An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 13

[Sidenote: Philip the Fair (1285-1314) the first absolute ruler of France.]

The grandson of St. Louis, Philip the Fair, is the first example of a French king who had both the will and the means to play the role of an absolute monarch. He had inherited a remarkably well organized government compared with anything that had existed since the time of Charlemagne. He was surrounded by a body of lawyers who had derived their ideas of the powers and rights of a prince from the Roman law.

They naturally looked with suspicion upon everything that interfered with the supreme power of the monarch, and encouraged the king to bring the whole government into his own hands regardless of the privileges of his va.s.sals and of the clergy.

[Sidenote: The commons, or third estate, summoned to the Estates General, 1302.]

Philip's attempt to force the clergy to contribute from their wealth to the support of the government led to a remarkable struggle with the pope, of which an account will be given in a later chapter. With the hope of gaining the support of the whole nation in his conflict with the head of the Church, the king summoned a great council of his realm in 1302. He included for the first time the representatives of the towns in addition to the n.o.bles and prelates, whom the king had long been accustomed to consult. At the same period that the French Estates General,[81] or national a.s.sembly, was taking form through the addition of representatives of the commons, England was creating its Parliament.

The two bodies were, however, to have a very different history, as will become clear later.

By the sagacious measures that have been mentioned, the French monarchs rescued their realms from feudal disruption and laid the foundation for the most powerful monarchy of western Europe. However, the question of how far the neighboring king across the Channel should extend his power on the continent remained unanswered. The boundary between France and England was not yet definitely determined and became, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the cause of long and disastrous wars, from which France finally emerged victorious. We must now turn back to trace the development of her English rival.[82]

CHAPTER XI

ENGLAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES

[Sidenote: Importance of England in the history of western Europe.]

51. The country of western Europe whose history is of greatest interest to English-speaking peoples is, of course, England. From England the United States and the vast English colonies have inherited their language and habits of thought, much of their literature, and many peculiarities of their laws and inst.i.tutions. In this volume it will not, however, be possible to study England except in so far as it has played a part in the general development of Europe. This it has greatly influenced by its commerce, industry, and colonies, as well as by the example it has set of permitting the people to partic.i.p.ate with the king in the government.

[Sidenote: Overlordship of Wess.e.x.]

[Sidenote: Invasions of the Danes. Their defeat by Alfred the Great, 871-901.]

The conquest of the island of Britain by the German Angles and Saxons has already been spoken of, as well as the conversion of these pagans to Christianity by the representatives of the Roman Church. The several kingdoms founded by the invaders were brought under the overlordship of the southern kingdom of Wess.e.x[83] by Egbert, a contemporary of Charlemagne. But no sooner had the long-continued invasions of the Germans come to an end and the country been partially unified, than the Northmen (or Danes, as the English called them), who were ravaging France, began to make incursions into England. Before long they had made permanent settlements and conquered a large district north of the Thames. They were defeated, however, in a great battle by Alfred the Great, the first English king of whom we have any satisfactory knowledge. He forced the Danes to accept Christianity and established, as the boundary between them and his own kingdom of Wess.e.x, a line running from London across the island to Chester.

[Sidenote: Alfred fosters the development of the English language.]

Alfred was as much interested in education as Charlemagne had been. He called in learned monks from the continent and from Wales as teachers of the young men. He desired that all those born free, who had the means, should be forced to learn English thoroughly, and that those who proposed to enter the priesthood should learn Latin as well. He himself translated Boethius' _Consolation of Philosophy_ and other works from the Latin into English, and doubtless encouraged the composition of the famous _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, the first history written in a modern language.[84]

[Sidenote: England from the death of Alfred the Great to the Norman Conquest, 901-1066.]

The formation of the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway at the end of the ninth century caused many discontented Scandinavian chieftains to go in search of adventure, so that the Danish invasions continued for more than a century after Alfred's death (901), and we hear much of the Danegeld, a tax levied to buy off the invaders when necessary. Finally a Danish king (c.n.u.t) succeeded in making himself king of England in 1017.

