohemia. 973-999.♦ Later in the century the Czechish
dominion reached to the Oder, and took in the Northern _Chrobatia_ on
the upper Vistula. This dominion passed away with the great growth
of the Polish power. ♦Bohemia and Moravia under Poland. 1003-1004.
| 1003-1029.♦ Bohemia itself for a moment, Moravia for a somewhat longer
time, became Polish dependencies, and the Magyar won a further land
between the Wag and the Olzava. Later events led to another growth of
Bohemia, in more forms than one, but always as a member of the Roman
Empire and the German kingdom.
* * * * *
♦The Polish kingdom.♦
While our second group thus passed under German dominion without
ceasing to be Slavonic, among the third group a great Slavonic power
arose whose adhesion to the Western Church made it part of the general
Western world, but which was never brought under the lasting supremacy
of the Western Empire. ♦Its relations to Germany.♦ Large parts of the
old Polish lands have passed under German rule; some parts have been
largely Germanized. But Poland, as a whole, has never been either
Germanized or brought under lasting German rule. Holding the most
central position of any European state, Poland has had to struggle
against enemies from every quarter, against the Swede from the Baltic
and the Turk from the Danube. ♦Rivalry of Poland and Russia.♦ But the
distinguishing feature of its history has been its abiding rivalry with
the Slavonic land to the east of it. The common history of Poland and
Russia is a history of conquest and partition, wrought by whichever
power was at the time the stronger.
♦The Lechs or Poles.♦
Our first glimmerings of light in these parts show us a number of
kindred tribes holding the land between Oder and Vistula, with the
coast between the mouths of those rivers. East of the Vistula they
are cut off from the sea by the Prussians; but in the inland region
they stretch somewhat to the east of that river. To the west the
Oder and Bober may be taken as their boundary. ♦White Chrobatia.♦
But the upper course of these rivers is the home of another kindred
people, the northern branch of the Chrobatians or Croats, whose land
of _White Chrobatia_ stretched on both sides of the Carpathians.
These Slaves of the central and lower Oder and Vistula would seem to
be best distinguished as _Lechs_; _Poland_ is the name of the land
rather than of the people. ♦Polish tribes.♦ _Mazovia_, _Cujavia_,
_Silesia_—the German _Schlesien_—with the sea land, _Pomore_,
_Pommern_, or _Pomerania_, mark different districts held by kindred
tribes. ♦Beginning of the Polish kingdom at Gnesen.♦ In the tenth
century a considerable power arose for the first time in these regions,
having its centre between the Warta and the Vistula, at _Gniezno_ or
_Gnesen_, the abiding metropolitan city of Poland. ♦931-992. Conversion
of Poland.♦ The extent of the new power under the first Christian
prince Mieczïslaf answered nearly to the later Great Poland, Mazovia,
and Silesia. ♦Tributary to the Empire. 963. | 973.♦ But the Polish
duke became a vassal of the Empire for his lands west of Warta, and
suffered some dismemberments to the advantage of Bohemia. ♦Conquests
of Boleslaf. 996-1025.♦ Under his son Boleslaf, Poland rose to the
same kind of momentary greatness as Moravia and Bohemia had already
done. The dominions of Boleslaf took in, for longer or shorter times,
Bohemia, Moravia, Lusatia, Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia, part of
Russia, and part of that middle Slavonic land which became the mark of
Brandenburg, the districts of _Barnim_ and _Custrin_. Of this great
dominion some parts fell away during the life of Boleslaf, and other
parts at his death. ♦Effects of his reign.♦ But he none the less
established Poland as a power, and some of his conquests were abiding.
♦Chrobatia becomes _Little Poland_.♦ Western Pomerania, Silesia, Barnim
and Custrin, were kept for a longer or shorter time; and Chrobatia
north of the Carpathians—the southern part fell to the Magyar at his
death—remained, under the name of _Little Poland_, as long as Poland
lasted at all. It supplied the land with its second capital, _Cracow_.
From this time Poland ranked sometimes as a kingdom, sometimes as a
duchy.[61] ♦Internal divisions.♦ Constant divisions among members of
the ruling house, occasional admissions of the outward supremacy of
the Empire, did not destroy its national unity and independence.
♦The Polish state survives.♦ A Polish state always lived on. And from
the end of the thirteenth century, it took its place as an important
European kingdom, holding a distinctive position as the one Slavonic
power at once attached to the Western Church and independent of the
Western Empire.
* * * * *
♦Relations of Russia to the Eastern Church.♦
To the east of the Lechs and Chrobatians lay that great group of
Slavonic tribes whose distinctive historical character is that they
stood in the same relation to Eastern Christendom in which Poland
stands to Western. Disciples of the Eastern Church, they were never
vassals of the Eastern Empire. ♦Teutonic influence among eastern and
western Slaves.♦ The Western Slaves were brought under Christian
and under Teutonic influences by the same process, a process which
implied submission, or attempted submission, to the Western Empire or
to some of its princes. The Eastern Slaves were also brought under
both Christian and Teutonic influences, but in wholly different
shapes. The Teutonic influence came first. ♦Russia created by the
Scandinavian settlement.♦ It did not take the form of submission to any
existing Teutonic power; it was the creation of a new Slavonic power
under Teutonic rulers. Christianity did not come till those Teutonic
influences had died away, except in their results, and, coming from
the Eastern centre of Christendom, it had the effect of keeping its
disciples aloof from both the Christian and the Teutonic influences of
the West. ♦The name _Russian_.♦ A group of Slavonic tribes, without
losing their Slavonic character, grew up to national unity, and took up
a national name from Scandinavian settlers and rulers, the Warangians
or _Russians_ of the Swedish peninsula.[62]
♦Origin of Russia. 862. | First seat at Novgorod. Russian advance.♦
The Russian power began by the Scandinavian leaders obtaining, in the
latter half of the ninth century, the dominion of the most northern
members of the Slavonic race, the Slaves of _Novgorod_ on the Ilmen.
Thence they pushed their dominion southwards. ♦Extent of the eastern
Slavonic lands.♦ East and north-east of the Lechs and Chrobatians lay
a crowd of Slavonic tribes stretching beyond the Dnieper as far as the
upper course of the Oka. Cut off from the Baltic by the Fins and Letts,
they were cut off from the Euxine by various Turanian races in turn,
first Magyars, then Patzinaks. To the south-east, from the Dnieper
to the Caspian, lay the _Chazar_ dominion, to which the Slaves east
of Dnieper were tributary. To the north-east lay a crowd of Finnish
tribes, among which is only one Finnish power of historic name, the
kingdom of _Great_ or _White Bulgaria_ on the Volga. ♦Union of the
eastern Slaves. 862-912.♦ Within this region, in the space of fifty
years, the various Slavonic tribes joined in different degrees of unity
to form the new power, called _Russian_ from its Scandinavian leaders.
♦Advance against Chazars and Fins.♦ The tribes who were tributary to
the Chazars were set free, and the Russian power was spread over a
certain Finnish area on the Upper Volga and its tributaries, nearly as
far north as Lake Bielo. ♦Second centre at Kief.♦ The centres of the
new power were, first _Novgorod_, and then _Kief_ on the Dnieper.
♦The rulers of Russia become Slavonic. | 957-972.♦
How early the Scandinavian rulers of the new Slavonic power became
themselves practically Slavonic is shown by the name of the prince
Sviatoslaf, of whom we have already heard in the Danubian Bulgaria.
♦Russian enterprise. Euxine.♦ Already had Russian enterprise taken
the direction which it took in far later days. It was needful for
the developement of the new Russian nation to have free access to the
Euxine. From this they were cut off by a strange fate for nine hundred
years. But from the very beginning more than one attempt was made on
Constantinople, though the _Tzargrad_, the Imperial city, could be
reached only by sailing down the Dnieper through an enemy’s country.
♦Conquests on the Caspian. | Vladimir takes Cherson.♦ Sviatoslaf also
appears as a conqueror in the lands by the Caucasus and the Caspian,
and Vladimir, the first Christian prince, won his way to baptism by an
attack on the Imperial city of Cherson.
♦Isolation of Russia.♦
The oldest Russia was thus, like the oldest Poland, emphatically
an inland state; but it was far more isolated than Poland. Its
ecclesiastical position kept it from sharing the history of the Western
Slaves. Its geographical position kept it from sharing the history
of the Servians and Bulgarians. ♦Russian lands west of Dnieper.♦ And
it must not be forgotten that the oldest Russia was formed mainly of
lands which afterwards passed under the rule of Poland and Lithuania.
_Little Russia_, _Black Russia_, _White Russia_, _Red Russia_, all came
under foreign rule. The Dnieper, from which Russia was afterwards cut
off, was the great central river of the elder Russia; of the Don and
the Volga she held only the upper course. The northern frontier barely
passed the great lakes of Ladoga and Onega, and the Gulf of Finland
itself. It seems not to have reached what was to be the Gulf of Riga,
but some of the Russian princes held a certain supremacy over the
Finnish and Lettish tribes of that region.
♦Russian principalities. 1054. | Supremacy of Kief;♦
In the course of the eleventh century, the Russian state, like that of
Poland, was divided among princes of the reigning family, acknowledging
the superiority of the great prince of _Kief_. ♦of the Northern
Vladimir, 1169.♦ In the next century the chief power passed from Kief
to the northern _Vladimir_ on the Kiasma. ♦Susdal Russian.♦ Thus
the former Finnish land of _Susdal_ on the upper tributaries of the
Volga became the cradle of the second Russian power. ♦Commonwealths
at Novgorod and Pskof.♦ _Novgorod the Great_ meanwhile, under
elective princes, claimed, like its neighbour _Pskof_, to rank among
commonwealths. Its dominion was spread far over the Finnish tribes to
the north and east; the White Sea, and, far more precious, the Finnish
Gulf, had now a Russian seaboard. It was out of Vladimir and Novgorod
that the Russia of the future was to grow. ♦The principalities.♦
Meanwhile a crowd of principalities, _Polotsk_, _Smolensk_, the
_Severian Novgorod_, _Tchernigof_, and others, arose on the Duna and
Dnieper. ♦Commonwealth of Viatka. 1174. | Halicz or Galicia. 1186.♦ Far
to the east across the commonwealth of _Viatka_, and on the frontiers
of Poland and Hungary arose the principality of _Halicz_ or _Galicia_,
which afterwards grew for a while into a powerful kingdom.
♦The Cumans. 1114.♦
Meanwhile in the lands on the Euxine the old enemies, Patzinaks and
Chazars, gave way to the _Cumans_,[63] known in Russian history as
_Polovtzi_ and _Parthi_. They spread themselves from the Ural river to
the borders of Servia and Danubian Bulgaria, cutting off Russia from
the Caspian. ♦1223. | Mongol invasion.♦ In the next century Russians
and Cumans—momentary allies—fell before the advance of the _Mongols_,
commonly known in European history as _Tartars_. Known only as ravagers
in the lands more to the west, over Russia they become overlords for
two hundred and fifty years. ♦Russia tributary to the Mongols.♦ All
that escaped absorption by the Lithuanian became tributary to the
Mongol. ♦1240.♦ Still the relation was only a tributary one; Russia was
never incorporated in the Mongol dominion, as Servia and Bulgaria were
incorporated in the Ottoman dominion. ♦Russia represented by Novgorod.♦
But Kief was overthrown; Vladimir became dependent; Novgorod remained
the true representative of free Russia in the Baltic lands.
* * * * *
♦The earlier races on the Baltic.♦
But besides the Slaves of Poland and Russia, our survey takes in also
the ancient races by which both Poland and Russia were so largely
cut off from the Baltic. Down to the middle of the twelfth century,
notwithstanding occasional Polish or Scandinavian occupations, those
races still kept their hold of the whole Baltic north-eastwards from
the mouth of the Vistula. ♦Fins in Livland and Esthland.♦ The non-Aryan
Fins, besides their seats to the north, still kept the coast of
_Esthland_ and _Lifland_, in Latin shape _Esthonia_ and _Livonia_, from
the Finnish Gulf to the Duna and slightly beyond, taking in a small
strip of the opposite peninsula. ♦The Lettic nations.♦ The inland part
of the later Livland was held by the _Letts_, the most northern branch
of the ancient Aryan settlers in this region. ♦Curland. | Samogitia.
| Lithuania.♦ Of this family were the tribes of _Curland_ in their own
peninsula, of _Samigola_ or _Semigallia_, the _Samaites_ of _Samogitia_
to the south, the proper _Lithuanians_ south of them, the _Jatwages_,
_Jatwingi_—in many spellings—forming a Lithuanian wedge between the
Slavonic lands of Mazovia and Black Russia. ♦Prussia.♦ The Lithuanians,
strictly so called, reached the coast just north of the Niemen; from
the mouth of the Niemen to the mouth of the Vistula the coast was
held by the _Prussians_. Of these nations, Aryan and non-Aryan, the
Lithuanians alone founded a national dominion in historic times. The
history of the rest is simply the history of their bondage, sometimes
of their uprooting.
* * * * *
♦Survey in the twelfth century.♦
Taking a general survey of the lands round the Baltic about the middle
of the twelfth century, we see the three Scandinavian kingdoms, the
first fully formed states in these regions, all living and vigorous
powers, but with fluctuating boundaries. Their western colonies are
still Scandinavian. East and south of the Baltic they have not got
beyond isolated and temporary enterprises. The Slavonic nations on the
middle Elbe have fallen under German dominion; to the south Bohemia
and its dependencies keep their Slavonic nationality under German
supremacy. Poland, often divided and no longer conquering, still keeps
its frontier, and its position as the one independent Slavonic power
belonging to the Western Church. Russia, the great Eastern Slavonic
power, has risen to unity and greatness under Scandinavian masters,
and has again broken up into states connected only by a feeble tie.
The submission of Russia to barbarian invaders comes later than our
immediate survey; but the weakening of the Russian power both by
division and by submission is an essential element in the state of
things which now begins. ♦Teutonic advance, German and Scandinavian.♦
This is the spread in different ways of Teutonic dominion, German and
Scandinavian, over the southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic,
largely at the expense of the Slaves, still more largely at the expense
of the primitive nations, Aryan and non-Aryan.
§ 3. _The German Dominion on the Baltic._
♦Time of Teutonic conquest.♦
In the first half of the twelfth century, no Teutonic power, German or
Scandinavian, had any lasting hold on any part of the eastern coast of
the Baltic or its gulfs, nor had any such power made any great advances
on the southern coast. Early in the fourteenth century the whole of
these coasts had been brought into different degrees of submission to
several Teutonic powers, German and Scandinavian. ♦German influence
stronger than Scandinavian.♦ Of the two influences the German has been
the more abiding. Scandinavian dominion has now wholly passed away from
these coasts, and it is only in the lands north of the Finnish Gulf
that it can be said to have ever been really lasting. ♦Extent of German
dominion.♦ But German influence has destroyed, assimilated, or brought
to submission, the whole of the earlier inhabitants, from Wagria to
Esthland. In our own day the whole coast, from the isle of Rügen to the
head of the gulf of Bothnia, is in the possession of two powers, one
German, one Slavonic. ♦German influence abiding.♦ But German influence
abides beyond the bounds of German rule. Not only have Pomerania
and Prussia become German in every sense, but Curland, Livland, and
Esthland, under the dominion of Russia, are still spoken of as German
provinces.
This great change was brought about by a singular union of mercantile,
missionary, and military enterprise. ♦Beginning of Swedish conquest in
Finland. 1155.♦ The beginning came from Scandinavia, when the Swedish
King Saint Eric undertook the conquest and conversion of the proper
Finland, east of the Gulf of Bothnia. Here, in the space of about a
century, a great province was added to the Swedish kingdom, a province
whose eastern boundary greatly shifted, but the greater part of which
remained Swedish down to the present century. To the south of the Gulf
of Finland the changes of possession have been endless. The settled
dominion of Sweden in those lands comes later; Danish occupation,
though longer, was only temporary. ♦German conquest in Livland.♦ Soon
after the beginning of Swedish conquest in Finland began the work of
German mercantile enterprise, followed fifty years later by German
conquest and conversion, in Livland and the neighbouring lands. This
hindered the growth of any native power on those coasts. ♦Its effect on
Lithuania and Russia.♦ Even Lithuania in the days of its greatness was
cut off from the sea. Whatever tendencies towards Russian supremacy had
arisen in those parts were hindered from growing into Russian dominion.
♦The Military Orders.♦ The Knights of the Sword in Livland were
followed by the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, and the two orders became
one. ♦Danish advance.♦ Further west, the latter part of the twelfth
and the beginning of the thirteenth century saw a great, but mostly
short-lived, extension of Danish power over both German and Slavonic
lands. ♦The Scandinavian kingdoms.♦ While the coasts are thus changing
hands, the relations of Scandinavian kingdoms to one another are ever
shifting. ♦Polish gains and losses.♦ Poland is ever losing territory
to the west, and, still more after the beginning of its connexion with
Lithuania, ever gaining it to the east. ♦The _Hansa_.♦ And, alongside
of princes and sovereign orders, this time is marked by the appearance
of the first germs of the great German commercial league, which,
without becoming a strictly territorial power, exercised the greatest
influence on the disposal of power among all its neighbours.
* * * * *
♦Scania Swedish. 1332-1360.♦
In Scandinavia itself the chief strictly geographical change was a
temporary transfer to Sweden in the fourteenth century of the Danish
lands within the northern peninsula. ♦Union of Calmar. 1396.♦ At
the end of that century came the union of Calmar, the principle of
which was that the three kingdoms, remaining separate states, should
be joined under a common sovereign. But this union was never firmly
established, and the arrangements of the three crowns were shifting
throughout the fifteenth century; a lasting state of things came only
with the final breach of the union in the sixteenth century. ♦Sweden
separated, Denmark and Norway united. 1520.♦ From that time, Sweden,
under the house of Vasa, forms one power; Denmark and Norway, under the
house of Oldenburg, form another.
♦Loss of oceanic colonies.♦
With regard to the more distant relations of the three kingdoms, this
period is marked by the gradual withdrawal of Scandinavian power from
the oceanic lands. ♦Iceland and Greenland united to Norway. 1261-1262.♦
The union of Iceland and Greenland with Norway was the union of one
Scandinavian land with another. But Greenland, the most distant
Scandinavian land, vanishes from history about the time of the Calmar
union. The Scandinavian settlements in and about the British Islands
all passed away. ♦Ireland.♦ The Ostmen of Ireland were lost in the mass
of the Teutonic settlers who passed from England into Ireland. ♦The
Western Isles. Man. 1264.♦ The Western Isles were sold to Scotland; Man
passed under Scottish and English supremacy. ♦Orkney pledged. 1468.♦
Orkney and Shetland were pledged to the Scottish crown; and, though
never formally ceded, they have become incorporated with the British
kingdom.
♦Swedish advance in Finland. | 1248-1293.♦
East of the Gulf of Bothnia Swedish rule advanced. Attempts at conquest
both in Russia and in Esthland failed, but _Finland_ and _Carelia_ were
fully subdued, and the Swedish power reached to Lake Ladoga. ♦Esthland
Danish. 1238-1346.♦ Denmark made a more lasting, but still short-lived,
settlement in Esthland. ♦Short-lived greatness of Denmark.♦ The growth
of Denmark at the other end of the Baltic lands began earlier and was
checked sooner. But at the beginning of the thirteenth century things
looked as if Denmark was about to become the chief power on all the
Baltic coasts.
♦Holstein.♦
South of the boundary stream of the Eider the lands which make up
the modern Holstein formed three settlements, two Teutonic and one
Slavonic. ♦Ditmarschen.♦ To the west lay the free Frisian land of
_Ditmarschen_. ♦Holstein.♦ In the middle were the lands of the Saxons
beyond the Elbe—the _Holtsætan_—with _Stormarn_ immediately on the
Elbe. ♦Wagria.♦ On the Baltic side lay the Slavonic land of _Wagria_,
which at the beginning of the twelfth century formed part of the
kingdom of _Sclavinia_, a kingdom stretching from the haven of Kiel to
the islands at the mouth of the Oder. ♦Danish conquest of Sclavinia.
1168-1189.♦ In these lands began the eastern advance of Denmark in the
latter half of the twelfth century. All Sclavinia was won, with at
least a supremacy over the Pomeranian land as far as the Riddow. Thus
far the Danish conquests, won mainly over Slaves, continue the chain
of occasional Scandinavian occupation on those coasts, from the tenth
century to the nineteenth. In another point of view, the Christian
advance, the overthrow of the chief centre of Slavonic heathendom in
Rügen, carries on the work of the Saxon Dukes. ♦Danish advance in
Germany.♦ But in the first years of the next century began a Danish
occupation of German ground. Holstein, and Lübeck itself, were won;
a claim was set up to the free land of Ditmarschen; and all these
conquests were confirmed by an Imperial grant.[64] ♦1214.♦ The Danish
kings now took the title of _Kings of the Slaves_, afterwards of the
_Vandals_ or _Wends_. ♦Fall of the Danish power. 1223-1227.♦ But
this dominion was soon broken up by the captivity of the Danish king
Waldemar. The Eider became again the boundary. ♦Denmark keeps Rügen,
till ceded 1325, 1438.♦ Of her Slavonic dominion Denmark kept only an
outlying fragment, the isle of Rügen and the neighbouring coast. This
remained Danish for a hundred years longer, nominally for a hundred
years longer still.
The next changes tended to draw the lands immediately on each side
of the Eider into close connexion with one another. ♦Duchy of South
Jutland. 1232.♦ The southern part of the Danish peninsula, from the
Eider to the Aa, became a distinct fief of the Danish crown, held by a
Danish prince under the name of the duchy of _South-Jutland_—_Jutia_
or _Sunder-Jutia_. ♦United with Holstein. 1325.♦ In the next century
this duchy and the county of Holstein are found in the hands of
the same prince, and it is held that his grant of the Danish duchy
contained a promise that it should never be united with the Danish
crown. ♦Duchy of Sleswick.♦ Henceforth South-Jutland begins to be
spoken of as the _duchy of Sleswick_. But of the lands held together,
Sleswick remained a fief of Denmark, while Holstein remained a fief
of the Empire. ♦Fluctuations of Sleswick and Holstein.♦ The duchy was
several times united to the crown and again granted out. ♦1424.♦ At
one moment of union the Roman King Sigismund expressly confirmed the
union, and acknowledged Sleswick as a Danish land. ♦1448.♦ At the
next grant of the duchy, its perpetual separation from the crown is
alleged to have been again confirmed by Christian the First. ♦1460.♦
Yet Christian himself, already king of the three kingdoms, was
afterwards elected Duke of Sleswick and Count of Holstein. The election
was accompanied by a declaration that the two principalities, though
the one was held of the Empire and the other of the Danish crown,
should never be separated. ♦Duchy of Holstein. 1474.♦ In the same
reign an Imperial grant raised the counties of Holstein and Stormarn
with the land of Ditmarsh to the rank of a duchy. But the dominions
of its duke were not a continuous territory stretching from sea to
sea. ♦Freedom in Ditmarschen. | Bishopric of Lübeck.♦ To the west,
_Ditmarschen_—notwithstanding a renewed Imperial grant—remained free;
to the east, some districts of the old Wagria formed the _bishopric of
Lübeck_. ♦Denmark, Sleswick, and Holstein under Christian.♦ But now for
the first time the same prince reigned in the threefold character of
King of Denmark, Duke of the Danish fief of Sleswick, and Duke of the
Imperial fief of Holstein. Endless shiftings, divisions, and reunions
of various parts of the two duchies followed. ♦Royal and Ducal lines.
1580.♦ In the partitions between the _royal_ and _ducal_ lines of the
house of Oldenburg, the several portions of the Kings of Denmark and
of the Dukes of Gottorp paid no regard to the boundary of the Eider,
but each was made up of detached parts of both duchies. ♦Conquest of
Ditmarschen. 1559.♦ Meanwhile the freedom of Ditmarschen came to an
end, and the old Frisian land became part of the royal share of the
duchy of Holstein. ♦Acquisition of Dago and Oesel.♦ And, as we began
our story of Danish advance with the settlement in Esthland, we have to
end it for the present with the acquisition of the islands of _Dago_
and _Oesel_ off the same coasts.
* * * * *
♦Effect of the Danish advance on the Slavonic lands.♦
After the loss of Rügen, Denmark had little to do with the Slavonic
lands, except so far as the possession of Holstein carried with it
the possession of the old Slavonic land of Wagria. Still the advance
of Denmark at the end of the twelfth century had a lasting effect on
the Slavonic lands by altogether shaking the Polish dominion on the
Baltic. But it shook it to the advantage, not of Scandinavia, but of
Germany. Between the twelfth century and the fourteenth Poland lost all
its western dominions. _Pomore_, _Pommern_, _Pomerania_, the seaboard
of the Lechish Slaves, is strictly the land between the mouth of the
Vistula and the mouth of the Oder; but the name had already spread
further to the West. ♦Pomerania falls away from Poland.♦ After the
fall of the Danish power on this coast, Pomerania west of the Riddow
altogether fell away from Poland. ♦Duchy of Slavia.♦ As the duchy of
_Slavia_, it became, like Mecklenburg, a land of the Empire, though
ruled by Slavonic princes. ♦1298-1305. Loss of western territory by
Poland.♦ But the eastern part of Pomerania, _Cassubia_ and the mark
of _Gdansk_ or _Danzig_, remained under Polish superiority till the
beginning of the fourteenth century. Then the greater part fell away,
partly for ever, to the Pomeranian duchy of _Wolgast_, partly, for
a season only, to the Teutonic Knights. ♦1220-1260.♦ To the south
_Barnim_ and _Custrin_ passed, after some shiftings, to the mark of
Brandenburg. ♦Silesia. 1289-1327.♦ Further to the south, Silesia,
divided among princes of the house of Piast, gradually fell under
Bohemian supremacy. Thus the whole western part of the Polish kingdom
passed into the hands of princes of the Empire, and was included within
the bounds of the German realm.
* * * * *
The fate of Silesia brings us again to the history of the inland
Slavonic land of the Czechs. _Bohemia_ went on, as duchy and
kingdom,[65] ruled by native princes as vassals of the Empire. Moravia
was a fief of Bohemia. In the end Bohemia passed to German kings, but
not till it had become again the centre of a dominion which recalls
the fleeting powers of Samo and Sviatopluk. ♦Bohemia and Ottocar.
1269-1278.♦ Ottocar the Second united the long-severed branches of the
Slavonic race by annexing the German lands which lay between them. ♦His
German dominion.♦ Lord of Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Styria, Carinthia,
and Carniola, the Czech king reigned on the upper Oder and the middle
Danube as far as the Hadriatic. The same lands were in after times to
be again united, but from the opposite side.
♦Luxemburg kings of Bohemia. 1308.♦
The successors of Ottocar reigned only over Bohemia and Moravia.
Early in the next century the Bohemian crown passed to the house of
Luxemburg. Under them Bohemia became a powerful state, but a state
becoming more and more German, less and less Slavonic. ♦Silesia, 1355.♦
The gradual extension of Bohemian superiority over Silesia led to
its formal incorporation. ♦Lusatia. 1320-1370.♦ In the same century
_Lusatia_, High and Low, was won from Brandenburg. ♦Brandenburg.
1373-1417.♦ The mark of Brandenburg itself became for a while a
Bohemian possession, before it passed to the burgraves of Nürnberg.
♦1353.♦ The Bohemian possession of the Upper Palatinate lies out of our
Slavonic range. Among the revolutions of the fifteenth century, we find
the Bohemian crown at one time held conjointly with that of Hungary,
at another time held by a Polish prince. ♦Conquests of Matthias
Corvinus, 1478-1490.♦ Later in the century the victories of Matthias
Corvinus took away Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, from the Bohemian
crown. ♦Bohemia and Austria. | Its losses. 1635. | 1740.♦ But it was
the fourfold dominion of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, which
finally passed to the House of Austria, to be shorn of its northern and
eastern lands to the profit, first of Saxony, and then of Brandenburg
or Prussia.
* * * * *
Thus far the Teutonic advance, both on the actual Baltic coast and
on the inland Slavonic region, had been made to the profit, partly
of the Scandinavian kingdoms, partly of the princes of the Empire.
♦German corporations.♦ But there were two other forms of Teutonic
influence and dominion, which fell to the share, not of princes, but
of corporate bodies, mercantile and military or religious. ♦The
Hansa.♦ The Hanseatic League was indeed a power in these regions,
but it hardly has a place on the map. ♦Second foundation of Lübeck.
1158.♦ Even before the second foundation of Lübeck by Henry the Lion,
German mercantile settlements had begun at Novgorod, in Gotland, and
in London. ♦Extent of the League.♦ Gradually, in the course of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the League into which the union
of the merchant towns of Germany grew spread itself over the Baltic,
the Westfalian, and the Netherlandish lands. A specially close tie
bound together the five _Wendish_ towns, _Lübeck_, _Rostock_, _Wismar_,
_Stralsund_, and _Greifswald_. ♦Nature of the union.♦ But the union
of a town with the Hansa did not necessarily affect its political
position. It might, at least in the later stages of the League, be
a free city of the Empire, a town subject to some prince of the
Empire, or a town subject to a prince beyond its bounds. Not only the
Pomeranian and Prussian cities under the rule of the Knights, but Revel
in Esthland under Danish rule formed part of the League. ♦The Hansa
not a territorial power.♦ The League waged wars, made peace, overthrew
and set up kings, as suited its interests; but territorial dominion,
strictly so called, was not its object. Still in some cases privileges
grew into something like dominion; in others military occupation might
pass for temporary dominion. ♦The Hansa in Gotland and Scania. | 1361.
| 1368-1385.♦ Thus in the isle of _Gotland_ the Hansa had an ascendency
which was overthrown by the conquest of the island by the Danish king
Waldemar, a conquest avenged by a temporary Hanseatic occupation of
Scania. In fact the nature of the League, the relations of the cities
to one another, geographical as well as political, hindered the Hansa
from ever becoming a territorial power like Switzerland and the United
Provinces. In the history of the Baltic lands it takes for some ages a
position at least equal to that of any kingdom. But it is only casually
and occasionally that its triumphs can be marked on the map.
* * * * *
The other great German corporation was not commercial, but military and
religious. ♦The Swordbearers and the Teutonic Order.♦ The conquests of
the Order of Christ and of the Order of Saint Mary—better known as the
_Sword-brothers_ and the _Teutonic Order_—were essentially territorial.
These orders became masters of a great part of the Baltic coast, and
wherever they spread their dominion, Christianity and German national
life were, by whatever means, established. ♦Their connexion with the
Empire.♦ As both the chiefs of the Order and the Livonian prelates
ranked as princes of the Empire, the conquests of the Knights were in
some sort an extension of the bounds of the Empire. Yet we can hardly
look on Livonia and Prussia as coming geographically within the Empire
in the same sense as Pomerania and Silesia. ♦Effects of their rule.♦
But whether strictly an extension of the Western Empire or not, the
conquests of the Knights were an extension of the Western Church, the
Western world, and the German nation, as against both heathendom and
Eastern Christianity, as against all the other Baltic nationalities,
non-Aryan and Aryan.
♦The Swordbearers in Livland. 1201.♦
The first settlement began in _Livland_. In the beginning of the
thirteenth century, the Knights of the Order of Christ were called in
as temporal helpers by Bishop Albert of Riga, and they gradually won
the dominion of the lands on the gulf called from his city. ♦The Danes
in Esthland.♦ For a while they had a partner in the Danish crown, which
held part of _Esthland_. ♦Extent of their dominion. | Dago and Oesel.♦
But the rest of Esthland, Livland in the narrower sense, Curland,
Semigola, the special Lettish land, and the Russian territory on the
Duna, made up this Livonian dominion, which was afterwards enlarged
by the isles of Dago and Oesel and by the Danish portion of Esthland.
♦Esthland. 1346.♦ _Riga_ and _Revel_ became great commercial cities,
and Riga became an ecclesiastical metropolis under a prince-archbishop.
The natives were reduced to bondage, and the Russian powers of Novgorod
and Polotsk were effectually kept away from the gulf.
♦The Teutonic Order in Prussia. 1226.♦
The dominion of the Knights of Saint Mary, the Teutonic Order, in
Prussia and in a small part of Lithuania, began a little later
than that of the Sword-brothers in Livland. Invited by a Polish
prince, Conrad of Mazovia, they received from him their first Polish
possession, the palatinate of _Culm_. ♦Union of the Orders. 1237.♦
Eleven years later the Prussian and Livonian orders were united. Their
dominion grew. ♦Purchase of Pomerelia. 1311.♦ The acquisition of
_Pomerelia_, the eastern part of the old _Pomore_, immediately west of
the lower Vistula, cut off Poland from the sea. ♦Conquest of Samogitia.
1384.♦ Later in the century, Lithuania was equally cut off by the
cession of _Samogitia_. ♦Occupation of Gotland. 1398-1408. | The New
Mark pledged to the Order. 1402.♦ The isle of _Gotland_ was held for
a while; the _New Mark_ of Brandenburg was pledged by King Sigismund.
♦Their coast line.♦ The whole coast from Narva on the Finnish gulf
to the point where the Pomeranian coast trends south-west formed the
unbroken sea-board of the Order.
♦Losses of the Prussian Knights.♦
Of the two seats of the Order the northern one proved the stronger and
more lasting. Livland remained untouched long after Poland had won
back her lost ground from the Prussian Knights. ♦Samogitia restored
to Lithuania. 1410.♦ The battle of Tannenberg won back Samogitia for
Lithuania, and again parted the Livonian and Prussian lands of the
Order. ♦Peace of Thorn. 1646.♦ By the peace of Thorn its Prussian
dominion was altogether cut short. ♦Cessions of the Order to Poland.♦
_Culm_ and _Pomerelia_, with the cities of _Danzig_ and _Thorn_, went
back to Poland. And a large part of Prussia itself, the bishopric of
_Ermeland_, a district running deep into the land still left to the
knights, was added to Poland. ♦Vassalage of the Order.♦ The rest of
Prussia was left to the Order as a Polish fief.
* * * * *
The thirteenth century was the special time when Teutonic dominion
spread itself over the Baltic lands. ♦Advance of Christianity.♦ It was
also the time when heathendom gave way to Christianity at nearly every
point of those lands where it still held out. But, while the old creeds
and the old races were giving way, a single one among them stood forth
for a while as an independent and conquering state, the last heathen
power in Europe. ♦Lithuania the last heathen power.♦ While all their
kinsfolk and neighbours were passing under the yoke, the _Lithuanians_,
strictly so called, showed themselves the mightiest of conquerors in
all lands from the Baltic to the Euxine. ♦Advance of Lithuania. c.
1220.♦ From their own land on the Niemen they began, under their prince
Mendog, to advance at the expense of the Russian lands to the south.
♦Mendog king. 1252.♦ Mendog embraced Christianity, and was crowned
King of Lithuania, a realm which now stretched from the Duna to beyond
the Priepetz. But heathendom again won the upper hand, and the next
century saw the great advance of the Lithuanian power, the momentary
rule of old Aryan heathendom alike over Christendom and over Islam.
♦Conquests from Russia. 1315-1340. 1345-1377.♦ Under two conquering
princes, Gedymin and Olgierd, further conquests were made from the
surrounding Russian lands. ♦1315-1360.♦ The Lithuanian dominion was
extended at the expense of Novgorod and Smolensk; the Lithuanian
frontier stretched far beyond both the Duna and the Dnieper; Kief was
a Lithuanian possession. ♦Volhynia and Podolia.♦ The kingdom of Galicia
lost _Volhynia_ and _Podolia_, which became a land disputed between
Lithuania and Poland. These last conquests carried the Lithuanian
frontier to the Dniester, and opened a wholly new set of relations
among the powers on the Euxine. ♦Perekop. 1363.♦ By the conquest of
the Tartar dominion of _Perekop_, Lithuania, cut off from the Baltic,
reached to the Euxine.
