Outlines of Universal History Part 16

INTRODUCTION.

CHARACTER OF THE MIDDLE AGES.--The middle ages include the long interval between the first general irruption of the Teutonic nations towards the close of the fourth century, to the middle of the fifteenth century, when the modern era, with a distinctive character of its own, began. Two striking features are observed in the mediaeval era. First, there was a mingling of the conquering Germanic nations with the peoples previously making up the Roman Empire, and a consequent effect produced upon both. The Teutonic tribes modified essentially the old society. On the other hand, there was a reaction of Roman civilization upon them. The conquered became the teachers and civilizers of the conquerors. Secondly, the Christian Church, which outlived the wreck of the empire, and was almost the sole remaining bond of social unity, not only educated the new nations, but regulated and guided them, to a large extent, in secular as well as religious affairs. Thus out of chaos, Christendom arose, a single h.o.m.ogeneous society of peoples. It was in the middle ages that the pontifical authority reached its full stature. The Holy See exercised the lofty function of arbiter among contending nations, and of leadership in great public movements, like the Crusades. Civil authority and ecclesiastical authority, emperors and popes, were engaged in a long conflict for predominance. Thus there are three elements which form the essential factors in Mediaeval History,-the _Barbarian_ element, the _Roman_ element, with its law and civil polity, and with what was left of ancient arts and culture, and the _Christian_, or _Ecclesiastical_, element. As we approach the close of the mediaeval era, a signal change occurs. The nations begin to acquire a more defined individuality; the superintendence of the church in civil affairs is more and more renounced or relinquished; there dawns a new era of invention and discovery, of culture and reform.

PERIOD I. FROM THE MIGRATIONS OF THE TEUTONIC TRIBES TO THE CARLOVINGIAN LINE OF FRANK RULERS. (A.D. 375-751.)

CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE: THE TEUTONIC CONFEDERACIES.

GRADUAL OVERTHROW OF THE EMPIRE.--When we speak of the destruction of the Roman Empire by the barbarians, we must not imagine that it was sudden, as by an earthquake. It was gradual. Had the empire not been undermined from within, it would not have been overthrown from without. The Roman armies were recruited by bringing numerous barbarians into the ranks. At length whole tribes were suffered to form permanent settlements within the boundaries of the empire. A "king" with his entire tribe would engage to do military service in exchange for lands. More and more both the wealth and the weakness of Rome were exposed to the gaze of the Germanic nations. Their cupidity was aroused as their power increased. Meantime the barbarians were learning from their employers the art of war, and were gaining soldierly discipline. Their brave warriors rose to places of command. They made and unmade the rulers, and finally became rulers themselves. Another important circ.u.mstance is, that most of the Germanic tribes were converts to Christianity before they made their attacks and subverted the throne of the Caesars. In fine, there was a long preparation for the great onset of the barbarian peoples in the fifth century.

CAUSES OF THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.--But the success of the barbarian invasions presupposes an internal decay in the empire. It was one symptom of a conscious decline, that the conquering spirit was chilled, and the policy was adopted of fixing the limits of the Roman dominion at the Rhine and the Danube. Rome now stood on the defensive. The great service of the imperial government, for which it was most valued, was to protect the frontiers. This partly accounts for the consternation of _Augustus_, when, in the forests of Germany, the legions of _Varus_ were destroyed (p. 172). The essential fact is, that Rome became unable to keep up the strength of its armies. _First_, there were lacking the men to fill up the legions. The civil wars had reduced the population in Italy and in other countries. The efforts of _Augustus_ to encourage marriage by bounties proved of little avail. _Secondly_, the cla.s.s of independent Italian yeomen, which had made up the bone and sinew of the Roman armies, pa.s.sed away. Slavery supplanted free labor. _Thirdly_, in the third century terrible plagues swept over the empire. In 166 a frightful pestilence broke out, from which, according to _Niebuhr_, the ancient world never recovered. It was only the first in a series of like appalling visitations. _Fourthly_, the death of liberty carried after it a loss of the virtue, the virile energy, by which Rome had won her supremacy. _Fifthly_, the new imperial system, after _Diocletian_, effective as it was for maintaining an orderly administration, drained the resources of the people. The munic.i.p.al government in each town was put into the hands of _curiales_, or the owners of a certain number of acres. They were made responsible for the taxes, which were levied in a gross amount upon the town. The _fiscus_, or financial administration of the empire, was so managed that the civil offices became an intolerable burden to those who held them. Yet it was a burden from which there was no escape. One result was, that, while slaves were often made _coloni_,--that is, tillers or tenants, sharing with the owner the profits of tillage,--and thus had their condition improved, many freeholders sank to the same grade, which was a kind of serfdom. When to the exhausting taxation by government, there were added the disposition of large proprietors to despoil the poorer cla.s.s of landholders, and from time to time the predatory incursions of barbarians, the small supply of Roman legionaries is easily accounted for.

THREE RACES OF BARBARIANS.--While the empire, as regards the power of self-defense, was sinking, the barbarians were not only profiting by the military skill and experience of the Romans, but were forming military _unions_ among their several tribes. In the East, there was one civilized kingdom, _Persia_, the successor of the Parthian kingdom, but not powerful enough to be a rival,--certainly not in an aggressive contest. But northward and northeast of the Roman boundaries, there stretched "a vague and unexplored waste of barbarism," "a vast, dimly-known chaos of numberless barbarous tongues and savage races." A commotion among these numerous tribes, the uncounted mult.i.tudes spreading far into the plain of Central Asia, had begun as early as the days of Julius Caesar. They were made up of three races,--the _Teutons_, or _Germanic_ peoples; eastward of them, the _Slavonians_; and, farther beyond, the Asiatic _Scythians_. The Slavonians, an Aryan branch, like the Teutons, had their abodes in the s.p.a.ce between Germany and the Volga. They were a pastoral and an agricultural race, of whose religion little is known. Their incursions and settlements belong to the sixth and seventh centuries, and to the history of the Eastern Empire.

