History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne Volume II Part 47

537 In England the change seems to have immediately followed conversion.

"The evangelical precepts of peace and love," says a very learned historian, "did not put an end to war, they did not put an end to aggressive conquests, but they distinctly humanised the way in which war was carried on. From this time forth the never-ending wars with the Welsh cease to be wars of extermination. The heathen English had been satisfied with nothing short of the destruction and expulsion of their enemies; the Christian English thought it enough to reduce them to political subjection.... The Christian Welsh could now sit down as subjects of the Christian Saxon. The Welshman was acknowledged as a man and a citizen, and was put under the protection of the law."-Freeman's _Hist. of the Norman Conquest_, vol. i. pp. 33-34. Christians who a.s.sisted infidels in wars were _ipso facto_ excommunicated, and might therefore be enslaved, but all others were free from slavery. "Et quidem inter Christianos laudabili et antiqua consuetudine introductum est, ut capti hinc inde, utcunque jus...o...b..llo, non fierent servi, sed liberi servarentur donec solvant precium redemptionis."-Ayala, lib. i. cap.

5. "This rule, at least," says Grotius, "(though but a small matter) the reverence for the Christian law has enforced, which Socrates vainly sought to have established among the Greeks." The Mohammedans also made it a rule not to enslave their co-religionists.-Grotius, _De Jure_, iii. 7, -- 9. Pagan and barbarian prisoners were, however, sold as slaves (especially by the Spaniards) till very recently.

538 The character of Constantine, and the estimate of it in Eusebius, are well treated by Dean Stanley, _Lectures on the Eastern Church_ (Lect. vi.).

539 Theodoret, iii. 28.

540 They are collected by Chateaubriand, _etudes hist._ 2me disc. 2me partie.

541 See St. Gregory's oration on _Cesarius_.

542 Sozomen, vi. 2.

_ 543 Ep._ xiii. 31-39. In the second of these letters (which is addressed to Leontia), he says: "Rogare forsitan debui ut ecclesiam beati Petri apostoli quae nunc usque gravibus insidiis laboravit, haberet Vestra Tranquillitas specialiter commendatam. Sed qui scio quia omnipotentem Deum diligitis, non debeo petere quod sponte ex benignitate vestrae pietatis exhibetis."

544 See the graphic description in Gibbon, ch. liii.

545 Baronius.

546 Mably, ii. 1; Gibbon, ch. xlix.

547 There are some good remarks upon the way in which, among the free Franks, the bishops taught the duty of pa.s.sive obedience, in Mably, _Obs. sur l'Histoire de France_, livre i. ch. iii. Gregory of Tours, in his address to Chilperic, had said: "If any of us, O king, transgress the boundaries of justice, thou art at hand to correct us; but if thou shouldest exceed them, who is to condemn thee? We address thee, and if it please thee thou listenest to us; but if it please thee not, who is to condemn thee save He who has proclaimed Himself Justice."-Greg. Tur. v. 19. On the other hand, Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, strongly a.s.serted the obligation of kings to observe the law, and denounced as diabolical the doctrine that they are subject to none but G.o.d. (Allen, _On the Royal Prerogative_ (1849), pp. 171-172.)

548 The exact degree of the authority of the barbarian kings, and the different stages by which their power was increased, are matters of great controversy. The reader may consult Thierry's _Lettres sur l'Hist. de France_ (let. 9); Guizot's _Hist. de la Civilisation_; Mably, _Observ. sur l'Hist. de France_; Freeman's _Hist. of the Norman Conquest_, vol. i.

549 Fauriel, _Hist. de la Poesie provencale_, tome ii. p. 252.

550 Ibid, p. 258.

551 Le Grand D'Aussy, _Fabliaux_, pref. p. xxiv. These romances were accounts of his expeditions to Spain, to Languedoc, and to Palestine.