♦Consolidation of Poland. 1295-1320.♦
Meanwhile Poland, from a collection of duchies under a nominal head,
had again grown into a consolidated and powerful kingdom. The western
frontier had been cut short by various German powers, and the Teutonic
Order shut off the kingdom from the sea. Mazovia and Cujavia remained
separate duchies; but Great and Little Poland remained firmly united,
and were ready to enlarge their borders to the eastward. ♦Conquests of
Casimir the Great. 1333-1370. | Red Russia. 1340.♦ Casimir the Great
added _Podlachia_, the land of the _Jatvingi_, and in the break-up of
the Galician kingdom, he incorporated _Red Russia_ as being a former
possession of Poland. ♦Annexed to Hungary. 1377.♦ But, as it had also
been a former possession of Hungary,[66] Lewis the Great, the common
sovereign of Hungary and Poland, annexed it to his southern kingdom.
♦Union of Poland and Lithuania.♦
The two powers which had thus grown up were now to be gradually fused
into one. ♦1386.♦ The heathen Lithuanian prince Jagiello became, by
marriage and conversion, a Christian King of Poland. ♦Volhynia and
Podolia added to Poland.♦ He enlarged the kingdom at the expense of
the duchy, by incorporating _Podolia_ and _Volhynia_ with Poland,
making Poland as well as Lithuania the possessor of a large extent
of Russian soil. ♦Recovery of Red Russia. 1392. | Moldavia. | Pledge
of Zips. 1412.♦ The older Russian territory of Poland, Red Russia,
was won back from Hungary; _Moldavia_ began to transfer its fleeting
allegiance from Hungary to Poland; within Hungary itself part of the
county of _Zips_ was pledged to the Polish crown. ♦Recovery of the
Polish duchies. 1401.♦ The Polish duchies now began to fall back to the
kingdom. ♦1463-1476.♦ _Cujavia_ came in early in the fifteenth century,
and parts of _Mazovia_ in its course. Of the relation of the kingdom
to the Teutonic order we have already spoken. Lithuania meanwhile,
as part of Western Christendom, remained, under its separate grand
dukes of the now royal house, the rival both of Islam and of Eastern
Christendom. ♦Conquests of Witold. 1392-1430.♦ Under Witold the advance
on Russian ground was greater than ever. _Smolensk_ and all _Severia_
became Lithuanian; Kief was in the heart of the grand duchy; Moscow
did not seem far from its borders. ♦Loss of Perekop, 1474.♦ Lithuania
was presently cut short further to the south by the loss of its
Euxine dominion. ♦Closer union of Poland and Lithuania. 1501.♦ At the
beginning of the sixteenth century Poland and Lithuania were united as
distinct states under a common sovereign. But by that time a new state
of things had begun in the lands on the Duna and the Dnieper.
* * * * *
♦Revival of Russia.♦
While the military orders had thus established themselves on the Baltic
coast, and had already largely given way to the combined Polish and
Lithuanian power behind them, a new _Russia_ was growing up behind
them all. ♦Power of Moscow.♦ Cut off from all dealings with Western
Europe, save with its immediate western neighbours, cut off from its
own ecclesiastical centre by the advance of Mussulman dominion, the
new power of _Moscow_ was schooling itself to take in course of time a
greater place than had ever been held by the elder power of Kief. The
Mongol conquest had placed the Russian principalities in much the same
position as that through which most of the south-eastern lands passed
before they were finally swallowed up by the Ottoman. ♦The Russian
princes dependent on the Golden Horde.♦ The princes of Russia were
dependent on the Tartar dominion of _Kiptchak_, which stretched from
the Dniester north-eastwards over boundless barbarian lands as far as
the lower course of the Jenisei. Its capital, the centre of the _Golden
Horde_, was at _Sarai_ on the lower course of the Volga. ♦Homage of
Novgorod. 1252-1263.♦ Even Novgorod, under its great prince Alexander
Nevsky, did homage to the Khan. But this dependent relation did not,
like the Lithuanian conquests to the west, affect the geographical
frontiers of Russia. The Russian centre at the time of the Mongol
conquest was the northern Vladimir. ♦Moscow the new centre, c. 1328.♦
Towards the end of the thirteenth century, _Moskva_, on the river of
that name, grew into importance, and early in the next century it
became the centre of Russian life. ♦Name of _Muscovy_.♦ From _Moskva_
or _Moscow_ comes the old name of _Muscovy_, a name which historically
describes the growth of the second Russian power. Muscovy was to Russia
what France in the older sense was to the whole land which came to bear
that name. Moscow was to Russia all, and more than all, that Paris was
to France. It was to Moscow as the centre that the separate Russian
principalities fell in; it was from Moscow as the centre that the lost
Russian lands were won back. ♦Other Russian states.♦ Besides Novgorod,
there still were the separate states of _Viatka_, _Pskof_, _Tver_, and
_Riazan_. Disunion and dependence lasted till late in the fifteenth
century. ♦Decline of the Mongol power.♦ But the Tartar power had
already begun to grow weaker before the end of the fourteenth, and the
invasion of Timour, while making Russia for a moment more completely
subject, led to the dissolution of the dominion of the older Khans.
♦Break-up of the Mongol power.♦
In the course of the fifteenth century the great power of the Golden
Horde broke up into a number of smaller khanats. ♦Khanat of Crim;♦
The khanat of _Crim_—the old Tauric Chersonêsos—stretched from its
peninsula inwards along the greater part of the course of the Don.
♦of Kazan, 1438;♦ The khanat of _Kazan_ on the Volga supplanted the
old kingdom of White Bulgaria. ♦of Siberia;♦ Far to the east, on the
lower course of the Obi, was the khanat of _Siberia_. ♦of Astrakhan.♦
The Golden Horde itself was represented by the khanat of _Astrakhan_
on the lower Volga, with its capital at the mouth of that river. Of
these Crim and Kasan were immediate neighbours of the Muscovite state.
♦Deliverance of Russia. 1480.♦ The yoke was at last broken by Ivan the
Great. ♦1487.♦ Seven years later he placed a tributary prince on the
throne of Kazan, and himself took the title of _Prince of Bulgaria_.
♦Crim dependent on the Ottoman.♦ By this time the khans of Crim had
become dependents of the Ottoman Sultans, the beginning of the long
strife between Russia and the Turk in Europe.
♦Advance of Moscow in Russia.♦
But before Muscovy thus became an independent power, it had taken the
greatest of steps towards growing into Russia. ♦Annexation of Novgorod.
1470;♦ Novgorod the Great, the only Russian rival of Moscow, first lost
its northern territory, and then itself became part of the Muscovite
dominion. ♦of Viatka, 1478; | of Tver, 1493.♦ The commonwealth of
_Viatka_, the principality of _Tver_, and some small appanages of the
house of Moscow followed. ♦Reign of Basil Ivanovitch, 1505-1533.
| Annexation of Pskof and Riazan.♦ The annexation of what remained,
as _Pskof_ and _Riazan_, was only a question of time, and it came in
the next reign. Of the three works which were needful for the full
growth of the new Russia, two were accomplished. ♦Russia united and
independent.♦ The Russian state was one, and it was independent. And
the third work, that of winning back the lost Russian lands, had
already begun.
♦Survey at the end of the fifteenth century.♦
Thus, at the end of the fifteenth century, five powers held the Baltic
coast. Sweden held the west coast from the Danish frontier northward,
with both sides of the gulf of Bothnia and both sides of the gulf
of Finland. Denmark held the extreme western coast and the isle of
Gotland. Poland and Lithuania had a small seaboard indeed compared to
their inland extent. Poland had only the Pomeranian and Prussian coast
which she had just won from the Knights. Lithuania barely touched
the sea between Prussia and Curland. To the west of the Polish coast
lay the now Germanized lands of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. To the
north-west lay the coast of the German military Order, under Polish
vassalage in Prussia, independent in its northern possessions. Thus
almost the whole Baltic coast was held by Teutonic powers; the Slavonic
powers still lie mainly inland. The Polish frontier towards the Empire
has been cut down to the limit which it kept till the end. Pomerania,
Silesia, a great part of the mark of Brandenburg, have fallen away from
the Polish realm. On the other hand, that realm and its confederate
Lithuania have grown wonderfully to the east at the cost of divided and
dependent Russia, and have begun to fall back again before Russia one
and independent. Bohemia, enlarged by Silesia and Lusatia, has entered
so thoroughly into the German world as almost to pass out of our sight.
§ 4. _The Growth of Russia and Sweden._
♦Changes of the last four centuries.♦
The work of the last four centuries on the Baltic coast has been to
drive back the Scandinavian power, after a vast momentary advance,
wholly to the west of the Baltic—to give nearly the whole eastern
coast to Russia—to make the whole southern coast German. These changes
involve the wiping out, first of the German military Order, and then of
Poland and Lithuania. ♦Growth of Russia and creation of Prussia.♦ This
last change involves the growth of Russia, and the creation of Prussia
in the modern sense, a sense so strangely different from its earlier
meaning. These two have been the powers by which Sweden and Denmark
have been cut short, by which Poland and Lithuania have been swallowed
up. In this last work they indeed had a third confederate. Still the
share of Austria in the overthrow of Poland was in a manner incidental.
But the existence of such a Polish and Lithuanian state as stood at
the end of the fifteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century was
inconsistent with the existence of either Russia or Prussia as great
European powers.
The period with which we have now to deal takes in only the former
stage of this process. Russia advances; Prussia in the modern sense
comes into being. ♦Greatness of Sweden.♦ But Sweden is still the most
advancing power of all; and, if Denmark falls back, it is before the
power of Sweden. The Hansa too and the Knights pass away; Sweden is the
ruling power of the Baltic.
* * * * *
The sixteenth century saw the fall of both branches of the Teutonic
Order. Out of the fall of one of them came the beginnings of modern
_Prussia_. ♦Separation of the Prussian and Livonian knights. 1515.♦
The two branches of the Order were separated; the Livonian lands had
an independent Master. ♦Beginning of the Duchy of Prussia. 1525.♦
Before long the Prussian Grand Master, Albert of Brandenburg, changed
from the head of a Catholic religious order into a Lutheran temporal
prince, holding the hereditary _duchy of Prussia_ as a Polish fief.
♦Geographical position of Prussia.♦ That duchy had so strange a
frontier towards the kingdom that it could not fail sooner or later
either to be swallowed up by the kingdom which hemmed it in, or else
to make its way out of its geographical bonds. ♦Union of Prussia and
Brandenburg. 1611.♦ When the Prussian duchy and the mark of Brandenburg
came into the hands of one prince, when the dominions of that prince
were enlarged by the union of Brandenburg and Pomerania, the second of
these solutions became only a question of time. ♦Prussia independent of
Poland. 1647.♦ The first formal step towards it was the release of the
duchy from all dependence on Poland. Prussia became a distinct state,
one now essentially German, but lying beyond the bounds of the Empire.
As the rights of the Empire had been formally cut short when Prussia
passed under Polish vassalage, they were also formally cut short by
the dissolution of the northern branch of the Teutonic order. ♦Fall
of the Livonian Order. 1558-1561.♦ The rule of the Livonian Knights
survived the secularization of the Prussian duchy by forty years; their
dominion then fell asunder. ♦Duchy of Curland.♦ As in the case of
Prussia, part of their territory, _Curland_ and _Semigallia_, was kept
by the Livonian Master Godhard Kettler, as an hereditary duchy under
Polish vassalage. The rest of the lands of the order were parted out
among the chief powers of the Baltic. ♦Momentary kingdom of Livonia.♦ A
Livonian kingdom under the Danish prince Magnus was but for a moment.
♦Denmark takes Dago and Oesel.♦ Denmark in the end received the islands
of _Dago_ and _Oesel_, her last conquests east of the Baltic. ♦Sweden
takes Esthland.♦ Sweden advanced south of the Finnish gulf, taking
the greater part of Esthland. ♦Livland goes to Poland and Russia.♦
Northern Livland fell to Russia, the southern part to Poland. ♦All
Livland Polish. 1582.♦ Twenty years later all Livland became a Polish
possession.
♦Greatest Baltic extent of Poland and Lithuania.♦
This acquisition of Livland and of the superiority over Prussia and
Curland raised the united power of Poland and Lithuania to its greatest
extent on the Baltic coast. ♦Union of Lublin, 1569.♦ Meanwhile the
union of _Lublin_ joined the kingdom and the grand duchy yet more
closely together. But, long before this time, the eastern frontier
of Lithuania had begun to fall back. ♦Russian advance.♦ The central
advance of Russia to the west had begun. ♦Its causes.♦ A revived
state, such as Russia was at the end of the fifteenth century, must
advance, unless it be artificially hindered; and the new Russian state
was driven to advance if it was to exist at all. It had no sea-board,
except on the White Sea; it did not hold the mouth of any one of its
great rivers, except the Northern Dvina, a stream thoroughly cut off
from European life. The dominions of Sweden, Lithuania, and the Knights
cut Russia off from the Baltic and from central Europe. To the south
and east she was cut off from the Euxine and the Caspian, from the
mouths of the Don and the Volga, by the powers which represented her
old barbarian masters. Russia was thus not only driven to advance,
but driven to advance in various directions. She had to win back her
lost lands; she had, if she was really to become an European power,
to win her way to the Baltic and to the Euxine. ♦Advance to the
north-east.♦ Her position made it almost equally needful to win her
way to the Caspian, and made it unavoidable that she should spread her
power over the barbarian lands to the north-east. Of these several
fields of advance the path to the Euxine was the longest barred.
♦Order of Russian advances.♦ First, at the end of the fifteenth
century, began the recovery of the lost lands, a work spread over
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Then, in the
sixteenth, came the eastern extension at the cost of the now weakened
Mongol enemy. Strictly Baltic extension was in the sixteenth century
merely momentary; it did not become lasting till the beginning of the
eighteenth. ♦The Euxine reached last.♦ But Russia had been established
on the Caspian for more than two centuries, she had become a Baltic
power for more than two generations, before she made her way to the
oldest scene of her seafaring enterprise.
♦Recovery of the lands conquered by Lithuania.♦
The recovery of the lands which had been lost to Lithuania began before
the end of the fifteenth century. Ivan the Great won back _Severia_,
with _Tchernigof_ and the Severian _Novgorod_ and part of the territory
of _Smolensk_. ♦1514. | 1563.♦ Under Basil Smolensk itself followed;
under Ivan the Terrible Polotsk again became Russian. Then the tide
turned for a season. Russia first lost her newly-won territory in
Livland. ♦Recovery of Smolensk by Poland. 1582. | Polish conquest of
Russia, 1606.♦ The recovery of Smolensk by Poland was followed by the
momentary Polish conquest of independent Russia, and the occupation of
the throne of Moscow by a Polish prince. ♦Second revival of Russia, and
second advance.♦ The Muscovite state came again to life; but it was
shorn of a large part of the national territory, which had to be won
again by a second advance. ♦Cessions to Poland.♦ Smolensk, Tchernigof,
and the greater part of the Lithuanian conquests beyond the Dnieper,
were again surrendered to the united Polish and Lithuanian state. In
the middle of the century came the renewed Russian advance. ♦Lands
recovered by the Peace of Andraszovo, 1667.♦ The Treaty of Andraszovo
gave back to Russia most of the lands which had been surrendered fifty
years before. ♦Recovery of Kief. 1686.♦ By the last advance in the
seventeenth century Russia won back a small territory west of the
Dnieper, including her ancient capital of Kief. ♦Superiority over the
Ukraine Cossacks.♦ At the same time Poland finally gave up to Russia
the superiority over the Cossacks of Ukraine, between the Bug and the
Lower Dnieper. ♦Russian lands still kept by Poland.♦ But, with this
exception, Poland and Lithuania still kept all the Russian lands south
of Duna and west of Dnieper, with some districts beyond those rivers.
Nor was Russia the only power to which Poland had to give way on her
south-eastern frontier. ♦Podolia lost to the Turk.♦ In this quarter the
Ottoman for the last time won a new province from a Christian state by
the acquisition of _Kamienetz_ and all _Podolia_.[67]
* * * * *
But Poland had during this period to give way at other points also.
This was the time of the great growth of the Swedish power. ♦Growth of
Sweden and Russia compared.♦ The contrast between the growth of Sweden
and the contemporary growth of Russia is instructive. The revived power
of Moscow was partly winning back its own lost lands, partly advancing
in directions which were needful for national growth, almost for
national being. The growth of Sweden in so many directions was almost
wholly a growth beyond her own borders. ♦Russian advance lasting.
| Swedish advance temporary.♦ Hence doubtless it came that the advance
of Russia has been lasting, while the advance of Sweden was only for a
season. Sweden has lost by far the greater part of her conquests; she
has kept only those parts of them which went to complete her position
in her own peninsula.
On the Swedish conquest of Esthland followed a series of shiftings
of the frontiers of Sweden and Russia which lasted into the present
century. ♦Advance under and after Gustavus Adolphus. 1611-1660.♦ During
the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, and the period which we might almost
call the continuation of his reign after his death, Sweden advanced
both in her own peninsula and east of the Baltic, while she also
gained a wholly new footing on German ground, both on the Baltic and
on the Ocean. ♦Wars between Sweden and Russia. 1576-1617. | Peace of
Stalbova.♦ A long period of alternate war and peace, a time in which
Novgorod the Great passed for a moment into Swedish hands, was ended,
as far as Sweden and Russia were concerned, by the peace of Stalbova.
♦Sweden gains Ingermanland.♦ The Swedish frontier thus fixed took in
all _Carelia_ and _Ingermanland_, and wholly cut off Russia from the
Baltic and its gulfs. Such an advance could not fail to lead to further
advance, though at the expense of another enemy. ♦Wars between Sweden
and Poland. 1619-1660. | Swedish conquest of Livland, 1621-1625;♦ The
long war between Sweden and Poland gave to Sweden Riga and the greater
part of Livland. ♦of Dago and Oesel, 1645.♦ Her conquests in this
region were completed by winning the islands of Dago and Oesel from
Denmark.
♦Advance of Sweden against Denmark and Norway.♦
This last acquisition, geographically connected with the Swedish
conquests from Russia and Poland, was politically part of an equally
great advance which Sweden was making at the cost of the rival
Scandinavian power, the united realms of Denmark and Norway. ♦Conquest
of Gotland and Bornholm. 1645. | Of Jämteland.♦ Along with the two
eastern islands, Denmark lost the isle of _Gotland_ for ever and that
of _Bornholm_ for a moment,[68] and the Norwegian provinces east of the
mountains, _Jämteland_ and _Hertjedalen_. The treaty of Roskild yet
further enlarged Sweden at the expense of Norway. ♦Of Trondhjemlän.
1658.♦ By the cession of _Trondhjemlän_ the Norwegian kingdom was
split asunder; the ancient metropolis was lost, and Sweden reached to
the Ocean. ♦Of Bohuslän, and Scania, &c.♦ With Trondhjem Sweden also
received _Bohuslän_, the southern province of Norway, and, more than
all, the ancient possessions of Denmark in the northern peninsula,
with her old metropolis of _Lund_. Here comes in the application of
the rule. ♦Trondhjem restored to Norway. 1660.♦ In annexing Trondhjem
Sweden had overshot her mark; it was restored within two years. It was
otherwise with Bohuslän, Scania, and her other conquests within what
might seem to be her natural borders; they have remained Swedish to
this day.
♦Lands held by Sweden in Germany, Pomerania and Rügen, Bremen and
Verden. 1648.♦
The Swedish acquisition of the eastern lands of Denmark was made more
necessary by the position which Sweden had now taken on the central
mainland. The peace of Westfalia had confirmed her in the possession of
_Rügen_ and _Western Pomerania_ on the Baltic, and of the bishoprics
of _Bremen_ and _Verden_ which made her a power on the Ocean. These
lands were not strictly an addition to the Swedish realm; they were
fiefs of the Empire held by the Swedish king. Here again comes in the
geographical law. The Swedish possession of the German lands on the
Ocean was short; part of the German lands on the Baltic was kept into
the present century.
* * * * *
The peace of Roskild, which cut short the kingdoms of Denmark
and Norway in the northern peninsula, also marks an epoch in the
controverted history of the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein. ♦Denmark
gives up the sovereignty of the Gottorp lands. 1658.♦ The Danish king
gave up the _sovereignty_ of the Gottorp districts of the duchies. Even
if that cession implied the surrender of his own feudal superiority
over the Gottorp districts of Sleswick, he could not alienate any part
of the Imperial rights over Holstein. ♦Fluctuations in the duchies.
1675-1700.♦ This sovereignty, in whatever it consisted, was lost
and won several times between king and Duke before the end of the
century. ♦Danish possession of Oldenburg. 1678.♦ Meanwhile the Danish
crown became possessed of the outlying duchies of _Oldenburg_ and
_Delmenhorst_, which in some sort balanced the Swedish possession of
Bremen and Verden.
♦Sweden after the peace of Oliva.♦
The wars and treaties which were ended by the peace of Oliva fixed the
boundaries of the Baltic lands for a season. They fixed the home extent
of Sweden down to the present century. They cut off Denmark, save its
one outpost of _Bornholm_, from the Baltic itself, as distinguished
from the narrow seas which lead to it. They fixed the extent of Poland
down to the partitions. What they failed to do for any length of time
was to cut off Russia from the Baltic, and to establish Sweden on
the Ocean. But for the present we leave Sweden ruling over the whole
western and the greater part of the eastern coast of the Northern
Mediterranean, and holding smaller possessions both on its southern
coast and on the Ocean. The rest of the eastern and southern coast of
the Baltic is divided between the Polish fief of Curland, the dominions
of the common ruler of Pomerania and Prussia,—now an independent prince
in his eastern duchy,—and the small piece of Polish coast placed
invitingly between the two parts of his dominions. In her own peninsula
Sweden has reached her natural frontier, and has given back what she
won for a moment beyond it. While Sweden has this vast extent of coast
with comparatively little extent inland, the vast inland region of
Poland and Lithuania has hardly any seaboard, and the still vaster
inland region of Russia has none at all in Europe, except on the White
Sea. Thus the most striking feature of this period is the advance of
Sweden; but we have seen that it was also a time of great advance on
the part of Russia. It was a time of yet greater advance on that side
of her dominion where Russia had no European rivals.
♦Eastern advance of Russia.♦
In the case of Russia, the only European power which could conquer
and colonize by land in barbarian regions,[69] her earlier barbarian
conquests were absolutely necessary to her existence. No hard line can
be drawn between her earliest and her latest conquests, between the
first advance of Novgorod and the last conquests in Turkestan. But the
advance which immediately followed the deliverance from the Tartar yoke
marks a great epoch. The smaller khanats into which the dominion of
the Golden Horde had been broken up still kept Russia from the Euxine
and the Caspian. ♦Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. 1552-1554.♦ The two
khanats on the Volga, _Kazan_ and _Astrakhan_, were subdued by Ivan
the Terrible. The coast of the Caspian was now reached. But the khans
of _Crim_ remained, unsubdued and dangerous enemies, still cutting off
Russia from the Euxine. ♦Superiority over the Don Cossacks. 1577.♦ Yet,
even in this direction an advance was made when the Russian supremacy
was acknowledged by the Cossacks of the Don. ♦Beginning of Siberian
conquest. 1581. | 1592-1706.♦ The conquest of the Siberian khanat, with
its capital _Tobolsk_, next followed, and thence, in the course of the
next century, the boundless extent of northern Asia was added to the
Russian dominion.
§ 5. _The Decline of Sweden and Poland._
In the last section we traced out the greatest advance of Sweden and
a large advance of Russia, both made at the cost of Poland, that of
Sweden also at the cost of Denmark. We saw also the beginnings of
a power which we still called _Brandenburg_ rather than _Prussia_.
♦Growth of Prussia.♦ In the present section, describing the work of the
eighteenth century, we have to trace the growth of this last power,
which now definitely takes the Prussian name, and which we have to
look at in its Prussian character. ♦Decline of Sweden. | Extinction of
Poland.♦ The period is marked by the decline of Sweden and the utter
wiping out of Poland and Lithuania, Russia and Prussia in different
degrees being chief actors in both cases. ♦Kingdom of Prussia. 1701.♦
At the beginning of the period Prussia becomes a kingdom—a sign of
advance, though not accompanied by any immediate increase of territory.
♦Empire of Russia. 1721.♦ A little later the ruler of Russia, already
Imperial in his own tongue,[70] more definitely takes the Imperial
style as _Emperor of all the Russias_. This might pass as a challenge
of the Russian lands, Black, White, and Red, which were still held by
Poland.
♦Russia on the Baltic.♦
But more pressing than the recovery of these lands was the breaking
down of the barrier by which Sweden kept Russia away from the Baltic.
To a very slight extent this was a recovery of old Russian territory;
but the position now won by Russia was wholly new. ♦Wars of Charles and
Peter. 1700-1721. | Foundation of Saint Petersburg. 1703.♦ The war with
Charles the Twelfth made Russia a great Baltic power, and Peter the
Great, early in the struggle, set up the great trophy of his victory
in the foundation of his new capital of Saint Petersburg on ground
won from Sweden. ♦Cession of Livland, &c., by Sweden.♦ The peace of
Nystad confirmed Russia in the possession of Swedish Livland, Esthland,
Ingermanland, part of Carelia, and a small part of Finland itself.
♦Further advance of Russia. 1741-1743.♦ Another war, ended by the Peace
of Åbo, gave Russia another small extension in Finland.
At the same time Sweden was cut short in her other outlying
possessions. ♦Sweden loses Bremen, Verden, and part of Pomerania.♦
Of her German fiefs, the duchies of Bremen and Verden passed, first
to Denmark, then to Hannover. But her Baltic possessions were only
partly lost, to the profit of Brandenburg. The frontier of Swedish
Pomerania fell back to the north-west, losing Stettin, but keeping
Stralsund, Wolgast, and Rügen. Denmark meanwhile advanced in the
debateable land on her southern frontier. ♦Danish conquest of the
Gottorp lands. 1713-1715.♦ The Danish occupation of Bremen and Verden
was only momentary; but the Gottorp share of Sleswick and Holstein was
conquered, and the possession of all Sleswick was guaranteed to Denmark
by England and France. ♦The Gottorp lands in Holstein restored.♦ But
the Gottorp share of Holstein, as an Imperial fief, was given back to
its Duke. ♦They pass to Denmark in exchange for Oldenburg. 1767-1773.♦
Lastly, when the house of Gottorp had mounted the throne of Russia,
the Gottorp portion of Holstein was ceded to Denmark in exchange for
Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, which were at once given to another branch
of the family.
* * * * *
♦First partition of Poland. 1772.♦
In the latter part of the eighteenth century the three partitions
of Poland brought about the all but complete recovery of the lands
which the Lithuanian dukes had won from Russia. ♦Russian share.♦ The
first partition gave Russia Polish Livland, and all the lands which
Poland still kept beyond Duna and Dnieper. The greater part of _White
Russia_ was thus won back. ♦Prussian share. | Brandenburg and Prussia
geographically united.♦ At the same time the house of Hohenzollern
gained its great territorial need, the geographical union of the
kingdom of Prussia with the lands of Brandenburg and Pomerania, now
increased by nearly all Silesia. This union was made by Poland giving
up _West Prussia_—Danzig remaining an outlying city of Poland—and part
of _Great Poland_ and _Cujavia_, known as the _Netz District_.[71]
♦Austrian share. | Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ The Austrian
share, the new kingdom of _Galicia and Lodomeria_, was a kind of
commemoration of the conquests of Lewis the Great:[72] but, while it
did not take in all _Red Russia_, it took in part of _Podolia_ and of
_Little Poland_ south of the Vistula, making Cracow a frontier city.
♦Russian territory held by Austria.♦ Austria thus became possessed of
a part of the old Russian territory, most of which she has kept ever
since.
♦Second partition. 1793.♦
The Polish state was thus maimed on all sides; but it still kept a
considerable territorial extent. The second partition, the work of
Russia and Prussia only, could only be a preparation for the final
death-blow. ♦Russian share.♦ It gave to Russia the rest of _Podolia_
and _Ukraine_, and part of _Volhynia_ and _Podlasia_. _Little Russia_
and _White Russia_ were thus wholly won back, and the Russian frontier
was advanced within the old Lithuanian duchy. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia
took nearly all that was left of the oldest Polish state, the rest of
_Great Poland_ and _Cujavia_, and part of _Mazovia_, forming the _South
Prussia_ of the new nomenclature. Gnesen, the oldest Polish capital,
the metropolis of the Polish Church, now passed away from Poland.
The remnant that was left to Poland took in the greater part of _Little
Poland_, part of _Mazovia_, the greater part of the old _Lithuania_
with the fragment still left of its Russian territory, _Samogitia_ and
the fief of _Curland_. ♦Third partition. 1795.♦ The final division
was delayed only two years. This time all three partners joined.
♦Russian share.♦ Russia took all _Lithuania_ east of the Niemen, with
its capital _Vilna_, also _Curland_ and _Samogitia_ to the north, and
the old Russian remnant to the south. ♦Austrian share.♦ Austria took
_Cracow_, with nearly all the rest of _Little Poland_, as also part
of _Mazovia_, by the name of _New Galicia_. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia
took _Danzig_ and _Thorn_, as also a small piece of _Little Poland_ to
improve the frontiers of South Prussia and Silesia, perhaps without
thinking that this last process was an advance of the Roman Terminus.
The capital _Warsaw_, with the remnant of _Mazovia_ and the strip of
_Lithuania_ west of the Niemen, also fell to Prussia. The names of
Poland and Lithuania now passed away from the map.
♦No original Polish territory gained by Russia in the partitions.♦
It is important to remember that the three partitions gave no part
of the original Polish realm to Russia. Russia took back the Russian
territory which had been long before won by Lithuania, and added the
greater part of Lithuania itself, with the lands immediately to the
north. ♦The old Poland divided between Prussia and Austria.♦ The
ancient kingdom of Poland was divided between Prussia and Austria, and
the oldest Poland of all fell to the lot of Prussia. ♦Poland passes to
Prussia,♦ Great Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, the Polish lands which had
passed to the mark of Brandenburg, once united under Polish rule, were
again united under the power to which they had gradually fallen away.
♦Chrobatia to Austria.♦ Austria or Hungary meanwhile took the rest of
the northern Chrobatia, seven hundred years after the acquisition of
the former part, and also the Russian land which had been twice before
added to the Magyar kingdom.
* * * * *
♦Advance to the Euxine.♦
Meanwhile Russia made advances in other quarters of nearly equal
extent. As the remnant of the Saracen at Granada cut off the Castilian
from his southern coast or the Mediterranean, for more than two hundred
years, so did the remnant of the Tartar in _Crim_ cut off the Russian
for as long a time from his southern coast on the Euxine. ♦Occupation
of Azof. 1696-1711.♦ Peter the Great first made his way, if not to
the Euxine, at least to its inland gulf, by the taking of _Azof_.
But the new conquest was only temporary. After seventy years more
the work was done. ♦Independence of Crim 1774. | Annexation of Crim.
1783.♦ First came the nominal independence of the Crimean khanat,
then its incorporation with Russia. The work at which Megarian and
Genoese colonists had laboured was now done; the northern coast of the
Euxine was won for Europe.[73] The road through which so many Turanian
invaders had pressed into the Aryan continent was blocked for ever.
♦Conquest of Jedisan. 1791.♦ The next advance, the limit of Russian
advance made strictly at the expense of the barbarian as distinguished
from his Christian vassals, carried the Russian frontier from the Bug
to the Dniester.
♦Russian conquests from Persia. 1727-1734.♦
The chief Asiatic acquisition of Russia in the eighteenth century took
a strange form. It was conquest beyond the sea, though only beyond the
inland Caspian. Turk and Russian joined to dismember Persia, and for
some years Russia held the south coast of that great lake, the lands
of _Daghestan_, _Ghilan_, and _Mazanderan_. ♦Superiority over Georgia.
1783.♦ Later in the century the ancient Christian kingdom of _Georgia_
passed under Russian superiority, the earnest of much Russian conquest
on both sides of Caucasus. ♦Superiority over the Kirghis. 1773.♦ And
nearly at the same time as the first steps towards the acquisition of
Crim, the Russian dominion was spread over the _Kirghis_ hordes west
of the river Ural, winning a coast on the eastern Caspian, the sea of
Aral, and the Baltash lake.
♦Survey at the end of the eighteenth century.♦
Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, the Swedish power has
fallen back. Its territory east of the Baltic is less than it was at
the beginning of the sixteenth century. Denmark, on the other hand, has
grown by an advance in the debateable southern duchies. All Sleswick
is added to the Danish crown; all Holstein is held by the Danish king.
Poland has vanished. The anomalous power on the middle Danube, whose
princes, it must be remembered, still wore the crown of the Empire, has
thrust itself into the very heart of the old Polish land. But the power
which has gained most by the extinction of Poland has been the new
kingdom of Prussia. If part of her annexations lasted only a few years,
she made her Baltic coast continuous for ever. But Prussia and Austria
alike, by joining to wipe out the central state of the whole region,
have given themselves a mighty neighbour. Russia has wholly cast aside
her character as a mere inland power, intermediate between Europe and
Asia. She has won her way, after so many ages, to her old position and
much more. She has a Baltic and an Euxine seaboard. Her recovery of her
old lands on the Duna and the Dnieper, her conquest of new lands on the
Niemen, have brought her into the heart of Europe. And she has opened
the path which was also to lead her into the heart of Asia, and to
establish her in the intermediate mountain land between the Euxine and
the Caspian.
§ 6. _The Modern Geography of the Baltic Lands._
♦The French revolutionary wars.♦
The territorial arrangements of Northern and Eastern Europe were not
affected by the French revolutionary wars till after the fall of the
Western Empire. At that moment the frontier of Germany and Denmark
was still what it had been under Charles the Great; “Eidora Romani
terminus Imperii.” Only now the Danish king ruled to the south of the
boundary stream in the character of a prince of the Empire. ♦Holstein
incorporated with Denmark, and Swedish Pomerania with Sweden. 1806.♦
The fall of the Empire put an end to this relation, and the duchy of
Holstein was incorporated with the Danish realm. In the like sort,
the Swedish kingdom was extended to the central mainland of Europe,
by the incorporation of the Pomeranian dominions of the Swedish king.
♦Russian conquest of Finland, 1809.♦ Before long, the last war between
Sweden and Russia was ended by the peace of Friderikshamn, when Sweden
gave up all her territory east of the gulf as far as the river Tornea,
together with the isles of _Aland_. ♦Grand Duchy of Finland.♦ These
lands passed to the Russian Emperor as a separate and privileged
dominion, the _Grand Duchy of Finland_. Thus Sweden withdrew to her own
side of the Baltic, while Russia at last became mistress of the whole
eastern coast from the Prussian border northward. ♦Union of Sweden and
Norway. 1814-1815.♦ The general peace left this arrangement untouched,
but decreed the separation of Norway from Denmark and its union with
Sweden. This was carried out so far as to effect the union of Sweden
and Norway as independent kingdoms under a single king. ♦Swedish
Pomerania passes to Denmark.♦ Denmark got in compensation, as diplomacy
calls it, a scrap of its old Slavonic realm, Rügen and Swedish
Pomerania. ♦Exchanged with Prussia for Lauenburg.♦ These detached lands
were presently exchanged with Prussia for a land adjoining Holstein,
the duchy of _Lauenburg_, the representative of ancient Saxony.[74]
♦Heligoland passes to England.♦ Denmark kept Iceland, but the Frisian
island of _Heligoland_ off the coast of Sleswick passed to England.