TEUTONIC CONFEDERACIES.--Of the confederacies of German tribes, the _Goths_ are first to be mentioned. In the third century they had spread over the immense territory between the Baltic and the Black seas. They were divided into the West Goths (_Visigoths_) and East Goths (_Ostrogoths_). Their force was augmented by the junction of kindred tribes. To the east of them, towards the Don, was a tribe of mixed race, the _Alani_. In the third century the Goths had made their terrible inroads into _Maesia_ and _Thrace_, and the brave emperor _Decius_ had perished in the combat with them. They had pushed their marauding excursions as far as the coasts of Greece and Ionia. In the middle of the fourth century they were united, with their allied tribes, under the sovereignty of the East Gothic chieftain, _Hermanric_. A second league of Germanic peoples was the _Alemanni_, which included the formidable tribes called by Caesar the _Suevi_, and who, after various incursions, had established themselves on the Upper Rhine, in what is now Baden, Wurtemberg, and north-east in Switzerland, and in the region southward to the summits of the Alps. Their invasion of Italy in 255, when they poured through the pa.s.ses of the Rhetian Alps, and penetrated as far as _Ravenna_, was repelled by _Aurelian_, afterwards emperor. A third confederacy was that of the _Franks_ (or Freemen) on the Lower Rhine and the Weser. In North Germany, between the Elbe and the Rhine, were the _Saxons_. The _Burgundians_, between the Saxons and the Alemanni, made their way to the same river near _Worms_. East of the Franks and Saxons, were the valiant _Lombards_, who made their way southwards to the center of Europe, and finally to the Danube. The _Frisians_ were situated on the sh.o.r.e of the North Sea and in the adjacent islands. North of the Saxons were the _Danes_ and other peoples of _Scandinavia_,--Teutons all, but a separate branch of the Teutonic household. To bold and warlike tribes, now banded together, such as were the Franks and the Alemanni, the Rhine, with its line of Roman cities and fortresses, could form no permanent barrier. When they crossed it, they might be driven back; but this was only to renew their expeditions at the first favorable moment. The prey which they saw near by, and of which they dreamed in the distance, was too enticing. No more could the Danube fence off the thronging nations; all of whom had heard, and some of whom had beheld, the wealth and luxury of the civilized lands.

Beginning at the _Euxine_, and moving westward along the line of the _Danube_ and the _Rhine_, we find, at the end of the fourth century, that the six most prominent names of _Teutonic_ tribes are the _Goths_, _Vandals_, _Burgundians_, _Franks_, _Saxons_, and _Lombards_. Over the vast plains to the south and west of the Caspian are spread the _Huns_, who belong to one branch of the Scythian or Turanian group of nations.

HABITS OF THE GERMANS.--We have notices of the Germans from _Julius Caesar_, the most full description of them in the _Germania_ of _Tacitus_. They were tall and robust, and seemed to the Romans, who were of smaller stature, as giants. Tacitus speaks of their "fiercely blue eyes." They lived in huts made of wood, and containing the cattle as well as the family. They tilled the soil, but their favorite employments were war and the chase. Capable of cruelty, they were still of a kindly temper, and fond of feasts and social gatherings, where they were apt to indulge in excessive drinking and in gambling. They were brave, and not without a delicate sense of honor. Family ties were sacred. The women were chaste, and were companions of their husbands, although subject to them. Most of the people were _freemen_, who were land-owners, and carried arms. The n.o.bles were those of higher birth, but with no special privileges. The freemen owned _slaves_, who were either criminals or persons who had lost their freedom in gaming or prisoners of war. There were also _freedmen_ or _leti_, who held land of a superior. Many freedmen lived apart, but many were gathered in villages. The land about a village was originally held in common. Each village had a chief, and each collection of villages, or _hundred_, possessed a chief of high rank; and there was a "king," or head of the tribe. All these chieftains were elected by the freemen at a.s.semblies periodically held. When the duke or general was chosen, he was raised on a shield on the shoulders of the men. The judges in the trial of causes sat, with a.s.sessors or jurymen around them, in the open air. But private injuries were avenged by the individual or by his family. One marked characteristic of the Germans was the habit of devoting themselves to the service of a military leader. They paid to him personal allegiance, and followed him in war. The Germans were, above all, distinguished by a strong sense of personal independence. If their mode of living resembled outwardly that of other savage races, yet in their free political life, and in the n.o.ble promise of their language even in its rudiments, the comparison does not hold. In their faithfulness, courage, and personal purity, they are emphatically contrasted with the generality of barbarous peoples.

RELIGION OF THE GERMANS.--We know more of the Scandinavian religion through the _Eddas_, the Iliad of the Northmen, than of the religion of the Germans; but the two religions were closely allied. Among the chief G.o.ds worshiped by the Germans were _Woden_, called "Odin" in the North, the highest divinity, the G.o.d of the air and of the sky, the giver of fruits and delighting in battle; _Donar_ (Thor), the G.o.d of thunder and of the weather, armed with a hammer or thunderbolt; _Thiu_ (Tyr), a G.o.d of war, answering to Mars; _Fro_ (Freyr), G.o.d of love; and _Frauwa_ (Freya), his sister. Particular days were set apart for their worship. Their names appear in the names of the days of the week,--Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Sunday is the day of the sun, and Monday the day of the moon. Sat.u.r.day alone is a name of Latin origin. Among the minor beings in the German mythology were fairies, elves, giants, and dwarfs. There were festivals to the G.o.ds. Their images were preserved in groves. Lofty trees were held sacred to divinities. The oak and the red ash were consecrated to _Donar_. Sacrifices, and among them human sacrifices, were offered to the G.o.ds. Their will was ascertained by means of the lot, the neighing of wild horses, and the flight of birds. Priests were not without influence, but were not a professional cla.s.s, and were never dominant. Valiant warriors at death were admitted into Walhalla (the _hall of the slain_), where they sat at banquet with the G.o.ds.

