Outlines of Universal History Part 19

OTHER SETTLEMENTS OF NORTHMEN.--The Northmen made many other voyages which have not yet been mentioned. As early as 852 there was a Scandinavian king in _Dublin_. They early conquered the _Shetland Isles_, the _Orkneys_, and the _Hebrides_. On the northern coast of Scotland, they founded the kingdom of _Caithness_, which they held to the end of the twelfth century. _Iceland_ was discovered by the Northmen, and was settled by them in 874. About the same time _Greenland_ was discovered, and towards the end of the tenth century a colony was planted there. This led to the discovery of the mainland of America, and to the occupation, for a time, of _Vinland_, which is supposed to have been the coast of New England. In _Russia_, where the Northmen were called _Varangians_, _Rurik_, one of their leaders, occupied _Novgorod_ in 862, and founded a line of sovereigns, which continued until 1598.

INCURSIONS OF SARACENS.--The _Saracens_ were marauders in Italy, as the Northmen were in France. From _Cairoan_ (in Tunis), as we have seen, they sent out their piratical fleets, which ravaged Malta, Sicily, and other islands of the Mediterranean. These corsairs, checked for the moment by the fleets of Charlemagne, afterwards began anew their conquests. From Sicily, of which they made themselves masters in 831, they pa.s.sed over to the Italian mainland. Among their deeds are included the burning of _Ostia_, _Civita Vecchia_, and the wealthy abbey of _Monte Ca.s.sino_, They landed on the sh.o.r.es of Provence, established a military colony there, pillaged _Arles_ and _Ma.r.s.eilles_, and continued their depredations in Southern France and Switzerland.

INCURSIONS OF HUNGARIANS.--The _Magyars_, called by the Greeks _Hungarians_, a warlike people of the Turanian group of nations, crossed the Carpathian Mountains about 889. They overran the whole of Hungary and Transylvania. In 900, in the course of their predatory invasions, they penetrated into Bavaria, and the king of Germany paid them tribute. They carried their incursions into Lombardy and into Southern Italy. They even crossed the Rhine, and devastated Alsace, Lorraine, and Burgundy. Such terror did they excite that their name remained in France a synonym of detestable ferocity.

CHARACTER OF THE LATER INVASIONS.--The incursions in the ninth century differed from the great Germanic invasions which had subverted the Roman Empire. The Northmen and the Saracens moved in small bands, whose main object was plunder, and not either permanent conquest, or, as was the aim of the Arabians, the spread of a religion by the sword. The _Hungarians_ alone established themselves in the valley of the Theiss and the Danube, after the manner of the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Goths; and there they remained. The great effect of the last invasion was to accelerate the breaking up of political unity, and the introduction of feudal organization, or the preponderance of local rule as opposed to centralized power.

THE NORTHMEN IN ENGLAND AND ITALY.

Later than the events narrated above, there were two great achievements of the Northmen, which it is most convenient to describe here, although they occurred in the eleventh century. They are the conquest of England, and the founding of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily.

I. THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.

The NORMAN INVASION.--The duchy of Normandy had become very strong and prosperous, and, under the French-speaking Northmen, or Normans, had grown to be one of the princ.i.p.al states in Western Europe. _Edward_, king of England, surnamed the _Confessor_, or Saint (1042-1066) had been brought up in Normandy, and favored his own Norman friends by lavish gifts of honors and offices. The party opposed to the foreigners was led by _G.o.dwin_, earl of the West Saxons. After being once banished, he returned in arms; and Norman knights and priests were glad to escape from the country. Edward's wife was _Edith_, daughter of G.o.dwin. They had no children; and on his death-bed he recommended that Earl _Harold_, the son of G.o.dwin, should be his successor. The Normans claimed that he had promised that their duke, _William_, should reign after him. It was said that _Harold_ himself, on a visit to William, had, either willingly or unwillingly, sworn to give him his support. _Edward_, who was devout in his ways, though a negligent ruler, was buried in the monastery called Westminster, which he had built, and which was the precursor of the magnificent church bearing the same name that was built afterwards by King _Henry III_. _Harold_ was now crowned. Duke _William_, full of wrath, appealed to the sword; and, under the influence of the archdeacon _Hildebrand_, Pope _Alexander II_. took his side, and sanctioned his enterprise of conquest. At the same time the north of England was invaded by the king of the Norwegians, a man of gigantic stature, named _Hardrada_. The Norman invaders landed without resistance on the sh.o.r.e of _Suss.e.x_, on the 28th of September, 1066, and occupied _Hastings_. _Harold_ encamped on the heights of _Senlac_. On the 14th of October the great battle took place in which the Normans were completely victorious. The English stood on a hill in a compact ma.s.s, with their shields in front and a palisade before them. They repulsed the Norman charges. But the Normans pretended to retreat. This moved the Saxons to break their array in order to pursue. The Normans then turned back, and rushed through the palisade in a fierce onset. An arrow pierced the eye of _Harold_, and he was cut to pieces by four French knights. The Norman duke, _William the Conqueror_, was crowned king on Christmas Day; but it was four years before he overcame all resistance, and got full control over the country. The largest estates and princ.i.p.al offices in England he allotted to Normans and other foreigners. The crown of _William_ was handed down to his descendants, and gradually the conquerors and the conquered became mingled together as one people.

EFFECT OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

CHARACTER OF THE SAXONS.--The Saxons at the time of the Conquest were a strong and hardy race, hospitable, and fond of good cheer, which was apt to run into gluttony and revels. Their dwellings were poor, compared with those of the better cla.s.s of Normans. They were enthusiastic in out-door sports, such as wrestling and hunting. They fought on foot, armed with the shield and axe. The common soldier, however, often had no better weapon than a fork or a sharpened stick. The ordeals in vogue, as a test of guilt and innocence when one was accused of a crime, were, plunging the arm into boiling water, or holding a hot iron in the hand for three paces. _London_ was fast growing to be the chief town, and eclipsing _Winchester_, the old Saxon capital. A king like _Alfred_, and scholars like _Bede_ and _Alcuin_, not to speak of old chronicles and ballads, show that literature was valued; but the Danish invasions in _Northumberland_, where schools and letters had flourished, did much to blight the beginnings of literary progress.

THE NORMAN SPIRIT AND INFLUENCE.--The tapestry at _Bayeux_ represents in a series of pictures the course of the Norman conquest.

There we see the costume of the combatants. The Norman gentlemen were mounted, and fought with lance and sword. Of their bravery and military skill, their success affords abundant proof. Although the Normans were victors and masters in England, not only was the conquest gradual, but the result of it was the amalgamation of the one people with the other. The very t.i.tle of _conqueror_, attached to William, was a legal term (_conquaestor_), and meant _purchaser_ or _acquirer_. There was an observance of legal forms in the establishment and administration of his government. The _folkland_, or the public land, was appropriated by him, and became crown-land. So all the land of the English was considered to be forfeited, and estates were given out liberally to Norman gentlemen. The n.o.bility became mainly Norman, and the same was true of the ecclesiastics and other great officers. All the land was held as a grant from the king. In 1085 the making of _Domesday_ was decreed, which was a complete statistical survey of all the estates and property in England. The object was to furnish a basis for taxation. The _Domesday Book_ is one of the most curious and valuable monuments of English history. Among the changes in law made by William was the introduction of the Norman wager of battle, or the duel, by the side of the Saxon methods of ordeal described above. In most of the changes, there was not so much an uprooting as a great transformation of former rules and customs.

ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT.--One of the most important results of the Norman Conquest was the bringing of England into much more intimate relations with the continent. The horizon of English thought and life was widened. One incidental consequence was the closer connection of the English Church with the Papacy. Foreign ecclesiastics, some of them men of eminence and of learning, were brought in. It was this connection with the continent that led England to take so important a part in the Crusades.