Thus the common king of Sweden and Norway reigns over the whole of the
northern peninsula and over nothing out of it. No such great change had
affected the Scandinavian kingdoms since the union of Calmar.
♦Holstein and Lauenburg join the German Confederation.♦
Meanwhile the king of Denmark, remaining the independent sovereign
of Denmark, Iceland, and Sleswick, entered the German Confederation
for his duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg. ♦Disputes and wars in the
Duchies.♦ Disputes and wars made no geographical change till the war
which followed the accession of the present king. The changes which
then followed have been told elsewhere.[75] ♦Transfer of Sleswick
and Holstein, with Lauenburg to Prussia. 1864-1866.♦ They amount to
the transfer to Prussia of Lauenburg, Holstein, and Sleswick, with a
slight change of frontier and a redistribution of the smaller islands.
A conditional engagement for the restoration of northern Sleswick to
Denmark was not fulfilled, and has been formally annulled.
* * * * *
♦Losses of Prussia. 1806.♦
In the lands which had been Poland and Lithuania, the immediate result
of the French wars was the creation of a new Polish state; their
final result was a great extension of the dominion of Russia. Prussia
had to surrender its whole Polish territory, save West Prussia.[76]
♦Bialystok added to Russia. | Danzig a commonwealth.♦ A small
Lithuanian territory, the district of _Bialystok_, was given to Russia;
_Danzig_ became a separate commonwealth. ♦Duchy of Warsaw♦ The rest of
the Prussian share of Poland formed the new _Duchy of Warsaw_. This
state was really no bad representative of the oldest Poland of all.
Silesia was gone; but the new duchy took in Great Poland and Cujavia,
with parts of Little Poland, Mazovia, and Lithuania. It took in the
oldest capital at Gnesen and the newest at Warsaw. ♦Enlarged by part
of Austrian Poland. 1810.♦ The new state was presently enlarged by
the addition of the territory added to Austria by the last partition.
Cracow, with the greater part of Little Poland, was again joined to
Great Poland. ♦Extent of the Duchy.♦ Speaking roughly, the duchy took
in nearly the whole of the old Polish kingdom, without Silesia, but
with some small Lithuanian and Russian territory added.
♦Arrangements of 1815.♦
It was the Poland thus formed, a state which answered much more
nearly to the Poland of the fourteenth than to the Poland of the
eighteenth century, which, by the arrangements of the Vienna Congress,
first received a Russian sovereign. ♦Danzig and Posen restored to
Prussia.♦ Prussia now again rounded off her _West-Prussian_ province
by the recovery of Danzig and Thorn, and she rounded off her southern
frontier by the recovery of Posen and Gnesen, which had been part
of her _South-Prussian_ province. The _Grand Duchy of Posen_ became
again part of the Prussian state. ♦Cracow a commonwealth. | Annexed by
Austria. 1846.♦ _Cracow_ became a republic, to be annexed by Austria
thirty years later. ♦Kingdom of Poland united to Russia. 1831-1863.♦
The remainder of the Duchy of Warsaw, under the style of the _Kingdom
of Poland_, became a separate kingdom, but with the Russian Emperor
as its king. ♦Russia takes old Polish territory for the first time.♦
Later events have destroyed, first its constitution, then its separate
being; and now all ancient Poland, except the part of Great Poland kept
by Prussia and the part of Little Poland kept by Austria, is merged in
the Russian Empire. Thus the Russian acquisition of strictly Polish,
as distinguished from old-Russian and Lithuanian territory, dates, not
from the partitions, but from the Congress of Vienna. It was to the
behoof of Prussia and Austria, not of Russia, that the old kingdom of
the Piasts was broken in pieces.
The changes of the nineteenth century with regard to the lands on
the European coasts of the Euxine have been told elsewhere.[77]
♦Fluctuation of the Russian frontier towards Moldavia. | 1812-1878.♦
They amount, as far as the geographical boundaries of Russia are
concerned, to her advance to the Pruth and the Danube, her partial
withdrawal, her second partial advance. ♦Advance in the Caucasus.♦
Meanwhile the Russian advance in the nineteenth century on the Asiatic
shores of the Euxine and in the lands on and beyond the Caspian has
been far greater than her advance during the eighteenth. It is in our
own century that Russia has taken up her commanding position between
the Euxine and the Caspian seas, one which in some sort amounts to an
enlargement of Europe at the expense of Asia. The old frontier on the
Caspian, which had hardly changed since the conquest of Astrakhan,
reached to the _Terek_. The annexation of Crim made the _Kuban_ the
boundary on the side of the Euxine. ♦Incorporation of Georgia. 1800.♦
The incorporation of the _Georgian_ kingdom gave Russia an outlying
territory south of the Caucasus on the upper course of the _Kur_.
♦Advance on the Caspian. 1802.♦ Next came the acquisition of the
Caspian coast from the mouth of the Terek to the mouth of the Kur, the
land of _Daghestan_ and _Shirwan_, including part of the territory
which had been held for a few years in the eighteenth century.
♦Advance in Armenia and Circassia. 1829.♦ The Persian and Turkish wars
gave Russia the Armenian land of _Erivan_ as far as the _Araxes_,
_Mingrelia_ and _Immeretia_, and the nominal cession of the Euxine
coast between them and the older frontier. ♦1859.♦ But it was thirty
years before the mountain region of _Circassia_ was fully subdued.
♦1878.♦ The last changes have extended the Trans-Caucasian frontier of
Russia to the south by the addition of _Batoum_ and _Kars_.
♦Advance in Turkestan. 1853-1868.♦
In the lands east of the Caspian the new province of Turkestan
gradually grew up in the lands on the Jaxartes, reaching southward
to Samarkand. ♦1875.♦ _Khokand_ to the south-east followed, while
_Khiva_ and _Bokhara_, the lands on the Oxus, have passed under Russian
influence. The Turcoman tribes immediately east of the Caspian have
also been annexed. The Caspian has thus nearly become a Russian lake.
Hardly anything remains to Persia except the extreme southern coast
which was once for a moment Russian.
♦Advance in Eastern Asia. 1858.♦
Far again to the east, Russia has added a large territory on the
Chinese border on the river Amoor. ♦Extent and character of the Russian
dominion.♦ All these conquests form the greatest continuous extent of
territory by land which the world has ever seen, unless during the
transient dominion of the old Mongols. No other European power in any
age has, or could have had, such a continuous dominion, because no
other European power has ever had the unknown barbarian world lying
in the same way at its side. Nowhere again has any European power
held a dominion so physically unbroken as that which stretches from
the gulf of Riga to the gulf of Okhotsk. The greater part of the
Asiatic dominion of Russia belongs to that part of Asia which has
least likeness to Europe. It is only on the Frozen Ocean that we find
a kind of mockery of inland seas, islands, and peninsulas. Massive
unbroken extent by land is its leading character. And as this character
extends to a large part of European Russia also, Russia is the only
European land where there can be any doubt where Europe ends. The
barbarian dominion of other European states, a dominion beyond the
sea, has been a dominion of choice. The barbarian dominion of Russia in
lands adjoining her European territory is a dominion forced on her by
geographical necessity. The annexation of Kamtschatka became a question
of time when the first successors of Ruric made their earliest advance
towards the Finnish north.
♦Russian America.♦
Alongside of this continuous dominion in Europe and Asia, the Russian
occupation of territory in a third continent, an occupation made by sea
after the manner of other European powers, has not been lasting. The
Russian territory in the north-west corner of America, the only part
of the world where Russia and England marched on one another, has been
sold to the United States.
* * * * *
♦Final Survey.♦
To return to Europe, the events of the nineteenth century have,
in the lands with which we are dealing, carried on the work of the
eighteenth by the further aggrandizement of Russia and Prussia. The
Scandinavian powers have withdrawn into the two Scandinavian peninsulas
and the adjoining islands, and in the southern peninsula the power
of Denmark has been cut short to the gain of Prussia. The Prussian
power meanwhile, formed in the eighteenth century by the union of
the detached lands of Prussia and Brandenburg, has in the nineteenth
grown into the imperial power of Germany, and has, even as a local
kingdom, become, by the acquisition of Swedish Pomerania, Holstein, and
Sleswick, the dominant power on the southern Baltic. The acquisition of
the duchies too, not only of Sleswick and Holstein, but of Bremen and
Verden also, as parts of the annexed kingdom of Hannover, have given
her a part of the former oceanic position both of Denmark and Sweden.
Russia has acquired the same position on the gulfs of the Baltic which
Prussia has on the south coast of the Baltic itself. The acquisition
of the new Poland has brought her frontier into the very midst of
Europe; it has made her a neighbour, not merely of Prussia as such, but
of Germany. The third sharer in the partition has drawn back from her
northern advance, but she has increased her scrap of Russia, her scrap
of Little Poland, her scrap of Moldavia,[78] by the suppression of a
free city. The southern advance of Russia on European ground has been
during this century an advance less of territory than of influence. The
frontier of 1878 is the restored frontier of 1812. It is in the lands
out of Europe that Russia has in the meanwhile advanced by strides
which look startling on the map, but which in truth spring naturally
from the geographical position of the one modern European power which
cannot help being Asiatic as well.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] See above, pp. 160-162.
[52] See above, p. 163.
[53] A common name for these closely allied nations is sometimes
needed. _Lettic_ is the most convenient; _Lett_, with the adjective
_Lettish_, is the special name of one of the obscurer members of the
family.
[54] See above, p. 130.
[55] See Einhard, Annals A. 815, where we read, ‘trans Ægidoram
fluvium in terram Nordmannorum ... perveniunt.’ So Vita Karoli 12:
‘Dani ac Sueones quos Nortmannos vocamus,’ and 14, ‘Nortmanni qui Dani
vocantur.’ But Adam of Bremen (ii. 3) speaks of ‘mare novissimum, quod
Nortmannos a Danis dirimit.’ But the name includes the Swedes: as in i.
63 he says, ‘Sueones et Gothi, vel, si ita melius dicuntur, Nortmanni,’
and i. 16, ‘Dani et ceteri qui trans Daniam sunt populi _ab historicis
Francorum_ omnes Nordmanni vocantur.’
[56] See above, p. 131, 159.
[57] See Adam of Bremen, iv. 16.
[58] The origin of Samo and the chief seat of his dominion, whether
Bohemia or Carinthia, is discussed by Professor Fasching of Marburg
(Austria) in the _Zweiter Jahresbericht der kk. Staats-Oberrealschule
in Marburg_, 1872.
[59] See Schafarik, _Slawische Alterthümer_, ii. 503.
[60] See above, p. 198.
[61] The Poles claim Boleslaf the First as the first king. But Lambert
(1067), who strongly insists on the tributary condition of Poland,
makes Boleslaf the Second the first king. The royal dignity was
certainly forfeited after his death.
[62] There can be no doubt that the Russian name strictly belongs to
the Scandinavian rulers, and not to the Slavonic people. See Schafarik,
i. 65; Historical Essays, iii. 386. The case is parallel to that of the
Bulgarians and the Franks, save that the name _Rus_ is said to be, not
a Scandinavian name, but a name applied to the Swedes by the Fins.
[63] See above pp. 365, 436.
[64] This document, granted at Metz in 1214, will be found in
Bréholles’ _Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi_, i. 347. It reads
like a complete surrender of all Imperial rights in both the German
and the Slavonic conquests of Waldemar. It may be that it seems to
have that meaning only because the retreating of Terminus was deemed
inconceivable.
[65] Vratislaf, who reigned from 1061 to 1092, is called the first king
of Bohemia, but his royal dignity was only personal. The succession of
kings begins only with Ottocar the First, who reigned from 1197 to 1230.
[66] See above, p. 437.
[67] See above, p. 448.
[68] Conquered by Sweden 1643, restored to Denmark 1645. Ceded to
Sweden 1658, but recovered the same year.
[69] See above, p. 467.
[70] There is no doubt that the title of _Czar_, or rather _Tzar_,
borne by the Russian princes, as by those of Servia and Bulgaria in
earlier times, is simply a contraction of _Cæsar_. In the Treaty of
Carlowitz Peter the Great appears as Tzar of endless countries, but he
is not called _Imperator_, though the Sultan is.
[71] See above, p. 212.
[72] See above, pp. 319, 437.
[73] It is however to be regretted that, in bringing back the old names
into these regions, they have been so often applied to wrong places.
Thus the new _Sebastopol_ answers to the old _Cherson_, while the new
_Cherson_ is elsewhere. The new _Odessa_ has nothing to do with the old
_Odêssos_, and so in other cases.
[74] See above, p. 208.
[75] See above, p. 228.
[76] See also p. 222.
[77] See above, p. 449.
[78] See above, p. 441.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SPANISH PENINSULA AND ITS COLONIES.
♦Analogy between Spain and Scandinavia.♦
The great peninsula of the West has much in common with the great
peninsula of the North. ♦Slight relations with the Empire.♦ Save Sweden
and Norway, no part of Western Europe has had so little to do with the
later Empire as Spain. ♦Break between earlier and later history.♦ And
in no land that formed part of the earlier Empire, save our own island,
is the later history so completely cut off from the earlier history.
The modern kingdoms of Spain have still less claim to represent the
West-Gothic kingdom than the modern kingdom of France had to represent
the Frankish kingdom. ♦Modern Spanish history begins with the Saracen
conquest.♦ The history of Spain, as an element in the European system,
begins with the Saracen invasion. For a hundred years before that time
all trace of dependence on the elder Empire had passed away. With the
later Western Empire Spain had nothing to do after the days of Charles
the Great and his immediate successors. Their claims over a small part
of the country passed away from the Empire to the kings of Karolingia.
♦Analogy between Spain and South-eastern Europe.♦
With the Eastern Empire and the states which grew out of it Spain
has the closest connexion in the way of analogy. ♦Comparison of the
effects of conquest and deliverance in each.♦ Each was a Christian land
conquered from the Mussulman. Each has been wholly or partially won
back from him. But the deliverance of south-western Europe was mainly
the work of its own people, and its deliverance was nearly ended when
the bondage of south-eastern Europe was only beginning. Again, in
south-eastern Europe the nations were fully formed before the Mussulman
conquest, and they have lived through it. ♦The Spanish nation formed
by the war with the Mussulmans.♦ In Spain the Mussulman conquest cut
short the West-Gothic power just as it was growing into a new Romance
nation; the actual Romance nation of Spain was formed by the work of
withstanding the invaders. ♦Analogy between Spain and Russia.♦ The
closest analogy of all is between Spain and Russia. Each was delivered
by its own people. In each case, long after the main deliverance had
been wrought, long after the liberated nation had begun again to take
its place in Europe, the ransomed land was still cut off, by a fragment
of its old enemies, from the coasts of its own southern sea.
* * * * *
♦Extent of the West-Gothic and the Saracen dominions.♦
The Saracen dominion in the West, as established by the first
conquerors, answered very nearly to the West-Gothic kingdom, as it
then stood: but it did not exactly answer to _Spain_, either in the
geographical or in the later Roman sense.[79] When the Saracen came,
the Empire, not the Goth, still held the Balearic Isles, and the
fortresses of _Tangier_ and _Ceuta_ on the Mauretanian side of the
strait. On the other hand, the Goth did not hold quite the whole
of the peninsula, while his dominion took in the Gaulish land of
_Septimania_. Strictly speaking, the conquest was one, not of Spain
geographically, but of the West-Gothic dominions in and out of Spain,
and of the outlying Imperial possessions in their neighbourhood. ♦Two
centres of deliverance.♦ It was from the lands which hindered both
the West-Gothic and the Saracen dominion from exactly answering to
geographical Spain that deliverance came, and it came in two forms.
♦The independent lands.♦ From the land to the north-west, which held
out against both Goth and Saracen, came that form of deliverance which
was strictly native. ♦The Frankish dominion. 752-759.♦ At the other
end, the Frank first won back for Christendom the Saracen province
in Gaul, and then carried his arms into the neighbouring corner of
Spain. ♦778.♦ Thus we get two centres of deliverance, two groups of
states which did the work. There are the north-western lands, whose
history is purely Spanish, which simply withstood the Saracen, and
the north-eastern lands, which were first won from the Saracen by the
Frank, and which gradually freed themselves from their deliverer.
♦Represented severally by Castile and Portugal, and by Aragon.♦ The
former class are represented in later Spanish history by the kingdoms
of Castile and Portugal, the latter by the kingdom of Aragon. Navarre
lies between the two, and shares in the history of both. The former
start geographically from the mountain region washed by the Ocean.
The latter start geographically from the mountains which divide
Gaul and Spain, and which stretch westward to the Mediterranean.
The geographical position of the regions foreshadows their later
history.[80] ♦Later history of Aragon.♦ It was Aragon, looking to the
East, which first played a great part in European affairs, and which
carried Spanish influence and dominion into Gaul, Sicily, Italy, and
Greece. ♦Of Castile and Portugal.♦ It was Portugal and Castile, looking
to the West, which established an Iberian dominion beyond the bounds
of Europe. The fact that a Queen of Castile in the fifteenth century
married a King of Aragon and not a King of Portugal has led us to
speak of the peninsular kingdoms as ‘_Spain_ and _Portugal_.’[81] For
some ages ‘Spain and Aragon’ would have been a more natural division.
But the very difference in the fields of action of Castile and Aragon
hindered any such strong opposition. Between Castile and Portugal, on
the other hand, a marked rivalry arose in the field which was common to
both.
♦The more strictly native centre foremost in the work of deliverance.♦
Of these two centres, one purely Spanish, the other brought for a
long time under a greater or less degree of foreign influence, the
more strictly native region was foremost in the work of national
deliverance. How far western Spain stood in advance of eastern Spain is
shown by the speaking fact that Toledo, so much further to the south,
was won by Castile a generation before Zaragoza was won by Aragon.
♦Relations of Castile and Aragon towards Navarre.♦ But both Castile and
Aragon, as powers, grew out of the break-up of a momentary dominion in
the land which lay between them, and whose later history is much less
illustrious than theirs. In the second quarter of the eleventh century
the kingdom of _Pampeluna_ or _Navarre_ had, by the energy of a single
man, the Sviatopluk or Stephen Dushan of his little realm, risen to the
first place among the Christian powers of Spain. Castile and Aragon do
not appear with kingly rank till both had passed under the momentary
rule of a neighbour which in after times seemed so small beside either
of them. And the name of _Castile_, whether as county, kingdom, or
empire, marks a comparatively late stage of Christian advance. We must
here go back for a moment to those early days of the long crusade of
eight hundred years at which we have already slightly glanced.[82]
§ 1. _The Foundation of the Spanish Kingdoms._
♦Founding of the kingdom of Leon. 753. | 916.♦
We have seen how the union of the small independent lands of the north,
_Asturia_ and _Cantabria_, grew into the kingdom, first of _Oviedo_
and then of _Leon_. _Gallicia_, on the one side, representing in some
sort the old Suevian kingdom, _Bardulia_ or the oldest _Castile_, the
land of Burgos, on the other side, were lands which were early inclined
to fall away. ♦Christian advance.♦ The growth of the Christian powers
on this side was favoured by internal events among the Mussulmans, by
famines and revolts which left a desert border between the hostile
powers. ♦The Ommiad emirate. 755.♦ The Ommiad emirate, afterwards
caliphate, was established almost at the moment of the Saracen loss
of Septimania. ♦The Spanish March. 778-801.♦ Then came the _Spanish
March_ of Charles the Great, which brought part of northern Spain once
more within the bounds of the new Western Empire, as the conquests of
Justinian had brought back part of southern Spain within the bounds of
the undivided Empire. ♦Its extent.♦ This march, at its greatest extent,
took in Pampeluna at one end and Barcelona at the other, with the
intermediate lands of _Aragon_, _Ripacurcia_, and _Sobrarbe_. But the
Frankish dominion soon passed away from Aragon, and still sooner from
Pampeluna. ♦Its division.♦ The western part of the march, which still
acknowledged the superiority of the Kings of Karolingia, split up into
a number of practically independent counties, which made hardly any
advance against the common enemy.
Meanwhile the land of Pampeluna became, at the beginning of the
eleventh century, an independent and powerful kingdom. ♦Navarre under
Sancho the Great. 1000-1035.♦ The Navarre of Sancho the Great stretched
some way beyond the Ebro; to the west it took in the ocean lands of
_Biscay_ and _Guipuzcoa_, with the original Castile; to the east it
took in _Aragon_, _Ripacurcia_, and _Sobrarbe_. The two Christian
kingdoms of Navarre and Leon took in all north-eastern Spain. The
Douro was reached and crossed; the Tagus itself was not far from the
Christian boundary; but the states which owned the superiority of the
power which we may now call _France_ were still far from the lower Ebro.
♦Break-up of the kingdom of Navarre (1035), and of the Ommiad caliphate
(1028).♦
At the death of Sancho the Great his momentary dominion broke up.
Seven years earlier the dominion of the Ommiad caliphs had broken up
also. These two events, so near together, form the turning-point in
the history of the peninsula. Instead of the one Ommiad caliphate,
there arose a crowd of separate Mussulman kingdoms, which had to call
for help to their Mussulman brethren in Africa. ♦Invasion of the
Almoravides. 1086-1110.♦ This led to what was really a new African
conquest of Mussulman Spain. The new deliverers or conquerors spread
their dominion over all the Mussulman powers, save only Zaragoza.
♦Use of the name _Moors_.♦ This settlement, with other later ones of
the same kind, gives a specially African look to the later history
of Mahometan Spain, and has doubtless helped to give the Spanish
Mussulmans the common name of _Moors_. But their language and culture
remained Arabic, and the revolution caused by the African settlers
among the ruins of the Western caliphate was far from being so great as
the revolution caused by the Turkish settlers among the ruins of the
Eastern caliphate.
♦New kingdoms, Castile, Aragon, and Sobrarbe 1035.♦
Out of the break-up of the dominion of Sancho came out the separate
kingdom of Navarre, and the new kingdoms of _Castile_, _Aragon_, and
_Sobrarbe_. ♦Union of Aragon and Sobrarbe. 1040.♦ Of these the two last
were presently united, thus beginning the advance of Aragon. Thus we
come to four of the five historic kingdoms of Spain—Navarre, Castile,
Aragon, and Leon, whose unions and divisions are endless. ♦Shiftings
of Castile and Leon. 1037. | 1065-1073.♦ The first king Ferdinand of
Castile united Castile and Leon; Castile, Leon, and Gallicia were
again for a moment separated under his son. ♦1076-1134.♦ Aragon and
Navarre were united for nearly sixty years. ♦The Emperor Alfonso
1135.♦ Presently Spain has an Emperor in Alfonso of Castile, Leon, and
Gallicia. ♦1157.♦ But Empire and kingdom were split asunder. Leon and
Castile became separate kingdoms under the sons of Alfonso, and they
remained separate for more than sixty years. ♦Final union of Castile
and Leon. 1230.♦ Their final union created the great Christian power of
Spain.
♦Decline of Navarre.♦
Navarre meanwhile, cut short by the advance of Castile, shorn of its
lands on the Ocean and beyond the Ebro, lost all hope of any commanding
position in the peninsula. ♦1234.♦ It passed to a succession of French
kings, and for a long time it had no share in the geographical history
of Spain. ♦Growth of Aragon.♦ But the power of Aragon grew, partly by
conquests from the Mussulmans, partly by union with the French fiefs
to the east. ♦Union with Barcelona. 1131.♦ The first union between
the crown of Aragon and the county of _Barcelona_ led to the great
growth of the power of Aragon on both sides of the Pyrenees and even
beyond the Rhone.[83] ♦1213.♦ This power was broken by the overthrow of
King Pedro at Muret. ♦Settlement with France. 1258.♦ But by the final
arrangement which freed _Barcelona_, _Roussillon_, and _Cerdagne_, from
all homage to France, all trace of foreign superiority passed away from
Christian Spain. The independent kingdom of Aragon stretched on both
sides of the Pyrenees, a faint reminder of the days of the West-Gothic
kings.
On the other side of the peninsula the lands between Douro and Minho
began to form a separate state. ♦County of Portugal. 1094.♦ The county
of _Portugal_ was held by princes of the royal house of France, as a
fief of the crown of Castile and Leon. ♦Kingdom, 1139.♦ The county
became a kingdom, and its growth cut off Leon, as distinguished from
Castile, from any advance against the Mussulmans. Navarre was cut off
already. But the three kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were
all ready for the work. A restored Western Christendom was growing
up to balance the falling away in the East. ♦Beginning of the great
Christian advance.♦ The first great advance of the Christians in Spain
began about the time of the Seljuk conquests from the Eastern Empire.
The work of deliverance was not ended till the Ottoman had been for
forty years established in the New Rome.
* * * * *
The Christian powers however were disunited, while the Mussulmans
had again gained, though at a heavy price, the advantage of union.
♦Conquest of Toledo. 1085.♦ Alfonso the Sixth, commanding the powers
of Castile and Leon, pressed far to the south, and won the old Gothic
capital of _Toledo_. ♦Battle of Zalacca. 1086.♦ But his further
advance was checked by the African invaders at the battle of Zalacca.
♦Advance of the Almoravides. | Advance of Aragon.♦ The Almoravide
power was too strong for any present hope of conquests on the part
of Castile; but the one independent Mussulman state at _Zaragoza_
lay open to the Christians of the north-east. ♦Conquest of Zaragoza.
1118. | Of Tarragona.♦ Zaragoza itself was taken by the king of Aragon,
and _Tarragona_ by the Count of Barcelona. ♦Of Tortosa. 1148.♦ Both
these powers advanced, and the conquest of _Tortosa_ made the Ebro
the Christian boundary. ♦Advance of Portugal.♦ As the power of the
Almoravides weakened, Castile and Portugal again advanced on their
side. ♦Conquest of Lisbon. 1147. | Of Silvas. 1191.♦ The latter kingdom
made the great acquisition of its future capital _Lisbon_, and a
generation later, it reached the southern coast by the conquest of
_Silvas_ in Algarve. ♦Advance of Castile. 1147-1166.♦ Castile meanwhile
pressed to the Guadiana and beyond, counting _Calatrava_ and _Badajoz_
among its cities. The line of struggle had advanced in about a century
from the land between Douro and Tagus to the land between Guadiana and
Guadalquivir.
This second great Christian advance in the twelfth, century was again
checked in the same way in which the advance in the eleventh century
had been. ♦Invasion of the Almohades. 1146.♦ A new settlement of
African conquerors, the _Almohades_, won back a large territory from
both Castile and Portugal. ♦Battle of Alarcos. | 1196.♦ The battle
of Alarcos broke for a while the power of Castile, and the Almohade
dominion stretched beyond the lower Tagus. To the east, the lands
south of Ebro remained an independent Mussulman state. ♦Decline of
the Almohades.♦ But, as the Almohades were of doubtful Mahometan
orthodoxy, their hold on Spain was weaker than that of any other
Mahometan conquerors. ♦Battle of Navas de Tolosa. 1211.♦ Their power
broke up, and the battle of Navas de Tolosa ruled that Spain should be
a Christian land. All three kingdoms advanced, and within forty years
the Mussulman power in the peninsula was cut down to a mere survival.
♦Conquest of the Balearic Isles. 1228-1236. | Of Valencia. 1237-1305.♦
Aragon won the _Balearic Isles_ and formed her kingdom of _Valencia_.
♦Of Murcia. 1243-1253.♦ But as Castile, by the incorporation of
_Murcia_, reached to the Mediterranean, any further advance in the
peninsula was forbidden to Aragon. ♦Advance of Portugal. 1217-1256.♦ On
the eastern side Portugal won back her lost lands, reached her southern
coast, kept all the land west of the lower Guadiana and some points to
the east of it. ♦Kingdom of Algarve.♦ To the kingdom of Portugal was
added the kingdom of _Algarve_.
But the central power of Castile pressed on faster still. ♦Conquest
of Castile under Saint Ferdinand.♦ Under Saint Ferdinand began the
recovery of the great cities along the Guadalquivir. ♦Conquest of
Cordova. 1236. | Of Jaen. 1246. | Of Seville. 1248.♦ _Cordova_, the
city of the caliphs, was won; _Jaen_ followed; then more famous
_Seville_; and _Cadiz_, eldest of Western cities, passed again, as when
she first entered the Roman world, from Semitic into Aryan hands. ♦Of
Nibla. 1257. | Of Tarifa. 1285.♦ The conquest of _Nibla_ and _Tarifa_
at last made the completion of the work only a question of time.
No one in the middle of the twelfth century could have dreamed that
a Mussulman power would live on in Spain till the last years of
the fifteenth. ♦Kingdom of Granada. 1238.♦ This was the kingdom of
_Granada_, which began, amid the conquests of Saint Ferdinand, as a
vassal state of Castile. ♦Reconquered from Castile. 1298.♦ Yet, sixty
years later, it was able to win back a considerable territory from its
overlord. ♦Recovery by Castile. 1316. | 1430.♦ Part of the land now
gained was soon lost again; but part, with the city of _Huascar_, was
kept by the Mussulmans far into the fifteenth century. ♦Gibraltar lost
and won. 1309. 1333. 1344.♦ Meanwhile, on the strait between the ocean
and the Mediterranean, _Gibraltar_ was won by Castile, lost, and won
again.
* * * * *
♦Geographical position of the four kingdoms.♦
Thus, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, the peninsula
of Spain was very unequally divided between one Mussulman and four
Christian states. Aragon on the one side, Portugal on the other, were
kingdoms with a coast line out of all proportion to their extent
inwards. Aragon had become a triangle, Portugal a long parallelogram,
cut off on each side from the great trapezium formed by the whole
peninsula. Between these two lay the central power of Castile, with
Christian Navarre still separate at one corner and Mussulman Granada
still separate at another. Of these five kingdoms, Navarre and Aragon
alone marched to any considerable extent on any state beyond the
peninsula. Castile barely touched the Aquitanian dominions of England,
while Navarre and Aragon, both stretching north of the Pyrenees, had
together a considerable frontier towards Aquitaine and France. Navarre
and Aragon again marched on one another, while Portugal and Granada
marched only on Castile, the common neighbour of all. The destiny of
all was written on the map. Navarre at one end, Granada at the other,
were to be swallowed up by the great central power. Aragon, after
gaining a high European position, was to be united with Castile under
a single sovereign. Portugal alone was to become distinctly a rival of
Castile, but wholly in lands beyond the bounds of Europe.
♦Title of ‘King of Spain.’♦
Of the five Spanish powers Castile so far outtopped the rest that
its sovereign was often spoken of in other lands as _King of Spain_.
But Spain contained more kingdoms than it contained kings. ♦The
lesser kingdoms.♦ Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were all formed by
a succession of unions and conquests, each of which commonly gave
their kings a new title. The central power was still the power of
_Castile and Leon_, not of Castile only. _Leon_ was made up of the
kingdoms of _Leon_ and _Gallicia_. Castile took in Castile proper or
_Old Castile_, with the principality of the _Asturias_, and the free
lands of _Biscay_, _Guipuzcoa_, and _Alava_. To the south it took
in the kingdoms—each marking a stage of advance—of _Toledo_ or _New
Castile_, of _Cordova_, _Jaen_, _Seville_, and _Murcia_. The sovereign
of Portugal held his two kingdoms of _Portugal_ and _Algarve_. ♦1262.♦
The sovereign of Aragon, besides his enlarged kingdom of _Aragon_ and
his counties of _Catalonia_, _Roussillon_, and _Cerdagne_, held his
kingdom of _Valencia_ on the mainland, while the Balearic Isles formed
the kingdom of _Majorca_. ♦1349.♦ This last, first granted as a vassal
kingdom to a branch of the royal house, was afterwards incorporated
with the Aragonese state.
§ 2. _Growth and Partition of the Great Spanish Monarchy._
♦Little geographical change after the thirteenth century.♦
After the thirteenth century the strictly geographical changes within
the Spanish peninsula were but few. The boundaries of the kingdoms
changed but little towards one another, and not much towards France,
their only neighbour from the fifteenth century onwards. But the five
kingdoms were gradually grouped under two kings, for a while under one
only. ♦Territories beyond the peninsula.♦ The external geography, so
to speak, forms a longer story. We have to trace out the acquisition
of territory within Europe, first by Aragon and then by Castile, and
the acquisition of territory out of Europe, first by Portugal and
then by Castile. ♦The great Spanish Monarchy.♦ The permanent union
of the dominions of Castile and Aragon, the temporary union of the
dominions of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, formed that great _Spanish
Monarchy_ which in the sixteenth century was the wonder and terror of
Europe, which lost important possessions in the sixteenth and in the
seventeenth century, and which was finally partitioned in the beginning
of the eighteenth.
* * * * *
♦1410-1430.♦
Within the peninsula we have seen Castile, in the first half of
the fifteenth century, win back the lands which had been lost to
Granada at the end of the fourteenth. ♦Conquest of Granada. 1492.♦
The last decade of the fifteenth saw the ending of the struggle.
Men fondly deemed that the recovery of Granada balanced the loss of
Constantinople. ♦End of Mussulman rule in Spain.♦ But the last Moorish
prince still kept for a moment a small tributary dominion in the
Alpujarras, and it was the purchase of this last remnant which finally
put an end to the long rule of the Mussulman in Spain.
The conquest of Granada was the joint work of a queen of Castile and
a king of Aragon. ♦1469.♦ But the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel
did not at once unite their crowns. ♦Union of Castile and Aragon.
1506.♦ That union may be dated from the beginning of Ferdinand’s
second reign in Castile. ♦Loss and recovery of Roussillon. 1462-1493.♦
Meanwhile _Roussillon_ and _Cerdagne_ had been, after thirty years’
French occupation, won back by Aragon. ♦Conquest of Navarre. 1513.♦
Then came the conquest of _Navarre_ south of the Pyrenees, which left
only the small part on the Gaulish side to pass to the French kings
of the House of Bourbon. Portugal was now the only separate kingdom
in the peninsula, and the tendency to look on the peninsula as made
up of _Spain_ and _Portugal_ was of course strengthened. ♦Annexation
and separation of Portugal. 1581-1640.♦ But later in the century
Portugal itself was for sixty years united with Castile and Aragon.
♦Final loss of Roussillon. 1659.♦ Portugal won back its independence;
and the Spanish dominion was further cut short by the final loss of
_Roussillon_. The Pyrenees were now the boundary of France and Spain,
except so far as the line may be held to be broken by the French right
of patronage over _Andorra_.[84] Since the Peace of the Pyrenees, the
peninsula itself has seen hardly any strictly geographical change.
♦Gibraltar lost to England, 1704-1713.♦ _Gibraltar_ has been for nearly
a hundred and eighty years occupied by England. ♦Oliverca. 1801.♦
The fortress of _Oliverca_ has been yielded by Portugal to Spain.
♦Minorca.♦ And during the last century _Minorca_ passed to and fro
between Spain and England more times than it is easy to remember.[85]
* * * * *
♦Advance of Aragon beyond the peninsula.♦
The acquisition of territory beyond the peninsula naturally began
with Aragon. The acquisition of the Balearic isles may pass as the
enlargement of a peninsular kingdom; but before that happened,
Aragon had won and lost what was practically a great dominion north
of the Pyrenees. But this dominion was continuous with its Spanish
territory. ♦Union of Aragon and Sicily. 1282-1285.♦ The real beginning
of Aragonese dominion beyond the sea was when the war of the Vespers
for a moment united the crowns of Aragon and the insular Sicily.
♦Second union of Aragon and Sicily. 1409.♦ Then the island crown was
held by independent Aragonese princes, and lastly was again united
to the Aragonese crown. ♦Union of Aragon and continental Sicily.
