UC-NRLF ^ No.......:. y/M^ Division Range Shelf Received. ..Ua<^^^^^ 187 f^ , »^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OF DANIEL C. OILMAN. I n laBRARY UNIVERSITY OP I ('ALIPORNIA.J LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. ?* a> MIDDLE AGES FROM THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE, TO THAT OF CHARLES Y. 'V^rtjJ7 By miss YONGE, author of "the heir ov redclypfe," etc. REVISED AND PARTLY RE-WRITTEN BT EDITH L. CHASE. /library FIB9T AMsiic^Sliloi^F CALIFORNIA. NEW YORK: LEYPOLDT & HOLT, 1867. ^ 1>\ ^ K^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, By LEYPOLDT & HOLT, lu the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Little, Reknib & Co., PBINTEBS, STEUEOTTPERS A KLBCTR0TTPBR8, 430 BROOKS 8TBEET, N. T. PREFACE Certain caterpillars are said to spin a number of differ- ent threads, all forming one loop, through which they pro- ceed to creep, so judiciously holding the strands apart, that no two of them ever become entangled. In weaving the warp and woof of the History of the Middle Ages, it would be most desirable to possess the skill of the insect ; since, instead of the one broad line of Roman Empire, the thread's of the story do indeed present a complex web, often more tangled in the mind than in reality. It has been attempted to class the subjects according to the periods when some general object or idea influenced most of the historical countries ; looking on the Land- marks rather as a sketch of European events, than as a history of any individual state or country, in the hope that they may be found useful in connecting other more de- tailed records. As an assistance to chronology. Tables of the Sovereigns of each country are given at the end, and if constantly consulted, with the assistance of either a Stream of Time, IV PREFACE. or of the lists of Contemporaries in the " Kings of Eng- land," they will, it is hoped, prevent confusion. The list of Popes is not here given, as it is to be found in the above-mentioned book. English History is only touched on so far as to show how far it was affected by the same influences as the rest of Europe. The national spelling of Christian names has been in general followed, for if each had been Anglicised, the con- fusion of similar names would have been serious ; as, for instance, England, France, Germany, and Castile having each had a Henry IV., greater clearness is gained by terming them respectively, Henry, Henri, Heinrich, and Enrique. It is hoped this consideration will cause the unusual spelling of some few familiar names to be excused. July 21th, 1853. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE FRANK EMPIRE. PAGE Pabt I. State of Europe 1 n. The Church of the Eighth Centuiy .... 5 in. Reign of Charlemagne 6 lY. Breaking up of Charlemagne's Emph-e ... 9 V. Northern Invasions ^13 VI. Dethronement of the Carlovingians .... ii~ CHAPTER n. GROWTfl OF THE PAPAL POWER. Pabt i. Schism of the Eastern and Western Chui'ches . . 17 n. The Normans in Sicilv ....... 18 m. The Nonnans in England . * 21 IV. Affairs of Spain 23 V. Gregory VII. and Heinrich IV 26 CHAPTER in. STATE OF EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Pabt i. The Feudal System 30 II. The Church of the Twelfth Century . . . . _35 m. Chivahy 38 •rv. Learning and Literature 41 V. The Cities 43 VI. Eastern Kingdoms .46 VII. Heraldiy .49 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER ly. THE FIRST CRUSADE. PAGE Part i. Peter tlie Hermit 51 II. The First Crusade . . .' . . . . 54 ni. Kingdom of Jerusalem 57 CHAPTER V. GUELFS AND GHIBELLIKES. Part I. St. Bernard .60 n. The Second Crusade 63 in. Frederick Barbarossa " . . 66 TV. Loss of Jerusalem 69 V. Deaths of Heniy II. and Frederick I. ... 72 VI. The Third Crusade 74 CHAPTER YI. PONTIFICATE OF INNOCENT III. Part i. The Interdict of France ^^78 n. The Fourth Crusade ^BSO in. Latin Empire of the East ^m 82 rv. The Albigenses ▼ 84 V. Close of Innocent's reign '88 I CHAPTER Vn. THE EXTINCTION OF THE HOUSE OF SWABIA. Part i. The Fifth and Sixth Crusades 90 n. Frederick II 93 ni. The Seventh Crusade 95 IV. Manfred of Sicily r ...... 99 V. Conradine of Swabia 101 CONTENTS. VU CHAPTER VIII. DESTRUCTION OF THE CRUSADING POWER IN THE EAST. PAGE Pabt I. The Greeks recover Constantinople .... 104 \ n. The Last Crusade 106 N m. The Sicilian Vespers 108 IV. The Free Cities of Italy 112 V. The Loss of Acre 115 CHAPTER JX. THE PAPACY AT AVIGNON. Part i. State of Leaniing 118 II. Boniface VIII 120 < lll.T7es!fucroirt)f the Order of the Temple . . .123 rv. Swiss Independence 127 V. Heinj-ich and Johann of Luxemburg : . . . 1^0 vx Wai-s of Edward III. and Philippe VI. . . . 182 vn. Jean of France 186 vm. State of Italy 189 IX. Giovanna of Naples 142 X. Pedro the Cruel 144 ' XI. Loss of the English Conquests in France . . . 147 CHAPTER X. THE GREAT SCHISM. Past i. Tbe^Pope and the Antipope _^ . .^ . . . 151 II. Philippe v6ii~ArteveTde~. — —7" o^W' . . .154 ni. The Mad King ... ^J^ . . .157 rv. German Affairs ^^r .... 160 V. The Council of Constance' ^^^W .... 164 CHAPTER XI. GROWTH OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. Part i. The Turks ' ... 167 n. Expulsion of the English from France . . . 171 ni. Good Kmg Rene 173 Vlll CON^TENTS. PAGK House of Avis . . - 177 Carlos of Kavarre 179 The Battle of Varna . . . • . . . .181 Fall of the. Greek Empire . . \ . . .184 Conquest of Greece . . . . ' . . . 186 IX. Inroads of Mahomet II 189 CHAPTER XII. EXPULSION OF THE MOORS. Part i. Charles the Bold 193 Ti. Louis XL 196 in. The Inquisition in Spain 199 IV. The Conquest of Granada 201 CHAPTER XIII. THE CUSTQUE-CENTO. Part i. Ancient Models 205 II. Warfare 208 III. The Discoveiy of America 210 CHAPTER XIV. ITALIAN WARS. Part i. Causes of the War in Italy 215 II. French Conquest of Naples 220 ni. Spanish Conquest of Naples 224 rv. Italian Leagues 231 V. Battle of Ravenna 235 Genealogical Tables . . . . -. . . . 239 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. THE FKANK EMPIKE. 700-987. PART I. STATE OF EUROPE. VOO-900. It is in effect impossible to draw any decided line between the periods of Ancient and Mediaivah history. We have chosen to commence the latter from the Battle of Tours, because it was then that the kingdoms and manners of Europe began to assume somewhat of the form they re- tained during the middle ages. The ancient Western Empire of Rome had, by the year 700, entirely crumbled away ; but the Eastern Empire still existed at Constantinople. The succession there was as irregular as it had always been in Roman times. If the sovereign left a son able to enforce obedience, he usually became emperor ; if not, some wily statesman or successful soldier climbed into the throne. This uncertainty rendered the Greek emperors so mistrustful of their generals, that they never committed the command of the army into their hands in the absolute manner that was alone likely to in- sure a victory ; they seemed to be more afraid of their own generals than of the enemy, and thus no great advantages 2 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. I. were ever gained, unless the emperor himself chanced to be a man capable of taking the command. The free Greeks were also distrusted, and seldom allowed to enter the armies, which were chiefly composed of slaves or barbarians — Bulgarians, Armenians, Franks, or Goths, in the pay of the emperor. Some of these rose to high sta- tion, and in 718, Leo the Isaurian, belonging to a brave nation of Asiatic mountaineers, rose to the imperial dignity, and founded a family which continued on the throne for five generations. The Greek system of government was very bad; it prevented its subjects from protecting them- selves against their enemies, and all it aimed at was, amass- ing treasure for the emperor, by tributes from all who prospered either in trade or in agriculture. This treasure was in part hoarded in the vaults of the Blachernal palace, part was spent in the pomp and luxury of the imperial court, another portion maintained the army of foreigners, and an- other was spent in distributions of corn gratis, to the idle populace of Constantinople, as had been formerly done at Rome. They were a clamorous lazy race, devoted to the shows of the Hippodrome, and little deserved to be main- tained at the expense of the industry of the rest of the empire. With all these defects, however, the Greeks were tlie chief preservers of the civilization and learning that had elsewhere been almost swept away. The Eastern Empire consisted, at this time, of Greece, European Turkey, and Asia Minor, as far as the borders of Syria, together with the greater part of Italy. Syria, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, the north coast of Africa, and all the peninsula of Spain, except the Asturias, formed the great Mahometan Empire, subject to the Khalif of Da- mascus, the commander of the faithful, and representative of tlie prophet. These Arabs had adopted a great degree of civilization, and had become very learned from the study of the writings of the Greeks. Astronomy, medicine, and mathematics were pursued by them, and many discoveries are owing to them, as we are reminded by our Arabic figures, the Eastern name of algebra, the Arabic signs still used for the terms of apothecaries' weight, and the appella- tions of many of the stars. STATE OF EUROPE. 3 In the middle of the eighth century, a great dispute arose between the families of the Abbassides and Ommiades : this ended in the Abbassides obtaining the eastern part of the Empire ; and Almansor, the second monarch of this family, founded on the shores of the Euphrates, not tar from the ruins of ancient Babylon, the city of Bagdad, a name which means the city of Peace. Abderrahaman, one of the Om- miades, having almost miraculously escaped from the massacre of his family, was called to Cordova, where his descendants ruled, during nearly three hundred years, over Spain and Western Africa. A third Mahometan power, the Fatimites, established themselves in Egypt. All three monarchs claimed equally the title of Khalif, or vicegerent of God, while they were bitter enemies of each other. The Sclavonic nations, Bulgarians, Huns, and Avars, oc- cupied the East of Europe, from the Danube northward, and were dangerous enemies to all tlieir neighbors. It is from their national name of Slaves, that our word for a bondsman is taken, a Slave originally meaning a Sclavonian in captivity to a German. The hills and moors of Scotland, Wales, and Brittany were the refuge of the still unsubdued Kelts ; all the rest of Europe was under the dominion of different branches of the great Teutonic race. Of these, the northern tribes, living in Scandinavia, were the most savage, and had not yet heard of Christianity. Their southern neighbors, the Saxons, Swabians, and other tribes, generally included under the name of Alle- manni, or Germans (all men), were beginning to receive a few lessons from missionaries sent from Italy, France, and Britain. The English Wilfred, called in Latin St. Boniface, is revered as one of their first apostles. The Angles and Saxons of Britain, the Franks of Gaul, the Goths of Spain, and the Lombards of Italy, had long been fully Christian- ized. The countries subject to these Teutonic tribes were still chiefly inhabited by the old Keltic population, speaking a language resembling Latin. These were despised by their masters, who turned their once highly honored title of Koman into a term of reproach, and set a far lower price on the life of one of these serfs, as they were esteemed, 4 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. I. than on that of a free Teuton, a Freiherr, or free lord, as he called himself in Germany, or in France and Italy, a baron, or man. He could be judged only by the laws of his own conquering nation, and thus arose the orders of nobility with their privileges. There were more of the Romanized Gauls in Southern France than anywhere else, and the king committed the charge of them, as well as of Burgundy, to great chieftains, called in Latin, duces, or dukes, a translation of their native title Heer Zog, the leader of a host. The cities governed themselves after the old Roman fashion, but each of them had in addition a chieftain from among their conquerors called a Graff,* or judge, and in Latin comes, count, the companion or peer of the duke his employer. It was a for- tunate city that had its bishop for its count. The counts of border cities were called Mark Grafs, counts of the Marches, and the title became marchese or marquis, in Italy, where the Lombard kings had their possessions much intermixed with those of the Greek emperor, so that there were many of these lords of the mark or boundary. Indeed, the Lombards for the most part owned the open country, and the emperor the towns, where his authority was however but little felt. The Venetians, the Romans, and several other cities, called him their master, but really ruled themselves ; and the southern extremity of Italy, once called Magna Grecia, was under a Greek governor termed the catapan. The Venetians were Romanized Gauls, who liad been driven from their homes in Northern Italy by the inroads of Attila, and who had souglit refuge in the marshy islands of the northern part o^the Adriatic. * From Tufen^ to call, because he summoned criminals before liim ; the same word as in Saxon, Reeve, whence comes Sheriff, the Shu-e- reeve, judge of the county. THE CilUECH OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY. PART II. THE CHURCH OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY. 680-775. The sixth and last General Council of the Church was held in 680, to consider of the Monothelite heresy, a doctrine incompatible with the belief in the two natures of our Blessed Lord. It was here condemned, and the Pope, Honorius, was by the authority of the Council deposed, for haviuf? received tO Communion those who professed it. It had been for many years the custom to adorn churches with pictures and images, both for the sake of their beauty and as aids to devotion. Of late, honor had been paid these figures hardly consistent with Scripture ; and in 727, the Greek emperor Leo the Isaurian, resolving to effect a reformation, published an edict against the use of images. He was in consequence called the Ikonoklast, meaning in Greek, the image-breaker. The clergy and people resisted his command, and in Italy it was entirely disregarded by Pope Gregory II., but at Constantinople, Leo forced the Patriarch to resign, replaced him by another favorable to his own views, overthrew the images, and removed the figures extended on the Crosses, though leaving the sign of Redemption untouched. The people resisted, and a persecution ensued. Leo was violent ; and his son Constantine V. was so cruel, that he caused a rebellion, and has ever since been held in detesta- tion for his profaneness and barbarity. It is difficult to judge who was in the right. The honor paid to images was, it cannot be doubted, leading the igno- rant into idolatry, and ought to have been repressed, but at the same time the Ikonoklast emperors acted, in many re- spects, so improperly, that no one can be surprised at the part taken by the clergy. After 120 years, the controversy was set at rest in the Eastern Church, by an edict permitting the use of pictures, but forbidding that of carved images. The Roman Church, on the other hand, maintained that reverence was to be paid alike to paintings and images, and thus arose the first serious dispute between the East and West. The Italians were greatly alienated from the em- peror, and ready to give themselves to another master. 6 LANDMAEKS OF HISTOEY. [ 'HAP. I. At the same time the Popes and Western clergy were promoting a practice of entreating the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, which was fast becoming actual praying to them, as if they could by their own power grant what was asked. The graves and relics of holy persons had always been regarded by Christians with great reverence, and it had been sometimes believed that miracles had been wrought by their touch. This again became an occasion of error. Kelics were sought after as a sort of charm, able to protect him who carried them from evil, and it is no uncommon thing to read of crimes being committed in order to obtain possession of them. The most memo- rable instance of this kind was the body of St. Mark, which was stolen by night from the Christians of Alexandria and carried to Venice. Thenceforward the Venetians deemed themselves the especial care of the Evangelist, fancied lie worked miracles in their favor, took the winged lion for their badge, and called their State the Republic of St. M^rk. PART III. EEIGN OF CHAELEMAGNE. 768-814. The earliest race of Frank kings were, as we have said, called Salic, from the river Saale, and Merovingian, from Meerwig, their first ancestor of note. Another name for them was the long-haired, and a less creditable one was Mois Faineants^ do-nothing kings, for, as they laid aside their ferocity, they became dull, luxurious, and indolent. The Eastern or Austrasian Franks maintained an officer at Soissons to support their interest. He was termed the Maire-du-palais, or master of the household, and became in fact the ruler of the kingdom. Pepin I'Heristal, a Frank from the banks of the Moselle, was the first noted Maire- du-palais, and his son Karl, or Charles, was the same who in 732 saved Christendom by his victory at Tours, and there acquired the surname of Martel, the hammer of the Saracens. Charles Martel had all the power of a king, and his son, Pepin-le-bref, who succeeded him in 741, obtained from Pope Zaccaria permission to assume the crown of France, as a reward for protecting Rome from Astolfo, king of the KEIGN^ OF CHAELEMAGXE. 7 Lombards. He was raised on the shields of the Franks at Soissons, proclaimed their king, and anointed with the holy oil ; and in return for the Pope's support, he promised the See of Rome the sovereignty of the city, which he had no more right to bestow than Zaccaria had to give him the crown of France. The dynasty thus founded was called the Carlovingian, from Carolus, the Latin for Charles. It was the com- mencement of the empire of Germany, as well as of the kingdom of France. In 768, Charles, the son of Pepin, commenced his glori- ous reign. He was a great conqueror, subduing the hea- then Saxons of East and Westphalia, and extending his conquests as far as the borders of Hungary. Wherever he went he spread the knowledge of Christianity, and pro- moted the welfare of the Church. In Germany, he com- mitted the care of his new domains to bishops, whom he made equal in temporal power to his counts and dukes, thinking them more likely to civilize the wild heathens than his fierce and ambitious nobility would be. Charles only met with one serious misadventure. He had invaded Spain, and subdued it as far as the banks of the P^bro. The Gothic Christians of the Asturias thought this an attack on their rights, and instead of making com- mon cause against the Moors, Fruela, king of the Asturias, and liiigo Garcias, first king of Navarre, fell on the rear of his army in the narrow pass of Roncesvalles in the Pyre- nees, and made a great, slaughter. Among the slain was Roland, count of the Marclies of Brittany, and tradition declares that it was a blast from his horn, blown with his last breath, that brought to King Charles the first tidings of the combat. The Abbassid Khalif at Bagdad, Haroun al Raschid, was an enemy to the Ommeiyad khalif at Cordova, and therefore was rejoiced to hear of Charles's invasion of Spain. An embassy was despatched from Bagdad, bringing as presents to Charles, an elephant, and the first clock ever seen in Europe. But far more valuable than these, were the keys of the Holy Sepulchre, which Haroun sent him as a homage to the most powerful Christian sovereign. The 8 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. I. hours were struck by two little figures, and water was em- ployed to move the works. These two princes, Charles and Haroun, are equally celebrated in the legendary lore of their countries ; the Frank in the romances of chivalry, and the khalif in the tales called the "Arabian Nights." Another ally of Charles was Irene, the Greek empress, and her son Constantine, the last of the Isaurian, or Ikono- klast family. One of their presents was a set of chessmen dressed in the Greek fashion, which till the last century were preserved in the abbey of St. Denis. A new dispute broke out between the Pope and the King of Lombardy, and Charles was called in to settle it. He conquered Desiderio, the last king of Lombardy, at Pavia, made him prisoner, and assumed his crown, thus becoming master of the whole of Italy, excepting Magna Grecia. Pope Adrian appointed Charles senator or governor of Rome ; and in the year 800, Leo III., the successor of Adrian, summoned him to quell a sedition of the Romans. As a reward for his assistance, Leo offered to crown him emperor of the West, a title which had never yet been borne by any but a Roman. It was considered that the right of election of an empe- ror belonged to the Roman people, and that the Pope repre- sented them, and thus was revived the old imperial power that had fallen in Romulus Augustulus. The Holy Roman Empire, as it was thenceforward termed, consisted, in Charles's time, of Italy as far as Magna Grecia, excepting Venice and Ravenna; of Germany and France; and of Spain, as far as the Ebro, save the two little kingdoms of tlie Asturias and Narvarre. Its capital was Aix-la-Cha- pelle. It was a mighty man who was able to unite and govern all these realms, and Charles well deserved his title of the Great, le Magne, as it was called in the French- Latin of that period. Church and State went hand in hand in his time, and the clergy did their best to soften and tame the rude Franks, and compose their disputes. Many schools were founded by the emperor, and he was the most diligent scholar in his own domains. Alcuin, a learned English monk, was the instructor of the young princes, and often BKEAKIXG Ur OF CIIAKLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE. 9 of the emperor himself. Charles could speak both the Latin and Frank tongues, and liad leai-nt Greek. He was fond of reading, and his favorite book was St. Augustin's " City of God ;" he took also much interest in astronomy, and reckoning the courses of the stars. His talent for cal- culation must indeed have been great, for he was neither acquainted with the Arabic figures, nor could he write with ease, not having learned in his youth, so that though he carried tablets in his bosom, and practised at leisure moments, he never grew familiar with the art. His meals were very plain and frugal, and his dress extremely simple. It is said that he liked to play his courtiers a trick by making them ride after him through muddy fields in rainy weather, till all their gay garments were spoilt, and then showing them his own sober sheep- skin cloak unhurt. He was a tall handsome man, with a remarkably long neck, well becoming his robes, which could be splendid on state occasions. His moral character was not in eveiy respect perfect, but in general he showed himself a pious, high-minded, and excellent prince, just and devout, and meriting the next place to Alfred in the list of great and good sovereigns. On the last evening of bis life, he was engaged in comparing the Latin with the Greek and Syriac versions of the Scriptures. He died in 814, in his seventy-second year, after a reign of forty-seven years. PART IV. BREAKING UP OF CHARLEMAGNE's EMPIRE. 814-932. . Charlemagxe's great empire soon fell to pieces after his death. He left but one son, Ludwig, called, in French, Louis le Debonnaire, or the amiable, from his pious, gentle, /but rather weak disposition. The nations held together by Charles's firm hand, now fell apart from each other ; 'the Franks hated the Germans, the Lombards abhorred the Franks' rule, and the old divisions between the south- ern Roman Gauls of Aquitaine and the northern Franks revived again. Each party set up a son of the emperor at its head, and these turbulent young men were but too glad 1* 10 LANDMARKS OF IIISTOEY. [CHAP. I. to avail themselves of such support against their father, who was harassed all his life by their rebellions. At one time all the nobles who pretended to be on his side went over to his sons at a place near Colmar, which has in con- sequence been called the Field of Falsehood; and at last, in 840, Louis died, quite worn out with trouble. The empire was completely broken up. Lothaire, his eldest son, was crowned by the Pope as emperor, or as the Franks called him. Kaiser or Caesar, and took possession of Italy, and the country reaching northward from the Alps as far as the Meuse and Moselle, which was called from his name the Lotharrik, and still is known as Lorraine. Lud- wig, the second son, was King of Germany, and Charles, the youngest, called le chauve^ or the Bald, was King of France. Quarrels continued between these brothers and their descendants, on which it is needless to dwell. Lothaire died childless, immediately after taking a false oath before the Pope, and first Ludwig, and afterward Charles, ob- tained the title of emperor. In 911 died the grandson of Ludwig, bearing the same name, uj^on which the Germans chose as their king a noble of their own nation, Konrad, Count of Franconia. The weakness and dissensions of the Carlovingian princes enabled the Saracens to renew their attacks in Europe; they recovered what they had lost in Spain, conquered the island of Sicily, and many small towns in Magna Grecia, and in 847 appearing at the mouth of the Tiber, threatened Rome itself. The Pope was at this time lately dead, and the Romans assembling in haste, elected to succeed him a priest named Leo, the person most fit to protect them in their danger. The enemy did not at that time attempt to take the city, but sailed away after plundering the churches without the walls ; and no sooner were they gone than Leo fortified the city, so that it should be able to resist all further attacks, and increased the flcQt, which he himself commanded when the Saracens next appeared on the coast. He defeated them, and Rome was thus secured. This Leo IV. was an excellent man, but since the tern- BREAKIXG UP OF CIlAllLEMAGNE S EMPIRE. 11 poral power over Rome had been conferred by Charle- magne on the Popes, their office had been looked upon more as that of a prince, or count, than of a bishop, and it was coveted by very unfit persons. The great families of Rome employed both threats, bribery, and even murder and treachery, to obtain the papacy for their sons, and during the next century and a half most of the Popes were disgraceful characters. AH this time, the little State of Venice was going on prosperously, and commencing a trade with Constantinople, which brought her much advantage. In the year 697, the citizens had, for the first time, elected a governor, called a duke, or doge, with much the same powers as a Roman dictator, and which, at this period, he kept for life. It was not till 932 that the Venetians performed their first warlike exploit, which was indeed caused by a great provocation. Candlemas-day, February 2d, was the time chosen by the Venetians for their weddings, and it was usual for all the bridal parties to unite, and go together in procession in their gondolas to the Church of St. Mark, with all the gifts and jewels of the brides displayed. Some daring pirates of the coast of Istria contrived to hide them- selves behind some sand-banks until the procession had passed by, then rushing into the cathedral, snatched away the brides, seized their jewels, threw them into their boats, and sailed away with them. Furious at the outrage, the bridegrooms, the fathers, and all the citizens, flew to arms, hurried to their boats, and with the Doge Candiano at their head, pursued the enemy, overtook them, slew every " man of them, rescued the brides, and not content with this, proceeded to Istria, and cleared the whole peninsula from pirates. In memory of that day a dowry was given by the State every year to twelve maidens, who were conducted in grand procession to be married in the church of St. Mark. L I B R A^Ty^ UNIVERSITY OF . CALIFORNIA. . 12 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. II. PART V. NORTHERN INVASIONS. 800-912. The last of the swarms of the Teutonic nations had begun to rush clown from the north upon Europe, even in the time of Charlemagne himself Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were inhabited by a race possessing the same characteristics as their southern breth- ren, likewise claiming a descent from Odin, and speaking the Teutonic language. They were governed by a number of small kings, and other chieftains called earls, and the lower ranks of land- holders were called bonders. The habitable part of the country was divided into the estates of these bonders, whose wealth consisted in corn, land, cattle, and ships, and who lived in large low wooden houses on the shores of the little narrow bays, or fiords, with which the coast of i^Tor- way is indented. The king had no palace, but lived by turns with his bonders, at their expense, and gave his chil- dren to be fostered or brought up by them. No king could expect to reign, no earl to command, scarcely a bonder to enjoy his farm peaceably, till he had proved his courage by a roving expedition by sea, and brought home a share of the spoil. The chieftains of the fleets of "long keels" were called sea-kings, and great numbers sailed under their command. Plunder, slaughter, and fire marked the course of these vikings or pirates, and great was the terror with which they were everywhere regarded. " From the fury of the North- man, good Lord, deliver us," was a petition in the Litany used for many years. Churches and monasteries were the especial objects of their attacks, both for the sake of their wealth, and because they thought the Christians of Teu- tonic .blood apostates from Odin's worship. For a long time no army was able to resist them ; and there were some of them who were called Berserkars, who, by the use of in- toxicating drinks and other means of excitement, could work themselves up into a state of frenzy in which nothing could withstand them ; they broke the strongest armor, snapped the point of the toughest weapon s,%nd were un- ponscious of woiin4s» \ NORTHERX I>?-YASIOXS. 13 Scotland suffered greatly from their ravages ; and in Ire- land, once the isle of saints, ahnost every trace of civiliza- tion was swept away. After many inroads on the coasts of England, the famous sea-king, Ragnar Lodbrog, was made prisoner and put to death in Northumbria ; and his sons in revenge made the dreadful invasion which was finally re- pulsed by the -great King Alfred, the first monarch who was able to gain a victory over them. At the same time France was overrun by them ; Paris was twice piHaged in the reign of Charles the Bald ; and some, under the gui- dance of the much dreaded sea-king, Hastings, even entered the Mediterranean, and plundered the churches on the coast of Italy. Attempts were made to bring these Northmen to receive holy Baptism, and then to send them away mth gifts, after making them promise to refrain from further piracy, l5ut the expedient was tiied too often and too lightly. There is a story of an old sea-king who, when coming in this manner to be baptized and to receive presents, exclaimed on finding that there was not a sufficiency of white robes for the supposed converts — " I have been washed nine times before, and till now I have always been treated with honor and clad in fair white garments." About the year 900 Harald of Norway vowed that he would never cut his hair till he had subdued all the other petty kings in that country, and during his wars with them he was, in consequence, called Horrid-locks. When he found himself victorious, he caused his friend Earl Rognwald to trim his shaggy hair, and thenceforth was called Harfagre, or the fair-haired. He then resolved to put an end to the piracy of his subjects, banishing all who would not give up their roving habits. The sons of his friend Rognwald early fell under the sen- tence. Thorer, the younger, sailed to Iceland, and there founded a colony ; while Rollo, the elder, called Rollo the Ganger, or walker, proceeded to the south with other ban- ished vikings, intending to conquer a new domain. He en- tered the m^h of the Seine and took possession of Rouen, where he Sj^it the winter of each year, employing the summer in ravaging France, till at last the king, Charles 14 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. I. the Simple, as the only hope of obtaining peace, promised to .give him the province of ISTeustria as a fief, provided he would become a Christian. Kollo was baptized at Rouen, in 912. He had then to pay homage to King Charles by kneeling before him, kissing his foot, and swearing to pay him allegiance. Kollo took the oath, but nothing would induce him to perform the rest of the ceremony, and he appointed one of his followers to do homage in his stead. The Northman, as proud as his master, wilfully misunderstood, and instead of kneeling, lifted the poor king's foot up to reach his mouth, so as to upset king and throne together amid the rude laughter of his Ciiuntrymen. C Neustria took the name of Normandy, and was divided /by RoUo into a number of fiefs, which he gave to his fol- ^ lowers. They adopted the manners of the people amon^ whom they lived, and an earnest spirit of devotion aro^ among them, which soon made these once wild Northmen the noblest and best, as well as the bravest, of the people of France. PART VI. DETHRONEMENT OP THE CARLOVINGIANS. 911-987. At the death of Konrad of Franc®nia, King of Germany, he recommended Ileinrich, Duke of Saxony, as his successor, and desired his brother to carry him the royal ornaments. This Pleinrich, called the Fowler, was an able and excel- lent prince ; and his son Otho, who succeeded him, was also a great and good man. The Lombard kingdom in the north of Italy had fixllen into great confusion, and Huns from the north, and Sara- cens from the south, perpetually overran and pillaged the miserable country. The last king, Lothaire, was poisoned by Beranger, Marchese d'lvrea, who tried to compel his widow, the beautiful and excellent Adelaide, to marry his own son. Adelaide, by the help of a faithful monk, con- trived to escape his power, and travelling ^v niglit, and hiding herself in standing corn or in reeds Hday, slic at length succeeded in joinhig some faithful friends, who, as DETHKONEMEXT OF THE CARLOVIXGIANS. 15 the only means of protecting her from Beranger, sent to ask the aid of Otho of Germany, promising him her hand and the crown of Italy. Otho willingly obeyed the summons,defeated the Marchese, married Adelaide, and was crowned king of Italy. Find- ing that his new subjects were too remote for him to be al- w^ays at hand to protect them, he resolved to make them their own defenders ; and with this end, permitted the towns to raise fortifications, caused the citizens to bear arms, and allowed them to carry on the government within the walls according to any form they chose, provided they owned his supremacy. The dreadful corruption of the Papacy next occupied Otho. Two wicked women, mother and daughter, named Theodora and Marozia, had for many years the nomination of the Pope entirely in their hands, and made the most dis- graceful use of it. Marozia's grandson, John XII., became Pope at eighteen years of age, and was guilty of such crimes, that the people elected another in his place. John appealed to Otho, who coming to Kome, called a council to inquire into the case, and as neither had been rightly elected, and both were very unfit persons, he deposed them, and caused Leo VIII. to be elected in their stead. This was in 965, and from that time the German princes frequently in- terfered to repress the disorders at Rome. In the mean tinie the Carlovingian line in France was fast decaying, and another line rising into power. It would seem that the French, as we may begin to call them — the people, that is, of mixed Gallic and Roman blood, who in- habited the district north of the Loire and Meuse — regarded the Carlovingian kings as a foreign dynasty, and w^ere always rising against them ; and after Charlemagne, the kings themselves were weak and foolish men. Charles the Simple was, after a long course of folly on his own part, and rebel- lion on that of his subjects, secretly put to death at Peronne in Burgundy; his widow fled with her son Louis to her brother. King Ethelstane, in England ; and Rodolf, Duke of Burgundy, -reigned in France till 936. In the mean time Hugh, called the White, Count of Paris, was fast becoming very powerful, and w^as so much loved 16 LANDMARKS OF HISTOEY. [CHAP. I. on account of his French origin, and his amiable and gen- erous temper, that he might easily have obtained the crown on the death of Rodolf. He chose rather to recall the right heir, Louis lY., and with the aid of the brave and pious William Longsword, second Duke of Normandy, he brought the young king back from Paris, and set him on his throne. Louis proved ungrateful ; he was jealous of the power of the Normans ; and when in 942 Duke William was treach- erously murdered by the Count of Flanders, the king seized on his only child, Richard, a boy of eight, and carried him oif to Laon, where he was kept a prisoner, until he was saved by a faithful Norman, who carried him past the guards, hidden in a bundle of hay. As soon as his escape became known, Louis commenced a war against him, but the Normans sent to their northern kindred for aid, and under the command of Harald Bluetooth of Denmark, so bravely defended their little duke, that they gained full success, made Louis prisoner, and forced him to give up his unjust designs. In 954 Louis died ; and his son Lothaire inheriting his hatred of the Normans, called in the Emperor Otho IL, with the King of Burgundy and the Count of Flanders, to attack the duchy ; but they were all driven back from the gates of Rouen by the gallant young duke, Richard the Fearless, the bravest, most devout, and most upright of the princes of France. Count Hugh the White, of Paris, dying in 956, left his son Hugh — called Capet, from the cap or hood he usually wore — under the protection of Duke Rich- ard, who took such care of his interests, that he became even more powerful than his father. He was of the Roman-Gallic, or true French blood, and was so much more popular with the whole nation tlian any prince of the Carlovingian line, that in 987, on the death of Louis v., son of Lothaire, the nobles and clergy, with the consent of Pope John XV., proclaimed him King of France, thus setting aside Charles, Duke of Lorraine, the second son of Lothaire. Hugh was thus the first of the third, or Cape- tian, dynasty, a long^ line of kings who ruled in France for nearly 900 years. ^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHAPTER n. GROWTH OF THE PAPAL POWER 970-1116. PART I. SCHISM OF THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES. 970-1056. In the beginning of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Christian faith was making great progress. The rulers of the wild and remote Sclavonic race in Muscovy were con- verted by teachers from Constantinople, and their prince, Viadimu*, caused their idols to be broken to pieces. Bohemia, a small Se^avonic State shut in by a belt of high hills, and Poland, another small State, were converted about the same time ; and Geysa, Waiwode of Hungary, was baptized in 970. His son Stephen was the first king, and the great saint of Hungary, where his crown was long preserved with great reverence. The Northmen for the most part continued heathens; but when Knute the Dane, after conquering England, em- braced the religion of the Saxons, some progress was made in spreading it in his own country ; about the same time Olaf of Norway, a sea-king who had come to the aid of Ethelred the Unready, had been shipwrecked on the coast of Jersey, and there met with a hermit who converted him to the true faith. He was baptized in London, confirmed at Rouen, and afterward returning to Norway, did all in his power to spread the knowledge of Christianity. His heathen subjects rebelled, and Knute, though himself a Christian, assisted them. Olaf was killed in battle, and Noi"way united to Denmark, but the good seed he had sown grew and increased, and the whole of Scandinavia was, in name at least, a Christian land by the beginning of the eleventh century. In the mean time, it is sad to see how much corruption and division there was at the centre of Christendom. In the year 1024, St. Heinrich died, the last German em- peror of the House of Saxony ; and the House of Fran- 18 LANDMARKS OF HISTOKY. [CHAP. II. conia was raised to the throne. Heinrich III., the second of this line, was, like Otho the Great, called to Rome to quell the disturbances there, for the city was divided be- tween three Popes, each claiming to be the rightful succes- sor of St. Peter. He set them all aside, and appointed a German in their stead, who took the name of Clement II. During the remainder of his reign he always took the ap- pointment of the Pope into his own hands, and though he always used the power properly, and made a good choice, it could not be doubted that it was a usurpation, since the right of choosing a b'.shop had always belonged to the clergy, subject to the approval of the sovereign. Ever since the days of Ikonoklasm there had been fre- quent disputes between the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, each continually finding fault with the practices of the other. At last, in the year 1054, the Patri- arch Cerularius wrote to one of the Greek bishops of the south of Italy, severely condemning several customs ob- served in the Latin service, and at the same time closed the churches at Constantinople in which these were prac- tised. Upon this Pope Leo IX. sent three legates, or messen- gers, to Constantinople, to attempt to come to terms ; but it was in vain, for they insisted on the absolute submission of Cerularius in all respects, and he refused, consistently with his rights as an independent Patriarch. In conclusion, they laid an act of excommunication on the altar of the Church of St. Sophia, and as they quitted tlie city they shook off the dust of their feet against it. Thus unhappily commenced the great schism which has ever since rent the Church, the first division between two parts of the true Catholic Church, which had for nearly ten centuries continued in complete union. PART II. THE NORMANS IN SICILY. 1003-1127. The inhabitants of the extreme south of Italy, which had since the reign of Justinian belonged to the Greek em- perors, were all much more inclined to take part with the Western than with the Eastern Church, and had little loy- THE NOEMAXS IX SICILY. 19 alty or respect for the government of Constantinople. In- deed, they owed it no gratitude, for the weak and hixuri- ous emperors, occupied as they were with wars with the Bulgarians and Turks, had no leisure to assist them in their struggles with the petty Lombard princes, who reigned in- dependently in small mountain fastnesses ; and with the Saracens, who, from their settlements in Sicily and the Balearic isles, made frequent inroads on the coasts, and plundered up to the very gates of the cities. It happened that such an invasion took place at Salerno in the year 1003, just when a band of forty pilgrims were resting there on their return to Normandy. Drogo, the chief of these pilgrims, was astonished to see the cowardice of the Italians, who did not dare to venture beyond the Avail, and taking the command of his forty companions, Jie suddenly attacked the Saracens, and speedily obliged them to retreat to their ships with great loss. The Salernians, surprised at their strength and valor, begged them to remain and defend the city ; and from that time forward, such Normans as grew weary of the quiet rule of Duke llichard the Good, were sure to find employ- ment among the little States of Southern Italy. The most noted of these adventurers were the twelve sons of Sir Tancred de Haute ville, lord of a small village in Norman- dy, all of whom were remarkable for their great personal strength, and several for their talent and wisdom. One of their number, Robert, was called in his own lan- guage Wiseheart, or Wizard, which the Italians corrupted into the word Guiscardo. He took the government of the little town of Aversa, their headquarters, and contrived, by seizing every advantage, and gradually extending his con- quest, to make himself master of the whole province of Apulia. The emperor, Heinrich III., and Pope Leo IX., thinking his progress alarming, assembled an army, consisting partly of Germans and partly of Roman towns-people, of whom the Pope took the command, in spite of all Robert Guis- card's assurances that the Normans were devoted and obe- dient sons of the Church. At Civitella the two armies met, and no sooner did the 20 LANDMAIiKS OF HISTOKY. [CHAP. II. ^Romans behold the Normans in steel armor, mounted on tall heavy war-horses, than they took flight, and though the Germans fought bravely, they were soon routed, and the Pope himself was made prisoner. He was not, how- ever, treated as a captive, but as he was led into the camp, all the ISTormans fell on their knees to ask his blessing, while their leaders, the brothers de Hauteville, came forth with every demonstration of respect, and conducted him into the town of Benevento, as if it was his own triumphant procession. So submissive was their behavior, that the Pope was induced to regard them no longer with enmity, and considering them likely to become friends and de- fenders of his See, he made peace with them, granting to Robert de Hauteville all the lands which he had gained in Apulia and Calabria, and all he might yet conquer, thus giving away the property of the Greek emperor, just as Adrian I. had given away Lombardy to Charles le Magne. Taking advantage of this grant, Robert Guiscard speedily established his dominion over the greater part of Southern Italy, and took the title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria. After his conquests in Italy, Robert did not fear to attack Alexius Comnenus, one of the greatest of the Eastern em- perors, wliom he defeated near Durazzo, in Illyria. Roger de Hauteville, the youngest of the brothers, fought for some years under Robert ; but like him, he was proud, wary, and ambitious, and it was not long before a quarrel broke out between them, and Roger, leaving his brother, took up his abode in a castle on the hills, and maintained himself by robbing the passing travellers. A few Nor- mans, discontented with Robert, gathered round him, and he formed the design of attemj^ting, with their help, to establish a principality in Sicily, which was then partly pos- sessed by the Greeks and partly by the Saracens. ^ His brave young wife, Eremburga, accompanied him in this expedition, and shared all his dangers. In the year 1064 he succeeded in seizing the citadel of the town of Traina, and there during four months he was besieged at once by the Greeks and Saracens, and reduced to great ex- tremities by famine. He was so poor that he and his wife had but one mantle between them ; and when, in a sally, THE NORMANS IX ENGLAND. 21 his horse was killed under him, he could so ill afford to lose the saddle, that in the face of all the enemy, he proceeded coolly to unfasten it, place it on his own shoulders, and carry it back to the citadel. The winter was very severe, and the sufferings of the Normans were great, but they were more hardy and patient than their enemies, who, re- treating from the walls of Traina, left them unmolested till more favorable weather should return. Roger took advan- tage of this interval to go to ask assistance from his brother, leaving Traina in charge of Eremburga ; and so vigilant was this brave lady, that every night she went round the walls herself to visit the watch. Roger promised that if his brother would assist him, he would hold his conquests as a fief of the duchy of Apulia ; and Robert accordingly led his forces to his aid, conquered the Greeks, took Paler- mo and the other principal cities, and drove the Saracens into the hills. Roger tlien became Count of Sicily, and thus was laid the foundation of the kingdom of Na])les. Fifty years later, his son, Roger II., by the extinction of the family of Robert Guiscard, united in his own person the dignities of Duke of Apulia and Count of Sicily. This prince, after taking possession of Naples, made it the cap- ital of his provinces, to which he gave the name of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. PART III. THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND. 1034-1087. The Normans were, during the earlier part of the elev- enth century, the bravest, most enterprising, and most de- voted to the Church, of all the European nations, and they therefore enjoyed much favor from the Popes. Duke Robert the Magnificent, who governed Normandy from 1027 to 1034, was a brave and gallant prince, and one of the most generous and openhanded who ever reigned ; -but the sins of his early youth hung heavy on his con- science, and in 1034 he resolved to set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, leaving his young son, William, under the protection of King Henry I, of France. He travelled bare- foot, and in so humble a dress, that as he passed through a little town in France, a warder at the gate took him for a 22 LAXDMAEXS OF HISTORY. ' [ciIAP. 11. beggar, and struck him over the shouhlers with a halbert. When his companions would have avenged the insult, he prevented them, saying, " Pilgrims ought to suffer for the love of God ; I love his blow better than my city of Rouen." At Constantinople, however, he appeared in state, his mule being shod with silver shoes, which were purposely fastened on so lightly that they were quickly shaken off, as a prize of the crowd. He arrived at Jeru- salem, and after paying his devotions, and making rich gifts to all the holy shrines, set out on his return to Europe, but his health had been injured by the heat of the climate, and he died at the city of Nicea. His son William, after many dangers from his turbulent vassals, and from the treachery of the French, became very powerful, and greatly dreaded by all his neighbors. To us he is best known as William the Conqueror, for it was to him that Edward the Confessor left the crown of England, to the exclusion of the right heir, Edgar the Etheling. Harold, Earl of Kent, a Saxon by his father's side (the famous Earl Godwin), but of Danish blood through his mother, seized the crown on Edward's death, in 1066, but without cordial support from the English, and his brother Tostig brought on him an attack from Norway, the last of the northern invasions of England. Harald Hardrada, half-brother of St. Olaf, was a Chris- tian, and instead of committing piracies on the seas, had fought in Apulia and the Holy Land, cleared the banks of the Jordan of robbers, and afterward served for some time in the guard of the Emperor of Constantinople, who maintained a number of Northmen in his service, under the name of Vaeringers, or, as the Greeks called them, Va- rangians. He was very tall and handsome, and it is said that the Princess Zoe fell in love with him, and on his refusal to marry her, threw him into prison ; but he made his escape, broke through the defences of the harbor of Constantinople, and sailed across the Black Sea, amusing himself on his voyage with composing sixteen songs, in honor of the Princess EUsif of Novgorod, his intended bride. Arriving in Norway, he obliged Magnus, the son of St. AFFAIRS OF SPAIN". 23 Olaf, to yield up to him half his kingdom, and there he reigned till Tostig came to invite him to conquer England. He readily entered into the scheme, and landed on the coast of Yorkshire. The English Harold marched to op- pose him, and though oifering peace to Tostig, fiercely replied wlien asked what he would grant to llardrada, " Seven feet of English earth for a grave, or perhaps a little more, since he is taller than most men." A battle took phice near York, and in it both Tostig and his ally, llarahl llardrada, were slain, fighting bravely, and the Northmen were obliged to take refuge in their ships. This attack caused the ruin of Harold of Ens^land, since durinsr his absence in the north, William of Normandy landed without opposition in Sussex. William came armed with the authority of the Pope, who denounced Harold as a perjured traitor ; and thus, when Harold was killed at Hast- ings on the 5th of September, 1066, tlie English clergy did little or nothing to oppose the progress of the Normans, and without further difiiculty William became king of England. • Foreign habits and foreign laws were brought in by the conquerors, the kings and nobles of alien blood trampled upon the Saxons, and great suftering was caused ; but the time came when the Normans themselves sought to revive the old laws of Alfred and Edward ; and when at length the two nations had learnt to forget their mutual hatred and jealousy, it was the Norman and Saxon spirit combined that raised England to her greatness among the nations. The Anglo-Saxon Church had been in a state of decay and corruption, and reforms were made, often too harshly, but on the whole with beneficial effect. It is to be noted, however, that the foreign clergy now brought in, paid far more deference to Rome than the old Saxons had ever done, and looked to the Pope for assistance in all their struggles with the laity. PART IV. AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. 1031-1134. At this time the Christians in Spain were making great progress. Hachem, the last Khalif of Cordova, died in 24 LxVXDMARKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. 11. 1031, and his dominions were broken up into a number of petty kingdoms, the lesser ones of which were soon con- quered by the Christians. The little kingdom of Navarre had been set up among the mountain fastnesses of the Pyr- enees, and the old Gothic kingdom of the Asturias had now extended itself over Castile, Leon, and Galicia. Fernando I., at his death .in 1065, divided these three kingdoms be- tween his sons, Sancho, Alfonso, and Garcia ; and to his two daughters, Urraca and Elvira, he gave the towns of Zamora and Toro. Sancho was discontented with this distribution, and took up arms against his brothers. He made Garcia prisoner, and Alfonso only escaped by flying by night to Cordova, with his horse's shoes turned backward, so as to mislead his pursuers. While besieging his sister Urraca, in her town of Zamora, Sancho was treacherously killed by a bolt from a crossbow, and as he left no children, his brother Alfonso succeeded him ; but some of the Castilians thhik- ing that the new king might have had some share in the ♦reason against his brother, required him at his coronation to swear that he was innocent. The person chosen to ad- minister the oath was Don Rodrigo de Bivar, a noble of Burgos, the best and bravest man in Spain, whom the Cas- tilians called their Campeador, or champion, and the Moors, El Seyd, the chieftain, or as it is usually spelt and called in Spanish, the Cid. He had been a great friend of Sancho, and not satisfied with one oath from Alfonso, he obliged him to repeat it three times. The king was so much of- fended, that the crown was no sooner placed on his head than he banished the Cid from his domains for a twelve- month. Nothing daunted, Rodrigo replied that he thought himself honored by receiving l)on Alfonso's first royal command ; and so high was the esteem in which he was held, that as he turned away from the coronation banquet, three hundred nobles mounted their horses to follow him. It was proposed to him to take vengeance on the king for the injustice he was sufiering, but the noble and loyal Rodrigo answered, that even the just revenge of a vassal upon his lord was rebellion, and led his brave friends to attack the Moors, over whom he gained several victories. AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. 25 He gave up all the spoil, and all the villages and towns he won, to his king ; and at last, Alfonso was obliged to recall him, but still bearing hatred against him, found a new pre- text for banishing him. In this second exile, the Cid sur- prised and took from the Moors the city of Valencia, wliich, though still owning his ungrateful king as his sovereign, he kept as his own, in the midst of the enemy, for the rest of his life. He lived to a great age, highly honored by the Castilians, and dreaded by the Moors. Valencia was too far from tlie Christian domains to be defended after his death, and he therefore gave orders that as soon as he should expire, his wife and daughters, with all his follow- ers, should leave the place ; and that as their escort, his corpse should be arrayed in full armor, and set upriglit on his good horse l^abieca, with his sword in hand, and Iiis banner displayed, for he well knew that no Moor would dare to attack a troop where they saw even the form of the Cid. Such was the funeral procession with which the cham- pion of Castile was brought home to the cathedral of Burgos, where his tomb is still shown. It was in the reign of this Alfonso VI., called el Sabio, or the Wise, that the growing influence of Rome induced tlie king and clergy to attempt to inti'oduce the liturgy of the Church of Rome, instead of that which had been in use in Spain ever since the conversion of the Goths. The peo- ple, who loved their own old service, demanded that the merits of the two shouhl be put to the proof; and this was done in a strange manner. The trial was to be by fire, and a great pile being made in th6 market-place of Toledo, the two books were both thrown into it, in the presence of a great assembly. The parchment was in neither case con- sumed, but the Roman liturgy was the most injured, and it was agreed to put them to a second trial. It was this time by combat ; a champion was chosen on the part of each book, and a fight took place between them, in which the Gothic liturgy again gained the victory. After this the Gothic was used in all the old churches, but in new ones, and in those recovered from the Moors, the Roman liturgy was adopted. Alfonso's daughter, Teresa, married Henri, a younger 2 26 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. II. son of the Duke of Lorraine ; and in 1095 the king created him Count of Portugal, giving him whatever he might conquer from the Moors on that side of the Peninsula. Sixty years before, in 1035, Ramirez, a younger son of the King of Navarre, had set up another kingdom towards the east, in Aragon ; and thus, before the close of the eleventh century, four Christian States had been founded in Spain, namely, Navarre, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. PARTY. GREGORY YII. AND HEINRICH lY. , 1054-1109. It has been already mentioned that the Emperor Heinrich HI. had, in consequence of the disorders at Rome, taken the appointment of the Pope into his own hands. Hildebrand, a Roman deacon, a man of great talent, and of earnest devotion to the service of the Church, and high in influence with both Pope and Emperor, formed the great design of freeing the See of Rome from the subjection of the emperors, and at the same time of saving it from the still more disgraceful power of the factions of the Roman populace. He hoped to raise it to the dignity which in his eyes became the chair of St. Peter, the occupant of which ought, as he believed, to be the visible representa- tive of the Head of the Church, and in his name to restrain the passions and crimes of the monarchs of the earth. His plans were forwarded by the death of Heinrich HI., which took place in 1054. Heinrich IV., his successor, was only five years old, and was left under the care of his mother, Agnes; and this minority gave Hildebrand the opportunity of taking the first steps toward his great ob- ject. One of these was to forbid the marriage of the clergy. It had been thought from the earliest times that men free from family ties were more likely to be devoted to the Church, and few bishops or priests of any eminence had been married men ; but celibacy was not rendered com- pulsory till the time of Hildebrand, when, in 1058, Pope Stephen II. declared marriage incompatible with the priest- hood, and acting in direct opposition to an ancient decree of the great St. Ambrose, denounced as heretics all the GREGORY VI. AND HEINRICH IV. 27 clergy who refused to put away their wives. The same rule had been enforced in England for nearly a hundred years past, ever since the time of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had attempted to subject all the clergy to the order of St. Benedict. The next year, in the Council called the Lateran, from being held in the Church at the Lateran Gate (where St. Jolm was preserved miraculously from the boiling oil), an- other decree was enacted, chiefly by the influence of Hilde- brand, making it criminal to accept any benefice from the hands of a layman. The bishops were to be elected by the clergy ; and though they were in many instances tem- poral barons, holding large portions of tlie royal lands as the property of their See, they were by no means to receive investiture from the sovereign, or to pay homage to him. For the future, the Pope himself was to be chosen, not as heretofore, by the people of Rome, who had shown them- selves unworthy of the trust, but by tlie seventy cardinal or principal clergy of Rome, the ministers, namely, of the difterent parish cliurches; and as the Cardinals, as they were termed, were at once the councillors of the Pope, and held in their hands the most important appointment in Europe, their oflice was much desired by the clergy. The College of Cardinals was called the Conclave, because its deliberations were conducted under lock and key (in Latin clavis). In 1073, the Cardinals elected Hildebrand himself to the papal throne, upon which he took the name of Gregory VIL, according to a custom which had long pre- vailed at Rome of changing the Christian names of the Popes. Heinrich IV. had in the mean time been very badly brought up. While a young child, his mother took him to the Isle of Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine ; and there certain of her subjects, who were discontented with her govern- ment, decoyed him into a pleasure-boat, and carried him oif to Bremen. The Archbishop of Bremen, under whose care he was placed, was a wicked and ambitious man, and neg- lected his education ; he was surrounded with evil com- panions, and grew up violent, headstrong, and addicted to every kind of vice. 28 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. II. He ill-treated his gentle Italian wife Bertha, wasted his revenues, oppressed his subjects, and insulted his nobles, until rebellions broke out, and both parties appealed to the decision of the Pope. Gregory summoned Heinrich to ap- pear at Rome, and at the same time excommunicated the bishops who had paid a sum of money on their appoint- ments. Very indignant, Heinrich called a Diet at Worms, in which he pronounced sentence of deposition on the Pope; and on the other hand, Gregory, in his Lateran Council, sentenced the king to abstain from the exercise of the royal power, and excommunicated him for his haughti- ness toward the Church. His German subjects elected Rodolf, Duke of Swabia, to the throne in his stead, and he was obliged to cross the Alps to seek a reconciliation with the Pope. He found the cities of Lombardy so friendly to him, that he thought of assembling an army and attacking Rome ; but the hands of Gregory had been so much strengthened by Robert Guis- card, the Norman Duke of Apulia, and by Matilda, the rich and powerful Countess of Tuscany, that it would have been impossible to overcome him by any forces such as Heinrich could collect. He therefore resolved to submit, and came to meet Gregory at the castle of Canossa, which belonged to the Countess Matilda. He left his train without the walls, laid aside his royal apparel, and came barefooted into the court of the castle, though snow was lying on the ground. There he waited, fasting, all that day and all the next ; and it was not till the fourth day that Gregory consented to receive and absolve him, but not to restore him to his au- thority until his conduct should have been inquired into by a Diet of the empire. Such an excess of humiliation so enraged Heinrich, that returning to Germany, he set up an Antipope, and attacked Rodolf of Swabia. In 1080, Rodolf was wounded in battle by Godfrey de Bouillon, a nephew of the Duke of Lorraine. Rodolf 's right hand was cut off in the combat, and as Jie lay dying on the ground, he said, " This hand was raised to swear fealty to Heinrich. Woe to those who made me break my vow." GREGORY VII. AXD HEINRICH IV. 29 Rodolf s death enabled Heinrich to carry the war into Italy, where he laid siege to Rome. Godfrey de Bouillon was the first to scale the walls, and Gregory VII. was driven to take refuge in the great tomb of the Emperor Adrian, which had been made into a fortress, and was called the Castle of St. Angelo. Robert Guiscard came to his rescue, drove Heinrich away, and after burning great part of the city, conducted the Pope back with him to Salerno, as the Romans were, like most of the other Italian citizens, attached to Ileinrich's cause. In 1085, Gregory died at Salerno ; his last words were, " I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore do I die in exile." His character is hard to describe. His idea of a visible head of the Church, ruling the princes of this world, was a great and noble one, and he believed it to be supported by Scrip- ture ; but, as we have seen, it was not accordant with the practice of the primitive Church, and in fact was a devel- opment of that spirit of walking by sight instead of faith, which marked tlie temper of the Church of that time. The latter years of Heinrich passed miserably. His wicked son Heinrich took advantage of the censures under which the Church had laid him, to raise a rebellion ; and though the towns were faithful, the nobles took part with the young man. Heinrich IV. was treacherously seized and thrown into prison, and the Diet of Mainz required him to abdicate. In vain he threw himself on his knees, and besought his son to have pity on his gray hairs ; he was stripped by force of his crown and purple robes, while he exclaimed, " May God look upon your conduct. He makes me suffer for the sins of my youth ; but you, who raise your hand against your lord, you will escape no more than I have. You will be punished even as the Apostle who betrayed his Master." To such poverty was he re- duced, that he was even forced to sell his boots to provide himself with food ; and he came to the Bishop of Spires, humbly entreating for some office in the cathedral, pleading that he was able to read and chant. He was refused even this request ; and turning to the persons present, he «aid, " Have pity on me ; see how the hand of the Lord hath stricken me." He died a few days after, in the year 1106, ^ 30 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [CHAP. III. a sinful, but a much injured man, and we may hope a re- pentant one. Neither the death of Gregory VII. nor of Heinrich IV. .put an end to the dispute respecting lay-investiture. Hein- rich V. continued the same opposition to Rome; and in England the two kings, William Rufus and Henry I., per- secuted Archbishop Anselm on the same ground. At last, in 1107, Henry I. consented that the bishops should take from the altar their ring and staff, emblems of the pastoral power, on condition that they paid homage to the king for their lands ; and in 1122, at the Diet of Worms, Heinrich V., who had married Henry's daughter Maude, gave his con- sent to the same terms. Bishops were to be elected by the clergy of their diocese, subject to the aj^proval of the crown. In 1116 died Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, a great heiress and childless widow, devoted to the Church, and especially to Gregory VII. She left all her possessions to the See of Rome ; and though the Popes could not obtain these lands for many years, this bequest was the real foun- dation of their temporal sway. The possessions of Matilda extended from Lucca on the southwest, to Pavia on the northeast. CHAPTER in. STATE OF EUKOPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. PART I. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. .Before proceeding further, it may be better to explain the leading ideas by which Western Europe was influenced during the earlier portion of the period commonly called the Middle Ages. The great principle of State-government was the duty owed by the holders of land to its owner, whom they were THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 81 hound to serve in all his wars, called in the old Teutonic language, fehda, or feud, for which reason this state of things was called the Feudal System. It was more or less followed out wherever the great Teutonic nation had set- tled — in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Great Britain, and in some degree in Scandinavia. The head of the whole system was the Emperor, under \ whom, according to the theory, the kings held their \ realms ; the dukes were vassals to the kings, the counts to the dukes, the barons to the counts, and the peasants and serfs to the barons. Each of these orders was liable to a summons from the superior one ; and vassals were bound to serve their lord in war for forty days, bringing their own arms and provisions. On the death of a prince or noble, his heir was obliged to do homage to his immediate superior by kneeling before him, and holding his hands while he took the oaths of fealty or allegiance — swearing, that is, to obey and defend him ; and in his turn he received the same oaths and homage from the vassals next beneath him in his own domain. Each of these feudal lords had power of life and death in his own territory ; he had many rights and dues ; and could demand fines from his vassals on certain occasions, such as when he knighted his eldest son, or bestowed his daughter in marriage. In its perfec- tion, the feudal system thus taught at once to command and to obey, to rule and to be ruled. Such was the theory, but it was never regularly carried out, and was very imperfectly observed, though the idea of such an arrangement had a strong influence over men's minds, and often over their actions. The fact was, that though the Emperor was always acknowledged as pre- eminent in rank, the kings never owned his authority at all, and only paid him homage on a few rare occasions, when some chance brought them together i and the kings in their turn had very little power over their great crown vassals. The Emperor, called in Germany, Kaiser, or Caesar, did not obtain that dignity unless he were crowned by the Pope at Rome, and his title of Emperor would have been but an empty honor if he had not at the same time been 32 LA1>^DMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. III. King of Germany, and tbus at the head of the dukedoms of Saxony, Thuringia, Franconia, Austria, Swabia, Bavaria, Lorraine, and Flanders. The great prince-bishops of Maintz, Treves, and Cologne, together with four of the chief temporal lords of the kingdom, the Duke of Saxony, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the King of Bohemia, and the Markgraf of Brandenburg, had the right of electing their king, and had votes at the Diet or great council of the empire, held sometimes at Worms, sometimes at Aix-la- Chapelle. The latter place was the coronation city of the King of Germany, or of the Romans, as he was also called, unless he received the imperial crown, which was only bestowed at Rome ; and at Pavia he put on the iron crown of Lombardy, which gave him a right to the allegiance of the mountain-lords of the Alps, the Count of Savoy, and Marquis of Montferrat, and of a number of nobles dispersed among the hills of Italy. The Popes had usurped the feudal supremacy over Sicily, Apulia, and Calabria. The great dukes, called Kurfursts, or electoral princes, and also Pfalzgrafs, or palatines, paladins, princes of the palace council, had so much power in their own dominions, that the Emperor, even as King of Germany, could not have enforced his authority if he had not usually been him- self one of the dukes ; as in the present period, the reign- ing family were dukes of Franconia, the only place where they were really obeyed. It was the same in France. France, it must be observed, only included the country enclosed between the rivers Meuse, Somme, and Loire, where was spoken the tongue which we call French, but which was then termed the Lah- gued'Oil, in contradistinction to the Langued'Oc, or more Roman language, spoken in the southern provinces, where there had been no intermixture of Franks ; the words oil and oc both signifying yes. This small space belonged to the King of France as Count of Paris, and was all that he could properly call his own, though he received the homage of the lords of the rest of the country now included in France, the counties of Champagne, Toulouse, Provence, and Anjou, and the duke- doms of Aquitaine, Burgundy, and Normandy. This last THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 83 duchy belonged to the King of England, and gave him a right to the homage of the Keltic chief of the duchy of Brittany. In England, the wary policy of William the Conqueror and his two sons, prevented the crown vassals from being actually independent princes, like those on the continent ; and the spirit of the old Saxon laws still main- tained an order of sturdy yeoman-peasants, who preserved a degree of vigor and courage not to be found in the op- pressed Gallic serfs of France. The King of Scotland held the two northern counties of England, as a vassal under the English king ; and the feudal system prevailed in the Low- lands of Scotland, though it had not yet extended to the wild Kelts of the Highlands. In the little kingdoms of Scandinavia it had scarcely yet been carried out ; there were two orders of men beneath the king, the Jarls or nobles, and the bonder or free peasants, who were bound to do him service, bring up his children, and maintain him in their houses ; for there was then no royal palace, and the monarch's only home was a ship, which car- ried him to visit each of his Jarls in turn. There was a great council called a Thing, consisting of the Jarls and bonder , without whose aid the king could not act. Germany and France were thus the regions most influ- enced by the feudal system, both for good and evil, for it was productive of very great mischiefs. Each noble had the opportunity of becoming a cruel tyrant to his inferiors, an enemy to his equals, and a rebel to his superiors. The art of war, as it was then understood, had taught means of defence superior to those of attack, and the castle of the pettiest baron, with its huge solid keep, its ponderous walls, heavy gates, and deep moat, only traversed by a drawbridge, raised or lowered at will, could often eifectually repulse the assaults of a considerable army ; so that a fierce and law- less man had little cause to fear punishment for his crimes ; and from his fortress, often placed like an eagle's nest on the top of some lofty hill or rock, he preyed upon the country round. The armor in which he was equipped was so heavy that it could only be worn by a very strong man, and so costly that only a wealthy one could obtain it. It consisted of a 2* 34 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. Ill hawberk or shirt of linked chains of steel, covering the whole person as far as the knee, where it was met by- plates of steel ; the hands were cased in gauntlets guarded with steel ; the head defended by a helmet, with a visor over the face, to be raised or closed at the wearer's pleas- ure ; and a triangular shield was carried on the left arm. A lance, a sword, a battle-axe, and dagger, were the offen- sive weapons, and sometimes a heavy mace hanging at the saddle-bow ; for these nobles always fought on horseback, riding against each other with their lances in rest, set up, that is to say, obliquely over their horse's head, so as to strike with full force on their adversary's helmet or shield. When the lance was broken, they took the sword, or axe ; and the little dagger, or misericorde (mercy), as they called it, was used to despatch a fallen foe. Men of inferior rank were only allowed the use of bows and arrows, and of short swords, which had little effect on armor of proof, and in battle they were generally trampled down and slaughtered like sheep, by the heavily armed nobles. Indeed, all over France these unhappy peasants were so cowed by long cen- turies of oppression, that they could scarcely use their own weapons ; and it was only the sturdy English and Norman archers whose arrows ever told with any effect in a battle. Thus unchecked, either by fear of the law or of revenge from the injured, the feudal nobles often became dreadful oppressors, using their arms against the king, or against each other, keeping up deadly feuds between families for generations, robbing each other's lands, and waylaying peaceful travellers ; misusing their own serfs, and killing those of their neighbors. There were times and places where no man's life was secure, and the most atrocious crimes were unpunished. The minority of William the Conqueror in Normandy, the reign of Philippe I. in France, the state of Germany and Italy under Heinrich IV. and his son, the dukedom of Robert Courtheuse in Normandy, and the reign of Stephen in England, were the strongest in- stances of the fearful abuses of the power of the nobles. All this time, however, there was an influence at work restraining these fierce barons, and making them i^strain themselves, a voice uplifted against their excesses, and a THE CHURCH OF THE TWELFl'H CENTURY. 35 power which turned their lawless violence to earnestness in the cause of Heaven. It is now to be shown how the Church dealt with the darkness of this world iii feudal times. PART II. THE CHURCH OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. According to the theory of the middle ages, in the same manner as the Emperor was head of the temporal power, so the Pope was head of the spiritual power. Beneath him were the Archbishops, who received from him their pallium or white scarf, of the wool of the lambs which had been blessed by the Pope on St. Agnes' day. Under the rule of the Archbishops were the Bishops ; under them the rest of the clergy ; and last of all, the laity, of whatever rank, from the ting to the serf. The monasteries were, however, exceptions to this regu- lar order of things; the Abbots being immediately subject to the Pope, instead of to the Bishop of the diocese. Moreover, m the frequent struggles between Church and King, many of the Bishops often inclined more to the side of the King than to that of the Pope ; and the Churches of France and Spain were far more independent of Rome than that of Germany, or than England had been since the Conquest. The power of the Church was, according to theory, entirely over the conscience, for no violence, no earthly weapons were to be used either by or against an ecclesiastic ; even crimes committed upon them by laymen were unpun- ished by the temporal power. To be excluded from the Altar was the greatest punishment ever inflicted ; and there was nothing but conscience, public opinion, and fear of judgment to come, to lead a sinner to perform the pen- ances required as proofs of repentance. Peace was to fol- low the Church ; her Altars protected even the murderer from vengeance; her vassals were not subject to th^call to arms, nor liable to the plunder of robber barons ; her con- vents were the shelter of the oppressed ; and even her con- secrated days in each year, each season, and each week, were set apart by what was called the truce of God, which 36 LANDMARKS OP HISTOEY. [CHAP. III. forbade war or bloodshed from taking place from Friday to Sunday, or on any one of the great fasts or festivals. Wherever the lands belonged to a bishop, or to a mon- astery, the peasants, instead of being trodden down and oppressed, were fed and clothed, taught the best modes of tillage, and the*youths of superior piety and abilities were admitted into the convent, and there received an education which enabled them to take holy orders ; and thus often men of the humblest birth rose to the highest eminence and power in the Church. Neither were Church vassals liable to be called to take up arms, except in case of a foreign invasion, when the whole Landwehr, as the Germans called it, ban and arriere ban, or first and second proclamation, as it was termed in France, was called forth to resist the enemy. The rule of St. Benedict had become in the lapse of years somewhat relaxed, and a new spirit of vigor was stirred up about the year 1098, by a monk named Robert, who founded a new convent at Citeaux, in Normandy, with renewed rules of severe poverty and mortification. His regulations were embraced by all the more earnest and devoted men of the time, and most of the distinguished clergy of this period were of the Cistercian order. Convent lands were thus isles of peace in the midst of the wild sea of tyranny and oppression ; and, partly for this reason, partly because the endowment of a monastery was thought to atone for crime, large estates were granted or bequeathed to them by the kings and barons. William the Conqueror was a great founder of abbeys; and St. David of Scotland endowed so many, that a less religious descendant called him "A sore saint to the crown." Beautiful as the Church system was, and founded on a rock of truth and holiness, yet there were tares sown in the wheat. In the first place, the power of the Pope was a usurpation unsanctioned by auglit in the early Church. Further, the Popes did not know their own true strength, tliey did not rest merely in the appeal to the conscience, but when the sinner would not hear them, and disregard- ed exhortation and excommunication, they used earthly weapons to compel him to attend.. Thus Gregory VII. used the support of the Normans against Helnrich IV., THE CHURCH OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. 37 and thus the Popes often took upon themselves to absolve the subjects of an excommunicated prince from their duty toward him, so that distress might induce him to attend to the sentence. It was trusting to false strength when the Popes tried to become temporal sovereigns by assuming power over Rome, claiming the Countess Matilda's legacy, and taking the supremacy of Sicily. Worse still was the profane use made of excommunication for political purposes ; and worst of all the interdicts, when a whole kingdom was cut off from Church ordinances for the offence of its ruler. The abuses of doctrine were silently growing ; the adora- tion of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, the over-rever- ence for relics, and an exaggeration of the belief that alms- giving could atone for sin, prevailed to a great degree ; but the truth was still safe, and gloriously did the Church uphold her witness against sin. No king or noble could long sin on unwarned ; and, excepting perhaps William Rufus, there is scarcely an instance of a man hardened enough actually to profess unbelief. Some of the nobles laid down helm and sword to take up the cowl and sandals, and from proud and lawless tyrants became humble, devout, obedient monks ; and it had a still more desirable effect in softening and turning to good the energies of those who still remained in the world. Before entering on the institution of chivalry, an instance shall be given of the power of the Church over the wild passions of the half-savage princes of the north. Swend, King of Denmark, a nephew of Knute the Great, had caused certain Jarls to be slain for making foolish jests upon him, and when he next attempted to enter the church, William, Bishop of Boskilde, an Englishman, met him at the door, and placing his pastoral staff so as to bar the way, commanded him to retire, calling him " not king, but murderer," Swend went home, took off his robes, and re- turned in sackcloth, with bare feet, to the door, where he lay prostrate till the bishop came to give him the kiss of peace, and to lead him in. He was absolved after three days, and remained the firm fiiend of the bishop till his death, in 1080. 9> 38 LANDMARKS OF HISTOEY. [CHAP. III. PAET III. CHIVALRY. It is impossible to tell whether the institution of chivalry- arose from old Frank habits, or from the influence of the Church ; it is only certain that it was a religious institution, and had a great influence for good over the rude and vio- lent manners of the feudal nobles. Its rules seem to have grown up unconsciously, for nothing is heard of them until they were in full force. Every noble either was, or aspired to be, a knight — ad- mitted, that is to say, into the first order of chivalry, in which alone they had the right to fight in the foremost ranks, to exercise a separate command, or even to sit at table with other knights. Before attaining this honor, a long course of obedience was however necessary. At ten or twelve years old the boy of noble birth became a page, and was obliged to wait on his superiors, lead out the horses, and attend the ladies at their meals, until, when he became capable of bearing arms, he was made an esquire (shield- bearer), and still remaining closely attached to the service of a knight, carved for him at meals, took charge of his horse and armor, followed him closely wherever he went, and kept near him in battle, to obey his orders, supply him with a fresh horse or arms if he lost his own, and to assist him out of the battle if wounded. After a term of such service the esquire was at length considered worthy of knighthood. He was bathed and arrayed in white robes, as tokens of purity ; new armor of a make • superior to what he had hitherto worn, was given to him, and, sword in hand, he watched these arms all night in the church, or castle court, until in early morn- ing the service was celebrated in full pomp. This over, when the young warrior had received the Holy Commu- nion, and the blessing of the bishop or priest on himself and his arms, some elder knight of high rank or fame ap- proached, and holding his hands, heard him make, upon his knees, the solemn vow of knighthood, by which he bound himself to fight only in the cause of God, of the Church, and of his liege lord ; to be the protector and champion of CHIVALRY. 39 the oppressed, the widow, and the fatherless ; never to de- fend an unjust cause, and never to tell an untruth. When the vow had been made he received his arms — clergy and ladies both assisting to lace on his helmet, gird the sword- belt, and bind on the gilded spurs, which were the especial distinction of a knight. Lastly, the old knight who had administered the vow, taking the sword, struck liim on the shoulders with the back of it, and in the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, bade him arise a knight, to be henceforth faithful, brave, and fortunate. Alas ! that the history of chivalry is too often the history of broken vows. Many a knight omitted to practise any part of his vow, and as long as he fought fairly and boldly, considered his chivalry unimpeachable : but there were others of a different stamp ; and though Christianity ought of course to have made them all that chivalry required, yet the desire to be good knights and do " their devoir," was an influence which softened many, and led many others to high and better things. The solemnities attending the conferring of the order of knighthood varied in diflerent countries, the only essential part was theaecolade or sword-stroke. It often happened that squires were thus for their good service dubbed knights in the very heat of a battle ; and these, made where the royal banner was displayed, were called knight bannerets, and considered as a higher grade than those knighted more at leisure. Otherwise there was no distinction of ranks, all knights were equal ; and the youngest son of the poorest baron, if a knight, might demand the service of a prince who still remained a squire. The service of the most renowned old knights was eagerly sought after, and their castles were usually filled with young squires and pages, who were required to learn the practice of arms, and at the same time the chivalrous demeanor, humble at once and spirited, rendering to all their due, and paying especial deference and attention to ladies ; and as the castle court was their chief school for instruction in chivalry, such manners as became a true knight acquired the name of courtesy, while for the same reason the castle of the king, as the centre of the chief assembly of these 40 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [cHAP. III. aspirants to chivalry, came to be called, par excellence^ the king's court. There was great competition between the young knights and squires in their use of weapons ; and in fact, the long lance and heavy sword, with the shield and all the encum- bering armor, required long practice before they could be used with dexterity. It was the favorite amusement of the ladies of the castle to watch the sports and mock com- bats by which the young men were trained ; and they were often called on to declare the victor. Then the youths of two neighboring castles would challenge each other ; and gradually such contentions in prowess were held on a larger and larger scale, till they became almost battles. Half the knights in the kingdom were engaged in them at once ; and ladies sat in galleries ranged round to watch and encourage them, while the king himself, on his throne, adjudged the prize, or threw down his staff to check the game if it be- came too dangerous. These jousts, or tournaments, were the chief delight of the middle ages, followed by feasts and dances, and by high honors to the most successful cham- pion, who sometimes received his prize from the fairest of the ladies present, who was called the Queen of Beauty. Ladies were indeed of no small importance, according to the rules of chivalry. To win their favor was one of the chief objects held out to young knights ; and discourtesy to them was one' of the greatest offences that could be com- mitted against the rules of the order. It was the j* irt of the ladies to instruct the young pages in courteous man- ners, and also in their religious duties ; and the lady of a castle stood in a far higher place of honor and confidence than women before these chivalrous days, except the few who raised themselves to eminence by their own deeds. The grand centre of chivahy was France. The Normans brought it into England, where it was as much a moving spirit as in its own countrys; there was much of its influence among the gallant Christians of Spain, and the free bold Northmen ; though these latter cared little for its rules and ceremonies. The Germans were in general too boorish, and the Italians too degraded and sensual, to understand or adopt chivalry in its fulness. Indeed, it must be remem- LEARNING AND LITERATURE. 41 bered that chivalry was like the Church and State systems of the middle ages — a theory rather than a practice, only now .tnd then carried out in its perfection, and sometimes joined with much evil, as well as with what was great and beautiful. PART IV. LEARNING AND LITERATURE. The knights, never seeing chivalry as they imagined it ought to be, were always fancying that it had once been perfect in times gone by. They were for the most part entirely uninformed ; and as by tradition a few great names had come down to them, such as those of the British King Arthur, and the great Charles, whom they called le Magne, they fancied that in their days tournaments were fought and ladies attended on as in their own time. The belief was kept up by the minstrels, wandering poets and musicians, who travelled from castle to castle, un- touched by any of the numerous marauders of the time, all of whom respected a professor of the " gaye science." They came, harp in hand, and welcomed with delight, to visit each castle in turn, enlivening the long evenings with music and songs respecting the deeds of Arthur and his knights, and of Charlemagne and his paladins ; while the baron and his train of squires sat listening, ranged on one side of the hall, and the lady superintending the spinning and tapestry Avork of her maidens on the other. Roland, the paladin slain at Koncesvalles, was the favorite hero among their legends ; he was said to have been a knight- errant, who wandered from place to place redressing griev- ances, succoring distressed damsels, and aiding the oppressed. It was the Romance of Roland that the Con- queror's minstrel sung at the first onset at Hastings ; and it would be impossible to guess what hosts of gallant young •men were encouraged to high deeds of valor by emulation of his fixncied exploits. Lancelot du Lac stood in the same rank among the knights of Arthur's Round Table, who were sung by the minstrels of Brittany. In Spain there were a number of beautiful ballads about the Cid, who was more really a true knight than either 42 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [CHAP. III. Roland, or Lancelot ; but the chief home of poetry, where at least it was most cultivated, was in Southern France, in Provence and Aquitaine. There, from there having been no permanent settlement of Franks, the language preserved a good deal of the Latin, and was remarkably soft and flowing ; the inhabitants, of old Roman and Gallic blood, had never lost their civilization, and while elsewhere none, save the clergy, could read or write, there it was usual, not only to possess these accomplishments, but to be able to compose verses. Courts of love and beauty were held by the Counts of Provence and Dukes of Aquitaine, where, instead of contending, as in other parts of France, with weapons, vei-ses were compared, and prizes bestowed either of a laurel crown or golden violet. It was, however, said that there was. less purity of manners among the soft self- indulgent Provencals than in the bolder and ruder warriors of the north. The minstrels of Provence were called troubadours, meaning in their own tongue, inventors ; they wandered forth in great numbers into other countries, and it was they who were the chief composers of the chivalric legends already mentioned, which, from being in the old Roman tongue, were termed Romances. In Italy there was something of the same degree of cul- tivation as in Provence ; but elsewhere the rudest ignorance prevailed. Kings, and their great crown vassals, were, in- deed, generally able to read and write, and, perhaps, to un- derstand a little Latin ; but it was very rare for any of the inferior nobility to be even thus far instructed ; and every kind of business which was transacted in writing was in the hands of the clergy. They were chancellors, prime ministers, and treasurers ; and the chaplain of each castle had the charge of the baron's correspondence, which, in general, was not extensive. Indeed, so entirely was learn- ing confined to the clergy, that the very power of reading was considered as a proof of belonging to their order, and entitled persons to claim their privileges ; and from their being always employed to write letters, the word clerk, both in French and English, has come to signify a sec- retary. In the convents, the monks, in their quiet and laborious THE CITIES. 43 life often attained very considerable learning. They were the historians, chronicling the events of the year in a few- Latin words on their parchment volumes ; and they pre- served the writings of the Fathers, together witli such of classical antiquity as had come down to them. The arched cloistral walk round the square court of their monastery- served as their study, where, day after day, they sat reaa- ing, or copying, in cramped and contracted black-letter, many a page of some precious old work, leaving spaces for the capital letters to be filled in with gorgeous red, blue, and gold, by the best artist in their house. y These monks were the architects who commenced those glorious old cathedrals, which have ever since looked down in their quiet solemnity on the confused and jarring cities around them. Hitherto churches had been built in imita- tion of the basilica, or halls of justice, of the later Romans, and of the Church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, with round columns and arches, and sometimes with a profusion of ornament ; but now, in all the northern parts of Europe, a new style began to prevail — that which we call Gothic architecture. The pointed arch, slender clustered shaft, tapered spire, and deep narrow window, with their marvel- lous solemnity and grace, have an especial suitableness for sacred purposes, and must ever be considered as the very >^erfection of Christian art. PART V. THE CITIES. The chief part of Europe was, as has been shown, linked in one great network of feudal holdings ; but this only ap- plied to the possessors of land and the country-people. Those who lived in cities were subject to a different law. All the cities founded in the time of the Romans had, as has been mentioned in the former volume, been provided with a form of self-government, subject, of course, to the Roman empire, but with magistrates elected by the free inhabitants. Many of these cities had never been really subdued by the Teutonic tribes, who were always easily checked by fortifications ; and they had thus carried on their ancient habits and forms of government without 44 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. III. much interruption. Particular rights and privileges were accorded to the owners of houses, Avho answered to what Roman citizens used to be ; the laws were those of Jus- tinian ; and the magistrates and council were elected by their fellow-citizens, in ways, and for periods, varying in different towns. Every burgess was also obliged to assist in the defence of the town, and to pay contributions for the -carrying on of government. The wealthiest of these burghers were usually merchants or head artificers ; and all the craftsmen of each trade were closely pledged to mutual assistance and defence by guilds or brotherhoods, the observance of which was as much a solemnity to them as chivalry to the noble — indeed, the master workmen and their apprentices stood in much the same relation to each other as knights and squires. These towns always owned the king of the country as their master, and opposed them- selves to the nobles, by Avhom their handicrafts were held in great contempt. In the civil wars of the middle ages we more often find the king and the cities fighting against the nobles than the king aild the nobles against the citizens. Where a king lived in the midst of his great towns, he generally found in them better subjects than in the feudal lords ; but when he was at a distance, and his authority little felt, the burghers grew over-fond of power, and be- came rebellious. London and York were the principal cities in England possessing a municipal government (having both been Roman colonies), and Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles stood in the same position in France ; but the most independent cities were those belonging to the German empire. Frank- furt, Augsburg, Hamburg, and many others in Germany, were growing very powerful, from the grants made them by the emperors, in the hope of balancing the power of the nobles. In Flanders, Liege and Ghent and several other towns were at the same time raising themselves to great consideration, by the wealth acquired by their industry. The Flemings were great weavers and cloth merchants, and the riches and strength acquired by this means early made them so strong, that they paid little attention to the au- thority of their counts. THE CITIES. 45 Italy was, however, the country which most abounded in these self-ruling cities. The Emperor Otho the Great had granted them the right to fortify and govern them- selves, and ever since they had been growing in power and wealth. Each town possessed a car called the caroccio, on which were carried its standards blessed by the bishop, and guarded by the most valiant men. It was painted red, and drawn by oxen with scarlet trappings, and no dis- grace was tliought so great as tliat of losing it, so that around it was always the hottest fighting. Milan was the most powerful city in Lombardy, Florence tlie greatest in Tuscany ; and Pisa and Genoa were becom- ing very wealthy and warlike, the Pisans having driven the Saracens from Sardinia, and the Genoese at the same time conquered Corsica. None of the towns in Lombardy or Tuscany were dependent on each other, but all, down to the least village, called themselves free, owned no superior but the emperor, and had their own government and laws. The great nobles of the Alps and Apennines despised these cities, and from their mountain castles often made war on them ; but the lesser nobility on the plains, hot being strong enougli to cope with the rich and warlike citizens, and be- ing also liable to injury from the lawlessness of their fierce neighbors, often made common cause with the towns, and sought and obtained the rights of citizens, so that in Italy there was a mixture of nobles among the burghers. Venice stood alone, still calling herself a city of the Greek empire, and therefore paying no obedience to the German emperor. She grew more and more rich and mag- nificent, carrying on all the trade between the East and West, and hlled with palaces of her merchant princes. The installation of the Doge was one of the most splendid festivals of the middle ages, when, at the head of a mag- nificent fleet, he sailed out of the long range of island pal- aces, and throwing a golden ring into the sea, espoused the Adriatic herself as his bride. 46 LANDMAKKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. III. PART VI. EASTERiq- KINGDOMS. Besides the portions of Europe held together by the Teu- tonic blood, the feudal system, the laws of chivalry, and the adherence to the Western Church, there were still some historical countries which stood, as it were, outside this great European system, more or less divided from it either by their descent, their habits, or their religion. The Northmen and Danes were far sooner civilized than their Swedish neighbors, in consequence, probably, of their intercourse with England, Normandy, and Italy. Their roving temper found occupation in long voyages, in the course of which they discovered and partly settled Green- land, and touched upon a place which they called Yinland, which could have been no other than a part of Labrador. They also made frequent pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and many of them took service in the Varangian Guard at Con- stantinople. Memorials of this service of theirs still remain in Norway, in coins bearing the heads of some of the Greek emperors ; and lately, in an obscure church on the banks of a remote fiord, a picture was discovered, evidently a work of Byzantine art, representing the recovery of the true Cross by the Emperor Heraclius. The Northmen of Iceland were considered as the ablest of all, and it was they who for the most part were the preservers of the genealo- gies which proved the relationship of the Icelander, the baron of England and of Normandy, the Sicilian count, the Varangian soldier, and the Norwegian bonder, and the hereditary share which all alike possessed in the little slip of arable land between the hills and the sea, now inhabited by the bonder, who represented the elder branch of the family. These Icelanders, when embracing the Christian religion, had not laid aside their old traditional songs, or sagas, containing much of the history of their countrymen, mingled with wild legends of serpents, magic swords, and damsels spell-bound in enchanted castles ; and these, con- veyed by them to the Normans, in time became blended with the Keltic and Romantic legends which charmed the ears of the chivalry of Europe. Sweden was not completely converted to Christianity till EASTERN KINGDOMS. 47 the time of King Carl Swerker, in 1160, and for a long time both the Swedes and Northmen had to carry on a war with the wdld Fins, the original inhabitants of their country (of whom the Lapps are the descendants), as well as with the Sclavonians, who were as yet scarcely converted. The Sclavonic kingdom of Poland, with its proud wild nobles, any one of whom might be elected to the throne, was Christian. The Sclavonic Kings of Bohemia and Hungary not only acknowledged the authority of the Pope, but of the empe- ror, and were gradually becoming more and more depend- ent on the empire of Germany. The greater part of Russia in Europe, together with Lithuania and Prussia, was inhab- ited by savage heathens, who extended as far south as Bulgaria, and these were very formidable enemies to the fast-decaying Greek empire ; but tlie great merchant city of Novgorod, and the little principality of Moscow, had been converted to the faith of the Greek Church, and were becoming somewhat civilized, though subject to tlie inroads of fierce tribes of Tartars from the adjoining country and the wastes of Asia. The emperors of the East at this time possessed a terri- tory extending from the Danube and Adriatic, as far as the town of Iconium in Asia Minor ; but it was shut in with enemies, and continually lessened by the loss of town after town, and the Saracens in sudden forays would sometimes advance even to the shores of the Bosphorus ; while, on the other side, the Bulgarian marauders would plunder the plains of Thrace, and only be turned back by the walls of Constantinople and Adrianople. Tlie islands of the Archi- pelago and the hills of Albania were filled with swarms of pirates, plunderers of the merchant ships of Italy, and so iieet and well accustomed to the coast, that even the bold Venetians and Genoese could seldom succeed in chastising them. Another foe > was found in Robert Guiscard, who, not content with seizing all the Capitanate, was proceeding to attack the Greeks in the Peloponnesus, and whose con- quests were only closed by his death. All this time the luxury of Constantinople was on the increase. Literature was cultivated there, and the manners 48 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. III. of the people were very polished ; but everything was smooth and hollow, and outward refinement there existed together with horrible crimes. The Blachernal palace, the abode of the emperors, was filled with the most costly fur- niture and ornaments, and the very walls were crusted with gold and jewels ; hosts of slaves watched every movement of the imperial family, and their subjects paid honors to them better suited to the Divine worship ; but beneath these stately halls were dark and horrible dungeons, con- taining in their depths captives blinded in infancy, for no cause save their relationship to some deposed emperor — warriors, statesmen, any who had given offence, were there confined ; and such imprisonment as this was lenient treat- ment, compared with the tortures and death too often in- flicted. Treachery and murder, sometimes of the nearest relations, are the most frequent events in the history of Constantinople under its later Greek emperors. The Greeks were for the most part too cowardly to de- fend their own country, but trusted to soldiers hired from among the Germans, the Bulgarians, and especially the brave Northmen, who were always honored with the es- pecial confidence of the emperor. From Varing, a word in their own tongue signifying a wanderer, they were called Varangians. The brave little kingdoSn of Armenia was the only Chris- tian State of Asia, though many Christians were spread through the dominions of the Saracens, and enjoyed a tolerable share of freedom. The Khalifs of Bagdad, in whose power Jerusalem was, permitted the Christian pil- grims to worship at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the payment of a moderate tribute. The power of the Saracens was, however, on the decline ; their victories had been fewer of late, and they had lost much of the old Arab spirit of enterprise. Both in Spain and in the East they had attained a high degree of learn- ing, especially in geometry, algebra, and astronomy ; and they studied deeply the writings of Aristotle, and others of the ancient Greeks, translated into their own tongue. Their architecture was extremely beautiful, as the remains in Egypt and in Spain still testify. In the latter country, HERALDRY. 49 the richly-carved arcades, the curiously-pointed, yet swell- in or arches, the elaborate stone lattices, were beautifully mingled with the orange and pomegranate trees of Anda- lusia, enclosing courts hlled with the sweetest flowers, and with springing fountains of cool water; and the snowy heights of the mountain ranges shut in the view. Living in such lovely scenes, the Spanish Moors were full of poetry and romance ; and they had caught from their Castilian neighbors so much of the manners of chivalry, that with their free and generous Arab nature they were noble foes for the Castilian knights. They, too, had tournaments: their women were not closely secluded, like those of the East, but received some- what of the same homage as the lady of a Christian knight. They had orders of knighthood, and strictly regarded the rules of honor; and thus, though constant warfare was kept up on the borders between them and the Christians, it was divested of many of its horrors. On the part of the Castilians and Aragonese, it was a struggle for home, for king, for religion, and carried on for the most part in such a manner as to make them more generous and self-devoted, instead of more violent and rapacious. The history of Hpain abounds in anecdotes, disj)laying the most daring courage and firmness in battle and siege, together with noble loyalty to the king, and generous mercy to the con- quered, and the most punctilious adherence to the rules of lionor. Such was the old Castilian character, the most noble perhaps then to be found in Europe — possibly be- cause it had been trained up in a long course of adversity, borne with courage and constancy. PART VII. HERALDRY. Warriors in battle were distinguished from each other by the marks painted on their shields, or the crests on their helmets. These bearings, crosses, lions, spots in memory of wounds, &c., descended from father to son, and were re- garded with great pride as honorable distinctions. Families were known by them ; and the king alone had the right to change the mark on the shield, the crest on the helmet, or 3 50 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. III. the device on the banner. To know and remember all these different blazonings, and to understand their rules, became a science, Avhich was professed by men called heralds. They were important persons at a court, since they knew the exact rights, and the whole genealogy, of every noble. After a battle, they were sent out to bring an account of the slain, whom they knew by their armorial bearings ; and in lime of war they were generally employed as messengers, since they were always men of peace, and were respected as such — indeed, to offer to injure the person of a herald was considered as great an offence as to attack a priest. When the army was assembled in time of war, the standard was beside the king's tent : it was that of the whole country, and was only borne when the king was present in person. The banner was less in size than the standard, but of the same square form ; it was borne by all the great dukes and counts, and by some of the barons, according to their extent of territory: the pennon was long and narrow, with two points like a swallow's tail, and might be borne by every knight. The banners of France were very noted : St. Martin's, said to be made of part of the cloak which St. Martin gave to the beggar ; and the oriflamme, a gold and red banner, which belonged to the Abbey of St. Denys, near Paris. The king, as Count of Paris, was the protector and cham- pion of this abbey, and therefore had a right to be buried there, and to have the oriflamme carried before him at his coronation procession, and in times of war. The name of the convent, " Mount Joie St. Denys," was the battle-cry of the Counts of Paris ; and St. Denys was considered the patron-saint of France. The patron- saint of England was at first Edward the Confessor, and afterward the soldier, St. George, because he had been the patron of Poitou ; and his name was the war-cry of liichard Coeur de Lion. St. George was also the patron of Portugal and Burgundy. In Castile and Aragon, St. James, or, as the Spaniards called him, Santi- ago, was the most revered ; he had been seen, as they thought, on a white horse, with a banner in his hand, wav- ing them on to victory, in a battle with the Moors. In the PETER THE HERMIT. 61 same manner St. Andrew became the champion of Scotland, because King Achaius, when going to battle with the Picts, had a vision of his cross in the sky. St. Mark was believed the patron of Venice, because his relics had been carried thither from Alexandria; and his winged lion therefore became the heraldic bearing of the republic often called by his name. There was always some meaning in the blazonry of shields and banners. The eagle of the empire was in honor of the old Roman eagle ; and the castle of Castile, and the lion of Leon, were in allusion to the names of the countries. ' England bore two lions from the time of the Conqueror, and three after the reign of Henry II., because a single lion was the armorial bearing of Aquitaine, the French province which Henry obtained by his marriage ; and the lily, or the fleur-de-lis of France, the most beauti- ful of all, gold on a blue ground, was supposed to represent the iris, or lily flower, sacred to the Blessed Virgin, and in its threefold form recalling the greatest mystery of the. Christian faith. ^' f n n aITy PART I. PETER THE HERMIT. 1050-1096. About the year 1050, the Khalifs of Bagdad, with the whole Arab empire, were conquered by the Turkomans, or Turks — a Tartar tribe which had some centuries before settled in the province of Turkestan, and had there adopted Islamism. Neitlier so active nor so excitable as the Sara- cens, the Turks had long remained quiet in their original settlement ; but in the first years of the eleventh century they broke through their former boundaries, and under Togrul Beg, who called himself Sultan, or chief of the 52 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [CHAP. IV. Emirs, they took Bagdad, and dethroned the khalifs. Thus closed the line of khalifs, who, since the time of Mahomet, a period of more than four hundred years, had been regarded as the representatives of the Prophet, and the centre of the religion of Mahomet. In 1065, Tutush Beg, brother of the Turkish Sultan Malek Shah, conquered Syria as far as the borders of Egypt, and took Jerusalem, making a terrible slaughter of the inhabitants. Th& Turks were always much more in- clined to persecution and cruelty than the free and gener- ous Arabs ; and the Christians of Jerusalem were grievous- ly oppressed. The Hospital of St. John, built by some good merchants of Amalfi, where an order of monks re- ceived the sick and weary travellers, was broken up ; the tribute exacted from pilgrims at the gates was greatly in- creased ; and the services of the Church were frequently interrupted by the barbarous Turks, who would rush in howling and yelling, leap upon the altar, throw the sacred vessels about, and break the ornaments. The dangers of pilgrimage were tenfold increased, yet the numbers of these pious travellers scarcely diminished; and among them there came, in 1093, a hermit of Auvergn^ named Peter, a man possessed of great eloquence, quick imagination, and acute, though not very steady feelings. Horror-struck at the condition of the Holy City, he re- turned to Europe, full of a great design for delivering it from its enemies. He obtained a letter from the Patriarch, and, carrying it to Pope Urban II., described to him the desolation he had witnessed, and called upon him to stir up all Christendom to rescue from profanation the places which had been sanctified by the Presence of their Lord. Urban entered into the scheme ; and on the Feast of St. Martin, 1095, summoned a great council of the clergy and people, to meet in the open fields at Clermont, in Auvergne. Standing on a platform, with the cardinals around him, and Peter the Hermit by his side, the Pope addressed the multitude, calling on them to lay aside their own petty strifes, and hasten as one man to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre and the chosen land. Peter the Hermit set forth in glowing colors the scenes he had witnessed, the desecra- PETER THE HEEMIT. 53 tion of the sacred spots, the cruelty of the Turks, and the misery of the Christians, and then, while his hearers were weeping at the thought of such horrors, the Pope bade them take up arms in the holy cause. He told them that the men who died in such a war would be martyrs ; that all their sins would be pardoned ; that the Lord, whose battles they fought, would be with them, and that he would guard their homes in their absence. A loud and vehement cry of " Dieu le veult,''^ " God wills it !" broke at once from the crowd, as they pressed forward in thousands to pledge themselves to become war- riors in the sacred cause. Each who gave this promise re- ceived a cross of red cloth, which was worn on breast or shoulder, to mark them as champions of the Holy Sepulchre. From Clermont the spirit spread far and wide ; Peter and the other clergy spread the summons from place to place, and everywhere multitudes arose to fight for Jerusalem. Peasants and serfs, monks and beggars, even women and children, took the cross ; and thoughtlessly, either not count- ing the cost, or led by over-confidence and excitement to expect a miracle — a great host without money, without provisions, without discipline, was collected together ; and their guidance was undertaken by Peter himself, together with a German squire, named Walter, and usually called Habenichts, or having nothing. They set out eastward through Germany, with so little idea, on the part of the unfortunate peasants, of their route, that at every town they asked if that was Jerusalem. They soon began to suffer from hunger, and their leaders found it impossible to restrain them from obtaining food by plunder; famine, disease, and desertion, thinned their numbers ; the Hun- garians and Greeks killed many of them ; and when at last the survivors arrived at Constantinople, they were in so wretched a condition, that Peter, who was always more eager than steady, despaired of their safety, and quitted them. Walter Habenichts, with more constancy, pro- ceeded with them into Asia, and there died bravely before Nicea, where the last survivors were cut off by the Turks, affording a proof how little excitement and warmth can avail without steadfastness and wisdom. 64 LANDMARKS OF IIISTOEY. [CHAP. IV. PART II, THE FIRST CRUSADE. 1095-1096. In the mean time the j^rinces of Europe had been, with no less earnestness, but with greater prudence, preparing for their share in the Holy War, and assembling their forces on the banks of the Rhine. The command of the expedition was given to Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, a descendant of Charle- magne. He was the same who, under Heinrich IV., had been the first to scale the walls of Rome, fighting in obedi- ence to his liege lord ; but soon after the taking of Rome, having been attacked with a violent fever, he blamed him- self extremely for having fought against the Church, and vowed to go on pilgrimage as soon as he recovered. He was one of the most pious, brave, and devoted of warriors, of great strength, and of wisdom, which made him uni- versally looked up to. Under his command were Robert Duke of Normandy, the gallant but rash son of William the Conqueror ; Hugh Count of Vermandois, brother to Philippe I. of France ; Raymond, the wise old Count of Toulouse, and many other great nobles and knights, of whom the chief were two of the Hauteville princes of the Two 8iciiies. Of these, Bohe- mond was the eldest son of Robert Guiscard, but his mother had been discarded, and he himself put out of the succession, in order that his ambitious father might marry the heiress of a county in Calabria. He inherited much of his father's wily and grasping temper, and instead of join- ing the Crusade with the devout desire of rescuing the Sepulchre, was chiefly bent on obtaining some Eastern principality for himself. His cousin Tancred, son of an- other of the twelve brothers de Hauteville, was of a differ- ent mould ; brave, generous, courteous, and forbearing, he was the hero of the Crusade, and one of the brightest patterns of chivalry. This gallant army marched in the same course as their predecessors, and in due time arrived at Constantinople. The reigning Greek emperor was Alexius Comnenus, who in his youth had shown much vigor and courage as a soldier, but on the throne was as timid, deceitful, and luxurious as most of the other Greek THE FIRST CRUSADE. 66 monarchs. His daughter, Anna Comncna, wrote a history of his reign, in which she describes the terror of the Greeks at the sight of the tall, stern, iron-clad Franks, the name given in the East to all the Teutonic nations. Great was the mutual dislike and contempt in which these two nations held each other ; each regarded the other as schismatic in religion ; and while the Greeks dreaded the violence of the strangers, and despised their rudeness and ignorance, the Franks laughed at the luxury and cowardice of their hosts, and hated their perfidy. Godfrey himself had seriou8 misunderstandings with Alexius, which prevented the whole Christian world from making common cause against the infidels. The Greek emperor claimed, as well he might, the lands possessed by the Turks in Syria as a part of the Eastern Empire, and before afibrding the Crusaders means of crossing the Bos- phorus, required of them to swear to give up to him all they might conquer. Godfrey, who deemed himself bound to obey none but the Church and his own German emperor, refused at first; and Bohemond wished to involve the Crusaders in a quarrel which might give them a pretext for dethroning Alexius and seizing his empire ; but God- frey would not be turned aside from the objects of the Crusade, and at length agreed that he, with all the other nobles, should take the oath of fealty. The free barons of France and Germany were excessively displeased with the arrangement, and were so disgusted at the servile homage paid to Alexius, that while the ceremony of swearing allegiance was being performed, a knight named Robert of Paris seated himself upon the emperor's throne, and such was the terror with which the Franks were regarded, that no resentment was shown for the insult. This ceremony over, the Crusaders were transported across the Bosphorus, and entered Asia Minor, where, near Nicea, they first met the Turks, and after much hard fight- ing, gained several victories. After a long siege, Antioch was taken, upon which Bohemond demanded it for a prin- cipality for himself; indeed, there was so much selfishness and party spirit among the Crusaders, that had not God- frey, Robert, and Tancred been earnest and single-minded, 56 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IV. the whole Christian force would have been dispersed, each guarding the towns of Asia for himself, instead of march- ing on to Jerusalem. They, however, with the Pope's legate, Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, succeeded in keeping the army together, and only leaving Bohemond and a few troops to guard Antioch, they fought their way onward. Tancred, with a few other knights, was the first to come in sight of Jerusalem. When the Crusaders beheld the Holy City, the object of all their hopes and toils, they all at once fell down on their knees, weeping and giving thanks, and even kissing the sacred earth, and as they rose, hymns and psalms of praise were sung at once by the whole army. They encamped around the city, and prepared for the assault by raising great wooden towers to be wheeled against the walls, with a sort of drawbridge on the top which might be dropped on the battlements. Many fierce combats took place during the siege, before the appointed day came for the assault, when Godfrey and Raymond attacked the city on opposite sides, and at last succeeded in elFecting their entrance. The gates were thrown open, and Tancred rode in at the head of the knights. Their course was checked by the sound of the chant of the Miserere from a neighboring building ; they entered it and found themselves in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, among the Christians of Jerusalem. Their joy was great ; but before giving them- selves time to rejoice, they thought that they were bound, like the Israelites of old, utterly to destroy the unbelieving inhabitants. In spite of the kind and merciful temper of Godfrey and Tancred, they encouraged a dreadful slaughter ; the Turks were cut down and slain wherever they were found ; and while the streets still streamed with blood, the Crusaders threw ofi" their helmets, bared their feet, and came humbly to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where they sang hymns of praise, confessed their sins, and re- ceived the Holy Communion. -- A i^ _Ll; ^1 II It KINGDOM OF JERUaAXEi^Tj^Lj |^f*( ^ 67*.J f PART III. KIXGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 1096-1110. The Crusaders resolved to elect a king as the defender of the Holy Sepulchre, and after some deliberation, they made choice of the noble Godfrey de Bouillon. He was led to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and took the oaths of a sovereign, but he never would take the title of king, nor wear a crown, saying it was not for him to wear a crown of gold where his Lord had worn a crown of thorns. Such of the principal Crusaders as intended to remain in the Holy Land received different towns and castles to hold as fiefs under him. Edessa was given to his brother Baldwin, Antioch to Bohemond, Tripoli to Raymond of Toulouse, and Galilee to Tancred. All these phxces were separated from each other by long spaces, inhabited by the inhdels ; the Turks endangered them on the northern frontier, and the Saracens on the southern, and when the chief body of the Crusaders had returned home, only three hundred knights and two thousand foot-soldiers remained in the East. The hospital of the merchants of Amalfi was restored on the recovery of Jerusalem, and the monks who served there, perceiving how few remained to fight in defence of the Christian conquests, applied to the Pope for permission to bear arms. It was granted ; and Gerard, their Superior, drew up the rules for the new Order of Hospitallers, or knights of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist. They were still to be monks, priests, and nurses of the sick, but they were also to be warriors ; their house was at once a convent, a hospital, and a fortress ; and to the monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they added the vow of knighthood. Another such brotherhood arose at the same time, and took its name from the Temple. The Knights Hospitallers wore black mantles with white crosses, the Knights Tem- plars w^hite mantles with black crosses ; the head of each order was called the Grand Master ; he took rank with sovereign princes, owned no authority but that of the Pope, and had absolute power over the brethren. These were all of noble birth, and were bound to devote themselves en- 3* 68 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IV. tirely to the defence of the Holy Sepulchre, and never to make peace or truce with the Saracens, as the Crusaders indiscriminately called both Turks and Arabs. The head- quarters of each order Avere at Jerusalem ; but throughout the West they had houses called commanderies or precep- tories, for the training of young men who were afterward to be sent out tp Palestine. In early times the rule was very strictly observed, and the Knights Templars were at first so poor, that two knights had sometimes only one horse between them, as their seal ever after commemorated ; but so many estates were in time bestowed on them, that though no individual member could possess any property, the whole became very rich, and with wealth came corrup- tion. These two orders were the chief bulwark of the Chris- tians of Palestine during the whole time that the kingdom of Jerusalem lasted. The bad faith of Alexius Comnenus soon caused Godfrey to break off all connection with him, and assert the inde- pendence of his monarchy. At the same time the Pope ap- pointed a Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, thus usurping au- thority which had never before been assumed by Rome. Bohemond of Antioch soon quarrelled with the Greeks, and tried to make conquest in Cilicia, but being defeated, he was obliged to leave the defence of Antioch to his cousin Tancred, while he went to ask assistance from his relations in Apulia. He travelled through the dominions of Alexius hidden in a coffin, the bearers of which always lamented loudly for their master whenever they entered a town. He arrived safely in Italy, and there raised an army, with which he was about to return to Antioch, when he was taken suddenly ill, and died in 1110. None of the Kings of Jerusalem were long-lived. The noble and devoted Godfrey died in 1100, and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin I., who was likewise soon worn out with the burning climate and constant warfare wliich he was obliged to maintain with the two great Mahometan nations, and supported by such small forces. His feudal barons were half their time closely besieged in their towns and castles, and were never willingly obedient to a man lately raised from their own rank ; the Templars and IIos- KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 59 pitallers were entirely under their own Grand Masters, and fought as his allies, not his subjects ; and his .best assist- ants were such princes and knights as came now and then from Europe, to fight for a few years in performance of a vow. One of these was Sigurd of Norway, a grandson of Harald Hardrada. After reigning for some years jointly with his brother Eystein, he set out on a Crusade, and on the way stopped in Sicily, where the reigning count was Roger II., son of the original conqueror, Koger de Haute- ville. William of Calabria, the son of Robert Guiscard, for whose sake Bohemond had been set aside, had died in 1122, without children, and Roger of Sicily had therefore succeeded to his dukedom. With the consent of the Pope and of his own nobles, Roger resolved to take the rank of king ; and as it was just at this time that Sigurd, king of the parent Norway, arrived, Roger showed himself mindful of his northern ancestry, by begging him to confer upon him the new title ; and thus, with great solemnity, the Norwegian king, Sigurd, bestow^ed the crown of tlie Two Sicilies upon the Norman Roger. Sigurd afterward proceeded to the Holy Land, where Jie bravely fought against the Turks, bathed in the Jordan, and twisted the willow-branches on its banks into a knot, vowing that his brother Eystein should go and loosen it ; but on his return to Norway, he found that Eystein thought himself better employed in guarding and civil- izing his own subjects, than in leaving them in quest of more striking and splendid adventures, where his own duty did not call him. CHAPTER V. GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES. 1100-1145. PART I. ST. BEE]S^AED. 1100-1200. In the mean time several changes took place in Europe. In 1108 closed the reign of Philippe I. of France, one of the weakest and most incompetent of the Capetian kings. He disgraced himself by a marriage with a lady named Bertrade de Montfort, in the lifetime both of his own second wife, and of her husband Foulques, Count of Anjou; and in spite of the censures of the Church, he retained her till his death. His eldest son, Louis, was an object of such great dislike to her, that she even administered a dose* of poison to him; and though his life was saved by his physicians, he never entirely recovered from its effects ; his complexion was ever after of a deathly paleness, and early in life he became of such an unwholesome fatness, that his subjects called him Louis le Gros. He was obliged, at one time, to take refuge at the court of Henry I. of England, but he afterwards became reconciled to his father, and suc- ceeded to the throne in 1106. In his youth he was perfect in all the exercises of chivalry, and afterward, in spite of his ill health, he retained his activity, and made his govern- ment more respected in France than that of any prince had been since the accession of the Capetian race. He first attempted to keep his great crown vassals in check by means of the citizens, and he granted them so many rights and privileges, that his name was held in especial honor by the bourgeois of France. He hoped to strengthen the power of the crown by a marriage between his eldest son Louis and Eleanor, daughter'of the last Duke of Aquitaine, who, going on pil- grimage to the Holy Land, gave up all his great fiefs to bis two daughters, thus disposing of the most beautiful and wealthy portion of the south of France. Shortly after tl^is marriage, Louis VI. 4ied, in 1137, worn out by his ST. BERNARD. 