The Danish dynasty maintained itself only for a few years. Then a last weak Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, held nominal sway for a score of years. Upon his death in 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, claimed the crown and became king of England. The Norman Conquest closes what is called the Saxon period of English history, during which the English nation may be said to have taken form. Before considering the achievements of William the Conqueror we must glance at the condition of England as he found it.

[Sidenote: Great Britain at the accession of William the Conqueror.]

The map of Great Britain at the accession of William the Conqueror has the same three great divisions which exist to-day. The little kingdoms had disappeared and England extended north to the Tweed, which separated it, as it now does, from the kingdom of Scotland. On the west was Wales, inhabited then, as it is still, by descendants of the native Britons, of whom only a small remnant had survived the German invasions. The Danes had been absorbed into the ma.s.s of the population and all England recognized a single king. The king's power had increased as time went on, although he was bound to act in important matters only with the consent of a council (Witenagemot) made up of high royal officials, bishops, and n.o.bles. The kingdom was divided into shires,[85] as it still is, and each of these had a local a.s.sembly, a sort of parliament for the dispatch of local matters.

After the victory of the papal party at the Council of Whitby,[86] the Church had been thoroughly organized and the intercourse of the clergy with the continent served, as we have seen, to keep England from becoming completely isolated. Although the island was much behind some other portions of Europe in civilization, the English had succeeded in laying the foundations for the development of a great nation and an admirable form of government.

[Sidenote: Feudalism in England.]

England was not, however, to escape feudalism. The Normans naturally brought with them their own feudal inst.i.tutions, but even before their coming many suggestions of feudalism might have been discovered. Groups of shires had been placed under the government of earls who became dangerous rivals of the kings; and the habit of giving churchmen the right to govern, to a large extent, those who lived upon their vast estates recalls the conditions in the Frankish empire during the same period. The great landed proprietor in England exercised much the same powers over those about him that the feudal lords enjoyed upon the other side of the Channel.

[Sidenote: The struggle for the English crown between Earl Harold and Duke William of Normandy.]

52. As has been said, William of Normandy claimed that he was ent.i.tled to the English crown; he even a.s.sumed that all who refused to acknowledge him in England were traitors. We are, however, somewhat in the dark as to the basis of his claim. There is a story that he had visited the court of Edward the Confessor and had become his va.s.sal on condition that, should Edward die childless, he was to designate William as his successor. But Harold, Earl of Wess.e.x, who had consolidated his power before the death of Edward by securing the appointment of his brothers to three of the other great earldoms, a.s.sumed the crown and paid no attention to William's demand that he should surrender it.

[Sidenote: The pope favors William's claim.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Senlac, 1066. William I crowned at London.]

William thereupon appealed to the pope, promising that if he came into possession of England, he would see that the English clergy submitted to the authority of the Roman bishop. Consequently the pope, Alexander II, condemned Harold and blessed in advance any expedition that William might undertake to a.s.sert his rights. The conquest of England therefore took on the character of a sort of holy war, and as the expedition had been well advertised, many adventurers flocked to William's standard.

The Norman cavalry and archers proved superior to the English forces, who were on foot and were so armed that they could not fight to advantage except at close range. Harold was killed in the memorable battle of Senlac[87] and his army defeated. In a few weeks a number of influential n.o.bles and several bishops agreed to accept William as their king, and London opened its gates to him. He was crowned on Christmas day, 1066, at Westminster.

We cannot trace the history of the opposition and the revolts of the great n.o.bles which William had to meet within the next few years. His position was rendered doubly difficult by troubles which he encountered on the continent as duke of Normandy. Suffice it to say that he succeeded in maintaining himself against all his enemies.[88]

[Sidenote: William's wise policy in England.]

William's policy in regard to England exhibited profound statesmanship.

He introduced the Norman feudalism to which he was accustomed, but took good care that it should not weaken his power. The English who had refused to join him before the battle of Senlac were declared traitors, but were permitted to keep their lands upon condition of receiving them from the king as his va.s.sals. The lands of those who actually bore arms against him at Senlac, or in later rebellions, including the great estates of Harold's family, were confiscated and distributed among his faithful followers, both Norman and English, though naturally the Normans among them far outnumbered the English.