1442-1458.♦ The continental Sicily had, during the reign of Alfonso the
Magnanimous, a common king with Aragon and the island. ♦Continental
Sicily under Aragonese princes. | Final union of Aragon and the
Sicilies. 1503.♦ Then the continental kingdom was—save during the
momentary French occupations—held by Aragonese princes till the final
union of the crowns of Aragon and the Two Sicilies. ♦War of Sardinia.
1309-1428.♦ Meanwhile a war of more than a hundred years gave to Aragon
the island of _Sardinia_ as a new kingdom. Thus, at the final union of
Castile and Aragon, Aragon brought with it the outlying crowns of the
Two Sicilies and of Sardinia. ♦1530.♦ The insular Sicilian kingdom was
slightly lessened by the grant of _Malta_ and _Gozo_ to the Knights
of Saint John. ♦1557.♦ The continental kingdom was increased by the
addition of a small Tuscan territory.
♦Difference between the outlying possessions of Aragon and those of
Castile.♦
The outlying possessions of Aragon were thus strictly acquisitions
made by the Kings of Aragon on behalf of the crown of Aragon. ♦The
Burgundian inheritance. 1504.♦ But the extension of Castilian dominion
over distant parts of Europe was due only to the fact that the crown
of Castile passed to an Austrian prince who had inherited the greater
part of the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy. But thereby the
_Netherlands_ and the counties of _Burgundy_ and _Charolois_ became
appendages to Castile, and went to swell the great Spanish Monarchy.
♦Duchy of Milan. 1535. | 1555.♦ The duchy of _Milan_ too, in whatever
character the Emperor Charles held it, became a Spanish dependency when
it passed to his son Philip.
♦Extent of the Spanish Monarchy.♦
The European possessions of the Spanish Monarchy thus took in, at the
time of their greatest extent, the whole peninsula, the Netherlands
and the other Burgundian lands of the Austrian house, Roussillon,
the Sicilies, Sardinia, and Milan. ♦Loss of the United Netherlands.
1578-1609.♦ But this whole dominion was never held at once, unless for
form’s sake we count the United Netherlands as Spanish territory till
the Twelve Years’ Truce. Holland and its fellows had become practically
independent before Portugal was won. ♦Lands lost to France. 1659-1677.♦
But it was not till after the loss of Portugal that Spain suffered her
great losses on the side of France, when the conquests of Lewis the
Fourteenth cost her Roussillon, Cerdagne, Charolois, the County of
Burgundy, Artois, and other parts of the Netherlands. The remainder of
the Netherlands, with Milan and the three outlying Aragonese kingdoms,
were kept till the partitions in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. ♦Partition of the Spanish Monarchy. 1713.♦ The final results
of so much fighting and treaty-making was to take away all the outlying
possessions of both Aragon and Castile, and to confine the Spanish
kingdom to the peninsula and the Balearic isles, less Portugal and
Gibraltar for ever, and less Minorca for a season. ♦Recovery of Sicily.
1718, 1735.♦ Since then Spain has never won back any part of the lost
possessions of Castile; but she has more than once won back the lost
possessions of Aragon, insular Sicily twice, continental Sicily once.
♦Spanish kings of the Two Sicilies. 1735-1860. | Duchy of Parma,
1731-1860.♦ And if the Sicilies were not kept as part of the Spanish
dominions, they passed to a branch of the Spanish royal house, as the
duchies of _Parma_ and _Piacenza_ passed to another.
§ 3. _The Colonial Dominion of Spain and Portugal._
The distinction between Spain and Portugal is most strikingly marked in
the dominion of the two powers beyond the bounds of Europe. ♦Character
of the Portuguese dominion out of Europe.♦ Portugal led the way among
European states to conquest and colonization out of Europe. She had a
geographical and historical call so to do. Her dominion out of Europe
was not indeed a matter of necessity like that of Russia, but it stood
on a different ground from that of England, France, or Holland. It
was not actually continuous with her own European territory, but it
began near to it, and it was a natural consequence and extension of
her European advance. The Asiatic and American dominion of Portugal
grew out of her African dominion, and her African dominion was the
continuation of her growth in her own peninsula.
When the Moor was driven out of Spain, it was natural to follow him
across the narrow seas into a land which lay so near to Spain, and
which in earlier geography had passed as a Spanish land. ♦Portugal
fully formed in the thirteenth century.♦ But as far as Castile was
concerned, the Moor was not driven out till late in the fifteenth
century; as far as Portugal was concerned, he was driven out in the
thirteenth. Portugal had then reached her full extent in the peninsula,
and she could no longer advance against the misbelievers by land. One
is tempted to wonder that her advance beyond sea did not begin sooner.
♦Her African conquests, 1415-1471.♦ It came in the fifteenth century,
when fifty years of conquest gave to Portugal her kingdom of _Algarve
beyond the Sea_, an African dominion older than the Castilian conquest
of Granada. ♦The Algarves.♦ The king of _Portugal and the Algarves_
thus held the southern pillar of Hercules, while Castile held the
northern. ♦Loss of African dominion, 1578.♦ The greater part of this
African kingdom was lost after the fall of Sebastian. ♦Ceuta Spanish.♦
_Ceuta_ remained a Spanish possession after the dominion of Portugal,
so that Spain now holds the southern pillar and England the northern.
♦Tangier English, 1662-1683.♦ _Tangier_ too once passed from Portugal
to England as a marriage gift, and was presently forsaken as useless.
♦Advance in Africa and the islands.♦
But before the kingdom of Algarve beyond the sea had passed away,
its establishment had led to the discovery of the whole coast of the
African continent, and to the growth of a vast Portuguese dominion in
various parts of the world. ♦Madeira, 1419. | Azores and Cape Verde
Islands. 1448-1454.♦ _Madeira_ was the first insular possession,
followed by the _Azores_ and _Cape Verde Islands_. Gradually, under the
care of Don Henry, the Portuguese power spread along the north-west
coast of Africa. ♦Cape of Good Hope, 1497. | Dominion of Arabia and
India.♦ The work went on: Vasco de Gama made his great discovery of the
Cape of Good Hope; the road to India was opened; dominion on the coasts
of Arabia and India, and even in the islands of the Indian Archipelago,
was added to dominion on the coast of Africa. This dominion perished
through the annexation of Portugal by Spain. Since the restoration
of Portuguese independence, only fragments of this great African and
Indian dominion have been kept. ♦Modern extent of Portuguese dominion
abroad.♦ But Portugal still holds the Atlantic islands, various points
and coasts in Africa, and a small territory in India and the Eastern
islands.
But Portuguese enterprise led also to a more lasting work, to the
creation of a new European nation beyond the Ocean, the single European
monarchy which has taken root in the New World. ♦Discovery of Brazil,
1500. | 1531.♦ _Brazil_ was discovered by Portuguese sailors at the end
of the fifteenth century; it was settled as a Portuguese possession
early in the sixteenth. ♦1624-1654.♦ During the union of Portugal with
Spain the Dutch won for a while a large part of the country, but the
whole was won back by independent Portugal. The peculiar position of
Portugal, ever threatened by a more powerful neighbour, gave her great
Transatlantic dominion a special importance. ♦1807.♦ It was looked to
as possible place for shelter, which it actually became during the
French invasion of Portugal. ♦Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, 1813.♦
The Portuguese dominions took the style of ‘the United Kingdom of
Portugal, Brazil, and Algarve.’ Nine years later these kingdoms were
separated, and Brazil became an independent state. ♦Empire of Brazil,
1822.♦ But it remains a monarchy with the title of Empire, and it is
still ruled by the direct representative of the Portuguese royal house,
while Portugal itself has passed away from the native line by the
accidents of female succession.
In the sixteenth century Brazil held a wholly exceptional position.
It was the only settlement of Portugal, it was the only considerable
settlement of any European power, in a region which Spain claimed as
her exclusive dominion. ♦Division of the Indies between Spain and
Portugal. 1494.♦ By Papal authority Spain was to have all the newly
found lands that lay to the west, and Portugal all that lay to the
east, of a line on the map, drawn at 370 leagues west of the Cape
Verde Islands. Spain thus held the whole South American continent, with
the exception of Brazil, together with that part of the North American
continent which is most closely connected with the southern. While the
non-European dominion of Portugal was primarily African and Indian, the
non-European dominion of Spain was primarily American. It did not in
the same way spring out of the European history of the country; it was
rather suggested by rivalry of Portugal. ♦Oran, 1516-1708. 1732-1791.♦
In Africa the Spanish dominion hardly went beyond the possession of
_Oran_ and the more lasting possession of _Ceuta_. ♦Tunis, 1531.♦
The conquest of _Tunis_ by Charles the Fifth[86] was made rather in
his Sicilian than in his Castilian character. Within the range of
Portuguese dominion the settlements of Spain were exceptional. But
they took in the _Canaries_ off the Atlantic coast of Africa, and the
_Philippine Islands_ in the extreme eastern Archipelago. ♦Insular
possessions of Spain.♦ These insular possessions Spain still keeps.
♦Spanish dominion in America.♦
Meanwhile the great Spanish dominion in the New World, in both Americas
and in the adjoining islands of the West Indies, has risen and fallen.
♦Hispaniola, 1492.♦ It began with the first conquest of Columbus,
_Hispaniola_ or Saint _Domingo_. Thus the dominion of Castile beyond
the Ocean began at the very moment when she reached the full extent
of her own Mediterranean coast. ♦1519. | 1532.♦ Then followed the
great continental dominion in _Mexico_, _Peru_, and the other lands
on or south of the isthmus which joins the two western continents.
But into the body of the North American continent, the land which was
to be disputed between France and England, Spain never spread. _New
Mexico_, _California_, _Florida_, barely stretched along its western
and southern coasts. ♦Revolutions of the Spanish colonies.♦ The whole
of this continental dominion passed away in a series of revolutions
within our own century. While Portugal and England have really founded
new European nations beyond the Ocean, the result of Spanish rule in
America has been to create a number of states of ever shifting extent
and constitution, keeping the Spanish language, but some of which are
as much native American as Spanish. ♦Mexico.♦ Of these _Mexico_ is
the one which has had most to do with the general history of Europe
and European America. ♦Two Mexican Empires, 1822-1823. | 1866-1867.♦ It
has twice taken the name of Empire, once under a native, once under a
foreign, adventurer. And vast provinces, once under its nominal rule,
have passed to the United States. ♦Cessions to the United States.♦ The
loss of _Texas_, _New Mexico_, and _Upper California_, has cut down the
present Mexico nearly to the extent of the first Spanish conquests.
♦Spanish West India islands. | Jamaica, 1655.♦
Of the Spanish West India islands, some, like _Jamaica_ and _Trinidad_,
have passed to other European powers. ♦Saint Domingo, 1864.♦ The oldest
possession of all, the Spanish part of Hispaniola, has become a state
distinct from that of Hayti in the same island. ♦Puerto Rico.♦ _Puerto
Rico_ remains a real Spanish possession. ♦Cuba.♦ The allegiance of
_Cuba_ is always doubtful. In short, the dominion of Spain out of
Europe has followed its European dominion out of Spain. The eighteenth
century destroyed the one; the nineteenth century has cut down the
other to mere fragments.
FOOTNOTES:
[79] See above, p. 154.
[80] See above, p. 155.
[81] See above, p. 4.
[82] See above, p. 154.
[83] See above, p. 335.
[84] See above, p. 343.
[85] Conquered by England 1708. Ceded 1713. Recovered 1756. Ceded to
England 1763. Recovered 1782. Conquered by England 1798. Recovered 1802.
[86] See above, p. 447.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE BRITISH ISLANDS AND COLONIES.
We have now gone, first through that great mass of European lands
which formed part either of the Eastern or of the Western Empire, and
then through those more distant, and mainly peninsular, lands which
so largely escaped the Imperial dominion. ♦The British islands.♦ We
end by leaving the mainland of Europe, by leaving the world of either
Empire, for that great island, or rather group of islands, which for
ages was looked on as forming a world of its own.[87] ♦Late Roman
conquest and early loss of Britain.♦ In Western Europe Britain was the
last land to be won, and the first to be lost, in the days of the elder
Empire. And, after all, Britain itself was only partly won, while the
conquest of Ireland was never tried at all. ♦Independence of Britain
in the later Empire.♦ After the English Conquest, Britain had less
to do with the revived Western Empire than any Western land except
Norway. The momentary dealings of Charles the Great with Scotland and
Northumberland, the doubtful and precarious homage done by Richard the
First to Henry the Sixth, are the only exceptions, even in form, to its
complete independence on the continental Empire. ♦Britain another world
and another Empire.♦ The doctrine was that Britain, the other world,
formed an Empire of its own. That Empire, being an island, was secured
against the constant fluctuations of its external boundary to which
continental states lie open. ♦Changes within Britain.♦ For several
centuries the boundaries, both of the Celtic and Teutonic occupants and
of the Teutonic kingdoms among themselves, were always changing. But
these changes hardly affect European history, which is concerned only
with the broad general results—with the establishment of the Teutonic
settlers in the island—with the union of those settlers in one kingdom
under the West-Saxon house—with the extension of the imperial power of
the West-Saxon kings over the whole island of Britain. ♦Slight change
in the internal divisions of England.♦ And, from the eleventh century
onwards, there has been singularly little change of boundaries within
the island. The boundaries of England towards Scotland and Wales
changed much less than might have been looked for during ages of such
endless warfare. Even the lesser divisions within the English kingdom
have been singularly lasting. The land, as a whole, has never been
mapped out afresh since the tenth century. While a map of France or
Germany in the eleventh century, or even in the eighteenth, is useless
for immediate practical objects, a map of England in the days of
Domesday practically differs not at all from a map of England now. The
only changes of any moment, and they are neither many nor great, are in
the shires on the Welsh and Scottish borders.
Thus the historical geography of the isle of Britain comes to little
more than a record of these border changes, down to the incorporation
of England, Scotland, and Wales into a single kingdom. In the other
great island of Ireland there is little to do except to trace how the
boundary of English conquest advanced and fell back, a matter after
all of no great European concern. The history of the smaller outlying
islands, from Scandinavian Shetland to the insular Normandy, has
really more to do with the general history of Europe. The dominion
of the English kings on the continent is of the highest European
moment, but, from its geographical side, it is Gaul and not Britain
which it affects. ♦English settlements beyond sea.♦ The really great
geographical phænomenon of English history is that which it shares with
Spain and Portugal, and in which it surpasses both. This is the vast
extent of outlying English dominion and settlement, partly in Europe,
but far more largely in the distant lands of Asia, Africa, America, and
Australia. But it is not merely that England has become a great power
in all quarters of the world; England has been, like Portugal, but on a
far greater scale, a planter of nations. ♦English nations.♦ One group
of her settlements has grown into one of the great powers of the world,
into a third England beyond the Ocean, as far surpassing our insular
England in geographical extent as our insular England surpasses the
first England of all in the marchland of Germany and Denmark. The mere
barbaric dominion of England concerns our present survey but little;
but the historical geography of Europe is deeply concerned in the
extension of England and of Europe in lands beyond the Western and the
Southern Ocean.
* * * * *
In tracing out the little that we have to say of the geography of
Britain itself, it will be well to begin with that northern part of the
island where changes have been both more numerous and more important
than they have been in England.
§ 1. _The Kingdom of Scotland._
♦Historical position of Scotland.♦
In Northern Britain, as in some other parts of Europe, we see a land
which has taken its name from a people to which it does not owe its
historic importance. _Scotland_ has won for itself a position in
Britain and in Europe altogether out of proportion to its size and
population. But it has not done this by virtue of its strictly Scottish
element. ♦Greatness of Scotland due to its English element.♦ The Irish
settlers who first brought the Scottish name into Britain[88] could
never have made Scotland what it really became. What founded the
greatness of the Scottish kingdom was the fact that part of England
gradually took the name of Scotland and its inhabitants took the
name of Scots. The case is as when the Duke of Savoy and Genoa and
Prince of Piedmont took his highest title from that Sardinian kingdom
which was the least valuable part of his dominions. It is as when
the ruler of a mighty German realm calls himself king of the small
duchy of Prussia and its extinct people. ♦Two English kingdoms in
Britain.♦ The truth is that, for more than five hundred years, there
were two English kingdoms in Britain, each of which had a troublesome
Celtic background which formed its chief difficulty. One English king
reigned at Winchester or London, and had his difficulties in Wales and
afterwards in Ireland. Another English king reigned at Dunfermline or
Stirling, and had his difficulties in the true Scotland. ♦Extension
of the Scottish name.♦ But the southern kingdom, ruled by kings of
native English or of foreign descent, but never by kings of British or
Irish descent,[89] always kept the English name, while the northern
kingdom, ruled by kings of Scottish descent, adopted the Scottish name.
The English subjects of the King of Scots gradually took the Scottish
name to themselves. ♦Analogy of Switzerland. | Threefold elements in
the later Scotland.♦ As the present Swiss nation is made up of parts
of the German, Burgundian, and Italian nations which have detached
themselves from their several main bodies, so the present Scottish
nation is made up of parts of the English, Irish, and British nations
which have detached themselves from their several main bodies. But in
both cases it is the Teutonic element which forms the life and strength
of the nation, the kernel to which the other elements have attached
themselves. ♦True position of the Kings of Scots.♦ We cannot read the
mediæval history of Britain aright, unless we remember that the King of
Scots was in truth the English king of Teutonic Lothian and Teutonized
Fife. ♦Enmity of the true Scots.♦ The people from whom he took his
title were at most his unwilling subjects; they were often his open
enemies, the allies of his southern rival.
* * * * *
♦Lothian, Strathclyde, and Scotland.♦
The modern kingdom of Scotland was made up of English _Lothian_,
British _Strathclyde_, and Irish _Scotland_. The oldest Scotland is
Ireland, whence the Scottish name, long since forgotten in Ireland
itself, came into Britain and there spread itself. These three elements
stand out plainly. ♦The Picts.♦ But the Scottish or Irish element
swallowed up another, that of the _Picts_, of whom there can be no
doubt that they were Celts, like the Scots and Britons, but about whom
it may be doubted whether their kindred was nearer to the Scots or to
the Britons. For our purpose the question is of little moment. The
Picts, as far as geography is concerned, either vanished or became
Scots.
♦Position of the Picts and Scots in the ninth century.♦
Early in the ninth century the land north of the firths of Clyde and
Forth was still mainly Pictish. The second Scotland (the first Scotland
in Britain) had not spread far beyond the original Irish settlement in
the south-west. ♦Union of Picts and Scots, 843. | The Celtic Scotland.♦
The union of Picts and Scots under a Scottish dynasty created the
larger Scotland, the true Celtic Scotland, taking in all the land north
of the firths, except where Scandinavian settlers occupied the extreme
north. ♦Bernicia.♦ South of the firths, English _Bernicia_, sometimes a
separate kingdom, sometimes part of _Northumberland_, stretched to the
firth of Forth, with _Edinburgh_ as a border fortress. ♦Strathclyde or
Cumberland.♦ To the west of Bernicia, south and east of the firth of
Clyde, lay the British kingdom of _Cumberland_ or _Strathclyde_, with
_Alcluyd_ or _Dumbarton_ as its border fortress. ♦Galloway.♦ To the
south-west again lay the outlying Pictish land of _Galloway_, which
long kept up a separate being. Parts of Bernicia, parts of Strathclyde,
were one day to join with the true Scotland to make up the later
Scottish kingdom. As yet the true Scotland was a foreign and hostile
land alike to Bernicia and to Strathclyde.
♦Settlements of the Northmen.♦
In the next century we see the Scottish power cut short to the north
and west, but advancing towards the south and east. ♦Caithness.♦ The
Northmen have settled in the northern and western islands, in those
parts of the mainland to which they gave the names of _Caithness_
and _Sutherland_, and even in the first Scottish land in the west.
♦Scotland acknowledges the English supremacy, 924.♦ Scotland itself
has also admitted the external supremacy of the English overlord.
♦Taking of Edinburgh, c. 954.♦ On the other hand, the Scots have
pressed within the English border, and have occupied Edinburgh, the
border fortress of England. ♦Cession of Lothian, 966 or 1018.♦ Later
in the same century or early in the next, the Kings of Scots received
Northern Bernicia, the land of _Lothian_, as an English earldom. On
the other side, _Strathclyde_ or _Cumberland_—its southern boundary is
very uncertain—had become in a manner united to England and Scotland at
once. ♦Grant of Cumberland, 945.♦ An English conquest, it was granted
in fief to the King of Scots, and was commonly held as an appanage by
Scottish princes.[90] ♦Different tenures of the dominion of the King of
Scots.♦ Thus the King of Scots held three dominions on three different
tenures. Scotland was a kingdom under a merely external English
supremacy; Cumberland was a territorial fief of England; Lothian was
an earldom within the English kingdom. ♦The distinctions forgotten in
later controversies.♦ In after times these distinctions were forgotten,
and the question now was whether the dominions of the King of Scots,
as a whole, were or were not a fief of England. When the question took
this shape, the English king claimed more than his ancient rights over
Scotland, less than his ancient rights over Lothian.
♦Effects of the grant of Lothian.♦
The acquisition of Lothian made the Scottish kingdom English. Lothian
remained English; Cumberland and the eastern side of Scotland itself,
the Lowlands north of the firth of Forth, became practically English
also. The Scottish kings became English princes, whose strength lay in
the English part of their dominions. ♦Fate of southern Cumberland.♦
But late in the eleventh century it would seem that the southern part
of Cumberland had become a separate principality ruled by a refugee
Northumbrian prince under Scottish supremacy. ♦Carlisle and its
district added to England by William Rufus, 1092.♦ This territory,
the city of _Carlisle_ and its immediate district, the old diocese
of Carlisle, was added to England by William Rufus. ♦Cumberland and
Northumberland granted to David, 1136.♦ On the other hand, in the
troubles of Stephen’s reign, the king of Scots received as English
earldoms, Cumberland—in a somewhat wider sense—and _Northumberland_
in the modern sense, the land from the Tweed to the Tyne. Had these
earldoms been kept by the Scottish kings, they would doubtless have
become Scottish lands in the same sense in which Lothian did; that
is, they would have become parts of the northern English kingdom.
♦Recovered by England, 1157. | The boundary permanent, except as to
Berwick.♦ But these lands were won back by Henry the Second; and the
boundary has since remained as it was then fixed, save that the town
of _Berwick_ fluctuated according to the accidents of war between one
kingdom and the other.
♦Relations between England and Scotland.♦
But though the boundaries of the kingdoms were fixed, their relations
were not. ♦1292.♦ Scotland in the modern sense—that is, Scotland in the
older sense, Lothian, and Strathclyde—was for a moment held strictly as
a fief of England. ♦1296.♦ It was then for another moment incorporated
with England. ♦1327.♦ It was then acknowledged as an independent
kingdom. ♦1333.♦ It again fell under vassalage for a moment, and again
won its independence. ♦1603.♦ Then, at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, England and Scotland, as distinct, independent, and equal
kingdoms, passed under a common king. ♦1649.♦ They were separated
again for a moment when Scotland acknowledged a king whom England
rejected. ♦1652.♦ For another moment Scotland was incorporated with an
English commonwealth. ♦1660. | 1707.♦ Again Scotland and England became
independent kingdoms under a common king, till the two kingdoms were,
by common consent, joined in the one kingdom of _Great Britain_.
* * * * *
♦Struggle with the Northerners.♦
Meanwhile the Scottish kings had, like those of England somewhat
earlier, to struggle against Scandinavian invaders. ♦Scandinavian
advance, 1014-1064.♦ The settlements of the Northmen advanced, and
for some years in the eleventh century they took in _Moray_ at one
end and _Galloway_ at the other. But it was only in the extreme north
and in the northern islands that the land really became Scandinavian.
♦The Sudereys, and Man.♦ In the _Sudereys_ or _Hebrides_—the southern
islands as distinguished from Orkney and Shetland—and in _Man_, the
Celtic speech has survived. ♦Caithness submits, 1203.♦ _Caithness_
was brought under Scottish supremacy early in the thirteenth century.
♦Galloway incorporated, 1235.♦ _Galloway_ was incorporated. ♦Sudereys
and Man submit, 1263-1266.♦ Later again, after the battle of Largs, the
Sudereys and Man passed under Scottish supremacy. But the authority of
the Scottish crown in the islands was for a long time very precarious.
♦History of Man.♦ Man, the most central of the British isles, lying at
a nearly equal distance from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales,
remained a separate kingdom, sometimes under Scottish, sometimes under
English, superiority. Granted to English subjects, the kingdom sank
to a lordship. ♦1764-1826.♦ The lordship was united to the crown of
Great Britain, and Man, like the Norman islands, remains a distinct
possession, forming no part of the United Kingdom. ♦Orkney. 1469.♦ The
earldom of Orkney meanwhile remained a Norwegian dependency till it was
pledged to the Scottish crown. Since then it has silently become part,
first of the kingdom of Scotland, and then of the kingdom of Great
Britain.
§ 2. _The Kingdom of England._
♦Harold’s conquests from Wales, 1063.♦
The changes of boundary between England and _Wales_ begin, as far as
we are concerned with them, with the great Welsh campaign of Harold.
♦Enlargement of the border shires.♦ All the border shires, Cheshire,
Shropshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, seem now to have been
enlarged; the English border stretched to the _Conway_ in the north,
and to the _Usk_ in the south. ♦The Marches.♦ But part of this
territory seems to have been recovered by the Welsh princes, while part
passed into the great _march_ district of England and Wales, ruled by
the Lords Marchers. ♦Conquest of South Wales, 1070-1121.♦ The gradual
conquest of South Wales began under the Conqueror and went on under his
sons; but it was more largely the work of private adventurers than of
the kings themselves. The lands of _Morganwg_, _Dyfed_, _Ceredigion_,
and _Breheiniog_, answering nearly to the modern South Wales, were
gradually subdued. ♦Flemish settlement in Pembrokeshire, 1111.♦
In some districts, especially in the southern part of the present
Pembrokeshire, the Britons were actually driven out, and the land was
settled by Flemish colonists, the latest of the Teutonic settlements in
Britain. ♦Character of the conquest of South Wales.♦ Elsewhere Norman
lords, with a Norman, English, and Flemish following, held the towns
and the more level country, while the Welsh kept on a half independence
in the mountains. ♦Princes of North Wales.♦ Meanwhile in North Wales
native princes—_Princes of Aberffraw_ and _Lords of Snowdon_—still
ruled, as vassals of the English king, till the conquest by Edward
the First. ♦Cessions to England, 1277.♦ In the first stage the vassal
prince was compelled again to cede to his overlord the territory
east of the Conway. ♦Conquest of North Wales, 1282.♦ Six years later
followed the complete conquest. But complete incorporation with England
did not at once follow. ♦The Principality of Wales.♦ Wales, North and
South, remained a separate dominion, giving the princely title to the
eldest son of the English king.[91] Some shires were formed; some new
towns were founded; the border districts remained under the anomalous
jurisdiction of the Marchers. ♦Full incorporation. 1535.♦ The full
incorporation of the principality and its marches dates from Henry the
Eighth. Thirteen new counties were formed, and some districts were
added or restored to the border shires of England. One of the new
counties, _Monmouthshire_, was, under Charles the Second, added to an
English circuit, and it has since been reckoned as an English county.
♦The Domesday shires.♦
Setting aside these new creations, all the existing shires of
England were in being at the time of the Norman Conquest, save those
of _Lancaster_, _Cumberland_, _Westmoreland_, and _Rutland_. The
boundaries were not always exactly the same as at present; but the
differences are commonly slight and of mere local interest. ♦Two
classes of shires.♦ The shires, as they stood at the Conquest, were
of two classes. ♦Ancient kingdoms and principalities.♦ Some were old
kingdoms or principalities, which still kept their names and boundaries
as shires. Such were the kingdoms of _Kent_, _Sussex_, and _Essex_,
and the East-Anglian, West-Saxon, and Northumbrian shires. Most of
these keep old local or tribal names; a few only are called from a
town. ♦Mercian shires mapped out in the tenth century.♦ In Mercia on
the other hand, the shires seem to have been mapped out afresh when
the land was won back from the Danes. They are called after towns, and
the town which gives the name commonly lies central to the district,
and remains the chief town of the shire, except when it has been
outstripped by some other in modern times.[92] Both classes of shires
survived the Conquest, and both have gone on till now with very slight
changes.
On the Welsh border, all the shires, for reasons already given,
stretch further west in Domesday than they do now. ♦Cumberland and
Westmoreland.♦ On the Scottish border _Cumberland_ and _Westmoreland_
were made out of the Cumbrian conquest of William Rufus, enlarged by
districts which in Domesday appear as part of Yorkshire. ♦Lancashire.♦
_Lancashire_ was made up of lands taken from Yorkshire and Cheshire,
the Ribble forming the older boundary of those shires. The older
divisions are marked by the boundaries of the dioceses of _York_,
_Carlisle_, and _Lichfield_ or _Chester_, as they stood down to the
changes under Henry the Eighth. ♦Rutland.♦ In central England the
only change is the formation of the small shire of _Rutland_ out of
the Domesday district of Rutland (which, oddly enough, appears as an
appendage to _Nottinghamshire_), enlarged by a small part of what was
then _Northamptonshire_.
§ 3. _Ireland._
♦Ireland the first Scotland.♦
The second great island of the British group, _Ireland_, the original
_Scotia_, has had less to do with the general history of the world
than any other part of Western Europe. Its ancient divisions have
lived on from the earliest times. ♦The five provinces.♦ The names of
its five great provinces, _Ulster_, _Meath_, _Leinster_, _Munster_,
and _Connaught_, are all in familiar use, though _Meath_ has sunk from
its old rank alongside of the other four. The Celtic inhabitants of
the island remained independent of foreign powers till the days of
Scandinavian settlement. Just like the English kingdoms in Britain,
the great divisions of Ireland were sometimes independent, sometimes
united under the supremacy of a head king. ♦Settlement of the Ostmen.♦
Gradually the Northmen, called in Ireland _Ostmen_, settled on the
eastern coast, and held the chief ports, as _Dublin_, _Waterford_,
_Wexford_, two of which names bear witness to Teutonic occupation.
♦Irish victory at Clontarf. 1012.♦ The great Irish victory at Clontarf
weakened, but did not destroy, the Scandinavian power. ♦Increasing
connexion with England.♦ And, from the latter half of the tenth
century onward, the eastern coast of Ireland shows a growing connexion
with England. Any actual English supremacy seems doubtful; but both
commercial and ecclesiastical ties became closer during the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. ♦The English conquest, 1169-1652.♦ This led to
the actual English conquest of Ireland, begun under Henry the Second,
but really finished only by Cromwell. ♦1171. | Fluctuations of the
Pale.♦ All Ireland admitted for a moment the supremacy of Henry; but,
till the sixteenth century, the actual English dominion, called the
_Pale_, with Dublin for its centre, was always fluctuating, and for a
while it fell back rather than advanced.
♦Kingdom and Lordship of Ireland.♦
In the early days of the conquest Ireland is spoken of as a kingdom;
but the title soon went out of use. The original plan seems to have
been that Ireland, like Wales afterwards, should form an appanage for a
son of the English King. It became instead, so far as it was an English
possession at all, a simple dependency of England, from which the King
took the title of _Lord of Ireland_. ♦1542. | Relations of Ireland to
England.♦ Henry the Eighth took the title of _King of Ireland_; but the
kingdom remained a mere dependency, attached to the crown, first of
England and then of Great Britain. ♦1652. | 1689.♦ This state of things
was diversified by a short time of complete incorporation under the
Commonwealth, and a short time of independence under James the Second.
♦1782-1800.♦ But for the last eighteen years of the last century,
Ireland was formally acknowledged as an independent kingdom, connected
with Great Britain only by the tie of a common king. ♦1801.♦ Since that
time it has formed an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland.
§ 4. _Outlying European Possessions of England._
Ireland, the sister island of Britain, has thus been united with
Britain into a single kingdom. Man, lying between the two, remains a
distinct dependency. ♦The Norman Islands. 1205.♦ This last is also
still the position of that part of the Norman duchy which clave to
its own dukes, which never became French, but always remained Norman.
It might be a question what was the exact position of _Guernsey_,
_Jersey_, _Alderney_, _Sark_, and their smaller neighbours, when the
English kings took the titles of the French kingdom and actually held
the Norman duchy. Practically the islands have, during all changes,
remained attached to the English crown; but they have never been
incorporated with the kingdom. ♦Other European dependencies, Aquitaine,
&c.♦ Other more distant European lands have been, some still are, in
the same position. Such were _Aquitaine_, _Ponthieu_, and _Calais_, as
fixed by the Peace of Bretigny. Since the loss of Aquitaine, England
has had no considerable continental dominion in Europe, but she has
from time to time held several islands and detached points. ♦Outposts
and islands.♦ Such are _Calais_, _Boulogne_, _Dunkirk_, _Gibraltar_,
_Minorca_, _Malta_, _Heligoland_, all of which have been spoken of in
their natural geographical places. To these we may add _Tangier_, which
has more in common with the possession of Gibraltar and Minorca than
with the English settlements in the further parts of Africa. Of these
points, Gibraltar, Heligoland, and Malta, are still held by England.
♦Greek possessions, Ionian Islands, 1814-1864.♦ The virtual English
possession of the _Ionian Islands_ made England for a while a sharer in
the fragments of the Eastern Roman Empire. ♦Cyprus, 1878.♦ And later
still she has again put on the same character by the occupation, on
whatever terms, of another Greek and Imperial land, the island of
_Cyprus_.
§ 5. _The American Colonies of England._
♦Colonies of England.♦
England, like France and Holland, became a colonizing power by choice.
Extension over barbarian lands was not a necessity, as in the case
of Russia, nor did it spring naturally out of earlier circumstances,
as in the case of Portugal. But the colonizing enterprise of England
has done a greater work than the colonizing enterprise of any other
European power. The greatest colony of England—for in a worthier
use of language the word _colony_ would imply independence rather
than dependence[93]—is that great Confederation which is to us what
Syracuse was to Corinth, what Milêtos was to Athens, what Gades and
Carthage were to the cities of the older Canaan. ♦The United States.♦
The _United States of America_, a vaster England beyond the Ocean, an
European power, on a level with the greatest European powers, planted
beyond the bounds of Europe, form the great work of English and
European enterprise in non-European lands.
♦First English settlements in North America, 1497.♦
The settlements which grew into the United States were not the first
English possessions in North America, but they were the first which
really deserved to be called colonies. The first discoveries of all led
only to the establishment of the _Newfoundland_ fisheries. ♦Attempts
of Raleigh, 1585-1587.♦ Raleigh’s attempts at real colonization ninety
years later only pointed the way to something more lasting. ♦The
Thirteen Colonies.♦ In the seventeenth century began the planting of
the thirteen settlements which won their independence. Of these the
earliest and the latest, the most southern and the most northern,
began through English colonization in the strictest sense. ♦Virginia,
1607.♦ First came _Virginia_. ♦The New England States, 1620-1638.♦
Then followed the Puritan colonization much further to the north
which founded the _New England_ states. The shiftings among these
settlements, from _Plymouth_ to _Maine_, the unions, the divisions, the
colonies of colonies—the Epidamnos and the Sinôpê of the New World—the
various and varying relations between the different settlements, read
like a piece of old Greek or of Swiss history.[94] ♦1629-1692.♦ By the
end of the seventeenth century they had arranged themselves into four
separate colonies. ♦1820.♦ These were _Massachusetts_, formed by the
union of _Massachusetts_ and _Plymouth_, with its northern dependency
of _Maine_, which became a separate State long after the Revolution;
_New Hampshire_, annexed by Massachusetts and after a while separated
from it; _Connecticut_, formed by the union of _Connecticut_ and
_Newhaven_; _Rhode Island_, formed by the union of _Rhode Island_ and
_Providence_. These New England States form a distinct geographical
group, with a marked political and religious character of their own.