552 The ?d?a of the Greeks.

553 Legouve, _Histoire morale des Femmes_, pp. 95-96.

554 Gen. xxix., x.x.xiv. 12; Deut. xxii. 29; 1 Sam. xviii. 25.

555 The history of dowries is briefly noticed by Grote, _Hist. of Greece_, vol. ii. pp. 112-113; and more fully by Lord Kames, in the admirable chapter "On the Progress of the Female s.e.x," in his _Sketches of the History of Man_, a book less read than it deserves to be. M. Legouve has also devoted a chapter to it in his _Hist.

morale des Femmes_. See, too, Legendre, _Traite de l'Opinion_, tome ii. pp. 329-330. We find traces of the dowry, as well as of the ?d?a, in Homer. Penelope had received a dowry from Icarus, her father. M. Michelet, in one of those fanciful books which he has recently published, maintains a view of the object of the ?d?a which I do not remember to have seen elsewhere, and which I do not believe. He says: "Ce prix n'est point un achat de la femme, mais une indemnite qui dedommage la famille du pere pour les enfants futurs, qui ne profiteront pas a cette famille mais a celle ou la femme va entrer."-_La Femme_, p. 166.

556 In Rome, when the separation was due to the misconduct of the wife, the dowry belonged to her husband.

557 "Dotem non uxor marito sed uxori maritus offert."-Tac. _Germ._ xviii. On the Morgengab, see Canciani, _Leges Barbarorum_ (Venetiis, 1781), vol. i. pp. 102-104; ii. pp. 230-231. Muratori, _Antich.

Ital._ diss. xx. Luitprand enacted that no Longobard should give more than one-fourth of his substance as a Morgengab. In Gregory of Tours (ix. 20) we have an example of the gift of some cities as a Morgengab.

558 See, on this point, Aul. Gellius, _Noct. Att._ xv. 20. Euripides is said to have had two wives.

559 Aristotle said that Homer never gives a concubine to Menelaus, in order to intimate his respect for Helen-though false. (_Athenaeus_, xiii. 3.)

560 aeschylus has put this curious notion into the mouth of Apollo, in a speech in the _Eumenides_. It has, however, been very widely diffused, and may be found in Indian, Greek, Roman, and even Christian writers. M. Legouve, who has devoted a very curious chapter to the subject, quotes a pa.s.sage from St. Thomas Aquinas, accepting it, and arguing from it, that a father should be more loved than a mother. M. Legouve says that when the male of one animal and the female of another are crossed, the type of the female usually predominates in the offspring. See Legouve, _Hist. morale des Femmes_, pp. 216-228; Fustel de Coulanges, _La Cite antique_, pp. 39-40; and also a curious note by Boswell, in Croker's edition of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ (1847), p. 472.

561 Dr. Vintras, in a remarkable pamphlet (London, 1867) _On the Repression of Prost.i.tution_, shows from the police statistics that the number of prost.i.tutes _known to the police_ in England and Wales, in 1864, was 49,370; and this is certainly much below the entire number. These, it will be observed, comprise only the habitual, professional prost.i.tutes.

562 Some measures have recently been taken in a few garrison towns. The moral sentiment of the community, it appears, would be shocked if Liverpool were treated on the same principles as Portsmouth. This very painful and revolting, but most important, subject has been treated with great knowledge, impartiality, and ability, by Parent-Duchatelet, in his famous work, _La Prost.i.tution dans la ville de Paris_. The third edition contains very copious supplementary accounts, furnished by different doctors in different countries.

563 Parent-Duchatelet has given many statistics, showing the very large extent to which the French system of supervision deters those who were about to enter into prost.i.tution, and reclaims those who had entered into it. He and Dr. Vintras concur in representing English prost.i.tution as about the most degraded, and at the same time the most irrevocable.

564 Miss Mulock, in her amiable but rather feeble book, called _A Woman's Thoughts about Women_, has some good remarks on this point (pp. 291-293), which are all the more valuable, as the auth.o.r.ess has not the faintest sympathy with any opinions concerning the character and position of women which are not strictly conventional. She notices the experience of Sunday school mistresses, that, of their pupils who are seduced, an extremely large proportion are "of the very best, refined, intelligent, truthful, and affectionate."

565 See the very singular and painful chapter in Parent-Duchatelet, called "Murs et Habitudes des Prost.i.tuees." He observes that they are remarkable for their kindness to one another in sickness or in distress; that they are not unfrequently charitable to poor people who do not belong to their cla.s.s; that when one of them has a child, it becomes the object of very general interest and affection; that most of them have lovers, to whom they are sincerely attached; that they rarely fail to show in the hospitals a very real sense of shame; and that many of them entered into their mode of life for the purpose of supporting aged parents. One anecdote is worth giving in the words of the author: "Un medecin n'entrant jamais dans leurs salles sans oter legerement son chapeau, par cette seule politesse il sut tellement conquerir leur confiance qu'il leur faisait faire tout ce qu'il voulait." This writer, I may observe, is not a romance writer or a theorist of any description. He is simply a physician who describes the results of a very large official experience.