61 infirmities, and was succeeded by his son, Louis YIL, called le jeune^ or the young, originally because of his youthfulness at the time of his accession, but afterward because of his weak and childish conduct. One of the bravest men of Europe at this time, was AfFonso Enriquez, the second Count of Portugal, who fought against the Moors with all the spirit of a Crusader. In the year 1139, he advanced into their territory, and at Campo d'Ourique met an immense force commanded by five Moorish kings. The night before the battle a glorious dream promised him victory ; that his troops should pro- claim him king, and his children sit on his throne even to the sixteenth generation. On relating his vision to the army, all with one accord shouted, "Viva el Rey Don Alfonso;" and the new king, thus chosen, led them on against the infidels. Their victory was complete, and the kingdom of Portugal was extended as far as the Alentejo; Coimbra was its capital, and Afibnso reigned there with great glory till the year 1185, when he died at the age of seventy-six, and was ever after known as St. Affonso the deliverer of Portugal. St. Afibnso introduced the Cistercian order into Portu- gal, and had the greatest friendship and veneration for St. Bernard, the most distinguished man of that brotherhood, and one of the holiest persons whose names have come down to our time. Bernard was a youth of noble family, who had, soon after the first foundation of Citeaux, come himself, and brought all his brothers, to join that community. He was thought to excel all the rest in humility and devotedness, and his great abilities and power of persuasion caused him to be sent out to form other convents on the same rules. He was made Abbot of Clairvaux, in Champagne, and there, though living a life of extreme strictness and con- templation, laboring in the fields with his own hands, and clothed and fed as coarsely and scantily as possible, he be- came the guide and counsellor of popes and kings, and often the peacemaker between warlike nations. His tall, thin figure, his pale noble countenance, and his rude dark garments, could not be looked upon without veneration ; 62 LANDMARKS OF HISTOKY. [CHAP. V. and such was the power of his burning eloquence, that he turned the hearts of almost every hearer. So high was he set above the things of this world, so free from its luxuries, its pomps, or its interests — so devoted to one service alone, that kings and princes did not hesitate to commit their disputes to his judgment, as that of one belonging to some higher sphere. In the year 1125, the old Franconian line of German em- perors came to an end in Heinrich V., Heinrich IV. 's un- dutiful son, and the husband of the English Maude. He left his palace late one night, and was never heard of again, nor has any probable conjecture been formed as to his fate. His widow was given in marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet, eldest son of the Count of Anjou, and the electors chose as their emperor Lothar of Saxony, who reigned for s^ven years, and was succeeded by Konrad, Count of Hohen- staufen, and Duke of Swabia. These Counts of Hohenstaufen had long been at enmity with the Dukes of Bavaria, who, with all their friends and allies, were called Guelfs, from the Christian name of sev- eral of their line ; while- on their side the Hohenstaufens and their party were called Waiblingers, from one of their castles, which word Waiblinger was corrupted into Ghibel- lino by the Italians; and these two parties of Guelfs and Ghibellines were perpetually at war through the next two centuries. Soon after the election of Konrad, he besieged Guelf, Duke of Bavaria, in his castle of Weinsburg, and obliged it to surrender, giving permission to all the women to leave the place, each taking with her as much property as she could carry. The Ghibellines were much surprised when the gates opened, and each woman came out with her hus- band on her back, considering him as the most precious thing belonging to her. They wanted to attack the strange procession, so as not to allow their prisoners to es- cape, but Konrad would not permit the brave ladies to be molested, and in their honor gave the castle-hill the name of Weibertreue, or woman's faithfuhiess. Peace was soon after made by means of St. Bernard and the Pope, Eugenius IV., who had been a monk of Clair- THE SKCOXD CRUSADE. 63 vaux, and followed in everything the advice of his abbot. During his time the influence of the Church was rightly- directed to compose the disputes of princes, but not to in- terfere with their temporal power. PART II. THE SECOND CRUSADE. 1146. The Christians in Palestine were all this time hard pressed by the Turks and Saracens. In 1118 died Baldwin of Lorraine, the second King of Jerusalem, and by his dying wish, Baldwin du l^ourg. Count of Edessa, succeeded him. During his reign there came on pilgrimage his old friend Foulkes, Count of Anjou, husbaTid of the worthless Ber- trade, and to him Baldwin offered to leave the crown of Jerusalem, provided he would marry his young daughter Melisende. Foulques accordingly returned to Europe, gave up his county to his son Geoffrey Plantagenet, set his affairs in order, and came back to Jerusalem, where, in 1131, he married the princess, just before her father's death. After a reign of nine years he died, leaving two infant sons, Baldwin III. and Amaury ; and the kingdom being now without any sufficient protector, began to suffer greatly, both from Turks and Saracens ; Edessa was lost, and it was plain that the little Frank kingdom would soon be swept away, unless it should receive further assistance from Europe. St. Bernard accordingly preached another Crusade, be- ginning his preaching at Vezelai, in his own country, where Louis VII., who had lately been greatly shocked and dis- tressed by the sight of the cruelties of his troops in Champagne, was so wrought upon, that he took the Cross, as did also his wife, the beautiful but light-minded Eleanor of Aquitaine. Going to Germany, Bernard next preached the Crusade at the Diet of Worms, and induced great numbers to take up arms for the Holy Land ; but the king, Konrad, hung back till the next Christmas, when, standing before the altar of the Cathedral of Spires, Bernard exhorted him to show his gratitude for the blessings he enjoyed, by hasten- in ir to the succor of his distressed brethren in Palestine. 64 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. V. He was so moved, that, exclaiming, " I own His mercies, and He shall not find me unthankful," he took the Cross, and prepared for the expedition. In 1147 the Crusaders set forth. There were no English among them, as the wars between Stephen and Maude were then at their height, and David I. of Scotland had been drawn into the quarrel. The force, conducted by Louis and Konrad, was considerable, but neither of the kings was equal in judgment to the former leader, Godfrey de Bouillon. Their troops quarrelled with the Greeks in the territories of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus ; many of them were treacherously killed, and many more died of famine, and, as it was suspected, of eating poisoned food sold to them by the Greeks. Konrad left them at Iconium, to spend the winter at Constantinople, but the French continued their march. The Greek guides deserted them, and the Turks beset them on all sides ; they suffered terrible losses, and no one in the whole army knew what means to take for their safety, till a poor knight of the name of Gilbert came forward. King and nobles, all equally helpless, left the command to him ; he defeated the Turks, and by his excellent skill and conduct, he succeeded at length in bringing tlie main body of the army safely to Satalia. He then returned to his former obscurity, and his name is not again noticed in history, perhaps because he was of too noble and pure a character for the world to honor with such fame as it can bestow. Louis then gave up the attempt of reaching Palestine by land, and, with his wife and all the nobles and knights, sailed for Antioch, leaving the poor foot-soldiers to proceed through Cilicia, where they were all cut off by the Turks. In the spring, Konrad joined him at Antioch, and the young Baldwin of Jerusalem came to meet them there. The three kings together laid siege to Damascus, but there was so much jealousy and disunion between the Crusaders and the barons of Palestine, that they made little progress. The Knights Templars, who had grown very avaricious, shamefully accepted a bribe from the enemy to induce them to persuade the kings to abandon a camp which threatened the walls, and to take up a position which they could not main- THE SECOND CRUSADE. 65 tain. They were foolish enough to listen to this treacherous counsel, changed their post, and in consequence were soon obliged so give up the siege. The Templars were pun- ished by being disappointed of their bribe, for the still more wily Turks paid them in coin which proved to be only copper gilt. Konrad, who, though no general, was a high-spirited chivalrous man, was so shocked at the meanness, hatred, and jealousy he met with among the sworn champions of the Holy Sepulchre, that he would remain in Palestine no longer, and returned at once to his own country. In pass- ing through Constantinople, he made an alliance with Man- uel Comnenus, in honor of which he adopted the double eagle as the armorial bearings of the empire. He died in 1152, never having received the imperial crown, and was succeeded by his nephew Friedrich, or Frederick, Duke of Swabia. Louis Vn. proceeded to Jerusalem, and lingered in Pal- estine a year longer. It was thought that he was ashamed to show his face in Europe, after the cruel losses caused by his own want of judgment, and also after the disgrace that his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine had brought upon herself and him, by her great misconduct at both Antioch and Jerusa- lem. When he did at length return, his first measure was to divorce her, giving up her great duchy, which had by his marriage with her been united to the French crown. This duchy caused her hand immediately after to be sought by Henry Plantagenet, who little guessed the mis- ery this shameless marriage would cause his latter years. He was already Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, and now with Aquitaine in addition, was lord of the greater part of Louis's kingdom. St. Bernard tried to stir up the Christians to a new Crusade, but they had not sufficiently recovered from this last unfortunate expedition. He died •in 1153, learving behind him the greatest and the holiest name of all the men of the twelfth century. 66 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. Y. PART III. FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. 1152-1184. The two monarchs who came to the crown in the middle of the 12th century, Frederick I. in Germany in 1152, and Henry II. in England in 1154, both became involved in dis- putes with the Church ; and Henry's persecution of Becket was, though on different grounds, a branch of the struggle for superior power, which Frederick was carrying on in Germany and Italy. The struggle did not commence at once. The Pope at that time was Adrian IV., whose real name was Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman who ever was Pope, but of whom we have no reason to be proud. He was an ally of both monarchs, and took it on himself to absolve Henry II. of an oath made to his dying father, to give the county of Anjou to his brother. To Frederick, Adrian was in- debted for his restoration to his power over the city of Kome, where the people had been stirred up by a priest, named Arnold of Brescia, to clamor for a republic like their ancient one. - Arnold was a friend of Pierre Abelard, a learned Breton, who had fallen into heresy, but who had been convinced and silenced by St. Bernard, upon which he had gone into a convent. He is now chiefly remembered as the object of the devoted affection of his wife, Heloise, who had also en- tered a convent. Arnold, who had adopted some of the false doctrines of Abelard, and whose mind was full of the ancient glories of Rome, excited the people to demand a senate, and to rebel against the government of the Pope. Adrian called in the Germans; and Frederick marched into Rome, where he made Arnold prisoner, and caused him to be executed early the next morning. After this, Frederick was crowned by the Pope, and thus obtained the title of Emperor, and authority over the numerous Italian cities, which his uncle Konrad, having been only King of Ger- many, had never possessed. These cities having been so long without a king, were by no means willing to submit to him. Milan, which was the richest of all those in Lombardy, had lately made war upon Lodi; and gaining the victory, the walls of Lodi were FEEDERICK BARBAROSSA. 67 thrown down, and the citizens turned out of their houses, and obliged to live in villages. Some of them came to ask the protection of the emperor, who instantly sent orders tliat the injuries done to them should be repaired. The Milanese, however, were so far from intending to obey, that they tore his letter in pieces, and threw it in the face of his messenger. Most of the towns in Italy took their part, and were called Guelfic, from the name of his Bavarian rivals, while Pavia, and such other places as still remained loyal to the emperor, were called Ghibelline. In general, Fred- erick was exceedingly hated in Italy, where the people gave him the nickname of Barbarossa, or Ked-beard. He seems to have been brave and high-spirited, with much chivalry and sincerity in his temper, but very proud and violent, often cruel when his passions were roused, and not sufficiently reverent in his dealings with the Church, thus throwing himself completely into the wrong. In 1158 he besieged Milan, and cut off the hands of such unhappy peasants as tried to carry provisions into the town. After a long siege he took the city, and obliged the inhab- itants to pay a heavy fine, and to swear fidelity to him, after which he left them under the government of a Podesta, or chief judge. In a short time they rebelled again, declaring that they would give themselves to the Pope instead of the Emperor. There was a quarrel at Home about the election of a suc- cessor to Adrian IV., who had died in 1160. The car- dinals had chosen Alexander III., but the populace had risen and declared that they would have a man named Victor for their Pope ; and Frederick, who disliked Alex- ander, very improperly took their part. He was excom- municated by Alexander, and in great anger, both with him and Milan, crossed the Alps, and a second time besieged that city. After dreadful sufferings from famine, it was obliged to surrender. For a whole fortnight the unhappy citizens were kept in doubt as to what the emperor might design to do with them, but they feared the worst, when he sent his wife, the gentle Empress Beatrice, away to Pavia, so that he might not be moved by her prayers in their favor. The leaders in the rebellion 68 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. V. were executed, the walls were overthrown, and at last every inhabitant was ordered to come out to the plain before the city, bringing only as much property as he could carry. When they were all assembled, an order was read to them, that they should be driven from their homes, dispersed in villages, as they had used the people of Lodi, and that their city should be entirely ruined. They were then forced to set oif to the appointed villages, while they could see the homes for which they had fought so long, being plundered and demolished by the Ghibellines. In 1167, Frederick marched upon Rome, Alexander fled to Benevento, and the Romans opened their gates ; but the city had, since the dec^y of the old Roman empire, become subject in the heat of the weather to a fever, which the Italians call malaria^ or bad air, to which strangers are particularly liable. The Germans suffered grievously from it, and in two months most of the emperor's nearest relations died, together with two thousand nobles and knights, and untold numbers of common soldiers. Think- ing their losses a judgment for attacking the Church, the Ghibellines retreated to the north of Italy; but there Frederick found all the towns united with the Pope against him, by what was called the Lombard League ; his strength was diminished by his losses, and he could obtain no fresh troops from Germany, so that he was obliged to sue for peace with the Pope. Alexander came to meet him at Venice, where the emperor led his mule into the city, and assisted him to dismount. There is a story that the Pope obliged the emperor to prostrate himself on the ground, while he set his foot on his neck, repeating the words, "Thou shalt go upon the lion and adder;" but this is probably untrue, since the best-authenticated accounts re- present them as treating each other with all due courtesy. After the peace was made, the Milanese returned home, and restoi-ed their city. William the Good, the last Norman king of the Two Sicilies, who married Joan, daughter of Henry II. of Eng- land, had no children, and his next heir was his aunt Cos- tanza, a nun. The Emperor Frederick, who used to say that Italy was like an eel, which a man must hold at once LOSS OF JERUSALEM:. 69 by the head, tail, and middle, yet which still might very possibly elude his grasp after all, proposed to get a hold of the tail by giving his son Ileinrich in marriage to Costanza, in spite of her vows. The Pope, who alone was thought to have the power to absolve her from them, would not do so, not only on account of the sin, but because there was nothing he dreaded more than to see the Ghibellines in possession of the Two Sicilies, where hitherto the Norman princes had been the best friends and supporters of the power of Home. Frederick, however, found bishops who consented to sol- emnize the marriage, which took place at Palermo in 1184. Alexander immediately excommunicated all the persons concerned, and a new war seemed on the point of taking place, when tidings arrived from the East that Jerusalem had been taken by the Saracens, and for a time the chiefs of Christendom were roused to a sense of shame at having amid their own disputes abandoned the sacred trust com- mitted to them. PART IV. LOSS OF JERUSALEM. 1171-1186. The Second Crusade had been of no advantage to the Chiistians in Palestine, who were continually growing weaker. The Franks who had been born in that warm climate, inherited little of the vigor or energy of their parents, and while they had adopted the effeminate and luxurious customs of the East, feuds and jealousies were as bitter and violent among them as in the worst times in Europe. Baldwin III., a good and brave man, died young, and his brother Amaury, who succeeded him, also had a very short reign, and left three young children, Baldwin IV., Sybilla, and Isabella. Baldwin IV. was a promising boy, but he was attacked at an early age by that dreadful disease, the leprosy, which gradually deprived him of the use of his limbs and of his eyesight. His sister Sybilla fell in love with a very handsome Poitevin Crusader, named Guy de Lusignan \ she married him, and in the helj^less state of the young king, he became the leader of the armies of Pales- 70 LxlNDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. V. tine, where he soon showed himself at once vain, rash, and foolish, and lost many important castles. In this unfortunate state of things among the Franks, they had to encounter a more able enemy than they had yet met with in the East. The Khalifs of Egypt had in 1168 been conquered by another tribe of Saracen Arabs, from Kurdistan, who brought with them such high spirit, and hardy and active habits, as recalled the remembrance of the first outbreak of the Mahometans. Yusef, or Joseph, better known by his surname of Salah- ed-deen, the salvation of religion, or, as the Crusaders called it, Saladin, was the second of these Arab Sultans of Egypt. His character was noble, he was sincere and generous, with all the valor and hospitable virtues of the wild Arab of the desert ; he kept his promises strictly, and was a devoted observer of his own religion. He seems to have been a man who thoroughly lived up to the light vouchsafed to him ; and as it is probable that Christianity was never fairly pre- sented to him, we may regard him as we do the great and good among the heathens, who lived before the truth was revealed to the world. Such a Mahometan, doing his best to profit by the precepts of his law, and earnestly clinging to the fragments of truth which his faith afforded, is far more worthy of honor than such a Christian as Guy de Lusignan, whose whole life was one course of selfishness, and therefore, in fact, of rejection of the Cross. In 1185, the poor leprous King Baldwin died, and the Franks were in great despair at finding themselves left to no better governors than Sybilla and her husband. The Patriarch agreed in council with the nobles that she must be divorced, and choose some fitter person to be her husband and king. Accordingly, after her brother's funeral in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Pa- triarch placed the crown on her head, and declaring her to be separated from Guy de Lusignan, desired her to choose, among all the princes, nobles, and knights, him who might best defend her throne. Sybilla went immediately to her own husband, took him by the hand, and set the crown on his head, sayii;g, " What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." It LOSS OF JERUSALEM. 71 was SO beautiful a reproof, that it is a pity that neither she nor her husband were more worthy ; however, the barons were obliged to abide by her choice, and became more dis- affected than ever. When Lusignan's elder brother, God- frey, Count de la Marche, in Poitou, heard of his coronation, he exclaimed, "If tliey have made a king of Guy, they would certainly make a god of me, if they could only see me." The new king did nothing to retrieve his character, and thick and fast did losses and disasters come upon the Chris- tians. No one did them so much harm as llenaud de Cha- tillon, a wicked lawless French knight, who had marri^ Constance, Princess of Antioch, and becoming a favorite of the king, led him into acts of violence and contempt of treaties, which caused the most fatal results. In time of truce, this Renaud de Chatillon plundered a caravan, where Saladin's mother was travelling, and thus provoked the vengeance of her son, wlio invaded Palestine with all his forces. On the hill of Ilittim, near the lake of Tiberias, a great battle was fought, in which the Christians suffered a total defeat, and the Saracens took prisoners tlie king himself, Renaud de Chatillon, the Grand Masters of the Templars and Hospitallers, and multitudes of other nobles and knights. The principal captives were conducted to the Sultan's tent, where Saladin courteously offered Guy a cup of sherbet. He drank, and was passing the cup to Chatillon, when Saladin, exclaiming, " Hold !" with one stroke of his sabre cut off the head of the traitor, thus avenging the insult to his mother. According to Arab laws of hospitality, he could not have injured Renaud after he had allowed him to become his guest by once tasting of his cup. Guy and his barons were spared, in order to be ransomed, but it was a rule that the knights of the Temple and of St. John should offer no ransom but their scarf and sword. Life was offered them if they would forsake the Christian faith, which of course every one of them refused, and the whole number, more than two hundred, were beheaded. After this victory Saladin met with no resistance until he came to the gates of Jerusalem. There were hardly 7 2 LAI^DMAEKS OF HISTOKY. [CHAP. V. any warriors in the city, and women, children, and monks in vain put on armor and tried to defend the walls. Those who had undertaken the guardianship of the Holy Sepul- chre had woefully failed in their trust, and it was now to be taken away from them. Saladin offered to release the king and put the inhabit- ants to ransom, if the city was delivered up to him ; and Queen Sybilla was obliged to accept these terms. The knights of St. John conducted the negotiation, and used for the ransom of the poorer inhabitants the treasures wliich Henry H. of England had sent to Jerusalem, in expiation for the murder of Becket ; but as these were not sufficient, many were obliged to remain in slavery, while the rest, stripped of all their possessions, went to seek shelter at the few towns still remaining in the possession of the Chris- tians on the coast. Guy himself wandered from place to place in great distress, for his feudal barons were so dis- pleased with him for having occasioned their misfortunes, that they closed the gates of their castles against him, and refused to acknowledge his authority. Jerusalem was taken by Saladin on the 2d of October, 1186, eighty-eight years after its conquest by Godfrey de Bouillon. All the churches, except one, were turned into mosques, four camel-loads of rose-water were brought from Damascus, in order, as Saladin considered, to purify the temple, or mosque of Omar; and tlius Islam again spread its cloud over the Holy City, from whence it has never been removed. PART V. DEATH OF HENRY II. AND FREDERICK I. 1189. The tidings of the fall of Jerusalem awoke to a sense of shame all the princes of Europe, who had left their brethren to perish unaided in Syria. The venerable Archbishoj) William of Tyre, went through the different States, relating the sufferings of the Christians, and awaking enthusiasm almost equal to that produced by the preaching of Peter the Hermit. , A new state of thinojs had about this time arisen in the DEATH OF HENRY II., AN*) FREDERICK I. TS relations of England and France. In 1180, died the weak though honest Louis le Jeune, who had so often been over- reached by his crafty and unscrupulous neighbor, Henry II. His son, Philippe II., called Auguste, who succeeded him, was a contrast to him in every respect ; strong where he was feeble, and deceitful where he was straightforward. At twelve years old, Philippe had perceived how unfairly Henry treated his father, and openly told him that he might reckon on his vengeance by-and-by ; and from the tipie he came to the crown, at sixteen, his princij^al motive was enmity to the whole House of Plantagenet. For a little while, even such hatred as that of Philippe and Henry was suspended by the preaching of the crusade, and they both took the Cross ; but in a very few months it awoke again, and Philippe drew Richard Coeur de Lion into that last war with his father, in the course of which the discovery of John's treason finally broke the heart of Henry II. While the kings of France and England were thus for- getting their vows, the old Emperor of Germany was showing himself truly zealous and devoted. Rejoiced to become for once the champion of the Church, he gave up his dispute respecting Sicily, reconciled himself to the Pope, and set off at the head of his army in the same unfortunate track through Hungary and the Greek empire, which had been trod with so much loss by his uncle Konrad. Alexius III., the last Greek emperor of the House of Comnenus, had been murdered in 1183, and the present monarch was Isaac Angelus, a weak, timid, double-dealing man ; but Frederick succeeded in passing through his do- minions with fewer disputes and disasters than any former Crusader, and safely arrived on the Turkish border. Under the walls of Iconium he met the Turks in such an immense force, that the Germans considered themselves as lost, and began to prepare for instant death. The brave old emperor rode in front of their ranks, exclaiming, " Why stand ye here and grieve, my children ? Christ reigns ; Christ com- mands ; Christ conquers. Come with me, my brethren in arms, who have left your homes to win heaven by your blood." So saying, he spurred his horse against the enemy ; 4 14 LAlN^DMAnSKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. V. his knights followed him at full speed ; the Turks fled at their onset, and he gained a complete victory. Having thus secured Iconium, he marched towards An- tioch, and on the way he stopped to bathe in the cool waters of the Calycadnus. The current was too strong for him, and he was drawn under it and drowned, in the sight of his army, by whom he was deeply lamented, for though a stern and pitiless foe to the Italians, he was a kind and generous master to the Germans. It was at that very time that Henry II. was lying on his death-bed, wildly calling himself a dishonored king, and cursing his ungrateful children. Henry and Frederick had come to the throne within two years of one another, and both died in the same year, 1189; both had spent a long life of ambition, and had been involved in fierce quarrels with the Church ; the same opportunity, as it were, of re- trieving what was past, had been oifered to both. One had cast aside his worldly disputes and accepted the summons with all his heart, and to him it was given to die with the Cross on his breast, with the highest and purest glory he had ever acquired, fresh and undimmed. The other had thrown aside his vow, had returned to his former worldly schemes, and taken up arms against another Crusader ; the sins of his youth had indeed been allowed to find him out, and the anguish of his deserted death-bed was perhaps un- equalled by any of which we hear in history. PART VI. THE THIRD CRUSADE. 1189-1199. The death of Henry II. recalled to his son Richard his former intentions with regard to the Crusade, and he pushed- on his preparation with great eagerness. He agreed to meet Philippe Auguste at Messina, whence they might sail to the Holy Land, instead of wasting their strength by marching through Asia Minor. Richard had a fleet of his own, but Philippe was obliged to hire ships from tlie Genoese, with which he arrived at Messina. In 1188 had died William II. of Sicily, who should have been succeeded by his aunt Costanza, the nun who had been married to Ileinrich of Hohenstaufen. Heinrich had sue- THE THIRD CKUSADE. 75 cecded his father Frederick in Germany, and was busy in taking possession of the empire, and as he was a cruel and avaricious man, the Sicilians and Neapolitans took advan- tage of his absence, and gave their crown to Tancred, Count of Lecce, a son of King Roger I. Tancred was acknowledged by both Philippe and Richard, who spent the winter in his kingdom, and there engaged in a number of quarrels both with him and with each other, which did little credit to their character as Crusaders. In the spring of 1192, they sailed from Messina. In the English fleet there was a ship containing Joan Plantagenet, the widow of the last King of Sicily, and Berengaria of Navarre, who was betrothed to Richard, and was to be married to him as soon as the season of Lent was over. A storm arose, and the ship containing these ladies was driven into a harbor of Cyprus. This island was in possession of a Greek named Isaac Comnenus, who, in the confusion which ensued upon the death of his kinsman Alexius III., had caused himself to be crowned emperor of Cyprus. He refused to allow Joan and Berengaria either to land or to receive refreshment from the shore. Coeur de Lion was so indignant at the discourtesy shown to his bride, that he landed with all his forces, and made a rapid Conquest of the whole island. He took Isaac prisoner, and sent him, bound in fetters of silver, to Tripoli, while his daughter, the heiress of Cyprus, was placed under the care of Berengaria. As it was now Easter, Richard was married at Limasol, and then proceeded on his voyage to the Holy Land. The port of Acre was in possession of the Saracens, and some months before a siege had been commenced by Guy de Lusignan, with the assistance of some of the Germans, who had continued the Crusade under Leopold Duke of Austria, together with Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat and Prince of Tyre, the husband of Queen Sybilla's sister Isabella. To this town the Kings of England and France directed their course, and Philippe arrived there first, owing to Richard's delay at Cyprus, but no progress was made in the siege till the English came, and Richard's valor quickly obliged the Saracens to surrender. Unfortunately his pride was equal to his courage ; he V6 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. V. oifended Leopold of Austria, by tearing down the banner which he had planted on the battlements of Acre ; and he caused scarcely less displeasure to the Franks of the Holy Land, by insisting on having, together with the French, the sole guardianship of the town. Philippe, jealous of his high reputation, and nourishing his ancient hatred to the Plantagenets, gave up the Crusade on the plea of ill-health, and returned to France, intending to do as much injury as possible to him during his absence. The Crusaders, though weakened by his departure, proceeded with the campaign, but they were obliged to fortify Ascalon, before they could march upon Jerusalem; and here a second dispute broke out between Leopold and Richard. The king, in a fit of passion, struck Leopold a blow, which so irritated him, that he quitted the army and returned to Austria, planning vengeance. About this time died Sybilla, Queen of Jerusalem, leaving no children, and the succession was claimed by Conrad of Montferrat, in right of his wife Isabella ; while, on the other hand, Guy de Lusignan main- tained that a king once crowned, was a king forever. The decision was committed to Richard, who though he had hitherto been an enemy to Conrad, declared him King of Jerusalem, and to compensate Lusignan for his disap- pointment, gave him in marriage the captive princess of Cyprus, and made him king of her island. A few days after his nomination to the throne, while returning from a banquet at Acre, Conrad was stabbed to the heart by two Arabs, of a sect called Assassins, from the name of Hassan, their first founder. All these were de- voted to the service of a chief, whom the Crusaders called the Old Man of the Mountain ; and whoever was appointed by him to commit a murder, was certain to perform his bidding, reckless of his own life, since it was believed that eternal happiness wafe secured by the fulfilment of his chieftain's commands. Isabella, Conrad's widow, soon married Henri Count of Champagne, thus bestowing on him the title of King of Jerusalem, though his kingdom actually extended over a very few towns and castles on the coast. The Crusaders in vain strove to reach Jerusalem ; Ramla was the furthest THE TUIED CEUSADE. 77 point they ever attained; and after the great battle of Joppa, Richard suffered from a fever, which, together with tidings from Europe of the machinations of his brother John with Philippe Auguste, obliged him to conclude a treaty with Saladin. A truce was made to last three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, three minutes, and three seconds, and Coeur de Lion quitted Palestine, after having gained no solid advantage for the Christians except the conquest of the city of Acre. On his homeward voyage he was driven by contrary winds into the Adriatic, attacked by the Albanian pirates, shipwrecked at Trieste, hunted by the relations of Conrad, and at last made prisoner by Leopold of Austria, by whom he was sold to Heinrich VL of Gennany. His treacherous brother John, and the King of France, attempted to per- suade Heinrich to keep him in captivity for life, but the German princes, headed by Heinrich the Lion, Duke of Saxony, son of his sister Matilda, obliged the emperor to release him on the payment of a ransom. Whilst he was still in his prison, on the banks of the Danube, died his Mahometan foe, who had shown himself so much more high-minded and generous than his Christian allies. Saladin died at Damascus on the 3d of March, 1193, full of honors, both from fnend and enemy. The day before his death he caused one of his emirs to go through the streets of Damascus, carrying his shroud, and proclaiming, " Behold all that Saladin the conqueror of the East taketh away with him." His brother, Malek-el-Adel, deprived his children of their inheritance ; and wars took place among the Arabs, which left the Christians a little breathing-time. The base and covetous Heinrich VL, of Germany, died in 1198; and in the following year the gallant Richard Cceur de Lion lost his life before a petty fortress in Guienne, having occupied himself far more with the affairs of Pales- tine and of Europe than with those of his own country. CHAPTER yi. PONTIFICATE OF INNOCENT III. 1197-1216. PART I. THE INTERDICT OP FRANCE. 1200. In the year 1200 an entirely new set of sovereigns were reigning in Europe, all, excepting Philippe II. of France, having come to the throne within the last four years. The most prominent man in Europe, from character as well as from rank, was the Pope, Innocent III., a Roman noble by birth, who, at the age of thirty-seven, was elected to the papal throne, in the year 1197. He was one of the most noble of all the popes, one of the boldest and most unscrupulous, and his pontificate forms one of the most important steps in the advance of the power of the See of Rome. In Germany the succession of the empire was disputed, for Frederick of Hohenstaufen and Swabia, the son of Heinrich VI., was but three years old, and was, therefore, set aside by the electors. His mother, Costanza, carried him to her own kingdom of Sicily, and placed herself and him under the protection of the Pope, and in this country he grew up with more of the tastes and habits of an Italian than of a German. The electors in the mean time, after some dispute, chose Otho, Duke of Saxony and Bruns- wick, of the Guelf party, who was soon after crowned at Rome by Innocent III. England had been usurped by the wicked John, who, in 1202, murdered his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, and by this crime afibrded Philippe Auguste a plea for commencing his revenge on the Plantagenets, by seizing the dukedom of Normandy, which John had not courage to defend. All this time Philippe himself was involved in a serious quarrel with the Pope ; indeed, it was one of those cases of flagrant misconduct on the part of a prince, where the Church had every right to interfere. After the death of his first wife, Isabelle of Hainault,- THE INTERDICT OF FRANCE. 79 Philippe married Ingeberge, daughter of Waldemar, the great King of Denmark. The Danes were still very un- civilized, and Philippe, who had a cultivated mind, and was accustomed to courteous manners, soon showed that he paid no attention to the maxims of chivalry, or of Chris- tianity, by shutting up the poor queen in a convent, and offering his hand to another princess. Otho de Meranie, Duke pf Moravia, had the wickedness to give him his daughter, Agnes, who was considered the most beautiful lady in Europe. She was very young and gentle. Philippe became much attached to her, and at all the tournaments, the knights and troubadours called her " The Flower of Ladies." Innocent wrote to remonstrate with the king on the sin he was committing. Philippe paid no attention to his warnings, and at Christmas, 1199, the Pope laid the king- dom of France under an Interdict. All the bishops and abbots were assembled at night in the Cathedral of Dijon, each with a torch in his hand, the bells were rung with a funeral knell, veils were hung over the images of the saints, the relics were carried into the crypts, the sacramental bread was consumed by fire ; then the legate from Rome read the decree of the Pope, that all rites of religion should cease in the kingdom until the king took back his lawful wife; and amidst the weeping of the assembled people, the torches were all at once extinguished, as a token of the darkness that was supposed to fall upon France. The clergy and religious orders were, indeed, allowed to continue their worship, but only with doors closed against the people ; the dead might not be buried in consecrated ground, and the whole nation were treated as heathens. At first Philippe was violently enraged, and tried to brave the anger of the Pope; but he found all his subjects were against him, and saw that it would not be safe to allow them any longer to continue under the interdict. He therefore sent Agnes away to one of his castles in Normandy, and, riding himself to the convent where Inge- berge was, he brought her back to his palace, on a pillion behind him. The Pope consented to free him from the in- terdict, and on the Uh. of September the bells again were 80 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VI. rung, and France was full of rejoicing at being reconciled to the Church. Poor Agnes died broken-hearted in Normandy, at the end of another month, soon after the birth of a son, to whom she gave the name of Tristan, from the French word triste^ or sad. Ingeberge spent the rest of her life at the palace, and she seems to have been a very good wife. PART II. THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 1201-1203. The state of the Latin kingdom in the Holy Land grew worse and worse ; Joppa was taken by Saphadin, Sultan of Damascus, and brother of Saladin, and twenty thousand Christians put to the sword ; and shortly after, the brave King Henri of Champagne was killed, by falling into the castle-ditch at Acre. His widow, Isabelle, next married Amaury de Lusignan, brother to Guy, whom he had just succeeded in the island of Cyprus. Lmocent HL attempted to rouse Europe to another effort for the deliverance of Jerusalem, and sent Foulques, Curate of ISTeuilly, in France, to preach the Crusade. He met with no success with any of the kings, but a great number of nobles and knights took the Cross ; among whom the most noted were the gallant young Count Thibault of Champagne; Baldwin, Count of Flanders ; Bonifacio, Mar- quis of Montferrat, brother of Conrade ; and Geoffroy de^ Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne, who has left a his- tory of the expedition, and is noted as the first of the many French authors of memoirs of their own time. These nobles resolved to go direct to Palestine by sea, like the two kings who had preceded them, but as they possessed neither ships nor money to hire them, they re- solved to entreat the republic of Venice to transport them to the Holy Land. The Doge of Venice was at that time Enrico Dandolo, a noble old man, full of spirit and enter- prise, though he was eighty years old, and had lost his eye- sight from a wound in the head. He would gladly have granted their request, but the Venetians were too much of merchants to grant favors for nothing, and he therefore proposed to the Crusaders to assist them in recovering the THE FOURTH CKUSADE. 81 town of Zara, which had revolted from the power of the republic, and given itself to the King of Hungary, after which he promised that the Venetian fleet should carry them to Palestine. The chiefs of the Crusade agreed to these terms, though the Pope greatly disapproved of their thus waiting to make war on Christians, when they were so much needed in Pal- estine. Dandolo himself, in spite of age and blindness, took the Cross, and intended to accompany them, not only to Zara, but to the Holy Land ; and in five hundred large vessels they set sail together. Zara was easily taken ; but a new object now arose to occupy the Crusaders. Isaac Angelus, Emperor of Constantinople, had been de- throned, thrown into prison, and blinded, by his brother, Alexius Angelus, who had taken the name of Comnenus. His son, the young Alexius, a youth of twenty, came to Venice just as the fleet was about to sail, described his father's misery, and entreated the assistance of the Cru- saders to rescue him and recover his throne. The Venetians had many causes of hatred to the Greeks, who had oppressed and injured their merchants at Constan- tinople, in favor of their rivals, the Genoese ; and the French knights were dazzled with the glory of the con- quest of the Eastern empire, and scarcely regarded the Greeks as Christians. In spite, therefore, of the continued orders of the Pope, most of them allowed themselves to be turned aside from the main object of their expedition, promised their assistance to Alexius, and, after spending the winter at Corfu, sailed for Constantinople. The siege did not last long. The Venetians, with an im- mense pair of shears, severed the chain which closed the entrance of the beautiful harbor of the Golden Horn, and sailed safely in. The next day the French attacked the walls on the land side, and the Venetains from the sea, their blind Doge standing on the prow of the galley in full armor, with the standard of St. Mark by his side, and di- recting his men ; whilst the Greek usurper sat helpless on the top of the tower of the Blachernal palace, watching the progress of the fight. The Venetians won so many of the towers which guarded 4* 82 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VI. the port, that Comnenus gave himself up for lost, and fled during the night, taking with him some of his treasures, and his favorite daughter. The Greeks, as soon as he was gone, thinking that they had better come to terms with the conquerors, fetched old Isaac out of his prison, conducted him to the Blachernal, and arrayed him in the imperial robes, while the poor old blind man, who had almost fallen into imbecility, could scarcely be made to understand what -had happened to him. The next morning they threw open their gates, greeted the young Alexius with acclamations, led him to share his father's throne, and feasted the Franks in all their houses and streets. The two emperors, father and son, were crowned together in the Church of St. Sophia ; and to the still further delight of the Crusaders, young Alexius, who thought nothing too great a sacrifice to be made to his allies, induced his helpless father to give up the indepen- dence of his Church. They caused the Patriarch to ac- knowledge the authority of Pope Innocent, to make oath that he would obey him in all things, and go himself to Home to receive the pallium from his hands. The great mass of the Greeks thought this a grievous apostasy, and Alexius felt that he was so insecure among them, that he begged the Franks to stay with him and pro- tect him ; they consented, and took up their abode in the suburbs of Pera and Galata, and this was the furthest point eastward ever reached in the fourth Crusade — which, indeed, hardly deserves that name. PART III. LATIN EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 1203-1206. Alexius Angelus had mistaken the means of securing his throne. There was constant hatred between the Latins and Greeks : the former became rude and lawless, and openly showed their contempt for the cowardly Greeks ; while on the other hand the Greeks bitterly felt their oppression at once of Church and State, and especially hated the young emperor, as a traitor to both. He had spent so much time in Italy and Germany, that he had learnt to dislike the idle pomp and restraints with LATIN EMPIKE OF THE EAST. S3 which they surrounded the irftperial family ; he joined the Frank nobles on equal terms, and, as his subjects thought, degraded himself by mingling in their sports. He was one day seen at a feast, wearing the cap of a French knight, whilst his imperial diadem lay on the ground, an insult to their crown which struck the Greeks with more horror than any of his former proceedings. A noble, named Alexius Ducas, and called in the Greek language Murzuphlos, from his black overhanging eye- brows, resolved to profit by this discontent ; he made sure of the support of almost all the Greeks, and gained over by a bribe the Varangian guard. In the middle of the night he awoke Alexius by telling him the Varangians had revolted, and were coming to murder him, and offering to conduct him to a place of safety, led him into the horrible dungeons beneath the Blachernal. He then closed the gates, caused all the Franks within the city to be murdered, and was proclaimed Emperor of Constantinople. Isaac Angelus, who was ill in bed at the time, died of grief and terror at this new revolution, and his unfortunate son was strangled in his dungeon by Murzuphlos himself The Franks at Pera and Galata were of course filled with horror and indignation, and resolved to revenge the death of their allies; but so well had Murzuphlos taken his measures, that they were forced to spend two months in preparations, before they could venture to storm the walls. When they did so, however, their success was com- plete. Murzuphlos, after a brave resistance, took flight, and the whole city fell into their hands. It was given up to pillage, and grievous were the ravages committed. Such heaps of treasures were found in the Blachernal, that the knights declared they could scarcely believe that there was so much gold in the world. Most of the people had fled, and those who remained knelt in the streets, holding up their fingers crossed to show that they were Christians, and calling out to Bonifacio of Montferrat, whom they thought the chief of the Franks, "Holy King Marquis, have pity on us !" The nobles did their best to protect the people and the churches, and left the gates open, to enable all who chose to escape and carry away their property. 84 LAXDMAEKS OP HISTOllY. [ciIAP. VI. As soon as the first confusion was over, the Franks resolved to elect one of their number to be emperor. The Venetians at first thought of their gallant old Doge, but changed their minds, lest the little republic, of which they were so proud, should be lost in the great empire. They were afraid, on the other hand, to let Bonifacio be chosen, because his Italian possessions lay so near theirs, that they feared he would become too powerful a neighbor ; and Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was therefore chosen as emperor. The Marquis of Montferrat was so far from being jealous, that he was the first to kiss his hand, and to assist in raising him on a shield to show him to the people. The empire was divided into feudal tenures, which were distributed among the nobles ; the Venetians received in- vestiture of the Ionian Islands, and of the Peloponnesus, which they called the Morea, because it was of the form of a mulberry leaf — in Italian moro; and a Latin empire was thus established at Constantinople, in 1204. The Greeks in the mean time had fled into Asia Minor, where Theodore Lascaris became their emperor, and reigned at Nicea, keeping up the observances of the Greek Catholic Church. Their misfortunes, by driving them away from the luxuries of Constantinople, had a good effect upon them, and from that time a higher and more generous spirit was perceptible among them. Baldwin was pious, generous, and chivalrous, but had not sufficient ability for his position. After a reign of two years, he was obliged to march against the savage Bulgari- ans, and was defeated and taken prisoner. His fate was long uncertain, but sure tidings were at length received, that his enemies h^d tortured him to death, because he would not consent to deny the Christian faith. ^ His brother Henri succeeded him as Emperor of Constantinople, and his daughter Jeanne as Countess of Flanders. PART IV. THE ALBIGENSES. 1200-1212. There were few Crusaders from Spain ; the nobles and knights of that peninsula had full employment at home, for their whole life was one continiaed struggle y^th the In- THE ALBIGENSES. 85 fidel. They had orders of knighthood, like those of St. John and the Temple, in honor of St. James, whose Spanish name of San Jacobo Apostolo, they had converted into San- tiago de Compostella. Another order of knights was called that of Calatrava, and was equally renowned with that of Santiago. There was a tradition that St. James had been martyred in Spain, and many legends related that in the midst of the hottest combats with the Moors, he had ap- peared at the head of the Christians on a white horse, waving a banner over his head, and putting the enemy to flight ; and thus he had become the patron saint of Spain, and the especial object of devotion in Castile and Aragon. In the latter part of the twelfth century, reigned Alfonso yill. of Castile, whose power and success were so great, that he assumed the title of emperor, as superior to the other three Christian kings of the Peninsula. After his death the Christians lost ground, and suifered several de- feats ; and at length the Moors invited to their aid Mirama- molin. Emperor of Morocco, who came with an overwhelm- ing force, expecting to sweep away the Christians before him as in the time of Rodrigo the Goth. The Christians united their forces against him. Alfonso IX., of Castile, Pedro II., of Aragon, and Sancho VII., of Navarre, met as for a holy war, anol marched against him towards the Guadalquivir. A shepherd guided them through a mountain pass, and enabled them to fall suddenly on his camp at Navas de Tolosa. It was a long and well- contested battle ; the kings fought like simple knights, and every man did his utmost. The Navarrese broke through the chain of guards round the tent of Miramamolin, and forced him to fly; 160,000 Moors were slain, and so com- plete a victory was gained, as broke the Arab power in Spain, though they kept possession of a kingdom there for two hundred years longer. During these combats with the Mahometans, a foe was in the mean time growing up in the midst of the Christian States, and especially in the Pyrencan kingdoms of Aragon and Navarre, the neighboring counties of Toulouse and Provence, and the north of Italy. In the seventh century, a heresy had arisen in the Greek 86 LANDMARKS OF HISTOUY. [cHAP. VI. empire, called the Manichsean, and taking for its root the old Egyptian principle of a source of good and a source of evil, it blasphemously declared that He who is revealed in the Old Testament was the source of evil, and opposed to Him of the New Testament, who was the source of good. The Manicheans forbade Holy Baptism and marriage, and their profanities of every kind were dreadful. The Greek emperors had banished them to a desert in Thrace, and no more was heard of the heresy; but it appears that it had smouldered on, and in the early part of the twelfth century it was discovered that a great number of persons, both in the regions of the Alps and Pyrenees, were infected with it. Those in Italy were called Paterini ; those in France and Spain, Albigenses, from Alby, a town in Provence. Al- though the Albigenses were so heretical in their belief, their lives were so much purer than those of many around them, and they protested so strongly against the wicked lives of the priests, that a very strong feeling was excited. Innocent HI. felt that it was time to take vigorous means against them ; and his princij^al assistants were two monks, whose names have always been held in the highest honor in the Romish Church. St. Francis, the son of a rich merchant of Assisi, in the north of Italy, devoted himself, while very young, to a life of the strictest piety and poverty. His character was beautifully gentle and devout, and his aim was to support and strengthen the Church in the best and purest way, by making her own members more holy and self-denying. He- established three orders, called from his name, Franciscans, and whose badge was the knotted cord worn round the waist. The first was of brethren or friars, who were to be always barefoot, whose poverty was guarded by the most stringent regulations, and who were absolutely to beg their bread. They were not subject to abbots of each convent, but to a general of the order, who sent them to travel from place to place, preaching to the people. They often did much good, but at the same time they produced much mischief, by interfering with the regular clergy. The second order was of nuns, also called the order of St. Clara ; and the third, of persons living with their families, and engaged in secular occupations, and THE ALBIGEXSES. 87 only bound by an especial vow to the service of the Church, and to say certain prayers at particular times. St. Dominic was a Castilian, and his attention was par- ticularly turned to the Albigenses. He was a more harsh and stern man than St. Francis, though not less pious and devout. He, too, established an order of mendicant friars, and so served the Church, that Innocent HI. dreamt that he saw these two men supporting the Cathedral of St. Peter on their shoulders. Finding that preaching did not avail to convince the Albigenses, Innocent had recourse to the means which St. Ambrose had long ago condemned. He was the first to stain the Church with persecution. He established a body of clergy, chiefly Dominicans, who were charged to inquire out the errors in men's faith, to seek by every means to convince them, and if they were obstinate, " to deliver them over to the secular arai," namely, to call in the temporal power to put them to death. This tribunal was called the Inquisition, and as the Paterini of Italy were chiefly of the lower ranks, before many years were past they were entirely extinguished, either put to death, or forced to renounce their errors. The Albigenses were not so easily put down, for many powerful nobles were of their number, and the Count of Toulouse and the King of Aragon themselves, if not in- clined to the heresy, were doubtful of the right of the clergy to persecute them. Innocent therefore proclaimed a crusade, the first ever preached, except against the Ma- hometans ; and many warriors, willing to obtain the in- dulgences he promised on easier terms than a journey to Palestine, took arms under Simon, Count de Montfort, a stern old Poitevin, devout in his habits, but fierce and cruel in his temper. They committed dreadful excesses, ravaging the country and massacring the inhabitants, just as they had learned to do in Palestine with the Saracens ; and unhappily there were some of the clergy who spurred them on. At Beziers, where the Albigenses were mixed with the Catholic inhabit- ants, Simon de Montfort asked the Abbot of Citeaux how he should distinguish one from the other ; and the horrible answer was, "Kill them all; Heaven will know its own." 88 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VI. Raymond Roger, Count of Toulouse, interfered in de- fence of his unhappy vassals, but was made prisoner by Simon de Montfort, and died in his hands. Simon obtained investiture of several of the provinces which he had desola- ted, and showed an intention of establishing an indepen- dent sovereignty ; upon which the new Count of Toulouse and Pedro, King of Aragon, put themselves at the head of their forces, and of all the scattered Albigenses, and at- tacked him ; but at Muret they met with a total overthrow, in 1212, and the King of Aragon himself was among the slain. The inhabitants of Southern France had always been more advanced in civilization than the descendants of the fierce Franks, who occupied the northern and the central parts of that country ; so different were they still, that the war against the Albigenses was not only a religious war, but one carried on for purposes of conquest. Terrible as were the measures used, they were unsuccessful. PART V. CLOSE OP INNOCENT's REIGN. 1212-1223. " Innocent III. had in the mean time been stretching out his grasping hands over England, and had laid King John and his people under an interdict, for refusing to receive Stephen Langton from his hands as Archbishop of Canter- bury. He likewise was much displeased with Otho of Saxony, the Guelfic emperor of Germany, for refusing to give up to Rome the inheritance of the Countess Matilda, and for claiming the right of lay-investiture. After laying this emperor under sentence of excommunication, he advised the electors to raise to the imperial throne the young Frederick of Swabia, King of the Two Sicilies, and son of the last emperor, Heinrich YI. Philippe Auguste, who had been on good terms with the Pope ever since he had separated from Agnes de Meranie, was called upon by him to attack both these excommunicated princes ; and though John, in the extremity of his distress, made his peace with Rome, by not only receiving Cardinal Langton, but con- senting to hold his crown as a vassal of the Pope, Philippe CLOSE OF inxocent's eeign. 80 nevertheless invaded Poitou, and threatened to deprive him of it, as well as Normandy. Jolm and Otho, who were uncle and nephew, made com- mon cause ; and John, at the head of his troops, crossed the sea, and united his forces with the Germans. Philippe marched to meet them in Flanders, where the great battle of Bouvines was fought in 1213. The Germans at one time so pressed round Philippe that he was wounded, and his horse killed. With great difficulty he was rescued by his knights, and mounting another horse, charged the ene- my so vigorously that Otho fled at full speed, Philippe say- ing, " We shall see no more of him but his back." Our own cowardly John had likewise fled early in the day, and, returning to England, so provoked his barons by his further oppressions that they rose against him, and forced from him the signature of Magna Charta, which re- stored to England her old Saxon laws. He broke his oaths as soon as they were made, and the barons called to their aid Louis the Lion, eldest son of Philippe Auguste, and the husband of Blanche, eldest daughter of Alfonso VIIL of Castile, and of Eleanor, John's sister. As John was under the protection of the Pope, Philippe would not openly attack him on his own account, but he gave permission to his son to undertake the enterprise, with as many knights as chose to accompany him. Philippe saw the vengeance he had promised himself in early youth complete, for in 1216, at the time when the last son of Henry II. died of vexation in a remote convent, Louis was ir) possession of London, and Normandy had long been in the hands of Philippe. In the same year died Innocent HI. at Perugia, after a career which Roman Catholics themselves condemn as too ambitious and too much engrossed with temporal aflairs. He had excommunicated the Emperor, the Kings of Eng- . land, France, and Aragon, and had done more than any other pontiff to extend the sway of the See of Rome. After the battle of Bouvines, Otho was abandoned by all his subjects, and died in retirement in the year 1218. Philippe Auguste was the last survivor of these contempo- rary sovereigns. He made a second attack on the Albigen- 90 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. VII. ses, and likewise reduced the dangerous power which Simon de Montfort* had established. He died in the year 1223, much resi3ected by his subjects, in spite of his faults of cr^liness and ambition, for he was a lover of order, and caused the laws to be strictly observed ; he protected the lower orders from the oppression of the nobility, and greatly favored the burghers. He walled in and improved the city of Paris in several important respects, and rebuilt the ca- thedral of Notre Dame, nearly as it now stands. CHAPTER Vn. THE EXTINCTION OF THE HOUSE OF SWABIA. 1225-1289. PART L THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CRUSADES. 1217-1229. The contemporary princes of Europe in the year 1225 were — in Germany, Frederick II. ; in England, Henry HI., scarcely yet out of his minority ; in France, Louis VIII., called the Lion, a brave but not an able man, who died after a reign of seven years, in the midst of a war with Raymond of Toulouse and the Albigenses, leaving his son Louis IX., a boy ten years old, under the guardianship of his widow, Blanche of Castile. In Spain, St. Fernando, a brave and pious monarch, reigned in Castile; and in-Ara- gon, Jayme, who had been left an orphan at three years old, when his father, Pedro II., was killed at Muret, had grown up to be one of the ablest and best monarchs in Christendom. At twelve years old he had taken the gov- ernment upon himself, and ruled his subjects, and made treaties, with astonishing wisdom. Frederick II., called Friedrich of Ilohenstaufen in Ger- many, and Frederico Rogero in Sicily, was the most promi- ♦ The father of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CRUSADES. 