THEN NORMAN GOVERNMENT.--As regards feudalism, one vital feature of it--the holding of land by a military tenure, or on condition of military service--was reduced to a system by the conquest. But _William_ took care not to be overshadowed or endangered by his great va.s.sals. He levied taxes on all, and maintained the place of lord of all his subjects. He was king of the English, and sovereign lord of the Norman n.o.bles. He summoned to the _Witan_, or Great a.s.sembly, those whom he chose to call. This summons, and the right to receive it, became the foundation of the _Peerage_. Out of the old Saxon _Witan_, there grew in this way the _House of Lords_. The lower orders, when summoned at all, were summoned in a ma.s.s; afterwards we shall find that they were called by representatives; and, in--the end, when the privilege of appearing in this way was converted into a right, the _House of Commons_ came into being. In like manner, the _King's Court_ gradually came to be, in the room of the a.s.sembly itself, a judicial and governing Committee of the a.s.sembly. From this body of the king's immediate counselors emerged in time the _Privy Council_ and the _Courts of Law_. Out of the Privy Council grew, in modern times, the _Cabinet_, composed of what are really "those privy councilors who are specially summoned." Committees of the National a.s.sembly, in the course of English history, acquired "separate being and separate powers, as the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the government." Thus the English Const.i.tution is the product of a steady growth.

MINGLING OF BLOOD AND LANGUAGES.--A mult.i.tude of Normans emigrated into England, especially to _London_. The Normans became Englishmen, as a natural consequence. But they affected the spirit and manners of the people by whom they were absorbed. By opening avenues for French influence, _chivalry_, with its peculiar ideas and ways, was brought into England. But it must never be forgotten that the _Normans_ were kinsfolk of the Saxons. Both conquerors and conquered were Teutons. The conquest was very different, in this particular, from what the conquest of Germany by France, or of France by Germany, would be. The French language which the Normans spoke had been acquired by them in their adopted home across the channel. To this source the _Latin_ element, or words of Latin etymology, in our English tongue is mainly due. The loss of the old Saxon inflections is another marked change; but this is not due, to so large an extent, solely to the influence of Norman speech. But the English language continued to be essentially Teutonic in its structure. For a long time the two tongues lived side by side. At the end of the twelfth century, if French was the language of polite intercourse, English was the language of common conversation and of popular writings. Learned men spoke, or could speak, and they wrote, in Latin.

NORMAN BUILDINGS.--The Normans built the cathedrals and castles. Down to the eleventh century, the _Romanesque_, or "round-arched"

architecture, derived from Italy, had been the one prevalent style in Western Europe. In the modification of it, called the _Norman_ style, we find the round arch a.s.sociated with ma.s.sive piers and narrow windows. _Durham_ cathedral is an example of the Norman Romanesque type of building. The Norman conquerors covered England with _castles_, of which the White Tower of London, built by William, is a noted specimen. Sometimes they were square, and sometimes polygonal; but, except in the palaces of the kings, they afforded little room for artistic beauty of form or decoration. They were erected as fortresses, and were regarded by the people with execration as strongholds of oppression.