THE THEODOSIAN IMPERIAL HOUSE

THEODOSIUS | +--THEODOSIUS I (the Great), _m._, | 1, Flaccilla; | 2, Galla sister of Valentinian II | | | +--Grantia.n.u.s | | | +--Pulcheria | | | +--ARCADIUS | | _m._ Eudoxia | | | | | +--THEODOSIUS II | | | _m._ Eudocia | | | | | | | +--Eudoxia | | | | _m._ VALENTINIAN III | | | | | | | +--Flaccilla | | | | | +--Pulcheria | | | _m._ MARCIAN | | | | | +--Three other daughters | | | +--HONORIUS | | _m._ Maria, daughter of Stilicho | | | +--Placidia _m._ | 1, Adolphus; | 2, CONSTANTIUS | | | +--VALENTINIAN III, | | _m._ Eudoxia.

| | | | | +--Eudoxia, _m._ | | | 1, Palladius, son of MAXIMUS; | | | 2, Huneric, son of GENSERIC.

| | | | | | | +--Ideric | | | | | +--Placidia | | _m._ OLYBRIUS | | | +--Honoria | +--Honorius | +--Serena, | _m._ Stilicho | | | +--Maria | +--Thermantia

[From Rawlinson's _Manual of Ancient History._]

CHAPTER II. THE TEUTONIC MIGRATIONS AND KINGDOMS.

THE GOTHS: THEODOSIUS I.--Towards the close of the fourth century, when _Valens_ (364-378) was reigning in the East, the _Huns_ moved from their settlements north of the Caspian, defeated the _Alans_, a powerful nation, and, compelling them to enter their service, invaded the empire of the _Ostrogoths_, then ruled by _Hermanric_. The Huns belonged to one branch of the Scythian race. They had migrated in vast numbers from Central Asia. Repulsive in form and visage, with short, thick bodies, and small, fierce eyes, living mostly on horseback or in their wagons, these terrible warriors, with their slings and bone-pointed arrows, struck terror into the nations whom they approached. The Gothic Empire fell. The Ostrogoths submitted, and Hermanric died, it is thought by his own hand. The _Visigoths_ crowded down to the Danube, and implored Valens to give them an asylum upon Roman territory. They had previously been converted to Christianity, mainly by the labors of _Ulphilas_, who had framed for them an alphabet, and translated nearly the whole Bible into their tongue. Fragments of this _Moeso-Gothic_ version are the oldest written monument in the Teutonic languages. Christianity was taught to them by Ulphilas in the Arian type; and this circ.u.mstance was very important, since it was the occasion of the spread of _Arianism_ among many other Teutonic peoples. Valens granted their request to cross the Danube, and, under _Fritigern_ and _Alavivus_, to settle in Moesia (376). By the connivance of the officers of Valens, they were allowed to retain their arms. The avarice of corrupt imperial governors provoked them to revolt; and, in the battle of _Adrianople_, Valens was defeated. The house into which the wounded emperor was carried was set on fire, and he perished. _Gratian_, who, since the death of Valentinian I. (375), had been the ruler of the West, summoned the valiant _Theodosius_ from his estate in Spain, to which he had been banished, to sustain the tottering empire. Gratian made him regent in the East. His father had cleared Britain of the Picts and Scots, and restored it to the empire. Under him the son had learned to be a soldier. He had been driven into retirement by court intrigues. He now accomplished, as well as it could be done, the mighty task laid upon him. He checked the progress of the Goths, divided them, incorporated some of them in the army, and dispersed the rest in Thrace, Moesia, and Asia Minor (382). Four years later forty-thousand Ostrogoths were received into the imperial service. Once Rome had conquered the barbarians, and planted its colonies among them; now, after they had proved their power, and gained boldness by victory, it received them within its own borders. The indolence and vice of _Gratian_ produced a revolution in the West. _Maximus_ was proclaimed imperator by the legions of Britain, and Gratian was put to death by his cavalry (383). After sanguinary conflicts, _Theodosius_ obtained, also, supreme power in the West. He gave to orthodoxy, in the strife with Arianism, the supremacy in the East; and, under his auspices, the _General Council of Constantinople_ re-affirmed the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity (381). In the ancient church he had a glory second only to that of Constantine. With the exception of his harsh and inquisitorial laws for the forcible suppression of Arianism and paganism, his legislation was generally wise and beneficent.

ARCADIUS: HONORIUS.--Theodosius left the government of the East to his son _Arcadius_, then eighteen years of age, and that of the West to a younger son, _Honorius_. The empire of the East continued ten hundred and fifty-eight years after this division; that of the West, only eighty-one years. The Eastern Empire was defended by the barriers of the Danube and the Balkan mountains, by the strength of Constantinople, together with the care taken to protect it, and by the general tendency of the barbarian invasions westward. Rome, in the course of a half-century, was the object of four terrible attacks,--that of _Alaric_ and the Visigoths; of _Radagaisus_ with the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans; of _Genseric_ with the Vandals; of _Attila_ with the Huns.

ALARIC IN ITALY.--The Visigoths made _Alaric_--the head of their most ill.u.s.trious family, the Balti--their leader. _Honorius_ was controlled by the influence of _Stilicho_, a brave soldier, by birth a Vandal; _Arcadius_ was ruled by a Goth, _Rufinus_, a cunning and faithless diplomatist. Alaric and his followers were enraged at the withholding of the pay which was due to them yearly from _Arcadius_. _Rufinus_, in order to keep up his sway, and out of hostility to _Stilicho_, arranged that they should invade _Eastern Illyric.u.m_, a province on which each of the emperors had claims, and which he feared that Stilicho would seize. They ravaged Thrace and Macedonia, pa.s.sed through the undefended strait of Thermopylae, spared Athens, but devastated the rest of Greece. The only protector of the empire now was _Stilicho_, to whom Theodosius had committed the care of his two sons, and whose power was exercised in the West. He caused the perfidious _Rufinus_ to be put to death by _Gainas_, one of the Gothic allies of Arcadius. The place of the minister was taken by _Eutropius_, an Armenian who had been a slave. _Stilicho_ fought the Goths in two campaigns, but, perhaps from policy, suffered them to escape by the Strait of _Naupactus_ (_Lepanto_). To prevent further ravages, Arcadius had no alternative but to appoint _Alaric_ master-general or duke of Illyric.u.m. This obliged _Stilicho_ to retire. Raised upon the shield, and thus made king by his followers, Alaric led them to the conquest of Italy. _Honorius_ fled for refuge from Milan to the impregnable fortress of _Ravenna_. Stilicho came to his relief, and defeated the Visigoths at _Pollentia_ (402). But Honorius copied the example of Arcadius, made Alaric a general, and gave him the commission to conquer Illyric.u.m for the Western Empire. After his defeat, he was moving against Rome with his cavalry, when his retreat was purchased by a pension. It was when Honorius was celebrating his triumph at Rome that a monk named _Telemachus_ leaped into the arena to separate the gladiators. He was stoned to death by the spectators, but the result of his self-devotion was an edict putting a final stop to the gladiatorial shows. The emperor now fixed his residence, which had been at Milan, at _Ravenna_, a city that was covered on the land side by a wide and impa.s.sable mora.s.s, over which was an artificial causeway, easily destroyed in case it could not be defended. It had served him as an asylum during the invasion of Alaric.