91 nent character in Europe. He was very brave, but at the same time he had inherited much of that wily disposition which had characterized his Norman ancestors in Sicily : his mind was his^hly cultivated, and he had so much more humanity than his contemporaries, that in this respect he contrasts favorably with them ; but he was a sensual self- indulgent man, addicted to many vices. His wars with the Church, and contempt for her authority, were without doubt very blamable, but both they and his other faults are to a certain degree excused, when we remember that he was first injured and ill-used by the popes, merely because he was an emperor, and a Ghibelline by birth ; and when the power of the Church was thus misused, it was no won- der that her moral precepts lost their authority. He had been raised to the throne by the popes because they were oftended with Otho of Saxony, and he enjoyed their favor till the downfall of his rival ; but no sooner was Otho no longer dangerous, than the popes only saw in Frederick the head of their old enemies, tke House of Swabia, and the child of the forbidden marnage of Cos- tanza of Sicily. His power in Sicily was so much better established than that of any of his predecessors, that he was very formidable. He had repressed the lawlessness of his N^orman-Sicilian barons, and had overcome a colony of Saracens in the mountains of Sicily, who had remained -there ever since the time of Roger de Hauteville, never reduced, continually reinforced by Moors from Africa, and grievously harassing the Sicilians both by land and s^a. Frederick conquered these Saracens, and transplanted the whole colony into Apulia, where he settled them in the cities of Lucera and Nocera. He treated them so kindly, that they became much attached to him, and served him most faithfully in war ; but those men who slaughtered the Albigenses were ready to believe him a Saracen himself, because he spared their lives. He promised, on receiving the imperial crown, to under- take a Crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Land. Since the time of the Fourth Crusade, Queen Isabella of Jerusalem, and her husband, Amaury de Lusignan, had both died. Cyprus, his k^gdom, descended to Hugh, the 92 LANDMARKS OF HISTOKY. [CHAP. VII. son of his first wife, and her rights to the throne of Jeru- salem to her daughter Mary. A gallant old French knight, named Jean de Brienne, was chosen to be the husband of the young queen, and he fought bravely, but he had not sufficient forces to make any advances, and the utmost he could effect with the aid of the Orders of St. John and the Temple was the protec- tion of the three remaining cities on the coast. In 1217, Andrew, King of Hungary, undertook a fifth Crusade, but he had only just set out when his wife was murdered by one of the nobles, whom she had offended by assisting her brother in some wicked designs on his wife. The poor king, a humble and pious man, pursued his jour- ney, but was too much broken down by grief to exert him- self, and spent his time at Acre in devout observances, instead of attacking the Saracens. Mary of Jerusalem died, leaving a daughter of ten years old, named Yolande; and Frederick, though he was her elder by twenty years, married her, and took the title of King of Jenisalem. He collected a great force, and sailed from Brindisi, in 1227, but a violent storm forced him to put in at Tarento, where both he and many of his troops were attacked with severe illness, which caused many deaths ; and though the emperor recovered, he was disabled, both by his own weak- ness and the loss of his men, from proceeding at that time. Gregory IX., who had just been chosen Pope, treated all this as an excuse for tardiness, and excommunicated him, without regard to his appeals. The next spring he assem- bled another army, and actually arrived at Acre, whither he was immediately followed by orders from Gregory, that neither Templars, Hospitallers, nor any Frank of Palestine, should obey him, he being an excommunicated person. In the mean time, the Pope stirred up the Guelf towns in Italy to revolt, and ravage Frederick's dominions, so that the emperor, irritated and prevented from acting, was only anxious to return to Europe and take his revenge. Malek-ul-Caumel, the Sultan of Damascus, was a gallant prince, and with him Frederick treated with more confi- dence than he could feel in the phristians around him, for FREDEKICK II. , 93 the generous Sultan had sent him a letter from the Tem- plars, treacherously oifering to conduct the Saracens to a place where they might seize the person of the emperor, while he was bathing in the Jordan. By the treaty with this prince, Frederick obtained that Jerusalem should be delivered up to the Christians, who might fortify it again, and take possession of all the churches, with the exception of the Mosque of Omar. The pilgrims were rendered secure, and the Christians returned to the convents, while Frederick entered Jerusalem in triumph, and celebrated his coronation in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ; but as he was under the ban of the Pope, no ecclesiastic would perforin the ceremony. He was forced to take the crown from the altar and put it on his own head ; and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem laid the Church under an interdict. Frederick returned to Italy; and as the Templars and Hospitallers would not observe any truce, as soon as he was gone the war broke out again, and his treaties pro- duced no efiect. Jean de Brienne was at the same time invited to Con- stantinople, to act as regent for the young Latin emperor, Baldwin de Courtenai, the son of Pierre de Courtenai, who had succeeded Henri of Flanders, and had been treaclier- ously slain by the Epirots. Jean, who was past eighty, did not show much vigor in his new post, and the Latin empire day by day became more feeble. PART II. FREDERICK II. 1229-1250. Frederick, on his return from the Holy Land, easily quelled the Italians, and asked a reconciliation with the Church, which Gregory IX. found himself obliged to grant. For the next fifteen years Frederick lived in Apulia, leading a life of ease and pleasure, and at the same time spending much time in study. He had brought home an Arabic translation of Aristotle, which was rendered into Latin by a Scotsman from the English border, Michael Scott, who lived at Frederick's court ; and from that time this book became the study of learned men. Learning was 94 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. VII. at this time beginning fast to revive; there was a great University at Bologna, for the study of science and juris- prudence (chiefly the Code of Justinian;) and Frederick did his utmost to establish such another at Naples, but it never took root there. Everywhere, however, the rude ignorance of former times was passing away, and a know- ledge of reading, writing, and the Latin tongue, was becoming general among nobles and knights. Frederick's son by his first wife, Heinrich, who was only sixteen years younger than himself, governed for him in Germany, until he became discontented with the share of authority allowed to him, and was stirred up by the Milanese and some of the German princes to rebel against his father. Frederick marched into Germany, defeated him, and sent him prisoner to Calabria, where he died. Frederick proceeded to attack the Milanese, and the other Guelfic towns which had favored his son. The mountain lords of Lombardy, and in especial the savage Eccelino Marchese di Romano, favored him ; but all the towns were his enemies, excepting Pavia and Pisa ; and the war lasted a long time. Pope Gregory IX. excommunicated him again, calling him a traitor and a heretic ; and the sentence was renewed by his successor. Innocent lY., though he had previously been a friend of the emperor. Innocent IV. was one of the most violent of all the per- secutors of the House of Swabia ; he fled secretly to Lyons, and there convoked a council of bishops from England, France, and Italy, in which he solemnly declared Frederick to be deposed from all his thrones. When this information was brought to the emperor, he desired his jewels to be brought, and putting on one of his crowns, he exclaimed, " No, indeed, my crown is not yet lost ; nor shall it be till much blood has flowed." The Pope tried to excite Louis IX. of France to attack the emperor, but in vain ; for Louis, though very devout, knew his own duty too well to allow himself to fancy he was fighting the battles of the Church, when gratifying the hatred of the Pope. He strove rather to reconcile the contending parties ; and Frederick even promised submis- sion, and to lead another army to Palestine, but all in vain ; THE SEVEXTH CEUSADE. 95 the Pope was obstinate, and Louis, who was intent on a new crusade, was forced to give up his attempts at peace- making. For "three years Frederick struggled against his Italian enemies ; but he was growing old, and though his courage was not broken, he had lost his hopefulness and energy. Heinz, one of his sons, whom he had made King of Sar- dinia, a fine young man of two-and-twenty, was taken cap- tive by the Genoese, and was never released ; the German princes and free towns were all at war ; and in Calabria and Sicily alone was he obeyed or respected. A second time did Louis of France, in the midst of his crusade, write to the Pope, to entreat him to absolve the worn-out and hum- bled emperor, who had just sent supplies to save the Chris- tian army from perishing with hunger ; but Innocent was inflexible; and on the 13th of December, 1250, Frederick died at Ferentino, in Apulia, still excommunicated, a guilty man, indeed, but suftering from the guilt of those whose duty it was to have led him to repentance, and brought him to accept pardon and peace. PART III. THE SEVENTH CEUSADE. 1248-1254. In the midst of the dissensions of kings and emperors, and while the Church of Rome was degrading herself by grasping at power never given to her from above, and repelling, instead of receiving, the penitent, two monarchs were lifting up their lights in the world, and shining forth among men, so as to show by their conduct what a king ought to be, better than any fancied picture tliat could be devised. These were St. Fernando, in Castile, and his cousin St. Louis in France, both grandsons of the Emperor Alfonso VII., and of our Princess Eleanor Plantagenet. Their mothers, Berenguela, Queen of Castile and Leon, and Blanche, Queen of France, were sisters, both women of admirable piety and ability, and both were early called to exercise the sole guardianship of their children, — Blanche, by the early death of her husband, and Berenguela by a still greater misfortune, for her husband, Alfonso of 96 LANDMxiKKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VI J Leon, took a dislike to her, and obtained a decree froii! Innocent III., annulling their marriage, because they wer., cousins. Fernando's life was chiefly spent in brave and successful combats with the Moors, which so exhausted his treasury, that he was advised to lay additional taxes on his subjects. " God forbid," he answered, " that I should follow such counsel. His providence will assist me by other means. I fear the cry of one poor woman, more than a whole army of Moors." His trust was fulfilled ; he took from the Moors the three beautiful kingdoms of Seville, Murcia, and Jaen, and the city of Cordova, which became the capital of Castile, whilst a fresh kingdom was founded by the Moors at Granada. This excellent king died in 1252, leav- ing several sons, and a daughter worthy of such a father, our own Eleanor of Castile. Louis IX. of France was, until his twenty- third year, un- der the regency of his mother, Blanche, whom he respected so much, that he never attempted to take the government out of her hands. It was during her regency that the resist- ance of the Albigenses was finally overcome, and their heresy so put down, that it is not again mentioned in his- tory. Raymond, the last Count of Toulouse, was in such disgrace for having protected them, and his power so much reduced, that he could only retain his dominions by means of a treaty, by which he pledged himself to leave them all to his daughter Jeanne, who married Alfonso, one of the younger children of Louis VIII. The justice and beneficence of Louis IX. won for him the love of all his subjects, and the respect of his neighbors. His justice was shown in his personal conduct as much as in his judgments, and in a very rare manner, for he made restitution to his crown vassals of all that had been unfairly taken from them by his grandfather, Philippe Auguste ; and lie would even have restored Normandy to Ileiiry III. of England, if it had not been decided by a council of bishops that it had justly been forfeited by King John. For cen- turies after his subjects gloried in showing the oak-tree of Vincennes, where Saint Louis used to sit upon the grass, administering justice, and hearing the cause of the poor as THE SEVEXTH CRUSADE. 97 kindly and with as much attention as that of the noblest and wealthiest. Louis IX., his brother Charles Count of Anjou, Henry III., and his brother Richard Earl of Cornwall, had mar- ried the four daughters and joint heiresses of the last Count of Provence, and it was agreed between them that, as two of the sisters were queens, and as the Earl of Cornwall was the richest prince in Europe, the Countess of Anjou should inherit her father's territory of Provence. All the four were in general exceedingly aifectionate, though this per- haps was chiefly owing to Louis, who often forbore to take advantages which fairly might have been his, that there might be no causes of jealousy among their children. In the year 1243, Louis had a dangerous illness, in the course of which he made a vow that he would undertake a Crusade. He renewed the vow as soon as he recovered, and spent the next five years in preparations, and, as has been shown, striving in vain to reconcile the Pope and the Emperor, and unite them in the same cause. In 1248, he sailed for Marseilles with his wife. Queen Marguerite, his young son Philippe, and his three brothers, at the head of a large army. They arrived at Cyprus, and there spent the winter ; and it was determined that instead of as usual going to the Holy Land, he should attack the Saracens in the seat of their empire in Egypt, and there overthrow their power. He therefore sailed for the Nile, and took Damietta, where the queen and her children were left, while the king advanced upon Cairo, the abode of the Sultan. The great strength of the Egyptian army consisted in the Mamelukes, slaves brought from the cooler and more hilly countries, carefully trained to arms, and never recruited from among persons born in the enervating climate of Egypt. These were formidable warriors ; and the Saracens also possessed the art of making that horrible and mysterious compound, the Greek fire, with which in the time of Heraclius the Persians had been driven from Constantinople. When the Crusaders had advanced as far as Mansourah, they found themselves completely shut in by enemies, and unable to proceed. Robert, the king's brother, was slain in battle, 5 98 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VII. and with him great numbers of other nobles and knights ; and severe sickness broke out in the army, cooped up on the banks of the Nile. Louis himself was very ill ; the enemy harassed them on all sides, and the Greek fire was continually thrown into the camp, burning all that it touched. Whenever the king heard it thrown, he sat up in bed, and, with clasped hands, prayed that his people might be spared. At last it was resolved to retreat : the sick were placed in the boats, and the healthy were to protect them on the bank. The king, though hardly able to stand, wore his armor, and rode among his knights, but before they had made much progress, the enemy overtook them, massacred all the sick whom they thought unable to pay a ransom, and overcame the feeble resistance of the rest of the army. Louis was so exhausted, that one of his knights, who alone remained with him, was obliged to lift him from his horse, and having laid him on the ground, with his head in the lap of a woman who had followed the army from Damietta, he watched him, expecting each moment to see him breathe his last. The Saracens coming up, Louis surrendered him- self to them, and was carried to a wretched little hut, where for many weeks he continued very ill, with no one to attend him save two priests, whose office he held in such honor, that he would hardly suffer them to do him any service. After many negotiations, and much disputing among the Saracens, it was at length agreed that Louis should be released, with all his followers, on condition of his restor- ing Damietta to the Saracens, and paying a considerable ransom. He was conducted up the Nile, and, after some further delay, he succeeded in borrowing the money of the Templars ; after which he was allowed to embark, and was restored to his wife Marguerite, who had suffered dread- fully during his absence from anxiety and terror. Her son, iwho was born during this time of suspense, was named Tristan, and the day after his birth she had been obliged to use the most piteous entreaties to the hired Genoese who had been, left to defend Damietta, not to go away and leave the town to the enemy, which would have been certain destruction to both her and her husband. MANFEED OF SICILY. 99 On leaving Egypt, Louis went to Acre, but liis forces were so much wasted by his misfortunes, that he could do nothing for the Crusaders but rebuild their walls and strengthen their fortifications. He lingered in Palestine, unwilling to give up the hope of rescuing the Holy City, until he was recalled to France by the death of his mother, Queen Blanche, in whose hands he had left the regency ; and after an absence of six years, he returned home. PART IV. MANFRED OF SICILY. 1250-1266. KoNRAD, son of Frederick H. and of Yolande of Jerusalem, was the undoubted heir of his father's crowns, but the Pope caused William, Count of Holland, to be elected emperor, and after a short struggle with him, young Kon- rad died, after so brief an illness, that it was thought that he had been poisoned. He left one infant son, named Konrad, called by the Italians Corradino, of which the English have made Conradine. This poor child, unable to assert the rights to which his birth entitled him, was carried by his mother to the court of her father, the Duke of Bavaria ; while both she and his uncle Manfred, the youngest son of Frederick H., implored Innocent IV. to grant him his protection, as tlie Holy See was the natural guardian of orphans, and Konrad had left especial orders that his family should be reconciled to the Church at any cost. That Conradine was of the blood of Hohenstaufen was Bufficient offence with Innocent IV., who was already giving away his hereditary kingdom of the Two Sicilies ; offering it to Henry HI. for his second son, Edmund Crouchback, and filling it with his troops. Manfred, the son of a Si- cilian lady, born at Naples, and much beloved there, had been appointed viceroy of that kingdom, both by his father, Frederick, and brother, Konrad, and he hastened thither to save it. After narrowly escaping being made prisoner by the Guelfs, he arrived with a very few attend- ants, in the early morning, at the Saracen town of Lucera. His friends forced open the gates, and as soon as he entered, all the inhabitants came forth with acclamations to do him 100 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VII. honor as the son of their emperor. They drove out the Pope's garrison, and were soon assisted by all the Ghibel- lines in the kingdom ; Manfred found himself very power- ful, and, on a report of the death of young Conradine, he caused himself to be crowned. Conradine, however, was alive, and his mother sent ambassadors to remind Manfred of his rights, to which he replied by a promise that Con- radine should succeed him on the throne, and by offering to educate him as his heir, and teach him the virtues of his forefathers. In 1256 Innocent IV. died, but his successors followed the same policy, with the same hatred to the House of Swabia. The Guelf King of the Romans, William of Holland, was the same year killed by a fall from his horse, and the electors, who never honestly proceeded to a choice when one of the right line of their emperors was to be passed over, actually sold their votes to the highest bidder, and elected the English prince, Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, who, however, gained nothing but the empty title, and though he spent every year immense sums of money, was never obeyed for one hour in any city of Germany. The princes oppressed their vassals ; the towns did their best to govern themselves ; and for twenty years Germany was in a dreadful state of confusion. Finding his own forces unable to subdue Manfred of Sicily, and that Henry III., so far from being able to con- quer ncAv realms for his son, was in danger from his rebel- lious barons at home, the popes had recourse to France, and offered to bestow the crown of the Two Sicilies ou Robert, the second son of St. Louis. That excellent king would not accept so unjust a gift, and the offer was, there- fore, passed on to his brother Charles, Count of Anjou, by whom it was eagerly accepted. Charles differed in every respect from his brother ; he was cruel and ambitious, and his wife's pride impelled him to exalt himself at any cost, so jealous was she of seeing her three sisters queens, while she herself was only a countess. Her great inheritance, the county of Provence, furnished him with the troops and money, which Louis would perhaps have refused him. He invaded the kingdom of Naples at the head of a COXRADINE OF SWABIA. 101 large force, to whom Pope Urban IV. wickedly gave the title and privileges of Crusaders. The Apiilian barons, in dread of excommunication, deserted their king, and Man- fred was left with a comparatively small army, all of whom, however, were devotedly attached to him. The two armies met on the banks of the river Galore, near Benevente, and Manfred was desponding. As he was putting on his helmet, his crest, a silver eagle, fell off. " It is a sign from God," said he in Latin to his friends ; " it is by no chance that my crest falls." He rode into battle undistinguished from any of his knights, and fought gallantly ; there was a great slaughter on each side, and towards the evening the Ghibellines fled. A corpse was soon after brought into the Provenyal camp, thrown across an ass, and Charles called all the prisoners, to ask if they could recognize it. Count Giordano Lancia, Manfred's chief friend, on seeing the features, covered his face with his hands, and bursting into tears, exclaimed, " O, my master, my master, what has be- come of us ?" The French knights begged Charles to grant his brave foe Christian burial, but this was refused on account of the sentence of excommunication, and Man- fred was buried at the foot of the bridge of Benevente. PART V. CONRADIXE OF SWABIA. 1266-1285. This battle took place in the year 1266, and Charles of Anjou being crowned King of the Two Sicilies, commenced the new dynasty called the Angevin. He was a cruel and avaricious tyrant, and the Apulians soon had reason to re- pent their having forsaken Manfred. They cast their eyes on Conradine, the sole remaining branch of the Swabian line, now a brave high-spirited youth of twenty, of beauti- ful person, and considerable talent, especially for poetry. He willingly accepted their invitation, and set out for Italy, with an army of Swabians, a number of young German knights, and especially his beloved friend and brother in arms, Frederick, Duke of Austria. They traversed Italy prosperously, and passing Yiterbo, where Pope Clement IV. had shut himself up, were re- ceived with great state at Rome. Entering the Abruzzi, 102 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VII. they found all the Saracens and Ghibellines ready to join them: but their prosperity was short; at Tagliacozzo, Charles fell upon them, and attacking them with a strata- gem such as a chivalrous prince would have despised, he totally dispersed their army. Conradine fled, had reached the coast, and was embarking for Sicily, when he was be- trayed into the hands of the Proven9als, and made prisoner. He was thrown into prison at Naples, with his friend Frederick of Austria, and Charles wrote to the Pope to ask his counsel. Clement replied, " It is not the part of a Pope to advise the death of any one ;" and Charles, well understanding the answer, assembled a tribunal to try these two young princes, both Germans, and no subjects of his, together with some of the noblest young Ghibellines of Northern Italy. One of the judges, Guido di Suzara, rose, saying boldly, " Conradine came not as a robber or plunderer, but in con- fidence in his own good right. He was in no fault for seeking to recover the kingdom of his forefathers by open war. He was not taken in battle but in the flight, and to use prisoners dishonorably is forbidden by all justice." All the other judges agreed with Suzara, except one, a Proven- 9al, who was resolved to minister to the wicked will of his master, and on his authority, Robert of Bari, the protho- notary, pronounced sentence of death against Conradine and his friends. The tidings were carried to the two friends as they were playing at chess ; they listened with calmness, and prepared for their death, which was to take place the next day. It was on the shores of the Bay of Naples that the scaf- fold was prepared, and the throne of Charles of Anjou was raised in full view of it. The condemned were led forth, and the wicked judge began to read the sentence of death, when Count Robert of Flanders, the king's own son-in-law, sprang up, and exclaiming, " How darest thou, rash fellow, condemn so great and noble a knight ? " struck him such a blow with the handle of his sword that he was carried away for dead, while, to the rage of Charles, the French knights applauded the deed. There was no rescue, however, for the victims. Con- CONRADINE OF SWABIA. 103 radine mounted the scaffold first, and untying his cloak, spoke aloud : " As a sinner in the sight of God have I deserved death, but here have I done no wrong. I ask all the faith- ful men, whom my ancestors governed as fathers — I ask all the nobles present, if it is a crime worthy of death, to maintain my own and my people's rights ? And even were I guilty, how dare they thus cruelly punish the innocent, who have held to me in noble faithfulness ?" So saying, Conradine drew off his glove and threw it among the peo- ple ; he knelt down to pray, and as he rose embraced his fellow-sufferer, then stretching out his hands to heaven, cried out, " O my Saviour, King of glory, if this cup may not pass away, I commend m^ spirit into Thy hands." He knelt down once more, and with these last words, " Mother, mother, what grief do I cause thee !" he yielded his head to the executioner. His friend, Frederick of Austria, gave a loud and bitter cry as Conradine's head fell, and then kneeling down himself, shared the same death. Tradition relates that an eagle at that moment flew down, and sweeping across the scaffold bathed its wing in the blood of the murdered prince, the last of the line of Swabia, and mounted up to the sky. Conradine's glove, the pledge of his appeal against the injustice of his death, was picked up bv a Swabian knight, who carried it to Pedro of Aragon, the husband of Manfred's only daughter, Costanza, and therefore his nearest relation. ( LIBRARY I UNIVERSITY OF I CALIFORNIA. J CHAPTER VIIL DESTRUCTION OF THE CRUSADING POWER IN THE EAST. 1261-1291. PART I. THE GKEEKS KECOVEE CONSTANTINOPLE. 1261. Early in the thirteenth century there had been another such Tartar invasion as that of Attila the Hun, such as there seemed to be whenever a man of superior power and ability arose among the wandering tribes of Northern Asia. This chieftain was Zenghis Khan, a name meaning the con- quering lord, a Mongol Tartar, who uniting all the Tartars of the north, overran Persia and India, crossed the Volga, and ravaged Russia, the Greek empire, and Hungary, until at last he was checked and turned back by the chivalry of Germany, on the banks of the Danube, under the Emperor Frederick II. He afterward attempted an invasion of China, but died on his road thither, in the year 1225, and thus the danger to Europe was at an end ; but seeds of further mischief were left in the numerous small colonies of Tartars, left scattered in Southern Russia and Asia Minor, on the bor- ders of the Greek empire. The Latin empire at Constantinople, always weak, had been further shattered by this storm passing over it, and the Emperor Baldwin de Courtenai was so feeble in mind, and indolent in body, as to be incapable of doing anything to restore it. The Greek family of the Lascaris at Nicea had also lost much of their vigor, but in the year 1260, a clever and ambitious soldier, named Michael Palaeologos, succeeded in setting aside the infant emperor, John Las- caris, and himself obtaining the purple. No object was so near Michael's heart, as the recovery of Constantinople. Even when an infant, he had been sung to sleep by his sister Eulogia, with promises that he should one day enter by the Golden Gate ; and as soon as he actually became THE GEEEKS KECOYER CONSTANTIXOPLE. 105 emperor, he turned all his attention to the enterprise. The establishment of the Latins had been in great part the work of the Venetians, many of whom lived at Constanti- nople for purposes of trade, and Michael took advantage of the jealousy with which they were regarded by the other great mercliants of Italy, the Genoese, who were settled in considerable numbers at Fera. He obtained of the Geno- ese thirty vessels to carry his troops across the Bosphorus, and their assistance in the attack. The combat was very short, for all the Greek inhabitants rose in favor of Pala^ol- ogos, glad to shake off a foreign rule, and the commander of Baldwin's forces was obliged to set fire to the town, and effect his escape as well as he could, under cover of the flames. Crowds of Franks, men, women, and children, rushed down to the shore, leaving all their property be- hind them, and threw themselves into the Venetian ships, while the Greeks entered in triumph. Thus, in 1261, ended the Latin power in the East, after having lasted fifty-seven years. Baldwin was kept prisoner for some time, but at last was allowed to make his escape, and wandered about Europe, showing off his poverty at the different courts, and trying to persuade the princes to undertake a new crusade on his behalf The Pope attempted to make the King of France espouse his cause, but St. Louis did not think this a proper object for a crusade; and Baldwin lost even the Pope's support, when Palaeologos desired to be reconciled to Rome. This desire, however, arose from a disgraceful rea- son ; Michael had blinded and banished the poor young Lascaris, and the Greek Patriarch had justly excommu- nicated him, upon which he desired to be received by Rome. The fearless uncompromising Patriarch Arsenios was de- posed, and in 1274 an outward union of the two Churches was effected ; but the clergy of the Eastern Church would not accept the customs which Rome wished to impose on them. Nor would the people give up their own ancient Greek Liturgy, cease to receive the Holy Communion in both kinds, nor acknowledge the Pope's claim to be the universal bishop ; and thus, at the end of Michael's reign, 106 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VTII. the hollow union ceased, as indeed it could never subsist, while Greece continued Catholic, and Rome to press her uncatholic claims. PART II. THE LAST CRUSADE. 1270-1272. The Holy Land had been left without a king since the death of Frederick II. Conradine had indeed borne the title of King of Jerusalem, and it was taken on his death both by his enemy, Charles of Anjou, and Henry de Lusig- nan, King of Cyprus ; but this was of little benefit to the Christians, who were entirely without government. A fierce jealousy arose between the orders of the Temple and St. John, the knights fought frequently against each other ; and in the mean time the Mamelukes of Egypt entered Palestine, and took Joppa, Antioch, and several smaller places, until nothing was left to the Christians, save the single town of Acre. The period of the Crusades was over ; men thought but little of the Holy City, compared with their own ambitious plans, and the darkness was allowed fast to close over the sacred spots which Christians had shown themselves un- worthy to guard. One more attempt was however still to be made ; and after all the crimes, the selfishness, and the meanness, over which we have so often had to mourn in the champions of the Holy Sepulchre, it is a comfort that be- neath the Crosses of the last Crusade were hearts as pure and true as those of the first King of Jerusalem, and of Tancred, the first of its warriors. St. Louis had never lost the hope of returning to the Holy Land, and all the latter years of his reign were spent in so regulating his kingdom that he might leave it in safety. He took the Cross for the second time in 1269, and with him were his brotlier Alfonse, his sons Philippe, Robert, and Tristan, and his nephews, Edward heir of England, Edmund Crouchback, and Henry, son of the King of the Romans. Edward was the bravest, ablest, and handsomest knight in Euro])e ; his courage and filial piety had lately rescued his father from Simon de Montfort and the rebel barons, and now, after settling the government of England THE LAST CRUSADE. 107 on a more just and firm footing than it had ever been since the time of his namesake and patron saint, the Confessor, he took the Cross, accompanied by his noble-spirited wife, Eleanor, the daughter of Saint Fernando of Castile. Louis sailed first, early in the year 1270, but unfortunately his skill as a commander was not equal to his virtues. He appointed to sail to Tunis, and there landing, to wait for the other Crusaders, his brother the King of Sicily, and the three English princes. It is thought that he had some vague hope of an alliance with the l3ey of Tunis, and per- haps of converting him, otherwise it is difiicult to account for this most fatal resolution. He entered the Bay of Tunis, and landed near the ruins of Carthage, but the Moors attacked him on all sides, hiding themselves among the old broken walls and towers, rushing out and cutting off the French. They were soon dislodged from the ruins, and there Louis encamped, to await the arrival of his companions, but be- fore many days the heat of the climate and unhealthiness of the situation occasioned a deadly sickness to break out in the army. The king and all the princes were taken ill. Young Tristan, who had been born in the midst of the dis- asters of the last Crusade, was the first to expire, his uncle Alfonse soon followed him, and Louis lingered but a short time longer. He drew up some beautiful counsels for his eldest son, and spent the rest of his time in prayer. In his last moments he desired to be laid on a bed of ashes, and there with his hands crossed on his breast, and his lips murmuring " O Jerusalem ! Jerusalem !" he breathed his last, on the 25th of August, 1270. At that very moment. King Charles of Sicily was sailing into the bay, accompanied by Edward of England. They came in time to save the life of the young King, Philippe III., by carrying him from this fatal spot, with the rest of the army ; and sailing for Messina, they held council there on their future measures. Charles of Sicily had no desire to dare further perils, which could bring no advantage to himself, and Philippe of France was broken down with grief and discouragement, but Edward of England was firm as ever, though he had only his own little band of 108 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VIII. English followers. " I would go," said he, " if I had only my groom with me." He remained, however, in Sicily for the winter ; and dur- ing his stay there his cousin Henry, son of the King of the Komans, was assassinated in a church at Yiterbo, by Guy and Simon de Montfort, in revenge for the death of their father at the battle of Evesham. In spring Edward pro- ceeded to Acre, repulsed the Mamelukes from the walls of the town, and recovered Nazareth, but on his return to Acre, both he and his army began to suffer from the effects of the climate. The fate pursued him. which seemed to hang over all the chiefs of this crusade, and he scarcely escaped death from the hand of an Assassin from Joppa. His wife's act of self-devotion saved him from the effects of the poison, and as soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he quitted the Holy Land, to take possession of his father's throne. The hope of returning thither never left him, though it was stifled and turned aside by the ambition which afterward caused him to stain the character once so noble. On his death-bed he spoke of Jerusalem, and or- dered a body of troops to be sent to the Holy Land ; and he sleeps beneath a huge plain^block of porphyry, brought, it is believed, from the overthrown stones of the Temple — a fit monument for the last of the Crusaders. PART III. THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 1272-1285. The years 1271 and 1272, were years of new sovereigns, and for the most part of excellent ones. Henry HL gave place to his noble son Edward I. Philippe le Hardi, though inferior to his father, was an upright and excellent man ; and a Pope and Emperor were both elected who were patterns in their several stations. The cardinals, after disputing for twenty-three months, at length fixed upon a priest of the noble House of Visconti, of Milan, who was at the time in Palestine with Edward of England. Re- turning, he took the name of Gregory X., and mounted the pontifical throne, saying, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." He set himself, with all his might, to repress the dissensions of the neigh- THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 109 boring States, and to turn men's minds to better things ; he hoped to unite the princes of Europe in a more glorious crusade than any which had yet taken phice, but death put an end to these attempts, at the end of four years, which had been spent in his true duty of peace-making. The nominal King of the Romans, Richard Flantagenet, died in 12V 2, and the Germans, tired of their long anarchy, resolved that their election should be in earnest. They wished for a brave and able prince, who should have suffi- cient power to defend them, yet whose hereditary possessions should not render him independent, as had been the case with the Saxon and Swabian emperors. Their choice fell on Rudolf, Count of Ilapsburg, a free noble of an ancient line, of no great power, and one of the best, bravest, ablest, and at the same time the most pious and humble men in Gennany. His kindness and charity were as remarkable as his courage, and he is noted as one of those whose piety seems to have entailed prosperity on his children after him. The sceptre had been lost during the previous troubles, and Rudolf took up the crucifix in its stead, saying that the emblem of our redemption might well take the place of the emblem of dominion. Rudolf conquered Ottocar, the Sclavonic King of Bohe- mia, who had lately made great inroads upon Germany, and took from him the dukedoms of Austria and Styria, which he had unjustly seized. The ancient line of Dukes of Austria had become extinct in Frederick, the friend and fellow-suiferer of Conradine, and Rudolf invested his own son Albrecht with the dukedom, which has ever since be- longed to the House o-f Hapsburg. Rudolf and Gregory X. were not men to keep up the old feuds of Pope and Emperor ; they desired that the tem- poral and spiritual power should go hand in hand, instead of being continually in opposition. They met at Lausanne, and reconciled all the ancient quarrels, and at that moment the state of Christian Europe was more like what it ought to have been than at any other period of modern history. Blots there were, of course, and the deepest and darkest of them was Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, with his cruel oppression of the kingdom which he had gained by 110 LANDMARKS OF HISTOKY. [CHAP. VIII. injustice, and secured, as he thought, by a murder. He had extermmated the Saracen followers of the House of Hohen- staufen, and had filled every situation of trust in Naples and Sicily with his own Proven9als, insolent and rapacious men, who each maintained a number of men-at-arms from France, and permitted and encouraged them to ill-use the country-people. A fearful day of retribution was however at hand. On Easter Monday, the 30th of March, 1282, the people of Palermo, according to their usual custom on a holiday, were walking to hear vespers at the Church of Monreale, about three miles from the town, when a French soldier, among the crowd, offered an insult to a young maiden, who was walking with her betrothed and her brothers. These young men, in violent anger, wrenched the Frenchman's sword from him and slew him ; the surrounding Sicilians, whose minds had long been brooding over the memory of many such wrongs, daily inflicted, took their part, and fell upon the other French who were dispersed among them, putting them all to death. Their fury increasing with their success, they returned to the town of Palermo, and continued the work of slaughter, killing every one of French or Proven9al birth — men, women, and children— without pity. The other inhabitants' of Sicily followed their exam- ple, and every one of the hated French throughout the island was murdered, excepting the family of one Proven- 9al knight, Guillaume de Porceles, who had been so kind to the people of his fief, that they defended him from the other Sicilians, and sent him in safety to Italy. This frightful massacre is called the Sicilian Vespers, from its having commenced at the moment when the vesper bell was ringing. The Sicilians now took up arms to pro- tect themselves from Charles, and sent messengers to offer their crown to Pedro IH. of Aragon, the husband of Man- fred's daughter Costanza, and the heir of the rights of Conradine. Pedro was the son of the great and excellent King Jayme el Conquestador, and had inherited many of his talents and virtues. He had a powerful fleet. Barce- lona was a great seaport. The Catalonians were esteemed the best of sailors, next to the Venetians and Genoese, and - THE SICILIAN VESPERS. Ill Roger de Lauria, his admiral, was the most skilful naval commander then in Europe. He therefore f6lt himself well able to undertake the cause of the Sicilians, and declared war against Charles of Anjou. Roger de Lauria was sent to sail round the island, and carry- succors thither. He did so ; took the little isles of Malta and Gozo, and appeared in front of the Bay of Naples. Charles, Prince of Salerno, eldest son of Charles of Anjou, sailed out to meet him, but was totally routed, and made prisoner. Sicily being thus secured, Pedro took his wife thither, and left her to govern it with her son Jayme, while he returned to Aragon, to protect his own dominions from the French, who took the part of the Angevin prince. The reigning Pope, Martin, excommunicated Pedro, and gave his kingdom away to Charles, Count de Valois, son of Philippe le Hardi ; but Pedro was too secure in posses- sion to regard this forfeiture, and in derision, signed him- self Caballero, or Knight of Aragon, instead of king. Philippe III. invaded his dominions in 1284; he marched to repel the invasion, and gained, in October, a complete victory near Gerona. Philippe returned through the county of Roussillon, and on his way was taken ill, and died at Perpignan. Pedro only survived till the end of the year, having, it appears, caught the same disease at Gerona. He was absolved on his death-bed by the Arch- bishop of Tarragona. His eldest son, Alfonso, became King of Aragon, and Jayme, of Sicily. In 1285 King Charles I. of Naples died. He was a pow- erful and a successful prince on the whole, and though he had lost the island of Sicily, his dominions were still very extensive, since he not only possessed Provence, and the kingdom of Naples, but the principality of Achaia in Greece, and several of the Greek islands. His character was a strange one, ambitious, crafty, and violent, yet with a certain sort of devotion ; his faults fostered, perhaps, by the manner in which the Popes degraded their sacred call- ing for the sake of furthering their private ends. He seems to have looked upon himself all along as the champion of Heaven, since he was the champion of the Popes, and to have thought all his sins, for that reason, excused. Per- 112 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. VIII. haps in him, and his brother St. Louis, we see the types of the persons who have their reward in this world, and of those who seek it above. PART IV. THE FREE CITIES OF ITALY. 1270-1300. Rudolf of Hapsburg, having so little power of his own, independently of his being emperor, did not attempt to exert his authority over Italy, as his predecessors had done. He formally ceded to the See of Rome the territory of Ro- magna, and the inheritance of the Countess Matilda. The Popes had never ceased to assert their right to these do- minions every time they crowned an emperor, but the assertion had hitherto passed as a mere form, and had never been acted upon until the present time. Still, the power which they had acquired was only the vague claim of sov- ereignty hitherto possessed by the emperor ; in effect, the cities of these countries entirely governed themselves. The towns of Lombardy and Tuscany became entirely free, and were left to enjoy the rights for which they had so long struggled. Northern Italy was divided into a number of little republics, not unlike those of ancient Greece, though scarcely so steady and regular in their government. Some of these cities were extremely rich, full of merchant princes, who then conducted the whole trade of Europe with the east and north. The Genoese and Venetians had establishments for trading with the Tartars on the coast of the Black Sea, and with the Arabs on the coast of Syria, and their counting-houses were found in all parts of Europe. The Venetians and Milanese were the first money-changers and lenders, excepting the Jews. Their establishments for the purpose were called banks, from their woj'd hanco^ the bench where the busi- ness was transacted ; and both in London and Paris, the street where such affairs took place was called Lombard Street from their name. Florence was also exceedingly rich, and its coinage of florins was used all over Europe, instead of the bezants of Byzantium, or Constantinople, which had hitherto prevailed. Neither riches nor their much-desired liberty could THE FREE CITIES OP ITALY. 113 secure peace to these cities. Venice was the best regu- lated, with its king-like Doge and powerful nobility, but its government was stern and harsh, and there were two councils, of ten and of forty nobles, who were set to repress the power of the Doge, just as the Ephors of Sparta had restrained the kings. Anything like resistance to the gov- ernment was punished secretly and fearfully ; the offender was thrown into the prisons called the Piombi, or leads, at the top of the palaces, and after being tried before the dreaded tribunal of the Forty, was led away across the Bridge of Sighs, and privately put to death. One Doge, named Marino Falieri, was condemned for conspiring against the republic, and executed on the marble stairs, where he had plighted his faith to the State of St. Mark. These jealous precautions preserved Venice in her great- ness for six hundred years, but it was far otherwise with the other free cities of Italy. Though the real war of Guelf and Ghibelline was in fact concluded when Conra- dine's blood streamed on the scaffold, yet the old party names and party hatreds still prevailed as fiercely as ever in Northern Italy. All the nobles, as a general rule, were Ghibellines, most of the citizens Guelfs, and as the mer- chants had now become extremely rich and powerful, it was a positive disadvantage to be born of a noble family, for no one in their own republic would trust the nobles, or allow them any political power, nor in fact did they often deserve any, for they were a haughty, vii)lent, self-indulgent Kace. Great numbers of them were often sent to live in banishment, when they either hired themselves out as soldiers or as judges to other States. For the citizens, though they would have nothing to do with their own noblemen, could not either govern themselves, or fight for themselves, and generally imported either a Podesta or a captain-general from some other State, to whom they , committed their government and defence. According as the Guelfs or Ghibellines happened to be the most powerful, they banished all their opponents, so that it was the usual state of things that half the citizens should be living in exile ; and at Florence, where the Guelfs were decidedly the ruling faction, there was a second 114 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. VIII. split between them, and the two parties, called the Blacks and Whites, were continually fighting in the streets, be- sieging each other's houses, and sending each other into exile. All the older houses in Florence are positive fort- resses, heavily and strongly built, with hardly any win- dows below, and capable of making a long defence. The great Florentine poet, Dante Alighieri, the first who ever wrote in Italian instead of Latin, was of the White party, and was exiled by the other faction. In this exile he wrote his great poem, the Divina Commedia, in which he repre- sents himself as beholding, revealed to him in a vision, the three realms of the invisible world, the place of condemna- tion, the place of expiation,* and the place of glory ; and in these he sees and holds converse with the spirits of the great men of all ages, even of his own time, and those with whom he had been personally acquainted. Of course, all this involves much of what we should now think pre- sumption, but Dante's own spirit was pious and reverent, and his poem is very valuable, not only for its beauty, but as a guide to the views taken by earnest and religious men upon the right and wrong of the questions then at issue. The unsettled state of the republics afforded an opportu- nity for tyrants to raise themselves to unlawful power, ac- cording to the constant rule, that democracy ends in mili- tary despotism. Either some captain-general established his power too firmly to be shaken, some prince of the Apennines took the city under his protection, some noble- man seized all the power, or some great merchant family outgrew the rest. The Marchese di Este, a mountain lord, was made ruler of Ferrara first of all. Cane della Scala made himself lord of Verona ; and Matteo Visconti, with his four warlike sons, established a dominion which the Milanese were never able to shake off. In Tuscany, the freedom of the towns did not fall so soon ; indeed, the tyrant of Pisa was punished in a fearful manner. Count Ugolino della Gherardesca had raised himself by the most improper means to great power : he had bribed the enemies of the State to ruin his personal foes ; he had ♦As a Romanist, Dante believed in purgatory. THE LOSS OF ACRE. 115 killed or sent into exile all who opposed him ; had pro- cured his own nomination as captain-general, and had de- ])rived the people of all their liberties. In the height of his pride, as he was returning in state from his inaugura- tion as Signore di Pisa, he exclaimed aloud, " Well, what more can be reserved for me ?" " The wrath of God," re- plied a voice from the crowd. Soon after, Ugolino, in a sudden fit of passion, murdered a nephew of the Archbishop of Pisa, a deceitful and re- vengeful man, who at first concealed his anger, in order to make his vengeance more certain. He watched his time, and when he thought the citizens sufiiciently weary of Ugolino's tyranny, he harangued the people, and having excited their fury, led them to attack the Gherardesca family in their palace. After defending himself for some time, Ugolino was made prisoner, with his sons and two grandsons, and shut up in a tower. After some months, the wicked archbishop nailed up the door, threw the keys into the Arno, and starved all the five to death. PART V. THE LOSS OF ACRE. 1291. The moment had come when those few spots in the Holy Land which still remained to the Christians were to be taken from them. The Mameluke Sultans of Egypt had grown more and more powerful, and in Asia Minor the re- mains of Zenghis Khan's Tartars were becoming very formidable, under the name of Turks. Othman, their first Sultan, took Iconium from the Saracens, and laid the foundations of an empire even more dangerous to Christen- dom than the Turks had been at their first outbreak. Acre, the last remaining Christian town, was very well fortified, and the two commanderies of the Orders of St. John and the Temple, were filled with brave knights, but the inhabitants were in a dreadfully corrupt state, so much so that it was said to be the wickedest town in Syria. They would observe no treaty, but whenever it pleased them would come out and plunder the Saracen inhabitants of the country, thus, of course, bringing vengeance upon themselves. The Mamelukes prepared to attack them, and 116 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. YIII. Jean de Villiers, Grand Master of the Hospitallers, went to Italy, to entreat the Pope to cause a new crusade to be preached, as the only hope of saving their last hold upon Palestine. The wars of Italy, however, chiefly occupied Pope Nicholas IV., who was not even sufficiently in earnest to afibrd a little money out of his treasury to assist the Grand Master in fitting out the few troops whom he suc- ceeded in hiring — so low was Europe fallen. The princes of the West were equally engaged in their own wars. Philippe IV., of France, had the same faults as Philippe Auguste, without his better qualities; and in England, Edward I. had just lost Eleanor, his better angel, and had allowed himself to be drawn aside from his nobler aims, by the temptation of making himself Lord Paramount of Scotland. Rudolf of Hapsburg was just dead, and neither his son Albrecht of Austria, nor the newly-elected Em- peror Adolf of Nassau, were men of weight or worth. Charles II., of Naples, who called himself likewise King of Jerusalem, was in the midst of a war with Frederico of Aragon, who had succeeded to his mother's rights over Sicily, and the only aid which the Grand Master could ob- tain was from the other titular King of Jerusalem, Henry, King of Cyprus. He brought two hundred horse and five hundred foot to Acre, but such assistance could avail little against the sixty thousand horse, and one hundred and sixty thousand foot, with which Sultan Shereiff* was ad- vancing from Egypt. The Templars and Hospitallers drew in their forces from all their houses and preceptories, and in the extremity of their danger forgot their jealousies and fought with a nobleness and concord such as had scarcely been known to exist between the red and white crosses since the days of Godfrey de Bouillon. The Teutonic Knights, a German order of later foundation, also fought gallantly. The numbers of the Mamelukes and Saracens were, however, overwhelming; the brave defenders of the walls slew whole battalions of them, and the Sultan scarce- ly perceived the loss, but sent others to the charge, with- out giving any repose to the exhausted garrison. Henry of Cyprus, in despair, embarked his troops, and sailed away to his own island. A few days after vhe Grand THE LOSS OF ACRE. 117 Master of the Temple was killed with a poisoned arrow, and such a breach was made in the walls that the enemy- began to pour in in immense numbers. The Hospitallers, upon this, betook themselves to their ships, and sailed away to Cyprus, with many of the Templars and Teutonic Knights ; but two hundred Templars, resolved to hold out to the very last, shut themselves up in the tower of their own commandery, and defended themselves for three days, until at length it was set on fire, and fell, crushing Templars and Mahometans together in its ruins. The nuns of the Convent of St. Clara, fearing to be made slaves in the harems of the Saracens, tore their faces to disfigure their beauty, and were killed by the enemy ; all the other women in the town, and the children, were car- ried off into servitude, and the men were massacred. The walls of Acre were thrown down, and the whole town demolished, as was likewise done with Tripoli and Tyre, the latter of which has never recovered its desolation, but is still a waste spot, where the fisherman spreads his nets to dry. After this destruction of their only stronghold in Pales- tine, the Templars dispersed themselves among their nu- merous rich commanderies in Europe ; the Teutonic Knights went to Germany, where they might still find heathen enemies to fight with, .on the Livonian border, where the Emperor Frederick II. had already made them a grant of all that they might conquer. The Hospitallers remained in Cyprus, where they applied themselves as far as possible to the fulfilment of their vows, by receiving and sheltering pilgrims, protecting them on their journey, and waging war with the numerous pirates of the Mediterranean, thus still doing infinite service to Christendom. r LIBRxVliY ^ UNIVERSITY OF iGALIFORNIA. J CHAPTER IX. THE PAPACY AT AYIGNON. 1297-1378. PART I. STATE OF LEARNING. 1297. The fourteenth century was the period at which all the Gothic institutions were displayed in perfection; their rudeness softened down, and their development worked out. The Teutonic Romanic nations had not looked be- yond the framework of religion, as they had first accepted It ; the feudal system still was the principle of government : chivalry regulated their manners and their modes of war- fare; the old Germanic and Celtic traditions were the foundation of literature, which now first began to be written in the national languages, Italian, Spanish, French, and the less Latinized German and English; heraldry, painting on glass, the illumination of manuscripts, carving m wood and stone, Gothic art of every kind, and especially architecture, had attained such beauty as has never been surpassed. The rough ignorance of older times had given place to considerable cultivation ; the " courteous" de- meanor of a true knight had more of gentleness, his accom- plishments were not solely warlike, and he was often a scholar, a minstrel, or a statesman, as well as a warrior. The seeds of change were, however, silently sown in this century, and began to germinate almost in secret, their planters little guessing the great effect which they would produce. An English friar, of the Order of St. Francis, Roger Bacon, sought deeply int6 the secrets of chemistry, and first discovered the construction of gunpowder, which was destined to overthrow the whole system of warfare, and with it, all of chivalry that was not a part of Chris- tianity, and therefore could never die. In 1319 paper was first made — the earliest step toward printing, the art which was so widely to diff'use knowledge and the spirit of in- quiry, especially on religious subjects. The universities of Padua and Bologna were studying the Roman codes of law ; and the Florentine poet, Petrarch, was collecting and STATE OP LEARNING. 119 trying to revive the study of the works of Cicero and the other writers of classical Rome ; while Boccaccio, another Florentine, first promoted the learning of the ancient Greek language and the reading of Homer. Petrarch's name is chiefly remembered for the sake of the poetry which he addressed to Laura, a Provenyal lady, whose praises he sung as her minstrel and troubadour ; and Boc- caccio wrote a number of tales, the earliest compositions in Italian prose ; but it was in fact more by the revival of taste, and admiration for classical antiquity, that these men influenced Europe, than by their own individual composi- tions. At the same time, such further corruptions arose in the practice of the Church of Rome, that men were first led to search and look whether she were truly keeping the faith once delivered to the saints. After the death of Pope Nicholas IV. in 1297, the cardi- nals disputed for nearly two years without deciding on his successor; and at last, .to the extreme surprise of all Italy, they fixed upon Pietro di Morone, an old hermit, who lived on a mountain near Rome, a very good but very ignorant man, with only just understanding enough to en- able him to lead his own simple, pious, and tranquil life in his solitude. They gave him the name of Celestine IV., and installed him in full state at Rome, but the poor old man was extremely miserable, and was perfectly incapable of fulfilling the offices that devolved upon him. Among the cardinals there was an Italian of noble birth, named Benedetto Caietano, who, though nearly eighty years of age, had by no means lost his fiery violent temper or his ambition. He resolved to take advantage of Celestine's weakness and simplicity to obtain the papal crown. Ac- cording to some accounts, he wickedly contrived to make Celestine fancy he heard a voice from heaven calling on him to resign ; at any rate, he summoned the cardinals together, and gave them a writing of abdication drawn up for him by Caietano. They were tired of his helplessness and ignorance, and, though such a proceeding was most irregular, accepted his resignation, and immediately elected Caietano, who took the name of Boniface VIII. Celestine hoped to have been 120 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IX. allowed to return to his hermitage in peace. But Boni- face, knowing that he was the only real Pope, was afraid to trust him out of his own hands, and he kept him closely- watched. Once the poor old man escaped, but he was soon overtaken and brought back again, piteously entreating that the Pope would let him go, and promising never to molest him. He was, however, again placed in confine- ment, where he pined and died, only twenty-two months after his unfortunate election. PART II. BONIFACE VIII. 1298-1303. The Papacy, so obtained, proved the source of still greater misfortunes to Boniface VIII. At first his power lifted him up so that he gave aloose, in the most unseemly manner, to his violent temper, and thus drew upon himself a dread- ful retribution. He had a great hatred to the noble Roman family of Colonna, whom he persecuted in every possible manner, and at last drove them out of Rome, and besieged them in their town of Palestrina. I inding that he could not take the place, he sent for Guido di Montfeltro, who after having served as an able Ghibelline general, had quit- ted the world, embraced the order of St. Francis, and lived in strict penitence. Boniface commanded this man, on his vow 'of obedience, to enter the town as a friend and betray it, absolving him beforehand for the sin. Montfeltro trusted to the power over souls which he believed the Pope to pos- sess, and betrayed the Colonna, who, however, were warned in time, and fled to France. This dreadful crime must not, however, be charged on the whole Church of Rome, since we find that sincere Roman Catholics, at that very time, did not think this absolution valid. >. The King of France was the worst enemy of Boniface. Philippe IV., called by his subjects Philippe le Bel, but better deserving the name given him by Dante, the Pest of France, was one of the worst kings that ever reigned. He was clever, crafty, and ambitious, and extremely covetous ; he debased the coinage, fearfully oppressed his subjects, robbed and banished the Lombards, and cruelly persecuted the Jews, all for the sake of gratifying his avarice. He BOXIFACE VIII. 121 had married Jeanne, heiress of Navarre, and was king of that country, as well as his own. The only prince in Europe whose power and abilities were by any means a match for his, was Edward I. of England, but he, unfortunately, was so much set upon reducing Scotland, that he neglected his affairs in France, and through this neglect, and his desire of at any cost obtaining peace in that quarter, allowed Philippe not only to cheat him out of his county of Guienne, but to draw him into a grievous crime. Guy de Dampierre, Count of Flanders, was a firm ally of England, and his daughter was betrothed to Edward of Caernarvon, first Prince of Wales, the son of Edward I. Trusting to the aid of England, Guy took up arms against France, but the promised assistance was never sent. Flan- ders was overrun by the enemy, and Guy, who had come to the French camp on the faith of a safe conduct from Philippe, was thrown into prison with his daughter, and never released. Not only did Edward never interfere in his behalf, but he accepted Philippe's proposal of giving his own daughter, Isabelle, to the Prince of Wales, — a mar- riage which in after-time brought fearful sufferings on both England and France. The Bishop of Pamiers, in Narbonne, was appointed by Boniface papal legate to France, and he spoke so boldly to Philippe on his crimes, and. especially his treatment of the Count of Flanders, that the king was offended, and im- prisoned him. The Pope wrote to require his release, at the same time admonishing the king of his faults, and call- ing on the clergy to take their proper place in preventing his illegal measures. The French clergy were, however, more subservient to the Crown than those in any other country. ^ Church mat- ters had always hitherto gone on with great tranquillity ; no collisions of authority, like those in England and Ger- many, had taken place between Church and State, and except in the time of the interdict on Philippe Auguste, which was caused by a moral crime, about which there could be no question. King and Pope had always gone on hand in hand, and the limits of their authority had never been defined. It thus happened that the Crown had insen- 6 122 LANDMAKKS OF HISTORY. [ciJAP. IX. sibly taken all those powers over the bishops which had in other centuries been so hotly contested, and Philippe had around him a set of clergy so much in his own pow er, that he could gain their consent to whatever he chose. In his anger w^ith Boniface, he called them together, and drew up an act of accusation against the Pope, for his irregular election, and for a great many crimes of which Boniface, though far from being a good man, was certainly innocent. The dispute ran very high ; Philippe made the French clergy declare sentence of' deposition against the Pope ; and the Pope, in return, excommunicated both him and them. Upon this, Philippe sent off Boniface's greatest enemy, Sciarra Colonna, Guillaume de Nogaret, a Provenyal knight, and three hundred horse, who, travelling with the utmost despatch, suddenly arrived at Anagni, the Pope's native town, where he was then residing. What Philippe really intended them to do is not known, but it can scarcely be accusing him unjustly, to think that he meant that with- out positive orders on his part, they should fulfil his wishes, as Becket's murderers did those of Henry II. Their determination, however, failed. Boniface was in- deed far inferior to Becket, but on this occasion he acted with firmness and dignity. When his enemies forced their way into his palace, they found him before the altar, his white hair flowing on his purple robes, and his face full of an expression of nobleness, which daunted them ; and when he turned to Nogaret, and said, that from his hands he ex- pected the crown of martyrdom, they turned away con- founded, and laid no hand upon him. They spent three days in plundering his treasures, at the end of which time, the inhabitants of Anagni, awakening from the surprise of their sudden attack, rose upon them, and released him. He instantly went to Koine for security, but there it appeared that the agitation had completely over- thrown the balance of his mind. He gave way to fits of im- potent fury against the French, and the House of Colonna, and acted in such a frenzied manner, that the cardinals tliought it best to confine him to his house. This he fancied was a renewal of the outrage of Nogaret ; he spent a whole DESTRUCTION OF THE ORDER OF THE TEMPLE. 