II. THE NORMANS IN ITALY AND SICILY.

THE NORMAN KINGDOM OF NAPLES AND SICILY.--Early in the eleventh century, knights from Normandy wandered into Southern Italy, and gave their aid to different states in battle against the Greeks and Saracens. In 1027 the ruler of Naples gave them a fertile district, where they built the city of _Aversa_. By the reports of their victories and good fortune, troops of pilgrims and warriors were attracted to join them. The valiant sons of the old count, _Tancred_ of _Hauteville_, were among the number. They supported the Greek viceroy in an attack on the Arabs in Sicily; but, on his failing duly to reward them, they turned against him, and conquered _Apulia_ for themselves. Under _Robert Guiscard_ (1057-1085), they made themselves masters of all Southern Italy. They had already defeated Pope Leo IX. at _Civitella_, and received from him as fiefs their present and antic.i.p.ated conquests in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. Twelve years after, _Robert_, with the help of his brother _Roger_, wrested Sicily, with its capital, _Palermo_, from the Saracens, who were divided among themselves (1072). The seaports of _Otranto_ and _Bari_ were also taken by _Robert_. He even entered on the grand scheme of conquering the Byzantine Empire, but his death frustrated this endeavor. His nephew _Roger II_. (1130-1154) took the remaining possessions of the Greeks in Southern Italy and Sicily, united them in the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, and received from the Pope the t.i.tle of king. In this kingdom the feudal system was established, and trade and industry flourished. In culture and prosperity it surpa.s.sed all the other Italian communities. At _Salerno_ was a famous school of medicine and natural science; at _Amalfi_ and _Naples_ were schools of law. But the Norman n.o.bility was corrupted and enervated by the luxury of the South, and by the influence of Mohammedan customs, and modes of thought. During fifty-six years _Roger_ and his two successors, _William the Bad_ (1154-1166) and _William the Good_ (1166-1189), ruled this flourishing kingdom, which then fell by inheritance to the _Hohenstaufen_ German princes. On the mainland and in Sicily, numerous stately buildings and ruined castles and towers point back to the romantic period of Norman rule.

NORMAN TRAITS.--It is a remarkable fact, that the Normans, although so distinguished as rovers and conquerors, have vanished from the face of the earth. They were lost in the kingdoms which they founded. They adopted the languages of the nations which they subdued. But while in England they were merged in the English, and modified the national character, this effect was not produced in Italy and Sicily. In Sicily they found Greek-speaking Christians and Arabic-speaking Mussulmans; and Italians came into the island in the track of the conquerors. The Normans did not find there a nation as in England; and they created not a nation, but a kingdom of a composite sort, beneficent while it lasted, but leaving no permanent traces behind. "The Normans in Sicily," says Mr. Freeman, "so far as they did not die out, were merged, not in a Sicilian nation, for that did not exist, but in the common ma.s.s of settlers of Latin speech and rite, as distinguished from the older inhabitants, Greek and Saracen." Independent, enterprising, impatient of restraint, gifted with a rare imitative power which imparted a peculiar tinge and a peculiar grace to whatever they adopted from others, they lacked originality, and the power to maintain their own distinctive type of character and of speech.

Mr. Freeman has eloquently described the spread of the Normans, "the Saracens of Christendom," in all corners of the world. They fought in the East against the Turks. "North, south, east, the Norman lances were lifted." The Norman "ransacked Europe for scholars, poets, theologians, and artists. At Rouen, at Palermo, and at Winchester he welcomed merit in men of every race and every language." "And yet that race, as a race, has vanished." "The Scottish Brace or the Irish Geraldine pa.s.sed from Scandinavia to Gaul, from Gaul to England, from England to his own portion of our islands; but at each migration, he ceased to be Scandinavian, French, or English: his patriotism was in each case transferred to his new country, and his historic being belongs to his last acquired home." Norman blood was in the veins of the Crusaders who first stood on the battlements of Jerusalem, and of the great German emperor, _Frederic II_.

THE NORMANS.

TANCRED OF HAUTEVILLE.

| +--Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, _d._ 1085.

| | SICILY | +--ROGER, the Great Count, _d._ 1101 | +--Roger (of Apulia, 1127; king, 1130), 1101-1154.

| +--WILLIAM I the Bad, 1154-1166, | _m._ Margaret, daughter of Garcia IV of Navarre.

| | | +--WILLIAM II the Good, 1166-1189, | _m._ Joanna, daughter of Henry II of England.

| +--CONSTANCE (_d._ 1198), _m._ Emperor Henry VI.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.