♦The Southern Colonies.♦ Meanwhile, at some distance to the south,
around Virginia as their centre, grew up another group of colonies,
with a history and character in many ways unlike those of New England.
♦Maryland. 1646. | Carolina. 1650-1663. | Divided, 1720.♦ To the north
of Virginia arose the proprietary colony of _Maryland_; to the south
arose _Carolina_, afterwards divided into _North and South_. South
Carolina for a long while marked the end of English settlement to the
south, as Maine did to the north.
♦Intermediate space occupied by the United Provinces and Sweden. |
English Conquest of New Netherlands, 1664.♦
But between these two groups of English colonies in the strictest
sense lay a region in which English settlement had to take the form
of conquest from another European power. Earlier than any English
settlement except Virginia, the great colony of the United Provinces
had arisen on Long Island and the neighbouring mainland. ♦New
Netherlands, 1614.♦ It bore the name of _New Netherlands_, with its
capital of _New Amsterdam_. ♦New Sweden, 1658.♦ To the south, on the
shores of Delaware Bay, the other great power of the seventeenth
century founded the colony of _New Sweden_. Three European nations,
closely allied in race, speech, and creed, were thus for a while
established side by side on the eastern coasts of America. ♦Union of
New Sweden with New Netherlands, 1655.♦ But the three settlements were
fated to merge together, and that by force of arms. A local war added
New Sweden to New Netherlands; a war between England and the United
Provinces gave New Netherlands to England. ♦New York.♦ New Amsterdam
became _New York_, and gave its name to the colony which was to become
the greatest State of the Union. ♦1674.♦ Ten years later, in the next
war between the two colonizing powers, the new English possession was
lost and won again.
Meanwhile the gap which was still left began to be filled up by other
English settlements. ♦The Jerseys. 1665. | 1702.♦ _East_ and _West
Jersey_ began as two distinct colonies, which were afterwards united
into one. ♦Pennsylvania, 1682. | Delaware, 1703.♦ The great colony of
_Pennsylvania_ next arose, from which the small one of _Delaware_ was
parted off twenty years later. Pennsylvania was thus the last of the
original settlements of the seventeenth century, which in the space of
nearly eighty years had been formed fast after one another. ♦Georgia,
1733.♦ Fifty years after the work of the benevolent Penn came the work
of the no less benevolent Oglethorpe; _Georgia_, to the south of all,
now filled up the tale of the famous Thirteen, the fitting number, it
would seem, for a Federal power, whether in the Old World or in the New.
♦Independence of the United States, 1783.♦
By the Peace of Paris the Thirteen Colonies were acknowledged as
independent States. The great work of English settlement on foreign
soil was brought to perfection. The new and free English land beyond
the Ocean took in the whole temperate region of the North American
coast, all between the peninsula of _Acadia_ to the north and the other
peninsula of _Florida_ to the south. Both of these last lands were
English possessions at the time of the War of Independence, but neither
of them had any share in the work. ♦Nova Scotia, 1713.♦ Acadia, under
the name of _Nova Scotia_, had been ceded by France in the interval
between the settlement of Pennsylvania and the settlement of Georgia.
♦Conquest of Canada, 1759-1763.♦ Next came the conquest of _Canada_, in
which the men of the colonies played their part. ♦The French barrier at
Alleghany.♦ Hitherto the English colonies had been shut in to the West
by the French claim to the line of the Alleghany mountains. The Treaty
of Paris took away this bugbear, and left the whole land as far as the
Mississippi open to the enterprise of the English colonists. Thus, when
the Thirteen States started on their independent career, the whole land
between the great lakes, the Ocean, and the Mississippi, was open to
them. ♦Florida again Spanish, 1781-1821.♦ Florida indeed, first as an
English, then again as a Spanish possession, cut them off from the Gulf
of Mexico. The city of _New Orleans_ remained, first a Spanish, then a
French, outpost east of the Mississippi, and the possessions still held
by England kept them from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. ♦Extension
to the West.♦ But within these limits, such of the old States as were
allowed by their geographical position might extend themselves to the
west, and new States might be formed. Both processes went on, and two
of the barriers formed by European powers were removed. ♦Louisiana,
1803. | Florida, 1821.♦ The purchase of _Louisiana_ from France, the
acquisition of _Florida_ from Spain, gave the States the sea-board of
the Gulf of Mexico, and allowed their extension to the Pacific. The
details of that extension, partly by natural growth, partly at the
expense of the Spanish element in North America, it is hardly needful
to go through here. ♦A new English nation.♦ But, out of the English
settlements on the North-American coast, a new English nation has
arisen, none the less English, in a true view of history, because it
no longer owes allegiance to the crown of Great Britain. But the power
thus formed, exactly like earlier confederations in Europe, lacks
a name. ♦Lack of a name.♦ The _United States of America_ is hardly
a geographical or a national name, any more than the names of the
_Confederates_ and the _United Provinces_. In the two European cases
common usage gave the name of a single member of the Union to the
whole, and in the case of Switzerland the popular name at last became
the formal name. In the American case, on the other hand, popular usage
speaks of the Confederation by the name of the whole continent of which
its territory forms part. ♦Use of the word _America_.♦ For several
purposes, the words _America_ and _American_ are always understood
as shutting out Canada and Mexico, to say nothing of the southern
American continent. For some other purposes, those names still take
in the whole American continent, north and south. But it is easier
to see the awkwardness of the usual nomenclature than to suggest any
improvement on it.
* * * * *
♦Second English nation in North America.♦
While one set of events in the eighteenth century created an
independent English nation on North American soil, another set of
events in the same century, earlier in date but later in their results,
has led to the formation in its immediate neighbourhood of another
English nation which still keeps its allegiance to the English crown.
♦Dependent confederacy.♦ A confederation of states, practically
independent in their internal affairs, but remaining subjects of a
distant sovereign, is a novelty in political science. ♦British North
America.♦ Such is the _Confederation of British North America_. But
this dependent Confederation did not arise out of colonization in the
same sense as the independent Confederation to the south of it. The
central land which gives it its character is the conquered land of
_Canada_. ♦New Brunswick, &c.♦ Along with Canada came the possession
of the smaller districts which received the names of _New Brunswick_
and _Prince Edward’s Island_, districts which were at first joined
to Nova Scotia, but which afterwards became distinct colonies. ♦The
Dominion, 1867.♦ Now they are joined with the _Dominion of Canada_,
which, like the United States, grows by the incorporation of new states
and territories. ♦British Columbia, 1871. | Rupertsland.♦ The addition
of _British Columbia_ has carried the Confederation to the Pacific;
that of _Rupertsland_ carries it indefinitely northward towards the
pole. This second English-speaking power in North America, stretches,
like the elder one, from Ocean to Ocean. ♦Newfoundland, 1713.♦
_Newfoundland_ alone, a possession secured to England after many
debates at the same time as Nova Scotia, remains distinct.
* * * * *
♦The West Indies. Barbadoes, 1605.♦
Of the British possessions in the _West Indies_ a few only, among them
_Barbadoes_, the earliest of all, were colonies in the same sense
as Virginia and Massachusetts. ♦Jamaica, 1655.♦ The greater number,
_Jamaica_ at their head, were won by conquest from other European
powers. No new English nation, like the American and the Canadian,
has grown up in them. ♦Smaller settlements.♦ Still less is there
any need to dwell on the _Bahamas_, the _Falkland Islands_, or the
South-American possession of _British Guiana_.
§ 6. _Other Colonies and Possessions of England._
♦Colonies in the southern hemisphere.♦
The story of the North-American colonies may be both compared and
contrasted with the story of two great groups of colonies in the
southern hemisphere. ♦Australia.♦ In Australia and the other great
southern islands, a body of English colonies have arisen, the germs at
least of yet another English nation, but which have not as yet reached
either independence or confederation. ♦South Africa.♦ In South Africa,
another group of possessions and colonies, beginning, like Canada,
in conquest from another European power, seems to be feeling its way
towards confederation, while one part has in a manner stumbled into
independence.
The beginning of English settlement in the greatest of islands began
in the years which immediately followed the establishment of American
independence. ♦New South Wales, 1787.♦ First came _New South Wales_, on
the eastern coast, designed originally as a penal settlement. ♦Western
Australia, 1829.♦ It outgrew this stage, and another penal settlement
was founded in _Western Australia_. ♦South Australia, 1836. |
Victoria, 1837. | Queensland, 1859.♦ Then colonization spread into the
intermediate region of _Southern Australia_ (which however stretches
right through the island to its northern coast) into the district
called _Victoria_, south-west of the original settlement, and lastly,
into _Queensland_ to the north-east. ♦Colonies Act, 1850.♦ Since
the middle of the present century all these colonies have gradually
established constitutions which give them full internal independence.
♦Tasmania, 1804. | 1839.♦ South of the great island lies one smaller,
but still vast, that of _Van Diemen’s_ Land, now _Tasmania_, which was
settled earlier than any Australian settlement except New South Wales.
♦Six colonies, 1852. | United, 1875.♦ And to the east lie the two
great islands of _New Zealand_, where six English colonies founded at
different times have been united into one.
♦South Africa.♦
While the Australian settlements were colonies in the strictest sense,
the English possessions in South Africa began, like New York, in a
settlement first planted by the United Provinces. ♦Conquest of the
Cape, 1806. | 1815.♦ The _Cape Colony_, after some shiftings during
the French revolutionary wars, was conquered by England, and its
possession by England was confirmed at the general peace. ♦Eastern
Colony and Natal, 1820-1836.♦ Migration northward, both of the English
and Dutch inhabitants, has produced new settlements, as the _Eastern
Colony_ and _Natal_. ♦Orange River State, 1847-1856. | Transvaal,
1861-1877.♦ Meanwhile independent Dutch states have arisen, as the
_Orange River Republic_, annexed by England, then set free, and lastly
dismembered, and the _Transvaal_, more lately annexed after sixteen
years of independence. Lastly a scheme of confederation for all these
settlements awaits some more peaceful time to be carried into effect.
* * * * *
♦Europe extended by colonization.♦
In all these cases of real colonization, of real extension of the
English or any other European nation, it is hardly a figure to say
that the bounds of Europe have been enlarged. All that makes Europe
Europe, all that parts off Europe from Africa and Asia, has been
carried into America and Australia and Africa itself. The growth of
this new Europe, no less than the changes of the old, is an essential
part of European geography. ♦Barbarian dominion.♦ It is otherwise
with territories, great or small, which have been occupied by England
and other European powers merely for military or commercial purposes.
Forts, factories, or empires, on barbarian soil, where no new European
nation is likely ever to grow up, are not cases of true colonization;
they are no extension of the bounds of Europe. ♦English dominion in
India.♦ The climax of this kind of barbarian dominion is found in those
vast Indian possessions in which England has supplanted Portugal,
France, and the heirs of Timour. ♦Empire of India. 1876.♦ Of that
dominion the scientific frontier has yet to be traced; yet it has
come to give an Imperial title to the sovereign of Great Britain and
Ireland, while those two European islands, as perhaps befits their
inferiority in physical size, remain content with the lowlier style of
the United Kingdom. Whether the loftier pretensions of Asia do, or do
not, imply any vassalage on the part of Europe, it is certain that the
Asiatic Empire of the sovereign of the British kingdom is no extension
of England, no extension of Europe, no creation of a new English or
European nation. The Empire of India stands outside the European world,
outside the political system which has gathered round the Old and the
New Rome. But a place amongst the foremost members of that system
belongs to the great European nation on American soil, where the tongue
of England is kept, and the constitution of old Achaia is born again,
in a confederation stretching from the Western to the Eastern Ocean.
* * * * *
♦Summary.♦
We have thus traced the geography, and in tracing the geography we have
in a slighter way traced the history, of the various states and powers
of Europe, and of the lands beyond the Ocean which have been planted
from Europe. We have throughout kept steadily before our eyes the
centre, afterwards the two centres, of European life. We have seen how
the older states of Europe gradually lose themselves in the dominion
of Rome, how the younger states gradually spring out of the dominion
of Rome. We have followed, as our central subjects, the fates of those
powers in the East and West which continued the Roman name and Roman
traditions. We have traced out the states which were directly formed
by splitting off from those powers, and the states which arose beyond
the range of Roman power, but not beyond the range of Roman influence.
We have seen the Western Empire first pass to a German prince, then
gradually shrink into a German kingdom, to be finally dissolved into
a German confederation. We have watched the states which split off at
various dates from its body, the power of France on one side, the power
of Austria on another, the powers of Italy on a third, the free states
of Switzerland at one end, the free states of the Netherlands at the
other. We have beheld the long tragedy of the Eastern Rome; we have
told the tale of the states which split off from it and arose around
it. We have seen its territorial position pass to a barbarian invader,
and something like its position in men’s minds pass to the mightiest of
its spiritual disciples. And we have seen, painted on the map of our
own century, the beginning of the great work which is giving back the
lands of the Eastern Rome to their own people. We have then traced the
shiftings of the powers which lay wholly or partly beyond the bounds
of either Empire, the great Slavonic mainland, the Scandinavian and
the Iberian peninsulas, ending with that which is geographically the
most isolated land of all, the other world of Britain. We have seen too
how Europe may be said to have spread herself beyond her geographical
limits in the foundation of new European states beyond the Ocean. We
have contrasted the different positions and destinies of the colonizing
European powers—where, as in the days of Old Rome, a continuous
territory has been extended over neighbouring barbarian lands—where
growth beyond the sea was the natural outcome of growth at home—where
European powers have colonized and conquered simply of their own free
will. In thus tracing the historical geography of Europe, we have made
the round of the world. But we have never lost sight of Europe; we
have never lost sight of Rome. Wherever we have gone, we have carried
Europe with us; wherever we have gone, we have never got beyond the
power of the two influences which, mingling into one, have made Europe
all that it has been. The whole of European history is embodied in the
formula which couples together the ‘rule of Christ and Cæsar;’ and that
joint rule still goes on, in the shape of moral influence, wherever the
tongues and the culture of Europe win new realms for themselves in the
continents of the western or in the islands of the southern Ocean.
FOOTNOTES:
[87] See Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 564.
[88] See above, p. 98.
[89] The Tudor kings were doubtless of British descent; but they did
not reign by virtue of that descent, and they did not come in till ages
after the English kingdom was completely formed.
[90] See Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 580.
[91] It should be remembered that the principality became the appanage
of the eldest son only by accident. The first English prince,
afterwards Edward the Second, was not his father’s eldest son at the
time of his creation. The title moreover is newly created each time.
[92] See Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 48; and Macmillan’s Magazine,
April, 1880.
[93] The Latin _colonia_ certainly does not imply independence; but,
the word _colony_, in our use of it, rather answers to the Greek
ἀποικία which does.
[94] It may be well to give the dates in order:—
Plymouth 1620
Massachusetts 1628
New Hampshire 1629
Connecticut 1635
Newhaven 1638
Providence 1644
Rhode Island 1634
Maine 1638
New Hampshire annexed by Massachusetts 1641
Rhode Island and Providence united 1644
Connecticut and Newhaven united 1664
New Hampshire separated from Massachusetts 1671
Maine purchased by Massachusetts 1677
Plymouth and Massachusetts united 1691
INDEX.
Aachen, crowning-place of the German kings, 189.
annexed to France, 220.
Aargau, 271.
Åbo, bishopric of, 184.
peace of, 512.
Abruzzi, the, annexed to Sicily, 396.
Abyssinian Church, 169.
Acadia; _see_ NOVA SCOTIA.
Acciauoli, Dukes of Athens, 417.
Achaia, League of, 40.
dependent on Rome, 41.
province of, 78.
principality of, 416, 417.
Angevin overlordship of, 418.
its dismemberment, _ib._
Savoyard counts of, 283, 418.
Achaians, use of the name in the Homeric catalogue, 26.
Acre, lost and won in the Crusades, 398, 400.
fall of, 400.
Ægæan Sea, Greek colonies on its coasts, 21, 22, 32.
theme of, 150.
Ælfred, his treaty with Guthrum, 161.
Æmilia, province of, 79.
Æquians, 46.
their wars with Rome, 50.
Africa, Greek colonies in, 35.
Roman province of, 59.
New, province of, _ib._
diocese of, 78, 79.
Vandal kingdom, 90.
recovered to the Empire, 104.
Saracen conquest of, 111.
Norman conquests in, 396.
Portuguese conquests in, 541.
French conquests in, 360.
South, English possessions in, 565, 566.
Agram (Zagrab), 439.
Agri Decumates, 84.
Agricola, his conquest of Britain, 69.
Agrigentum (Akragas), 48.
conquered by the Saracens, 370.
Aigina, held by Venice, 410.
Aiolian colonies in Asia, 32.
Aire, 349.
Aitolia, geographical position of, 21.
League of, 40.
its alliance with and dependence on Rome, 40, 41.
Aitolians, their place in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
Aix (Aquæ Sextiæ), Roman colony, 57.
ecclesiastical province of, 173.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 249, 349.
Ajaccio, birthplace of Buonaparte, 352.
Akarnania, 21, 30.
league of, 40.
Akarnanians, not in the Homeric catalogue, 26 (_note_).
Akerman, Peace of, 453.
Akragas; _see_ AGRIGENTUM.
Aktê, Argolic, 29.
Alans, origin of, 89.
their settlements in Spain, 90.
Alarcos, battle of, 533.
Alaric, king of the West-Goths, 89.
Alava, 535.
Albania, Asiatic, 99.
Albania, kings of, 420.
Turkish conquest of, 421.
revolt of, under Scanderbeg, _ib._
Albanians, their origin, 24.
their settlements in Greece, 115, 364, 366.
Albanon (Elbassan), 430.
Albigensian War, 335.
Albi, ecclesiastical province of, 174.
under Aragon, 335.
annexed to France, _ib._
Alemanni, 85, 91.
conquered by the Franks, 117.
Alemannia, Duchy of, 140.
Alessandria, 237.
ceded to Savoy, 249.
Alessio, taken by Venice, 410.
Alexander the Great, his conquests, 37.
Alexandria, greatness of, 38, 61, 77.
Patriarchate of, 168, 169.
Alexios Komnênos, his conquests in Asia Minor, 381.
Alexios Komnênos, founds the Empire of Trebizond, 386.
Alfonso VI. of Castile, Emperor, 531.
his conquests, 532.
Algarve, 533, 535.
Algarve-beyond-the-Sea, kingdom of, 541.
Algeria, character of the French conquest of, 360.
Algiers, 447.
Almohades, invade Spain, 533.
decline of, _ib._
Almoravides, invade Spain, 530.
Alps, the, 43.
Alsace; _see_ ELSASS.
Amadeus VI., Count of Savoy, his Eastern expedition, 390.
Amadeus VIII., first Duke of Savoy, 281.
his title of Prince of Piedmont, 284.
Amalfi, 369.
Amastris, held by Genoa, 414.
Ambrakia, Corinthian colony, 31.
capital of Pyrrhos, 37; _see_ ARTA.
America, Spanish dominion in, 543.
use of the word, 563.
America, North, French settlements in, 352.
English and French rivalry in, 353.
Russian settlements in, 523.
first English settlements in, 559.
formation of the thirteen colonies in, 560-562.
colonies of the United Provinces and Sweden in, 561.
confederation of British North America, 564; _see also_ UNITED STATES.
Amiens, county of, added to France, 331.
to Burgundy, 340.
Amisos, held by Genoa, 414.
Amurath I., Sultan, takes Hadrianople, 445.
Anatolikon, theme of, 151.
Anchialos, 376.
Ancona (Ankôn), 47.
march of, 238.
occupied by Manuel Komnênos, 381.
Andalusia, origin of the name, 90.
Andorra, French protectorate of, 343, 537.
Andraszovo, Peace of, 506.
Angles, their settlements in Britain, 97.
Angora, battle of, 445.
Anhalt, principality of, 226.
Ani, annexed to the Eastern Empire, 379.
taken by the Turks, _ib._
Anjou, county of, 142.
united to Touraine, 330.
to Maine and England, 332.
annexed by Philip Augustus, 333.
Anjou, House of, its growth, 332, 333.
its overlordship in Peloponnêsos, 418.
Ankôn; _see_ ANCONA.
Anne of Britanny, effects of her marriages, 341.
Antilles, French colonies in, 353.
Antioch, greatness of, 61, 77.
taken by Chosroes, 109.
patriarchate of, 168, 169.
restored to the Eastern Empire, 379.
taken by the Turks, 380.
recovered by the Empire, 381.
its later captures, 399.
Antiochos the Great, his war with Rome, 38, 41, 64.
Antivari, Servian, 406.
part of Montenegro, 428.
recovered by Montenegro, 429.
Aosta, bishopric of, 173.
part of the kingdom of Burgundy, 278.
its relations to Savoy, 288.
Apennines, the, 44.
Apollônia, its alliance with Rome, 40.
Appenzell, joins the Confederates, 272.
Apulia, Norman conquest of, 394.
Aquæ Sextiæ; _see_ AIX.
Aquileia, foundation of, 55.
destroyed by Attila, 94.
Patriarchate of, 170, 171, 237, 308.
fluctuates between Germany and Italy, 195.
under Austria, 255, 318.
Aquitaine, south-western division of Transalpine Gaul, 58.
its inhabitants, _ib._
Frankish conquest of, 118, 120.
kingdom of, 128.
united with Neustria, 135, 339.
duchy of, 142.
extent of, 332.
united with Gascony, _ib._
its union with and separation from France, _ib._
united with England and Normandy, 333.
kept by England, 334.
French designs on, 337.
released from homage, 338.
its final union with France, 338, 558.
Arabia, attempted Roman conquest of, 68.
Portuguese conquests in, 541.
Arabia Petræa, Roman conquest of, 70.
Aragon, county of, 154, 155.
its position in the Mediterranean, 463.
its later history, 527.
its relations towards Navarre, 528.
formation of the kingdom, 530.
Sobrarbe joined to, 531.
united with Barcelona, _ib._
advances beyond the Pyrenees and Rhone, 334, 531.
conquers the Balearic isles and Valencia, 533.
extent of in the thirteenth century, 534, 536.
united with Castile, 537.
its second advance beyond the peninsula, 538.
united with Sicily, _ib._
its conquests in Sardinia, _ib._
its outlying possessions compared with those of Castile, 539.
Arcadius, Emperor of the East, 81.
Archipelago, Duchy of, 413.
Argos, its place in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
its early greatness, 29.
joins the Achaian League, 40.
won from Epeiros by the Latins, 417.
held by Venice, 410, 418.
taken by the Turks, 411.
Ariminum; _see_ RIMINI.
Arkadia, its place in the Homeric catalogue, 30.
Arles, later Roman capital of Gaul, 92.
Saracen conquest of, 112.
kingdom of, 145.
ecclesiastical province of, 173.
crowning-place of the kings of Burgundy, 189.
annexed to France, 265.
Armagh, ecclesiastical province of, 183.
Armenia, conquered by Trajan, 99.
given up by Hadrian, _ib._
division of, 100.
conquered by Basil II., 153, 379.
Russian advance in, 521.
Armenia, Lesser, 379, 399.
acknowledges the Western Emperor, 401.
its connexion with Cyprus, _ib._
end of the kingdom, _ib._
Arminius, his victory over Varus, 67.
Armorica; _see_ BRITANNY.
Arnulf, king of the East Franks and Emperor, 139.
Arras, Treaty of, 297.
ceded to France, 301.
Arta (Ambrakia), won by the Eastern Empire, 388, 420.
Arthur of Britanny, possible effects of the success of his claims, 333.
Artois, added to France, 331.
to the Duchy of Burgundy, 339.
its momentary annexation by Lewis XI., 340.
relieved from homage, _ib._
within the Burgundian circle, 218.
French acquisitions in, 348, 349.
Aryan nations of Europe, order of their settlements, 13-15.
Asia, its geographical character, 6.
Macedonian kingdoms in, 37, 38.
Roman province of, 64.
Asia Minor, historically connected with Europe, 6.
Greek colonies in, 22, 34.
kingdoms in, 38.
Roman conquest of, 64.
Saracen ravages in, 117, 378.
Turkish conquests of, 380, 389.
Aspledôn, its place in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
Astrakhan, khanat of, 501.
conquered by Russia, 511.
Asturia, united to Cantabria, 154, 529.
grows into the kingdom of Leon, _ib._
Asturias, principality of, 534.
Athamania, kingdom of, 37.
Athaulf, king of the West Goths, 89.
Athens, its position in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
nominally independent of Rome, 41.
lordship and duchy of, 416.
Ottoman and Venetian conquests of, 417.
Atropatênê, 99.
Attabegs, their wars with the Crusaders, 400.
Attica, 21, 27.
Attila, effects of his inroads, 94.
Auch, ecclesiastical province of, 173.
Augsburg, bishopric of, 216.
free city, 220.
annexed by Bavaria, 221.
Aurelian, Emperor, gives up Dacia, 70.
Australia, English settlement in, 565.
Austria, Lombard, 234.
Austria, origin and use of the name, 121, 192, 305, 321.
beginning of, 140.
mark of, 196-202, 203, 305, 307.
its position as a marchland, 267.
duchy of, 308.
annexed by Bohemia, 309.
under the Habsburgs, 310.
archduchy of, 313.
its connexion with the Western Empire, 311.
circle of, 217.
its acquisitions and divisions, 312, 315.
its union with Bohemia and Hungary, 314, 317.
its foreign possessions, 318, 319.
its rivalry with Prussia, 204.
Venice surrendered to, 252, 255.
so-called Empire of, 221, 267, 306.
changes of, during the revolutionary wars, 221-224.
its position compared with that of Prussia, 225.
loses and recovers Hungary, 323.
modern extent of, 321-324.
cedes its rights in Sleswick and Holstein, 228.
Bosnia and Herzegovina administered by, 441.
Austro-Hungary, dual system in, 323.
Autun, 93.
Auvergne, counts of, 332.
Avars, a Turanian people, 17, 365.
allied with the Lombards against the Gepidæ, 107, 113.
kingdom of, 113.
overthrown by Charles the Great, 122, 127.
Aversa, county of, 394.
Avignon, archbishopric of, 174.
taken by France, 264.
sold to the Pope, 265.
annexed to France, 265, 355.
Azof, won and lost by Russia, 449, 516.
Azores, conquered by Portugal, 541.
Babylonia, 99.
Badajoz, 533.
Baden, mark, electorate, and duchy of, 216, 220, 226.
Bahamas, the, 565.
Bajazet the Thunderbolt, Sultan, defeated by Timour, 390, 445.
his conquest of Bulgaria, 431.
extent of his dominion, 445.
Balearic Isles, conquered by Aragon, 533.
Balsa, house of, its dominion in Albania, 428.
Baltic Sea, Scandinavian and German influence on, compared, 486.
Baltic lands, general view of, 464-468.
Bamberg, bishopric of, 176, 215, 226.
Bangor, bishopric of, 182.
Bar, duchy of, united to Lorraine, 193.
annexed by France, 348.
restored to Lorraine, _ib._
Barbadoes, 565.
Barcelona, county of, 320.
joined to Aragon, 531.
released from homage to France, 335, 531.
Bardulia, the original Castile, 529.
Bari, archbishopric of, 172.
won from the Saracens, 370.
Barnim, under Poland, 479.
passes to Brandenburg, 492.
Barrier Treaty, 349.
Basel, joins the Confederates, 262, 272.
Basel, bishopric of, annexed by France, 355.
restored by France, 359.
Basil II., Eastern Emperor, his conquests, 153, 379.
incorporates Serbia, 424.
Basques, remnant of non-Aryan people in Europe, 12, 13.
their independence, 90.
Batoum, annexed to Russia, 522.
Bavaria, duchy of, 140.
conquered by the Franks, 117, 118, 120.
modern use of the name, 191, 192.
electorate of, 215.
united with the Palatinate, _ib._
kingdom of, 220.
extent of, 226.
Bayonne, diocese of, 179.
Belgium, kingdom of, 303.
Belgrade, taken by the Magyars, 379.
by the Turk, 438.
Peace of, 440.
Belisarius, ends the Vandal kingdom in Africa, 105.
Benevento, Lombard duchy of, 108, 147, 254.
papal possession of, 250.
Berengar, king of Italy, submits to Otto the Great, 147.
Berlin, its position, 230.
Berlin, Treaty of, 429, 450, 452.
Bern, joins the Confederates, 262, 270.
its Savoyard conquests, 272, 273.
annexes Lausanne, 273.
restores lands north of the lake, _ib._
Bernhard, duke of Saxony, 208.
Bernicia, kingdom of, 97, 161, 550.
Berwick, 552.
Besançon, 93.
ecclesiastical province of, 175.
an Imperial city, 261.
united to France, 261, 349.
Bessarabia, annexed by Russia, 449.
Beziers, annexed by France, 335.
Bialystok, 519.
Bienne, 274.
Billungs, their mark, 198, 476.
Biscay, 535.
Bithynia, kingdom of, 38, 61.
Roman conquest of, 64.
Bleking, 470.
Blois, united to Champagne, 330.
purchased by Saint Lewis, 336.
Bodonitza, principality of, 417.
Bohemia, whether the seat of Samo’s kingdom, 473 (_note_).
kingdom of, 159, 199, 217, 477.
annexes Austria, 309, 315.
its union with Brandenburg, 209, 493.
its permanent union with Austria, 317, 323, 493.
sketch of its history, 477, 492, 493.
Bohuslän, ceded to Sweden, 508.
Boiôtia, 21.
legendary Thessalian settlement of, 30.
league of, 40.
dissolved, 41.
Bokhara, 522.
Boleslaf I., of Poland, his conquests, 479.
whether the first king, 479 (_note_).
Bologna, archbishopric of, 171.
Bona, 396.
Boniface, king of Thessalonikê, extent of his kingdom, 385, 417.
Bormio, won by Graubünden, 273.
Bornholm, 508.
Bosnia, Hungarian conquest of, 424.
won back by Stephen Dushan, 425.
origin of the kingdom, 426.
its greatest extent, 427.
Turkish conquest of, _ib._
administered by Austro-Hungary, 324, 441.
Bosporos, kingdom of, 39, 64.
Boukellariôn, theme of, 151.
Boulogne, lost and won by France, 342, 347, 558.
Bourbon, Isle of, occupied by the French, 354.
taken by England but restored, 360.
Bourdeaux, ecclesiastical province of, 173.
Bourges, ecclesiastical province of, 173.
viscounty of, added to France, 331.
Brabant, duchy of, 294.
united to Burgundy, 297.
Braga, 179.
Brandenburg, mark of, 199, 209, 476.
grows into modern Prussia, 202, 203, 210.
New Mark of, pledged to the Teutonic knights, 496.
its union with Bohemia, 209, 493.
united to Prussia, 204, 209, 504, 513.
Branibor, takings of, 475.
Brazil, discovery of, 542.
Empire of, _ib._
Breisach, annexed by France, 347.
restored, 350.
Bremen, archbishopric of, 176, 214.
held and lost by Sweden, 509, 513.
annexed to Hannover, 208.
Bremen, city, one of the Hanse towns, 214, 220.
its independence of the Bishop, 214.
Brescia, 237.
Breslau, bishopric of, 185.
Bresse, annexed to Savoy, 263.
ceded to France, 287, 347.
Bretigny, Peace of, 337.
Brindisi, lost by Venice, 248.
Britain, use of the name, 3, 4.
early position of, 10.
Celtic settlements in, 14.
Roman conquest of, 69, 545.
diocese of, 80.
Roman troops withdrawn from, 95.
Teutonic settlements in, 15, 96.
English kingdoms in, 129.
Celtic states in, 130.
Empire of, 462, 545.
its independence of the Western Empire, 545.
two English kingdoms in, 548.
Britanny, origin of the name, 93.
duchy of, 142.
its relations to Normandy, 328, 333.
incorporated with France, 341.
Brixen, bishopric of, 217, 308.
united to Bavaria, 221.
recovered by Austria, 224.
Brunswick, duchy of, 208, 227.
Brusa, Turkish conquest of, 389, 444.
Bucharest, Treaty of, 450.
Bugey, annexed to Savoy, 263.
to France, 287, 347.
Bukovina, annexed by Austria, 441.
Bulgaria, White and Black, 374, 481.
extent of, in the eighth century, 375.
under Simeon, 376.
conquered by Sviatoslaf, 377.
by John Tzimiskês, _ib._
extent of, under Samuel, _ib._
recovered by Basil II., 153, 378.
third kingdom of, 382, 429.
advance of, under John Asan, 430.
its decline, _ib._
Cuman dynasty in, 431.
break up of, _ib._
Turkish conquest of, _ib._
triple partition of, by the Treaty of Berlin, 454.
Bulgarians, a Turanian people, 17, 365.
their settlements, 116, 156, 365.
compared with the Magyars and Ottomans, 365.
Buonaparte, Napoleon, his kingdom of Italy, 253, 254.
his feeling towards Switzerland, 355.
character of his conquests, 356.
his treatment of Germany and Italy, 357.
his scheme for the division of Europe, _ib._
extent of France under, 358.
Buonaparte, Louis Napoleon, his annexations, 359.
Buondelmonte, house of, in Northern Epeiros, 420.
Burgos, ecclesiastical province of, 179.
Burgundians, 87.
their settlement in Gaul, 93.
Burgundy, Frankish conquest of, 118.
use of the name, 93, 192.
Burgundy, Kingdom of, 137, 144.
Trans- and Cis-jurane, 145.
chiefly annexed by France, 146, 264.
represented by Switzerland, 146, 259.
its language, 259.
importance of its acquisition by France, 343, 344.
Burgundy, County of, 218.
revolutions of, 260.
joined with the duchy, 339.
momentary annexation of, by Lewis XI., 340.
an appendage to Castile under Charles V., 539.
finally annexed by France, 261, 344, 349, 539.
Burgundy, Duchy of, 142, 144.
escheat of, 339.
union of Flanders with, 292.
its growth, 339.
annexed by Lewis XI., 340.
Burgundy, Lesser, Duchy of, 260, 261.
Burgundy, circle of, 216, 218.
Butrinto, under the Angevins, 397.
commends itself to Venice, 410.
ceded to the Turk, 411.
won back by Venice, 412.
Byzantium, annexed by Vespasian, 41, 63, 68.
capital of the Eastern Empire, 33, 77.
_see_ CONSTANTINOPLE.
Cæsar, Augustus, his conquests, 56, 66.
his division of Italy, 74.
Cæsar, Caius Julius, his conquests in Gaul, 57, 58.
forms the province of New Africa and restores Carthage, 59.
Cadiz, joined to Castile, 534;
_see_ GADES.
Caithness, 550.
Calabria, change of the name, 369.
Calais, English conquest of, 338, 558.
won back by France, 342, 347.
Calatrava, 533.
California, Upper, ceded by Spain to the United States, 544.
Caliphate, Eastern, extent of, 112.
division of, 113, 122, 125.
Caliphate, Western, beginning of, 113, 122, 125.
broken up, 156.
Calmar, Union of, 487.
Cambray, bishopric of, 175.
becomes an archbishopric, 177.
League of, 242.
annexed to France, 301, 349.
Camerino, march of, 238.
Campo Formio, treaty of, 252.
Canada, colonized by France, 352.
conquered by England, 353, 562.
part of the confederation of British North America, 564.
Canali, district of, originally Servian, 405.
Canaries, conquered by Spain, 543.