123 day without taking food, and in bursts of passion ; he shut liiniself up in his own room at night, and in the morning was found dead on his bed, the coverings drawn closely over his mouth, a stick clenched fast in his hand, gnawed all over, and marked with foam, and his white hair stained with blood, as if, in a fit of rage, he had dashed his head against the wall, and then stitied himself with the bed- clothes. This wretched old man died in 1303, in the eighty- sixth year of his age. PART III. DESTRTJCnON OF THE ORDER OF THE TEMPLE. 1303-1314. Benedict XL was elected in the place of Boniface VIIT., and proceeded to excommunicate the authors of the out- rage. No sooner was this news carried to Philippe IV., than knowing Benedict to be a good and upright man, he resolved to be rid of liim, and bribed two of the cardinals to poison him, so that he died early in 1304. A great many of the cardinals had accepted bribes from Philij^pe, but about half the conclave were firmly opposed to him, and it seemed as if they would never come to an election. At last they settled that the cardinals of the party hostile to France should choose three persons, all Frenchmen, and that those of the French party should fix on one of them to be Pope. The three were chosen who were thought to have the greatest motives for hatred to Philippe ; whose friends, on the other hand, sent to ask him which of them he wished to have appointed. Philippe had reason to think that of the three, the Archbishop of Bordeaux had the least prin- ciple and firmness, and he therefore resolved to let him be elected, first, however, making his own terms. For this purpose he went secretly from Paris, met the archbishop in an abbey near St. Jean d'Angely, and promised him his influence on six conditions. Four of these related to the old quarrel with Boniface, the fifth was that Philippe should rob the clergy of France of all their tithes for five years, and the sixth was not to be revealed at present. To these shameful terms the archbishop agreed, and 124 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IX. having thus sold himself, the king sent orders that he should be elected, and he took the name of Clement V. Philippe would not trust his miserable tool out of his kingdom, and instead of coming to Rome, Clement sent for the cardinals to consecrate him at Lyons. The papal court was afterwards established* at Avignon, a little town in Provence, so that Rome was left deserted by its bishop, and the Pope, though considered as the head of the West- ern Church, could do nothing without the consent of the Kings of France and Naples. It is hard to imagine a more wretched position than that of Clement V., feeling his degradation, bitterly hating King Philippe, and yet without steadiness to resist his wicked will. He tried in vain to make the king forget his sixth condition, by loading his family with honors, giving his brother Charles de Valois the title of Emperor of Ger- many, Vicar-general of the Pope in Italy, and King of Sicily ; he let Philippe despoil the Church as mu'ch as he pleased, and censured whomsoever the king chose ; but still the sixth condition hung over him, and a dreadful one it was. It was, that he would give up the whole Order of Knights Templars to be pillaged and massacred by the king. The Order of the Temple had not, like that of St. John, continued in the East, where at this very time the Hospi- tallers, under the brave Grand-Master Foulques de Villaret, were conquering for themselves the island of Rhodes, and establishing a great maritime power there, for the protec- tion of the seas from pirates. The Templars had, on the other hand, taken up their abode in their numerous houses throughout Europe, and there lived in considerable ease and luxury, in spite of the* strict rules of their Order. They were of high birth, and many had all the pride of the feudal nobles ; their riches liad become great, and there is no doubt, that with no reg- ular occupation, and trained to arms as they were, they might become very dangerous to the kings around them. This, however, is not the least excuse for Philippe le Bel, who wanted only their riches, and acted as a perfidious Racrilegious murderer. He invited the Templars into DESTEUCTION OF THE ORDER OF THE TEMPLE. 125 France, to consult on a new Crusade, and in the same night caused his troops to surround their houses, and make them prisoners. The Grand-Master, Jacques de Molay, was taken at the tower of the Temple at Paris, with one hun- dred and forty of his knijjhts, by the wicked Nogaret. On Sunday, two days after, the prosecution commenced. The Templars were declared guilty of numerous horrible and revolting crimes, of blaspheming and insulting the Cross, of worshipping the devil, of practising sorcery, of murderinoj children, of havins: sold Acre to the infidels. In order to obtain some kind of proof of these accusations, many of the knights were put to the torture; to force a con- fession from them. Some died under their torments, de- claring they knew of no such things, but others unfortu- nately yielded, and purchased a short respite from their sufferings, by assenting to whatever was put into their mouths. The Grand-Master, Jacques de Molay, at first de- clared the untruth of all that was alleged against them ; but his spirit was broken by a long imprisonment ; ques- tions were put to him in Latin, which he only half under- stood, and a sort of confession was drawn from him. That persecuting tribunal, the Inquisition, sentenced the Templars to death by fire ; and forty or fifty at a time these brave kni2;hts were dracrsjed out on hurdles and burnt, all professing their mnocence with their last breath. Their order was dissolved, and commands were sent to the kings of other countries to seize their persons and their wealth. Nowhere but in France were they put to death, but the main body of them had been collected there, and were there destroyed ; the others were few in number, and with- out lands and without a centre they soon died away. Philippe himself gained immense riches, by seizing their lands in France ; his son-in-law, Edward II. in England, and his cousin, Charles II. of Naples, followed his example, by taking their property, as did the kings of Castile and Aragon. In Germany, their domains were given to the Teutonic Knights ; and in Portugal the brave and good King Diniz took the knights themselves under his protec- tion, and instead of appropriating their lands, formed them into a new order, by the name of the Order of Christ. 126 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IX. The Grand-Master, Jacques de Molay, with three of his Grand Priors, were kept in prison for six years, till all their knights had been burnt, and were then led out to hear their confession read over, and to be sentenced to perpetual im- prisonment. On this occasion they all four spoke out boldly, declared that the whole accusation was a horrible falsehood, called all present to hear their testimony to the innocence of their murdered brethren, and declared them- selves ready to share their fate. They shared it that very evening. Philippe condemned them at once, without having recourse to the Inquisition, and the four knights were led out together, in their shrouds, with their hands chained, firm and patient, and their only care to clear their brethren from the horrible stain on their memory. They were burned in a slow fire on the 11th of March, 1314, and the last time the voice of Jacques de Molay was heard, while the smoke was curling round his venerable head, was this summons, " I call on the, Clement Pope of Rome, and on thee, Philippe King of France and Navarre, to appear, the one within forty days, the other in less than a year, before the judgment-seat of God, to an- swer for your crimes done upon me and my brethren." Such, at least, is the account given by some historians, while others think that the story of the prophecy arose from the fact of the two chief persecutors of the Oi-der dying so soon after its extermination. On the fortieth day Clement V. died of a short illness ; in the November following, Philippe le Bel was thrown from his horse while hunting, and so much injured, that a fever came on, and he died, in the 46th year of his age. He left three sons, each of whom had a short reign, and died, leaving no male heir ; the kingdom of Navarre went to Jeanne, the daughter of his eldest son, and France to Philippe, son of his brother Charles de Valois, but the suc- cession was disputed by Edward III., son of his daughter Isabel, and the wars which were thus brought on France, desolated that country for four generations. Lastly, it was the Tour du Temple that was the scene of the woes of those innocent descendants of Philippe le Bel, on whom the sins of the royal line of France were so heavily visited. SWISS INBEPEXDEXCE. 127 PART IV. SWISS INDEPENDENCE. 1298-1308. Albrecht, Duke of Austria, son of Rudolf von Hapsburc^, in 1298, gained a victory at Worms, over his rival Adolf von Nassau, and received the crown of Germany at Aix- la-Chapelle. The eldest son of the great Rudolf had died young, leaving a son named Johann, from whom his uncle Al- brecht took his whole paternal inheritance of Hapsburg and Swabia, at first under pretence of being his guardian ; and afterward, when he grew up and claimed his rights, the king only answered by putting a garland of flowers on his head, and telling him those were the crowns suited to his age. In the same unjust and grasping manner as he used his nephew, did Albrecht treat all his subjects, trying to get into his hands power which had never properly belonged to his predecessors, either as Emperors or Dukes of Austria. His chief usurpation was in Switzerland. The brave moun- tain peasants of the Alps were divided into little forest cantons, some of them belonging to the Count of Haps- burg, but the greater number owning the emperor alone as their lord, as did also the three towns of Berne, Zurich, and Friburg. Albrecht was resolved to attach these all alike to his hereditary dukedom of Austria, with which of course they had nothing to do. He seized the princij)al castles, and placed oppressive governors in them. The worst of these tyrants was Herman Gesler, at the town of Altdorf, where he treated with great pride and harshness the peasants in the three surrounding cantons of Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwalden. Seeing a new house built in the outskirts of the town, Gesler asked whose it was, and hearing it belonged to one Werner of Stauffach, he said, "I will not that peasants build houses without my permission, nor that they live like free lords." This speech alarmed Werner, and being further stirred up by his wife, he took counsel with some of the other dis- contented peasants. Walter Furst and Arnold Melchthal, met him at night on the borders of the lake, and having 128 LANDMARKS. OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IX. come to an understanding with each other, they each brought ten trusty friends, and all together they took an oath to maintain the rights of Switzerlaiid, neither to suffer nor to do wrong, and, while they fought for their own free- dom, to support the lawful claims of the empire and of Hapsburg. They agreed to take measures for rising against Gesler, on the first night of the year 1808. It was now late in the autumn, and their preparations were being carried on as speedily and secretly as possible, when Gesler, in his excess of pride, further insulted the peasantry, by setting up his hat on a pole in the market- place at Altdorf, and commanding all passers-by to do homage to it, under severe penalties. A few days after, William Tell, a chamois-hunter of Uri, esteemed the best marksman, and the best steersman in the canton, was brought before him, accused of having three times passed the hat without saluting it. With one of those cruel freaks of which the feudal tyrants were often guilty, Gesler de- cided that Toll's punishment should be to shoot an apple placed on the head of his son, a child six years old, con- demning him to death if he refused. The little boy him- self held the apple on his head; his father shot with a steady hand, and pierced the apple. Gesler remarked that he had still another arrow in his belt, and asked him for what it was intended. " To have pierced your heart, had I slain my son," answered Tell, boldly. Gesler in a rage ordered the prisoner to be bound, and thrown into the bot- tom of a boat, in which he proceeded to convey him across the lake of Uri to the dungeons of the castle of Kussnach. On the way a fierce gust of wind swept suddenly down from the mountains on the waters of the little lake, and the boat was in such extreme danger that Gesler, as the only hope of safety, was obliged to unbind his prisoner and give him the helm. William Tell safely steered it toward the shore, and as soon as he came near enough, with a sudden spring, leaped upon a flat rock, and pushing away the boat with his foot, dashed up the mountains with such speed as was only possessed by the chamois-hunters of the Alps ; then turning, as he saw his enemies attempting to pursue him, he drew his other arrow, and shot Gesler SYv'ISS IXDEPEXDEXCE. 129 through the heart. — In regard to the story of Toll's brave resistance to Gesler, recent historical investigation has de- cided that there is no anthority for it ; but it has become so celebrated that, like many other myths, it is necessary to know when it is reported to have happened. Messengers were sent to the confederate Swiss in every quarter, and before the Germans had time to recover from their confusion at the death of their leader, the whole of the three cantons were in a state of insurrection. The fortresses which Albrecht had built were seized by force or stratagem ; all his troops were expelled, and on the 6th of January, 1308, the deputies from the cantons and towns met at Brunnen, and formed a league of mutual defence of their liberties, as far as was consistent with their duty to- ward the emperor, a league which was the origin of the present Swiss Confederation. Albrecht was exceedingly enraged when he heard of the rising in Switzerland, and vowed vengeance against the peasants, but vengeance had in secret been vowed against him by his nephew Johann, together with five other nobles, whom he had equally injured. On the first of May, 1308, Albrecht was riding from Stein to Baden, with his nephew, the Baron Rudolf von der Wart, and a few other attend- ants: they found but one boat to carry them across the Reuss, and were obliged to separate, Johann and der Wart contriving to be of the first party with the emperor. As soon as they had reached the opposite bank, and were close under the walls of the castle of Hapsburg, Johann seized his uncle's horse by the rein, crying, " Let us see whether my father's possessions will be restored to me ?" Albrecht, alarmed, began to make fair promises, but they were cut short by Rudolf von der Wart, who rushed on him and stabbed him with a dagger ; Johann pierced his throat with a lance, and a third noble cleft his skull with a sword. They then galloped away, and the emperor ex- pired a few minutes after, with his head on the lap of a poor peasant woman, who had been brought to the spot by the sound of the tumult. Johann escaped to Italy, but his remorse was so dread- ful, that after wandering for some time, he threw himsell G* 130 LAXDMAKKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. IX. at the feet of the Pope, confessed his crime, and in expia- tion, submitted to a life-long penance in a convent at Rsa. Agnes, the widow of Albrecht, took a frightful ven- geance for her husband's death, cruelly torturing and exe- cuting, not only the conspirators themselves, but all their male relations, friends, and dependents ; the bloodshed was dreadful, and has been a by-word for revenge ever since. The one bright spot in this horrible scene was Gertrude, the noble wife of the Baron von der Wart, who attended him devotedly throughout his sufferings — watched by him all night, when he was left with his limbs broken to die upon the wheel ; endured, as if she heard them not, the jeers of the unwomanly Agnes, her court, and the mob ; climbed up to support his head, and moistened his lips with water, which she brought in her shoe, and was rewarded by his last words, " Gertrude, this is love till death !" PART V. HEINRICH AND JOHANN OF LUXEMBUKiJ. 1308-1333. The electors chose, after the death of Albrecht of Austria, Heinrich, Count of Lutzelburg, the little castle, or, as it is usually called, Luxemburg, near Treves. He was a gallant, chivalrous, religious prince, exceedingly beloved, and more anxious for the welfare of the empire than for the enlarge- ment of his own hereditary possessions. The only step he took for the aggrandizement of his own family was the giving his son Johann in marriage to Elizabeth, the heiress of the last King of Bohemia. Heinrich was the first sovereign of Germany, since Frederick II., who had been crowned emperor at Rome, or who had concerned himself with Italian affairs. The House of Anjou, at Naples, had become very powerful ; Charles Robert, the eldest son of Charles II., had been in- vited by the Hungarians to be their king, and the suc- cession of Naples had fallen to tlie next brother, Robert, a learned and clever man, who was considered as the head of the Guelf party in Italy. He sent his forces to occupy Rome, when Heinrich came to be crowned there, and the Germans tried in vain to dislodge them from St. Peter's HEINEICH AND JOHANN OF LUXEMBURG. 131 Church, so that the emperor was obliged to receive the crown in the Church of St. John Lateran, and was there so suri'ounded w4th enemies that their arrows fell on the steps of the altar where he knelt. He aftei^ward returned to the north of Italy, where he made war on Florence, Genoa, and the other Guelf repub- lics, assisted by the steady Ghibelline city of Pisa, and by all the tyrants of the cities of Lombardy, to whom he gave titles, and, as far as was in his power, legalized their au- thority. The Guelfs, and especially tEfe wicked Pope Clement V., hated him exceedingly ; and at Buonconvento, near Sienna, a monk had the horrible wickedness to give him poison in the Holy Commimion.* As soon as he was conscious of its effects, he said to the traitor, " In the cup of life, thou hast offered me death ! Fly and save thyself, before my followers arrest thee !" His physicians had hoped to save him, but his reverence for the holy elements would not allow him to employ any remedies against the poison, and he died on the twenty-fourth of August, 1313. His son Joliann, King of Bohemia, was a strange char- acter, a thorough knight-errant, concerned with every one's affairs but his own. He greatly disliked his rude barbar- ous Sclavonic kingdom, and his queen, who was always taking part with the Bohemians against his improvements ; so he left her to govern it as she chose, sent his son Charles to be educated in France, and was sure to be found himself wherever any battle was to be fought. Two emperors had been chosen by two different parties of the electors, Friedrich of Austria, and Ludwig of Ba- varia, and both had been crowned — Friedrich by the right person, the Archbishop of Cologne, but in the wrong place ; and Ludwig in the right place, Aix-la-Chapelle, but not by the right bishop. Johann gave all his support to Ludwig, and at the great battle of Muhldorf, Friedrich was defeated and made prisoner. After a few years, however, Ludwig visited him in his prison, released him, and undertook to share his power with him. They always signed all impe- rial acts together, making their names change places every day, that one might not appear to be superior to the other. * This story is, however, disputed. lo2 LANDMARKS OF HISTOliY. [CHAP. IX Ludwig made an expedition to Italy, but he did not ap- pear there with so much credit as Heinrich VII. had done ; he did not keep faith with his Ghibelline friends ; he made unreasonable demands of the Pisans, and when they refused, he took and pillaged the town ; he stripped the children of his best friend, Castruccio Castracani, of the town of Lucca, and behaved shamefully to the Visconti of Milan. For his invasion of Italy (not for his perfidy), he was excommuni- cated by the Gascon Pope John XXII., whereupon he set up an anti-pope, and took no heed of the sentence under which he remained all the rest of his life. On his return to Germany he left behind him a company of soldiers, who hired themselves out to the different States, to light for them. From that time it became the usual practice with the Italians, a mercantile, unwarlike people, to hire bands of Germans to light their battles ; but they suffered severely for their want of spirit, since these for- eigners, caring for nothing but pay, never fought in earnest, and often, when without employment, formed themselves into independent companies, and went from one little State to another, plundering the country, or requiring heavy con- tributions for sparing it. The Italians could never succeed in keeping at peace with each other, and in 1333, King Johann of Bohemia was invited to see if he could settle their disputes. He was in earnest at first, and his high-minded, straightforward simplicity won upon them, so that they gave up many of their unjust claims, and concluded a peace ; but he was a man of more brilliancy than steadiness, and soon growing weary of them, he left them to their own disputes, and went to France, the country which he preferred, and where he now gave his daughter Bonne in marriage to Jean, eld- est son of King Philippe YI. PART VI. WARS OF EDWARD III. AND PHILIPPE VI. 1327-1350. On the death of Charles le Bel, the last son of Philippe lY., the crown of France had, according to the forced WARS OF EDWARD III. AND PHILIPPE VI. 133 interpretation of the ancient Salic law of the Franks, de- volved upon Philippe, Count de Valois, son of Charles, second son of Philippe le Hardi, to the exclusion of all the daughters of the three sons of Philippe le Bel, and of course to that of Isabel, Queen of England, their sister. Isabel had, however, on the death of her brother Charles, protested that she did not give up the rights of her sou Edward, for it was thought that though a woman might not reign, yet riglits might be transmitted through her. For some time, however, no notice was taken of this ap- peal. Edward III. was still very young, he w\as involved in a war with Scotland, and as long as Isabel retained the government, she was unwilling to commence a war with her own country ; but when Edward had freed himself from the unworthy bondage in which he was held by her and her favorite, Mortimer, and had made peace with the feeble regency in Scotland, he had leisure to think of other wars. Philippe yi. had allowed Robert, Count d'Aitois, though his own brother-in-law, to be despoiled of his inheritance, and refused him any assistance. Robert vowed vengeance, and Philippe, fancying that he sought to obtain it by sor- cery, declared him an outlaw, and forbade any of his vas- sals to receive him. Robert fled to England, and began to excite the ambition of Edward III. by persuading him to put forward his claim to the French crown. Edward, young and high-spirited, at the head of a brave and rich people, who loved him devotedly, was willing and able to take up the cause of Robert. The great towns of Liege, Ghent, Bruges, &c., in Flanders, were at this time fast rising into opulence, by their manufactures of woollen cloths, and other trades, and were impatient of the au- thority of Louis, the Count whom France had forced upon them after the death of Guy de Dampierre. He had been brought up at Paris, had married a daughter of Philippe v., and was a Frenchman in all his habits and manners, oppressive and violent, and despising the Flemish artisans. Rebellions broke out, and Jacob von Artevelde, a brewer of Ghent, raised himself to great power, kept a guard of soldiers around him, and was obeyed like a prince through- out Flanders. 134 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IX. With these rebels Edward allied himself; he came to Ghent with his wife, Queen Philippa of Hainault, made a long stay in the house of Artevelde, concluded an alliance with Ludwig of Bavaria, and went back to England to collect his forces. The French fleet, together with some vessels hired from the Genoese, were drawn up in great force before Helvoetsluys, to prevent his landing ; and here Edward in person gained the first great English naval vic- tory, killed both the French commanders, sunk their ships, and safely effected his landing. After this he took the title of King of France, and called Philippe only the Count of Valois, but he consented, at the entreaty of his wife's mother, sister of the King of France, to conclude a peace for six months. Just at this time the Duke of Brittany died, leaving the succession disputed between Jeanne, daughter of his second brother, and wife of Charles de Blois, and Jean, Count de Montfort, his youngest brother. The Bretons and the court of France were inclined to the cause of Jeanne, but Montfort took up arms, promising Edward III. to acknow- ledge him as king of France, if he would give him his sup- port. A war commenced, Nantes was taken by Charles de Blois, Montfort was made prisoner, but his wife, Jeanne, a gallant lady, still maintained his cause. She shut herself up in the town of Hennebonne, and showing the people her infant son, called on them to fight for him. She herself wore armor, and led her followers to attack the camp of the besiegers, but famine pressed her little garrison, and they told her it was impossible to hold out any longer, and they should carry the keys to Charles de Blois in a quarter of an hour. The countess looked toward the castle window at the sea, and to her joy she saw what she had so long hoped for, the English fleet bearing down on the coast. ^' Here is our safety !" she cried, and soon a strong body of English, un- der the command of Sir Walter Mautiy, a gentleman of Hainault, esteemed the best knight in Europe, was entering the town. Tliey soon forced the enemy to raise the siege, and from that time Montfort's party prospered. The King of France, and liis son Jean, were so violent and cruel, as WAKS OF EDWARD III. AND PHILIPPE VI. 135 to turn the minds of the Bretons against Charles de Blois, and Montfort made his escape from prison, and came to do homage to Edward III., but he died at Hennebonne, in con- sequence of the sufferings he had undergone in his captivity, and Jeanne was again left to support the rights of her son. About the same time Jacob von Artevelde was murdered, and Edward lost the assistance of Flanders, but, undaunted, he assembled a considerable anny, and entered France. Philippe himself marched to oppose him, taking with him King Johann of Bohemia, who, though he had lost his eye- sight, could not bear to be absent from the battle. All the chivalry of France were with him, and a body of Genoese archers, altogether far outnumbering the English army. The battle took place at Creci, in Ponthieu. The day had been wet, and the bow-strings of the Genoese were so relaxed that they were of no service. " Kill these cowards !" fiercely cried the French king, " they only stop the way !" While the French were employed in massacring their own allies, the galhmt troop of the Prince of Wales fell upon them, and their danger was extreme. It was reported to Johann of Bohemia. " For the love of heaven," he ex- claimed to his attendants, " lead me where I may strike but one good stroke !" Two of his knights fastened his horse's rein to theirs, and they all rushed into the thickest of the fight, where Johann died as he had lived — fighting — for the mere love of battle, in a cause with which he had not the least concern. His son, Charles of Luxemburg, fled early in the day. Philippe VI. also fled, and arriving almost alone, late at night, before a castle, drew his bridle, and knocked at the gate. " Open, open !" he cried, " for here are the fortunes of France." The siege of Calais immediately followed the battle of Creci, and at the same time Charles de Blois was made prisoner in Brittany, by Sir Thomas Dagworth. His wife, the Countess of Penthievre, was as brave and resolute as Jeanne de Montfort, but both parties were for the time weary of the war, and a truce was concluded between the Kinoes of Entrland and France, as well as between the two countesses. 136 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. IX. Just at this time died Humbert, Lord of Yienne, called the Dauphin, from the dolphin which he bore in his coat of arms. He left his dominions to Charles, eldest son of Prince Jean, and from that time the eldest son of the French king always bore the title of Dauphin of Vienne. Bonne, the wife of Jean, was just dead, and he was to be married to Blanche, daughter of the Queen of Navarre, a beautiful girl of eighteen ; but the king, his father, fell in love with her, married her himself, and then gave himself up to such feasts and excesses, in honor of the marriage, that he brought on an illness, and died on the 22d of August, 1350. Three years before, Charles of Luxemburg had been chosen emperor in the stead of Ludwig of Bavaria, who died in 1347. PART VII. JEAN OF FRANCE. 1357-1360. In manners, and in some of his sentiments, the new king, Jean, of France, was very chivalrous, and he showed a high sense of honor in his dealings with Edward III., the Black Prince, and men of the same noble stamp ; but in his own country, and in his transactions with traitors, he often had recourse to a degree of cruelty and treachery, which suited ill with other parts of his character. Charles, King of Navarre, called the Bad, had provoked him extremely, by assassinating one of his friends. Jean did not at first appear to resent the crime, but some time after, when Charles was dining with his son the Dauphin, he suddenly arrested him, and threw him into prison. The injury was never forgotten, and Charles of Navarre not only became an ally of the English, but attempted to poison the Dau- phin ; and though the prince was saved by antidotes, he never entirely recovered the effects of the dose. Edward III. offered to make peace, on condition of re- ceiving the dukedom of Aquitaine as his own, instead of as a feudal tenure ; but Jean indignantly refused, and Edward, Prince of Wales, entered France on the western coast. His force was small, and Jean with his three sons, and an im- mense body of nobles, marclied to oppose him, expecting JEA?^^ OF FRANCE. 137 easily to overwhelm him. They met at Poitiers, and as^ain the French were totally routed; the two elder sons of Jean soon fled, but he defended himself for a long time with his battle-axe, while his youngest son, Philippe, who was only fifteen, stood close beside him, his eyes only fixed upon him, crying out, " Father, take care ! to the right ! to the left !" as he saw the enemies direct their blows. At last Jean was obliged to surrender, and was brought with his son to the tent of the Prince of Wales, where the courtesy with which he was treated won for Edward the chief grace of his renown. Jean, after being taken to London, was released, on con- dition of his giving up his sons as hostages for the payment of his ransom : but France was in no condition to raise the requisite sum ; the long war had exhausted its treasures, and the misconduct of the later kings had weakened the affections of their nobles. The barons, too, had a war of their own to maintain, with the peasants, or, as they were pleased to call that class, "Jacques Bonhomme." They had stretched their feudal rights so far, and so oppressively, that the peasants had learnt to hate them ; and when the harvests were trodden down by the enemy, the taxes re- doubled, and the farms and cottages pillaged, the unhappy serfs rose in fury against all their superiors alike. This rebellion was called the Jacquerie. They overpowered all the knights and squires by force of numbers, pillaged their castles, and murdered all that fell into their hands. At last things came to such a pass, that the Captal* de Buch, a Gascon subject of Edward III., and a great friend of the Prince of Wales, found the Dauphin Charles, the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, and three hundred noble ladies, all besieged in the market-place of Meaux, by the towns- people and a raging peasantry, who longed to put them all to death. , The Captal, though their enemy, w^as too good a knight not to give them his assistance, and with sixty lances (one hundred and eighty men) under his command, he attacked the Jacquerie, dispersed them entirely, killed a great many, * A Proven9al title, meaning head or chief, taken from the same word aa captain. 138 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IX. and rescued the Dauphin and the ladies. His victory dis- couraged the peasants, and the gentlemen once more uniting, succeeded in putting down the Jacquerie, though not without such dreadful cruelties, that it is said the Isle of France was left desolate of inhabitants. In such a state of things it was impossible to raise money for the ransom, and Jean, therefore, honorable toward a generous foe, went back to England, and died there in 1364. He was succeeded by his son, Charles V., called Le Sage. In the mean time, Jean de Montfort, son of the gallant Jeanne, had grown up to an age at which he could assert his own rights, and at the head of an army composed chiefly of English, with the brave old captain. Sir John Chandos, at their head, and with a few Bretons, the chief of whom was his friend, Olivier de Clisson, he invaded Brit- tany. Charles de Blois, who had been ransomed at the time of the truce, came to meet him at Auray, with the whole strength of the duchy, and with Bertrand du Gue- sclin, the bravest knight and the best general, next to the Prince of Wales and Sir John Chandos, then in Europe. Du Guesclin was a Breton gentleman, short in stature, with features remarkably plain, and manners rough and abrupt ; but scarcely any one equalled him in personal prowess, in courage, or in conduct. At fifteen he had gone in dis- guise to a tournament, and had overcome every knight there excepting his father, against whom he would not fight, and he had ever since been the foremost in the war against the English in Brittany. The evening before the battle of Auray, a favorite dog of Charles de Blois came into the English camp, and leapt and fawned upon Montfort. It was thought that the crea- ture was a time-server, and knew that fortune was going to depart from its former master. English valor, as usual, gained the victory ; Charles de Blois was killed, and Du Guesclin made prisoner ; Montfort was brought to Rennes, and received the homage of all Brittany, even of the Countess of Penthi^vre herself, and of Bertrand du Gue- sclin. A general peace was soon after made between Eng- land and France, and the dukedom of Aquitaine was ceded to the Prince of Wales, who there kept a brilliant court. STATE OF ITALY. 139 PART YIII. STATE OF ITALY. 1340-1381. While this was passing in France, Italy was in a scarcely- less disturbed condition, torn to pieces by perpetual wars between the Guelf and Ghibelline parties, or as this now signified, between the republics of Tuscany and the tyrants of Lombardy. Giovanni Visconti, Archbishop of Milan, the last surviving son of Matteo, was for some time the head of the Ghibellines. When excommunicated by the Pope, he drew his sword, and holding it in one hand, and his pastoral staff in the other, he swore that he would use the one to defend the other ; and when summoned to Avi- gnon to answer for his misdemeanors, he sent a purveyor before him to provide lodgings for 20,000 men, which so alarmed Pope Clement VI., that he wrote to beg him not to take the trouble of coming, and reconciled him to the Church. Giovanni died in 1354, leaving his power to his nephews, Bernabos and Galeazzo, two of the most wicked and cruel tyrants who ever reigned, especially Bernabos, who made a horrible massacre of the inhabitants of Pavia, torturing them for forty days before he allowed the death-blow to be given. He was as cowardly as such wicked men usually are ; and when the plague was at Milan, he fled away into a wood, set up gibbets for miles round, with notices that whoever passed them should be executed, and was not heard of for so long, that it was supposed that he was dead. Galeazzo was very rich, and succeeded, by means of im- mense dowries, in persuading King Jean of France to give the princess Isabelle in marriage to his son Giovanni Galeazzo; and Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III., to marry his daughter Violante. The republic of Florence was the best and most prosper- ous State then in Italy, steady in its resistance to these usurpers, and through good and evil fortune, firm in honor- ably upholding the laws and constitution, which had now existed for four hundred years. Whenever a town was oppressed, help in men and money was sent from Florence ; and the only thing to be regretted was, that the Florentines were not soldiers enough to fight for themselves, or even 140 LAXD5IAEKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. IX. lead their own armies of hired soldiers, sometimes Ger- mans, and sometimes French and English, disbanded from the armies of the Kings Jean and Edward at the peace. The leaders, or as the Italians termed them, the Con- dottiere, of these companies, were generally some of the worthless Lombard or Romagnol nobles, whom a bribe would often induce to betray the cause in which they were fighting. The German and French bands were also horri- bly treacherous and cruel ; and the most respectable com- pany was the English one, led by Sir John Hawkwood, who, though unmerciful and violent, had at least some sense of honor, and always fulfilled his engagements. The free, openhanded generosity of the Florentines, should be recorded. During a dreadful famine which raged in Tuscany for two years, 1346 and 1347, the gov- ernment obtained corn, at a prodigious expense, from the whole coast of Africa, and not only fed all their own poor, but all those from other States, all the mendicant friars, the beggars, the peasants, and distressed persons who chose to come and ask aid, and who of course were in im- mense numbers, since no other city had either the will or the power to relieve them. A curious revolution took place at Rome in the year 1347. Nicola, or as he was more usually called, Cola di Rienzi, a man of the lower rank, but deeply learned, and a great friend of Petrarch, threw himself into the study of the newly-discovered works of antiquity, more especially of those which related to Roman grandeur. At last his whole mind became possessed with the idea of the power of the Roman people, who had chosen emperors and given laws to all the rest of the world. He caused an allegorical picture to be painted, repre- senting Rome as a woman kneeling in a ship, with her hands bound, while the vessel, without mast or rudder, drifted on a stormy sea, amid the wi'ecks of four others, bearing the names of Jerusalem, Troy, Babylon, and Carthage, while above them was written, " Iniquity was their ruin." He displayed this picture at the Capitol, when the concourse of the Romans was greatest, and with burn- ing eloquence, such as few men possessed in an equal STATE OF ITALY. 141 degree, he explained its meaning, calling on the Romans to be, what they once had been, the rulers of the world. Soon after he set up a notice near the door of one of the churches, " In a few days the Romans will return to their former good state." He collected the people on the Aventine hill, and so worked upon their minds, by being perfectly in earnest himself, that they elected him their tribune, which office, as he considered, united all their powers. Every one was taken by surprise at first, and obeyed him implicitly — the papal legate, the nobles and all ; he sent messages about, carrying his commands to the cities of Italy ; he ordered the Pope to come back to his flock, and for a few months was the first man in Italy. The nobles of Rome, especially the Colonne, soon quarrelled with him, and were expelled from the city ; they tried to besiege it, but it seems that all the Romans had lost their courage ; and nothing could be more absurd than the cowardice shown by the Colonne on one side, and the populace on the other. At last two of the Colonne fell into their hands, and were killed by force of numbers, and this was considered as a great victory. Rienzi's head was turned by his elevation ; he affected the most foolish state and pomp, perfectly inconsistent with his character as plebeian tribune. lie bathed in a large shell of porphyry, where, according to a legend, Constantine the Great had been cured of leprosy by Pope Sylvester ; then watched his armor all night in the Church of St. John Lat- eran, and was knighted the next morning, after which he drew his sword, and waving it towards each of the three quarters of the world, cried, " This is ours, this is ours, this is ours !" The nobles again rallied, and besieged the town, and Cola sounded the tocsin to call the people out against them. But every one was tired of him and of his vanity : no one stirred at his command, and at last he was obliged to go and lay aside the marks of his authority as tribune, and leave Rome as quietly as he could. Six years after. Pope Innocent VI. sent the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz as his legate to Rome, with orders to re-establish his authority there, and to extend it over Romagna and the rest of the inheritance of the Church, which, though Rudolf of Hapsburg had formally ceded Ii2 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. IX. it, had never really been under the power of the Holy See, but was, like the rest of Italy, divided between republics and tyrants. Albornoz, thinking Kienzi might be useful to him, brought him back to Rome, and he was at first gladly received there, and restored to his office as tribune. But he had not learnt wisdom by his exile : he soon oifended the Romans again ; they set lire to his house, seized him as he was trying to escape, and killed him in front of the capitol. Cardinal Albornoz was a great warrior and statesman, and succeeded in reducing to obedience all the States of the Church. When the Pope asked him for an account of the money he had expended, his answer was to present to him a wagon loaded with the keys of the conquered towns. After his conquests, the Popes began to think of returning to Rome. Petrarch was always exhorting them to do so ; and the present disturbed state of France rendered Avignon no longer a secure residence ; but the cardinals, almost all of whom were French, were extremely unwilling to remove. The papal court had, since its removal to Avignon, fallen into a fearfully corrupt state; the town w^as one scene of vice and luxury, inhabited by a race of profligate clergy, and by all the worst intriguers of France and Italy ; and there was great unwillingness to leave it, on the part of those who loved to hide their iniquities in this petty town. However, Pope Urban V., a really good and honest man, came to Rome for some time, and only re- turned because he thought it his duty to try to make peace between the Kings of England and France ; and his suc- cessor, Gregory XL, actually took up his abode at Rome, with his whole court, all but six cardinals, who obstinately refused to leave Avignon. PART IX. GIOVANNA OF NAPLES. 1343-1381. The kingdom of Naples was, in the mean time, in a worse condition than any other part of Italy. Robert, King of Naples, lost his only son, who left two infant daughters, Giovanna and Maria, the elder of whom Robert gave in marriage to Andrea, the second son of his nephew, the King o"f Hungary. Robert died in 1343, just as his grand- daughter and her husband were grown up, leaving it in GIOVANNA OF NAPLES. 143 his will that Giovanna should reign in her own right, and her husband, though called king, should have no part in the government. Andrea was discontented, and discourteous to his wife, and Giovanna had set her aft'ections upon Luigi, Prince of Tarento, her cousin, son of a younger brother of Robert. A plot was formed against Andrea by her chief confidants, and in which there is no doubt that she had a part. Andrea was called out of her room, as if on business, in the middle of the night, and on leaving it, was surrounded with murderers, who killed him, and threw him out of the window. The queen immediately married Luigi, Prince of Tarento. Louis, King of Hungary, brother of the murdered Andrea, was a powerful and able prince, and thought only of revenge. He collected his forces, and marching into Apulia, advanced so quickly that Giovanna and Luigi were obliged to fly, and betook themselves to her county of Provence. Carlo, Prince of Durazzo, son of anothei brother of King Kobert, and husband to Giovanna's sistei Maria, was among the first to join Louis on his arrival in Naples, and accompanied him when he went to see the spot where Andrea had been killed, being, as there is every reason to believe, perfectly innocent of all participation in the crime. While standing at the fatal window, a sudden transport of rage seemed to seize on Louis ; he caught Carlo by the throat, and crying out, " Die, as you slew him," he gave the word to the Hungarians, who slew the unfortunate prince, and threw him from the window. Louis appealed to the court of Avignon for justice on Giovanna, and the Pope could not refuse to hear the cause ; but though the proofs were complete, Clement VI. was so much resolved not to find her guilty, that he declared that the queen had been under the influence of witchcraft ! Louis soon after returned to his own kingdom, and dis- tinguished himself greatly in wars with the Venetians. He was on the whole a good and great man, who raised the Hungarians from a state of barbarism, and did them much good in his reign of forty years, unstained with any crime, excepting the death of Carlo of Durazzo. 144 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. IX. As to Giovanna, she returned again to ISTaples, where she reigned altogether thirty-four years, given up to hixu- ry, and not taking any care of the government. She had, in all, four husbands, but she never had any children, ex- cept one son by Andrea, who died young. Louis of Hun- gary, who had no surviving son, brought up, as the heir of Naples, Carlo, the grandson of that Carlo whom he had murdered, and the only remaining prince of the royal line of Anjou, and in 1381 gave him an army, and sent him to attack Giovanna. She adopted, as her son, Louis, Count of Anjou, brother of Charles V. of France, hoping that he would come to her rescue, but he did not arrive in time, and Carlo soon overran her kingdom, and making her prisoner, shut her up in the Castle of Muro, where, a short time after, he caused her to be siriothered with a feather bed. Her adopted son, Louis of Anjou, took possession of her county of Provence, and Carlo became King of Naples. PART X. PEDRO THE CRUEL. 1350-1368. The four peninsular kingdoms were little better off than the rest of Europe, in the middle of the fourteenth century, as is sufficiently testified by the surnames of some of the kings : Pedro el Ceremonioso, of Aragon, was the best ; but the others were Charles the Bad of Navarre, Pedro the Severe of Portugal, and Pedro the Cruel of Castile. Pedro the Severe had perhaps the most excuse. When prince he had fallen in love with one of his wife's ladies, the beautiful Ines de Castro, and on his wife's death he secretly married her. His father, Affonso IV., was ex- tremely displeased on the discovery of the marriage, and while Pedro was absent on a hunting expedition, went to Coimbra, where Ines had been left, and in spite of her tears and entreaties, caused his attendants to murder her. Her beauty and grace had made a great impression on the people of Coimbra ; they never forgot her ; and the foun- tain where she was slain is still called the Fountain of Tears. Never, indeed, was woman so mourned as Ines de Castro. PEDKO TlIE CRUEL. 145 Her husband's mind was so unsettled by rage and grief, that it never recovered its balance ; he at first rebelled against his father, but was soon persuaded by his mother to make peace, and perhaps he forgave, when in a few weeks AfFonso died of remorse for the crime. When Pedro was King of Portugal he resolved to do the justice to his murdered wife that she had never received hi her life. He assembled the States of his kingdom, and swore in their presence that she was his true and lawful spouse, and queen ; and then he caused her corpse to be raised from its tomb, arrayed in royal robes, and with the crown upon its head, it was seated on a throne, while he required all his nobles to do it homage, as they would have done to the living Ines. It was then placed in a splendid tomb beside that which he had prepared for himself. Pedro the Cruel, of Castile, had been brought up in sen- timents of hatred and revenge by his mother, Maria of Portugal, who was neglected by her husband, Alfonso XL, for the sake of a lady named Leonor de Guzman. Ven- geance upon Leonor and her seven sons was the ruling idea of Queen Maria, and she so succeeded in imparting it to her son, that it, together with his natural temper, made him more like a fiend than any other prince mentioned in Christian history. Alfonso died in 1350, and the first act of Pedro, who was then only fifteen, was to cause Leonor de Guzman to be put to death. From that time his cruelties grew worse and worse. His mother wished him to marry Blanche, a daughter of the Duke de Bourbon, but before she could arrive from France, he had fallen in love with Dona Maria de Padilla, and when poor Blanche was brought to him, he threw her into prison, and at the end of a year or two put her to death. He poisoned his aunt for expressing pity for Blanche ; but it was against his half-brothers, the sons of Leonor, that his hatred was greatest. Fadrique, the Grand-Master of the Order of Santiago, and Enrique, Count of Trastamare, the two eldest, were twins, and noted for their nobleness and high chivalrous accomplishments. Don Fadrique, in especial, had served the king gallantly in a war against Aragon, but nothing could lessen his ha- 7 146 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CIIAP. IX. tred. He invited Fadrique, with several of his knights, to Seville, to a conference, and there caused him, as he was about to depart, to be surrounded with armed men, and massacred, with his followers — Pedro himself, Maria de Padilla, and their children, looking on. Enrique and his brothers, Tello and Sancho, made their escape from Castile, whereupon the king murdered all the remaining brothers ; but his cruelties had gone so far that his subjects could endure them no longer, and rose in rebel- lion, sending to invite Enrique of Trastamare to be their king. Enrique willingly obeyed the summons, collecting for his support all the Free Companies of French and Eng- lish soldiers, then dispersed through France, who were only too glad to be employed in a new war. Pedro was obliged to fly, and coming to Bordeaux, en- treated the aid of the Black Prince. Edward, considering that his was the cause of the legitimate sovereign, promised his aid, recalled all the English who were serving under Enrique, and set out to conduct Pedro back to Castile. Enrique, with his allies the French, commanded by Ber- trand Du Guescliji, and with all the Castilians, met him at Najara, or Navarretta, and suffered a total rout ; the Cas- tilians fled at the first onset, and th^ French, though fighting gallantly, could not retrieve the day. Du Guesclin was made prisoner while protecting the escape of Enrique, who swam his horse across the river Zadorra, and hid himself among the Pyrenees. There were few lives lost in this battle ; only four knights were killed on the English side, but it was with some difliculty that the Prince of Wales could prevent Pedro from killing all his prisoners with his own hand. Pedro was restored to his throne, and promised great rewards to the English ; but after waiting for them in vain through the whole summer in the unhealthy climate of Valladolid, Edward, who had in the mean time become afiected with the disease which at last proved fatal, grew weary of the perfidy of his ally, and returned to Bordeaux, taking Du Guesclin with him. Enrique of Trastamare came to Bordeaux in the disguise of a pilgrim, and had an interview with Bertrand, in which the brave Breton promised that the cruel murderer should LOSS OF THE ENGLISH CONQUESTS IN FRANCE. 147 not long sit on the throne were he but at liberty. He soon was released, for Edward was too chivalrous to keep such a captive long, and though he three times gave away the money collected for his ransom, to pay that of his poorer and less renowned friends, the money was at last collected. How could it be otherwise, when, from King Charles V. down to the peasant girls of Brittany, there was but one wish — that Du Guesclin should be free ? Du Guesclin and Enrique immediately entered Castile, where all the inhabitants joined them. Pedro was without hope from the English, so he called in the Moors, and let them ravage his own dominions — indeed, the Castilians be- lieved that he actually became a Mussulman himself. A battle was fought at Montiel, in which Enrique was victo- rious ; Pedro shut himself up in the castle of Montiel, but •he had only provisions for a few days, and in the middle of the night he was detected by a French knight creeping secretly in disguise toward his brother's tent. He was seized, and led to the presence of Enrique, when, with vio- lent language, he threw himself upon him, and attempted to stab him with a dagger. The two brothers fell on the ground in the struggle, and rolled over together ; Pedro was uppermost, and was raising the dagger for the blow, when Du Guesclin seized him by the leg, and Enrique, re- covering himself, stabbed him to the heart. Thus died, in 1368, Pedro the Cruel, having crowded a fearful number of murders into a life of thirty-two years. Enrique became King of Castile, and was the first of the House of Trastamare. PART XL LOSS OF THE ENGLISH CONQUESTS IN FRANCE. 1367-1380. Charles Y. of France was very unlike most of the princes of his day ; he had more intellect and learning, and less chivalry. Partly from indolence, and partly from the deli- cacy of health occasioned by the poison of Charles the Bad, he was no warrior, and had, when Dauphin, been gen- erally despised as weak and cowardly ; but when he became king, his good government, and the manner in which he 148 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [cHAP. IX. delivered his country from the ills which had so long afflicted it, won him general gratitude from the French. It must be confessed, however, that many of his meas- ures were more worldly-wise than consistent with the laws of truth and honor. The four victories of Sluys, Creci, Poitiers, and Navarretta, had taught him that the French were usually defeated by the English in open fight, and he resolved to use more quiet and secret means of ruining their power. He saw that the Black Prince, whose health was fast declining, did not make himself loved and respected in Aquitaine as before, and he took every occasion of secretly fomenting every discontent of his subjects there, till at last the town of Limoges revolted against the English, and Ed- ward, roused from his sick-bed, embittered and angry, took such fierce and cruel vengeance as to turn the minds of his French vassals still more against him. The war broke out again, and was conducted on the part of Charles with far more discretion than previously. He saw the value of the brave Bretons, and inviting Bertrand Du Guesclin to court, made him Constable of the kingdom. This office had come down from the time of the Roman emperors ; the name sig- nified Count of the Stable, or Master of the Horse, and it gave the right of commanding all the forces of the realm in the absence of the king. Charles, however, would only fur- nish Bertrand with 500 horse, and expressly forbade him to come to a pitched battle, desiring him only to harass the English and cut off* their supplies. "Ah! Sire," said Du Guesclin, " would you have me see the enemy pass under my beard and never charge them ?" But Charles would not listen to his entreaties, and Du Guesclin was forced to con- tent himself with taking single castles, and cutting off* small parties of the enemy, making many prisoners, by which he did them far more effectual harm than he could ever have done in the open field. Olivier de Clisson likewise joined the French party, and his brother having been put to death by some of the English, he swore to have fearful vengeance, and never to spare the life of an English prisoner. He killed so many that he acquired the dreadful surname of the Butcher : but such cruelty was not usual ; in general, prisoners were treated with the noble courtesy of which the Black Prince LOSS OF THE ENGLISH CONQUESTS IN FRANCE. 149 had set the example, put to ransom, and allowed to go on their parole to collect the money. If unable to raise it in a given time, they returned to their captivity, and a knight or squire who broke this word of honor was ever after looked upon as a perjured disgraced man. Almost all Brittany was against the English, who had not treated that country well, but had so taxed and op- pressed the people that their exactions have never been for- gotten, but the word Saozon, or Saxon, has become in the Breton language synonymous with enemy. The Duke, Jean de Montfort, had, however, been brought up in Eng- land; he had married a daughter of Edward III., and was warmly attached to his cause. Charles V. ordered Du Guesclin to invade his dominions ; the Bretons all joined against the friend of the Saxon, and Montfort was obliged to fly to England. Edward III. promised to restore him, but the king was growmg old and feeble, and the Prince of Wales had just returned from Bordeaux helpless from ill- ness ; the younger princes were not equal in any respect to their brother, and, after a vain attempt in his favor, his cause seemed hopeless. The two great Edwards died within a year of each other, and the Crown of England descended to a child eleven years old. Charles V. proceeded to attach the dukedom of Brittany to his own possessions, and Du Guesclin and Clisson con- sented ; but the rest of the proud Kelts of Brittany, who hated the Franks only less than the Saxons, were roused to assert their independence. They invited Jean de Montfort to return, only stipulating that he should give up his alli- ance with the English ; and Jean, who had now lost his English wife, her father, and brother, and had no such bonds of affection to Richard II., and his jealous, selfish uncles, accepted their offer, and returned to Brittany. Du Gue- sclin tried to reconcile him to Charles, and when he could not succeed, told the king sadly that he had taken the wings from the eagle (his armorial bearing was an eagle) in taking from him his Bretons, who would now only obey the duke. As constable, he was still bound to the king's service, and went to Guienne, where, while besieging the Castle of Chateauneuf, he was taken ill of a fever. He sent for his 150 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. IX. companions, and made them a beautiful exhortation ; then kissing his constable's sword, he gave it to his friend Clisson, and desired him to carry it to the king, and recommend to him his wife and brother. Thus died, at 66, Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France and Castile, and Count of Trastamare, the eagle of Brittany, the first great com- mander in modern Europe, raised by his own merit instead of rank, for, though Du Guesclin was of knightly birth, he was a younger son, and landless. The Castle of Chateauneuf surrendered the next day, but the English commander declared that he would yield to no one but the constable himself; and it was in the dead hand of Du Guesclin that the keys were laid down. Olivier de Clisson was made constable in his stead, having, unlike the other Bretons, adhered to the king, for which cause his old brother-in-arms, Montfort, held him in bitter hatred, and still more when he gave his only daughter in marriage to the heir of Charles de Blois and Jeanne de Penthievre. The conquest of Chateauneuf completed the driving of the English out of their newly won possessions in Aquitaine, and, though peace was not formally made, the war was at an end to all intents and purposes, and the English had lost all the fruits of their brilliant successes, excepting Calais, when, in 1380, Charles Y. fell sick and died, leaving two young sons, of twelve and ten years old, to the care of their uncles, the Dukes of Anjou,- Berry, and Burgundy. The Duke of Burgundy was that Philippe who had stood so gallantly beside his father at Poitiers. He had married the heiress of the former race of Dukes of Burgundy, and his successor became very powerful, and almost indepen- dent. The history of this time was written by Jean Froissart, a Canon of Chimay in Hainault, an old chronicler, whose mind was full of the love and honor of chivalry, and who spent his life in travelling about to see gallant deeds of arms which he might record. lie was in great favor with Queen Philippa, the Black Prince, and Richard II., as well as with most of the great princes of France, especially Gaston, Count de Foix, at whose court he spent a considerable time. f LIBRA li Y UNIYEUSi . Y CALIFOUlNlA X CHAPTER X.. THE GREAT SCHISM. 1378-1429. PABT I. THE POPE AND THE ANTIPOPE. 1378-1398. Gregory XI. was the last of the popes of Avignon ; he, as has been shown, returned again to Rome, and died there in 1378. Most of the cardinals were French, and greatly- preferred Avignon for their abode, and the Roman populace, dreading extremely that they would choose a pope who would return thither, tried to force them into such an elec- tion as would retain the court at Rome. They surrounded the conclave with loud shouts of " A Roman ! a Roman ! we will have none but a Roman !" But there were only two Roman cardinals, and neither of them was fit for the office, and the choice, therefore, fell upon a man who was at least an Italian, the Cardinal Archbishop of Bari, a native of Calabria. When the cardinals had made their choice, they were so much afraid of the disappointed mob, that they fled, leaving the new Pope, Urban VI., and the two Roman cardinals, to inform the people of the election, and it was not for some days that they ventured back again to consecrate and in- stall the Pope. He was a pious and sincere, but hasty man, and set to work with more zeal than discretion in re- forming the luxuries of the cardinals ; he forbade them to have more than one dish at table, and carried out his changes so rudely, as to offend them all : his temper, too, was ill-regulated, and led to unseemly disputes. He called one cardinal a fool, and openly accused another of having stolen the Church property, to which the cardinal, a French noble, fiercely answered, " You lie like a Calabrian." At last the cardinals went to Fondi, where they resolved to choose a pope who would live at Avignon, and leave them to their pleasures. They pretended to say that the populace of Rome had so intimidated them that their choice had not been free, which was perfectly false, and that, therefore, Urban VI. was not properly elected ; and setting 152 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. X. him aside, they fixed upon Cardinal Robert, of Geneva, one of the worst of the whole number, who was especially re- markable for having made such a cruel massacre of the in- habitants of Ceseno, that even the Condottiere, Sir John Hawkwood, refused to take part in it. He took the name of Clement, and he himself, and all the French cardinals, returned to Avignon to live as before, while Urban VI., and the twenty-five new Italian cardinals whom he had created, remained at Rome. Thus began the great schism which for fifty years di- vided the Western Church, and gave the opportunity for the sowing of the first seeds of doubt of the authority of the Pope. France held to its own subject, the Antipope, Clement, and with it its allies, Spain, Scotland, and the Two Sicilies ; while the true Pope, Urban VI., was acknowledged in Ger- many, England, and Northern Italy. Each Pope needed money, and exacted his revenues more rigorously now that they were diminished by one-half; each was afraid of oifending his own party, and therefore was even more will- ing than before to overlook crimes, whether of princes or of clergy, and corruptions of every kind fast increased. The bishops were warriors and statesmen — anything but pastors ; the monasteries forgot their strict rules, and were given up to ease, if not to vice, and the begging friars were worst of all, subject, as they were, to no immediate authority, and able to interfere with the parochial clergy. Some from ignorance, some from fraud, maintained the grossest super- stitions, altered and exaggerated the legends of the saints, obtained money by exhibiting false relics ; and it was a practice of theirs to surround the bed of the dying, and so to work on their conscience, as to persuade them to leave their property to the order, instead of to their own heirs. All this was indeed fearful wickedness ; but it was hang- ing upon the Church, it was not a part of her, and in every station there were true and pious men, such as the uni- versal Church has brought up from the first, proving how strong the grace is within her. Even in these times some of the preaching friars were bold and noble reprovers of vice and luxury, and led whole congregations at once to THE POPE AND THE AXTIPOPE. 