RADAGAISUS.--The empire was not long left in peace. _Alaric_ was a Christian, and partially civilized. _Radagaisus_ was a Goth, but a heathen and a barbarian. The _Suevi_ under his command, took their course southward from the neighborhood of the Baltic, and, drawing after them the _Burgundians, Vandals_, and _Alans_,--tribes which began to be alarmed by the hordes of _Huns_ that were gathering behind them,--advanced to the pillage of the empire. Leaving the bulk of their companions on the borders of the Rhine, two hundred thousand of them crossed the Alps, and made their way as far as _Florence_. _Stilicho_ once more saved Rome and the empire by forcing them back into the Apennines, where most of them perished from famine. _Radagaisus_ surrendered, and was beheaded. The news of this disaster moved the host which had been left behind, joined by the remainder of the army of Radagaisus, to make an attack upon _Gaul_. Despite the resistance of the Ripuarian Franks, to whom Rome had committed the defense of the Rhine, they crossed that river on the last day of the year 406. For two years Gaul was a prey to their ravages, until the Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals, sought for fresh booty on the south of the Pyrenees (409). In Gaul they "destroyed the cities, ravaged the fields, and drove before them in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars." Brief as was this period of devastation, it marks the severance of _Gaul_ from the empire.

ALARIC AGAIN IN ITALY.--_Stilicho_ had kept up friendly relations with _Alaric_, and had retained in Italy thirty thousand barbarians in the pay of the empire. The brave general became an object of suspicion to _Honorius_, who caused him to be a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the wives and children of the barbarian troops to be ma.s.sacred. The men fled to _Alaric_. He came back with them to avenge them. He appeared under the walls of Rome. "It was more than six hundred years since a foreign enemy had been there, and Hannibal had advanced so far, only to retreat." When the envoys of the Senate represented to Alaric how numerous was the population, he answered, "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." But he consented to accept an enormous ransom, and retired to winter quarters in Tuscany. The court at Ravenna refused to a.s.sign lands to the Visigoths for a permanent settlement in Northern Italy. Alaric demanded the post of master-general of the Western armies. Once more he advanced to Rome, seized the "Port" of _Ostia_, and compelled the Senate to appoint _Attalus_, the prefect of the city, emperor. He besieged _Ravenna_ without effect, quarreled with Attalus, and deposed him, and for the third time marched upon Rome. Slaves within the city opened the Salarian gate to their countrymen, and on the 24th of August, 410, the sack of the city began. To add to the horrors of the scene, a terrific thunderstorm was raging. For three days Rome was given up to pillage. Only the Christian temples were respected, which were crowded by those who sought within them an asylum. Rome had been the center of Paganism. The scattering and destruction of its patrician families was the ruin of the old religion. Alaric did not long survive his victory. He died at _Consentia_ in _Bruttium_. He was buried under the little river _Basentius_, which was turned out of its course while the sepulcher was constructing, and then restored to its former channel. The slaves employed in the work were put to death, that the place of his burial might remain a secret (410).

ATHAULF: WALLIA.--_Athaulf_ (called Adolphus), the brother and successor of Alaric, was an admirer of the empire. He enlisted in the service of _Honorius_, and married his sister, _Placidia_, who was in the hands of the Goths, either as a captive or as a hostage. He put down usurpers in the south of Gaul who had set themselves up as emperors, and entered _Spain_, in order to drive out the barbarians from that country. But he was a.s.sa.s.sinated (415). His successor, _Wallia_, carried forward his plans, in the name of Honorius, against the Alans, the Suevi, and the Vandals. He partly exterminated the Alans, chased the Suevi into the mountains on the north-west, and the Vandals into the district called after them, _Andalusia_.

THREE BARBARIAN KINGDOMS.--The kingdom of the Suevi thus established (419), under the kings reigning from 438 to 455 conquered _Lusitania_, and would have subdued all Spain had they not been checked by the _Visigoths_. As a reward for their services, the latter received from Honorius, _Aquitaine_ in Gaul, as far as the Loire and the Rhone, with _Toulouse_ for their capital. They conquered the _Suevi_ in 456, and in 585 subjugated them; in 507 the Franks had driven them out of Gaul. Early in the fifth century the _Burgundian kingdom_ grew up in South-eastern Gaul. At the end of that century the Rhone was a Burgundian river. _Lyons_ and _Vienne_ were Burgundian cities. Thus in the first twenty years of the fifth century there arose _three_ barbarian kingdoms. Of these, that of the _Suevi_ soon vanished (585), being absorbed by the Visigoths; that of the _Burgundians_ continued until 534; while that of the _Visigoths_ in Spain lasted until the conquest by the Arabs in 711.