Candia, war of, 404.
use of the name, 409 (_note_).
Cantabria, conquered by Augustus, 56.
united with Asturia, 154, 529.
Canterbury, archbishopric of, 181.
Cape Breton, French settlement at, 352.
Cape Colony, conquered by England, 566.
Cape of Good Hope, discovery of, 541.
Cape Verde Islands, conquered by Portugal, 541.
Capua, Archbishopric of, 172.
Principality of, 394.
annexed to Sicily by King Roger, 396.
Carcassonne, 335.
Carelia, conquered by Sweden, 488.
part of, ceded to Russia, 512.
Carinthia (Kärnthen), mark of, 114, 127, 140, 196.
Duchy of, 217, 308.
whether the seat of Samo’s kingdom, 473 (_note_).
Carlisle, bishopric of, 183.
added to England by William Rufus, 551.
Carlowitz, Peace of, 412, 439, 448.
Carniola, (Krain), Duchy of, 217.
mark of, 196.
Carolina, 561.
its division, _ib._
Carthage, Phœnician colony, 35.
greatness of, 79.
its possessions in Sicily, 48.
holds Sardinia and Corsica, 54.
its power in Spain, 56.
destroyed, 59.
restored, _ib._
capital of the Vandal kingdom, 90.
Carthagena (New Carthage), 56.
Cashel, ecclesiastical province of, 183.
Casimir the Great, king of Poland, his conquests, 498.
Caspian, Russian advance on, 521.
Cassubia, 492.
Castile, county of, 154.
origin of the name, _ib._
kingdom of, 155, 530, 535.
its Emperor, 463.
later history of, 527.
its relations towards Navarre, 528.
shiftings of, 531.
its final union with Leon, _ib._
advance of, 533.
conquests of, under Saint Ferdinand, 534.
conquers Granada, 534, 537.
loses and recovers Gibraltar, 534.
its union with Aragon, 537.
its outlying possessions compared
with those of Aragon, 539.
Catalans, conquests of, in Greece, 387, 416.
Catalonia, county of, 536.
Cattaro, won and lost by Montenegro, 322, 428.
Caucasus, Russian advance in, 521.
Cayenne, 353.
Celts, earliest Aryan settlers in western Europe, 13, 14, 56.
effects of their settlements, 14.
Cerdagne, released from homage to France, 531.
recovered by Aragon, 537.
loss of, 539.
Ceuta, under the Empire, 526.
under Spain, 541, 543.
Ceylon, Dutch colony, 300.
Chablais, 273.
Chaldia, theme of, 150.
Chalkidikê, 20.
Greek colonies in, 33.
united to Macedonia, 37.
kept by the Empire, 390.
Châlons, battle of, 94.
Chambéry, Savoyard capital, 282, 288.
Champagne, county of, 142.
character of its vassalage, 329.
joined to France, 336.
Chandernagore, a French settlement, 354.
Channel Islands, kept by the English kings, 334, 558.
Charles the Great, his conquests, 121, 122.
conquers Lombardy, 123.
his title of Patrician, _ib._
conquers Saxony, 126.
overthrows the Avars, 127.
crowned Emperor, 124.
extent of his Empire, 126, 127.
his divisions of the Empire, 128.
his death, _ib._
archbishoprics founded by, 176.
Charles the Fat, Emperor, union of the Frankish kingdoms under, 137.
Charles V., Emperor, dominions of, 249, 298, 539.
his conquest of Tunis, 447, 543.
extension of Castilian dominion under, 539.
Charles VI., Emperor, his Pragmatic Sanction, 320.
Charles XII., of Sweden, his wars with Peter the Great, 512.
Charles of Anjou, his kingdom of Sicily, 250.
his Italian dominion, 283.
his dominion in Epeiros, 397.
occupies Acre, 398.
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, his schemes for a Burgundian kingdom, 290, 304.
effects of his death, 340.
Charles, Duke of Leukadia, his conquests and title, 421.
Charles the Good, Duke of Savoy, 286.
Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, 287.
Charolois, under the Dukes of Burgundy, 339.
an appendage to Castile under Charles V., 539.
conquered by Lewis XIV., _ib._
Chartres, county of, united to Champagne, 330.
purchased by Saint Lewis, 336.
Chazars, their settlements, 17, 113, 365.
Russian advance against, 481.
Chersôn (Chersonêsos), city of, 36.
theme of, 152.
annexed to the Eastern Empire, 378.
taken by Vladimir, 153, 378, 482.
not the site of modern Cherson, 516 (_note_).
Chiavenna, 195, 273.
Chichester, bishopric of, 182.
Chios, early greatness of, 32.
under the Zaccaria and the Maona, 414.
under the Turks, _ib._
Chlodwig, King of the Franks, 92, 117.
Chosroes II., his conquests, 109.
Christian I., King of Denmark, unites Denmark, Sleswick, and Holstein, 490, 491.
Chrobatia, Northern and Southern, 433.
_See also_ CROATIA.
Chrobatia, Northern, becomes Little Poland, 479.
passes to Austria, 515.
Chur, bishopric of, 216.
Church, Eastern, its relations to Russia, 468.
Cibin, gives its name to Siebenbürgen, 435 (_note_).
Circassia, Russian advance in, 521.
Cispadane Republic, the, 251.
Clermont, county of, 330.
Cleve, 210.
Clissa, 410.
Clontarf, Irish victory at, 557.
Cnut, his conquest of England, 162.
his northern Empire, 162, 462.
Colony, meaning and use of the word, 559.
Columbia, British, 564.
Como, 237.
Compostella, ecclesiastical province of, 179.
Confederation of the Rhine, 221, 222, 358.
Connaught, 183, 556.
Connecticut, 560.
Conrad of Mazovia, grants Culm to the Teutonic knights, 496.
Constantine, French conquest of, 360.
Constantine the Great, divisions of the Empire under, 74.
his new capital, 33, 77.
Constantine Porphyrogennêtos, his description of the themes of the Empire, 149.
Constantine Palaiologos, his conquests in Peloponnêsos, 418.
Constantinople, foundation of, 33, 77.
its moral influence, 116.
Patriarchate of, 168.
early Russian attempts on, 482.
Latin conquest of, 383.
won back under Michael Palaiologos, 387.
taken by the Turks, 391.
Constanz, bishopric of, 216.
passes to Austria, 274.
Cordova, bishopric, of, 178.
conquered by Ferdinand, 534, 535.
Caliphate of; _see_ CALIPHATE, Western.
Corfu, Norman conquests of, 380, 395, 396.
held by Margarito, 397.
won from Venice by Epeiros, 385.
granted to Manfred, _ib._
under Charles of Anjou, _ib._
under Venice, _ib._
summary of its history, 408.
_see also_ KORKYRA.
Corinth, in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
a Dorian city, 29.
joins the Achaian League, 40.
under Macedonia, _ib._
won from Epeiros by the Latins, 417.
Cornwall, 130.
Coron (Kôrônê), held by Venice, 409.
lost by her, 411.
Corsica, 44.
early inhabitants of, 53.
Roman conquest of, 54.
province of, 79.
held by Genoa, 238, 245.
ceded to France, 249.
effects of its incorporation with France, 351, 356.
Cosmo de’ Medici, Duke of Florence and Grand Duke of Tuscany, 246.
Cottbus, 211, 224.
Courtray, 349.
Cracow, capital of Poland, 479.
annexed by Austria, 514.
joined to the duchy of Warsaw, 82, 520.
republic of, _ib._
second Austrian annexation of, 323, 520.
Crema, 237.
Cremona, 237.
Crete, its geographical position, 22.
in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
keeps its independence, 37.
conquered by Rome, 63.
province of, 78.
lost and recovered by the Eastern Empire, 152, 153, 371, 372.
conquered by Venice, 404.
by the Turks, 404, 448.
re-enslaved by the Treaty of Berlin, 452.
Crim, khanat of, 501.
dependent on the Sultans, _ib._
annexed to Russia, 449, 516.
Croatia, Slavonic settlement in, 114.
its relations to the Eastern and Western Empires, 378, 406, 407.
its relations to Hungary, 323, 407, 434.
part of the Illyrian Provinces, 322.
Croja, won and lost by Venice, 411.
Crotona; _see_ KROTÔN.
Crusade, first, its geographical result, 399.
Crusaders, take Constantinople, 383.
their conquests compared with those of the Normans in Sicily, 398.
Cuba, 544.
Cujavia, 478, 499.
Culm, granted to the Teutonic knights, 496.
restored to Poland, 497.
Cumæ, 47, 48.
Cumania, king of, a Hungarian title, 436.
Cumans, settlements of, 365, 436, 483.
dynasty of in Bulgaria, 431, 436.
crushed by the Mongols, 436, 483.
Cumberland, (Strathclyde), Scandinavian settlements in, 161.
grant of, to Scotland, 162, 551.
southern part united to England, 551, 552.
formation of the shire, 556.
Curland, Swedish conquest of, 472.
tribes of, 484.
dominion of the Sword-brothers in, 496.
duchy of, 504.
Curzola; _see_ KORKYRA, BLACK.
Custrin, under Poland, 479.
passes to Brandenburg, 492.
Cyprus, Greek colonies in, 22.
Phœnician colonies in, 35.
Roman conquest of, 63.
theme of, 151.
lost and won by the Eastern Empire, 372.
conquered by Richard, _ib._
kingdom of, 401.
its connexion with Jerusalem and with Armenia, _ib._
conquered by Venice, 404.
by the Turks, 404, 447.
under English rule, 449, 559.
Czar; _see_ TZAR.
Czechs, 477.
Czepusz; _see_ ZIPS.
Dacia, wars of, with Rome, 70.
made a province by Trajan, _ib._
given up by Aurelian, _ib._
its later history, 71.
diocese of, 78.
Daghestan, 516, 521.
Dago, under the Sword-brothers, 496.
under Denmark, 491, 504.
under Sweden, 508.
Dalmatia, Greek colonies in, 34.
its wars with Rome, 62.
Roman colonies in, _ib._
province of, 79.
Slavonic settlement in, 115.
kingdom of, 407, 409.
its relations to the Eastern Empire, 376, 406.
history of the coast cities, 406.
Venetian conquest in, 406, 407.
joined to Croatia, _ib._
recovered by Manuel, 381, 407.
fluctuates between Hungary and Venice, 407, 409-412.
annexed by Lewis the Great, 409, 437.
taken, lost, and recovered by Austria, 320, 322, 441.
Danaoi, 26.
Danes, the, 127, 130.
their settlements, 131, 471.
their invasions of England, 160.
Danish Mark, 196, 469.
Danube, Roman conquests on, 68, 70.
boundary of the Empire, 71.
Gothic settlement on, 88.
crossed by the Goths, 89.
Danzig, mark of, 492.
lost and recovered by Poland, 492, 497.
commonwealth of, 223, 519.
restored to Prussia, 520.
Dardanians, 28.
Dauphiny; _see_ VIENNOIS.
Deira, kingdom of, 97, 161.
Delaware, 562.
Delmenhorst, 509, 513.
Denmark, extent of, 131.
its relations to the Western Empire, 127, 196, 467.
formation of the kingdom, 469.
conquests and colonies of, 471.
united with England under Cnut, 163.
bishoprics of, 184.
conquers Sclavinia, 489.
advance of, in Germany, _ib._
titles of its kings, _ib._
keeps Rügen, 490.
effect of its advance on the Slavonic lands, 491.
its settlement in Esthland, 488.
united with Sweden and Norway, 487.
with Norway only, 488.
its wars with Sweden, 508.
gives up the sovereignty of the Gottorp lands, 509.
gets Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, _ib._
recovers the Gottorp lands, 513.
gives up Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, _ib._
incorporation of Holstein with, 518.
Desnica, Zupania of, 424.
δεσπότης, a Byzantine title, 384 (_note_).
Dijon, capital of the duchy of Burgundy, 142, 144.
Diocletian, Emperor, division of the Empire under, 75.
his conquests, 100.
Dioklea, Zupania of, the germ of the Servian kingdom, 424.
Ditmarsh, 489.
joined to Holstein, 490.
freedom of, 491.
Danish conquest of, _ib._
Dobroditius, his dominion, 431.
Dobrutcha, origin of the name, 431.
joined to Wallachia, 431, 436.
restored to Roumania, 454.
Dôdekannêsos; _see_ NAXOS.
Dole, capital of Franche Comté, 261.
Domfront, acquired by William of Normandy, 332.
Dorchester, bishoprics of, 182.
Dorian settlement in Peloponnêsos, 29.
in Asia, 32.
Douay, becomes French, 349.
Dreux, county of, 330.
Drusus, his campaigns in Germany, 67.
Dublin, ecclesiastical province of, 183.
Dulcigno, originally Servian, 406.
won and lost by Montenegro, 429.
Dunkirk, held by England, 301, 558.
bought back by France, 301, 342.
Durazzo (Epidamnos), taken by the Normans, 380, 395, 396.
held by Margarito, 397.
conquered by Venice, 408.
won from Venice by Epeiros, 385.
recovered by the Eastern Empire, 387, 397.
under Charles of Anjou, 397.
won by Servia, 425.
duchy of, 397.
second Venetian conquest of, 410.
won by the Albanians, 420.
by the Turks, 411.
Durham, bishopric of, 183.
Dutch, use of the name, 300.
Dyrrhachion, theme of, 152.
_see_ DURAZZO.
Eadmund, his conquest and grant of Cumberland to Scotland, 162.
Eadward the Elder, extent of England under, 162.
East, the, prefecture of, 75, 77.
dioceses of, 76.
East Angles, kingdom of, 130.
diocese of, 182.
East India Company, French, 354.
Eastern Mark; _see_ AUSTRIA.
Ecgberht, king of the West-Saxons, his supremacy, 130, 160.
Edessa, restored to the Eastern Empire, 153, 379.
taken by the Turks, 400.
Edinburgh, bishopric of, 183.
taken by the Scots, 550.
Egypt under the Ptolemies, 38, 61.
Roman conquest of, 66.
diocese of, 76.
conquered by Selim I., 447.
Eider, boundary of Charles the Great’s empire, 127, 196, 469.
Eleanor of Aquitaine, effects of her marriages, 332, 337.
Elba, annexed to the kingdom of Naples, 44, 246.
Êlis, district of, 29.
city of, 30.
joins the Achaian league, 40.
Elmham, bishopric of, 182.
Elsass, 193.
annexed by France, 194, 347.
recovered by Germany, 229, 359.
Ely, bishoprick of, 182.
Embrun, ecclesiastical province of, 173.
Emmanuel Filibert, Duke of Savoy, 286.
Emperors, Eastern, position of, 362.
Emperors, Western, position of, 362.
Empire, Roman, greatest extent of, 9.
conquests under, 66.
its river boundaries, 71.
division of under Diocletian, 75.
united under Constantine, _ib._
division of, 75, 81.
reunited under Zeno, 94, 103.
continuity of, 95, 103.
loses its eastern provinces, 111.
final division of, 124.
its political tradition unbroken in the East, 363.
Empire, Western, beginning of, 81.
Teutonic invasions and settlements in, 82, 86, 87.
united with the Eastern Empire, 94, 103.
contrasted with the Eastern, 98, 362.
divisions of, 135, 137, 326.
its relations to Germany, 124-126, 128, 189, 190.
restored by Otto the Great, 147.
position of its Emperors, 362.
its relations to Scandinavia, 467.
to the Northern Slaves, 475.
Empire, Eastern, wars of, with Persia, 82.
contrasted with the Western, 98, 362.
extent of, in the eighth century, 116.
its Greek character, 149, 366, 382.
its themes, 149-152.
its dominion in Italy, 152, 371, 393.
position of its Emperors, 362.
falls mainly through foreign invasion, 363, 367.
its partial tendencies to separation, 363.
keeps the political tradition of the Roman Empire, _ib._
distinction of races in, 364.
its power of revival, 369, 377.
its loss and gain in the great islands, 372.
its relations towards the Slavonic powers, 373, 375.
Bulgarian settlement in, 374, 376.
recovers Greece from the Slaves, 375.
its conquests of Bulgaria, 377-378.
its relations to Venice, 378.
its fluctuations in Asia, _ib._
Turkish invasions in, 379.
Norman invasions in, 380, 394.
its geographical aspect in 1085, 380.
under the Komnênoi, 366, 381, 386.
act of partition, 383, 402, 403.
losses and gains, 387-391.
under the Palaiologoi, 387.
effect of Timour’s invasion, 391.
its final fall, _ib._
states formed out of, 391-393.
general survey of its history, 455-460.
compared with the Ottoman dominion, 443.
Empire, Latin, 383.
its end, 387.
Empire of Nikaia, 387.
Empire of Trebizond, 36, 386, 422.
Empire of Thessalonikê, 385.
Empire, Serbian, 420, 425.
Empire of Britain, 162, 462, 545.
Empire of Spain, 463, 531.
Empire of Russia, 512.
Empire, French, 356.
Empire of Austria, 221, 267, 306.
Empire of Hayti, 359.
Empires of Mexico, 544.
Empire of Brazil, 542.
Empire, German, 229, 230.
Empire of India, 567.
England, use of the name, 2, 3.
origin of the name, 97.
formation of the kingdom, 160.
West-Saxon supremacy in, 160, 161.
Danish invasions, _ib._
advance of, 162.
united with Scandinavia under Cnut, _ib._
Norman conquest of, 163.
its ecclesiastical geography, 166.
its wars with France, 337, 338.
its rivalry with France in America and India, 353.
slight change in its internal divisions, 546.
its relations with Scotland, 552.
changes of its boundary towards Wales, 553.
its relations with Ireland, 557.
its settlements beyond sea, 547.
its outlying European possessions, 558.
its American colonies, 559-565.
West Indian possessions, 565.
other colonies and possessions of, 565, 566.
its dominion in India, 567.
English, character of their settlement, 96.
origin of the name, 97.
Epeiros, its ethnical relations to Greece, 24.
use of the name, 26.
kingdom of Pyrrhos, 37.
league of, 40, 41.
Roman province of, 78.
Norman conquests in, 395, 396.
granted in fief to Margarito, 397.
despotat of, 384, 385.
its conquest of and separation from Thessalonikê, 385.
under Manfred and Charles of Anjou, 397.
its first dismemberment, 419.
recovered by the Eastern Empire, 388.
under Servian, Albanian, and Italian rule, 419, 420.
Venetian and Turkish occupation of, 421.
Ephesos, its early greatness, 32.
Epidamnos, 34.
its alliance with Rome, 40.
_see_ DURAZZO.
Epidauros (Dalmatian), Greek colony, 34.
destroyed, 115.
Eric, Saint, king of Sweden, his conquests in Finland, 486.
Erivan, 521.
Ermeland, bishopric of, added to Poland, 497.
Essex, kingdom of, 160, 555.
Este, house of, 237, 243, 249.
Esthland (Esthonia), Fins in, 484.
Danish settlement in, 488.
dominion of the Swordbearers in, 496.
under Sweden, 504.
under Russia, 512.
Etruria, kingdom of, 253.
Etruscans, their doubtful origin and language, 45.
confederation of their cities, _ib._
Euboia, 22.
its position in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
under Macedonian influence, 37, 40.
conquered by Venice, 409.
by the Turks, _ib._
Euphrates, Asiatic boundary of the Roman Empire, 71, 99.
Europa, Roman province of, 77.
Europe, its geographical character, 5, 6, 8.
its three great peninsulas, 6.
its colonizing powers, 10.
Aryan settlements in, 12-15.
non-Aryan races in, 12, 13, 16, 17.
beginning of the modern history of, 85.
Buonaparte’s scheme for the division of, 357.
extended by colonization, 566.
Euxine, Greek colonies on, 35.
Evora, 179.
Exeter, diocese of, 182.
Ezerites, 375.
Falkland Islands, 565.
Famagosta, under Genoa, 401.
Faroe Islands, 471.
Faucigny, annexed to Savoy, 280.
held by the Dauphins of Viennois, 281.
Ferdinand, Saint, king of Castile, his conquests, 534.
Fermo, march of, 238.
Ferrara, duchy of, 243, 244, 249.
Finland, Swedish conquests in, 486, 488.
Russian conquests in, 512, 518.
Fins, remnant of non-Aryan people in Europe, 12, 466.
in Livland and Esthland, 484.
Flaminia, province of, 79.
Flanders, county of, 141, 142.
united to Burgundy, 292, 339.
within the Burgundian circle, 218.
released from homage to France, 218, 298, 340.
French acquisitions in, 348.
Flemings, their settlement in Pembrokeshire, 554.
Florence, archbishopric of, 171.
its greatness, 238.
Pisa submits to, 245.
rule of the Medici in, _ib._
Florida, held by England and Spain, 563.
acquired by the States, _ib._
France, effect of its geographical position, 9.
origin and use of the name, 4, 5, 91, 121, 325-327.
beginning of, 135, 136.
its ecclesiastical divisions, 166.
its annexations, 222, 252, 264, 265, 341-352.
compared with Austria, 325.
a nation in the fullest sense, 327.
great fiefs of, 328.
twelve peers of, _ib._
its incorporation of vassal states, 329-341.
effects of the wars with England, 337-339.
beginning of the modern kingdom, 339.
thorough incorporation of its conquests, 351.
its colonial dominions, 352-354.
its rivalry with England in America and India, 353, 354.
its barrier towns against the Netherlands, 349.
effects of the Peace of 1763 on, 354.
its annexations under the Republic and Empire, 355, 356.
extent of under Buonaparte, 358.
restorations made by, after his fall, _ib._
later annexations and losses, 359, 360.
character of its African conquests, 360.
its war with Prussia, 229.
France, duchy of, 142.
united with the kingdom of the West Franks, 143.
Franche Comté; _see_ BURGUNDY, County of.
Francia, meanings of the name, 91, 121, 128.
extent of, 134.
Francia, Eastern, 92, 121, 205.
Francia, Western, 92.
Francis I., Emperor, exchanges Lorraine for Tuscany, 321.
Francis II., Emperor, his title of ‘Emperor of Austria,’ 221.
Franconia, origin of the name, 91, 121.
extent of the circle, 214.
_see_ FRANCIA, Eastern.
Frankfurt, election and coronation of the German kings at, 189.
a free city, 220, 227.
Grand Duchy of, 222.
annexed by Prussia, 228.
Franks, the, 85.
their settlements, 87, 88.
extent of their kingdom under Chlodwig, 92.
their conquest of the Alemanni, 117.
of Thuringia and Bavaria, _ib._
of Aquitaine and Burgundy, 118.
their position, 119.
their German and Gaulish dependencies, 120.
division of their kingdom, _ib._
kingdom of united under the Karlings, 121.
their relations with the Empire, 123.
their conquest of Lombardy, _ib._
Franks, East, their kingdom grows into Germany, 138.
Franks, West, kingdom of, its extent, 141.
its union with the duchy of France, 143.
grows into modern France, _ib._
Frederick II., Emperor, recovers Jerusalem, 400.
Frederick William I., the Great Elector of Brandenburg, 210.
Frederick I., King of Prussia, 210.
Freiburg, joins the Confederates, 262, 272.
Freiburg-im-Breisgau, conquered by France, 350.
restored, _ib._
French language, becomes the dominant speech of Gaul, 345.
Friderikshamn, Peace of, 518.
Friesland, East, annexed by Prussia, 212.
annexed by France, 222.
part of the kingdom of Hannover, 223.
Friesland, West, county of, 293.
annexed to Burgundy, 298.
Frisians, 91.
Friuli, duchy of, 235.
Fulda, 214.
Furnes, Barrier Town, 349.
Gades, Phœnician colony, 35, 56.
admitted to the Roman franchise, 56.
_see_ CADIZ.
Gaeta, 369.
Galata, colony of Genoa, 414.
Galicia (Halicz), kingdom of, 483.
twice annexed to Hungary, 437, 498.
recovered by Poland, 498.
Austrian possession of, 319, 323, 440, 514.
Galicia, New, 515, 520.
Gallicia, 529.
Galloway, incorporated with Scotland, 553.
Gascony, Duchy of, 142.
its union with Aquitaine, 332.
ceded by the Peace of Bretigny, 337.
Gatinois, county of, 330, 331.
Gattilusio, family of, receives Lesbos in fief, 414.
Gaul, use of the name, 3, 4.
its geographical position, 7.
non-Aryan people in, 13.
Greek colonies in, 35.
prefecture of, 75, 79.
its gradual separation from the Empire, 88.
Teutonic invasions of, 89.
West Gothic kingdom in, 90.
position of the Franks in, 91, 119.
extent of Frankish kingdom in, 93.
Burgundian settlement in, _ib._
Hunnish invasion of, 94.
ecclesiastical divisions of, 172-174.
Gaul, Cisalpine, 46.
Roman conquest of, 54.
Gaul, Transalpine, first Roman province in, 57.
its boundaries, _ib._
its divisions and inhabitants, 58.
Romanization of, _ib._
nomenclature of its northern and southern part, _ib._
Gauls, their settlements, 14, 46, 47.
Gauthiod, 131, 470.
Gauts, Geátas, of Sweden, name confounded with Goths, 470.
Gauverfassung, 202.
Gdansk; _see_ DANZIG.
Gedymin, king of Lithuania, 497.
Geldern, Gelderland, duchy of, 295.
annexed to Burgundy, 298.
division of, 299.
United Province of, 300.
Geneva, annexed by Savoy, 281.
allied to Bern and Freiburg, 273.
annexed by France, 276.
restored by France, 359.
joins the Swiss Confederation, 276.
Genoa, archbishopric of, 171.
holds Smyrna, 389.
holds Corsica, 238, 245.
cedes Corsica to France, 249.
annexed to Piedmont, 256.
compared with Venice, 402.
her settlements, 413.
George Akropolitês, 430 (_note_).
George Kastriota; _see_ SCANDERBEG.
Georgia, kingdom of, 516, 521.
Georgia, state of, 562.
Gepidæ, their kingdom, 107.
conquered by the Lombards, _ib._
Germans, early confederacies of, 84.
serve within the Empire, 86.
Germany, effect of its geographical character, 9.
Roman campaigns in, 67.
Frankish dominion in, 119.
its relations to the Western Empire, 126, 188-190.
beginning of the kingdom, 136, 138.
its extent, 139, 192-195.
ecclesiastical divisions of, 175-177.
its losses, 190, 203.
its changes in geography and nomenclature, 191, 201.
its eastern extension, 200.
the great duchies, 202.
circles of, 203, 206.
later history of, 204.
late beginnings of French annexation from, 343, 346.
Buonaparte’s treatment of, 357.
state of in 1811, 221, 222.
the Confederation, 218, 223-226.
last geographical changes in, 229.
its war with France, _ib._
Empire of, 219, 229, 230.
its influence on the Baltic, 486.
Gex, under Savoy, 273, 281.
annexed by France, 287, 347.
Ghilan, 516.
Gibraltar, lost and won by Castile, 534.
occupied by England, 537, 558.
Glarus, joins the Swiss Confederation, 270.
Glasgow, ecclesiastical province of, 183.
Gnezna (Gniezno, Gnesen), ecclesiastical province of, 184.
beginning of the Polish kingdom at, 479.
passes to Prussia, 514, 520.
Görz (Gorizia), county of, 217, 308.
annexed by Austria, 318.
Gothia; _see_ PERATEIA or SEPTIMANIA.
Gothland, 470.
Goths, their settlements in the Western Empire, 87, 89.
defeated by Claudius, 88.
driven on by the Huns, _ib._
their conquests in Spain, 90, 108, 526.
make no lasting settlement in the Eastern Empire, 364.
Goths, East, their dominion in Italy, 95.
Goths, West, extent of their dominions, 526.
Goths, Tetraxite, their settlement, 98.
Gotland, power of the Hansa in, 494.
held by the military orders, 496.
conquered by Sweden, 508.
Gottorp lands, sovereignty of, resigned by Denmark, 509.
annexed to Denmark, 513.
Gozo, granted to the knights of Saint John, 538.
Granada, ecclesiastical province of, 179.
kingdom of, 534.
final conquest of, 537.
Graubünden, League of, 272, 273.
loses its subject districts, 275.
Gravelines, taken by France, 301.
Greece, one of the three great European peninsulas, 6.
its geographical character, 8, 11, 18.
its history earlier than that of Rome, 8, 42.
use of the name, 19.
its chief divisions, 19-21.
insular and Asiatic, 19-23.
its Homeric geography, 25, 26.
its cities, 27.
leagues in, 40.
Roman conquests in, 41.
Slavonic occupation of, 116, 375, 461.
recovered by the Eastern Empire, 375.
war of independence, 452.
kingdom of formed, _ib._
Ionian Islands ceded to, _ib._
promised extension of, _ib._
Greeks, order of their coming into Europe, 13.
their kindred with Italians and other nations, 23-25.
their rivalry with the Phœnicians, 28.
their colonies, 28, 32-35.
their revival of the name Hellênes, 364.
Greenland, Norwegian and Danish settlements in, 131.
united to Norway, 488.
Greifswald, 494.
Guiana, British, French, Dutch, 300, 353, 565.
Guinea, Dutch settlements in, 300.
Guines, made over to England, 338.
Guipuzcoa, 535.
Guthrum, his treaty with Ælfred, 161.
Habsburg, House of, 270, 309, 310.
scattered territories of, 310.
its connexion with the Western Empire, 311, 315.
Hadrian, surrenders Trajan’s conquests, 99.
Hadrianople, taken by the Bulgarians, 377.
by Michael of Epeiros, 385.
by the Turks, 390, 445.
treaty of, 450, 453.
Hadriatic Sea, Greek colonies in, 34.
Hainault (Hennegau), county of, 294.
united with Holland, _ib._
French acquisitions in, 348.
Halberstadt, 224.
Halicz; _see_ GALICIA.
Halikarnassos, held by the knights of Saint John, 415.
Turkish conquest of, 447.
Halland, 469.
Hamburg, archbishopric of, 176.
one of the Hanse Towns, 214, 220.
Hannover, Electorate, 208.
its union with Great Britain, 204.
kingdom of, 223.
annexed by Prussia, 228.
Hansa, the, 197, 487.
extent and nature of its power, 494.
Hanse Towns, the, 213, 214, 220.
surviving ones annexed by France, 222.
join the German Confederation, 227.
Harold, his Welsh conquests, 553.
Hayti; _see_ SAINT DOMINGO.
Hebrides, Scandinavian settlement in, 553.
submit to Scotland, _ib._
Heligoland, passes to England, 518, 558.
Helladikoi, use of the name, 376.
Hellas, use of the name, 18.
‘continuous,’ 21.
theme of, 151.
later use of the name, 151, 461.
Hellênes, use of the name in the Homeric catalogue, 26.
later history of the name, 375, 376, 461.
its modern revival, 364.
Helsingland, 470.
Helvetic Republic, 275.
Hennegau; _see_ HAINAULT.
Henry II., of England, his dominions, 332.
Henry V., of England, his conquests, 338.
crowned in Paris, _ib._
Henry IV., of France, unites France and Navarre, 342.
Heraclius, Emperor, his Persian campaigns, 109.
Slavonic settlements under, 114.
Hêrakleia, commonwealth of, 37, 39, 64.
Hereford, bishopric of, 182.
Hertjedalen, conquered by Sweden, 508.
Herzegovina, origin of the name, 427.
Turkish conquest of, _ib._
administered by Austro-Hungary, 324, 427.
Hessen-Cassel, Electorate of, 220, 226.
annexed by Prussia, 228.
Hessen-Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of, 226.
Hierôn, king of Syracuse, his alliance with Rome, 52.
Hispaniola; _see_ SAINT DOMINGO.
Hohenzollern, House of, 209.
Holland, county of, 293.
united to Hainault, 294.
to Burgundy, 297.
kingdom of, 302.
annexed by France, _ib._
_see_ UNITED PROVINCES.
Holstein, 198, 488.
first Danish conquest of, 489.
fluctuations of, 490.
made a duchy, _ib._
under Christian I., 491.
effect of the peace of Roskild on, 509.
incorporated with Denmark, 518.
joins the German Confederation, 225, 519.
final cession of to Prussia, 228, 519.
Homeric Catalogue, the, 26-29.
Honorius, Emperor of the West, 81.
Huascar, 534.
Hugh Capet, Duke of the French, chosen king, 143.
Hundred Years’ Peace between Rome and Persia, 100.
Hundred Years’ War, 337.
Hungarians; _see_ MAGYARS.
Hungary, kingdom of, 157, 367, 432.
its relations to the Western Emperors, 196.
extent of the kingdom, 323, 324.
whether a Bulgarian duchy existed in, 376 (_note_).
its frontier towards Germany, 433.
its relations with Croatia, 433, 434.
acquires Transsilvania, 435.
conquests of the Komnênoi from, 381.
its struggles with Venice for Dalmatia, 407.
Mongol invasion of, 436.
its wars with Bulgaria, 430.
its conquest of Bosnia, 424.
extension of under Lewis the Great, 437.
Turkish conquests in, 438.
its kings tributary to the Turk, 439.
recovered from the Turk, 439, 448.
acquisitions of by the Peace of Passarowitz, 440.
later losses and acquisitions of, 440, 441.
separated from and recovered by Austria, 323.
its dual relations to Austria, 441.
Huniades, John, his campaign against the Turks, 426, 438.
Huns, a Turanian people, 17.
their invasions, 88, 94.
Iapodes, 62.
Iapygians, 46.
Iberia, Asiatic, 99, 100.
Iberians, a non-Aryan people, 13, 55.
Iceland, Norwegian and Danish settlements in, 131, 471.
united to Norway, 488.
kept by Denmark, 518.
Ikonion, Turkish capital, 381.
Illyria, Illyricum, Greek colonies in, 20.
Roman conquests in, 40, 41, 62.
use of the name, 62.
prefecture of, 75, 77, 78.
western diocese of, 79.
kingdom of, 322.
Illyrian Provinces, incorporated with France, 222, 322, 358.
misleading use of the name, 322.
recovered by Austria, 322.
Illyrians, their kindred with the Greeks, 24.
displaced by Slavonic invasions, 115.
Immeretia, 521.
India, French settlements in, 353.
Portuguese settlements in, 541.
English dominion in, 567.
Empire of, _ib._
Indies, division of, between Spain and Portugal, 542.
Ingermanland, 508, 512.
Ionian colonies in Asia, 32.
Ionian Islands, 22.
ceded to France, 358, 451.
to the Turks, 451.
under English protection, 451, 558.
added to Greece, 452.
Ireland, the original Scotia, 549, 556.
provinces of, 183, 556.
Scandinavian settlements in, 471, 556.
its increasing connexion with England, 557.
English conquest of, _ib._
kingdom and lordship of, _ib._
its shifting relations with England, _ib._
its union with Great Britain, _ib._
Isle of France, 329.
Isle of France; _see_ MAURITIUS.
Istria, Roman conquest of, 55, 62.
incorporated with Italy, 62.
Slavonic settlements in, 115.
March of, 147, 195, 235.
fluctuates between Germany and Italy, 195.
possessions of Venice in, 242.
under Austria, 258, 318.
Italians, their origin, 13.
their kindred with the Greeks, 24.
two branches of, 45.
Italy, one of the three great European peninsulas, 6, 7.
its geographical position, 8, 44.
use of the name, 43, 246.
inhabitants of, 45, 46.
Greek colonies in, 47.
growth of Roman power in, 50.
divisions of, under Augustus, 74.
prefecture of, 75, 78.
diocese of, 79.
invaded by the Huns, 94.
rule of Odoacer in, _ib._
rule of Theodoric in, 95.
recovered to the Empire, 105.
Lombard conquest of, 107.
Imperial possessions in, 108, 123, 152, 371.
rule of Charles the Great in, 123.