153 throw aside their pomps and vanities, and devote them- selves earnestly to the right. In the monasteries were still devoted men, learning and laboring on in rigid self-denial. Nicholas de Lyra wrote his comment on the Scriptures, and Thomas a Kempis, in his convent in Germany, that beau- tiful book, " De Imitatione Christi," which has ever since been valued as one of the most precious of the Church's stores of aids to devotion. Among the bishops, there were the saintly Lorenzo Justiniani, Archbishop of Venice ; Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was slain by the insurgents of Kent for having tried to undeceive the Canterbury pilgrims of their superstitious belief in the effiacy of touching the tomb of St. Thomas k Becket ; and there was also William of Wykeham, Bishop of Win- chester, showing how a prelate might be a support to his master's throne, and yet a shepherd of his own flock. And if history, always more apt to hand down the names of the bad than the good, have recorded so many, how many more must surely have, in every station, lived a life of hob- / ness and faith ! All these good men were willing to make the best of the present system, and were reluctant to attempt to effect a change : but there were others of more zealous, or, perhaps, of less reverent tempers, who hastily stretched out their hands to alter what they saw amiss, without considering whether it was their duty or not. The first of these was John Wycliffe, Vicar of Lutter- worth, who is called the Father of the Reformation, because he first began to preach and write against the corruptions of Rome. His history belongs to that of England, but his influence extended to the continent, especially to Bohemia, whither his writings were carried by Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, when he went on a message from Richard IL to the Emperor Charles IV. They were eagerly read by John Huss, a student at Prague, and his friend, Jerome Faulfisch, who proceeded to preach the doctrine of Wycliffe, adding more of their own. They laid especial stress on the unjustifiable manner in which the laity had been de- prived of the Cup in the Holy Communion, and with much besides that was perfectly true and right, they mingled 154 LANDMARKS OF HISTOEY. [CHAP. X. attacks on some things that were truly Catholic. Half Bohemia followed their doctrines, and their disciples, both in England and Germany, were called by the name of Lollards, as it was said, from the German word lullen^ to lull, or sing, from the tone in which they sung the Psalms, though others say the name was taken from Lollard, a noxious weed in cornfields. PART II. PHILIPPE VON AETEYELDE. 1384. Feance and England were, in the latter part of the 14th century, much in the same condition ; each had a young king, under the control of turbulent and selfish uncles, each was disturbed by violent insurrections of the popu- lace, and, moreover, just as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lan- caster, was engaged in an attempt to conquer Castile, as the inheritance of his wife Constance, daughter of Pedro the Cruel, Louis, Duke of Anjou, the adopted son of Queen Giovanna, was striving for the possession of the kingdom of Naples, where he died in 1384, leaving his claims to his infant son Louis. Carlo III., of Durazzo, was reigning at Naples when his adopted father, Louis, King of Hungary, died, leaving only a granddaughter, named Marie, whom the Hungarians crowned, not as queen, but as king, and betrothed her to Sigismund of Luxemburg, second son of Charles IV., of Germany. Her mother, Elizabeth, misgoverned the coun- try, and the Hungarians invited Carlo to return and reign over them : he came, but soon after his arrival he was treacherously murdered by the contrivance of Elizabeth. The Hungarians rose and revenged his death by killing all her accomplices, drowning her, and shutting up young King Marie in a tower, from which they did not release her till her marriage with Sigismund. Carlo left two young children, Ladislao and Giovanna, under the care of their mother at Naples, and the whole kingdom was for many years torn to pieces by the strug- gles between the two parties of Louis and Ladislao, while as yet the boys were too young to take part in the com- bat themselves. PHILIPPE VON ARTEVELDE. 155 John of Gaunt had succeeded little better in Spahi. Juan I., the brave son of Enrique of Trastamare, so repulsed him, that he was glad to yield up the claim by giving Katherine, the only child of Constance, in man^iage to Enrique, the son of Juan. He prospered more in another war in Portugal, where, on the death of Fernando I., the only son of Pedro the Severe, by his first wife, there was a great dispute respecting the succession between Brites, the daughter of Fernando, and wife to Juan of Castile, and Joao, the son of Pedro and of Ines de Castro. John of Gaunt gave his daughter Philippa in mamage to Joao, and left him some troops, while he himself re- turned to England, and soon after received the news that Joao had established himself on his throne by the great victory of Aljubarota ; and so strangely did the messenger pronounce the titles of the Spanish and Portuguese hidal- gos, that the Duke of Lancaster declared that such names could never belong to Christian men. Joao built the beautiful monastery of Aljubarota, or Batalha, on the field of battle. Perhaps his English wife had told him of the Battle Abbey of Hasting^ England was for a short time endangered by the sedition of Wat Tyler, and at the same period a much more serious outbreak took place in the great towns of Flanders. Louis, Count of Flanders, the son of that count who had quarrelled with Jacob von Artevelde, treated his Flemings no better than his father had used them, so that they rebelled again, and took the party name of Whitehoods ; the count besieged Ghent, and reduced it to a dreadful state of famine ; the citizens ofiered to surrender, but Louis returned so harsh and cruel an answer, as to reduce them to complete despair. They then thought of Philippe, the son of their former leader, Jacob von Artevelde, who had hitherto been a peaceful and studious man, but who was believed to pos- sess great vigor of character. They made him their cap- tain, and half-starved and miserable as they were, he led them out of the town, and falling suddenly on Louis's camp near Bruges, completely routed his army. He fled into Bruges; the men of Ghent followed him, and the towns- people rising in tumult to join them, he was in extreme 156 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. X. danger. He rushed into the house of a poor widow, and begged her to hide him : she told him to get into the mis- erable bed where her children were lying huddled together, aiid he had but just time to do so before the Whitehoods hurried in in pursuit of him ; but seeing only a set of little children, as they thought, they soon left the house, and he succeeded in escaping to Paris, where he begged the young king, Charles VI., and his uncles, to come to his aid. Philippe von Artevelde became, after his victory, the first man in Flanders ; all the cities obeyed his orders, and for some time he showed great wisdom in his arrangements ; but after a time he grew harsh and haughty, affecting more state than men of noble birth, and showing that he had not stead- iness to bear his elevation. The news of the great expedi- tion fitting out in France so alarmed the Flemings that they began to fall from him, and he had been obliged to take up arms against some of them before the arrival of the French forces. Charles YL, a high-spirited boy of fourteen, was in rap- tures at being allowed to begin his first campaign, and dis- playing the oriflamme, he came a' the head of all his chiv- alry, under the care of his uncles, and invaded Flanders. The Whitehoods were growing discontented with Artevelde, and forced him to give battle at the bridge of Rosbecque, contrary to his own judgment. They were completely routed, and Artevelde, after fighting bravely, was earned along in the crowd of fugitives, and trampled to death in the press upon the bridge. The greater part of Flanders was overrun by the French, and the town of Courtrai especially suffered dreadfully, but Ghent closed its gates, and kept up a steady resistance. Louis of Flanders was stabbed by the Duke de Berri in a fit of passion, and his county was inherited by his daughter Marguerite, second wife of Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, who at last succeeded in obtaining the obedience of Ghent, promising to preserve the liberties of the country. He was a generous prince, and was much beloved in both Burgundy and Flanders. THE MAD KIXG. 157 PART III. THE MAD KING. 1392-1415. Charles YL's was a melancholy history. He was a child of high promise, as long as his parents lived to control him; but his mother died nearly at the same time as his father, and after he became king, his education was neglected, his violent temper unchecked, and each of the parties of his uncles, and the other princes of the blood, tried to gain favor with him by flattering all his tastes, whether for good or evil. He married, when about sixteen, Isabelle of Bavaria, a dull, selfish girl, indolent, and inclined to nothing but self-indulgence, especially in eating. There was one person for whom Charles had a sincere attachment and admiration, the old Constable, Olivier de Clisson, who was, perhaps, his best friend, as, excepting his cruelty to the English, he was chivalrous, honorable, and devotedly loyal. One night, as Olivier was returning from the palace, he was suddenly set upon by armed men, who made a murderous attack upon him with their swords. He defended himself as well as he could, setting his back against the door of a baker's shop, but he had already received sev- eral wounds, and would doubtless have been killed had not the door flown open, so that he fell down into the house, and the murderers, thinking their work done, fled precipi- tately. Olivier was taken up half dead, and as soon as the king heard what had happened, though he was half undrest, he threw on his cloak, bade his guards light their torches, and hastened to see his friend, whom he found just recover- ing his senses, lying on a bed at the baker's house. Olivier had recognized a favorite knight of his great enemy, the Duke of Brittany, who had before made an attempt on his life, and when he spoke of it to the king, Charles replied, *' Never shall any crime be so heavily paid for as this." Clisson's suspicions had done the duke no injustice, for the assassins had gone straight to Brittany, where the duke re- ceived them thus : " What poor creatures you are, not to be able to kill a man when you have him down !" The Constable recovered, and Charles, collecting his army, set out for Brittany to punish the duke. His uncles thought the expedition very imprudent, and tried to pre- 153 LAXDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [ciIAP. X. vent it, but he was so hasty and violent, that it was impos- sible to oppose hira. On the day he rode from Mans, it was extremely hot and sultry, and the whole army was op- pressed by the weather, especially the king, who had been feverish and unwell for some days past. As they were going through a wood, a man all in white, probably a mad- man, rushed out of the bushes, and catching his horse by the bridle, cried, " Ride no further, King : thou art be- trayed !" then, as the guards came up, ran back into the thicket. The king did not speak, and rode on across a burning sandy plain, where there was no shelter from the heat of the noonday sun. A page who was riding near him, fell asleep in the heat, and the lance which he carried, sinking in his hand, clanked upon the helmet of the man in front of him. The noise of the weapon roused the king from his stupor into a frenzy. " Down with these traitors !" he cried, drawing his sword, and cutting down one of his guards. He killed four men in a few seconds, and was rushing on his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, when the Duke of Burgundy cried out, " Alas ! alas ! my lord is out of his senses !" The poor king struck on all sides, but his attendants saved their lives by throwing themselves down before the blow reached them, and at last, when he was quite exhausted with his exertions, overpowered him, laid him on the ground, and carried him back to Mans, perfectly helpless, and his eyes rolling horribly. He was long very ill, and for several months was out of his senses, but at length, to the joy of all Franco, he re- covered, and was for some time perfectly well. At last, when there was a great feast at the Louvre, he, with four of his nobles, agreed to amuse themselves by dressing up as satyrs, or wild men of the woods. In this character they put on garments covered with tow, to represent hair, sitting close to the skin, with wreaths of green leaves round their heads and waists, and thus disguised, they came all chained together into the hall, and performed a dance for the amuse- ment of the ladies. The king soon unchained himself from the others, and was standing by his aunt, the Duchess de Bern, making her guess who he was, when the Duke of Orleans, in examinmg THE MAD KING. 159 the rest, unhappily held the torch so near one of them that the tow caught fire. Chained together as they were, the unfortunate men could not escape. One, indeed, suc- ceeded in breaking the chain, and, rushing out of the hall, threw himself into a tub of water, and put out the flames. The Duchess de Berri saved the king by covering him with her mantle, but the other three were burnt to death, and the horror of the adventure occasioned a return of Charles's madness. He was subject to such attacks through the rest of his life, and they became more and more frequent, till his in- tervals of reason were only long enough to show him the misery around him, the quarrels of his relations, the dis- tress of his subjects, the crimes of his wife Isabelle, who was in love with his brother, the Duke of Orleans, and the neglect in which his poor children were left, often without proper clothes or food. Everything grew worse after he lost his uncle, Philippe le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy, the best of the family, who alone had any real attachment for him ; and the only person who took any care of him was his sister-in-law, Valentine, Duchess of Orleans, who, though a daughter of the cruel and perfidious house of Visconti, was an excellent woman, and could, by her gentle- ness, calm the fits of frenzy, dunng which no one else would venture near him. And for this reason her enemies wfere wicked enough to accuse her of witchcraft ! Jean, the son and successor of Philippe of Burgundy, was called Sans Peur, or without fear, because he was not only without the fear of man, but without the fear of God. Though he had been educated with his cousin Louis, Duke of Orleans, he hated him excessively ; and making himself the favorite of the burghers of Paris, and all the lower classes, he vehemently opposed the Orleans party. After many combats, and violent disputes, the king, in one of his intervals of reason, hoped that he had reconciled them. They solemnly swore to lay aside all hatred, embraced and received the Holy Communion together, in token of peace and concord; but at that very moment Jean Sans Peur was planning the murder of his rival, and two days after, as Louis of Orleans was riding: home on a mule from a visit 160 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. X. to the queen, he was attacked by some assassins, who had been placed in ambush by the Duke of Burgundy, and killed on the spot. Jean Sans Peur avowed the murder, and even found a doctor of theology who made a discourse to justify it. In vain Valentine came, dressed in her mourning weeds, and leading her three sons, to implore the king's justice; the duke was too powerful to be attacked, and had all the mob of Paris on his side : he kept the king, queen, and their children, in a sort of captivity, and all the hatred and impatience with which the young Dauphin Jean regarded the yoke, could not avail to break it. To add to all these miseries, it was at this very time, 1415, that Henry V. of England revived the old claim of Edward III., invaded France, and overthrew the Dauphin Jean with all his chivalry, at Agincourt. The slaughter was much greater than at the former battles ; great num- bers of the noblest of the French were killed, and many more made prisoners, among whom the most noted were the young Duke of Orleans, and Arthur, Count de Riche- mont, a son of the Duke of Brittany. Henry's policy was not to allow his prisoners to be ransomed, especially the Count de Richemont, because there was a saying that Rich- mond should come out of Brittany and conquer England, and they remained in captivity in England through the rest of his life and that of his brother, the Duke of Bed- ford. PART IV. GERMAN AFFAIRS. 1378-1415. The house of Luxemburg had rapidly degenerated. The Emperor Heinrich VII. was a great and excellent prince ; his son Johann of Bohemia was a good man and true knight, but a very bad king ; Charles IV. was weak and treacher- ous, and his son Wenzel, or Wenceslas, who, in 1378, suc- ceeded him as emperor and King of Bohemia, was so wicked and foolish that it is only to be hoped that he had not possession of his senses. The House of Ilapsburg had in the mean time continued in possession of the dukedom of Austria, prospering in GERMAN AFFAIRS. 161 everything excepting in their attempts to establish their unjust dominion over the brave Swiss. Leopold, the brother of* that Frederick who disputed the empire with Ludwig, sustained a noted defeat from them in 1326, at Morgarten, whither he had advanced, contrary to the advice of his jester, who told him he had to consider, not how he was to get into Switzerland, but how he was to get out of it. He involved himself in a narrow pass of the mountains, where the Swiss rolled down trunks of trees and fragments of rock upon his forces. The greater part of his anny was slain ; and Leopold himself escaped with great difficulty. Sixty years later his nephew and namesake, the Duke of Austria, with four thousand German knights and squires, invaded Switzerland, and on the banks of the lake of Sem- pach found fourteen hundred peasants, so poorly armed, that some of them had only a club and a round piece of wood for a shield. The German knights laughed at such an array, and one of them engaged to serve them all up that night to the duke, roasted or boiled, as best might please him. As the horses were useless among the moun- tains, Leopold ordered the troops to dismount, and to stand close together, so as to form a perfect wall of armor, brist- ling with the points of lances. The Swiss knelt down to pray for aid and for mercy to such as should fall, then rushed upon the enemy, but were repulsed with great slaughter : the charge was renewed, but in vain, and they would have been lost, had not a peasant, named Arnold von Winkelried, devoted as Leonidas, cried out, " I will make a way for you, comrades ; take care of my wife and child ;" then rushing on the line of spears, he caught as many as he could grasp with his arms, pressed them all at once against his breast, and held them as he fell, trod- den down under the troops of his countrymen, who forced their way into the opening thus formed, breaking the ranks ^ of the Germans, and dashing out their brains with their ' clubs. The Germans would have fled, but their servants had mounted the horses and galloped away, and after fight- ing desperately for some time, they were all killed or made prisoners. Leopold himself was killed by a Swiss, who found him lying on the ground, faint with heat and fatigue, 162 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. X. and the murderer was adjudged by the confederates to suf- fer death. The Emperor Wenzel was one of the wildest and wicked- est madmen that ever reigned. He once invited the Bohe- mian nobles to a feast, where they found him on an open plain, with three tents, red, white, and black, pitched to receive them. He occupied the black one, whither they were led to speak to him, when he required them to yield up to him the crown lands in their possession. If they re- fused, they were hurried into the red tent, and beheaded ; if they yielded, they were feasted in the white one. lohanko von Nepomuk* was a priest at Prague, so esteemed for his wisdom and holiness, that Sophia, the wife of Wenzel, took him for her confessor. The emperor tried to make him reveal her confessions, but he steadily refused, and gave further offence by boldly rebuking the emperor for his horrible cruelties, especially when he caused an un- fortunate cook to be spitted and roasted alive, for not hav- ing dressed a fowl sufficiently. Wenzel threw ^N'epomuk into prison, and threatened him with death, unless he would betray the queen's secrets, and finding him still firm, drowned him in the Moldau. He was enrolled in the canon of saints by Pope Benedict XIH., and is much hon- ored in Bohemia by the name of St. Nepomucene. The Pope decided who were to be revered as saints, and often gained much money from kings who desired to have their friends canonized, as in the case of Charles de Blois, the pretender to the dukedom of Brittany. As Wenzel neither knew nor cared anything about the empire of Germany, never came thither, and never held a Diet, the Electors agreed to bestow the crown on a more deserving prince. Several persons were chosen at first, but after a few years of disputing, the successful candidate was Sigismund of Luxemburg, the brother of Wenzel, and husband to the female King of Hungary. Though better endowed than Wenzel, he was a vain weak man, who did not do much credit to the choice of the Electors. Wenzel still retained his hereditary kingdom of Bohemia. The great event of Sigismund's reign, was the calling a ♦ Or, as we would call him, John. GERMAN AFFAIRS. 163 council of the Western Church, to put an end to the great schism, and to attempt a reformation of some of the abuses, which were growing too great to be tolerated. Boniface IX., the Roman Pope, had tried to raise money by the sale of indulgences. It was an idea which had risen in the Romish Church, that the saints had done so many good works, as not only to save themselves, but to leave some over (which were called works of supererogation), which, as the whole Church had everything in common, might be applied to the benefit of others who had not made up a sufficient amount of righteous deeds. On this most false doctrine, a still more shocking practice was founded by the needy and avaricious Popes in the time of the great schism. Formerly, a pilgrimage to Rome in the year of Jubilee, a Crusade, or some other observance, was sup- posed to give a right to some of this store of good works, and free the soul for such or such a time from the flames of purgatory; but now Boniface XIII., without thinking, it is to be hoped, of the horrible profanity, commissioned the begging friars, in his name, to sell these indulgences at a greater or less price, according to the number of years they professed to deduct from purgatory. Their tables for sell- mg were set up in the churches in all the countries which owned the authority of the Roman Pontiff, in opposition to that of the Avignon Pope, and the sale was made, if possi- ble, more shocking, by the irreverence of both buyers and sellers. All right-minded men set their faces against this wicked- ness, and throughout Europe there was a call for putting an end to the schism, and reforming the Church. Ladislao, King of Naples, was much bent on the plan, though a very wicked man. He took Rome, and burnt it, and made the Roman Pope promise to meet the Avignon Pope ; while on his side Charles VI. made his Antipope at Avignon set off to the place of meeting, by declaring he would have no Pope at all, unless they came to an agree- ment. At last, after many delays, they did hold what was called the Council of Pisa, where the cardinals of the two parties came to an agreement to depose both, as guilty of 104 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. X. schism, and to elect another, who took the name of Alex- ander v., and promised to convene another council for the reform of the Church; but as neither of the other two Popes would resign, and as they found partisans, the con- fusion was made worse than ever, since there were now three Popes instead of only two. Before Alexander Y. could fulfil his promise, he died, and the cardinals elected John XXIII., one of the wicked- est men who ever sat on the papal throne. Ladislao of Naples died about the same time, leaving his kingdom to his sister Giovanna II., who was almost as miserable and wicked as her predecessor, Giovanna I. At the same time, the line of Kings of Sicily had come to an end in Queen Maria, who married Martin, King of Aragon, and thus brought back Sicily to that kingdom. PART V. THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 1414-1418. The Emperor Sigismund, Charles YI. of France, and Henry Y. of England, were all equally desirous of bringing to an end all these dreadful scandals in the Church, and at last succeeded in convoking a council of the Western Church to meet on the twenty-eighth of November, 1414. Sigismund was the only crowned head there present, but the other princes all sent their representatives, and there were an immense number of clergy of every rank. Sigismund opened the council, in imitation of Constantino the Great, at Nicea, but he only exposed his ignorance and vanity, for he made a mistake in his Latin, and when it was pointed out, answered, " I am King of the Romans, and above the rules of grammar." However, he seems to have been in earnest in trying to lead the much-needed reformation, and had he been more strict in his own moral conduct, his efforts might have met with more success. The first thing to be done was to depose the three rival Popes. John ^ XIII., the only one there present, was forced . to resign, and imprisoned, as he well deserved ; the Koman Antipope himself sent in his resignation, and resumed his real name ; and only the Avignon Antipope, a Spaniard, whose name was Pedro de Luna, remained obstinate. He THE COUNCIL OP CONSTANCE. 165 was the only person alive who had been created cardinal before the schism. At first, King Martin of Aragon sup- ported him, but Sigismund hurried off to Perpignan, met Martin there, and persuaded him to give up Luna, who fled into a castle and shut himself up there, calling it Noah's Ark, which alone contained the true Church, and denoun- cing all the rest of the world as schismatical. No one, how- ever, attended to his pretensions, and the schism of Avignon died with him. The next work ought to have been the reform of the Church, but to this the Italians were resolved not to submit, and as the cardinals were almost all of that nation, there was no chance of their electing a Pope willing to cease from the abuses of his power, or to censure their vices. Sigis- mund tried to make the reform be effected before the Pope was chosen, but he found only the English willing to sup- port him in the proposal, and they all together turned to what pleased them much better than blaming themselves, to hunting down those unauthorized men who had found fault with them. Johann Huss came to Constance with a safe conduct from Sigismund himself, but, regardless of this, he was thrown into the same prison as the wicked old John XXIII., and after a time was tried before the council, found guilty of heresy, and burnt to death. His friend, Jerome of Prague, who had voluntarily surrendered himself, at first agreed to recant, but afterward repented of his want of firmness, and was burnt like his master. The Lollards were at the same time persecuted in England, and Lord Cobham put to death in the same manner. The council had lasted four years without doing any- thing toward reforming abuses, every one was weary of it, and at last the cardinals were allowed to make an election. '>.They chose an Italian, who called himself Martin V., and who, making a private agreement with each monarch, that such practices as were most disliked in their separate king- doms should there be discontinued, broke up the council, after it had effected no good except the cessation of the schism, and had proved the extreme degradation of the clergy in general of the Church of Rome at that time. 166 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. X. The numerous followers of Huss in Bohemia were tre- mendously enraged at his death. John Ziska, an old war- rior, who had private wrongs to avenge against a Romish priest, placed himself at their head, and a frightful outbreak took place at Prague, which so alarmed King Wenzel, that he was seized with apoplexy, and died in 1418. The Huss- ites intrenched themselves on a hill near Prague, which they called Mount Tabor : from this fortification they were known as Taborites. They demanded that the Holy Com- munion should be administered in both kinds to the laity, and carried on their banner a chalice ; hence they were called Calixtins. Ziska and his followers marched through the land with this banner at their head ; they burned churches, plundered convents, and horribly murdered the clergy. Ziska lost his sight by an accident, and was known as the " terrible blind man." They defeated the Emperor and the Duke of Austria, and ravaged the country without resistance ; their march was guided at night by the light of blazing villages. Ziska died in 1424, but the war continued for ten years longer, until at length their violences grew less, and Sigismund, now King of Bohemia, consented to make peace with them, allowing them to exercise their re- ligion as Huss had taught them. At this time reigned in Denmark the great Queen Mar- garet, called the Semiramis of the North. She inherited Denmark from her father. She married Hako, King of Korway, and, after his death, the crown of Sweden becom- ing vacant, which, had he lived, he would have inherited, she assumed it ; but it was disputed by the right heir, Al- bert of Mecklenburg, who, in derision of a woman's taking the command, sent her an immense whetstone, desiring her to sharpen her sword on it ; to which she replied by fasten- ing her shift to a lance, and causing it to be carried as a standard before her army. Albert was defeated at Falkop-?' ing, made prisoner, and very ill-treated by her order, till he resigned all pretensions to the crown ; and thus, by the union of Calmar, in 1397, Scandinavia came under one gov- ernment. V Margaret died in 1412, after a reign of thirty-seven years, in which she made herself much loved in Denmark, and THE TUKKS. 167 hated in Sweden. She had no children, and left her thrones to her great-nephew Erik, Duke of Pomerania, who was probably the last royal pilgrim. He went to Jerusalem, leaving the government of his kingdom to his excellent wife Philippa, a daughter of Henry IV. of England. On his way through Constantinople, a sketch was taken of his features, and treacherously sent by the Emperor Manuel Palseologos to the Sultan of Egypt, who made him pris- oner, and detained him till he had paid a heavy ransom. Philippa meantime governed his kingdom with great mild- ness, and yet with courage ; but the manners of the Danes still seem to have been very savage, for Erik, in a fit of passion at the ill success of an expedition which she had planned, struck her a blow, which so injured her health, that, unable any longer to serve him, she went into a con- vent, and there died. After her death Erik's government was so harsh, that his subjects rebelled, forced him to fly, and set up a new king ; but though Denmark soon again became prosperous, Swe- den, wliich was governed by administrators appointed by the king, fell into a miserable state of oppression and con- fusion. CHAPTER XI/ GROWTH OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 1306-1481. PART I. THE TURKS. 1306-1405. It may be remembered that when Zenghis Khan broke out of Tartary, and threatened all the civilized parts of the w^orld, he left behind him several bands of Tartars in Asia Minor. These adopted the Mahometan religion, entered the service of the Sultan of Icpnium, and became known by the name of Turks, which had in fact only properly be- longed to their predecessors the Turkomans, who conquered Jerusalem in 1050, and had since been nearly crushed by the Crusaders and Arabs of Egypt. 1G8 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XI. Otliman, the chief of one of these tribes, was a very able man, who gradually overcame his master, the Sultan of Iconium, took his title, and laid the foundations of an em- pire called by his name, Othman, or as it has been cor- rupted, Ottoman. The disputes at Constantinople caused the usurping emperor, John Cantacuzenus, to call in the aid of the Turks, and he thus first gave them a footing in' Europe, which they were not slow to improve. Cantacu- zenus found them so formidable that, ready to use any means of making friends with them, he actually bestowed his daughter Theodora in marriage on Orchan, the son of Othman ; but he did not gain much by this shameful sac- rifice, for the power of the Turks continued to increase steadily. Murad, or, as the Europeans used to call him, Amurath, the son of Orchan, made still greater progress. He united all the Turkish tribes under his government, and estab- lished a body of troops, something like the Mamelukes of Egypt, formed entirely of Christian slaves, captured too young to remember their homes and their religion, chosen for their beauty and strength, and bred up to great dex- terity in arms and devotion to the Sultan. When he first saw these new troops drawn up before him, he exclaimed, " Let their name be Zenghi cheri (new soldiers) ; may their courage never cease to be bright, their sword sharp, and their arm victorious ! May their lance be ever over the head of their foe, their arrows swift to reach the mark, and may they ever return from their expeditions with their faces white." This name of Zenghi cheri was turned by the Europeans into Janissaries, and this corps was, almost down to our days, the most powerful and formidable of the Turkish force. John Palieologos (who recovered his power after Can- tacuzenus had retired into a monastery) strove in vain to resist the 1 urks. In vain he came to Rome and oifered to reconcile his Church to the Roman See; it was in the midst of the great schism and of the wars between Edward III. and Jean of France, and though he obtained many promises, no one could or would help him, and he was ob- liged to make a treaty with Amurath, giving up to him all THE TURKS. 169 hia possessions, excepting Constantinople, Thessalonica, part of the Morea, and one or two islands. The Ottoman empire was now so wide that Amurath was obliged to es- tablish Pashas, or governors, in the more distant parts, while he himself fixed his seat of empire at Adrianople. It was a thorough despotism ; every Turk was a soldier, and, in fact, a slave. There was no gradation of rank by- birth, but the beggar one day might be Vizier or Prime Minister the next. The Pashas were absolute in their own domain, but the Sultan was absolute over them ; and they had no security that any moment he might not cause them to be strangled without a trial — nay, without knowing their offence. The standard of the Pashas, carried before them in token of their dignity, was one, two, or three tails, usually called horse-tails, but really tailf^ of the yak ox, in commemoration of their Kurdish descent. The Turks next attempted the overthrow of the Bul- garians, and other half-savage tribes on the borders of the Greek empire, who had fallen under the dominion of the great Louis of Hungary, but had shaken off" the power of Hungary in the time of his daughter Marie. At Kassova, in Servia, Amurath gained a signal victory over them, but while he was viewing the field of battle at night, a soldier, hidden among the dead, sprung up and stabbed him, so that he died in two hours' time, in the year 1389. The Turks slaughtered all the prisoners in re- venge for his death, and raised to his throne his son, Baja- zet, surnamed Ilderim, or the Lightning, who began his reign by the murder of his brothers. Bajazet was more powerful, more luxurious, and more cruel tlian his father. Amurath had lived and dressed simply, but Bajazet was proud and magnificent, without, however, losing the activity and courage which befitted one of the founders of a new empire. He gained a great victory over Sigismund of Luxemburg, then only King of Hungary, threatened that country, and spread his con- quests up to the very walls of Constantinople, keeping the Greeks in such subjection that he obliged them to demolish the new fortifications which they had begun. Manuel Palaeologos left the charge of the empire to his brother, and 8 170 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP, XI. came to France and England in search of aid, but no one Avas at leisure to assist him, and he returned in despair. Constantinople was, however, saved for fifty years longer in an unexpected manner, by another great outbreak of the Mogul Tartars in the north of Asia. Timour Beg, otherwise called Tamerlane, or Timour the Lame, was chieftain of the Tartars of Samerkand. He was blind of one eye, lame of one foot, and maimed in an arm, but his courage and talent were of the highest order. He con- quered the whole of Western Asia, excepting China, pene- trated further into India than Alexander had ever gone, and at length challenged Bajazet. The proud Sultan scoffed at him, and replied with in- sulting letters. Timour marched into Asia Minor : Bajazet, with forty thousand Janissaries, and a host of Turks, met him at Angora, and was totally routed. He was made prisoner, and one account states that Timour imprisoned him in an iron cage, where he died in the second year of his captivity. Other histories say that Timour treated Bajazet with generous courtesy ; but this is hardly consist- ent with the fierce temper of the Tartar chief, whose course was long after marked by the pyramids which he caused to be raised of the skulls of his enemies. Timour died in 1405, while on his way to attempt the conquest of China. His youngest son held his empire to- gether for a short time, but after his death it fell entirely to pieces, and the only fragment of it that attained to any greatness was the Mogul empire in India. The fall of Bajazet shattered the Ottoman power, and while his sons were struggling with each other for dominion, the Greeks enjoyed a short breathing-time. If Western Europe had been in a condition to make a great effort in the old crusading spirit, these Mussulmen — far more bar- barous than their predecessors, the Saracens — might have been forced back into Asia, and beautiful Greece would not have been for four hundred years crushed under their heavy yoke. EXPULSION OF THE ENGLISH FROM FRANCE. 171 PART IL EXPULSION OF THE ENGLISH FROM FRANCE. 1415-1444. One European prince seems honestly to have had designs of saving Christendom and the Holy Land — Henry V. of England ; but this was no more than a good intention, and was postponed to his own scheme of subduing France. That unhappy country was in a worse condition than ever. The Dauphin Jean died young, and his brother Louis did not long survive him ; the youngest brother, Charles, who now became Dauphin, inherited all their hatred and jealousy of the Duke of Burgundy. Charles was a weak and indolent man, who allowed himself to be guided by whoever approached him; and he was at this time in the hands of some servants of the late Duke of Orleans, by whom he was induced to give his consent to a crime as great as that committed on their late master. He agreed to meet Jean Sans Peur on the bridge of Montereau ; and in the midst of the conference, while the duke was kneeling before him, his servants suddenly drew their swords, and before Jean could rise, cut him down and murdered him, August, 1419. This murder was as impolitic as it was wicked, for it caused Philippe, the son of Jean Sans Peur, to ally himself with the English, and give them the benefit of all his great power and influence. Philippe was not so bad a man as his father, though neither his good faith nor his morals de- serve the name of the Good, by which he is distinguished, but he owed it to his gracious manners, his great liberality, and the manner in which he managed to win the favor of his own great Flemish cities, as well as of Pans, Rouen, and the chief French towns. Queen Isabelle was brought by him to consent to give her youngest daughter, Catherine, in marriage to Henry Y., and to make the unhappy old Charles VL settle the king- dom upon him, to the exclusion of the Dauphin. Two years after the mamage, Henry died, in 1422, and poor old Charles VL ended his unhappy life the following year. Such, however, was the wisdom of John, Duke of Bed- ford, the Regent of France, that Henry's death, brave and 172 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. XI beloved as he was, did not at first injure the cause of the English in France, and the infant Henry VI. was as peace- ably proclaimed at Paris as in London. The spirits of the French seemed completely broken; Charles VII. had hidden himself in a corner of the king- dom at Bourges, where all the persuasions of his wife, Marie of Anjou, and of Agnes Sorel, a beautiful lady to whom he was unlawfully attached, could not avail to per- suade him to exert himself A few brave men still fought gallantly for him: Arthur de Richemont, who on his return from prison in England had received the Constable's sword ; the Count de Dunois, a son of the murdered Orleans ; and a knight known by the inexplicable nom de guerre^ La Hire, were at the head of the steady defenders of his cause, together with a band of Scots who had been sent to their aid ; but they had not only to contend with the English, but with all the forces of Burgundy ; and the Flemings and Hainaulters, who were subjects of the em- pire, had not the same compunction in fighting against France, as if they were his liege subjects. When the affairs of France were at the very worst, Jeanne, the peasant maiden of Arc, arrived at Charles's court at Chinon, to announce her mission from heaven to deliver the besieged town of Orleans, and to conduct him to be crowned at Rheims. Charles and his friends do not seem to have had any real confidence in Jeanne, excepting perhaps Dunois. The Constable de Richemont, laughed at her visions, and others thought her a witch ; but it was supposed that she might encourage the soldiers, and her requests were granted. Her beautiful purity, and nobleness of conduct, should have convinced them all that the spirit within her was of heaven ; but she was basely treated ; even her rescue of Orleans, whither she went, accompanied by Dunois, failed to make them regard her as anything but a means of en- couraging the troops ; and when the soldiers saw that their superiors despised her, they grew ashamed of being led by a woman. Yet she was not allowed to return liome, as she desired, when her work was done, and she had seen the king crowned at Rheims ; she was retained with the army, GOOD KING EENE. 1V3 and at last was deserted at Compi^gne, and left outside the walls of the town, where she fell mto the hands of the Bur- gundians. Without one attempt to save her on the part of those for whom she had devoted herself, she was given up by the English and Burgundians to the Inquisition, which condemned her as a sorceress, and sentenced her to be burnt in the market-place at Rouen. But the Maid of Orleans had saved her country, just as Arnold von Winkelried had won the battle of Sempach ; for, by sacrificing herself, she had given the first impulse which led to the triumph of her cause. Richemont, Dunois, and La Hire, steadily pursued their advantage, carrying on a war of sieges and skirmishes, in the manner in which Charles V. had taught the French to oppose the English ; the Scots became a valuable portion of their army, and such of the French as had deserted the losing cause began to return to their king when they saw him successful. Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, youngest brother of Henry v., had married Jacqueline, heiress of Hainault, a mascu- line, worthless woman, and for her sake he quarrelled with Philippe of Burgundy, who went over to Charles VIL, and was reconciled to him. Then followed the losses and dis- putes of the Dukes of York and Somerset ; and finally, in 1444, the English war with France was brought to a con- clusion by the marriage of Henry VI. with Marguerite, daughter of Rene, Duke of Anjou, after it had lasted, with one interval, for nearly a century. PART III. GOOD KING RENE. 1435-1444. The fortunes of Rene, of Anjou, bring us back to Italy. He was the grandson of that Louis, Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V. of France, who had been adopted by Queen Giovanna I. of Naples, and he himself had been adopted in the same manner by Queen Giovanna II. From his father he inherited the county of Provence and the dukedom of Anjou, and his wife, Isabelle, was heiress of Lorraine, so that few persons ever bore a more sounding 174 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. XI. list of titles than he, as King of the Two Sicilies and Jeru- salem, Duke of Anjou and Lorraine, and Count of Prov- ence ; but the Aragonese held one Sicily, and were in a fair way to conquer the other ; Jerusalem was in the power of the Saracen, and Anjou was held by the English ; Lorraine was disputed by Antoine de Vaudemont, under the protec- tion of the Burgundians ; so that Provence alone was in Rene's possession. He himself was as amiable and good a man as ever lived ; a gallant knight, with considerable personal courage ; of such kindness of heart, and graciousness of demeanor, as won the heart of all who approached him ; an artist, a musician, a poet, a thorough Proven9al troubadour; a lover of flowers. . But his talents as a warrior and statesman were not equal to his position, and his character was at once too gentle and too honorable to deal with the hard and deceitful men among whom his lot was cast. Yet, through failure, poverty, and neglect, good King Kene preserved his innocence of heart and buoyancy of temper, and lived to a good old age, in his sunny county of Prov- ence, a bright refreshing spot among the selhsh, crafty politicians of the 15th century. Rene's first misfortune was in 1435, in his twenty-third year, while trying to protect Lorraine, his wife's inheritance, against her cousin, Antoine de Vaudemont, and his allies the Burgundians. He was defeated, wounded, and made prisoner, but after a year was conditionally released by Philippe of Burgundy, when the dispute was committed to the decision of the Emperor Sigismund, as suzerain of Lor- raine. Sigismund gave his voice in favor of Isabelle: Rene took the oaths of allegiance, and proceeding to Nancy, was feasted by the inhabitants; but Philippe, declaring that this decision rose out of unjust partiality for Rene, who was nearly related to the House of Luxemburg, re- fused to abide by it, and summoned him to return to his prison, which he instantly did, turning his hst^ck on all the pleasures prepared for him in Lorraine. He amused himself with painting a window, which he presented to the Cathedral of L)ijon, but, in the mean time, intelligence arrived of the death of Giovanna of Naples, GOOD KING RENE. 175 soon after she had adopted him as her son, and left him all her kingdoms. Alfonso v., King of Aragon, and, in right of his mother Maria, King of Sicily, was, however, resolved to conquer Naples, and had blockaded Gaeta. The town suffered so much from famine that all the women, the aged, and feeble were turned out, lest they should exhaust the provisions sooner. Alfonso's counsellors advised him to drive these poor creatures back again, and thus increase the famine ; but answering, " I had rather never take the place than fail in humanity," he caused food to be distributed to the half- starved fugitives, and let them pass safely through his camp. His generosity on this occasion earned for him the surname of El Magnanimo. The Genoese and Milanese, as allies of the French, sent a fleet to raise the siege. Alfonso resisted them bravely, but was defeated, and after fighting like a lion for some time, was forced to suiTcnder, so that both the claimants of the throne of Naples were prisoners at the same time. Rene, on hearing of the victory, sent his wife Isabelle to represent him at Naples, and was soon after set at liberty by Philippe of Burgundy, on his promising to leave Lor- raine to his little daughter Yolande, who was betrothed to Ferry, the son of the Count de Yaudemont. Alfonso had, in the mean time, been taken to Milan, where his graceful manners so won upon Filippo Visconti, a weak, and yet a violent and ferocious man, that he was suddenly induced to set him at liberty, and send him back to Sicily. He reassembled his army, and, again appearing before Gaeta, received its submission, so much had the hearts of the citizens been gained by his previous generos- ity. He next laid siege to Naples, which was defended by Rene himself, who had made himself already so much be- loved, by patiently sharing with the inhabitants all the pri- vations of the siege, that they were all resolved to hold out for him to the very last gasp. At length, however, the Aragonese discovered the same old aqueduct by which Belisarius had once entered Naples : they made their way into the town, and on their first appearance there the in- habitants fled in confusion. Rene shut himself up in Castel 176 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [CHAP. XI. ISTuovo, whence he sailed to Provence, giving up to Alfonso his few remaining towns, in order that his friends might not have to endure the misfortunes of a siege for his sake. So ended the struggling and disputed rule of the House of Anjou in Naples, which had begun in the time of Charles, brother of St. Louis ; and thus the Two Sicilies were united under the dominion of Alfonso of Aragon. In the mean time, the great republican and Guelfic city of Florence, which had. maintained its liberty ever since the time of the Emperor Otho I., was beginning to allow a tyranny to be erected by the family of Medici, merchants of immense wealth and high talent. Cosmo de Medici, the head of the family, without holding any office in the State himself, governed all the magistrates and officers, and allowed nothing to be done without his consent. He was very generous and magnificent in his habits ; he collected round him all the greatest artists and poets of Italy, and made himself universally esteemed and admired, though he certainly did not act the part of a good citizen. A change also took place at Milan. Filippo Maria was the last of the House of Visconti, founded in the time of Heinrich of Luxemburg by the great Matteo. They had been a wicked, cruel, bloodthirsty race, but for the most part men of great activity and talent, and they had raised Slilan to the first rank of those cities of Italy which had ceased to be republics. Filippo Maria Visconti gave his only daughter Bianca in marriage to Francesco Sforza. This Sforza was the son of a soldier of Cotignola, named Sforza Attendolo. It is said that Attendolo was a peasant at work in his fields, when some soldiers, passing by, proposed to him to enlist in their company. He threw his spade up into a tree, saying, that if it fell down again he would stay where he was ; if it re- mained in the tree, he would go with them. As it hung in the branches, Sforza Attendolo became a soldier ; his talent and courage raised him to the command, and in process of time he rose to be the most famous Condottiere in Italy. He fought in the service of Queen Giovanna II., of Naples, and acquired large fiefs in her kingdom ; he was more up- right, honorable, and merciful than most men of his class, HOUSE OF AVIS. Ill and after a gallant career was drowned in attempting to save the life of his page. His son Francesco took the com- mand of his company, and became of so much considera- tion in Italy as to be deemed a fit match for Bianca Vis- conti, the heiress of Milan. Their son, Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, used to look forth on the fair city, and say, " See what I owe to my grandfather's spade !" PAKT IV. HOUSE OF AVIS. 1402-1470. The peninsular kingdoms were at this time in a state of great prosperity, all excepting Castile, which was under Juan II., a weak prince, who could not govern alone, and gave all his confidence to Don Alvaro de Luna, whom he made Master of Santiago, and Constable of Castile. Luna was a proud, high-spirited man of great accomplishments, and faithful to his master, but haughty and overbearing. He gave offence to the Castilians, who, with the king's son Enrique, Principe de las Asturias, at their head, rose agahist him, and frightened the king into giving up to them the fi-iend who had served him faithfully for forty-five years. Alvaro de Luna was publicly executed ; he met his death with great dignity and patience, and when his head was struck off, his page gave so piteous a cry that the whole populace, though they had clamored for his blood, could not help joining in the lamentation. His master, Juan II., never recovered his grief for his death, and died soon after, in 1454, leaving the kingdom to his son, Enrique IV., a still weaker and more foolish prince. Portugal had, in the mean time, flourished greatly under Joao I. and his noble English Queen, Philippa of Lancaster. They had four sons, Duarte, Pedro, Enrique, and Fernando, all distinguished men. When Philippa was dying, she called them round her bed, and gave them each a sword, charging them to fight against the oppressors of the widow and orphan, and especially against the Infidels. They well obeyed her ; while their grief for her loss was still fresh, they sailed for Africa, and took the town of Ceuta from the Moors, turned the Mosque into a Cathedral, and gave the command to Dom Pedro de Menezes, a knight of such 8* 1V8 LAi^DMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. XI. noted loyalty that tlie king would not receive from him the oath of fidelity, saying it was not needed. Joao died, much beloved, in 1422. Duarte succeeded his father, and Enrique applied himself to the study of science and navigation. He built an observatory near Cape St. Vincent, studied the stars, and made several expeditions by sea, hoping to discover unknown lands to the west, to ex- tend his brother's power, and to spread the knowledge of the Gospel. He was the first in the track of discovery, and the founder of the greatness of Portugal, and well he deserves the name of the Wise Infante, Dom Enrique. Yet the Infante Fernando has a still nobler name, earned by his constancy in suffering. Early in 1436, the two In- fantes, Enrique and Fernando, led an expedition to attempt the conquest of Tangier, but the King of Fez came doAvn upon them with an overwhelming force, their plans were betrayed by a wicked priest, and their retreat was cut off. They fought gallantly in defence of their camp, but their force was so small in comparison with the number of Moors, that all resistance was vain, and they resolved to offer a favorable treaty to the King of Fez, provided he would allow the army to depart in safety. Fernando voluntarily offered himself as a hostage, provided his brother and the other Portuguese were allowed to depart. They went, and he remained a prisoner, the price of his ransom being the town of Ceuta, which King Duarte, the Portuguese, and the noble Fernando himself, all deemed too important to the kingdom to be parted with. Enraged at their resistance, the Moorish king threw Fernando into a dark dungeon, and made him labor in fetters as a slave ; but still by no letter nor entreaty would he desire his brother to buy his release by the surrender of Ceuta. Duarte tried to fit out an armament to deliver him, but the plague, which was raging in Portugal, made this impossible, and in 1438 Duarte himself caught the infection, and died in his thirty- eighth year, leaving a young son six years of age, Af- fonso V. The Queen Dona Leonor, and the second brother, the Infante Dom Pedro, began to dispute about the regency, and the wise Enrique, who was ambitious of no selfish power, CARLOS OF NAVARRE. 179 putting his own rights out of the question, strove in vain to make peace between them. The noble Fernando was for- gotten, and after seven years' captivity, died in his dungeon, of the sufferings he had undergone so patiently and firmly, that the Moors said of him, " It was a pity such a good man was not a Mahometan," and he is known in his own country by the glorious title of El Principe Constante, the constant prince. Dom Pedro gained the power over young Alfonso, and did not make a bad use of it, though he retained it longer than he ought after the king grew up. At last Afibnso grew impatient of his rule, and was stiiTed up by his cous- in, the Duke of Braganza, to attack him. Enrique inter- fered without success, and Pedro was killed in battle. Enrique died in a good old age, in 1460, in his observa- tory at Cape St. Vincent. He first discovered, and took possession in the name of Portugal, of the Azores, or West- ern Isles, and his discoveries led to other voyages. PART V. CARLOS OF NAVARRE. 1443-1469. The great power of Alfonso V. of Aragon in Italy, has already been mentioned. He was a man of great chivalry and generosity, with many brilliant qualities, very learned, and remarkable for his coolness and courage. He was hear- ing Mass at Naples, when a violent shock of an earthquake made every one flee out of the church, excepting the king, who held the priest fast, and forced him to remain and fin- ish the service. His liberality, too, was very great. He had one day just received a thousand ducats from his treas- urer, when a man standing by exclaimed, " Such a sum would make me a happy man !" " Be happy," said the king, handing him the money. When Frederick HI. of Germany came to Italy to be crowned, he came to visit Alfonso ; and when it was repre- sented that it was beneath the dignity of an emperor to ay the first visit to a king, he answered, " No, not to a ing whose personal qualities set him above all the princes in the world." Yet this brilliant Alfonso carried a secret and bitter sor- I 180 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XI. row at his heart, and all his great enterprises were for the sake of forgetting his grief, one mixed with sin to give it poignancy. He had unlawfully loved a beautiful lady, named Marguerita de Hijar, who had been poisoned by his wife, Leonor of Castile, and died, leaving him one child, named Fernando. Alfonso never shook off his grief for Marguerita, and, as he had no other child, he set all his affections on her son, whom he resolved to make King of Naples and Sicily, and all his endeavors in his latter years were directed to making the other powers in Italy consent to the establishment of Fernando at Naples. Alfonso died in 1458, and his brother Juan became King of Aragon, while Fernando took the crown of the Two Sicilies. Jean of Anjou, called the Duke of Calabria, eld- est son of King Rene, came to assert his father's rights, but he could not prevail, and was obliged to return to France. Fernando was, however, a weak, ungrateful man, who of- fended every one in Italy, and soon lost Sicily, which was joined to the crown of Aragon, while he retained only Naples. The King of Aragon, Juan II., had been twice married. His first wife was Blanca, Queen of Navarre, who died, leaving three children, Carlos, Principe de la Viana, and the Infantas Blanca and Leonor. His second wife, Juana Enriquez, brought him one son, Fernando, for whose sake she hated her step-children most bitterly. Carlos should of course have been King of Navarre, after his mother's death, but the old King Juan would not give up the title or the power to him. The Navarrese clamored for Carlos as their true king, and the Catalonians, who had reason to think their young prince was cruelly treated, rose in rebellion. Juan offered to make a treaty ; he met his subjects at Barcelona, set his son at liberty, and promised to give him the power that was his due ; but before part- ing with him, he caused Carlos to be poisoned, and after a few days' illness he died. Blanca became Queen of Navarre, but her father sent her to her sister Leonor, Countess de Foix, who, desirous of securing Navarre to her own son Gaston, poisoned her also. These dreadful crimes so enraged the Catalonians, that they TllE BATTLE OF VARNA. 181 broke out into a second rebellion, and called in, as their king, Jean of Anjou, Rene's son, whose grandmother had been an Aragonese princess. Jean took Gerona, and won a battle at Barcelona, but he was overcome by the heat of the climate and by his great exertions, and died at Barce- lona in 1460, much regretted, for he was as honorable and chivalrous as his father, with greater talent and better suc- cess. He left two sons, who both died young, at their grandfather's court at Provence, where old Rene lived with his widowed daughter, Margaret, who bore the ruin of the cause of Lancaster, and tlie loss of her son and her crown, with far less patience than he showed. His other daughter, Yolande, was also dead, leaving a son named Rene, who inherited from his father, the Count de Vaudemont, the blood of Charlemagne in a direct line, and through her became Duke of Lorraine, with claims to all old Rene's empty titles. He was the founder of the Houses of Lorraine and Guise, which became very famous in French and German history. The Emperof Sigismund died in 14.3&, leaving a daughter married to Albrecht von Hapsburg, Duke of Austria, who was elected as his successor ; and since that time the House of Hapsburg have continued uninterruptedly to be the imperial line. Albrecht died, after a reign of two years, and was succeeded by his cousin, Frederick lY., a generous, amiable man, but without much talent or con- sistency. Albrecht left an infant son, named Ladislas, who became King of Hungary under the regency of the brave general, John Corvinus Hunniades. The Bohemians elected a king of their own, named George Podiebrad. PART VI. THE BATTLE OF VARNA. 1446. The Othmans at Adrianople, who had recovered the death of Bajazet, began so to threaten the remaining fragments of the Greek empire that the emperor, John Palseologos, resolved to make another last attempt to obtain the aid of the Western princes, by reconciling himself to the Church of Rome. 182 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. XI. The Church of Rome was, however, herself in no united state; the persons desirous of reformation, finding that their views were not carried out at the Council of Constance, had formed what they called a fresh Council at Basle, de- posed the real Pope, Eugenius II., and set up as Antipope old Amadee, Duke of Savoy, who had resigned his duchy to his son. The Italians, and the chief countries of Europe, all held with Eugenius, and it was to him that John Palseologos came, bringing with him as many Greek bishops as he could collect, some of whom bore the honored old titles of Patriarchs of Ephesus, Sardis, Nicea, and the other very old Asiatic churches, though their bishoprics were now in the possession of the Mahometans, and St. John's prophecy of the removal of the candlestick was grievously fulfilled. After a year of discussion, they at length came to an agree- ment, and on the 6th of July, 1439, the decree of union be- tween the two Churches was read both in Greek and Latin, and Mass celebrated in both languages; Bessarion, of Nicea, the most learned of the Greek bishops, was made a cardinal, and John Palaeologos returned to Constantinople ; but there the clergy, finding that they had promised to ac- knowledge the doctrine of purgatory, and the supremacy of the Pope, would not receive the act of union, and thus failed this last attempt at putting an end to the unhappy schism of the Greek and Latin Churches. The Pope did not, however, forget his promise to send help to the Greek emperor. He collected a troop of Cru- saders, equipped by Duke Philippe of Burgundy, the King of France, and the Venetians, and sent them to the aid of the emperor and his allies, young Ladislas of Hungary, and George Castriotes, Lord of Croia, in Albania, or Epirus, the mountain-land of Pyrrhus. George Castriotes had, when nine years old, been given into the hands of the Turks as a hostage by his father. They had kept him prisoner, had circumcised him, and brought him up, as they thought, in Mahometanism. He had served in their armies with such success that they had given him the surname of Iskander Beg, meaning Lord Alexander; but he was all the time devising means of THE BATTLE OF VARNA. 