CONQUEST OF AFRICA BY THE VANDALS.--_Honorius_ died in 423. He had shown himself a zealous defender of the Church against heresy, and was the author of edicts for the suppression of heathenism, and for the destruction of heathen temples and idols. But he had proved himself inefficient in the defense of the empire. His nephew _Valentinian III.,_ the son of _Placidia_ and of the general _Constantius_, whom she had married in 417, succeeded him; but he was only six years old, and for twenty-five years the government was carried on in his name by his unworthy mother. She had two able generals, _Aetius_ and _Boniface_, whose discord was fatal in its effects. At the same time in the East, the government was managed by _Pulcheria_ for her brother, _Theodosius II.,_ who had succeeded _Arcadias_ in 408. _Aetius_, who was a Hun, by insidious arts persuaded Placidia to recall _Boniface_, who was governor of Africa, at the same time that he advised Boniface to disobey the order which he represented as a sentence of death. Boniface sent to _Gonderic_, king of the Vandals in Spain,--who, after the retreat of the Visigoths, were strong in that country,--an offer of an alliance. _Genseric_, the Vandal leader, the brother and successor of _Gonderic_, landed in Africa in 429 with fifty thousand men. Too late the treachery of Aetius was explained to Boniface. Genseric, with his allies, tribes of nomad Moors, defeated him in a b.l.o.o.d.y battle, and besieged _Hippo_ for fourteen months. _Augustine_, the bishop of Hippo, animated the courage of its defenders until his death in 430, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Boniface was again defeated, and Hippo was taken. The Vandals pushed on their conquest, but eight years pa.s.sed before _Carthage_ was reduced (439). _Valentinian_ had recognized by treaty the kingdom of the Vandals. _Genseric_ was characterized by genius and energy as well as by cruelty and avarice. He built up a navy, and made himself master of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles. He was able to defy Constantinople, on account of his control of the Mediterranean. At the same time he entered into relations with the barbarians in the north, in order that Aetius, who endeavored to bring in some degree of order and obedience in the empire, might be checked and restrained on all sides. The Vandals were Arians, and made full use of the difference in faith as a motive for plundering and maltreating the orthodox Christians in Africa, whom their arms had subdued.

ATTILA: CHALONS.--The enemy whom _Genseric_ invoked to make a diversion in his favor against the combined rulers of the East and of the West, was _Attila_. For a half-century the _Huns_ had halted, in their migration, in the center of Europe, and held under their sway the Ostrogoths, the Gepids, the Marcomanni, and other tribes. The empire of Attila extended from the Baltic to the north of the Danube, and as far east as the Volga. His name inspired terror wherever it was heard. He was styled "the scourge of G.o.d." The "sword of Mars"--the point of an ancient sword which, it was said, was discovered by supernatural means, and was presented to him--was deemed the symbol of his right to the dominion of the world. Yet, notwithstanding his fierce visage and haughty mien, he was an indulgent ruler of his own people, and not without pity and other generous traits. Such was the dread of him that it was said that no blade of gra.s.s grew on the path which his armies had traversed. First, he attacked _Theodosius II._ in the East, to force him to recall the troops which he had sent against _Genseric_. He crossed the Danube, destroyed seventy cities, and forced the Eastern emperor not only to pay a tribute heavier than he had paid before, but also to cede to the Huns the right bank of the river. Theodosius failed in a treacherous attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate him through Attila's amba.s.sador, _Edecon_, whom he had bribed. Attila discovered the plot, but pardoned with disdain the amba.s.sadors of the emperor who went to him in his wooden palace in Pannonia. He contented himself with reproaching Theodosius with "conspiring, like a perfidious slave, against the life of his master." Regarding Constantinople as impregnable, he turned to the West. He demanded of the Western emperor the half of his states; and, moving to the Rhine with six hundred thousand barbarians, he crossed that river and the Moselle, advanced on his devastating path into the heart of _Gaul_, crossed the Seine, and laid siege to _Orleans_. Everywhere the inhabitants fled before him. The courage of the people in Orleans was sustained by their bishop, who at length, as the city was just falling into the hands of the a.s.sailants, saw a cloud of dust, and cried, "It is the help of G.o.d." It was _Aetius_, who, on the death of Boniface, had thought it prudent to fly to the _Huns_, had come back to Italy at the head of sixty thousand men, obtained forgiveness of _Placidia_, and been made master-general of her forces. He had united to the Roman troops the barbarians who had occupied Gaul, the Visigoths under Theodoric, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Ripuarian and the Salian Franks. On the Catalaunian fields, a vast plain near _Chalons_, whither _Attila_ now retreated to find room for the effective use of his cavalry, the two mult.i.tudinous armies, each composed of a motley collection of nations, met. It was, like the conflict at Marathon, one of the decisive battles of history. It was to determine whether the Aryan or the Scythian was to be supreme in Europe. The battle-field was strewn, it was said, with the bodies of a hundred and sixty thousand men,--an exaggeration indicating that the carnage was too great to be estimated. Attila was worsted. He encircled his camp with a rampart of wagons; and in the morning the victors saw him standing on the top of a mound composed of the trappings of hors.e.m.e.n, which was to serve as his funeral-pile, with torch-bearers at hand ready to light it in case of defeat. Aetius was weakened by the withdrawal of the _Visigoths_: the allies did not venture to attack the lion standing thus at bay, but suffered him to return to Germany (451).

ATTILA IN ITALY.--The next year _Attila_ invaded Upper Italy. He destroyed _Aquileia_, the inhabitants of which fled to the lagoons of the Adriatic, where their descendants founded _Venice_. Padua, Verona, and other cities were reduced to ashes. At Milan he saw a painting which represented the emperor on his throne, and the chiefs of the Huns prostrate before him. He ordered a picture to be painted in which the king of the Huns sat on the throne, and the emperor was at his feet. The Italians were without the means of defense. _Leo I._ (Leo the Great), bishop of Rome, at the risk of his life accompanied the emperor's amba.s.sadors to Attila's camp. Their persuasions, with rich gifts and the promise of a tribute, availed. The army of Attila was weakened by sickness, and _Aetius_ was approaching. The king of the Huns decided to retire to his forests. The apparition of the two apostles, _Peter_ and _Paul_, threatening the barbarian with instant death if he did not comply with the prayer of their successor, is the subject of one of the paintings of _Raphael_. Some months after he left Italy _Attila_ died at the royal village near the Danube, probably from the bursting of an artery during the night (453). The nations which he had subjugated regained their freedom. The chiefs of the Huns contended for the crown in conflicts which dissipated their strength. The expeditions of Attila were like a violent tempest,-- destructive for the moment, the traces of which soon disappear.

About the name of _Attila_, there gathered cycles of traditions, Gallo-Roman or Italian, East German or Gothic, West German and Scandinavian, and Hungarian. Such traditions in Germany formed, later, the germ of the national epic, the _Nibelungen-lied_. They testify to the powerful impression which the hero of the Huns made on the memory and imagination of the different nations.