Imperial kingdom of, 128, 134, 137, 146, 147, 234.
its ecclesiastical divisions, 170, 171.
changes on the Alpine frontier, 232.
system of commonwealths in, 235, 238.
four stages in its history, 236.
growth of tyrannies in, 239.
a ‘geographical expression,’ 246, 255.
dominion of Spain and Austria in, 247.
revolutionary changes in, 252-55.
French kingdom of, 253-55, 345, 357.
settlement of in 1814, 255.
restored kingdom of, 257.
its extension, 258.
part not yet recovered, _ib._
Ithakê, in the Homeric Catalogue, 26.
held in fief by Margarito, 397.
Ivan the Great, of Russia, his conquests, 501, 506.
styles himself Prince of Bulgaria, 501.
Ivan the Terrible, of Russia, his conquests, 506, 511.
Ivrea, Mark of, 235, 236.
Jadera; _see_ ZARA.
Jaen, 534, 535.
Jägerndorf, principality of, 210.
Jagiello, union of Lithuania and Poland under, 498.
Jamaica, 544, 565.
Jämteland, 470.
conquered by Sweden, 508.
Jatwages, the, 484, 498.
Java, Dutch settlement in, 300.
Jayce, 427.
Jedisan, annexed by Russia, 449, 516.
Jerseys, East and West, 561.
Jerusalem, patriarchate of, 168, 169.
taken by Chosroes, 109.
extent of the Latin kingdom, 399.
taken by Saladin, 400.
recovered and lost by the Crusaders, _ib._
crown of, claimed by the kings of Cyprus, 401.
Jezerci; _see_ EZERITES.
Jireček, C. J. on Slavonic settlements, 133 (_note_).
Jôannina, restored to the Empire, 388.
taken by the Turks, 421.
John Asan, extent of Bulgaria under, 430.
John Komnênos, Emperor, his conquests, 381.
John Komnênos, Emperor of Trebizond, acknowledges the supremacy of
Constantinople, 422.
John Tzimiskês, Emperor, recovers Bulgaria, 377.
his Asiatic conquests, 379.
Jomsburg Vikings, settlement of, 471.
Judæa, its relations with Rome, 65.
Jung, on the Roumans, 435 (_note_).
Justinian, extent of the Roman power under, 104, 105, 106.
Jutes, their settlement in Kent, 97.
Jutland, South, duchy of, united with Holstein, 490.
called Duchy of Sleswick, _ib._
Kaffa, colony of Genoa, 414.
Kainardji, Treaty of, 449.
Kalabryta, 418.
Kamienetz, ceded by Poland to the Turk, 448, 507.
Kappadokia, kingdom of, 38.
annexed by Rome, 67.
theme of, 151.
Karians, in the Homeric Catalogue, 28.
Karlili, why so called, 421.
Karlings, Frankish dynasty of, 121.
Kärnthen; _see_ CARINTHIA.
Karolingia, kingdom of, 137, 141, 143, 148, 326.
Kars, joined to the Eastern Empire, 379.
annexed by Russia, 522.
Karystos, 403.
Kazan, Khanat of, 501.
conquered by Russia, 511.
Kent, settlement of the Jutes in, 97.
kingdom of, 160, 555.
Kephallênia, in the Homeric Catalogue, 26.
theme of, 151.
Norman conquests in, 395, 397.
held in fief by Margarito, _ib._
commended to Venice, 410.
lost and won by Venice, 411.
Khiva, 522.
Kibyrraiotians, theme of, 150.
Kief, Russian centre at, 481.
supremacy of, 482.
taken by the Mongols, 483.
by the Lithuanians, 498.
recovered by Russia, 506.
Kilikia, 76.
restored to the Empire, 153, 379.
Kirghis, Russian superiority over, 516.
Klek, Ottoman frontier extends to, 412.
Kleônai, 27.
Köln (Colonia Agrippina), 92.
ecclesiastical province of, 175.
its archbishops chancellors of Italy and electors, 175, 176.
chief of the Hansa, 213.
annexed to France, 220.
restored to Germany, 224, 358.
Kolocza, ecclesiastical province of, 186.
Kolôneia, theme of, 150.
Korkyra, 22, 26.
alliance of with Rome, 40.
_See also_ CORFU.
Korkyra, Black (Curzola), Greek colony, 34, 406.
Kôrônê; _see_ CORON.
Kôs, Greek colony, 28.
held by the knights of St. John, 389, 415.
by the Maona, 414.
Kossovo, battle of, 426.
Krain; _see_ CARNIOLA.
Kresimir, king of Croatia and Dalmatia, 407.
Krotôn, early greatness of, 47.
Ktesiphôn, conquered by Trajan, 99.
Kymê; _see_ CUMÆ.
Kyrênê, Greek colony, 35, 36.
Roman conquest of, 63.
Lakedaimonia, 151.
Lakonikê, 29.
Λαμπαρδοί, use of the form, 369 (_note_).
Lancashire, formation of the shire, 556.
Langue d’oc, extent of, 135.
effects of French annexations on, 345.
Languedoc, province of, 335.
Laodikeia, 381.
Laon, capital of the Karlings, 143.
Laps, remnant of non-Aryan people in Europe, 12.
Latins, 46.
their alliance with Rome, 50.
Lauenburg, represents the elder Saxony, 208.
held by the kings of Denmark, 225, 518.
joins the German confederation, 225, 519.
final cession of, to Prussia, 228, 519.
Lausanne, annexed by Bern, 273.
Lausitz; _see_ LUSATIA.
Lazia, allotment of, 404.
Lechs; _see_ POLES.
Leinster, 183, 556.
Lemberg, ecclesiastical province of, 185, 186.
Lêmnos, becomes Greek, 32.
Leo IX. Pope, grants Apulia as a fief to the Normans, 394.
Leon, kingdom of, 154, 529.
shiftings of, 531.
its final union with Castile, _ib._
Leopol; _see_ LEMBERG.
Lepanto (Naupaktos) under Anjou, 397.
ceded to Venice, 410.
to the Turk, 411.
Lesbos, mention of in the Iliad, 28.
a fief of the Gattilusi, 414.
Lesina; _see_ PHAROS.
Leukas, Leukadia (Santa Maura), 22, 26.
date of its foundation, 31.
commended to Venice, 410.
lost and won by her, 411, 412.
Leuticii, the, 474, 475.
Letts, 466 (_note_).
settlements of, 484.
Lewis I. (the Pious), Emperor, 128, 135.
Lewis II. Emperor, 136.
Lewis VII. of France, effects of his marriage and divorce, 332, 337.
Lewis IX. (Saint) of France, growth of France under, 335.
Lewis XII. of France, effects of his marriage, 341.
Lewis XIV. of France, effects of his reign, 350.
his conquests from Spain, 539.
Lewis XV. of France, effects of his reign, 350.
Lewis the Great, of Hungary, his conquests, 409, 437.
annexes Red Russia, 498.
Liburnia, 62.
Libya, 76.
Lichfield, bishopric of, 182.
Liechtenstein, principality of, 229.
Liége; _see_ LÜTTICH.
Liguria, Roman conquest of, 55.
province of, 79.
part of the kingdom of Italy, 147.
Ligurian Republic, the, 252.
Ligurians, non-Aryan people in Europe, 13, 45.
Lille, annexed by France, 301, 349.
Limburg, passes to the Dukes of Brabant, 295.
duchy of, within the German confederation, 228.
Limoges, 332.
Lincoln, diocese of, 182.
Lindisfarn, bishopric of, 182.
Lisbon, patriarchate of, 170, 179.
conquered by Portugal, 533.
Lithuania, bishopric of, 185.
effect of the German conquest of Livland on, 487.
its conquests from Russia, 497.
joined with Poland, 185, 498, 499.
Lithuanians, settlements of, 15, 484.
long remain heathen, 466, 497.
Livland, Livonia, Finnish population of, 484.
German conquests in, 486.
dominion of the Sword-brothers in, 495.
momentary kingdom of, 504.
conquered by Poland, _ib._
by Sweden, 508.
by Russia, 512.
Livonian Knights; _see_ SWORD-BROTHERS.
Llandaff, bishopric of, 182.
Lodi, 237.
Lodomeria; _see_ VLADIMIR.
Λογγιβαρδία, use of the form, 369 (_note_).
Lokrians, their position in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
settle on the Corinthian Gulf, 30.
Lokris, league of, 40.
Lombards, their settlement in Italy, 106, 107.
take Ravenna, 108, 123.
overthrown by Charles the Great, 123.
Lombardy, kingdom of, 107, 234.
under Charles the Great, 123.
growth of her cities, 237.
ceded to Sardinia, 257.
Lombardy, theme of, 152, 369.
Lombardy and Venice, kingdom of, 255, 322.
London, bishopric of, 182.
Lorraine, duchy of, 193.
seized by Lewis XIV., 194.
exchanged for Tuscany, 321.
finally annexed to France, 194, 351.
recovered by Germany, 359.
Lorraine, House of, Emperors of, 321.
Lothar I., Emperor, 135, 136.
Lotharingia, kingdom of, 137, 140, 193.
Lothian, granted to Scotland, 162, 550.
effects of the grant, 551.
Lothringen; _see_ LORRAINE.
Louisiana, colonized by France, 352.
ceded to Spain, 353, 360.
recovered and sold to the United States, 360, 563.
Louvain (Löwen), 294.
Low Countries; _see_ NETHERLANDS.
Lübeck, founded by Henry the Lion, 198, 494.
its independence of the bishop, 214.
one of the Hansa, 214, 220, 494.
conquered by Denmark, 489.
Lübeck, bishopric of, 491.
Lublin, Union of, 505.
Lucanians, 46.
Lucca, 238.
under Castruccio, 245.
remains a commonwealth, 249.
archbishopric of, 171.
Grand Duchy of, 253.
annexed to Tuscany, 256.
Lund, archbishopric of, 184.
ceded to Sweden, 508.
Lüneburg, duchy of, 208.
Luneville, peace of, 194.
Lusatia (Lausitz), Mark of, 199, 475.
won by Bohemia, 493.
Lüttich (Liége), bishopric of, 295, 298.
annexed by France, 302.
added to Belgium, 227, 302.
French acquisitions from, 348.
Luxemburg (Lüzelburg), duchy of, 295.
annexed to Burgundy, 298.
French acquisitions from, 348.
within the German confederation, 225.
division of, 229, 303.
neutrality of, 229.
Luxemburg, House of, kings of Bohemia, 493.
Luzern, joins the Confederates, 262, 270.
Lydians, 33.
Lykandos, theme of, 150.
Lykia, league of, 39.
preserves its independence, 64.
annexed by Rome, 67.
Lykians, in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
Lyons, in the kingdom of Burgundy, 145, 263.
archbishopric of, 167, 173.
annexed by Philip the Fair, 264.
Macedonia, 20, 21.
its close connexion with Greece, 24.
not in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
growth of the kingdom, 36, 37.
Roman conquest of, 41.
diocese of, 78.
theme of, 151.
recovered by the Empire, 388.
Macedonian, use of the name, 115.
Macon, annexed by Saint Lewis, 336.
Madeira, colonized by Portugal, 541.
Madras, taken by the French, 354.
Madrid, Treaty of, 298, 340.
Magdeburg, archbishopric of, 176.
recovered by Prussia, 224.
Magyars, a Turanian people, 17.
their settlements, 17, 157, 365, 433.
effects of their invasion on the Slaves, 158, 432.
called Turks, 379.
origin of the name, 433 (_note_).
Mahomet, union of Arabia under, 110.
Mahomet I., Sultan, Ottoman power under, 446.
Mahomet the Conqueror, Sultan, his conquests, 411, 446.
extent of his dominions, 446.
Maina, name of Hellênes confined to, 376.
recovered by the Empire, 388, 418.
independence of, 419.
Maine, county of, 330.
conquered by William of Normandy, 332.
united with Anjou, _ib._
annexed to France, 333.
Maine, State of, 560.
Mainz, 92.
ecclesiastical province of, 175.
its archbishops chancellors of Germany and electors, 176.
annexed to France, 220.
restored to Germany, 358.
Maionians, in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
Majorca, kingdom of, 536.
Malta, taken by the Saracens, 370.
by the Normans, 395.
granted to the knights of Saint John, 398, 415, 538.
revolutions of, 415.
held by England, 415, 558.
Man, Scandinavian settlement in, 471, 553.
its later history, 488, 553.
Manfred, King of Sicily, his dominion in Epeiros, 397.
styled Lord of Romania, _ib._
Mantua, 243, 248, 257.
Manuel Komnênos, his conquests, 381, 424.
Manzikert, battle of, 380.
Maona, the, its dominions, 414.
Marche, county of, 332.
Marcomanni, 85.
Margarito, king of the Epeirots, 397.
Maria Theresa, Empress-Queen, her hereditary dominions, 320.
effects of her marriage, 321.
Marienburg, 301, 348.
Marseilles, acquired by France, 265.
Mary of Burgundy, effects of her marriage, 340.
Maryland, 561.
Massa, 249.
Massachusetts, 560.
Massalia, Ionian colony, 35, 36, 56.
_see_ MARSEILLES.
Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, his conquests, 438, 493.
Maurienne, Counts of, 278.
Mauritania, 67.
Mauritius (Isle of France), a French colony, 354.
taken and held by England, 360.
Maximilian I., his legislation, 203.
effects of his marriage, 340.
Mazanderan, 516.
Mazovia, duchy of, 478.
recovered by Poland, 499.
Meath, 556.
Meaux, settlement of, 335.
Mechlin, archbishopric of, 177.
Mecklenburg, duchy of, 198.
Slavonic princes continue in, 198, 476.
Mediation, act of, 276.
Medici, the, rule of in Florence, 245, 246.
Mediterranean Sea, centre of the three old continents, 5, 6.
Megalopolis, its foundation, 31.
Megara, 29.
joins the Achaian League, 40.
Mehadia, 396.
Meissen, Mark of, 199, 475.
Meleda, 406.
Melfi, 394.
Melinci, Melings, 375.
Mendog, king of Lithuania, his conquests, 497.
Mentone, annexed by France, 346, 359.
Mercia, kingdom of, 129, 130, 160, 161.
Mesopotamia, conquest of, under Trajan, 99.
under Diocletian, 100.
Messana (Messina), receives Roman citizenship, 53.
recovered and lost by the Eastern Empire, 270.
taken by the Saracens, 370.
by the Normans, 395.
first Norman capital, _ib._
Messênê, Dorian, 29.
conquered by Sparta, 30.
foundation of the city, 31.
Metz, annexed by France, 193, 346.
restored to Germany, 229.
Mexico, Spanish conquest of, 543.
two Empires of, 544.
Mexico, New, ceded by Spain, 544.
Michael Palaiologos, Eastern Emperor, 422.
Michael, despot of Epeiros, his conquests, 385.
Mieczïslaf, first Christian prince of Poland, 479.
Milan, capital of kingdom of Italy, 147.
archbishopric of, 171.
Milan, duchy of, 240, 241, 248.
temporary French possession of, 346.
a Spanish dependency, 539.
Milêtos, its colonies, 32.
Military Orders, 487, 495-497.
Mingrelia, 521.
Minorca, 538.
Misithra, restored to the Empire, 388, 418.
Mississippi, colonization at the mouth of, 353.
made the boundary of Louisiana, _ib._
Mithridates, king of Pontos, his wars with Rome, 64.
Modena, duchy of, 243, 244, 249, 256.
annexed to Piedmont, 257.
Modon, held by Venice, 409.
lost by her, 411.
Mœsia, Roman conquest of, 68.
Mohacz, battle of, 438.
Moldavia, Rouman settlement, 437.
tributary to the Turk, 439.
fluctuations of its homage, 499.
joined to Wallachia, 453.
shiftings of the frontier, 450.
Molossis, 37.
Moluccas, Dutch settlements in, 300.
Monaco, principality of, 247, 256.
Montbeliard, county of, 261, 350.
annexed by France, 355.
Monembasia, restored to the Empire, 388, 418.
held by Venice, 410.
lost by her, 411.
Mongols, invade Europe, 436, 483.
Russia tributary to, 483, 500.
effects of their invasion on the Ottomans, 443, 444.
decline and break up of their power, 500, 501.
Monmouthshire, becomes an English county, 555.
Monopoli, lost by Venice, 248.
Montenegro, origin and independence of, 427, 428.
its Vladikas, 428.
joins England and Russia against France, _ib._
its conquest and loss of Cattaro, 322, 428.
later conquests and diplomatic concessions to, 429.
Montferrat, marquisate and duchy of, 236, 240, 248.
homage claimed from by Savoy, 284.
partially annexed by Savoy, 248, 289.
Montfort, Simon of, at Toulouse, 335.
Moors, use of the name, 530.
Môraia, origin and use of the name, 416.
Moravia, 199.
history of, 477.
Moravia, Great, kingdom of, 157, 432, 473.
overthrown by the Magyars, 433.
Morosini, Francesco, his conquests, 412.
Moscow, patriarchate of, 170.
centre of Russian power, 500, 501.
advance of, 501.
Moudon, granted to Savoy, 280.
Moulins, county of, 330.
Mülhausen, in alliance with the Confederates, 274.
annexed by France, 355.
Munster, 183, 556.
Münster, 224.
Murcia, conquered by Castile, 533, 535.
Muret, battle of, 531.
Muscovy, origin of the name, 500.
Mykênê, its position in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
destruction of, 31.
Mykonos, held by Venice, 409, 411.
Mysians, in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
Namur, Mark of, 294.
annexed to Burgundy, 296.
Naples, cleaves to the Eastern Empire, 369.
conquered by King Roger, 396.
kingdom of, 250, 254.
temporary French possession of, 346.
title of king of, 251, 254.
Parthenopæan republic, 252.
restored to the Bourbons, 256.
Narbonne, Roman colony, 57.
Saracen conquest of, 112.
ecclesiastical province of, 173.
annexed to France, 335.
Narses, wins back Italy to the Empire, 105.
Nassau, Grand Duchy of, 226.
annexed by Prussia, 228.
Natal, 566.
Naupaktos; _see_ LEPANTO.
Nauplia, won from Epeiros by the Latins, 417.
held by Venice, 410.
lost by her, 411.
Navarre, kingdom of, 154, 528.
extent of under Sancho the Great, 529.
break-up of, 530.
its decline, 531.
union with, and separation from France, 336, 531.
conquered by Ferdinand, 537.
northern part united to France, 342.
Navas de Tolosa, battle of, 533.
Naxos, duchy of, 413.
annexed by the Turk, 413, 447.
Negroponte, use of the name, 409 (_note_).
Neopatra, Epeirot dynasty of, 419.
Catalan conquest of, 416.
taken by the Turks, 417, 420.
Netherlands, their separation from Germany, 203, 291, 299.
Imperial and French fiefs in, 293.
an appendage to Castile under Charles V., 539.
French annexations in, 348.
barrier towns against France, 349.
_see_ UNITED PROVINCES.
Netherlands, kingdom of, 302.
divided, 303.
Netz District, 514.
Neufchâtel, allied with Bern, 274.
passes to Prussia, 224, 274.
granted to Berthier, 276.
joined to the Swiss Confederation, 276, 359.
separated from Prussia, 276.
Neustria, Lombard, 234.
Neustria, kingdom of, 121, 134.
united with Aquitaine, 135, 339.
New Amsterdam, 300, 561.
New Brunswick, 564.
New England, settlements of, 560.
form four colonies, _ib._
New France, settlement of, 352.
New Hampshire, 560.
New Netherlands, colony of, 300, 561.
united to New Sweden, 561.
conquered by England, 300, 561.
New Orleans, 353, 563.
New South Wales, 565.
New Sweden, 561.
united to New Netherlands, _ib._
New York, 300, 561.
New Zealand, 566.
Newfoundland, first settlements in, 559.
remains distinct from Canada, 565.
Nibla, taken by Castile, 534.
Nidaros; _see_ TRONDHJEM.
Nikaia, Turkish capital of Roum, 380.
recovered by Alexios Komnênos, 381.
Empire of, 386.
its extent and growth, 387.
taken by the Turks, 389, 445.
Nikêphoros Phôkas, Eastern Emperor, his Asiatic conquests, 379.
Nikomêdeia, taken by the Turks, 389, 445.
Nikopolis, theme of, 152.
battle of, 438.
Nîmes, Saracen conquest of, 112.
under Aragon, 335.
annexed to France, _ib._
Nimwegen, Peace of, 301, 349.
Nish, taken by the Turks, 426.
Nisibis, fortress of, 100.
Nizza, annexed by Savoy, 265, 282.
taken by Buonaparte, 355.
restored to Savoy, 359.
finally annexed by France, 258, 288, 359.
Nogai Khan, overlord of Bulgaria, 431.
Noricum, conquest of, 68.
in the diocese of Illyricum, 79.
Normandy, duchy of, 142.
character of its vassalage, 328.
union of with Aquitaine, Anjou, and Britanny, 333.
annexed by Philip Augustus, 333.
Normans, their conquests in Italy and Sicily, 370, 393-395.
in England, 163.
in Epeiros, 380, 395.
their conquests in Sicily compared with those of the Crusaders, 398.
Northmen, use of the name, 469.
their settlements, 471, 550, 552, 556.
Northumberland, kingdom of, 97, 129, 162.
earldom of granted to David, 551.
recovered by England, 552.
Norway, its extent and settlements, 131, 159, 471.
united to England under Cnut, 163.
its independence of the Empire, 467.
formation of the kingdom, 469.
Iceland and Greenland united to, 488.
united with Sweden and Denmark, 488.
its wars with Sweden, 508.
united with Sweden, 464, 518.
Noto, taken by Count Roger, 395.
Nova Scotia, ceded to England, 352, 562.
Novara, 249.
Novempopulana, 173.
Novgorod, beginning of, 481.
commonwealth at, 483.
Russia represented by, 484.
does homage to the Mongols, 500.
annexed by Muscovy, 501.
Novgorod, Severian, principality of, 483.
Novi-Bazar (Rassa), 424.
Numantia, Roman conquest of, 56.
Numidia, province of, 59.
Nürnberg, 209, 215, 220, 226.
Nystad, Peace of, 512.
Obotrites, 474.
Ochrida, taken by the Bulgarians, 377.
kingdom of, its extent, 377, 378.
Oczakow, annexed by Russia, 449.
Odessa, does not answer to Odêssos, 516 (_note_).
Odo, king of the West Franks, does homage to Arnulf, 139, 326.
Odoacer, his reign in Italy, 94.
overthrown by Theodoric, 95.
Oesel, won by Denmark, 491, 504.
under the Sword-brothers, 496.
under Sweden, 508.
Ogres; _see_ MAGYARS.
Oldenburg, united with Denmark, 509.
becomes a separate duchy, 513.
Grand Duchy of, 226.
annexed by France, 222.
Olgierd, king of Lithuania, 497.
Oliva, Peace of, 510.
Oliverca, ceded to Spain by Portugal, 538.
Olynthos, 33.
Opicans, Oscans, 46.
Opsikion, theme of, 151.
Optimatôn, theme of, 151.
Oran, conquered by Spain, 543.
Orange, 263.
annexed to France, 265, 350.
Orange River State, 566.
Orchomenos, its position in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
its secondary position in historic times, 30.
destroyed by the Thebans, 31.
Oreos, 403.
Orkney, Scandinavian colony, 471.
earldom of, 553.
pledged to Scotland, 488.
Osrhoênê, 100.
Ostmen, their settlements in Ireland, 159, 556.
Otho de la Roche, founds the lordship of Athens, 416.
Otranto, Turkish conquest of, 446.
Otto the Great, Emperor, subdues Berengar, 147.
crowned at Rome, 148.
Ottocar II., king of Bohemia, his German dominion, 492.
Ottoman Turks, their position in Europe, 17.
compared with the Magyars and Bulgarians, 365.
with the Saracens, 442.
their special character as Mahometans, _ib._
their dominion compared with the Eastern Empire, 443.
their origin, 444.
effect on, of the Mongol invasion, _ib._
their first settlements, _ib._
invade Europe, 445.
under Bajazet, 445.
their conquests of Servia, 426.
of Thessaly and Albania, 420, 421.
of Bulgaria, 431.
invade Hungary, 438.
overthrown by Timour, 390, 445.
reunited under Mahomet I., 446.
under Mahomet the Conqueror, _ib._
take Constantinople, 391, 446.
their conquests in Peloponnêsos, 419.
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 427.
under Selim and Suleiman, 447.
their conquest of Hungary, _ib._
greatest extent of their dominion, 448.
decline of their power, 448-450.
their wars with Russia, 449.
Oudenarde, becomes French, 349.
restored, _ib._
Oviedo, 529.
Paderborn, 224.
Padua, 237.
Pagania, originally Servian, 405.
its extent, 406.
Paionia, 20.
Paionians, in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
Palaiologos, House of, 366.
branch of at Montferrat, 240.
Palatinate of the Rhine, 215.
united with Bavaria, _ib._
Pale, fluctuations of the, 557.
Palermo (Panormos), a Phœnician colony, 48.
taken by the Saracens, 370.
taken by the Normans, 395.
becomes the capital of Sicily, 395.
Palestine, its relations to Rome, 65.
Pampeluna, diocese of, 179.
kingdom of; _see_ NAVARRE.
Pannonia, Roman conquest of, 68.
in the diocese of Illyricum, 79.
Lombard kingdom in, 106.
Bulgarian attempt on, 376.
Panormos; _see_ PALERMO.
Papal Dominions, beginning and growth of, 239, 242, 244, 249.
its overthrow and restoration, 252, 253, 359.
annexed by France, 253, 256.
annexed to the kingdom of Italy, 258.
Paphlagonia, kingdom of, 38.
theme of, 150.
Paphlagonians, 28.
Parga, commends itself to Venice, 410.
surrendered to the Turks, 451.
Paris (Lutetia Parisiorum), 58.
capital of the duchy of France, 142.
capital and centre of the kingdom of France, 144, 167.
becomes an archbishopric, 174.
Paris, treaty of, 353, 354, 360, 450.
Parma, 237, 241.
given to the Spanish Bourbons, 249.
the duchy restored, 256.
annexed to Piedmont, 257.
Parthenopæan Republic, the, 252.
Parthia, its rivalry with Rome, 65, 81.
Partition, crusading act of, 383.
Passarowitz, Peace of, 440.
Patras, under the Pope, 418.
held by Venice, 410, 418.
Patriarchates, the, 168, 169.
‘Patrician,’ title of, 123.
Patzinaks, 17, 113, 156, 158, 365.
Pavia, old Lombard capital, 147, 237.
county of, 241.
‘Pax Romana,’ 66.
Pelasgians, use of the name, 24.
in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
Peloponnêsos, its geographical position, 21.
Homeric divisions of, 27.
changes in, 29.
united under the Achaian League, 40.
Slavonic settlements in, 116, 375, 461.
theme of, 151.
won back to the Eastern Empire, 153.
Latin conquests in, 417.
Venetian settlements in, 409, 410.
recovered by the Eastern Empire, 418.
becomes an Imperial dependency, 388.
conquered by the Turks, 391, 419.
Venetian losses in, 411.
conquered by Venice, 412.
recovered by the Turks, 412.
Pembrokeshire, Flemish settlement in, 554.
Pennsylvania, 561.
Pentedaktylos; _see_ TAŸGETOS.
Perateia, meaning of the name, 422.
Turkish conquest of, 423.
Perche, united to France, 336.
Perekop, conquered by Lithuania, 498.
added to Poland, _ib._
lost by Poland, 499.
Pergamos, kingdom of, 38, 61.
Persia, wars of with Greece, 33.
with Rome, 81, 99, 109.
Saracen conquest of, 82, 111.
revival of, 98, 100.
Russian conquests in, 516.
Peru, Spanish conquest of, 543.
Perugia, 239.
Peter the Great of Russia, his wars with Charles XII., 512.
Peter, count of Savoy, 278.
Pharos (Lesina), 34, 406.
Philadelphia, taken by the Turks, 390.
Philip, rise of Macedonia under, 37.
Philip Augustus, King of France, his annexations, 333.
Philip the Fair, King of France, effects of his marriage, 336.
his momentary occupation of Aquitaine, 337.
Philip of Valois, King of France, his attempt on Aquitaine, 337.
Philip the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, duchy of Burgundy granted to, 339.
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, his acquisitions, 296-298.
Philippeville, held by France, 301, 348.
Philippine Islands, conquered by Spain, 543.
Philippopolis, first Bulgarian occupation of, 377.
first Russian occupation of, _ib._
finally becomes Bulgarian, 389, 430.
taken by the Turks, 431.
Phœnicians, their colonies, 28, 35, 48.
Phôkaia, held by the Maona, 414.
Phôkis, 21.
league of, 40.
Phrygians, in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
Piacenza, 237, 241.
given to the Spanish Bourbons, 249.
Picts, 98, 549.
united with the Scots, 550.
Piedmont, joined to France, 252, 356.
reunited with Sardinia, 256.
union of Italy comes from, _ib._
Pietas Julia; _see_ POLA.
Pinerolo, occupied by France, 347.
Pippin, king of the Franks, conquers Septimania, 121.
Pisa, archbishopric of, 171.
position of, 238.
conquers Sardinia, _ib._
subject to Florence, 245.
Plataia, destroyed by Thebes, 31.
Podlachia, conquered by Poland, 498.
Podolia, lost by Galicia, 498.
added to Poland, _ib._
ceded to the Turks, 448, 507.
recovered by Poland, _ib._
Poitou, annexed by Philip Augustus, 334.
Pola (Pietas Julia), Roman colony, 63.
Polabic branch of the Slaves, 474.
Poland, kingdom of, 159, 200, 479.
its ecclesiastical relations, 465.
its relations to the Empire, 467, 478.
wars of, with Russia, 478, 506.
various tribes in, 478.
its conversion, 479.
its extent under Boleslaf, 478.
internal divisions of, _ib._
consolidation of, 498.
Pomerania falls away from, 492.
conquests of, 498, 499.
joined with Lithuania, 498, 499.
Red Russia restored to, 437.
Zips pledged to, _ib._
its acquisitions from the Teutonic knights, 497.
acquires Livland, 504.
its relations with Wallachia and Moldavia, 439.
its wars with Sweden, 508.
cedes Podolia to the Turk, 448.
partitions of, 212, 440, 513, 515.
formation of the new kingdom, 520.
united to Russia, 520.
Poland, Little, 479.
Poles (Lechs), their settlements, 478.
Polizza, independence of, 407.
Polotsk, principality of, 483.
Pomerania, Pomore, Pommern, its extent, 199, 200.
its early relations to Poland, 478, 479.
Danish conquests in, 489.
falls away from Poland, 491, 492.
its divisions, 200, 492.
divided between Brandenburg and Sweden, 210, 213, 504.
its western part incorporated with Sweden, 518.
ceded to Denmark and then to Prussia, 225, 518.
Pomerelia, purchased by the Teutonic knights, 496.
restored to Poland, 497.
Pondicherry, a French settlement, 354.
conquests and restorations of, 360.
Ponthieu, county of, 330.
acquired by William of Normandy, 332.
made over to England in 1360, 338, 558.
Pontos, kingdom of, 38.
Roman conquest of, 64.
diocese of the Eastern Prefecture, 76.
Portugal, 155, 527.
formation of the kingdom, 532.
its growth, 533.
kingdom of Algarve added to, 534.
extent of, in the thirteenth century, 534, 535, 540.
its African conquests, 541.
its colonies, 541, 542.
divides the Indies with Spain, _ib._
annexed to and separated from Spain, 537.
Posen, Grand Duchy of, 224, 231, 520.
Potidaia, 33.
Prag, ecclesiastical province of, 176.
Prefectures, of the Roman Empire, 75-79.
Pressburg, Peace of, 220.
Prevesa, held by Venice, 412.
ceded to the Turk, 451.
Primorie; _see_ HERZEGOVINA.
Provençal language, its fall, 345.
Provence, origin of the name, 57.
part of Theodoric’s kingdom, 93, 95.
ceded to the Franks, 105, 118.
part of the kingdom of Burgundy, 145.
Angevin counts of, 263.
annexed to France, 264, 344.
Provinces, Roman, nature of, 51.
Eastern and Western, 52.
Prussia, use of the name, 192, 211, 230.
long remains heathen, 466.
dominion of the Teutonic Knights in, 496.
beginning of the duchy, 503.
its geographical position, 504.
united with Brandenburg, 204, 209, 504, 513.
independent of Poland, 504.
growth of, 202, 511.
kingdom of, 512.
its acquisition of Silesia, 211.
of East Friesland, _ib._
its share in the partition of Poland, 212, 513-515.
losses of, 222, 223, 519.
recovery and increase of its territory, 224.
head of North German confederation, 228.
annexes Sleswick, Holstein, and Lauenburg, 519.
war with France, 229.
Prussia Western, 212, 513.
Prussia South, 212, 514.
Prussia New East, 212.
Przemyslaf, king of the Wends, founds the house of Mecklenburg, 476.
Pskof, commonwealth of, 483.
annexed by Muscovy, 501.
Puerto Rico, 544.
Punic Wars, the, 52, 56.
Pyrenees, Peace of, 301, 348.
Pyrrhos, 37.
Quadi, 85.
Quebec, 352.
Queensland, 566.
Rætia, conquest of, 68.
Ragusa, origin of, 115.
ecclesiastical province of, 186.
keeps her independence, 407, 412.
prefers the Turk to Venice, 412.
annexed to Austria, 320, 322.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 559.
Rama, Hungarian kingdom of, 424, 441.
Rametta, taken by the Saracens, 370.
Ramsbury, see of, 182.
Rascia; _see_ DIOKLEA.
Rassa (Novi Bazar), capital of Dioklea, 424.
Rastadt, Peace of, 350.
Ravenna, residence of the Western Emperors, 81.
of the Gothic kings, 95.
of the exarchs, 105.
taken by the Lombards, 108, 123.
its ecclesiastical position, 171.
under Venice, 242.
lost by Venice, 248.
Red Russia; _see_ GALICIA.
Regensburg, 220.
Revel, bishopric of, 184.
_Rex Francorum_, title of, 144.
Rheims, position of the archbishop, 167.
ecclesiastical province of, 175.
Rhine, the boundary of the Roman Empire, 71.
frontier of, 348, 350, 355.
Rhodes, in the Homeric Catalogue, 28.
keeps its independence, 37, 41.
annexed by Vespasian, 41, 63.
held by the knights of Saint John, 389, 415.
revolutions of, 414.
knights driven out from, 447.
Rhode Island, 560.
Riazan, annexed by Muscovy, 501.
Richard I., of England, takes Cyprus, 372.
grants it to Guy of Lusignan, 318.
Riga, ecclesiastical province of, 185.
under the Sword-brothers, 496.
under Sweden, 508.
Rimini (Ariminum), 54, 244.
Riparanensia, 154, 529.
Robert Wiscard, duke of Apulia, 394.
his conquests in Epeiros, 395.
Rochester, bishopric of, 181.
Roesler, R., on the origin of the name Magyar, 433 (_note_).
on the Roumans, 435 (_note_).
Roger I., count of Sicily, his conquests, 395.
Roger II., king of Sicily, his conquests, 395.
Romagna (Romania), represents the old Exarchate, 147, 238.
origin of the name, 234, 364.
cities in, 244.
annexed to Piedmont, 257.
Roman, name kept on in the Eastern Empire, 63, 363, 364, 366.
continued under the Turks, 380.
Roman Empire; _see_ EMPIRE, ROMAN.
Romania, geographical name of the Eastern Empire, 364, 376.
Latin Empire of, 383.
Romania in Italy; _see_ ROMAGNA.