183 joining his own Albanian countrymen, and returning to the Christian faith. At last, when he thought the time was come, he suddenly escaped into Albania, called the Greeks round his standard, massacred all the Turks in the country, and succeeded in repelling all the armies sent against him from Adrianople. In the whole course of his- tory Epirus has only produced two great men, Pyrrhus and Skanderbeg. The Pope having collected his force, sent it, under the command of Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, to the assistance of Ladislas of Hungary ; but on the arrival of this force, the cardinal was extremely mortified by finding that Ladis- las and his adviser, Hunniades, had just concluded a truce for ten years with the Sultan Amurath, so that nothing could be done, and their crusade was useless. Giuliano,- unwilling to be disappointed, persuaded the Hungarians that treaties with infidels ought never to be ol)served, and that he had authority from the Pope to re- lease them from their oaths. They listened, and were led astray; they broke the truce and entered the Turkish territory, but they were severely punished for their want of faith. Amurath himself led an overwhelming force against them, and met them at Varna, on the Danube. Ladislas and the cardinal were resolved on giving battle, contrary to the advice of John Hunniades, and the young king at first attacked the enemy with such fury that they gave way, and Amurath, thinking all lost, would have fled, if the Janissaries, knowing that this would be the destruc- tion of the army, had not held his horse so that he could not escape. It is said that he stretched out his hands, and called on Him by whose name the Christians had sworn to the treaty, to punish their perfidy. Ladislas rode violently against the Janissaries around the Sultan, and tried to fight his way through them, but he was surrounded and slain, and one of them, cutting off his head, raised it on a spear, crying out, " Christians, behold your king !" This sight put the Christians into confusion ; they fled ; hosts of them were drowned in the Danube, among whom was Giuliano Cesarini, and John Hunniades could with difficulty save a small number of Hungarians. He withdrew to Buda,' 184 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. XI. where he was soon after crowned King of Hungary, in the year 1452. Skanderbeg, who had not had time to join the army, continued his gallant defence of Albania, uniting himself with the Sclavonic princes of Bulgaria and Wallachia. PART VII. FALL OF THE GREEK EMPIRE. 1450-1453. John Pal^ologos died in 1450, and was succeeded by his brother, Constantine XIII. Amurath died in 1451, and was succeeded by his son, Mahomet II. Constantine was the last and best of his race, worthy to be the last wearer of the purple and diadem of Constantine the Great and Theodosius, and to give the long decaying Empire of the East the last and the purest lustre of patience in adversity. Mahomet was such a conqueror as might, by his talent, his daring, and his violence, well fulfil the fierce decrees of Islam, the religion of the sword. In the third year of his reign, Mahomet advanced upon Constantinople, bringing such enormous cannon as never have been used before or since. The Greeks, reduced to despair, were resolved to fight to the last : the Venetians, who inhabited the suburbs, joined with them heart and hand, and the emperor sustained their spirits with hopes of succor from the West ; but the Genoese, who could not even at such a moment lay aside their jealousy of the Vene- tians, betrayed their plans to the Sultan. The walls were broken, the ships of the enemy filled the port, and while Constantine on one side declared that he would die rather than yield, Mahomet vowed that Stamcoul* should be either his throne or his tomb. On the 28th of May, 1453, the loud-chanted cry of the Turks, Allah il Allah, warned the Christians that they were preparing for the assault the next day. Late at night Constantine on his side called his faithful friends together, and said to them, " Though my heart is full, I can speak to you no longer. There is the crown which I hold from God ; I place it in your hands ; I intrust it to you. I fight to deserve it still, or to die in defending it." They all burst * The Turkish way of pronouncing Constantinople. FALL OF THE GREEK EMPIRE. 185 into tears, and he, waiting till his voice could again be heard, said, " Comrades, this is our fairest day !" He then with them received the Holy Communion at St. Sophia, after which he turned to the assembled crowd, and im- plored them to pardon him for not liaving been able to make them happy, and to forgive his faults. They answered with sobs and teai-s, and then the last Emperor of the East, for the last time, mounted his horse at the gate of the Blachernal Palace, to which he was never to return, for the last day of Christianity at Constantinople had passed. He rode round the ramparts, where all was silent except the sound caused by the waves dashing against the war- like machines of Mahomet, and by daylight he was at the beach. The Turks attacked in early morning, and the combat raged half the day. At last Hassan, a gigantic Turk, followed by thuty others, climbed up the breach : the Greeks hurled them down, but they had shown the way ; numbers crowded after them, and the Greeks, strug- gling and fighting gallantly, were borne backward by the host. Constantine, covered with blood, was seen fighting in the midst of the press, and the last time his voice was heard, was in the despairing cry, " Can I not find a Chris- tian who will cut off my head !" The Greeks saw him no more. They were hemmed in and cut down on all sides ; the women and children who had taken I'efuge in St. Sophia, were seized for slaves ; the Turks rushed through the streets plundering, burning, and slaughtering. Mahomet rode in triumph through the Golden Gate, and going to the noble Blachernal Palace, took it for his own. He was so struck with the silence of its desolate halls, that he exclaimed in two lines of Per- sian poetry, " The spider hath woven her web in the palace of kings ; the owl hath sung her watch-song in the towers of Afrasiab !" , He bade search to be made for the body of Constantine, which at length was found, as well befitted the last of the Roman emperors, sword in hand, beneath a heap of slain, and so disfigured, that it was only recognized by the golden eagles embroidered on the buskins. St. Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom of God, was, 186 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XI. as the Turks deemed, purified with rose-water ; the altar, the shrines, the paintings, were swept away, and the build- ing which the great Constantine had founded, and where Justinian boasted of having surpassed Solomon, became forbidden ground to the Christians, and resounded only to the praise of Allah and the blasphemer Mahomet. Yet the Mahometans to this very day feel as if their conquest was not their own, and keep the Golden Gate walled up, because tradition declares that through it will enter the Christian conqueror who shall deliver the second Rome, the city of Constantine, from the yoke of the Infidel. PART VIII. CONQUEST OF GREECE. 1453-1478. After the loss of Constantinople, and the death of the emperor, the few remaining fragments of the Greek empire soon fell into the hands of Mahomet II. Trebizond, where some of the Comneni had established a petty empire, sur- rendered to him ; the petty princes of the Morea also gave up their independence, and Albania alone still continued unsubdued, well guarded by the gallant George Castriotes, who had allied himself with the Pope and the Venetians, as well as with the brave Hungarian king, Matthias Cor- vinus. Matthias saw the only way to guard his frontier was by incessant watchfulness, and along the bank of the Danube he established posts, where parties of soldiers, trained all their life for the purpose, have ever since his time kept watch and ward against the Turks, never ceasing their vigilance by day or night, but ready at the first token of a foray of the enemy, to raise the whole Christian force of the country. Their watch has lasted four hundred years, and all that time has guarded Christian Europe from the inroad of the wild Mahometan. The Pope was at this time ^nea Silvio Piccolomini, who called himself Pius II., one of the best, most learned, and faithful men who had sat in the chair of St. Peter since the days when the Bishops of Rome were saints and martyrs. lie honestly strove to make peace in Italy, and to keep back the Mahometans, instead of trying to heap up FALL OP THE GREEK EMPIRE. 187 riches for his own family ; but even his measures for the good cause of driving back the Turks, show how sadly- perverted men's minds had become, since he raised money for an expedition against Mahomet by the sale of in- dulgences, and induced Skanderbeg to break his oaths toward the enemy, when he had made peace with them. The Pope made an alliance with the Venetians, and ap- pointed to meet them at Ancona, to head a crusade against the Infidel in his own person. He said that though he could not fight himself, yet he would look upon the battle, and stretch out his hands in prayer like Moses, that they might prevail ; and though very old, and suffering from a low fever, he set out for the place of embarkation. The Doge of Venice, Cristoforo Moro, who was also a very old man, was not equally willing to undertake the voyage, but the Venetians obliged him to embark, politely saying to him, "Most serene prince, if your serenity will not embark with a good will, you shall be made to do so by force, for we prize the honor and welfare of the repub- lic more than your person." The Pope had, in the mean time, arrived at Ancona, but he found his army in a miserable state, and without means of subsistence, so that he was obliged to dismiss all who were not properly equipped. He waited for the Venetian fleet to transport him to Greece, his illness increasing all the time, and when at length it came in sight he felt him- self dying, and exclaimed : " Hitherto the fleet has failed me, now I fail the fleet !" and he died the next day. This put an end to the expedition ; the cardinals went back to Kome to choose a new Pope, and Paul H., whom they elected, fell into the usual selfish policy of Rome, and thoughi no more of the war with the Moslem, while the Venetians gave their sole attention to the protection of their own dominions, and of the isle of Cyprus. The kings of the line of Lusignan had reigned there ever since it had been given by Richard Coeur de Lion to Guy, King of Jerusalem, until 1475, when the Venetians drove out the rightful queen, Charlotte de Lusignan, and set up in her stead Caterina Cornaro, a Venetian lady, widow of the last king, whom they had adopted as the daughter of 188 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XI. the republic of St. Mark. They governed the island in Caterina's name for some years, and at last carried her off to Venice, gave her a little castle for her own, and took Cyprus for their own possession, setting up the Lion of St. Mark on the towers of Famagosta and Limisso. George Castriotes continued his brave defence of Albania till 1466, when he was seized by a violent fever at Alyssio, and finding he could not recover, he called his warriors round him, and took leave of them, putting them in mind of the toils he had shared with them, rather as their friend than as their prince. In the midst, there was an outcry that the Turks were foraying the country round, and burn- ing the villages: the brave George called for his armor, and tried to rise and put it on, but he was too weak; and sinking back, he desired his friends to hasten to the attack, saying he should soon be able to follow them. The Turks, seeing his banner, thought he must be at the head of their opponents, and fled in confusion, losing many men in the narrow mountain passes. He just lived to hear of the suc- cess of his friends, and died in his sixty-sixth year, leaving behind him the fame of having been for twenty years the bulwark of Christendom ; and so much was his valor hon- ored by the Turks, that when twelve years after they took Alyssio, they disinterred his body, divided the bones, and wore them about their persons in cases of silver or gold, as talismans to secure victory. His battle-steed never allowed himself to be mounted by any other person, became wild and ferocious, and died a few weeks after him. The Albanians could not long hold out after the loss of their " Alexander ;" they were conquered, and suffered fear- ful massacres ; the whole of Greece fell into the hands of the Turks, and Mahometanism prevailed everywhere except in the mountain monasteries, founded a thousand years be- fore, in the most inaccessible places among the rocks and hills — fortresses, from the strength of their walls, and, from tlieir situation, incapable of being attacked. Mount Athos, further guarded by its stormy seas, entirely belonged to these old convents, which defied all the attacks of the Turks, as calmly as, almost two thousand years before, the solid rock defied the threat of the Persian monarch to cut INROADS OF MAHOMET II. 189 it down, and throw it into the sea. Oppressed and perse- cuted, crushed, and without learning or power, the Greek Church has existed in steady constancy to her long-tried faith, training up her children in the mountains and valleys of the rugged soil, and shining with a clear steadfast light in darkness, more pure, though less brilliant, than the boasted glories of ancient Athens and Sparta. One narrow rocky strip of land, on the Adriatic coast, called Montenegro, or the Black Mountain, from the hor- rors it has suffered from the attacks of the Turks, has maintained its freedom unbroken, under the government of a succession of warlike bishops, who, in a strange manner, have been at once the princes, pastors, and generals of their people. PART IX. INROADS OF MAHOMET II. 14*78-1481. Italy had become the frontier State against the Mahom- etans, and her danger was fearful, more especially as her princes were engaged in violent quarrels among themselves instead of in making head against the common foe. The family of Medici had continued to grow in power at Florence, and in 14*78 the whole city was under the do- minion of two brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano dei Medici, very young men, grandsons of the great Cosmo, called the elder. They were very learned, of gracious manners, magnificent habits, and patrons of all the arts which were flourishing in Italy — painting, sculpture, and music ; but some of the Florentine citizens, who had been deprived of their power and influence, hated them extremely. A family named Pazzi formed a plot for murdering them both, and drew into it the Archbishop of Florence, and the Pope, Sixtus IV. It was the object of the conspirators to kill both at once, and three times they were invited to feasts, where it was intended to despatch them, but Giuliano each time stayed away in consequence of illness. At last there was to be a solemn service at the Cathedral, from which he could not well absent himself, and it was resolved that the blow should there be struck. The soldiers, however, who had undertaken to be assassins, 190 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XI. shrunk from the additional guilt of sacrilege, and the crime was now committed to certain priests, who, from more constantly and irreverently dealing with holy things, had lost all awe, and would murder in a church as readily as anywhere else. The brothers came to the Cathedral, and, as they knelt before the altar, Francesco dei Pazzi struck Giuliano such a furious blow, as not only to kill him, but to wound himself with his own sword. A priest at the same time attacked Lorenzo, but only wounded him slightly in the neck : Lorenzo sprung up, drew his sword, and, throwing his cloak round his arm for a shield, fought his way, together with his friends, to the sacristy, from whence he was guarded to his own house. The people rose in fury on hearing of this attack ; they seized the conspirators, and hung them all from the win- dows of the council chamber, even the archbishop himself. For this the Pope excommunicated the Florentines, and, allying himself with the other States of Italy, sent his forces to invade their territory. After a time, Lorenzo, going to Naples, made his peace with King Ferdinando, and Sixtus, finding himself deserted by his ally, was obliged to be reconciled to Florence, and then they all joined to- gether against the Venetians. Sixtus had a number of nephews for whom he wished to provide, and he was the first pope guilty of what was called nepotism — that is to say, of unjust favor to his own relations. It was for their sake that he kept up a war with the Venetians, who ought to have been supported and aided by all Christendom in their defence against the Turks. The Venetians took into their service a number of refugee Albanians and other Greeks, who, from the Greek word stratiotes^ a soldier, were called Stradiots, and became a very celebrated corps in the Venetian wars. They equipped fleets and sent them on expeditions against the coasts of the Turkish dominions : but these voyages were stained with horrible cruelties, since a reward was promised by government for the head of every Mussulman ; and in order to obtain it, the sailors, in their descents on the coast, used to kill a number of the poor innocent oppressed Greek Christians, and bring in their heads as those of Turks. IXKOADS OF MAHOMET II. 191 War became doubly savage from the time of the arrival of the 0th mans in Europe, and the Italian soldiery were fast becoming infected with their cruelty. The inroads of the Turks were frightful ; they were like an advancing tide swallowing all before it. First they would send a troop to ravage the country, burn the villages and crops, and kill or seize as slaves all who could not es- cape : then when the destruction was complete, they would retreat, bearing off their plunder, but only to return as soon as the place had by any means recovered the desolation ; and when, by thus laying it waste, they had entirely broken its strength, the army would more regularly invade it, and with their immense irresistible cannon batter down the walls of the fortified towns, and take final possession of it. One of these first destructive waves, in the year 1477, swept over part of the Italian dominions of Venice. From Udine, where the peasants took refuge, the country round looked like a sea of fire, and the light of the flames reflected in the sky could be seen from Venice herself. Unsupported as they were by any other Italian State, with no ally but Matthias Corvinus, the Venetians found them- selves obliged to make peace with the Turks at an immense sacrifice, giving up several of their Greek islands and their towns on the Adriatic coast. When at peace with them, the Turks turned their arms in other directions; and in the same year, 1480, Mahomet sent out three expeditions — one by land, against Hungary ; and two by sea, against Otranto and the island of Rhodes. There was terrible consternation in Italy when it was known that the city of Otranto had actually been taken by the infidels, and that all the clergy had been massacred in the most cruel manner. The Turkish Pasha strengthened the fortifications, and turned the churches into mosques, and it was feared that Rome itself might soon be threatened ; but the waves of destruction had reached the barrier which they were not permitted to pass over, and after the Turks had kept Otranto for two years, it was retaken by Alfonso, eldest son of the King of Naples. Matthias Corvinus had likewise completely routed the army sent into Hungary, and the Knights of Rhodes, under 192 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [cHAP. XI. their noble Grand-Master, Pierre d'Aubusson, sustained a long siege in the bravest manner. Mahomet at first sum- moned him to pay tribute, but he replied, " We are sworn to fight with the infidels, not to be their vassals," and re- solved to hold out to the last. Gloriously he did so, with broken walls and famished garrison ; with his Spanish and Italian knights faint of heart, and his Greek allies treach- erously inclined, he, with his French and English brethren, fought manfully on.- A great breach had been made in the wall, and the Turks had gained a footing on the rampart On each side, when d'Aubusson caused the great standard of St. John to be unfurled, and bade his knights join him in driving back the foe, or dying in the attempt. He led them on, rushing on first in his shining armor, and struggled up the rampart, and though twice hurled back, and twice wounded, he was the first to gain the top of the rampart ; and quickly followed by his knights, after a long and desperate struggle, the Turks were forced back, and d'Aubusson, with seven wounds, was carried back to his palace, where, before he was cured, he received the joyful tidings that the Neapolitan fleet was coming to his aid, and that the Turks were sailing away on their approach. Thus, after a siege of eighty-nine days, Rhodes was rescued. The next year, 1481, Mahomet II. died, after having sub- dued two empires and twelve kingdoms, and established the Turkish power in Europe, where it has subsisted ever since. A dispute for the succession between his two sons occupied the Turks, and prevented them from attempting to extend their conquests. CHAPTER Xn. EXPULSION OF THE MOORS. 1450-1491. CHABLES THE BOLD. 1450-1476. France had been in the mean time slowly recovering from the effects of the long and dreadful wars with England. Charles VII. received the name of the Fortunate, because of his restoration to his throne ; but his latter years were grievously embittered by the misconduct of his son, the Dauphin Louis, one of the cleverest, most crafty, and most wicked men of his time. At one time, when Louis had extremely provoked his father, he was obliged to leave his court, and take reftige with Duke Philippe of Burgundy, for whose son, Charles, Count de Charolais, he feigned the greatest friendship, though never were two men more opposite in character. Louis was cunning, deceitful, personally timid, an excellent politician, insinuating in manner, yet with a spiteful delight in giving pain, loving to look on at tortures of mind or body, avaricious of wealth and power, mean in appearance and dress ; but the most hateful part of his whole disposi- tion was his abject superstition, which made him, not at- tempt to change his life, nor to lay aside his crimes, but pay slavish devotion to images and relics. He appointed the Blessed Virgin commander of his Scottish guards, and one of his prayers, as he called them, which has been preserved, is so shocking, that it is hard to say whether it is most ab- surd or most blasphemous. Charles, on the contrary, was fierce, bold, high-spirited, and impetuous, frank and open, magnificent in dress, liberal in his gifts, but at the same time coarse in his manners, and exceedingly proud and vio- lent in temper. He lost one of his best friends, the clever Flemish historian, Philippe de Comines, in consequence of a fit of passion, in which he beat him about the head with his heavy boots. Yet there was a generosity and truthful- 9 194 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. Xll. ness about Charles, that from the very contrast with Louis, attracts to him all the interest of the time. Old Philippe le Bon of Burgundy lived to a considerable age. The last time he made his appearance on any great occasion, was at a most magnificent feast, in 1454, when a pheasant was brought in with its feathers on, and he vowed upon it to go to deliver Constantinople from the Turks ; but he had lavished so much money on the feast, that he could not fit out an army, and his plan fell to the ground. In 1461 poor Charles VII. died. It is said that he starved himself to death, lest his wicked son should poison him. Philippe of Burgundy died in 1467, and the two cousins, Louis and Charles, became open enemies and rivals. The dukedom of Burgundy, with the addition of the counties of Holland, Brabant, Flanders, and Hainault, all inherited by Duke Charles, included almost as much land as the king- dom of France ; and it was even supposed that he might aspire to assume a royal crown, in right of so extensive a territory. He had a warlike nobility in Hainault and Flan- ders, much attached to his person, and derived immense riches from his merchant towns. On the other hand, Louis held aloof from his knights and nobles, whom he wished to abase, and surrounded himself with men of mean birth, — Olivier, his barber, and Tristan I'Hermite, his provost-marshal, being his favorite associates. He secretly tried to inflame against Charles the great trad- ing towns, which were offended by their duke's haughty overbearing treatment. His plans resulted in occasioning a great revolt at Li^ge, where the artisans rose, murdered their bishop and several of his clergy, and declared war against the duke ; but this could not have happened at a worse time for Louis, who, trusting to that generous temper of Charles's which he despised, had gone with a very few attendants to meet the iduke at Peronne, intending, as usual, to overreach him. Charles was furiously enraged at the tidings of the bishop's murder : he imprisoned the king, and Louis found himself caught in his own trap. However, he took an oath that he had nothing to do with the revolt of Li^ge, and promised to bring all his forces to CHARLES THE BOLD. 195 assist in reducing the insurgents, upon whicli Charles re- leased him, and together they took and sacked Liege, after which Louis returned to Paris, greatly embittered against his rival. Charles's power continued nevertheless to increase, until he involved himself in a quarrel with tlie Swiss, whom he greatly despised and hated. He had offered to purchase old King Rene's titles and claims, and already attempted to take possession of Lorraine, the inheritance of the young Rene, son of Yolande, who allied himself with the Swiss. At the beginning of the war Charles met with some suc- cess ; he took the town of Granson, and hanged all the gar- rison, hoping by this cruelty to intimidate the Swiss ; but he little knew the determination of those gallant peasants, and forgot the fearful overthrow of the two Duke Leopolds of Austria. They marched against him, and near Granson, on the banks of the lake of Neufchatel, he gave them battle, ex- pecting to destroy them utterly with his heavy artillery, and his chivalry, the most numerous and best equipped be- longing to any prince in Europe. But the Swiss stood firm. Nothing could withstand their resolution, nothing could break their serried ranks ; the Burgundians were driven from the field, leaving all their cannon behind them, and dragging the duke along with them, beside himself with ra^e and despair. To wipe out the disgrace was his only desire. He grew more fierce and passionate than ever; he let his beard grow, neglected his person, and was so violent and morose, that scarcely any one ventured to speak to him. As soon as he could collect his forces, he again attacked the Swiss ; but still in vain, and his fury was redoubled by a second disastrous defeat at Morat. In the winter of 1476, he besieged Nancy, the capital of Lorraine ; the Swiss and the Lorrainers, under their young Duke Rene, marched to its aid, and Charles little knew that he had a traitor in his camp, the Count of Campobasso, an Italian condottiere, to whom he had given all his confi- dence. On the morning of the 5th of January, 1476, Cam- pobasso went over to the enemy, and admitted them into 196 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. Xn. the camp. Charles mounted his horse, put himself at the head of the Burgundians, and fought desperately, but his troops were in such confusion that he could not rally them, and the next morning his corpse was found, stripped of all his arms, lying half-sunken into a frozen pool, about a mile from the field of battle, the skull cleft open, and two wounds in the body. Who killed him was never known. He left no son, and all his great dominions descended to his only daughter, Marie, who was just twenty years of age at the time of his death. PART II. LOUIS XL 1476-1490. The reign of Louis XL was a memorable one, because in it the power of the French crown was so much increased by the ruin of the feudal nobility. Formerly, the king was only regarded as the first gentleman in France, and his great vassals were of almost equal power and consideration with himself; but Louis aimed at being an absolute sov- ereign, and set himself to crush the great nobles, and raise the cities, so as to balance their power. His measures were often dreadfully cruel. At Loches he had a dungeon, where all who offended him were im- prisoned and often cruelly tormented, by being put into iron cages, where they had no room either to stand up- right or to lie at full length. The most horrible of all Louis's cruelties was exercised on Henri and Franyois, the two young sons of the Duke de Nemours, who, after their father had been executed, were not only shut into these cramping cages, but condemned each to lose a tooth every day, which the king desired should be brought to him. Henri, who was only ten years old, had the noble self- devotion to entreat the jailer to draw two of his teeth each day, and spare his little brother; and thus it was done until death put an end to the brave boy's sufferings. Little Fran9ois was, after Henri's death, released from his cage, and confined in a room, and he lived to be set at liberty and restored to his dukedom, but his limbs had be- come deformed in consequence of the sufferings he had undergone. ' LOUIS XI. 197 The king, in the mean time, lived in continual suspicion, horror, and dread. No fortifications were ever so compli- cated as those of his castle of Plessis les Tours, where he lived apart from all his brave barons, surrounded by no better companions than Olivier the barber, and Tristan the hangman. Other kings had boldly walked the streets of their towns, held banquets openly, and ridden forth among their knights ; but Louis XI. scarcely imprisoned one of his captives at Loches more closely than himself, guarded as he was within the double walls of Plessis, watched day and night by the Scottish archers, while man-traps were dispersed everywhere around, except in paths only known to the few whom Louis trusted. From this den, Louis gradually extended his power. He bought the succession to all old King Rene's claims ; he made alliances in Italy ; he bargained with Leonor, Queen of Navarre, for the dependencies of her crown ; he negoti- ated with Franyois, last Duke of Brittany, for the marriage of his heiress, Anne of Brittany ; and he strove to raise up enemies against the young Marie, Duchess of Burgundy. Marie, a gentle, sensible, excellent person, gained the love, not only of her noble vassals, but of her turbulent citizens, and they supported her against all her enemies. She married Maximilian, eldest son of the old emperor, Frederick III. He was a brave and chivalrous prince, and they ruled in great prosperity for five years, until she died in consequence of a fall from her horse, much lamented, and leaving two infants, Philippe and Marguerite. The Flemings seized on the little Philippe, declaring that he was their duke, and belonged to them ; and they guarded him at Liege, lest he should be carried off to his other inheritance of Austria, threatening to make war on his father till he consented to let them have the keeping of him. Marguerite was betrothed to Louis's son, the Dau- phin Charles, and sent to be educated at the court of France. Such a wicked man as Louis XI. could not fail to have a great dread of death, and when he found his health declin- ing, his alarm was extreme, though at the same time he made every effort to conceal his danger from others. He 198 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XII. made schemes for wars, in order that he might be supposed in full health ; he imported all kinds of animals used for the chase, as if for his sport ; he showed himself in public, that he might not be supposed to be ill ; and his supersti- tion made him surround himself with everything which, as he fancied, might serve as a sort of charm against death. Relics from half the churches in France, the sacred oil of Rheims, hermits sought out from their cells, were all brought round him, as if they could help him to grasp any longer this life, for which he had given all ; but in vain, he was fast departing from his crown, his realms, and his power, and on the 30th of August, 1485, he died, leaving behind him one of the most detested names in history. His son, Charles VIII., was only six years old, and the regency was left to his eldest daughter, Anne, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, the Lord of Beaujeu. She was a very clever woman, and ruled France very well in her brother's name, releasing the victims of her father's cruelty at Loches, but carrying out such of his measures as were wise, and, indeed, following his example in some of his breaches of faith. The young heiress, Anne of Brittany, was married by Sroxy to Maximilian of Austria, the husband of the late [arie of Burgundy ; but Anne of Beaujeu, perceiving how much it would be to the advantage of France to unite with it the great Keltic independent duchy, proposed to the young duchess to marry her to her brother, and make her Queen of France. Maximilian, who wanted steadiness of character, was following out some of his schemes of knight- errantry, and did not come to take possession of his bride : she grew tired of waiting for him, and gave her hand to Charles VIII. His daughter, Marguerite, who was be- trothed to Charles, was sent back to Flanders, and thus father and daughter were both cheated; but Maximilian was little grieved, for he was in no haste to supply the place of his beloved Marie. He has been called the last of the knights, and was full of generosity and fantastic gal- lantry. He once appeared at a tournament as champion of the German name, and won a complete victory. THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 199 PART III. THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. 1479. Enrique IV. of Castile was a weak-minded, cowardly- prince, greatly disliked and despised by his subjects. He allowed the Moors to make inroads without opposition, and though he said that he preferred saving the life of one Castilian to the death of a hundred Mussulmen, this was only considered as a fine speech to cover his faintness of heart. The King of Granada, when summoned to pay tribute, answered that in the earlier days of Enrique' s'reigu he would have off'ered anything, even his children, for the maintenance of peace — now he would give nothing. After setting aside poor Blanca of Aragon, Enrique mar- ried Juana of Portugal, a light-minded princess, of whom the Castilians had a very bad opinion. She had one daughter, named Juana, to whom Enrique commanded his vassals to swear allegiance ; but they did not consider her legitimate, and broke out in rebellion, setting up the king's young brother, Alfonso, a spirited and promising boy, eleven years old. After considerable successes, Alfonso died almost suddenly, and the insurgents turned their eyes upon his sister Isabel, a maiden of sixteen, whose noble* qualities were well known to them, and were the hope of Castile. They wished at once to proclaim her queen, but she would not consent to have her name set up against her lawful sovereign, and an accommodation was made, by which she was declared heiress to the crown after his death. Isabel was sought in marriage by many princes, but she listened to none of their proposals except those of Fer- nando, that son of the King of Aragon for whose sake his brother and sister had been sacrificed. A marriage with him would unite the crowns of Christian Spain, and every report assured her of the courage and ability of the young prince. Her brother's courtiers, however, watched her carefully, dreading that she should become the wife of one able to maintain her cause, and at last the marriage was almost a stolen one : Fernando crossed the frontier while Enrique was absent in the south, came to Valladolid with a small retinue, and there they were married, on October 19th, 1469, both being so poor that they were obliged to 200 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XII. borrow money to defray the expenses of the ceremony. Five years after Enrique died, in 1474, and Isabel was crowned Queen of Castile. The cause of her niece, Juana, was maintained by Affonso V. of Portugal ; but he was totally routed at Toro, and Juana quietly retired into a convent where she spent the rest of her life. Affonso, about the same time, gave up his crown to his son Joao, and died at Cintra, in 1481. Old Juan II. of Aragon, died in 1479, from which time dates the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, thus forming one large central State in the Peninsula, at that time bordered by three lesser king- doms — Portugal, Granada, and Navarre. The sovereigns under whom the two kingdoms were joined were persons well able to use their power. Fer- nando was a bold, able, cunning, and grasping man ; but Isabel was a character of far higher order. She was deeply j)ious and humble, and her whole life was a pattern of every womanly and queenly virtue. She was courageous, and careless of her own danger or suffering when her hus- band or her people were to be served, but in a feminine and retiring manner suited to her whole demeanor, which was always dignified, modest, and reserved. Perfectly, also, did she know how to strike the balance between her sub- mission as a wife and her duty as a queen regnant, up- holding the rights of Castile ; and though most devoted to her husband, never allowing him to do any injustice to her subjects. Gentle, firm, humble, and majestic, there are few ladies in history whose names deserve to be so honored as that of the noble Isabel of Castile. There is but one of her deeds for which blame can be attached to her, and even that was done conscientiously. In Isabel's early youth her confessor had been a Dominican monk named Tomas de Torquemada, who, it is said, ex- acted a vow from her that if ever she came to the throne, she would devote herself to the uprooting of false doctrine ; and on her accession he claimed the promise, calling on her to introduce into Spain the tribunal called the Inquisition, which, had been established in Italy and Provence by St. Dominic, in the time of the Albigenses. The clergy de- clared that the number of Jews living in Castile, many THE CONQUEST OF GEAXADA. 201 professing Christianity, although Jews at heart, together with the numerous Moriscos, or half-converted Moors, in the southern provinces, rendered strong measures neces- sary. Isabel was too gentle to be willing to persecute, but her husband and all the clergy whom she reverenced told her that these were weak scruples, such as it was wrong to indulge : she yielded, and the Inquisition was introduced into Spain, where it has ever since been a heavy yoke, and has been the means of some of the worst cruelties that have stained the Romish Church. The proceedings of the Court of the Inquisition were conducted with complete secrecy, and when a person was by its judges convicted of heresy or Judaism, the punish- ment was death by fire. The cruel character of the Span- iards gave the executions greater horrors than have almost anywhere been equalled. They took place on holydays (the first was on the Epiphany of 1479), were looked on as religious ceremonies, and called autos da /e, acts of faith. The miserable victims were marched to a stone scaffold, dressed in pointed caps and garments painted to represent the flames of hell, and there were burnt alive in sight of the assembled multitude, who were taught to be- lieve that reviling them and rejoicing in their sufferings was a service acceptable to Heaven. The Jews were the first victims of the Inquisition ; after- ward it extended its cruelties to the Moors, and ever since it has been applied to crush the least spark of doubt of the teaching of the Romish Church. Its flames were lighted in Spain long after persecution to the death had ceased in every other country ; and even now it continues, both there and in Italy, to exercise a close supervision over books, as well as to examine, imprison, and maltreat every person suspected of heresy, under which term it includes all questioning the corruptions of Rome. PART IV. THE CONQUEST OF GEANADA. 1483-1491. MoEE than seven hundred years had passed since the Moors first set foot in Spain, and commenced their brilliant, learned, and magnificent empire. The Christians then were hidden 9* 202 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [cHAP. XII. in the fastnesses of the mountains, poor and suffering, but they had bravely endured, and step by step, generation after generation, the resistance " bequeathed by bleeding sire to son," had won back their own ground, and forced the in- vaders to retreat. The names of the successive capitals of Castile are a witness of the ever-advancing arms of the Christians — Burgos, Toledo, Cordova, Seville, ever more southerly, till now the loveliest province of all, Granada, with its capital, the pomegranate of the Vega, alone re- mained to the Moors. The celebrated city of Granada was said to have derived its name from its situation upon two hills with a ravine be- tween them ; the romantic fancy of the Spanish Moors gave it, from this, the name Granada, meaning a pomegranate. South of the city spread the beautiful vega, or plain, culti- vated with marvellous skill. Fernando and Isabel resolved that they would win this city, and render Spain once more a Christian land. Few wars have been more full of noble and gallant incidents, or displayed more splendid instances of courage and chivalry on both sides ; for the Moors had orders of knighthood, the bold Abencerrages and Zegris, who would not be behind the Christians in valor and courtesy, and there was a perfect rivalry between the two parties in all the qualities of chivalry. But the Moors had a weak king, Abu Abdallah, com- monly called Boabdil, or, by the Castilians, El Bey chico^ the little king, from the contrast with the late fiery-spirited king, his father ; he was disliked and disobeyed, and want of union was fast hastening the fall of the Moorish em- pire, in spite of all the efforts of his spirited mother, the Sultana Zoraya. The Reyes Catolicos, or Catholic sovereigns, the title given by the Pope to Fernando and Isabel, regarded the war as religious, and invested it with every solemnity that could give that impression. Each campaign began with prayer ; a numerous band of clergy accompanied the army ; the standard of the cross, which was borne at its head, was of solid silver, blessed and presented to Fernando by Pope Sixtus IV, ; and whenever a victory was gained by the king, the queen went in solemn procession to the cathedral to re- THE CONQUEST OP GRANADA. 203* turn thanks. Each newly-conquered city was entered with solemn ceremonial. First the royal standard-bearer mounted to the summit of the citadel and uplifted the silver cross, a token that Christianity was there restored, and at that sight the whole army fell on their knees, while the thanks- giving hymn of Te Deum was led by the clergy, and chanted with one voice by the victors. Then was unfolded the pennon of Santiago, the patron of Spain, and his name was invoked ; and, lastly, the heavy banner of Castile's castles and lions, quartered with the stripes of Aragon, was uplifted, while the shout of Castile ! Castile ! arose from the soldiers. A bishop then entered the principal mosque, puri- fied it from the Moonsh defilements, and consecrated it to Christian worship. Often the taking of a city was rendered doubly joyful by the opening of the dungeons filled with Christian captives, who came forth wan and wasted, their beards reaching to their waists, and their hands and feet loaded with chains. Fernando sent these to the queen, wlio rejoiced in relieving their wants and restoring them to their homes, where, in token of thanksgiving, they often hung up their fetters in their parish churches, as a testimony to future ages. All the works of mercy were wrought by Isabel. It was she who provided tents, beds, and every accommodation for the wounded, in a train of wagons and of sumpter mules, that followed the camp, and were known as the queen's hos- pital. She procured the supplies, constructed the roads, supported the courage of the troops in disaster, and when reverses made the hopes of counsellors and warriors give way, she came amongst them to encourage them by her own perseverance and faith. After eight years' war, siege was laid to Granada itself, and noW Isabel took up her abode in the camp, with her children and her ladies, their presence inspiring the gallant Spaniards to the very utmost in performing feats of chiv- alry. It was then that Hernando de Pulgar galloped into the city, and fastened a taper, with a paper inscribed with the Ave Maria, on the very door of the great mosque. Here, too, the great Gonzalo Fernandes de Cordova first proved those noble qualities that gave him the name of the 204 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XII. Great Captain. His courage, skill, and courtesy were con- tinually shown, as well as the free hand, which was essential in a true knight. On one occasion, the tents in which the queen lodged caught fire, and all her wardrobe and furni- ture were burnt, but before she had time to feel any incon- venience, Gonzalo had sent to his castle of Illora to supply the deficiency from the stores of his newly-married wife, and such a profusion of all a lady could need was laid be- fore Isabel, that she said with a smile, that the fire had done more damage to the cofiers of Illora than to hers ; to which he courteously answered, " His all was little to be presented to such a queen." To guard against such accidents, as well as to shelter the army in case the siege should last till winter, the sovereigns resolved to make their camp into a city ; each tent gave place to a stone house, and the whole was arranged in a regular square, with four gates, and two intersecting streets. It was completed in three months, and the army wished to call it by the name of their queen, its foundress, but Isabel declined this compliment, begging that it might rather bear the name of Santa Fe, the holy faith that had sustained her and her people through the toils of this long war. The sight of the besiegers thus taking root before their walls, so discouraged the Moors, that they began to think of surrender ; provisions were growing scarce, mutinies breaking out, and hopes of aid from Africa failing. Young Abdallah secretly opened negotiations with Fernando and Isabel, and conferences were held at night between his mes- sengers, their secretary, and Gonzalo de Cordova, in a little hamlet close to the walls. Abdallah agreed to give up the city, provided its Moorish inhabitants were allowed the ex- ercise of their religion and laws, and he himself received a small territory among the mountains of the Alpuj arras. Tliese terms were agreed to, and on the 2d of January, f 492, Fernando and Isabel, in their most festal array, and at- tended by a magnificent band of gallant warriors, mounted their horses to take possession of Granada. At the foot of the hill of Los Martires they met Abdallah, attended by fifty Moorish horsemen. He rode up to the King of Ar- agon, threw himself from his horse, and was about to kiss ANCIENT MODELS. 205 his hand, in token of homage, but Fernando embraced him in his arms with every mark of pity. Abdallah then deliv- ered up the keys of the Alhambra, saying, " They are thine, O king, since Allah so wills it ! Use thy success with clemency and moderation." Fernando tried to speak some words of consolation, but the unfortunate prince could not bear to prolong the interview, and sadly moved on, went through his obeisance to the queen, and hastened up the rugged paths to the Alpuj arras. Soon he looked back, standing on a rock still called " The last sigh of the Moor," and cast his eyes over the lovely Vega, the beautiful city of Granada, and the pearl of fortress palaces, the Alham- bra, the pride of Spain, all lost forever. He gazed on it till he burst into tears, and exclaimed, " Alas ! what woes were ever equal to mine ?" " It befits you," sternly answer- ed his mother, Zoraya, " to bewail, like a woman, what you could not defend like a man ;" and the unhappy king moved on to pine and die in his dreary domain of the Alpujarras. Meanwhile the Christians entered Granada. The silver cross, the pennon of Santiago, and the banner of Castile, waved together on the Alhambra ; the choir of the royal chapel sung their hymn of praise ; king, queen, nobles, and soldiers knelt in prayer, and then the nobles, one by one, approached Isabel, and on their knees saluted her as sov- ereign of Granada, Queen of Christian Spain. CHAPTER XIII. THE CINQUE-CENTO. 1490-1506. PART I. ANCIENT MODELS. It is hard to define the boundary of the middle ages, but we may consider that period about the year 1500, which is known in art as the Cinque-cento, as the time when the face of the world was beginning to be cast somewhat in its present mould. 206 LANDMARKS OF HISTOKY. [cHAr. XIII. The two great discoveries made in mediaeval times, namely, printing and gunpowder, had by this time occa- sioned great changes. Books were comparatively common, and every one of gentle blood went through some course of study, and was better qualified to form opinions than in the preceding times of ignorance. There was a spirit of inquiry throughout society, and things that had been hitherto taken for granted, were curiously investigated. Kight and wrong, truth and error, were mingled together in the new ideas and speculations, but the mind was awakened, and men began to compare the stream of tradi- tion with the fountain-head whence it had flowed. The Vulgate, or Latin translation of the Scriptures, had hitherto been the only one used, and Wyclifie's English version of it had been condemned by authority. But in the beginning of the Cinque-cento, John Reuchlin, a Ger- man, set the example of searching into the original lan- guages of Scripture, compiled a Hebrew grammar and dictionary, and collected all the manuscripts he could ob- tain from the Jews. Gerhard, commonly called Erasmus, a native of Holland, followed this up by an edition of the Greek Testament, praying, when he published it, " that it might produce as much fruit for Christianity as it had cost him labor and trouble ;" and Martin Luther, the Saxon miner's son, was in the University of Erfurth, deeply study- ing the Latin Bible, and discovering how many important parts had been set aside in the daily readings of the Church, to make way for the histories of Saints. In secular learning the same spirit existed. The study of the classic authors of Greece and Rome, which had been revived by Petrarch and Boccaccio, was thriving at all the universities in Europe, and the manuscripts from which old convent scribes had been wont to try to erase the " heathen tales," were now diligently sought out, laid up in royal libraries, and printed copies everywhere dispersed. It was in the knowledge of them that scholars were now examined, instead of in the philosophy of the Latin-Arabic version of Aristotle, or the discussions of the schoolmen. And not only was it the clergy who were thus educated, but lay- men, who began increasingly to devote themselves to the ANCIENT MODELS. 207 law and to State affairs, and even men of the sword, found themselves behindhand without a knowledge of ancient learning. A literature of its owm had sprung up in each of the chief countries of Europe, and numerous books were written in modern tongues, with due attention to grammar and the laws of language. Lorenzo de' Medici, the great merchant who held the government of Florence, was at this time the chief promoter of literature in Europe, and was celebrated by the poets and scholars of his court as their Maecenas, in allusion to the Mascenas of the Augustan age, the friend of Virgil. And as classic learning was esteemed, so w^as classic art. A different taste in architecture had arisen, and the Gothic models were abandoned, in order to return as much as pos- sible to the modes of building that had been so beautiful in ancient Greece. The necessary arrangements for Chris- tian worship, and the difference of climate in the more northerly parts of Europe, made an exact following of the Greek types impossible ; but the attempt to carry it out, and unite it with the Gothic, may be seen in almost every building of the time, and has formed a style known as the Cinque-cento. The clustered column gave way to the plain circular Greek pillar; the deep porch to the portico on steps ; the pointed arch to the semicircular ; and the spire to the dome. The great example of this revival of Greek architecture is the magnificent Church of 8t. Peter's at Rome, and the mighty Florentine artist, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, is the greatest name among those who de- signed it. In sculpture it was the same. The works of Greeks and Komans, which had escaped being destroyed as idols, were prized beyond measure. Lorenzo de' Medici was forming a splendid museum at Florence, the wonder and admiration of every subsequent age ; and in Hungary, King Matthias Corvinus is said to have collected no less than three hundred ancient statues in his library at Buda, but these were after his death taken and destroyed by the Turks. And as the Greeks had studied from the figures of men, always scanti- ly clothed, and often completely exposed in their games, 208 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. IX. the modern artists betook themselves to the minute exam- ination of the human form and its anatomy, Michael Angelo, as before, leading the way and executing the most splendid works. Thenceforth there were no more heavily-draped statues of saints in their niches, standing as simply as pos- sible ; nor sculptured forms upon tombs, the face composed into the sleep of death, the hands clasped, and the robes arrayed as the corpse had worn them on its bier ; but there was a desire to show as much knowledge and skill as pos- sible in the position of the figure, and the action of the limbs. In painting, too, the old stiif forms were departed from, as well as the faces with which the saints had been repre- sented so long, that they might almost be thought real portraits. Michael Angelo looked down on painting, but ex- celled in it, and his fellow-townsman, Raffaelle Sanzio di Urbino, is the painter whom none have ever equalled in sacred subjects. His representations of the scenes of our Lord's history, of His Mother, and of His Apostles, drawn with reverence to ancient tradition, yet with respect to the truth of nature, have approved themselves to all, as guid- ing the mind to holy thoughts, and, by means of engrav- ings, have been spread along with Christianity. Hans Holbein, the Fleming, was at the same time very great as a portrait-painter, and Albert Durer, of Nuremburg, is at the head of all German art as a painter and engraver, and his other talents are too varied to specify. This return in everything to old sources was to make greater changes. PABT II. WARFARE. Gunpowder was the other invention brought to light by the will of Heaven in its own good time, to effect great alterations in the state of society. In the mediaeval times, when sharp weapons, the lance, the sword, the axe, and the arrow alone were used, and the protection from them consisted in plates of steel, helmet, shield, hawberk, and gauntlet, the only effective warrior (everywhere but in England and Switzerland) was the WARFARE. 209 wealthy man who could afford to case himself in this very- expensive armor, and to maintain a horse able to carry him and it. One such heavily-anned knight could disperse hundreds of peasants, and thus the power of a few nobles could hardly be withstood ; especially when each had a castle to retreat to, with walls of such strength and height that nothing could drive him from it but famine. In each country, therefore, the feudal system flourished ; the nobles were petty princes, made war with each other, and dicta- ted to their sovereign. But when the peasant, instead of his bow and arrow, had firearms in his hands, he became a match for the knight on horseback. Steel armor shattered under the bullet, and before lance or sword could be used the horseman was on the ground. Plis castle walls too were broken down by the cannon-ball, and his personal prowess and strength lost their preponderance. Thus the power was in the hands of the person who could bring into the field the greatest number of men, and this being a matter of money, the kings were in this cen- tury far stronger than ever before. It was now that fighting men acquired the name of soldiers, from the solde^ or pay they received. Each individual being a mere no- body, dependent on his employer, the king, as long as he could pay, needed to consult no one how he should employ his troops ; whereas, his feudal followers could only be summoned to his standard for forty days, and would go nowhere but with their own good-will. He thus had not only more weight at home, but was better able to make war in other countries. The weapon most in use among these* soldiers was the arquebuss, so called from the vulgar Italian arcabouza, a bow with a hole in it, as it took the place of the crossbow, and resembled in shape the stock of that weapon. It was , fired by a match, and was sometimes loaded with stone bullets. Steel armor was still worn, especially the helmet and back and breast-plates ; but leathern coats were be- ginning to be found preferable for foot-soldiers, and it was only the knights who continued to encumber themselves with the full weight of chivalrous armor. 210 LANDMARKS OP HISTORY. [CIIAP. XIII. The baron or knight, fighting independently, his pennon followed by his squires and men-at-arms, was no more heard of; the army was arrayed in troops, more resembling the regiments of our day, each commanded by its captain and other officers, and its ensign in the care of either the eldest or youngest. In old feudal countries the captain was often a noble, and his troop consisted of his vassals and men-at-arms of his own raising, the officers being his relations and friends : otherwise he was appointed by the king to the command, or, in the mercenary bands, he had risen by the choice of the soldiers themselves. Swiss, who left their own mountains to make a fortune, were the favorite infantry of that century, having estab- lished their fame by the defeat of the Burgundian chivalry. Scots were also much employed by the French ; and num- bers of Germans became Lanzknechts, and formed the mercenary cavalry. Such Italians as were of a roving and martial spirit had for many years past been accustomed to enlist in the same manner, and there were many Condot- tieri, or captains of considerable valor, who hired their services to the different States or princes. The knights and nobles lamented bitterly over the new customs, as bringing about the decay of all chivalry and honor; and, in truth, these hired bands, fighting for re- ward, not for their country, had little sense of duty except to their immediate employer ; they were greedy and rapa- cious, desirous to amass plunder, which they spent in riot, and were extremely violent and cruel to the inhabitants of the country. They rendered war far more horrible and destructive than it had yet been. PART III. THE DISCOVERY OP AMERICA. 1492-1506. In these days of research naval enterprise was carried fur- ther than before. The Portuguese, under Prince Enrique, had led the way by the discovery of the Canary Isles, and were diligently following it up. In 1487 Bartolome Diaz doubled what he called the Cape of Storms, but the king, Joao II., named it the Cape of Good Hope ; and, ten years after, Vasco de Gama, pursuing the same track, arrived at THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 211 Calicut, in India, and made the first step to the establish- ment of tlie Portnguese power there. The Portuguese efforts were directed to reach India from the East ; but at the same time it came into the mind of a (renoese mariner that there must also be a way of going thither from the West. That sailor's name was'Cristovalo Colon, or as it has been Latinized, Columbus. He was a man of the highest talents, united with great simplicity of character, most religious temper, of perfect faith and trust, such as sustained his enthusiasm and en- abled him steadily to persevere in singleness of heart through long and repeated trials of adversity and disap- pointment. It was no glory of his own that Columbus sought, it was the glory of God. In finding a new path across the ocean, he hoped to open another road for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, and to fufil the prophecies that the ends of the earth should remember themselves, and be turned unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations worship before Him. Through his whole life Columbus was in spirit as true a ciTisader as ever was Godfrey de Bouillon. A poor man, as he was, could by no means fit out a ship to pursue the expedition across the Atlantic, and he ap- plied to Joao II. of Portugal and Henry VII. of England without success. He then had recourse to the King and Queen of Spain, Fernando and Isabel, but they were en- gaged in the Moorish war, and could spare no attention for the adventurer. After many years of weary waiting, liow- ever, Isabel at length granted him three small vessels for his voyage, and on the 3d of August, 1492, he sailed from the port of Palos. Many were his anxieties, from the dangers of the un- known voyage, and the terrors and mutiny of the sailors, but at last, on the 12th of October, he first beheld land. It was the little isle of San Salvador, in all the beauty of the West Indies, the sea transparent as crystal, and the noble trees hung with magnificent fruits, the natives watching in amazement the vessels which were approaching their shore. He landed, bearing a banner with the cross and the initials of Fernando and Isabel, and he knelt, kissed the 212 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XIII. earth, and returned thanks, then read aloud a prayer that " He who had created heaven and earth and sea, might' be blessed and glorified in this new portion of His world." Columbus was persuaded that this was the other side of India, and gave his new discovery the name of the West Indies. He coasted about among the islands, finding each lovelier than the last, and so happy and delighted, that at last, in his journal, he fairly apologized to the sovereigns for having said so much of the beauty of the first isle, that he was afraid they would not believe him when he said he had found one more lovely than all the others. Cuba and Hayti, or, as he called it, Hispaniola (Little Spain), were the chief islands that he visited. The Carib inhabitants, Indians, as the Spaniards termed them, seemed gentle and peacefully disposed, and willingly bartered fruits, fresh water, and golden anklets, for the glass beads and toys offered them by the Spaniards. Columbus carried off six of these natives to Spain, and left a small body of men in a little port in Hayti, when he returned on the 4th of January, 1493, and on that day two months he entered the mouth of the Tagus. No honors were thought too much for him. When he entered the presence of Fernando and Isabel, they rose to meet him, would hardly allow him to kneel to pay them homage, and made him sit beside them. When he had told his chief adventures they sank on their knees and re- turned thanks to Heaven, and the choir of the chapel com- menced the hymn Te Deum. Columbus was created Grand Admiral, and was to receive a third part of all the treasures he might gain, and he was at present regarded as the greatest man at the coui-t. But the Holy Sepulchre was his first thought all the time, and no sooner did the pros- pect of wealth open on him, than he made a vow of fitting out an army for its defence in seven years' time. A grant was obtained from Pope Alexander, by which he gave the Spaniards a right to all western discoveries, as the Portuguese already had a grant of all those in the east, and Columbus set forth again with a far larger fleet. He found on his arrival at Hayti that his garrison there had misconducted themselves, offended the natives, and had all THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 213 been killed. He himself laid foundations of a new town, which he called Isabella, and established his government. More discoveries were made, and the Spaniards set them- selves to hunt for the place whence came the gold the natives were wearing, but without much success. They treated the natives harshly, and Columbus could not pre- vent it. But there is no space here to follow his adven- tures. After his third voyage, a traitor came home, and accused him to the queen of cheating her, and misusing the Indians : a new governor was sent out, and he was sent home in irons. His patience did not fail, and the statement of the honest truth cleared him instantly. Isabel was shocked at the un- worthy treatment he had received, and when he came to her court at Granada, she received him with tears in her eyes. And when the brave and constant old man saw his queen and benefactress weeping for him, he threw himself at her feet, and could not for some minutes speak for sobs and tears. When she had raised him from the ground, he spoke of his own conduct with such noble simplicity and honor, that no one could feel anything but shame at having suspected such a man. He was sent out on a fourth voyage, and it was in this that he touched at the northern part of the southern conti- nent, which received its name from Amerigo Vespucci, a Venetian, who accompanied him. But this was a melan- choly expedition ; the governor appointed in his place was a violent man, and the Spaniards were so cruelly misusing the poor natives, that Columbus, m the grief of his heart, declared he could have wished never to have discovered these isles rather than have brought them so much misery. Moreover, there were envyings at him, discontents at his attempts to repress these cruelties, disappointments in Spain at more gold not being sent home. The king had always been jealous of him, and never loved nor trusted him, and his own rents and dues were kept back from him : he was now an old man, worn down with toil and climate, and though his faith and hope kept him cheerful, and still the same simple-hearted man, watching for hopes of delivering the Holy Sepulchre, his bodily frame was giving way. 214 LANDMARKS OF HISTOKY. [CHAP. XIII. In 1504 he sailed for Spain, to represent the injustice that he suffered, and to appeal once more to his beloved queen. He had a stormy voyage, and arrived at Seville too unwell to travel onward ; but he sent his son before him with letters exposing the falsehoods of his enemies. " If I have failed in anything," he said, " it has been because my knowledge and powers went no further." At that very time Isabel was dying. She never received his appeal, and he was left to the mercy of Fernando, and what a subject that selfish king neglected, may be seen in these words of Columbus to his son : " A memorial of what is at present to be done . . . the principal thing to com- mend affectionately the soul of the queen to God. . . . The next is to watch and labor for all matters for the service of our sovereign the king." A long illness ensued, and when Columbus was able to travel to court, he obtained nothing but empty words, and no redress. He calmly wrote to a friend : " It appears that his majesty does not think fit to fulfil that which he, with the queen, who is now in glory, promised me by word and seal. For me to contend for the contrary would be to con- tend with the wind. I have done all I could do. I leave the rest to God, whom I have ever found propitious to me." And to Him. who alone could reward him, he soon went. He died on the 20th of May, 1506, allotting part of the revenues of his estate for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, when its time should come. " Columbus gave a new world to Spain," was inscribed on his monument, and was the motto of his descendants*. ^A B R aUT^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOUNIA.J \- CHAPTER XIV. ITALIAN WARS. 1490-1517. PAKT I. CAUSES OF THE WAR IN ITALY. 