GENSERIC.--_Attila_ did not see Rome; but _Genseric_, his ally, visited it with fire and sword (455). The emperor was _Petronius Maximus_, a senator, who had slain _Valentinian III._ as the penalty for a mortal offense. The weakness of Maximus as a ruler caused him to be destroyed by the populace. _Eudoxia_, the widow of Valentinian, whom Maximus had compelled to marry the author of her husband's death, had secretly implored the aid of the king of the Vandals. Once more _Leo_ showed his fearless spirit by going into the camp of the Vandal king, and interceding for Rome. He only succeeded, however, in mitigating to a limited extent the horrors that attended the pillage of the city by the fierce and greedy soldiers, the Vandals and Moors, who followed _Genseric_, For fourteen days (June 15-29, 455) Rome was given up to carnage and robbery. The conqueror carried off every thing of value that was capable of being transported. _Eudoxia_ was rudely stripped of her jewels, and with her two daughters, descendants of the great Theodosius, was conveyed away with the conqueror to Carthage. For twenty years longer _Genseric_ ruled over the Mediterranean in spite of the hostility of both empires. An expedition sent against him at the instigation of _Ricimer_, the Sueve, by the Eastern emperor _Leo_, was ill commanded by _Basiliscus_, and failed. But after the Vandal king died (477), his kingdom was torn by civil and religious disorders, and by the revolts of the Moors, and, fifty-seven years after the death of its founder, was conquered by the general of the Eastern Empire.

FALL OF ROME: ODOACER.--After the death of _Maximus, Avitus_ was appointed emperor by the king of the Visigoths in Gaul. The barbarians hesitated to a.s.sume the purple themselves, but they determined on whom it should be bestowed. Of the emperors that succeeded, _Majorian_ (457-461)--who was raised to the throne by _Ricimer_, military leader of the German mercenaries in the Roman army--presents an instance of a worthy character in a corrupt time. At last another leader of mercenaries (_Orestes_, a Pannonian) made his son emperor,--a boy six years old, called _Romulus Augustulus_ (475). _Odoacer_, who commanded the Heruli, Rugii, and other federated tribes,--mercenaries to whom Orestes refused to grant a third part of the lands of Italy,--made himself ruler of that country. The Senate of Rome, in pursuance of his wishes, in an address to the Eastern emperor _Zeno_, declared that an emperor in the West was no longer necessary, and asked him to make Odoacer _patrician_, and prefect of the diocese of Italy. It was in this character--not as king, but in nominal subordination to _Zeno_, the head of the united Roman Empire--that Odoacer governed (476). For more than a half-century people had been accustomed to see the barbarians exercise supreme control, so that the extinguishment of the Western Empire was an event less marked in their eyes than it seemed to the view of subsequent ages.

OSTROGOTHIC KINGDOM OF THEODORIC.--When _Odoacer_ had reigned twelve years, _Theodoric_, king of the Ostrogoths in _Moesia_,--who in his youth had lived at the court of Constantinople, had defended the Eastern emperor, but had been provoked to hostility to him,--was authorized by _Zeno_ to move upon Italy. A host consisting of two hundred thousand fighting-men, together with their families and goods, followed the Gothic leader. Defeated at _Verona_ (489), Odoacer was forced to make a treaty for a division of power, and to surrender _Ravenna_, where he had taken refuge; but very soon, in the tumult of a banquet, he was slain by Theodoric's own hand, either from fear of a rival, or because he suspected that Odoacer was plotting against him. From this time the long reign of Theodoric was one of justice and of peace. More by negotiation than by war, he extended his dominion so that it embraced Illyric.u.m, Pannonia, Noric.u.m, and Rhoetia, and, in the West, Southeastern Gaul (Provence). The Bavarians paid him tribute; the Alemanni invoked his a.s.sistance against the Franks, against whom he afforded succor to the Goths of Aquitaine. In his administration he showed reverence for the old imperial system, and for its laws and inst.i.tutions. He fostered agriculture, manufactures, and trade. Although he could not write, he encouraged learning; and a learned Roman, _Ca.s.siodorus_, he appointed to high offices. He permitted the Goths alone to bear arms. He caused to be compiled from the Roman law a collection of statutes for the Goths and for his new subjects, and established mixed tribunals for causes in which both were parties. Ca.s.siodorus ascribes to Theodoric the words, "Let other kings seek to procure booty, or the downfall of conquered cities: our purpose is, with G.o.d's help, so to conquer that our subjects shall lament that they have too late come under our rule." He did what he could to promote peace among other barbarian nations. The prosperity of Italy, and the increase of its population, were a proof of the good government which it enjoyed. An Arian, he respected the Catholics, confirmed the immunities enjoyed by the churches, and generally allowed the Romans to elect their own bishop. He also protected the Jews. The persecution of the Arians in the East (524) by _Justin I._, awakened in his mind the belief that a conspiracy was forming against him. He accused _Boethius_ of being a partner in it, and adjudged him to death (524). While in prison at Pavia, this cultivated man, whom Theodoric had highly esteemed, composed a work on the "Consolations of Philosophy," which has made his name immortal in literature. The course of Theodoric at this time drew upon him the severe displeasure of his orthodox subjects. Soon after his death (526) his ashes were taken out of the tomb, and scattered to the winds. Hence nothing remains of his sepulcher at Ravenna but his empty mausoleum.

Before the close of the century, as we shall see, another German tribe, the _Lombards_, founded a powerful state in Italy, which continued for more than two hundred years (568-774).