ORIGIN OF FEUDALISM.--When the Franks conquered Gaul, they divided the land among themselves. This estate each free German held as _allodial_ property, or as a _free-hold_. The king took the largest share. His palaces were dwellings connected with large farms or hunting-grounds, and he went with his courtiers from one to another. To his personal followers and officers he allotted lands. These _benefices_, it seems, were granted at first with the understanding that he might resume them at will. As holders of them, the recipients owed to him personal support. Other chiefs, and land-owners of a minor grade, took the same course. This was the germ of _feudalism_. More and more it grew to be the characteristic method of living and of government in Western Europe after the fall of Charlemagne's empire. The inheritors of his dominion were not the kings of France, of Germany, or of Italy, but the numerous feudal lords. Against the invasions of the Norman, Saracen, and Hungarian plunderers, the kings and the counts proved themselves incapable of defending territory or people. Meantime, the principle of heredity--the principle that benefices should go down from father to son, or to the next heir--had gained a firm footing. Another fact was that the royal offices became hereditary, and were transmitted to the heirs of allodial property. Thus the exercise of government and the possession of land were linked together. In times of danger, small proprietors more and more put themselves under the protection of the richer and stronger: that is, _allodial_ property became _feudal_. This custom had begun long before, in the decadence of the Roman empire, when not only poor freemen, but also men of moderate means, ruined by taxation, put themselves under the protection of the great, and settled on their lands. They became thus _colons_ (_coloni_). In the later times of disorder of which we are now speaking, farmhouses in the country gave place to fortified _castles_ on hill-tops or other defensible sites, about which cl.u.s.tered in villages the dependents of the lord, who tilled his land, fought for him, and, in turn, were protected by him.

THE SUBSTANCE OF FEUDALISM.--"Feudality recognizes two principles, the land and the sword, riches and force,--two principles on which every thing depends, to which every thing is related, and which are united and identified with one another; since it is necessary to possess land in order to have the right to use the sword in one's own name (that is to say, to have the right of private war), and since the possession of land imposes the duty of drawing the sword for the suzerain, and in the name of the suzerain of whom the land is held." Feudalism is a social system in which there is a kind of _hierarchy_ of lands in the hands of warriors, who hold of one another in a gradation. There is a chain reaching up from the tower of the simple gentleman to the royal _chateau_, or castle. In this social organization, there are the two grand cla.s.ses of the _seigneurs_ and the _serfs;_ but the _seigneur_, even if he be a king, may also hold fiefs as a _va.s.sal_.

SUZERAIN AND Va.s.sAL.--The _suzerain_ and the _va.s.sal_, or _liege_, were bound together by reciprocal obligations. The va.s.sal owed (1) military service on the demand of the lord; (2) such aid as the suzerain called for in the administration of justice within his jurisdiction; (3) other aids, such as, when he was a prisoner, to pay the ransom for his release; and pecuniary contributions when he armed his eldest son, and when he married his eldest daughter. These were legal or required aids. They took the place of _taxation_ in modern states. There were other things that the va.s.sal was expected to do which were _gracious_ or _voluntary_. If the liege died without heirs, or forfeited the fief by a violation of the conditions on which it was held, it reverted to the lord. The liege was _invested_ with the fief. He knelt before the suzerain, put his hands within the hands of the suzerain, and took an oath to be his _man_. This was _homage_,--from _h.o.m.o_ in the Latin, and _homme_ in French, signifying _man_. The suzerain might at any time require its renewal. Under the feudal system, every thing was turned into a fief. The right to hunt in a forest, or to fish in a river, or to have an escort on the roads, might be granted as a fief, on the condition of loyalty, and of the _homage_ just described.

PRIVATE WAR.--The va.s.sal had the right to be tried by his peers; that is, by va.s.sals on the same level as himself. He might, if treated with injustice, go to the superior: he might appeal to the suzerain of his immediate lord. But suzerains preferred to take justice into their own hands. Hence the custom of _private war_ prevailed, and of judicial combats, or _duels_, so common in the middle ages.

ENTANGLEMENTS OF FEUDALISM.--Many suzerains were mutually va.s.sals, each holding certain lands of the other. The same baron often held lands of different suzerains, who might be at war with each other, so that each required his service. The sovereign prince might be bound to do homage to a petty feudal lord on account of lands which the prince had inherited or otherwise acquired. The power of the suzerain depended on a variety of circ.u.mstances. The king might be weak, since feudalism grew out of the overthrow of royal power. The king of _France_, with the exception of t.i.tular prerogatives and some rights with regard to churches, which were often disputed, had no means of attack or defense beyond what the _duchy_ of France furnished him. Yet logically and by a natural tendency, the king was the supreme suzerain. "Feudalism carried hid in its bosom the arms by which it was one day to be struck down."