Romano, lordship of, 237.
Rome, the centre of European history, 9.
origin of, 49.
becomes the head of Italy, 50.
nature of her provinces, 51.
her Macedonian wars and conquests, 41.
her rivalry with Parthia, _ib._
wars of, with Persia, 81.
Patriarchate of, 168, 171.
her later history, 239.
becomes the Tiberine Republic, 252.
restored to the Pope, 253.
incorporated with France, _ib._
restored to the Pope, 256, 359.
recovered by Italy, 258.
Roskild, Treaty of, 508.
bishopric of, 184.
Rostock, 494.
Rottweil, 274.
Rouen, capital of Normandy, 142.
ecclesiastical province of, 173.
Roum, Sultan of, 380.
Roumans, origin of the name, 71, 364, 435.
their northern settlements, 435.
Roumania, 436.
principality of, 453.
effects of the Treaty of Berlin on, 453.
Roumelia, Eastern, 454.
Roussillon, released from homage to France, 335, 531.
recovered by Aragon, 537.
finally annexed by France, 342, 348, 537.
Rovigo, annexed by Venice, 244.
Rügen, held by Denmark, 476, 490.
by Sweden, 509.
Rupertsland, 564.
Russia, its origin, 158, 159, 480, 481.
its relations towards the Turks, 449.
geographical continuity of its conquests, 467.
origin of the name, 480 (_note_), 481.
ecclesiastical relations of, 465, 468, 480.
its relations to the Eastern Empire, 159, 468.
its imperial style, 468.
Scandinavian settlement in, 472.
advance of against Chazars and Fins, 481.
its rulers become Slavonic, _ib._
attempts on Constantinople, 482.
its isolation, _ib._
its first occupation of Bulgaria, 377.
divided into principalities, 482, 483.
becomes tributary to the Mongols, 483, 500.
effect of the German conquest of Livland on, 487.
revival of, 499 _et seq._
delivered by Ivan the Great, 501.
advance of, 505-507, 511-517, 521-523.
compared with Sweden, 507.
wars with Sweden, 508, 512, 518.
conquered by Poland, 506.
lands recovered by, _ib._
assumes the title of Empire, 512.
becomes a Baltic power, 512.
its share in the partitions of Poland, 513-515.
no original Polish territory gained at this time by, 515, 520.
new kingdom of Poland united to, 520.
extent and character of its dominion, 522.
its territory in America sold to the United States, 523.
Russia, Red; _see_ GALICIA.
Ruthenians, 434.
Rutland, formation of the shire, 556.
Ryswick, Peace of, 349.
Sabines, 46.
Sachsen-Lauenburg; _see_ LAUENBURG.
Saguntum, taken by Hannibal, 56.
Saint Andrews, ecclesiastical province of, 183.
Saint Asaph, bishopric of, 182.
Saint Davids, bishopric of, 182.
Saint Domingo, Spanish settlements in, 543.
French settlement in, 353.
distinct from Hayti, 544.
Saint Gallen, abbey of, 216.
Saint John, knights of, conquer Rhodes, 389, 415.
their conquests, 415.
Malta granted to, 398, 415.
driven out of Rhodes, 447.
Saint John of Maurienne, bishopric of, 173.
Saint Lucia, kept by England, 360.
Saint Omer, held by Spain, 349.
Saint Petersburg, foundation of, 512.
Saint Sava, duchy of; _see_ HERZEGOVINA.
Saladin, takes Jerusalem, 400.
Salamis, its position in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
Salerno, principality of, 147, 152.
Salisbury, diocese of, 182.
Salona, Roman colony, 62.
destroyed, 115.
Salôna, principality of, 417.
conquered by the Turks, 420.
Saluzzo, disputed homage of, 283, 284, 287.
annexed by France, 287.
ceded to Savoy, 287, 347.
Salzburg, archbishopric of, 176, 215.
becomes a secular electorate, 220.
annexed by Austria, 221, 322.
by Bavaria, 222.
recovered by Austria, 224, 322.
Samaites, 484.
Samigola, 484.
Samland, Danish occupation of, 471.
Samnites, 46.
their wars with Rome, 51.
conquered by Sulla, _ib._
Samo, kingdom of, 473.
Samogitia, purchased by the Teutonic knights, 496.
restored to Lithuania, _ib._
Samos, 32.
theme of, 150.
held by the Maona, 414.
Sancho the Great, king of Navarre, extent of his dominion, 529.
San Marino, independence of, 247, 255, 258.
San Stefano, treaty of, 454.
Santa Maura; _see_ LEUKAS.
Saracens, their settlements in Europe, 16.
rise of, 110.
their conquests of Persia, Africa, and Spain, 111, 365.
their province in Gaul, 112, 527.
greatest extent of their power, 112, 526.
conquest of Sicily, 370.
compared with the Ottoman Turks, 442.
end of their rule in Spain, 537.
Sarai, capital of the Mongols, 500.
Sardica; _see_ SOFIA.
Sardinia, 44.
its early inhabitants, 53.
Roman conquest of, _ib._
province of, 79.
lost to the Eastern Empire, 369.
occupied by Pisa, 238.
conquered by Aragon, 245, 538.
united to Savoy, 251.
kingdom of, 257.
Sathas, M., referred to, 460.
Savona, march of, 236.
Savoy, House of, 234.
position and growth of, 277 _et seq._
originally Burgundian, 278.
its relations to Geneva, 281.
annexes Nizza, 282.
its claims on Saluzzo, 283.
Bernese conquests from, 272.
Italian and French influence on, 284.
its decline, 285.
its later history, 288-289.
French annexations from, 344.
French occupation of, 286, 346.
Italian advance of, 248.
its union with Sicily and Sardinia, 251.
boundaries of, after the fall of Buonaparte, 359.
annexed by France, 258, 359.
Saxon Mark, the, 198.
Saxons, 85, 91.
their settlement in Britain, 97.
Saxony, conquered by Charles the Great, 122, 126.
duchy of, 140, 207.
use of the name, 191, 207.
break-up of the duchy, 207.
new duchy and electorate of, 208, 209.
circle of, _ib._
kingdom of, 222, 226.
dismemberment of, 224.
Scanderbeg, revolt of Albania under, 421.
Scandinavia, ecclesiastical provinces of, 184.
its momentary union with Britain, 462.
compared with Spain, 463.
Eastern and Western aspects of, 464.
its barbarian neighbours, 466.
kingdoms of, 130, 468.
its influence on the Baltic, compared with that of Germany, 486.
Scania, originally Danish, 131, 184, 469.
its momentary transfer to Sweden, 487.
Hanseatic occupation of, 494.
annexed to Sweden, 508.
Schaffhausen, joins the Confederates, 272.
Schlesien; _see_ SILESIA.
Sclavinia, kingdom of, 476.
Danish conquest of, 489.
Scotland, origin of the name, 98, 549.
dioceses of, 183.
its greatness due to its English element, 548.
historical position of, 549.
analogy of Switzerland to, _ib._
formation of the kingdom, 550, 551.
settlements of the Northmen in, 550, 552.
acknowledges the English supremacy, 550.
different tenures of the dominions of its kings, 551.
grant of Lothian and Cumberland to, 162, 550, 551.
its shifting relations towards England, 552.
its union with England, _ib._
Scots, their settlement in Britain, 98, 548.
their union with the Picts, 556.
Scutari; _see_ SKODRA.
Scythia, Roman province of, 77.
Sebasteia, theme of, 150.
Sebastopol, answers to old Cherson, 516 (_note_).
Sebenico, under Venice, 411.
Seleukeia, independence of, 39.
annexed to the Empire by Trajan, 99.
theme of, 150.
Seleukids, extent and decline of their kingdom, 38.
Selim I., Sultan, his conquests in Syria and Egypt, 447.
Seljuk Turks, their invasions, 365, 379.
driven back by the Komnênoi, 381.
weakened by the Mongols, 443.
Selsey, see of, 182.
Selymbria, won back to the Empire, 387, 391.
Semigallia, Semigola, part of the duchy of Curland, 514.
dominion of the Sword-brothers in, 496.
Semitic nations in Europe, 16.
Sena Gallica (Sinigallia), Roman colony, 54.
Sens, ecclesiastical province of, 173.
divided, 174.
Septimania (Gothia), 90, 154, 526.
Saracen conquest of, 112, 118.
recovered by the Franks, 113, 121.
march of, 142.
Servia, Slavonic character of, 114, 373, 423.
conquered by Simeon, 377, 424.
its relations to the Empire, 424.
restored to the Empire, 378, 424.
revolts from the Empire, 379, 424.
recovered by Manuel, 381, 424.
beginning of the house of Nemanja, 424.
its possessions on the Hadriatic, 405.
loses Bosnia, 424.
advance of under Stephen Dushan, 389, 419-420, 425.
Empire of, 420, 425.
break up of the Empire, 426.
later kingdom of, _ib._
conquests and deliverances of, _ib._
revolts and deliverance of, 452.
enlarged by the Berlin Treaty, 453.
Servians, never wholly enslaved, 429.
fourfold separation of the nation, 453.
Severia, conquered by Lithuania, 499.
Severin, Banat of, attacked by Bulgaria, 430.
Seven Weeks’ War, the, 228.
Seville, ecclesiastical province of, 179.
recovered by Castile, 534, 535.
Sforza, House of, 241.
Sherborne, see of, 182.
Shetland, Scandinavian colony, 471.
pledged to Scotland, 488.
Shires, mentioned in Domesday, 555.
two classes of, _ib._
Shirwan, 521.
Siberia, khanat of, 501.
Russian conquest of, 511.
Sicily, early inhabitants of, 45, 48.
Phœnician colonies in, 35.
Greek colonies in, 22, 34, 53.
the first Roman province, 52, 79.
state of under Rome, 53.
theme of, 152.
Saracen conquest of, 153, 370.
recovered by George Maniakês, 370.
Norman kingdom of, 250, 367, 371, 393-395.
its conquests from the Eastern Empire, 397.
never a fief of the Western Empire, 233.
under Charles of Anjou, 250, 397.
its revolt, _ib._
its union with Aragon, 250, 538.
united with Savoy, 251.
with Austria, _ib._
with Naples, 251, 540.
its practical effacement, 398.
compared with the Crusading states, _ib._
compared with Venice, 402.
Sicilies, The Two, kingdom of, 250, 251, 253, 398.
union of with Aragon, 538.
part of the Spanish monarchy, 240, 540.
divided, 254.
reunited, 256.
joined to Italy, 257.
Siculi; _see_ SZEKLERS.
Sidon, Phœnician colony, 35.
Siebenbürgen, origin of the name, 435 (_note_); _see_ TRANSSILVANIA.
Siena, archbishopric of, 171.
commonwealth of, 238, 245.
annexed by Florence, 246.
Sikanians, 48.
Sikels, 48.
Sikyôn, in the Homeric catalogue, 27.
a Dorian city, 29.
Silesia, its early relations to Poland, 200, 478, 479.
passes under Bohemian supremacy, 200, 492.
joined to the Bohemian kingdom, 493.
becomes a dominion of the House of Austria, 493.
the greater part conquered by Prussia, 211.
Polish territory added to, 515.
Silvas, conquered by Portugal, 533.
Simeon, Tzar of Bulgaria, his conquests, 376.
Sind, 113.
Sinôpê, 39, 64, 422.
Sirmium, 81.
Sitten, see of, 173.
Skipetars; _see_ ALBANIANS.
Skodra (Scutari), kingdom of, 62.
Servian, 406.
dominion of the Balsa at, 428.
sold to Venice, 410, 428.
taken by Mahomet the Conqueror, 411.
Skopia, 425.
Slaves, their settlement and migrations, 14, 113, 133, 365.
compared with those of the Teutons, 16, 114.
their two main divisions, 114, 158.
parted asunder by the Magyars, 158, 432.
their settlements within the Eastern Empire, 115.
in Greece and Macedonia, 116, 373, 374, 461.
recovered to the Eastern Empire, 375.
remain on Taÿgetos, _ib._
their relations to the Western Empire, 159, 197, 199, 201, 465, 466.
general history of the Northern Slaves, 472-485.
Slavia, duchy of, 492.
Slavinia, name of, 115.
Slavonia, 323, 434.
Slavonic Gulf, 476.
Sleswick, duchy of, 213, 490.
its relations with Denmark, 490.
under Christian I., 491.
effect of the Peace of Roskild on, 509.
guaranteed to Denmark, 513.
wars in, 228.
transferred to Prussia, 228, 519.
Slovaks, 434, 477.
Smolensk, principality of, 483.
conquered by Lithuania, 499.
its shiftings between Russia and Poland, 506.
Smyrna, 32.
acquired by Genoa, 389.
Sobrarbe, formation of the kingdom, 530.
united to Aragon, 531.
Social War, the, 51.
Sofia (Sardica), taken by the Bulgarians, 376.
by the Turks, 431.
Solothurn, joins the Confederates, 262, 270.
Sorabi, 474, 475.
Spain, use of the name, 3 (_note_).
its geographical character, 10.
non-Aryan people in, 12, 13.
Celtic settlements in, 14, 56.
Greek and Phœnician settlements in, 35, 56.
its connexion with Gaul, 55.
first Roman province in, _ib._
final conquest of, _ib._
diocese of, 79.
settlements of Suevi and Vandals in, 90.
West-Gothic kingdom in, 89.
southern part won back to the Empire, 105.
reconquered by West-Goths, 108, 526.
Saracen conquest of, 111, 154, 526.
separated from the Eastern Caliphate, 113.
conquests of Charles the Great in, 127, 527.
foundation of its kingdoms, 154, 155, 549 _et seq._
its ecclesiastical divisions, 178.
its geographical relations with France, 342.
its quasi-imperial character, 463.
compared with Scandinavia, 463, 525.
with South-eastern Europe, 525.
nation of, grew out of the war with the Mussulmans, 526.
king of, use of the title, 535.
African Mussulmans in, 530, 532, 533.
end of their rule in, 537.
divides the Indies with Portugal, 542.
extent of under Charles V., 247, 298, 539.
its conquests in Africa, 543.
its insular possessions, _ib._
revolutions of its colonies, 544.
its possessions in the West Indies, _ib._
Spalato, its origin, 115.
ecclesiastical province of, 186.
under Venice, 44.
Spanish March, the, conquered by Charles the Great, 122, 128, 529.
remains part of Karolingia, 141, 155.
division of, _ib._
Spanish Monarchy, the greatest extent of, 539.
partition of, _ib._
Sparta, her supremacy, 29.
joins the Achaian league, 40.
Speyer, bishopric of, 175.
annexed to France, 220.
restored to Germany, 358.
becomes Bavarian, 226.
Spizza, originally Servian, 406.
annexed by Austria, 324, 429, 441.
Spoleto, Lombard duchy of, 108, 147.
Stalbova, Peace of, 508.
Stati degli Presidi, 246.
Steiermark; _see_ STYRIA.
Stephen Dushan, extent of the Servian Empire under, 389, 419, 420, 425.
Stephen Tvartko, king of Bosnia, 426.
Stephen Urosh, his conquest of Thessaly and title, 420, 426.
Stettin, 210.
Stormarn, 489, 490.
Strabo, his description of Hellas, 18 (_note_).
Stralsund, 494.
Strassburg, bishopric of, 175.
seized by Lewis XIV., 194, 350.
restored to Germany, 229.
Strathclyde, 130, 549, 550.
acknowledges the English supremacy, 162.
granted to Scotland, 162, 551.
Strigonium (Gran), ecclesiastical province of, 186.
Strymôn, theme of, 151.
Styria (Steiermark), duchy of, 217, 308.
Sudereys; _see_ HEBRIDES.
Suevi, their settlements, 87, 90.
Suleiman, the Lawgiver, his conquests, 438, 447.
his African overlordship, 447.
Sumatra, Dutch settlement in, 300.
Surat, French factory at, 354.
Susdal, 483.
Sussex, kingdom of, 160, 555.
Sutherland, 550.
Sutorina, Ottoman frontier extends to, 412.
Svealand, 131.
Sviatopluk, founds the Great Moravian kingdom, 473.
Sviatoslaf, overruns Bulgaria, 377.
his Asiatic conquests, 482.
Swabia, circle of, 216.
ecclesiastical towns in, _ib._
Sweden, 131, 159, 470.
its position in the Baltic, 463.
its relation to the Empire, 467.
its conquest of Curland, 472.
of Finland, 486, 488.
joined with Norway and Denmark, 487.
separated, 488.
growth of, compared with Russia, 507.
advance of under Gustavus Adolphus, _ib._
wars of with Russia and Poland, 508.
advance of against Denmark and Norway, _ib._
its German territories, 213.
greatest extent of, 509, 510.
its settlements in America, 561.
its decline, 512.
its later wars with Russia, 512, 518.
losses of, 512, 518.
its union with Norway, 464, 518.
Swiss League, beginning and growth of, 262, 268-274.
Swithiod, 470.
Switzerland, represents the Burgundian kingdom, 146, 259, 291.
German origin of the Confederation, 262, 268, 269.
popular errors about, 269.
eight ancient cantons of, 270.
effect of on the Austrian power, 217, 311.
beginning of its Italian dominions, 271, 286.
thirteen cantons of, 272, 274.
its allied and subject lands, 272, 273.
extent and position of the League, 275.
its Savoyard conquests, 272, 273.
its relations with France, 344.
abolition of the federal system in, _ib._
restored by the Act of Mediation, 276.
Buonaparte’s treatment of, 355.
nineteen cantons of, 276.
present confederation of twenty-two cantons, 276, 359.
Sword-Brothers, their connexion with the Empire, 495.
established in Livland, _ib._
extent of their dominion, 496.
joined to the Teutonic Order, _ib._
separated from them, 496, 503.
fall of the Order, 504.
Sybaris, Greek colony, 47.
Syracuse, Greek colony, 48.
Roman conquest of, 52.
taken by the Saracens, 370.
recovered and loss by the Eastern Empire, _ib._
by the Normans, 395.
Syria, kingdom of, 38, 61.
Roman province of, 65.
Saracen conquest of, 111.
partially restored to the Empire, 379.
conquered by Selim I., 447.
Szeklers, settle in Transsilvania, 435.
Tangier, 527, 541, 558.
Tannenberg, battle of, 496.
Taormina (Tauromenion), taken by the Saracens, 370.
Tarantaise, ecclesiastical province of, 173.
Tarentum, (Taras), early greatness of, 47.
archbishopric of, 172.
taken by the Normans, 394.
Tarifa, taken by Castile, 534.
Tarragona, ecclesiastical province of, 178.
joined to Barcelona, 532.
Tarsos, restored to the Empire, 153, 379.
Tartars; _see_ MONGOLS.
Tasmania, 566.
Tauros, Mount, 61.
Tauromenion; _see_ TAORMINA.
Taÿgetos, Slave settlement on, 375.
Tchernigof, principality of, 483.
lost and recovered by Poland, 506.
Temeswar, 440.
Tenda, county of, 287.
Tênos, held by Venice, 409, 411.
Terbounia (Trebinje), 405, 425.
Terra Firma, compared with ἤπειρος, 26 (_note_).
Teutonic Knights, their connexion with the Western Empire, 495.
effects of their rule, _ib._
extent of their dominion, 496.
joined to the Sword-brothers, _ib._
separated from them, 496.
their losses, 496, 497.
their cessions to Poland, 497.
their vassalage to Poland, _ib._
secularization of their dominion, 503.
Teutons, their settlements, 15, 16, 82, 87, 96.
their wars with Rome, 84.
confederacies among, _ib._
Thasos, 32.
Thebes, head of the Boiôtian League, 27, 30.
destroyed by Alexander, 31.
Theodore Laskaris, founds the Empire of Nikaia, 386.
Theodoric, King of the East Goths, his reign in Italy, 95.
Thermê, 33; _see_ THESSALONIKÊ.
Thesprotians, in the Homeric catalogue, 26.
invade Thessaly, 30.
Thessalonikê, theme of, 151.
kingdom of, 384.
its effects on the Latin Empire, _ib._
its extent under Boniface, 385.
taken by Michael of Epeiros, 385.
Empire of, _ib._
separated from Epeiros, _ib._
incorporated with the Empire of Nikaia, 387.
sold to Venice, 404, 410.
taken by the Turks, 391, 404, 446.
Thessaly, Thesprotian invasion of, 30.
subservient to Macedonia, 37, 40.
province of, 78.
part of the kingdom of Thessalonikê, 385.
added to Servia by Stephen Urosh, 420.
Turkish conquest of, _ib._
Thionville, 301.
Thirty Years’ War, the, 203, 347.
Thopia, House of, Albanian kings in Epeiros, 420.
Thorn, Peace of, 497.
recovered by Prussia, 520.
Thrace, Greek colonies in, 20, 33.
its geography, _ib._
conquered by Rome, 68.
diocese of, 76.
theme of, 151.
Thracians, in the Homeric catalogue, 28.
Thrakêsion, theme of, 151.
Thurgau, won from Austria by the Confederates, 271, 313.
Thuringians, 91.
conquered by the Franks, 117.
Tiberine Republic, 252.
Tigranes, king of Armenia, subdued by the Romans, 65.
Timour, overthrows Bajazet, 390, 445.
Tingitana, province of, 79.
Tirnovo, kingdom of, 430.
Tobago, 360.
Tocco, House of, effects of their rule in Western Greece, 421.
Toledo, archbishopric of, 178.
conquered by Alfonso VI., 532, 535.
Tortona, 237, 249.
Tortosa, Aragonese conquest of, 532.
Toul, annexed by France, 193, 346.
Toulouse, Roman colony, 57.
capital of the West Gothic kingdom, 90.
county of, 142, 330.
ecclesiastical province of, 174.
annexed to France, 335.
Touraine, united to Anjou, 330.
annexed by Philip Augustus, 333.
Τοῠρκοι, 433 (_note_).
Tournay, becomes French, 349.
Tours, battle of, 113.
bishopric of, 173.
Trajan, Emperor, his conquests, 70, 99.
forms the province of Dacia, _ib._
Transpadane Republic, 252.
Transsilvania, 323.
conquered by the Magyars, 435.
Teutonic colonies in, 435.
tributary to the Turk, 439.
incorporated with Hungary, 440.
Transvaal, annexation of, 566.
Traü, 406.
Trebinje; _see_ TERBOUNIA.
Trebizond (Trapezous), city of, 36, 150.
Empire of, 386, 422.
acknowledges the Eastern Emperor, _ib._
conquered by the Turks, 423.
Trent, county of, 235.
bishopric of, 147, 195, 237.
fluctuates between Germany and Italy, 195.
within the Austrian circle, 217.
annexed by Bavaria, 221.
recovered by Austria, 224, 255, 318.
Triaditza; _see_ SOFIA.
Trier, taken by the Franks, 92.
ecclesiastical province of, 175.
chancellorship of Gaul held by its archbishops, 176.
annexed to France, 220.
restored to Germany, 358.
Trieste, commends itself to Austria, 232, 312.
Trinidad, 544.
Tripolis (Asia), county of, 399.
Tripolis (Africa), conquered by Suleiman, 447.
Trojans, 28.
Trondhjem (Nidaros), ecclesiastical province of, 184.
Trondhjemlän, ceded to Sweden, 508.
restored to Norway, 509.
Troyes, treaty of, 338.
Tuam, ecclesiastical province of, 183.
Tunis, conquests and losses of by the Turk, 447.
conquered by Charles V., 447, 543.
Turanian nations in Europe, 17, 365.
Turks, Magyars so called, 379, 433 (_note_).
_see also_ OTTOMANS and SELJUKS.
Tuscany, use of the name, 234.
commonwealths of, 238.
grand duchy of, 249, 256.
exchanged for Lorraine, 321.
annexed to Piedmont, 257.
Tver, annexed by Muscovy, 501.
Tyre, Phœnician colony, 35.
Tyrol, within the circle of Austria, 217.
taken by Bavaria, 221.
recovered by Austria, 224, 323.
Tzar, origin of the title, 512 (_note_).
Tzernagora; _see_ MONTENEGRO.
Tzernojevich, dynasty of, 428.
Tzetinje, foundation of, 428.
Ukraine Cossacks, 506.
Ulster, province of, 183.
United Provinces, the, 299.
recognition of their independence, 300.
colonies of, 300, 561.
United States of America, the greatest colony of England, 559.
formation of, 560-562.
acknowledgement of their independence, 562.
their extension to the West, 563.
their lack of a name, _ib._
cessions to by Spain, 544.
Upsala, archbishopric of, 184.
Urbino, duchy of, 244.
annexed by the Popes, 249.
Uri, obtains the Val Levantina, 271.
Utica, Phœnician colony, 35.
Utrecht, its bishops, 294.
annexed to Burgundy, 298.
archbishopric of, 177.
peace of, 301, 349, 352.
Val Levantina, won by Uri, 271.
Valence, annexed to the Dauphiny, 264.
Valencia, ecclesiastical province of, 178.
conquered by Aragon, 533, 536.
Valenciennes, annexed by France, 349.
Valentia, province of, 80.
Valladolid, bishopric of, 178.
Valois, county of, 330.
added to France, 331.
Valtellina, won by Graubünden, 273.
united to the French kingdom of Italy, 253.
to the kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, 256.
Vandals, 87.
their settlements in Spain and in Africa, 89, 90.
end of their kingdom, 105.
Varna, battle of, 426, 438.
Varus, defeated by Arminius, 67.
Vasco de Gama, discovers Cape of Good Hope, 541.
Vasto, 236.
Vaud, conquered from Savoy, 273.
freed, 275.
Veii, conquered by Rome, 50.
Venaissin, annexed to France, 265, 355.
Veneti, 46.
Venetia, 47, 235.
Roman conquests of, 55.
province of, 79.
Venice, her origin, 94.
patriarchal see of, 170.
her greatness, 241, 367.
relations to the Eastern Empire, 233, 369, 378.
compared with Genoa and Sicily, 402.
her first conquests in Dalmatia and Croatia, 406, 407.
her share in the Latin conquest of Constantinople, 383.
compared with Sicily, 402.
effect of the fourth Crusade on, 402, 403.
inherits the position of the Eastern Empire, 403, 410.
her dominion primarily Hadriatic, 404, 405.
her possession of Crete, Cyprus, and Thessalonikê, _ib._
her Greek and Albanian possessions, 408-410.
loses and recovers Dalmatia, 409, 410.
acquires Skodra, 410, 428.
her losses, 411.
her Italian dominions, 241, 242, 248.
losses of by the treaty of Bologna, 248.
conquest and loss of the Peloponnêsos, 412.
annexed to Austria, 252.
part of the French kingdom of Italy, 253.
restored to Austria, 255.
momentary republic of, 267.
united to Italy, 232, 258.
Verden, bishopric of, 208, 213.
held and lost by Sweden, 509, 513.
Verdun, division of, 136.
bishopric of annexed by France, 193, 346.
Vermandois, annexed to France, 331.
Verona, fluctuates between Germany and Italy, 139, 195.
history of, 237.
subject to Venice, 241.
to Austria, 252.
restored to Italy, 232.
Vespasian, his annexations, 41.
Viatka, commonwealth of, 483.
annexed by Muscovy, 501.
Victoria (Australia), 566.
Vienna, Congress of, 520
battle of, 439.
Vienne, 93, 263.
ecclesiastical province of, 173.
annexed to France, 264.
Viennois, Dauphiny of, 263.
annexed to France, 264, 344.
Vindelicia, conquest of, 68.
Visconti, House of, 240.
Vlachia; _see_ WALLACHIA AND ROUMANIA.
Vlachia, Great; _see_ THESSALY.
Vlachs, use of the name, 366.
_see_ ROUMANS.
Vladimir, first Christian prince of Russia, takes Cherson, 378, 482.
Vladimir, on the Kiasma, supremacy of, 482.
Vladimir (Lodomeria) annexed by Lewis the Great, 437.
under Austria, 323, 440, 514.
Volhynia, conquered by Lithuania, 498.
recovered by Russia, 514.
Volscians, 46.
their wars with Rome, 50.
Vratislaf, king of Bohemia, 492 (_note_).
Wagri, Wagria, 474, 489.
Waldemar, king of Denmark, conquests and losses, 489.
Wales, North, use of the name, 130.
Wales, Harold’s conquests from, 553.
conquest of, 554.
full incorporation of, 555.
Wales, principality of, 554.
Wallachia, formation of, 436.
shiftings of, 438-440.
its union with Moldavia, 453.
Wallis, League of, 272.
its conquests from Savoy, 273.
united with France, 274.
becomes a Swiss Canton, 276, 359.
‘Wandering of the Nations,’ 83.
Warsaw, duchy of, 223, 519.
extent of, 520.
Weleti, Weletabi, Wiltsi, 474.
Wells, bishopric of, 182.
Welsh, use of the name, 98.
Wessex, kingdom of, 97, 129.
its growth and supremacy, 130, 160, 161, 162.
Westfalia, duchy of and circle, 207.
kingdom of, 222.
Westfalia, Peace of, 215, 346, 509.
West Indies, French colonies in, 353.
British possessions in, 360, 565.
Westmoreland, formation of the shire, 556.
Widdin, twice annexed by Hungary, 430, 431, 437.
William the Conqueror, his continental conquests, 332.
England united by, 163.
William of Hauteville, founds the county of Apulia, 394.
William the Good, king of Sicily, his Epeirot conquests, 396.
Winchester, bishopric of, 182.
Wismar, 494.
Witold, of Lithuania, his conquests, 499.
Worcester, bishopric of, 182.
Worms, bishopric of, 175.
annexed to France, 220.
restored to Germany, 358.
Württemberg, county of, 216.
electorate and kingdom of, 220.
its extent, 226.
Würzburg, bishopric of, 226.
its Bishops Dukes of East Francia, 206, 214.
Grand Duchy of, 221, 222.
York, archbishopric of, 182.
Zabljak, ancient capital of Montenegro, 428.
Zaccaria, princes of, hold Chios, 414.
Zachloumia, 405, 425.
Zagrab; _see_ AGRAM.
Zähringen, dukes of, 261, 262.
Zakynthos (Zante), conquered by William the Good, 396.
held in fief by Margarito, 397.
commended to Venice, 410.
tributary to the Sultan, 411.
Zalacca, battle of, 532.
Zante; _see_ ZAKYNTHOS.
Zara (Jadera), Roman colony, 62.
ecclesiastical province of, 186.
held by Venice, 405, 411.
Peace of, 409.
Zaragoza, ecclesiastical province of, 178.
conquered by Aragon, 532.
Zealand, province of, 218.
Zealand, Danish island, 469.
Zeno, reunion of the Empire under, 94.
Zeugmin, recovered by Manuel Komnênos, 381.
Zips, pledged to Poland, 437, 499.
Zug, joins the Confederates, 270.
Zürich, minster of, 216.
joins the Confederates, 270.
Zutphen, county of, annexed to Burgundy, 298.
Zuyder-Zee, inroads of, 293.
_Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London._
* * * * *
[Transcriber’s note: The following changes have been made to this text:
Page ix: ‘Kyrêne’ to ‘Kyrênê’—‘Crete, Cyprus, Kyrênê’.
Page xxviii: ‘Brobant’ to ‘Brabant’—‘Brabant; Hainault’.
Page xlii: ‘Lauenberg’ to ‘Lauenburg’—‘Saxony; Lauenburg;’.
Page 31: ‘Peloponnêsian’ to ‘Peloponnesian’—‘Peloponnesian cities’.
Page 94, sidenote: ‘B.C. 476-493’ to ‘A.D. 476-493’.
Page 114, sidenote: ‘South-eastern’ to ‘South-western’.
Page 208, sidenote: ‘121.’ to ‘1212.’—‘1180-1212.’
Page 217: ‘Görtz’ to ‘Görz’—‘borderlands of _Görz_’.
Page 240, sidenote: ‘Palaiologioi’ to ‘Palaiologoi’—‘Palaiologoi at
Montferrat, 1306.’
Page 320: ‘at’ to ‘as’—‘as it stood.’
Page 352: ‘Napoleone’ to ‘Napoleon’—‘Napoleon Buonaparte was born’.
Page 354: ‘theatened’ to ‘threatened’—‘seriously threatened’.
Page 368: ‘setttlement’ to ‘settlement’—‘conquest and settlement’.
Page 372: ‘begining’ to ‘beginning’—‘beginning of the eleventh’.
Page 373: missing word ‘time’ added—‘to time enforced.’
Page 379: ‘posssession’ to ‘possession’—‘Imperial possession’.
Page 389: ‘Nikomédeia’ to ‘Nikomêdeia’—‘_Nikaia_, _Nikomêdeia_’.
Page 396, sidenote: ‘Epirot’ to ‘Epeirot’—‘Epeirot conquests of William’.
Page 407: ‘Kommênos’ to ‘Komnênos’—‘Under Manuel Komnênos’.
Page 418, sidenote: ‘1343.’ to ‘1383.’—‘1348-1383.’
Page 428: ‘Balza’ to ‘Balsa’—‘the house of Balsa’.
Page 432, sidenote: ‘84’ to ‘884’—‘884-894.’
Page 493: ‘burggraves’ to ‘burgraves’—‘burgraves of Nürnberg.’
Page 512: ‘Ăbo’ to ‘Åbo’—‘Peace of Åbo’.
Page 539, sidenote: ‘possesions’ to ‘possessions’—‘outlying possessions’.
Page 550: ‘Northhumberland’ to ‘Northumberland’—‘part of
Northumberland’.
Page 561, sidenote: ‘1346’ to ‘1646’—’Maryland. 1646.’
Page 564, sidenote: ‘Dependen’ to ‘Dependent’—‘Dependent confederacy.’
Page 580: ‘ecclesiastial’ to ‘ecclesiastical’—‘Embrun, ecclesiastical
province’.
Page 583: ‘Geatas’ to ‘Geátas’—‘Gauts, Geátas’.
Page 586: ‘Jagerndorf’ to ‘Jägerndorf’—‘Jägerndorf, principality of’.
Page 587: ‘Kamenietz’ to ‘Kamienetz’—‘Kamienetz, ceded by Poland’.
Page 587: ‘Korônê’ to ‘Kôrônê’—‘Kôrônê; _see_ CORON.’
Page 587: ‘Koloneia’ to ‘Kolôneia’—‘Kolôneia, theme of’.
Page 589: ‘Luzelburg’ to ‘Lüzelburg’—‘Luxemburg (Lüzelburg)’.
Page 590: ‘Monbeliard’ to ‘Montbeliard’—‘Montbeliard, county of’.
Page 592: ‘Komnenos’ to ‘Komnênos’—‘Alexios Komnênos, 381.’
Page 594: ‘Phokaia’ to ‘Phôkaia’—‘Phôkaia, held by’.
Page 594: ‘Julii’ to ‘Julia’—‘Pietas Julia; _see_ POLA.’
Page 595: ‘remain’ to ‘remains’—‘long remains heathen’.
Page 595: ‘Bradenburg’ to ‘Brandenburg’—‘united with Brandenburg’.
Page 599: ‘Maniakes’ to ‘Maniakês’—‘recovered by George Maniakês’.
Page 599: ‘Sinopê’ to ‘Sinôpê’—‘Sinôpê, 39’.
Page 600: ‘Soluthurn’ to ‘Solothurn’—‘Solothurn, joins the
Confederates’.
Page 600: ‘610’ to ‘10’—‘its geographical character, 10’.
Page 600: ‘Califate’ to ‘Caliphate’—‘Eastern Caliphate, 113.’
Page 600: ‘Presidenti’ to ‘Presidi’—‘Stati degli Presidi’.
Page 603: ‘Tzernoievich’ to ‘Tzernojevich’—‘Tzernojevich, dynasty of’.]
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