1490-1494. Taking a review of the state of Europe at the end of the fifteenth century, we find the three Scandinavian kingdoms united, under the Danish King Hans, but the Swedes ex- tremely disliking the yoke of Denmark, and ripe for revolt. The Sclavonians of Russia were Christians of the Greek Church, but still very rude and savage. They had been hitherto divided into a number of small States, of which Novgorod was the richest and most powerful, owing to its being the place of traffic for furs, and other northern pro- duce. The Novgorodians were ruled by grand princes, whom they kept in much subjection. In one hundred years they had changed them thirty-four times, deposing one be- cause he hunted and hawked so much as not to attend to the execution of justice. " Get away from us," they said, " and let us choose another prince." Great assemblies were held in the market-place, and when a crime had been committed a large bell was rung, at sound of which all the men came together, each with two stones under his arms, and cast them at the offender, who thus was put to death in the manner of the Mosaic law. The Tartars who had been left scattered at Tamerlane's death were great enemies of the Russians, making forays on the villages, till Iwan L, the grand prince of Moscow, took an Italian into his service, and learning from him the use of firearms, subdued the Tartars, and then employed them against Novgorod, which he conquered, carried off the great bell to Moscow, and dispersed the most turbulent families into other cities. His son Vassily, who succeeded him in 1505, was the first to be called Tzar, from the old Eastern word zar, or lord, and he may be considered as the founder of an Eastern empire which now far exceeds the Roman in magnitude. 216 la:n^dmarks of history. [chap. xiv. Poland, the other Sclavonic kingdom, was at this time prosperous, under Casimir, one of its greatest kings, and his eldest son, Ladislas, had been chosen king by both Hungary and Bohemia, a preference due to his father's merits rather than his own, for he was so slow and heavy that the Hungarians called him the Ox ; and on Casimir's death, in 1492, the Poles elected in his stead John Albert, the second son. In Turkey, or the Othman Empire, which had taken the place of the Greek Empire, the Sultan was Bajazet H., who had dethroned and driven away his brother Zizim, or Gem, who had taken refuge with the knights of Rhodes. Baja- zet promised the Grand-Master, Pierre d'Aubusson, a pen- sion, as long as he would keep Zizim from coming home, and to this d'Aubusson consented, but finding the exile's life un- safe so near Turkey, sent him to France. Next the Sultan wrote to Charles VIII., to make him the tempting ofifer of all the relics in Constantinople if he would deliver up the unfortunate Zizim, but Charles rejected the proposal, and sent him back to Italy. The high-spirited James IV. of Scotland had just come of age, and was trying to tame his subjects, and England was, under the government of Henry VII., recovering from the Wars of the Roses. Germany was under Maximilian of Hapsburg, Archduke of Austria, a strange character, right-minded, able, chivalrous, and high-spirited, but with- out any steadiness of mind. He wasted his courage in ex- ploits of mere daring, chamois-hunting on the most des- perate precipices of the Tyrol, and once standing with one foot on the balustrade on the top of the cathedral of Ulm. He excelled in the tournament, and wrote his own memoirs, under the name of the White King, wliile at the same time he was so heedless as always to lose the right moment for acting ; so wasteful of his revenues, that he was crippled for want of means, and thus so often obliged to fail in his engagements, that, though of honorable and generous na- ture, no one depended on his promises. Of his two children by Marie of Burgundy, the son, Philippe, seems to have in- herited his folly ; the daughter, Margaret, his sense. They were married to Juan and Juana, the son and daughter of CAUSES OF THE WAR IN ITALY. 217 Fernando and Isabel, King and Queen of Castile and Ara- gon ; but the young prince Juan died in the course of the wedding festivities, and Margaret, returning home, became her father's counsellor, and took care of the education of her brother's infant family, who would otherwise have been cruelly neglected, as their father was thoughtless and self- indulgent, and their mother's mind, always weak, was un- settled by the uneasiness he gave her. This poor Juana was, by the death of Prince Juan, heiress to Spain, now the most prosperous country in Europe, under the excellent rule of Queen Isabel, and her admirable min- ister, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo. Portugal flourished also under Joao II. and his son Don Manoel. The murderess, Leonor of Aragon, Countess de Foix, and Queen of Navarre, died three weeks after her father. It was considered that her sins were visit- ed upon her descendants, for her eldest son, Gaston de Foix, a fine young man, married to the Princess Madeline of France, was killed in early youth in a tournament, leav- ing two infant children. Franyois Phoebus, the son, be- coming King of Navarre at an early age, was brought up with great care by his mother, at Fau, and showed high promise, but when about eighteen, on returning from a visit to Paris, he fell into a lingering illness, which he himself ascribed to having touched with his lips a poisoned flute. " My kingdom is not of this world," he often said. After his peaceful death, Navarre was inherited by his sister Catherine, who married Jean d'Albret, a French noble. But though Navarre had more often had queens regnant than any other kingdom, her uncle, Jean de Foix, Viscount de Narbonne, asserted a claim to the succession, and it seemed to be left ready for a pretext for war on the first opportunity. However, it was to the Italian quarter that the French rking, Charles YIIL, was directing his thoughts. He had a great treasure and the finest chivalry in the world, and was just of age, his head full of great designs ; and though his person was puny and feeble, and his intellect of a very low order, his flatterers told him of the great deeds he might efiect. The conquest of Italy was, according to his 10 218 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XIV. dreams, to be only a step towards driving the Turks out of Constantinople. Old Rene, that king of many titles and no lands, was, as it may be remembered, heir to the Angevin kings of Na- ples and Sicily, and the crafty Louis XI. had induced him to bequeath these empty names, not to his direct heir, Kene, Duke of Lorraine, but to the kings of France, so that they might have an excuse for a war in Naples when- ever they pleased. It was now in the possession of Fer- dinando, the favorite and illegitimate son of the great Alfonso V. of Aragon, grandfather to Fernando the Cath- olic. He was a harsh, cruel tyrant, and his son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, though renowned for a victory over the Turks at Tarento, was still more hated for his cruel and oppressive nature. Alfonso's daughter, Isabella-, was married to Giovanni Oaleazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, a poor, weak-minded youth, kept in great subjection by his uncle, Lodovico Sforza, often called II Moro, some say from his dark Moor- ish complexion, others from his device being a mulberry. Lodovico had been regent, and kept the authority in his own hands, though his nephew was grown up ; indeed, Isabella believed he meant to usurp the dukedom, and that the life of her husband was not safe, and she was constantly writing to summon her father and grandfather to her help. This made Lodovico desirous to find the Neapolitans oc- cupation at home, and he began to invite the king of France to come and attack them. However, Lodovico thought to keep the Venetians from molesting him by stirring up Bajazet to a war with them, and further hoped to strengthen himself by giving his daughter Bianca in mar- riage to the Emperor JVlaximilian. Florence, the other great State of Lombardy, had lost its great and wise citizen, the princely banker Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent, who died in 1492, in his forty-fourth year, of a low fever, which his physicians failed to cure by their strange remedies of decoctions of pearls and precious stones. His sons, Pietro and Giovanni, were very young, and, whether correctly or not, the Italians ascribe all their misfortunes to his death. CAUSES OF THE WAR IN ITALY. 219 A few weeks after died the wicked old Pope, Innocent YIIL, perhaps in consequence of the horrible cure at- tempted by his physicians, of exchanging his blood for that of little children, three of whom were sacrificed. A still more wicked man was chosen to succeed him. The princi- pal cardinals were Ascanio Sforza, brother to Lodovico, and Giuliano della Rovere, nephew to Sixtus III. ; but as soon as it was plain that Sforza had not much chance of the papacy, the rich and avaricious Spanish cardinal, Rodrigo Borgia, sent four mules laden with treasures to his palace, and thus bribed him to give him all his interest. Borgia, or Alexander VI., the scandal of the Romish See, was thus elected. He was of high birth and very rich, and this had caused his offences to be overlooked by that most corrupt court of Rome, though they were beyond everything flagrant. He was more than suspected of poisoning, and shamelessly acknowledged five illegitimate children. Of these, Francisco was Duke of Gandia, and Cesare was at once created a cardinal. Cesare Borgia was extremely clever and able ; he was thought the handsomest man in Italy, and was so strong that he could knock down a bull with one blow of his fist ; and Lucrezia, the daugh- ter, was one of the most beautiful women in Rome ; but their crimes were such as to render their names some of the most detestable in history. Cesare had a band of as- sassins in his pay, with whom he cut off all his enemies. He quarrelled with the husband of one of his sisters, and sent these bravoes, who, however, did not complete their work, and the wounded man was brought home and nursed by his wife and sister, so dreading poison that he tasted nothing that was not prepared by their hands ; but their care was vain, Cesare broke into the house, dragged him out of his bed, and killed him before their eyes. No one who held a dignity of which the Pope could dis- pose for money was safe for a moment ; and Card^ial della Kovere soon fled to Ostia, and thence to Charles of France, whom he stirred up to deliver the Church from such a monster. Ferdinando of Naples, after many lamentations over the troubles coming upon Italy, escaped the storm by his 220 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XIV. death, in 1493, just as Charles VIII., contrary to the advice of his wise sister, Anne of Beaujeu, was collecting his troops for the invasion of Italy. PART II. FRENCH CONQUEST OF NAPLES. 1494-1501. With a very formidable army did Charles YIII. cross the Alps. There were numbers of the gallant French noblesse^ trained in the rules of chivalry, and burning to distinguish themselves ; there were great bodies of Swiss, reputed the finest infantry in Europe, and his train of artillery was such as had never before been brought together. All went smoothly with him : Lodovico Sforza enter- tained him at Milan, and Pietro dei Medici, who came to meet him on behalf of the Florentines, was so alarmed at his great force, that he gave up to him the keys of all the Florentine towns without conditions. This made the citi- zens so angry that he did not dare to return home, and was soon after drowned in the river Garigliano. The Floren- tines were just at this time full of zeal for their church and their city, owing to the preachings of a monk, Fra Gero- nimo Savonarola, who had risen up among them as a wit- ness against the vice and luxury of the times. His ser- mons were full of fire and eloquence, and did much to re- form the manners of the people of Florence : his followers were severely simple in their habits, and at one time were so worked up by his exhortations against pomp and in- dulgence, that they brought all the jewels, finery, idle tales, poetry, pictures, and ornaments, out of their houses, and burnt them in the streets. As a good Florentine, he was a vehement republican, and his party made it a sacred duty to uphold their liberties, declaring that Christ was their only king. Charley VIII. rode into Florence in armor, with his lance in rest, and therefore fancied he came as a conqueror, not an ally ; but as soon as he began to make exorbitant de- mands, the bold Florentine citizens answered, " If this is what you want, you may sound your trumpets, and we shall ring our alarm-bells." He had no desire for a battle in the FRENCH CONQUEST OF NAPLES. 221 streets of Florence, among those castle-like houses, and, giving up the point, passed on. At Rome, Alexander VI. shut himself up in the Castle of St. Angelo, and Cardinal della Rovere tried to make Charles depose him, but he stood in too much awe of the papal dignity, and contented himself with taking Cesare Borgia with him as a hostage, and causing the Ottoman prince, Zizim, to be put into his hands. Zizim soon after died, some say of poison given him by Borgia, otliers that a renegade Italian barber, called Mustafa, had offered the Sultan to murder him, and, going to Italy, had gladly been received by the exile, because he understood the Turkish fashion of shaving, thus obtaining an opportunity of cutting his throat, for which service Bajazet made the murderer his Grand Vizier. Alfonso II. of Sicily had begun his reign by murdering his father's prisoners, and now the terrors of conscience made him imagine, he was warned by his father's ghost not to contend with the French. He resigned his kingdom to his son Ferdinando, and retired to an estate in Sicily, carry- ing with him all his treasures, and thus so weakening the defence, that Ferdinando was forced to abandon Naples, and retreat to Sicily. Thus Charles VIII. triumphantly marched into Naples, and was crowned as its king in the church of St. Januarius, but he only stayed there a few weeks, leaving as his viceroy his cousin, Gilbert de Bourbon, Count de "Montpensier, a brave man, but so indolent that he never rose till noon. Charles's return was less easy than his advance. A league had risen behind him of Venetians, Spaniards, and Germans ; and even Lodovico Sforza had joined it, for Louis, Duke of Orleans, was talking of claims to the dukedom of Milan, through his grandmother, Valentina Visconti. The Flor- entines would not join the League, but Savonarola came to meet the king, and sternly rebuked him for the excesses of his army, and for having neglected the purification of the Church. The League put their army under the command of the great Italian general, the Marquis of Mantua, who met the French at Fonaovo, when they were in much distress for 222 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XIV. provisions, and shut in by the mountains. If good general- ship could have decided a battle, it would have been with the Italians, but the French spirit and courage gained the day, and the confederates were forced to sue for peace. Charles was, however, tired of the fatigues he had under- gone, and returning to Paris, thought no more of the army he had left at Naples, and sent them no succors. Ferdi- nando asked aid from Spain, and forces were sent him under the brave and able Gonzalo Fernandes de Cordova, the greatest general of that day. By his means the country was gradually reconquered, and the French losing place after place, suffering from fever, and without aid from home, were forced to make terms for themselves. Ferdinando un- dertook to send them all back to their own country ; but before this could be done, the sickness had destroyed Mont- pensier himself, and all but five, hundred. The same autumn, 1496, the young Ferdinando likewise died of* a sudden illness, and was succeeded by his uncle, Frederico. In the summer of 1498, Charles YIII. struck his forehead against the top of a low doorway ; an attack in the head came on, and he died in the course of a few hours. He was succeeded by his cousin Louis, Duke of Orleans, the grand- son of that Louis of Orleans, Charles V.'s son, who was murdered by the Duke of Burgundy. Louis had been kept in great subjection by Louis XL, who had obliged him, much against his will, to marry his daughter Jeanne, who was sickly and deformed. Anne, the widow of Charles, was only twenty-one, clever and handsome, and Duchess of Brittany, and though poor Jeanne was an affectionate wife, Louis was resolved on setting her aside to marry Queen Anne. He applied to the Pope for a divorce, and, as the price of the iniquity, gave the duchy of Valentinois to Ce- sare Borgia, who, growing tired of being a cardinal, mur- dered his brother Francesco, and resolved to be a temporal prince. With the aid of the French, he subdued all the little princes of Romagna, and there, strange to say, ruled so well as to gain the love of the inhabitants. Most bitterly did Alexander VI. and his sons hate that bold reprover of vice, Savonarola, the monk of Florence. FRENCH CONQUEST OF NAPLES. 223 They called him a heretic, and excommunicated him, but he declared that an unjust excommunication had no force, and paid no regard to it, and continued his sermons with vehe- mence that was becoming fanaticism, especially when he made prophecies on the fate of Florence. Another monk oftered to prove his heresy, by both entering a burning pile of wood, knowing, he said, that he should perish, but hop- ing thus to deliver the Church from one whom he deemed a lieresiarch. Savonarola would not accept the challenge, but two of his partisans did, and the pile was actually pre- pared, when a sliower of rain extinguished it. The trial was then given up, but soon after a band of vicious young men attacked the convent of St. Mark, and after a severe battle with the friends of Savonarola, he was captured in the church, and his enemies wrote to the Pope to know how to dispose of him. Alexander sent oif two monks to try him : they put him to the torture, and he being a man of weakly, delicate frame, said all they put into his mouth while sntfering, then recanted, and showed that his mind was firm, though his body was feeble. While in prison he wrote a comment on the 51st Psalm, which he had long ago reserved for times of trouble, when commenthig on the other Psalms, and on the 25th of May, 1498, he and two of his friends were burnt. One of them was the same who had ottered to submit to the ordeal of fire for his sake. When the Pope's otticer was degrading him from the priest- hood, and declaring that he was cutting him off* from the Church, Savonarola only answered, " della 7niUtante,'''' from the Church militant, confident that he was about to enter the Church triumphant. His ashes were thrown into the Arno, but some of his relics are still preserved at Florence, where he is honored as a saint. He was one of the men who might have reformed the Church without a schism. Poor Galeazzo Sforza was now dead, and Lodovico il Moro was alone in the duchy of Milan ; but Louis XII. was resolved to assert his claims, and prepared for another invasion of Italy. Lodovico could find no aid, for his son- in-law, the emperor, was engaged in a war with the Swiss, and could only oflTer him a refuge at Innspruck. Louis XII. entered Milan in triumph, but did not long remain there, 224 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. XIV. leaving it in charge of a garrison, under the Italian Condot- tiere, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio. Maximilian, in the mean time, having made peace with the Swiss, Sforza took a body of them into his pay, and returned to his dukedom, where he was well received. But high pay and want of disci- pline had ruined the honesty of the Swiss, and they could not be depended upon. First those in Trivulzio's pay went over to their comrades with Sforza and left him to the French, and then altogether they deserted Sforza and joined Trivulzio. The only favor they oifered him and his friends was, to disguise them in their own armor, but Lo- dovico was too small, shrivelled, and dark to pass for one of the tall, stout, fair Switzers, and tried to escape as a Capuchin friar. However, a treacherous Swiss betrayed him ; he was taken prisoner and put into the dungeons of Loches, where he pined away till it suited the policy of the French to bring him forward again ; and he was told that he was released, and taken into the royal apartments, but it was too late ; his captivity had done its work, and the joy was too much for him ; he died a few hours after his libera- tion. The walls of his prison-chamber are covered with sentences of the crooked Italian policy in which he was thought to excel, but which ruined him, his family, and country. PART III. SPANISH CONQUEST OP NAPLES. 1501-1506. The unfortunate kingdom of the Two Sicilies was not yet to be at rest. Louis XII. did not intend to neglect the ad- vantages Charles VIII. had gained ; and Fernando, the Catholic, who knew that the present King Frederico was only maintained there by the Spanish force under Gonzalo de Cordova, thought the prey too tempting to be neglected, and declared that his grandfather, Alfonso V. of Aragon, had no right to bequeath it to an illegitimate son, away from his lawful heir. Each king being afraid the other would be beforehand with him, they at last made an agreement to seize it, and divide it between them. Louis Xll. sent a great army, and Fernando ordered Gonzalo to make himself master of his SPANISH CONQUEST OF NAPLES. 225 share. Gonzalo was grieved at having to act against King Frederico, and though obedient to his master, he sent first to renounce all the lands the Kings of Sicily had given him, and to desire to have his oaths of allegiance given back to him. He was indeed as chivalrous and pious as he was brave and able, and well did he deserve his title of the Great Captain. He trained his soldiers admirably, and taught the infantry the use of the pike, so that they became the strongest force in existence, superior even to the Swiss. King Frederico, a brave and amiable man, the last of his race, finding resistance vain, put himself into the hands of the French. Louis gave him the county of Anjou, and he there spent the rest of his life very happily. His son, Fer- dinand, Duke of Calabria, was in Tarento, which held out so long against the Spaniards, that food and money failed the besiegers : they began to mutiny, and one of them even pointed a pike at Gonzalo's breast. The general put it aside with his hand, saying quietly, " Higher, you careless fellow, liigher, or you will run me through in your jesting." Of his own danger he took no notice ; but one of the men who dared to say an insulting word of his only daughter,- Dona Elvira, was instantly hung. Gonzalo then, by caus- ing his ships to be dragged across a bar of land, into the inner harbor, forced the town to surrender, on a promise that the young Duke of Calabria should be allowed to de- part unmolested. Just as he was gone, orders came from Spain that he should be sent thither as a captive : Gonzalo, much against his will, thought himself obliged to fulfil them, and the duke spent the rest of his life there, a pris- oner at large. The kingdom of Naples was thus conquered by France and Spain, but soon disputes arose about the division ; the French occupied more than the Spaniards considered their right, and a war broke out between them. Louis d'Armagnac, Duke de Nemours, a brother of the little boys whom Louis XL had tortured in the cage, was named French Viceroy of Naples, and was at first so much the strongest, that Cordova, unable to keep the field, shut himself up with his Spanish infantry, and some Italians, under the Roman Condottiere, Prospero Colonna, in the 10* 226 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XIV. city of Barletta, there to wait for re-enforcements, which diet not come. The Duke de Nemours besieged the city, establishing his headquarters at Canossa ; and never was warfare more chivah-ously conducted than by these two noble enemies ; courteous messages continually passed between them, and the gentlemen on either side vied with each other in cour- ageous feats. Once a tournament was held merely as a trial, which were the best horsemen, the French or the Spaniards ; eleven arrayed on each side, with all the camp looking on. The chief French champion was Pierre de Bayard, a poor knight, but one whose noble qualities made his name universally honored, and had gained him the glorious title of " le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche,''^ the fearless and blameless knight. The fight was to last till sunset, but long ere that time every Frenchman, save Bay' ard and two others, were on the ground, while seven Span- iards kept their seats, and thought the day their own ; but the French made a rampart of their dead horses, and kept them off till the evening, when it Avas adjudged that each side had done nobly, and that it was a drawn battle. Gon- zalo was displeased, and when his Spaniards said they had shown themselves equal to the French, he answered, " I sent you for better." Another such combat took place between thirteen French and thirteen Italians, who had been offended by the boasts of the French Chevalier de la Mothe. It was agreed that whoever was forced to yield should pay 100 crowns as his ransom, but the French were so certain of victory, that not one brought the sum with him, and therefore were somewhat disconcerted when all were made prisoners, except one who was killed. Bayard was not among them. In spite of these diversions, both parties were heartily weary of the siege, which dragged on month after month, till the Spaniards were half-starved. Louis d'Armagnac vowed he would make them come out of their den, marched up to the walls, and defied them to a pitched battle ; but Gonzalo made answer : " It is my custom to fight when my own occasion and convenience serve, not when the enemy wish it. Your grace must be pleased to wait till my men SPANISH CONQUEST OF NAPLES. 227 have shod their horses and whetted their swords." Ne- mours retreated, and then Gonzalo sallied out, and chased him back to CanOssa in some disorder, though he comforted himself by returning a message, that when the Spaniards should be as close to Canossa as he had been to Barletta, he would not refuse the combat. Gonzalo soon made another sally, and attacked the town oflvuvo. Its French commander, the Sieur de la Palisse, fought like a lion on the breach, till he was overpowered by numbers, and brought to the ground by a wound on the head. He saw no knight nor noble near, and rather than let his sword be taken by the common soldiery, he threw it far over their heads, then was carried to Gonzalo, who gave up his own tent for his accommodation. At Ruvo, Gonzalo captured so much money, and so many horses, that he was able to make further attempts, and ten months after the siege of Barletta began, he marched out of it to give battle to the French. After a most fatiguing march, during which he set the example of each horseman taking a foot-soldier up behind him, he took up his post at Cerignola, a vine-clad hill opposite to Canos- sa. It was late in the day, and the Duke de Nemours wished to wait till morning for the battle, but the Captain, Ives d'Allegre, was of a contrary opinion, and let fall some doubts of the duke's courage, which so incensed him, that he ordered an immediate attack, saying, " Perhaps those who talk loudest will trust more to spur than to sword." The Spaniards had the advantage of ground, and gained a complete victory. Ives d'Allegre was among the hrst to take flight, and the young duke fell in the front of the battle, so much disfigured that his page only recognized his body by the rings on the fingers; The Great Captain shed tears over the corpse, and buried it at Barletta with princely honors. Re-enforcements came from Spain, and the French were hunted into dififerent fortresses, while Gonzalo made a tri- umphant entry into Naples, and took Castel Nuovo by as- sault, giving it up to the pillage of the troops ; and when some of them complained that they had missed their share, 228 LANDMARKS OP HISTOKY, [cHAP. XIV. he sent them to make up for it by plundering the palace assigned to him. Gaeta cost him a long and wearisome siege in the face of the enemy, who were encamped on the opposite side of the Garigliano, under the Marquis of Mantua. This was again a time of brave exploits. Bayard was lodged close to the bridge across the river, and one day saw a band of two hundred Spaniards making an attempt to cross and surprise the camp. He sent his esquire to give the alarm, and on horseback he singly kept tlie narrow bridge for an hour, when a party of French came up, and then, crossing the river, they drove the enemy before them, till, seeing a body of seven or eight hundred at hand. Bayard said, " Messieurs, we have done enough for our own honor," and wheeled about. His horse was so tired that it could not keep up with the rest, and he was surrounded by the Spanish and made prisoner. They did not take away his arms, thinking he could not escape, as they made him march among them, asking his name, to which he only answered, "he was a gentleman," thinking that if they knew him they would be unwilling to put him to ransom. However, as soon as his friends missed him, there was an outcry among them that they must not lose the flower of chivalry. They rode back to look for him, made a sudden charge on the unprepared Spaniards, rescued him, set him on a fresh horse, on which he galloped off among them, shouting to the enemy, " France, France ! and Bayard, whom you have let go !" It was the depth of winter, and the Spanish camp was flooded by water from the river : the whole army suffered dreadfully, and Prospero Colonna and Pedro Navarro tried to persuade Gonzalo to retreat, but his answer was, " Our remaining here is important to the king's service, and I had rather meet death by advancing three steps than secure life for a century by retreating one." He did advance, on the 28th of December, 1503, and in the dreadful battle of the Garigliano gained such a victory that the French resigned Gaeta, on condition they should be honorably sent home. The other garrisons surrendered on the same terms, except- ing that commanded by Louis d'Ars, who disdained to SPANISH CONQUEST OP NAPLES. 229 OAvn himself conquered, and with his little band, in martial array, made his way through the midst of the enemy the whole length of Italy. Gonzalo de Cordova entered Naples in triumph, and was made viceroy of the kingdom he had so gallantly won. He soon after received there, as a fugitive, the much- dreaded Cesare Borgia, It was the custom of Cesare and his father to invite to banquets, and there poison the per- sons whose wealth and Church benefices they coveted, and in August, 1503, at one of these horrible feasts, they were caught in their own snare, and each by mistake swallowed a draught of the wine intended for their victims. Alex- ander VI. died at once, but Cesare, being younger and stronger, struggled through a dreadful illness, which left his complexion perfectly livid for the rest of his life. He afterward said he had taken every measure for securing his power, and influencing the choice of the next pope at his father's death, and had foreseen every contingency ex- cept his being too ill at the time to be able to act. Thus it happened that the Conclave elected his greatest enemy, Giuliano della Rovere, and when he recovered he found his power so entirely ruined, that he was forced to take refuge at Naples. Gonzalo gave him a safe conduct, and treated him as a prince, but on receiving commands from Spain, sent him thither a prisoner. He afterward escaped to Navarre,' but was killed in a skirmish in 1507. Spain suffered a great misfortune in 1504, in the death of Queen Isabel, whose health had suffered much from soitow for the loss of her elder children, and anxiety for her poor daughter Juana, who was becoming more and more un- sound in mind. After an attack of fever, in the summer, the queen never rallied ; and while tears and prayers were offered throughout Spain for her recovery, she bade her at- tendants ask only for the salvation of her soul. She died November 26, 1504, and was buried in the convent she had founded in the Alhambra, leaving behind her one of the noblest and j^urest names in history. Her realm of Castile passed at once to her daughter Juana, whose hus- band, the Archduke of Austria, and Count of Holland and Flanders, is known in history as Philip I, of Spain. He 230 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XIV. was a wrong-headed, hot-tempered youth, and quarrelled with the old king, Fernando of Aragon, who resolved on marrying again, in hopes of having a son to inherit his own kingdom. In less than a year after Isabel's death, he married a girl of eighteen, Germaine de Foix, daughter to that Viscount de Narbonne who claimed the kingdom of Navarre, his own great-niece, but happily she had no children, to embroil the kingdom. His son-in-law, Philip of Austria, only reigned two years, dying of a fever in 1506, leaving two sons, Charles and Ferdinand, and five daughters, the youngest of whom was born after his death. His unhappy wife. Queen Juana, be- came entirely deranged by her grief: she could not weep, but spent the rest of her life as near as possible to his re- mains, never looking up, seldom speaking, and incapable of attending to anything. The Cortes of Castile conferred the regency upon King Fernando until her son Charles should be of age. Fernando was a hard suspicious master, and after his wife's death, he showed his jealousy by shameful treat- ment of his best subjects, especially Columbus, and the Great Captain. He became mistrustful of the great affec- tion that all Naples and Sicily had for the splendid, just, and merciful viceroy : and in truth, Gonzalo's loyalty had been severely tried, for Philip I. and his father Maximilian had joined with the Pope, in offering to marry Elvira, his only child, to the young Duke of Calabria, set the crown of the Two Sicilies on their heads, and make him governor for life. He had answered Philip with courteous thanks and refusals, desired the Pope to remember who Gonzalo de Cordova was, and firmly restrained the soldiers who wanted to rise in his cause ; but Ferdinand could not be- lieve in such fidelity, came to Naples, and, though not a fault could be found with his government, he displaced him, and sent him home. He did, indeed, promise, before he left Naples, to make him master of Santiago, but the prom- ise was never fulfilled ; and Gonzalo retired, neglected, to his own mountain estate at Loja. There tliebase king con- tinued to show such suspicion of him, that he thought it right to give up all the estates he had ever received from ITALIAN LEAGUES. 231 the crown, saying, " he should live as a hermit on his own rocks, content with his conscience, and the remembrance of his services." He said on his death-bed, there were three deeds he bitterly regretted : the breaking the oath to the Duke of Calabria; the violating the safe conduct to Cesare Borgia ; and the third he only revealed in confession, though we may be sure it was not what some fancied — the not making Elvira a queen. He was the finest type who ever lived, of the old Spanish honor. PART IV. ITALIAN LEAGUES. 1508-1517. The great object of every patriotic Italian was "to drive the barbarians beyond the Alps," as they said, and one of the most vehement in this desire was the new Pope, Giuliano della Rovere, otherwise Julius H., a fiery old man, who ought to have been a soldier instead of a priest. He had no love for luxury, and cut off all the vain indulgences of the Roman court ; but his violence and passion were al- most as disgraceful as the crimes of the Borgie. Most es- pecially he hated the Venetians, who, when Cesare Borgia retreated out of Romagna, had seized a great many places which he thought belonged to the Papal See, He reviled them furiously, and laid them under an interdict, to which they did not take much heed. However, Louis XII. and his minister. Cardinal d'Am- boise, had quarrels of their own with the republic of St. Mark ; and the Emperor Maximilian had not only been de- feated, but laughed at — his eccentric habits mimicked in comedies, and the nickname given him of Pochi-danari^ or the moneyless. They began to think of combining with the Pope against the proud merchant princes, and a meet- ing was held at Cambrai, between Cardinal d'Amboise and Maximilian's clever daughter Margaret, who wrote her father an account of the conference, saying she and the cardinal were nearly ready to pull each other's hair, in their earnestness for the advantage of their employers. They arranged to conquer Venice, and divide its territory, and called on the Pope to join with them. He was not much pleased to find he had thus invited a fresh incursion 232 LAXDMAEKS OF HISTOllY. [cHAP. XIV. of " barbarians," but he was obligedto accede to their plans, and in 1509 Louis XII. himself crossed the Alps. The Venetians, with much exertion, raised an army, commanded by the Condottiere Bartolomeo d'Alviano, and gave battle to the French at Agnadello, on the banks of the Adda ; but six thousand of their best infantry were left dead upon the field, and the rest of their troops fled. The general, who was made prisoner, hearing an alarm in the camp, said •to Louis XII., " It can be none of our men; you will see no' more of them for many a day." Louis advanced, and fired upon Venice, in order that it might be said that a King of France had assaulted the Queen of the Adriatic. Never had the Republic been in such distress since the Turkish inroad to Chiozza, but there was no loss of heart ; every one was resolved on doing his best, and even an old councillor, who had not left his bed for years, was carried to St. Mark's palace, to give his ad- vice. The French soon retreated, and, shortly after, a skil- ful attack of the Venetians rescued Padua from the Ger- mans on St. Marino's Day. It was such a timely conquest, that the keys of the city were laid up in the church dedi- cated to that saint, and every year the Doge went to re- turn thanks there. This loss for once stirred Maximilian into activity, and in great wrath he assembled an immense army of German princes, nobles and knights, lanzknechts and Swiss, and being joined by the Sieur de la Palisse, the Chevalier Bayard, and five hundred other French gentle- men, he laid siege to Padua. The valor of the Germans was not held in much esteem within the town, for the Venetian commander told some Frenchmen, who were made prisoners, that but for their comrades, he should soon have sallied out and driven off the emperor. It seems that Maximilian had not much reliance on his feudal force, for when, after fifteen days, his cannon had eftected a breach, he wrote a note to La Palisse, desiring him and his party to be ready at beat of drum at noon, that day, to join the lanzknechts in the assault. The French were weary of the siege,, and would gladly have led the attack, but Bayard demurred, and by his advice La Palisse made answer that it was not fit to send nobly-born knights and gentlemen to ITALIAN LEAGUES. 233 fight on the same terms as mere common soldiers, who had not their honor in so much esteem, and to expose the lives of his high-born French allies, where he only ventured his mere hired troops. Therefore they declined the assault, un- less some of the German nobility would accompany them, in which case they would gladly show the way, and the lanzknechts might follow if they pleased. Maximilian thought they were right, but when he made the proposal to the German nobles, one and all replied, that they were only bound to fight on horseback, and would never demean themselves by marching on foot, or climbing breaches. Very much displeased, the emperor shut himself up in his tent for the rest of the day, and next morning set off, two hours before daybreak, with five attendants, rode forty miles without resting, sent orders to break up the siege, and retired to Germany. Greatly encouraged by their success, the Venetians next succeeded in making peace with the Pope, by offering to give up to him the city of Ravenna. He consented to ab- solve them, on their sending several of their nobles to do penance at Rome, each on their bare shoulders receiving a blow from the Pope and the cardinals ; and he soon after joined them and the Spaniards in what he called the Holy League, for driving the French out of Italy. So bent was the tierce old man on this object, that he declared no cure was so good for a fever, from which he was recovering, as to punish the enemies of the Churcli, and set out himself to take the command of his army. He besieged Mirandola, and stood in the trenches during a heavy snow, and ex- posed to the fire from the ramparts ; and when the assault was made, entered the town by a ladder at the breach. While travelling from the castle of San Felice, he had nearly fallen into an ambush prepared by Bayard, and was only saved by a headlong flight back to the castle, where he was forced to help to raise the drawbridge with his own hands. L I B K A R Y UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNl 234 LANDMARKS OF HISTORY. [CHAP. XIV. PART V. BATTLE OF RAVENNA. 1513. The French in Italy were now commanded by a newly created Duke de Nemours, Gaston de Foix, brother to Queen Germaine of Aragon, a fine young man, with much talent for war, who began to gain rapid successes. He be- sieged Brescia, a town so much valued by Venice that it was called the little daughter of St. Mark, and there, in the assault, finding the slope steep and slippery, he threw off his steel boots, and climbed up barefoot, winning the town triumphantly ; but Bayard was severely wounded in the thigh, and forced to be carried to the house of an Italian. His presence guarded the family from plunder and exaction, and when, on his recovery, the lady forced upon him a gift of 2,500 ducats, which she deemed the right of the con- queror, he divided the sum between her daughters and the convents that had been pillaged ; and would keep nothing but a satin embroidered purse, and a pair of bracelets of hair, worked by the daughters, as presents for their gentle victor. He rejoined the French army at Ravenna, which was be- sieged by Gaston de Foix. Julius II. sent the Roman gen- eral, Fabrizio Colonna, to its relief, and being joined by a Spanish force under Pedro Navarro, they offered battle to the French on Easter-day. Alfonso d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, was the only Italian ally of the French, and so little love" did he bear to them, that when his artillery seemed, in the course of the battle, to be firing as much on friends as foes, he is said to have thus encouraged his gun- ners : " Never mind whom you hit — the Italians are all on the other side, and the rest are only French." To save Ital- ians was his object, and seeing Fabrizio Colonna hard pressed, he advised him to surrender to him. Colonna did so, on ■ condition he would not give him up to the French, and this was the beginning of a close friendship. There was an astrological prediction that Gaston de Foix should die on Easter-day, under the walls of Ravenna ; and Bayard and Louis d'Ars had agreed to keep close to him all day, to be ready to protect him. At the close of the day, BATTLE OF EAVENXA. 235 liowever, he was safe, and after great slaughter and hard fighting, the heavy bodies of Spanish infantry had been forced to retreat : the two knights resolved to lead the pur- suit, begging the duke not to stir from the place where he was till their return. Unfortunately, Gaston seeing a party of Spaniards, charged them with a few of his suite. But they were stronger than he had supposed : he was sur- rounded, his horse was hamstrung, and his attendants vainly called out that he was the brother of the Queen of Aragon : he was pierced by a sword, and when Bayard returned, he found him lifeless, and his cousin, Andre de Foix, Count de Lautrec, by his side, insensible, and with, twenty wounds. This loss made the victory into a defeat. La Palisse took the command, but was forced to retreat, har- assed by the enemy, whom Bayard galLantly combated in the rear, till his arm was torn from shoulder to wrist by a ball from the walls of Pavia. Sickly, worn out, and ex- hausted, the French army recrossed the Alps, leaving only a few garrisons behind them. The death of Gaston de Foix afforded Fernando the Catholic a pretence for saying that Germaine, his sister, had a right to the throne of Navarre, and he sent the Duke of Alva to attack the true queen, Catherine d'Albret. Bay- ard signalized himself in her defence, but in vain ; the whole little Pyrenean kingdom was conquered, and Cath- erine was left with only the counties of Foix and Beam, which she had inherited from her grandfather, the husband of Leonor. Her son, Henri d'Albret, though called king of Navarre, was only a French noble. Louis XIL had other occupations than Italian affairs at that time. Besides the Navarrese war, and an attack on Burgundy, made by Maximilian, his English neighbors dis- quieted him. Henry VIIL had joined the Holy League, at the instance of Julius II., and though Louis did his best to find him employment at home, by inciting James IV. of Scotland to invade England, the fight of Flodden and the death of James were the only result, and the English king landed at Calais, and won the Battle of the Spurs. " The fair Queen of France," Anne of Brittany, was in declining health, when she named the unfortunate James her knight 236 LANDMAEKS OF HISTORY. [cHAP. XIV. and love ; and she soon after died, leaving two daughters — Claude, married to Fran9ois, Comte d'Angouleme, heir of the throne, and Renee. In making peace with Henry VIII., Louis asked the hand of the beautiful Mary Tudor, but he died three months after the wedding, in the year 1514. He has been called " the Father of his People," a name he little deserved, for he taxed the country heavily, to support wars which he conducted so ill that they were only a waste of blood and valor, and his victories were as ruinous as losses. He never carried out a project with steadiness, and was perfidious and unjust in his treaties. Italy, in the mean time, breathed a little more freely, and Julius II. was vehemently at work with his projects for se^ curing* it against the French. He obtained the duchy of Urbino for his nephew ; he persuaded the Venetians to restore Massimiliano Sforza to Milan, and the Spaniards to bring back Giovanni and Lorenzo dei Medici to Florence ; but in the midst of his intrigues he fell sick, and died, in 1513, having made his name noted as the first Pope who rendered his temporal power formidable, as well as for having begun the magnificent building of St. Peter's as it now stands. He was so economical, that in spite of such an expense as this edifice, and of all his wars, he enriched the papal tiara with the most costly jewels, and left in his treasury 380,000 florins, to 80,000 of which the cardinals are said to have helped themselves before his successor was chosen. The strangest of all his freaks now came into Maxi- milian's head. He wanted to be Pope, and to reform the Church, but the fancy soon passed away, and the cardinals elected Giovanni de' Medici, the son of Lorenzo the Magni- ficent. He was only thirty-seven, tall and handsome, of the fine manners, literary tastes, and habits of profuse ex- penditure of the rest of the family, and without much re- ligious principle. He took the name of Leo X. In 1516 died the cold-hearted and ungrateful Fernando of Aragon, who fell sick at a little village called Madriga- lejo, and expired, after attempting to leave Aragon to his second and favorite grandson, Ferdinand, and appointing as regent the great Cardinal Ximenes. He was buried at CONCLUSION". 237 the Alliambra, beside the noble queen who had made the beginning of his thirty-seven years' reign so glorious. Here, then, just before the commencement of the Reforma- tion, we close the history of the Middle Ages, which might be called the history of the rise ajid ascendancy of the Church of Rome. \ \ GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE EMPERORS OF ROME. Lucius Julius Caesar. I Julia, married Accins Balbus. Caius Julitis C^sab. Accia, married Caius Octavius. B. c. 14 Caius Octavianns August us Caesar, adopted A. D. 14 Tiberias Nero. Nero Claudius Drusus. Claudius Drusus. \>, Oermanicus. 41 Claudius. I I Agrippina. 37 Caligula. 54 Nero. 69Galba. 69 Otho. 69 Vitellius. 70 Vespasian. 79 Titus. 81 Domitian. 96 Nerva. 98 Trajan, adopted 117 Adrian, adopted 138 Antoninus Pius, adoiyted 161 Marcus Aurelius. 180 Commodus. 192 Pertinax. 193 Didius Julianus. 195 Septimus Severus. 211 Caracalla, 217 Helio^abalus. 222 Alexander Severus. Various Emperors chosen by the Prietoriane. 286 Maximian. 284 Dioclesian adoj^ted 306 Constantius. I 323 Constantine. Julius Constantius. I I I i I 360 Julian. 327 Constans. 327 Constantinus. 327 Constantius. 363 Jovian. | | 364 Valens. 364 Valentinian I. 383 Theodosius I. I I I I I I 375Gratian. 383 Valentinian 11. 395 Arcadius. 395 Honorius. I I 476 Komulus Augustulus. 408 Theodosius. Pulcheria, married Martian, 450. 240 GENEALOGICAL TABLES. EMPERORS OF THE EAST. 457 Leo I. J 468 Ariadne, married Zeno, 474 I adopted. 474 Leo n. 491 Anastasius. 582 Maurice. 602 Phocas. 711 Philippicus. Isaurians. 716 Leo m. 741 Constantino V. 775 Leo IV. I 780 Constantino VI. and Irene. 792 Irene, alone. 802 Nicephorus. 813 Leo V. 829 Michael II. 829 Theophilus. 842 Michael HI. Comneni. 1057 Isaac Comnenus. Isaac 1081 Alexius I. I 518 Justin, nephew. 528 Justinian, nephew. 565 Justin II. 568 Tiberius. 610 Heraclius. 641 Constantine U. 642 Constans 11. 668 Constantius IV. 685 Justinian XL 713 Anastatius II. 867 Basil. 886 Leo VI. I 912 Constantine VII. 920 Constantine Vni. 950 Romanus II. 976 Constantine IX. 1-^— I 1042 Theodora. Zoe and Constan- tine X. 1059 Constantine Ducas XI. 1073 Constantine Xn. 1104 Alexius V., Murtzuphlus. 1118 John 1143 Manuel L 1180 Alexius IT. 1185 Isaac Angelus. 1195 Alexius III. 1 1204 Anna, married Theodore Lascaris. 1222 Irene, married John Ducas Vatacea. 1255 Theodore. Anna. 1259 John Jn., Lascaris. Palaeologi. 1260 Michael Vin. 1282 Andronicus II. Michael. 1332 Andronicus lU. 1341 John IV. 1847 John Cantacnzenns. 1391 Manuel II. 1425 John V. I 1448 Constantine XTTT. Latin Kingdom of Constantinople. 1204 Baldwin I. 1206 Henry. 1217 Peter de Courtenay. 1221 Robert de Courtenay. 1228 Baldwin II. and Jean de Brienne. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. 241 GENEALOGY OF TUE EMPERORS OF GERMANY. CARLOVINGIANS. SOO CHARLES le Magne. 814 Louis I. \ 840 Lothaire. 855 Lonis the German. 875 Charles le Chauve. I 879 Charles le Gros. Carloman. 887 Arnulf. 899 Louis. 912 Konrad, Duke of Franconia. HOUSE OF SAXONY. 918 Henry L, the Fowler. 986 Otho I., the Great. I 973 Otho n. Henry Duke of Bavaria. 983 Otho III. Henry Duke of Bavaria. 1002 Henry U. HOUSE OF FRANCONIA. 1024 Konrad II. 1039 Henry m. I 1056 Henry IV. 1106 Henry V. Agnes married Frederick of Hohenstaufen, Duke of Swabia. HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 1138 Konrad HI. Frederic. 1198 Philip of Swabia. 1152 Frederic I., Barbarossa. 1208 Otho IV., of Saxony. 1190 Henry VI. 1291 Adolf of Nassau. 1212 Frederic II., King of Sicily, 1314 Louis of Bavaria, and 1250 Konrad IV. Frederic of Austria. Conradine. 11 242 GEXEALOGICAL TABLES. HOUSE OF LUXEMBURG. 1308 Henry Vn. John, King of Bohemia. 1347 Charles IV. 13T8 Wenceslas. 1410 Sigismund. Elizabeth, m. Albert, Duke of Austria. HOUSE OF HAPSBURG, OR AUSTRIA. 1273 Rudolf I. 1291 Albert L, Duke of Austria. I Frederic, Leopold, Duke of Austria, Duke of Austr King of Romans. Albert, •ia. Duke of Austria. 1 Leopold, Albert. Duke of Austria. | 1 Albert. Ernest. 1 Duke of Austria. 1437 Albert 11. i m. Elizabeth, 1440 Frederic IV. of Bohemia. 1493 Maximilian I., m. Maria, 1 of Burgundy. Philip, m. Juana, of Spain. 1558 Ferdinand I. 1 1519 Charles V. 1564 Maximilian II. 1 Charles. 1 1576 Rudolf n. 1612 Matthiae 1619 Ferdinand H. 1637 Ferdinand m. 1658 Leopold L 1711 Charles VI. 1705 Joseph L 1737 Maria Theresa, married Francis, Duke of Lormine. I 1765 Joseph II 1790 Leopold IL 1792 Francis IL Francis. 1848 Francis Joseph 1. roina 1835 Ferdinand. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. 243 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF KINGS OF FRANCE. 987 Hugh Capet. 996 Robert. I 1031 Henri I. I 1060 Philippe I. Pierre. House of Court enai. 1108 Louis VI. 1137 Louis Vn. 1180 Phili ppe n. 1223 Louis Vni. I Robert. I Dukes of Burgundy. Kings of FortugaL Charles of Anjou, King of Naples. 1226 Louis IX I 1270 Philippe m. I 1285 Philippe IV. ^^«. .^^, I Count de Valois. Robert. I j Dukes of Bourbon. Charles, Isabelle, 1314 Louis X married Edward H., of England, 1316 Philippe V. 1322 Charles IV. HOUSE OF VALOIS. 1270 Philippe III. Charles, Count de Valois. 1328 Philippe VI. 1350 Jean. I I Louis, Duke of Orleans. I . 1364 Charles V. Louis, Philippe le Hardi, ' I Duke of Anjou, Duke of Burgundy. King of Naples. Charles, Jean, Duke of Orleans. Count I d'Angouleme 1498 Louis Xn. I Charles, Count d'Angouleme. 1515 Fran9oi3 I. 1547 Henri 11. I 1380 Charles VI. 1422 Charles VH. 1461 Louis XL 1483 Charles VHI. Jean Sanspeur, Duke of Burgundy. Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy. Charles I'lntrepide, Duke of Burgundy. Marie, married Maximilian, of Austria. 1559 Francois II., 1560 Charles IX. m. Mary, Q. of Scots. Philippe. Marguerite. I Charles V., 1574 Henri m. Emperor and Sovereign of Low Countries. 244 GENEALOGICAL TABLES. HOUSE OF BOUEBOK 1226 St. Louis IX. I Robert, Comte de Clermont, Beatrix de Bourbon. Louis, Due de Bourbon. Jaques de Bourbon, Pierre, Due de Bourbon. Conte de la Marche. | I Louis, Due de Bourbon. Jean, Conte de Vendome. | I Jean, Due de Bourbon. Louis, Conte de Vendome. | Jean, Charles, Due de Bourbon. Louis, Conte de Vendome. | Conte de Montpensier. Francois, Jean, Pierre, Gilbert, Conte de Vendome. D. de Bourbon. D. de Bourbon. C. de Montpensier. Charles, Susanne, Duchesse, married Charles, Conte de Vendome. C. de M., Constable, D. ae B. Antoine, Louis, Prince de Conde. Due de Vendome, married 1 Jeanne, Queen of Navarre. 1 1 1 Henri, P. de C. Fran9ois, 1589 Henri IV. 1 Prince de Conty. 1 Henri, Prince de Conde. 1610 Louis ynr, 1 1 Louis, Prince de Cond6. Gaston 1643 Louis XIV. Philippe, Louis, Due de Bourboa. d' Orleans. 1 Due de Orleans. | 1 Louis. 1 Louis, Due de Bourbon. Anne Marie 1 (Mademoiselle). Philippe V., King of Spain, Philippe, 1 Due d'Orleans, Regent. Due d'Enghien. 1 1 Louis, Due d'Orleans. Louis. 1 1 Louis. 1715 Louis XV. 1 1 Louis I'Egalitg. Louis. 1880 Louis Philippe. 1 II II 1795 Louis XVni. 1774 Louis XVi. 18^ Charles X. Louis, Due d'Orleans. 1 I 1 1793 Louis XVn. I Louis, Due de Angouleme. I Count of Paris. Charles, Due de Berri. Henri (V), Due de Bordeaux. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. 245 GENEALOGY OF KINGS OF SPAIN. KINGS OF LEON. 718 Pelayo. 737 Favila. 739 Ermesinda married Alfonso I. I 788 Bermudo. &42 Kamiro I. 851 Ordono I. 8C6 Alfonso III. I 910 Garcia. 768 Aurelio. 758 Fruela I. 791 Alfonso II. 783 Mauregato. 914 Ordono II. I 923 Fruela II, 924 Alfonso IV. 967 Ramiro III. 927 Ramiro II. I 950 Ordono III. 983 Bermudo II. 999 Alfonso V. I 956 Sancho I. 1027 Bermudo III. Sancha, married Fernando of Navarre, Count of Castile. KINGS OF CASTILE AND LEON. 1035 Fernando I., conquered Leon. 1065 Sancho U. 1072 Alfonso VI. Garcia. 1109 Alfonso VII., and Urraca. r 1214 Enrique I. 11.57 Fernando, Teresa. King of Leon. married I Henry of Burgundy. I Kings of Portugal. Fernando. I Fernando. Alfonso. The Infants de la Cerda. 1157 Sancho III. 1158 Alfonso VHI. I 1217 Berenguela, married Alfonso IX., K. of Leon. 1217 Fernando 11. 1252 Alfonso X. I 1284 Sancho FV. 1295 Fernando in. I 1312 Alfonso XI. I 1350 Pedro I., the Cruel. Brites, married Alon so, of Portugal. Enrique, Count of Trastamara. 246 GEXEALOGICAL TABLES. HOUSE OF TRASTAMARE IN CASTILE AND LEON. 1369 Enrique H. 1379 Juan I, I 1390 Enrique III. Fernando, 1404 Juan U. I King of Aragon. 1454 Enrique lY. Alfonso. 1474 Isabel I., I married Juana. Ferdinand of Aragon. 1504 Juana, married Philip of Austria. Ferdinand, 1515 Charles V., Emperor. King of Castile and Aragon, and Emperor. HOUSE OF AUSTRIA IN SPAIN. 1516 Charles V. 1556 Philip n. 1598 Philip III. 1621 Philip rV. 1665 Charles II. Maria Teresa, Mariana, married married Louis XIV., of France. Arch-Duke Charles, of Germany. HOUSE OF BOURBON IN SPAIN. Maria Teresa, married Louis XIV., of France. Louis. 1700 Philip V. 1724Loui8. 1746 Ferdinand VI. 1759 Charles HL Philip, I Duke of Parma. Ferdinand, 1788 Charles IV. Ferdinand. King of Naples. | | Lonis. 1808 Ferdinand Vn. Don Carlos. ^J , I Charles. 1833 Isabel n. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. 247 GENEALOGY OF KINGS OF NAVARRE. 837 Sancho. 851 Garcia Inigues. 880 Fortanio Garcias. 905 Sancho Garcias. I 925 Garcia Sanches II. 970 Saucho 11,, Abarca. 994 Garcia Sanches III. Fernando, KinK of Castile. Ramiro, King of Aragon. 1076 Sancho V. I 1000 Sancho in. I 1035 Garcia Sanches FV. I I 1054 Sancho IV. 1094 Pedro L, of Aragon. 1104 Alfonso I. Ramiro. Garcia. 1135 Garcia V. 1150 Saucho VI. I :na, Sancha, m. Berengaria, m. 1194 Sancho VII. Thibault, Count of Champagne. Richard Cceur de Lion. 12a4 Thibault I. I 1253 Thibault H. 1270 Henri I. 1274 Jeanne, m. Philippe le Bel of France, 1285. 1304 Louip, 1316 Philippe, King of France. K. of France. 1323 Charles I., King of France and Navarre. 1328 Jeanne, m. Philip, Count d'Evreux. 1 1349 Charles II., le Mauvais. 1387 Charles ni., le Noble. 1425 Blanche, m. Juan II., of Aragon. 1475 Leonor, m. Gaston de Foix. I 1457 Blanca. 1411 Carlos, Prince of Viana. Gaston. I Jean de Foix, Viconte de Narbonne. 1479 Francis Phcebus. 14a3 Catherine, m. Jean d'Albret. Antoine. I Antoine, Conte de Lautrec. I Gapton de Foix. Germaine, I Due de Nemours. married 1516 Henry II., d'Albret. Ferdinand of Aragon. 1543 Jeanne d'Albret, m. Antoine de Bourbon. 1572 Henri III.— IV. of France. 248 GENEALOGICAL TABLES. GENEALOGY OF KINGS OF PORTUGAL. HOUSE OF ENRIQUES. 1094 Enrique, Count of Portugal. 1112 Alfonso Enrique I. 1185 Sancho I. 1212 Alfonso II. 1 1233 Sancho H. 1248 Alfonso HI. 1279 Diniz. 1325 Alfonso IV. 1357 Pedro L 1 Joao, Grand Master of Avis, 1367 Fernando I. HOUSE OF AVIS. 1383 Joao I. 1 el Fernando, 1433 Duarte principe constante. | Enrique, The discoverer. 1438 Alfonso V. Fernando. I I 1481 Joao n. 1495 Manoel. Alfonso. 1578 Enrique. Isabel m. Charles V. of Spain. 1521 Joao Hi. Duarte. 1580 Philip ll. of Spain. \ 1 Catalina, I Maria. Joao. married 1598 Philip III. of Spain. | Joao of Braganza. I 1557 Sebastiao. | 1621 Philip IV. Joao, Duke of Braganza. HOUSE OF BRAGANZA. 1640 Joao IV. I 1656 Alfonso VI. 1683 Pedro H. I 1706 Joao V. 1750 Jose. 1777 Maria, married Pedro. 1816 Joao VI. j 1826 Pedro. Don Miguel. Emperor of Brazil. 1826 Maria dc Gloria. GENEALOGICAL TABLES. 249 GENEALOGY OF THE KINGS OF NAPLES AND SICILY. HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE. Tancred de Hanteville. I 1055 Robert Guiscard, 1072 Roger, Count of Sicily. Another brother. Duke of Apulia. | I j 1139 Roger H., K. of Two Sicilies. Tancred. ■j r ^_J Prince of Galilee. Boemond, William, I | | Prince of Antioch. Duke of Apulia. 1153 William I. Constanza, 1190 Tancred. I I married Constance. 1166 William 11. Heinrich VI. of Germany. HOUSE OF HOHENSTAUFEN. 1194 Constanza, in. Heinrich of Hohenstaufen, Emperor of Germany. 1197 Frederic I., of Sicily, II. of Germany. 1258 Manfred. 1250 Konrad. Constanza, Conradine. married Pedro of Aragon. FIRST HOUSE OF ANJOU IN NAPLES. 1265 Charles I., Count d'Anjou, King of Sicily by investiture. 1285 Charles II. I I I 1309 Robert. Carobert, I King of Hungary. Charles, Duke of Durazzo, Charles. i T" 1382 Charles II. 1343 Giovanna I. marries Andrea. I 1385 Ladislao. 1414 Giovanna II. SECOND HOUSE OF ANJOU. 1380 Louis, Due d'Anjou, adopted by Giovanna I. 1384 Louis II. J 1423 Louis IIL 143S Ren e, adopted by Giovanna I., m. Jean, Yolande, married Ferrand de Vaudemont. Duke of Calabria. i I Rene 11., Duke of Lorraine. Jean. | Antoine Claude. Duke of Lorraine. Dukes of Guise. Francis. 11* Henri le Balafre. 250 GEXEALOGICAL TABLES. HOUSE OF AEAGON IN SICILY. 1282 Constanza, married Pedro of Aragon. 1285 Jayme. 1295 Frederic II. 1337 Pedro II. 1342 Louis. 1355 Frederic HL 1387 Maria, married Martin, King of Aragon. SECOISTD HOUSE OF ARAGON IN NAPLES AND SICILY. 1421 Alfonso V. of Aragon, adopted by Giovanna II. of Naples. 1458 Ferdinand I. I I I 1494 Alfonso II. 1496 Frederic IV. 1495 Ferdinand 11. Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria. SPANISH HOUSE OF BOURBON IN NAPLES AND SICILY. Louis XIV. of France. Philip V. of Spain. 1746 Charles I., King of Naples. 1759 Ferdinand L 1825 Francis. 1830 Ferdinand 11. INDEX FOR EXAMINATION Adelaide, 14-15 ; Affonso, 61 ; Arnold of Brescia, (MJ ; Ahelard, (Hi ; As!*as8lns, 76; Alexius An«,'elus. 81-83; Albi- genses, 85-88 ; Acre, Siejje of, 75-76 ; Acre, Loss of, 115-117; Albrecht, 127- 129: Jacob Von Artevelde, l*3-i;« ; Philippe Von Artevelde. 155-15«>; Ar- nold V on Wiukelried, 161 ; Alfonso V., 175-176, 179-180 ; Alexander VI., 219, 221,229. Berserkars, 12 ; St. Bernard. 61-65 ; Bald- win of Flanders, a4 ; Bank, 112; Boc- caccio, 119: Boniface, VIII., 11JM23; Boniface XII., 163; Bajazet, 169-170; Boabdil, 202-205 ; Bajazet II., 21()-221 ; Bayard, 22<}, 228, 232-235. Charles Martel, 6; Charlemagne, 7-9; Cid Campeador, 24-25 ; Conclave, 27 ; First Crusade,* 54-56 ; Second Cru- sade, -«9, 73-75; Frederick II., 78, 90-95; Franciscans. 86; S. Fernan- do, 95-96; Florins, 112; Froissart, 150: Fernando, 178-179; Ferdinando of Naples, 218-220; Gaston de Foix, Gregory VII., 26-.30; Guclfs, 62; Gun- povvtfer, 118, 208-210; Bertrand de Guesclin, 1.38, 146-1.50; Giovanna of Naples; 142-144; Giovanna II., 1.54, 164 ; Gonzalo de Cordova, 203-204, 222, 2ai-231. Haroun al Raschid, 7-8 ; Harald, 13 ; ' Hugh, 15-16 ; Harald Hardrada, 22-23 ; Harold, 23 ; Henri of Lorraine, 25-26 ; Heinrich IV., 26-30 ; Heinrich VI., 68- 69, 74-75, 77: Heinrich VII., of Lux- emburg, 130-131 ; Humbert of Vienne, 1.36: Johann Huss, 165; Hunniades, 181,' 183-184; Hans Holbein, 208. * In reciting Crusades, give for each— date ; by w^hom preached ; by whom led ; chiefly from what nations ; what results. 252 INDEX FOK EXAMINATION. Ikonoklast, 5 ; Isabelle, 75-76 ; Innocent III., 78-80, 88-89 ; Ines de Castro, 144- 145 ; Isabelle of Castile, 199-205, 211- 214. Johann of Bohemia, 130-132, 135 ; Jean de France, 13(>-138; Jean Sans Peur, 159-160, 171 ; St. John Von Nepomuk, 162 ; Janissaries, 168 ; Jeanne d* Arc, 172-173; Julius II., 231-236; James IV., 216, 235. Knighthood, 38-40; Knights Hospital- lers, 57-59, 124, 191-192 ; Knights Tem- plar, 57-59, 116, 117, 124-126 ; Thomas a Kempis, 153. Louis le Debonnaire, 9-10 ; Leo IX., 18 ; Louis VI., 60; Louis VIL, 60-65, 73; Louis IX., 90, 96-99. 106-107; Leopold of Austria, 161; Louis XI., 19;i-198; Martin Luther, 206 ; Ludovico Sforza, 218-224; Louis XII., 222, 224-225,231- 232,235; Leo X., 236. Marquis, 4 ; Miramamolin, 85 ; Manfred, 99-101; Michael Pateologos, 104-106; Jeanne de Montfort, 134-135 ; Jean de Montfort, 138 ; Margaret of Denmark, 166-167; Cosmo de Medici, 176; Mon- tenegro, 189 ; Lorenzo do Medici, 189- 190 ; Marie of Burgundy, 196, 197. 216 ; Lorenzo dc Medici, the Magnificent, 207, 218 ; Michael Angelo, 207-208 ; Maximilian, 216, 218, 231-236. Otho L, 15; Olaf, 17; Otho IV. Othman, 168. Peter the Hermit, 52-53; Philippe n.. Auguste, 73-76, 78-80,88-90; Petrarch, 118-119; Paper, 118; Philippe lA^, le Bel, 120-12(); Philippe VL, 132-135; Pedro the Cruel, 145-147 ; Philippe of Burgundy, 171 ; Pius II., 186-187. Rollo, 13-14 ; Richard, 16 ; Robert Guis- card, 19-20 ; Roger de Hauteville. 20-21 ; Robert the Magnificent, 21-22 ; Richard Coeur de Lion, 7.3-77 ; Rudolf of Haps- burg, 109, 112 ; Rienzi, 140-142 ; Arthur ~ de Richemont, 160 ; Rene of Anjou, 173-176, 181; John Reuchlin, 206; Raphael, 208. S Slave, 3; Sigurd, 59; Sybilla, 69-71, 76; Saladin, 70-72, 77 ; Sigismund of Lux- emburg, 162-166; Francesco Sforza, 176-177; Skanderbeg, 182-184, 188; Stradiots, 190; Savonarola, 220, 222- 223. William Tell, 128-129. U Ugolino della Gherardesca, 114-115 ; Ur- jgonno CI ban VI. 151-152. Vasco de Gama, 210-211 ; Vassily, 215. W William the Conqueror, 22-23 ; Gertrude Von der Wart, im ; William of Wyke- ham, 153; John Wycliffe, 153-154: Wenzel, 160-162. 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