ECCLESIASTICAL FEUDALISM.--The clergy were included in the feudal system. The bishop was often made the _count_, and, as such, was the suzerain of all the n.o.bles in his diocese. Cities were often under the suzerainty of bishops. Besides their t.i.thes, the clergy had immense landed possessions. The abbots and bishops often availed themselves of the protection of powerful va.s.sals, of whom they were the suzerains. On the other hand, bishops, who were also themselves _dukes_ or _counts_, sometimes did homage for their temporalities to lay suzerains, especially to the king. In _France_ and in _England_, in the middle ages, the feudal clergy possessed a fifth of all the land; in _Germany_, a third. The church, through bequests of the dying and donations from the living, constantly increased its possessions. It might be despoiled, but it could defend itself by the terrible weapon of excommunication.

SERFS AND VILLAINS.--In the eleventh century Europe was thus covered with a mult.i.tude of petty sovereigns. Below the body of rulers, or the holders of fiefs, was the ma.s.s of the people. These were the _serfs_,--the tillers of the ground, who enjoyed some of the privileges of freemen, and who, since they were attached to the _seigneurie_, could not be sold as slaves. The _villains_ were a grade above the serfs. The term (from _villae_) originally meant _villagers_. They paid rent for the land which the proprietor allowed them to till; but they were subject, like the serfs, to the will of the suzerain; and the constant tendency was for them to sink into the inferior condition. _Slavery_, as distinguished from serfdom, gradually pa.s.sed away under the emanc.i.p.ating spirit fostered by Christianity and the Church.

THE INHERITANCE OF FIEFS.--At first the _Salic_ principle, which excluded females from inheriting fiefs, prevailed. But that gave way, and daughters were preferred in law to collateral male relatives. When a female inherited, the fief was occupied by the suzerain up to the time of her marriage. It never ceased to be under the protection of the sword. In _France_, the right of primogeniture was established, but with important qualifications, which varied in different portions of the country. The eldest, however, always had the largest portion. In _Germany_, the tendency to the division of fiefs was more prevalent. Among the _Normans _ in _England_, and under their influence in _Palestine_, the law of inheritance by the eldest was established in its full rigor.

SPIRIT OF FEUDALISM.--Feudalism had more vitality than the system of absorbing all the land by a few great proprietors, which existed in the period of the decline of the Roman Empire. Individuality, courage, the proud sense of belonging to an aristocratic order, were widely diffused among the numerous feudal landowners. The feeling of loyalty among them was a great advance upon the blind subjection of the slave to his master. But the weight of feudalism was heavy on the lower strata of society. The lord was an autocrat, whose will there was neither the power nor the right to resist, and who could lay hold of as much of the labor and the earnings of the subject as he might choose to exact. The petty suzerain, because his needs were greater, was often more oppressive than the prince. The serf could not change his abode, he could not marry, he could not bequeath his goods, without the permission of his lord.

THE SAXON, FRANCONIAN, AND HOHENSTAUFEN IMPERIAL HOUSES.

HENRY I [1] 918-936.

| +--OTTO I, 936-973, Emperor, 962, _m._ | 1, Eadgyth, _d._ of Edward the Elder; | | | +--Liutgarde.

| | 2, Adelheid, [2] _d._ of Rudolph II, King of Burgundy.

| | | +--OTTO II, 973-983, _m._ | Theophania, daughter of Roma.n.u.s II, Eastern Emperor.

| | | +--OTTO III, 983-1002.

| +--Henry the Wrangler, Duke of Bavaria.

| +--Henry the Wrangler.

| +--(St.) HENRY II, 1002-1024, _m._ Cunigunda of Luxemburg.

CONRAD I, [1] 911-918.

| +--C. Werner (?) _m._ daughter.