566 "Parent-Duchatelet atteste que sur trois mille creatures perdues trente cinq seulement avaient un etat qui pouvait les nourrir, et que quatorze cents avaient ete precipitees dans cette horrible vie par la misere. Une d'elles, quand elle s'y resolut, n'avait pas mange depuis trois jours."-Legouve, _Hist. morale des Femmes_, pp.

322-323.

567 Concerning the position and character of Greek women, the reader may obtain ample information by consulting Becker's _Charicles_ (translated by Metcalfe, 1845); Rainneville, _La Femme dans l'Antiquite_ (Paris, 1865); and an article "On Female Society in Greece," in the twenty-second volume of the _Quarterly Review_.

568 Plutarch, _Conj. Praec._

569 Xenophon, _Econ._ ii.

570 Plut. _Conj. Praec._ There is also an extremely beautiful picture of the character of a good wife in Aristotle. (_Economics_, book i.

cap. vii.)

571 See Alexander's _History of Women_ (London, 1783), vol. i. p. 201.

572 Plutarch, _Phocion_.

573 Our information concerning the Greek courtesans is chiefly derived from the thirteenth book of the _Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus, from the _Letters_ of Alciphron, from the _Dialogues_ of Lucian on courtesans, and from the oration of Demosthenes against Neaera. See, too, Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, iii. 11; and among modern books, Becker's _Charicles_. Athenaeus was an Egyptian, whose exact date is unknown but who appears to have survived Ulpian, who died in A.D.

228. He had access to, and gave extracts from, many works on this subject, which have now perished. Alciphron is believed to have lived near the time of Lucian.

574 According to some writers the word "venerari" comes from "Venerem exercere," on account of the devotions in the temple of Venus. See Vossius, _Etymologicon Linguae Latinae_, "veneror;" also La Mothe le Vayer, _Lettre_ xc.

575 On the connection of the courtesans with the artistic enthusiasm, see Raoul Rochette, _Cours d'Archeologie_, pp. 278-279. See, too, Athenaeus, xiii. 59; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ x.x.xv. 40.

576 See the very curious little work of Menage, _Historia Mulierum Philosopharum_ (Lugduni, MDXC.); also Rainneville, _La Femme dans l'Antiquite_, p. 244. At a much later date Lucian described the beauty, accomplishments, generosity, and even modesty, of Panthea of Smyrna, the favourite mistress of Lucius Verus.

577 The ??a, which was at first in use, was discarded by the Lacedaemonians, and afterwards by the other Greeks. There are three curious memoirs tracing the history of the change, by M. Burette, in the _Hist. de l'Academie royale des Inscriptions_, tome i.

578 On the causes of paiderastia in Greece, see the remarks of Mr. Grote in the review of the _Symposium_, in his great work on Plato. The whole subject is very ably treated by M. Maury, _Hist. des Religions de la Grece antique_, tome iii. pp. 35-39. Many facts connected with it are collected by Dollinger, in his _Jew and Gentile_, and by Chateaubriand, in his _etudes historiques_. The chief original authority is the thirteenth book of Athenaeus, a book of very painful interest in the history of morals.

579 Plutarch, in his _Life of Agesilaus_, dwells on the intense self-control manifested by that great man, in refraining from gratifying a pa.s.sion he had conceived for a boy named Megabetes, and Maximus Tyrius says it deserved greater praise than the heroism of Leonidas. (_Diss._ xxv.) Diogenes Laertius, in his _Life of Zeno_, the founder of Stoicism, the most austere of all ancient sects, praises that philosopher for being but little addicted to this vice.

Sophocles is said to have been much addicted to it.

580 Some examples of the ascription of this vice to the divinities are given by Clem. Alex. _Admonitio ad Gentes_. Socrates is said to have maintained that Jupiter loved Ganymede for his wisdom, as his name is derived from ????a? and ?d??, to be delighted with prudence.

(Xenophon, _Banquet_.) The disaster of Cannae was ascribed to the jealousy of Juno because a beautiful boy was introduced into the temple of Jupiter. (Lactantius, _Inst. Div._ ii. 17.)

581 Athenaeus, xiii. 78. See, too, the very revolting book on different kinds of love, ascribed (it is said falsely) to Lucian.

582 Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ x.x.xiv. 9.