THE FRANKS: CLOVIS.--When _Clovis_ (481-511), a warlike and ambitious chief of the Merovingian family of princes, became king of the Franks, they numbered but a few thousand warriors. The remnant of the Roman dominion on the Seine and the Loire he annexed, after having put to death _Syagrius_, the Roman governor, who was delivered up to him by the _Visigoths_. He made _Soissons_, and then _Paris_, the seat of his authority. A Salian Frank himself, he joined to himself the Ripuarian Franks on the Lower Rhine, and made war on the _Alemanni_, who were planted on both sides of the river. Before a battle (formerly thought to have been at _Tolbiac_), he vowed, that, if the victory were given him, he would worship the G.o.d of the Christians, of whom his wife _Clotilde_ was one. Clotilde was the niece of the Burgundian king, who was an Arian; but she was orthodox. The victory was won. Clovis, with three thousand of his n.o.bles, was baptized by Remigius (_St. Remi_), Archbishop of Rheims. Hearing a sermon on the crucifixion, Clovis exclaimed, that, if he and his faithful Franks had been there, vengeance would have been taken on the Jews. He was a barbarian still, and the new faith imposed little restraint on his ambition and cruelty. But his conversion was an event of the highest importance. The Gallic church and clergy lent him their devoted support. The Franks were destined to become the dominant barbarian people. It was now settled that power was to be in the hands of Catholic--as distinguished from heretical Arian--Christianity. Clovis forced _Gundobald_, the Burgundian king, to become tributary, and to embrace the Catholic faith. He extended his kingdom to the Rhone on the east, and on the south (507-511), confined the Visigoths in Gaul to the strip of territory called _Septimania_, which they held for three centuries longer. _Brittany_ alone remained independent under its king. Clovis was hailed as the "most Christian king" and the second Constantine, and was made patrician and consul by the Eastern emperor _Anastasius_, in which t.i.tles, with their insignia, he rejoiced. In the closing part of his life he took care to destroy other Frank chieftains who might possibly undertake to dispute or divide with him his sovereignty.

DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBES.--If we look at the map at the close of the fifth century, we find that all the western dominions of Rome are subject to Teutonic kings. The _Franks_, still retaining Western and Central Germany, rule in Northern Gaul, and are soon to extend their sway to the Pyrenees, and to conquer Burgundy. The _West Goths_ are the masters in Spain, and still hold Aquitaine, the most of which, however, is soon to be lost to the Franks. Italy and the lands north of the Alps and the Adriatic form the _East Gothic_ kingdom of _Theodoric_. Africa is governed by the Arian Vandals. To the north of the Franks, the tribes of Germany, which were never subject to Rome, have already begun their conquests in Britain. With the exception of Britain, which is falling under the power of the _Saxons_, and Africa, these countries are still nominally parts of the Roman Empire, of which Constantinople is the capital. In the east, the boundaries of the empire, notwithstanding the aggressions and insults which it has suffered, are but little altered.

THE MEROVINGIANS.--The dominion of _Clovis_ was part.i.tioned among his four sons (511). _Theodoric_, the eldest, in Rheims, ruled the Eastern Franks, in what soon after this time began to be called _Austrasia_, on both banks of the Rhine. _Neustria_, or the rest of the kingdom north of the Loire, was governed in parts by the other three. Theodoric gained by conquest the land of the Thuringians, whose king, _Hermanfrid_, he treacherously destroyed. A part of this land was given to the Saxons. The history of the Franks for half a century lacks unity. The several rulers rarely acted in concert. They made expeditions against the Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Ostrogoths. Twice they attacked the _Burgundians_. The last time, in 534, they conquered them, deprived them of their national kings, and forced them to become Catholic. In 531 they made war on the Visigoths to avenge the wrongs inflicted on _Clotilde_, a princess of their family who suffered indignities at the hands of the Arian king _Amalaric_. They crossed the Pyrenees, and brought away Clotilde. A second division of the kingdom was made in 561 among the grandsons of Clovis, and consummated in 567. _Austrasia_, having Rheims for its capital, had a population chiefly German. _Neustria_, where the Gallo-Roman manners were adopted, had Soissons for its capital; and _Burgundy_ had its capital at Orleans. The population in both these last dominions was more predominantly Romano-Celtic, or "Romance." Family contests, and wars full of horrors,--in which the tragic feud of two women, _Brunhilde_ of Austrasia, a daughter of Athanagild, king of the Visigoths, and _Fredegunde_ of Neustria, played a prominent part,--ensued. In 613 _Clotaire II_. of Neustria united the entire kingdom. Brunhilde was captured, and put to death in a barbarous manner. The son of Clotaire, _Dagobert_, was a worthless king. The Frank sovereigns of the royal line are inefficient, and the virtual sovereignty is in the hands of the "Mayors of the Palace," the officers whose function it was to superintend the royal household, and who afterwards were leaders of the feudal retainers. The family of the _Pipins_, who were of pure German extraction, acquired the hereditary right to this office, first in Austrasia and later in Neustria. The descendants of _Pipin of Heristal_, as dukes of the Franks, had regal power, while the t.i.tle of king was left to the Merovingian princes. The race of Pipin was afterwards called _Carolingians_, or _Karlings_. The preponderance of power at first had been with Neustria, but it shifted to the ruder and more energetic Austrasians. The battle of _Testry_, in which _Pipin_ of Heristal at their head overcame the Neustrians, determined the supremacy of Germany over France (687). His son and successor, _Charles Martel_ (715-741), made himself sole "Duke of the Franks;" and _Pipin the Short_ (741-768), the son of Charles Martel, became king, supplanting the Merovingian line (752).

SAXON CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.--In the fourth century, when the power of Rome was declining, the Picts and Scots from the North began to make incursions into the Roman province of Britain. At the same time Teutonic tribes from the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe, began to land as marauders upon the coast. _Honorius_ withdrew the Roman troops from the island in 411; and it was conquered by these invading tribes, especially the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They became one people, called _Anglo-Saxons_, Angles or _English_. They were fierce barbarians, who drove the Celts whom they did not kill or enslave--and whom they called _Welsh_, or strangers--into Wales and Cornwall. They formed kingdoms, the first of which, Kent, was the result of the coming of _Hengist_ and _Horsa_, whom _Vortigern_, the native prince, had invited to help him against the Picts (449). There were seven of these Saxon kingdoms (the _Heptarchy_), not all of which were at any one time regular communities. They were almost constantly at war with one another and with the natives. They had a king elected from the royal family. Freemen were either _Earls_ or _Churls_, the "gentle" or the "simple." The churl was attached to some one lord whom he followed in war. The _thanes_ were those who devoted themselves to the service of the king or some other great man. The thanes of the king became gentlemen and n.o.bles. There were _thralls_, or slaves, either prisoners in war, or made slaves for debt or for crime. Connected with the king was a sort of Parliament, called the _Witenagemot_, or Meeting of the Wise, composed originally of all freemen, and then of the great men, the _Ealdormen_, the king's thanes. After the Saxons were converted, the bishops and abbots belonged to it. In minor affairs, the "mark,"

or township, governed itself.