[Sidenote: He insures the supremacy of the crown without interfering with English customs.]

[Sidenote: William requires oath of fidelity from his subva.s.sals.]

William declared that he did not propose to change the English customs but to govern as Edward the Confessor, the last Saxon king whom he acknowledged, had done. He tried to learn English, maintained the Witenagemot, and observed English practices. But he was a man of too much force to submit to the control of his people. While he appointed counts or earls in some of the shires (now come to be called _counties_), he controlled them by means of other royal officers called _sheriffs_. He avoided giving to any one person a great many estates in a single region, so that no one should become inconveniently powerful.

Finally, in order to secure the support of the smaller landholders and to prevent combinations against him among the greater ones, he required every landholder in England to take an oath of fidelity directly to him.

We read in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ (1086): "After that he went about so that he came, on the first day of August, to Salisbury, and there came to him his wise men [i.e., counselors], and all the landowning men of property there were over all England, whosesoever men they were; and all bowed down to him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him that they would be faithful to him against all other men."

[Sidenote: Domesday Book.]

William's anxiety to have a complete knowledge of his whole kingdom is indicated by a remarkable historical doc.u.ment, the so-called _Domesday Book_. This is a register of the lands throughout England, indicating the value of each parcel, the serfs and stock upon it, the name of its holder and of the person who held it before the Conquest. This government report contained a vast amount of information which was likely to prove useful to William's taxgatherers. It is still valuable to the historian, although unfortunately he is not able in every case to interpret its terms satisfactorily.

[Sidenote: William the Conqueror and the Church.]

William's policy in regard to the Church indicates a desire to advance its interests in conjunction with his own. He called Lanfranc, an Italian who had been at the head of the famous monastery of Bec in Normandy, to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The king permitted the clergy to manage their own affairs and established bishops' courts to try a variety of cases. But homage was exacted from a bishop as from a lay va.s.sal, and William refused to permit the pope to interfere in English affairs without his permission in each particular case. No papal legate was to enter the land without the king's sanction. No papal decree should be received in the English Church without his consent, nor his servants be excommunicated against his will. When Gregory VII demanded that he should become his va.s.sal for the land that he had conquered under the papal auspices, William promptly refused.

[Sidenote: General results of the Norman Conquest.]

It is clear that the Norman Conquest was not a simple change of dynasty.

A new element was added to the English people. We cannot tell how many Normans actually emigrated across the Channel, but they evidently came in considerable numbers, and their influence upon the English court and government was very great. A century after William's arrival the whole body of the n.o.bility, the bishops, abbots, and government officials, had become practically all Norman. "Besides these, the architects and artisans who built the castles and fortresses, and the cathedrals, abbeys, and parish churches, whose erection throughout the land was such a marked characteristic of the period, were immigrants from Normandy.

Merchants from the Norman cities of Rouen and Caen came to settle in London and other English cities, and weavers from Flanders were settled in various towns and even rural districts. For a short time these newcomers remained a separate people, but before the twelfth century was over they had become for the most part indistinguishable from the great ma.s.s of English people amongst whom they had come. They had nevertheless made that people stronger, more vigorous, more active-minded, and more varied in their occupations and interests" (Cheyney).[89]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Norman Gateway at Bristol, England]

[Sidenote: William Rufus, 1087-1100, and Henry I, 1100-1135.]

[Sidenote: Civil war ending in the accession of Henry II, 1154-1189.]

53. The Conqueror was followed by his sons, William Rufus and Henry I.

Upon the death of the latter the country went through a terrible period of civil war, for some of the n.o.bility supported the Conqueror's grandson Stephen, and some his granddaughter Matilda. After the death of Stephen, when Henry II, Matilda's son,[90] was finally recognized in 1154 by all as king, he found the kingdom in a melancholy state. The n.o.bles had taken advantage of the prevalent disorder to erect castles without royal permission and establish themselves as independent rulers.

Mercenaries had been called in from the continent by the rivals for the throne, and had become a national plague.