CONVERSION OF THE SAXONS--The seven kingdoms, in the ninth century (828), were united under _Egbert_, who became king of Wess.e.x in 802. He was called the king of England. Towards the Celtic Christians the heathen Saxons were hostile. The conversion of the Saxons was due to the labors of _Augustine_ and forty monks, whom _Gregory the Great_ (Gregory I.) sent to the island as missionaries in 597. Their first conversions were in Kent, whose king, _Ethelbert_, had married _Bertha_, the daughter of a Frankish king. Augustine, who had great success, became the first archbishop of _Canterbury_, and he consecrated a bishop of London. During the seventh century the other Saxon kingdoms were gradually converted. _York_ became a seat of a second archbishopric. While Britain had been cut off from close relations with the continent, the Celtic Church there had failed to keep pace with the changes of rite and polity which had taken place among Christians beyond the channel. The consequence was a strife on these points between the converted Saxons, who were devoted to the holy see, and the "Culdees" or Old British Christians.

CONVERSION OF THE IRISH.--About the middle of the fifth century the gospel had been planted in Ireland, mainly by the labors of _Patrick_, who had been carried to that country from Scotland by pirates when he was a boy, and had returned to it as a missionary. The cloisters, and the schools connected with them, which he founded, flourished, became nurseries of study as well as of piety, and sent out missionaries to other countries of Western Europe.

CHARACTER OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS.--The Teutonic tribe was made up of freemen and of their dependents. The rights of freemen, such as the right to vote, continued; but these were modified as differences of rank and wealth arose. Their leaders in peace and war were the duke (_dux_), the count (_comes_, or _graf_), and the _herzog_ (duke of higher grade) over larger provinces. The companions of the king and the local chiefs grew into a n.o.bility. Once or twice in the year there was a gathering of the freemen in a.s.semblies, to decree war or to sanction laws. Land was partly held in common, partly by individuals either as tenants of the community, or as individual owners. The soil was shared in proportions by the conquerors and the conquered.

THE CHURCH.--The Germanic tribes were generally more or less acquainted with the Romans, and were Christians by profession. They were subject to the influences of religion, of law, and of language, in the countries where they settled. Power pa.s.sed from the Empire to the Church. The Church was strong in its moral force. Its bishops commanded the respect of the barbarians. They were moral and social leaders. In the period of darkness and of tempest, the voices of the Christian clergy were heard in accents of fearless rebuke and of tender consolation. In the cities of Italy and Gaul, the bishops, at the call of the people, informally took the first place in civil affairs. Remarkable men arose in the Church, who were conspicuous as amba.s.sadors and peace-makers, as intercessors for the suffering, and courageous protectors of the injured. Such a man was _Leo the Great._ The barbarians were awed by the kingdom of righteousness, which, without exerting force, opposed to force and pa.s.sion an undaunted front. There was often a conflict between their love of power and pa.s.sionate impatience of control, and their reverence for the priest and for the gospel. They could not avoid feeling in some measure the softening and restraining influence of Christian teaching, and learning the lessons of the cross. Socially, the Church, as such, "was always on the side of peace, on the side of industry, on the side of purity, on the side of liberty for the slave, and protection for the oppressed. The monasteries were the only keepers of literary tradition: they were, still more, great agricultural colonies, clearing the wastes, and setting the example of improvement. They were the only seats of human labor which could hope to be spared in those lands of perpetual war." Nevertheless, the religious condition of the West, the condition of the Church and of the clergy, could not fail to be powerfully affected for the worse by the influx of barbarism, and the corrupting influence of the barbarian rulers. A great deterioration in the Church and in its ministry ensued after the first generation following the Germanic conquests pa.s.sed away. This demoralization was more among the secular clergy than the monastic.

The "History of the Franks," by _Gregory of Tours_ (540-594), is an instructive memorial of the times. He was himself an intrepid prelate, who did not quail before _Chilperic I_. and _Fredegunde_, but braved their wrath. Chilperic proposed to establish by his authority a new view of the Trinity of his own devising, but was resisted by Gregory, who told him that no one but a lunatic would embrace such an opinion. A still more crude reform of the alphabet, which the Frankish king contrived, and proposed to put in force by having existing books rewritten, Gregory effectually resisted.

ROMAN LAW.--The barbarians were profoundly impressed by the system of Roman law. This they recognized as the rule for the Roman population in the different countries. More and more they incorporated its exact provisions into their own codes. Among the _West Goths_ in _Spain_ the two elements were ultimately fused into one body of laws (642-701). Under the _Franks_, the Roman munic.i.p.al system was not extinguished; the Teutonic count or bishop standing in the room of the Roman president or consular, and a more popular body taking the place of the restricted munic.i.p.ality. The Roman civil polity, with its definite enactments for every relation in life and every exigency, was always at hand, and exercised an increasing control.

STATE OF LEARNING.--The Latin language--the rustic Latin of the lower cla.s.ses--was spoken by the conquered peoples. Latin was the language of the Church and of the Law. The consequence was, that the two languages, the tongue of the conquerors and of the Roman subjects, existed side by side in an unconscious struggle with one another. In the west and south of Europe, the victory was on the side of the Latin. The languages of these countries, the "Latin nations," grew out of the rustic dialects spoken in Roman times. In these nations the result of the mixture of the races was the final predominance of the Latin element in the civilization. In Gaul, the Franks yielded to Latin influences: _France_ was the product. With the fall of the empire, cla.s.sical culture died out. The cathedral and cloister schools preserved the records of literature. The study of language, and the mental discrimination and refinement which spring from it and from literary discipline, pa.s.sed away. Centuries of comparative illiteracy--dark centuries--followed. Yet the monks were often active in their own rude style of composition; and among them were not only good men, but men of eminent natural abilities, who were unconsciously paving the way for a better time.